Snow White sighed and gloomily peered at her basket of mushrooms. “I wish it did not sound like I am a child who needs minding.”
Thinking of her conversation with Fritz, Angelique smiled. “It’s not that way at all. You are more like a precious jewel that needs a guard—so Fritz would say.”
Snow White shook her head at Angelique. “Let me finish with the mushrooms, and I’ll join you.”
“Lovely! Don’t take too long!” Angel skipped out the door, her oversized tunic flapping like an ill-fitting dress.
She trundled her way around the side of the cottage to the wooden paddock and the lean-to that were almost on the back end of the building. She swiped up a pitchfork and launched herself over the fence, garnering the attention of the horses as they nibbled on the little patches of grass that were starting to grow as spring rippled through Mullberg.
Angelique whistled as she got to work, using the pitchfork to toss horse droppings out of the paddock into a pile the warriors would turn into fertilizer for the garden they would plant.
I’d assumed Fritz was the one with the green thumb among them, but Marzell said it’s actually Wendal who plants much of their garden. Though I guess that isn’t so surprising—he’s probably overly concerned that Lord Aldelbert requires nutritious meals.
Angelique paused long enough to pat a horse’s neck.
The warriors are a bit strange, but they’ve got good hearts. They’d be very amusing to be with if the situation wasn’t so dire.
Something that felt suspiciously like magic tingled at the edge of Angelique’s conscious.
Frowning, Angelique let her powers unfurl.
Her core magic twined around her as her magical senses rolled across the cottage and the yard.
She felt nothing.
Angelique cocked her head as her magic drifted around, but besides that one tiny moment, there was nothing. Even after she pushed her senses farther and farther, she still felt nothing.
But I barely felt that second attack of constructs, so that doesn’t mean anything.
Angelique leaned on her pitchfork and listened. She could faintly hear the warriors talk to one another—their voices distant murmurs—and the cheerful chirps of all the songbirds that had returned to Luster with the exit of winter. But there was nothing else.
I could have sworn, though, that moment of magic almost felt like Evariste’s…
She rubbed her forehead as a horse came to investigate her hands for treats. Angelique patted the animal, then climbed the fence, standing on it to give her a better view of the yard—though she couldn’t see the front of the cottage. There was no sparkle of magic, no telltale shine or thrum of power.
I’m just being delusional because I miss him.
Shaking her head, Angelique hopped off the fence and got back to work.
Still feeling jumpy from the sensation, Angelique barely cleared a corner of the paddock before she stopped and peered at the cottage with a frown. “Why hasn’t Snow White come out here yet? Cleaning mushrooms shouldn’t take that long.”
She climbed over the fence, pausing when she heard murmured voices.
That’s Snow White. But who is she talking to?
The exchange was so hushed, Angelique couldn’t make out what was being said, but she thought she heard someone answer Snow White.
The air smelled…rotten. Not like horse droppings, but like something unpleasant decomposing.
Angelique looked around but saw nothing that could be responsible for the scent. She rubbed her nose, then jogged around the wall of the cottage.
Her blood turned to ice when she saw Snow White collapsed on the ground.
Standing over her was an old croon of a woman with leathery skin, bone-white hair, and a stooped back.
Chapter 26
As horror swept through Angelique, the old woman stood up straight, the appearance draining from her like an illusion as she became a tall, stately woman, beautiful, but with a cruel smile.
Something seemed to hold Angelique in place, but when she saw the woman’s smirk, she threw open the gates of her magic, letting it gush out with a roar.
“Snow White!” she screamed.
Whatever held her in place shattered, popping the bubble of magic that had secretly encompassed the cottage, revealing the dark and cold magic that seeped into the very ground.
Angelique sprinted across the yard, her magic scrabbling for anything sharp she could throw at the woman.
The woman looked back at Angelique, her lovely face twisted in a snarl. She growled, and a white gate made of magic sliced through the air.
Evariste’s magic.
Angelique could feel the familiar thrum of it beneath the raw magic that bubbled around the cottage—it struck her at the heart and almost yanked all the air out of her lungs with a sense of longing.
No—if she’s using Evariste’s magic, she’s going to escape!
The gateway glowed a blazing white and spat sparks and hissed in an angry way Angelique had never seen any of Evariste’s gateways previously behave.
The woman—no, it was Queen Faina (even with the cruel twist to her face, Angelique recognized her from the portraits)—didn’t seem very pleased with the unstable gateway, either. She scowled at it and reluctantly stepped through, disappearing from sight.
Instead of disassembling like one of Evariste’s usual gateways, this one folded in on itself, shrinking each time it folded.
Angelique lunged, trying to even graze the magic with her fingertips, but it snuffed out just before she reached it.
Hissing, Angelique swung around just in time to see Snow White’s blue eyes flutter shut.
“Snow White!” Angelique crouched at the princess’s side, the knot of fear that churned in her stomach decreasing a tiny bit when she saw the princess’ chest still rose and fell as she breathed.
Angelique used the white rapids of her freed magic to form a brute-ish healing spell that packed enough power to light the princess up and pushed it into her.
The spell surged through Snow White, searching for something to fix. It mended a few budding bruises she had from falling to the ground, but apart from that, there was nothing.
That’s impossible. Why, then, isn’t she awake?
A spell made of steely gray symbols Angelique didn’t recognize twirled around Snow White’s throat. It was likely a spell cast by the black mage working through Faina. The symbols weren’t anything like the language of magic—they were sharp and foreign. But the spell didn’t seem to be doing anything.
Behind Angelique, something thrashed in the woods. She tensed—had Queen Faina come back with the black mage responsible for this? But then her magic pinpointed the quiver with the arrows that was drawing closer in tandem with the thrashing.
Marzell.
Angelique ignored the incoming warrior and anxiously peered at Snow White, doing her best to find whatever was wrong with the princess.
She didn’t see any wounds, and her magic couldn’t sense anything—but she hadn’t sensed Queen Faina’s arrival, either, which was terrifying for a number of reasons.
She tried tugging at the spell, trying to get a better sense for it, but whenever she touched it, the cold, dark powers that had attacked her with the constructs shot through her body.
Why is nothing working? This has to be dark magic, but what can I do to counter it? Why doesn’t it look like anything I’ve seen before?