Torville didn’t bubble as enthusiastically as Marigold had hoped, but he did let her help him into the scale pan and place him down in the center of the chalked circle of letters. It took some practice for him to ooze across the pan in just the right way to make it spin, but within a few minutes, he was able to point out simple phrases. GO, Torville spelled with effort, AWAY.
“As a matter of fact,” Marigold told him cheerfully, “we are going away, to Blumontaine. You’re the one who’s really supposed to go, but my friend Collin is going to stand in for you. He’s got a decent disguise. That vocal powder of yours won’t last long enough to fool anyone, of course, so I’ll speak for him as your assistant, and we’ll explain to everyone that you’re still recovering from skin-crawling sickness.”
Torville looked as incredulous as a blob of glop could.
“We’re going to tell Queen Hetty that the kingdom of Foggy Gorge has tried to hire you to curse Blumontaine,” Marigold explained. “If she thinks Foggy Gorge is plotting against her, she won’t want to make peace with them — or with anyone else. Then the Miseries will leave us alone for a while, and I can get back to finding a way to fix you. Doesn’t that sound like a good plan?”
Torville shifted his weight in the scale pan. UGH, he spelled out.
It wasn’t the sort of reply Marigold had hoped for. “Well, then, do you want to come with us?”
NO, spelled Torville.
Marigold put him back on his dinner plate and spooned out some porridge to keep him from going hungry while they were gone. “We’ll be back soon,” she told him, hoping they really would.
Downstairs, Collin was stalking through the halls and muttering while Pettifog looked on with a critical eye. “Torville doesn’t stamp; he stomps,” the imp advised. “Yes, that’s much better. Now shake your fist and say you’d like to pull the ears off your enemies!”
Once Pettifog was halfway satisfied with Collin’s performance, Marigold helped Collin into Torville’s robes and slipped the loops of the false mustache over his ears. She’d fashioned it quickly out of embroidery floss and wire, and while it didn’t look convincing up close, its stiff loops and curlicues were recognizably Torville’s. When Collin pulled up his hood and stood a few feet away, Marigold couldn’t see his hair or his cheerful grin any longer, but she could just make out the shape of the mustache in the shadows. “It’s perfect,” she told him. “My most useful contraption yet.”
“It’s a little scratchy,” said Collin. “Do you think real mustaches feel this way?”
Marigold pulled on her own robes and boots. “I have no idea.”
“Maybe this is why evil wizards are evil in the first place,” Collin said. “Maybe they itch.”
Pettifog had put on his best suit and even combed back the tufts of hair below his horns. From his jacket pocket, he pulled out a jar of purple dust and handed it to Marigold. “Torville’s traveling powder,” he told her. “Straight from the storeroom and relatively fresh. You’re lucky he made a new batch last month.”
Marigold weighed the jar in her hands. Torville used his traveling powder to poof all over the fortress, so it couldn’t be too hard to manage. “I just toss a pinch in the air?” she asked Pettifog. “Like I did with the vocal powder?”
Pettifog nodded. “You’d better say where you want to go, too. An experienced wizard like Torville can simply hold the intention in his mind, but —”
“No, you’re right.” Marigold didn’t want to try holding any more intentions. “Speaking aloud is safest.”
She linked elbows with Collin, and he did the same with Pettifog. “Don’t let go of me, child,” Pettifog warned him. “Torville did once, by accident, and I ended up all alone at the edge of Foggy Gorge.” He scowled at the memory. “It was very foggy.”
With her free hand, Marigold pulled the stopper from the jar and coaxed out a pinch of powder. “Are you ready?” she asked Pettifog and Collin.
“Ready enough,” said Pettifog.
“I still itch,” said Collin, wriggling.
“You can scratch your nose in Blumontaine,” Marigold told him. Then she tossed the traveling powder into the air. “Queen Hetty’s palace!” she cried.
There was an earsplitting bang, and everything around them went purple.
When the smoke cleared, they were standing in front of a grand door made of wood and iron. It reminded Marigold very much of the door to Wizard Torville’s fortress. In fact —
“This isn’t Queen Hetty’s palace,” Pettifog said with great irritation. “You’ve poofed us into our own front hall.”
It was true. There, over Marigold’s right shoulder, was the kitchen where they’d been standing a few moments earlier. There were Torville’s muddy boots, neglected on the floor. And there, out the window, was the fortress moat and the familiar wildwood beyond.
“We’ve only moved inches!” Marigold cried.
Collin unhooked his arm from hers and scratched ferociously at the false mustache. “I don’t think that traveling powder works very well.”
“It does when Torville uses it,” said Marigold. “Pettifog, are you certain this is the same stuff?”
“Of course I’m certain!” Pettifog looked offended. “Some of us can do our jobs properly.”
“Then how does Torville ever get where he needs to go?”
“He’s trained and studied,” said Pettifog sternly. “He’s been a wicked wizard for years. His heart is shrunken and shriveled like a currant in a bun. And as I’ve been telling you all along, you’re —”
“Not wicked. Well, you’re wrong about that. I’ll just have to try again.” Marigold took the jar of traveling powder back out of her robe. “Hold tight, everyone.” She linked her arm back up with Collin’s and tossed the powder for a second time. “Queen Hetty’s palace,” she said. “In Blumontaine!” she added.
It didn’t help. This time, Marigold knew even before the purple smoke cleared away that she wasn’t standing in a palace. Her feet felt damp, and they squelched when she tried to move them. From not too far away, she heard the distinctive splash of a tentacle.
“Oh, no,” said Collin’s voice through the smoke. “Are we in the moat again?”
Marigold didn’t think so. “Just at the edge of it.”
“Ah,” said Collin. “That’s not so bad.”
“Isn’t it?” said Pettifog. “Where will you land us next, Princess? In the mouth of a volcano, perhaps?”
Marigold grabbed another pinch of powder, mostly to make Pettifog stop talking. “Take us to Blumontaine Palace, you awful stuff!”
With a bang, the traveling powder whisked them away. Not to the palace — Marigold hadn’t really dared to expect it this time — but at least off Torville’s property. They were standing on a spongy carpet of moss, surrounded by rocky outcroppings and tall old trees. Marigold guessed they must be in the wildwood now.
