Still, there had been one good thing about Rosalindâs visit. When sheâd wrapped Marigold in her arms, Marigold had tugged gently on a lock of her sisterâs hair. Now, as she stepped into the light of the hallway, she could still see three strands of it caught between her fingers, like gold thread glinting in the sun.
She presented the hair to Pettifog and Collin like a trophy. Of course they wanted to know where she had gotten it, and of course they became completely useless when Marigold explained sheâd plucked it from the head of Princess Rosalind herself. âShe was here?â said Collin, running to a workroom window. âLook! There she is, swimming the moat!â
Pettifog fluttered up to join him. âSheâs got a strong backstroke. A remarkable girl!â He sniffed a little. âI donât suppose she mentioned me?â
âNot at all,â Marigold told him. âShe only wanted to talk about dragging me back to Imbervale.â
Collin sucked in his breath. âIâm sorry,â he said. âThat canât have gone well.â
âIt didnât.â Marigold directed her wickedest frown at all of them, including Torville, who was oozing toward the side of his dinner plate as if he also wanted to catch a glimpse of Rosalind. âNow, could you please peel your faces off the window glass? Weâve got a spell to undo.â
Marigold added her yawn and one strand of Rosalindâs hair to the pile of ingredients, saving the other two strands in her pocket just in case. But Torville thought the mirror would work, so Marigold felt hopeful. This time, she performed the Overlook Curse just as sheâd done it the first time through, with Pettifog taking up his old position across the cauldron and Torville on his dinner plate in the same place where heâd been standing before heâd become a blob. Collin, who was curious to see how spell-casting compared to cooking, stood next to the workroom door, half hidden by a peach tree. As Marigold tipped the ingredients into the cauldron, took up her wooden spoon, and recited the incantation (forward, this time), the long mirror reflected it all. The only thing it couldnât capture was Marigoldâs intention.
Part of her â a largish part, if she was honest â still wanted to curse Rosalind. If everyone in the Cacophonous Kingdoms had forgotten about Rosalind two days ago, Marigold wouldnât have been in so much trouble now. But she knew that wasnât the point of the spell any longer, so a little regretfully, she tugged her thoughts away from Rosalind and directed them at Torville. Turn back into yourself, she thought at him as hard as she could. Stop being a blob of glop and start being an evil wizard again, so I donât have to face the Miseries or the rest of your awful social society. The gray-green paste in the cauldron was bubbling now, looking just as it had the first time sheâd attempted the curse, and smelling even more awful. âSo may you be!â Marigold cried.
The cauldron boiled and smoked in the usual way. There was a flash of yellow light (though it looked fainter than before) and a boom of thunder (though it sounded distant). As the smoke began to clear, Marigold squinted through it, searching for Torville.
âInteresting!â said a voice. âI didnât expect this, but I suppose it makes sense.â
The voice sounded muffled, as if someone were talking in another room. Marigold couldnât see the speaker anywhere. When she walked around the cauldron, her spirits sank: the blob of glop on the dinner plate was still a blob of glop. Collin and Pettifog were looking around, too, searching for the voiceâs owner. âTorville?â Pettifog said, sounding dubious. âIs that you?â
âOf course it is!â the voice called. âWho else would it be? Has Marigold grown peaches between your ears this time?â
Pettifog stared down at the glop. âItâs talking!â he said. âIsnât it?â
âI donât think so,â said Collin. âBut if itâs not ââ
âThe mirror!â cried Marigold. âLook!â
The long mirror against the opposite wall still reflected nearly half the workroom: the cauldron; the shelves and windows; Pettifog and Marigold, wearing identical stares; and Collin crossing the room to join them. But in the mirrorâs reflection, they werenât standing next to a blob of glop on a dinner plate. They were standing next to Torville.
âWhy are you all staring at me like that?â Torville in the mirror looked concerned. He examined the palms of his hands and the soles of his shoes. âMarigold hasnât given me an extra head, has she? Or . . . egad!â He brought both hands to his mustache, which was in its usual place just below his nose. âWell, thatâs all right. I donât understand why youâre not happier to see me.â
Collin nudged Marigold. âDo you think he knows?â
âI donât want to be the one to tell him,â said Pettifog. He gave Marigold a meaningful look.
She sighed. âIâll do it. I suppose itâs my fault again.â At least the reflection of Torville didnât look angry. He was dusting off his robes and shaking out his elbows and wrists, as though theyâd been cramped for quite a while. âTorville,â said Marigold as gently as she could, âthe spell only turned you back to yourself in the mirror. Out here with us, youâre still a blob of glop.â
âI know that!â said Torville. Marigold couldnât quite believe how pleased she was to hear his voice, faint and cranky as it was. âI can see myself right there on that dinner plate. Not much to admire, am I? But hereâ â he flung his arms wide in the mirror image of the workroom â âhere, Iâm glorious.â
âDid she work the spell wrong again?â Pettifog wanted to know. (Marigold glared at him.)
âI donât think so.â Torville frowned. âItâs a surprise to me, too, but I think she got it right for once. Unfortunately, the spell was only reversed in the mirror, so the mirror is the only place where it came undone. You might have considered that earlier, Marigold.â
âBut you were the one who told me to use a mirror in the first place!â
Torville did not seem to like being reminded of this. âI had a hunch! But even I donât know everything. For example, I donât know who that boy is or what heâs doing in my house. Youâre the one theyâve been dressing up as me?â
Collin took a brave step forward. âYes, sir.â
âYou should walk more grandly,â Torville told him, âwith your head held high and your spine as stiff as a candlestick. Allow me to demonstrate.â Torville took a turn around the mirror-workroom, letting his robes billow behind him. âItâs wonderful to walk again,â he said, returning to the front of the reflection. âI canât express how much I loathed oozing around on that blackboard.â
âIs there anything beyond the mirror frame?â Marigold asked. She didnât entirely understand how Torvilleâs reflection was managing to move around in the mirror while his real self was still burbling on the floor, but she supposed it wasnât much more confusing than the peach trees had been. âCan you go farther than the workroom, I mean? Do you have a whole reflected fortress over there?â
Torville looked around the mirror with interest. âThatâs another thing I donât know,â he said. âLet me find out.â He billowed just out of Marigoldâs view but returned almost at once. âNo good,â he said. âEverything goes gray and flat past the edge of the frame. Where the reflection stops, I stop, too.â He leaned forward, pressing his forehead against the far side of the mirror glass. âItâs rather unsettling.â
âDonât you worry, Torville.â Pettifog put his hands up to the mirror, and Marigold thought she heard the slightest wobble in his voice. âWeâll bring you back good as new. Weâll search every spell book in the house ââ
Torville waved a hand at him. âDonât bother with that now! There isnât time. Whatever Marigoldâs done to me, itâs obviously not the sort of spell thatâs easily lifted, and no book of mine will change that.â
Pettifogâs wings sagged. âThen you might never come back?â
âYou look as miserable as Queen Elba did when that scorpion spell backfired,â Torville told him. âCheer up, old friend. You havenât gotten slurped yet! And now is no time to fret about the Archdemon. How are the preparations going?â
Marigold couldnât think what he meant. âPreparations?â she asked.
âFor the Evil Wizardsâ Social Society.â Torville raised his voice, as if he thought Marigold hadnât been paying attention. âDonât tell me you havenât gotten started! The Miseries will be here on Tuesday evening, along with twenty-odd of the wickedest magic workers Iâve ever met, and theyâll have expectations. Wine! Strawberries! Twelve types of cheese, each served on its own kind of cracker. Youâll need the best table linens ironed as usual, Pettifog, and the silver polished, and the dining room scrubbed so thoroughly that Vivien will be able to see her own hideous reflection in the tabletop. That boy can make some kind of dinner, canât he? Oh, and keep in mind that Wizard Petronella eats nothing but stewed cauliflower stems, and Old Skellytoes summons up shrieking fiends whenever he sees a vegetable. Youâll have to seat them a safe distance apart.â
Marigold looked at Pettifog. Pettifog looked at Collin. Collin looked at Marigold. Then they all looked back at Torville.
âYouâre still a blob of glop,â said Marigold, âand youâre trapped in a mirror on top of that, and the Miseries want to work big magic, and Rosalind is gathering all the kingdomsâ rulers together to put you out of work for good, and youâre worried about table linens?â
âYes,â said Torville, âexactly. The linens are important, and the cheese, and all the rest of it. Everything at the gathering must be up to my usual standards â which, I assure you, are breathtakingly high. I have been hosting the Evil Wizardsâ Social Society for seven years, and if even a salad fork is out of place, someone is going to notice. Theyâll be suspicious. Theyâll wonder whether Iâm truly stuck in bed with an unfortunate relapse of skin-crawling sickness, or whether I might be dragging my gelatinous corpus across a platter in hopes of absorbing a morsel of cold porridge with my foot-mouth. Theyâll go sticking their noses where noses donât belong â Vivien is notorious for that â and although most of them arenât very clever, someone is bound to figure out whatâs happened. Theyâll laugh at me! The wickedest wizard in half a century, turned to glop by a child!â
âAre you, sir?â Collin asked with interest.
Torville scowled. âAm I what?â
âThe wickedest wizard in half a century,â said Collin. âI didnât realize.â
âOf course I am!â Torville stomped his foot. âAnd the others are just waiting for a chance to cut me down. Theyâll happily leave me to starve, Marigold, while you fend off unkillable wasps and poison clouds and vampire hens and all those other plagues of nasties that the Villainsâ Bond mentions. Youâll never get my situation sorted out, and Iâll lose any chance I might still have to live a life outside this mirror frame. Do you understand?â
Marigold did. She could imagine it all, more vividly than she would have liked. âNo one told me about the vampire hens.â
âFrom the scorched prairies of the demonic realms,â said Pettifog. âTheyâre even more terrifying than youâd think.â
âAnd that,â said Torville, winding back around to his point, âis why someone will need to iron the napkins.â
âWouldnât it be easier, sir,â said Collin, âif we told all the evildoers to stay at home this week? On account of your illness, I mean?â
This sounded to Marigold like a much nicer plan than trying to keep twenty-odd wizards fed and fooled for an entire evening, but Torville only glowered. âWizard Torville does not make cancellations. Youâd all better get to work. And bring me my porridge, Pettifog, so I donât burble away into nothingness.â
In the mirror, Torville swished his robe and turned his back. On the dinner plate, the blob of glop turned its back, too.
âBut what about the Miseries?â Marigold demanded.
Both incarnations of Torville made a quarter turn to look at her. âWhat about them?â