“Ah,” said Gentleman Northwinds, as though he met wicked children every day. (For all Marigold knew, maybe he did. Had there been others apart from Torville who’d turned up on his doorstep?) He stopped at the end of the hall and peered into the midnight darkness. “That explains the paint.”

When Gentleman Northwinds stepped into the room, Marigold kept hold of his elbow. She couldn’t see what he was doing, but it sounded as if he were running his fingers over the walls, the wardrobe, even the hinges on the door. “What’s this?” he exclaimed after a moment. “Another one of those peach trees?” Marigold could hear the rustle of leaves. “This is muddled magic. What in the world was Torville thinking?”

“The trees were a mistake,” Marigold said quickly. She still didn’t dare to lie to Gentleman Northwinds, but she wasn’t going to tell him the entire truth, either. “A side effect of another spell, I think.”

Gentleman Northwinds gave a disapproving sort of sigh, but he didn’t ask any more questions. Instead, he crossed to the window and pulled open the drapes. Marigold watched his silhouette as he studied the windowsill and every pane of glass. He even opened the window and looked out into the pink-tinged sky. After a minute or so, he drew his head inside again. “Everything here is as it should be,” he said. “And I don’t like that at all. It doesn’t make sense.”

His footsteps moved out of the room. “Where are you going now?” Marigold called.

“To the workroom,” Gentleman Northwinds said. “It’s up these stairs, isn’t that right?” He’d already walked down the hall and pulled the door open; all Marigold could do was hurry after him. What would he say, she wondered, when he saw the blackboard on the floor with the spinning contraption she’d invented for Torville?

To Marigold’s surprise, he didn’t say a word. In fact, the only things that Gentleman Northwinds wanted to look at in the workroom were the windows. Just as he’d done in the bedroom, he examined every pane and sill. Then, shaking his head, he asked Marigold to show him to the garden, where he studied the stone walls; to the eel pit, where he gazed into the murk; and around the whole outside of the fortress, where he paced back and forth in the dirt as the wind around him grew colder. Whatever he was looking for, he didn’t seem to be finding it.

“I don’t understand,” Gentleman Northwinds murmured. They had walked around to the patch of earth that lay two stories below Marigold’s bedroom window. “How did she do it?” He looked up at Marigold. “Maybe you can tell me, child. How did Princess Rosalind escape from this fortress?”

“She climbed down a rope,” Marigold said. Could that be all that Gentleman Northwinds was curious about?

“Yes,” he said dryly, “I’ve heard that much already. But how was it possible?”

Marigold didn’t understand. “She’s a very good climber.”

“But Torville,” said Gentleman Northwinds, “is a very good wizard. I trained him to be one. He would have had protective spells in place to keep Rosalind inside or alarm spells to alert him if she tried to sneak away. And there’s no evidence I can see of a counterspell on any of the doors or windows.” Gentleman Northwinds started walking again, making his way toward the front of the fortress. “It might help if I could examine the rope. Did Torville save it?”

“I don’t think so,” said Marigold. She’d scanned every shelf of the storeroom looking for materials for her contraptions, but she hadn’t seen anything ropelike.

Gentleman Northwinds’ coat billowed around him as he walked toward the door. “Not much happens around the kingdoms that I don’t know about,” he said. “I don’t know what happened here, though, and that irks me. It certainly wasn’t part of my plans.”

Marigold could tell that whatever Gentleman Northwinds’ plans were, he was used to having them followed. At least he didn’t seem to suspect that anything unusual had happened to Torville. Pettifog would be relieved, and Marigold was already feeling bolder. “Excuse me, sir,” she said, “but did you write a book? Gentleman Northwinds’ Magical Artes?”

Gentleman Northwinds paused with his hand on the doorknob. He looked surprised. “I did,” he said, “many years ago, for my students. I suppose you’ve seen Torville’s copy.”

“I wondered,” said Marigold, “when you say you can reverse a curse by performing it backward, what exactly do you mean?”

“Were those the words I used?” Gentleman Northwinds frowned. “I’m not quite sure —”

“Are you supposed to say the incantation backward? Add the ingredients backward? Do the whole thing in front of a mirror? Or . . .” Marigold trailed off when she saw the curious look Gentleman Northwinds was giving her. “It’s just that there are a lot of ways to turn something back to front.”

“So there are.” In the enchanted torchlight, Gentleman Northwinds’ face looked flickering and green. “Why are you asking, child? Does this have something to do with those ridiculous peach trees?”

Marigold nodded. “Sort of.”

Gentleman Northwinds was silent for a while — too long, in Marigold’s opinion. “If Torville is truly unable to reverse a spell he’s cast,” he said eventually, “please remind him on my behalf that ingredients and incantations don’t matter one bit if you haven’t got the proper intention. You can stand on your head; you can wear your robes the wrong way around; you can use soaked bats’ feet in place of dried bats’ ears. It doesn’t matter how you invert the spell, really. The important thing is that you must truly want to undo it.”

“But I do!” Marigold cried. “I mean, Torville does.”

“Are you sure?” asked Gentleman Northwinds. “Isn’t it possible that somewhere, deep in that shriveled heart of his, he doesn’t want the curse lifted after all? He might not even realize it. The spells we think we’ve cast accidentally aren’t usually accidents at all.” Gentleman Northwinds held his arm back out to Marigold. “More often than not, we’re clinging to them.”

All through dinner, Marigold served and poured and scuttled. She placed a bowl of stewed cauliflower stems in front of Wizard Petronella, who wore a circlet of moth wings on her head and paid almost no attention to the other guests, seeming to prefer the company of starlight and silence. Marigold found Old Skellytoes, shriveled and cantankerous, and steered him to the opposite end of the table before he could summon any shrieking fiends. She set out two extra sets of plates and cutlery for the Twice-Times Witch’s imps and fetched an extra cushion for Pettifog, who couldn’t quite reach the table. When the young wizard in glasses demanded that Marigold refill his goblet at once, she managed to keep herself from dumping the pitcher of blackberry cordial over his head. And, most of all, she listened.

“It’s been awfully slow in Carroway this season,” the wizard with the long red braid complained. “Half my usual customers are off at all the picnics and celebrations for Princess Rosalind, and the other half have gone to the seashore. Are they hiring you in Whitby, Millicent?”

A wizard in ocean-blue robes shook her head. “I’ve had nothing but orders for children’s curses: copycat spells, tattletale spells, and spells to make ice cream melt more quickly. I could cast them in my sleep.”

“At least you’ve got something to do,” said Old Skellytoes. “Queen Elba out in Tiskaree just canceled my contract. I was supposed to make her twelve hundred razor-toothed mudworms. I even brought her one as a sample, with lovely long teeth, but she turned me away at the gate. Said she’d changed her mind about sending the mudworms to Quail Gardens after all.”

“Well, I haven’t heard from my clients in weeks!” said the wizard with thorn-scratched arms. “Amelia and Godfrey had their steward put a stop on all their orders as soon as Rosalind came home.”

Against the wall, Marigold stiffened. Surely the wizard couldn’t be talking about her parents.

“They usually send thunderstorms to Stickelridge at this time of year,” the wizard continued, “but now they say they don’t want any. No more curses — not even the little ones.”

“Because of the peace talks,” Petronella murmured to no one in particular.

Elgin must have been waiting to seize this moment. He had been pushing food idly from one side of his plate to the other, but now his head snapped up and he beamed at Petronella. “That’s right!” he said loud enough for everyone to hear. “The peace talks! They’re putting us all out of work, aren’t they?”

“Not all of us,” said the wizard in glasses from the other end of the table. Marigold thought he looked a little smug. “I’ve just gotten three orders from —”

“Be quiet, Horace,” said Elgin. “I’m not talking about baldness powders or indigestion spells. The Cacophonous Kingdoms are in serious danger of getting along. Even before the chatter about peace began, they’d been going softer than swamp mud. When was the last time any of you were hired to do anything truly despicable? To flood a village? Shatter a city? Start a war?”

The wizards looked at each other around the table. Some of them shrugged. “That’s just stuff out of storybooks,” Horace muttered.

“Exactly my point!” Elgin pushed his chair back from the table. “Years ago, in our elders’ time” — he gestured toward Gentleman Northwinds — “evil wizards got the respect they were due. Our forebears didn’t have to spend their days making foolish little spells for foolish little people; they were powerful! And they were feared.” Elgin was standing now. His napkin, still tucked into his shirt collar, flapped under his chin as he spoke. “Those days are gone now, but we can bring them back. We can restore true chaos to the kingdoms! We can be as wicked as we’ve always dreamed — if we can stop the one person who’s trying to ruin it all for us.”

Old Skellytoes raised his hand. “Horace?” he guessed.

“Princess Rosalind!” said Vivien. “She’s the one who wants to take away our livelihood. Her sweetness is just as contagious as skin-crawling sickness. It’s just as deadly, too. Ever since she got loose, there’s been so much love and good cheer in the air that I can hardly stand to breathe it.”

The other wizards looked a little unsettled. “I’m sure it won’t last,” said the one named Millicent. “Even if the kingdoms do make peace, there will still be spats and squabbles. Not even Rosalind can keep everyone happy forever.”

Old Skellytoes nodded. “Millicent’s right. It’s a passing fancy. What we’ve got to do is lie low and stay out of the princess’s way so she doesn’t turn all the kingdoms against us.”

“She’s already against us, you nitwit!” said Vivien. “She is good. We are evil. There’ll be no place for wickedness in her Harmonious Kingdoms.” She tapped a fingernail on the rim of her goblet. “I wouldn’t be surprised if all the rulers are deciding right now to clear us from the wildwood and the caverns and the wastes. Maybe they’ll banish us to the demonic realms.”

“They wouldn’t do that!” said the red-braided wizard.

“Wouldn’t they, Juno?” Elgin looked down the table at her. “They’ve already let each of us know we’re not wanted within their borders. Why else did you end up making your home on the soggy side of the marsh? Petronella lives at the top of a tree no one can find, and Skellytoes’ hovel is practically falling off the edge of the map. Even Gentleman Northwinds is forced to live on that wretched mountaintop. We’re mere crumbs between the kingdoms’ cushions, and if the rulers join together, they won’t hesitate to sweep us out.”

Juno looked down at her hands.

“In the demonic realms, you’ll have to take particular care.” Vivien waved a fork at her. “You wouldn’t want your hair to get snagged on a carnivorous thornbush.”

“You’re being ridiculous,” Juno said, but she tugged at the end of her braid.

Wizard Petronella shifted her gaze to something behind Elgin’s ear. “We can’t stop the peace talks now,” she said in her strange, dreamy way. “Too many roses, not enough clocks. Beetle legs and spiders’ eggs.” She chewed on her cauliflower. “If you know what I mean.”

At the end of the table, Gentleman Northwinds cleared his throat. “I’m not sure we do know what you mean, my dear.”