“The society?” Marigold asked.
“The society!” Pettifog looked stricken. His wings fluttered in panic. “It’s nearly Tuesday!”
“You’d better be well by then, Torville,” said Vivien. “If you give skin-crawling sickness to the entire Evil Wizards’ Social Society, they’ll loathe you even more than they already do.” She flicked a bony finger, and the image in the gazing ball winked out.
It was more important than ever now to turn Torville back to himself. In two days’ time, Pettifog explained, wicked enchanters from across the land would arrive at the fortress, expecting their usual evening of rich food and raucous laughter. “Torville hosts . . . the Evil Wizards’ Social Society . . . on alternate Tuesdays,” he said, breathing hard under the weight of the long mirror he was helping Marigold carry out of Torville’s bedroom and up the workroom stairs. “If he’s still a blob . . . of glop . . . one of those wizards is going to find out. Did Torville say where this should go?”
“Across from the cauldron, I think.” Marigold guided the mirror around the peach trees at the top of the stairs and leaned it against the wall. “Everything I do while I cast the spell should be reflected in the mirror.”
“Are you sure that’s backward?” Pettifog bent over to catch his breath. “I might call it opposite.”
“Tell that to the blob,” Marigold said. “The mirror was his idea, and we don’t have time to argue about it. Where’s Collin?”
“Here!” Collin called from the stairs. He was taking them two at a time, more cheerful than ever now that the Miseries were gone. “I’ve got the snail shells, the swamp mist, and the pinch of salt,” he said, setting three jars on the workroom table next to Marigold’s ragweed, “but I don’t know what to do about the yawn or the strand of Rosalind’s hair.”
“I bottled a yawn this morning,” said Marigold. “I’ll get it from my bedroom. And as for the hair . . .” This was the one part of the Overlook Curse that had her truly stumped. It didn’t seem possible to come up with any more of Rosalind’s hair without Rosalind herself. Marigold had looked through all the work dresses in the wardrobe, but the only stray hairs left on their collars were Marigold’s own brown ones. “We could use another hair of mine,” she said doubtfully, “but I tried that last time, and it didn’t work out so well. I’ll check the wardrobe again; maybe Rosalind left behind a comb I haven’t found yet.”
In the bedroom, Marigold knelt on the floor and fumbled in the midnight darkness until she found the stoppered jar of yawns she’d left next to her bed. Then she launched herself toward the wardrobe. Halfway there, she discovered a peach tree she hadn’t known about before. “Awful trees!” she muttered, holding her bumped nose. “Awful curses! Awful Miseries! Awful Rosalind, ruining everything again!” There were the wardrobe knobs at last. If she couldn’t find a strand of Rosalind’s hair somehow, she didn’t know what she’d do.
Scrabble, scrabble, scrabble. The sound came from outside the wardrobe, like animals climbing in the walls. Marigold shuddered and tried not to notice it. Scrabble, scrabble, scrabble. No, not in the walls — it was coming from the window. Marigold closed the wardrobe doors and listened. Now there was a fumbling sort of sound, as if something on the other side of the window was trying to get in. This was impossible, Marigold told herself; it was at least thirty feet to the ground below, and anyone who might have been foolish enough to want to climb the fortress wall would have been eaten by the Thing before they could get close enough to try. But the fumbling sound grew louder. Carefully, Marigold crossed the room and pushed the drapes aside. The glass in the casement window was old and wavy, so she still couldn’t see much of anything. “Hello?” she said, feeling ridiculous to be talking to no one.
The fumbling sound stopped. “Marigold?” said a voice on the other side of the window. Even through the glass, her own name was unmistakable. “Marigold!” There was a lot more fumbling then, and the window swung open on its hinges. There on the other side, flushed and pleased, was Rosalind.
Marigold stepped backward so quickly that she almost ran into the peach tree again. She wondered if she was imagining things or if her eyes had been dazzled by the sunlight outside. Could that really be Rosalind peering into the darkness, the little furrow in her brow deepening with each blink? Marigold squeezed her own eyes shut, but when she opened them again, Rosalind was still there.
“Marigold?” Rosalind said again. “Are you in there? I can’t see a thing!” Rosalind stuck her head into the midnight room and quickly pulled it out again. “Oh, Marigold, if you’re there, please say something!”
Marigold supposed there was no use in hiding, not when Rosalind was obviously determined to find her. “I’m here,” she said into the midnight dark.
A smile as lovely as sunrise broke across Rosalind’s face. Her hair was damp, Marigold noticed now, and her shirt and riding breeches were disheveled from scaling the fortress wall, but of course that only made her look more beautiful than ever. The window ledge was just deep enough for her to kneel on, and she didn’t seem to have any fear of falling. “Can you make your way to the window?” she called. “Or do you need me to come inside to help you?”
“Don’t help me!” said Marigold, rushing over to stop her. “What are you doing? How did you get up here?”
“I’m rescuing you, silly!” Now that Marigold was close to the window, Rosalind could see her, and she took Marigold’s hand in hers. “Come quickly, before Torville hears. I knew he’d take down the rope I used to escape, so I brought one with me.” She pointed to the metal hook that was clinging to the edge of the windowsill and to the length of twisted fabric that led all the way down to the ground. “You don’t have to worry. It’s perfectly safe.”
“But I don’t need to be rescued!” Marigold said. “I want to be here. I came here on my own.”
Marigold had expected Rosalind to be surprised, maybe even scandalized, by this detail, but Rosalind didn’t really seem to notice. “The kitchen boy told us you’d run off,” she said, “after the accident with the water bucket —”
“It wasn’t an accident,” Marigold said flatly.
“— but none of us knew Torville had captured you until I saw you both in Blumontaine. I wish I’d been able to rescue you right there in Queen Hetty’s hallway, but I didn’t recognize you in that awful old cloak he made you wear, and by the time I heard your voice, you were already gone.” She squeezed Marigold’s hand. “I’m here now, though. If we climb down right away, we’ll be able to get past the Thing. I tossed it a leg of lamb before I swam the moat.”
Marigold stared at Rosalind. What was it like, she wondered, to be so stubbornly good? Didn’t Rosalind have anything more to say about that awful night at the party or about how Marigold had run away? Wasn’t she furious, or even upset? Didn’t she have questions? Marigold certainly did, and she wasn’t too well behaved to ask them. “Aren’t you afraid,” she said, “that if Torville catches you here, he’ll turn you into a bug?”
Rosalind considered this. “He threatened to often enough, especially when I was younger — when I grew bluebells by the front door or let in too much fresh air. He said I ruined the atmosphere, and he made me hide away whenever his wicked friends came to visit. But he never actually cursed me.”
“Not even a little curse?” Marigold was shocked. She had tried to curse Rosalind the first chance she got, and it wasn’t even her job. “Not even once? I wonder why not.”
Rosalind shrugged. “There’s no understanding Torville.” She looked over her shoulder, down toward the moat. “Marigold, we have to leave now. I’m not sure how long that leg of lamb will last.”
Marigold finally managed to get her hand free from Rosalind’s. “You should go, then,” she said firmly. “Please go. And don’t bother waiting for me, because I’m not going anywhere — especially not with you. Do you understand?”
For a moment, Rosalind looked concerned. Then something in her expression shifted, and she nodded. “I do,” she said, wrapping her arms around Marigold and squeezing her tight before Marigold could duck. “I understand every word.”
Marigold didn’t think that could possibly be true, but at least Rosalind went. She climbed out of view, and a little while later, the rope shook free from the window ledge. As soon as it did, Marigold pulled her own head back inside the fortress and let out a long, frustrated breath. After all the work she’d done to get every trace of Rosalind out of that room, Rosalind had shown up there anyway. Why had she decided it was her job to save Marigold? Why hadn’t she stayed in Imbervale, where perfect princesses belonged?
Still, there had been one good thing about Rosalind’s visit. When she’d wrapped Marigold in her arms, Marigold had tugged gently on a lock of her sister’s 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 she’d plucked it from the head of Princess Rosalind herself. “She was here?” said Collin, running to a workroom window. “Look! There she is, swimming the moat!”
Pettifog fluttered up to join him. “She’s got a strong backstroke. A remarkable girl!” He sniffed a little. “I don’t suppose she mentioned me?”
“Not at all,” Marigold told him. “She only wanted to talk about dragging me back to Imbervale.”
Collin sucked in his breath. “I’m sorry,” he said. “That can’t have gone well.”
“It didn’t.” 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. “Now, could you please peel your faces off the window glass? We’ve got a spell to undo.”
Marigold added her yawn and one strand of Rosalind’s 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 she’d 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 he’d been standing before he’d 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 couldn’t capture was Marigold’s intention.
Part of her — a largish part, if she was honest — still wanted to curse Rosalind. If everyone in the Cacophonous Kingdoms had forgotten about Rosalind two days ago, Marigold wouldn’t have been in so much trouble now. But she knew that wasn’t 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 don’t 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 she’d attempted the curse, and smelling even more awful. “So may you be!” 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.
“Interesting!” said a voice. “I didn’t expect this, but I suppose it makes sense.”
