“It’s a crococeros,” said Horace, looking wounded. “Half rhinoceros, half crocodile. I just invented it.”
“Your crococeros is preposterous!” Juno tugged at one end of the spoon, and Horace held fast to the other. In the clearing, the night terror grew parts and lost them again faster than Marigold could keep track. During the times when it had crocodile jaws, it snapped them in Rosalind’s direction, but it was still much too far away to reach her. The royal magician had stopped tossing powdered spells and was leaning forward on her horse, studying the night terror. Marigold thought she saw one of the soldiers shrug.
All the wizards started shoving and grabbing again. Each time a different wizard seized the spoon, the night terror changed: it became a dragon, a brushfire, a train engine, and an oversize poodle. For a few confusing moments, it seemed to be a melon. “What’s that?” Vivien shrieked at the short and warty wizard, who was holding the spoon.
The short and warty wizard sighed. “I was trying for antelope.”
The spoon moved on. The night terror became a winged jellyfish, a steaming volcano, a moth loping in broad circles toward the sliver of moon. (“Stop that, Petronella!” everyone shouted.) Pettifog skirted the edge of the crowd, urging the wizards to please come back to the dining room, or at least to mind the broken glass and crockery. Marigold squeezed her way to the stove to set the porridge pot upright, but after that, she didn’t know what to do. She couldn’t get close to the wooden spoon herself; there were too many grown-up wizards in the way. And when she looked out the window again, she saw the royal magician trying another spell on the night terror. Blue sparks flew from her pouch this time, and the night terror flinched. The wizards booed.
Collin picked his way through the mess to Marigold’s side. “Who do you think is winning?”
“I have no idea.” Marigold sat down helplessly in a kitchen chair. She didn’t like the wizards’ jeers and jostles any more than she liked Rosalind’s impeccable sweetness. “I wouldn’t mind if a crococeros dragged them all away.”
The royal magician had pushed the night terror halfway back to the moat, and the scent of good magic, like honeysuckle after rain, wafted in through the broken window. The Twice-Times Witch, who’d nodded off again, twitched her nose and opened her eyes.
“What a repulsive stench,” she said.
Her voice wasn’t loud, or particularly strong, but it rose above the shrieks and clatters as distinctly as if she’d been talking in Marigold’s ear. At the sound of it, all the other wizards went quiet. Even Pettifog seemed at a loss for words.
“Fetch me the control,” the Twice-Times Witch said to her imps. The sharp-toothed wizard, who was holding the wooden spoon just then, handed it over without an argument. “Thank you, dear,” said the witch. “Let’s put this matter to rest.”
Flicking her wrist again and again, the Twice-Times Witch used the spoon to make neat little circles in the air. Outside, the night terror gathered itself into a tall, thin cloud. Then the cloud started to spin.
“Faster, I think,” the Twice-Times Witch muttered. Flick, flick, flick, went the wooden spoon. The spinning cloud became a cyclone. It was as tall as the fortress now, crackling with lightning, and its wind would have sent Pettifog flying out the window if Collin hadn’t lunged forward to catch him. But the riders from Imbervale were in even more danger. The cyclone snuffed out their torches and tugged their swords from their hands. It tore the royal magician’s spell pouch from her waist and very nearly took the royal magician along with it. Rosalind had to grab on to the ends of the magician’s robes to keep her on her horse. Then Rosalind shouted something that Marigold couldn’t hear, and all six riders broke into a gallop. They raced across the clearing. Behind them sped the cyclone, tugging at the horses’ tails and uprooting whatever lay in its path.
When the cyclone reached the edge of the wildwood, it paused, spinning in place. The group from Imbervale had vanished into the trees. The Twice-Times Witch sniffed the air and smiled. “That’s better,” she said. She cracked the spoon in half like a wishbone, and the night terror vanished. “They won’t dare to come back.”
The other wizards looked on, impressed and contrite. “It was a marvelous cyclone,” said Gentleman Northwinds from a corner of the room, where he’d been watching the commotion and eating a slice of peach pie. “I couldn’t have done better if I’d tried.”
“Next time,” said the Twice-Times Witch, “please do.” Then she closed her eyes again, and her imps wheeled her away, leaving the mess in the kitchen behind them.
None of the wizards bothered to help clean up. Marigold swept, Collin scrubbed, and Pettifog pleaded for a glass-mending spell to use on the kitchen window, but the Evil Wizards’ Social Society was listening only to Vivien. “We’re at war with Princess Rosalind now,” she told them. “If we don’t act against her and her allies, she’ll be back with the forces of all ten kingdoms behind her.”
The wizards nodded. No one seemed to need proof anymore.
“Big magic it is, then,” said Old Skellytoes. “I don’t think we’ve got a choice.”
“Jam in a pot,” Petronella said sadly. “Don’t tell the wolves, but I agree with Vivien.”
While the wizards talked, Marigold set down her broom and pulled Pettifog into the pantry. “Rosalind was here to rescue me, not to fight with them,” she whispered. “Can’t you explain that it was all a misunderstanding? I’d do it myself, but the wizards won’t pay any attention to me.”
“And you think I’ve got their ear?” Pettifog shook his head. His second-best suit was crumpled and stained, and his horns had lost their usual gleam. “Even if I could get them to listen, do you really want me to tell them that Princess Rosalind was here to retrieve her sister, who’s standing right behind me? They’d all be drawing straws to decide who gets to torture you first.”
Marigold knew he was right. “How do we stop them, then? They’re planning big magic! They’re going to do something awful!”
“And that upsets you?” Pettifog looked exasperated now. “They’re wicked, Marigold! Aren’t you always insisting that you’re wicked, too?”
“Of course I am,” Marigold shot back. The pantry was starting to feel uncomfortably small. “I was terrible to Rosalind when I went down to warn her about the wizards. I shouted at her and said all sorts of cruel things.”
Pettifog shrugged. “If you were really wicked,” he said, “would you have bothered to warn her at all?”
Marigold didn’t have an answer to that.
“Villains!” Elgin’s voice rang out from the kitchen. “Reprobates and wretches! Stop chattering and see what I’ve found in my brother’s chambers.”
Marigold stepped out of the pantry and squinted into the light. All the wizards were crowding around Elgin, who stood in the doorway with a dinner plate held high. In the center of the plate, a yellow blob of glop quivered and burbled as if it would rather be anywhere else.
As Marigold watched in horror, Elgin gave the dinner plate a shake. “Isn’t it a marvelous creature?” he asked. “I wonder, can any of you guess what it might be?”
Vivien looked scornful. “It’s a blob of glop.”
“Wrong!” said Elgin. “Oh, it’s too wonderful; I won’t make you guess.” He jabbed the blob with his finger. “It’s Torville!”
Pettifog flew out of the pantry in a tomato-stained fury. “Unhand him!” he cried. “Set that wizard down at once!”
But the others had already taken the dinner plate from Elgin, and they were passing it through the crowd. Some of the wizards sniffed at the blob of glop, while others poked and prodded it or brought their ears close to listen. As the plate moved from wizard to wizard, Torville slid around it, burbling furiously. Marigold could tell he was terrified. “Stop that!” she said, making a useless grab for the plate herself. “You’ll drop him!”
Old Skellytoes was holding the plate now. He turned his back to the others and brought his face close to the blob of glop, squinting. “How do you know this is Torville?” he asked. “I can’t see any resemblance. It doesn’t even have a mustache.”
“And if it is Torville,” said Juno, “what’s wrong with him?”
“Not skin-crawling sickness.” Vivien glowered at Marigold. “We’ve been tricked, haven’t we?”
“Not for long, my dear Viv, not for long!” Elgin clapped his hands together, as gleeful as the Imbervale court treasurer on tax-collecting day. “Give me that plate, Skellytoes! And come with me, all of you. We’ll let this sorry blob speak for itself.”
Elgin led the way up the grand staircase, and the other wizards raced after him. “How did Elgin get hold of Torville, anyway?” Collin whispered as they hurried to catch up. “Wasn’t he in the kitchen with the others?”
Marigold tried to remember. Since the appearance of the night terror, she hadn’t been paying attention to Elgin at all. “He must have sneaked off,” she said, “while the rest of us were looking out the window. He and Vivien already tried to get into Torville’s room once tonight, but I thought they’d given up.”
Pettifog let out a snort. “If they gave up on things,” he said, “they’d be called the Inconveniences.”
Elgin had paused outside Torville’s bedroom, where the door stood open. “See, Vivien?” he said. “I’m not too cowardly to work a simple unlocking spell. I knew I’d prove you wrong.”
Vivien rolled her eyes. “It only took you hours.”
Ignoring her, Elgin stepped into the bedroom. “Come in, everyone! Gather around the mirror. There’s plenty of space; don’t squash.”
The wizards crowded inside, and Marigold had to crane her neck to see anything at all. Once she did, she could tell that Elgin must have placed the dinner plate in front of the mirror, because there was Torville, perfectly clear in the enchanted candlelight, looking gaunt and grave on the other side of the frame.
“What is it, Elgin?” Torville folded his arms. “I’ve already answered your questions. Aren’t you capable of telling our colleagues all about my sorry state without dragging me back here? You took those stairs as gracefully as an ostrich, by the way. I nearly fell off my plate.”
“It is Torville,” the thorn-scratched wizard said near Marigold’s ear. “Torville, what have you done to yourself?”
“Yes, Torville, tell us!” cried Elgin. “How did you become a blob of glop?”
A creeping dread made its way across Marigold’s toes, up her legs, and into the pit of her stomach. She wished more than anything that she could back out of the room, but there were wizards on all sides of her now, and Gentleman Northwinds himself was leaning against the doorframe. Torville would tell all the evil wizards what she’d done to him, and how she’d broken the Villains’ Bond. They’d snatch her up! They’d send her one hundred and five plagues! Would they all cast the curse together, Marigold wondered, or would each of the wizards work it separately? And if twenty-four wizards summoned a hundred and five plagues apiece, how many horrible things would happen to her altogether? There was no time to make calculations; the unkillable wasps and vampire hens would be arriving at any moment. Pettifog must have realized what was about to happen: he reached up and took Marigold’s hand.
