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.”
“Oh!” Petronella swallowed. “I mean we’d have to use big magic.”
Elgin beamed. “That’s exactly what my sister and I are proposing. If we work together, we can cast a spell strong enough to ruin the peace negotiations and fill the kingdoms with so much strife that everyone from royalty to ragamuffins will be begging for our wicked services. Can’t you picture it?”
Marigold wasn’t sure she could. She didn’t think all the wizards could, either: Some were nodding, but others were murmuring to their neighbors, shifting uncomfortably in their chairs, or staring down at their plates as if they’d never been more captivated by the remains of a meal. Horace and Juno had started arguing about something at one end of the table, while Millicent argued with a short and warty wizard at the other end. The Twice-Times Witch was dozing in her chair, and Gentleman Northwinds sat back in his chair, watching the others as if they were putting on a show. It was hard to imagine the entire Evil Wizards’ Social Society working together to clear the dinner plates, let alone cast any kind of spell.
“Well?” shouted Vivien, standing up next to Elgin. “Which of you are willing to do something really wicked — and which of you are only here for the snacks?”
“You’re being dramatic, Vivien,” said a wizard in deep-purple robes. “Big magic can go wrong in a thousand different ways. And we don’t know what will happen at the peace talks.” She smiled, showing a set of unusually sharp teeth. “We are not being banished yet. I see no reason to take the risk.”
“Neither do I,” said Horace. “My dad lost his left ear to big magic, and I’m not willing to give up either of mine unless I absolutely have to. Do you have any proof that Princess Rosalind is a real threat?”
Vivien threw up her hands. “Her laugh can ripen strawberries. She is a remarkable girl. How much more do I have to say? Have all you bungling cauldron scalders been taken in by her, too?” Her eyes darted to the servants’ entrance. “Why are you standing there, child? Do you want to be turned to jelly?”
“No, thank you!” said Collin. Marigold had been so focused on the scene at the dinner table that she hadn’t even noticed him opening the door. He was wearing a stain-splashed apron, and he looked a little breathless. “I’m sorry to interrupt,” he said, “but I think we might be under attack.”
All twenty-four evil wizards crammed up against the kitchen window, shoving and grumbling as they tried to look out across the clearing. Some of them climbed the nearest peach tree for a better view, and Pettifog beat his wings frantically to keep himself hovering over the others’ heads. Marigold could tell she’d never get through the crowd to see anything for herself. “What’s going on?” she whispered to Collin, pulling him into the entryway. “Who’s attacking us?”
“Soldiers on horseback!” Collin’s eyes were shining with excitement. “I spotted their torches coming through the trees.”
