Marigold set the contraption down in the dirt and unwrapped the blanket. When she pulled the coffee spoon out of her pocket, Torville tried mightily to wriggle away, but Marigold cupped her hand around him and waited until he was still. “I’m going to put you in the biplane now,” she told him. “It’s attached to a string, and I should be able to fly it just like a kite. All you’ve got to do is keep yourself from falling out until it lands on the roof. I don’t think it will be too difficult.”
“How wonderful.” Torville sounded sour. “Soaring through the air toward my certain death in a child’s contraption shouldn’t be tricky at all.”
“It’s an excellent contraption,” Marigold corrected him. She tucked him carefully inside the little box she’d fashioned that nestled between the biplane’s wings. “I’ll get you as close to the tower as I can. Once you’ve landed, you can climb up to the workroom windows and find out what spells the wizards are making. I’ll pull you back in an hour or so, when the wolves start howling in the wildwood. You’ll have to be back in the matchbox by then. Does all of that make sense?”
The blob of glop seethed.
Marigold thought for a moment. “I’ll make you absolute vats of porridge once we’re finished,” she promised, “with as much honey on top as you like.”
The seething died down to a burble.
“Thank you.” Marigold picked up the biplane. It really was an excellent contraption now. Its wide wings caught the breeze beautifully, the string unspooled smoothly in Marigold’s hands as she ran across the waste, and soon the biplane was soaring far above her head. When it came near the fortress, she started reeling in the line to give Torville a softer landing. She couldn’t control the plane as well as she’d wanted to then, and it scraped and bumped along the roof tiles, but soon enough it came to rest like a strange bird nestled at the base of the highest tower. Marigold was pretty sure that Torville had landed upright.
After that, she could do nothing but wait. She shivered and wished the cotton of her work dress weren’t so thin; the wind was getting colder. She held on to the spool of string, passing it from hand to hand to keep her fingers from numbing. No noise came from the fortress, and the nighttime sounds of the wasteland surrounded her: the rustle of dead grass, the soft slither of underbellies, a low warning from a distant owl. She squinted up at the tower. Was that a small shadow against the light of the workroom window? The owl hooted again after a while, closer. Marigold’s arms were starting to ache, but she couldn’t put the spool of string down; she didn’t want to risk losing the biplane. The chill had gone into her bones by now. What if the wolves in the wildwood never howled?
Then there was a bang, so loud and so close that Marigold almost dropped her string. No more than twenty feet in front of her, at the edge of the moat, a wizard was brushing traveling powder from his robes. Marigold didn’t dare to breathe. “Dratted moat!” Old Skellytoes said to himself. He dipped a toe in the water, then pulled it out again quickly as something nearby began to splash. “Dratted Thing!” He turned to make his way around to the drawbridge.
Even in the darkness, he saw Marigold almost at once. “Who’s there?” Old Skellytoes demanded. “That you, Petronella? Wandering off in the moonlight again?” He stepped closer. Marigold couldn’t think of anything to do except clutch her spool of string more tightly. “No, you’re not Petronella — you’re that servant girl!”
Marigold knew that she was in bad trouble. “Hello, sir,” she said, pressing the spool into the folds of her dress. There was still a chance he wouldn’t notice the biplane.
“Trying to run away, are you?” Old Skellytoes grinned in the moonlight. “Vivien’s going to be mad as a mountain troll when I tell her.”
A long, haunting call came out of the wildwood; the wolves were howling at last. Up on the rooftop, Torville would be inching his way back into the biplane, but Marigold certainly couldn’t pull him down now. “I’m not running away,” she told Old Skellytoes. “I’m collecting ingredients. The wizards needed a handful of skyberries.” Marigold didn’t know if skyberries were something a wicked curse might require; she was almost too cold and too worried to think. “There were only dried berries in the storeroom, so they sent me out to pick some fresh ones.”
“In this weather?” Old Skellytoes cackled and held up a hand against the icy wind. “You won’t have much luck.”
“No,” Marigold agreed miserably. “I haven’t had any.”
“But you have something.” Old Skellytoes leaned forward, frowning. “What’s that in your hand? Not skyberries.” His long and bony fingers darted out from his robes, and he snatched the spool of string right out of Marigold’s grasp. “Oh, no, not skyberries at all!”
“Give that back!” said Marigold.
“I won’t,” Old Skellytoes said cheerfully. He was reeling in loose string now, bit by bit. “Where does this line lead? I wonder. Were you fishing in the moat, child? Trying to catch yourself a Thing?”
He strode forward, winding more and more string onto the spool. There wasn’t much slack left; if he kept on winding, the biplane would start to move along the roof tiles. “Stop that!” said Marigold, trying to keep up.
Old Skellytoes held the spool up, just out of Marigold’s reach. “Ah! I see now. You’ve been flying a kite. Delightful!” He took the string in both hands and yanked.
There was nothing at all delightful about the way the biplane plummeted to earth. It spun and tumbled, bouncing off the walls and landing with a crunch at the base of the fortress. Old Skellytoes kept reeling in the string, dragging the biplane through the dirt and hopping it across the moat with one swift twitch of his wrists. By the time it came to rest at his feet, it was bent out of shape and badly torn. The little box that Marigold had made for Torville lay upside down on the ground, half disconnected from the wings, so she couldn’t see whether he was safe inside.
“A strange contraption!” remarked Old Skellytoes. He bent down to poke at the wings and pull at the wires. “I’ve never seen a kite like it. And how about this?” Before Marigold could stop him, he’d yanked the little box free and held it over his head, trying to get a better look in the moonlight. “Is there anything inside?” He gave it a good long shake.
The blob of glop that was Torville fell onto his face.
Old Skellytoes howled and swore. Torville, who seemed to have used up most of his strength, melted over Old Skellytoes’ forehead and dripped down toward his nose, while Old Skellytoes worked frantically to wipe him away. Marigold tried to grab hold of Torville, but Old Skellytoes held her at arm’s length with one hand and peeled the glop off his face with the other. “Drippety fiend!” he shouted. “You’re Wizard Torville, aren’t you?”
The glop gathered itself together just enough to nod.
“I thought so.” Old Skellytoes looked from Torville to the ruined biplane, and then, incredulous, to Marigold. “I don’t know what’s been going on here,” he admitted, “but I’m guessing it’s rotten.” He stuck Torville in the pocket of his robes and tightened his grip on Marigold’s arm. “You’d better quit your wiggling and come with me.”
Old Skellytoes hauled Marigold back inside the fortress and into the dining room, where half the evil wizards were still gathered. Elgin was pacing in front of the windows, the Twice-Times Witch and Gentleman Northwinds were deep in conversation by the fire, and everyone else looked as if they were dearly missing their bedrolls and blankets, but all of them straightened up when they saw Old Skellytoes dragging Marigold behind him.
“Finally!” said Elgin. “Is that last inversion charm done?”
“Of course it’s done,” Old Skellytoes snapped. “If I’d tripped the anti-wizard spells, I wouldn’t be back here, would I?”
“Not all in one piece, I suppose.” Elgin frowned. “Put that child back where you found her, Skellytoes; we don’t need more coffee.”
Old Skellytoes pushed Marigold in front of him. “I found her outside,” he said, as proud as a schoolboy. “She’d gotten some kind of gadget rigged up on the fortress roof, and she wasn’t alone. Look who else I’ve got.” He dug into his pocket and pulled out the blob of glop.
“Is that my brother?” Elgin strode over and collected Torville from Old Skellytoes’ hands. “You’re in awfully bad shape!” he said to the blob. “Weak and sopping, with bits of fuzz clinging to you — but it suits you, Torville; it really does. I’ll be keeping you with me from now on.” He dropped Torville into his own pocket, and Marigold drew in her breath. Whatever Torville might have learned up in the workroom, he certainly wouldn’t be able to tell her about it while he was stuck in Elgin’s moldering robes.
“As for you,” said Elgin, rounding on Marigold, “I’d like to know what you thought you were doing out there, sneaking around with a wizard and a . . . what kind of gadget was it, Skellytoes?”
“A kite?” Old Skellytoes guessed.
“A biplane!” Marigold shot back.
“Whatever it is, I hate it.” Elgin towered over Marigold; she had to tilt her head back to look him in the eye. “There’s a certain crater I know on the shadowed side of the moon,” he told her. “How would you like to be sent there for good?”
If Marigold had been any good at being wicked, she would have sent Elgin there first. She was certainly angry enough to try it. The contraption she’d labored over was lying crushed in the dirt, all her plans kept going fantastically wrong, and she couldn’t bear the satisfied little smile on Elgin’s face. But just as she was about to tell him so, the thought of Torville in his pocket — and of Collin and Pettifog nearby — made her bite her tongue. Her mistakes had gotten the others into enough trouble already.
The servants’ door swung open then, and Vivien swept in with a bundle of papers in one hand. “Incantations for all!” she cried, handing out papers to each wizard in turn. “I had Millicent copy out the vanishing spell we’ll be using on Imbervale Palace. All the component potions should be ready around midday tomorrow, so you’ll have plenty of time to memorize the words. The rhythm is the same as the one we all use for temporary vanishing charms, but remember: big magic requires a grand scale. If we want Princess Rosalind and everyone else in that palace to disappear forever, we’ll need a thunderous volume! A tremendous clamor! A terrible chorus of wicked voices, raised as one to say — What is she doing here?” Vivien had come face-to-face with Marigold.
“By all means, Vivien, keep talking,” Elgin said. “Did you have any more secrets you’d like to share with Torville’s servant girl?”
