Vivien glared at him. “She shouldn’t be here! It’s not my fault you’re too much of a fool to realize that. Did your brain slip out through your ear while I was upstairs? Should we look for it under the table? I hope no one’s squashed it!”
“Calm down, Viv,” said Elgin. “I was just about to send the child to the moon.”
This cheered Vivien up at once. She came over to Marigold and pinched her cheek like an unwanted aunt. “The moon,” she said, “is the perfect place for a child like you. I’ll get the spell ready now.”
“No one’s going to the moon,” said Gentleman Northwinds. He spoke calmly, but his cool voice made Marigold shiver. “At least not yet. We don’t have time to waste on other enchantments. Don’t you have to finish mixing the component potions?”
Vivien looked annoyed. “We do have more work to do,” she admitted. “But the girl’s heard our plans!”
“And she’s a troublemaker,” said Elgin.
“Then put her in the dungeon.” Gentleman Northwinds stood up from his chair by the fire. “The moon can wait. But I’m afraid I can’t; I need a good night’s rest. I’ll meet you all outside Imbervale Palace at midday tomorrow — except for you, of course, child.” He nodded at Marigold. “Make sure these villains aren’t so busy bickering that they forget to fasten your locks.”
The Miseries didn’t forget. They closed the padlock on the dungeon door with an echoing click, and Vivien tucked the iron key away in her robes. “After we’ve vanished Imbervale Palace,” she said to Marigold through the lattice of bars, “and once all the Cacophonous Kingdoms are in a glorious uproar, we’ll think about setting you free.”
“On the moon,” Elgin clarified.
“You won’t annoy us there.” Vivien showed her teeth. Then she turned and disappeared up the stairs, with Elgin at her heels.
They had taken the enchanted candlelight with them. The dungeon was nearly as dark as Marigold’s room, but without even the small comforts of a bed to lie on or the busy clicks of Pettifog’s hooves on the other side of the door. It had a damp, underground smell, and Marigold could hear mice scurrying across the stone floor. “Hello?” she said in a small voice. If she had been as good as Rosalind, the mice would have hurried to help her escape; if she had been as wicked as the Miseries, they would have been frightened away. But they kept slipping past on small, indifferent paws, and somehow this made Marigold feel more hopeless than ever. She lay down on the stones and slept.
She woke up much later to the sounds of footsteps on the dungeon stairs. Marigold scrambled to her feet, hoping, but it was only Vivien, shoving Collin into the cell along with her. “We’re off to ruin Rosalind’s day!” Vivien crowed, locking up the door again. “Farewell, little nuisances.”
Sunlight was coming in through a high window now, so at least Marigold could see. Collin looked grubby and exhausted; the wizards must have had him working through the night. “Are you all right?” she asked him.
“That’s what I was about to ask you!” he said. “I’m fine, but you’ve been down here for ages already.”
“Have I?” Marigold rubbed her shoulders, which were sore from the stones.
“It’s almost midday,” said Collin. “Aren’t you hungry? I wanted to bring you something to eat as soon as I heard where you were, but the wizards wouldn’t let me. At least they’re gone now.”
They did seem to be gone. There wasn’t a sound from the fortress above. “Where’s Pettifog?” Marigold asked. “Is he locked up, too?”
“The Miseries took him to stir their cauldron. He started shouting that he wouldn’t go with them, but Elgin just tucked him under his arm and poofed away.”
“Poor Pettifog.” Marigold thought of him, kicking and squirming and covered in an undignified layer of purple dust. “They’ve got Torville, too, you know.”
Collin put his face to the bars of the door and looked out into the shadows. “Did you find out what they’re going to do to Imbervale?”
“They’re going to vanish the palace,” Marigold said stiffly, “and everyone inside it. They’ll be gone forever. Rosalind and Mother and Father and Cook, and the palace staff, and the rulers from other kingdoms who are there to make peace. And all of Rosalind’s noble suitors!” Marigold had almost forgotten about them. “That’s a hundred people at least.”
Collin looked pale. “We’ve got to get them out,” he said. “We have to save them.”
“But we’re not heroes, Collin! We’re not riding through the trees fighting dragons. We’re locked in a dungeon, and there’s nothing more we can do to stop the Miseries now.” Marigold slumped against the wall and slid down to the floor. “I suppose Rosalind will rescue everyone anyway. She’ll turn the wizards into daisies with a touch of her hand, or she’ll tame all the chipmunks in the wildwood and ask them to defend the palace.”
Collin frowned. He didn’t speak. Then, after what seemed like an age, he sat down next to her on the dungeon floor.
“Rosalind can’t do everything, you know,” he said. “She couldn’t stop the night terror. I don’t think she knows how to stop big magic — not all on her own. She doesn’t even know the wizards are on their way.”
Marigold picked at the threads of her dress. “Maybe a chipmunk will tell her.”
“You have to tell her!” Collin said. “You know more about the Miseries’ plans than anyone, and you’re a princess of Imbervale, aren’t you? If you tell everyone in the palace to get to safety, they’ll listen to you.”
Marigold wasn’t so sure about that. “I’m awful at being a princess,” she said, “and I can’t warn anyone of anything from in here.” If she were an evil wizard, she could have used an enchantment to get out of the dungeon. If she were as good as Rosalind, she could have opened the lock with a touch of her hand. But she didn’t have spells or sweetness. She didn’t even have anything useful in her pockets — except a bent propeller that had never done what it was supposed to.
Marigold sat up a little straighter. She dug out the propeller and held it between her fingers, watching its wires glint in the sunlight. She gave it a twist; it was pliant and sturdy, and it felt good in her hands. It couldn’t keep a biplane in the air no matter how much she fiddled with it, but maybe it could be useful in its own way. Marigold got up, crossed the dungeon cell, and stuck her arm through the metal lattice. The padlock was close enough to reach. Her heart (still not wicked enough) began to beat faster.
“What are you doing?” Collin asked.
Marigold smiled. “I’m making a contraption.”
Marigold had never moved so fast in her life. Her fingers flew as she unbent the wires and reshaped them, pausing every few minutes to test them in the lock. They wouldn’t slide in properly at first, but she kept tinkering, and before long, she found that she could hold one wire at the base of the keyhole and use another, carefully bent, to nudge the pins inside the lock. Marigold held her breath and jiggled the bent wire back and forth.
With a click, the lock came free. Behind her, Collin cheered. “We’d better go quickly,” she said, shoving the door open and trying not to let herself think that they might be too late already.
They raced through the empty fortress, skirting the wizards’ abandoned bags and boxes. At the foot of the grand staircase, Collin turned toward the door, but Marigold caught his arm. “We’ll use Torville’s traveling powder,” she told him. “It’s the only chance we’ve got to reach the palace before the Miseries vanish it.”
Collin nodded, and they sprinted up the stairs. The workroom was more disastrous than ever, covered with a layer of sludge and grime from all the potions the wizards had mixed. Bottles and jugs of spell-casting ingredients lay empty on the floor, the windowpanes were splattered with something sticky and green, and Torville’s big cauldron was missing entirely. “They took it with them,” Collin said once he’d caught his breath. “That warty wizard kept complaining about how heavy it was.”
Marigold rummaged through the mess on the workroom shelves until she found the jar of traveling powder, still about a quarter full. She linked arms with Collin and tipped the powder into her hand. How much would she need? More than a pinch? Less than a palm’s worth? She didn’t want to end up on the side of a mountain again. But intention was everything, Marigold reminded herself. If her home still existed, then that was where she wanted to be, more than she’d ever wanted anything in her life. “Imbervale Palace!” she cried, and threw a fistful of magic into the air.
From inside the cloud of purple smoke, Marigold could hear people shouting.
“Wizards!” they cried. “Summon the royal magician! Draw your swords! That’s my sword, Theobald; don’t you have your own?”
Marigold held up her hands, and she could see Collin doing the same. “We’re not wizards!” she called out as the smoke faded away. “We’re here to help!”
