Marigold led the way through the back meadow. Collin strode alongside her, holding his head as high as any hero’s, and Rosalind followed behind them, carrying the long train of her dress over one arm to keep it from slowing her down. Now that she was tromping through the same muddy field as Marigold, she didn’t seem quite so impossible — and anyway, Marigold had other things to worry about. She stopped at the edge of the hollow. “I hear people talking,” she said. “Listen.”
The voices were low, but they traveled on the same cold breeze that always seemed to spring up when Gentleman Northwinds was nearby. When Marigold took a few more steps into the trees, she could see the wizards. They formed a wide circle around the cauldron they’d taken from Torville, chanting in chorus, while Horace kept the beat of the incantation by thumping a tall stick against the ground. As Marigold crept closer, she could see Vivien in the center of the circle, pouring jars of evil-smelling potions into the cauldron: one concoction electric blue, another an uncanny green, a third that glowed orange like embers. Pettifog stood at the far side of the cauldron, dragging a spoon through the mixture with what looked like tremendous effort. He’d been separated from his suit jacket somewhere along the journey from the fortress, and his left arm was hastily bandaged, as if he’d tried to put up a fight and lost. Marigold was so upset by the sight that she almost called out to him.
“Over here!” Collin whispered.
He and Rosalind had ducked behind a huge old tree, and Marigold crouched down to join them. “How many wizards do you think there are?” Rosalind asked.
Marigold tried to count, but everyone’s robes blurred together in the smoke from the cauldron. “At least twenty,” she said. The Twice-Times Witch wasn’t in the circle — she must have gone home on account of the dampness — but Petronella was there, and Millicent and Old Skellytoes and most of the other wicked faces Marigold remembered from the fortress. Even Gentleman Northwinds had joined in the chant. When they’d conjured up the night terror, they’d been as disorderly as the kings and queens in the Green Gallery, but they were working in unison now — and they were powerful.
“What now?” asked Collin. “Should we take them by surprise? Charge them from behind? Tip over their cauldron?”
Marigold wasn’t sure any of those ideas were likely to end well. “Rosalind said she could help us stop the wizards. I think we should let her try.”
Collin raised his eyebrows. “You do?”
Marigold shrugged and looked over at Rosalind. “What’s your plan?” she whispered.
Rosalind put on her sweetest smile. “I’m going to mend their hearts.”
This sounded much more difficult to Marigold than tipping over a cauldron, but Rosalind didn’t look concerned. She made her way over the roots and brambles into the center of the hollow. “Wizards!” Rosalind said. “Hello!” Her voice rang out high and clear over the noise of the spell-casting. Horace dropped his stick, the wizards stopped their incantation, and Pettifog flapped his wings so excitedly that he rose half a foot into the air.
Elgin yanked him down by the tail. “You’re not going anywhere,” he told Pettifog. “Pick up that stick, Horace. And the rest of you, keep chanting. Don’t listen to anything the princess says.” With his robes flapping furiously around his ankles, he left the circle and marched toward Rosalind. “You’ve interrupted our work.”
Rosalind fixed her smile directly on Elgin. “I’m awfully sorry about that,” she said. “I understand that you’re frustrated, Elgin, and I want to apologize.”
“You do?” Elgin brought his damp face close to Rosalind’s, as if he were daring her not to budge. “I seriously doubt that.”
Rosalind didn’t step back. “I apologize,” she said, “for interrupting you now, but mostly for the confrontation we had at Torville’s a few days ago. I had no idea that you and your friends were having a party that night, and I never would have come by if I’d known. I certainly wouldn’t have brought all those soldiers!”
Despite Elgin’s instructions, a few of the wizards had turned to look at Rosalind, and their incantation sounded muddier. “Intention!” snapped Vivien, in much the same way that Torville had said it to Marigold many days earlier. She dumped another potion into the cauldron. “Keep stirring, imp!”
Rosalind forged on. “I know we don’t agree about bringing peace to the kingdoms, but if you’d put your potions aside, I’d be happy to talk to you about your worries. And we wouldn’t have to stand out here in the damp to do it. You could come to the palace!”
Elgin snorted. “You can’t be serious.”
“Of course I am!” Rosalind laughed, sending a thornbush into a frenzy of yellow blooms. “We’ve got hundreds of people staying with us already. Why not add a few evil wizards to our company? You all look chilly and exhausted. Won’t you come inside for a warm drink?”
Collin grimaced. “Cook isn’t going to like that,” he said to Marigold.
“But look!” Marigold pointed toward the circle. Half the wizards had stopped chanting now. A few of the younger ones looked uncomfortable; Millicent had pressed her hands to her chest, and the short and warty wizard was doubled over. “Something’s gone funny with my heart,” he complained. “It doesn’t feel right.”
Rosalind beamed at him. “It’s unshriveling.”
“Stop that!” Vivien marched over and jabbed at Rosalind with a scarlet fingernail. “How dare you mend these wizards’ hearts! You can’t just show up here in your fancy gown and set them thumping again!”
But it seemed Rosalind was doing exactly that. Although some of the wizards were keeping up the incantation, others — the ones whose hearts hadn’t been quite so thoroughly shriveled, Marigold supposed — were unclenching their jaws, blinking hard, and looking around the hollow as if they couldn’t remember how they’d gotten there. A few of them stepped out of the circle and turned toward Elgin. “You told us Princess Rosalind was going to banish us to the demonic realms,” said Juno, “but she’s inviting us in for coffee.”
“And cocoa,” Rosalind added. “We’ve got cocoa, too, if you’d like it.”
“Does the banishment happen after the cocoa?” Petronella asked. “Or before?”
Elgin’s heart must not have unshriveled at all, Marigold decided; he still looked furious. “Stop speaking nonsense,” he told Petronella, “and get back to work. That goes for the rest of you, too.”
“If Princess Rosalind is just going to stand here and be kind to us, I’m not sure why we’re doing this spell.” Millicent narrowed her eyes at the Miseries. “I thought we were in danger.”
“The kindness is the danger!” Vivien screeched. “And they’re still making peace inside the palace. Keep chanting, everyone, or I’ll stuff you in the cauldron myself. Aren’t you wicked? Aren’t you cruel?” She reached out and pulled Juno’s braid. “Get back here!”
Juno spun around. She tugged her braid out of Vivien’s hand and tossed it over her shoulder, out of reach. “Don’t touch me,” she said coolly. “I’ve had enough, and I’m going home.” She took a little bottle of traveling powder from her robes. “If the rest of you have any dignity, you should do the same.”
There was just time for Marigold to see the expression on Elgin’s face transform from anger to alarm before the hollow filled with thick purple smoke. Shouts and bangs rang out over the thrum of the incantation, and someone shouted, “Ouch!” When the smoke cleared, Juno was gone. So were Millicent, the short and warty wizard, and at least four others. Old Skellytoes was still there, hopping with pain and shouting at Horace, whose stick had connected with his foot. Petronella had drifted skyward and was floating in the direction of the palace. “Tea cakes and garden rakes!” she called down to the others. “I’m off to have some cocoa.”
Vivien looked as if she might leap up and pull Petronella out of the sky right then and there. “They’re gone, Elgin!” she shouted. “Do something, you useless lump!”
By now, Elgin had smoothed the alarm from his face. “We don’t need them,” he said grandly. “They were never all that wicked to begin with. Our work continues.” He gestured to the remaining wizards, who were still chanting and thumping, though not quite as vigorously as before. “You won’t be mending any of these hearts, Princess.”
For the first time since they’d arrived in the hollow, Rosalind looked a little worried. She turned away from Elgin, toward the others left in the circle. “I don’t know why you left your kingdoms in the first place,” she said, “or how you came to be wicked, but if you’d ever like to talk about it, I’d be happy to listen.”
Horace scowled and put a hand over his ear, as if he were trying to block out Rosalind’s voice. Old Skellytoes dabbed sweat from his forehead. “Can’t anyone stop her?” cried the sharp-toothed wizard. “She’ll interfere with the spell!”
“She’s done that already.” Gentleman Northwinds had stepped away from the circle and was craning his neck to get a glimpse of the palace. The air all around it had started to shimmer, Marigold realized when she looked back through the trees. The big magic was taking hold. “I must confess,” Gentleman Northwinds said, “that I’m curious to see what happens now that so many intentions have been shaken. Big magic tends to follow its own rules. It might vanish the palace. It might unpick the very bindings of this world.”
“That doesn’t sound good,” Collin whispered to Marigold. “Do you think Rosalind can fix that?”
“I have no idea!” Marigold was standing up now; she was too worried to stay hidden. Rosalind was still trying to talk to the wizards in the circle, but they shook their heads and wouldn’t listen to her, and Vivien had started shrieking again anyway. The liquid inside the cauldron was golden and glowing, and it had started bubbling so vigorously that Marigold couldn’t see Pettifog’s face through the steam.
“It’s nearly done!” said Vivien. “Come on, Elgin.” She hurried toward the cauldron. “We’ve got to stir for the final verse.”
