“I’m aware of the chill,” Marigold said through her teeth. Out the bathroom window, she could see the party lanterns on the lawn two stories below. Her parents and Rosalind were still chatting with guests nearby; there was the balding top of her father’s head and the glint of her mother’s crown. “Wasn’t there anywhere else you could have put the birds?”
“Oh, no.” The steward looked mildly horrified. “The only other bath overlooking the lawn would be entirely unsuitable. It belongs to Princess Rosalind.”
At the mention of Rosalind’s name, the enchanted songbirds started up again:
“Sweetest Princess Rosalind!
Your kingdom loves you so,
and now that you are back with us,
we hope you’ll never —”
“That’s enough!” shouted Marigold. The royal steward looked ready to remark that princesses weren’t supposed to shout, but Marigold walked right past him. “Get out, all of you!” She unlatched the window and flung it open wide. “Out!” she said again.
The birds didn’t budge. Some of them tilted their heads and looked questioningly at the steward. A pelican sat down on the bath mat.
Marigold was tired of being ignored. She grabbed the nearest bucket of wood ducks and hauled it over to the open window, sloshing water on the floor. Out on the lawn, Rosalind had stepped closer to the palace wall. Marigold could see the shine of Rosalind’s hair and hear Rosalind’s peony-blooming laugh. She hesitated — but not for long.
Then Marigold dumped the bucket out onto Rosalind’s head.
For a moment, it was glorious: the satisfying sploosh of the water that drenched Rosalind from head to toe, the surprised cries of ducks finding themselves suddenly in midair, the silence that fell over the whole vast crowd below as they all looked up at Marigold in the window. Marigold held the empty bucket like a trophy. She felt almost triumphant.
The royal steward trembled in his trim blue suit. “You,” he said, pointing at Marigold, “are a wicked child.”
That was the end of the glorious moment. Partygoers began hurrying toward Rosalind, asking if she was all right and whether she might be catching a chill. Queen Amelia held Rosalind close, while King Godfrey sent the servants running for blankets. And the birds in the bathroom had flown into a frenzy. The other ducks, who’d seen their companions take wing, must not have wanted to be left behind; they soared outside, too, singing frantically. They were followed by canaries and robins, and then by peacocks, swans, and eagles, all crowding together at the window’s edge. Marigold was caught up in a tangle of beaks and talons, and before she quite realized what was happening, the birds had dragged her out into the night.
They couldn’t hold her weight. Marigold felt the air rush by as she fell. She landed in a hedge with an awful crunch as all the birds wheeled above her, warbling confused song verses about Rosalind’s loving heart and her dainty toes. This must have flustered the royal magician, who set off all her firework spells at once. When the spells exploded in a clamor above the palace roof, the birds began to shriek. So did the guests. “We’re at war!” Marigold heard someone shout. “Imbervale is under attack!”
When Marigold climbed out of the hedge, bruised and sore, she could see that the party was over. The birds had pulled down most of the hanging lanterns, which lay in a heap on the grass. Most of the guests had run away in a panic, overturning the lemonade pitchers and the trays of delicate cakes. The night air was full of smoke. Someone must have whisked Rosalind into the palace, but the king and queen were still standing in the ruins on the lawn, and Marigold had never seen them more furious: King Godfrey clench-fisted and sputtering, Queen Amelia looking as if she would start a war that very minute.
“Marigold!” King Godfrey boomed. “Where are you?”
All Marigold could think to do was run. She crashed through the flower borders, trampled the paper lanterns, pushed right past Collin as he hurried toward her, and didn’t even stop to apologize, because the royal steward had been right about her, hadn’t he? It had always been true, and now everyone could see it. Wicked child, thudded her boots in the grass. Wicked child, thumped her heart. But there was no place for wickedness in Imbervale. The palace gates were standing open, and Marigold stormed through them without looking back.
It wasn’t long before Marigold reached the wildwood. The night was so dark, she could hardly see, and all she could hear was the roar of the wind and the howls of wolves. Her dress snagged on brambles and branches, and her boots sank into the mud, but she pushed her way through with such determination that not even the hungry wildwood creatures dared to come near her. Marigold didn’t much care where she ended up as long as it was away: away from the wreckage on the palace lawn, from her parents’ furious faces, and from everyone in all the kingdoms who’d ever ignored her or scolded her or left her behind.
She would be banished from Imbervale now, she realized as she splashed across a stream, soaking her dress to the waist. She had broken all the rules. She tried not to think about the contraptions still piled in her bedroom, or about Collin, whom she wished she hadn’t pushed. At least she wouldn’t have to squirm through more of Rosalind’s parties, more reminders to be sweet and polite, or more of the royal steward’s disapproving looks. She wouldn’t miss those one bit.
Just after sunrise, Marigold broke out of the wood and blinked in the faint light. The clearing where she found herself wasn’t much more than a bit of wasteland that had slipped between the kingdoms’ seams, but Marigold recognized it at once: It was so dry that nothing could grow. A murky moat ran through the clearing, and beyond the moat, just as Rosalind had described, was a fortress as dank and dismal as an evil wizard’s heart.
For the first time since she’d left Imbervale, Marigold hesitated. Had the wildwood sensed her wickedness? Had the mud and brambles contrived to bring her here, to Wizard Torville’s doorstep? The path she’d taken had already disappeared behind her, as if even the trees were certain that this desolate place was where she belonged. The wind grazed the back of her neck, making her shiver.
Still, she couldn’t help feeling curious. Rosalind had said only that Torville was snappish and rude, and that he had a habit of turning the people who annoyed him into insects, but Marigold wondered whether he might be convinced to give a wicked child a warm meal and a place to stay. Besides, she’d never met a wizard before or seen the inside of a dank and dismal fortress. After a moment’s consideration, she brushed the mud off her boots and kept walking forward.
There was no bridge across the moat. When Marigold stepped closer to the water’s edge, she could see something long and slippery moving just beneath the surface. “Hello?” she called in the direction of the fortress. “Is Wizard Torville at home?”
A cloud passed over the sun. In the moat, the long and slippery thing splashed.
Marigold cleared her throat and tried again. Maybe, like some of the rulers of the Cacophonous Kingdoms, Torville preferred to be greeted more formally. “I seek an audience with the wizard!” she called, trying to remember how courtiers sometimes addressed her parents. “I have journeyed far across the wildwood —”
On the far side of the moat, there was a tremendous bang and an explosion of purple smoke. Inside the cloud of smoke, someone coughed.
“Wizard Torville?” Marigold asked.
“Don’t waste my time with that flowery nonsense.” As the smoke began to clear, Marigold could see the man on the other side of the moat more clearly. He was as tall as her father and a little younger, with slicked-back hair, a carefully arranged mustache, and robes that would have been inky black if they hadn’t been covered in a fine layer of purple dust. His eyes were narrowed at Marigold. “I don’t like visitors, especially not the ones who show up before breakfast. What do you want?”
“I’m Princess Marigold of Imbervale,” Marigold began, “and —”
“A princess!” Torville shouted. “I don’t want any more princesses! I’m done with them, do you hear me? I had a princess here for fifteen years, and that was more than enough. Always singing, always smiling, always making roses bloom on my perfectly nasty thornbushes. And then she ran away without bothering to scrub the porridge pots! If my heart hadn’t shriveled up years ago, I would have been hurt.” Torville gave Marigold a furious scowl. “You said you were from Imbervale. Are you Rosalind’s sister?”
Marigold sighed. Even here, it seemed she couldn’t get away from Rosalind. “Yes, I am. But —”
“You must be here to avenge her.” Torville squeezed his eyes shut as though the thought was giving him a headache. “It’s too early in the morning for avengers,” he said, turning to leave. “Go away; I’ll smite you later.”
“Oh, honestly! You’re not listening!” Marigold was almost as angry as she had been at the royal steward. “I’m here because I’m a wicked child!”
Torville stopped. He turned back around. “Pardon me?”
“I’m wicked,” Marigold told him firmly, “just like you. I need a place to stay, and I don’t have anywhere else to go.”
Torville put his hands on his hips. So did Marigold. Torville stared at Marigold for an endless moment. Marigold stared back.
At last, Torville sighed. “I suppose you’ll have to come in,” he said, still scowling.
It wasn’t much of an offer, but Marigold took it. She watched as Torville walked back to the wall of the fortress and fiddled with something, cursing under his breath, until a rickety drawbridge unfolded across the moat. A drawbridge, Marigold thought, would be an interesting contraption to make. She might be able to mend this one, once she studied how it worked.
