Page 80 of Disenchanted

“Oh, for the love of…Casimir, this is really not the time.”

He flourished it in front of him, and despite the mortal peril, Sage couldn’t help but notice that his hair looked even more outrageously perfect than usual, as a singular curl fell in front of his face and he shook back the rest. Typical.

“How dare you address a royal of the realm with such familiarity, witch?” he cried, taking bold steps towards her with the sword brandished in her direction once again. “Kneel before me so I may more easily slay you, with dignity that is far more than you deserve in such a life of wickedness.”

She sighed. This chapter of Lilara’s quest to show that love and magic could never be one had, in many ways, been the cruellest of all. That the handsome prince would find the wicked witch and be the one to end her, the way that most happy endings had to unfold in a fairy tale. But Sage wasn’t afraid of the curse anymore. In fact, she dared it to try. She made sure to bring her face closer to the end of his sword and swallowed hard.

“This magic is vexing indeed,” Casimir said in a low, quiet voice, undeniably fascinated by her. “Making such beauty of a witch designed to trick me, I see.”

“How are you still this much of a nuisance to me, even when under cursed enchantment?” she whispered.

Casimir’s eyes flickered hotly.

She hated to do it. She really, really did. But what choice did she have? She could only deal with one arrogant numbskull at a time. More importantly, it was safer for him to be as far away from Lilara’s echo as possible. The witch was so reactive, so disturbed, Sage was failing to predict what she was going to do from one moment to the next. She would stop at nothing and wouldn’t think twice about sacrifice. Sage had to keep Cas away.

“You know,” Sage said, drumming her fingers on the desk. Magic crackled between them. “Typically, the witch tends to be dealt with by someone far more unassuming than the handsome prince. This probably isn’t a good use of your precious royal time.”

Casimir frowned, lowering his sword. “Of what do you speak?”

“Try reading a book for once, Prince Everald.”

She had him thoroughly baffled. He was faltering.

“You esteemed sort are usually far too busy vanquishing something with a little more pomp and circumstance than the haggard old witch. Little old me? Surely not,” she said, easing the blade of the sword downwards. “You always were such a show-off. Wouldn’t you like a bit more of a challenge? Or are you too scared?”

Casimir breathed heavily as she stepped closer, their faces only inches apart. He gulped as their lips came perilously close to grazing. “I do not tremble, witch.”

Somewhere, beneath the facade and costume and strange loaded tension, Sage recognized the softness of his cologne. Woody, sea-salty, familiar. He was still in there, somewhere. She had to trust her returned magic. She had to trust herself.

Sage thought back to a transferral spell, one that she had been able to conjure back in her brief few days of practising teenage magic. She had been fascinated by apparition as a notion the moment that magic had made itself known to her—obviously. Only a fool wouldn’t be. So she had naturally used Robin as a willing guinea pig. She had successfully managed to send him from the bottom bunk of his bed up to the top one in the blink of an eye. He had approved of the whole thing as “wicked,” in a good way.

How different could it be? Beneath the desk, Sage unfurled a finger, and a trail of burgundy sparks shot out from between the table legs and headed straight down the tunnel of the labyrinth.

“I suspect there may be more pressing matters for you to handle, Prince Everald. Come back to me when you’ve seen to my friend, hmm?”

It happened surprisingly quickly. Sage would have assumed these things would take considerably longer to manifest themselves, that there would at least be some form of health-and-safety hoop to jump through.

But it was unmistakable. The clatter of claws scratching the gallery’s domed castle roof as the beast made its noisy landing. An enormous rib-shaking, clattering thump, thick tail battering the side of a turret. And, like nothing she had ever heard before, a roar so impossibly loud with a sudden rush of heat that both she and Casimir stumbled apart, her clutching onto the edge of the desk and him struggling to maintain his balance. A look of horror painted its way across the prince’s handsome face, but Sage kept her cool.

“I’d run if I were you, Prince Everald. Sounds rather urgent.”

He hesitated only for a moment. “I’ll come back for you, witch.”

He meant it as a threat, but coming from him, it would only ever be a promise.

“I know you will,” Sage replied calmly.

With that, the prince tore back out into the labyrinth to face his foe. People were foolish to think that dragons were not real. Of course they were. She hoped that the one she had transferred in (there’d been several reported sightings at a cave in South Wales in the summer of 1978) didn’t mind her borrowing him for an hour or two. Fortunately, this particular breed was vegetarian, distinctly pacifist and very friendly. Rather like an oversized cat.

Sage had only a moment to catch her breath before Lilara’s form came back into focus, gliding out in a rolling mist from the labyrinth walls.

“You love him,” Lilara said, scornful.

Sage sniffed out a laugh. “Yes. I suppose I do. It’s incredibly inconvenient.”

“That is what you have taken from this? From everything I have done for you? Despite it all, you choose a love that wasn’t there before?”

“It was always there,” Sage said calmly. “Please don’t think for a moment that you had any part in it.”