Dezmerina was one such sorceress.
Eleanor had seen her but twice before: shortly before her mother’s death and shortly after.
The sorceress now stood on Eleanor’s path, watching her with the hard and unyielding expression Eleanor had seen in her nightmares.
“They are all arriving today,” Dezmerina said, her inflection flat but still sinister, calm but still threatening.
“You are not amongst those required to be here this week.” Eleanor attempted to sound like Queen Eleanor, but somehow managed to sound like a tiny child.
“I require myself to be here,” Dezmerina said. “I am owed this moment.”
“And what moment is that?” Eleanor tipped her chin, trying to hide her worry.
“Amesby has ignored me long enough, has withheld from me what I am entitled to. Your father refused to cede to me what was mine.”
“And what is that?”
Dezmerina took a step closer to her. Eleanor stepped backward.
A smile slowly pulled at the sorceress’s lips. “A throne. Mark my words, it will be mine.”
The air around them began to stir, though not a single blade of grass moved. Dezmerina raised her arms at her side. Her eyes turned dark and sinister. Her voice pitched low, she intoned,
“Whene’er the sun lights Amesby skies,
Her queen will see through pine marten’s eyes.
While battles rage and chaos reigns,
Her life will ebb whilst mine remains.”
The swirl of air wrapped itself ever tighter around Queen Eleanor, squeezing and pressing her from all sides, and her body shrunk with it. She tried to call out, pleading for help from anyone who might be near enough to hear, but the transformation stole her voice.
Dezmerina cackled an evil laugh, pleased with herself and pleased with the pain her curse would cause the daughter of the man who had made himself her enemy. Throwing her arms downward, she disappeared in a crash of thunder.
Sentries were forbidden from leaving their post. The sentry box was to always be directly beside them, the gate to the garden ever behind them. Reynard Atteberry was not one for breaking rules nor doing things he oughtn’t. He was honest, dependable, as steadfast as stone.
He’d seen and heard all that had happened, having been overlooked by Dezmerina, no doubt on account of his lowly birth and place of comparative unimportance. What, after all, mattered a single guardsman to one whose entire focus was on destroying a monarchy?
Reynard abandoned his post that day, violated every rule he’d been taught about being a sentry and a guard. He rushed toward the small creature, its dark fur glistening in the sunlight.
Her queen will see through pine marten’s eyes.
And that was precisely what the ice-hearted, villainous sorceress had transformed Queen Eleanor into. No larger than a cat, but with the proportions of a weasel and the distinctive cream-colored fur “bib” about its throat. There was no mistaking that Queen Eleanor, only a month on the throne, had been transformed into a pine marten.
How the curse could be undone, Reynard knew not.
But he knew this: he had sworn to safeguard his queen, and he would do so at all costs.
Chapter 3
As a general rule, Móirín avoided the blue lanterns that illuminated London and the constables who plied their trades in the buildings those lanterns demarcated. But sometimes she couldn’t avoid it. The DPS was scattered and in danger, and they needed help.
Fortunately for them all, they had long since claimed the friendship of a police constable who had proven himself both competent and discreet. She needed both traits at that moment—no matter the risk. So long as they weren’t truly friends but also weren’t actually enemies, he was unlikely to learn too much about her or dig too deeply into her past. And that was crucial.
Yet, there she was, stepping into the station where she knew he would be working that night, about to do something ridiculously dangerous: talk at length about criminals and crimes with a man who could ruin her life if he ever pieced together that her past touched on both topics.
There were two men in the room when she stepped through the door of the station. The one that wasn’t Parkington was likely the sergeant in charge. He had his nose buried in Mr. King’s latest. Móirín herself was penning a serial story, something she’d done in secret for years. She was starting to see her newest, written under the name Chauncey Finnegan, in hands around the city. ’Twas a fine feeling, that.
“Hello there, miss,” said the one she suspected was the sergeant. “What can we do for you?” His tone was congenial, but his gaze was a little warm. Not so much that she felt uncomfortable or threatened, though heaven knew a great many men managed to give that impression. His look was more a friendliness mixed with appreciation for a pretty face.
“I’d like to have a word with your constable, here.” She nodded toward Parkington.
“Is that word going to be an appropriate one?” Parkington drawled, amusement in his eyes.
“That depends on whether or not you learn rather suddenly how to behave.”
He was terribly fun to banter with. She looked forward to it every time she saw him. And, though she knew ’twas a fair risk, she sometimes went out of her way to gab with him when they were in company. A fool she was at times, no denying that.
A smile spread over the sergeant’s face. “As this seems a personal matter more than a police one, I’ll leave you to it, Parkington.”
“Thank you.” Móirín was tempted to correct him, to insist it was a police matter, but she was willing to let the sergeant think that she and Parkington were sweet on each other if it meant she could manage this business without drawing too much notice.
Parkington sauntered over. He had a way of moving sometimes that spoke of arrogance yet undermined it at the same time. He poked at her every chance he got, and he seemed to enjoy doing it. Heaven knew, he made sparring a great deal of fun.
“What is it you’ve come to tell me?” he asked. “I can’t think of anything I’ve done to earn your ire, and I can’t imagine you’ve come to say nice things about me.”
“I’m not so vicious as all that,” she insisted with a smile. “I can’t remember the last time I tracked down someone specifically so I could say unflattering things about them. When they wander across my path, certainly. But only if they deserve it.”
“And you seem to think I often deserve it,” he said dryly, still not looking truly offended.
“That sounds like something you ought to work on,” she said with a shrug.