Frogkisser!

  But how could she prevent that? What if it was some future Morven that Rob the Frogger was talking about? It was true she might be a very bad queen if she was not guided in some way. A very forceful way, since Morven wasn’t one to listen …

  “It is only something that might come to be,” said Anya, half to herself, seeking reassurance that wasn’t there. “Something I don’t want to happen.”

  “I understand,” said the Wizard. “But the first two visions? I may be able to assist you in understanding whatever the pool has shown.”

  Anya told her, simply describing the two visions, though it was hard for her not to cry when she talked about listening to Tanitha. She had to reach up and stop her lower lip quivering, pretending she was just wiping her mouth.

  “I loved those stories about the Dog with the Wonderful Nose,” said Ardent happily. “She had so many adventures, and always worked out what to do by smelling something or other. Do you remember the one about the lost sausages?”

  “Not now, Ardent,” said Anya, settling the dog back down and scratching his head. He’d become so excited about the story that he’d forgotten his training and jumped up at her.

  “The Mirror is tricksome, and not always to be trusted,” cautioned the Wizard. “But I believe this time it may have shown you things you need to know.”

  “How does it work?” asked Anya, repeating her earlier question. “Is it because the water is in a dead dragon’s eye socket?”

  “Yes … and no,” replied the Wizard. “Yes, because the bone is a necessary raw material. But the pool as a magical object for divination was made by carving thousands of runes into the bone and investing them with magic. Everything under the surface is covered with them. It took my predecessor and the Seven Dwarves more than ninety years to make it, over three centuries ago.”

  “And like all magic things made by wizards, it is flawed?”

  The Good Wizard bowed her head to acknowledge this.

  “What is its flaw?” asked Anya.

  “It sometimes shows things you want to see, rather than what you need to see,” replied the Good Wizard. “This can be quite a serious drawback.”

  “I don’t think it did that this time,” said Anya. She wiped her eyes, turning the motion into a yawn. “Except maybe the first vision … I need to think about what it showed me. And I need to sleep. Maybe I’ll work something out in my dreams. If … I mean, if it’s all right for us to stay the night here?”

  She was suddenly afraid, thinking of night falling outside, and the weaselfolk that surrounded the Wizard’s demesne. She had barely escaped one of the creatures, and there were dozens out there in gathering dark …

  “Of course,” said the Wizard. “Beds have been made up for you in the library. Guests usually like to sleep there. Very handy for getting a spot of nighttime reading. We will talk in the morning, and you may choose your gift before you go.”

  “Gift?” asked Ardent.

  At the same time, Anya said, “We have to go in the morning?”

  “Wizards may give a quester a gift,” said the Wizard. “If we feel like it, which I do. And yes, you do need to go in the morning. None may stay here more than a night and a day, save they be a wizard or in the wizard’s service.”

  “Says who?” asked Shrub.

  “The All-Encompassing Bill of Rights and Wrongs says so,” said the Wizard. “As written on the Only Stone, which was made a thousand years ago by my predecessor’s predecessor’s predecessor.”

  “The Only Stone!” exclaimed Shrub.

  “Don’t get him started,” warned Ardent.

  “Ah,” said Anya. “So it was made by wizards too. What’s the Only Stone’s flaw?”

  “While it offers the bearer total protection against all kinds of magic, they themselves can work no magic, nor have beneficial magic cast upon them.”

  “And what about the laws carved in the stone? How does the Only Stone make people obey them?”

  “It doesn’t,” said the Wizard. “They were carved in the Stone as a means of ensuring they could never be lost, the Stone being essentially indestructible, unlike paper records, or even ordinary stone tablets. No one considered that the Stone might fall into the hands of evil sorcerers and end up locked away in their fortress in New Yarrow.”

  “Their meetinghouse is a fortress?” asked Anya. She looked at Shrub. “Your mother didn’t mention that. How did you even manage to get on the roof in the first place?”

  “Told you I was training to be a thief,” muttered Shrub. “I’ve got all the moves down, I have. Or I did when I wasn’t a newt.”

  He hesitated, licked both eyes, and went on.

  “Besides all that, I asked around. There’s supposed to be a way in through the sewers as well, but I didn’t fancy that, because the bloke who told me about it said it goes through the sorcerers’ prison, a horrible place they call the Garden, and I heard enough about that to fair give me the blue jeebles. So I bought a ladder from a chimney sweep’s boy and he showed me how to get onto the roof and told me which chimney to go down. Only it was the wrong one, and then I ended up in the Garden anyway, which would have been all right if only I hadn’t got soot in my eye, and on the way out I tripped and fumbled the Stone and that Grey Mist got me. Another minute and I’d have been clean away with the loot.”

  “Hmmm,” said Anya. She looked at the Wizard. “I was going to ask about the League of Right-Minded Sorcerers’ meetinghouse.”

  “Indeed?” said the Wizard. There was a slight smile, just visible under her beard.

  “It occurred to me—while I was in the bath, thank you—that the best place for me to find all the ingredients I need for a sorcerous potion is in a sorcerer’s house,” said Anya. “Or better still, somewhere where there are a lot of sorcerers. Am I wrong?”

  “No,” said the Wizard carefully. “Though you might not find everything you need, that is a reasonable, if dangerous, assumption.”

  “A pint of witches’ tears might be a bit much,” said Anya. “But I’ve an idea about that as well. From the vision. Do you know anything about witches?”

  “A fair amount,” said the Wizard. “Besides what we call book knowledge, my great-aunt Deirdre is a witch. I used to help her out from the time when I was a child.”

  “So I have some questions about witches too,” said Anya. She yawned as she spoke, only just covering her mouth at the end, surprised by her own weariness. It had been a very long day, and a lot had happened, but she felt much more tired than she had only minutes before.

  “Your questions can wait until morning. The Mirror’s visions take their toll,” said the Wizard. “Come. I will take you to the library. I suspect there will be no reading for you tonight.”

  Anya nodded. She was suddenly so tired she could barely stay awake, and staggered at the first step on the way out. Dimly, she was aware of the Wizard taking her arm to help her up the stairs, and Ardent talking.

  “I’m not tired,” said Ardent. “Have you got any books about dogs?”

  Anya woke between clean sheets, under an eiderdown, with her head half on a plump goose-feather pillow. There was a heavy weight on her legs, but it shifted as she struggled to get up. She heard and felt the familiar happy thump of Ardent’s tail upon the bed as he moved off her feet.

  “About time you woke up,” he said. “Everyone else is at breakfast already.”

  “But you waited,” said Anya sleepily, giving him a hug.

  “I did have a first breakfast,” admitted Ardent, licking Anya’s face. His breath smelled slightly of bacon. “With the apprentices. Second breakfast is with the Wizard and the dwarves.”

  “Oh!” said Anya, waking up properly. She let go of Ardent and looked around. Her broad and comfortable bed was in a niche on the second level of a very large room that was open in the middle like a courtyard. Galleries ran around all four sides … and every gallery was lined floor to ceiling with books!

  Anya jumped out of bed and ran to the cast-i
ron railing to look up and down and across. There were four galleries above her, and above them a roof made of many octagonal glass panes set in an iron framework, allowing a considerable amount of diffuse sunlight to shine down. From the brightness and angle of the sunlight, she could tell the morning was already well advanced.

  “Books,” said Anya in a rather dazed little voice. This was the biggest library she had ever seen. It must contain thousands, perhaps even tens of thousands of books. She turned back towards her bed and looked at the closest shelves, those on either side of the sleeping alcove. There were small bronze plates set into the rich reddish-brown walnut shelves, identifying the subject or category of the books thereon. Anya crept closer, as if the bookshelves might vanish, and leaned in to read one of the plates.

  “ ‘Magic. Theory. General. Pre-Deluge.’ ”

  She looked along the spines of the books. Most had titles there: type embossed, sewn, or stamped into their linen, calf, or metal cases. They all looked very interesting.

  “ ‘The Source of Magic: An Enquiry,’ ” read Anya aloud, touching that book, and then the next, “ ‘The Various Practices of Magic,’ ” and a third, “ ‘Magic: My Thoughts and Analysis.’ ”

  “We should go to breakfast,” said Ardent anxiously.

  “Yes,” said Anya absently. She was looking at other shelves. They were labeled Alchemical Treatises: Old and Alchemical Treatises: Older and Alchemical Treatises: Ancient. Moving across, an entire bookcase had only one identifying plaque: Novels. With Magic. Worth Reading.

  Anya was just reaching for one interesting-looking novel entitled As I Flew out One Morning when a slight whining noise behind her arrested that movement. She turned around to find Ardent holding a shirt very carefully in his mouth.

  “Breakfast right now?” asked Anya, recalled to the present. Ardent nodded.

  Anya took the shirt. It was a new one, of fine linen, with the sleeves already tied on with gold ribbons. On the end of the bed, there were more new clothes, all in her size. Underclothes, leather hunting breeches, a leather jerkin with pockets, a woolen cloak that did not smell like old sheep and was a lovely dark red on one side and could be reversed to a dull green on the other, and the great luxury of silk hose. Her old shoes, belt, belt purse, and knife were the only survivors of her previous clothing, but Anya was not sorry. She didn’t miss her old kirtle. Breeches were more sensible for questing anyway.

  She did check her belt purse after strapping it on. The snuffbox and coins were still there. And the small water bottle that held the ex-druid’s blood was with her old clothes. She tucked that in her pouch as well.

  “Hurry up!” urged Ardent. “They might run out of breakfast!”

  The princess got dressed with her back to the shelves, to avoid further temptation. She knew she didn’t have time to read, not if they had to leave that day. Which begged the question of how they were going to leave, if the place was indeed surrounded by weasel soldiers.

  But after a good night’s very deep sleep, Anya felt much more optimistic about that, and about her Quest in general.

  “Lead on,” she said to Ardent. “I was so tired last night I can’t remember how we got here.”

  “Two of the invisible servants c-c-carried you,” Ardent explained, loping off along the gallery. “There are stairs at each end. Come on!”

  Breakfast was in full swing by the time Anya reached the main hall. She stopped in the doorway, just as she had the night before, but this time it was not in awe of the Seven Dwarves. She was a little taken aback to see visitors at the table with the Good Wizard and five of the dwarves.

  Bert the robber and Dehlia the warden were there, with more than a dozen Responsible Robbers. All these latter folk looked rather the worse for wear, many sporting bandages, though at least they looked like freshly applied bandages. Bert herself had two fingers on her left hand splinted and tied up, and was wielding her fork very carefully.

  Anya walked over to the table, Ardent managing to stay with her and not bound ahead, even though several huge platters of just-cooked bacon were being delivered by the invisible servants.

  “Ah, good morning, Anya,” said the Wizard. She’d managed to lose the beard overnight. The others were all dressed, and the dwarves were even wearing armor, tough dark iron mail, and leather, but the Wizard was still in her pajamas and dressing gown. “Come, sit. Things have happened in the night, and there is much to discuss. We will talk and eat.”

  “Good morning,” said Anya as she sat down. “Hello, Bert, Dehlia. Um, how did you get here? I thought we were surrounded by weaselfolk?”

  “We fought our way through just after dawn,” said Bert. “The weasel soldiers don’t like the light. We’ve driven them off temporarily. But your stepfather—”

  “Stepstepfather,” corrected Anya. She didn’t want to acknowledge any closer connection. Even stepstepfather was too close in her opinion.

  “Duke Rikard has been busy transforming more and more weasels, and I expect they’ll be back in even greater strength come nightfall,” said Bert grimly. “I haven’t enough robbers here for a pitched battle, even with the assistance … the redoubtable assistance … of the dwarves.”

  “Can’t you do something?” Anya asked the Wizard.

  “Wizards don’t interfere directly,” the Good Wizard reminded her, neatly cutting the top off her boiled egg. “As long as Rikard’s creatures don’t actually try to get in, I have to let them alone.”

  “The important thing is that they are gone for now,” said Bert. “So you will be able to leave, Princess. Have you thought about where you are going to go? And about our conversation in the stone theater?”

  “About the Bill of Rights and Wrongs?”

  “Yes.” Bert looked very serious. All the robbers looked serious. So did the raven. And the dwarves. They were all looking at Anya—only the Wizard didn’t. She was eating her egg, sprinkling salt on each spoonful before she lifted it to her mouth.

  “I have thought about it, and I know it’s important.” Anya hesitated, torn between a strong desire to commit herself to Bert and Dehlia’s cause and an equally strong feeling that she had to stay focused on the Quest. “I’ll do my best, my very best, to talk to Morven about it. If I survive. But I can’t promise anything more.”

  Bert opened her mouth to speak, but the Wizard got in first.

  “Can’t say fairer than that!” she announced cheerfully.

  “But—”

  Bert started to talk, but the Wizard held up her spoon.

  “No, no, can’t have my guests pestered,” she said. Anya wasn’t sure, but she thought she saw the faintest wink cross her left eye, where Bert could see it but Anya almost couldn’t. Whether it was the words, or the possible wink, or that silver spoon held up so firmly, Bert subsided, though her mouth was set in a grim line. She exchanged a look with Dehlia. Anya could interpret that one, or thought she could. The robber and the raven were not going to give up.

  “Why me?” asked Anya. “There must be tons of other princesses, or even princes in a pinch, who are actual heirs to their kingdoms. Why not choose one of them to reestablish the whole Bill of Rights and Wrongs and the High Kingdom and everything?”

  “You are not the first we’ve tried,” said Dehlia calmly. The gaze of her single eye was fixed uncomfortably on Anya again. “Nor, it seems, will you be the last.”

  “Eat your breakfast, Anya,” said the Wizard. “And you may ask your questions. Danash and Holkern are in the treasure room, and will bring up a selection of gifts for you to choose from shortly.”

  Anya ate her first breakfast while Ardent galloped through a second and possibly third breakfast next to her, if you counted the two-minute pause he’d taken between polishing off a plate of fried bacon and eggs and a bowl of porridge.

  “You’ll get fat,” she said to him as he looked longingly at a plate of freshly cooked kippers.

  “I’m just making up for future lost meals,” said Ardent with dignity. But he di
dn’t take a kipper. Smoothie did, eating it slowly with her face all scrunched up, until the Wizard suggested she go to the reflecting pool and catch her own fresh eels.

  Shrub was under the table again, as was evidenced by the occasional horrible crunching noise as some particularly hard-shelled insect met its end.

  “Witches,” said Anya when she had finally finished breakfast, toast crumbs and marmalade drops just wiped off her mouth.

  “Yes?” asked the Wizard.

  “I remember reading somewhere ‘All witches are cooks, but not all cooks are witches.’ What does that mean?”

  “Cooking is the foundation of witches’ magic,” the Wizard answered. “They cook blessings or curses. So they must be cooks to begin with.”

  “The stories say they’re all ugly,” said Anya. “But in the vision I saw, they looked normal. I’m pretty sure they were witches. A coven of thirteen. I mean, some were better-looking than others, but they didn’t have those horrible noses, and the hairy warts and everything.”

  “Ah, you didn’t see them dressed up,” said the Wizard. “Great-Aunt Deirdre had the most awful hairy wart. She used to put it right on the end of her chin. Ghastly! But no, they’re just like you and me. The tall hats, the warts, the snake-infested hair—that’s all traditional costume. Like my beard, hat, and staff.”

  “And in the stories I read witches are always evil,” said Anya. “But again, the ones I saw seemed nice enough. Hard to tell just from that, though.”

  “Some witches cook more curses than blessings,” said the Wizard. “Sometimes that’s because they feel out of sorts with people and want to make trouble. That kind often gets called evil. But far more often the curse cookers are doing it because that’s what people in their local area want. Supply and demand. They’re not intrinsically evil. Or good. But witches do tend to be good at business. Sometimes they get so good at it they become confused about good and evil, measuring everything only in terms of money.”