Page 21 of The Beauty and the Griffin

I hoped and prayed all that summer for change. And, sure enough, during the Faraway Castle Cup—the last race of the last day of the resort’s summer season—there was a third assassination attempt. Hardly the change I’d had in mind, but I’ve learned better than to tell the Almighty His business.

A few weeks earlier, Princess Eddi and her new fterotó, a handsome white colt, had been attacked a second time and nearly killed by a hidden curse. Once again, Prince Briar handled the emergency but was again unable to discover the curse’s source. He insisted those first two attempts on Her Royal Highness’s life had reeked of fay magic before all evidence self-destructed.

The Gamekeeper, Pukai, Prince Briar, Rosa, and I had convened after that second attack, agreed that a third attempt on the princess was likely, and eventually agreed on tactics. We first went into stealth defense mode, putting out a decoy public service announcement to guests before we warned the entire castle staff, including the Summer Staffers (magic-gifted teenagers who worked for minimal pay while gaining magical training and experience). Next, we assigned every one of them a detection or defense role according to their magical gifts. The brownies voluntarily used their unique and surprisingly potent magic to defend whatever buildings they inhabited. Weeks of being perpetually on high alert while appearing and behaving normally was a grueling trial for all, especially the younger staff members, but they proved their quality, and it was sterling.

The Gamekeeper believed Her Highness’s attacker must be closely connected with the flying-horse community. But, as Pukai bluntly pointed out, only two individuals among the competitors and their entourages possessed magic ability, and they were both hembez, the lowest level of magical ability.

In the days leading up to the big race, no one, not even the brownies, detected fay magic on resort grounds. However, on the first day of the race weekend, staff members detected non-fay enchantment-bearing objects in and around several of the competitors’ pavilions. Prince Briar confiscated and nullified them all.

But neither he nor the Gamekeeper could have anticipated that one of the contestants, a young gentlewoman with no magical power whatsoever, would toss a simple explosive device at Princess Eddi in the middle of the race. Only after that first attack failed did Miss Raquel Cambout draw a hand mirror out of thin air while flying at top speed. No one knows exactly what foul play she intended because a third contestant deliberately flew his mount into Miss Cambout’s and knocked the mirror from her grasp. Prince Briar demonstrated his worth by quickly capturing and concealing the dangerous fay artifact known as the Mirror of Alviss.

Now Faraway Castle Resort was closed until the Christmas season, when winter camps and retreats began. During the quiet months, its caretaker dwarves, a few full-time human staff members, and hundreds of brownies worked together at refurbishing and cleaning the castle from its deepest basement to the highest tower. To most of the workers, everything seemed normal.

But in late autumn, Pukai hosted a secret meeting of magical minds in her island cave for a discussion regarding the powers and limits of the fabled artifact known as the Mirror of Alviss. I attended the gathering because the Gamekeeper requested my presence, but deep inside, I sensed the inevitably approaching crisis and felt the weight of personal responsibility.

Nearly a century had passed since our Great Mistake. Would the entire world be forced to pay for our thoughtless errors?

“Whoever holds the Mirror can slip it into another dimension for safekeeping,” the Gamekeeper explained, his deep voice clear and strong. “While in the fay dimension it is undetectable from this world to everyone except its most current wielder, who may reclaim it for use at will.”

“If its owner were killed while the Mirror was in the other dimension, would it remain lost forever?” Briar asked.

“Unfortunately, the most recent wielder’s next-of-kin would inherit the ability to reclaim and wield the mirror. However, if the Mirror is somehow stolen from the wielder, it will shift its loyalty to the next person who claims it. Whoever or whatever created the magical artifacts and smuggled them into our world intended them to remain here, wreaking havoc forever.”

A shiver ran down my spine, but the Gamekeeper wasn’t finished. “Miss Raquel Cambout has confessed to the World Magic Council that her grandmother, a hembez, bequeathed the Mirror of Alviss to her for use against her rival, Princess Eddi of Bilbao. The artifact appears to have been passed down through generations of Miss Cambout’s female ancestors for at least three centuries.”

“You mention ‘artifacts,’ as in plural?” Briar echoed, exchanging glances with Rosa. “How many more are there?”

Pukai spoke up. “We don’t know for certain how many there are or were, but I recently discovered three historical records of fay artifacts—a ring, a stirrup, and a lantern—each of them destroyed. How they all came into this world is a mystery, but we must assume there was once a rift between our reality and that of the fay.”

The Gamekeeper nodded, his outline even darker than the cave’s shadows. “The council has ordered the Mirror to be locked in the Deep Vault until the members unanimously vote for its destruction.”

“Unanimous vote? Like that will ever happen in the current Council,” I muttered.

“Can the Mirror be destroyed?” Briar asked, his expression intent.

The Gamekeeper turned to him. “There may be a way, if all of us coordinate our powers.”

After a good deal more of such useless speculation, Pukai finally declared: “The Polyannas Trench lies within my domain, so I shall place the artifact in the vault myself.”

10

BEATRICE

Auntie Bella always toldme that I let other people’s opinions influence me to an unhealthy degree and that I must learn to make my own decisions and accept the consequences instead of living my life by proxy, expecting other people to tell me what to do and then blaming them when things don’t go well.

Which created a quandary, since right there she’d basically advised me not to follow her advice.

I was fine at making practical and intellectual decisions. But when it came to relationships? Not so much.

With my final conversation with the Gamekeeper more than a year in the past, that story was obviously over. Yet for some foolish reason, I kept hoping he might contact me. Sometimes I wondered if I should take the initiative. I could have quit my low-key job and become a nanny or companion to a princess again, or maybe taken on the daughter of a social-climbing tycoon; I’d received plenty of such job offers. That way I could have returned to Faraway Castle.

But why didn’t he ever attempt to visit or contact me? Was he unable to leave the resort? I found that difficult to believe. My one vestige of magical power told me that the Gamekeeper was the most powerful mage I’d ever encountered . . . except possibly Geoff Bryant, aka Prince Briar.

Although, I sometimes wondered about Auntie Bella . . .

Arabella

The council’s plan to hide the Mirror gave me a bad feeling from the moment I heard it. Why I lacked sense enough to express my doubts to the Gamekeeper, I can’t explain. His hands were tied anyway, since the full council had the final say on such decisions, but we all should have been more alert.

---