Page 33 of The Beauty and the Griffin

“Sounds like severe postpartum depression,” I remarked.

Win snorted. In amusement this time.

Score!

“Vlad taught me how to turn the eggs before he left to find her,” she said quietly. “He said he’d be right back.”

“When was that?”

“Right before sunset.”

Which was early at this latitude, so maybe seven or eight hours before Auntie Bella sent me to the cave. I almost broke down and asked Win what griffins look like, but I couldn’t bring myself to admit my ignorance.

During our brief rest stops I caught glimpses of Winifred’s face. She really was deathly pale—I had some excuse for mistaking her for a ghost at first—and lines of sweat and tears streaked her filthy forehead and cheeks. The kid must’ve had a rough time of it even before smashing into the barrier. If the cave floor hadn’t been so sandy, she probably would’ve gotten a concussion.

I might have felt more pity if she weren’t so unrelentingly nasty.

Our journey had a dreamlike feel to it, but I knew it was real. Not even my weird subconscious imagination could invent a personality like Winifred’s. Or glowing griffin eggs.

“Do eggs grow?” I asked after a long silence.

“Magical eggs do,” she answered, then looked over her shoulder, frowning. “Don’t get attached. They’re not puppies.”

“They’re babies that just lost their parents.”

“Babies that will happily eat you for their first meal.”

On that cheery note, conversation died. We were both too exhausted to do more than keep our feet moving forward. By the time we reached another large cave, I agreed to a rest stop. Aching in every limb, I sat down and leaned against a stalagmite. Win built a fire with some dirty straw and sticks she had pulled out of her sling, lighted it with a match that flared magic, and sat down across the flames from me.

Sometime later, when the tiny magical fire had burned down, Win’s chin dropped, and she let out a surprisingly deep snore. Jerking her head upright, she looked at me, but I focused on the shimmering coals. Wrapped in a threadbare jacket she’d pulled from her egg sling, she slowly settled down. When she snored again, I couldn’t help wondering if anyone had noticed or cared when she went missing. Poor kid.

Pity aside, I did not feel safe in her company. I wouldn’t put it past her to pretend to sleep, wait for me to doze off, then steal my pack and the eggs and sneak off to parts unknown. I pulled my backpack into my lap and twined my arms through its straps so that Win couldn’t possibly steal it without waking me.

I heard a contented little voice sigh in my heart:Chicky make Beeetrice happy.

Next thing I knew, someone was knocking. Warm and comfortable, I opened my eyes and sat upright, blinking in confusion. Embroidered bed curtains surrounded me.

Wait. Where was Winifred? And my backpack! The eggs!

I heard voices. Female voices. A door opened, and footsteps clicked across a hard floor, then padded on a rug or carpet. “Miss, I fear we must interrupt your nap if you’re to be ready for the ball in time.”

Arabella

My hasty research on golden griffins had resulted in nothing more than a couple of sayings little better than aphorisms. The first I found was two lines from an old folk song: “When the Golden Griffin flies, everything will be all right.” Nothing useful there. The second, which I found in an old copy ofA Child’s First Book of Magical Flora and Fauna,was more specific: “When the Golden Griffin Flies, Evil Fay Will Surely Die.” However, no one knew which was the original song or prophecy or nursery rhyme, let alone what it meant.

I couldn’t begin to guess how much time might be passing in the Forbidden Lands while we dealt with the first wave of attacks on the resort’s boundary protections. Why the enemy had chosen to attack from the south, where the boundary lines lay farthest from the castle itself, we couldn’t guess. As Kai, who had taken leave from his fterotó-training job to join the defense of Faraway Castle, observed, “If they make tactical mistakes, we’ll let them.” Since we had no way of knowing where the Mirror was, our only option was defense until the newlywed mages returned with Pukai. At present, I was the most powerful mage in the castle.

Most of the guests from the wedding reception had managed to slip away before open war broke out, thanks to brave staff members, some brownie magic, and bodyguard dwarves. Those of us in the defense force focused on strategies for survival and repelling enemy curses.

Our greatest disadvantage was the Mirror’s ability to steal our allies’ minds and wills and turn both them and their inside information against us. Our greatest advantage in outright battle lay underground, where the Mirror’s use was constricted. Most of the region’s many dwarf clans familiar with the labyrinth of tunnels that was their homeland fought on the Trollkarl’s side.

Sadly, the Mirror had already stolen the minds of most of the area’s griffins, several centaurs, and many human mages from the towns and cities at the foot of the mountains. It had no need to enchant our usual cast of enemies since most of the local harpies, ogres, babaus, werewolves, and suchlike were eager to take down the Gamekeeper, who had run them out of his inherited territory long ago.

We did have at least one volunteer spy behind enemy lines—Prince Briar’s sidekick pookah, Bane. Few people trusted a pookah to be of any use whatsoever, but I had confidence in Briar. If he trusted the weird creature, I was willing to give it a chance.

I longed to check on Beatrice, and on my beastly cousin, for that matter, but I didn’t dare butt in and risk ruining everything. My current role was to support the Gamekeeper’s defensive barriers, filling in with my magic wherever and whenever his faded. At some point, if his magic continued to weaken at its current rate, he would be forced to retrench—to draw his power inward to defend only the Forbidden Land, which was the last refuge on earth for many rare and endangered magical beings.

At some point in Adelboden’s long history, one of my cousin’s royal ancestors must have recognized the unique qualities of these mountains and offered them as a refuge to the rarest of terrestrial magical beings, just as Pukai’s ancestors had done for marine magical beings in her domain. Time itself worked differently within the Forbidden Lands, which could either benefit or defeat Beatrice in her quest to figure out and solve the mystery.

---