7. Four

Four

The Magic of Confidence

L ily jogged through the arched doorway into the servant's hallway and stopped at the door leading into the main hallway. She pressed her elbow against the top of the handle but couldn't get enough leverage to press the latch and pull the door open. She felt the tiny ladybug feet tickling around the palm of her top hand. "Don't move," she ordered the puppy. Just as she went to drop her bottom hand to reach for the door, it rattled and pulled open.

"Oh, I'm sorry," Prince Liam said with a smile.

Lily froze and her breath caught.

She had run into Prince Liam on several occasions, once literally, but most of their exchanges were a polite glance, nod, or smile. It had been months since Lily had been this close to the heir to the throne. And he was terribly handsome.

Liam had his mother's blonde locks, which he kept long. This beautiful morning, his hair tumbled over his shoulders. His eyes were the same shade of brown as his father's but were far brighter, and his smile was always welcoming. He leaned on his walking stick, carved from the bottom to the top with two snakes intertwined.

Lily finally took a breath. "Forgive me, Your Highness. I was trying to get in without losing the dog." She quickly lowered her gaze. She had no right to look a prince in the eye.

"I don't see a dog," Liam observed.

"Oh, that's because I, uh, accidentally, um...turned him into a ladybug." She held up her hands and gasped. The ladybug had somehow escaped to the back of her hand. He spread his wings, and Lily shouted "No!" before trying to catch him, but missed.

The ladybug flew slowly and landed on Liam's shoulder. "Hello, little one." He used his finger to lift the bug and place it back into Lily's waiting hands.

She quickly closed them again. "Oh, thank you so much, Prince Liam."

Prince Liam tilted his head, the corner of his lips curling in a playful but suspicious grin. "That's really a dog?"

"Yes. Well, puppy, really. The one that runs around the barn." She gave a sheepish grimace.

"And you turned him into a bug?"

She bit her lip. "Yes."

"Why?" he chuckled.

Lily looked back down at her hands, feeling a blush creep across her cheeks. "It was an accident. I just thought I could and I did, and I don't usually do that because I truly am terrible at magic."

He raised his eyebrow. "If you keep telling yourself that, of course you will be. I know people doubt me because of my physical...ailment." Prince Liam glanced down at his leg, the one missing below the knee. It had been amputated when he was a child and had been inflicted with the blood plague, and he now had a wooden substitute.

"I don't doubt you."

Prince Liam chuckled.

Lily was confident her entire face was now as red as the ladybug.

"Thank you. The point I was getting at was I think you need to stop doubting yourself." He shrugged. "I will never be able to run, but that doesn't mean I cannot lead. I've spent hours training with a bow so I can still defend my people if the time comes. I have seen you practicing outside for hours to perfect a spell. Perhaps we aren't so different. We both have people to prove things to."

Lily blinked. "You've . . . seen me practicing?"

Prince Liam ran his fingers through his hair, his eyes darting away from hers briefly. "Well...you are hard to miss." He looked back at her and gave her a smile that made her heart flip.

Lily was positive she was smiling like a fool and tried to remind herself who she was speaking with. She had no right to flirt with him like this. And yet, her mouth got the better of her. "You couldn't even miss me with an arrow?"

"I would miss you with an arrow intentionally." He stepped forward and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear.

Lily's heart had never pounded so hard, and she was having a difficult time breathing.

"Your puppy has escaped again." Prince Liam ran his thumb over the back of her hand, drawing the ladybug onto it before he took her hand so the bug could climb back down onto her palm. But he didn't let go. "You would come to me if you needed anything?"

Lily nodded dumbly.

"Good." Prince Liam brought her hand to his lips and kissed it. "I hope we run into each other again, Miss Lily. You'd better take care of that puppy before it flies away for good."

Again, she nodded.

Prince Liam leaned on the hand-carved staff to move out of her way.

Lily finally came to her senses. "Good day, Your Highness." She curtseyed and hurried down the main hallway. But she couldn't resist the urge to glance over her shoulder.

Prince Liam's eyes lifted to hers and he gave her a big smile.

Lily blushed and turned around the corner to the king's study. How could she interrupt a meeting with the king? Perhaps King Barith wasn't inside yet. If she could steal a glance through the door, she could know without interrupting. She glanced down at her cupped hands and then opened them. The bug ruffled its wings and she clamped her fingers closed, stopping him from flying away.

Using her left, non-dominant hand, she pressed the latch and as quietly as possible, opened the door a crack.

". . . the others?" someone said.

"I thought the goal was only to find it, not invade the land." That was Wester's voice.

"That was the plan." She assumed that was King Barith. "Now the soldiers are returning with prisoners, in addition to the king, and not one of them will give up the location."

"What will you do with the prisoners?"

There was a pause.

Lily had no idea what the two men spoke of. Prisoners? Another king? Invasion? She knew a handful of soldiers had left the castle a couple of weeks ago, but she had never been privy to any sort of information as to why. Quite frankly, she hadn't cared. And she knew she shouldn't now.

"We will torture them until they tell us the tree's location."

Lily had been closing the door, but froze. Torture?

"Your Highness, why do this now?" Wester asked.

"Because Sraylin has reached out to me."

"Sraylin?" Wester gasped.

Lily nudged the door open just a little more so she could peer inside.

King Barith stood near the fireplace, a desk to his right, and he had one hand resting on it.

Wester stood near the windows.

The king shook his head. "I received a letter from Yoresh." He handed a parchment to Wester.

Wester scanned the letter. "And why should you continue to aid Yoresh? His plans for the throne are foolish. You're getting the kingdom mixed up in matters that will impact it for generations. What shall Prince Liam do after you get the tree?" Wester stepped over to the desk and dropped the parchment back down on top of it.

"Then why is it you hold on to Lily? Do we not both have plans we still wish to accomplish?" the king demanded.

Lily's breath caught. What did she have to do with any of this?

Wester exhaled through his nose. "Yes."

"Then we can continue to pursue these desires, and even achieve them." King Barith straightened. "When the soldiers return with the prisoners, we shall obtain the information we need, or I will send an army. You can have Lily lead them if you feel she is ready."

Lily closed the door so quickly she was shocked it barely made a clicking sound. She sprinted down the hallway. Her? Leading an army? Why? What plan was it that Wester had been preparing her for?

Not knowing what else to do, and knowing she couldn't barge into the meeting to get help with a puppy ladybug, Lily made her way up to the only home she'd ever known.

The door to the wizard's tower was hidden behind a tapestry of a woman in a white dress standing in the middle of a forest. In the sky soared a golden eagle. Behind the woman in white grew a gnarled tree with branches appearing to grow out behind her, or perhaps even from her.

Lily could often be found staring at this tapestry, but not today. Out of breath, she quickly said the password, "Olak," opening the door behind the tapestry, before she trotted up the spiral stairs.

The crescent-shaped main room opened to the left with a fireplace, walls of bookshelves full of dusty books and rolls of scrolls, a worn rug, a couch, and a chair. To the right were two doors—one Wester's bedroom, the other Lily's. Behind the main room was the kitchen.

At the very back of the tower was another, smaller staircase that led up to the large, circular experiment room. The experiment room had strange symbols on the stone floor, even more shelves, tables, books, scrolls, vials of boiling things connected with strange tubes and such, bones of creatures, and more. This room was one of Lily's favorites because light spilled in from several windows during the day, but at night there were floating lights Wester called whisps. Above that room was the astronomy room, which Lily barely entered unless it was to peer through the telescope and into the worlds beyond.

But Lily was preoccupied with what she had just overheard. She placed the ladybug down on the table and placed a cup over it so it couldn't escape. And then she sat down heavily on one of the chairs.

"Then why is it you hold on to Lily?"

The king's words echoed in Lily's head.

Should Wester not have taken her in? She had no home and would have died with no one to care for her. Perhaps she was more useless at magic than she realized and the king wondered why Wester held on to her. Because she wasn't making adequate progress for their plans? Why would he want her to lead an army when Liam had been raised for such a thing?

Lily groaned and ran her hands over her face. She'd gone from having an incredible day with a successful spell and flirting with the prince to not even sure she should remain in the castle at all.

But if Wester came up and saw her sitting there without a list of ingredients to purchase, he would know she'd overheard them and know she had been snooping. There must have been a reason Wester kept all of this from her.

Maybe the person she should be listening to was Prince Liam.

Yes.

She needed to have confidence in herself, and everything else would be okay.

Standing up, Lily grabbed a parchment and inkwell before traveling up the stairs to the experiment room to begin assessing the ingredients. One thing she noticed right away was that the sage was completely gone.

Her brows furrowed and she opened the next cupboard over, which held the vials of potions she made. All of the healing potions were gone too.

"Why would they all be gone?" she murmured.

Lily focused on the tasks she had been assigned while practicing what conversation she would have with Wester when he arrived.

Sometime later, she heard the wooden door of the tower grind open and carried her list down to the sitting room to meet Wester.

"Ah, thank you," he said when she handed him the list.

"There's one more thing," Lily said.

"Yes?" He looked up from her writing.

She fiddled with her fingers. "I turned the puppy into a ladybug."

The wizard blinked. "Did you say that you transformed an animal into a bug?"

"I didn't mean to. It sort of just...happened. I didn't see any energy sources at all, but I thought of a ladybug and then...he was a ladybug." She led the way into the kitchen and lifted the cup. The bug rested on the side of the cup.

"You turned him..." Wester murmured, stroking his gray beard. He walked over and took the cup, giving Lily a skeptical look. He put the cup on the floor. "Did you try returning him to his natural form?"

She nodded. "But I admit I was panicked, so it clearly didn't work."

Wester eyed her again. "All you thought of was a ladybug?"

"Whether or not I could turn him into one. It was just a flicker of a thought."

He gestured to the cup. "What did you feel in that moment?" He held up his hand, cutting her off when she tried to speak. "Don't tell me. Show me."

Lily looked down at the cup. The bug, or puppy, had climbed onto the edge of the cup and was walking around the rim. "I don't know a transformation spell."

"You do. Clearly." He gestured to the bug. "Lily, if ever there was a time to start believing in yourself, it is now. What you did to turn him into a ladybug was difficult to begin with. Transfiguration spells are difficult and require a lot of energy. You must have either used the source of a living creature nearby or gotten it from yourself. If it was your own energy, it was dangerous but very powerful. Which means you're stronger than you believe you are."

Stop doubting yourself, Prince Liam's voice reminded her.

Lily thought back on that moment, holding up the puppy. She'd been happy, excited to have a companion and proud of herself. Proud...she believed in herself. That's what had made her believe in the spell and therefore transform the puppy.

She could fix it.

She knew she could because she had done it before. Lily crouched and put the puppy in her hand and smiled. "I prefer you as a puppy. I think you would prefer that too." She imagined him back as he was and concentrated in that trust and belief in herself.

A puff of yellow smoke floated from her hand, revealing the adorable puppy. A wave of exhaustion washed over her, and Lily could have sworn she saw green light swirl around her.

Percy immediately began licking her face, unable to hide his excitement.

Lily laughed and snuggled him close, relief flooding over her. "I thought you were going to be stuck as a bug forever!"

"Good. Very good, Lily," Wester praised.

She looked up at him. Maybe she really did have more potential than she thought she did. She hadn't used the energy of another life force. Could she truly be powerful? "What was that?"

"First, you need to eat and then rest. I can see your exhaustion." Wester walked to the sink and poured a clean glass full of water and carried it to her.

She felt the weariness in her bones. She could definitely use a nap. After taking a long drink, Lily ate the food that Wester must have placed in front of her. Her eyelids grew heavier until she could no longer keep them open.

Wester's arm wrapped around her and guided her to her feet, but she couldn't remember how she found her way into bed. The last thing she felt was the weight of Percy curled up against her back.