Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Fifteen

Franny wasn’t a cruel person. She could be callous and absentminded, but I didn’t think she’d ignored these letters intentionally. Otherwise, why would she hold onto all of them? Plus, she’d completely cooperated with our parents on the marriage, never once complaining. I was the one who had interrupted events without even telling her my plan because I knew she’d stop me. I’d even seen her smile at Kit sincerely several times, thinking they were Brendon.

Maybe if I’d read these letters earlier, I wouldn’t have been so worried about the whole thing. Brendon and Franny would never romantically love each other, but these letters conveyed an open, easygoing personality that would suit Franny’s flights of fancy well. I’d caught glimpses of this personality once his anger had faded, but I had the sudden urge to experience it for real.

I scratched idly at my neck and searched through the letters. I’d been so absorbed in the little stories that halfway through I’d forgotten to write my summary for Fran. Really, I didn’t even know what to say. Half the stories were about his family or Kit—it took me by surprise to see feminine pronouns, but since I wasn’t sure if those were still accurate, I decided to continue referring to Kit neutrally. I had no idea what Kit was quizzing Franny on, so I just made a list of all the details I could think of: Brendon’s favorites; his habits, good and bad; the names of people he’d mentioned.

As I thought of anything else to say, I scratched the back of my hand. The itch traveled all the way up my arm, like little mites nibbling on my skin. The image horrified me as I pictured some kind of Bane-specific pest hiding in those letters. I shoved my sleeve up to my elbow and found no bugs, but a subtle rash spreading right before my eyes.

The moment I saw it, my whole body exploded in low-level pain. If my nails weren’t so dull, I would have scratched my skin off. “Franny!” I shouted, pushing the door open with my shoulder, then paused to scratch my back up and down the door frame. “Mother!” My scalp was on fire. I dug my fingers into it and scratched until my hair stood on end. “Anyone!”

The Good Wizard popped his head out from around the corner. “Can I be of any assistance?” he asked as he watched me writhe and twist my arms around to scratch everywhere within reach.

“Yes! Please, I—” I coughed and choked as the itch traveled through my throat.

“Oh my.” He bustled over to me and touched me before I could warn him about possible contagions. He clasped my face in both of his hands, looked deeply into my eyes, and then nodded once. “I know what will help you.”

I scratched all the way to his guest room. He forcefully pushed me down on the bed, then searched through his battered old luggage.

“What’s the matter with me?” I tried to ask, but the sound was muffled because I was trying to satisfy the itch by scraping my tongue against my teeth.

“You’re having a bad reaction to a potion,” the wizard explained.

“Potion? What kind of potion?”

The wizard didn’t answer. He grabbed a few bottles and an empty teacup from his nightstand and began mixing ingredients together. Then he shoved the teacup at me and ordered, “Drink.”

Remembering the pink tea that had been sitting on my desk, I shook my head desperately. Good Wizard or not, I was not drinking anything else without explanation.

Instead of arguing with me, the wizard placed one hand behind my head and forced the teacup to my lips, shoving the edge between them, and poured the liquid down my throat. I sputtered and coughed, the bitter potion spilling out the edges of my mouth and dripping onto my clothes. Pestilence! Pestilence, motherfucking pestilence!

Finally the wizard lowered the cup and skipped back a few steps, out of reach of my swinging arm.

“What the fuck?” I demanded, panting heavily. Then a pleasant, cool relief spread from my throat to my stomach and slowly through the rest of my body, soothing the persistent itch. A subtle hint remained, but I could now resist the urge to scratch until I bled.

“I apologize for my forceful techniques, Your Highness. It is important to treat these things as soon as possible.”

I rubbed my throat, the skin there tender and raised. “What did you mean? When you said it was a bad reaction?”

The wizard folded his hands in his sleeves and turned on Lecture Mode. “Look at the remnants of the rash on your arm. What do you see?”

I squinted at my arm. The red bumps of various sizes were all vaguely the same shape. “Hearts.”

“Precisely. At some point in the last few hours, you drank a love potion. A quite powerful one too, by the looks of it.”

“First off: why would anyone feed me a love potion? Second: why did I break out into a rash instead of like, serenading one of the maids?”

“I don’t know the answer to the first, but the second is obvious: you are incompatible with the person you were meant to fall in love with.”

I frowned, wondering what that said about me. “I thought love potions made you fall for whoever you saw next.”

“Cheap ones, maybe,” the wizard replied, sniffing in indignation. “But this one was high quality. It likely came in two parts: one for the victim—that’s you—to drink, and one for the soon-to-be object of their desire.”

“And what, we’re so bad for each other that the universe decided to eliminate me by having me scratch myself to death?”

“In a way. This reaction is common when the two parties are blood related. Do you have any secret siblings, perhaps?”

I stared at him blankly.

“No judgment, but if the king or queen strayed …”

I couldn’t imagine either of my parents hiding a side piece. My mother was too absorbed in her queenly duties and reputation, and an affair would just be too much work for my father. “If they were secret, how would I know about them?”

“Good point … then I can only surmise that the one who gave you this potion was Her Highness Princess Francesca.”

I wanted to argue with him, but the tea had accompanied the letters … Not that I believed for a moment my sister would intentionally feed me love potion. Maybe she’d accidentally swapped the cups. “Would the other recipient also break out in hives?”

“No, only you.”

Just my luck. I didn’t really want to discuss love potion mishaps with the Good Wizard, but I did have something else to talk about—they might even be tangentially related. “Is there any way to change the Kingdom Defense Spell?”

The Good Wizard took my non-sequitur in stride. “Not for this generation. Since the other three kingdoms have already married, three-fifths of the conditions have been met. If you wanted to go on a quest or perform a sacrifice instead, it will have to wait until next time.”

Wonderful. “What happens if we cancel the wedding?”

“The spell will break, and every evil mage of our age will know how prosperous your kingdoms are.”

“Is there anyone else Franny can marry?”

“Prince Brendon is the only candidate from Bane. You and Francesca are the only candidates from Woe.”

Dammit, back to square one— “Wait, what?” Something about the way he’d phrased that sounded odd.

“Prince Brendon is—”

“Yes, I heard you, I just wanted some clarification. If Prince Brendon is the only candidate from Bane, how can I be a candidate at all? Doesn’t his gender kind of disqualify me? Or were you just making a general statement?”

The Good Wizard blinked at me, owlish and befuddled. “Why would gender have anything to do with it?”

“Well, marriage traditionally involves both a bride and a groom,” I explained slowly.

The Good Wizard’s lips pursed as he said, “I expected a kingdom as prosperous as Woe to be more progressively inclined than to illegalize same-gender marriage—”

“Oh, it’s not illegal!” I rushed to say, waving my hands in the air. “It’s just … not common. And no one’s done it, have they? For the spell, I mean. All of those marriages have been both a man and a woman.”

“A personal choice, I assure you.”

“You mean that I could …”

“Marry Prince Brendon to complete the spell? Of course.”

I’d been trying to think of a solution this whole damn time and it turned out I was the solution? It would free Fran, and I didn’t mind—thinking of Brendon’s body pressed up against mine, I blushed. ‘Didn’t mind’ might be a bit of an understatement.

But there was no way Brendon would agree. I had kidnapped him, locked him in a tower, and even tied him up. If I were him, I’d choose the sibling who had ignored me rather than the one who had semi-tortured me. Groaning, I put my head in my hands. Can I just go back to a few days ago and start over?

“Your Highness?” the wizard murmured. “Are you alright?”

“Oh, it’s nothing,” I replied, the words muffled by my position, “just questioning all of my life’s choices.”

A beat of silence followed before he said, “Then I will leave you to it.” Without another word, the Good Wizard left his own room to give me a safe space to wallow in the misery of my own dumbassery.