Chapter Twelve

Ari hopped along after Yannick with determination. He wasn't going to be deterred or distracted this time. He wanted to see where the young merchant was going. He hung back far enough not to be noticed, his thoughts becoming grim as Yannick traversed the passages with far more confidence than he had a right to.

When his quarry left the building for the eastern courtyard, Ari followed, squeezing through the door before it closed. What was Yannick up to?

He didn't have to wait long to find out. The other man strolled casually across the courtyard, disappearing around a corner of the building. Ari hopped around the corner as well, only just pulling up in time when he realized that Yannick had stopped just out of sight of the main courtyard. And he wasn't alone.

A young woman waited for him, her face lighting with transparent adoration as soon as the merchant appeared. She was a servant at the castle, and Ari had seen her before. In Violet's rooms, that very morning. Naomi, Violet had called her. Was Yannick involved with her? Was that why he'd wanted to come and stay in the castle? Maybe Ari had misread the nature of Yannick's interest in being near the royals.

In the small space they were occupying, it wasn't so easy for Ari to approach without being seen. Also, he didn't want Naomi to recognize him as the frog from Violet's rooms and get suspicious. Or just squish him. He retreated back past the corner, peering around as best he could without exposing his whole body.

As he watched, the girl stepped forward, sliding her arms around Yannick's neck. The merchant responded in kind, his hands going to her waist, but to Ari's eye his movement wasn't nearly as enthusiastic as hers. Clearly they were involved in a dalliance, but he had a feeling the interest wasn't even on both sides. So why did Yannick allow her to throw herself at him like that? He must have a reason.

The girl began to speak, her tone excited but her words indistinguishable. Ari hesitated, not sure whether he dared to approach closer. She spoke at some length, Yannick responding with a grunt every now and then.

When he spoke, his voice was low and confident, and she listened as rapt as if he were the king himself. Curious as he was about this clandestine rendezvous, Ari began to get restless. There wasn't much point observing them if he couldn't hear what they were saying. Just as he was thinking about edging around the corner, the girl leaned up hopefully, and Yannick rewarded her with a kiss. Again, Ari thought he was a little half-hearted, but she seemed satisfied with the gesture. When the merchant released her, she gave him a glowing smile before starting to walk away, apparently in a daze.

"Remember exactly what we spoke about," Yannick called after her, his voice still low, but now loud enough for Ari to hear. "By now we should be halfway there. If you do your part, we'll be all the way there."

Naomi nodded, her expression determined. Then she slipped away, thankfully not noticing the frog watching her with avid interest.

Yannick emerged in a leisurely way, strolling across the courtyard with an impressive level of unconcern. He was good at behaving naturally, Ari had to give him that. He'd barely gone three strides, however, when a cry went up from one of the guards at the entrance to the building.

"There he is!"

Ari's bulging eyes flicked quickly to the guard in question. He was speaking to another guard, one who seemed to have appeared from inside the castle. A glance at Yannick showed that he'd frozen, his expression still calm but his posture tense.

"He's the one, seize him."

Yannick took a step backward, but he had the presence of mind to realize that trying to escape would seal his fate.

"What's the meaning of this?" he protested, as two guards hurried forward and seized his arms. "I'm sure there's some mistake here. I'm in the castle as the personal guest of Her Highness Princess Violet."

Unable to help himself, Ari let out a deep and disapproving croak at this invocation of Violet's name. It was loud enough to cause one of the guards to glance down at him. A look of confusion crossed the man's face at the sight of a frog loitering in the courtyard, far from any garden, but naturally he didn't pause to investigate the phenomenon.

"You're under arrest on suspicion of orchestrating the kidnapping of Prince Teddy," said the other guard gruffly.

What?Horror washed over Ari. Teddy! What had happened to his nephew? Why would Yannick wish the child harm?

"The prince has been kidnapped?" Yannick gasped, his shock annoyingly convincing. But Ari wasn't deceived. The merchant's clandestine meeting with the maid had clearly been one with purpose, not just a lovers' rendezvous.

The maid! She'd left to carry out Yannick's instructions. Could she lead the way to wherever Teddy was being held? Or do some worse mischief if left unsupervised? No one but Ari knew she'd been meeting with Yannick, so even if he'd been caught, she might not come under suspicion until it was too late.

Ari let out a warning ribbit, but all it achieved was to gain more strange looks from the men now hauling Yannick away. From what Ari heard, they were taking him to the dungeons.

Abandoning the group, Ari leaped into motion, hopping frantically toward the castle. He wasn't the fastest of creatures in his current form, but if he pushed himself, using those powerful back legs to their full extent, he could certainly catch up to a walking human. And Naomi wouldn't be running through the castle. That would draw unwanted attention.

Hoping against hope that he wasn't too late to catch her trail, Ari threw himself along the corridor. He wasn't being stealthy this time, and a pair of servants let out a shriek as he squelched past them. Ari didn't care. All that mattered was the form of the maid, just disappearing around a corner up ahead.

He put on some extra speed, his body already exhausted from the unaccustomed exercise. He supposed frogs were quite sedentary creatures, usually. Not this time, he told his amphibian form sternly, refusing to slow his pace.

Naomi made her way to some kind of servants' hall, where Ari was hard pressed to evade notice. He hopped into the room after her, but was forced to dive behind a row of garden boots in order to avoid being stepped on by a pair of serving men bustling past. Peering out from behind the boots, he saw Naomi approach some other maids. She seemed to be asking them a question, her attempt at airy nonchalance not nearly as effective as Yannick's had been. Her expression changed at the others' response, plastering on a look of astonishment that Ari again found unconvincing. She must be hearing the news of Teddy's abduction. In fact, when he took a moment to consider the room around him, Ari realized that the servants were buzzing with the excitement of fresh gossip. Whatever was going on, word had spread.

If Ari was reading Naomi correctly, however, the news was no surprise to her. Which meant she was neck-deep in Yannick's schemes, and it was more important than ever that he keep an eye on her.

He was just contemplating sneaking closer when she turned away from the group, walking a little too quickly as she headed toward a door on the far side of the room.

Abandoning caution, Ari leaped out from behind the boots, scrambling to get his long legs folded under him again as he moved across the room in uneven bounds. Fortunately Naomi had already made it out the door when the first squeals arose, and she didn't stick her head back in to see the source of the commotion.

A middle-aged man in the uniform of a chef's assistant advanced on Ari with purpose, a large bowl in his hand. But Ari sprang to the side, avoiding the man's attempt to trap him and landing splayed on his gangly limbs on top of a table at which several servants were eating.

They all screamed as if he was rabid, seizing their plates and snatching them away. One tried to bash him with a salt cellar, but again Ari was too nimble. His heart was in his throat as he navigated the perils around him, the unassuming humans ten times as terrifying as they should be because they all looked so huge. The room was a melee of noise and movement, and his human mind was barely able to keep his frog instincts—which wanted to give in to blind panic—in check.

Still, there was something exhilarating about the challenge. And he had a feeling this scene would be hilarious to recount if he ever managed to regain his human form. But first, he needed to catch up to Naomi, and stop her from doing anything nefarious.

In spite of the concerted efforts of several humans, Ari made it across the room, darting through the open door and taking off down the corridor in the direction he'd seen Naomi turn. At the first adjoining corridor he flicked his squat little head left and right, catching sight of his quarry just as she approached a large door flanked by guards.

The royal dining hall! Ari scrambled after her, watching in alarm as the guards let her straight through. Why wouldn't they? She was a trusted castle servant, allowed to tend even to the personal suites of the royal family.

Ari pattered after her, his poor little frog body overwhelmed from so much exertion. But he couldn't stop now. He was closing the gap between him and Naomi—he was almost there. With a final leap, he soared through the air just behind the maid.

With a thud followed by a squelch, the guards pulled the door shut, causing Ari to fly straight into it. Dazed, he slid down the wood, landing on the ground with a painful thump.

"What in the…is that a frog?" one of the guards said, his voice tense. Obviously they were all on edge after whatever had happened.

"Do you think it's Princess Violet's pet?" the other said doubtfully. "Do we let it in?"

"Best not to take any risks," said the first one. "I'll catch it and send it outside with the next servant to pass."

Ari's head was still spinning, but those words brought him jolting back into action. He scrambled into a crouch, his eyes assessing the slightly splintered gap at the bottom of the double doors, at the point where the two doors met. It would be tight, but this was no time to be timid.

Throwing himself forward with force, Ari squashed his head into the gap. He heard the guards' startled cries, but he kept going, his long back legs straining as he tried to force himself through. The splinters scratched at his back, but he felt himself moving. Then, all at once, he emerged on the other side with a squelching pop.

Unsurprisingly, no one inside the room noticed the small frog suddenly appear at foot level. Even though, as it turned out, there were a lot of people in the room. Ari had often thought the dining hall full when the whole royal family was gathered there, but it was nothing to how the space looked now. All the royals seemed to be present—with the glaring exception of Violet, whose absence Ari noticed straight away—but they were far from the only ones there. Servants and guards were milling around everywhere, watching as the family fussed over a small figure seated on his mother's lap.

Teddy. Ari drooped in relief, some of the tension leaving his miniature frame. Teddy was safe. Whatever scheme Yannick had conceived, it had been thwarted somehow.

Ari was scanning the crowd for Naomi when he saw Obsidian, the husband of Violet's eldest sister, look suddenly around. He and his wife must have been called after Teddy went missing, and gathered with the family. Obsidian's expression was confused, and he was scanning the room as carefully as Ari was. Ari's eyes were just sliding past when the other man's gaze found him, and he stiffened.

Ari swallowed, his whole throat moving convulsively as he took in Obsidian's expression. Did he have a hatred of frogs or something? Would he squish Ari?

All at once Ari's overwrought mind caught up, and he swelled with excitement. Obsidian was an enchanter! Ari had been wanting to catch him for days. He must have recognized the magic on Ari, just as Ari had hoped he would. Would he be able to help him lift the enchantment?

Before either Ari or Obsidian could make a move, the door banged open, requiring Ari to leap out of the way to avoid being struck. The final member of the family had arrived, and she looked as frantic as Ari had felt a moment before.

"My frog!" Violet called into the packed room. At first Ari thought she'd spotted him, and he crouched, ready to hop to her, but she wasn't finished. "Has anyone seen the frog I've been carrying around? I have to find it now!"

The room had gone silent at her abrupt entrance, and everyone was now staring at her blankly.

"Violet?" Zinnia asked. "Is everything all right?"

"No, it's not," said Violet, still sounding panicked. "It's not a normal frog. It's affected by magic, and I've been letting it roam everywhere, spying on us!"

"The frog is there." Obsidian's calm voice cut through her prattle, and everyone followed his pointing finger to see Ari crouched nervously on the floor near Violet's feet. "I'd just located him when you arrived," added Obsidian. "You're right about the magic. It's the strangest and most chaotic signature of power I've ever felt. It drew my attention at once."

"You!" Violet stooped suddenly, seizing Ari and lifting him up before her eyes. "I trusted you—I let you sleep in my rooms! And all along you were some kind of spy working against my own family." She sounded choked with emotion, and Ari could do nothing but swallow in another uncontrollably exaggerated movement.

Without warning, Violet threw him. She was clearly still in the grip of her anger and embarrassment, but even so, Ari could tell she hadn't put her full strength into it. He could only be grateful. After a dizzying moment of the world spinning drunkenly, he hit the stone wall with a painful whump. For the second time in a few minutes, he found himself sliding to the floor, his mind hazy and disoriented.

"Violet!" said someone reproachfully. "Even if you're right, and someone has put magic on the frog, the poor creature likely can't help it. It's not as though it understands."

"You're probably right," said Violet, but she still sounded upset.

Another voice cut across Violet's, raised in a cry that Ari had heard before.

"Tiss! Tiss!" Azure's demand culminated in a wail, and Ari looked up dazedly to see Wren wrestling the buckle of her own belt out of the toddler's grip.

"No, Azure, don't put that in your mouth," said Wren in exasperation. "Stop trying to kiss everything."

Ari froze, his body seeming to grasp the significance of what he'd heard before his mind could catch up. "Tiss" was Zuzu's word for kiss? How many times had he heard his niece say it, and still not grasped what she meant?

Slowly, painfully, an idea trickled into his bruised and addled mind. Azure liked to kiss things. Everything she could get her hands on, in fact. When the students on the hilltop had talked about Entolia's princesses, he'd thought only of King Basil's twelve sisters. Well, if he was honest, he'd thought only of one of those twelve sisters. But Violet wasn't going to kiss a frog for no apparent reason—he'd never really considered that an option for getting out of the curse.

Somehow, he'd forgotten all about King Basil's daughter. But she was every bit as much a princess as her aunts.

These thoughts were still coming together in Ari's mind when Wren's soft voice once again reached his ears.

"Yes, thank you, if you could take her for a moment," the queen said to someone, sounding relieved to relinquish the still-protesting toddler.

Ari looked up, horror racing over him as he recognized the maid who was so helpfully offering to hold the child for a moment. Naomi.

Obsidian, who'd crossed the room to speak to Violet, turned to Ari, leaning down as if to pick him up and examine him more closely. Giving himself no more time to think, Ari leaped back into motion, propelling himself off the floor toward Naomi. A few others grabbed at him, but he'd become adept at dodging, and he evaded them with ease. The maid was backing away, hugging the child to her as if to protect Azure.

Ari ignored her, pausing at her feet to gather himself, then springing up in a huge hop, aiming straight for Azure. He landed on the toddler's chubby arm, clinging on for dear life. With a squeal of delight, his niece stopped crying at once, seizing the frog in one surprisingly strong fist.

Cries of alarm rang out from all sides, more than one person screaming for Azure to stop. Naomi just seemed stunned, frozen in place with apparently no idea what to do. Azure, on the other hand, just squealed more loudly as she lifted Ari, squeezing so tightly it was all he could do to draw breath. His frog instincts were desperately telling him to slip free, but he held them at bay, his protuberant eyes fixed hopefully on Azure.

"Tiss!" the child cried gleefully.

"No, Zuzu, don't put that thing in your—"

Wren's alarmed words were cut off as Azure mashed Ari to her mouth in a clumsy motion.

BOOM.

With a shattering crash that Ari had never witnessed with the magic of an accomplished enchanter, he fell to the floor, his form writhing and twisting and stretching. It was a terrifying, disconcerting experience, but after a few chaotic moments, Ari found himself lying on the stone, whole and unharmed and mercifully human.