Kingsley


    The southern kingdom—once Alexander’s home—was as he remembered it. Very green, very hot, and very heavily guarded. It was why Trystan and the others had been crouched in a covered wagon for the past hour, watching the guards bejeweled in vibrant green armor with lilies painted over the front, as they neared a side entrance at the kingdom’s border.


    Normally imprable, unless one had a magic wand and the slippers to match, used by someone who could wield it. “Is there a reason you two keep making eyes at each other?” re tapped her chin, looking between Evie and Trystan.


    “Yes,” Trystan said without exnation.


    “They’re holding hands.” The quiet mouse of a voice came from the straggler they’d nearly had to drag into the back of the covered wagon. Winnifred, the wand wielder, the enchantress’s daughter, the hater of frogs.


    Trystan’s hand was indeed wrapped around Evie’s, his body angled protectively toward hers, brushing his lips against the top of her head, seeming to relish the small smile it brought to her lips. “Yes, we are holding hands. Does anyone take issue with that?” he asked, warning in his voice, and everyone in the wagon exchanged a look before raising their hands in surrender.


    All except Winnifred, who remained distant, inching away anytime Alexander stumbled closer. A new experience for someone as previously charming as he. The carriage halted then, and after Arthur called the all clear, the group of them spilled out.


    The barrier around the southern kingdom was hardly discernible to the naked eye, but the light of day revealed a natural glow around the gate, spreading to the tops of the trees and over the entirety of the kingdom beyond, glittering a slight green sheen. Like grass or leaves, or a—


    Evie gestured to the side gate with the southern kingdom’s emblem on it. “Their crest is a lily pad?” she asked, letting the wagon p fall back into ce.


    “They’re called the Lily Pad Knights,” re whispered to her conspiratorially.


    Evie looked horrified. “No, they are not.”


    “Shhh!” Trystan shushed them, but Kingsley caught Trystan’s hand tightening around Evie’s. “Winnifred. Do you know how to use this?” Trystan dropped the shining wand into Winnifred’s hands, as well as the ss slippers nging together in a pouch. The woman just barely caught them before they hit the ground, her green eyes wide and frightened.


    Alexander would’ve cared more in another life, as another man, if he wasn’t so close.


    Home.


    Alexander was nearly home.


    This whisper of a woman was thest thing standing between him and what he wanted—ironic, since she was a direct rtion to the woman who had fully ruined his life. The girl held the wand away from her face. “I don’t know what to do.”


    re stepped forward, cing her hand over Winnifred’s, then removing the slippers from the bag and cing them by her feet. Winnifred pulled off her shoes, sliding a foot into each ss slipper—a perfect fit. “Imagine unlocking a door and glide your magic through it. The wand should make your enchantress magic easier to wield; it’ll give you a way to control it.”


    Winnifred smiled, small and careful, back at re, but she didn’t say a word and didn’t move her hand.


    “When was thest time you saw your mom, Winnifred?” Evie asked gently out of the blue.


    “Winnie,” the brte corrected, and the short nickname seemed to fit her, this quiet ghost of a person. “She used to call me Winnie, that is. I haven’t seen her since the arrest. We had moved to the southern kingdom and then received amission from your household, begging for an alternative to death. My mother thought something reversible would be a fairpromise.”


    re folded her arms across her chest. Tatianna was ring daggers at her. “This was not reversible,” re said defensively.


    Winnie’s green eyes were haunted. “My mother warned you of the consequences. Enchantments are unpredictable and dangerous, even to the most seasoned.” Almost to disy her point, light shot from the wand in Winnie’s fingers when she squeezed it, and Alexander got knocked back into the gate.


    A feather scarf appeared around his neck, and he red down at it, ribbiting outrage.


    Winnie stared at the wand and furrowed her brow. “I don’t know why, but you look far less creepy with that thing. You should leave it on,” she told Kingsley.


    Alexander shucked it off so fast, feathers flew everywhere, and then he wrote furiously on the sign Trystan had left by his feet.


    Witch.


    Winnie furrowed her full brows, genuinely perplexed. “No. Enchantress.”


    Alexander mmed the sign against his head.


    “It must have been scary, having your mother taken away like that.” Evie steered the conversation, driving with sympathy.


    Winnie shrugged. “No more than your mother leaving you after murdering your brother.”


    Evie gasped.


    “Sorry.” Winnie corrected softly: “You just thought she murdered your brother.”


    “How did you know that?” Tatianna asked warily, not looking at re, but the two were standing close enough that their arms were touching.


    “It’s the enchantress magic,” Winnie exined, seeming to grow even smaller when the attention turned on her. “It tells me things about people sometimes. Like an intuition.”


    Evie took two steps toward the barrier, grumbling, “That was rmingly specific for intuition.”


    “It depends on how open the person is, usually.” Winnie shrugged. “The more closed off, the less I can gauge. You, for example.” She pointed to Tatianna. “You grew up in a home with two loving parents, but you’re constantly petrified you’re disappointing them.”


    Tatianna clutched invisible pearls. “Ew. Don’t do that.”


    Winnie looked at Trystan. “You’re repressed.”


    Evie wheezed into the inside of her elbow.


    “You both are, actually, in different ways,” Winnie whispered. “You are closed off to feeling, and you hide yours behind smiles, Ms. Sage.”


    “Thank you, Winnie!” Evie threw her a thumbs-up.


    Winnie blinked. “You’re wee.” Winnie didn’t seem to have a taste for sarcasm, and that was okay. Kingsley rolled his eyes, and somehow the girl caught the motion.


    “And you.” Winnie turned fully on Alexander, suspicion in her gaze. “You are not all that you appear.”


    No.


    She’ll ruin everything.


    “Well, clearly he is not all that he appears. He’s a human prince in a frog body. Any one of us could’ve said that.” Trystan straightened his shirt, staring upward, body tense.


    “Repressed” was kind.


    “Yeeeees,” Winnie responded, drawing the word out, but she was still giving Alexander suspicious sidelong nces. “That must be it.”


    Alexander snapped his long tongue at her in rebuke, and she stumbled away, tripping over a log, and the wand stretched, light shooting from it. Suddenly, the glowing barrier opened, revealing lush green forest beyond. Winnie’s lips parted. “Oh. I actually did it.”


    Evie began shoving everyone back into the carriage, and Alexander made sure to settle as far from Winnie as possible. There was only one more obstacle between them and the enchantress. And that was getting through the watchmen at Lily Pad Castle.


    Home was Alexander’s echo the whole bumpy ride, until he heard a familiar voice call down to Arthur.


    “Good morning, core healer!” a male voice yelled from outside the wagon. They all fell silent, listening intently.


    “Good day to you, Sir Allen! I was hoping to be in to see the king and queen.” Arthur was smooth, no hitch in his delivery.


    “No can do, milord. Between you and me, they are preparing for the…execution.”


    “That is precisely why I need to meet with them, Sir Allen. You see…when executing one with magical origin, there can sometimes be a smell.”


    “A smell?”


    Winnie looked like an owl as she blinked. “No, there can’t—”


    Four hands—well, three hands and one webbed foot—covered her mouth.


    “Yes,” Arthur continued. “A horrid smell, one that lingers, and I’m afraid without my assistance, it might migrate into the walls, the furniture.”


    “Dear gods. Is it truly that bad?”


    “I’m afraid so,” Arthur said gravely.


    “I’ll let them know you’re here, then. Sounds horrid.” The nking of metal could be heard as the gate lifted, and Alexander couldn’t help himself. Peeking out of a small hole in the fabric, he looked at the ce that had once been his home. The vines covering the golden gates, the small ponds sprouting water flowers, the children of the courtughing and ying. It was a utopia.


    It was a lie.


    “Mind if we check the wagon, milord?”


    Oh well. There goes the whole thing. Alexander would slowly lose himself, hop away fully frog. Maybe at this point, it was a blessing. At least he got one more look at his home before he lost his mindpletely.


    “Of course! But while I have you, would one of you be willing to check my back wagon wheel? It got a little wobbly at thest fork in the road.”


    “Anything for you, core healer!” Several knights stumbled over themselves to assist.


    The back of the wagon lifted, and Arthur swung his arm for the entrance to the castle withrge, silent, sweeping motions.


    No one waited.


    While the knights busied themselves at the back of the wagon, the stowaways all rushed out of the front, heading for the closest door, opening it, and bolting down a set of stairs, shutting them in the dark.


    They were in the basement.


    But they were home.


    Prince Alexander Kingsley was finally home.