She almost meant it. There was enough truth behind the words to make it so. But fate had decreed long ago that it could never be. Her hatred of Holiday, so obsessive a presence, so monstrous and driving, had determined that it must be otherwise.
Mistaya’s eyes dropped hesitantly. “I will come back to visit you. When it is safe to do so.”
Nightshade’s smile was cool and fixed. “That time may come to pass sooner than you think. I have arranged for Rydall to withdraw his challenge to your father. He will be here when your father arrives. Once he is gone from Landover, there no longer need be any barriers between us. Your father and mother will agree, I am sure.”
Mistaya’s brow wrinkled. “Rydall will withdraw? For good? He has given up completely?”
“I have persuaded him it is best for all concerned.” Nightshade’s eyes narrowed. “Magic can accomplish anything. This is what I have tried to teach you.”
Mistaya looked down at her clothes and brushed at them while she spoke. “I have learned a lot from you,” she whispered.
“You were a good student,” Nightshade praised. “You have great talent. Do not forget that I first told you so, that I revealed to you what no one else would, that I helped you discover who you really are. No one else would have done that for you. Only me.”
There was a moment of awkward silence. Nightshade could feel a shift in the balance of things. “I have something for you,” she said to the girl.
Mistaya’s eyes lifted. Nightshade reached down into her robes and brought forth a silver chain and pendant. The pendant was carved in the shape of a rose, the petals carefully detailed, the stem and thorns intricately worked into the metal. She took the chain and pendant and placed them about Mistaya’s neck.
“There,” she said, stepping back. “A gift to remember me by. So long as you wear it, you will never forget our time together.”
Mistaya lifted the pendant from her breast and held it gently between her fingers. There was surprise and gratitude in her green eyes. Her child’s face shone. “It is beautiful, Nightshade. Thank you very much. I shall wear it always, I promise.”
A handful of hours will be enough, the witch thought to herself, keeping her smile carefully in place. Long enough to meet your loving father and embrace him one final time. Long enough for the pendant’s hidden magic to cause the rose thorns to prick the play-King’s skin and for their deadly poison to seep into his body. You can do what you wish with my gift after that. After it has served its purpose.
After you have served yours.
* * *
Questor Thews came out of the light of his magic in a wash of dizziness that very nearly toppled him. He staggered momentarily as the brightness faded, trying to gain his balance. Then, finding his feet on solid ground once more, he steadied himself, blinked away the last of his discomfort, and took a quick measure of his surroundings. To his relief he discovered that he was back in Landover. A scattering of pale moons dotted the midday sky, visible through the heavy screen of tree limbs. Stalks of Bonnie Blue poked out of scrub and from between moss-covered trunks. Familiar smells reached out to him. There was no mistaking any of it. But despite being back in Landover, he was no longer in the lake country. The look of things was all wrong for that. He was somewhere else, somewhere farther north…
“Jumping junipers, that is just about enough of that!” an irate Poggwydd snapped, grabbing a tight hold of Questor’s sleeve. The wizard jumped at the unexpected contact. “I don’t know what you did to get us back here, but I believe I’ll simply walk next time! Next time, did I say? Bite my tongue! Next time? Beat me with a switch if there’s ever a next time! Hah! Not likely! Not for this fellow!”
Scrunching up his face as if to cause his features to disappear completely, he released Questor and wheeled away in a snit. “Good day to you, sir! Good day, good day!” Then he stopped dead in his tracks. “Gracious me and mercy on us all, what’s happened to him?”