Hopefully the wizard could tell me.
As I walked up to him, I said, “Pardon me, sir—” The man turned around and I stopped short. It wasn’t the wizard and it wasn’t Simon either. A freckle-faced boy who couldn’t have been more than fourteen faced me.
“Oh,” I said, and then, “I thought you were the wizard.”
“Not yet,” he said with a nod. “I just was advanced from assistant to apprentice. The wizard is inside showing Prince Edmond his wares.”
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A goat that was tethered to the side of the wagon bleated and walked toward me. The rope around its neck had tangled around the bottom of the wagon wheel, and it bleated another noisy protest.
I suddenly wondered if this was a different wizard’s wagon altogether. Maybe they all had similar-looking wagons, like police departments had similar cars. I couldn’t remember his name. “Was he here two days ago?” I asked.
“Aye, but he only talked to Prince Hugh then. Prince Edmond thought his brother dismissed my master too speedily, though, and called him back. A good thing too.
Master Pergis was getting ready to pack up and leave the region altogether.”
Pergis—then it was the same wizard. The goat pulled on the rope again. He gained a couple of steps, but bumped into the apprentice in the process. The boy absentmindedly pushed the goat away and returned his attention to me. “If you haven’t got business with my master, I don’t suggest you be about when he comes out.
He’s in a powerful foul mood.” The boy’s voice dropped to a whisper. “He sold his only switching potion and now is wishing he could offer it to the prince.”
“Oh.” It didn’t seem like a good idea to volunteer the information that I’d been the one who’d bought it. Still, I wanted to find out about truth potion and I didn’t know 258/431
how else to do it. “Switching potion,” I said, as though I found it an interesting subject. “When a person uses switching potion, do all of their enchantments switch or just one?”
“All of their magical enchantments.” The boy tilted his head as though unsure why I was asking. “But as I said, the master has no more of it.”
“Magical enchantments?” I asked. “Is there any other kind?”
The goat tried to butt the apprentice out of the way.
The boy pushed him back angrily, and yelled, “Stop it!” Then he turned back to me. “Aye, there’s all kinds of enchantments.” As though reciting a lesson he rattled off:
“There’s the enchantment of wishing stars, and ancient wells, of droughts and potions, of a mother’s love—”
“Potions?” I asked. “What about truth potion? Would that switch?”
He shook his head. “Truth potion changes a person’s tongue. The only way to change it back is to take the an-tidote— blood of a politician.” I put my hand to my chest. “Blood?” He laughed at my expression, clearly pleased to be the expert. “Only a few drops, and it’s not like we have to kill them for it. They sell it quick enough. The problem is it won’t keep longer than a day or two. It’s something Master Pergis would have to make special for you.” He 259/431
cast a glance toward the castle doors. “I’m not sure how much longer he’ll be, but if you want to wait, that’s fine by me.”
The goat pulled on the rope. His hoofed feet pushed at the ground, straining, but all he managed to do was knock into the boy again as he tried to get past him. The boy shoved the goat away. “Let off, Simon, or I’ll give you to the next kitchen boy that passes by.”
“Simon?” I repeated, and gave the goat my full attention. “Wasn’t that the name of the wizard’s last apprentice?”
The boy looked around, saw we were alone, and said,
“Aye, he’s one and the same. Master Pergis found out that Simon had been helping himself to his wares and changed him into a goat.”
Simon bleated loudly and bared his teeth at the boy.
“Oh, all right,” the boy grumbled. “I’ll untangle the wretched rope. Even as a goat you think you can order me around.” He bent down by the wagon wheel and took hold where it had knotted. “It was stupid, really,” the boy said, and I wasn’t sure whether he was talking to me or Simon. “The master wouldn’t have noticed if some of the potions weren’t quite filled to where they’d been before, but Simon took an entire bottle of poison. The whole thing.” The rope was almost untangled and the goat took a few more bleating steps toward me.
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I looked at him with horror. Could this animal really have once been the person I talked to yesterday? I couldn’t detect any traces of a man in its narrow, fur-covered face or bulging eyes. Was the apprentice just teasing me?
The boy still worked on the rope, his hands loosening the tangle. “Even then, the master might not have noticed one missing bottle, but Simon should have known better than to pinch his divining mirror.” I took a sharp breath. It was my fault then. I’d insisted that Simon give me the mirror—but what about the poison? He hadn’t given me that. It had been some sort of love potion.
Then I remembered what the wizard had said when I’d first approached him. He’d told me he was out of love potion.
So what had Simon given me?
I took a step back, my heart beating hard. Why would Simon want to poison me, a virtual stranger? It didn’t make sense. He must have accidentally given me the wrong bottle.
The rope came free from the wagon wheel and the goat lunged toward me. I only stayed out of his reach by stumbling backward. He strained toward me, bleating, then stuck his tongue out trying to lick me.
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I took another step back while the apprentice laughed.
“Well, look at that. Simon seems to have taken a fancy to you.”
Suddenly I understood why. Simon knew if he licked me we would switch enchantments. I’d become a goat and he would be free.
I didn’t bother to say good-bye to the apprentice. I turned and ran from the wagon, the goat’s bleats still ringing in my ears. My feet slipped on the uneven slope of the land but I didn’t slow my pace.
What if Simon got loose? How fast could goats run? I sprinted the rest of the way to the stables.
I reached the doorway and leaned against the inside of it, gulping in air even though it smelled of manure.
The stable boy approached me tentatively. “M’lady?” I peered around the door. Nothing was pursuing me, at least not yet. “Will you get my horse ready? I need to leave at once.”
His eyebrows drew together and he gazed past me to see what I’d been looking at. When he didn’t see anything out of the ordinary his attention returned to me.
“Will Tristan be leaving too?” So he hadn’t left yet. Still, I didn’t have time to look for him.
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“Not right now, but after I’m gone, I’d like you to find Tristan and tell him I left. I’ll wait for him at the place where we first met. Can you remember that?” He nodded.
“Hurry with my horse and Tristan will double whatever money he usually gives you.” The boy’s eyes lit up at that, and he gave me a quick bow. “Yes, m’lady.” He left me in the doorway while he fetched the bridle and took it to my horse’s stall.
I moved farther inside the stable. I was hidden to the outside, but certainly Simon and the new apprentice had seen where I’d gone.
The stable boy led my horse out of the stall, put a blanket on his back, then heaved the saddle on top of it.
In my mind the words “hurry, hurry, hurry” tumbled over each other.
He adjusted the saddle, then worked on tightening the straps. Honestly, horses took longer to get ready than teenage girls.
If Simon managed to escape from his rope, he’d dash into the stable looking for me. How could I fend off an animal who only needed to lick me in order to transform me into a goat?
I grabbed a riding stick off the wall, held it out in front of me like it was a sword, then went and peered out of 263/431