"Wait!" she called. He paused, halfway between there and not there.
"Did you mean that?"
Slowly, he came back tothere. "It slipped out."
"But did you mean it?" She stared at him, as if she was seeing him, reallyseeing him, for the first time. For three hundred years, he had been her faithful helper, companion and confidant. Everything, everyone else, would come and go — but not Jimson. When had her feelings crossed that line? When had his? They had been together so long...
Perhaps it had only been recently. It came to her now, since all this started, he had stopped calling her "Godmother," unless Rosa was around. That might have been the first sign, if she had just been paying more attention.
Maybe she hadn't wanted to know; maybe her heart had known, and her head had realized that it was impossible and protected her from the knowledge. Because it was impossible. He could not be here, and despite knowing mirror-magic as well as she did, his world was still somewhere she could not go, for it was inhabited only by spirits.
"Of course I meant it." He stared at her with naked longing, and for the first time ever, a hand joined the image of the face in the mirror, a hand pressed up against the surface of the glass as if by will alone he could reach into her world.
She pressed her hand to the same place, palm to palm. "I'm sorry — " she began.
"That you don't feel the same?" He smiled bitterly.
"No — " she replied. "I'm sorry it's taken me so long to notice that I do."
Prince Leopold's gift encircled Rosa's neck under her gown, lying cool against her skin; there was something extraordinarily comforting about the feel of the unicorn necklace. She very much appreciated the gift, although the giver had pushed himself forward just a little too much, kissing her hand and then starting upward before she pulled away.
She had heard of such things of course, but she had never actually seen one, much less owned one. As wealthy as Eltaria was, all the money in the kingdom couldn't buy what no one would willingly sell.
She wondered about the unicorn this had come from. Leopold had said the hair was freely given, which made it more potent, but she rather doubted that he was a virgin. How had he gotten it? Had he followed the unicorn at a discreet distance, picking the hairs off bushes?
More likely he had found some young girl to get the hairs for him. She smiled a little as she shook her head. That man! A more charming rogue there never was. And she liked him well enough — just not as a consort. He'd be very amusing as a friend; he was witty and had a prankster's sense of humor, but was not afraid to turn the joke on himself. However, he was not what Eltaria needed. She sensed that he was cavalier about most things, and not really that good at thinking ahead. He would probably be a very popular King right up to the point that he did something disastrous. She had felt a little guilty accepting his gift, but then again, that came with being courted, and she had accepted a great many gifts by now, some just as valuable.
The only one as practical, however, was Prince Siegfried's gift. And Siegfried's was priceless. Of all the things she had been given or offered, being able to defend herself meant the most to her.
It was also a gift that no one else had even thought of. Siegfriedhad thought ahead; he had seen the blind spot her guards had when it came to the Princes, and he had given her a tool to get herself free. The second lesson had been just as interesting; he had shown her how to pick up something, get its balance to know how to throw it and get it aimed, more or less, at a target. "Even if you don't hit someone trying to hurt you, you'll make him duck. If he's ducking, he's not grabbing for you, he's not chasing you, and he's not firing a hand-crossbow at you."
She was drilling herself in that now, to see everything as a potential weapon. It was going to take some getting used to, and she still had to remind herself to do so. It seemed for Siegfried it was automatic.
And she was also enjoying the quiet moments of conversation that occurred between them. Though they were surrounded by others — and often ended up sweaty and bruised — there was a tenderness and a wistfulness to Siegfried's glances that made Rosa linger after the lessons were officially over. Siegfried's stories about his home and his travels were so very different from hers, and his wry comments were both amusing and insightful.
"Between the two of us, Princess, you did Joffrey a favor by eliminating him. He has been looking for an excuse to do badly," he had said once.
"How do you know?" Rosa had asked.
He had looked her in the eye. "Because there isn't a man born who will admit he had to ask for directions unless he really doesn't want to be where he is supposed to be going. And Joffrey did. Three times."
The ballroom seemed empty now, with only ten suitors left — though of course, all her ladies in waiting and courtiers were still there, and still mingling with the remaining Princes. Things were going back to normal, insofar as they could be normal with the trials still on and the anticipation for the end building.
Three of the five "neighbors" were still in the running. She really did not want any of them to win. She really didn't want Leopold to win. That left six. Karl had been eliminated early on at the dragon trial. Not even his father was willing to protest that one. Not when he had tried to charge Sharpstone in defiance of the rules and had been picked up and dumped on his own doorstep by the dragon, in full possession of not only his own curse but several more. Siegfried; a semischolar named Henzel who had done surprisingly well even in the contests that required strength; Caspar, who was almost old enough to be her father; Klaus, who approached every thing in terms of strategy; Andret, who was here mostly to test himself; and Desmond.
As if the thought had summoned him, Desmond appeared at her side, moving fluidly away from a knot of admirers and giving her a little bow as soon as he saw she had seen him. "Good evening, Desmond," she said, smiling. "And what is the speculation about the next contest?"
"Most of us favor something spectacular — riding up a mountain of glass to fetch a golden apple, or something of the sort," he replied, with a charming lift of one corner of his mouth. "I was inclined to agree. With so much of the competition eliminated, it is a good time to — "
" — give my people something to watch and marvel over?" she asked.
" — I would have said, give them the sort of thing that tales are made of. This will be something that will be talked about for a hundred years, probably more." He raised an elegant eyebrow. "The tale will probably travel far, far beyond the six Kingdoms here, as your failed suitors return to their own lands, and probably exaggerate their own standings." His mouth quirked a little, in an ever-so-slightly-superior smile. "I would imagine every one of them will recount how he was in second place and only edged out by the winner at the last moment by some tactic either dubious or fiendishly clever."
Rosa waited for him to add something to that, and was a little disappointed. She knew that Leopold would have concluded with a crooked smile and "I know I will," and they both would have laughed. And Siegfried would have said something like "Everyone is the hero of his own saga," with a self-deprecating shrug and a chuckle. If Desmond had a defect, it was that he didn't seem to find anything funny. Ironic, yes, or sarcastic. Not funny.
Part of the reason that the ballroom seemed so empty was that there was enough floor space for large open areas to form. Now that there was room to move in here again, the majordomo had brought evening entertainment back — not actually holding formal balls, but rather, evening gatherings with a small group of musicians, so that those who wished to could dance, and those that wished to merely watch and gossip could do that without musicians or talkers drowning each other out. The group of musicians that had been playing at the "dancing end" of the long room quietly struck up the chords to signal dancing was going to begin.