Barinon smiled at the look of delight on Hailey’s face. She had been pensive when he met her. He doubted that she was accustomed to change, and things were changing very quickly. Two horses were hitched to the brown carriage. The coachman climbed down and offered Hailey his hand. She shook it and then climbed in herself. She almost tripped over her skirts.
He smiled at the confused look on the coachman’s face. “She’s never been in a carriage before.”
It was not a long drive and it would have been much easier to travel by portal, but he figured that if she were going to be a royal mage, she would have to be able to get around through normal means as well as magical. He climbed in after her and sat on the seat across from her. The interior of the coach was decorated in pale blue. The small curtains that framed the windows had been tied back to let in the light.
The carriage lurched into motion and Hailey clutched the seat. She didn’t look nervous though. She grinned at him and then a sadness came over her face. “We will get them out of the spell, won’t we?”
“That’s the plan. I think I can do it.”
She nodded. “Good. I think that will be best.” She sounded both hopeful and resigned. “You will have to hold my hand the entire time,” she told him. Then she pulled a long glove out of her pocket and put it on. “Then you will be the third person to roam the halls of the castle in fifteen years.”
“It’s an honor,” he told her, eyeing his student. She was a hard worker and she didn’t complain, even when he gave her challenges, but there was something about the castle and her relationship to it that made him a little nervous.
The ride was not a long one. Barinon stepped out before Hailey could and held out his hand. “Take it, to steady yourself as you climb down. You wouldn’t want to trip.”
“Oh,” she said. The castle gleamed white in the afternoon sun. It was beautiful but it was the place where his friends had died. He lost a whole community here. He preferred the manor, despite its lack of books.
She paused before they stepped into the spell and took his hand in her ungloved one. Her hand was small and warm in his. He smiled at her and thought how much Alyssa would have liked her. “Don’t forget not to let go. I don’t know if I could get you out or what would happen to you if I did.”
He nodded gravely and they moved forward. The shimmering spell felt tight on his skin. He pushed down the panic that threatened to overwhelm him. A child’s hand was the only thing that was keeping him from collapsing.
She took him up the stone stone staircase to the upper courtyard. Then she scooped up a chicken with her gloved hand. “I’m sorry, Chicken,” she said. “I will have to leave you inside for maybe a long time.”
Barinon swallowed. She had seemed so sane before but now that she was inside the castle where she had spent so much time, he worried that she was a little unhinged. She had spent the last fifteen years in here alone. It wouldn’t be surprising, and yet… He gasped when he saw all the people. “I had forgotten how many had fallen here.”
“You say that like their dead,” Hailey reprimanded him. “When we figure out how to get rid of this spell, they’ll wake up. You’ll see.” She placed the chicken down next to one of the servants. “Take good care of her, Mandy” she told the woman.
Barinon tried to still the worry that was creeping through him. At any moment, she could decide that she wanted him to be one of the people that lived here. All she had to do was let go.
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She turned to him. “Are you ok?”
“Fine. Just it has been a long time,” he told her.
She showed him the dining room. It was filled with people and the decorations from the princess’s birthday hung limply, reminding him of a day he’d rather forget. Hailey took a deep breath and then addressed the crowd of sleeping people. “I am back, but I will have to go away again. I am sure you can look after one another for me?” She nodded and they moved away as if she had heard a response. She chatted with people as she passed.
One man had a bandage wrapped around his head. It reminded him of what Sequana had said to her. He wondered if the man still lived or if he was suffering longer in death than any man should have to. He thought about how much had changed, how much he could never put back together. This place haunted him and Hailey felt more like the ghost of the castle than a real person.
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It seemed a lifetime ago that Barinon stood in this room. It was the last place he and ring of ragged, exhausted mages had worked their magic. It was the last place he had been where he had a community and the last time he had been just Barinon, a mage who nobody paid any attention to. It was here that everything had changed.
Light shone in through a large window on the back wall. Pink curtains and carpets decorated this place. Only a girl would want such a color decorating everything. The king and queen had given the child everything that she wanted, knowing that her life might be torn away from them.
Hailey held none of the reservations that he did entering this place. She curtsied in the doorway and spoke to her as if the princess were waiting to speak to her. “Hello, Princess Aurora. Your parents have been asking after you. They seem really worried, but I told them that you are fine.” As she talked, she moved forward, walking on the plush carpet before the bed. Barinon is here. Isn’t it exciting that you have a new visitor? He really wanted to see you.”
They looked down on the princess. He couldn’t bring himself to talk to the sleeping child, but he wanted to know that she was still alive, wanted to be certain. The princess took a breath. His heart ached for the king and queen and what they had lost. Aurora looked exactly as she had the day of her party, still dressed in her lavender gown, hair still curled. She was so young and so beautiful. Barinon reached out to touch the princess’s hand.
Hailey used her free hand to swat his away. “If you touch them, they scream,” she told him. “I should have told you to bring gloves.”
“It’s ok,” Barinon said, putting his had down. He thought for a moment. “I think it was just your innate magic trying to wake them. The spell is too powerful and that’s why they screamed.”
She looked at him. “That doesn’t make any sense.”
He cleared his throat. “They couldn’t wake up all the way. Your magic was trying to wake them because that’s what you wanted, but it isn’t powerful enough to wake them up. Now that you are in control of your magic, you shouldn’t need the gloves.”
He noted the pink satin blanket carefully folded at the foot of the bed. “You cover her up at night?”
“I did, and I opened the curtains and lit fires in the winter. It was my job to look after them. I was the only one. I’m still the only one.” She blinked back tears and he looked away, pretending not to notice. She had lost years taking care of these people. Well, maybe not years, but a normal life. Surely people would have frozen to death without her.
“It’s an honorable thing, what you did for her, for them.”
Hailey shrugged one shoulder and looked away. He would not press her to talk about things she’d rather not discuss.
“Thank you for bringing me here,” he said. “I’m going to cast a spell on her now. It’s just a test to see where the bind point is for the castle’s spell.”
Hailey nodded and watched him. She held onto his wrist so he could make the finger movements. The spell glowed before him for a moment and he gasped. A spindle of light reached down from the top of the spell, almost touching the princess’s heart. It wasn’t connected to the princess at all. It was connected to the air, above the princess. That’s why it grew. He knew that might have been the case. He had thought over every possibility he could imagine, tried to understand what had gone wrong, because that would be important in his quest to set things right again.