Cally woke up bound. She blinked a little, unnerved at the situation before it actually registered, and then panic clawed at her, the bindings feeling all the more tighter every second–

The door pushed open, the sparkling woman nudging it with her foot, her hands busy holding a tray of food.

Cally didn't know what was odder – the fact that her kidnapper was feeding her (and, from the looks of it, actually good food, considering the bread seemed fresh and the stew steaming), or that she was actually lobbing it around like a normal person when Cally distinctly remembered what had happened.

Her panic fled in favor of curiosity. “Why don't you use magic?” She asked immediately.

The woman looked up, her strangely familiar eyes meeting Cally's with almost-surprise, then complete resignation, which was actually just as interesting as the magic. “Of course you think magic would be an answer to everything,” She said.

It didn't sound like a compliment.

“Isn't it?” Cally asked, wishing she could cross her arms to show her irritation. Since she couldn't, she settled for a pout that she was sure came across as annoyed and not the cute whatever Dimone had said it was the last time around. “It's supposed to be magic.”

The woman continued to look annoyed. “If she’d only allowed–” She grumbled, the rest of her words even more mumbled than the the first few, basically impossible to understand.

“Who?” Cally asked.

The woman shook her head. “No,” She said. “Eat.” She put the tray on the table in front of Cally – a table she hadn't, in fact, noticed, mostly because she'd been too busy panicking and then too busy being curious.

She looked around this time, noticing the small window perched high on the wall, the tall ceiling, the barely furnished room. She was bound in a chair to the side, in fact… and there was a bed in the corner.

The stranger part? It didn't seem like a bad quality bed. And Cally should know; she'd slept on one of the worse mattresses ever that time she and Dimone had gone out. This one actually seemed close enough to the one back home.

How did a witch afford such a thing?

Wait, never mind, stupid question. She was a witch, she could magic it up.

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Which brought her right back to where she'd started. “If you think I don't know enough, tell me,” Cally said, because magic was interesting.

The woman stared at Cally deadpan, but her eyes, glittering with irritated amusement, gave her away. “I kidnapped you,” She pointed out. “I'm the one who is in control, sweetling, not you.”

Cally wrinkled her nose. “‘Sweetling’?”

“Eat,” The woman echoed.

“I cannot,” Cally told her. “You have chained me, if you might recall.”

“Well, you're certainly just as dramatic,” Her kidnapper said, just a smidge more loudly than before.

“As who?”

The woman narrowed her eyes, then stepped back and waved her hands.

The ropes – not chains – pooled around Cally's feet, her hands finally free. She pulled them forward, opening and closing her fists. “I'm not gonna hit you,” She said, though that wasn't as obvious in retrospect.

The woman just raised her eyebrows. “I never imagined you could,” She chided.

Cally felt embarrassment spike. Before she could speak, though, the woman continued.

“Since you are royalty, it serves me well to afford you the minimum service.” She smiled widely and it was just wicked enough to remind Cally she wasn't, in fact, a guest. “But, of course, I will have what I need, sweetling. And since you were kind enough to leave the premises of the Palace wards, well. It would have criminal of me not to try, wouldn't it, sweetling?”

Cally flinched, but even that couldn't stop her from asking (yet again), “What is with the ‘Sweetling’?”

The woman's smile fell, and she turned on her feet and marched out the door, grumbling something under her breath that Cally definitely couldn't hear.

Right.

Cally winced as she wondered what her brother would have said to her.

“Don’t anger witches who could potentially kill you!”

Well, sorry Dimone, She replied in her mind. You're just a couple of seconds late to that party.

Sighing, Cally turned to look at her food, wondered whether she ought to risk it, then remembered she was already at the mercy of the woman – what was a bit of food she'd made?

It was not the worst decision she'd ever made.

The woman had nothing on the Palace chef, of course, but the stew was pleasantly spiced and consistently warm. And, most importantly, the meat didn't overpower the taste.

Cally smiled despite the reality of her situation and dug in happily. At least this wasn't steak, right?