“That was a long time ago,” she said finally.

“Imagine how differently things might have turned out had you not been lusting after wine that day,” the king continued. “Nothing would be as it is now, would it?”

“No,” she said, glancing over her shoulder to meet his gaze. “For instance, you would not have fallen to your near-death after forfeiting your kingdom to a woman. And I wouldn’t be watching your failure with the greatest joy in my heart.”

Magnus fought a smile as he eyed his father, waiting for his rebuttal.

The only reply was the shuttering of the window, blocking the view of his father’s face.

The carriage rolled to a stop at a place called the Hawk and Spear Inn that, though it stank slightly of sweat and a mysterious kind of musk, Magnus deemed the most acceptable establishment in town. King Gaius, assisted out of the carriage and into the inn by Milo and Enzo, and trailed by Selia, quickly bribed the innkeeper to evict all of his guests so that the royal party could have ultimate privacy.

As the former guests filed out in a parade of grumbles, Magnus watched Cleo look around at the Paelsian inn’s meeting hall with displeasure. It was a low-ceilinged, large room that had many worn wooden chairs and chipped tables at which guests could eat and lounge with their companions.

“Not up to your high standards?” Magnus asked.

“It’s fine,” she replied

“It’s not an Auranian inn with feather beds, imported linens, and golden chamber pots. But it seems acceptably clean and comfortable to me.”

Cleo turned from a table into which someone had roughly carved a set of initials. The glimmer of a smile touched her lips. “Yes, to a Limerian, I suppose it would.”

“Indeed.” The princess’s lips were far too distracting, so Magnus turned and joined his father and grandmother, who stood by the large windows looking out at the stables where their horses were being tended to.

“So now what to do we do?” Magnus asked his grandmother.

“I’ve asked the innkeeper’s wife to go to the tavern down the road and deliver a message to my old friend to come here,” Selia said.

“You can’t go there yourself?”

“She might not recognize me. Also, this is not a conversation to have where there are curious ears likely to overhear. The magic I seek must be protected at any cost.” She put a hand on Gaius’s arm. There was a sheen of perspiration on the king’s forehead, and he leaned against the wall as if it was the only thing keeping him vertical.

“And until then what shall we do?” Gaius asked in a voice that had weakened substantially since their arrival.

“You will rest,” Selia told him.

“There’s no time for rest,” he said grimly. “Perhaps I will inquire if there’s a carpenter nearby who can create a coffin in which to transport me back to Limeros.”

“Come now, Father,” Magnus said, allowing himself a wry smile. “I’m happy to do that for you. You should do as Grandmother says and rest.”

The king glared at him but didn’t speak again.

“I’ll take you to your room.” Selia put her arm around her son, leading him through the hall, toward the stairs, and up to the rooms on the second floor.

“Excellent idea,” Cleo said with a yawn. “I’m going upstairs to my room as well. Please alert me if and when your grandmother’s friend arrives.”

Magnus watched her leave, then nodded at Enzo to follow her. He’d asked the guard to take extra care in watching over the princess and keeping her safe. Enzo was one of the few he trusted with the task.

“What shall I do?” Milo asked Magnus.

Magnus scanned the hall, which also contained a small bookcase full of ratty-looking books, nothing like the vast selection he’d come to value in the Auranian palace library.

“Patrol the neighborhood,” Magnus said, plucking a random book off the shelf. “Be sure that no one has yet realized that the former king of Mytica is temporarily residing here.”

Milo left the inn, and Magnus tried to focus on reading a tome about the history of wine production in Paelsia, which mentioned nothing about the earth magic that was surely responsible for the drink, or the laws preventing export to anywhere but Auranos.

After thirty pages of the dreck, the innkeeper’s wife, a small woman who seemed to have a constant, nervous smile fixed to her face, returned with another woman who was older, with lines around her eyes and mouth, utterly ordinary in appearance, and wearing a drab, unfashionable gown. This must be the woman Selia asked for, Magnus thought.

As the innkeeper’s wife disappeared into the kitchen, the older woman glanced around the seemingly vacant inn until her gaze fell on Magnus.

“So you’re the answer to all our current problems, are you?” he asked.

“Depends what your problems are, young man,” she replied curtly. “I would like to know why you called me here?”

“It wasn’t him, it was me,” Selia said, descending the wooden staircase at the far end of the hall that led to the private rooms on the second floor. “And it’s because I’m in search of an old friend. Do you recognize me after all these years?”

For an utterly silent and excruciatingly long moment, the woman stared at Selia with a strange mixture of fire and ice in her eyes. Just as Magnus began to fear they’d made a grave error in trusting his grandmother, the woman’s cheeks stretched into a big smile, cheerful wrinkles fanning out from the corners of her eyes.