“You’re under arrest on suspicion of orchestrating the kidnapping of Prince Teddy,” said the other guard gruffly.

  What? Horror washed over Ari. Teddy! What had happened to his nephew? Why would Yannick wish the child harm?

  “The prince has been kidnapped?” Yannick gasped, his shock annoyingly convincing. But Ari wasn’t deceived. The merchant’s clandestine meeting with the maid had clearly been one with purpose, not just a lovers’ rendezvous.

  The maid! She’d left to carry out Yannick’s instructions. Could she lead the way to wherever Teddy was being held? Or do some worse mischief if left unsupervised? No one but Ari knew she’d been meeting with Yannick, so even if he’d been caught, she might not come under suspicion until it was too late.

  Ari let out a warning ribbit, but all it achieved was to gain more strange looks from the men now hauling Yannick away. From what Ari heard, they were taking him to the dungeons.

  Abandoning the group, Ari leaped into motion, hopping frantically toward the castle. He wasn’t the fastest of creatures in his current form, but if he pushed himself, using those powerful back legs to their full extent, he could certainly catch up to a walking human. And Naomi wouldn’t be running through the castle. That would draw unwanted attention.

  Hoping against hope that he wasn’t too late to catch her trail, Ari threw himself along the corridor. He wasn’t being stealthy this time, and a pair of servants let out a shriek as he squelched past them. Ari didn’t care. All that mattered was the form of the maid, just disappearing around a corner up ahead.

  He put on some extra speed, his body already exhausted from the unaccustomed exercise. He supposed frogs were quite sedentary creatures, usually. Not this time, he told his amphibian form sternly, refusing to slow his pace.

  Naomi made her way to some kind of servants’ hall, where Ari was hard pressed to evade notice. He hopped into the room after her, but was forced to dive behind a row of garden boots in order to avoid being stepped on by a pair of serving men bustling past. Peering out from behind the boots, he saw Naomi approach some other maids. She seemed to be asking them a question, her attempt at airy nonchalance not nearly as effective as Yannick’s had been. Her expression changed at the others’ response, plastering on a look of astonishment that Ari again found unconvincing. She must be hearing the news of Teddy’s abduction. In fact, when he took a moment to consider the room around him, Ari realized that the servants were buzzing with the excitement of fresh gossip. Whatever was going on, word had spread.

  If Ari was reading Naomi correctly, however, the news was no surprise to her. Which meant she was neck-deep in Yannick’s schemes, and it was more important than ever that he keep an eye on her.

  He was just contemplating sneaking closer when she turned away from the group, walking a little too quickly as she headed toward a door on the far side of the room.

  Abandoning caution, Ari leaped out from behind the boots, scrambling to get his long legs folded under him again as he moved across the room in uneven bounds. Fortunately Naomi had already made it out the door when the first squeals arose, and she didn’t stick her head back in to see the source of the commotion.

  A middle-aged man in the uniform of a chef’s assistant advanced on Ari with purpose, a large bowl in his hand. But Ari sprang to the side, avoiding the man’s attempt to trap him and landing splayed on his gangly limbs on top of a table at which several servants were eating.

  They all screamed as if he was rabid, seizing their plates and snatching them away. One tried to bash him with a salt cellar, but again Ari was too nimble. His heart was in his throat as he navigated the perils around him, the unassuming humans ten times as terrifying as they should be because they all looked so huge. The room was a melee of noise and movement, and his human mind was barely able to keep his frog instincts—which wanted to give in to blind panic—in check.

  Still, there was something exhilarating about the challenge. And he had a feeling this scene would be hilarious to recount if he ever managed to regain his human form. But first, he needed to catch up to Naomi, and stop her from doing anything nefarious.

  In spite of the concerted efforts of several humans, Ari made it across the room, darting through the open door and taking off down the corridor in the direction he’d seen Naomi turn. At the first adjoining corridor he flicked his squat little head left and right, catching sight of his quarry just as she approached a large door flanked by guards.

  The royal dining hall! Ari scrambled after her, watching in alarm as the guards let her straight through. Why wouldn’t they? She was a trusted castle servant, allowed to tend even to the personal suites of the royal family.

  Ari pattered after her, his poor little frog body overwhelmed from so much exertion. But he couldn’t stop now. He was closing the gap between him and Naomi—he was almost there. With a final leap, he soared through the air just behind the maid.

  With a thud followed by a squelch, the guards pulled the door shut, causing Ari to fly straight into it. Dazed, he slid down the wood, landing on the ground with a painful thump.

  “What in the…is that a frog?” one of the guards said, his voice tense. Obviously they were all on edge after whatever had happened.

  “Do you think it’s Princess Violet’s pet?” the other said doubtfully. “Do we let it in?”

  “Best not to take any risks,” said the first one. “I’ll catch it and send it outside with the next servant to pass.”

  Ari’s head was still spinning, but those words brought him jolting back into action. He scrambled into a crouch, his eyes assessing the slightly splintered gap at the bottom of the double doors, at the point where the two doors met. It would be tight, but this was no time to be timid.

  Throwing himself forward with force, Ari squashed his head into the gap. He heard the guards’ startled cries, but he kept going, his long back legs straining as he tried to force himself through. The splinters scratched at his back, but he felt himself moving. Then, all at once, he emerged on the other side with a squelching pop.

  Unsurprisingly, no one inside the room noticed the small frog suddenly appear at foot level. Even though, as it turned out, there were a lot of people in the room. Ari had often thought the dining hall full when the whole royal family was gathered there, but it was nothing to how the space looked now. All the royals seemed to be present—with the glaring exception of Violet, whose absence Ari noticed straight away—but they were far from the only ones there. Servants and guards were milling around everywhere, watching as the family fussed over a small figure seated on his mother’s lap.

  Teddy. Ari drooped in relief, some of the tension leaving his miniature frame. Teddy was safe. Whatever scheme Yannick had conceived, it had been thwarted somehow.

  Ari was scanning the crowd for Naomi when he saw Obsidian, the husband of Violet’s eldest sister, look suddenly around. He and his wife must have been called after Teddy went missing, and gathered with the family. Obsidian’s expression was confused, and he was scanning the room as carefully as Ari was. Ari’s eyes were just sliding past when the other man’s gaze found him, and he stiffened.

  Ari swallowed, his whole throat moving convulsively as he took in Obsidian’s expression. Did he have a hatred of frogs or something? Would he squish Ari?

  All at once Ari’s overwrought mind caught up, and he swelled with excitement. Obsidian was an enchanter! Ari had been wanting to catch him for days. He must have recognized the magic on Ari, just as Ari had hoped he would. Would he be able to help him lift the enchantment?

  Before either Ari or Obsidian could make a move, the door banged open, requiring Ari to leap out of the way to avoid being struck. The final member of the family had arrived, and she looked as frantic as Ari had felt a moment before.

  “My frog!” Violet called into the packed room. At first Ari thought she’d spotted him, and he crouched, ready to hop to her, but she wasn’t finished. “Has anyone seen the frog I’ve been carrying around? I have to find it now!”

  The room had gone silent at her abrupt entrance, and everyone was now staring at her blankly.

  “Violet?” Zinnia asked. “Is everything all right?”

  “No, it’s not,” said Violet, still sounding panicked. “It’s not a normal frog. It’s affected by magic, and I’ve been letting it roam everywhere, spying on us!”

  “The frog is there.” Obsidian’s calm voice cut through her prattle, and everyone followed his pointing finger to see Ari crouched nervously on the floor near Violet’s feet. “I’d just located him when you arrived,” added Obsidian. “You’re right about the magic. It’s the strangest and most chaotic signature of power I’ve ever felt. It drew my attention at once.”

  “You!” Violet stooped suddenly, seizing Ari and lifting him up before her eyes. “I trusted you—I let you sleep in my rooms! And all along you were some kind of spy working against my own family.” She sounded choked with emotion, and Ari could do nothing but swallow in another uncontrollably exaggerated movement.

  Without warning, Violet threw him. She was clearly still in the grip of her anger and embarrassment, but even so, Ari could tell she hadn’t put her full strength into it. He could only be grateful. After a dizzying moment of the world spinning drunkenly, he hit the stone wall with a painful whump. For the second time in a few minutes, he found himself sliding to the floor, his mind hazy and disoriented.

  “Violet!” said someone reproachfully. “Even if you’re right, and someone has put magic on the frog, the poor creature likely can’t help it. It’s not as though it understands.”

  “You’re probably right,” said Violet, but she still sounded upset.

  Another voice cut across Violet’s, raised in a cry that Ari had heard before.

  “Tiss! Tiss!” Azure’s demand culminated in a wail, and Ari looked up dazedly to see Wren wrestling the buckle of her own belt out of the toddler’s grip.

  “No, Azure, don’t put that in your mouth,” said Wren in exasperation. “Stop trying to kiss everything.”

  Ari froze, his body seeming to grasp the significance of what he’d heard before his mind could catch up. “Tiss” was Zuzu’s word for kiss? How many times had he heard his niece say it, and still not grasped what she meant?

  Slowly, painfully, an idea trickled into his bruised and addled mind. Azure liked to kiss things. Everything she could get her hands on, in fact. When the students on the hilltop had talked about Entolia’s princesses, he’d thought only of King Basil’s twelve sisters. Well, if he was honest, he’d thought only of one of those twelve sisters. But Violet wasn’t going to kiss a frog for no apparent reason—he’d never really considered that an option for getting out of the curse.

  Somehow, he’d forgotten all about King Basil’s daughter. But she was every bit as much a princess as her aunts.

  These thoughts were still coming together in Ari’s mind when Wren’s soft voice once again reached his ears.

  “Yes, thank you, if you could take her for a moment,” the queen said to someone, sounding relieved to relinquish the still-protesting toddler.

  Ari looked up, horror racing over him as he recognized the maid who was so helpfully offering to hold the child for a moment. Naomi.

  Obsidian, who’d crossed the room to speak to Violet, turned to Ari, leaning down as if to pick him up and examine him more closely. Giving himself no more time to think, Ari leaped back into motion, propelling himself off the floor toward Naomi. A few others grabbed at him, but he’d become adept at dodging, and he evaded them with ease. The maid was backing away, hugging the child to her as if to protect Azure.

  Ari ignored her, pausing at her feet to gather himself, then springing up in a huge hop, aiming straight for Azure. He landed on the toddler’s chubby arm, clinging on for dear life. With a squeal of delight, his niece stopped crying at once, seizing the frog in one surprisingly strong fist.

  Cries of alarm rang out from all sides, more than one person screaming for Azure to stop. Naomi just seemed stunned, frozen in place with apparently no idea what to do. Azure, on the other hand, just squealed more loudly as she lifted Ari, squeezing so tightly it was all he could do to draw breath. His frog instincts were desperately telling him to slip free, but he held them at bay, his protuberant eyes fixed hopefully on Azure.

  “Tiss!” the child cried gleefully.

  “No, Zuzu, don’t put that thing in your—”

  Wren’s alarmed words were cut off as Azure mashed Ari to her mouth in a clumsy motion.

  BOOM.

  With a shattering crash that Ari had never witnessed with the magic of an accomplished enchanter, he fell to the floor, his form writhing and twisting and stretching. It was a terrifying, disconcerting experience, but after a few chaotic moments, Ari found himself lying on the stone, whole and unharmed and mercifully human.

  Chapter Thirteen

  The screams and cries that rang out put everyone’s previous protests to shame. Ari’s eyes flicked for the briefest moment to Violet, noting that her face showed nothing but blank, total shock. Then he remembered the task at hand, and he spun back around to face Naomi, who was still clutching Azure.

  Ari was still wearing exactly what he had been when he’d fallen afoul of the students’ clumsy enchantment, and unfortunately he hadn’t been wearing a sword on that occasion. But a guard had approached, white-faced with shock, to assist the missing prince to his feet. Ari disregarded his offer, instead seizing the man’s sword and drawing it, turning to the traitorous maid in the same fluid motion.

  “Put my niece down,” he growled. “Now.”

  “I…but…Your Highness, I…” Naomi stuttered, her wide eyes fixed on the tip of Ari’s blade.

  “I know you’re in league with Yannick,” he said calmly. “I saw you with him, and I heard him give you instructions. If you think I’m going to allow you to steal Princess Azure, you’ve lost your mind.”

  Open fear was on Naomi’s face now, and her eyes flew frantically to each of the room’s exits. Guards stepped up on either side of Ari, their faces hard and menacing as they drew weapons of their own.

  All at once, Naomi gave up. With a sob, she curled in on herself, dropping Azure like she was suddenly burning hot to the touch.

  Ari dropped his pilfered sword, diving forward to catch the child before she hit the floor. It took all his focus to reach out his arms to intercept her—his poor, addled mind was trying to tell him to catch her with a flick of the tongue.

  A shudder went over him, and he determined to take the details of his fly-eating moments to the grave. The sound of running feet reached him, and he turned to see Wren and Basil both hurrying forward. The looks on their faces cut him to the heart. He handed Azure over mutely, watching as the guards seized Naomi from either side.

  “Ari.” Violet’s whisper instantly claimed Ari’s attention. He whipped around to see her moving toward him, almost like she was in a trance. Her eyes were fixed on his, and her face was pale. “You were the frog? The frog was you…the whole time?”

  Ari nodded slowly. He could almost see her mind whirring, going back over all her interactions with her pet amphibian. Hopefully she’d remember that he’d respected her privacy. A pained look passed over Violet’s face, and Ari held his breath.

  “I’m sorry I shoved you in my pocket,” she said. “And called you slimy, if I recall.”

  A laugh burst out of Ari, the sound unsteady. He passed a hand through his hair, reveling in the return of his familiar human form. “Actually, you said I wasn’t slimy,” he reassured her. “I think you complimented me on my cleanliness.”

  Someone groaned, but a slow grin was spreading across Violet’s face.

  “That’s right,” she recalled. “I think what I actually said was that you weren’t as slimy as I expected. You were definitely still slimy.”

  “My apologies,” said Ari solemnly, and Violet’s grin became a chuckle.

  “Ari, this is too ridiculous,” said Wren, sounding impatient more than anything. “First a swan, then this? How in dragon’s flame did you get yourself turned into a frog?”

  He shrugged. “I just felt like a change. Too long as a human, you know.”

  “Ari.” His sister’s usually gentle voice was almost a growl.

  Ari raised his hands in surrender, laughing. “All right, I’ll explain. But it’s a bit of a pitiful story to be perfectly honest. I wasn’t even part of some sinister plot. It was all a stupid accident.”

  He proceeded to explain what had happened the night he’d turned into a frog, sprinkling the tale with humorous details in hopes of getting another laugh out of Violet. It always felt like a victory, getting her to laugh. And after all, he’d much rather his story be entertaining than tragic. Now that he was restored to his human form—and after only a matter of days rather than years—he was inclined to focus on the comical absurdity of it all.

  Obsidian groaned aloud when Ari got to the part about the cocky magic student.

  “I’ll have his hide,” muttered the enchanter to no one in particular.

  Ari chuckled, unsurprised to learn that the student in question was known to those in charge.

  “So how did you break it?” asked Briar, Violet’s sixteen-year-old sister.

  “Oh, I forgot to explain the counterforce,” said Ari. “The students went for something they called traditional—a kiss from a princess.”

  Obsidian groaned again. “Foolish old superstitions,” he said. “Why is everyone so convinced that kisses have some kind of potent magical properties? They’re entirely ordinary.”

  “As your wife, I take offense at that,” interjected Zinnia.

  The look her husband gave her somehow managed to be both fond and exasperated. “You know what I mean.”

  “Anyway, I didn’t think I could convince Vi—any of you girls to kiss me in my frog form,” Ari said, hastily trying to cover his slip. The smirks from various of his listeners told him he’d failed. Violet wasn’t smirking, though. Her cheeks had gone delightfully pink. “I thought I’d have to find another way around it, until just now when Azure was trying to kiss anything and everything, and I realized she’s a princess too…”

 

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