Beauty and the Magician (Tales of the Red Witch Book 1)

Chapter 20 - Princess general scaryskirt

It had to have been the longest most awkwardly uncomfortable dinner he had ever had the complete and utter misfortune of sitting through. Such a thing must be considered torture and thus should be banned on Landet Gress soil.

Eben did his best to dodge and avoid the sharp probing questions of the queen and the princess, but he did not leave completely unscathed. At some point he managed to burn his tongue on the soup because he was too distracted to blow on it first.

Eventually, he was able to escape and hide out in his guest room until he was sure the house was asleep. With his quartz in his hand, he crept down to Andri's study on bare feet. He scarcely allowed himself to breath for fear that someone would wake and find him and thus subject him to another round of questioning.

He had not known exactly where the study was, but he somehow stumbled upon it by accident. The large room was dark, but a fire charm whispered to the candles had it lit up enough to see around. Eben studied the red leather furniture and mounted heads.

There was a large manly desk that hadn't a single scrap of paper on it. How very like Andri.

Lord Stefan's report said that Andri's clothes were found here indicating that something had happened in this room. With his hands on his hips, he scanned the dimly lit room trying to decide where to start. He knew he would have to be practically on top of the spot in order to detect the magic.

He let out a breath and decided it would be best to start at the door and work his way around the room. He held the crystal and whispered the words over and over again looking for the telltale blue glow.

When he got to a spot somewhere between the center of the room and the fireplace, he whispered the words and the quartz lit up with a dark purple glow. His eyes narrowed as he studied the odd reaction.

"It's not supposed to do that." He whispered to himself. He tried the incantation again and got the same result. Something was wrong, the charm was only supposed to glow blue in the presence of magic, there were no other colors.

But magic was funny like that, sometimes it gave you answers to questions you didn't know you were asking. He felt the same uneasy feeling he felt while running around the cornfield outside Wohnort. He crouched down putting a hand over the spot. It was not part of the charm nor would it tell him anything, but he longed to know what the simple charm and the crystal were trying to tell him.

"What happened here?" he asked out loud to no one in particular.

"Well if we knew, I suppose we would have found my brother by now, wouldn't we?" An unexpected and yet very scarily familiar voice said softly from the slightly open door.

Eben shot up as if he was guilty and caught in the act, well he had been caught. But he refused to feel guilty for doing what he had come here to do. He stood tall as he turned to face the only person scarier than a rogue magician.

Karlotta stood by the door in a nonchalant relaxed stance. She was still dressed as she was for dinner, though her hair had fallen out of it's knot. She had her mother's presence, but the arms crossed over her chest was strictly a Hendrik trait. Eben scowled at the teenaged girl.

"Shouldn't you be in your room, drawing up battle plans or plotting the downfall of your enemies, or doing whatever it is teenagers do at night?" Her face remained calm as her eyes narrowed.

"And shouldn't you be off performing parlor tricks for pocket change?"

Eben scowled at the princess. He'd show her parlor tricks.

She chuckled once before turning back into a relaxed smirking girl.

"You really should see the look on your face. You take yourself entirely too seriously."