Memorybound

Chapter 27

It was late afternoon when it finally occurred to Hailey what she had been missing all of this time. "I can't believe it didn't even occur to me," she said. "Barinon would have been ashamed. The piece that has been missing all this time and I know exactly where it is." The cat blinked up at her, annoyed that Hailey had woken her up. She stretched out a paw, yawned and fell back asleep on the priceless tome that Hailey had been pouring through. Hailey picked up the book, sliding the cat off of its pages and closed it.

"Sorry, Widget. We can't have you clawing up any pages."

The cat looked angry. She jumped down and walked to the door, waiting for Hailey to open it.

"I'm sorry, Widget." But Widget had already hurried away.

She sighed and gathered up her books. She had things to attend to, and now that she thought she figured out what she had been doing wrong this whole time, she needed to hurry. The king had been well enough the last time she saw him, but his health seemed to fluctuate.

Remembering him, she took the mage lantern with her. She did not like to have it out of her sight. She hurried up the steps to the princess's room, though she probably looked odd carrying around a latern in the middle of the day.

"Good morning, miss," one of the guards greeted her. He was one of the biggest guards she had ever seen, probably a head taller than Aaron was.

"Good morning," she said, not wanting to pause. The princess lay still and sleeping as ever. The spell that covered the princess was unusual. Almost every spell that Hailey had ever seen was either a sphere or a rune, but this one seemed to be embedded in the princess's skin. She put the mage lantern down on the princess's dressing table. The mirror reflected back the light. "The curse was was originally tied to a focus, and the focus, and the spell that kept her safe was tied to that one, which meant that this one is affected by the same thing!" She was so excited that she hadn't realized that she was talking to herself.

"My lady, is everything ok?" The guard who had spoken before poked his head in.

"Yes, everything is great."

He raised an eyebrow and continued standing next to the other guard. "Too much time by herself," one of them said to the other.

"Shh!"

"Sorry my lady," she heard and then in a quieter voice, "do you think she heard what I said?"

She ignored them. She had gone over this before, but she needed to do it again, from the beginning. "The princess pricked her finger when she turned sixteen. And what did she prick it on? All of the spinning wheels in the entire kingdom were destroyed. How could a spinning wheel even be there for her to prick her finger on?"

The guard poked his head back in. "Did you want me to answer that, miss?"

She waved a hand at him. "You don't know the answer." She paced in front of the princess's bed. "The spell that Isabella cast on Aurora was a death spell. The curse took hold because the spindle was the foci for the spell. Isabella must have brought it to the castle and that's why it was here in the first place!"

"Interesting idea." said the guard.

She grinned at him. "I almost certain that that was how it happened."

"Good?" He didn't seem to understand why that was important.

She looked down at the princess. "I know what we have to do to get you out of here." If she set up a powerful rune and Natalia helped her, they might be able to finally set the princess free, but to do that, she would need the foci of the original spell, and she remembered where she had stuffed it when she was the only one roaming the halls of the castle.