“Enough!” Antorell cried, and raised his staff. Light shimmered along its length and began to gather at the lower end. Grinning wolfishly, the wizard tilted the staff, aiming it toward the stone prince.

“Stop that!” Alianora said. Antorell ignored her. “I said, stop it!” Alianora shouted, and threw her bucket at Antorell’s head.

Alianora’s aim was off. The bucket hit Antorell’s shoulder. A bolt of fire shot from the end of his staff and whizzed between Cimorene and the stone prince to strike the far wall with a whumping noise and a shower of sparks. Antorell staggered, slipped in the cascade of soapy water, and fell over the bucket, dropping his staff in the process.

Cimorene darted in and kicked Antorell’s staff out of his reach. He stared up at her from a mound of soggy silk and soapsuds. “You can’t do this to me!” he shrieked.

Something in his voice made Cimorene and her friends look at him more closely. Alianora’s eyes went wide, and Cimorene blinked in surprise. “He’s—he’s collapsing,” Alianora said in a stunned voice.

“He’s melting,” Cimorene corrected her.

“I can’t be melting!” Antorell cried. “I’m a wizard! It’s not fa—” His head disappeared into a small brown puddle, and his cries stopped.

There was a moment of astonished silence. “I thought it was witches who melt when you dump water over them,” the stone prince said at last.

“It is, usually,” Cimorene said. “What on earth did you put in that bucket, Alianora?”

“Just water and soap, and a little lemon juice to make it smell nicer,” Alianora said.

“Um,” said Cimorene, thinking hard. “I’ll bet there’s a simpler way of melting wizards, but we don’t have time right now to figure out what it is. How many buckets can you get hold of in a hurry?”

“Buckets?” Alianora said. “Two, counting this one. And I suppose I could borrow one from Hallanna; that’s three.”

“And I’ve got two in the kitchen, and I expect the iron kettle is big enough. That’s six altogether; two for each of us. You will help, won’t you?” Cimorene added, turning to the stone prince.

“Of course,” the prince assured her. “Help with what?”

“Stopping those wizards,” Cimorene said. “We can’t let them make Woraug the next King of the Dragons by trickery.”

“I don’t see how we can stop them,” Alianora said. “We can’t possibly get to the Ford of Whispering Snakes before the trials start, and even if we could, we don’t know where the wizards will be hiding.”