Of course, no reply is forthcoming. Croi rubs her chest, torn between wanting to leave immediately and feeling like she has to stay.

“All right. How…?”

She gapes at the stone maiden. There’s a spell glowing hot in her mind. A spell that tells her how to make the stone maid invisible.

“If you could do that, why haven’t you told me how to turn you back into flesh and blood?” Croi asks the stone maid. “Oh well, I suppose it’s not that easy. Perhaps you don’t know how to break the curse on yourself either. Anyway, I forgive you for the pain. Let me try this. I don’t promise anything however.” She stands in front of the stone maid, places a hand on the maid’s stone dress that is covered by a thin layer of green moss, clears her throat, and pronounces the strange chant that appeared in her head. It is in a language she has never heard before. Nothing happens. She tries it again. Nothing happens. She tries it one last time, and this time, her chest throbs sharply once before her fingertips heat. Croi looks up into the stone maid’s eyes. She pushes a few potted plants in front of the stone maid, scatters some gravel around the area. “I think it’s done.”

Only, there’s no way to check. No sooner does Croi have this thought than the side door opens once again and the two maids who were scared off reappear. This time they are accompanied by two burly footmen.

“Look, there’s the toffee that appeared suddenly! I wasn’t lying,” the redhead says, pointing.

“The statue’s missing!” the other maid suddenly shrieks. “It’s no longer there!”

Croi tunes out the flurry among the servants and grins gleefully at the stone maid. “I succeeded!” She chortles, forgetting the pain. “Wait till I tell the Hag I did magick!” She pauses. “No, maybe that wouldn’t be the best idea. After all, she told me I am not allowed to come here anymore.” More humans enter the courtyard as she speaks, looking for the missing statue.

Croi leaves the courtyard after promising the stone maid to come see her again the next day. Feeling good about her success with the spell, she runs through the immense castle grounds. She passes pavilions full of people and runs through a maze, leaving holes in the hedges. Finally, she comes to the rose gardens at the back of the castle. There, she finds more people. Courtiers are arranged around a princeling like the feathers in a peacock’s tail. Croi is distracted and still running; perhaps that’s why she runs straight into the princeling. He careens and would have fallen, too, had it not been for a quick-thinking attendant who rushes to steady him. The princeling looks around, as do his attendants, for the missile that almost knocked him over, made him stumble, and, for a lightning second, stole his dignity. They’re looking for Croi.

She stands frozen, like the stone maid she needs to save, staring at the princeling they call Prince Charming, with his blue doublet and the shiny buttons that don’t show her reflection and the white pants that mold his parts in ways that cause the maids to stare and giggle. The air crackles like it does before a storm, and that’s when it happens.