cast a glance toward the castle doors. “I’m not sure how much longer he’ll be, but if you want to wait, that’s fine by me.”

The goat pulled on the rope. His hoofed feet pushed at the ground, straining, but all he managed to do was knock into the boy again as he tried to get past him. The boy shoved the goat away. “Let off, Simon, or I’ll give you to the next kitchen boy that passes by.”

“Simon?” I repeated, and gave the goat my full attention. “Wasn’t that the name of the wizard’s last apprentice?”

The boy looked around, saw we were alone, and said,

“Aye, he’s one and the same. Master Pergis found out that Simon had been helping himself to his wares and changed him into a goat.”

Simon bleated loudly and bared his teeth at the boy.

“Oh, all right,” the boy grumbled. “I’ll untangle the wretched rope. Even as a goat you think you can order me around.” He bent down by the wagon wheel and took hold where it had knotted. “It was stupid, really,” the boy said, and I wasn’t sure whether he was talking to me or Simon. “The master wouldn’t have noticed if some of the potions weren’t quite filled to where they’d been before, but Simon took an entire bottle of poison. The whole thing.” The rope was almost untangled and the goat took a few more bleating steps toward me.

260/431

I looked at him with horror. Could this animal really have once been the person I talked to yesterday? I couldn’t detect any traces of a man in its narrow, fur-covered face or bulging eyes. Was the apprentice just teasing me?

The boy still worked on the rope, his hands loosening the tangle. “Even then, the master might not have noticed one missing bottle, but Simon should have known better than to pinch his divining mirror.” I took a sharp breath. It was my fault then. I’d insisted that Simon give me the mirror—but what about the poison? He hadn’t given me that. It had been some sort of love potion.

Then I remembered what the wizard had said when I’d first approached him. He’d told me he was out of love potion.

So what had Simon given me?

I took a step back, my heart beating hard. Why would Simon want to poison me, a virtual stranger? It didn’t make sense. He must have accidentally given me the wrong bottle.

The rope came free from the wagon wheel and the goat lunged toward me. I only stayed out of his reach by stumbling backward. He strained toward me, bleating, then stuck his tongue out trying to lick me.

261/431

I took another step back while the apprentice laughed.

“Well, look at that. Simon seems to have taken a fancy to you.”

Suddenly I understood why. Simon knew if he licked me we would switch enchantments. I’d become a goat and he would be free.

I didn’t bother to say good-bye to the apprentice. I turned and ran from the wagon, the goat’s bleats still ringing in my ears. My feet slipped on the uneven slope of the land but I didn’t slow my pace.

What if Simon got loose? How fast could goats run? I sprinted the rest of the way to the stables.

I reached the doorway and leaned against the inside of it, gulping in air even though it smelled of manure.

The stable boy approached me tentatively. “M’lady?” I peered around the door. Nothing was pursuing me, at least not yet. “Will you get my horse ready? I need to leave at once.”

His eyebrows drew together and he gazed past me to see what I’d been looking at. When he didn’t see anything out of the ordinary his attention returned to me.

“Will Tristan be leaving too?” So he hadn’t left yet. Still, I didn’t have time to look for him.

262/431

“Not right now, but after I’m gone, I’d like you to find Tristan and tell him I left. I’ll wait for him at the place where we first met. Can you remember that?” He nodded.

“Hurry with my horse and Tristan will double whatever money he usually gives you.” The boy’s eyes lit up at that, and he gave me a quick bow. “Yes, m’lady.” He left me in the doorway while he fetched the bridle and took it to my horse’s stall.

I moved farther inside the stable. I was hidden to the outside, but certainly Simon and the new apprentice had seen where I’d gone.

The stable boy led my horse out of the stall, put a blanket on his back, then heaved the saddle on top of it.

In my mind the words “hurry, hurry, hurry” tumbled over each other.

He adjusted the saddle, then worked on tightening the straps. Honestly, horses took longer to get ready than teenage girls.

If Simon managed to escape from his rope, he’d dash into the stable looking for me. How could I fend off an animal who only needed to lick me in order to transform me into a goat?

I grabbed a riding stick off the wall, held it out in front of me like it was a sword, then went and peered out of 263/431

the door again. I could see the wagon plainly enough, but I didn’t see the apprentice or the goat.

“M’lady?”

The stable boy’s voice made me jump. I turned and he peered at me with a questioning expression. “M’lady, why are you holding the riding crop so?”

“Just in case I’m attacked by a goat.” His eyebrows drew together but he didn’t speak.

“I have a fear of goats,” I said.

The stable boy proved not to be the Black Knight, because my tongue did not burn out of my mouth. Still, as I climbed onto my horse—it was finally ready—I chastised myself for slipping up and lying. I had to be more careful about that.

My horse trotted out of the stable and across the ground toward the gate. As I passed by, I looked over my shoulder at the wagon. The apprentice was nowhere in sight, but Simon stood by the side of the wagon, the rope in his mouth and his jaw going in circles. He was trying to chew through it.

I knew he wouldn’t be able to catch the horse, and I was too high up for him to touch anyway, but I wanted to be as far away from him as possible. As I rode out of the castle I became more and more convinced that Simon had given me the poison on purpose.

Chapter 18

I didn’t let my horse stop and meander along the trail this time, and perhaps the horse sensed my urgency, because I only had to spur her on a few times. Before long the path led us into the forest. When I’d ridden through last time, the trees had seemed fresh and welcoming, like a national park or a summer camp. Now the bird-calls set me on edge. I kept thinking of how Tristan had held his sword across his lap as we’d ridden, and the way his eyes scanned the trees.

I scanned them too, unsure of what I was looking for.

The wind through the trees set off hundreds of leaves that whispered in my direction.

Eight miles, I kept telling myself. It was only an eight-mile ride. It had taken us about two hours to travel the road before, and that was partially because my horse kept stopping for snacks. I’d be able to make it back faster.

Halfway through the forest, two men on horses appeared out of the trees in front of me. They stopped on the trail. I waited for them to pass or go ahead of me, but they didn’t. When they turned sneering faces in my 265/431

direction, I realized with a sick thud in my stomach that they were waiting for me.

Each wore ragged gray clothing. One man had a nearly toothless grin, even though he couldn’t have been more than thirty. The other had a scar that ran from one eye to his chin, making his face look like it was creased and about to fold over.

“What ’ave we ’ere?” the scarred one said. “A lady without an escort. Foolish, indeed.” He took a long knife from under the folds of his clothes and held it up for me to see.

I pulled the reins, trying to turn my horse around, but as I looked over my shoulder I saw that another horse had come out of the forest behind me. Its rider, a man equally frightening and even dirtier than the first two, held onto a stick as thick as a baseball bat. I was trapped between them.