This blog series is a fun crossover between How to Break an Evil Curse by Laura Morrison and The Black Pearl by Jennifer Flath. You can read both novels for free at JukePop Serials.
Alexander has been trying to dig up information about the country of Fritillary. So far, he's tangled with pirates and an amorous drama queen. If you're not caught up, start with Part 1!
Copper joined me and said, “There’s someone here I want you to meet, man. My friend Ross. He just popped onto the boat.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a soggy McManlyman try to fake dodge Pepper. Pepper snarled and hunkered down into an attack pose.
“Popped onto?” I interrupted. “Literally?”
“Right. He’s a wizard. He’s been working with me on these boxes of weap--er--forks. I forgot a few forks at his place and he brought them over.”
I’ll be honest. As a lifelong member of a royal family, revolutions make me nervous, especially revolutions that happen to be aided by pirates of questionable morality. Now this revolution was adding a wizard to its roster. Magic fueled upheaval was dangerous on a whole new level. Plus, I’d never met a male magician who wasn’t evil, so I had a healthy prejudice against them.
Oblivious to my internal misgivings, Copper was already beckoning over a man with a long, purple cape and a pointy hat. “Hey Ross, this is that guy I was telling you about. The guy who talks all fancy and is a writer. He’s looking for Princess Julianna.”
He said, “Oh. Uh, hi there.” Neither he nor his pointy hat looked very threatening.
Really, I didn’t know much about magic in Fritillary. Plus, I did have evidence the King was treating his people quite poorly--ignoring that they lived in filth and pouring boiling oil on them and such. Also, I was trying to get information about Fritillary. If magic was a part of their culture, I would be remiss not to investigate. Remiss. He couldn’t be worse than Lola, anyway.
“Looking for the Princess? Why?” Ross asked suspiciously.
Copper jumped in before I could say anything. “He’s cool, man. He’s not a witch hunter or anything. He’s from… another place.” Here, Copper winked first at Ross, then at me. What was it he thought I was implying? This was the second time he’d done that. “You know, another place. ‘Research’ for his ‘book’,” he added, complete with air quotes. “He just wanted to talk to the Prince and Princess about stuff.”
“Uh huh,” said Ross. He still looked a bit wary.
“Witch hunting?” I asked. “Is magic…” I was stuck on the word “evil” here. It didn’t seem like a wise choice. “...Forbidden in Fritillary?” Nice save, Alexander.
Ross raised his eyebrows. “Wow. You really are from another place. Yeah, magic is forbidden. If women do it, anyway. It’s totally lame. Old fashioned, backwards stuff. The younger generation--me and my friends--we think it’s super lame. But the old guys are all about it.”
“Women aren’t allowed to practice magic?” I asked. Backward was right. “Why don’t they just band together and incinerate all of you?”
Ross said, “Well, since wizards are allowed they’d stop that from happening. There are a lot more wizards than witches ever since the people--uh--incinerated most of the witches.”
“That’s terrible,” I said. I may have sounded a little more excited than sympathetic. Finally someone was talking about the history of the country.
Ross nodded. “Yup. Pretty terrible. It was an ugly time. Witches used to be allowed, but then some old wizards got mad at them and spread rumors that witches were too emotional to handle that much power. Said if they were having a bad day they might just go and blow a crater in the city because someone looked funny at their boyfriend. Stuff like that. There was a lot of propaganda--if you ever find one of the old witch burning posters in an attic or something it’s worth like a TON of money though, so I guess that’s one silver lining!”
“Too emotional for magic,” I mused. In my experience, it was the cold-hearted that were the most dangerous. And Serena, who was her own category.
“I need to write this down,” I said, “but perhaps I should get off the ship first.” McManlyman was trying to throw things to distract Pepper, like he was a dog. “You might still be able to help me, though. I was hoping to find the Princess’s friend, the actor.”
Copper was excited. “Oh! Maybe we can help! Ross has a way to communicate with him. Right, Ross?”
Ross shook his head. “The raven blood told me it promised Warren it wouldn’t tell where he was.”
“But you’re in communication?” I asked. By bird? “Is there any chance this Warren would meet me on my way out of town?” It was worth a shot.
“Hold on,” Ross said and pulled a small glass vial out of a pocket. He said, “Excuse me a moment,” then turned his back on us and held the vial up to his mouth. Then, he began to whisper to the vial of dark red liquid. I was no longer worried about Ross’ morality; evidence strongly suggested he was just crazy. After about a minute of that, he turned back to us and said, “OK, Warren says he can meet you at the city’s outer gate. The northern one. Does that work? He doesn’t want to go too far into the city. Doesn’t want his sister to find him and make him stay.”
Copper growled at that for some reason.
I knew scary sisters. “That’s perfect. I’ll talk to him on the way out of town.”
“Great. There’s a bar by the gates. It’s called the Stumble Inn. He’ll be there until nightfall,” Ross said. Then he whispered at the red vial some more. “Yup. Until nightfall. But you gotta come alone.”
I was very happy to be off this ship when Copper finally rowed me and Pepper back to shore.
McManlyman waited until Pepper was safely in the boat and on the water before he hollered out, “That’s right, you leave with your tail between your legs! Wussies! And stay away from my lady!”
Copper cleared his throat and said, “Uh, hey, I know you’re supposed to go alone and all. But maybe I could come along? Warren’s my wife’s brother. She’s worried about him. I could just peek through a window at the bar. He’d never even know.”
Worried sisters. I had more than a few weaknesses, and that was one.
“Maybe peeking through windows isn’t the best idea, especially for someone who is paranoid about being tracked down,” I warned him, “but of course you can come make sure he’s ok. For her sake.”
“Awesome. Super awesome. Thanks so much. Corrine will be so relieved to hear I saw him.” He paused and got a scared look on his face. “Or she’ll be super mad I didn’t grab him and drag him home. Still, I need to see him. Hey, grab the dock, will you? And put that rope around the dock thingy?”
Ugh, ropes and docking boats. Not a part of my skillset. I needed a hundred baths. My Rin was a knot savant, but my tying experience was limited almost exclusively to worn objects that lace. It’s amazing how difficult servants’ daily tasks really are: tying knots, the constant fetching of water...
I was still contemplating the trials of peasanthood when Copper finished up his end, hopped onto the dock, and said to me, “Not too familiar with boats? Just hand me the rope.”
Done.
“What do you know about this Warren?” I asked while we walked. This was my last chance for a successful interview. I’d rather not go in blind.
“Well he’s my wife’s little brother. Fun fact: they both actually grew up on the pirate ship we were just on!”
“He’s a pirate?” Suddenly I was not interested in talking to him.
“Nope. He and his family were a traveling theater troupe. On the ocean. It just made sense for them to sail with pirates,” he explained as though it made any sense.
A traveling theater troupe on a pirate ship. That sounded very interesting. Perhaps my trip wouldn’t be wasted.
“Oh! Hey, dude. I found that book of poetry. Here you go,” he said. He pulled a small leather book out of his front pocket and handed it to me with a smile.
“What a wonderful...cultural artifact,” I said, trying to pretend an appropriate level of enthusiasm. I flipped open the book. One of the poems was entitled, Why don’t pirates know how to treat a lady? “Is the bar close?”
“Super close if Ross can get us there.”
“Isn’t he still on the pirate ship?” I asked.
“Oh. Yeah.” He turned toward the boat and yelled at the top of his lungs, “ROSS! ROSS!”
A tiny voice yelled back, “What?”
“We need some help! Could you--”
A big cloud of putrid smoke appeared on the dock beside me. Out of it stepped the wizard. “What’s up?”
Copper asked, “Could you take us to the Stumble Inn?”
Ross grumbled, “Come on, guys. Seriously? Being a wizard doesn’t mean zapping people all over the countryside. Why do people think that’s what being a wizard is about? I have things to do. I have a life to live.”
I wanted to know what being a wizard was all about, but I didn’t actually want to know, so I decided to let that one go.
“Aw come on! Just this one time?” Copper begged. “We’ll never get there by nightfall without your help. Corrine’s been so worried, dude. I need to see with my own eyes that Warren’s OK.”
“No. No way,” Ross said.
Copper said, “Do I have to remind you why he’s in the condition he’s in in the first place? The reason Corrine’s so concerned about him?”
Ross’s face got red. “Fine. Fine. Will you ever stop bringing that up? I feel rotten.”
Copper shrugged. “I dunno. But come on, get us to the inn. Make it snappy.”
Ross put a hand on my arm and Copper’s. “Grab that cat, would you?” he asked me.
I did so.
Then, a cloud of smoke enveloped us.
