Free Charles Bewitched by Marissa Doyle Page A

anyone would mind me talking
alone to my little brother, but…” she shrugged and shook her head.
    “I don’t know if I can get
through that lot. They’re as noisy as a parcel of geese with the gut-ache, but
it sounds like they’re all on your threshold.” Charles eyed the windows. “I’ll
see if I can climb down from here. Maybe there’s a vine I can climb down.”
    “You and vines have a
history of disagreeing with each other. Use a hovering spell.” Persy rose and
threw her arms around his neck again. “I’m glad you came, but I meant it. I
want you gone as soon as possible.”
    “Don’t give up,” he replied,
ignoring her behest, and climbed onto the window-seat. “I’ll try to come back
soon so we can talk alone again.” The door had started to open, so he swung his
legs out the window, took a breath, and started to float down toward the
courtyard.
    Ha, he’d been right. Ivy, or
something like it, did cover the side of the palace here, but it was more fun
to use a controlled hover to get down. He’d probably never have magical
abilities as good as Persy’s, but at least he could do this—hey!
    Something had grabbed his
arm.
    He twisted around in mid-air
just in time to see tendrils of the ivy shooting out from the wall and grasping
at him, twining itself around his limbs and pulling him in like a fish on a
line. He struggled in its hold, but whenever he managed to snap one slender
vine, another had already taken its place.
    “Help!” he shouted up
towards Persy’s window. But the chatter of her gaggle of ladies drowned out his
calls. And now another vine was snaking its way around his neck, pulling him
hard against the building. As soon as he touched the mass of stems and leaves
on the wall, he felt sharps jabs on any exposed skin…the beastly thing was biting him!
    “Persy!” he shouted again,
desperately now. But no head appeared in the window, and the vine around his
neck was tightening—
    “Enough!” an imperious voice
called, and all at once the homicidal vines released him, recoiling like
springs. Charles gasped and started to fall, but felt a spell catch him and
ease him the fifteen or so feet to the ground. He sat there in a huddle for a
moment, trying to catch his breath, then looked up. The fairy lord stood over
him with arms crossed over his chest, watching him.
    “I told you that my lands
could be perilous,” he said, not unkindly.
    Charles scrambled to his
feet and hoped the fairy lord would attribute his red face to his recent
exertions. “I know you did, but I wasn’t expecting to be attacked by a plant!”
    The fairy lord smiled.
“True. I forget that the plants in your world are much more sedentary. But it’s
a very effective guard from intruders, I have found.” He reached out and
stroked a vine. The entire mass of ivy rippled and shivered, as if it enjoyed
his touch.
    “Did seeing you cheer your
sister?” he added.
    Charles dusted himself off
“Sort of,” he said. “But not much.”
    He sighed and shook his
head. “I had hoped your coming here would help reconcile her to her new home.”
He fell silent, studying Charles meditatively, then asked. “Tell me, little
wizard—what can I do to make Persephone happy with us? I am very busy tying up
the loose ends of our recent wars, and cannot take the time to woo her
like some lovesick stripling.” He pronounced the word as if it were in a
foreign—and barbaric—tongue.
    Charles blinked. By Jupiter,
was the fairy lord asking him for advice? “Um…nothing, I’m afraid, sir.
She doesn’t want to be here. She wants to be home with her husband.”
    The fairy lord looked
faintly annoyed. “She has no husband, if you recall. I took care of that.”
    “Well, she thinks she does.
And she loves him. She’s not going to stop loving him just because she’s here.”
He took a deep breath. “Is this what you want, sir? A wife who’ll never be
happy with you? Because that’s what you’ll get, if you force Persy