Frogkisser!

The newt shrugged.

“There’s a mayor and a city council,” he said. “But they do whatever the League of Right-Minded Sorcerers tells them to do.”

“So the city’s not part of any kingdom?” Anya gestured at the fields to either side of the river. There was wheat growing in long swathes off into the full darkness, but even in just the moonlight, Anya could see it was taller and thicker and closer to harvesting than back home in Trallonia. She didn’t know it but these were the fabled breadbasket lands of the city, the soil unrivaled and the river providing all necessary water. The bread in New Yarrow was justifiably famous, but it owed its fame largely to the quality of the wheat from the river plains. “What about these farmlands?”

“I dunno.” Shrub’s bulbous eyes looked across the water without any particular interest. “I came by road. There’s a few places you have to stop at the borders of little kingdoms along the way, but the city rules everywhere close, I guess. Then there’s places like the inn back there—they look after themselves.”

“I see,” said Anya. She’d never thought much about it before, in the relative security of Trallonia. Even with the looming threat from her stepstepfather it had been a pretty safe and ordered place. But the breaking up of the High Kingdom into lots of little kingdoms and lawless areas was a thoroughly bad thing.

It made her think about the All-Encompassing Bill of Rights and Wrongs again, and the laws that were written within the Only Stone. Surely it would be a very good thing to bring back the Bill, and make sure the people in all the little kingdoms were treated fairly by their rulers.

“I suppose, if we do happen to see it … ” she muttered half to herself.

“See what?” asked Ardent, turning his head back without shifting from his self-appointed role as a figurehead.

“Nothing!” exclaimed Anya quickly. She didn’t want to say the name aloud, for fear of setting off Shrub. Or raising his hopes. “Um, can you spot the otters?”

“Of c-c-c-course,” barked Ardent. “One on the left and one on the right.”

Anya, who was sitting backwards to row, looked over her shoulder. Just as the dog had said, the two otters were easily keeping station with the boat, a little way ahead and to either side.

“Right a little,” said Smoothie. Anya dipped her left oar, and the boat turned. The current in the middle of the river was so strong she didn’t have to actually row at all, just drop in one or the other oar and hold it for a few moments.

With the boat almost steering itself, at least for the moment, Anya could devote herself to other problems. Foremost in her mind was Denholm. The frog prince had been uncharacteristically silent for a long time, and though he had eaten the water-skaters, it had not been with his usual appetite.

Anya rested the oars and picked up the little wicker cage. It was rather bent from the encounter with the giant, but still seemed all right. Denholm, however, didn’t.

“He does look off-color,” said Anya anxiously. She held the cage high, to get the moonlight on it. “Less green and more yellow than he did. Maybe it’s just the moon—”

“No,” said Smoothie. “He’s definitely changing color.”

Ardent came back to look. He sniffed at the cage carefully.

“Smells less like sorcery and more like a normal frog,” he announced after quite a lot of snuffling.

“I hope that doesn’t mean he’s sickening,” said Anya. “Or the transformation is having some bad effect.”

Denholm let out a croaking moan and turned his back.

“I’ll change you back as soon as I can,” said Anya, but this didn’t evoke a response. Smoothie kindly dribbled some river water on the frog, but he didn’t react to this either. Anya put the cage down near her feet and took up the oars again.

“How long till we get close to the city?” she asked.

Smoothie called out across the water, and listened intently to the peeping, yowling noise that came back.

“An hour or so,” she answered.

“What have we got to eat?” asked Ardent. “Besides that horrible magic biscuit?”

Anya raised an eyebrow. The biscuit had tasted like dry sawdust but she’d never known Ardent to disdain anything that was even remotely classed as food.

“Bread and meat, in the box,” said Shrub.

The bread was a dozen quite small rolls, fresh baked, and the meat was an equal number of roasted chops that had already been deboned. Anya rested her oars again and assembled the beef and rolls together. She ate two herself; Ardent ate four and would have had more if Anya had let him. In fact, he would have eaten the whole lot, and kept nosing the box even after the princess had wrapped the remaining rolls in the cloth the chops had come in, saving them for the return trip. Shrub and Smoothie declined the food, claiming they’d both eaten while away on their respective missions for boat and guides.

Anya saw the lights of the city not long after they ate, while they were still quite some distance away. At first it was just a glow above the dark water of the river ahead, a glow that spread and intensified as they continued along, borne westwards by the rushing current.

The princess hadn’t thought of it being light, or at least, so well lit. Gazing ahead, she realized that the glow could only be so great if almost every building and street was lit up with lanterns or torches or some other source of artificial illumination. She’d thought they could sneak along the river and canals in relative darkness and obscurity, but that was not going to be possible.

This raised the strong possibility that someone would recognize her and raise the alarm, or try to capture her themselves, in order to get the reward offered by the Duke. By now, the Duke’s agents might also know about the others with her, who were all quite recognizable too.

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