When Ariane navigated her way around an armchair, the door abruptly shut behind them. She whirled around, her lungs freezing in her chest when she saw the mage.
It was one of the two rogue magic users who had attacked Lucien previously—the male who wore silk robes and a white mask. She shouted before he could move. “Help! Assassins in Prince Lucien’s room!” As she screamed, she tried to remember, when did I last see a guard or soldier? How far away are they?
She sucked in another breath of air to scream again, but the rogue mage made a clenching motion with his hand, and a black shadow clasped Ariane’s throat and squeezed. She could still breathe—barely—but her shouts were cut off.
“You again!” Lucien leaped to attention on his pillow. His body was stiff with fury, but the effect was rather unimpressive given his small—and green—stature.
“Good evening, Prince Lucien.” This voice was female.
Ariane staggered, putting her back to the fireplace so she and Lucien could face the female magic user.
She was barely visible thanks to her black clothes, but the black bandage that covered her eyes was a stark mark against the white of her skin. “Tonight, you die.”
“Awfully melodramatic, aren’t they?” Lucien grumbled. “Henry!” he shouted. “Where the blazes are you?”
The female magic user opened her mouth, and again a buzzing sound emitted from her throat. Wasps swarmed the room in a thick cloud—entering from the open window.
Ariane’s mouth turned dry even as she still struggled to breathe fully. “Hide,” she whispered. Using all the strength she could muster, she threw Lucien and his pillow across the room. He yelped as he crashed into the bed and disappeared under the covers that spilled over the side of the mattress.
The wasps tried to follow him, but they couldn’t wriggle their way under the covers like Lucien had. Instead, they covered the bed in a thick blanket and crawled across its surface, searching for a way in.
The female mage—who was still controlling her bugs with a buzz—snarled in irritation and motioned at her companion.
The masked mage casually blocked the door off with a wall of shadows, then ambled to the bed. He reached for the bedcovers—to hold them up for the wasps most likely.
Ariane coughed and felt her lungs crumple in her chest. I need more air! She stumbled and crashed into an end table. Fumbling, her fingers closed across a crystal chalice. Blessings be said for Lucien’s alcoholic demands. Her sight half fuzzy from the increasingly smaller amount of air she managed to choke past the shadows that gripped her throat, Ariane chucked a glass and the chalice at the mage. The first missed, but the second hit him on the head.
He stumbled, and Ariane felt the grip of the shadowy fingers evaporate. “Help!” She shouted as she picked up whatever she could grab—books, a log, a chess board—and chucked it at the mages. “Someone—help!” She ran across the room—still throwing whatever she could—and pounded against the door.
The black shadows that covered it were tarry and sticky. She heaved on the door with all her strength, but it would not move. The muscles of her arms burned as she pulled and her face heated with exertion. “Help!” she shouted again.
After a moment, the door gave, opening a crack that was about as thick as a blade of grass. “We’re being attacked!” Ariane tried to yell through the crack.
Lucien yelped, and Ariane whirled around—her heart beating twice as fast as normal. “Lucien!”
The frog prince hopped out from under the bed, covered with wasps. It took Ariane a moment to realize the wasps were trying to sting him, but their stingers could not dig into his oozing, mottled frog skin.
“I say, get off!” Lucien said, sounding cross as he tried to shake the wasps off.
Behind him, the male mage raised a sword made of shadows.
“Look out!” Ariane shouted. She threw a vase at the mage, but he dodged it as he lunged forward and stabbed his sword at Lucien’s side.
Ariane’s ears rang, and her heart shuddered as the sword hit the prince.
However, instead of slicing through him, the sword appeared to hit Lucien rather like a stick smacking into a ball, and Lucien was sent sprawling across the floor.
The mage glided after him and attempted to spear Lucien on the point of his sword.
Once again, Lucien was sent flipping head over feet, a green ball of indestructible amphibian as he ricocheted off a nightstand with a rather painful sounding crunch.
Her heart stabilizing, Ariane went back to pulling on the door, her muscles buckling as she yanked.
Angered, the masked mage kicked Lucien—who bounced off furniture like Princess Sylvie’s golden ball.
“Would you stop that?” Lucien demanded when he finally rolled to a stop.
“What sorcery is this?” the rogue mage hissed, his voice muffled by his white mask.
The female directed her wasps to Lucien, covering him in a thick blanket. It did no good—the wasps were unable to succeed and instead were crushed when Lucien rolled around on his back, flattening them. She shut her mouth with an angry snap, cutting off the buzzing noise. “This reeks of Angelique’s self-righteous magic.”
“If that is so, how do we kill him?” the male asked.
“We could kidnap him,” the bug mage said.
The male mage sighed behind his mask. “That’s not good enough. Kidnapping won’t have the same effect on Severin as finding the prince’s dead body.”
What are they talking about? Ariane’s feet nearly skid out beneath her as she put all her strength into yanking on the door.
The bug mage scooped Lucien up and tried to dig her nails into Lucien’s body. Ariane paused from pulling on the door—which hadn’t budged any more than she managed to yank it previously—to watch in a moment of fear. But all the bug mage managed to do was make Lucien’s eyes bulge with the pressure.
“I said, stop that!” Lucien bit the woman’s finger.
She yelped in surprise, pulled her hand free from the prince’s mouth, and shook him.
The male mage made a noise of disgust and folded his arms across his chest.
“He has teeth!” the bug mage snarled.
“Yes, veritable fangs,” her companion said dryly. “But we still have not solved our assignment—how do we kill him?”
The woman held Lucien by one leg and crossed the room—which was now in shambles as Ariane had thrown a lot of books and dinnerware. When she reached the window, the rogue mage threw Lucien with a grunt, then leaned out of the window to watch his decent.
“Lucien!” Ariane shouted. He can take a lot, but is Angelique’s spell strong enough to stand a multi-story drop?
There was a splat, and Ariane’s heart stopped.
“You hag! I am a frog, not a bird!” Lucien shouted.
Ariane’s legs almost gave out in relief at his arrogant complaint. “Lucien—hide yourself and get help!” she shouted, hoping he could hear her.
“That was idiotic,” the male mage said. “I could have suffocated him.”
“And you didn’t say so sooner because…?”