Katherine gazed out at the indifferent stars from her cold, damp cell. They didn’t seem to shine as brightly now as they once did, and the lantern-light in the prison courtyard below had long-since washed out her view of the milky spill of starlight she was so fond of. Her pale blue gown was already starting to look a little dirty, which had really put a damper on her appeal to the guards. Thankfully, she still had her blue eyes and black hair to work with, and that wasn’t looking too ruined. If it went on much longer, though, then her assets would be down to the multi-stranded pearl choker she wore, embellished with a large emerald surrounded by sapphires.

Katherine idly wondered how much longer she would have to endure the unpleasant conditions she’d found herself in for the last several weeks. It wasn’t the cold that bothered her. Nor was it the damp which was the source of her discomfort. She missed her books, and the experimental apparatus on her desk which had, until her confinement, provided her agile mind with ample stimulation.

In a word, Katherine was bored. It wasn’t the first time and wouldn’t be the last. It was, after all, boredom which had led to her present…predicament.

Katherine was pulled from her quiet musing by the sound of the door to the cell block opening. That’s odd, she thought. Dinner was served hours ago. She went to the barred door of her cell as she heard heavy, booted footsteps approaching. She knew that she was the only prisoner in this block, so there weren’t that many reasons for a guard to be coming to visit.

The guard looked around furtively, as if making sure they were alone, and Katherine rolled her eyes. The dark green of his waistcoat matched his eyes, as did the out-turned lining of his red frock coat. His high-topped boots were meticulously polished, his spurs shone in the lantern light, and a black leather helmet, crested and cockaded in green, covered his red hair except for a knotted tail hanging to his shoulder blades. It was unusual for dragoons to act as prison guards, but Katherine knew from previous conversations that Bors was being evaluated for the Royal Guard.

“Kate,” Bors whispered harshly, looking around again. “I got your message out. The courier left an hour ago.”

Katherine blinked. “Message,” she asked. “What message?”

Bors sighed. “The one to your cousin,” he reminded Katherine. “About the trial.”

Katherine’s eyes widened. It was a shame. She’d come to rather like Bors. She could only think of one perpetrator for that particular test, though, and only one way out of it. She slipped an arm through the bars and grabbed the young dragoon by his coat. “Listen to me,” she said urgently. “You have to get out of here! Don’t take the main door, though. Use the one they take prisoners through to be hanged.”

“Kate, what do you—”

“I never sent a message, Bors! Nor did I ask one to be sent! It was someone else borrowing my voice!”

Bors’s face went pale. “I have to get you out of here,” he said quickly, looking about. “Where do they keep the keys?”

“There’s no time, just go!”

“But—”

Katherine shoved Bors away as hard as she could. It didn’t move him very much. In fact, it didn’t move him at all, despite her pushing as hard as she could, which ruined dramatic effect she’d hoped for. “It will only make things worse,” she snapped. “Just get out!”

Bors hesitated and turned away. He’d barely gone two steps before he stopped as the door to cell block swung open. He drew his pistol as he and Katherine heard her voice echo down the row of cells. “Bors, Bors, Bors,” the eerie copy of her voice drifted in the air. “When will you ever learn?”

Bors cocked his pistol and took aim as the court wizard turned the corner and approached him, flanked by two guards. Smoke and sparks burst from the flintlock’s primer pan. In the blink of an eye, a detonation erupted from the barrel, too quick for Katherine to even attempt to cover her ears. Her ears rang as the deafening sound of the pistol’s report echoed through the cell block, and the smoldering remains of the paper cartridge drifted to the flagstone floor.

Bors stood frozen in shock and horror as the court wizard plucked the musket ball from where it hung motionless in the air. The wizard was a stocky man with silver-shot black hair and a well-trimmed beard. “You can never trust a voice alone, Bors,” the wizard continued nonchalantly, still speaking in Katherine’s voice.

Katherine looked away. No matter how many times she’d seen it, she still couldn’t get used to that particular use of magic. It wasn’t that she was unfamiliar with the various methods classed as glamours. She was perfectly capable of using the relevant spells herself. It was hearing her voice from another throat, especially a man’s, that made her cringe.

Bors flipped his pistol end over end to grip it by the barrel in his left hand and use it like a club while the two guards stepped forward. Katherine knew he was outmatched, and she knew that Bors had to know the same. Most of the guards were drawn from His Majesty’s 4th Regiment of the Foot, but these two were drawn from the 2nd Grenadiers. On the one hand, Katherine was relieved that the wizard had selected from among the best and most disciplined members of the Royal Guard. On the other hand, she was terrified for Bors. The wizard had also selected from among the most ruthless and ferocious of them.

The two guards moved their muskets from port arms to the advance as they bore down on Bors. Katherine shut her eyes for a moment, half fearing that the guards would use the bayonets fixed to their muskets as the dragoon drew his saber. Instead, he folded over with the butt of a musket in the pit of his stomach, then had his legs casually swept from under him. He looked up at the court wizard, gasping for air.

The wizard looked down at Bors with a look of tired patience on his face and heaved a sigh. “Nothing here was ever as it seemed, Bors,” he said patiently, now speaking in his own resonant baritone. “I told you that three days ago…for about the hunderedth time, too.”

Bors felt a momentary lapse in the guards’ hold on him and tried to struggle to his feet. His efforts were rewarded by a grenadier’s knee in his back that pushed back down to the ground.

The wizard shrugged and fished in the pocket of the loose robe he wore over his waistcoat. He removed a key and unlocked Katherine’s cell.

Katherine reached up under her hair to work loose the small latch on the choker she wore. “I really wish you wouldn’t borrow my voice like that,” she remarked as she stepped out of the cell. “It’s…unsettling.”

The wizard bowed. “My apologies, your highness,” he replied sincerely. “It was the best I could think of for this final test.”

A shocked look crossed Bors’s face, and he stared up at Katherine. “H—highness,” he stammered. “As in Princess Katherine? Not just Kate!?”

Katherine nodded. The latch for the choker finally came loose, breaking the spell. “The same,” she replied as her apparently black hair shimmered, turning to a honey-blonde in a wave that started at her scalp. “I’m so sorry, Bors.”

The wizard crossed his arms. “Do you understand, now, Bors,” he asked.

Bors nodded. “It was a test,” he guessed.

“It was the last test. Will you try to shoot me again if your comrades let you up?”

Bors shook his head. “Comrades,” he asked. “It’s not back to the farm?”

The wizard motioned to the two grenadiers holding Bors down. “No, not at all,” he told the dragoon calmly. “Though, never within a hundred miles of a prison, I should think.”

Bors sighed as the grenadiers helped him to his feet. “I did rather poorly,” he disagreed glumly.

“Poor Bors,” Katherine sighed. “You are, by all accounts, a great dragoon, and I hope we haven’t ruined you. Not one dragoon has ever passed this test, though…well except for Captain Anders. You’re all too, well, cavalier.”

Bors ignored Katherine while he sheathed his saber and holstered his pistol.

Katherine looked away.

The wizard grimaced. “No, I think there’s definitely a use for you in that skull of yours,” he told Bors.

Katherine tsked and turned to the guards. “Why don’t you two take him somewhere and help him get his mind around everything,” she suggested.

The grenadiers snapped to attention. “At once, your highness,” one of the two agreed.

Bors hesitated before following them. He turned to Kate with a stiff expression on his face, and she knew she was talking with the same, stuffy mask the man had worn when she met him. “You looked better with black hair,” he said flatly before leaving.

Katherine gaped after the man. Her mouth worked for a moment, but no words came out. Then, she stomped a foot as he disappeared around the corner toward the door. How dare he say that, she thought. Well, he doesn’t know anything!

The wizard cleared his throat and Katherine realized she had been gripping her skirts tightly in her fists.

Katherine took a deep breath and let it out slowly, taking some comfort from the fact that Bors, in fact, knew nothing at all. She held up the jeweled gold embellishment on the pearl choker she’d been wearing and touched her fingertips carefully to the top and bottom, muttering, “apertez.”

The jeweled mounting popped slightly open with an audible click, and Katherine opened it the rest of the way, careful not to spill any of its contents: a strand of her hair, a bit of powdered blue and black pigments carefully mixed together, and a small sliver of maple. She carefully removed the strand of her hair before closing the jeweled locket. Again, there was a click, and the mounting for the jewels seemed a single piece of gold to the eye.

They heard the door close, and the wizard clasped his hands behind his back. “I trust your highness’s stay was not too unpleasant,” he remarked.

“Incende,” Katherine whispered and dropped the now-burning strand of hair away. Then, she sighed and walked alongside the wizard. “A little damp this time, perhaps. But, at least the food seems to have gotten better.”

“That, or you’re getting too used to this,” the wizard countered with a slight smile. “Which reminds me. Your father’s advisors and I all appreciate your willingness to help in whatever way you can. However, we would take it as a courtesy if your highness would, perhaps, not mention this to her father.”

An impish grin crossed Katherine’s face as the wizard opened the door and let her through first. “I didn’t say anything the last three times,” she pointed out. “I’m sure I can be convinced not to mention it this time, too.”

The wizard chuckled. “Books, your highness,” he guessed.

“Yes.”

“Your usual fare?”

“Of course!”

“I’m sure your father will want to have a few words with you.”

Katherine stopped and raised an eyebrow. “We all told my father I was staying a while in Easmundon,” she pointed out hesitantly. “I always visit him on my ‘return’.”

The wizard stopped.

Katherine took a few extra steps before turning back to the wizard, and her stomach dropped. “We did remember to tell him that I wasn’t to be disturbed, didn’t we,” she asked.

The wizard nodded slowly.

“That I was trying to study?”

“That particular excuse may no longer work, your highness.”

Katherine swallowed.

“You see…your father just returned from Easmundon.”