Somehow Alyssa’s words brought him out of his sorrow. That and the silence that followed. All of the mages were much more experienced and wise than he was and they were all staring at each other, unsure with how to proceed. He hated the way his voice cracked when he spoke. “I think that maybe at this point, a containment spell will be the best course of action.”

“I disagree,” Gwendolyn stated. “We should move the death spell from the princess to the goat. If we can move it from poor Conrad, here. It would be a simple binding spell.”

Peter opened his mouth, but Reimund cut him off. “If it were that simple, I would have taken the death spell from the child myself a long time ago. I’m afraid that it is not that easy. Conrad used a very different spell than the one that now encircles the princess. None of us, despite our best efforts, know the spell that Millicent used.”

Chenric, one of the mages who sat at the table, always had his nose in a book and this meeting was no exception. He was even worse than Barinon in that regard and so when he spoke, it was almost surprising that he had been paying any attention at all. “We should have tracked that witch down ages ago.” Chenric stated, looking up from the massive grimoire.

“How dare you use that word!” Gwendolyn looked ready to throw the man across the room.

“I didn’t call you that,” he stated flatly.

Her eyes narrowed. “Who cares? I find the word itself insulting.”

The argument continued but Barinon ignored the petty insults the mages were throwing at each other now. They were all tired and that made them irritable. He glanced at Reimund who had been the one to put out the last fight. He was sitting with his head in his hands. They all looked so exhausted. Reimund, who had been an old man as long as Berinon could remember, looked like he had aged a decade in the last few days. The closer they had come to this day, the less sleep any of them got. All of them wanted the prestige of being the first mage to figure out how to save the heir, true and none of them wanted to be required to evacuate an entire kingdom. This was their home and if they didn’t get this figured out, a time would come when they would have to leave it.

Finally he spoke. His voice was loud enough to be heard over the din. “Does anyone have a better idea than the containment spell or trying to move the spell as Gwendolyn suggested?” Everyone paused to look at him and he took the opportunity while everyone was listening. “I suggest we vote on it.”

Chenric opened his mouth. “I still think…”

Barinon cut him off. “If your suggestion is to go now and see once again if we can find Millicent and bring her back, it is much, much too late for that. We have already hunted for her and we don’t have the time to find her now.”

Chenric’s eyes widened as if he had just come up with the most brilliant idea. Barinon felt his excitement rise. If something in those books, something Chenric had read finally clicked into place for them, maybe they could finally be done with this curse. “Maybe she will come here to see the curse take the princess. Then we can trap her and make her undo the spell.”

Barinon groaned. That was not what he had been hoping for. He doubted Millicent would be anywhere near the castle anytime soon.

“We cannot put all of our hopes into her showing up.” Reimund said.

Chenric nodded. “But it’s the forbidden magic, the magic we never speak of that holds the key to fixing this. We need to research the forbidden section of the library. I have already started looking over a few volumes but I haven’t been able to find anything yet.”

“You put that book back. We can’t use that magic. It is forbidden for a reason!” Peter shouted.

“Do we have much of a choice?” Reimund rebutted. “We all, each and every one of us, will need to get to work on this if there is any hope of saving the princess. I think Barinon’s containment spell will be our last resort if we still manage to find nothing.”

The younger mages were sent to retrieve stacks of dusty books from the forbidden section of the library. That included Barinon, Alyssa, Chenric and about eight others. As they hurried down the hallway, Alyssa said, “I can’t believe it’s come down to this. All the work we’ve done has gotten us nowhere and now…” she trailed off.

“I know,” Barinon said. “I do think the preservation spell would work if we place it inside the death spell, though.”

“Will it fix the problem, though?”

“I don’t know. It’s a spell I modified. I haven’t done much testing on it yet because I thought I could come up with something better.” He didn’t tell her that the last one had almost destroyed his home. He had really hoped that that one would work, but in casting instead of pulling any spell off of an object, it drew all of the objects it could reach into itself. There was a reason that Conrad had counseled him to always start with the smallest possible version of the spell he could contrive.

“No one else seems to dissect spells the way you do,” she said.

“That’s probably because everyone else is smart enough not to try something so dangerous. Conrad…” he couldn’t talk about him anymore. Couldn’t say how much the old mage had meant to him. He had to shut out that sorrow and focus on what needed to be done.

They entered the mage’s study, which was one of the towers of the castle. Weak light shone down from windows that no one could possibly reach to clean. The inside of this spire was filled with books. The bookshelves had to be rounded on the back but their straight front made the room appear to be an octagon from the inside.

Two long ladders reached almost all the way to the ceiling. The entire wall was filled with books. There was a descending staircase in the middle of the floor. It was a tight iron spiral. That alone discouraged the older mages from entering this area. Most of them mentored a younger mage and sent him to fetch things. That was what Conrad had done for Berinon. Again, he shoved the thought aside and focused instead on the books.

Mages loved to argue over who taught which spell the best. For that reason, most of the books had copies of spells they had collected from other grimoires, but most of them held one or two that were unique to that particular book. It made finding the exact spell you were looking for a nightmare. Many of the mages had only learned spells that the others had taught them for that reason. It was too complicated.

He held his hands over his head, pushed them with palms down to his chest and then turned his palms so they were facing each other. A sphere of light floated above his hands. It was a spell he had done so many times it came out as one fluid movement. They descended the spiral into one of the dustiest parts of the castle.

The forbidden section was generally locked but it seemed that Chenric hadn’t bothered to lock it again after his last visit here. He was ahead of them all, already researching the forbidden section of the library, looking for clues about what they could do to undo Millicent’s spell. He had to have borrowed the key from Reimund. The door of iron cage in which these books were kept remained opened.

Alyssa gasped when she noticed. Chenric stepped forward, generally considered one of the experts on the library. He began handing piles of books to everyone. Barinon set his sphere of light on the vacant part of the bookshelf and sneezed when Chenric handed him a pile of books. They were heavy, but he hurried back up the staircase. Their time was running out.

As he made his way into the hallway, a messenger boy ran ahead of him. He called to the lad, but didn’t get a response. He had a sinking feeling that it wouldn’t have done any good anyway. The boy’s bare feet slapped on the stone and he skidded to a halt in front of the study.

Barinon’s heart was in his throat. All that arguing had done them no good. They really were out of time. He ran after the boy, the rest of the mages following behind him. He got to the room just in time to hear what the boy had said. “The princess has pricked her finger on a spinny wheel.” The boy hadn’t even known what a spinning wheel was. The king had had them all removed from the city. He shook his head. They were definitely out of time.