Chapter 12

Alexander woke slowly to the sound of roosters crowing. He'd always come awake slowly, for as long as he could remember, no matter how much racket anyone made. In his days at the military academy he might have gotten into trouble over that, if he hadn't been the Prince.

As it was, some—adjustments—were made to the usual procedures for cadets. Not to allow him to lie abed longer, good God, no—King Henrick would never have countenanced that. No, another arrangement was made. While the officers did not allow him to lie abed at reveille until he was actually awake, they did allow his batman to come in and begin the waking process for him alone, specially, a half hour early. He had a batman, of course, though the other cadets did not. And he had his own room, though the other cadets shared a dormitory. He was a Prince of the Blood, after all. While he was expected to abide by discipline and study as hard as the rest, he could scarcely be expected to shine his own boots or make his own bed. It was thanks to the batman that by the time the bugle sounded, he was awake and ready to fall out with the rest of the class.

As thoughts began to form with glacial slowness, he gradually realized that something wasn't right. He didn't feel right, and there was something different about his surroundings. He was lying all wrong, and he wasn't in a bed.

A new thought oozed to the surface; of course, he wasn't in his bed at home, he was on his way to win Stancia's daughter. He couldn't be in an inn, though, or he would be in a bed.

No, of course he wasn't in an inn. He'd been wandering around for days in the wilderness. He should have been in the forest, but there weren't any roosters in the forest. So something was still wrong.

He managed to move a little, and a foreign aroma—not unpleasant, but foreign—came to his nose, along with the crackle of something underneath him. From the scent, he seemed to be lying in straw.

He managed to move again, although he could not get his eyes open. His foot hit a wooden wall. He was lying against another. He got one eye open, got a hazy impression through sleep-fog and predawn light, of a narrow space hemmed in by crude wooden walls.

He was in a stable, in a stall. He was lying in a very odd position; he should have felt cramped, but he wasn't. He looked down at himself.

He had four legs. Four stubby, hairy legs, ending in hooves.

He had in his life, on a very few memorable occasions, come awake in a single moment. This was not the first time such a thing had happened, but it was certainly the worst.

He remembered everything, all in a rush. That horrible woman. The curse. Julian. The giant.

The memory sent a cold shock through him, jolting him into movement fueled by anger. All four hooves scrambling, he heaved himself up, braying at the top of his lungs, full of rage and despair.

And knocked himself senseless on the manger he'd somehow wedged himself underneath in the night.

The second time he awoke that morning, it was with a head that pounded as if five men were playing bass drums inside it, and a pain behind his eyes that stabbed all the way through his brain with every beat of his heart. And this time, he couldn't remember where he was or what he was doing there; he gazed around at what was clearly a stall in a stable without any idea of how he had gotten there. Before he could get his thoughts clear, he realized that there was someone standing over him.

"All right with you, lad," said the voice above him. "Time for you to go to work."

Work? But— Then it hit him all over again. For a second time the memories came back to him in a rush, but this time he was feeling too sick and his head hurt too much to sustain the rage.

He lifted his head from the straw and looked blearily at his captor.

It took him a moment to realize that it wasn't a human, although it was a male.

The—man?—couldn't have been taller than three feet, but he was as weather-beaten and wizened as an old man. He had overlarge ears that came to hairy points, and wore clothing that Alexander associated with common laborers or peasants; homespun shirt, leather breeks, canvas tunic. His clothing looked new and clean, though, and the creature had a bridle in his hands.

A bridle? He wouldn't! The man wouldn't dare!

Alexander opened his mouth. He was going to say, "I am a Prince of Kohlstania, and I demand to be restored!" except that what he started to say came out in a bray, and anyway, as soon as he opened his mouth, the creature jammed a bit into it. And the next thing he knew, his head had been trussed up in the bridle, and the creature had the reins firmly in his hand.

"Up with you!" the creature said, and he must have been immensely strong, because somehow he hauled Alexander to his feet by main force. The Prince swayed there a moment, torn between rage and fear. He'd always thought of himself as a brave man, but this time it was the fear that won, and he tried to bolt, only to find himself brought up short by the reins that were now tied to the manger. He reared and fought the bridle, kicking not at the man, but wildly, at random, trying desperately to break free.

"Hold still ye daft bugger!" said the little man, who then brought his fist down on Alexander's nose.

Hitting the manger with the top of his head had been bad. This was infinitely worse.

Alexander went nearly cross-eyed with the pain. His knees buckled, and he almost fell.

Darkness speckled with little dancing sparks covered his vision, and when he could see again, there was a harness on his back as well as the bridle on his head.

The little man came around to the front of him and seized both sides of the bridle, pulling Alexander's head level with his. "Now you listen to me, my fine young Prince," said the man, staring into Alexander's eyes with an expression that was perfectly readable. Alexander had seen that expression on his father's face many a time; it meant, cross me and you'll pay for it. "We know who you are, and we know how you come to be what you are, and we don't give a toss.

You're not in Kohlstania now. You're in Godmother Elena's house, and what she says is law.

You stepped over the line, my buck, and you'll take what's coming to ye like a man, or ye'll be treated like the brat she says ye are. You understand me?"

He was seething with every passionate emotion in the book, and they all tangled up with one another and got in each other's way. Run! said fear, and fight! said anger, and lie down and die said despair. He was trapped, trapped in the web of a Witch and even if he could get free, where could he go? He didn't know how to get home again, he didn't know where he was, and even if he did, how could he tell anyone what he was?

"There's no use you trying to run," the little man went on remorselessly. "Any peasant that sees you running loose is going to grab you to work his land and bear his burdens. Half of them can't read nor write, so it's no use thinking you can scratch out what you are in the dirt. And anyway, the ones that are literate around here are all beholden to Godmother Elena and before you can say 'knife' they'll bring you right back here. So. Until you mend your ways, I'm your master. You do what I say, and do it honestly, and we'll get along all right. You try to cross me up or give less than your best, and you'll find out that I'm no bad hand at fitting the punishment to the crime myself."

He believed the little man. He believed every word. They had that ring of truth about them that he used to hear in his instructors' voices at the military academy. Despair won out over every other emotion, and his knees went weak. Oh, God, help me! he prayed. Deliver me from the hands of my enemies! He wanted to weep, and he was denied even that, for he was trapped in the body of an ass and animals could not cry. And God did not seem to be answering him today.

"I see we understand one another," the little man said, with immense satisfaction. Then he looked up, and when Alexander in turn raised his head to see what the man was looking at, he found himself gazing into the knowing eyes of that terrible woman....

"No beating him, Hob," said the woman.

The man frowned. "But, Godmother—"

"I'm not saying not to give him a sharp stripe or two if you have to get his attention, but no beating. If you beat him, all he'll learn is the old lesson he already knows, that the strong have the right to enslave the weak. If he's ever going to warrant getting his old shape back, he has to learn better than that." The way she was talking about him as if he wasn't there or couldn't understand her made him mad all over again. But the little man was still holding his bridle, and the memory of that blow to his nose was a powerful incentive to him to stand quietly.

"Now, my lad," said the little man, "it's time for you to earn your keep and get to work."

Well, maybe he wasn't going to fight where he couldn't win, but he would be damned if he was going to be this woman's slave!

He set all four hooves and refused to move, staring at her and her minion defiantly.

"Ah. So that's how it's going to be," said the woman, when all of the man's hauling could not make him move an inch. "Good enough, then. Hob, tie him up and make sure there isn't a scrap of hay or a grain of corn about. But do put fresh water within reach; I want to teach him a lesson, not kill him or drive him mad." She put both her hands on her hips and matched his defiant glare.

"If you won't work, you don't eat."

He snorted angrily at her.

"Very well, have it your own way," she replied. The little man tied his reins short, and left a bucket of water hung within reach. Then he, too, left, and Alexander was alone in the stable.

It didn't take long for him to get bored; there wasn't much to look at. The high walls of the stall cut off his view of anything outside, so he was left with the rough wooden walls, the old bucket on a peg, the manger, and the straw-strewn dirt floor to stare at. The view palled pretty quickly.

He closed his eyes, and listened. Roosters crowed occasionally or a rooster did; he didn't know enough about chickens to tell if there was more than one. Hens clucked, and beyond that, he could hear several sorts of birdsong and jackdaws calling. And someone humming, someone female. He couldn't imagine a Witch humming under her breath, so it must be yet another servant.

His stomach growled. It had been a long time since yesterday's lunch. He buried his nose in the water bucket, and then snorted and choked as the water went up his nose.

It took several tries before he figured out how to drink as a donkey.

The water eased his hunger temporarily, but what began to creep in on him was another sense, so much sharper that it might have been an entirely new one. He could smell everything!

The straw under his feet, for instance, strong and strangely appetizing. The damp earth under the straw. Green growing things, a smell which began to tease him mercilessly with need. Baking bread, which drove him mad with wanting it. The scent of roasting meat which, oddly, was faintly nauseating. A whiff of honey, which made his mouth water.

He'd never actually missed a meal in his life before this. He was behind by two, now.

Could you eat straw, if you were a donkey? He strained at the rope and reins holding his head to the manger, but they were tight, and so were the knots. The straw was just out of reach.

Damn them!

Could he bite through the bonds holding him?

He gave it a try, but the leather was tough and wouldn't yield to his teeth. And the additional lead-rope was thick; even if he could get through the reins, he didn't think he could chew through the rope.

He almost gave up, but the thought of the Witch's smirk galvanized him. He started in on the rope. At least it was something to chew.

Elena heard Randolf laugh, and looked up from her writing. "What's so funny?" she asked.

"He's chewing on the ever-renewing rope," Randolf replied, with unconcealed glee. "Oh, I know it's not that funny, but I can't wait for the moment when he figures out that however many strands he breaks, they always get replaced."

Sometimes Randolf shows his origins a little too clearly to be comfortable, she thought.

And the personality traits he picked up from his previous owners. It was like the wicked Sorceress to whom he had belonged to take delight in the pain of others.

She kept her tone light, however; there was no point in rebuking Randolf, as he wouldn't understand why he was being chided. "I think it will be more interesting to see how many meals he misses before he gives in," she replied.

"You ought to let me give him a good hiding," Hob said from the door. She turned her head to see him standing there with his arms full of clean linens. She wondered how long he had been there.

"I'm not going to kill him with kindness; he's already had much too much spoiling in his life, and I've no desire to reinforce that. But I told you before, and I will repeat it, there will be no beatings," she said adamantly. "It will just make him feel martyred and justified. Think, Hob—if you beat him, he'll be certain that he is in the right. Can't you see that? No, we have to do this the hard way. Nothing to make him feel that we are worse than he is. Everything to make him see that our way is the better way."

"Hmph," Robin said from behind Hob, his arms full of clean clothing. "Spare the rod and spoil the child is what my old father used to say."

Elena pursed her lips and frowned. "But he's not a child. Not by our count of years, anyway.

No, the lessons he learns have to come from his pain, things that he essentially brings on himself, not from anything we actively do to him."

She returned to writing her part in the tale of Stancia's daughter thus far. She already knew, thanks to another volume that was writing itself down in the library, that Prince Julian had passed the second of his tasks, freeing a fox whose tail had been caught in a log. It was not just any fox, of course, but he was not to know that, and the Fairy Godmother who was responsible for that task did not elaborate on just what sort of "fox" it had been. Prince Octavian was nowhere to be found at the moment, but she wasn't worried. There wasn't much in Phaelin's Wood that could harm a fully armed man the size of Octavian, though by now he was surely getting tired, unkempt, and rather hungry.

Now, if he ran across a segment of road where an "All Forests Are One" spell had been put in place and was still active, there was no telling what he might run into. And, of course, there was always the chance that an evil magician would get wind of his wanderings and intercept him.

But that was out of Elena's hands now; Karelina was back in her place, and what happened to Octavian was largely up to her.

And when she began to feel a little pity for him she just thought of his stone-cold expression as he looked right past her and moved on. No, he deserved what he got, and like Alexander, the end of his punishment was in his own hands.

She finished her chronicle and fanned at the ink to dry it. "I think it'll be tomorrow before he gives up," she said, consideringly. "And at the end of six days, I'll have to give him a day as a man, you know."

"Hmm. Dangerous, that," Hob said. "And Madame, we're not much help if he decides to attack you."

"I know; I've planned for that," she replied. "At least, I hope I have."

If missing breakfast had been a torment, missing lunch was an agony. All Alexander could think about was food. The hot summer breeze from the garden brought him the scent of the vegetables out there, and to his surprise, he could identify them by their scent, if he didn't think too hard about it. Not that it helped; if anything, it made it worse. And the scent of baking bread— oh, if there was a heaven for horses, Alexander now knew, intimately, that it was full of loaves of fresh-baked bread. The aroma of fresh-cut grass made his mouth water. The scents of other things were not at all tempting, but the memories of the foods he had enjoyed as a man were maddening. And no matter how hard he tried not to think of them, more memories of sumptuous breakfasts, al fresco luncheons, and amazing feasts piled into his mind to the point where he could taste his favorites. It didn't help at all that there was nothing to see or do in this stall, with his head tied up to the manger. He was able to hear things perfectly well, but it wasn't enough to occupy his mind, and what he could scent for the most part only made him hungrier.

By nightfall he had learned two more things. The first, that not even three buckets of water are enough to keep hunger at bay for long, and the second, that all that water has to go somewhere. That was when his final humiliation occurred, that of having to stand in his own—well. He could only hold it for so long, after all.

If he'd thought it smelled when he was a man, it was a lot stronger to a donkey's nose.

The strange little man came and carried the soiled straw away, but still—he'd had to stand over it for hours. He vowed that if he was ever himself again, he would assign a stableboy the task of doing nothing else but carrying away mess as soon as it was made.

It was humiliating. Dreadfully humiliating.

Darkness fell without anyone coming to look in on him but that little man, who elected not to speak to him. When it was pitch-dark in the stable, he managed to fall asleep again, actually standing up as horses did, even with his stomach growling at him.

He woke in the middle of the night, out of restless dreams interrupted by hunger and emotions he couldn't exactly put a name to. It was very dark in the stable, too dark to see anything. His ears twitched, and it was an extremely strange sensation to feel them twitching, to feel the air moving over the surface of them, to be aware of how big they were. He'd never been aware of his ears before, only of the sounds they brought him.

There were owls hooting out there. His ears twitched again, and he realized he could pinpoint where they were, or close to it. They were moving, flying from tree to tree, he guessed, calling to each other. Were they mates?

Why couldn't she have turned him into an owl?

He heard crickets outside the stable, frogs somewhere in the distance; the night was a rich tapestry of sound the like of which he had never experienced before. Was this what life was like for an animal?

Why couldn't she have turned him into a frog? A frog would be better than a donkey.

He heard something else, then. Something coming in out of the forest. Two things; hooved beasts, he thought, walking so lightly they hardly made a sound. Deer?

Being a deer wouldn't be bad.

He felt his nostrils spreading as he tried to scent what it was that was out there. And what he got was a bizarre odor that his donkey-instincts couldn't identify....

It was sweet, with musky overtones. Not horse, certainly not deer or goat—too sweet for any of those. If a flower could have been an animal, or an animal a flower, it would have smelled like that.

"The Godmother said to eat the lilies," whispered a voice out there in the darkness. "Not the peas."

A second voice sighed. "But I like peas," it objected. Then he heard a snort. "Enemy!" it said, more loudly. "I smell—"

"Godmother's," said the first voice dismissively. "A Quester who failed."

"But it is not a virgin!" the second objected, disapproval heavy in its voice.

"It is also not a man" said the first. "And the Brownies are not virgins, either. Let the Godmother deal with it."

"All right, you two!" snapped a third voice that was altogether and detestably familiar to Alexander. His tormentor, the little man with the bad temper. "We figured some of you would be here tonight. Come along; the Godmother wants a word with you."

"But we didn't touch the peas!" objected the first voice indignantly.

"Yet," said the voice of the Witch's little servant, darkly. "Now, come along."

"Will we get to lay our heads in her lap?" asked the second voice, so full of hope and yearning that it made Alexander blink. Then blink again. Why would someone want to put his head in that Witch's lap?

"We'll see," the little servant replied. "Just come along."

The sound of hooves and feet moving off was the last he heard of that conversation.

He finally fell asleep again, falling back into troubled dreams that were interrupted at the first hint of light when the chickens began fussing over something. If anything, he was more hungry—and more stubborn—than ever.

This day was a repeat of the first. At this point, he would so gladly have eaten even the dry straw at his feet that he found himself tearing at the lead-rope on his halter in a frenzy of activity that ceased only when his jaws tired.

That was when he took a good look at the place he'd been gnawing on, and cursed the Witch fervently and thoroughly.

There was no sign, none whatsoever, that he had been chewing on it for most of two days. It was magic of some sort, of course.

More of that cursed magic! A surfeit of magic! When had he ever had anything to do with magic? Oh, he knew it existed, but at a distance. The peasants called on Witches and other magicians to help them, because they were—well—stupid peasants. It was not the habit of the sophisticated folk of the towns to do so; or if they did, they did not do so openly. Certainly not one of the people of King Henrick's Court ever used magicians, for his father prided himself on surrounding himself and his sons with people who were rational and logical, and had no need of magic. Magic was for those who did not have the intelligence to come up with other solutions.

Magic was for the weak, for it relied on weak little things like potions and talismans. The strong used their own will and force of arm to bring about what they desired. It appalled him in a way, how quickly he had come to accept so quickly that magic really was strong enough, after all, to bring him to his knees.

And it had. It had brought him to his knees. Because when the little man arrived just before darkness fell, with the last bucket of water for him, he heard himself saying—or rather, braying— "Stop."

The little man looked down his long nose at him. "Oh?" he replied. "You have something to say to me?"

"I'll work," he said, in despair, so hungry now that he was positively nauseous. "I'll work tomorrow."

"I see." The little man put his bucket down, and regarded him skeptically. "So I feed you now, and in the morning, you decide that you won't work, after all. I didn't fall off the turnip cart yesterday, young man."

Alexander shook his head impatiently, unable to comprehend just what that was supposed to mean. "I pledge it. My word of honor. Feed me, and I'll work."

The little man hmphed and glared at him.

"Word of honor. My word as a Prince of the Blood and a knight," he repeated, his temper starting to rise. Just who did this dwarf think he was, to question his word?

"Just now you're an Ass of the Blood, and more like the thing the knight would use to carry his squire's bags," the little man observed, crossly. "And you certainly weren't acting like a knight when you tried to run the Godmother down. But the Godmother said you might make that sort of pledge, and that I was to accept it if you did. All right, then. Pledge accepted."

He left the bucket of water, went off somewhere, and returned with a pottle of hay and a great wooden scoop of something. Alexander felt his nostrils widening again as he greedily drank in the scents, and identified them as not only the best clover-hay, but a scoop of grain as well.

The oats went in the manger, the hay in a hay-bag the little man tied to the side of the stall, and then it was a matter of a moment and the little man had the bridle off as well.

Alexander had no thought for him; his nose was deep in the grain and he was on his first mouthful when the man hit him— lightly, this time—between the ears.

"Mind!" the man said sharply. "You're a man, think like one, ye gurt fool! Eat too fast and ye'll founder!"

Curse it! He's right. So though his empty stomach was crying out for him to shove the food as quickly down his throat as he could, he did nothing of the sort. He chewed each mouthful slowly and carefully, counting to twenty before he took the next—and he wasn't taking big mouthfuls, either, just dainty little bites. He didn't shove all the grain in first, either; he alternated.

One bite of grain, one mouthful of hay torn from the net, one sip of water.

He would never have believed that anything could taste as good. It surprised him, actually; he'd expected the hay to taste like—well, hay. It didn't; it was a little like dry cake, a little like new peas, and there was just the faintest hint of nectar; in fact, it tasted like new-mown hay smelled, utterly delicious. As for the grain, it was earthy, a little bit truffle-flavored, and a lot like bread-crust from the best bread he'd ever eaten. Well, no wonder horses seemed to enjoy these foods so much! It made him wonder what grass tasted like.

When the little man was certain that he wasn't going to eat fast enough to make himself sick, he took himself off with a grunt and a word of warning.

"I'm not going to leave you tied up tonight," the man said, "but remember what I said about running away. Try and run off, and you'll soon find yourself in more trouble than you think. If you're lucky, someone will eventually figure out you belong to Madame Elena. If you aren't, the work you'll be doing will make what I have planned for you seem like mild exercise. And if by some chance you actually manage to get into the deep forest—"

Something about the relish with which the little man said that made Alexander look up at him.

He was grinning. It was not a sign of mirth.

"—let me just say that the packs of wolves in the forest would find donkey-flesh quite the tastiest thing to come their way in a long time. Fancy yourself being able to take on a wolf pack in your current shape?"

Since Alexander had no illusions about being able to take on a wolf pack in human shape, he shook his head.

"And that's just the wolves. There's other things in there you'd rather not learn about." The little man slapped him on the rump. Alexander elected not to protest the insult to his dignity. "So be a good little Prince and stay where I've left you."

Only then did the little man walk out, leaving Alexander alone again. Only now he had a full stomach, and the ability to pick a clean spot to lie down in, and when he did so, he slept the dreamless sleep of the utterly spent.

It was Alexander's fourth day of working for the little man, whom he learned he was supposed to refer to as "Master Hob," and he ached in every limb.

He had thought, when he underwent his training as a knight, that he had worked hard. He had certainly exercised until he was ready to drop, and he had certainly gone from dawn to dusk—

but it was not this bad. He had thought that he had exerted himself when he had been in the military academy. And he had indeed done hours of drilling in all weathers, but that had been nothing compared to this.

They had gone out every single day at dawn and he had spent every morning hauling deadfall out of the forest. This meant that he was hitched to a tree, and had to pull and strain until he pulled it loose from the undergrowth, then had to drag it all the way back to the cottage, where the little man unhitched it at the woodpile. Then they went back after another tree.

Then, after a break for a meal, he spent every afternoon but one hauling stones to build a wall—the one he did not spend in hauling stones, he spent hitched to a cart on a trip to and from some village nearby. Relatively nearby, that is; he had never before appreciated the difference between being the one doing the riding or driving, and being the one doing the pulling.

Then, after a final meal, he spent each evening until twilight with panniers over his back, in the company of someone he was supposed to call "Mistress Lily," tramping about in the forest again, this time so that Mistress Lily could pick wild herbs and berries and bits of things he couldn't identify.

He had to admit that the little man worked just as hard as he did— he was the one hacking the brush away from the fallen trees, hitching them to the harness, and guiding them, and he walked the entire way. He was the one piling the stones into the garden cart, dumping them at the wall, and building the dry-stone wall himself. And it hadn't been Master Hob who had driven the cart to the village, it had been a second little woman whose name he did not know, for Master Hob had been busy with some other task.

If this sort of thing was easy work, he did not want to contemplate what the peasants outside of the grounds of the cottage would do with him if they caught him trying to escape.

But his memory was giving him some hints, with bits of recollection of things he hadn't paid a lot of attention to at the time. Donkeys with bundles strapped to their backs to the point where it was hard to see anything but four staggering legs and a nose. Donkeys hitched to carts that a warhorse would have been hard put to move. Donkeys so thin you could have played a tune on their ribs, their patchy hides showing raw, rubbed places and sores where flies had been feasting on them. He'd seen these poor beasts, often enough, in the streets of Eisenberg, the capital of Kohlstania, and in Polterkranz, the city where the military academy had been. He'd seen them, and his eyes had skimmed right over them. He certainly hadn't done anything about them.

He had plenty of time to think about them now; hauling things didn't take a lot of mental concentration. Why did you look right past us? said those sad, reproachful eyes in his memory. Why did you ignore us? Why didn't you help us?

But they were just donkeys, brute beasts, he tried to rationalize. They weren't men, they hadn't been men! They couldn't suffer as I am suffering!

Oh, no? replied that other, hateful voice in the back of his mind. Really? And it would force him to remember those thin bodies, those sores, those hopeless, glazed eyes.

Those thoughts, well, plagued him like the flies he'd been cursed with until another little man, this one called "Master Robin," had come out with a bottle of something that Master Hob had rubbed into his hair and hide. It smelled sharply of herbs, but whatever it was, it kept the flies away.

Nothing kept the thoughts away.

Nor was that all; it was only when he hurt the most that he thought about those donkeys.

When he was resting, other thoughts swarmed him. What was his father thinking? Julian's palfrey must have gotten home by now. Riderless, with cut reins. What was the King thinking? What was he doing? Had he sent out riders to look for Julian—to ask after Octavian and Alexander?

If he had, he would have found only that their trail stopped at the forest, and he could scour the forest all he liked, but he'd find no trace of any of the three of them.

Would he send to King Stancia? If he did, he'd find out that Julian, at least, was there. What was going on for Julian? Were the trials of the Glass Mountain over? Had he won the girl and the throne, or had he already started his defeated way homeward? And what would he tell their father, in either case?

The questions buzzed in his head like the flies, and tormented him. They were his last thoughts before he went to sleep at night, and his first thoughts when he awoke in the morning. There were other questions too, but they were not as urgent—

Still, when his mind wearied of going around and around in the same fruitless track, they did float to the surface. Just who— and what— was this "Fairy Godmother" person? What did she want with him? It wasn't ransom, or anything else he could understand. It wasn't some sick desire to see him suffer, because she was never around, or at least, never around him. What did she want? What did she think she would gain from keeping him in the shape of a donkey? If she was this powerful a magician, what in heaven's name was she doing in this cottage out in the middle of nowhere? Why wasn't she ruling a Kingdom herself? It made no sense!

It all made his head ache—and none of it stopped the anger inside him from building, either.

He worked it out during the day by throwing himself into the tasks he'd been given, but it burned in him all the time.

Such was the state of his mind and heart when, on the morning of the seventh day of his captivity, he woke—slowly, as ever, in the thin grey light of predawn—to find that he was himself again.

And the mysterious "Godmother" was standing over him, magic wand in her hand.