And, of course, the Royal Dogs. Rikard wasn’t a powerful enough sorcerer yet to go up against the dogs. They were intensely loyal and largely immune to his magic. Dogs were so very confident of their own identity they resisted transformation magic.
One legend told the story of a dog who had been successfully transmogrified into a duck, but simply refused to believe it and carried on as a hunting dog. After a few days with the hunting pack, the duck brought down a small deer and the spell broke immediately.
“Thank you!” Morven smiled. “You are the bestest sister. The bestest!”
“There’s not much competition,” muttered Anya on her way out, but she didn’t say it loud enough for Morven to hear. It might start her thinking about their dead parents, or her lack of more siblings to help her out, and then she might start screaming again. Quiet sobbing was much to be preferred.
“I do hope Gotfried is back to normal,” Anya said to herself as she returned to the library. She would need his help with the dowsing rod and it was very difficult to keep his attention when he was an owl. Despite what she had said to her sister, Anya was rather worried about finding Denholm. There were thousands of frogs in the moat, yes, but there were also hungry frog-eating pike and ravenous frog-eating storks …
The more Anya thought about it, the more concerned she got. There was also the man from the village who gathered frogs to eat … and the snakes that liked to devour frogs in one gulp … and though it was an outside chance the moat monster would bother with a single frog, it might swallow a dozen or so just by accident …
A frog’s life was much riskier than Anya had ever considered. But now a prince’s life was at stake.
That frog had to be found and kissed immediately!
Fortunately, Gotfried was back in human form, though he was still perched on one of the library desks with his black robe all puffed up around him. Before he’d become a librarian, Gotfried had been in training to become a wicked sorcerer, but the life hadn’t suited him. He had very little innate wickedness, and turning into an owl when he was stressed tended to curtail supreme acts of devilry before they got started.
He was much better as a librarian, and his early magical education made him a useful resource for Anya, who had a strong interest in magic. Good magic, of course. And kind-of-gray-area magic. And, to be honest, a little bit of the evil stuff as well. But only a little bit.
“I need to make a dowsing rod to find a particular frog prince,” Anya said as she shouldered the creaking library door open and slipped inside. “Denholm’s got himself transformed by the Duke.”
Gotfried blinked at her several times.
“You’re human again,” said Anya impatiently.
“Oh! Am I?” exclaimed Gotfried. He hastily slid off the desk and flexed his fingers. “Frog dowsing. You’ll need some hair, fingernail clippings, or toe scrapings.”
“I’ve got some hair,” said Anya, suppressing a shudder. Toe scrapings …
“Then a forked hazel twig, dipped in pond water, the hair bound round thrice, and a simple spell,” Gotfried instructed. He leaped towards a shelf, flapping his arms—and fell to his knees before recovering with some embarrassment and simply walking over. “We can find such a spell in Divinations and Destinies, volume two. Or volume five. Maybe six. I suggest you get the twig, dip it in the moat, and come back, Princess. I’ll find the spell.”
“Don’t get distracted,” warned Anya. “And no going owl.”
“Yes, yes,” said Gotfried. “It hardly ever happens twice in one day.”
“Hardly ever is not never,” said Anya. “Please do hurry. It’s not safe for a transformed frog in the moat. His instincts will all be wrong.”
“Bah! It isn’t as bad as everyone makes out,” Gotfried scoffed. “I quite like being an owl.”
“Better than being a frog,” said Anya as she went out the door.
Finding a forked hazel twig presented no difficulty—Anya knew there were two hazel trees in the walled garden. The twigs were useful in a variety of magics, so her stepstepfather had taken pains to cultivate the trees, in the same way that he encouraged toadstools to grow on the wetter walls of the dungeon.
She was sorting through some fallen branches looking for a piece that could be broken off when an enthusiastic wuffling noise announced the arrival of one of the younger royal dogs. Named Ardent, he was still growing into his very large paws and, though officially no longer a puppy, was not much beyond that stage. Consequently, he ran everywhere at full speed and talked too quickly.
“What are you doing?” he asked. “C-c-an I do-do-do it too?”
He barked, of course, but Anya had no difficulty understanding him or any of the other royal dogs. They had considerable magic and if they wanted humans to understand them, then the humans did. It was a mark of their disdain if you only heard barks and growls, as was the case for Duke Rikard. Over time, with practice talking to the dogs, Anya had learned to understand some other animals as well, though she had never got far with fish or amphibians. They gargled their words too much for a human to comprehend their speech.
“I am finding a stick,” said Anya, and regretted it even as she spoke. Stick was a very important word for dogs.
“A stick!” enthused Ardent. “Th-th-row it! Throw it!”
“Not now,” said Anya. “I need to make a dowsing rod to find Morven’s Denholm, who’s been turned into a frog.”
“F-f-f-frog hunting! Frog hunting!” exclaimed Ardent, leaping around Anya in circles and wagging his tail.
“No, not frog hunting. Frog finding. Ah, this will do.”
She held up a stick that forked two-thirds of the way along. Ardent began to leap up at it, but managed to restrain himself, only skipping forward a little bit. He pretended that was what he had intended to do all the time and looked innocently up at Anya, his tongue lolling and his mouth in a grin.
“Well done, Ardent,” said Anya, knowing how difficult it was for the young dog to restrain himself. He wanted to be involved in everything. “If you promise to behave and not to eat any frogs, you can come with me to find Denholm.”