Callon insisted Dilf wrap Stacey in a fine leather pouch, including a slender quiver that was conveniently enchanted with an endless supply of arrows. I cradled the entire bundle in my arms like it was a new born baby. My eyes found the frosted windows, squinting at the green and blue blobs that promised a beautiful day. Did this palace have an archery range? 

My attention snapped to as Callon loudly clapped his clean, graceful, manly hands. 

The din of the market fell off in a gentle decrescendo. Even the golden canaries ceased their song. 

“The lady has chosen her prize.” Callon announced to the room. His voice lifted to the rafters where a selection of hawks and owls and doves and spider monkeys clung to the ornate buttresses. “She has passed gowns of silk, strings of pearls. Your diamonds did not impress her. Your books of knowledge did not pull her desire to their pages. Pets on silver leashes did not sway her resolve. This humble bow is what Archer Flamewheel has chosen. You are dismissed. Pack your worthless wares and hit the bricks.” 

The room took up with voices of protest. 

“I traveled five weeks to get here.” A nasally voice complained. 

“I cut my hair to make silver scarves.” Another cut in. 

“Dangert!” Someone exclaimed. 

“Enough!” Callon snapped. “You should be honored and humbled to have stepped foot inside my court. My court of blood and roses! My court of day and night. My court of up and down.” 

“I’d like to up your down!” Someone yelled from the back. 

Callon growled in a way that made my stomach flip. Then he snapped his fingers and with a WHOOSH sound, the entire market was gone. 

I blinked a few times. One moment there had been rows and rows of booths, mazes of flora, herds of fauna. Now we stood, two lone figures, in a completely empty hall. Even the floor was free of scuffs and dust, reflecting my wretched heart shaped face back up at me. My snarled curles framed my face as if presenting an especially awful painting. Fille Laide. You could see the violet of my irises even against the inlaid chips of marble and stone. 

Callon’s smooth fingers lifted my chin and brought me out of my disappointed pondering. 

His pink eyes were inches from my own. They were sparkling. Gentle ribbons of fuchsia danced from the pupils like tiny little secret solar flares, as powerful as the sun, but meant only for me. I gasped softly. Stacey tumbled from my slender arms. 

“Oh!” I startled and fell to my knees to retrieve her. In doing so, I caught the hem of my gown and pitched forward, the round, hard dome of my skull slamming into Callon’s crotch. 

“OUCHI.” He made a bizarre wheezing sound as his face twisted in pain and he doubled over. 

I scrambled to my feet in horror. 

“Oh my gods. I’m so sorry. I’m such an oaf.” I held back tears. I had always been clumsy. Other girls were graceful and poised. But not me. I was a constant tangle of exfoliated limbs, cracked vases, torn books, and trampled roses. Andromeda found delight in my misadventures, as long as it didn’t involve my spilling goat’s milk on her gown or accidentally kicking her pet skunk. 

My stomach sank. I knew once he was done making pathetic squeaking sounds, Callon would dismiss me as he had done the night market. He’d vaporize me, or drown me, or worse… send me back to the manor and the forest and the cauldrons. Those cursed cauldrons! They tortured me even across realms. 

I couldn’t go back there. I’d die. Not from being torn apart by wolves or eaten by Andromeda’s toads, but from a broken heart. I knew I could never go back. 

While Callon was folded on the floor, his forehead against the chilly marble, I darted to the thick wooden doors we had come through. They were closed. 

I wrapped my hands around the handles, copper metal shaped to look like the tails of two foxes. The wood panels yawned up and up. I did a quick pythagorean theorem and found the doors to be super duper tall. Way taller than my tiny pathetic frame. A pattern of interlocking, geometrical ferns was carved deeply into the thick doors. I gave them a tug. 

But they wouldn’t budge. I was too petite. Thinking fast, mathematical equations spinning in the genius wheel of my mind, I dove behind a fern in a stone planter. 

I hugged my knees and made myself small - not a difficult task with a frame like mine - and prayed to anyone who would listen. Callon would assume I had fled. I’d evade the search parties. I was clever. I’d hide in the walls and sneak food from the kitchen and become friends with the pantry mice. I’d become a legend. A spirit. The entire world could turn to rotten wolf-snout soup and I’d sleep peacefully in forgotten attics. 

A hand found my shoulder. I farted in surprise and snapped my head up. Again, my cranium collided with Callon’s crotch (say that five times fast).

Okay. This one was on him. 

He braced himself against the edge of the planter and handsomely bit down on his knuckles.

“Okay. That one was on you.” I said, meekly. I clung to Stacey. He could take my life, but he couldn’t have Stacey. 

Callon chuckled weakly. 

“Archer Flamewheel. You confound me.” He stepped forward, closing the space between us in one graceful limp. He offered me his hand, and lifted me to my feet. Sweat beaded on his forehead and his eye was twitching. His slender fingers lifted to my cheek. He walked them along my jaw to my hair, where he picked out a tumbled lock of hair. “You are a mystery I long to unravel. You are a puzzle I can not make sense of. You make me feel as though the world is upside down.”

“Is…is that a good thing or a bad thing?” My voice was weak and pathetic, just like quivering legs. 

“There is no doubt you are very very bad for me.” His voice was low, his face dipped “but it feels so good to…to…oh god damnit.” 

His fingers had become tangled in my awful monstrous hair. He gave them a good yank and twerked my head to the side. No luck. But my vertebrae adjusted with a satisfying row of pops. He put his other hand palm to my forehead and tried to rip his snarled digits free. I stumbled back, nearly losing my footing. He shook his hand, a few strands of my treacherous hair falling to the floor. 

“Before there can be any further unraveling, I’ll call a bath for you.” Callon straightened, squaring his athletic shoulders and brushing off his fine, low cut tunic. “My finest ladies maids will bathe you in a bath of cream and lavender. They will brush your hair and teeth. We will find you a gown befitting your beauty.”

“My beauty?” No one had ever called me beautiful before. I wasn’t like other - 

“Then you will join me for a feast of delights, followed by a folly put on by Carl and his traveling chimp-chimeras, and then, as we stroll through the fragrant moonlit pleasure gardens, I will tell you my tale and explain to you why I have brought you here. Now, let us get you to the bathing chamber before you crush my precious stones to an absolute pulp.” 

I wasn’t sure what that meant. And I certainly wasn't prepared for the makeover montage that awaited me.