Happy Monday!
I know, I know. That's an oxymoron. If you need a little something fun to distract you from your work today, I've got a Chapter 2 preview of Damselle in Distress posted below this BRAND NEW snippet of a mysterious hooded figure in the cover art by Ariel Burgess.
"Damselle in Distress" is a fantasy (described by award-winning author Saladin Ahmed as a "fairy-tale skewering comedy") that weaves elements of folk tales, fairy tales, and mythology into an original story. One of my favorite things about "Damselle" is that, despite the title, it turns the typical "damsel in distress" story on its head.
A release date is forthcoming, but you can check out Chapter 1 here, and Chapter 2 below!
I know, I know. That's an oxymoron. If you need a little something fun to distract you from your work today, I've got a Chapter 2 preview of Damselle in Distress posted below this BRAND NEW snippet of a mysterious hooded figure in the cover art by Ariel Burgess.
"Damselle in Distress" is a fantasy (described by award-winning author Saladin Ahmed as a "fairy-tale skewering comedy") that weaves elements of folk tales, fairy tales, and mythology into an original story. One of my favorite things about "Damselle" is that, despite the title, it turns the typical "damsel in distress" story on its head.
A release date is forthcoming, but you can check out Chapter 1 here, and Chapter 2 below!
Damselle in Distress
Chapter 2: To Start a Quest
Kiley Kellermeyer
Damselle ran through town filled with the unfamiliar feeling of hope. She didn’t even throw dirty looks at the people who gaped or those who ducked inside the nearest store to keep away. They probably expected to see something tearing down the street after her, which made her grin. She knew the source of her constant distress. That was half the battle as far as she was concerned.
“Hurry up, Ixby!” she said, weaving through the streets of Woodswyck. The town was busy with people running errands. Armor-clad knights patrolled the streets. Merchants swept their doorways. Stall-vendors hawked their goods. The smell of people and horses and sweets from the bakery mingled into something Damselle willfully ignored as she sprinted down the cobblestone streets, anxious to see her parents. She nearly bowled over the owner of a tavern called The Three Brothers, then halted at a crosswalk. Carriages and horses rushed through the busy lanes.
“Ooh, there she is!” whispered a small boy.
“We shouldn’t cross here,” said his friend. “If we cross with her, we’ll be run over by a carriage.”
“Or run over by a horse!” said the first boy.
“Or eaten by a horse!”
“Or eaten by a drag—”
“Move along,” Damselle snapped at them, “or I’ll run over you myself.”
The lads scampered away to find another crossing. “Ridiculous,” Damselle said sideways to Ixby. “I’ve never been struck by a carriage. I don’t think this curse even extends to that sort of…mundane distress.”
“That is most peculiar, Miss,” squeaked Ixby as they passed store windows. “This naming is an odd thing indeed. Perhaps all creatures should be as Ixbies, with no names at all!”
Damselle swooshed past a flock of younger girls mooning over a pair of glass shoes in the window of the cobbler’s shop. Damselle spared the footwear only a passing thought. If you were going to wear clear shoes, why wear any shoes at all? What if they cracked? How under the Stars could you run in them? The girls grew very smug, whispering as she passed.
Damselle ignored the reflex to smooth her unruly curls. She started to adjust her filthy dress, then contented herself with wringing her hands. “Do you see those girls, Ixby? Their names are normal and safe and perhaps even a little boring.”
“What odd names,” Ixby said, staring back at the girls.
Damselle sighed. “People aren’t afraid to cross the road in their presence. Their names are just names, and that’s that. A name like mine…I thought a name from a faery godmother was supposed to be special. But mine is a curse, not a gift. It doesn’t make any sense.”
“Your situation is curious,” Ixby said. “I have never heard of a faery doing such a thing as this Alyas has done. It does seem out of character.”
“Why name me at all? And why ‘Damselle?’ What did I do to deserve it?”
Ixby hummed. “Do you have any ancestors who angered the Fae?”
“Not that I know of.”
“Did your family ever steal from the Fae?”
“I’m sure they didn’t.”
Ixby shrugged. “It is hard to say, Miss. Faeries can be odd even at the best of times.”
Damselle sniffed. “That’s for certain. Well, my mother and father will know more. They’re the ones who spoke with the faery, after all.”
“Pardon my asking,” Ixby puffed as he zipped along beside her, “but are you sure your parents will have the answers you seek? The faery godmother was not forthcoming. Even if they did, would they tell you?”
“No,” Damselle said. “And yes.”
Ixby scrunched his brow and dodged a lamppost.
“I don’t know if they have the answers, but if they do, I am sure they’ll tell me. Turn here.” She beckoned him around a corner. “They’ve seen the awful life I’ve led. They’ll understand.”
Damselle’s home was a two-level, dark wooden house in which she had lived most of her life. Her father was a merchant in Woodswyck, a buyer and seller of antiquities, and quite good at his job. She supposed now it was no coincidence they lived in the same city as the Swords of Valor. Perhaps her father had moved them there after the incident with Alyas. She felt silly never to have wondered about it before now.
“Ah, Miss, will your family mind my intrusion into your home?”
“Of course not. You’re my, ah, friend.”
Ixby’s cheeks’ darkened. He followed her as she charged through the door and into the house. Candles flickered in the inner hallway as she passed them and hurried into the main room. Her mother, a small, delicate woman, sat curled in a chair by the fire, reading a book and sipping from a cup of tea. Her father, tall and lanky, knelt under a table, jiggling one of its legs and grimacing.
Damselle paused and watched them. She wondered briefly if she should have made a plan. What would she say? How should she start? What would they say?
“Mother? Father?”
“Knights found you, did they?” grunted her father, George, without coming out from under the table. “Good.”
Norah, her mother, looked up. Her sea-green eyes—exact replicas of Damselle’s own—widened as she almost spilled tea on her plain lavender dress. “What happened this time?” She eyed her daughter from head to toe and grimaced. “Is that a spiderweb on your dress? No, don’t tell me. I don’t want to know.” Her expression turned from worry to curiosity. “What is that thing buzzing around your head?”
“This is Ixby.”
“Hello.” Ixby waved politely.
Damselle shrugged. “He’s an…Ixby.”
“Bless you,” her father said absently. The table leg fell off and he cursed.
“I need to talk with you both about something.” Damselle sucked on her lower lip for a moment, shifting her weight on the wooden floor. “I know about Alyas.”
There was a thump as George smacked his head on the underside of the table. Norah closed her eyes for a moment and the worry lines on her face seemed more prevalent. She did not seem surprised that her daughter knew. Rather, Damselle thought she had been waiting for this moment a long time.
George stood up, dark eyes watering, and rubbed his graying head. “What do you know?” he snapped. “Who told you?” He eyed Ixby. “What is that thing?”
Damselle rolled her eyes. “No one told me. I know my faery godmother gave me my name. What I don’t know is why you didn’t tell me before. Who was Alyas? Why did she come here?” She watched them stare at one another, entire conversations passing between them in mere expressions.
Norah stood. “Damselle,” she said, glancing for a moment out the window before she went on. “Your father and I. We were afraid that if you found out you might—” she paused, “you might do something rash.”
“Norah, don’t.” George stepped over the fallen table leg.
“Rash? What would I do that was—” Damselle froze. “You learned something! What do you know? You have to tell me!”
A frightened expression came across Norah’s face and she pressed her lips into a thin line.
Damselle’s father answered for her. “We learned nothing.”
But Damselle could tell when her father was lying. The corner of his thin lips twitched. It happened every time he said, “I knew the knights would get you out of that scrape.”
“You know something,” Damselle said. “I deserve to know what it is.” She turned to her mother. “Please. I am tired of being captured. Of being scared, terrified that the next time I won’t get away. I’m tired of having to rely on those arrogant louts to save me. And most of all, I am tired of being an outsider. I have no friends. No one will stay anywhere near me. You have no idea what that is like. If you know something, if there is the smallest chance of a way to fix this, I need to know. Please.”
Ixby cleared his throat and fluttered onto Damselle’s shoulder in the silence that followed.
“Now look,” her father said. “What we know is useless. There’s nothing you can do with the information.”
“She has a right to know, George,” Norah said.
“She can’t know!” He was angry. Very angry. Underneath his temper, however, Damselle thought she saw a hint of desperation. She felt both frustrated and guilty.
“She should hear,” Norah said, “but she won’t act on it. Not until she understands and knows more.” She turned to face Damselle. “You can’t rush into something like this. You won’t, will you, Damselle? You must not, even if you know.”
Damselle did not answer. She didn’t know how to. She watched the fire across the room crackle in the hearth as she thought. If there was a chance to change her life, she couldn’t promise not to take it. She leaned against the grainy wall, tucked her long hair behind her ears, and said, “Please. Tell me.”
“Fine!” George threw up his hands. “Fine. Tell her, but I won’t be a part of this, not after we’ve done all we could to keep her safe for sixteen years.” With that, he stormed out the back door, leaving a short but tense silence in his wake. Damselle could see him pacing near the window, but she turned her attention to her mother.
“We thought it was hopeless,” her mother began. She, too, pulled back long, red locks as if preparing for a difficult task. “At first, we were sure there was no way to fix what had been done. Then we remembered Alyas herself had seemed uncertain that night. She hesitated when we asked her if your name could be changed. We began researching very quickly after the first… distressing event. And through the second, third and fourth. We read and read and spoke to anyone learned in such things. Your father traveled leagues to speak with some old scholar.”
“And?” Damselle said. “What did you find?”
“Understand that in every instance we heard of, it is a very great gift to be named by a faery godmother or to have one at all. Most people are not named this way, as you know. Very important people frequently are, and others in some instances, though in most cases no one but the faery godmother understands her choice. The circumstances of your naming were odd, and the faery Alyas even more so. She did not seem like other faeries. I don’t know what that means.”
“What did you find?”
“No one on either side of the family has had a faery godmother in years.”
“What about Great Aunt Melody?” Damselle asked, distracted momentarily. “She was named by a faery, wasn’t she? She had the most beautiful voice.”
“She was your great aunt. She was named a long time ago.”
“Right,” Damselle said. “Well, what did you find?”
Norah hesitated, worry plain on her face. “We found a way. It is a very old way.”
Excitement pulsed through Damselle. There is a way to change my name. She felt Ixby quiver on her shoulder.
“Damselle, please,” Norah said, “You must do nothing. It is too dangerous.”
“I don’t care!” Damselle cried. “What does it matter if I am in danger as I travel or if I am here? I won’t sit around waiting for disaster to strike, and I won’t be stared at and talked about.”
“All right, calm down.” Norah held up her hands and glanced again out the window at George as he paced. “There is one way to change a name bestowed by faery magic. It is a process that can be done only by the one who bears the name.”
“Good. I’ll do it.”
“Do not be so quick to act. Such tasks cannot be set upon so rashly. To ask for this change requires clever bargaining with the faery involved. You’ve read about faeries. You know what they are like: They can help you in one breath and curse you in another. Bargaining with one is difficult at best. You must trade three magical items of, I can only assume, great power.”
Damselle furrowed her brow. “What are they?”
Norah paused again, running fingers through her red hair. “They…they are…”
“That’s enough!” George burst back into the house.
“Tell me what they are, Mother,” Damselle said, flashing an angry look at her father. “I will find them and I will take them to Alyas.”
“You know enough.” Her father slammed his hand on the three-legged table and the whole thing nearly buckled. “I’m sorry you feel lonely, but the important thing is that you are alive to feel that way. You don’t need to know all the minute details. It will get you in trouble.”
“Minute details? I need to know everything possible. I am going to find that faery and I am going to change my name.”
“You are not leaving this house.”
“I am going on a quest.” Damselle barely suppressed a scream. Her blood felt hot and her heart pounded. “I am not a child.”
“You are just a girl. A girl who gets in enough trouble as is without asking for more,” George said. “You have no business undertaking a so-called quest.”
“No business?” Damselle shouted. “It is my business and no one else’s.”
“Is that so? Who do you think has kept you safe and alive all these years?”
“The tin-can wearing ninnies in the order. What have you done?”
George recoiled, brows furrowed. “I hand over the coin that keeps those ninnies happy,” he said. “They are the ones qualified to protect you, Damselle. You cannot protect yourself. You cannot. Do you have any idea what horrors are out there?”
“I have a better idea than most.” She sucked in a deep breath. “And I can protect myself.” She could.
“Damselle, please,” Norah interjected. “Please don’t push this. I know how you get. You are prone to make emotional decisions. Think about this. Sleep on it. Please don’t rush into things.”
Damselle locked gazes with her mother, who seemed on the verge of tears. She had not wanted this to happen. The last thing she had intended was to upset either of them. They had dedicated their lives to making sure she was as safe as possible—no small task. Still, they were supposed to understand. They of all people saw the distress she bore, the agony of loneliness.
“I’ll sleep on it,” she finally said to pacify her mother.
Norah nodded and looked at George. He watched them both with a look of stubbornness. Damselle thought this was probably mirrored on her own face. She could pretend to “sleep on it” for their sake. But she wasn’t letting this go. Not when an answer was so close at hand.
“Come on, Ixby,” she mumbled. She trudged away from the kitchen and up the stairs, where she flung open the door to her small room and slammed it shut again. The action was childish, but she didn’t care.
“Are you sure I should not leave?” Ixby hovered by the door and watched as she rifled through various drawers. “I could, perhaps, go back to the well. Or find a similar job. Or no job. Oh my.”
“No,” Damselle said, pulling clothes into her arms. “I’m not giving up on my quest, and neither are you. Stay here. Just turn around. I need to change.”
The little creature pressed his eyes shut and spun so fast he almost ran into the dark wooden door frame. Damselle shrugged out of her cobweb-covered navy dress. She pulled on a thick green one, the best she had for traveling. She tugged stockings onto her feet and stepped into the sturdiest shoes she had. They were dark red, and looked absurd with her dress. She told Ixby to turn back around, then took a leather bag from under her bed.
Despite what she had told her parents, her mind was made up. She would leave, though she had no idea where to start. Her mother had told her a little, but not enough. She needed three items to bargain with Alyas. What items? Where was she supposed to find her faery godmother?
Damselle paced around the room eyeing candles set on books, quills and ink on her bedside table, and tiny sketches of various monsters. She rummaged through a box of items she’d collected over the years: Useless good luck charms, glittering rocks, an oversized talon, and a pendant shaped like the North Star. She muttered to herself as she threw things to the ground.
Ixby hovered above her. “W-what are you doing, Miss?”
“Trying to decide what to bring,” Damselle said with a sigh. She had never been on a quest and had no idea what she needed. She began grabbing whatever she could think of that made sense.
She packed her clothes and an extra cloak and dug out all the money she had, which wasn’t much. She thought about sneaking another knife from the kitchen, but decided against it. It had done her no good, and she thought her mother would be upset if the silverware kept disappearing. Besides, who fought with kitchen utensils anyway?
Damselle made her way to the wooden trunk at the foot of her bed. It was wide and polished, and had “Damselle” carved across the front. Despite what she now knew about her name, she liked that it was etched across that trunk in which she kept some of her favorite things.
Damselle opened the trunk lid and rummaged for a few moments. She picked up a tattered, leather-bound book whose title had long since faded away. The smell of aged parchment wafted across the air. “You know, I borrowed this from the bookshop owner once. It’s a history of our region. I was on my way to return it when a harpy—or was that the goblin?—came for me and I had to run home. The shop owner wrote to tell me to keep it rather than come back. Cowardly old wart.”
She skimmed the volumes in the trunk for a while before placing Magical Monstrosities in her bag. She leafed through a book someone had given her called Miss Fortune: Using the “damsel in distress” routine to capture the knight of your dreams! She snorted and tossed it on the ground in disgust. She avoided a gargantuan green tome that crushed several other volumes beneath it; The Complete Creature Compendium would need its own bag, and someone else to carry it for her. She did, however, push an old book called Of Fire and Water: Elemental Creatures of the East into the bag before she shut the trunk and collapsed onto her bed.
“I’ll have to get food and water,” she said, staring up at the beams that ran across the ceiling. Would her parents let her take it from their home? Surely they wouldn’t deny her such a thing. What if she had to steal it? Sneaking around her own kitchen seemed a ridiculous way to start her journey.
Damselle sighed. “I’m sorry about this, Ixby. I thought my parents would be more supportive.” She punched the pillow and sank back against it, staring at the wood beams across the ceiling. She could hear her parents talking, their voices muffled. Outside, crickets had begun to chirp in the fading daylight.
Ixby shifted his tunic and landed on her bedpost. “Your parents seem eager to protect you, Miss. I suppose it is a bit like my mother suggesting I work in the wishing well. She thought it was the best place for me, even though it was not what I wanted. Perhaps she was right, although I do wish to be a Wood-Ixby.”
“I’m not safer here than anywhere else,” Damselle said, stifling a yawn. She had not realized how tired she was until she had laid down. In the course of the day, she had been captured and almost eaten by a spider and rescued by a knight. She had fallen down a well, discovered the origin of her curse, devastated her mother, and infuriated her father. “If I have to run away, I might as well run in the direction of Alyas, wherever she may be, don’t you think?”
“Ah, well…”
“What do you know of faeries?” Damselle yawned again. “More than I do, I’m sure.”
“I don’t know, Miss Damselle. You seem to know a great deal already. There is not much I could add.”
Damselle flipped onto her side and shook her head. “Tell me what you know. I’m sure it is more than I have read.”
“Well,” he said. “The Fae are…complicated.” Ixby settled onto the post. “Their idea of right and wrong can differ from other creatures. They are serious beings, and very powerful. They are beautiful and vain, and must live according to three basic rules…”
Damselle tried to listen to him as he talked. She really tried. His squeaky little voice was far from hypnotic, but her eyelids began to droop and the room started to blur. She opened her mouth to say something to him but a long, deep yawn escaped. The last thing she heard Ixby say was, “…never met one myself, Miss, though I should like to,” before sleep overcame her.
*
Consciousness returned to Damselle in brief snatches. She drifted in and out in the now-dark room. In between periods of sleep, she could hear sounds from other parts of the house: A raised voice. A chair scraping across the floor. A whisper. A door shutting. Heavy boots upon the floor.
When she finally awoke it was sometime before dawn, in the early hours of the morning. The moonlight shone through her window, casting shadows across the floor. She swung her feet onto the floor to stand. Something popped up in front of her nose.
“Ixby!” she gasped.
“I-I am sorry to startle you, Miss Damselle, but I am glad you are awake.” He threw a nervous glance at the door with his enormous eyes.
Damselle followed his gaze. “Why? What’s wrong?” she asked. Stars, all I need is for something to go wrong right now. There was a bad feeling somewhere in the pit of her stomach.
“While you slept, ah, your father, he…” Ixby wrung his hands.
“He what?”
“He thought you might try to sneak out, so he posted a knight outside your door. So that you would not leave.”
“He what?” Damselle cried.
Floorboards creaked in the hallway. Damselle stood abruptly, stomped to the door, and pulled it open. There, silhouetted by the hallway candlelight, stood a knight. If you could call him a knight. The man outside her bedroom door was tall and scrawny. His armor was a bit shoddy, though it bore the same dragon-piercing sword crest Banton’s had. He wore no helm and had fluffy, light brown hair. He also had a short beard, and his nose was too large for his face. Only his big, dark eyes, which gave him the look of a sad puppy, seemed to suit him.
“Good morning, Lady!” he said when he saw her.
“Not really,” Damselle said. “Who are you?”
“Ah yes!” He flourished and bowed dramatically. “I am Sir Leal, a knight of the order of the Swords of Valor.”
The lowest ranking knight in the order, Damselle decided. “What are you doing here?”
“I have been appointed to stand guard by your door, my lady. Never fear, for while I am here no harm shall come to you.” He thrust his arms out and knocked a small painting of her grandmother off the wall. Damselle watched, frowning, as he fixed it crookedly back in place.
“You can’t keep me locked in my own room.” Damselle crossed her arms. “That’s not what knights do.”
“My mission is to keep you safe in your quarters,” he said. “Safe you shall be, my lady, while I am here.” He stuck out his chest as far as it would go and smiled at her.
Damselle stared at him, then attempted to walk past him. He shuffled in front of her and blocked her way. Damselle tried to hurry back around him, but he gamboled in front of her again as if they were doing an ungainly dance.
“As I have said, Miss….uh, Miss. I have been instructed to see that you remain within your sleeping chamber. Fear not, I shall—”
Damselle pulled her door shut with a bang! that made Ixby squeak from somewhere behind her. How could her father set a knight to keep her in? And it wasn’t even a good knight! What self-respecting knight would voluntarily take guard duty for a mischievous girl? Well, that didn’t matter. She was not a child. She wanted—no, she needed—to go on this quest. It was her right, and no one would do it for her; not Sir Banton or Sir Leal, not her parents. It had to be her. But she was stuck in her room, and short of leaping from a second-story window or wrestling a knight, she wasn’t quite sure how to get out. It was infuriating.
Damselle kicked something hard as she strode across the dark room and yelped.
“Are you okay, Miss?” asked Ixby.
“No. Yes. I’m fine,” she snapped, hobbling to a table where she finally lit several candles. She turned and saw the Miss Fortune book she had tossed on the floor splayed open and dog-eared from her kick.
Damselle sighed. “You could fly out the window, if you’d like to leave now. I understand.”
“I cannot travel alone,” Ixby said, floating over to the light. “Well, I could, but I would rather not. Could you climb from the window?”
Damselle shook her head. “I think the door is going to be the best way, unfortunately, and I’m not sure how to... how to…” Her eyes fell again upon the book lying on the floor.
“How to what?”
“Capture the knight of your dreams…” Damselle whispered.
“Ah, capture what?”
“…by being a damsel in distress.” Damsel. Stars, she hated that word. But it gave her an idea. It wasn’t a very good one, but it was all she had.
*
Damselle stared into the mirror. She’d attempted to comb her fluffy curls, and the candlelight made her green eyes dance. The effect was rather ruined by the heavy green dress and thick shoes she wore, so she prodded her hair a few more times and nodded. “Ready, Ixby?”
“Yes, Miss,” Ixby said.
Damselle took a deep breath and screeched, “Help! Help me!”
The door burst open and Sir Leal fell over himself to get into the room. “Fear not, for I am…” He looked around the room. “Here. Is there a problem?”
“Yes,” Damselle said, running to the knight. “Oh, I am so glad you are here!”
Sir Leal cleared his throat, looking torn between grinning and trying to remain professional.
“There’s something under my bed. Maybe more than one. They came in through the window, didn’t they, Ixby?”
Ixby quivered and nodded his head, mouthing soundlessly as he stared at Leal. Damselle grimaced. “Please, please look for them, Sir Leal. I am ever so frightened.” She tried to bat her eyelashes like Miss Fortune had instructed. It made her feel a little dizzy.
Sir Leal cast a curious look at the dark space under her bed, then stood tall. “Indeed, I shall search for these creatures,” he said.
“Oh, ah, thank you, Brave Knight!”
“You flatter me, Miss,” Leal said. He dropped to his hands and knees and began to crawl toward the bed.
“Oh, my hero!” She looked at Ixby, who was eyeing her, and she shrugged. Damselle backed away slowly. “Be careful Sir Leal! Who knows what they are? They could be all over the room, right Ixby?”
“R-right, Miss. Anywhere. Everywhere, in fact.”
“I don’t hear anything,” Leal said. “Are you sure they are still there?”
Damselle reached for her bag. “Oh yes, they are there. I think they must be afraid of the light. Ixby, blow out the candles.”
“But—” said Sir Leal, but Ixby had already complied with several small puffs, and the room fell into near-darkness. There was a sound of metal scraping on wood and a thud. Something heavy, probably Leal’s sword, clattered to the ground.
Damselle shouldered her pack and seized the chance to dart through the cracked door into the hallway. She closed the door quietly behind her. Then she pulled out a length of ribbon she’d found in her dresser and tied one end to the door handle of her room, another to that of the room across the hall. As she hurried away, she heard Ixby squeak, “P-perhaps they crawled under this t-table, Sir Knight, or m-maybe into the washbasin!”
The house was quiet and still. Her parents were asleep, and Damselle slowed for a moment at the thought of leaving without saying goodbye. Was she really leaving? She’d never been safe here—she wasn’t safe anywhere. She was loved here, though. Her parents protected her in the best way they knew how. Damselle knew that could not have been easy. How many sleepless nights had they spent worrying? Could she really throw it all in their faces now? I could die and never see them again, she thought. It would be a poor way to repay sixteen years of love and care, but... Damselle swallowed a lump in her throat as she pushed open the front door and tip-toed onto the lane.
Moonlight and lanterns lit the road. Damselle wished she could shrink into the shadows. How long could Ixby stall the knight? Her little trick with the ribbon wouldn’t hold for very long.
Someone stepped out from the bushes and Damselle nearly screamed.
“I knew you would get out.” Her mother’s face peeked out from underneath a dark cloak. She carried a small sack. “You don’t always need help in your escapes, and I thought you would have an easy time escaping that knight.”
Damselle blinked. “What are you doing out here?”
Her mother sighed. “I heard you with that knight. I knew you would make it past him, so I listened and I waited. This way.” She motioned for Damselle to follow her down the road, which Damselle did with a feeling of overwhelming curiosity. “I’m sure the knight will follow you, at least for a short time, so I will tell you what you need so you can be on your way.”
Damselle almost stopped short. “You’re going to let me go?”
Norah took her hand and pulled her into a side road. “Dearest One, you are going to go whether your father and I let your or not. I thought about it all evening. This way I know you are prepared and…” she paused. “I can say goodbye. Now.” She handed Damselle the small bag she’d been carrying. “Food and a waterskin. It won’t go far, but it will be better than nothing.”
Damselle felt such enormous gratitude for her mother she did not think she could adequately express it.
Norah continued, “What you need from me is information, so listen carefully. The three items you need to give to Alyas cannot be substituted and must come from you. You understand, that is why we have not done this ourselves. They must be perfect and whole. This is important.” She reached into her pocket and handed Damselle a small list. By the light from the nearest flickering lantern she could just make out:
1. A faery’s tale
2. A witch’s veil
3. A dragon’s scale
With each line she read, Damselle felt as if her heart pumped harder, her lungs grew tighter. Where would she find such things? “What do they do?”
“I don’t know. We never learned. Even finding this list was extremely difficult.”
“Where am I supposed to find them?” Damselle asked.
“Alyas was north, last I heard, through the woods and beyond. Faeries dwell within the woods, so the first item should be the easiest to find, but that is not saying much. Dragons often live in hills and mountains when they are not guarding something. As for a witch, I’m not certain. You will have to work that one out on your own. The Willowwax might be…” she paused again, as if saying the words took every ounce of strength she had. “Might be the best place to start.” She shut her eyes and looked down at the cobblestones. Even in the dim light Damselle could see tears running down her pale cheeks.
Damselle blinked away her own tears. Part of her, a very small part, wished her mother would convince her to stay home. Dragons, witches and faeries. And the Willowwax! She wasn’t ready for this. But she couldn’t live with herself—literally, perhaps—if she didn’t try.
“Mother, I have to do it. I don’t have a choice. I’m sorry.”
Norah reached up and brushed a loose strand of hair from Damselle’s face before pulling her into a tight embrace. “I know, but that doesn’t make it any easier. At some point, though, we have to let you go.”
“Oh, Miss Damselle, there you are!”
Damselle looked up to see Ixby floating overhead. She had forgotten about him, so absorbed had she been in her mother’s words.
“I think the knight realized I was stalling. I believe he is attempting to break down your door.”
Norah sighed. “He may follow, at least until morning. Go around the edge of town and take the lesser traveled pathways.”
Damselle hugged her again. “What about Father?”
“I’ll speak with him. He’ll understand. Be careful, Damselle, and stay safe.”
“Safe? Me?” Damselle said, smiling at her mother one last time. “You must be thinking of somebody else.”
With that, Damselle and Ixby hurried off into the dark to begin their quest.
Chapter 2: To Start a Quest
Kiley Kellermeyer
Damselle ran through town filled with the unfamiliar feeling of hope. She didn’t even throw dirty looks at the people who gaped or those who ducked inside the nearest store to keep away. They probably expected to see something tearing down the street after her, which made her grin. She knew the source of her constant distress. That was half the battle as far as she was concerned.
“Hurry up, Ixby!” she said, weaving through the streets of Woodswyck. The town was busy with people running errands. Armor-clad knights patrolled the streets. Merchants swept their doorways. Stall-vendors hawked their goods. The smell of people and horses and sweets from the bakery mingled into something Damselle willfully ignored as she sprinted down the cobblestone streets, anxious to see her parents. She nearly bowled over the owner of a tavern called The Three Brothers, then halted at a crosswalk. Carriages and horses rushed through the busy lanes.
“Ooh, there she is!” whispered a small boy.
“We shouldn’t cross here,” said his friend. “If we cross with her, we’ll be run over by a carriage.”
“Or run over by a horse!” said the first boy.
“Or eaten by a horse!”
“Or eaten by a drag—”
“Move along,” Damselle snapped at them, “or I’ll run over you myself.”
The lads scampered away to find another crossing. “Ridiculous,” Damselle said sideways to Ixby. “I’ve never been struck by a carriage. I don’t think this curse even extends to that sort of…mundane distress.”
“That is most peculiar, Miss,” squeaked Ixby as they passed store windows. “This naming is an odd thing indeed. Perhaps all creatures should be as Ixbies, with no names at all!”
Damselle swooshed past a flock of younger girls mooning over a pair of glass shoes in the window of the cobbler’s shop. Damselle spared the footwear only a passing thought. If you were going to wear clear shoes, why wear any shoes at all? What if they cracked? How under the Stars could you run in them? The girls grew very smug, whispering as she passed.
Damselle ignored the reflex to smooth her unruly curls. She started to adjust her filthy dress, then contented herself with wringing her hands. “Do you see those girls, Ixby? Their names are normal and safe and perhaps even a little boring.”
“What odd names,” Ixby said, staring back at the girls.
Damselle sighed. “People aren’t afraid to cross the road in their presence. Their names are just names, and that’s that. A name like mine…I thought a name from a faery godmother was supposed to be special. But mine is a curse, not a gift. It doesn’t make any sense.”
“Your situation is curious,” Ixby said. “I have never heard of a faery doing such a thing as this Alyas has done. It does seem out of character.”
“Why name me at all? And why ‘Damselle?’ What did I do to deserve it?”
Ixby hummed. “Do you have any ancestors who angered the Fae?”
“Not that I know of.”
“Did your family ever steal from the Fae?”
“I’m sure they didn’t.”
Ixby shrugged. “It is hard to say, Miss. Faeries can be odd even at the best of times.”
Damselle sniffed. “That’s for certain. Well, my mother and father will know more. They’re the ones who spoke with the faery, after all.”
“Pardon my asking,” Ixby puffed as he zipped along beside her, “but are you sure your parents will have the answers you seek? The faery godmother was not forthcoming. Even if they did, would they tell you?”
“No,” Damselle said. “And yes.”
Ixby scrunched his brow and dodged a lamppost.
“I don’t know if they have the answers, but if they do, I am sure they’ll tell me. Turn here.” She beckoned him around a corner. “They’ve seen the awful life I’ve led. They’ll understand.”
Damselle’s home was a two-level, dark wooden house in which she had lived most of her life. Her father was a merchant in Woodswyck, a buyer and seller of antiquities, and quite good at his job. She supposed now it was no coincidence they lived in the same city as the Swords of Valor. Perhaps her father had moved them there after the incident with Alyas. She felt silly never to have wondered about it before now.
“Ah, Miss, will your family mind my intrusion into your home?”
“Of course not. You’re my, ah, friend.”
Ixby’s cheeks’ darkened. He followed her as she charged through the door and into the house. Candles flickered in the inner hallway as she passed them and hurried into the main room. Her mother, a small, delicate woman, sat curled in a chair by the fire, reading a book and sipping from a cup of tea. Her father, tall and lanky, knelt under a table, jiggling one of its legs and grimacing.
Damselle paused and watched them. She wondered briefly if she should have made a plan. What would she say? How should she start? What would they say?
“Mother? Father?”
“Knights found you, did they?” grunted her father, George, without coming out from under the table. “Good.”
Norah, her mother, looked up. Her sea-green eyes—exact replicas of Damselle’s own—widened as she almost spilled tea on her plain lavender dress. “What happened this time?” She eyed her daughter from head to toe and grimaced. “Is that a spiderweb on your dress? No, don’t tell me. I don’t want to know.” Her expression turned from worry to curiosity. “What is that thing buzzing around your head?”
“This is Ixby.”
“Hello.” Ixby waved politely.
Damselle shrugged. “He’s an…Ixby.”
“Bless you,” her father said absently. The table leg fell off and he cursed.
“I need to talk with you both about something.” Damselle sucked on her lower lip for a moment, shifting her weight on the wooden floor. “I know about Alyas.”
There was a thump as George smacked his head on the underside of the table. Norah closed her eyes for a moment and the worry lines on her face seemed more prevalent. She did not seem surprised that her daughter knew. Rather, Damselle thought she had been waiting for this moment a long time.
George stood up, dark eyes watering, and rubbed his graying head. “What do you know?” he snapped. “Who told you?” He eyed Ixby. “What is that thing?”
Damselle rolled her eyes. “No one told me. I know my faery godmother gave me my name. What I don’t know is why you didn’t tell me before. Who was Alyas? Why did she come here?” She watched them stare at one another, entire conversations passing between them in mere expressions.
Norah stood. “Damselle,” she said, glancing for a moment out the window before she went on. “Your father and I. We were afraid that if you found out you might—” she paused, “you might do something rash.”
“Norah, don’t.” George stepped over the fallen table leg.
“Rash? What would I do that was—” Damselle froze. “You learned something! What do you know? You have to tell me!”
A frightened expression came across Norah’s face and she pressed her lips into a thin line.
Damselle’s father answered for her. “We learned nothing.”
But Damselle could tell when her father was lying. The corner of his thin lips twitched. It happened every time he said, “I knew the knights would get you out of that scrape.”
“You know something,” Damselle said. “I deserve to know what it is.” She turned to her mother. “Please. I am tired of being captured. Of being scared, terrified that the next time I won’t get away. I’m tired of having to rely on those arrogant louts to save me. And most of all, I am tired of being an outsider. I have no friends. No one will stay anywhere near me. You have no idea what that is like. If you know something, if there is the smallest chance of a way to fix this, I need to know. Please.”
Ixby cleared his throat and fluttered onto Damselle’s shoulder in the silence that followed.
“Now look,” her father said. “What we know is useless. There’s nothing you can do with the information.”
“She has a right to know, George,” Norah said.
“She can’t know!” He was angry. Very angry. Underneath his temper, however, Damselle thought she saw a hint of desperation. She felt both frustrated and guilty.
“She should hear,” Norah said, “but she won’t act on it. Not until she understands and knows more.” She turned to face Damselle. “You can’t rush into something like this. You won’t, will you, Damselle? You must not, even if you know.”
Damselle did not answer. She didn’t know how to. She watched the fire across the room crackle in the hearth as she thought. If there was a chance to change her life, she couldn’t promise not to take it. She leaned against the grainy wall, tucked her long hair behind her ears, and said, “Please. Tell me.”
“Fine!” George threw up his hands. “Fine. Tell her, but I won’t be a part of this, not after we’ve done all we could to keep her safe for sixteen years.” With that, he stormed out the back door, leaving a short but tense silence in his wake. Damselle could see him pacing near the window, but she turned her attention to her mother.
“We thought it was hopeless,” her mother began. She, too, pulled back long, red locks as if preparing for a difficult task. “At first, we were sure there was no way to fix what had been done. Then we remembered Alyas herself had seemed uncertain that night. She hesitated when we asked her if your name could be changed. We began researching very quickly after the first… distressing event. And through the second, third and fourth. We read and read and spoke to anyone learned in such things. Your father traveled leagues to speak with some old scholar.”
“And?” Damselle said. “What did you find?”
“Understand that in every instance we heard of, it is a very great gift to be named by a faery godmother or to have one at all. Most people are not named this way, as you know. Very important people frequently are, and others in some instances, though in most cases no one but the faery godmother understands her choice. The circumstances of your naming were odd, and the faery Alyas even more so. She did not seem like other faeries. I don’t know what that means.”
“What did you find?”
“No one on either side of the family has had a faery godmother in years.”
“What about Great Aunt Melody?” Damselle asked, distracted momentarily. “She was named by a faery, wasn’t she? She had the most beautiful voice.”
“She was your great aunt. She was named a long time ago.”
“Right,” Damselle said. “Well, what did you find?”
Norah hesitated, worry plain on her face. “We found a way. It is a very old way.”
Excitement pulsed through Damselle. There is a way to change my name. She felt Ixby quiver on her shoulder.
“Damselle, please,” Norah said, “You must do nothing. It is too dangerous.”
“I don’t care!” Damselle cried. “What does it matter if I am in danger as I travel or if I am here? I won’t sit around waiting for disaster to strike, and I won’t be stared at and talked about.”
“All right, calm down.” Norah held up her hands and glanced again out the window at George as he paced. “There is one way to change a name bestowed by faery magic. It is a process that can be done only by the one who bears the name.”
“Good. I’ll do it.”
“Do not be so quick to act. Such tasks cannot be set upon so rashly. To ask for this change requires clever bargaining with the faery involved. You’ve read about faeries. You know what they are like: They can help you in one breath and curse you in another. Bargaining with one is difficult at best. You must trade three magical items of, I can only assume, great power.”
Damselle furrowed her brow. “What are they?”
Norah paused again, running fingers through her red hair. “They…they are…”
“That’s enough!” George burst back into the house.
“Tell me what they are, Mother,” Damselle said, flashing an angry look at her father. “I will find them and I will take them to Alyas.”
“You know enough.” Her father slammed his hand on the three-legged table and the whole thing nearly buckled. “I’m sorry you feel lonely, but the important thing is that you are alive to feel that way. You don’t need to know all the minute details. It will get you in trouble.”
“Minute details? I need to know everything possible. I am going to find that faery and I am going to change my name.”
“You are not leaving this house.”
“I am going on a quest.” Damselle barely suppressed a scream. Her blood felt hot and her heart pounded. “I am not a child.”
“You are just a girl. A girl who gets in enough trouble as is without asking for more,” George said. “You have no business undertaking a so-called quest.”
“No business?” Damselle shouted. “It is my business and no one else’s.”
“Is that so? Who do you think has kept you safe and alive all these years?”
“The tin-can wearing ninnies in the order. What have you done?”
George recoiled, brows furrowed. “I hand over the coin that keeps those ninnies happy,” he said. “They are the ones qualified to protect you, Damselle. You cannot protect yourself. You cannot. Do you have any idea what horrors are out there?”
“I have a better idea than most.” She sucked in a deep breath. “And I can protect myself.” She could.
“Damselle, please,” Norah interjected. “Please don’t push this. I know how you get. You are prone to make emotional decisions. Think about this. Sleep on it. Please don’t rush into things.”
Damselle locked gazes with her mother, who seemed on the verge of tears. She had not wanted this to happen. The last thing she had intended was to upset either of them. They had dedicated their lives to making sure she was as safe as possible—no small task. Still, they were supposed to understand. They of all people saw the distress she bore, the agony of loneliness.
“I’ll sleep on it,” she finally said to pacify her mother.
Norah nodded and looked at George. He watched them both with a look of stubbornness. Damselle thought this was probably mirrored on her own face. She could pretend to “sleep on it” for their sake. But she wasn’t letting this go. Not when an answer was so close at hand.
“Come on, Ixby,” she mumbled. She trudged away from the kitchen and up the stairs, where she flung open the door to her small room and slammed it shut again. The action was childish, but she didn’t care.
“Are you sure I should not leave?” Ixby hovered by the door and watched as she rifled through various drawers. “I could, perhaps, go back to the well. Or find a similar job. Or no job. Oh my.”
“No,” Damselle said, pulling clothes into her arms. “I’m not giving up on my quest, and neither are you. Stay here. Just turn around. I need to change.”
The little creature pressed his eyes shut and spun so fast he almost ran into the dark wooden door frame. Damselle shrugged out of her cobweb-covered navy dress. She pulled on a thick green one, the best she had for traveling. She tugged stockings onto her feet and stepped into the sturdiest shoes she had. They were dark red, and looked absurd with her dress. She told Ixby to turn back around, then took a leather bag from under her bed.
Despite what she had told her parents, her mind was made up. She would leave, though she had no idea where to start. Her mother had told her a little, but not enough. She needed three items to bargain with Alyas. What items? Where was she supposed to find her faery godmother?
Damselle paced around the room eyeing candles set on books, quills and ink on her bedside table, and tiny sketches of various monsters. She rummaged through a box of items she’d collected over the years: Useless good luck charms, glittering rocks, an oversized talon, and a pendant shaped like the North Star. She muttered to herself as she threw things to the ground.
Ixby hovered above her. “W-what are you doing, Miss?”
“Trying to decide what to bring,” Damselle said with a sigh. She had never been on a quest and had no idea what she needed. She began grabbing whatever she could think of that made sense.
She packed her clothes and an extra cloak and dug out all the money she had, which wasn’t much. She thought about sneaking another knife from the kitchen, but decided against it. It had done her no good, and she thought her mother would be upset if the silverware kept disappearing. Besides, who fought with kitchen utensils anyway?
Damselle made her way to the wooden trunk at the foot of her bed. It was wide and polished, and had “Damselle” carved across the front. Despite what she now knew about her name, she liked that it was etched across that trunk in which she kept some of her favorite things.
Damselle opened the trunk lid and rummaged for a few moments. She picked up a tattered, leather-bound book whose title had long since faded away. The smell of aged parchment wafted across the air. “You know, I borrowed this from the bookshop owner once. It’s a history of our region. I was on my way to return it when a harpy—or was that the goblin?—came for me and I had to run home. The shop owner wrote to tell me to keep it rather than come back. Cowardly old wart.”
She skimmed the volumes in the trunk for a while before placing Magical Monstrosities in her bag. She leafed through a book someone had given her called Miss Fortune: Using the “damsel in distress” routine to capture the knight of your dreams! She snorted and tossed it on the ground in disgust. She avoided a gargantuan green tome that crushed several other volumes beneath it; The Complete Creature Compendium would need its own bag, and someone else to carry it for her. She did, however, push an old book called Of Fire and Water: Elemental Creatures of the East into the bag before she shut the trunk and collapsed onto her bed.
“I’ll have to get food and water,” she said, staring up at the beams that ran across the ceiling. Would her parents let her take it from their home? Surely they wouldn’t deny her such a thing. What if she had to steal it? Sneaking around her own kitchen seemed a ridiculous way to start her journey.
Damselle sighed. “I’m sorry about this, Ixby. I thought my parents would be more supportive.” She punched the pillow and sank back against it, staring at the wood beams across the ceiling. She could hear her parents talking, their voices muffled. Outside, crickets had begun to chirp in the fading daylight.
Ixby shifted his tunic and landed on her bedpost. “Your parents seem eager to protect you, Miss. I suppose it is a bit like my mother suggesting I work in the wishing well. She thought it was the best place for me, even though it was not what I wanted. Perhaps she was right, although I do wish to be a Wood-Ixby.”
“I’m not safer here than anywhere else,” Damselle said, stifling a yawn. She had not realized how tired she was until she had laid down. In the course of the day, she had been captured and almost eaten by a spider and rescued by a knight. She had fallen down a well, discovered the origin of her curse, devastated her mother, and infuriated her father. “If I have to run away, I might as well run in the direction of Alyas, wherever she may be, don’t you think?”
“Ah, well…”
“What do you know of faeries?” Damselle yawned again. “More than I do, I’m sure.”
“I don’t know, Miss Damselle. You seem to know a great deal already. There is not much I could add.”
Damselle flipped onto her side and shook her head. “Tell me what you know. I’m sure it is more than I have read.”
“Well,” he said. “The Fae are…complicated.” Ixby settled onto the post. “Their idea of right and wrong can differ from other creatures. They are serious beings, and very powerful. They are beautiful and vain, and must live according to three basic rules…”
Damselle tried to listen to him as he talked. She really tried. His squeaky little voice was far from hypnotic, but her eyelids began to droop and the room started to blur. She opened her mouth to say something to him but a long, deep yawn escaped. The last thing she heard Ixby say was, “…never met one myself, Miss, though I should like to,” before sleep overcame her.
*
Consciousness returned to Damselle in brief snatches. She drifted in and out in the now-dark room. In between periods of sleep, she could hear sounds from other parts of the house: A raised voice. A chair scraping across the floor. A whisper. A door shutting. Heavy boots upon the floor.
When she finally awoke it was sometime before dawn, in the early hours of the morning. The moonlight shone through her window, casting shadows across the floor. She swung her feet onto the floor to stand. Something popped up in front of her nose.
“Ixby!” she gasped.
“I-I am sorry to startle you, Miss Damselle, but I am glad you are awake.” He threw a nervous glance at the door with his enormous eyes.
Damselle followed his gaze. “Why? What’s wrong?” she asked. Stars, all I need is for something to go wrong right now. There was a bad feeling somewhere in the pit of her stomach.
“While you slept, ah, your father, he…” Ixby wrung his hands.
“He what?”
“He thought you might try to sneak out, so he posted a knight outside your door. So that you would not leave.”
“He what?” Damselle cried.
Floorboards creaked in the hallway. Damselle stood abruptly, stomped to the door, and pulled it open. There, silhouetted by the hallway candlelight, stood a knight. If you could call him a knight. The man outside her bedroom door was tall and scrawny. His armor was a bit shoddy, though it bore the same dragon-piercing sword crest Banton’s had. He wore no helm and had fluffy, light brown hair. He also had a short beard, and his nose was too large for his face. Only his big, dark eyes, which gave him the look of a sad puppy, seemed to suit him.
“Good morning, Lady!” he said when he saw her.
“Not really,” Damselle said. “Who are you?”
“Ah yes!” He flourished and bowed dramatically. “I am Sir Leal, a knight of the order of the Swords of Valor.”
The lowest ranking knight in the order, Damselle decided. “What are you doing here?”
“I have been appointed to stand guard by your door, my lady. Never fear, for while I am here no harm shall come to you.” He thrust his arms out and knocked a small painting of her grandmother off the wall. Damselle watched, frowning, as he fixed it crookedly back in place.
“You can’t keep me locked in my own room.” Damselle crossed her arms. “That’s not what knights do.”
“My mission is to keep you safe in your quarters,” he said. “Safe you shall be, my lady, while I am here.” He stuck out his chest as far as it would go and smiled at her.
Damselle stared at him, then attempted to walk past him. He shuffled in front of her and blocked her way. Damselle tried to hurry back around him, but he gamboled in front of her again as if they were doing an ungainly dance.
“As I have said, Miss….uh, Miss. I have been instructed to see that you remain within your sleeping chamber. Fear not, I shall—”
Damselle pulled her door shut with a bang! that made Ixby squeak from somewhere behind her. How could her father set a knight to keep her in? And it wasn’t even a good knight! What self-respecting knight would voluntarily take guard duty for a mischievous girl? Well, that didn’t matter. She was not a child. She wanted—no, she needed—to go on this quest. It was her right, and no one would do it for her; not Sir Banton or Sir Leal, not her parents. It had to be her. But she was stuck in her room, and short of leaping from a second-story window or wrestling a knight, she wasn’t quite sure how to get out. It was infuriating.
Damselle kicked something hard as she strode across the dark room and yelped.
“Are you okay, Miss?” asked Ixby.
“No. Yes. I’m fine,” she snapped, hobbling to a table where she finally lit several candles. She turned and saw the Miss Fortune book she had tossed on the floor splayed open and dog-eared from her kick.
Damselle sighed. “You could fly out the window, if you’d like to leave now. I understand.”
“I cannot travel alone,” Ixby said, floating over to the light. “Well, I could, but I would rather not. Could you climb from the window?”
Damselle shook her head. “I think the door is going to be the best way, unfortunately, and I’m not sure how to... how to…” Her eyes fell again upon the book lying on the floor.
“How to what?”
“Capture the knight of your dreams…” Damselle whispered.
“Ah, capture what?”
“…by being a damsel in distress.” Damsel. Stars, she hated that word. But it gave her an idea. It wasn’t a very good one, but it was all she had.
*
Damselle stared into the mirror. She’d attempted to comb her fluffy curls, and the candlelight made her green eyes dance. The effect was rather ruined by the heavy green dress and thick shoes she wore, so she prodded her hair a few more times and nodded. “Ready, Ixby?”
“Yes, Miss,” Ixby said.
Damselle took a deep breath and screeched, “Help! Help me!”
The door burst open and Sir Leal fell over himself to get into the room. “Fear not, for I am…” He looked around the room. “Here. Is there a problem?”
“Yes,” Damselle said, running to the knight. “Oh, I am so glad you are here!”
Sir Leal cleared his throat, looking torn between grinning and trying to remain professional.
“There’s something under my bed. Maybe more than one. They came in through the window, didn’t they, Ixby?”
Ixby quivered and nodded his head, mouthing soundlessly as he stared at Leal. Damselle grimaced. “Please, please look for them, Sir Leal. I am ever so frightened.” She tried to bat her eyelashes like Miss Fortune had instructed. It made her feel a little dizzy.
Sir Leal cast a curious look at the dark space under her bed, then stood tall. “Indeed, I shall search for these creatures,” he said.
“Oh, ah, thank you, Brave Knight!”
“You flatter me, Miss,” Leal said. He dropped to his hands and knees and began to crawl toward the bed.
“Oh, my hero!” She looked at Ixby, who was eyeing her, and she shrugged. Damselle backed away slowly. “Be careful Sir Leal! Who knows what they are? They could be all over the room, right Ixby?”
“R-right, Miss. Anywhere. Everywhere, in fact.”
“I don’t hear anything,” Leal said. “Are you sure they are still there?”
Damselle reached for her bag. “Oh yes, they are there. I think they must be afraid of the light. Ixby, blow out the candles.”
“But—” said Sir Leal, but Ixby had already complied with several small puffs, and the room fell into near-darkness. There was a sound of metal scraping on wood and a thud. Something heavy, probably Leal’s sword, clattered to the ground.
Damselle shouldered her pack and seized the chance to dart through the cracked door into the hallway. She closed the door quietly behind her. Then she pulled out a length of ribbon she’d found in her dresser and tied one end to the door handle of her room, another to that of the room across the hall. As she hurried away, she heard Ixby squeak, “P-perhaps they crawled under this t-table, Sir Knight, or m-maybe into the washbasin!”
The house was quiet and still. Her parents were asleep, and Damselle slowed for a moment at the thought of leaving without saying goodbye. Was she really leaving? She’d never been safe here—she wasn’t safe anywhere. She was loved here, though. Her parents protected her in the best way they knew how. Damselle knew that could not have been easy. How many sleepless nights had they spent worrying? Could she really throw it all in their faces now? I could die and never see them again, she thought. It would be a poor way to repay sixteen years of love and care, but... Damselle swallowed a lump in her throat as she pushed open the front door and tip-toed onto the lane.
Moonlight and lanterns lit the road. Damselle wished she could shrink into the shadows. How long could Ixby stall the knight? Her little trick with the ribbon wouldn’t hold for very long.
Someone stepped out from the bushes and Damselle nearly screamed.
“I knew you would get out.” Her mother’s face peeked out from underneath a dark cloak. She carried a small sack. “You don’t always need help in your escapes, and I thought you would have an easy time escaping that knight.”
Damselle blinked. “What are you doing out here?”
Her mother sighed. “I heard you with that knight. I knew you would make it past him, so I listened and I waited. This way.” She motioned for Damselle to follow her down the road, which Damselle did with a feeling of overwhelming curiosity. “I’m sure the knight will follow you, at least for a short time, so I will tell you what you need so you can be on your way.”
Damselle almost stopped short. “You’re going to let me go?”
Norah took her hand and pulled her into a side road. “Dearest One, you are going to go whether your father and I let your or not. I thought about it all evening. This way I know you are prepared and…” she paused. “I can say goodbye. Now.” She handed Damselle the small bag she’d been carrying. “Food and a waterskin. It won’t go far, but it will be better than nothing.”
Damselle felt such enormous gratitude for her mother she did not think she could adequately express it.
Norah continued, “What you need from me is information, so listen carefully. The three items you need to give to Alyas cannot be substituted and must come from you. You understand, that is why we have not done this ourselves. They must be perfect and whole. This is important.” She reached into her pocket and handed Damselle a small list. By the light from the nearest flickering lantern she could just make out:
1. A faery’s tale
2. A witch’s veil
3. A dragon’s scale
With each line she read, Damselle felt as if her heart pumped harder, her lungs grew tighter. Where would she find such things? “What do they do?”
“I don’t know. We never learned. Even finding this list was extremely difficult.”
“Where am I supposed to find them?” Damselle asked.
“Alyas was north, last I heard, through the woods and beyond. Faeries dwell within the woods, so the first item should be the easiest to find, but that is not saying much. Dragons often live in hills and mountains when they are not guarding something. As for a witch, I’m not certain. You will have to work that one out on your own. The Willowwax might be…” she paused again, as if saying the words took every ounce of strength she had. “Might be the best place to start.” She shut her eyes and looked down at the cobblestones. Even in the dim light Damselle could see tears running down her pale cheeks.
Damselle blinked away her own tears. Part of her, a very small part, wished her mother would convince her to stay home. Dragons, witches and faeries. And the Willowwax! She wasn’t ready for this. But she couldn’t live with herself—literally, perhaps—if she didn’t try.
“Mother, I have to do it. I don’t have a choice. I’m sorry.”
Norah reached up and brushed a loose strand of hair from Damselle’s face before pulling her into a tight embrace. “I know, but that doesn’t make it any easier. At some point, though, we have to let you go.”
“Oh, Miss Damselle, there you are!”
Damselle looked up to see Ixby floating overhead. She had forgotten about him, so absorbed had she been in her mother’s words.
“I think the knight realized I was stalling. I believe he is attempting to break down your door.”
Norah sighed. “He may follow, at least until morning. Go around the edge of town and take the lesser traveled pathways.”
Damselle hugged her again. “What about Father?”
“I’ll speak with him. He’ll understand. Be careful, Damselle, and stay safe.”
“Safe? Me?” Damselle said, smiling at her mother one last time. “You must be thinking of somebody else.”
With that, Damselle and Ixby hurried off into the dark to begin their quest.
