9

Cassandra sighed in despair. Of course, it has to be some deep dark wood, she thought. Every time you need to find a dumb magical thing, there's always a creepy wood for you to go to. It has always been like that in every fairy tale she'd ever read, but she never once thought she would actually be in one.

The serpent appeared to have fallen asleep. Vasilisa stood up with a determined look on her face.

"We can't stay in one place too long," she said. "Let's get moving."

"What about the serpent?" Cassandra asked. "Do we leave her here?"

"Well, if you don't mind carrying her, we can bring her to a safer place," the princess said and began to exit the chamber. Owlyn flipped her wings and followed her mistress.

"Lady, you must not distress yourself so...I am of no great value..." The serpent's voice was fading. Cassandra looked back and forth then decided that it had to be her again. Gently, she scooped the limb creature and brought the serpent along.

They began to walk through the castle in a direction Cassandra had lost track of. The silence in this place was so thick that all she could hear was the sound of Vasilisa's long trailing red cloak dragging softly across the floor.

Owlyn asked her mistress in a concerned voice, "You're not going into that wood, aren't you, my lady? We don't know if this wingless crawler is telling us the truth."

"No," Vasilisa said. Owlyn let out a sigh of relief. Obviously, no sane person would venture into a place called the Wood of a Thousand Deaths. It sounded pretty much self-explanatory already. But then the sorceress turned around again and added, "We can't go there unless I make her an amulet."

It took Cassandra a moment to absorb this statement.

"An amulet?"

"Yes," the princess said. "You won't last a day in the Wood of a Thousand Deaths without an amulet or some sort of enchantment. But without my wand, I can't conjure it out of thin air anymore, so we have to find my grimoire first."

"Your grimoire?"

"Are you hard on hearing?" Vasilisa said with an arch of her perfect eyebrow. "If I'm not mistaken, the grimoire is kept in the Hall of Sirins."

"Please, don't tell me it's a great big book on a stand with funny handwriting in it and black leather cover," Cassandra said sarcastically, but Vasilisa seemed taken aback by her knowledge.

"How do you know that?" she said. "Oh yes, I forgot. You're a seer."

"I'm not a...oh well...never mind..." Cassandra tried not to roll her eyes. She had had enough of this world and was desperate to find somewhere familiar even if it was a place where she had to put up with her seed-eating aunt and uncle.

A long walk later, the sorceress stopped them.

"Wait," she said and turned to the wall where two large marble statues stood about ten feet tall. They were of a bird with head and torso of maiden called the Sirins, which Cassandra knew to be the creatures from Eastern Slavic folklore.

She was absent-mindedly stroking the sleeping Feathered Serpent as her eyes gazed at the beautiful work of art. Whoever built this castle must have a wild creativity and imagination. Every single chamber was different and grand.

As they waited, the princess placed her hand on the wall and muttered a language that sounded as old as the place itself. Then circles and symbols burned in bright white light from the surface of the wall. Cassandra's eyes went wide.

A moment later, the stone fell away, revealing a secret entrance before them. She remembered what Owlyn told her, that the whole place was thickly enchanted. Now she understood that it was a castle of magic itself.

"You seem to know this castle very well," Cassandra whispered to the sorceress while they strode inside another enormous hall.

"My father built it for me," Vasilisa replied.

"Oh, I thought he was the one who turned you into a frog?"

"He built this place as my prison."The princess shrugged, but she still had a sick feeling in her stomach and a metallic taste in her mouth every time she talked about the Czar. Vasilisa waved to the others with an impatient hand. "Let's help me find the grimoire."

After passing the long hall, they reached an antechamber and stopped in their tracks.

One wall was ruined, and chill outdoor air flooded in. But the other walls! They were encrusted with minerals of every hue. Rose quartz crystals like pink diamonds, spiky red rubies, forest green malachite, and peacock coal were clustered side by side with topaz, tourmaline, amethyst, garnet, and opal.

But if the walls were a rainbow, the floor was like a dream. Ankles-deep, and in some places knee-deep, it was piled with treasure. There were pitchers and drinking bowls and goblets, all gleaming with the soft heavy yellow light of solid gold. There were ropes of pearls and heaps of necklaces, armlets, brooches, and diadems. there were gem-encrusted chalices, and golden candlesticks and scepters.

"People brought them to my lady," explained the owl simply, as Cassandra stood agape. "They have, ever since she was born."

Cassandra set the little serpent among the piles of gold coins. The creature sagged in defeat and exhaustion after lying before that terrible fire.

"There it is," Vasilisa's voice came from behind a mountain of walnut-sized raw rubies.

It wasn't hard to find the book. It was placed on a golden stand in between two golden Sirin statues. The grimoire turned out to be the largest book Cassandra had ever seen, with pages made of parchment illuminated with tracery, and it was open to a page thickly covered with elegant, intricate writing.

To Cassandra, it was the most beautiful handwriting she had ever seen. She felt the urge to trace her fingers over the inked pages. There were pictures of herbs, flowers, roots, and seeds. There were also diagrams and drawings of astronomy. Some of them with suns, moons, and stars, or symbols for the zodiacal constellations: two fish for Pisces, a bull for Taurus, a hunter with a crossbow for Sagittarius and so on. Each of these had female figures arranged in two or more concentric bands. Most of the females were at least partly nude, and each held what appeared to be a labeled star.

But when she looked at Vasilisa, she saw a look of confusion on her face as she flipped through the brownish pages. And they soon discovered that the problem was the sorceress couldn't read her own handwriting —and not in a funny way.

"Damn it, someone has cast a spell on my book. I can't see anything."

Cassandra glanced at one of the tall windows and realized that the sun had risen over the horizon, and a new day had started without her knowing it. She gasped in panic. If her foster family discovered that she had sneaked out, they would hang her upside down by the foot.

"Oh no, I have to go home," she said again.

"No, we're this close, and I need you to read the grimoire," Vasilisa said.

"What?" Cassandra said. "Isn't that your manuscript?"

"For all I know, this is a strong spell I can't break, but you have the power of seeing, don't you? You must help me. I am weak without..."

"Your wand, yes, I get it." Cassandra put her hand up. "But I can't stay here anymore. I seriously need to go back."

"No, I command you to stay here."

"Command me? Well, too bad your highness, I'm not your servant, and you can't stop me," Cassandra said. She was making another attempt to leave, but her breath halted when a hand gripped her wrist and pulled her back, she almost bumped into the body of the sorceress. Their faces were only inches apart. But nothing compared to the pair of eyes that stared deep into Cassandra's.

"Listen, even I could not tame the Magic Mirror completely, and on the night of the winter solstice, by the light of a blue moon that rises at midnight, it is open to all, which means from the moment the moon enters its quarter until the moment of dawn, anyone can cross over. Koschei the Deathless also knew this, and he is building an army to pass through to the human world. If that happens, death and destruction will follow. Do you know how many evil warlocks, monsters, dark elementals, sorcerei, and supernatural beings there are in the World Beyond? If not all of them, most of them are serving Koschei by now. I was trapped in the frog body for three years and could do nothing to stop him. And if you don't want to be responsible for putting both worlds in danger—if you don't want the enslavement on Earth too, you need to help me."

"You said the enslavement on Earth, too, what does it mean?"

A shadow of crossed Vasilisa's bright face.

"The World Beyond is falling under Koschei's power ever since I was cursed," she said flatly. "Even the Supreme Council of Magical Forces is fearful of him. Yes, this world has been overruled by him and his puppets."

"Indeed, help us, Cassandra," Owlyn added. "You are our only hope."

Cassandra's heart was wrecked with dilemmas. She knew that this was a life and death mission, and one she didn't sign up for. But surely she didn't want the end of the world to start so soon either.

"Fine," she inhaled at last. "I will help you, but I have a life outside this world, so I still need to go home. I promise I will come back."

Vasilisa and Owlyn looked at each other as if deciding whether to trust her or not. Then the sorceress princess sighed and nodded.

"Alright, if you give me your words, then I shall await you here."