Adventures are all very well in their place, but there's a lot to be said for regular meals and freedom from pain. -- Neil Gaiman, Stardust

Hjalmar spent the rest of the day jumping at shadows. He tried to convince himself that this was silly. It wasn't as if Rigmor was going to suddenly become a murderous psychopath and try to kill them all. Or was she? What did this curse actually involve? All anyone said was that it caused the deaths of every man who tried to court her, but how?

He tried to push those thoughts out of his mind. If he was nervous, he told himself, what must Rigmor be feeling now? She was the one who was under a curse.

The only person in the castle who seemed to be perfectly at ease in this situation was Solvej. Hjalmar wasn't sure if she was looking forward to fighting the Magician, or if she was just doing a good job of hiding her worries. He suspected it might be a mixture of both, especially when he walked into the library to find her waving a sword around.

"What are you doing?" he asked, staying well away from the sword. "Have you taken up fencing?"

"No," Solvej said, jabbing aggressively at the empty air. "I'm practicing in case I have to fight the Magician physically as well as magically."

Hjalmar stood in the doorway for a moment and watched her practice. It seemed to involve a great deal of hacking invisible foes to pieces. He decided that it would be best to leave her to it.

Throughout the rest of the castle, everyone else went about their day with the best attempt at normality they could manage. The servants cleaned windows and mopped floors as if the windows and the floors were the only things in the world that mattered. The cooks prepared the day's meals and planned tomorrow's menu as if the fate of the world depended on what sauce they put on the tholberry tart that would be today's dessert. The King argued with his council as if he had nothing to worry about except where a new bridge would be built.

Hjalmar might have been fooled into thinking that no one was worried about anything, if not for the way everyone kept glancing over their shoulder. Part of him wondered if they thought the Magician was going to spring out at them from behind a curtain.

Considering how nervous everyone was, it wasn't really surprising that dinner proved... eventful, to say the least.

It began when the King set down his glass too roughly. A servant who happened to be passing -- with a jug of gravy in her hands -- jumped violently. The gravy splashed over the top of the jug and splattered all over the table, the floor, the servant, and the King. An awful silence fell, broken only by the girl's mortified apologies. The onlookers were unsure whether to laugh or pretend nothing had happened.

The King brushed off the girl's apologies with a gruff, "Accidents happen. You're hardly the first to drop something."

Several of the other servants turned bright red and looked everywhere except at anyone else.

Dinner continued, but it would be hard to say if anyone truly enjoyed the meal. Hjalmar, for his part, might as well have been eating ash instead of venison.

The next excitement came as dessert was being served. A high-pitched shriek echoed through the room. Everyone almost jumped out of their skins. Solvej's braid fell into the bowl of custard that a servant had just set before her.

"What's that?" the King demanded in a voice that wavered nervously. "Speak up!"

A shame-faced guard stepped forward. "The wind, your Majesty. It blew that curtain against me," he gestured to one of the windows, "and I thought there was someone behind me."

The King scowled. "Next time you think someone's behind you, take the time to look before screaming!"

If the meal had been awkward before that incident, it was almost unbearable now. No one said anything. No one even looked at each other. Hjalmar pushed his slice of apple pie around his bowl and prayed for dinner to end quickly.

Hardly noticing what he was doing, he absently spooned custard into his bowl until it was almost spilling over the sides. He hastily stopped when he realised this, and surreptitiously glanced around. No one seemed to have noticed.

Hjalmar forced himself to eat his pie and custard, even though he wasn't hungry. Anything was better than sitting doing nothing, waiting for something to happen.

Something did happen.

The doors flew open. An icy wind rushed into the room. And someone stepped through the door.

It was Rigmor, and her eyes were glowing red.

~~~~

Solvej could honestly say that she had been taken by surprise more times than she cared to remember in the last few months. Many of those surprises had been unpleasant. This one, however, trumped the lot.

No one had bothered to tell her the curse involved possession.

The Rigmor-but-not-Rigmor who had just barged in was saying something. Solvej snapped out of her thoughts so she wouldn't miss it.

"Hello, Mother. Hello, Father." The false-Rigmor smiled merrily, as if someone had just told a joke. "Weren't you expecting me?"

The Queen shuddered and looked away. The King clenched his fists.

Not-Rigmor turned to Hjalmar. He recoiled and seemed to be contemplating the pros and cons of running away. Solvej couldn't blame him. She felt rather like running away too, now that she knew how difficult it would be to break this curse without killing Rigmor.

The thing wearing Rigmor's face -- all these convoluted ways of referring to it were getting on Solvej's nerves. From now on, she decided, she would call it "the parasite". It might not be accurate, but it was short and easy-to-remember.

The parasite looked at Hjalmar like a predator sizing up a potential kill. Then it turned away, as if dismissing him as not worth its time, and its eyes fell on Solvej.

There was something very unsettling about being glared at by a creature that wore the face of someone you knew, that sounded like someone you knew, but that wasn't someone you knew. It was a bit like seeing your reflection move when you hadn't moved.

"Solvej. How nice to see you again." Again? When had she ever met this... thing before? "Do you really think you can defeat my master?"

"Yes," Solvej said bluntly, gathering her magic.

She didn't expect an attack on this creature to achieve anything, but it might give her some idea of how powerful it was. She focused, her magic dancing at her fingertips, then raised her hand and sent the strongest bolt of magic she could manage straight at the parasite.

As she had expected, it didn't drive the parasite away. As she had not expected, the parasite turned her own attack back at her. She was knocked out of her chair and thrown half-way across the room before she had a chance to dodge.

Dazed, she lay on the floor for a moment and waited for the room to stop spinning. The ceiling was painted with dozens of angels playing harps on fluffy white clouds, she noticed absently.

Someone knelt down next to her. She tried to focus on their face, but the world was wavering in and out of focus. Was that normal? She couldn't think clearly.

"Are you alright?" the someone asked. It sounded like Hjalmar.

"That must have been a headache for the artist to paint," Solvej said woozily, her mind still on the painting.

Hjalmar made a questioning noise. "What are you talking about?"

The world was coming back into focus. Solvej blinked a few times to chase away the last of the dizziness. "Never mind. Where's that parasite?"

Hjalmar looked at her as if she'd lost her mind. Oh, that was right. She hadn't told him about her nickname for the creature that had taken over Rigmor.

At some point while Solvej was incapacitated, the parasite had wandered over to the table. Everyone nearby had vacated their seats and were now hovering at a safe distance, while-- Solvej did a double take. No, she wasn't seeing things. That parasite was helping itself to her slice of apple pie! Of all the nerve!

The parasite grinned at the fuming ghost. "Do you still think you can defeat me?"

"Yes," Solvej said. She had been taken by surprise this time; that was all. Next time she would be expecting her foe to do something unusual.

"Then you can start by solving my first challenge. Tell me..." The parasite paused and grinned. "What am I thinking?"

This took Solvej entirely by surprise. She had been expecting to be set some impossible task, like building a house in a day. She hadn't expected to be asked to read the parasite's mind -- though now she thought of it, that was an impossible task. She examined the parasite's face narrowly, searching for any hint of its thoughts. It was no use. Unlike Rigmor, the parasite did not write its thoughts on its face for all to see.

What was it likely to be thinking? The obvious answer was that it would be gloating over "defeating" Solvej. But this thing was a pawn -- or possibly a creation -- of the Magician. He would be too clever to ask a riddle so easily solved.

Another thought struck her. The parasite would have to consult with the Magician on what questions to ask. It couldn't have already done that. She would have sensed the Magician's presence. So at some point in the near future, the parasite would have to meet with the Magician, and if Solvej was nearby to hear their conversation...

"Give me a week and I'll tell you," she said.

The parasite bared its teeth at her. "If you don't answer, or if you give the wrong answer, I'll kill the boy."

Yes, I know, Solvej thought grimly. Aloud, she said, "I'm going to answer -- but a week from now, and no sooner."

~~~~

"We're doomed."

Solvej frowned at Hjalmar. "Don't be so pessimistic! It's only the first day."

Hjalmar gave her a despairing look. "You said you can't read minds. I don't think that will change in a week."

He had a point. Not, of course, that she would tell him that. One of the most important things about being a witch, in her opinion, was to leave as much unexplained as possible.

"I don't intend to read her mind."

"Then how will you know the answer?"

Solvej looked out the window. Evening had come, and the sunset stained the cloudless sky a dozen shades of purple and orange. The moon was already visible, a pale orb hovering over the palace walls. The Magician would not come tonight. He would want a cloudy, stormy night without too much light. Whether it was his sense of melodrama, or whether light weakened him in some way, Solvej didn't know. Whatever the truth was, it gave her at least a day to work out a plan.

~~~~

She didn't have to think of a plan. One presented itself to her. It began with a fairy tale.

The library was stocked with books on every subject imaginable. There were books on magic -- most of which were either utterly inaccurate or even more out-dated than the books of Solvej's time -- in one section, books on cookery in another, books on fashion, painting, etiquette, history, politics, navigation, astronomy, and many other topics. It really shouldn't be surprising, then, that there were also books filled with fairy tales.

Solvej already knew most of the fairy tales, but she read them all in the hope that they might suggest some idea, no matter how improbable.

They were all fascinating stories, but none of them held any solutions to her problem. None of them, that is, until she reached the end of the book.

The final story was called "The Swan's Wings". It described how a poor girl rescued an injured swan and its cygnets from a fox. In gratitude, the dying swan gave its wings to the girl, so she could fly anywhere in the world. After its death she skinned it and wore its skin as a cloak, and when she put the cloak on she appeared to become a swan. She used her wings and her cloak to spy on an enemy king and pass his secrets to the king and queen of her country.

Like all fairy tales, it was probably more than half the production of the author's imagination. Solvej at first paid no more attention to it than she had to the previous stories in the book. But she had scarcely put the book back on the shelf when something hit the window with a tremendous thud.

The ghost leapt back, almost knocking over the armchair she had dragged over from another part of the library. Wild visions of the Magician being about to attack sprang into her mind.

A minute passed. No attack followed. Feeling slightly foolish, Solvej tiptoed over to the window and peered out. The library was on the second floor of the palace -- well, it was on both the first and second floors, but Solvej's "workroom" was in the part on the second floor -- so to look down at the courtyard below, she had to stand on the windowseat and crane her neck to see past the ivy tendrils creeping up the walls.

What was that white thing lying on the cobblestones?

~~~~

One of the disadvantages to living -- er, residing -- in a palace was that it took ages to get anywhere. Leaving the library meant walking across a room roughly as wide as the average person's house, dodging bookshelves, tables and historical artifacts on the way, until you reached a door. Then you had to walk down a long hallway to get to the nearest flight of stairs. Then you had to search for a door leading out to the courtyard, and chances were you would end up on the other side of the courtyard.

Solvej thought it was all terribly impractical. And right now, it was downright infuriating. She wanted to get outside quickly, before the white thing disappeared. Instead she had to run around corridors and down stairs before getting anywhere near the outside.

Finally, finally, she reached the courtyard. There, lying at the foot of the palace wall some distance away, was the white thing. Solvej approached slowly until she was able to see it clearly.

It was a swan.