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lord safe and make him comfortable. I have even tried to give him moments of respite, of beauty, like the rose. But every day it grows harder.’
    ‘The . . . the empty frames – are they part of it?’
    Luel nodded.
    ‘Why don’t you wish them away, or whatever it is you do?’
    ‘It is not so simple,’ she said sadly.
    I was tempted to say that someone who could control a magic mirror and make dishes and dresses fly from places all over the land should have no difficulty with getting rid of empty spaces.
    ‘Child, you must understand. There are so many things I cannot do, much as I long to. I cannot reverse the spell. I cannot restore what was taken from my lord – everything he once loved, the life he once lived. I cannot protect him from the darkness that eats away at him. I cannot save him from a cruel injustice that day by merciless day devours more and more of his memory and with it his humanity.’
    ‘Oh, Luel,’ I cried, shaken to the core by the horror of it, ‘the man who did this must surely be no man but a demonfrom the deepest pit of hell. For how could a human being do such a terrible thing to another and still not consider that his revenge was complete?’
    There was a great sadness in the old woman’s eyes as she looked at me. ‘My dear sweet Natasha,’ she said, ‘he is no demon but indeed a man.’
    ‘Well, if he is no demon, it is simple.’
    Luel’s eyebrows shot up, questioning me.
    ‘What one human can do, another can undo,’ I went on. ‘There
must
be a way to break this spell. And I want to do it. Come what may. With your help, of course,’ I added.
    Luel’s face filled with light. She grasped my hand, and I felt the strange coolness of her
feya
skin. ‘Oh, Natasha, my dear child, you have made me so happy,’ she whispered. ‘You cannot know how happy. Before, you gave me hope. Now, you have given so much more. For yes, there may be a way to break the spell, but I could not say so before this very moment.’
    ‘Why not?’ I asked, puzzled.
    ‘Listen to me,’ Luel said. ‘I took a risk letting you in, for I knew it might weaken the spell that has protected this place from unfriendly eyes. But I took that risk because I knew you were different, and I hoped so much that maybe you were the right one. Yet I had to be sure. Because it is only to the right one that I may say it.’ She smiled radiantly. ‘And you have just proven you are the one.’

What Luel told me then stilled my tongue and made my heart hang heavy as lead. I listened to her speak of the one way that would break the spell, and tried to school my own expression to conceal the horror I felt at what was being asked of me. She looked at me when she’d finished. ‘Well?’
    ‘I . . .’ The simple word snagged in my throat. ‘I . . .’
    ‘It is a shock, I know. But in time . . .’
    I held up a trembling hand. ‘Is there . . .’ I swallowed. ‘Is there no possibility of . . . Are you sure this is the only way?’
    ‘It is the only way I know.’ She laid a hand on mine. ‘Natasha, don’t look so terrified. My lord – what you see now is not what he really is. If you knew him as I do . . .’
    ‘But I don’t,’ I said shakily. ‘That is just it.’
    ‘If you turn your back on my lord now, his fate is sealed. There is nothing surer.’
    ‘I will not turn my back, but I . . . I will do anything to save him but that,’ I said, rising and pushing back my chair so hurriedly that it fell with a crash. ‘You cannot demand such a thing of me! I cannot be forced to think of him as my . . .’ The words caught in my throat.
    ‘You are right. You cannot be forced to love him. You cannot be forced to marry him. And nobody can demand it of you,’ Luel said sadly. ‘My dear child, I’d hoped you understood that. All I can do is suggest it. It must be done of your own free will or it is worthless.’
    With a cry, I fled the room and ran down the corridor, expecting at any moment to hear her coming in