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Endora and I had also not been on the best of terms since I had announced my intentions to marry Mirielle, but would she do something to prevent the wedding, days before the event? That wasn’t really her style, being sneaky and underhanded.
I couldn’t wrap my mind around it, but I had been betrayed before by those close to us. If there was one thing I had learned the hard way was that anyone was capable of anything.
Flipping on the chandelier in the bedroom, soft lighting illuminated the interior of the sleeping area, and I found my cell phone charging at the bedside as usual. Grabbing it, I wandered into the closet I shared with Mirielle, flicking on the track lighting in the dressing room to search for missing garments.
What was she wearing when I last saw her?
It seemed so long ago, so much had happened between then and now.
Endora didn’t answer my call when I dialed out, but that didn’t stop me from trying again, my free hand rippling through the multitude of dresses and blouses hanging on the endless racks as I tried to place Mirielle’s outfit.
Again, Endora’s phone went through to voicemail.
“Fuck,” I cursed, calling her for a third time, a cold sweat breaking out over my forehead.
“Zen.”
I turned toward the threshold, the last of the indigo smoke clearing around Endora’s antique-style nightgown where she stood, her long, snow-white braid disheveled like I’d woken her from sleep. Acrid brimstone lingered in my nostrils.
“Where have you been?” I growled. “I’ve been calling you.”
“In bed. Like normal beings,” she retorted, leaning her hip against the doorframe. “What is going on? The castle’s electric bill is going to skyrocket this month. Every single light is on.”
“We’re looking for Mirielle,” I told her slowly, ambling closer to study her ebony eyes critically, searching for any indication that she might know where to find my fiancée. “Have you seen her?”
The enchantress’ stately figure never flinched, her eyes boring back into mine with as much intensity. “Not since earlier in the day.”
“When?” I challenged, unsure if I believed her.
I loathed this level of paranoia growing inside me. I’d worked hard to abolish it, to rebuild in the wake of my mother’s murder, but Mirielle’s untimely disappearance was sending me spiraling like Cyndella on her worst days.
“I can’t say for sure. Possibly in the greenhouse or after her shift with Lacroix, near the dining hall. I wasn’t paying attention. I didn’t realize there would be a quiz later.”
Her flippant response infuriated me. No one seemed to be taking my concern seriously, despite the fact that I could feel in my soul that something was terribly wrong.
“Find her,” I hissed, moving out of the dressing closet and back into the bedroom.
“Isn’t that what you have the Royal Guards doing right now?”
“Use a locator spell.” I marched toward the vanity to find Mirielle’s hairbrush for the enchantress to enact the spell, but as I did, my eye caught the gleam of something on the dresser by the door.
“I’m sure she’ll turn up, Zen,” Endora grumbled, sounding irritated by my request. “There’s no need to cause a mass panic because you don’t know where she is every minute.”
I wasn’t listening anymore, my legs moving toward the dresser as if guided by something unknown.
“What makes you so sure she’s not just taking a walk somewhere?” Endora yawned.
My heart stopped as I picked up the glinting piece I had somehow overlooked initially, the wind stolen from my lungs. I couldn’t breathe.
“This,” I rasped, whipping around to show her what I had in my hand. “This is what makes me so sure.”
The enchantress yawned again and ambled toward me, but her expression shifted when her gaze fell on the piece in my open palm. Endora’s black eyes widened as she took in the sapphire ring, the platinum placement gleaming off the light of the chandelier.
“Is that…?”
“Her engagement ring,” I choked. “How did it get here? The guards have been out there all night. No one has seen her come in.”
Endora had no response for me, and a dozen terrible thoughts rushed through my mind at once.
