"You know I'm still not going to marry him," Esthalia tells the large, cream-colored egg in her chambers at about midmorning. She tears open the large, billowing curtains and lets in a huge shaft of sunlight. It bathes the egg and blinds Esthalia, causing her to shield her eyes against the brightness of day.

She walks out onto the balcony, where she can oversee one of what she discovered to be seventeen hedge mazes on the castle grounds, this one of neatly trimmed juniper bushes. Below her, on horseback, Lord Hemlock and his riding party set out on a chase after some poor woodland creature. Esthalia sighs in despair and annoyance and turns away from the window.

"I won't marry him. I refuse to do so. And if he does lead me through the service, I will not let him consummate the marraige. Why should I? My heart belongs to another, and that is all that matters, not his birth, not his power, not his wealth." She turns from the window, furious.

"But you, little dragon, need not worry," she says kindly, crouching beside the large egg. "I shan't desert you, just as I shan't desert my heart. You and I will stay together always, and you need not worry about ever being alone." She smiles sedately and strokes the off-white shell.

"Eventually, we twain shall escape our prisons; you from your shell, and I from this wretched castle. Just wait and see."

Lord Mortimor Hemlock and his riding party had set out into the woods sometime near noon. Mother Hemlock, Selphania, sensed this almost as soon as her son was outside the castle's walls with his riding troupe. Hurridly, she concocted a potion and made her way to the dungeons.

"Your ladyship ought not enter the dungeons. The scurge within-"

"Oh, shut up, Gypsem," Selphania growls, pushing her way passed the guard. "Be it my husband or son on the throne, I'm more than capable of handling myself, thank you."

"Umm... Whatever you say, ma'am," Gypsem replies, letting the Mother Hemlock pass.

Selphania makes her way down the corridors, passed the many cells of royal prisoners. Finally, she comes to the end of the hall and raps three times on the door on her right side. "Razal!" she hisses.

"You should know better than to interrupt when someone's meditating, good Queen," Razal replies patiently.

The Mother Hemlock chuckles slightly. "Well, when pressing business arrises, Razal..."

"I know, good lady. What sort of brew have you brought those of us stuck here in the klink?"

"Stuck is hardly the word for it; Mortimor will let you out eventually. Give it time."

"I meant Pent."

"He won't kill him too soon."

"Killing him at all is too soon."

"I know you feel that way, Razal, but--" Selphania's head jerks up at a noise and she kisses the glass bottle before pressing it through the small openings between the bars and into Razal's awaiting hands. "Make sure he drinks that! I'll see if I can get you more news!" she hisses before slamming the slot shut and hurrying off before announcing in a very pleasantly surprised tone, "Oh! Morty!"

"Mother! What are you doing in the prisons?"

"Eh? Wha? Oh, is that where I am? Wretched place, this. We should do away with it, have a lovely garden and terrace. I was just thinking on my mid-morning wander around the keep that we should have these horrible cells knocked out and a nice solarium put in!"

"No, Mother," was Mortimor's exasperated reply. "How many times do I have to tell you--"

Razal began to ignore them and return to his meditation. There was, for some reason, a kinship between him and the Mother Hemlock. He had assumed for many years that Selphania had never been the willing bride of the Father Hemlock, much as he had never been the willing adoptive son of either of them. However, he had never been too willing to question her on any of this. She could be a wicked woman when she chose to be, but mostly she had a very good heart. And it was the ends that justified the means, relatively speaking, after all.

That left only the potion she had brought him. She had kissed the bottle only once, so that meant it was to be taken at dusk that evening. He couldn't even begin to imagine what it would do. He had no clue what happened to other political prisoners, he suddenly realizes. This was the first time he had been given a cellmate in all the times he had died. Was it because Mortimor expected them to break out, just so he could kill them?

He wondered, and as he wondered, he let himself drift into a vague semblance of sleep.

It was well on towards twilight when Selphania entered Esthalia's chambers. She was in that hideously childish sundress she had been in when she arrived, the Mother Hemlock realized with a grating sigh. Couldn't she romp about her room in something a bit more ... ladylike?

"You're going to catch a chill, sitting by the window like that," she announced sternly.

Esthalia did not bother to turn. "Oh? That's nice," she replied, evidently not at all in the least bit phased by that announcement.

"You'll be no use to him in whatever condition that leaves you," the Mother Hemlock remarks crisply, bustling over to shut the window, which Esthalia merely opens again. Selphania sighs in irritation.

"I don't want to be in any shape for him," Esthalia said with bitter casualty. "I'd like you to leave now," she added with the same tone.

"I know my son is not exactly the best man in the world, b--"

"If you're going to tell me that he can be loved, save your breath. I love Pent, and even if he kills him, I will not marry your son."

Her defiance is admirable, Selphania decided certainly. It reminded her so much of her own defiance to wedding the former Lord Hemlock. "I wasn't going to say anything of the sort," Selphania replied calmly, not moving. "I know how you feel. Unlike you, however, I was capable of learning to love my predetermined husband."

"Madam, are you insinuating that I could not learn to love?" She was offended. Fascinating.

"Not at all. I'm insinuating that my son is unloveable.