All The Kinds Of Love

•7•

Queen Asira marched into the Minister's Hall, where all eight ministers were having lunch.

Anadil, Hester and Dot followed her, all back to their real appearances and looking very smug.

"Caspan, I need a word with you."

"About what, your Majesty?"

"Don't pretend you don't know. Either you come with me or I announce your crime publicly."

"Crime? Your Majesty, I-" Caspan fumbled for words, looking around him in bewilderment.

Dot grew worried they'd gotten the wrong man as Caspan truly didn't seem to know what was going on.

Next to her, Hester narrowed her eyes.

"Caspan, where are you from?" She asked, surprising everyone.

"The, er, next kingdom over - that is to say, um, Granwitch." Caspan replied, flustered.

"I thought Granwitch was on the other side of the Blood River?" Anadil asked innocently.

"No." Caspan snapped. "It's not."

"Not important, girls." The Queen said with a knowing look. "Caspan, there's a man from Netherwood here to see you."

"What?" Caspan blustered. "I-I've never been to Netherwood. I don't know why someone from there would w-want to..."

"Funny." Anadil grinned evilly, pulling out a slip of paper. "Your file says you grew up there."

Caspan's face turned nearly as white as Anadil's from shock.

"You are on trial for treason against your Queen!" Asira shouted. "Seize him!"

There was a dark blue flash, and Caspan turned into a crow and flew around the room.

Dot aimed her finger, and the crow's left wing turned to chocolate.

It dropped to the ground with a thud, where Moroch picked it up, sneering.

And that, as the Storian would say, was the end of Caspan of Netherwood's career.

●●●

"I can't believe no-one found him out!" Anadil exclaimed later that day.

"I still wish it was Moroch." Hester grumbled, sifting through the gold coins Queen Asira had given them.

"Telling Asira it was him would have been truly evil." Her albino friend sighed.

"A bad kind of evil, though." Dot put in.

"No such thing." The others chorused on instinct, even though they never would have actually done that.

Dot glanced over at the other two-thirds of her coven. They were sitting very close together again, and kept shifting uncomfortably as if waiting for something.

"I'm going to the loo." She lied, and left.

Hester and Anadil turned to each other.

"Well." Anadil began.

"Well." Hester repeated.

"We said we'd find the traitor."

"And we did."

"I always believed in us."

"Caspan never stood a chance."