"Cooome, sit here," Berenice hooted deeply, indicating the mirror under her feet. "To rescue your butterfly, to win his heart back, you must know the one who took him from you and her reasons for doing so. Silence Princess, let me tell you a story..." the sorceress said, piercing Rosalind, who shifted uncomfortably at hearing her words, with her unmoving gaze.
Berenice spread and waved her wings, and the mirror glowing softly under and around them suddenly came to life. It seemed to play out the scenes and images the owl was talking about.
"My mother fell into this place through the lake, from your world," the white owl said, looking between Hans and Louise, who watched her words unfold in the mirror. "She, a witch's familiar, had been injured badly by some of your kin, who were scared of her powers. She passed away soon after I came to life." The bird flapped its wings, and the images changed.
"But before she died, she created this place for me. Terra Sonalis, or the Land of Dreams, a world filled with the magic she possessed. When I grew up and discovered that even I owned her magic, I improved it. Or so I believed."
The moving pictures in the mirror changed again, and in the flower-filled meadows and forests populated by all sorts of animals which they had been looking at before, now appeared goblins, elves and fairies.
"Yes, Princess, you are all my creations," the owl said, glancing at Rosalind, whose breath hitched at the realisation. "But I made the Butterfly Fairies the rulers of Terra Sonalis. They were your first kings and queens..."
Berenice waved her wings over the mirror, and this time, they could see two orange and black Monarch Butterfly Fairies, seated on thrones made of crystal, in a spacious, white tent. And there were Yellow and Blue Swallowtails, black moths and white butterflies, and many, many more, all around them.
"It was when they," the owl said, pointing at a couple of Blue Swallowtails in the mirror, "replaced the Monarchs, when it all happened. When the son of their son, one of the ancestors of your Pipevine Swallowtail, was still a young prince..."
The owl shifted, swapping the images again. "There was a girl, a pretty Lily of the Valley Fairy, who fell in love with him. But, the poor thing was so shy and so similar to her many sisters that the Butterfly Prince never noticed her properly. He was only interested in Rose Fairies." Berenice giggled. "Really, Princess, I don't know what it is between you and butterflies! But where was I... oh yes... Somehow, the little, unhappy fairy plucked up her courage and managed to cross the sea to come here, asking me to help her, just like you now..."
Berenice trailed off, looking into the mirror, lost in her thoughts and memories, as they all watched a beautiful blonde Flower Fairy, dressed in a long white dress and coat, her hands and lips blue with cold, stumbling exhaustedly across a snow-covered plain.
"She asked me to give her special powers, the strongest magic, so she could distinguish herself from the thousands of other Lily of the Valley Fairies. She thought that then, her beloved butterfly would fall in love with her. And I did give it to her." Berenice sighed. "The power of frost, ice and snow, the same scary magic the Snow Goblins possessed, the one for which they had been banished from your part of Terra Sonalis a long time ago by its other inhabitants."
The images in the mirror now morphed quickly, showing first the unhappy flight of Snow Goblins across the sea, and then a picture of a breathtakingly beautiful fairy, dressed in white and grey fur-lined gown, standing in front of a magnificent castle made of snow and ice, surrounded by a small army of Snow Goblins. Her translucent wings and the tall crown perched on top of her blonde, high-piled hair glittered like diamonds whenever she moved through the sea of the short, bluish creatures, giving them orders.
"The Snow Queen," Rosalind whispered.
"That's what Lilith, the little Lily of the Valley Fairy, had become, yes. Despite her new, amazing powers, her butterfly married his Rose Fairy, breaking her heart. She grew sad and angry, dangerous for the other creatures living in her meadow. And so they banished her, like their ancestors had banished the Snow Goblins. Ever since then..."
"She lives here..."
"Yes, Princess, she lives here. My help always comes with a price. She, not having been able to win over the one she loved, is now doomed to live a lonely life until she finds someone who will fall in love with her.
"And... she thought... Blue..."
"Yes, I believe that she fell for him, seeing how similar he looks to her Butterfly Prince."
"But," Rosalind interrupted her impatiently, tears running down her cheeks, "she can make any creature fall in love with her, that cursed mirror made for her by her goblins..."
"...is full of dangerous magic," Berenice concluded. "But whatever it makes the creatures feel, it is not real love."
"So there is a chance," Rosalind whispered, voice breaking. "Will you help me, please?"
"I will. Tell me what you want, Princess."
"I want to find Blue and take him back home. I want him to be safe and happy. And I want him to remember me," Rosalind said without hesitation.
"Oh? So little? No special powers, his endless love... no riches or admiration of all...?"
"No," the fairy shook her head.
"So be it."
"Excuse me, but why are you helping us if you first helped the Snow Queen?" Hans, unable to keep his curiosity at bay, interrupted.
"I help anyone, Human Boy. Anyone who is brave enough to ask and pay the price for my help. Your magic wand, Princess. That's what you must give me."
"But... how are we to do... anything, without her magic?" Louise asked shyly.
"She, you all, have much stronger magic than the one contained in that wand. The love filling your pure hearts. Love that can conquer anything," the owl replied to the girl, then turned her yellow, motionless orbs back to Rosalind.
"You give me your wand, and I'll promise to keep the Snow Queen busy elsewhere while you are in her realm. If you succeed, Princess, if your butterfly will be happy, and remember you, and if you deliver this Human Boy back where he belongs by the next night of full moon," the sorceress glanced at Hans quickly, "you can have a new wand once you reach your Rose Castle again. If not, your magic will be stripped from you forever."
Rosalind nodded silently as she stood up, and approaching the sorceress, passed her her magic wand.
"I'm sorry," she muttered, looking at Louise and Hans, who stood up too, and walked closer to her. "It will be even more difficult and dangerous than what I thought."
Berenice spoke again, her motionless eyes boring into Hans and Louise's, before either of them could reply to Rosalind.
"I've been watching you through my mirror, and not only, little humans," the large bird ruffled its feathers, morphing into one of Garrett's green frog soldiers, then a Tree Elf and finally into the old dragonfly with who Louise had spent her days in the butterfly camp, making the three friends gasp with surprise, "from the moment she led you through that lake. And I must admit, I liked you from the beginning. It was a brave move, bringing them to Terra Sonalis, Princess, quite against all my rules... I do admire your courage."
Berenice, back in her owl form, stared seriously at Rosalind, whose cheeks flushed crimson, for a long moment.
"I... Excuse me," the Rose Fairy mumbled.
"Silence, child. As I said, I liked them," the owl said, looking at Hans and Louise again. "Let me give you a little something, to remember me... First you, clever boy. I find your thoughts quite amusing." The bird giggled as Hans turned red in his turn. "Here." Berenice pointed her wing to Hans' face, and the glasses which were slipping down his nose annoyingly yet again disappeared.
"But I can't see anything without..." Hans protested, even as he realised that he could see everything perfectly. "Thank... thank you..." he stammered, but Berenice was already busy with Louise.
"I have never seen a heart as pure and selfless as yours, little girl. I'm sorry that not even my magic can heal your lungs... But, it doesn't really matter, as long as you stay with us. Here, this is for you," the owl said, waving her wing in Louise's direction.
All of a sudden, there was a pair of large, translucent wings similar to Rosalind's on her back.
The girl turned around in a complete circle, trying to see them properly, as Hans and Rosalind gaped at their friend, then at each other, before they broke into happy giggles. None of them had been expecting something like this.
"Thank you. Will... will I ever be able to fly?" Louise asked, curtsying to Berenice.
"Of course you will. You'll never possess their magic, but otherwise, from now on, you are like any other Flower Fairy of Terra Sonalis. Unless you decide to go back to your world, of course. That is your decision to make."
Louise nodded, looking at Hans, as Berenice added, "And now... When do you want to start your journey, Princess?"
Rosalind looked at her friends, standing at either side of her.
"Now," they all replied in unison.
"Very well. Don't let me hinder you any longer. Hold hands!"
"Wait, how will we find Blue?" Rosalind called, as the three of them did as they were told, and a thick curtain of cold mist rose from the surface of the mirror. Like a semi-transparent, moving veil, it enveloped them completely, before it started to swirl around them slowly at first, then faster and faster.
"Fooollow your heart, Princess." Berenice hooted deeply, even as she and her cave vanished from their view.
The whirlwind of fog carried them out of Berenice's underground castle and dropped them outside, on a snow-covered flatland. They landed, again, in a heap on a sheet of ice as shiny and slippery as the sorceress' mirror.
Hans was the first one to realise, while the girls admired the shimmering veil of colourful northern lights pulsating in the dark sky above their heads, that they were standing on a layer of ice hiding a frozen lake.
"Hurry, let's go!" he called, grabbing Louise's hand in his and dragging her towards a distant pile of snow he could barely distinguish through the darkness, hoping to find the lake's shore that way. But they had no time to move before the ice broke under their feet suddenly, long, thin cracks running like fractured sunbeams from the tips of their shoes in all directions.
"Rosalind, be careful!" Hans called as he pulled Louise away from a particularly fragile looking place, but it was too late. The Rose Fairy disappeared under the water.
"Rosalind, no!" Louise exclaimed, lying flat on the ice and approaching the hole in which Rosalind had disappeared carefully, even as the fairy's head broke the surface of the gelid water.
Hans followed her example, and together, they pulled their drenched, shivering friend towards the bank, guided by the first, faint light of the new day.
While Hans found a blanket in his pouch, Louise pulled out a small object, a little wooden case from hers.
"Whattt is thattt?" Rosalind asked, teeth chattering with cold. She had never seen anything of the sort.
"A tinder box, we use these to light a fire," Hans said. "But how...?" He gaped at Louise, who opened the small case and produced a lively fire in no time, without any wood, directly on the snow.
It had been too easy, it looked like magic... Hans reasoned even as Rosalind's clothes dried up and her teeth stopped chattering in seconds.
"You called me, Mistress, what can I do for you?" An enormous black dog with eyes as large as teacups which Hans and Louise used back at home appeared from behind the closest pile of snow, startling them all.
"I... I did not..." Louise mumbled, as the dog was staring directly at her.
"You most certainly did. By kindling that fire. When you open that box, I must come to you and fulfil your wish. But, mind you, you called me once, and now you can only call me two more times," the fluffy dog explained patiently, bowing to Louise.
"All right. Thank you," Louise told him politely as she put the tinder box safely back in her pouch. Then, after glancing shortly at her two surprised friends, she asked the dog, "Could you carry us to the Snow Queen's castle?"
"I can carry you to the edge of her garden, but not further. And you must show me the way," the animal replied after a moment of thought.
"That will be enough," Louise said, and as soon as the dog laid down to make it easier for them to mount, she climbed on its back. "Come on, what are you waiting for, you two? Which way, Rosalind?"
"Hmm... there." The fairy pointed towards the remote horizon where they had seen the northern lights before.
She settled next to Louise in the dog's long and warm fur, while Hans, still a little stunned, stuffed his blanket back inside his pouch, then joined them too.
"Good. Hold tight," the dog said as it stood up again and started running across the endless white plain in the direction given by Rosalind.