Alberic was refusing to let himself get his hopes up, and concentrated mostly on wondering what all was going wrong back at home. Neil just listened and nodded occasionally and muttered a reassuring word when needed. He was following the map that Eadis had given them. The ride wasn’t far, but in a witch’s wood it wasn’t worth the risk to go off the trail.

Approaching a small clearing, the riders spotted a figure sitting by the side of the road. Alberic pulled up, dismounted, and approached the old woman.

“Please good sir, can you spare a penny? I am all alone in the world…”

Alberic bent down to get a glimpse under the old hag’s hood. “Ahha!” He gestured to Neil, who was already dismounting himself. “Bring this poor old lady some food, my friend! And here, ma’am, I have a whole gold piece for you. Or would you prefer smaller coins, more easily changed?”

The old lady accepted the offerings, slipping the coins into a hidden pocket and sitting on a fallen log to eat an entire loaf and a fist-sized wedge of an aged cheese. Alberic and Neil stood side by side, watching her. When she finished her meal she stood, revealed herself to be a witch, and promised them a fine reward. Before she could start rummaging in her bag though, Alberic interrupted her.

“Ma’am, if I could chose my reward? Please? I just need the answer to… a riddle. Yes. That would do nicely.”

Prince Alberic and his valet made it back to the castle only seconds before sunset, because Alberic refused to stop for a rest even a second longer than he had to, to spare the horses. He sent word in to Kerin before he even dismounted, so she was waiting for him at the door.

She looked as tired as the travelers. “Please tell me you have good news.”

“I have good news and bad news,” Alberic replied.

Kerin cringed. “I have good news, bad news, and worse news.”

The Prince groaned as he let a footman take his travel gear. “I knew it. It was only two days but I just knew everything would go wrong.”

“Tsk. It’s not that bad, Albie. The good news is that we have names for all of the sleeping Princesses.”

“Oh! That is good, now we can send them home!”

“Yes, about that, the bad news is that we know who they are because they had people come to look for them. We have two fathers and an older brother crammed in among the wedding guests, and they have been anxiously awaiting your return.”

The Prince sighed. “I guess that’s only to be expected. We’d have had to explain one way or another, just I was hoping for after all the wedding guests left.”

“Well, one of the fathers is a wedding guest. He sent a messenger that he wouldn’t be attending because his daughter was missing, so we sent a runner back to him, just in case. I hope I didn’t overstep.”

“No, No, of course not Kerie. You did just right. So he came anyway?”

“Yes, he arrived early the next morning and identified his daughter. He also knew one of the others, since her father is a crony of his. So he sent a message off, and the other father arrived tonight. The first Princess had been staying with an aunt in the area, so she was closest. The second was being escorted to a girls’ school and snuck away at night. They thought at first she had just headed home. The other girl had a brother drop by the gate asking if we had seen any young ladies wandering the area. I guess she has decided to run away from home over a week ago and left a note. The brother was quite happy, not only that the magic rose bush stopped her from getting into worse trouble, but that there was a Prince involved that they might manage to hook in marriage.”

“Ha! Fat chance of that! I am already hooked. Kerin, I missed you. Thank you so much for taking care of everything.”

Kerin winced slightly. “You haven’t heard the worse news yet.”

Alberic took a step back from the lean he was making to kiss his love on the cheek. “Oh? Dare I ask?”

“We have a fourth sleeping Princess, and her father is here too. You also have a porter with a broken ankle, a stable man with a broken arm, and your father’s footman has quite a lump on his head. They are all taking up another room.”

Alberic just looked at her, thinking. “Tamlin.”

“Yes. Sorry. Everyone tried to stop her, but…”

“No, no. Obviously they tried, even to the point of risking themselves. Thank all of Goodness that my good news is that the spell can be broken and the bush neutralized.”

Kerin gave a huge sigh of relief and relaxed for what Alberic guessed was probably the first time in a week. “Thank all of Goodness indeed! How do we do it? Can we do it yet tonight? Can we do it now?”

Alberic smiled to see Kerin smiling at last. “Well, the Princesses do need a kiss. It just doesn’t matter much who does it, so I refuse. We’ll find someone else. The magic rosebush will become a normal rosebush as soon as the Prince, that’s me, finds his true love. That’s you.” Now he did take the chance to lean in and kiss her on the cheek.

“But Albie, you have known me for years. You never found me, I have just always been around.”

“The rosebush doesn’t know that. There is some risk, I suppose, but I’m not too worried. And we probably could do it now, if we could get enough light.”

So Alberic, Kerin, Neil, and half a dozen other servants met behind the gatehouse and looked at the rosebush by the light of several lanterns. Kerin took a deep breath. “You’ll catch me, right?”

“Of course.” Alberic flexed his wrists to be ready.

Kerin still looked nervous. “This will work, right?”

“Kerin, I love you. It will work. If it doesn’t, the magic is defective.” Alberic was, deep down, a little worried himself, but he wouldn’t show it. His doubt, though, lay less with Kerin and more with the crazy old witch. He trusted his love much more than any magic spell.

She smiled at him, took another breath to steady herself, tried to find a good spot free of thorns, and then reached out and plucked a rose from the bush. Her eyes crossed for a moment, then closed, and she fell into Alberic’s waiting arms.

Before the rose could even fall from her limp hand, Alberic kissed her. After a second, she started to kiss him back. They stayed like that, the Prince holding the lady in his arms and lips together, until a maid and an under-gardener snickered and Neil cleared his throat meaningfully. Alberic set Kerin carefully back to her feet, both hoping the poor light covered their blushes.

Neil asked, “So that should be it. The kiss woke her, and if she is your true love, the spell should be broken.”

“Should be. And there is no doubt she is my true love. And I’ll prove it as soon as we can get this wedding ceremony over, all these people out of my castle, and life back to relative normal.” Alberic started shooing servants back into the building.

Kerin and Alberic joined hands and started to walk back themselves. Kerin commented, “If we’d known it was that simple, we could have done it days ago.”

“But we didn’t know. And I wouldn’t have risked letting you pick a rose unless we were at least mostly sure it would work.”

“I wonder why it didn’t try to draw me to it. Is it because I’m not a Princess?”

The Prince made a rude noise. “More proof that it is a stupid, worse-than-useless spell. Maybe it would have sucked you in after the wedding, when you WERE a Princess. Wouldn’t that have been annoying?”

“Not quite the term I would have had for it, I suspect.” Kerin wrinkled her nose as a footman held the door for the two of them to come inside their castle. “Now what do we do about the other girls?”

Alberic shrugged. “I guess we just need to talk some gentleman into kissing them. Or, what is the name of that young lad, works with the guards, who is making his way through of the maids? Maybe it will teach him a lesson.”

Smiling mischievously, Kerin replied, “We will have a whole house full of gentlemen here by the end of the week, I’m sure we can find some willing souls. And it’s not like they have to marry the girl once she is awake.” She looked thoughtful and smiled even wider. “Any chance of Neil kissing Tamlin? I’m sure she would appreciate it.” Laughter in her eyes showed she had no expectation of that ever happening.

“No, he was there when the witch told me, and he’s probably already hiding. I consider it a true sign of friendship and loyalty that he followed me home at all.”

Kerin laughed out loud as they paused in the Foyer. “If nothing else works, there are my brothers. They all owe us many favors.”

“Oh, I have a splendid plan now!” Alberic paused at the branching of hallways that would take them to their separate rooms, at least for a couple more days. “Pick the one with the most odious family, maybe the one with the brother, and get your brother Kelvin to kiss her! Then we can be rid of them both!”

As he passed a footman near the entrance to his rooms, he paused again. “Oh, and send word to the gardener. Before he chops that bush down and burns it, he can pick every one of those mediocre red roses for Kerin’s wedding bouquet.”

THE END!