She considers, for a minute or so, asking for help like a sensible person. She could ask her parents, who keep telling her to come to them with her troubles, or the court wizard, who might actually know something. But the thing is... does she trust any of those people with this? She would've thought so, but now that the moment is at hand, she is forced to admit that she does not.

After all, if this is the work of some magic spell, who cast it? It's supposed to be Reed's job to protect her from this sort of thing, and if he hasn't, either he's falling down on the job... or he deliberately betrayed her. And if he did deliberately betray her, he might have done something to her parents too, something that will make anything she tells them about the problem fall down the same hole that ate her memories of the rose garden when she stepped inside that little bower. Or he might have just fooled them in the ordinary human way, gained their trust with words and charm, so that if she asks them to keep this quiet from him they won't. Better not risk it.

Well then. She's sixteen and a princess and this will be her kingdom someday and maybe she should practice solving her own damn problems. Reed is going away on business shortly, something about overseeing the weather in the north, and she should have plenty of time to sneak into his study and read up on memory magic.

Reed's study, despite also serving as his bedroom is not nearly as large as some of the other rooms in the palace, though it's still quite sizable. Shelves line two the four walls, of which one is filled with various tomes covered in various amounts of dust in an order that is not obviously discernable, if one even exists. There's probably a book or two on magic relating to memory in there, but they won't be easy to find without searching the bookshelves from top to bottom. 

The second set of shelves is extra dense with shelving, and contains neat rows of various items, packed much in a much less helter-skelter manner the other two bookshelves. There's a shelf and a half filled with small and medium sized and a few larger bottles of various liquids in a wide array of colors, all carefully labeled in a perfectly aligned grid, a few of which are slowly changing color or bubbling gently or glow with a dim but sure light. There are animal parts dried and preserved in jars and other containers, once again carefully labeled, there are small bone and metal and stone objects in strange shapes, and so on. Clearly the items of a wizard with a wide array of tools to bring to bear on a variety of problems. 

Against the third wall is a wide workbench, taking up the entire wall, with various equipment in specific locations. On one end, nearest the wall with the array of items, is a bunch of glass tubing and other instruments clearly used for distillation of potions, which is currently dropping a drop of green liquid into a receptacle one small drop at a time. There's another area nearby where some various pieces of clockwork lay half-disassembled. Near to that there is a writing area, with quills and parchment, for taking notes, of which there is a slightly askew pile of parchment covered in a dense and crabby handwriting, several passages are clearly scratched out and others are densely underlined or circled. Near the ink bottle is a tattered blue ribbon.

The fourth wall has a bed against it, and it's the only wall with a window, set high into the wall. There's also a rather small wardrobe, which may explain why Reed has so few different sets of clothing. 

A closer inspection of the shelving with books in it will reveal that there is an odd pattern of dust in the middle of the floor, as though something has traced a wide arc through the floor there in the middle. It's also the shelves that would have to have covered up the window, since Reed's suite is up against a corner of the castle. 

...okay, suspiciously doorlike bookshelves, she'll get to you in a minute once she's done having a moment about her fucking hair ribbon which is scrunched up in a well-worn tangle on Reed's fucking desk. She hasn't worn those in a year! Where did he get it? Who steals a teenage princess's hair ribbon and uses it as a fidget toy?? This is so disturbing!

Right, on to the bookshelves. That is blatantly the track of a swinging door. Can she spot any books on the shelf with a pattern of fingerprints suggesting they've been repurposed as doorknobs? It's a long shot, probably he uses magic to open it, but it's worth checking before she starts inventorying his entire library.

There are no obvious fingerprint spots or any other disturbances in the relevant bookshelf to indicate that there's a way to open the swinging door in the bookshelves assuming one exists. Some books have much less dust on them than others, but they're also the more dog-eared ones if she looks at them closely. There's definitely more dust in here than the palace maids would be comfortable with, so any such pattern is likely to be visible (it's why the arc of dust was visible in the first place) but the palace maids are rather glad that he's told them in no uncertain terms that they're not to dust or clean in there, ever. No one wants to dust a wizard's study and get accidentally turned into a frog. 

So, time to inventory the books, then. One by one, taking each off its shelf and then putting it back exactly in place, because normally she'd trust her memory to be able to hold onto the whole layout unassisted but lately her memory has been proving untrustworthy. There's not much she can do about all the dust she disturbs while she's at it, but she does think to duck out for a minute to borrow* a pair of her mother's fine silk gloves so that she never touches a book directly. Just in case there's any truth to those rumours about wizards' belongings turning people into frogs.

*(steal)

She is not transmuted into a frog, or covered in purple and yellow boils, nor are her ears and eyes turned upside down, or any other of the gossip she's heard about the kinds of things that can happen from disturbing a wizard's study. 

However, in one area of the middle bookshelves, against the back wall (the books go two layers deep) there is a stone that is incredibly, unbearably cold, and makes her fingers feel worse than the winter where the entire lake froze over for a month and a half. When she pulls her fingers back they feel as warm and regular as ever, after a moment, despite the biting cold they had previously been subject to. 

...disturbing.

She... decides to leave that alone for now. Maybe she'll come back to it later and see if she can prod it into opening the secret door.

There are a lot of different books on various subjects tossed in some areas of the bookshelf almost haphazardly. There are some books on magic and potions and spells in there, mostly gathered near to the left where the shelving full of other magical items are, but the further to the right Iris gets the more strange and eclectic the collection becomes, especially in the mostly-invisible layer of books closest to the wall. There are books on economic and political theory, a book on the history of a kingdom that Iris hasn't even heard of, and some various books of fiction, including a collection of children's tales for young readers. 

If there was a defining characteristic of the books in this library that seem out of place, it would be "old and worn and leather-bound". 

It is looking less and less like she's going to find a handy book on memory spells. Probably he keeps his handy book on memory spells behind his obvious secret door. Nevertheless, she slogs through the entire collection, just in case he stuffed a book on memory spells into the back rank of a shelf somewhere, perhaps behind this book of obscure bread recipes. (Those currant buns sound tasty. No, don't get distracted.)

There is a single slim book, green, packed in the back behind a naturalist's book on the different birds of whispering woods and a rather dry-looking book that purports to list the yearly exports and imports of every country on the entire continent for a decade. It's labeled "Memory Spells and their Dangers: the ways they go wrong and why they should be avoided". 

Well that's not exactly what she was looking for but it sure is what she's about to sit on the floor and read for the next half hour.

The author explains in great detail that memory spells cannot be made with the level of fine detail required to be truly useful, as they are always either detectable or equivalent to killing the person. In most cases, the subject of memory spells are left unconscious and drooling for the rest of their short lives -- which can hardly be considered a successful piece of magic if the idea was to remove the memory of an object or person undetectably without incapacitating the subject. The most successful spells and formulations, if you could call them successful, wipe out entire months or even years of the subject's memory in order to remove a specific memory concept, which makes it rather obvious to the subject that they're missing something important. In the cases where the spells are successfully cast with sufficient fine detail (and you can count the verifiable cases on the fingers of one hand, most other accounts are just foolish myth and legend), the subjects quickly regained the memory of the person or object they were spelled to forget as soon as they saw them or something related to them. Even in the more... legendary cases, the stories still describe the same failures, and even if they were true, the methods used to perform these incredible feats of precision and care are lost to time, and the methods that exist today cannot ever hope to reach the same heights of power that the wizards of old were able to accomplish. In short, memory spells are dangerous to the subject (you might as well just kill them, which can be accomplished in a number of ways requiring far less effort or preparation), easily detectable, and fragile. No self-respecting wizard would waste their time researching on working on such things. 

Oh, and also it's totally unethical and you shouldn't. 

Well, that sure is a long list of warnings that somebody has ignored. If he even read them. She's really starting to suspect he has not actually read most of these books.

Was it Reed who cast the memory spell? She's pretty sure it was Reed who cast the memory spell. Between 'failed to protect her' and 'did it himself', the second rings truer in light of his apparent competence; also, the book on the pitfalls of memory spells is a bit of a hint. As for what he was trying to make her forget...

Reading between the lines a little, it looks like memory spells remove some specific thing from the subject's memory, a person or an item or something. So she should be looking for a missing piece of her life, a person or object who would have appeared in all the places that are wrongly unfamiliar. A treasured book? A cherished friend? Something like that.

It also looks like they're easily knocked loose just by rediscovering whatever was taken away, which means that (a) solving the mystery should also solve her problem and (b) Reed is probably not using memory spells to make her forget that he's been doing unmentionable things to her in all her favourite childhood haunts, because probably she'd remember it all as soon as she saw him again, which she definitely has. Unless he memory-spells her again every time he sees her. But surely at some point that's got to start being an obviously bad idea, right? Right? Ugh.

Okay, let's... proceed for now on the assumption that Reed has carved some specific person or thing out of her memory, because the alternative is probably reading too much into the presence of that tattered hair ribbon. All she has to do, then, is find the lost thing and get a good look at it. Or even just find something related to the lost thing.

The obvious first place to check is all the blank places, the rose bower and the library nook and the attic hideaway. As much as she hates the idea, she knows they're going to be the likeliest places to find something related to whatever she lost.

First, though, she carefully puts the book on the dangers of memory spells back where she found it, and after looking at the trails she left in the dust, she sighs and sneaks out again to find a broom and feather duster and give the whole place the sort of halfhearted going-over that might be applied by a newly hired maid who didn't know she wasn't supposed to clean in here but did know she really didn't want to. That way, when he comes back and finds the dust in his study is not where he left it, there will be an obvious explanation that has nothing to do with Princess Iris.

With that important job complete, she heads back to her bedroom and digs up her old basket of hair ribbons, because if she's going to be venturing back into the blank places anyway, she's determined to make things easier for her future self in case she is having parts of her memory repeatedly erased. She should probably have already done this, the moment she noticed something was wrong; but the fact that she didn't do it the moment she noticed something was wrong might mean that this isn't the first time she noticed. So. Little bits of ribbon, tucked into barely-visible spots in the blank places, as unobtrusive as she can make them... and, on consideration, she digs into the bottom of the basket to get out all the ribbons that aren't blue, the ones she hated and never wore. Just in case Reed happens to pass by and see them, she doesn't want him noticing the colour.

She practices one of the prettiest knots from the cherished book of knots in her bedroom, and bookmarks it with yet another bit of ribbon, and then goes forth to scour all the blank places for clues and mark each one with a pretty knot as she leaves it.

As far as she's aware, Reed doesn't notice she's been through his study, and she lose any more memory that she can detect -- all the ribbons she finds hidden away the following weeks and months are ones she remembers placing. 

Three months later, preparations begin for a large state visit -- the kingdom of Golden Fields (a longtime friend and ally to Iris' kingdom of Silver Lake) will be visiting for the Springtime Festival, along with a smaller delegation from Autumn Hills (a less friendly kingdom with which the relationship is somewhat more, strained at the moment). There will be a small ceremony during which the prince from Golden Fields and a princess from Autumn Hills will be renewing their engagement, for a wedding (and alliance) between the two kingdoms a few months hence. 

It may take a bit of time for her to notice, but her memories of the Springtime Festival for the past eight years has a large number of gaping holes. Also both of her parents are quite adamant that she accompany her astronomy tutor to see a comet in the northern mountains of Silver Lake, where the sky is clearer and the stars are brighter. Apparently it's a once in a lifetime opportunity that all past rulers of Silver Lake have experienced and it only comes around once every twenty two years. Both her parents are apologetic that they won't be able to come with her, but they have matters of state to attend to, and so on. 

The astronomy tutor is delighted to hear of this previously undocumented royal mystery, and has set about excitedly packing all his things to observe and chronicle the passage of this comet himself. 

...so, the Springtime Festival, huh.

Odds seem high that she was childhood friends with someone from one of the other kingdoms. Probably the prince from Golden Fields, because relations with Autumn Hills are more distant and she doesn't think they actually show up to all the Festivals, but then again maybe her friendship was erased precisely because she was friends with someone from the wrong kingdom.

The fact that her parents are pushing for her to be gone during the Festival both reinforces the idea that her missing memories are connected to it somehow, and also introduces the complication that they're probably actively in on it, not just being manipulated by Reed for his own purposes.Or maybe they're actively in on it and being manipulated by Reed for his own purposes. Whichever way around, the bottom line here is that she's on her own.

She doesn't give any sign that she is unenthusiastic about the possibly-imaginary comet, or suspicious of how suddenly and emphatically her parents are insisting she go see it. She does protest about missing the Festival, but not very hard.

When the morning comes for her to set off on her journey, she steps into the carriage with a little picnic basket full of snacks for the road.

When the carriage reaches its next stop, she is no longer inside, because she fed her astronomy tutor a currant bun laced with sleeping draught and then snuck out the door while the carriage was still moving and dove into a ditch.

The trek back to the palace from there is a bit of a pain, but she's always been the tree-climbing type, and she's not about to let a few miles of hiking get in her way. It goes much smoother once she tears off the outer layer of her skirts and leaves them in another ditch.

She makes it back to the palace before noon, and cheerfully sets about sneaking back in through the secret passages she's known about since she was eleven.

She's passing through a small meadow with an ornamental small pond, complete with a softly burbling fountain which a couple of the palace's ornamental swans were bathing in, when she hears a familiar voice. 

"I see." Reed's voice says, from behind her. "I thought I'd been very careful with you, but you were always a bit too clever for your own good. What did I miss?" 

Oh, he's going straight to the villainous monologuing, that's never a good sign.

Keep him talking, or...? Well, keep him talking for now, at any rate. If the opportunity arises she can punch him in the nose and bolt. Note to self, generate an opportunity to punch him in the nose and bolt.

"That's a bit dramatic for a man who just caught his princess dodging her responsibilities like usual," she says, aiming for an air of lighthearted mischief and doing a pretty decent job at it. "It's not like ditching the carriage was that hard. Did you have a spell on it or something? I just jumped out and walked home." Come on, walk it back, walking it back is the smart move here, if she actually didn't know what he was talking about he'd be much better off playing along than explaining her mistake...

Reed states at her blankly for a few moments. "Clever, but not clever enough," he says finally. "Or maybe you're not clever at all and telling me the truth, but at this point I don't think I can take the risk either way. The delegation is going to be here in a a few hours and getting your parents involved would just complicate things. Once we get through the festival, which apparently just had to happen here, because it happens here every year, even though I told them..." he trails off and stares at her. "But that's enough of that. The only question then is how to deal with you, now."

"Are you okay?" she asks, leaning closer and squinting in concern, as though she still has no idea what he's talking about and is also a bit slow on the uptake about the implications of what he's saying and how he's saying it.

Then she punches him in the nose and bolts.

She gets about nine or ten steps before she feels something wrap around her legs and she tumbles to the ground, rolling a few more feet. If she looks down at her legs she'll see a faint glittering green aura around both of her legs, and she can't pull them apart no matter how hard she tries. 

Reed, if she looks, is holding a hand over his face and nose, with blood dripping down his chin. 

"You just won't behave like a princess should," he says, in a furious and aggravated tone she has not before heard from his usually more urbane lips, speaking to no one in particular. "You, and that prince just will not play your parts. Both of you just wouldn't listen to reason, or your parents, and now we're stuck here by this fountain with a couple of swans..." he trails off for a moment. 

"Aha," he says, a light of inspiration in his eyes. "No one will notice an extra swan, not with how many tend to wander the grounds like cultivated vermin, and I can collect and deal with you in a more effective manner when I don't have to worry about the time."

Reed makes a complicated gesture, says a short phrase in a language Iris cannot identify, and there's a glitter of gold and white motes of light in the air. And Iris starts to feel very very strange. 

Okay, prince of Golden Fields confirmed target, good to know, thanks for that—

Wait. What?

"Are you serious?" she blurts. "You're turning me into a swan?! You daft bastard, have you ever—"

But, perhaps fortunately, she doesn't make it to the end of the sentence.

All that emerges is incredulous swan noises.

"That's better," he says, taking a hand away from his face to reveal a nose in perfectly good condition (other than the trail of dried blood running down his face and neck). "Do stay put and try to behave. I'll be able to find you if you do somehow manage to run off, but do keep in mind you'll stay like this forever without my help. And you won't be able to break the spell on the prince if he can't see your face, no matter what I missed that let manage to break it on your own. He probably gave you a self portrait or something, I'll have to go through your things more closely." 

He turns towards the wrought iron gate in the fence that encloses the decorative meadow, and heads towards it. 

Oh, she'll never get back without his help, will she? Come on, Reed, you're not the only wizard in the Eastern Kingdoms. You're not even the only one in Silver Lake. Also, Iris would personally rather break both your arms than let you cast another spell on her even if the spell in question is definitely just to turn her human again.

Speaking of which, she's heard that a swan can break a man's arm with a single blow from one of her wings, and she's interested in finding out if the rumours are true.

Unfortunately, it turns out that a swan in full charge is a pretty noisy affair. If he has any sense he's going to run for that gate like angry dragons are after him.

He does in fact have sufficient sense, and enough time to turn around and slash his hand through the air, and then Iris' wings are encompassed in a sparkling green aura, and without them for balance she has a bit of a tumble. 

"Didn't I just tell you to behave?" Reed asks. "You're a bird. What do you think you're going to accomplish? He sighs, exits the gate, and then touches a hand to the fence, which burns with purple fire for a moment. "There. Now you're not going anywhere, whether you want to or not. I'll collect you in a few days and clean up this mess, even if I have to swiss cheese your brain to do it. Honestly that would likely make things much, much easier, so by all means force my hand." 

He turns away, the green aura disappears, and he walks off, leaving her alone, save for the two other swans in the meadow with her. 

She would yell after him that he is an absolute twit, except that when she tries to yell, what comes out is an honestly terrifying hissing noise.

Okay. Unlike some people, Iris is aware that swans can fly. How about she tries that first?

...getting off the ground proves to be more difficult than anticipated. It's not that she can't do it. She can totally do it. But unlike walking, which she has been doing for years, flying is kind of a fundamentally alien enterprise. There's all these... wing movements, and things. She begins to suspect that the other swans are laughing at her.

Fine, she's not good at flying. She's a human, give her a break. She should be coming at this from a human angle.

Fences have gates. Gates have locks. Or they don't, in which case this exercise just got a whole lot easier.

What does the lock situation on this particular gate look like, exactly?

"Lock" is a rather charitable descriptor in this case; the gate is mostly ornamental, and the gardens are designed for nobles to be able to wander around as they please. There's a wrought iron bar on a rotating hinge that's fitted into a hook on the other side of the gate that is better described as a "latch" than a "lock". 

That sure looks like an object she could grab with her beak if she stuck her head through this gap between the bars!

When she attempts to do so, the two bars she is attempting to stick her head through glow purple, and whatever part of her is passing through the plane of the fence feels like it's on fire. 

Additionally, though it acts more like a curtain than a solid barrier, if she tries to force her neck through anyways, there is a lot of resistance, which increases the more she tries to push through, and she likely doesn't have the strength to push more than an inch or so through the bars.  

Well then. Well. Then.

She tries a couple more times, never quite managing to achieve the right leverage with her phantom-burning beak.

What's her first lesson here, again? Think like a human.

She grabs a stick off the ground and shoves that through the bars to try to lever up the latch.

The stick passes through the bars without any resistance or purple glow. 

The stick has a disadvantage over her beak in that she has much less control over it given that she is rather unused to her new body. But even so, it is not a difficult feat for her to use it to lift up the latch and pull the gate inward enough that it doesn't just re-latch when she shifts the stick in one direction or another so that the bar accidentally falls back down. 

It would be really convenient to have hands. She misses having hands.

But she's not about to let that stop her. Fine, the gate is ajar now. Will it set her on imaginary fire again if she tries to lever it a little farther open using the same stick and then wiggle through the gap?

If she brushes up against the gate or the fence itself, any part of her that tries to pass through the physical gate or the rest of the fence will set her on imaginary purple fire. 

But she can pass through the opened gate just fine. 

That's good enough for her.

She gives her wings a little shake, sort of the same way she would resettle her skirts after jumping down out of a tree, and tosses the stick at the gate and sets off for the gardens at a determined waddle. Picking the lock on the garden shed is probably a lost cause with no hands, so the secret passage she was aiming for is out. If she wants to spy on the main entrance... she should hide in the rose gardens, actually, she can think of several spots where a bird her size could sit unobtrusively in the shade and have a good view of arriving visitors if she pokes her neck through the hedge.

A gardener squints confusedly at her as she makes her way through the grounds, but beyond that there are no further obstacles to her goal, and she reaches the rose garden without incident. 

Note to self, bake cookies for the groundskeepers at some point once this is all over. They deserve none of this. Hopefully reports of strangely behaved swans will not make their way to Reed's ears; it's not like he ever listens to anyone anyway, really, especially not the servants.

In the meantime, she tucks herself into a cozy spot underneath a hedge, with a nice view of the front gate, and settles in to wait for the guests to arrive.

She'll have to wait there for a little while, but before long a pair of carriages and a short baggage train rounds the corner, guarded by a score of men on horseback in a precise formation, their immaculate dress uniforms glittering in the last golden remnants of sunrise. Iris should be able to recognize the sigil of Autumn Hills on the lapels of the guardsmen, though it is much more obvious on the sides of the carriages themselves. 

It might be somewhat difficult to hear over the sound of hoofbeats, but there's a conversation happening inside the first carriage, the one rather more ornately adorned than the other. 

She stretches her neck out a little farther, to the point where her beak is almost poking between the leaves. Almost but not quite. It wouldn't do to be spotted.

Sitting as still as she possibly can, leaning as close as she possibly can, listening as hard as she possibly can, she... can't quite catch the words, only the voices. Maybe when the carriage rolls a little closer...

"...should be adequate," says the alarmingly lovely voice of Princess Nightingale of the Autumn Hills. "We'll see."

"Are... are you sure, Nightingale?" replies a slightly worried and whinging male voice. "After we were told, the um, leak in the guest quarters, was finally repaired for real four months ago, um, I think I still might be worried about, um, water damage? Are you sure we shouldn't wait a year to make sure, um, all the curtains have dried out? There are so many things that could go wrong if the curtains are too wet. We could stand to lose so much more than, um, our, um, royal outfits, if they get wet. Is there any reason for such urgency with, um, our state visit? Really, we don't want the curtains to be wet." 

"If the curtains are wet when we arrive, I suppose we'll just have to have them hung out to dry."

...Iris has SEVERAL questions.

1. What??

2. What are they talking about, because it definitely isn't curtains? Wait, is it her memory? Is she the curtains?

3. She has never heard anyone discuss drying damp curtains in a tone of such veiled menace before and she is both impressed and disturbed.

4. Who the fuck is Princess Nightingale? That's definitely her voice, you don't forget a voice like that, but Iris can't remember her sounding so terrifying before. Then again, Iris can't remember a lot of things. Probably the memory spells were to erase a friendship with the Prince of Golden Fields but (4a.) what if they were, instead, to erase her knowledge that Princess Nightingale goes around menacing the curtains?? Concerning.

5. What is she, a swan, going to do about all this, exactly?

"If... if you say so, Nightingale," the male voice replies in a just as worried but even more obsequious tone. It is, perhaps, unclear if he's worried about the curtains, or something else. 

"Oh, don't worry about it, Diamond," says a female voice. "You should know to just trust our clever daughter. She always knows what to do. I'm sure our state visit will go as planned, water damage or no."

"Thank you, Mother." A rustle as of someone leaning back in a comfortable seat with a great deal of skirt. "Fear not, Father, I'll see us through."

????

"If, if you say so, Nightingale," he says, with some resignation. "We're already in sight of the castle anyways, we could hardly turn back now, could we. No matter how wet the curtains are." 

The retinue continues by, and further conversation is now fully out of earshot, at least from where Iris is currently hidden. It will likely be a little while longer until the contingent from Golden Fields arrives. 

Okay. Think, Iris, think.

Princess Nightingale is engaged to Prince, what's his name, note to self: look up his name if you can't get your memory back, Prince Golden Fields. Princess Nightingale is talking about this visit using water damage to the curtains (note to self: cause some water damage to their curtains) as a sort of code for something else, something that got fixed four months ago, which is a pretty plausible timeline for when Iris's memories were erased. (Princess Nightingale's father is much worse at speaking in code than she is.)

It really does look like Nightingale is behind the memory thing, probably because Iris's friendship with Prince Definitely Has A Name was interfering with her engagement. At least, Iris really can't think of any other reason why Nightingale would want to erase such a friendship, unless maybe she's just the sort of person who does these things for fun. But making someone else's court wizard mess with their memories really isn't the sort of thing you do for fun. It's a pretty serious thing, suborning a court wizard. Not everyone even has a court wizard; they're very valuable and Iris must imagine they're closely watched for loyalty. On the other hand, maybe Reed has been solving more of his problems with memory spells than she thought... no, the book about pitfalls really did strongly imply that you can't use a memory spell to make someone forget something as specific as "all the reasons I seem disloyal". So how did he manage it? What has he been doing to Iris's parents? Are Iris's parents just idiots, is that the problem?

Or maybe it's something subtler. Maybe Nightingale is just manipulating events to make them come out her way, not outright paying Reed off to mess with Iris's head. Maybe she had her parents—her mom, probably, her dad seems pretty useless—talk to Iris's parents about how concerned they were that this friendship might get in the way of their budding alliance, and Iris's parents came up with the solution themselves.

...That's actually a really awful thought and she's gonna need a minute to chew on it before she gets back to trying to understand the situation.

While she is doing her best to understand the situation, the procession makes it the rest of the way to the gates of the palace. She can see the party (but not really hear, from this distance) be formally greeted there, after which the royal family of Autumn Hills and their retinue (and all their luggage) enter the palace and disappear into its hallways, while the horses and carriages are taken to the stables. 

Iris has another half-hour or so to think, as the sun slowly rises higher in the sky, reflecting beautifully over the Silver Lake's eponymous body of water, before the delegation from Golden Fields round the corner and are visible. 

This party is actually quite a bit more exuberant than the one from Autumn Hills -- depending on how well Iris remembers things (and she does remember the basics, despite the fact that most of her memories of the Spring Festival are full of bottomless yawning gaps with torn ragged edges that she couldn't fill in no matter how hard she tried) she may remember that much of the nobility of Golden Fields makes a yearly visit to Silver Lake for the Spring Festival, and they (and their maids and servants as well) enjoy the visit and the festivities immensely. There are several more carriages, and significantly more men and women on horseback milling about up and down the loose pack making their way slowly towards the gate, and quite a few of them can be heard chattering gaily. 

If she listens closely, she might hear a few snippets of a voice that is wholly unfamiliar but still sends a bit of a shiver down her spine, a voice that makes her feel warm and happy, even if she cannot place it at all. 

Oh, yeah, that's got to be Prince What The Fuck Is His Name Actually. And dammit, she was not finished processing the dawning realization that either she has totally failed to notice her parents being enchanted to behave conveniently for a suborned court wizard's purposes, or her parents decided without outside assistance to have that same not-suborned-just-kind-of-a-jerk court wizard enchant her to behave conveniently for theirs.

Very grumpy swan peeping between the leaves, trying to get glimpses of all the Golden Fields nobles. Whose horses are the most fancily dressed, she should be looking at those first, probably the prince will have one of the fanciest, right? Or maybe he's like her, and he clothes his horses for practicality first and sparkle second...

As she looks over the horses and people, trying to determine who to look at based on the way their horses are dressed, 

Sdfjhks. Zldkfkshpf. Ghlrnhlrhlll.

psodflkjsdkjwlrkSDLKFDFFFFFFF—

—Hawk, that's his fucking name, Prince Hawk of Golden Fields, Hawk who squeaks adorably when she scoops him up and spins him around, Hawk whose passion in life is art and mathematics. Hawk who has been her favourite person since the week they met, since the minute he fell in the lake and she pulled him out and demanded to teach him to swim. Adorably shy, adorably kind, adorably adorable Hawk.

It feels rather like Iris's entire brain is on fire. Long-dead memories flare to life in a blazing cacophony, all at once, associations chasing associations chasing associations as they all scramble back into place.

They argued with their parents about the engagement to Nightingale. Hawk wanted to marry his best friend and not a stranger. Iris declared as a matter of principle that people should get a say in who they marry, both because who you spend the rest of your life with is kind of an important major life decision that shouldn't be made for you when you're too young to think about it and also because on a practical level if you marry someone you don't get along with you will have a bad marriage and there will be trouble about it. And then one day Iris went to bed after a particularly shouty argument with her parents, and woke up the next morning with no memory of ever having met Prince Hawk.

All right. All right. She has her mind back.

What's her next move?

Find a portrait of her and get it to Hawk. Optionally, if she happens to encounter the Autumn Hills delegation's suites on the way, soak their curtains. Optionally, if she happens to encounter Reed's arms on the way, break them. Repeatedly. Until he runs out of whatever magic he used to fix his broken nose, and then once more for good measure.

She withdraws quietly from the hedge and spends a moment considering possible routes, then heads back through the rose garden maze to see if she can get into that garden shed after all. Picking the lock is a wash, but sometimes an absent-minded gardener will leave it open, and she doesn't remember for sure how big the back window is but it's possible she could fit through it if she tried hard and believed in herself. Otherwise, she'll have to sneak all the way around the castle to the docks at the back, and use the secret passage from the lake.

If Iris wants to get in via the garden shed, she likely wants to act quickly, as there is only so much time that she has before the party from Golden Fields is done making their way to and being greeted at the gates. She'll have to cut through the rose garden, but she knows the rose garden very very well (even better now than she did 10 minutes ago) and as a swan, she can make a much more direct route by cutting under the hedges. 

Unfortunately, by the time she gets there there is much more of a commotion than she expected: several guards in gold and red livery (Autumn Hills) as well as a number of them in Silver Lake's blue and silver are scattered around the area as something happens by the stables. There are too many people for her to not be noticed trying to sneak into the shed. 

When she makes her way closer to the stables, she can see that King Diamond of Autumn Hills is waiting slightly impatiently as his horse is finished being saddled. Apparently, according to the hubbub all around, he's preparing to take a short morning ride around the lake, along with a few other nobles from Silver Lake. 

How annoying of him. Has he considered instead staying in bed all day, perhaps taking a quick nap while he's at it so she can sneak into his rooms with a bucket of water and dump it over him?

Actually, that gives her an idea...

Okay. She should not do this. This was not part of her plan. If you make a plan and then ditch it ten minutes later, what you have is not a plan, it's an idle daydream.

But. But. She really really wants to see King Diamond fall in a nice juicy mud puddle. And there is one such puddle right over there. And it is so very conveniently close to the hedge that encircles the rose garden. And she could so very easily lurk in that hedge, and wait for him to ride past, and bite that nervous-looking horse's ass—that is, bite the rear end of King Diamond's nervous-looking horse—and get King Diamond dumped straight into said puddle. After which, she hopes, she can skedaddle before anyone in the vicinity has the presence of mind to stop her. She'll have to take the long way around through the docks, but she's going to have to do that anyway because the stables are likely to stay busy for a while.

She lurks in the hedge while she thinks about it. It's not like lurking in the hedge is committing to anything. This is a perfectly reasonable spot to lurk in the hedge even if she's just waiting for an opportunity to slip past and sneak around to the docks. (There are, perhaps, better spots to lurk in the hedge for that purpose, but this is a reasonable one.)

She doesn't have to wait too terribly long; the king seems to think this ride is a matter of some urgency (he seems quite anxious about it), and the groom is somewhat rushed into allowing him onto his horse despite some protests. Within a few minutes he's cantering towards the hedge where Iris is hidden, with the other nobles who planned to ride with him scrambling to mount their own horses and follow after. 

She might not have ended up following through on this strategically inadvisable whim, except that the horse sidesteps a little closer to the hedge right as it's passing by, and Iris actually does find that kind of startling, and she recalls that startled swans have been known to take off and make noise kind of in the middle of taking off and making some noise, and by that point she might as well snap at the horse's rear on her way past.

It's got to be the clumsiest flight a swan has ever made since earlier this morning when she was in the meadow, but it only has to carry her across the path and over the top of the garden shed and then she can land and waddle at top speed through another hedge and into the vegetable gardens, where she promptly assumes the casual air of a swan who has come by the vegetable gardens to beg for oats.

(Why do they feed the swans oats in the vegetable gardens, you might ask? Well, before they did that, the swans would occasionally discover that they can eat vegetables in the vegetable gardens, and this was very inconvenient for everyone except the swans. Now there's a big trough of water at one end of the garden and it's always somebody's job to keep half an eye out for swans and start scattering handfuls of oats in the water as soon as one shows up, thereby luring them in with the prospect of a comforting and familiar nibble of waterborne plant matter, and preventing them from getting ideas about trying the much more confusing and difficult task of eating herbs and vegetables growing out of the ground.)

Both the horse and its rider are rather startled by the sudden appearance of a swan taking off right in front of them, and have no sensible point of reference to be able to tell just how clumsily her flight attempt is. For a moment, it looks as though Diamond is going to maintain control of his horse, but then the swan makes a loud noise as she takes to the air, and the horse spooked immediately sheds his shocked rider and he lands neatly ass-first in the mud puddle with a satisfying squelch as the horse rears and gallops away for a hundred yards or so. 

Most of the servants and guardsmen are shocked by the sudden occurrence, though enough have the presence of mind to quickly rush to the embarrassed royal's aid. 

One of the nobles, however, who had just managed to mount his horse stares calculatingly at the swan, and hardly misses a beat before ordering a few blue-and-silver liveried guardsmen to follow as he spurs his horse on in pursuit of the troublesome swan. 

There are three directions she could've gone from the little space behind the shed (which a horse barely fits into in the first place). On the left, a narrow wooden gate leads into the vegetable gardens; even if you could physically fit a horse through it, which you can't, you still probably shouldn't. Straight ahead across a narrow footpath is the gate, still partly open, to the little meadow with the other swans clearly visible inside. On the right, another narrow wooden gate, equally impassable to horses, leads into a small ornamental flower garden. Both the wooden gates are too opaque to yield at a glance the answer to the question 'are there swans here?', and will have to be opened and scouted on foot.

(She could also have landed on that narrow footpath and turned to either side, parallel to the hedge enclosing the vegetable garden on the left or the ornamental garden on the right, but even a very determined swan does not waddle all that fast, and a quick look along the path suffices to prove she isn't on it. Not unless she went left and then teleported all the way to the lakeshore.)

The noble curses when he arrives with his guardsmen, then barks some quick orders to his two guardsmen, sending one each (after some small protests) to the flower garden and the small meadow. The noble himself heads through the wooden gate into the vegetable garden, where he should be able to recruit a few gardeners to help him catch a swan if there happens to be one that looks plausibly enough like the one who horribly attacked the poor king, and he can be richly rewarded for his service to the crown by bringing the misbehaving animal to delicious justice and well-roasted justice. Whichever crown wants to give him the favor, he isn't particularly choosy about who wants grant him the position and and power so he doesn't have to languish in mediocrity in this small court, hoping for proper recognition and the riches that come with it. 

There is indeed a swan in the vegetable garden, ambling up and down the rows. It's hard to say whether this particular swan is actually the one he's after. Seems awfully calm for a swan who was engaged in such exciting pursuits a mere half-minute ago.

A sharp-eyed gardener at the far end of the vegetable garden has already tossed a handful of oats into the trough and is making the encouraging chirping noises of someone hoping to attract a bird's attention before said bird discovers the secrets of vegetables. The swan, meanwhile, pauses to inspect a stalk of celery before deigning to heed the call.

The noble tears open the door and looks around and sees the swan. He doesn't mind terribly much that it might not be the same swan (indeed, who could say for certain?) -- it's traveling in the right direction and all the swans look basically the same. "You there!" he shouts to the gardeners. "Grab that swan!" 

"Uh, what? Why would we be doin' that?" asks one of them, slightly confused. "She's suppos'd to be here, and they're mighty dangerous when provoked, begging your pardon, good sir." He gives a small bow, and the rest of the gardeners also bow and nod their heads along with the first fellow. 

"He attacked the King of Autumn Hills, you fool!" the noble shouts. "He's going to want revenge on this bird, I'm sure of it." He is in fact not at all sure of it, but more than willing to take that chance, or more accurately encourage him to take revenge upon it if he needed to. 

"I'm... not so sure, good sir," the gardener replied. "The royal faml'y has us feed 'em, and as long as you don't get in their way, they's friendly enough. I'm sure 'twas just a..." 

"I don't have time for this, it's getting away!" Shouts the noble, as the swan calmly wanders in the direction of the water trough. "Five gold pieces to whoever brings me the damned bird, you hear! Ten if you can bring it to me alive!" 

The gardeners look at each other, shake their heads a little and start to half-heartedly approach the swan with their gardening tools, though the one who spoke back hangs far back, clearly not willing to get involved, but also having no desire to further anger the furious noble. 

The highly innocent swan ambles up to the trough, hops in, and munches on oats while paddling back and forth in the water.

The gardeners approach with rake and trowels, stealing nervous glances at each other as they approach. Clearly none of them particularly want to be the first to try and grab the swan, despite the promise of gold. 

Finally, though, one of the gardeners, the youngest one of the set, makes a grab for its neck as she paddles close to his end of the trough. 

She bites his hand, makes her terrifying hissing sound, and flaps awkwardly out of the trough toward the nearest hedge.

"Stop it, it's getting away, you idiot!" shouts the noble as the gardener cradles his slightly injured hand. He receives no further help. With an annoyed shout, he grabs a trowel from one of their hands and chases after the swan. 

This random baron has not actually done anything especially awful besides try to capture her, so she doesn't feel justified in breaking his arms. But he's really annoying, so when he catches up to her before she reaches the hedge, her first move is to bite him somewhere very indelicate.

The baron screams in shock and pain and falls over sideways, his hands between his legs. The gardeners very pointedly do not laugh at his plight, no matter how much they might want to (they may be hiding some smiles behind their hands) and go over to help him up (still very carefully not giggling, out loud anyways), as the swan escapes out through the hedge. 

Once she's through the hedge, it's a short glide down a gentle slope to reach the lake, where there are enough other swans around that she doubts anyone will be able to find her. She paddles toward the docks, trying to look like she isn't in a particular hurry while also hurrying as much as possible.

Is Reed watching this entrance too?

No, he's not, he's currently in the guest quarters where Nightingale and her parents are staying, having gotten there via a secret passage. Diamond has left for a morning constitutional, but Nightingale and Juniper are both there. 

Ostensibly, Reed reports to Juniper and Diamond, but over the years he's picked up who holds most of the power, and is directing his (somewhat edited) report to her. 

"...they're not going to be a problem," he says to Nightingale. "Iris is, elsewhere, and so you'll have the prince all to yourself. Both sets of parents have made sure all the things that could remind them of each other have been removed, and if you need a little bit of extra persuasion there's a potent love potion brewing in my study. It shouldn't be necessary. Hawk's parents report that without the additional distraction he has no problem being a good prince and doing what his parents deem necessary for the kingdom." 

"Good, good. Thank you, Reed. We will be sure you are well rewarded for your success."

"Oh, serving as the power behind Iris' throne will be sufficient reward," he says, "though I would be glad for any small tokens for my service that would help to solidify control over this kingdom once it is Iris' throne, as necessary." 

"Quite."

Reed opens his mouth to continue further, but before he can say more than a few words...

There is a hubbub outside the door, a shouting of voices getting closer and closer until the door practically bursts open. 

Diamond is there, flanked by a pair of worried servants, and while his front is mostly unstained, it's clear that there is soft wet mud running down his hose and being tracked in by his shoes. "You," he orders one of the maids, "go draw me a bath, now. Hot." She curtsies and runs off into the adjoining bedroom. "And you, help me out of these filthy clothes." The servant rushes to obey, and Diamond grumbles wordlessly to himself, barely noticing the people in the room taking stock of his disheveled appearance -- appearing far more disheveled as he turns around to position better as the servant helps strip him out of his soiled shirt and jacket. 

"Father," says Nightingale slowly, "what did you do?"

"I didn't do anything!" Diamond practically shouts, a bit red in the face. Then he breathes, and adds, "It's nothing, Nightingale, just some of the native wildlife startled me and my horse at absolutely the worst possible time, and well I," he looks a bit abashed. "I lost control. And fell. It wasn't anyone's fault," he adds hurriedly, "the seneschal already managed to run into me to apologize, but honestly it was hardly necessary of him, sometimes these things happen. I just would have preferred not to have cut my ride short by getting my riding outfit all covered in mud. But it looks worse than it is, I'm sure. Probably. With any luck it will come out in the wash. You will make sure to wash it immediately, yes?" The maid nods profusely, pulling the sodden shirt over the top of his head. 

"Native wildlife? What sort? Should I be concerned that the palace grounds are less well-kept than they appear?" There has not really been time for Diamond to have gotten all the way out into a truly wild area.

"Oh, it was just a swan," Diamond says. "They apparently keep them fed for ornamental reasons, and usually there's no trouble -- the seneschal assured me they're not normally any trouble -- I likely I just startled one with my horse. Just in the wrong place at the wrong time. He suggested he might try and find it for me, but I hardly got a good look and really, I don't know much about swans, certainly not to be able to identify one. And there's no use troubling the bird, it's just a swan, no trouble at all. I'm sure you don't have anything to worry about, the little of the grounds I did see seemed quite well kept, though of course I had hardly gotten anywhere before the, um, incident." 

Nightingale looks over at Reed and arches an eyebrow.

Reed, doing his best to keep his composure, follows the princess' lead and says nothing, but takes a polished stone out of a pocket, rubs it on a shirt, then spins around with it a circle, pausing most of the way through while pointing in a specific direction. 

"If you'll, um, excuse me, your Majesties, your Highness," he says, bowing low, "I should probably take my leave, it would likely not be proper for me to intrude on your royal presences at this time, and besides, I have some, um, business I must attend to. Forthwith." 

This is the face of someone who is going to require an explanation sooner rather than later.

Nevertheless, "You are excused."

Reed quickly bows his thanks and hurries off, almost through the door before realizing better of himself and taking off through the secret passage entrance (the maids are theirs, not Silver Lake's, thank goodness, so his presence won't be gossiped about, thank goodness). Once he's out of earshot, he curses quietly to himself and brandishes the stone, following the small shining spot on its smooth surface, trying to determine exactly where Iris has run off to. (How he is uncertain of, how will have to wait until she's caught and contained. Properly, this time.) 

Iris has been discovering that sneaking around the palace as a swan is even more of a pain than she expected. She's pretty sure she's been spotted by at least two servants and saved from capture only by both of them doubting their own senses long enough for her to waddle around a corner out of sight. Even if she was any good at flying, she can't do it inside these narrow corridors, so anyone she meets is faster than her as well as taller. And she wants to be pretty selective about who she hurts, so she's reluctant to fight dirty if she does get caught. All in all, it's been a harrowing time.

She's almost made it to her parents' bedroom, though. Just one more secret passage to go. If, that is, she can get the damn thing open.

So, at this exact moment, there's a swan in an out-of-the-way corridor, wrestling with the statuary.

Unfortunately (for her, rather fortunately for Reed, not that she's going to be any trouble), that makes her rather easy to catch up with. And catch. 

"You really just keep persisting in trying to make my life more difficult," a voice says from behind Iris as she attempts to... activate a secret passage? What will that avail her of? Nothing, now that he's here, but he needs to figure out what she's up to. Nightingale is already likely to be cross with him. 

Iris immediately desists from her task, turns around, and launches herself at Reed with another terrifying swan hiss.

Reed slashes a hand through the air, and Iris is once again encased in a sparkly green aura and can no longer move. "Really?" he asks her, partly to himself. "I don't understand why you persist in this nonsense. It didn't work the first two times, but this time you think you're going to get the drop on me. You just will not stop being a thorn in my side ever since..." he sighs, raises a hand, and Iris floats into the air, encased in green sparkles, floating into his arms. "But since apparently since you're not happy in a well-lit meadow, we'll have to put you somewhere a bit more secure." Iris ends up in his arms, and he turns, and walks in a direction with purpose, even though he isn't quite yet certain a good place to stash the misbehaving swan princess. Needs to be somewhere reasonably secure...

Bite him bite him bite him bite him bite him.

Okay, she can't bite him. She needs to come up with a plan that is not 'keep trying the thing that doesn't work'.

What can she do? Can she perhaps make noises or is that too much like moving?

She can in fact make noises at the moment, at least for now. She's still breathing, at least. 

After a couple of swanly grumbles, she shuts up...

...because she is waiting for the right moment. As soon as she hears or sees any sign of another human being nearby, that's when she should raise a huge ruckus and get Reed caught inexplicably carrying a swan through the palace. (Probably this will just lead to him enchanting whoever finds him, but they might get away in time to tell someone else, and they might be someone he won't dare enchant, and he might not happen to be able to enchant people on the spot to make them ignore his weird behaviour.)

Meanwhile, Reed is trying to determine where exactly to put her. Somewhere more secure than a walled garden, which means the dungeons are the obvious choice, but the dungeons are hardly an inconspicuous place for a... 

A maid rounds a corner, carrying a fresh load of laundry, and makes a small "eep!" of surprise and jumps back a foot when she sees Reed carrying a swan through the hallways. 

Oh good, she doesn't even have to make sounds in order to alert somebody to this nonsense! She can reserve her ability to yell in case she gets a second chance to draw attention!

Reed has in fact already thought about this. "I found this poor lass wandering around making a ruckus," he explains to the maid. "Perhaps someone let her into the castle as a sort of a prank? Regardless, nothing to worry about, I'll take her back out myself, since she was not happy being told what to do." 

She is going to bite him so many times.

"Oh, yes, of course sir," she says, not wanting to question the wizard, and curtseying as best she can with a full load of laundry in her arms.

Then she pauses. She doesn't want to question the wizard, but, "begging your pardon, sir," she says, "but if you want to take her outside, I think you may be going the wrong way. There's an exit if you go straight down that hall and turn right that lets out right into the grounds, sir." She pauses for a moment, and decides against suggesting to show him the way. She has a bunch of fresh laundry to deliver, and she doesn't want to be anywhere near the wizard for any longer than she has to. 

"Of course," he says, "thank you very much, I must have gotten turned around with the surprise." He turns and walks back the way he came, towards the exit -- and the dungeons, when he turns left instead of right (after making sure the maid isn't looking). Is one of his people on duty today? He's not sure, he only pays attention to the roster when it's important, and well, it wasn't important an hour ago. If only the princess would stop being so nosy and difficult. Then everything could be going according to plan. 

The princess is a silent bundle of furiously angry feathers.

Well. If one of his people aren't on duty, Reed supposes he can always find another solution, even if one isn't immediately coming to mind. Reed descends the stairs to the slightly musty-smelling dungeon, and peeks carefully around the corner to see who is on duty at the moment. 

There is a single guard, in a slightly unkempt uniform, staring off into space with a bored expression, shifting slowly from foot to foot as he stands there. 

Is now the time to yell? No—she should yell if Reed starts to turn away, as though he expects interacting with this particular guard to go poorly for him.

Reed does not in fact expect the interaction with this guard to go poorly for him.

The guard on duty is Spade, who is one of his. 

Spade is probably one of the luckier options, honestly, though in retrospect a hardly surprising outcome. He had been, well, rather easy to suborn. His obvious boredom at his postings and inherent laziness meant that he had a clear and obvious desire to be a part of something bigger, or more interesting, which Reed had exploited quite handily. He would likely have to go after the balance of power shifted, but for now he was an eager lackey, even if he occasionally asked a few too many questions. 

He rounds the corner with a smile. "Spade," he says, "I have a job for you." 

Spade, who has been slouching and shifting from side to side, straightens to attention. "Reed!" he says, then sees the swan in his arms, covered in glowing magic and stares at it, confused and interested. "What are you doing with that swan? What do you need me to do for you?" He smiles keenly at the prospect of taking part in whatever plot Reed has going on this time. A magical plot, at that!

"Nothing you need to worry too much about for now," says Reed with a sly wink. "There was a spy in my room digging through some things they shouldn't have been, and I don't have time to deal with them properly at the moment, not with everything I have happening during the Springtime Festival." Reed watches Spade's eyes gleam at the hint of goings-on and smirks inwardly at the fool. "I just need a safe place to put them for a little while. I'll put them in a cell towards the back, and make sure no one notices unless they're actually looking. I just need you to make sure they don't get out. Who else is on duty this week?"

Spade carefully hides his excitement. Reed turned someone into a swan! And there's something going on during the Springtime Festival, he knew there had to be something, no matter how cryptic Reed sometimes is, Spade is clever enough to have figured that much out. One day soon Reed will realize Spade is clever enough to be let in on the whole thing, he just knows it. 

"It's mostly just the people who the Captain thinks don't deserve to enjoy the festival being stuck down here," Spade says. "Elm is on after me, I bet he could be convinced to keep an eye on your... prisoner for a few extra coin," he says, eying the swan up and down. "And Crane has been staring off into space and distracted ever since you had me start slipping that powder into his drink, and the Captain has him doing the night watch down here this week for 'discipline'. I don't know if--"

"I'll handle Crane," Reed interrupts. "Don't worry about him at all." Crane had been a rather ripe opportunity -- the captain had paired him with Spade half a year ago to try and have Spade learn from his example, and where Spade had chafed under these restrictions, Reed had seen an opportunity. After a month of Spade putting the potion into his drink, Crane became quite suggestible with the proper stimulus. The fact that this highly-trusted guard is now less trusted due to the effects of his insomnia and daydreaming is an unfortunate side effect (he really needs to improve the balance in that formulation) but it's still another guard in the palace that belongs to him.

Elm has been known to take bribes to take on extra odd jobs, or look the other way, but nothing bad enough that that Reed can use to use to blackmail him. Yet. Perhaps, if he plays his cards right, he'll be able to use this little mishap to start implicating him in something bad enough to blackmail him for it. "And pass the word to Elm. Tell him to keep an eye out, and he can come to me for payment later." The unspecified payment and the prospect of being able to haggle the payment up should hopefully make Elm greedy enough to make a mistake this time. "Now open the dungeon, please, so I can secure the prisoner." 

"Understood, of course," says Spade. "Right away, Reed." He takes the key ring off of his belt and fiddles with the lock for a moment, opening the dungeon door with a rusty squeak. The dungeon is small -- only a half-dozen cells, all of which are empty. The dungeon hasn't seen much use in years, and as such has been neglected, with the bars rusty and patches of stone floor covered with small growths of lichen and moss. 

There are three smallish cells on each wall, all made of metal bars embedded into the stone floor, the bars too close together for a swan to fit through. The cells are separated by metal bars as well -- the walls of the cells are made of stone only against the wall, and the cells furtherest from the door. Each cell has a mattress stuffed with of straw and a wooden bucket, but no other accommodations. The cells against the right wall each have a high barred window to let in some light during the day, drawing a striped patch of sunlight on the dirty and moss-patched floor.

"Which cell did you say you wanted opened?" 

"That one, in the far back," Reed says, pointing to a dark cell in the back left corner, currently devoid of light. 

Spade leads Reed and the swan to that cell, and opens the door set into the middle of the wall with a jangle of keys. 

Reed tosses the paralyzed swan into the cell, and closes the door behind her with a clang. He has Spade lock the door closed once more, and, finally, he turns off the paralysis on her, and takes a harried breath. Maintaining that had been taking a bit more effort than he thought it was. But given her behavior, such measures are necessary to keep her in line. Reed has little desire to leave much up to chance at this point. Not when he has to go report to Nightingale about this afterwards. 

Very quietly, but with immense venom, she utters the Terrifying Swan Hiss.

Reed is hardly perturbed by the noise (Spade is, but Reed isn't paying him any mind at the moment and doesn't even notice him taking a couple nervous steps back), and instead stares at the cell carefully for several seconds. 

"Open that door," Reed says, pointing at the cell adjacent to Iris'. When it's open, he paces a quarter circle around Iris' cell, and then waves his hand and mutters a couple sentences in a strange language. The air shimmers and wavers for a moment, and as it does the swan disappears from view. 

"There," he says. "Now anyone doing a cursory inspection should be able to see or hear them. Try to keep people away anyways, just in case, but I doubt we'll have a problem." 

He pauses and thinks for a moment. Should he go report to Nightingale and the rest of Autumn Hills? No, he needs to come with something a bit more concrete, an exact accounting of everything to make sure there aren't any further disturbances to their plans. "Go back and guard the door," he says, "I'll be back in a dozen minutes or so, I have to go fetch something so I can interrogate her properly." 

Spade has been waving his hand through the barrier a couple of times, watching his fingers disappear with amazement, but Reed gives him a look and he stops. He follows Reed out of the room and locks the door behind him as Reed leaves, standing guard with renewed purpose and energy. 

...so... Reed just locked her in a dungeon cell... and then made her invisible???

'You absolute twit,' she doesn't say, because she can't use human words anymore. Instead she makes a few preparatory grumbling noises and then bellows as loud as she possibly can, just to check that nobody will come running.

Nobody comes running.

Right then, time to start working on escape plans.

First, a preliminary survey of the bars: are there any that are rusted enough that she could chip away at them and maybe get through that way? Next, if that doesn't pan out, she can turn her attention to the lock.

Silver Lake's dungeon exists as more of a necessity than anything else -- it's the sort of thing that kingdoms should have, even if they don't tend to use them for much of anything. Silver Lake has not any open wars in quite a long time, nor has it arrested anyone for treason or crimes agains the crown -- and the outlying villages and fishing communities have their own ways of holding or imprisoning criminals and the drunk and disorderly. As such, the dungeon has been left unused for many years, and only cursorily maintained. 

There are signs of weathering on the ground where the windows have occasionally let in rains or snows over the many years. While the windows aren't large enough to let in very much water at a time, Silver Lake, being adjacent to a large body of water, has wet and windy weather rather often. Clearly often enough to allow for a more than sufficient amount of liquid to make its way into the dungeon to allow for the formation and growth of lichen and moss where water tends to flow and collect. Most of those places are on the side of the dungeon with the windows themselves, but the large stone blocks of the palace are filled with cement together, and several of the cement pathways have been worn by rain and time to allow for the flowing of water to one location or another on the other side of the room. 

Some of these locations where water clearly pools are spots where the bars were driven imperfectly into the rock, but wherever these bars are adjacent to the outside, they have been cleaned of rust and other growth to keep them stable and whole. But for the barriers between the cells the maintenance has been rather more lax.

There is a bar between Iris' cell and the adjoining one where the hole in the rock for the metal bar has clearly been drilled far too wide, and filled with mortar in an attempt to repair the damage. The weak mortar has mostly broken away under the effects of water and lichen and moss, of which the latter two are growing quite healthily in the widening gap between metal and stone, and an increased and irregular rust formation on this particular bar. 

None other bars of the cell Iris is in are as damaged or potentially corroded as this one. 

Perfect.

She rips up a little of the moss and lichen in other areas of the cell, and throws it around as though having a princessly tantrum; and then, under cover of the lichen that's already there and using some of her torn-up material as extra cover, she starts working on that rusty bar.

The moss and lichen have partly broken down the rock surrounding the bar which makes it easier to chip away at that, but the bar proves a bit more of an issue. Most of the rust on the metal has formed a protective layer, preventing further corrosion, but there are some areas near or under where it meets the stone where chipping away the rust reveals threads of rust running deep into the metal bar. 

Iris does not have too much time to investigate this, however, before she hears the sound of Reed returning and ordering Spade to open the dungeon once more. 

Botheration. She quickly double-checks that all her work on loosening and eroding that bar is successfully concealed by the moss strewn around it, then hurries across the cell to lurk just inside the door. It's a long shot, but if Reed doesn't take down the invisibility barrier before he has Spade open the door for him, she might be able to rush them both and escape.

Reed does not take down the spell, but he does stand a foot or two back from the cell door as he has Spade open it.

Jump him or don't...?

Jump him.

Spade gets a faceful of angry swan, hissing ferociously. She doesn't try to hurt him directly, though; she's mostly trying to get him to stagger back in surprise and get out of her way so she can break Reed's arms.

While Spade acts pretty much as she expects him to, jumping backwards with a shout of surprise and wheeling his arms to keep his balance, Reed, by now, is already expecting such foolish and futile behavior. Moments after she escapes the cell, Iris finds herself surrounded by a familiar green sparkling aura, as paralyzed as before. 

"As uselessly as persistent as ever, I see," Reed says with a sigh. He reaches down and picks her up and steps through the spell barrier, depositing her unceremoniously on the mattress. "Was that really your plan? Did you really think you could escape? The best you can do at the moment is annoy me... and tear apart your cell, apparently, at the moment." He sighs, and removes an object from his pocket. "Why waste the effort? Spade, go guard the door like you're supposed to be, so I can interrogate them without being disturbed." 

"But Reed, what if he tries to escape again!" Spade says, hoping to stay and learn a little bit more about whatever secret goings on Reed is involved in. 

"If he tries to escape," Reed says, fidgeting with the object in his hand, "then I will stop him. Easily. But if he somehow manages to get past me, then you'll be much better placed to stop him from escaping if you're by the entrance than in the cell with me, especially if you lock the dungeon. Besides," he adds, "I would prefer to not be disturbed, just in case there are any other agents lurking about, possibly looking to free him. Can I trust you to do that for me?" 

Other agents?! "Of course, Reed!" Spade says quickly. "I'll make sure no one gets in!" He hurries off to do just that, locking the dungeon behind him. 

Reed fidgets with the object a bit more while waiting for Spade to lock the door, and Iris may catch a glimpse or two. It's a pair of stones or jewels about the size of a large cherry, both perfectly round and smooth. One stone is crystal clear, the other is milky and clouded, and both of them are set opposite each other in some sort of golden metal, like jewels set into a ring. Except where the ring would normally be there's just the other stone, just two stones set in the metal. 

She'll get an even better look at it when, after Spade locks the dungeon closed, Reed touches the clear stone to the top of her head and she quickly transforms back into her human shape. 

Murderous glaring ensues.

"Very amusing," he says, in response to her glaring. "But staring at me won't avail you of much. Why don't we start over from where we were this morning. What did I miss? What did you see that broke the spell on you?" 

"Go jump in the lake."

Reed sighs.

"I'm very sorry to have put you in this position," he says, "but this alliance is just much too important to Golden Fields and by extension Silver Lake to allow your romantic relationship to jeopardize it, and the spell was a measure of last resort. I may have... panicked a bit this morning when I saw you returning, but that's only because I don't want to damage your mind by repeatedly casting it on you, or upset your parents at the prospect. If you tell me where whatever triggered your memories is, I can destroy it myself, and all of this can be as forgotten as a dream." 

"Eat dirt! Even if I knew what you were talking about, why would I tell you anything? You turned me into a swan!" Should she point out that turning her into a swan nearly got her killed? Probably not; she expects all of his possible solutions to this problem will be awful.

Carefully, "I turned you into a swan so I could be sure that the prince couldn't see you and regain his memory, since, knowing how you are, that's exactly what you were planning to do, and both your and his parents were very adamant about how important this alliance is. Also," he adds, wincing at the memory, "you punched me in the nose. I might have not been thinking entirely clearly at that point." 

"Regardless, as you can see, I can turn you back to human without difficulty. If you cooperate, this can all be resolved quite quickly, and you won't remember a thing about being a swan. All you need to do is tell me what triggered the memories, and everything will be fine." 

"Nothing triggered any memories!! I snuck back to see the Festival because I like the Festival and I don't like doing what my parents tell me, and then you caught me at the secret passage and acted all crazy at me and when I tried to run you turned me into a bird!! For all I know you're making up this business about the prince! What would I want with some dumb prince anyway, he probably has bad breath and is mean to his horses!"

"What were you doing in the palace after you escaped, then? And why did you escape in the first place? And why did you scare the King of Autumn Hills off of his horse??" Reed doesn't believe her, even though he supposes it's possible she's telling the truth. But even if she is it hardly matters at this point, he'll have to wipe a couple of days anyways, and any memories of the prince as well, just to be certain. 

"I can't POSSIBLY imagine what reason I might have for escaping someone who turned me into a BIRD and keeps talking about making HOLES in my BRAIN like that's a normal and reasonable thing to do to your princess. Twit."

Sigh. So much for that tactic. He really hadn't been thinking clearly at the time or watching his tongue, given that all of this was going to be wiped regardless. Does he care enough about pretending to keep up the story? 

"It will in fact fill your brain with holes if I have to keep wiping your memory," Reed says, "and I would prefer not to have to do that. Even if it would make you significantly less frustrating to deal with. If you don't tell me what exactly triggered your memories -- I assume you found a portrait tucked away in your things somewhere, yes? -- then before I remove all memories of this encounter, and anything else that doesn't belong, there will be a sudden terrible fire in your rooms that leaves all your things in ashes. I'm sure the poor maid will be very apologetic, but it's the only way to make sure you don't run across whatever-it-is again. I'd rather not do this again every few months, and neither, for that matter, would your brain. So please, just tell me." 

"Go! Jump! In! The lake! Burn down the whole castle if you feel like it, it's clear nobody's going to stop you! You're an awful person and I hope you fall down the stairs!"

"You are so... frustrating!" He lifts a hand to twist her arm behind her back... and pauses. There's still some benefit to maintaining a story at this point over torture, and a broken arm would be harder to explain away. Even if he wants to present everything all tied up in a neat little bow... it may be better to go and ask for advice and counsel. Even if that means admitting to mistakes that are not fully rectified. 

Even if they're not fully rectified, they're under control at the very least. She'll at least be happy with him for controlling the situation. 

"Fine, you're angry, I understand that," Reed says, lowering his arm. "I'll give you some time to cool off. But I still can't have you looking like yourself at the moment, even down here, not with the prince around." Or with Spade, for that matter. "I'll be back in a few hours or so, and then maybe we can have a more amiable and productive discussion. Do please stop trying to escape, you're just going to make things more difficult for yourself."  

She utters an impressively accurate rendition of the Terrifying Swan Hiss.

Reed is taken aback by the sound, but only a little. He sighs, touches the milky stone to Iris' forehead, and watches as she turns back into the swan. "I'm very sorry about this," he lies, "but it's necessary. I should be back in a few hours." He closes the cell door behind him and exits the spell area so he can fetch Spade. 

Grumbly swan noises.

Only once Spade has entered the dungeon and properly re-locked her cell does he releases her from the paralysis spell. Then, after a quick word with Spade, he exits the dungeon, doing his best to figure out the best way to explain all of this to Nightingale and Juniper and Diamond (maybe not Diamond, he doesn't need to know that Iris is responsible for scaring him off the horse) as he walks, to make it completely clear that this was him making the best of a bad situation. Which it is. 

She waits until she is thoroughly alone in the dungeon before resuming her work on the bar. The rust doesn't seem to go as far up as she'd hoped, but if she can wear it down enough to get it completely unseated from the floor, she might be able to shove it far enough out of the way to escape into the next cell. After that... well, if she's lucky, the next cell will be unlocked, and she can get out into the corridor between the cells and maybe find a way past the door. If not... she'll think of something.

This will take her a couple of hours to complete, but eventually with enough work the rust on the metal bar and the crumbled stone around it gives her enough leverage to shear off the bottom of the bar, all before Reed returns. It will take some effort, but she can push it far enough to one side to be able to squeeze through into the next cell. 

That cell too, however, is locked. 

She investigates the second cell's bars, and finds nothing as promising as the bar she's already broken.

She hooks the broken bar back into place as best she can and covers the broken bits with lichen, just to add a little extra confusion to the mix.

So, now what? She's outside the original cell, but she's still locked in.

...but this way, she can make noise—and she can make it without revealing the ability to stick her neck through the bars.

A plan begins to form.

She makes the loudest swanly noises she is capable of. (At that kind of volume, she no longer sounds like any swan she's ever met, but presumably if you got one mad enough, they would sound like this.)

Spade, who has been starting to get bored of doing nothing while guarding again, even with the appeal of having someone (something?) to guard, jolts at the noise and turns around. And curses. 

"What the... How did you manage to get into there?" He looks around wildly. No one is coming, at least not that he can hear -- not over the swan's noises, in any case, but it's possible it's only a matter of time. "Be quiet!!" he whisper-shouts into the dungeon, trying to determine what to do next. 

How about, instead of being quiet, she YELLS SOME MORE. And waves her wings aggressively.

Spade curses and panics some more. 

He seems to be contained, at least -- or at least that's what he wants Spade to think. But even if it's a trick to get Spade to open the dungeon there's still a lot of noise and anyone could come running -- even the other agent that Reed mentioned! And it was pretty clear Reed didn't want him to be discovered. He has to do something. 

Carefully, (remembering the last time the swan rushed him) he unlocks the dungeon and enters, stalking carefully towards the now-occupied cell. "Shoo!" he says. "Get back in your cell, you, you, you swan. Get back in and be quiet!" He holds out his spear protectively in front of him, preparing to try and stab at the swan through the bars. 

Yell yell yell. Terrifying swan hiss. Aggressive wing gestures.

Should she be luring him into overextending with the spear, or trying to get him close enough to the bars that she can steal his keys? Probably try to steal the spear first, then the keys afterward. She adjusts her approach appropriately. Just far enough back that he'll really have to reach to poke the spear at her, but far enough forward and aggressive enough that he'll be tempted to try...

Spade is being a bit tentative, but with all the noise the swan is making and how concerned he is about being found out leads him to start actually stabbing at the swan, instead of just making short threatening jabs. If he's disabled, Spade can carefully get him back in the right cell under the illusion spell and then everything will be fine. 

She dodges the first couple of stabs, and then, when the spear seems to be far enough through the bars in a loose enough grip, gives it a vigorous smack with her wing that sends it tumbling to the floor. There's still a few inches of spearshaft lying outside the cell, but she grabs it with her beak and drags it back as fast as she can.

Spade curses and makes a grab for the spear on the ground, just barely missing it as it's pulled inside. He continues to curse as he drops to his knees to continue to snatch for it, trying to grab it before it can be pulled it away from him -- and when the swan does so, he stretches through the bars as much as he can, trying to retrieve his weapon.

Oh yeah? Two can play at that game.

The swan lunges forward, neck outstretched, and yanks the ring of keys out of his pocket.

It takes a few seconds for Spade to realize what has happened, but when he does he hears the jingle and sees the ring of keys in the swan's beak he lets out a veritable storm of curses at the swan, all the while reaching through the bars for his weapon or the keys or anything. He hasn't had a chance to think clearly about how to deal with this situation at all; he's in full panic mode at this point, though it's rapidly becoming clear that reaching for these items or disparaging the swan's mother isn't going to help anything. 

So, Iris still flinches instinctively from hurting the palace staff, even when they're between her and something she wants...

...but, on the other hand, this blockhead is taking bribes from Reed to drug the other guards.

So she lets him stick both his arms through the bars and then gives said arms a good hard smack with her wings, and several more for good measure when the first does not land with a sufficiently satisfying crunch. If she's really lucky, he'll be stuck like that, or hurt himself worse trying to drag the arms back through.

The first time the swan hits him, Spade jerks back in pain and surprise -- but not fast enough to pull his arms back through in time to evade the subsequent wing smacks. He manages to get most of one arm pulled most of the way free, despite its sudden pain, but that only leads to the crunch of a couple fingers being broken as they're smashed against the bars. 

In the end he does manage to pull himself free, but one of his arms is broken, as well as two fingers on the hand of the other arm. He cradles his broken arm with the other one, and curses, repeatedly and loudly (if not very creatively), currently focused on little else but the surprise and pain. 

Then, in theory, Iris can try keys in the lock in peace until one of them works.

Spade, who is still in pain and full-on panicking, is more than aware that Reed is going to be very, very angry at him if he lets this swan escape, at right now he's still a little bit more scared of Reed than of this swan. He stumbles to his feet as best he can with the limited use of his arms and lurches tentatively towards the key ring in an attempt to retrieve it, reaching out with the arm that only has broken fingers (which are now red and starting to swell). 

She snakes her neck back into the cell to put the keys down temporarily so she can snap her beak at his hand.

Spade jumps back in fear, and eyes the swan worriedly as it goes back to unlocking the cell and starts considering his options.

He can try and get the keys back, and probably get further bones broken in the process, and probably not succeed. He's still not sure how the swan got out of his cell in the first place, for that matter, but it seems like even if he got the keys back that wouldn't prevent the swan from escaping anyways. 

He can try and go find Reed, but Reed is probably difficult to interrupt at the moment and even if he is explaining how he let the swan escape from the dungeon will... likely not end well for Spade. 

He can let the swan escape, but then Reed will be even more annoyed with him, and he does not want to get on the bad side of a wizard, and certainly not Reed. Even if he goes to the guard captain right now and somehow convinces the crown to protect him (unlikely, given everything he's done) he'll still probably end up dead, Reed has hinted as much before. 

Or he can run. Run, and try to get as far away as possible from Reed and everyone else, and hope Reed can't find him wherever he ends up hiding. 

Yeah, that last one looks like the best option under the circumstances, and the longer he waits the less time he has to run. 

With that choice firmly decided upon, Spade turns and bolts through the dungeon door, trying to figure out the best place to go and how fastest to get there. 

She's honestly surprised he even had it in him to try stopping her, after that many broken bones. Hopefully he's fleeing for the hills and not running off to get Reed, because it's probably going to take her a few minutes to get this door open.

It does, in fact, take her a few minutes to get this door open, but it's easy enough to slip into the hall from there. And then slip into a little-used servants' stair and wedge the keys behind a dusty dumbwaiter, just to confuse matters.

Now.

Now.

She is going to FIND HER MOTHER'S LOCKET WITH THE LITTLE PORTRAIT OF HER and THROW IT IN PRINCE HAWK'S FACE.