The next morning, the servants and guests of the castle were all abuzz with gossip. Apparently, the eliminated competitors who had been brought to the dungeons yesterday to be executed had escaped overnight. No one knew where they had disappeared to. Plus, the effort had been so clean and coordinated that it seemed impossible for it to have been done without outside help. Rumors abounded as to who might have helped them escape, with the names of several of the more unpopular servants and guests floating around.

However, no one dared to go to the king and accuse someone, for fear of being judged themselves. King Hugh was in a foul mood, storming through the halls and glaring suspiciously at every person he passed by. "When he's in a temper like this," one of the servants warned the magician, "he might have you fired just for looking at him the wrong way."

"Only the princess can calm him down when he's worked up," another servant chimed in. "Until she shows up, it's best to stay as far away from him as possible."

Everyone stayed away from the king for as long as they could, but afternoon eventually arrived, and with it the next round of judging. Unfortunately for the competitors, the king's anger had not yet ebbed. He eliminated competitors at random for the smallest things, even though all of them had paid the magician to make them identical gorgeous cloaks. Just before he reached the end of the line, though, the side doors to the throne room burst open and Princess Mackenzie dashed inside.

"Brother! I apologize for my tardiness," she gasped, holding a hand over her heart as she tried to slow down her breathing. "Have I missed the judging?"

"I was just about to judge the final one," he said, giving her a little smile. "Perhaps you'd like to look at it with me?"

"Gladly!" the princess said, quickly walking to her brother's side, and they both turned to face the final competitor.

It just so happened that King Hugh had chosen to make his rounds in the opposite order this time, and so Whitley was the last person to be judged. She stood stiffly in front of them, doing her best not to fidget under the scrutiny of the king and the princess of Teselia. They looked her and her cloak up and down.

"It's lovely," Princess Mackenzie said. "Such fine craftsmanship!"

"She's beautiful," King Hugh agreed, staring at Whitley. Whitley's face turned red.

"You mean the cloak, right, Brother?" the princess said, giving the king a nudge. She had a knowing smile on her face.

"Er…right. Of course. The cloak," he said, letting his eyes flit between the cloak and Whitley. "It's very beautiful. A talented young lady like you will obviously advance to the final round."

The king strode back to the stage in the center of the throne room, his sister following behind. "We've reached the end of the second round!" he announced. "Iris, please collect the cloaks that the competitors have made. Burn the ones made by the eliminated competitors and bring the rest to the royal cloakroom."

A young woman with bushy purple hair began making her way to the front of the crowd to carry out the king's orders. As she pushed past the magician, he heard her mumble under her breath, "Not that I'll be able to tell which ones are from the eliminated competitors. They're literally all exactly the same."

"Looker!" the king called next, and his advisor scurried forward. "Bring the eliminated competitors to the dungeons for execution. And make sure they remain guarded until the execution happens this time," he growled.

"Y-yes, sir," Looker stammered. He rounded up the eliminated competitors – most of whom were crying – and escorted them out of the throne room. The princess murmured something into the king's ear, and he looked at her firmly and nodded. Her face fell, and the king looked away.

The final task set by King Hugh was even more ridiculous than the first two. He demanded that the competitors' rooms be filled with straw, and they would be provided with a spinning wheel to turn all of it into gold by the next afternoon. It was an even more impossible task than the first, which delighted the magician. Now, the girls would have no choice but to get his help if they wanted to live…so they would be willing to pay any price for his help.

Or so he thought.

A wrench was thrown into his plans when, at dinner, word spread that the competitors slated for execution had once again escaped. There was definitely someone inside the castle who was helping them do it. While everyone else was wondering who was doing it and why they dared to defy the king, the magician was more concerned about what this meant for his carefully constructed plan.

Because this mysterious person who was helping the competitors to escape – they gave the competitors remaining some hope that they wouldn't die if they were eliminated. And when the competitors remaining had some hope that they wouldn't die if they were eliminated, they wouldn't be as desperate for the magician's help. And when they weren't as desperate for the magician's help, they wouldn't pay any price to get it.

"You want my firstborn child?" Whitley repeated indignantly. "The future heir to the throne firstborn child? The entire reason the king is hosting this competition firstborn child? That firstborn child?"

"Yes, that firstborn child!" the magician exclaimed, throwing his hands up in exasperation. Why were all the competitors so hung up on this part? "You promise to give me your firstborn child after they're born, and I turn this straw into gold for you so you don't die. Seems like a pretty good deal to me!"

"I'd rather take my chances with the dungeon," Whitley retorted. "I bet whoever helped the other girls escape will help me."

"What if I'm the one who helped the other girls escape?" the magician bluffed. "And I asked them for their firstborn children in exchange?"

"Then I'd say you have a really unhealthy obsession with firstborn children! And I still wouldn't agree to your deal!"

The magician swore under his breath. "I should've just asked for the firstborn kid last time."

"Why do you want my firstborn child so badly, anyways?" Whitley demanded.

"I – why do you care?" he retorted.

"Maybe I'm just curious!" she exclaimed. Then she clasped her hands to her chest, and her expression softened into something like pity. "You seem…desperate. And I just want to know why."

The magician was taken aback. Since when did anyone else want to know something about him? Or, at least, something about him that didn't directly benefit them? He didn't know what to say. Eventually he decided on, "You'll be the queen. And I need…something only the queen can give me."

Whitley considered his words for a few moments. "Alright," she finally said, sticking out her hand.

"Alright, what?"

"Alright, I accept your terms," she said. "You turn this straw into gold, and once I'm queen, I promise I'll help you, with…whatever it is you need."

The magician blinked. Then a big smile spread across his face. "It's a deal," he said, shaking her hand. Then, he turned around and began to transform the straw into gold.

Once he had completed the task, the magician saw no reason to stick around the castle any longer. Whitley was guaranteed to become queen now, and it would be a while until he could enact the second phase of his plan. So, he gathered up all the treasures he had received from the competitors and snuck out of the castle before dawn broke.

In the afternoon, King Hugh visited the quarters of all nine remaining competitors to see if they had completed the task. He was still irked by the disappearance of the previous competitors, but he seemed calmer about the judging today – probably because Princess Mackenzie was with him. That didn't stop him from deriding all the competitors upon seeing that their straw was still straw.

Finally, he reached Whitley's room. It was the only room to be filled with gold, rather than straw. He was delighted – so delighted, in fact, that when he saw Whitley, he immediately swept her into his arms and pressed a kiss to her lips. "You truly are the most talented and beautiful woman in the kingdom," he declared. "I would take no one else for my bride."

Princess Mackenzie cleared her throat. "Brother? Shall we announce the winner of the competition?"

"Ahem. Yes," the king said, straightening up. "I must introduce the kingdom to my new fiancée!" He kept an arm wrapped around Whitley's waist as he guided her out of the room. "And have someone bring all this gold to the royal vault!"

Back in the throne room, King Hugh presented his bride-to-be to the remaining guests and servants. The announcement was received with enthusiastic cheers from one guest and polite, scattered applause from everyone else. The girls who had been eliminated in the final round hung back apprehensively behind the thrones, waiting for Looker to be summoned to lead them to either their doom or their savior – whichever came first.

However, once King Hugh dismissed the guests, he turned to Whitley and murmured, "I would love to get to know you more, my dear, but I have some business to attend to first."

"Business?" she echoed.

He nodded and gestured to the eight girls lined up against the wall. "These lying traitors aren't going to execute themselves."

Whitley paled. "Do…do they really need to be executed?"

"Of course," Hugh said, his face darkening. "They all claimed to be able to do the impossible, and none of them could. They lied straight to my face, and the punishment for that is death."

"But I did the same thing!" The words burst out of Whitley's mouth before she could stop them, and she quickly covered it with her hands.

Hugh merely smiled and tugged her hands down, then cupped her cheek in one hand. "Whitley, it's not lying to claim you can do the impossible when you truly can."

Whitley stared at him as he turned around and faced the girls against the wall, who were looking a little more frightened now. "Since I obviously can't trust my advisor or my guards to make sure you don't escape, I'll have to do it myself," he said, glaring at them.

"No, you won't," said a familiar voice from the side entrance to the throne room. Everyone's gaze shot over to where Princess Mackenzie was standing, arms folded.

"Mack?" Hugh said, bewildered. "What are you talking about?"

Mackenzie walked towards them and planted herself firmly between Hugh and the girls. "You're not going to have these girls executed. You're going to let them leave the castle unharmed and return to their families, just like all the other competitors did."

"Like all the other…wait." The king's eyes widened, and he slowly pointed a finger at the princess. "You mean…you're the one who helped all the prisoners escape?"

She nodded. "I had to, Brother," she said. "Your bride-to-be is right. They don't deserve to be executed for failing in a competition that was rigged from the start."

Hugh folded his arms and glanced to the side, where Whitley was standing with her hands clasped together. He refused to look into either of their eyes. He looked angry, but his expression kept twitching like he couldn't fully commit to the emotion.

One of the girls lined against the wall, a blonde girl with gray eyes, bravely spoke up. "What do you mean by the competition being 'rigged from the start'?"

Princess Mackenzie turned to look at her sadly. "My brother had already decided which young woman he wanted for his bride on the first day. It had nothing to do with how talented she was…he just wanted the most beautiful girl in the room. So no one stood any chance at winning the competition but Whitley."

"What!?"

"Yer kiddin' me!"

"We did all this for nothing?"

"Is…is that true?" Whitley asked quietly, staring at Hugh.

He looked up into her eyes and offered a soft smile. "Of course it is."

"Oh," she breathed, dropping her gaze. Her cheeks heated up and she smiled involuntarily, but inside her heart sank. She'd made all those deals with the red-eyed magician, given up two of her most prized possessions – but now Hugh was telling her that she would have won the competition regardless? She could only hope that whatever favor he wanted from her after she became queen wasn't something horrible.

"I'm going to make sure these young women return safely to their homes," the princess announced.

Hugh looked at her, eyes flashing. "You are acting in direct defiance of your king's orders," he growled. "That's treasonous."

Mackenzie steadily returned his gaze. "And what are you going to do about it?"

Their staring contest lasted for a few moments. The king was the first to break. He sighed and looked away. "If you're going to leave the castle, take a couple guards with you. I don't want you getting hurt."

She beamed. "Of course, Brother."

The princess led the girls out of the throne room, leaving Hugh and Whitley alone for the first time. He turned to her and pressed a kiss to her cheek, murmuring something in her ear that made her cheeks turn pink. She smiled shyly and allowed herself to be led out of the throne room, thoughts of her promise and the red-eyed magician like fog – burned out of her mind.

It took three months to prepare everything for the wedding, and a week after the wedding, Whitley was officially crowned Queen of Teselia. She was half expecting the red-eyed magician to show up the day after the coronation to claim his favor – but he did not. He showed up neither the day after that, nor the day after that, nor the day after that…and eventually, she stopped expecting him to show up at all.

Months passed, and Queen Whitley became pregnant with their first child. More months passed, and the child was born – a healthy baby girl named Iria. The king and queen received their daughter's birth with great joy – even if the girl could not inherit the throne – and loved her very much. They waited until Whitley had recovered enough to appear in public again before announcing their daughter's birth.

That night, as Whitley was putting the child to bed, the red-eyed magician finally returned.

"Good evening, Your Majesty."

Whitley yelped and jumped back, curling her daughter protectively to her chest.

"Relax, relax, I'm not going to hurt you," he said smoothly. "I'm just here to claim my payment."

"Y-you're…the red-eyed magician," she said, relaxing only a fraction. "You never returned, so I thought…you had changed your mind about the payment."

He laughed. "Well, I couldn't take the child while it was still in your womb, could I?"

"The child?" The queen's eyes widened. "You mean – Iria?" Her shock quickly morphed into fierce, protective anger. "No! I never agreed to such a thing! You said you needed a favor, and I said I would help!"

He blinked. "I said I needed something only you could give me, in response to why I wanted your firstborn child. I never said anything about not taking the child."

The queen stood up straight, channeling as much regal poise as she possessed. "I refuse to give you my daughter," she declared. "I will give you anything else you ask for, but never Iria."

The magician smirked. "Alright," he said. "My usual offer still stands. If you can guess my name, I won't ask for any payment at all."

"How much time do I have?" Whitley asked, narrowing her eyes.

"Just for you, I'll give you three days," he replied. "Oh, and I'll even give you a little hint! Somewhere in the kingdom, there's an object…otherwise unremarkable, but it has my name written on it. If you can find it, you'll know my name."

"Where in the kingdom?"

"I can't tell you."

"What kind of object is it?"

"Can't tell you that, either."

The queen glared at him – a glare she'd picked up from her husband – but the magician did not divulge any more information. Instead, he bid her goodnight, promised to return in three days, and jumped out the window, landing on the rampart beneath.

While Whitley and Hugh had grown very close during the year they'd known each other, she had never divulged how exactly she'd been able to complete the impossible tasks in his competition. So, her husband knew nothing about her deal with the red-eyed magician, and she intended to keep it that way.

Fortunately, the guards and servants obeyed orders from all of the royal family, and Hugh had no problem with Whitley going out on her own as long as she had a guard with her for her protection. Whitley dispatched all but two of the guards and all the nonessential servants to search the kingdom for any plain-looking objects with a name written on them. The second-to-last guard would be her escort as she searched all of Aspertia for the object, and the last guard would remain in Aspertia Castle to be Princess Mackenzie's escort if she wished to leave it.

For three days, the queen and her guard fruitlessly searched the town. The dusk of the final day was approaching, and Whitley was truly beginning to fear that she would lose her daughter for good. Finally, the queen's guard suggested that they check the strawhouse – as the name suggested, it was a tower filled with straw for the horses' stables. Whitley doubted that there would be anything in there; but, thinking of how her final task had been to turn straw into gold, she wondered if the magician had hidden his name there just for the irony.

The pair began to methodically search through the huge pile of straw, hoping to find something – anything – buried underneath. Finally, Whitley reached into the pile and touched something solid. She pulled it out and found a leather-bound book. Eagerly, she checked the front and back cover of the book. There was no name. She checked the inside covers of the book. There was still no name. Finally, she began to rifle through the pages of the book. Every single page was completely blank – no names in sight.

Then, finally, while she was flipping through the middle of the book, something small slipped out and landed in the straw. Her guard bent down and picked it up. "Is that it? Does it have writing on it? What does it say?" Whitley asked eagerly.

"It has writing on it," said the guard. "But I haven't a clue what it says, Your Majesty. I'm illiterate."

Whitley snatched the object from him and examined it. It was a small packet of some sort with lots of letters on it. The princess had been teaching her to read and write, but most of the letters on this packet were unfamiliar to her; maybe they would be covered in a more advanced lesson. Still, it was the first object they'd found with any letters on it at all, and given how hidden it was, it had to be the object the magician was referring to.

"This is it," she declared.

Now, she just had to sprint all the way from the strawhouse to the nursery, where she assumed the red-eyed magician would be meeting her. It was a difficult task to accomplish in clothing that was not designed for sprinting. She ran as fast as she could, the fading daylight spurring her on. She had to get to her daughter's room before the magician did, because if he was alone in there with her daughter, she didn't know what he might do.

"I'm here!" she gasped as she burst into the room.

The red-eyed magician straightened up from his position, leaning over Iria's crib. "Your Majesty," he said. "You're late."

"I've got it," she said, breathing heavily, still trying to catch her breath. She held out the packet. "Your – your name. It's right here."

He stared at the packet with half-lidded eyes and blinked slowly. "That says 'Soy Sauce'."

"That's an…interesting name," the queen commented, trying to be polite.

"It's not my name," the magician said curtly, rolling his eyes. "It's an empty soy sauce packet." His eyes widened. "That's anachronistic."

"Anakro-what now?"

The magician yanked the soy sauce packet out of Whitley's hand and turned it over. The other side was made of clear plastic, and it was completely blank. "Do you see letters on this side?" he asked the queen.

"Yes?" she said, puzzled. "They're big and black. They're quite hard to miss."

"Read it for me," he demanded, shoving it back into her hands.

"Um…I'm still not very good at–"

"Read it!"

"Okay!" she yelped. "Um…it looks like…R, U…I think that one's a B? And…Y. That spells…Ryoo…bai?"

"That's not a name. Try 'ru'."

"Ru…ru…bee! Ruby!" Whitley declared triumphantly. "…is that right?"

The magician frowned. He had expected to have an immediate moment of clarity as he was reminded of his name, but…there was nothing. It didn't sound familiar at all. Was that not the right name?

He grabbed the soy sauce packet from Whitley again. Suddenly, it was like he could hear Blue's voice echoing inside his mind.

"There's a time and place for everything…but this isn't it~!"

The soy sauce packet vanished in a puff of black smoke, sending the magician and Whitley both into a coughing fit. When the smoke cleared, and he was finally able to take a deep breath, he finally had that moment of clarity he was looking for. He was Ruby, the red-eyed magician, and he was finally free of Blue's curse.

"What…what was that?" Whitley asked.

Ruby didn't answer, instead putting a hand to the brooch that he still always wore on his throat. He pulled his hand away and found that his brooch had transformed into a shiny, golden ring. Ruby giggled. He let out an honest-to-goodness innocent schoolgirl giggle, but honestly, what other reaction could properly express the giddy delight that he felt at the tangible proof that he had finally broken his curse after so many years?

"I was cursed," he giggled, turning the ring into a dagger. "I was cursed, but thanks to you, it's finally broken!" He transformed the dagger into a ruby. "Ruby! That's my name!" he laughed.

"Wait, wait, wait," Whitley said, her brow furrowing. "A curse? You needed me to find that thing with your name on it so you could break a curse?"

"Bingo!" he beamed, tossing the ruby up into the air and catching it. "Keep the kid. Honestly, I never wanted anyone's firstborn child, anyways. I just needed an incentive for you to look for the soy sauce packet."

The crease in Whitley's brow deepened. "You wanted me…to find that thing for you…so you decided to threaten to take away my daughter…who hadn't even been conceived at the time?"

"Well, I'm just one man," Ruby shrugged. "You, as queen, have access to a whole kingdom's worth of resources. I could've spent the rest of my life looking for that packet and never found it."

"But you could have just asked me!" Whitley exclaimed, the words exploding out of her. "At any time during the last nine months since I became queen, you could have asked me to look for that packet for you. I promised that I'd help you! I kept waiting for you to show up and tell me what you wanted, but you never did! You could've been free from this curse nine months ago and I wouldn't have been fearing for my daughter's life!"

Ruby blinked. Then he blinked again. Then he blinked a third time. "Oh," he finally said, very quietly.

"Yeah. Oh," Whitley said drily. She looked at him, this pompous, talented magician, who was clever enough to come up with this elaborate plan to trick her into breaking his curse but too dumb to realize that there was a much simpler solution, and she was moved with compassion for him.

So, she held out her hand and smiled. "Hi, Ruby. It's nice to meet you."

He looked quizzically at the hand for a moment before tentatively reaching out to shake it. "Hi."

Instead of letting go of his hand, Whitley pulled Ruby forward, causing him to stumble in her direction. She turned around and began to lead him out of the nursery. "Whoa, whoa, whoa, what are you doing?" Ruby cried.

"I'm going to introduce you to my husband," she announced. "And then we're going to have dinner together. And then, I'll show you around the castle a little." She shot him a little smile over her shoulder. "We have all kinds of resources in the castle, but one thing we don't have is a magician."

Did Blue's curse work, teaching Ruby the value of helping people? It's hard to say. But having Whitley around to guide him certainly made sure the lesson stuck. He was hired as the official magician of the castle, spending most of his time entertaining the royal family and their guests. The rest of the time, he had Whitley tutoring him in "people skills" – and occasionally, he'd teach her something in return. It wasn't a life he expected to end up having, but it was one that he grew to love. King Hugh, Queen Whitley, Princess Iria, and Princess Mackenzie – they became like family to the man who never thought he wanted one.

And they all lived happily ever after.

A/N: Thank you for reading! Reviews and favorites are always appreciated :)