"Damn that wench!"

His fist throbbed where he thudded it against the wall. He could still see her expressionless face, staring down from the dais with her glassy green-gray eyes. Her hand folded over another, all prim and proper, as he, with the other suitors unveiled one marvel from another, treasures scoured from the four corners of the world.

It was obvious that she could barely restrain herself - her eyes had widened slightly, giving away her real emotions.

"The suitors await your decision!" One of the ministers cried out.

A hush fell onto the crowd.

And she replied, with utter disdain dripping from her voice, "You can't possibly expect me to choose a suitor from these," she waved her hands at the treasures, "these boring trifles."

Trifles, she said. How dare she!

"Oh, she'll pay for this," he muttered as he walked through the corridor.

Two courtiers passed by him, scarcely sparing him a glance.

"Well," one was saying to the other, "The man who becomes the king of Goetimare would be free to do whatever he wants to that princess every night."

His companion laughed, "I think so too."

The voices faded away leaving him mulling over his own thoughts of revenge.

^e^

The way down was dark. If not for the thousand times she had been there, Olga would surely have fallen and injured herself. Still, she sought for the guide of the dank wall, one hand trailing along it, while the other held up the skirt of her gown so that she would not trip on it. The air grew cooler with each step.

A lone torch flickered in the darkness, revealing a door at the bottom of the steps. As she approached it, she could feel a tautness to the air where the wards begun. She continued to press forward, her movements slowed as though she was walking through muck. The wards had resisted, but soon recognised her and let her through.

Olga pushed the door open and called out "Clotiel!"

There was a whoosh and she saw a glowing figure drifting toward her. The creature was in the shape of a woman.

There was something about it that perturbed Olga - and it was not the lack of clothes on it. It stretched out its hands to the princess, gently cupping her face.

And it vanished with a bang.

"Why are you just standing there?"

Olga blinked and scanned for the little magician.

The circular room was in a mess.

Books had been pulled out from the shelves that lined the wall. Here and there, various apparatus lay about, some spilling mysterious looking liquids while others were various measuring instruments. One corner had a pile of boxes filled to the brim with scrolls.

Dorabella, Clotiel's assistant, was tucked between benches holding a tube of dark liquid. The smoke issuing from it partially hid her star-decorated golden curls and her plump harassed-looking face.

Olga dodged the mess as much as she could as she made her way to the other end of the room.

"There was a woman," Olga said.

"A woman?" Dorebella looked slightly confused.

"She was there, right in front of me."

"But there wasn't any wo-" the girl frowned. "Anyway, the important is - You used a magical object to escape from the castle again, didn't you?" She put down the tube and placed her arms on in her hips as she glared up to the princess.

That was Dorabella - blunt and with no respect for royalty.

"Well, it is my magical object. I can choose to do whatever I want with it," Olga replied defensively.

"They should not be fooled around with. Only we magicians -" Dorabella looked about, "What was that again, Master?"

Master Clotiel was apparently sitting on a flowery-clothed chair nearby, blending into the chaos with his overdressy clothes. If there was anyone who could match Olga's stoic expressions, it would be this little magician.

Clotiel was not literally little, but he was a young boy, only slightly older than Dorabella, but younger than Olga. The princess wasn't sure of his actual age, him refusing to divulge that information and all, but right now, Clotieldezoe, the magician of Goetimare, looked about twelve years old.

"You ran off to the raintree again, didn't you, Olga?"

"What do you think of these?" Olga asked eagerly, completely ignoring his question.

The gifts from her suitors were arranged on the table in front of the magician. Clotiel tapped his chin as he thought of an appropriate answer.

"You ripped them off again?" Dorabella suggested.

"Excuse me!" Olga rebuffed with a huff.

Clotiel reached out and picked the diadem off the table. "You might like this."

Olga took the treasure from him and stared at it. "Why? Nothing happened at all when they were showing me this. I thought that it's just a decorative ornament." She studied it in her hands. "It is kind of pretty."

"You have to put it on your head," Clotiel replied.

"Like this?" Olga asked as she placed the ornament accordingly.

The last thing she saw before everything else disappeared was the smirk on Clotiel's face.

^e^

Olga gasped as Clotiel's room vanished.

It was strange walls, lit by flickering torches, that surrounded her now. She was in a court of sorts. The space opened to a small rectangular pool, flanked by round bushes. Lilypads and stars dotted the water.

At one end of the court, between two walls, she could see a doorway to darkness. A sliver of moon hung right above it.

"Where am I?" Olga whispered. "Clotieldezoe? Dorabella?"

No cheeky magician's assistant or the master answered her call.

"Clotiel?" She cried out as she ran forward. Her shoes cracked against the tiles of the court. "Dorabella?"

She paused as she saw a reflection of the water. A girl peered back from the dark water.

"This is...me?" She whispered as she knelt by the poolside.

Her lanky pale hair now fell in curls around a stranger's face. She realised she was not even wearing her own dress.

"Who goes there?" A voice shouted.

Olga turned.

In the doorway where she had stood minutes before, two men, bearing torches ran out.

Something or someone yanked her away from the poolside.

"This way."

A deep voice whispered into her ear as its owner curl his arm around her waist. Olga looked up at him. He was wearing a black wide-brimmed hat with a feather tucked into it. The rest of his attire was equally morbid - from the tunic to his pantaloons and his heeled shoes - except for his stockings. His long black cloak cascaded from his shoulders, brushing the floor lightly.

"How dare you! Who are you-" The stranger pressed his finger onto her lips.

"I am your protector, Princess Olga," he replied gravely.

His voice sent shivers through her body.

"How do you know my name?" she asked, but they were already off, the man sprinting gracefully down passage after passage. He carried Olga with that single arm around her waist as though she was as light as a feather.

One of the passages ended in a large brightly lit room. Thin curtains fluttered as he walked through them.

The stranger set her down and strode towards the balcony. He stepped onto the parapet, and looked out to the sea of stars.

"What...wait!" Olga walked towards him.

The stranger glanced over his shoulder. His lips were curved slightly into what Olga assume was a smile.

He stepped off the balcony.

"Wait!" She dashed to the parapet and looked down.

But he was gone - all she could see was darkness.

"Is...someone there?" a voice asked.

Olga swerved.

"Oh my." A girl, around her age, stood in front of her. The lights from the torches set her coppered-colour skin ablaze. Her eyes and the thick lashes that framed them were dark, as did the hair that fell in clean straight edges below her shoulders. She was wearing a jewelled neckbrace that shone in the light. Gauzy cloth flowed down from it sweeping the floor, over her sandals. A small brooch clasped right between her breasts, revealing her assets to Olga. The girl tilted her head slightly, in confusion.

Olga had never seen someone like her.

"Ah, I am…"

The diadem - the very same one that Olga had put on her head - glittered on the girl's jet-black hair.

"That diadem!"

"What about it?" The girl asked.

"I…"

She smiled and sat on a nearby chaise.

Olga blushed slightly as she noticed that the cloth was completely see through.

"Well, it's quite obvious that you're from a foreign land. Since you're here," she patted the spot beside her, "do have a seat and talk to me for a while."

"Would you be my companion?" she continued, almost shyly.

Her words stunned Olga.

"You...You trust me?" The words came out before Olga realised they were quite rude. "What if I'm here to assassinate you?"

The girl threw back her head and laughed - a deep throaty one, unlike the titters from the ladies of the court that Olga was used to. She was stunned.

"Well," the girl replied when she was done laughing, "You don't look like one. Assassin eh?" Her face lost all of her previous mirth. "That might not be so bad. If I were to die now. I would not have to marry someone I've not even met."

That situation - Olga understood it quite well. So it was the same everywhere.

The princess sat beside the girl, no longer hesitating. The latter surveyed her companion and declared, "We're close in age - I think we'll be good friends. I am Abed."

"Olga," Olga replied.

"Olga," Abed repeated her name.

"Olga!" A distant voice called her name. Olga twisted around. "Olga! Wake up!"

^e^

One moment she was in the large room with Abed, and another, she was back in Clotiel's room. Dorabella was had just finished clapping her hand in front of the startled princess.

"Dorabella?" she asked, looking at the magician's assistant. She looked at Clotiel still perched cross-legged on that ridiculous chair of his. "I was in another country. And there…"

"The diadem shows dreams from another country," Clotiel replied before Olga could finish her sentence. "No matter how long time passes in those dreams, it is merely a blink of an eye here."
Olga took off the diadem from her head and stared at it. It felt so light in her hands, yet she could scarcely believe that it contained any magic.

"May I come and use this again?" she asked, her voice slightly muted from her excitement just seconds before.

"Be my guest," the magician replied dryly.

Olga left the room. True to what the magician had said, it seemed that time had hardly passed. "Abed eh," her thoughts still deep in that dream-like adventure. "I'd like to meet her again."

She felt a tug, and then everything went black.