A Prince among Frogs Read Free Page A

would be hard to withstand.
    The magic carpet was right where she’d expected to find it—buried under all the things she had tossed into the back of the storage room. She pitched the old shoes to the other side of the room and set the broom she’d never been able to fly next to the basket of toys she’d loved when she was younger. Maybe she’d give a few of the toys to Felix.
    And then there were all the things she kept because she was sure she would need them someday: her great-grandmother’s old chipped scrying bowl; the bouquet of crystalline flowers that her great-aunt, Grassina, had given her and that Millie had broken with one accidental swipe of her tail; the troll-hide trunk that her mother had wanted to throw out; her great-aunt’s old magic mirror. Millie had propped the mirror against the wall to keep the magic carpet from unrolling, but the dark wood frame was so heavy and awkward to move that she considered getting someone to help her. Instead she turned into a dragon just long enough to lift the mirror aside as if it weighed nothing at all.
    She would have remained a dragon long enough to carry the carpet out of the room, but she was too big to turn around in the small space, so she had to change back into a human. When she was finally able to drag the narrow carpet into the center of her chamber, she spread it out on the floor and sat down in the middle with a sigh. This was not at all how she had meant to spend her day! Now all she had to do was remember the magic words to control the carpet and she could take care of this silly errand. The fairies were worried about a plant, for goodness’ sake. Even she could handle a plant!
    Because Millie didn’t have the kind of magic to control a carpet herself, her mother had given it a simple set of commands. All the princess had to do was repeat a few words and the carpet would go wherever she wanted. It wasn’t as much fun as flying in dragon form, but there were certain places where a royal princess would be welcome whereas a dragon would not. Her parents had made her promise never to leave Greater Greensward in dragon form unless another dragon accompanied her. Too many people feared and hated dragons, and she wasn’t safe outside her own kingdom. Millie never even flew to Upper Montevista as a dragon. The royal archers still shot at dragons that dared to fly near the castle, which didn’t bode well for relations between Millie’s Upper Montevistan grandparents and her future in-laws.
    “Rise and leave!” Millie said, bracing herself because she expected the magic carpet to levitate. When nothing happened, she tried again. “Climb and depart!” The carpet remained motionless on the floor. It had been many months since Millie had used the carpet. She knew the phrase her mother had chosen was short and to the point, but that didn’t help if Millie couldn’t remember the words. “Float and flee!” “Ascend and fly away!” she said to no avail.
    “I can’t believe this!” she declared out loud. “All I want to do is make this carpet get up and go!” The carpet lurched into the air, sending Millie toppling onto her back. Flinging her arms wide, she grabbed hold of the edges and held on while the carpet shot through the window, only to hover two stories above the ground. “Ah,” she murmured. “I think I remember it now.”
    The magic carpet wobbled beneath her as Millie sat up and looked around. She hated that things like this happened whenever she tried to use ordinary magic.
    Millie shifted her weight the way her mother had shown her, making the carpet change direction. She straightened her clothes as the carpet floated around her parents’ tower and into the courtyard outside the castle keep. The fairies were still there talking to Audun. Though Moss and Trillium both looked worried when they saw her, Poison Ivy only managed to look smug. “So you did come back,” the fairy said as if she’d tasted something nasty. “I thought you