"Melodie. MELODIE!" Loony jumps out of her chair and drops the frying pan. She skitters several feet back from the table, her eyes big and bulging.

"Huh?" I hear Moody's voice down the hall. She doesn't sound remotely interested in whatever Loony's screaming about.

"Come here! Quick! Quick!"

Moody doesn't come quick, but she comes. She slouches against the doorframe and doesn't look at me once. I guess she's not over the scrubbing brush incident.

"Look at this! Look!" Loony grabs the decanter and prattles about what happened. "It just appeared, like - like magic!"

Moody frowns and takes the decanter. She peers at the little blob of liquid inside. "Are you sure? It looks like spit."

"No! I saw it! The whole bottle glowed and then that stuff was in there!" Loony points at me. "She's a - she's a witch! She's got magic! I bet that's how she got to the ball! I bet that's why we didn't recognize her!" Loony flies at me and grabs my shoulder. "What is that stuff? Tell me now!" She shakes me roughly.

Meanwhile, I'm sitting here and cursing myself for apologizing to Loony. I wasn't trying to earn white magic! Everything I do come back to spit in my face, like hot oil out of a pot.

"Tell me!" Loony shakes me again.

"That won't work, she's stubborn," Moody says. "We should take this to Mother."

"Wait - maybe we can test it!" Loony snatches the decanter from Moody and whips off the stopper. She sniffs the bottleneck carefully. "It smells fruity!" She opens her palm and tilts the bottle into it.

"Don't!" Moody pushes the bottle upright. "We don't know what it can do! You could turn into a chicken or something!"

"In that case, Cindy would be a chicken."

"It won't do anything for you," I growl. "It was meant for me and it will only work for me. There's not enough in there to do much of anything."

"But what does it do?" Moody asks.

I try to think of something scary. The magic will turn me into a wolf that can swallow them whole. Or something boring; the magic is just a fancy cure for stomachache. But it doesn't matter what lie I would've told because we all hear the snap of a downstairs door and Stepmother's voice calling out. "Lunilla! Melodie! Come here, my darlings, we have a special guest!" The jubilation in her tone can mean only one thing.

Prince Edgar is here.