Chapter 1 Magic is Banned?

Raina’s POV

“Magic is banned?”

The question slipped out as I watched palace guards raid the magic shops. They kicked in doors, overturned shelves, and dragged enchanted charms into the road. A potion maker protested that her bottles held harmless sleep syrup, but a guard smashed them anyway. A psychic being hauled away shouted that she had predicted this disaster. Nobody cared. Fortune-tellers, healers, and spell-scroll sellers were all being driven out. Even the old man who sold lucky stones was packing up. His stones didn’t work. I knew because I’d tried one.

My fingers tightened around the strap of my bag.

The shop.

I had left it only a little while ago to buy flour and oil. My father would be there, probably sitting behind the counter and pretending he wasn’t tired. Our little magic shop was the only thing keeping us afloat. We sold charms, secondhand spell books, healing mixtures, and whatever else we could make without blowing up the place. That had happened twice.

I started running.

My father had raised me alone. I had never known my mother, only the stories people told when they thought I wasn’t listening. She was a wicked witch who had wreaked havoc on the town before being banished. Apparently, that was how you became a legend. Leaving a daughter and an old husband behind was less impressive.

I had inherited her magic, but none of her talent. I was an amateur witch. My best spell had made a chicken lay blue eggs for three days, and I still wasn’t sure I’d done it on purpose. But the shop was ours. My father and I lived and worked there.

Now the palace was going to take it from us.

I pushed through the crowd, dodging a basket of herbs and a woman pulling her children away from the guards.

Then I saw him.

The Crown Prince stood in front of our shop like he owned the whole street. Which, judging by the way everyone moved out of his way, he practically did. He wore a dark uniform trimmed in gold and watched the guards pull down our sign, ordering demolitions as casually as if he were arranging flowers.

Of course. The arrogant, evil Crown Prince himself.

Tears stung my eyes. I didn’t have time to cry. If I stopped, I would probably sit down in the street and howl until someone arrested me for disturbing the peace.

I slipped around the back of the building. A narrow entrance behind the storage shed was hidden beneath a crooked awning. My father and I used it for deliveries. I squeezed through and hurried inside.

The shop was already a mess, shelves dragged from the walls and a guard shouting outside. I couldn’t find my father, which frightened me, but I couldn’t waste time. My spell books were upstairs beneath the bed in my tiny room.

I ran up, grabbed the books, and stuffed as many as I could into my bag. The bag grew heavy immediately.

I was turning toward the stairs when I saw him in the doorway.

The Crown Prince’s cold gaze settled on me, then on the bulging bag in my arms.

“You,” he said.

What a brilliant observation. I was so touched.

I clutched the bag to my chest and bolted. “Stop!” he ordered. Naturally, I did not. I sprinted down the alley, his boots pounding behind me. He was following alone, shouting for his guards to catch up, his fancy uniform clearly not designed for chasing a desperate witch.

“Stop running and surrender!” he shouted.

“Stop chasing me and I’ll consider it!”

“That is not how this works!”

“Then you should have written better rules!”

I ran faster. My bag slammed against my hip, and a book poked me in the ribs. I was going to die, either arrested or murdered by my own spell books. The Crown Prince struggled to keep up, slipping in mud and flinging an arm out to balance himself.

I turned a corner, jumped over a basket, and nearly lost a shoe. He was still behind me. Did royalty receive special training in chasing poor people?

My foot struck something hard. I stumbled, tried to recover, and went down with a very undignified yelp. The bag flew against my chest, and books thumped onto the ground around me.

The Crown Prince nearly caught me. Instead, he tripped over my outstretched legs and landed beside me, grabbing my ankle as he fell.

“Got you,” he snapped, breathing hard.

“Let go of me!”

“Not until you—”

My skirt twisted around my legs, and my gown flew open enough to expose more of me than I wanted him to see. I yanked at the fabric and swung my bag.

The bag connected with his shoulder.

He let out a strangled cry and loosened his grip. “Are you insane?”

“Are you blind? You pervert! Let go!”

“You hit me with a bag!”

“You chased me!”

“You stole—”

“I stole my own books!”

He stared, too offended to answer. I scrambled backward, trying to cover myself and gather my books. My fingers landed on one open to a page with a snowflake diagram.

A freezing spell.

I barely understood the words, but the Crown Prince was reaching for me again.

I grabbed the book and began to read aloud.

“By frost that sleeps beneath the stone, by winter’s breath and ice alone—”

“What are you doing?” he demanded, pushing himself up. “Put that book down immediately.”

I kept reading, my voice shaking. “Let warmth depart, let cold descend, let frozen silence—”

“Do you have any idea who I am?” His face reddened with fury. “I am the Crown Prince! Stop this ridiculous performance before you make your situation worse.”

That was rich, coming from the man who had chased me through an alley and grabbed my leg.

“Let frozen silence bind and hold!”

His fingers tightened around my ankle once more, but his grip was weakening. Cold prickled over my skin. The air between us seemed to drop in temperature, and a thin layer of frost crept across the stones.

The Crown Prince looked uncertain.

“What have you done?” he demanded, though his voice had lost some of its force. “Undo it. Now!”

I shuffled backward, hoping the spell would only numb his hands. I didn’t want to kill anyone, especially someone whose death might get me executed.

His fingers slipped from my ankle.

I scrambled another foot away.

Then the Crown Prince gave a startled bray.

I blinked.

Where the arrogant prince had been sitting was now a donkey, with long ears, a gray-brown coat, and the same furious eyes glaring at me from beneath a ridiculous forelock.

For several seconds, neither of us moved. Then the donkey opened its mouth. “HEE-HAW!” I stared at him and his eyes widened.

Oh, no. No, no, no.

I looked down at the spell book, then back at the donkey.

It hadn’t been a freezing spell.

I had just turned the Crown Prince into a donkey?

gods No.

Why me!!

“Your Highness!” a guard shouted from the other end of the alley. “My Prince, hey! She’s right here!”