The Rat Prince by Bridget Hodder Page B

you. It was a melon.) Then she pointed at it and uttered some words I could not understand.
    In eerie silence, the melon puffed and swirled. It changed in color and sprouted wheels. Before I could register what was taking place, the thing had become an enormous coach, golden and ornate. At my side as always, Swiss gave a shout of disbelief. Corncob and Beef One, Beef Two, and Beef Three scattered quickly, disappearing before I could find my voice to command them. Only the dauntless Truffle remained behind with Swiss and me.
    The strange blue woman—evidently a sorceress—laughed. Then she patted the melon-coach with a fluttering hand. “Such a wonderful conveyance to take you to the ball, my dear—is it not?” she warbled to Rose. “You will need horses to pull it, of course.”
    Rose did not appear to share the blue lady’s amusement. She was staring at the vehicle in stark amazement. It bore the Lancastyr coat of arms.
    While Swiss, Truffle, and I stood as still as could be, the terrifying bright gaze of the sorceress roved the yard until it lit upon a group of field mice, cowering behind a hay bale. She pointed at them and spoke a few unrecognizable words.
    Without a sound to herald the transformation, the mice began to grow: Their legs and necks stretched, and their tiny nervous mouse-expressions faded. Their useful whip-like tails became swatches of long hair, good only for swishing at flies. In a winking, they lost all semblance of their former selves.
    They were horses.
    Beside me, Swiss stifled a sound. Truffle gripped him with her tail, in warning or support.
    Then the changeable eyes of the sorceress began to move again, searching her surroundings as if she knew what she might find next.
    Us.
    â€œFlee!” I cried to my subjects. “Make haste and hide!”
    We turned to run toward the kitchen garden, but it was too late. The sorceress had spotted us.
    â€œA coachman and two footmen!” she said, giggling. “That’s what you need, Rose de Lancastyr. Ah, how very entertaining you mortals are.”
    I did not see the pointing finger of the blue lady, but I heard the terrible words. And then it happened.
    My body left the ground. I floated up in the air toward Rose. And I began to change.
    â€œBlackie! Not Blackie!” Rose shrieked.
    My sleek fur; my streamlined, compact, surefooted shape; my keen vision, my powerful snout, my brilliantly accurate whiskers; my ears so sharp, my teeth so strong—lost, all lost, dropping away from me in a rush of bereavement and bewilderment.
    I shot up and out, stretched and pulled and pushed until I stood tall, even taller than the two women before me.
    Nearby, Swiss had undergone the same transformation. His rat-body was gone, replaced with that of a human.
    We were dressed in lavishly embroidered silk tunics, the finest cashmere hose, and jeweled shoes. There was a belt of large precious sapphires slung about my hips, and both Swiss and I wore rings of gold and silver. The sorceress’s idea of proper attire for Rose’s footmen was magnificent beyond anything I’d ever beheld.
    Swiss blinked at me with light, anguished human eyes. He had a pointed chin and a face made to grin, with a broad nose and mouth. Just like the real Swiss. The rat-Swiss.
    â€œYour Highness!” he wailed.
    I tried to smell him, to check that he was unharmed, but could not. This thing called a nose hardly worked at all.
    I heard a sound of distress and whirled to see Truffle teetering on her new human legs. They were short and sturdy, more ratlike than mine, and her hair and eyebrows were gray with age. This was the cruelest change indeed: the sorceress had magicked a young female rat into an old human coachman.
    â€œYour Highness, what is happening?” Truffle patted herself gingerly. Shock spread across her face as her new human fingers encountered a superior coachman’s cloak. Then she appeared to realize there was