Magic to Spare

Merrigan wasn't really an evil queen. Her royal siblings referred to her as the brat, and she lived down to it. However, she was married to an evil king. When he lost a fight with a magic apple tree and got himself killed, she did whatever she could to hold onto the kingdom. Including lying to a powerful seer. Big mistake. Merrigan was cursed: turned into an old woman, she was doomed to wander until she learned to care about others. With the aid of a magic book named Bib, she encountered a mermaid trying to regain her tail, a soldier with a magic tinderbox, a merchant obsessed with finding magical cloth, a warehouse full of orphans, and a princess allergic to peas. Forbidden to retrace her steps, she moved from kingdom to kingdom and, totally by accident, helped others find their happily-ever-after.

Happily ever after is never easy … Formerly an evil queen, Merrigan has reformed. Reunited with her childhood true love, Prince Bryan, she sets out to return to her father's kingdom, to break the curse she caused to fall on it. In every kingdom along the way, Merrigan and Bryan, and their friends, Bib the magic book and Crystal the magic mirror, face magical puzzles and curses that must be lifted. A league of disgruntled, elitist majjians are turning happily-ever-afters into curses, in their quest to control all the magic in the world. Talking frogs and swans are vanishing. The majjian springs are drying up, threatening the source of magic everywhere. Magic to Spare: Someone has decided that magic needs to be rationed, and only those worthy should be allowed to use it. The problem is that no one gave them the authority to do that, or agreed on the definition of "worthy." That was the first mistake. Right behind it was the decision to turn a princess into a spoiled brat, to use her to take control of the majjian springs, the source of magic throughout the world.