by Shelby Bach
With a small smirk, Lena met my eyes and tapped her ear, as if to say, That’s right. You’ll need that magic translator.
“The king is touring at the moment,” said Rapunzel. “Now on his throne is his son. He owes you a favor, yes?”
Chase said, almost angrily, “No way. I was saving that for something really good.”
Rapunzel’s dark eyes narrowed.
“Right. Saving four hundred seventy-three lives.” Chase sighed dramatically. “Totally worth it.”
“Okay, loyal Companions. Ready?” Ben said.
“No!” screamed someone across the Courtyard, and we all turned.
For a second I thought somebody’s wicked stepmother was leaning around the doorway, but no—it was the Director. Her hair tufted out in a tangled blond clump above her right ear, and her lips were swollen to twice their normal size. I had never seen her look less than perfect.
It scared me, I realized as Lena drew closer to me, the Director looking so awful. On a healthy day she would never have let people see her like this. She must have eaten a lot of pie.
The Director clung to the doorknob, taking great wheezing breaths. “This is a mistake. Ben’s Tale is too important. You need adult supervision. We should call Jack back, or recruit help from other chapters—”
“It’s okay. We had an adult.” Jenny pointed at Rapunzel.
“Rapunzel will send you into danger—poison—her sister’s—” The Director’s voice gave out, like her lungs had reached their limit. I couldn’t tell what freaked her out more—not having control of the quest or not breathing.
Ben adjusted the straps of his pack self-importantly. “Well, I’m sorry to disobey you, Director, but I’m going. We don’t have time to wait. We only have seven days.”
Then he opened the nearest door and took a half step forward until he realized where the door led—to a wall of water. Like an actual wall, the same as you see on the ground floor of an aquarium, except without glass. A school of silvery fish swam by.
“That’s our special entrance to the MerKing’s realm. The door to Atlantis is over there.” Chase jerked his thumb across the courtyard.
“Oh, are they different?” Ben said. “I thought that each door took you wherever you wanted to go.”
All the fight left the Director at once, and she sagged against the door frame. “You’re too inexperienced.”
“I would argue with you,” Ben said, walking in the direction Chase had pointed, “but my excuses would be all washed up.”
My mouth twitched. Kenneth snickered. Chase opened the door to Atlantis, ebony with silver hinges, and said, “Do I even need to tell you how cheesy that was?”
From here Atlantis looked like a creepy forest with black, crooked trees.
Lena hugged me suddenly, squeezing so tightly I felt her bony arms dig into my ribs. I didn’t want to go without her. Over her shoulder I saw Ben step through the doorway with a prom-king sort of wave, and Mia hurry after him.
Lena drew back. Her cheeks were wet. “Rory . . .”
It wasn’t fair. This spring break should have been the longest, best, most junk-food-filled sleepover in the history of Lena-and-Rory-kind. The Snow Queen had ruined it.
“Do me a favor?” I pulled my phone out of my pocket and pressed it into Lena’s hands. “Text my mom every night? Around dinnertime? It’ll keep her from worrying about me.” Well, for a few days, anyway.
Lena swallowed and nodded. Melodie retrieved a tissue from somewhere in the bag and passed it up to her mistress.
Kenneth shoved Chase out of the way so he could be the next in, and then Chase stomped through too.
Rapunzel firmly escorted me to the door, bending down to whisper, “He’ll fall under enchantment.”
“Who?” I said, alarmed. I hadn’t forgotten the stone soldier from the day before.
“Chase and Ben,” Rapunzel whispered. “Chase is easy. Stay close to him. You’ll know when. Skin-to-skin contact is best. But it happens twice.”
“And Ben?”
She shrugged. “All I see is glass.”
The Director roused herself. “What is she telling you, Rory? You can’t trust her. She has ulterior motives.”
Ulterior motives? Rapunzel, who’d just saved us all? I couldn’t believe the Director would stoop so low to keep control of EAS.
“And beware the doll,” Rapunzel added.
Chase’s head reappeared in the Atlantis doorway. “Rory—you coming?”
“What doll?” I tried to ignore Chase, but he grabbed my wrist.
“I don’t know,” Rapunzel said sadly, and Chase yanked me into Atlantis.
e didn’t get the welcome we were hoping for. For one thing, the time difference was crazy. It was night in Atlantis, but the moon hung full and low. The forest we’d stumbled into was bathed in silvery light, and we could kind of see branches zigzagging from one tree to the next, tangling together and surrounding us with a fence of black bark. I only spotted two openings. One path wound farther into the forest. The other way—bright with moonlight—led out to a grassy and open meadow.
I knew which path I wanted to take, but that was a decision for the quest leader.
“Something’s wrong with this forest,” Ben whispered. Behind him Mia’s eyes were wide.
Chase put his hand on his sword hilt, and I did too.
“No kidding,” Kenneth said. “Check out those leaves. Don’t they look like they’re a weird color?”
“No. I mean, why aren’t the birds singing?” Ben hissed.
“We should—” Mia started.
The branch behind her moved. It was so unexpected that I didn’t totally believe it, even as the branch snaked across the ground toward Ben’s leg.
“Watch it!” Chase shoved the new kid out of the way. The blunt, twiggy fingers snagged on Ben’s jeans and tore off a big chunk. The branch whooshed upward and released the fabric about twenty feet up. It seesawed through the air like a feather.
“It thought it had you,” Chase told Ben. “It wanted to drop you on your head.”
A branch from another tree darted out, its sharp end stabbing toward Ben’s back. My runner’s high flared, and I slashed down hard. I expected the blade to slice straight through the wood, but it didn’t. A terrific clang rang out. The branch pierced the forest floor with a thud we felt through our shoes.
We all backed away.
“Did you hear that?” I asked.
The trees heard it. They must have, because suddenly the whole forest woke up, tree limbs writhing like a mass of snakes.
“We have a few seconds,” Mia said, freakishly calm. “The branches are still untangling themselves.”
“That way. Now.” Chase pointed down the shadowy path.
“What? Who put you in charge?” Kenneth drew his sword.
Ben was skeptical too. “Isn’t that way faster?” He pointed to the brighter path.
Chase grabbed a rock on the forest floor and threw it. At first I thought he was just losing his temper, but when the rock hit the moonlight, the meadow vanished. A pit stood in its place, riddled with spikes and full suits of rusted armor.
“Rule number 1 about Atlantis—nothing is what it seems,” Chase said, annoyed. He stepped six inches to the side, and a branch whizzed over his shoulder. He pointed down the creepy path with his sword. “Everybody down the middle.”
It was like running a gauntlet. As soon as one branch unwound from another, it sped directly at our heads. Kenneth, Chase, and I could dodge, but Mia and Ben . . .
I shoved Ben behind me and deflected a branch away from his face for the third time. “This isn’t working!” I told Chase.
“What else do you want to do?” Kenneth slashed at a branch that tried to grab Mia’s hair. “Lie down and play dead?”
That was obviously Mia’s plan. She’d cowered down and covered her head with both arms.
“We split up. Give them two targets.” Chase hacked at an incoming branch, knocking it out of th
e way before it wrapped itself around Ben’s arm. “Rory, get Ben out of here.”
Ben opened his mouth, probably to say he wouldn’t leave Mia, but I grabbed his wrist and sprinted. The trees didn’t come after us. They kept stabbing at the ground Ben and I had just vacated. Only one branch lashed into our path—I just dragged Ben around it and raced to the edge of the forest.
“Trees!” Ben said breathlessly, as I shoved him out of the woods and into a rocky clearing. On the other side were normal-looking oaks. “Trying to kill us!”
“Yep.” I ushered him out of branches’—I mean harm’s—reach. I glanced back, worried for the others. “Are you hurt, Ben?”
“No. But the trees!”
“Technically, they’re not trees,” Chase said from somewhere behind us. A second later he, Mia, and Kenneth stumbled out into the open. Kenneth had a scratch on his forehead, but otherwise they were all unhurt. “It’s a witch forest. Its sensor spell sucks, though. It takes a while for the trees to notice that you’ve moved.”
“How do you know it was witches? Couldn’t it be those Unseelie people?” It was hard to look at Mia with a straight face. It looked like something had made a nest in her long hair.
“Nah, the branches are made of iron,” said Chase. “The Fey can’t touch iron. A witch clan set these up to annoy the Fey. We just had the bad luck to find a new one. We’ll tell Ellie to move the entrance to Atlantis when this is all over.”
“Do you really think it was a coincidence?” I said. “Maybe Kezelda told someone to plant one here. Maybe she knew we’d come to Atlantis for a cure.”
Chase just shrugged, but he looked a little worried.
“Witch forests.” Ben sat on a German shepherd–size boulder. “Great.”
“You need to buck up, man,” Kenneth said. “We’re going to see a lot worse here in Atlantis.”
“Give me a break,” Ben snapped. “Four days ago I had no idea magic was real. Since then, griffins attacked me, someone poisoned my mom, and now freaking trees are coming to life. I am not used to stuff trying to kill me all the time. As long as I can still move, I’d say I’m coping pretty well.”
I grimaced sympathetically, but Chase said, “I guess I shouldn’t tell you trolls set up traps in chair-shaped rocks, right?”
Ben tumbled out of his seat, and Chase and Kenneth both laughed.
“Everybody knows that trolls are too stupid to set up traps,” Kenneth said.
Normally, I would’ve told Chase this wasn’t the time for teasing, but Ben laughed too. “Geez, Mia. Stop being so calm. You came to EAS after me, and I didn’t hear you scream once.”
Mia smiled and tucked some hair behind her ear. She was either really shy or not very smart, but Ben smiled back in a gooey sort of way.
“What time is it here?” I asked, mainly because I was wondering what we should do next.
“A few hours before sunrise,” Chase said, so quickly that I wondered if he’d just made an answer up.
“Now, I understand that hundreds of lives are in danger, but I’m going to suggest that we stop for the rest of the night,” said Ben. “I could use some R and R.”
Chase slung off his pack. “You’re in charge.”
But Kenneth didn’t think we’d had enough adventures yet. “What’s the point in sleeping if we’ll need to be up in a few hours anyway?”
“If we keep traveling west, we’ll get caught smack-dab in Morgian’s Glen in the dark,” Chase said.
“So?” said Kenneth.
“So, Morgian’s Glen is a big pile of moss-covered rocks. If we can’t see where we’re going, we could easily break a leg.” Chase unzipped his bag and rummaged inside.
“Unless you want to get hurt and use your ring of return?” I said. “I’m sure Rapunzel would be happy to swap you out.”
“No more of that,” Ben told me, as pompously as my school principal. “We’re a team. We’re never going to survive Atlantis if we fight each other.”
“Besides, we have much bigger problems than Morgian’s Glen.” Chase had been searching our carryalls with growing horror. “I’m pretty sure that Rapunzel forgot to pack us any food.”
I found the Lunch Box of Plenty in my bag and handed it over.
“This has to be some sort of sick joke. There can’t possibly be enough food in here for five,” Chase said.
“It’s a Lunch Box of Plenty,” I told him. “Lena said she put instructions in it.”
“Oooooh.” The boys crowded around.
Chase unsnapped the latches and grabbed the folded paper inside. “ ‘Lunch Box, fill yourself,’ ” he read. “With a double-bacon cheeseburger.”
A paper-wrapped, sandwich-size circle appeared in the lunch box—smelling of beef and bacon and grease. Chase picked the burger up and unwrapped it, barely noticing when Kenneth snatched the lunch box out of his hands. “I take back every mean thing I said about Lena being a mad scientist. This is the best invention ever.”
We passed the Lunch Box of Plenty around. Then we set up camp, stretched our sleeping bags out side by side, and flopped on top of them. It still felt too early for bedtime, but considering how little rest we’d gotten the night before, it was also kind of necessary.
“Who’s going to take first watch?” Chase said. “I’m gonna go out on a limb and suggest it shouldn’t be Kenneth.”
Kenneth couldn’t keep his eyes open. He had pretty much fallen asleep sitting up.
“I’ll take it.” I probably couldn’t sleep anyway. I was too busy trying to figure out whether Kezelda had dumped the poison before or after I’d entered the kitchen.
So I sat down on the rock and nibbled on my grilled cheese.
“I’ll help you,” Chase said, ordering himself a second burger from the Lunch Box of Plenty. I wondered how many meals he planned on eating. “We should probably have two guards on the first watch tonight. Until we’re sure the witches’ forest won’t pick up their roots and ambush us in our sleep.”
Ben laughed briefly—until he saw Chase’s face. “Oh. You’re not joking.”
Kenneth crawled into his sleeping bag. “Fantastic,” he said, his sarcasm slurred with drowsiness.
Chase found a seat beside me, and we ate in silence. I thought about EAS, and if Lena was about ready to go to sleep too, and if Jenny was driving her crazy yet. I wondered if getting poisoned was painful, and if it was, whether or not the witches regretted the suicide mission. I wondered if I could have done anything to stop them. I would have loved to distract myself and interrogate Chase, but even though I had a few thousand questions about his mom, I didn’t ask. He was too touchy about being half Fey.
For a while the only noise I heard was Kenneth’s snores and an owl hooting.
“Chase—” I wanted to know if he needed anything else from the Lunch Box before I packed it up.
“Ben’s still awake,” he whispered back. Clearly, he thought I wanted to ask something a lot more important.
I glanced over to the sleeping bags. Ben was lying down, but his eyes glinted in the dark, glassy with far-off thoughts.
Chase crossed over to the others and snapped his fingers in Ben’s face to get his attention. “You’ve got to stop worrying, man. It’ll be fine. We’ll save your mom. You won’t lose both of them.”
My best friend wasn’t exactly known to be sensitive. So I didn’t figure out he really meant Ben’s father until Ben asked, “Who did you lose?”
Chase hesitated. He knew I was listening. “My older brother. Half brother.”
If I’d had any grilled cheese left, I would have choked on it.
I’d never even suspected Chase had any siblings.
Family tragedies turned up a lot at EAS. One fifth grader’s father had Failed his Tale late—right after she was born. He hadn’t made it. But usually, the death of a Character’s parents didn’t have anything to do with a Tale. Tina had lost her mom to cancer, and Vicky’s dad had broken his neck skiing.
I’d learned about Lena
’s parents in September when someone’s father had showed up in a lab coat, and Lena had watched him cross the courtyard with tears in her eyes. “My parents used to wear those.” She had been four when they’d died in a car accident and her gran had taken over.
Chase didn’t look at me when he came back, and I was kind of glad. I didn’t know if I was supposed to say something, especially since he hadn’t been talking to me. Especially since he had never even hinted about it before.
After a few minutes, Ben’s low breathing joined Kenneth’s snores. They were all asleep.
“So.” Chase sounded extra hearty. Even he knew this wasn’t a normal conversation starter. “What was it like, growing up human?”
I snorted. “Is this supposed to be a philosophical question?”
“No. It was what Ben said.” He examined his hands. “I don’t remember not knowing somebody might try to kill me. Dad has a great story about convincing a giant to stop halfway down a beanstalk so that he could change my diaper.”
Chase had never had a normal kid life. The list of things I didn’t know about my best friend just kept growing.
After an awkward silence, Chase said, kind of put out, “Aren’t you going to ask me anything?”
“I didn’t think you would answer.”
“Rapunzel said I shouldn’t keep secrets anymore, so . . .” He shrugged.
I dredged up the memory. Secrecy can be a shield, but it can also slow the arrival of help—and healing, she’d told Chase.
Ice washed down my spine. I was supposed to help him? But this was too big for me.
I had to say something. I decided to start with the easiest, least emotional question. “Okay, what was this favor the prince dude owed you?”
I expected Chase to get all smug and tell me about the time that he had saved the prince from drowning in an enchanted pool or something, but Chase just got even more uncomfortable.
“Prince Fael locked me in the Unseelie crypt. When they found me, days later, the king—Fael’s father—asked me if he had done it. I’d watched Fael literally throw away the key, but I said no. Fael had been in and out of trouble all year. One more thing and he would’ve either lost his crown prince title, gotten banished, or been turned into a tree. That same night, Iron Hans escaped and stole the scepter of the Birch clan from the mirror vault, so everybody assumed he’d done it. Nobody even suspected Fael. I could be beheaded for lying to a Fey monarch, so they get out of the habit of being suspicious. And since the Fey can’t lie, it’s usually not an issue. But . . .”
