by Shelby Bach
That sounded like an exaggeration if I ever heard one. “Maybe it was just one of the witches. If only one did the poisoning, the others would have been just as surprised as the rest of us.” My money was still on Kezelda.
“Maybe.” Lena really meant probably not.
I sighed. “Okay, Lena—who do you think it was?”
“Well, besides the witches, there were only a few people in the kitchen—”
“Right. Me, Mia, and Rapunzel,” I said quickly, slightly distracted by the fact I had a sneeze coming on.
At the last name, Lena nodded.
“You seriously think it was Rapunzel?” I’d thought we were back to Mia is a spy territory again.
“Think about it: The Director says that Rapunzel insisted on being assigned to the kitchens the day of the feast.”
“She had a dream about it. The prophecy kind,” I replied. “She told me after.”
“And she didn’t eat any of the pie,” said Lena. “That can’t be a coincidence.”
A sneeze burst out of me, which was good—it looked like I was scowling because of that and not because Lena was accusing someone who had saved hundreds of lives on Friday.
“She told everyone as soon as she worked it out,” I said. “If we’d listened to her—”
“She ‘worked it out’ ”—Lena used air quotes here—“so late. Most people had already been served. And that warning, what was that? All she had to do was shout ‘poison’ and everyone would have stopped eating. Don’t you see, Rory? That whole scene would’ve been the perfect cover. The best way to avoid suspicion is to cry foul first.”
“Not perfect. Not if you think she did it.” Then I sneezed again, which kind of messed up the sternness I was going for. I was tired of everyone misunderstanding Rapunzel for no reason. “Why would Rapunzel do something like that?”
“Well, who was in charge right after everybody got sick?”
“Then why wouldn’t she poison everyone before? She’s been at EAS for years.” My eyes itched. I eyed the stack of wooden crates behind the bird cage, wondering if one of them held unicorn tails or something else I was allergic to.
“I don’t know. To throw people off the scent? To store up goodwill when she played the hero later?”
This didn’t sound like Lena. She never said snotty phrases like ‘store up goodwill’ unless she was using her tinny, reciting voice. “Who told you all this?”
Lena opened her mouth and hesitated. “I believe it too. It makes sense.”
“Lena—” I started.
“The Director.” She knew this wasn’t helping her case.
“The same paranoid Director who flipped out over your portal?” And then I sneezed three times in a row, so hard my ears started ringing.
“Whoa. Are you okay? Are you getting a cold or something?” Lena asked.
“I feel fine. Maybe this luggage is super dusty. Hold on.” I slipped between a crate of iron shoes and a stone elf statue a tiny bit too detailed to be just a work of art. “Anyway, the Director—she’s just—” I nearly knocked over a black cauldron and narrowly avoided breaking my foot. “Crackers. I mean, crap.”
“She might not be wrong, Rory,” said Lena in the slow, quiet voice she uses when she is trying to keep me from freaking out. “Rapunzel might not be trustworthy. Atlantis could be a wild-goose chase.”
Irritation slid right into rage, and I couldn’t really tell you exactly where it came from—the Director’s persistence, Lena’s mistrust, or that stupid heavy cauldron. “Well, it’s not like we have much choice.”
I was with Ben. Unless they had another way to save everyone, I didn’t want to hear it.
Lena’s chin jutted out. “Rory, don’t just blow this off . . .”
I really didn’t want to fight with her—not when she was sick, and I was so far away and we couldn’t make up. I shoved the cauldron back upright and sneezed the most ginormous sneeze of all. Then I spotted the best excuse to change the subject ever. “Lena, there’s a horse trapped in here.”
Lena paused. “That explains the sneezing.”
The horse was big. I mean, most horses tend to be on the large side, but this one seemed way too huge for this cramped car. His fur was black, and red streaks glinted where the sunlight slipped in through the windows. A quilt covered his back from shoulders to rump. Only one foot stood on the pumpkin floor. Three of his hooves were trapped in different things: the front left in a reed basket, one back leg in a cardboard box, and the other in a planter, dead leaves piled around it.
Then the beast looked at me and blinked slowly. It was the most miserable blink I’d seen in my entire life.
“Poor guy. He’s really tangled in there. Lena, look—” I turned the mirror around.
“That sucks,” Lena agreed. “But Rory—”
“Don’t move, horse. I can’t help you if you kick me in the face and give me another black eye.” But the horse stood still as I bent and ripped away the cardboard box.
Through my sneezes, I could just barely hear Lena. “Rory, I know you’re changing the subject. Honestly, you’ve gotten as bad as Chase—”
Before I could think of a good comeback (one that would almost definitely get us into a fight), a low, nickering voice said, “Free me.”
“Wow. You’re a talking horse.” Whoops. That was actually a little insulting.
But the horse had decided he couldn’t be too picky on the rescuer front. “Free me, or I shall spend my days as a slave.”
“Lena, I have to go,” I said to the M3. “I’ll talk to you later.”
“That’s not—” Lena started.
But I slapped the case shut. If there was any possible way to hang up on someone with a magic mirror, I had just done it, and I felt kind of bad about it.
I shoved the heavy quilt off the horse’s back. It hit the floor with a clink—something heavy had been sewn inside. Someone had clearly gone through some effort to imprison him.
“You’re not . . . an evil horse, are you?” Eyes watering, I dug into the planter and loosened the dirt trapping the horse’s hoof.
“I have done nothing wrong.” The horse sounded stronger and kind of offended, but that didn’t exactly answer my question.
Still, the poor guy deserved to be free. “Well, just don’t kill anyone I like when you get out, okay?”
I was joking, but the horse said, “I swear.”
As I struggled to break the reeds in the basket (they were thin but tough) and free the last hoof, the door to the baggage car ripped open.
Metal rang against metal. Great. Either a battle was going on, or the Fey kids wanted to practice fighting inside a moving train car.
“Rory?” Ben called.
“How do you feel about jumping off a train?” Grunting, Chase blocked a particularly heavy blow.
“Who ticked off the dwarves?” I called back.
“Not the dwarves—the witches,” Darcy said. Her bowstring twanged and thwacked. “They said a Character was stealing their property.”
I glanced up, suspicious. “That wouldn’t be you, by any chance, would it?”
“My life is my own,” the horse said, clearly feeling better. When he shook his mane, little burps of fire flickered at the ends, filling the car with the smell of smoke.
“Whoa. What was that?” Darcy asked.
I sighed. “Anybody have a knife?”
“Won’t your sword work?” Mia glanced over my shoulder at the horse, head tilted.
“Tight space plus long sword equals stabbing wound,” I said, annoyed.
“Here.” Ben wiggled past the crates and slapped a Swiss army knife in my palm, handle first.
Chase managed to beat the witches back with the flat of his blade, and as soon as there was room, Darcy shoved the door shut and latched it.
“Did you seriously bring a pocketknife to the feast?” Chase couldn’t decide whether to be impressed or to start teasing Ben.
Ben obviously expected the latter. H
e shrugged, uncomfortable. “Boy Scout.”
“This door isn’t going to hold them for long,” Darcy said. On the other side of the leaf we could hear the witches’ enraged shrieks and then a splintering thump. “I think they borrowed an ax from one of the dwarves. They’re hacking through.”
“This one is locked,” Mia said from the door at the far end of the pumpkin. “We’re trapped.”
I sawed through the last of the reeds and sneezed. “Okay, you’re free.”
The horse whinnied and shook out his mane again, like he was getting rid of the cricks in his neck. The tight space seemed even smaller now that he could move.
I drew back, covering my nose with my shirt so I could breathe more easily. “Any ideas on how to get out of here?”
The horse calmly kicked out the wall with both hind legs. Leaf-smelling air blew in.
“A Dapplegrim?” Chase said in disbelief, spotting the horse. “Rory, you found a Dapplegrim, and you didn’t tell me?”
“I didn’t know—are you a Dapplegrim?” I asked the horse.
“In forty seconds the tracks will come to water—deep enough for frail human children to jump in without harm,” said the horse. “I’ll leave you. But I owe you a boon. Only one, since I would have eventually freed myself. If you should ever need my help, stamp your hoof three times and call me.”
“Um, you know I don’t have hooves, right?” I said.
The Dapplegrim wheeled around, scattered big piles of luggage, and leaped out into the forest. He landed at a gallop alongside the train.
“Did that really just happen?” I said, muddled with allergies.
“A Dapplegrim, and you didn’t even know,” Chase said mournfully, watching it swerve off into the trees. “Next time you have to come find me.”
“Want me to swear?” I asked sharply.
But then several things happened at once: Ben took his pocketknife out of my hand and closed it. The door gave way and revealed three green, seriously angry faces. And the train began to cross a wide river, glittering in the afternoon sun, filling the baggage car with light.
“Time to go.” Ben jumped out first. Mia dove after him.
“My bow’s going to get all wet.” Then Darcy hopped out too.
“Aurora Landon,” said a witch. I guess people had been listening when I’d said my name to the conductor. “You have made an enemy of the Wolfsbane clan for life.”
“Whoops,” I said, doing my very best to sound sarcastic and not freaked out.
“Go bite your broom and get over yourselves,” Chase told the witches. “You know the Dapplegrims can’t be tamed. He was going to get out anyway.”
The witches just raised their long, skinny wands. A spell fizzled in the air, but before it could hit me, Chase shoved me out the opening.
I slammed into the river so hard that all the air whooshed out of my lungs. Then the water closed over my head—sudden and cold and so full of bubbles I couldn’t tell which way was up. Something tugged the straps over my shoulder, and I surfaced, too breathless to even cough. The carryall had dragged me back to air. Lena must have embedded a flotation enchantment in it.
Chase treaded water right next to me. “Well, Rory, you’re on a roll with the boons. Four in one day.” He didn’t sound too happy about it.
“Oy! Are you guys going to swim all afternoon?” Ben shouted from the muddy shore. The forest behind him stretched out like a green blanket all the way to the mountains, the same peaks above the West Wind’s palace.
“Me and Mia are safe!” Darcy waved. Little drops of water sprayed out from her hoodie sleeve. “Just in case you’re worried!”
Chase and I struck out toward them. Pain flared across my side as soon as I reached forward. I faltered a bit, surprised, but it really wasn’t that bad. I barely noticed it after I reached the riverbed and splashed the rest of the way to shore. Walking hurt much less than swimming.
Darcy shrugged off her sweatshirt and wrung it out. “I don’t mean to rain on anyone’s parade, but now that Rory got us kicked off the train, does anyone know how to find the Unseelie Court?”
Ugh. She was right. I had gotten us kicked off.
“We walk.” Chase pointed downstream. “We’re about a day away. Over the crest of that hill is a waterfall with a bridge, and then there’s a stairway down to the shore. After that, it’s a straight shot to the Unseelie Court. We’re good.”
“We are,” said Mia coolly. “But is Rory? This is the second time she has cost us time we can’t afford to waste.”
I frowned. “What was the first time?”
“When you strolled straight into the West Wind’s palace and got Kenneth hurt.” Mia turned to Ben. “Maybe she should go home.”
I stared at her. I mean, the whole quest she barely puts two words together, and her first whole sentences in hours are to try and convince Ben to send me back?
“Rory was also the only reason we were on the train in the first place.” Chase glared at Mia, water streaming unnoticed down his arms. “Besides, it’s one thing to get dropped off at a Fey railway station by the West Wind. It’s another thing for five questers to show up unannounced. We might have had to fight our way out at the end station. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but nobody on this continent trusts us.”
Mia shrugged delicately. Ben and Darcy definitely didn’t look like they wanted to say anything now.
I was suddenly glad Chase was on my side.
• • •
It definitely hurt to walk with a wet, heavy pack banging into my ribs. I must have bruised them somewhere between the winds throwing me against the wall and jumping off the Fey railway.
Mia wasn’t wrong, I thought as we walked. We only had a week to find the Water of Life. The only lead we had was the southern coast of Atlantis. It didn’t take a genius to figure out we’d need more than a few days to search.
Maybe Ben wanted a fresh Companion. Someone who hadn’t been in the kitchen when the pies were poisoned. Someone who wouldn’t get us kicked off the Fey Railway for accidentally freeing a Dapplegrim. Someone who wasn’t an enemy of the Wolfsbane clan for life.
Now that I was kind of injured, no one would blame Ben if he ordered me to put on my ring of return.
I was so focused on my thoughts that I didn’t hear the crash of the waterfall or notice the ocean sparkling far below. When Ben stopped, I nearly tripped over Darcy’s feet.
“That is the most gorgeous bridge in the history of mankind,” Darcy said, gaping.
Where the river dropped off the horizon, a marble bridge arched over the falls. It was carved as delicately as lace, and in the mist, it looked gauzy and impossible, a mirage made out of moonlight—something too fantastical to be real.
“Feykind,” Chase said. “A famous Fey architect built the Cala Mourna Bridge.”
Just beyond the far side of the bridge were two posts—the top of the staircase. We must have had ten stories of steps between us and the sand.
Suddenly sick to my stomach, I was incredibly tempted to ask Ben to send me back. Getting out now would save me from the climb down.
Coward, said a voice in my brain. It won’t be fun for anyone. Be a team player. If you survive it, then the next Companion won’t have to.
Darcy ran up the gentle slope of the fairy bridge. “That view is amazing.”
I followed her, but I wasn’t interested in any view. I ignored the vomit-y feeling, stared at my sneakers, and concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other. Out of the corner of my eye, I could still see the waterfall shooting down into the ocean.
“We should probably have an offering. Even when it looks like no one is watching, the keeper expects some sort of toll,” Chase told Ben and Mia behind me. He always liked freaking out the new kids. “Fey and goblins take hostages with them for that exact purpose. Even dwarves and witches usually carry a very pretty animal for tolls. Black cats and stuff.”
“The witches sacrifice their own familiars?” Ben said.
I could practically hear Chase grinning. “There’s no such—”
Underneath us came a deep and gravelly voice, like an out-of-tune tuba with rocks inside. “Who’s that trip-trapping over my bridge?”
I whirled around.
Chase leaped back. A huge gray hand with cracked fingernails reached over the bridge railing and grasped at the air where he had been standing.
“Troll!” Darcy cried.
“Wait. This isn’t a fairy bridge?” Ben asked.
“This troll adopted it,” said Chase, drawing his sword. “The trolls love pretty things, but they’re not very smart. Or creative. They can’t make anything pretty by themselves. So they tend to steal things or conquer places and then call them their own.”
“I’ll take care of it.” Darcy was in such a hurry to draw her bow that she fumbled. Her arrow clattered to the stone. “Wow. Real smooth.”
A hulking shape swung itself onto the top of the bridge—between me and Darcy and the other questers.
This troll was about eight feet tall and four feet across, and his thick arms hung down to the stone. His eyes were tiny, his nose just two slits. He had a major underbite, and two tusks curved over his top lip.
Unfortunately, this troll had seen bows before. He swatted at Darcy first. She was too busy picking up her arrow to notice.
“Watch out!” I tackled her, and the troll’s arm sailed harmlessly above us. Fortunately, my sword was sheathed this time. Unfortunately, my bruised ribs protested when we hit the ground.
Then the troll roared with pain and turned around, so I guess Chase had decided to stab the big guy to get his attention.
“Geez. How many fights does this make today?” I couldn’t see Ben, but he sounded terrified.
“Only three,” Chase said. “Rory, are you really going to make me protect the new kids all by myself?”
I hesitated. On the ground, Chase and I could take pretty much anything, but we were up really high. I didn’t know if I could handle the height, and the troll, and the battle, and my pack banging into my poor ribs.
Well, at least one of those was easily fixed. “Darcy, take my pack, and cover us from that boulder.”
“Good idea.” Darcy grabbed the top strap and sprinted for the other side.
