Of Enemies and Endings

by Shelby Bach

  Lady Aspenwind looked even more alarmed. A mean, petty part of me was glad that Adelaide wasn’t inspiring a lot of confidence. “But— He needs—”

  “We’ll get Chase back,” Lena told her. “All of us.”

  That calmed Lady Aspenwind down. She landed on the grass, taking deep breaths.

  “Well, not me,” Candice said, twisting her wrist free of Adelaide’s grip. “I told you earlier. You can borrow my bow if you want, but I’m not about to risk my neck for you or Chase. Not after you ditched us.”

  Wow. I would have expected that kind of response from Daisy, but Candice hadn’t seemed upset until today.

  For a second, guilt flashed across Adelaide’s face, but when she noticed me watching, her expression settled into a glare.

  Before any of us could respond, the door swung open, and Mr. Swallow flitted out. “Oh, good—you waited,” Sarah Thumb said.

  The Director stood in the doorway behind her. This had been her Tale. I don’t know what I expected. Maybe a wisecrack about how the level of beauty this Tale required had gone way down in the twenty-first century. But her skin was paper-white, and she whispered, “If she was going to manipulate the conditions of a Tale again, I thought it might be this one.”

  I should have thought of that. I should have guessed that the Snow Queen would try to take a member of our Triumvirate the same way she’d lost her best friend.

  Well, I wouldn’t let her.

  The rules for this quest were clear. If a Character’s Tale took them out of commission, then the leader of the Canon or the current representative of that Tale would choose the Companions. In other words, the Director had a decision to make.

  Suddenly, I wished I’d been nicer to her over the past couple years.

  “Just so it’s clear, I’m volunteering to rescue Chase,” Ben said.

  “Me too,” added George, Kyle, Lena, Adelaide, and me together.

  Adelaide glared at me and Lena. “Not them.”

  The Director took our side. Probably for the first time in history. “You don’t have a say in this matter, Adelaide. It’s not your Tale.”

  “But—” Adelaide said. It wasn’t a good sign that she was already getting on my nerves.

  “The Director has double authority here,” Sarah Thumb told her fiercely.

  “Ben, you have a meeting with the MerKing in a couple of hours. I’m afraid I must ask you to stay,” the Director said. Ben made a face, but he didn’t argue—ever since he’d started dating Chatty, he’d kind of become EAS’s unofficial ambassador to the mermaids. “The questers will keep you updated on their progress, I’m sure. George, how’s your leg?”

  “Fine.” But George was lying. He had a shallow gash right above his knee, and blood had streamed down his shin and stained his sock red. Lena gasped when she saw it. I couldn’t believe the Director noticed it before the rest of us. “I don’t even feel it. Honestly.”

  “You should find a nurse to examine you,” the Director said. George headed off toward the infirmary, limping slightly and swearing. “The rest of you will go. Four Companions or more during wartime—we shall make that standard procedure.”

  She was sending me and Lena after all. I hadn’t expected it to be so easy.

  The Director turned back and called into her office. “Rumpelstiltskin, please give these students as much information as you can glean from the current volume. They are eager to be on their way.”

  “I am trying,” snapped our librarian.

  Rapunzel emerged with the huge blue tome. She held it open, just out of the dwarf’s reach, staring at the illustration of the old fort. It was made of warm yellow stone, and a blue river wound through the background.

  “This place is known to me,” she whispered. “I lived there once. Solange moved me from tower to tower often when I was small.”

  After she heard that, the Director looked positively ashen.

  “Wait, you mean, the tower where Chase is trapped is the tower from your Tale?” said Kyle.

  “One of them,” Rapunzel corrected. “One of the first. There will be traps on the stairs.”

  “We didn’t run into any,” Kyle said.

  “Then they have most certainly been activated now,” said the Director.

  “Take caution,” Rapunzel said. “My sister sets traps within traps.”

  Great. Adelaide, heights, and an obstacle course on the stairs. Chase was really going to owe me.

  “Is there anything else the kids should know?” Sarah Thumb asked.

  Rapunzel passed the librarian his book. He humphed and made a big show of flipping through the pages. Almost everyone was watching him, so they didn’t see Rapunzel tap Lena’s shoulder and whisper something in her ear. Lena’s eyes widened and darted toward Kyle.

  Like we needed one more thing to worry about.

  With a brief smile at me, Rapunzel melted into the shadows of the Director’s office. I guess that meant she wasn’t seeing us off.

  “The Seelie Fey that the gnomes saw was an illusion the Snow Queen cast herself,” said the dwarf finally. “Besides that, there is nothing here that Kyle cannot tell you.”

  “Really helpful. So glad we waited,” Adelaide said acidly. “Can we go now?”

  I thought the grown-ups might tell her off for being so sarcastic, but the Director just started leading us across the courtyard toward the door to Avalon. Sarah and Lady Aspenwind swooped ahead. Rumpelstiltskin trailed behind, trying to read and walk. I halfway expected them to swear us in as Companions, but there didn’t seem to be a point. Plus, we didn’t exactly have an audience. The bell that announced the new Tale hadn’t drawn a crowd.

  We probably could have used any old door, but we stopped in front of the one to Avalon. It glittered with gold underneath the emerald paint. Some people thought it was the prettiest door in the Courtyard. Personally, it had always reminded me of dragon scales.

  Lena hurriedly started the temporary-transport spell.

  “I wish I could accompany you,” Lady Aspenwind said, a little choked up, “but Chase would never forgive me.”

  She was right. Chase was already going to hate his Tale. He would be beyond mortified if his mom came to rescue him.

  “Don’t worry, ma’am,” Kyle said. “We’ll get him back.”

  Muttering the spell in Fey, Lena held open the door. Trees grew just beyond the frame, and I heard running water. Lena opened her hand. In her palm, five rings shone slightly blue. “Everyone take one. I have an extra for Chase after we grab him.”

  Adelaide hurried forward. I let her go in first. It seemed important to her.

  But I went second, my sword drawn and my guard up. Rapunzel had mentioned traps within traps.

  Once I stepped through, it was easy to see why the Avalon door was painted the way it was. Each tree was almost as big as the one we’d left behind in the courtyard. The bark in this forest was golden, and moss grew on every trunk and almost every branch—such a vivid green that it practically glowed. The river I’d seen in my dream wound through the trees, mottled with reflections of blue sky and green leaves.

  It was beautiful. Clearly, Solange had wanted her sister to have a tower with a view. I doubted Chase had gotten a chance to enjoy it.

  “George said that Avalon is the hidden continent that looks the most like a fairy tale,” Lena said, coming up to stand beside me. “He was right.”

  “Where’s the tower?” Adelaide said, clearly still prepared to act like this was her Tale and she was the boss of it. That wasn’t what happened during rescues like this. After the Director picked Companions, all the questers were supposed to work together.

  “Under that.” Lena pointed.

  You could see the tower, but barely. Even though it was the height of two Matilda Searcasters, only a few sections of yellow stone peeked out. The rest had been conquered by vines.

  I’d been expecting some sort of vegetation like the beanstalk, green and thick and covered in flexible spikes, but these vin
es were slender. They’d grown shaped more like spiderwebs than climbing roses. Plus, they were white, and they sparkled in the sunlight.

  It seemed wrong to find something so pale and colorless in such a vivid, green world.

  Only the vines’ thorns were a silvery sort of blue. It made them easy to spot.

  “That was not here when we left,” Kyle said.

  I squinted upward, to the top of the tower, where Chase had been sleeping. Fear crept inside me, the same kind I’d felt in my dream.

  He might not wake up. We might not even be able to reach him.

  Lena approached the tangle of vines. Careful not to touch them, she stuck her face close to one crystal-white tendril. When she blew over it, her breath fogged. “I thought they were made out of ice at first, but maybe not. They kind of look like those trees of diamond in Queen Titania’s court, but cold.”

  “I can think of something that could handle them,” Kyle told Lena, and I couldn’t figure out why he was smiling.

  “Me too.” Lena slid a hand into her carryall and pulled out an ax, the same one she’d used on the goblins’ portal. She raised the weapon and swung down hard.

  Adelaide leapt back, like the magic from the vines might spill out and grab her. The rest of us pretended not to notice. She did have the least quest experience.

  “Yep,” Lena said, inspecting the severed ends. Even the vines’ insides sparkled with ice crystals. “It cuts like regular plants, not diamond. That’s reassuring.”

  “Great.” I raised my sword. If there weren’t any enemies for me to fight, at least I could take out my frustration on the plant life.

  “Hold it,” Kyle said. “I think we should avoid touching them, just to be sure.”

  “I’m not afraid. Hand me the ax,” Adelaide said, holding her hand out.

  I shot her a look. First of all, she needed to stop acting like it was her Tale. Second of all, we weren’t her servants. We were her fellow questers.

  “Good idea.” Lena slapped the ax’s handle into Adelaide’s palm, but she didn’t let go. “Do me a favor and read this out loud for me?”

  Shock to end all shocks, Adelaide just glared at Lena. She didn’t even glance at the paper my friend was holding up at face level.

  “Lena won’t let you borrow her invention unless you read that, Adelaide,” Kyle said.

  Adelaide huffed, but then she read, “Up, ax. Chop.” Then she looked a little nervous. Even she had heard about the Bats of Destruction.

  But the ax just stayed where it was, motionless in Adelaide’s hands.

  “Looks like it’s a dud,” she said, annoyed.

  Lena actually did a little happy dance, and I realized what this was really about. Our favorite inventor was testing her voice recognition software. “Up, ax! Chop!”

  Now the ax ripped free of Adelaide’s grip and started hacking away at the vines with so much gusto that a path started to form—two feet wide and littered with frosted clippings.

  “I guess it likes Lena better than you,” Kyle said.

  “Wait. Was I just your guinea pig?” Adelaide asked, outraged.

  “Join the club. She does it to me all the time,” I said.

  “Me too,” Kyle said, “but I usually volunteer.”

  Lena charged forward. The ax had already cleared about seven feet of trail. Vines fell steadily under its blade, clicking as they landed, like a pile of icicles. “Come on. Try not to touch the sides.”

  Adelaide plowed ahead. I went next. Kyle fell into step behind me, careful not to poke anyone with his spear.

  We marched single file. The tangle rose about a yard above our heads. Soon, all we could see to our left and right was white vegetation and our breath fogging out in big white puffs.

  I felt kind of lightheaded. I was so focused on not remembering my dream that I kept forgetting to breathe.

  “Rory, are you okay?” Kyle asked.

  Maybe I’d been swaying. I concentrated on walking straight. “Fine.”

  “Chase was all torn up during the mission too,” Kyle said. “He mentioned you two had a bad fight.”

  We aren’t friends. That was the last thing I had told him. It might be the last thing I ever told him.

  I really hoped Adelaide hadn’t heard what Kyle said, but she must have. Lena did. All the way in front, she glanced over her shoulder. “I don’t think it has sunk in—” She spotted something farther back. “Oh, my gumdrops.”

  We whirled around. The vines had grown across the opening behind us, not as thick as they’d been before, but I had the feeling that if I looked away, the tangle would unfurl across the gap, closing in.

  “We need to go faster,” Adelaide said.

  And I thought I was the master of the obvious.

  Kyle gripped his spear. “Rory, don’t freak, but you’ve got one growing right by your ear.”

  I stood stock still, afraid to turn and look, afraid to reach for my own sword.

  “Relax.” Kyle slashed once, so close to my head that I heard the blade whistle through the air. “Done. Oh, crap.” His spear was too long for the narrow trail. He had gotten it snagged in some vines. “Lena, I’m beginning to think I need a spear that’s retractable, like your staff.”

  He yanked it free—too hard. The fist gripping the spear crashed into a knot of vines behind him.

  Adelaide and Lena gasped. I actually shouted, sure that he was doomed to whatever fate the Snow Queen had in store for us.

  “I’m okay. No worries,” he said, a lot calmer than I would have been. He just leaned his spear against his shoulder so he could inspect both hands. “It might even be a happy accident. We can touch the vines. I even got pricked. See?”

  He held his hand out, to show us the tiny bead of red where the thorn had stuck him.

  Kyle hadn’t looked closely enough. That tiny drop of blood had frozen. The flesh on his hand had turned transparent, and it glistened with a wet sheen, exactly like an ice sculpture.

  he enchantment doesn’t get us if the vines touch us,” Lena whispered, aghast. “It gets us if the vines draw blood.”

  Kyle looked at his hand again. The ice had spread up to his wrist, and he watched it creep up his elbow. He looked at us. “Tell my brothers not to panic,” he said. “Enchantments aren’t always binding.”

  The ice reached his chest before he had a chance to take another breath. Kyle could barely whisper. “You’ll have to come back for . . .”

  No, no, no. This couldn’t happen.

  I was so close to him. I was looking straight into his eyes. I could see the resignation in them, and the determination. I blinked, and the brown irises, the dark lashes, everything, was pale, colorless, lifeless ice.

  We should have known this was another trap. We should have been more careful. We should have prepared more for this mission.

  “He’s right,” Lena said in a tiny voice. “We can change him back. The Water of Life can do it.”

  We should have brought some of that Water with us.

  Something splashed beside my feet. It took me a second to realize it had dripped from the ice statue. Horror rose in me, and I tasted bile in my mouth. “Lena, he’s melting.”

  Even the Water of Life couldn’t bring him back from a puddle.

  We would lose Kyle. Just like Hadriane. Just like Hansel.

  Lena unzipped her backpack and grabbed a handful of round things. They looked exactly like rubber bouncy balls with gold-and-green glitter swirling around inside. “Let me try something.” She pitched one of the balls at Kyle. It went wide, sailing past his shoulder.

  “Is this the time for target practice?” Adelaide pointed at the vines. They’d risen over our heads, long tendrils snaking up and swaying a little, like dragons getting ready to strike. “We need to save ourselves.”

  “Oh, who cares? The voice recognition works,” Lena said, and I really hoped she was talking to herself, not me and Adelaide. She ripped open the back pocket of her carryall as wide as it could go. “Up, axe
s and swords and sabers. Chop! All the way to the tower, as fast as you can!”

  I’d thought she’d gone overboard this April when I saw how many Bats of Destruction she’d brought to the Arctic Circle, but that was nothing. A whole armory sailed out of Lena’s bag. The axes hacked their way to the tower. The sabers held off the vines, cutting any that grew over the path the axes had just cleared. The swords scythed through the tendrils that had been threatening us. Frosty clippings rained down around us, so close that I felt one brush the bare skin of my arm.

  Lena threw another bouncy ball. It connected with Kyle’s shoulder and splattered across the ice of his T-shirt. “There. Now, run!” She pointed at the tower. The axes had almost reached the front door.

  No one needed to tell Adelaide twice. She sprinted, too fast. Some of the frozen bits slid under her sneaker, and she almost lost her footing and got a face full of thorns. But with a shriek, she caught herself and kept running.

  I hesitated. “But Kyle . . . We can’t just . . .” I looked back. He was gone.

  “I took care of it.” Lena grabbed my arm and dragged me along. “Well, my inventions did. That’s a throwable-transport spell. I wasn’t sure it would work. I was planning to test it on Chase, but Rapunzel told me, ‘Don’t worry. Send him back. I’ll wait with the Water of Life as long as I can.’ ”

  So that was what Rapunzel had whispered to Lena in the courtyard. “How did you know she meant Kyle, not Chase?” I was definitely out of breath.

  “We don’t need the Water of Life to break Chase’s enchantment,” Lena said, pulling ahead.

  Adelaide reached the base of the tower first. “We have a problem,” she said, pointing. The door was made of thick wood and crossed with big iron strips. It looked heavy, and the lock under the handle was as big as my hand.

  Lena skidded to a stop. “Move, Adelaide! Axes—”

  Seeing the weapons turn and stand to attention, Adelaide dove behind us.

  “—together!” Lena continued. The axes rose up in unison. Sunlight gleamed off their sharp edges. “And chop down the hinges!”

  The axes swung down, taking out more than just the hinges. Triangular, fist-size chunks fell out of the part of the door that had been attached to the hinges.