by Shelby Bach
Time, for me, is messy, and timing delicate, Rapunzel had told me, dozens of times.
Just once, she’d said, Family is the one part of my life I haven’t made my peace with.
It didn’t matter now. I grabbed the Pounce Pot again. I ignored the buzz of magic that rattled my teeth. I sprinkled ground unicorn horn over the square stationery I’d written on.
Finding Adelaide’s secret made one thing clear: The Pounce Pot still worked.
I walked back home. Alone in the apartment, Mom was waiting on the couch.
“I heard a rumor you want to go find that Snow Queen’s heart,” she said slowly, her arms crossed. “Were you going to leave without telling me?”
“I don’t know.” I didn’t want to admit this, but I hadn’t even thought about my family since deciding to go. I’d been too focused on the heart, on making sure the Director didn’t catch me. “I was going to use the closet doorway to create a temporary-transport spell.”
“So, you weren’t going to say good-bye?” Mom said, clearly hurt.
“Well, ‘good-bye’ with you usually turns into ‘don’t go.’ ” I didn’t want her to tell me that now. I didn’t want to argue with her, not when I was leaving to do something so dangerous. “And I have to go. This time, especially.”
Mom sighed. “I know.” She walked into my room, picked her way around the mess on my floor, and sat on my bed, looking mournfully at the closet door.
I followed her, expecting a trick and kind of hating myself for it. “You’re really not going to try to stop me?”
“Not this time.” Mom’s smile was tiny, but it had so much love in it. “I want so badly to keep you safe, Rory. You have to understand that. But your dad is right. That’s not what you need from us now.”
“Dad was right?” Definitely a trick. Mom would never say that.
Mom knew what I was thinking. “Amy said it too.”
I didn’t bother to hide my disbelief. “Since when?”
“Since she saw you fight for real,” Mom said.
Maybe I could believe her. If Chase could really decide not to come with me, maybe Mom could really be okay with me leaving. My face started twisting in that horrible way it does when I want to cry but won’t let myself.
“Oh, sweetie.” Mom scooted off the bed, wrapped her arms around me, and kissed my hair. It was her usual I’m the mother routine, but I didn’t mind this time. I dropped my head onto her shoulder. It was a little uncomfortable. I was taller than she was now.
“Who’s my favorite daughter?” Mom whispered.
I laughed, in spite of myself. “I’m your only daughter.”
She pulled back a little. Her stare was intent. “That’s why you have to come back. You’re the most important person in the world to me.”
Don’t go had turned into Don’t die.
I hugged her again. She didn’t ask for any promises. She knew I couldn’t make any.
I waited in a quiet, abandoned spot to meet up with my ride to the Snow Queen’s palace.
I’d let Mom pick from the unlabeled vials of leftover dirt that had been collecting in the bottom of my carryall. I’d collected a lot since Lena invented temporary-transport spells in seventh grade. I’d lost track of where they all came from. This way, Mom could honestly tell anyone who asked that she didn’t know where I had gone, and being unpredictable cut way down on the possibility that the Snow Queen had set a trap for me.
After we’d painted the doorway and chanted the spell, after I’d slung on my carryall and buckled my sword belt, I’d stepped through, and I’d known exactly where I was. Atlantis. The same spot where Fael had taken us prisoner.
No one would look for me here—no one except the Wind who owed me a boon and would come when I called.
“Just you?” said a voice above me. I glanced up from the boulder I was sitting on.
I didn’t recognize the West Wind at first. He wore a dark, well-made suit, but he was bulky with muscles, his head shaved, his fingers thick and strong. One shoulder bulged bigger than the other, like he carried a weapon there. He reminded me of the private security guys one of my mom’s actress friends had hired back in L.A. When he flew up, he was nearly as humungous as Jimmy Searcaster, but he shrank down to human size so that he could talk to me.
“Are you supposed to be a bodyguard?” I asked, gesturing to his new personification. “Was that for me, or are you just getting ready for the battle?”
His gaze swept across the beach in front of us, scanning the area for threats, but we were alone. The tall trees behind us were far away. Anyone trying to ambush us from there would have to cross the beach to get to us. Only the waves were keeping us company.
“My personifications have all been fighters this week. Just you?” he repeated.
I sighed. I didn’t need the reminder. “Just me. Can you please take me to the Snow Queen’s palace?”
“She’ll see us coming,” he said. “She will knock us out of the sky before we get anywhere near it.”
“Not today. Ever heard of the Pounce Pot?” I asked.
“Mildred Grubb would never let you use it.”
“She wouldn’t let me, but she couldn’t stop me either.” Rapunzel had made sure of that.
West didn’t ask me what I was going to do there. Either he’d already heard about what I’d said at the Canon meeting, or he didn’t want to know.
He only regarded me silently. He hadn’t been so serious with me since he’d first given me the ring. I wondered if this was how he really was, all the time—an ancient being whose strength could snap me in half.
So old and so powerful, and he was afraid of the Snow Queen.
I wasn’t scared, exactly. I felt the way I had when I’d pulled Chase off the beanstalk. Determination had crowded out all the fear—determination and a weird sort of certainty that this was the right thing to do, no matter how dangerous it seemed.
West grew to his full size again. “All right, but it’ll take half a day to reach her from here.”
I slung my carryall on. “Good. I can’t risk going into the palace until the Snow Queen marches her forces out toward the portals.”
The West Wind lifted me up and set me on his shoulder. I didn’t look at the drop. When we rose off the beach, I barely felt a twinge of nausea. I just grabbed a handful of West’s collar and held on.
He raced across the water. The speed made my eyes sting. “You are terrifying sometimes,” he said, so close that his voice was a deep rumble. “Just like her.”
I’m not sure how long it took for West to reach the Arctic Circle. Long enough for me to fall asleep. It was one of those supremely unrestful naps, where you close your eyes and it feels like a normal blink but, when you open them, the whole landscape has changed. The ocean that had stretched out ahead of us was gone. Instead, we sailed over a glacier, capped with a roof of stars. Great canyons ran through the ice, carved with meltwater, and they forked and merged like dark veins running underneath too-pale skin.
I was really glad I’d cast one of the heating spells hours ago. The wind chill over the ocean had been fierce.
I hadn’t dreamed. I would probably never dream of the door again. I would reach it before I slept.
Suddenly West said, “Her army has marched.”
So it was starting. The scouts must have spread the word. Back at Ever After School, the Director was probably assigning squadrons to portals. They’d probably noticed I was gone by now. Some probably wished I hadn’t left. Some of them probably hoped I already had the heart.
“Let’s see if you were right about the Pounce Pot,” said West.
He swooped upward, vaulting over an extra-high rocky ridge streaked with ice. Over the next plain, the Snow Queen’s army stepped in ranks, dark lines against the snow.
The West Wind didn’t try to strain the Pounce Pot’s magic. He slid down into a meltwater canyon and morphed into someone more slender, a tall and lean athlete, wiry under his spandex. Out of sight, we t
wisted along the canyon’s shadows, moving north below the ice’s surface.
But the army’s image was seared into my mind anyway, as if I had Lena’s photographic memory. It had spread across a field that would have taken a reindeer hours to cross. Huge herds of ice griffins and Draconus melodius had come first. The goblins and the witches followed them, and near the back were the Snow Queen’s private forces, her pillars, and her villains. The only one I’d recognized from this far off was the East Wind, West’s brother, who looked like an aging football player stuffed in a suit.
I hadn’t seen the Snow Queen herself, but it was easy to guess where she was. The five giants in the back had to be protecting her.
I could see why the Director didn’t want me to go. Even if—when—I managed to get the heart, I would have to fight my way through thousands of her allies to reach her.
But this army would have heavy casualties, too. The Snow Queen had enough fighters to populate a small city, but very few magical peoples were left these days. Many of them would die in this battle, and in the battles afterward. It was such a waste of life.
“How much farther?” I asked West.
“If we emerged from this canyon, we would be able to see her palace,” he said. “And any allies left behind to stand guard would be able to see us.”
It seemed impossible that Solange could have more fighters stashed away in her fortress, but West was probably right. Hopefully, the Pounce Pot could keep them from contacting the Snow Queen.
West whipped around another curve. “I’ll get you as close as I can.”
That turned out to be roughly a hundred feet from the door. He swooped out of the canyon, slowed to a stop, and set me down. His breath gusted out of him. West seemed . . . well, winded, but only Ben would have actually said so. “I haven’t flown that far with a passenger in a long, long time,” he said.
“Thank you.” I was officially out of boons, but it was worth it.
The palace walls loomed above us like a huge crown of ice, ghostly gray in the night, blocking out the stars. The doors—twice as tall as General Searcaster—were shut. No way could I open them on my own, but maybe West could, before he left. It looked deserted. “No guards?”
West straightened up. “Someone’s here.”
I looked again. An ice column, nearly four stories tall, stood beside the entrance, too lumpy to be decorative. An illusion, then. Only a few of the Snow Queen’s allies were that big. Only one hadn’t been marching toward the portals.
“Matilda.” The illusion of the ice column began to tremble. She definitely heard me. “Is that you?”
The overgrown icicle stepped away from the wall. Then it dropped something, and the illusion vanished. Matilda held two huge mittens high in the air. She was standing fine, like I’d never broken her ankle at the Zipes’ ranch. Someone must have healed her. “I don’t want to fight.”
“Are you the only guard?” asked West. That didn’t seem very likely.
She nodded. “Outside. I don’t know exactly what the Snow Queen set up in there.” She jerked her head at the doors. “She called it ‘reinforcements.’ She left last, and she took her time.”
Sure. Matilda could have backup out here disguised as more overgrown icicles. They could be sneaking up on us right now.
Only one way to check. Bad-guy radar. I fished around the front pocket of my carryall, where I usually kept my M3. But that pocket was empty.
My stomach flipped.
I knew exactly where my M3 was: on my bedroom floor. Looking for Rapunzel’s letter, I’d dumped out my entire bag. I hadn’t finished repacking before I’d gone to babysit Dani.
I hadn’t brought the mirror with me.
I couldn’t call for help, even if I wanted to.
The cold had begun to sink into my bones. I needed to recast my heating enchantment. I couldn’t waste more time here. “What am I going to do with Matilda?” I asked West. I still didn’t want to kill her.
“Let me help you,” said the giantess.
I narrowed my eyes. “In my experience, the Searcasters aren’t very helpful people.”
Matilda still hadn’t lowered her hands. “Just think back for a second. Your enemies have been Jimmy and Genevieve, not me.”
“Except for that time a couple weeks ago, when you tried to kill me,” I said.
“You tried to kill me too,” Matilda said. That was a really good point. “And I tried to get Jimmy home before he killed Hansel. You saw that.”
A wave of emptiness washed over me. I wished she hadn’t brought that up.
“It is hard to believe that the wife of a pillar and the daughter-in-law of the Snow Queen’s sorceress-general would switch sides,” said West.
Matilda was quiet for a moment, gathering her thoughts, just like Rapunzel used to do. Then she said, “The Snow Queen will always want more and more. We’ll always be fighting. It’s not the life I want for my baby.”
Oh. She really was pregnant. Well, if she was telling the truth. “It’s been a while since Texas. A lot of other people made it to EAS today. Why wait till now?”
“The Canon isn’t always fair, but you are, Rory.” Matilda sighed. “If you tell them not to punish me for Jimmy and Genevieve’s crimes, they’ll listen.”
“I’m not a Tale representative,” I reminded her. “I have no power over Characters.”
“You have influence,” West said thoughtfully.
You have a way of looking past traditional mistrust and forging bonds previously held to be impossible, Rapunzel had said in her letter. This was probably what she meant. I already knew I was going to vouch for Matilda, if I could.
“I can’t do anything for Jimmy. Not when he’s a pillar.” I figured she already knew that I wouldn’t be sticking up for General Searcaster in a million years.
Matilda’s voice turned as hard and sharp as a blade. “I know.”
I’d kind of gotten the impression that the Searcasters had an unhappy marriage, but it must have become a lot worse if she was willing to betray her husband. “Matilda, I might not leave this battlefield.”
The giantess lowered her mittens, very slowly, so West and I knew she wasn’t trying anything sneaky. “That’s what I mean about you being fair. We can swear a Binding Oath, if the West Wind is willing.”
I glanced at West. “Can you?” He nodded. “Would you mind?” I didn’t have any more boons, so he didn’t owe me anything.
“It would be my privilege. I don’t think I could face Lena if I just left you here. And I wouldn’t mind it if you owed me a favor,” West said, which kind of explained why he’d been hanging back for so long.
So West performed the Binding Oath. Matilda swore not to deliver me to my enemies, and she swore to help me in any way she was able. I swore to do everything I could to persuade the Canon to treat her fairly, and I swore to help protect her from the Characters’ punishment if at all possible.
I wondered how a giantess and one of the four Winds had sort of become Companions on my Tale, instead of the rest of the Triumvirate.
Chase would have done the Binding Oath if he were here. He would have given me a thumbs-up behind Matilda Searcaster’s back. Lena would ask if sorceresses could perform Binding Oaths. My chest ached with cold and with missing them.
If Solange had felt this way all the time, I couldn’t blame her for cutting out her heart.
When he was finished, West turned to me. “I’ll go back now. When the battle begins, I must meet my brothers and keep them from entering the human lands.” He rose into the air and sailed back south, not bothering to hide this time.
I wished I’d waited for Lena. She would probably know if a personification could die.
The giantess and I watched as he shrank to the size of a normal human, to the size of an elf, then a pixie, and then disappeared altogether.
“He’s friendlier than East is,” said Matilda.
I forced myself to focus on the quest. Solange didn’t know I was coming tod
ay, but she would never have left her heart in a palace guarded only by a pregnant giantess with questionable loyalties. “What can you tell me about the traps the Snow Queen has set up inside?”
“She said not to open the doors until she gave the signal,” said Matilda. “Her reinforcements are in the entrance hall, waiting. They’re supposed to rush to her side as soon as she gains control of the portals. I was planning to ignore the signal. Maybe pretend I fell asleep. I’m still in the first trimester. That does happen.”
“Reinforcements, huh?” So her army was bigger than what I’d seen on that glacier. Perfect.
“Yes.” Matilda hesitated. “I don’t think they’re people, exactly. Genevieve gave me very strict instructions to keep the door shut until the right time. Like the reinforcements couldn’t think for themselves.”
Knowing General Searcaster, “strict instructions” probably meant “threatened.” “Is there another way in?” I asked.
“No.” Then she added, “Well, you could blast your way through the palace walls, but unless you know where you’re going, you’ll probably still end up in the entrance hall. It takes up most of the first floor.”
I thought for a second and finally decided that it would be easier to keep the reinforcements bottled up if I didn’t create extra exits for them. “This will be fine,” I said. “Close the doors once I’m through.”
“You don’t want me to fight with you?” Matilda said, sounding a little surprised. She was big enough to do some damage, but I’d seen her fight before. I hadn’t been super impressed.
“Let me see what I’m up against, and then I’ll tell you.” I wondered if Solange had felt this calm on the day she had infiltrated King Navaire’s palace to take him down.
Matilda turned the handle and pulled it open. The bottom of the door—as wide as my arm and longer than our apartment—scraped against the frozen ground. We both peeked inside.
The Snow Queen’s reinforcements were made of ice. As alive as the metal dummies we used to practice on, but way more bloodthirsty. The whole horde rushed for the open exit—ice dragons, ice goblins, ice wolves, and at least five ice giants.
