by M. A. Larson
Demetra ran to her mother and clutched her tightly. They had beaten the odds where so many others hadn’t. Until now.
“So much evil from one mistake,” said Beatrice, falling back into her chair. “A Princess of the Shield must never reveal Academy secrets. And I have.” The repercussions of what she’d done, of all her former cadets targeted and killed by the witches, were only now reaching her.
“And you,” said Calivigne, turning her foggy yellow eyes on Evie. “Had you simply died, we might have spared this place. It could have stood as a sort of monument to what the world was like when princesses roamed the land. But somehow you have managed to survive each of our attempts to thwart this prophecy.”
Evie wanted desperately to look away but found herself mesmerized by those wide, shimmering yellow eyes. She couldn’t move.
“We attempted to create a super-witch with Malora, a creature as dark-souled as any of us but with the capacity to love and to care, and you exposed her. We gave you every opportunity to be killed by the Vertreiben, but you came through unscathed. We ambushed the entire population of Pennyroyal Academy in the open forest, and you made it back. And then there is the matter of your mother, whom we have similarly been unable to kill. Where is she, child? We’ve never been able to find her. Where is your mother?”
Evie’s mind was swirling so fast, she nearly collapsed. But before she could, there was an earth-shaking crash. A twisting mass of dark green scales burst through the roof of the cottage. Walls splintered into bits. Where there had been wood, there was now only night sky. The flames from the fireplace scattered everywhere. Evie looked up, dazed and disoriented. Amidst the cloud of dust and smoke, she saw her dragon mother clamber to her feet. Scabby Potatoes towered over them all, a triumphant look on his face. Evie’s mother issued a furious roar, then pulled herself out of the rubble and flew straight at the giant, knocking him backward with a thundering boom. There’s my mother, thought Evie.
“Ahh!” came Beatrice’s voice from beneath a pile of broken plaster. Evie ran to her and began lifting the pieces off. She frantically scanned the dust-choked air for the witches, but she could barely see what was right in front of her.
“Come on! We’ve got to get out of here!” She hauled the Headmistress to her feet, then draped her arm across her shoulder. “Demetra! Christa!”
“Go, Evie!” called Demetra from somewhere in the swirling dust. “We’ll look for the witches; just go!”
Evie dragged Beatrice out of the cottage and across the small stream. The night air bit into her cheeks and lungs as she desperately struggled to haul the Headmistress up the road. She glanced back to the Grandmother’s House but saw only rising flames flickering out of the broken walls. “Come on,” huffed Evie. “Follow the stream.”
They continued up the road to where the buildings became more tightly packed. The stream joined others and became a rapidly flowing canal. A large waterwheel turned up ahead, attached to the side of a mill.
There’s someone with us, thought Evie. She could feel it. She glanced around at her options, then decided to take cover in the mill. Beatrice had gone into a state of shock, which meant she would go wherever Evie led her. It also meant she had little capacity to support herself. Evie struggled and strained and finally managed to get the door open and the Headmistress inside. She slammed the door, then wheeled the wooden brace shut to lock them in. Water splashed over the slow-turning wheel outside the windows, while the wheel shaft inside groaned as it turned a giant wooden gear. “Upstairs!” said Evie. “Hurry!”
Finally, she managed to get the Headmistress to the upper floor. It was smaller, with a domed roof. Water rushed down the sluice outside a bank of windows, splashing over the blades of the giant wheel. An empty grain hopper sat amidst sacks waiting to be filled. Beatrice collapsed on the floor and began to groan in agony.
“Please, Headmistress, you’ve got to keep quiet! They’re just outside!”
“Actually, one of us is inside.” Evie spun. Malora was sitting in an open window, backlit by the fire consuming the cottage they’d just fled downstream.
“Malora,” said Evie. She moved across the floor, trying to draw attention to herself and away from the Headmistress. “Malora, please, it isn’t too late to help us. I know—”
Malora cackled. “You really are incredible. How many times must I betray you before you’ll believe me?” She jumped down into the room. “I’m a witch, Evie.”
“I know you’re still in there. I know there’s good in you.”
“No, there isn’t,” she said, shaking her head. “I’ve been tearing myself apart trying to believe what you keep telling me, but it just isn’t true. I’m a witch. I’ve always been a witch. Fighting it only makes it hurt more.”
“‘It is certain that hills and valleys always meet,’” said Beatrice, reciting some verse from deep in her memory in a frail voice. “‘And it often happens on the earth that her children, both the good and the wicked, cross each other’s paths constantly.’”
“What are you babbling about now?” said Malora.
“You are the hill and the valley.” Beatrice looked up at them. Her face was barely visible in the darkness of the mill, but she was smiling with something resembling a mother’s pride. “It was always you who would solve this, not my stepmother and me. ‘It is certain that hills and valleys always meet.’ But you don’t have any idea what I mean, do you? No . . . I am the only one left who knows that particular story.”
“Old woman, have you lost your mind?” said Malora. “What in the world are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about the two of you.”
Evie looked over at Malora, whose yellow eyes looked back at her.
“Let me tell it now, children,” said Beatrice. “Please. Before she comes for me. There are so many things I’ll take to my grave, let this be one less for me to carry.”
“Whatever you’ve got to say, you’d better say it quickly,” said Malora, and for the first time, she sounded just a bit frightened.
“It was many years ago when your father appeared in my office. He was frantic, nearly—”
“Hang on,” said Evie. “My father? King Callahan?”
“Yes. He had married one of our newest graduates. Princess Vorabend. They were exactly the sort of match you’d imagine from fairies’ tales. We were all so happy for them. Truth be told, we were happy for us as well. Two beautiful souls like those uniting would certainly lead to beautiful children for us to train in the future—”
There was a loud crash outside, then some distant shouting. A dragon’s roar resounded across campus.
“Get on with it!” shouted Malora.
“King Callahan was in great distress. Vora had indeed become pregnant. The child we’d been so eager to hear word of would be coming after all. He was overjoyed about that, as you might imagine, but otherwise near the edge of madness.”
“Why? What happened?” said Evie.
“When he first learned he was to be a father, the King ordered a portrait of his wife as a gift to commemorate the occasion. As certainly as hills and valleys meet, so, too, will good and evil. The artist he’d hired to paint the portrait was a witch in disguise. And she’d used an enchanted canvas . . . enchanted paints. Vora’s spirit was captured in that portrait in more ways than one. She was trapped there by the witch’s curse, and the woman left behind, though she still looked like Vora, was nothing more than an empty shell. She was alive. She was still herself. But she had no memory of her life to that point. She had no memory of King Callahan.
“The witch made him an offer, as witches often do. When the day came for Vora to give birth, the King could either surrender the baby, in which case she would restore Vora and the two lovers could live happily for the rest of their days. Or he could keep the baby and the witch would take Vora instead. She assured him that he would never again see
his beloved should that be his choice.
“The witch vowed to return on the day of the child’s birth to hear the King’s decision: his wife or his child. In the meantime, she would keep the portrait, which of course meant she was keeping the trapped spirit of our darling Vora. Callahan told me he’d tried everything to restore the shell of the woman the witch had left behind, but nothing had worked. The wife he’d been left with was like a child, unable to fight her way back from the fog in which the witch had placed her. That was when he came to us.
“Vora was on the cusp of giving birth, and Callahan was at a loss. The Queen and I were the only ones who knew what had happened. She sent Callahan and Vorabend away to one of her best midwives. I was to accompany them.”
“What is the point of all this?” said Malora. “It isn’t going to save your life.”
“I know,” said Beatrice, “but I’ll tell it just the same. We knew the witch would be coming for her ransom; there was no sense in trying to hide. So instead we worked as quickly as we could. The moment the baby was born, the midwife wrapped her and gave her to Callahan. I ordered him to ride back to his home straightaway and to protect that girl with every breath in his body. Which is exactly what he did.” She looked over at Evie with a meaningful smile.
“Our plan was to assign Vora a new name and a new identity and send her somewhere the witch could never find her. The King would honor his part of the bargain by choosing his daughter and giving up his beloved, but our hope was that the witch would never be able to claim her prize. Vora would be cursed, but at least she would still be alive. We thought we had planned for every eventuality, but there was one thing that none of us saw coming.” With tears in her eyes, she looked straight at Malora. “You.”
Evie glanced at her stepsister and felt every bit as astonished as the witch looked.
“There was a second baby that came less than an hour after the first. A twin. The midwife didn’t realize it until long after Callahan had gone. The twin was so sickly born, so frail and small, that we were certain she wouldn’t last the night. So I stole away with Vora to deliver her to her new life and left the midwife to deal with the baby. The rest of the story was told to me quite later.”
“Lies,” spat Malora. “I don’t believe a word of this.”
“The witch came, as we always knew she would. She took one look at the tiny, malnourished creature in the midwife’s arms and flew into a rage. She shrieked that she had been double-crossed, that the midwife had switched babies to try to trick her. Nothing the midwife said would placate her. ‘Very well,’ the witch finally said. ‘But I know what has happened here, and one day I shall have my revenge.’ In a fit of wrath, she snatched the sickly baby away and fled. From what I’ve been able to piece together since, the witch who had painted the portrait, the witch who had stolen the baby, was one of the Seven Sisters. And Calivigne used that poor baby’s delicate heart, adding it to a cauldron to create . . .” She took a deep breath, then looked at Malora with utmost sympathy. “To create you.”
Malora’s yellow eyes dimmed. “What?” she said in little more than a whisper.
“The two of you aren’t stepsisters,” said Beatrice. “You’re blood. The heart that went into creating you, Malora, was the heart of Evie’s twin. King Callahan is father to you both. Vorabend is mother to you both. You are sisters. You’ve always been sisters.”
Malora looked as though someone had just shot her with an arrow. Her breath came erratically.
“You see?” said Evie. “The witches aren’t your family. I am. And I know there’s love inside you. I know you loved me once, and I believe you can love me again. We’re family, even if they did try to make you into a witch. We’ll always be family, even if we’re not. We can find our mother together, Malora, you and I.”
Evie could barely make out Malora’s face in the darkness, but her soft yellow eyes shone through. When she spoke, her voice was as tender as a child’s. “I’m a witch, Evie. I may have been made from your sister’s heart, but I’m still a witch. To think I could ever be anything else . . . it’s not possible.”
“Malora,” she said, stepping forward. She reached out into the darkness and took her sister’s hand. The witch’s skin was searingly cold, yet Evie held tight. “I’ve lived with humans long enough to know that all sorts of impossible things are true.”
Beatrice let out a gasp so loud, it made the sisters jump. “She’s found us! She’s found us!”
There were creaks on the staircase as Calivigne appeared, followed by Hardcastle. “Here you are. We’ve been looking everywhere.”
“Please, Stepmother,” said Beatrice. With barely any strength left in her body, she somehow managed to get to her feet. Her arms were stretched out in front of her, imploring the great witch for mercy. “I only wanted to make you proud . . .” She trudged forward, tears streaming down her face. “I only wanted you to love—”
The room filled with noise, a harsh cutting sound, like someone was tearing a board in two. With a spatter of black magic hitting her, Beatrice’s skin started to drain of color. She let out a moan as her body began to calcify. Within seconds, her tears had stopped flowing. Her heart had stopped beating.
“Beatrice!” shouted Evie, but the Headmistress had been turned to stone.
“Now,” said Calivigne, turning her joyless smile toward the girls. Her eyes were vacant, her features smooth-edged and nondescript. “What are you doing here, Malora? You should have already taken care of all this.”
Malora looked absolutely staggered. Once again, she found the sands shifting beneath her feet. “I’m a princess,” she finally said. “You turned me into a witch, but I came from a princess. I am a princess.”
Hardcastle pulled her cloak tight around her neck. “Oh, do shut up, you silly—”
A pulse of magic, different from any Evie had ever seen, flared across the room and speared Countess Hardcastle. It looked like a miniature storm cloud, smoky black filled with tiny flashes of light. The witch fell flat on her back, every muscle tensed. Smoke rose from her body. Calivigne barely turned her head to look.
“You took my heart,” said Malora. “I was a person until you stole my heart . . .”
“I took a dying baby’s frail heart and turned it into something so much better,” said Calivigne as Hardcastle gasped for breath and scrambled back toward the wall. “You are a witch, my dear, and ever shall be.” She turned her glassy eyes to Evie. Looking at Calivigne felt like leaning over the edge of a cliff and stumbling. “And you. You shall not be the fulfillment of any prophecy. You shall simply be the latest princess to die at the feet of a witch.”
A slight ripple at Calivigne’s chest was the only hint that her black magic was brewing.
“I know who I am now,” said Malora from the darkness. “I know who I was before you turned me into this. And that person would have felt so much love for this world. And so much love for her sister.” She turned to Evie, and her decomposing witch’s face had gone. It had somehow transformed to look as it had the day they’d first met. “I do have a heart. I might have been born without one, but I believe I have one now.”
“Well then,” said Calivigne, “allow me to break it.”
There was another deafening strike of magic. Evie flinched, but the blast never reached her. Malora’s own black magic was bending Calivigne’s spell to her. She was absorbing it into herself, saving Evie. Her skin mottled to granite gray, then back again.
“You wanted to make me a Princess-Witch,” she said, her teeth gritted in pain. “Well, you’ve done it.” As she began to lose the battle against Calivigne’s magic, as her skin drained of its color and began to harden, she looked at her sister. A tear ran down her cheek. “I love you, Evie. Now let’s see how much you love me.” With extraordinary effort, she charged straight into Calivigne’s blast. Sparks of white arced off her own chest as she countered. She lunged at the gr
eat witch, and for a moment the two of them were lit up with magic. White and black swirls exploded out of the air between them.
“Now, Evie! Do it!”
Evie stepped forward and let all the thoughts and feelings she’d been fighting wash over her. All the fear of feeling like she was an intruder in her own life at the dragon cave. All the anxiety for her friends, for Maggie and Demetra and Basil and Anisette, and all the other girls with whom she’d served, those who were still there and those who weren’t. All the joy of seeing Remington again, of seeing her dragon father again, of realizing the impossible could be true. All the heartache of a mother she would never meet and a father who had already passed on. And all the pride in the faces of the people she’d seen across the land, people who deserved to live without fear. A blossom of luminescent white appeared in front of her, casting shadows across the mill. Streaks began to flare off into the darkest corners of the room. Inside her own heart, she pushed with everything she had. The white bloom lanced through the darkness and struck Malora in the back, pushing her and Calivigne toward the water sluice just outside the windows. As Malora finally succumbed and her body turned to stone, she embraced Calivigne, locking the witch tightly inside her granite arms. Evie pushed even harder, felt even deeper, until her blast of magic knocked them both through the window. It shattered, and they toppled into the sluice, which dumped them over the side of the water wheel.
Evie raced to the window and looked down. Malora’s statue splashed into the water, pulling Calivigne down with it. There was a furious bubbling and thrashing from the water below as Calivigne tried desperately to break free and use her magic. But before long, the water went still.
The wheel continued to turn. Water splashed into the stream, which curled gently down the hill. Though there were still many battles being fought all around campus, a sense of peace fell over this particular bit of stream. At least for a moment.
