A Grimm Legacy (Grimm Tales) (34 page)

They led Andi to the full-length oval mirror, disconcerting in its resemblance to the magic one shattered that morning.

“Well?” the tailor pressed.

A fairy tale princess stared back at Andi. Striking and feminine in opulent wedding white, primped, polished, and bejeweled to perfection. She had never looked more beautiful. Despair threatened to drown her.

“I look like a princess,” she said, her voice flat and lifeless.

The last rays of the setting sun reflected off the fragment of mirror laying on the bedside table. Andi had forgotten about it the shard. Outside the window, the sun sank below the tree line. The sunlight was gone, but movement continued in the shard of glass.

“It’s time,” a guard spoke from the door.

Andi swept the mirror piece into her hand on the way out the door and let the cloak fall to conceal her hands.

With an escort of six armed guards, Andi was whisked through the place. She tried to drag her feet, to slow down the inevitable end to this story, but the guards prodded her into a fast clip. They reached the staircase where she’d been separated from the others that morning. The landing had been scrubbed clean—can’t have blood on the floor during a royal wedding.

She stared at her feet, carefully going down the stairs in the heavy, cumbersome dress. With her head bowed, she risked a glance at the mirror shard. Instead of reflecting a bit of her face back, white swirls drifted gently across the surface.

She jerked her head up, almost falling at the end of the staircase. The ballroom had been decorated to an extent that the feast, in comparison, had been a paltry affair. The perfume of thousands of white roses was almost overwhelming. So numerous, they appeared to be growing out of the castle walls themselves.

Silver candlesticks dotted the room in vast quantities, the flickering flames making it look like daylight indoors. The ballroom was stuffed to capacity with what looked like the entire population of Elorium. Andi looked over the sea of strangers staring at her expectantly and her throat closed up. The shard of glass sweated in her palm, but instead of sharp edges biting into her skin like she was sure it would, it felt warm and flexible.

Wilhelm and the queen watched her from the other end of the room as the wedding march drifted from a corner. Andi’s courage momentarily failed her, but a sharp prod in the back with a guard’s gun got her moving again.

Her walk down the aisle was surreal. Was this really happening? Every eye in the room followed her, making her skin crawl. Whispers buzzed through the crowd setting her on edge. For the last time, she considered pulling up her hood and vanishing from this nightmare. Her fingers twitched under the cloak. She couldn
’t.

Wilhelm
’s eyes found hers and she felt scoured by his gaze. When he smiled at her, she knew he was gloating.

The prince held out a hand and she took it, stiffly. He tucked her hand into his arm tenderly and nodded at the officiant in front of him.

“On this auspicious occasion, where two—
”
was as far as he got before Andi tuned him out, and Wilhelm hissed in her ear.

“
Are you trying to embarrass me? Who let you out of your room in that cloak?”

Andi ignored him and stared straight ahead, past the man performing the ceremony to the window they were stationed in front of. The combination of the darkness outside and the soft candlelight behind her turned the window into a perfect mirror. Andi watched her dark reflection, linked with Wilhelm, and suddenly knew what she had seen in the mirror fragment, now pliant like clay in her hand.

Withdrawing her hand from beneath the cloak, she cocked her arm back and hurled the shard of glass at the window. The putty-like substance stuck and spread rapidly, transforming the window into a true mirror, the ageless woman appearing. Her white hair, which Andi had recognized in the mirror fragment, swirled about her face.

Wilhelm led the outraged uproar that erupted behind Andi. He grabbed for her, but she had already bolted from his side. Shoving the officiant in the prince
’s direction, she gabbled to the woman in the mirror, “Take me to Fredrick!” before hurling herself through the window.

Grateful she had insisted on wearing her grandmother
’s shoes, she hit the surface of the glass. It was like falling into the skin of a balloon, the rubber strained taut. The surface stretched, becoming tighter against the surface of her skin, until a weak spot formed and it split apart. She pitched forward, stumbling on to a dirt-packed floor in a poorly lit room.

Fredrick shot up from his seat on a barrel
—the same barrel Quinn had been sitting on the night before. Turning to see what she’d tumbled out of, she recognized the reflective surface of the stainless steel freezer she had swiped an ice cream bar from that morning. She was back in the cellar of the castle.

“
Andi?” Fredrick asked in disbelief. He looked her up and down quickly
.
“Are you getting married?”

“
Not anymore,” she said, watching the side of the freezer like a large screen TV. Wilhelm pounded on the ‘screen’, his face a mask of fury while the guests behind him shuffled around uncomfortably. “What are you still doing in the castle?”

“
Herrchen’s still here. I guess he didn’t want to miss your wedding,” Fredrick said.

“
We’ve got to go.” Footsteps hurried about above their heads. “My exit was rather—spectacular.” Touching the side of the freezer, Andi repeated, “Tell me glass, tell me true.”

Fredrick peered over her shoulder as the woman reappeared with a serene smile that felt insulting during this situation.
“Candide?”

“
Take us to Dylan, please,” Andi said quickly.

“
Certainly.”

Her image was replaced by a fuzzy vision in which she could just make out the back of Dylan
’s head in the dark.

“
Let’s go.” Andi clutched Fredrick’s hand tightly as they tumbled through the freezer—landing directly on top of Dylan in the backseat of a car.

Everything was a confusion of arms, legs, and wedding dress as the startled driver jerked the wheel. His headlights swung to the side, illuminating the pine trees lining the road, and the car
’s passengers went tumbling again.

“
What the—!” the guard managed to get out before Fredrick put him in a chokehold. Dylan looked up from where he landed on the floor of the car, his hands still manacled behind his back and blood soaking through the hasty bandage on his leg.

“
Andi?” he groaned, squinting up at her in the shadowy interior of the car. “What are you wearing?”

She
touched the back window of the car that she and Fredrick tumbled through moments before. The image of the castle cellar with guards busting through the door disappeared, and Andi didn’t even wait for the woman to appear before she shouted, “Take us to Quinn!”

Fredrick rolled off the guard and hauled a startled Dylan to the rear window, grabbing Andi
’s arm. Without checking to see where they were tumbling to, she flung all three of them through the window.

Landing hard on her stomach with someone
’s elbow in her back, Andi was about done with falling through mirrors.

“
Andi?”

She peeled her face off a scratchy rug and wiggled out from under Dylan, who was making small yelping noises and clutching his wrist.

“Don’t move,” a gruff voice commanded.

They
’d fallen through the glass pane of an enormous framed forest scene hanging in a windowless cabin. Andi could feel the boat rock under her as she climbed to her feet, locating Quinn pressed against the far wall in the same filthy dress she’d worn days ago to the feast.

But she wasn
’t looking at Andi.

“
I said, don’t move!”

A blur of movement out of the corner of her eye was the only warning Andi got before something hard connected with her temple. She staggered, feeling a supporting arm prop her up as her vision burst into stars.

Through the black haze, she recognized the guard that had been in the back seat with Dylan, now pointing his gun at them. It was the same one Quinn had ruthlessly kicked and had caught them in the queen’s room.
Just their luck.

The knock on her head made it more difficult for Andi to work out how he
’d gotten here, but it eventually occurred to her that he only had to be touching one of them to get through the rear window of the car.

In the reflection of the glass, Andi watched the driver pull the car over and crawl into the backseat, scratching his head and tapping on the rear window.

Dylan grew quiet and still on the floor, and Andi wished Fredrick would let go of her shoulders so she could at least crawl to him and check if he was still breathing. Quinn stayed quiet across the room.

“
Get against the wall,” the guard said, waving his gun in Quinn’s direction. Andi reached for Dylan, but the guard barked, “Leave him!” and Fredrick steered her to the wall.

“
Not you. You come here,” he said to Fredrick, a malicious gleam in his eyes. Fredrick left Andi against the wall and crossed to the guard. “Herrchen gave specific instructions for you. Kneel,” the man sneered.

Fredrick was slightly taller than the guard and managed to look down at the man with the gun.
“No,” he said quietly.

“
Fine,” he spat, shoving the barrel against his temple in a way that gave Andi déjà vu of Herrchen’s threat on the stairs
.
“I can shoot you just as well standing up.”

The guard cocked the hammer. A shriek worked its way out of Andi and Quinn screamed next to her,
both of them lurching across the room.

She knew they wouldn
’t make it.

So focused on Fredrick, Andi didn
’t notice Dylan move until she heard the sickening crack of the guard’s knee. His scream of pain drowned out Andi and Quinn’s shouts, and his gun clattered to the floor. Dylan had kicked him right in the kneecap, bending his knee backward at an angle that made Andi want to puke.

Andi rushed to the glass of the picture frame, jabbed her finger at it and babbled,
“Take us back to our world.”

The guard screeched in pain and writhed on the floor. The mirror woman appeared briefly, with her tranquil look that Andi really wanted to slap off her face at this point, before the dusty shop she
’d seen in the queen’s closet replaced her image again.

Behind her, Quinn and Fredrick pulled Dylan to his feet and they all linked arms. The door of the cabin clattered open as they pitched forward. A final shot rang out dimly behind them, as if from far away, and glass shards rained down on them again as the guard
’s shrieks of pain faded.

A persistent ticking filled the air. Andi picked up her head and tried to free her leg
from where it was pinned underneath Fredrick. "Everyone okay?"

Quinn shifted herself off of Dylan. He groaned, but
didn’t move.

"Does being in a lot of pain count as okay?" Dylan gasped. He cradled his wrist to his chest and hun
ched over his blood soaked leg.

The mirror they
’d toppled through was now just a frame and a pile of glass. The dark wood paneled room covered with cuckoo clocks was completely unfamiliar to Andi. "Where are we?"

She pulled herself unsteadily to her feet, staggering around an old desk piled with moldy books, shelves of glassware covered with the grit of time,
and pegs full of vintage clothing, to the window. Fog sat heavy on the ground and the few feet she could see beyond the window revealed nothing but the boughs of pine trees.

"The
guys don’t look good,” Quinn called to her.

Snagging a scarf off a hook
, she knelt next to Dylan and tied it over Quinn’s sash he’d bled through long ago. Andi tugged it as tight as she could, whispering apologies as he moaned in pain.

Quinn went to check on Fredrick, who still hadn't moved from their dog pile. He stared at them with scared eyes as he struggled to breathe, a strange crackling sound accompanying each labored breath.

A middle-aged man clumped down the stairs in the corner of the room. He wore a dressing gown and his hair looked as if it had recently left the pillow. He scowled at them, noticing the broken mirror.

"Wer bist du? Wie bist du hier?" he yelled.

Quinn shook her head at the man. "We don't speak German. We need a hospital."

The man raised an eyebrow and shook his head angrily at them. He clomped back toward the stairs and yelled up, "Niklas!"

As they waited, Quinn put her arm around Fredrick's shoulders and helped him sit up. This seemed to make his breathing a little easier. Small feet sounded above and a young boy of about nine or ten, with similar rumpled hair and tired eyes, came down the stairs. The sleepiness took flight when he saw the strangers.