Fable: An Unfortunate Fairy Tale Book 3 (27 page)

“
Now you have no choice,
Mina. Use the Fae book, or Jared will die…here…right
now.”

“
Okay!” She spun around in
anger and lifted the book high into the air above her. She flipped
open a black page, and turned it toward the golden body of Temple
and the snake. Nothing happened. “Why aren’t you
working?”

Teague turned to her, his arms opening wide;
he dropped the knife onto the floor and smiled widely. “Because
that is not the quest I’ve set up for you. You need to use it on
me—on us.” He started to spin widely in a circle. “I’ve waited
hundreds of years, brother, for this moment. To finally have you
and a Grimm in the same place, and now I’ve done it. The other
Grimms didn’t entice you enough to come back to our world. But you
never expected me to pick a girl, did you? And one that you would
fall in love with.”

Mina stared at them and felt numb. Teague
wanted Jared. It was always about Jared. He manipulated Temple to
steal her brother, knowing Mina would come here, and eventually
Jared would follow. It was a trap, and she was the bait, and now
Jared was going to die because of her.

“
Miiinna, Miiinna. You’re
wasting valuable time. He’s dying, Mina, and it’s all your fault.
Just complete this final tale, and you can save him.”

“
Are you sure?”

“
Yes, he’s my brother, my
other half, and I want what is best for him. I’ve always wanted
what is best for him. But what kind of hero are you if you can’t
even save the one you love? You do love him, Mina, don’t you? I’m
sure in that small, confused, easily swayed human heart, there
beats some love for this Fae.”

“
But the book, it
could…what if it..?”

“
The books have been a
part of us for so long, it won’t hurt us. I promise. It’s the only
thing that can heal us.” Teague held his hand out to her. “We’ve
been torn apart for so long, you are the only one who can truly
heal us.”

Her heart started to race, and she gripped
the pages of the book so hard she could feel them wrinkle in her
fingers. She was angry, angry at being tricked, angry at being
used. But she wouldn’t let her own feelings get in the way of
saving Jared’s life. She at least owed that to him.

Mina pulled all of the magic in the room
toward her and let it flood her. She was furious and she wanted
Teague to pay, but she wanted Jared to live more. She felt a
guttural scream rip forth, and she forced all of the power through
her and into the book. She flipped open the book to a blank page
and turned it on Teague.

He was so sure it was the only way to save
Jared, and she didn’t have any other choice. Jared had stopped
moving on the floor.

A bright light burst forth from the book and
shot straight into Teague’s heart, while another beam of light
poured into Jared’s dying form on the ground. They both began to
glow brighter and brighter. Teague began to laugh maniacally, his
body slowly raised off the floor until he was floating in the air.
Jared’s unconscious body lifted into the air and floated next to
Teague’s. Mina could see the wound on Jared’s abdomen slowly start
to heal itself. Teague was right. The book was healing them and not
entrapping them within its pages.

She began to have hope and kept pouring
every ounce of power she could into directing the book. She didn’t
know what she was supposed to be doing, but obviously the Fae book
did.

Jared groaned and opened his eyes. When he
saw himself floating in the air and the beam of light going into
his heart, he began to struggle and yell. “NOOOO, noo!”

It was only then that she questioned her
choice. Teague had lied.

“
Mina!” Jared cried out,
and reached for her.

She dropped the book, but it never hit the
floor. It continued to float and send vivid beams of light and
power into the two brothers. But then something began to happen.
The brothers began to be drawn closer together, and the light grew
brighter and brighter. Threads of power wrapped around them,
binding them, and then both Jared and Teague converged into
one.

A retinue of guards rushed
into the ballroom, followed by the Fates, the royal King and Queen.
Queen Maeve screamed out
No
before falling to the ground in a
faint.

A loud noise filled the room, and threads of
magic lashed out in every direction, knocking anyone who was
standing to the ground. It took Mina a few seconds to gather her
thoughts, for she was blinded and couldn’t hear. She looked to the
middle of the blast area where Jared and Teague were last. She
could only see one body, and it was lying prone on the floor. The
body moved and groaned, and Mina knew it was Jared.

Chapter 27

Mina ran to the body on the floor and
flipped Jared over, and wrapped her arms around him.

“
You’re okay. You’re
alive,” she whispered, and ran her hands over his face. Jared’s
eyes fluttered open, and she sat back on her heels in shock. The
young man before her was Jared. It had Jared’s hair, face, body,
but the eyes were wrong. They weren’t gray, they were blue—like
Teague’s.

“
What, no kiss?” he
sneered, and pushed her hand away in disgust. He sat up and looked
around the room, and began to laugh.

Queen Maeve, her dark raven hair stunning
against her white dress, looked even paler from the distress of
what she had just witnessed. Even King Lucian appeared shocked at
what had transpired. He held onto his beautiful wife and spoke
quietly to the royal guards behind him.

Teague turned to the Queen and said, “Well,
hello, Mother,” and laughed when she took a step back from him in
fright.

What had she done? Mina felt a hand pull
against her arm and looked at a stricken Charlie. He kept pointing
and dragging her away. She followed her brother to the other side
of the room and couldn’t help but feel that she had just done the
worst thing imaginable. She had destroyed Jared. Yes, he was now
alive, but that person, that thing across the room was not her
Jared.

Her feet were filled with lead, and she kept
stumbling and tripping as they ran through the rubble. Charlie
stopped by a still form and knelt down. Nix was still breathing!
Mina grabbed his hands and felt a gentle squeeze back from Nix. His
face was now almost unrecognizable from the swelling, and she could
see he had almost stopped breathing.

“
You are the bravest nixie
ever. Thank you for choosing to not give in to your curse,” Mina
whispered.

Nix could no longer speak, but he blinked
back in response. A huge tear slid down his face.

Charlie handed Mina the seam ripper, and she
didn’t hesitate for one second. She pressed the gem on the end, and
a pop and crackle emanated from the tip. Mina quickly mimicked Ever
and drew a large circle in the air. The seam ripper continued to
pop and ripple as it cut through the planes, creating a door. The
door wavered and then turned lucid. She could see something on the
other side, and it looked like her world.

“
Charlie, you go first!”
she commanded, but he was nowhere near the portal. Instead, her
silent brother was holding onto Nix’s arm and trying to drag him
toward the opening. “Charlie, we can’t help him.”

The little nine-year-old boy put his hands
on his hips and glared at her. She knew that look, knew that
Charlie wouldn’t budge without bringing Nix along.

“
Okay, fine.” Mina could
see that the gate was slowly closing, and she couldn’t waste any
more time. She leaned down and put Nix’s arm over her shoulder, and
half dragged, half carried him toward the portal. Once Charlie had
seen that he had gotten his way, he happily jumped through the gate
into their world.

Mina couldn’t help it. She turned to look at
the Fae world one last time. A battle had ensued between
Jared/Teague and the guards. Being a Royal meant that they were
both shifters, and now that the two were one, he was an even
stronger and more ruthless fighter. She heard a scream and a sword
flew past her face, and she knew then she needed to leave.

She took a deep breath and dipped down to
get better grip on Nix. She heard him whisper in awe as he looked
at the gate, “Is this Heaven?”

“
No, but it’s as close as
we get,” Mina answered before jumping through the gate.

Chapter 28

She awoke back in the biology lab. Something
wet was pressed against her face, and she sat up abruptly to wipe
it away. She had been drooling. Soft whispers and giggles erupted
around her, and Mina sat back in the chair and stared at everyone
in confusion.

She was sitting at an empty lab table at the
back of the room, and the rest of the class seemed to be in the
middle of a lab experiment.

A familiar face popped in front of her, and
Melissa smiled sweetly before whispering loudly, “So are you
thinking of retaking biology? I hear it can get pretty gross.” She
had sneaked over to Mina’s empty table. Her friends were looking at
Mina and waving. They were the source of the giggles. “I didn’t
even know you were here. One minute this table is empty. The next,
you’re here. Are you, like, related to Houdini?”

“
No, where am I?” Mina
asked worriedly. She spun around in her chair and then hopped off
to look underneath the lab table for Charlie.

“
Um, last period,” Melissa
answered, and ducked under the lab table with Mina.

Luckily, most of the class seemed
preoccupied with working, and the teacher didn’t notice the sudden
appearance of an extra upperclassman student in their class.

“
Well, what day is today?”
Mina felt completely at a loss. What had happened? Where was
Charlie? Where was Nix?

Melissa frowned and then gently touched
Mina’s head. “You don’t look so good. Maybe you should head out to
see the nurse. I’d use the back door, since you don’t want to get
detention. I’m pretty sure I can cause a distraction, and you can
slip out.”

“
Can you?” Mina asked,
relieved.

“
No problem.” Melissa
popped up from under the lab table and walked right over to her jar
with a very live frog in it, and dumped it out the open window. She
winked at Mina and whispered, “I’ve been looking for a way to get
out of this dissection.” She turned to her friends, who Mina
recognized earlier from choir, and the other girls followed suit.
Three more frogs made a flight to freedom.

“
Mr. Pierson! Our frogs
have escaped,” Melissa said with a very worried expression. “I
don’t know what happened—we turned our backs, and then they were
gone.”

“
Now, girls, frogs just
don’t walk off on their own.” Mr. Pierson frowned at them and
pulled out a key from his pocket, then walked over to the large
glass cabinet and unlocked it, looking for another specimen for the
girls.

“
You’re right. Frogs don’t
walk off, they hop off,” Melissa answered innocently.

The whole class erupted into fits of
laughter, and Mina used the distraction to slip out the back lab
door into the empty hall.

She clutched her head in
wonder and tried to make sense of what had happened.
Where’s Charlie? Where’s my brother?
She began to walk the school halls on tiptoes,
calling out her brother’s name.
Maybe he
appeared in a different classroom, and now he’s scared and
hiding.

Room by room she went, storage closet by
storage closet. She searched the gym, the locker room, the library,
and finally she gave up and sat down in defeat by her locker. She
was a terrible Grimm; she had lost her brother again, lost her good
friend Nix, who she was sure didn’t survive the trip here, and
Jared was lost to her. Nothing was easy, and she had a zillion more
questions to answer. The final bell rang, and Mina ignored the
students coming and going, grabbing their backpacks and leaving for
the day. She didn’t care. She wasn’t going anywhere until she had
found her brother.

A pair of white flat shoes stopped by her
and gave her leg a little nudge. Mina looked up into Nan’s worried
face.

“
What’s wrong? Are you
feeling okay?” Nan leaned down and touched Mina’s knee gently. “Do
we need to cancel the movie tonight?”

“
I’m not in the mood to
see a movie,” Mina whispered, and tried to ignore her best friend’s
attempts at conversation.

Nan turned and sat down on
the floor next to Mina. “Well, if you don’t want to go, I can just
take Charlie. He’s been dying to see that new movie called
Fable
for weeks now, and
I know you didn’t really want to see that one anyway. I’m not even
sure why, because it’s been getting such great reviews.”

Mina’s head snapped in Nan’s direction.
“What did you just say?”

“
I said that
Fable
has been getting
great reviews, and just because you’re a sucky sister doesn’t mean
that I can’t be a cool best friend and take
our
little brother to see it.” Nan
poked Mina in the arm.

“
And how long has Charlie
been wanting to see it?” Mina’s voice quivered in
disbelief.

“
For-ev-er!” Nan dragged
out. “Just last night at your house, he drew me a whole made-up
comic strip about it, with a snake, a cute green guy, and a giant.
He said I have to take him. Well, okay, he didn’t actually
say
I had to take him,
but he wrote me a note.” She pulled out the paper, and, sure
enough, Mina recognized Charlie’s scribbles.