Of Enemies and Endings (24 page)

Great. This was exactly what we needed.

I wasn't the only one who thought so. Before Sarah Thumb could cut in line, Adelaide stepped between Mr. Swallow and the door to the Director's office. “We're next to see the Director. It's an emergency. Chase needs rescuing.”

“I know! It's
Chase's
Tale!” Sarah Thumb said.

No way. He'd given up on his Tale. He thought he'd never get one, only being half human.

“What is it?” Adelaide asked, way more excited than she had any right to be.

“Sleeping Beauty,” said Sarah Thumb.

Then I did something worse than telling Chase we weren't friends, something he would never forgive me for. I laughed.

felt terrible about laughing as soon as I realized that Sarah Thumb wasn't kidding. “Wait, really?”

Lena sprinted up. She'd obviously left the workshop in a hurry. Her shorts were covered in dragon-scale dust, and she hadn't zipped up either of the carryalls in her arms. “The elves told me. When do we leave?”

“Leave?” repeated Rumpelstiltskin.

“To rescue him,” Lena said, like this was obvious.

“As soon as we get approval from the Director,” said George.

I took the carryall Lena handed me. “Do we really
need
approval?”

“Would it kill you to wait for the grown-ups for once?” Sarah Thumb said, annoyed. “Give me a second to talk to the Director, and we'll help you.” The tiny woman urged Mr. Swallow up higher. She knocked on the top of the door twice with both hands and then thumped it with her fist. The door cracked open, and she flew inside. Our librarian hurried through afterward. Rapunzel too.

George gave me and Lena a stern look. I thought the bossy older sibling gene had skipped him, but he was giving Jenny a run for her money. “You're waiting.”

Lena sighed. “At least it's an enchantment we know how to break.”

Gross. Seeing Chase and Adelaide kiss once had been one time too many.

“What makes you think
you're
going?” said Adelaide. “I'm the one he needs.”

I stifled a groan. That was a good point, and rescuing Chase was probably the only reason Adelaide and I would go on a quest together.

“Right,” I said. “Lena and I will get you up to the tower.”

“What about us?” asked George. “We're the only ones who have already been there. We have to go.”

“Same team, everyone,” Ben said.

“If
they're
coming, then I'm bringing Candice.” Adelaide turned to look at her friend, who was waiting under the Tree of Hope with her bow and quiver. Archery class was supposed to start any minute. Adelaide ran toward her, screaming.
“Candice!”

This was getting ridiculous. “We can't
all
go.”

“You want to tell
her
that?” Ben asked, nodding at the center of the courtyard.

Chase's mother soared across the grass. The other kids drew back a little. The Lady Aspenwind they knew was the aloof Fey noblewoman who instructed in the training courts, every bit as intimidating as Gretel. They had never seen her out of her mind with worry for the only son she had left. They'd never seen her cry.

I braced myself.

“I am to blame.” Lady Aspenwind didn't bother landing. She just clamped her hands around my forearm, all the coolness from before forgotten. “I thought with my blood in his veins, he was safe from Tales! But it was
our
tradition. Upon his christening, I allowed Chase's godmothers to bestow their gifts upon him.”

I'd met some of Chase's godmothers—the same day I first met Lady Aspenwind. They'd argued over what gifts they'd given Chase as a baby—his curls, I think, and his singing voice. Chase had been so embarrassed, I'd never mentioned it again. I had no idea why she was bringing that up now.

But apparently, Lena did. She must have read about this. “Giving someone a magical gift is pretty much the same as creating an outlet for more spells to come in and take hold,” she explained, sounding a little horrified. “For most Fey, it's not an issue, because they have enough magic of their own to fight off enchantment. But Chase is only half—he doesn't have that much power.”

“He has a really strong will,” I said. “I've seen him fight enchantments.”

“Sleeping curses are different,” Lena said. “It's hard to fight something your body does naturally.”

“He pricked his finger, as most Sleeping Beauty Tale bearers do, but the sleeping enchantment in the spindle is only the trigger.” Lady Aspenwind's wings beat hard. The grass around us rippled. “A sorceress must touch him to administer the actual curse. The Snow Queen could have cast it over him, but I don't know when. . . .”

The boys just stared at her. They clearly thought Solange personally enchanting Chase was farfetched.

I didn't. My stomach sank down to my knees. “It happened at the Snow Queen's palace. After she caught us, she put her hand on his face.” I thought she'd been doing it to intimidate me. But no, she'd been planning ahead in case we escaped. She'd cursed him with a sleeping spell she could activate whenever she wanted.

Adelaide had finally noticed Lady Aspenwind. She ran back, dragging Candice behind her. “Don't worry! We're going to rescue him.”

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.