Of Enemies and Endings (30 page)

Eighteen or more. Probably more.

I eased back around the corner.

Mom was waiting, the blade in her hand, up and ready. “Did they see you?”

“No.” Not yet.

“I found an unlocked door,” she said, pointing to the one on our right.

“Great. Thanks.” A few minutes with me, and I already had Mom breaking into other people's houses. I was a bad influence. “You be the lookout. I'll set up the spell.”

I thought having Mom with me would make me more on guard, not less, but I didn't hear the goblins creep up on us. I was concentrating too hard on painting an unbroken line around the door frame. Then something crashed behind me.

I hurtled down the condo steps, but Mom didn't need me.

With the sword's magic, she moved like a stranger—fluid, graceful, and fearless. Fury blazed from her face. I don't know if the goblins recognized us, but they definitely underestimated her. One was still smirking when she slashed the blade across his chest. The other only managed to get in one good thrust before Mom parried and ran him through.

“Oh,” she said in a tiny voice. She looked at what she'd done, at the bodies at her feet. Then she glanced at the sword. I knew that feeling. “I'm not sure I
like
that.”

“It gets easier to control.” I returned to the doorway and finished the last stripe. I set down the jar and the paintbrush and muttered the spell. I had only used temporary transports to escape. This was the first time I'd ever used one to
enter
a fight. “Let's go.”

We stepped through the threshold. The weapons closet was dark and crammed with empty racks. All the staffs, spears, and bows were being used.

“Are you
sure
you don't need your sword?” Mom whispered. I couldn't tell if she was nervous about what we'd find in the training courts or about what the enchanted blade might make her do if she held on to it for much longer.

“Yes.”
Then I turned the doorknob and went out.

All the dummies were lined up near the entrance. Every once in a while, one of them would take a step forward, clunk against the metal statue in front of it, and then step back. Obviously, they were
trying
to get out and defend EAS, but their path was blocked. Four metal dragons were wedged into the doorway. Only a few dummies could fight the villains at a time, and a few weren't enough to overwhelm well-trained fighters.

The Fey knights had clustered in the back corner, standing shoulder-to-shoulder around their king. They didn't look as stoic as usual. They kept glancing to their right, toward the crowd of humans.

You could fit a lot of people in a tiny space if you really scrunched. I would have never guessed more than two hundred little kids, new moms, elderly, and wounded people were stuck back there.

Brie was easy to spot. She was on top of a stack of mats with Dani strapped to her back. Her bow was drawn.

Then I saw him. A slender man with a pointed face and a smile full of gold teeth. Ferdinand the Unfaithful, prowling along the edge of the people I'd come to save.

One of the villains had gotten
in
.

I ran, but halfway there, I realized they didn't need me any more than Mom had against the goblins.

The whole staff class had placed themselves right in front of Ferdinand, guarding the other humans in a formation as tight as the Fey knights' body shield. Every weapon was pointed at Ferdinand. Every jaw was set.

Mr. Swallow fluttered up and landed on my shoulder. “Rory!” said Sarah Thumb. “They said they had captured you.”

Grinning, Kelly took one hand off her staff to wave at me. “I knew you hadn't been captured! I knew you would come!”

“Oh, good,” Brie said, spotting me. “You're okay.”

Mom stepped up close, determined to keep watching my back even though we weren't in any immediate danger. “You okay, Amy?” she called out.

“Spectacular,” Amy said, standing beside Kelly. She didn't take her eyes off the villain.

“Rory Landon,” Ferdinand spat. “I was hoping to see you. My teeth still need to be avenged.”

Turning away from my students was a mistake. Priya swung hard at his elbow, just like I'd taught her. Ferdinand yelped and dropped his sword. He whirled around, so when Amy and the mom beside her swung at him, he got hit in the face with two staffs instead of on the side of the head.

He crumpled. Amy smacked him again to make sure he really was unconscious. “I think he lost a few more teeth,” she said.

Maybe I shouldn't have grinned, but I couldn't help it. I was one proud teacher. “Well done,” I said, and the whole class beamed back. “Is anyone badly hurt?”

“Only one,” said Kelly.

One of the teenage students raised her hand. She had a bloody bandage tied around her thigh. “It was my fault. I stepped out of formation.”

“They've taken out three villains so far.” Sarah Thumb pointed to the wall. Two unconscious, greasy-haired men were slumped against the mirrors, all tied up. Three of the moms dragged Ferdinand over to them and looped rope around his wrists.

Hansel would have loved this.

“And what is the purpose of your arrival?” asked the Fey captain. His green armor had a new dent in the shoulder. “Now you are as trapped as we are.”

The staff class turned to me eagerly, clearly waiting to hear my answer.

I had these students and my combs. The beginnings of a plan began to glimmer in my mind, but first, I needed to figure out what else I had to work with.

“Will you fight, Himorsal Liior?” I asked. I probably should have asked the Unseelie king first, but I didn't.

The Fey soldiers bristled at this.

“Do not taunt my knights.” An old hand pushed one of them aside, and then King Mattanair stood in front of me. “You know my orders.”

I did know. I felt for him. Solange had killed his daughter, and now she had his son. But I needed his men. “The Snow Queen expects them to join the battle. She didn't do anything to Prince Fael when they defended you at the Unseelie Court. Today's not any different.”

The king sighed. He'd probably heard this argument already. “You can't know that for certain. No one can.”

I knew he would refuse, but I'd spent years learning sneaky persuasion tactics from Chase. “Hey, Sarah Thumb. Can you check to see if Torlauth di Morgian is still in the corridor?”

At that name, every single Fey in the room tightened their grips on their weapons, and I knew I had them. Torlauth had tricked both Fey princes into raising Likon, the last pillar, and he was directly responsible for their capture. He was a traitor to both Fey courts.

Sarah Thumb and Mr. Swallow flapped up, above the dragon dummies crammed in the entrance. “Yes!”

“We will fight,” said Himorsal Liior, his voice low and laced with a dark hint of everything he'd like to do to Torlauth.

I didn't glance at the king. I didn't want to see him looking enraged or betrayed, and if I were him, I would have been both. “Wonderful, because I know how we're going to get them out of the hall.” I pulled two combs out of my pocket and whispered, “We're going to let them in.”

Sarah Thumb did the honors. She was the only one who
could
get us started. The dummies—including the metal dragons barricading the way in—were all spelled to follow her orders and
only
her orders.

The metal dragon statues moved away from the door. The villains didn't question why. They just ran in.

They paused for a second, confused. “Where did they go?” asked one.

I willed everyone to stand perfectly still. The Fey had glamoured us all to look like the metal dummies. Each knight could only handle a few students at once. The Fey king was the best at it. He'd glamoured all two hundred of the other humans to look like rows of metal wolf statues. Mom too—I'd asked her to guard him. We blended in with the ranks of the statue army, but only if no one sneezed or breathed too deeply.

“They couldn't have simply disappeared.” The guy with the mask spotted what we'd set in the corner as bait—Ferdinand the Unfaithful and the two other villains my students had tied up. The captain walked straight toward them, and the rest of the villains followed. I hadn't been sure that they would even care about their fallen comrades. Villains weren't exactly known for being loyal to each other.

“Maybe they had those things,” said a guy with a blond ponytail. He had bruises all over his face. I guess the metal dragons had done some damage after all. “Those paint things.”

“The temporary-transport spells?” said the severe-looking woman. She had a Southern accent. “It's possible. They could have used the weapons closet there to get out.”

That
would
have been a good plan. Oh well.

The villains were almost close enough. They didn't even look at the evil Fey dummies they were walking past. Good thing. The Unseelie knights' glamour looked exactly like their cranky usual selves, except covered in metal.

The guy in the masks
did
examine some witch statues, most of them smaller and prettier than real witches. The staff students were doing so well. They weren't even breathing.

I held my breath too.

I'd positioned myself right beside them, ready to jump in front and defend them if I needed to.

Torlauth prodded the bound villains with his foot. “The Unseelie have fled as well. The great King Mattanair, hiding under the protection of a child like a wolf with a tail between its—”

He broke off, frowning.

The glamour over two of my students had flickered—just long enough for a flash of pink and brown skin where the Fey had expected metal. One of the knights had lost his concentration.

Stupid Fey pride.

“They're still here!” The man with the blond ponytail sprang forward and slashed at the students whose glamour had flickered. The girls raised their staffs to block. They probably would have been fine, but I was faster. I caught the blow on my borrowed sword and snap-kicked as hard as I could. My sneaker connected with his jaw. He toppled back, and a couple other villains stumbled under his weight.

Wow, these guys really weren't used to fighting together.

“Now!” Himorsal Liior slashed at Torlauth's throat, but the traitor leapt into the air with one great beat of his red-and-cobalt wings.

Weapons raised, the villains barreled straight at my students, thinking they were the weaker targets. They weren't. In teams of two, my students picked an enemy and slammed the butts of their staffs into each respective chest. The villains gasped, the wind knocked out of them. They stumbled back into the corner just a few feet from where the guy in the mask stood, watching the skirmish. Priya gave hers an extra smack across the face.

“Rory Landon, I presume,” said the guy in the mask. “It's pointless to—”

I tossed one of my combs between my students and our enemies. Bars zoomed out of the ground, a foot taller than every villain before they'd even recovered enough to take a step.

“Out! Now!” The guy with the mask pointed to the only side not blocked by a wall or by bars.

But the Fey knights had closed in. The lady with the accent sprinted past them. Brie shot her in the leg. She fell with a scream, and a yellow-winged knight shoved her back toward the other villains. One of the Unseelie dropped the comb I'd given him earlier. Bars raced up toward the ceiling, so quickly that the blond ponytailed guy ran into them.

The guy with the mask interrupted the duel between the Unseelie captain and the Fey traitor. “You must escape. You must tell Her Majesty—”

Torlauth tried to fly for the door. Himorsal Liior grabbed the Fey traitor's boots and swung him around in a circle. He let go. Torlauth slammed against the ceiling inside the comb cage before plummeting, arms and legs flopping, and knocking down half the villains inside. The last bars clanged against the stone, sealing all of them in.

The Unseelie captain landed lightly, smirking. King Mattanair dropped the glamour over the rest of the humans and swayed slightly, exhausted. Mom slowly started making her way back over to me, but it was hard with so many people celebrating. Brie was doing a happy dance with Dani.

Sarah Thumb cheered too. “Okay, statues. Get out into the courtyard and do your defending thing.”

Metal feet marched. The training courts echoed with their ringing steps. Two lines streamed out the door, down the corridor, and into the sunshine. Sarah Thumb and Mr. Swallow sailed down the hallway after them.

The guy with the mask tried to rattle the bars, but the cage didn't budge. Most of his men were too shocked to move. I wasn't even sure Torlauth was
breathing
.

The staff students were looking a little stunned themselves. Amy in particular—I don't think she'd expected the plan to work. Mom still had her sword raised and her eyes narrowed, like she couldn't believe it was over.