Of Enemies and Endings (31 page)

“Beautifully executed,” I told them.

At this, Torlauth snarled inside the cage. He was alive after all.

“Speak for yourself, human,” said a Fey knight, pulling on his helmet. “I have never maintained a glamour for others before, and I have no desire to do it again. You say the Turnleaf has maintained such glamours often?”

“For hours,” I said, trying not to sound as braggy as Chase. I looked at Himorsal Liior. The knights were watching him too. Some of them looked a little put out that they hadn't used their swords very much. The Fey captain had never given me a straight answer about whether or not he was joining the battle outside.

“I am sorry, my king,” Himorsal Liior said heavily, like disobeying a royal order made him almost as big a traitor as Torlauth. “The invaders here are the very same forces who destroyed our home. I cannot fail to stand against them again. I cannot hide here.”

King Mattanair nodded slowly. He didn't say it was okay, but he didn't condemn them either.

Himorsal Liior flicked a hand. The knights swooped out the door and over the marching statues to the courtyard. Only two flew over to their king to stand guard, and they looked very surly about being left out of the fight.

Quietly, almost to himself, the king said, “It is what Dyani would have wanted.”

I sighed. Yep, I definitely felt bad, but I didn't regret it. I would just have to apologize when our lives
weren't
in danger.

I turned back to the staff class. “You'll do what we talked about, right?”

“We'll stay and defend the king.” Priya still didn't sound happy about it.

“And everyone else,” Amy said.

I grabbed her hand and dropped my second-to-last comb into it. “Can you stand guard at the door? If it looks like someone will get in again, throw this across the threshold. It'll trap you in here, but—”

“We'll be trapped but safe, like before,” she said.

“Thanks, Amy.” If I'd given the comb to Priya or Kelly, they might have let a few more bad guys in here, just to get a little more action.

Mom arrived beside us. “What now?”

I didn't ask her to stay here. I thought about it, but she would just say no. Besides, Chase was right about me needing backup. “We go out there and help,” I said.

The statues were gone. The path back to the courtyard was clear.

We dashed down it and ducked out into the sunshine.

Four metal dragons had taken on a real one. Two had chunks melted off their backs, but the living
Draconus melodious
had a dozen bite marks up and down its flanks. Another metal dragon tried to close its jaws over the gold scales at its throat.

One lone figure had taken on two squadrons of trolls in hockey masks. He didn't move as fluidly as the Itari fighters, but he was just as brutal and efficient as he tore through their ranks. It was Jack, Champion of the Canon.

Farther along, the Fey knights had flown up to take on the ice griffins. From the look of it, even just a day of Itari practice had paid off. We passed metal wolves fighting some goblins and turned around the corner of a brick house.

Lena guarded the library door, retractable staff held at the ready, but she wasn't using it. Her Axes and Swords of Destruction flashed in the sun, keeping at least fifty goblins occupied.

“What happened to take the book and run?” I called.

The grim scowl on Lena's face faded. “Some goblins followed me to the back entrance,” she said, clearly relieved to see me. “I had to improvise.”

“Are you good here?” I said.

“Rumpelstiltskin is defending the back with the sabers.” Lena waved me on. “We have this under control. Check on the prisons. It sounded like the witches got out.”

My heart squeezed.
Chase.
He didn't have his wings. That cut his dodging abilities in half. I sprinted, cutting down an alley toward the dungeons. Mom kept up, for a little while. She started to lag and grabbed my elbow to make sure I didn't pull too far ahead. By then, we'd rounded the edge of the houses.

The prison entrance was in sight.

The witches of the Wolfsbane clan
had
escaped their cells, but they hadn't gotten past the exit. Some human spearmen had surrounded them. They'd flipped the Table of Never Ending Instant Refills on its side and turned it into a barricade. Dad was there. He didn't see us. The Wolfsbane witches were shooting off dozens of spells. Diving from above, Chase's mom snatched one of the witches from the doorway, ripped the wand from the flailing witch's hand, and flew up again, almost as high as the Tree of Hope. Then she dropped the witch.

While the Wolfsbane clan was distracted, the EAS Itari force inched closer to the entrance, hiding behind shields made out of iron bars.

“Lena finished making magical shields?” I said, surprised.

Maybe I shouldn't have spoken. The second the witches all spotted me, they let out that awful screech-caw sound. Istalina pointed her wand in our direction.

Mom knocked me to the ground just in time. A passing troll ten feet behind us turned to stone.

“Rufus found the shields and brought them to us.” When I looked up, someone else was crouching right in front of us. Orange wings flickered in and out of view. Chase. He was okay. “Unfortunately, the shields can only take three or four hits. It would be great if we had some Water of Life in case any of us get enchanted.”

I spat out a mouthful of grass.

“Is that a polite hint for me to go cover the Director's office instead?” I asked, slightly irritated. As much as I would have liked to fight with Chase, I could tell it was a terrible idea. Half of the witches were still screeching death threats at me.

Chase glanced back. “It wasn't that polite.”

“It was for
you
.” I spotted a swallow fluttering overhead. “Hey, Sarah. These guys could use some cover. Got any extra dragon dummies?”

Five metal wolves and two metal dragons galloped toward the dungeon door. The Wolfsbane clan spelled a few to stone, but the humans on the ground gained about fifteen yards in ten seconds.

“Great. Thanks.” Without looking away from the witches, he helped me to my feet and passed the shield to me. “Now get out of here.”

“Wait! You can't just walk back unprotected,” I hissed.

“I won't.” Instead, he flew, rolling midair to avoid whatever the witches blasted at him. His wings didn't cut out until he was ten feet from the Itari fighters. He let himself tumble the rest of the way and rolled back up next to Rufus. The elf passed him another shield.

“He shouldn't take risks like that,” I said, furious, leading Mom to safety. A spell sizzled across the shield, and then another. A third one turned the iron bars to stone, but by then we'd reached Little Red Riding Hood's tiny bungalow at the edge of the courtyard. I dumped the shield and we kept running. “Sometimes I swear, I could just—”

“We'll get you some chocolate cake to throw at him later,” Mom said, not quite smiling. “Which way to the Director's office?”

We jogged again, my calves protesting with every step. We
did
need to end this soon. I couldn't be the only one tired.

When we reached the office, the triplets were dragging the Director outside the amethyst door.

“You don't understand!” The Director tried to free her arms from Kevin and Conner's grip. “She mustn't get her hands on the Water of Life.”

“She won't,” Kyle told her. An ice griffin reared in the doorway and slashed with its sharp talons. He slayed it swiftly, jabbing his spear into its heart. “The stepsisters said they would grab it.”

But then the stepsisters stumbled out. Tina had gotten an ice griffin blast directly to the face. Her skin was white and waxy, her eyes squeezed shut, her lashes laced with icicles.

“It's all right,” said Vicky, who didn't look all right. Talons had sliced open the shoulder of her T-shirt. Blood soaked the torn edges. Paul kept glancing at the wound anxiously, but he had his hands full, half-carrying Tina. I ran over to her other side and wrapped her arm over my shoulders, helping her walk to the others.

“Where is it?” the Director asked. “Where is the Water?”

“We had to get out. It's too small to fight in there,” said Vicky. “Is it worth saving the Water of Life if we die trying to get it?”

“Do you recall how much damage she caused with just two bottles of Water?” the Director asked. “Can you imagine what she'll do with all of it?”

“Calm down, Mildred. We'll get it back.” Gretel emerged, leaning hard on Daisy. I couldn't see where she was hurt, but her dress was spotted with blood. Mom hurried over to help her. “We've blocked off the back exit. They'll have to come through here to reach the portal.”

Adelaide stumbled outside and turned back to fire off three quick shots through the doorway. Something shrieked. The rest of the archers in our grade darted out. “That's all of us and all the ice griffins, too.”

“That leaves the wolves,” Kyle told me.

Wolves didn't always use a portal to get home. “Do they have those cuff things?” I said, helping Tina to sit in the grass. Her lashes were melting. One eye was half-open.

“I disabled them,” said Gretel. “It took all the sorcery I possess.”

I waved my last comb at them. “I say we seal them in, and then we take care of their exit over there.” I pointed toward the student apartments, where Chase had said the portal was. They all glanced that way.

The Director went as white as Tina. “No,” she breathed. “Not here.”

I didn't recognize Likon at first. I'd never seen an ice giant shrunken down to a mere seven feet. He leered at me, and I wondered why Solange was so attached to blue-skinned villains with bad dental problems.

Someone else glided through the portal after him. Her long pale blond hair was braided into a coronet under an icicle crown. Her first step onto the EAS courtyard frosted the grass white in a twenty-foot circle around her. My heart stopped.

The Snow Queen.

blinked and Likon rocketed up five feet. In another breath, he was as tall as the wall behind him. By the time Adelaide spotted him and screamed, he was his usual height—huge and blue and coming straight at us.

A one-eyed wolf loped in behind the Snow Queen, his sides matted with dried blood. Ripper. Then an old green-skinned woman with a metal cane and an eye patch, followed by a green-skinned man who was just as ugly as she was. The Searcasters, who immediately started to expand to their usual giant selves.

A lumpy figure flew through on wings the color of concrete. He grew as he soared toward the prisons. Ori'an.

My body felt the fear that showed on the Director's face, and Adelaide's and Gretel's. I was too petrified to even scream.

We were out of time. The pillars would reach full size in a few seconds. We were
really
outmatched now. We needed to get the Water of Life back, and we needed to get it back now.

The Snow Queen had raised a hand toward a pack of our metal dragon dummies, and a sheet of ice grew around them, trapping the moving statues mid-snarl. That wouldn't keep her busy for long.

“How many wolves are left in there?” I said.

Gretel recovered the fastest. “Ten to fifteen.”

I could take that many. I'd taken a hundred once. “Okay, here's what I want us to do—”

“Aurora, it's all over.” The Director couldn't drag her gaze off the Snow Queen. “You don't know what she's like. The second she entered this place, the battle was lost.”

Screams rippled through the courtyard as the Searcasters grew two stories tall, then four. Ripper bounded through metal wolf statues, scattering more as he got bigger. This
was
bad. But we didn't need our grown-ups to give up. We needed them to be brave. Courage was catching as much as fear was.

They were all looking at me, the kids in my grade. If
I
freaked, the way the Director was freaking . . . “The battle isn't as important as the war,” I said, as evenly as I could. “We need the Water—”