Of Enemies and Endings (5 page)

“Yes, I know.” The cat was in a bad mood. Someone must have stepped on her tail again. “Amy Stevens and Maggie Wright, the Director bids me to welcome you to Ever After School. I'm here to bring you to your new home. The young Characters are carrying in your boxes. This way.”

Sometimes the Director
was
helpful. “Mom, can we talk this afternoon?”

“What? You're not coming with us?” Mom asked. The
you plan to leave me alone with a talking cat on my first day here?
part was implied.

“Rory has class in less than five minutes.” Puss's tail flicked again.

“I'm sure they can do without her for
one day
,” Mom said. “I'll write a note to her teachers.”

Puss, Dad, and Brie all paused and looked from Mom to me.

“Oh,” I said, kind of sheepishly. With everything I'd needed to tell them, I'd
known
that something had slipped through the cracks. At least, this explained why Mom never understood why I needed to be at the training courts so often.

“Rory
is
one of the teachers,” Puss said.

“An assistant,” I corrected quickly when disbelief crossed Mom's face.

“Rory, I'm also supposed to tell you that a Canon meeting has been scheduled at noon,” Puss said. “All student representatives need to be there.”

“Got it,” I said, trying not to notice the
why didn't you tell me?
frown coming from Mom and the
why did I have to hear it from a talking cat?
scowl coming from Amy. I started walking away, backward so that I could wave good-bye. “Mom, seriously, we can talk about it when I get home, okay?”

She was going to protest. Her mouth opened, probably to tell me that I
better
not go to some random meeting without seeing her first. I didn't give her a chance. I turned and ran to the training courts.

Chase's group usually met five minutes before the official classes. They liked to get their pick of metal dummies. But they wouldn't be having a lesson if Chase was still away on a mission.

I hoped with all my heart he
had
been on a mission this morning. I wished I didn't. It wasn't right to prefer the option where his life might be in danger.

No. I refused to actually worry about him. Chase and George were the only warriors who could single-handedly slay squadrons of trolls or ice griffins as soon as they woke up. I knew, because Chase had been bragging about doing just that at breakfast twice in the past week.

But if he was just out doing something stupid . . .

I swung around a one-story house and saw the Tree of Hope ahead of me. Under it, at our usual table, was Chase. His sword lay next to his plate, but he didn't look like he'd been in a fight. He was stuffing his face with pastries, right beside his girlfriend, Adelaide.

He hadn't been out on a mission, not today.

hat hard, cold knot settled back into my chest. I stood over the table and crossed my arms.

Adelaide immediately started glaring at me. Nothing new there.

Chase didn't even notice. He shoved a croissant into his mouth. Flaky crumbs fell on the M3 he was watching. I recognized the mirrorcording—he'd filmed it when we rescued a seventh grader and her family from ice griffins in Denver. He stopped the image and rewound it to replay the snippet of me slashing and bashing my way through four ice griffins. He'd isolated dozens of combinations like this one. Then he broke them down into steps and taught them to the group that would be meeting in a few minutes.

I knew all this. I knew how important learning my magic sword's attacks had become to him. But every second I stood there, staring at the top of his head, the knot got colder and tighter.

He should have
been
there this morning.

He should have been fighting beside me, like Lena. Same as he should have been fighting on the rooftop with me a week ago, and fighting the dragons at that tenth grader's house the week before that, and fighting those trolls at Daisy's house last month.

Actually, he and his girlfriend hadn't fought beside the rest of the grade since the skirmish recorded in Chase's M3. In
May
.

Finally, Adelaide cleared her throat.

Chase didn't look up. He reached for another pastry. “I told you, I'm working.”

“Then
stop,
” I said.

His face broke into a grin, one that took up half his face, framed by all his dimples. I didn't understand how my stomach could flip even when I was so angry with him. I didn't understand how he could look so happy to see me when he'd been ignoring our whole grade for months. “Hey! Look at this one. It's a lot like the move we worked out three weeks ago, but different here.” He rewinded the mirrorcorder again, completely oblivious.

Sometimes, he and Adelaide acted like we weren't in the middle of a war.

“Where were you?” I hated how my voice shook.

“I took him to this cute little bakery around the corner from my old house,” Adelaide said, with a touch of triumph. “They have the best croissants ever.”

I stared at Chase, who just looked confused. The knot in my chest was so tight that it hurt to breathe.

Rory, if you're in trouble, I'll always come for you,
he'd said during Miriam's quest. Just three months ago. I had expected Chase's “always” to last longer than that.

“Was I right?” called a voice behind us. Daisy stalked down the row between the houses, carrying a cardboard box toward the door to the student apartments. Conner and Kyle flanked her, carrying boxes of their own. “Were they getting coffee again?”

Guilt flashed across Adelaide's face. She had missed just as many fights as Chase had, but I was pretty sure she only felt bad about Daisy's family. “Someone else is moving?” she asked, obviously hoping her friend would start talking to her again.

Daisy just glowered at Adelaide.

Chase slowly realized what happened. All the blood drained from his face, and he went bone white. “Who got attacked?”

“Me,” I said. “The Wolfsbane clan.”

“Oh,” Adelaide said with relief. “I thought it was Candice.”

“Candice moved two weeks ago,” said Conner, like he couldn't believe Adelaide was so out of the loop.

“Yeah. We're the only ones in our grade who haven't moved here yet,” Kyle said.

That wasn't completely true. Alvin Collins—the Character who had just joined our grade at Christmas—had moved to Hong Kong with his family and transferred to the Asian chapter of Ever After School.

We never mentioned him though, or any of the other families who fled as far as they could to avoid the Snow Queen.

“Maybe Dad will finally change his mind and let us move,” Conner said hopefully.

“Why didn't anyone tell me?” Chase said, like he was ticked off. He had no right.

“How? No one could
find
you.” I couldn't keep the anger out of my voice this time. I could feel Kyle, Conner, and Daisy staring at me. So much for convincing them that I wasn't upset.

Chase's face paled even more. I didn't know that was possible. “I left my M3 in my room. I just ran up to get it.”

I wanted to lay into him. I wanted to tell him that he'd been as flaky and self-centered as his girlfriend. I wanted to say that we were depending on him and that he kept letting us down.

The others would back me up. That was the problem. The rest of the rising ninth graders were losing patience with these two. If I let loose on them, the others would do the same. It would break our whole grade apart, and we couldn't afford that.

Chase was part of the Triumvirate. He, Lena, and I were stronger together, just like Rikard, Madame Benne, and Maerwynne—the first Triumvirate, the one that had founded the Canon—had been.

We needed him, or otherwise, the Snow Queen really would win.

I took a deep breath. The knot in my chest didn't loosen, but I forced my voice to be as neutral as possible. “Well, at least no one was hurt. Your group has a session soon, right? Did you still want to go through that drill before then?”

That was all I needed to say. Conner and Kyle moved off with their boxes, but before Daisy followed them, she shot me an irritated glare, like I'd disappointed
her
by letting Chase off the hook.

I didn't wait for Chase to answer. “I'm going to the training courts to set up,” I said. I walked away, pretending I didn't care if he followed me or not.

Behind me, I could hear him struggling to his feet, cursing in Fey like he only does when he's really rattled.

“Chase, it's fine,” Adelaide said. “At least finish your breakfast.”

Heavy footfalls thumped toward me. Then Chase's hand fell on my arm. It was probably wrong to feel glad that he'd come after me, but I did. I looked up. He'd grown more than a couple inches since spring. It still made me feel like my best friend had been replaced with a stranger.

He was standing too close, his eyes as green as they had been when we were dancing at Queen Titania's pavilion. “Are you really okay?”

“Yeah.” I resisted the urge to add,
No thanks to you
. Kenneth and Bryan were passing, carrying an unconscious, bound witch on a stretcher toward the dungeon.

Some fifth graders had clustered outside the iron-studded door to the training courts, waiting for their lessons and chatting with huge, eager smiles. The younger kids treated these classes just like summer camp. “Excuse me, please,” I told them. They skittered away, watching us, wide-eyed and awed. I broke out of Chase's grasp, opened the door, and went inside.

He followed me down the hall that separated the courtyard and the training courts. I slammed through the second door.

The training courts had grown, just as the courtyard had. The entire army of metal dummies stood guard along the walls. The Director wanted them out at all times, in case of an attack.

Frowning, Chase beckoned three ice griffins forward. Lena had made them for EAS's standing army. They couldn't fly or freeze water with their breath, but their claws and beaks were plenty sharp—last week, they'd ruined my favorite blue top.

I barely even glanced at them.

Chase had his time with his girlfriend, and he had his time with me. I'd accepted that, but I couldn't stand the way it had changed him.

This used to be my favorite part of the day. Once, it had been easy to pretend that nothing had changed. Except for the dummies, it could still be spring. We could still be training for the Tournament. I could forget about my Tale and my destiny and Miriam's Tale—

I stopped myself. I refused to think too hard about the quest in the Arctic Circle, especially when Chase was around.

“Rory.” Chase planted himself right in front of me, but I didn't want to look at him. “On a scale of one to ten, how mad are you?”

I didn't answer. “Mad” didn't cover what I felt, but I didn't know what you called it when you were standing right beside your best friend and still felt like you'd lost him. I didn't know how to explain that I fully expected the Snow Queen to send people after me again, and I fully expected him not to be there.

“Rory, I didn't
know
you were in trouble.” His mouth twisted, frustrated and unsure. “I'm sorry. I wish I'd been there.”

He meant it. I knew he did. But he'd also meant what he'd said in the Arctic Circle, and that hadn't stopped today from happening.

“Outside, you said no one had been hurt . . .” Chase said slowly. “But we had to jump off a train to get away from the Wolfsbane clan last time. How close was it, really?”

“I thought I wouldn't be able to get Amy out of there.” My hands began to shake. “I thought I was going to have to surrender to keep her safe. I almost did.”

“Rory . . .” He took a step closer to me, arms outstretched, like he was going to hug me. That set off little warning bells in my head.