[Half/Time 01] Half Upon a Time (25 page)

“Give it a try,” Jack said, his whole body shaking both from nervousness and from the dragon’s continued struggle. “You,” he said to the dragon, “don’t move unless I say so.”

This cut out the shaking altogether, though Malevolent continued to shriek furiously every now and then. A few feet away the princess propped the Mirror up against a charred portion of the wall, removed her crown necklace, then pushed it into the Mirror’s frame, both hands shaking as she did so.

Immediately, the flat face of the genie surfaced on the Mirror’s glass as if it were emerging from underwater. The fire in its eyes glowed with a white-hot intensity, and the look it shot May could have burned what was left of the room.

But then, the genie turned its eyes downward with an almost respectful look.

“How may I serve you?” it asked the princess.

“Stay,” Jack ordered the dragon.

The dragon let out another howl.

“And stop the screaming,” Jack added absently, and the howling stopped immediately. He tossed a leg over the dragon’s neck, then slid down her body to the floor. He could feel Malevolent’s green eyes boring into the back of his head, but he ignored her.

“Uh, Jack?” Phillip said, still chained to the wall. “Might you have a moment to release me?”

“Phillip!” May said, turning away from the Mirror for the first time since the genie spoke to her. “Oh my God, I can’t believe we didn’t—”

“I’ve got him,” Jack said to her. “Just ask the Mirror your
question before anything else comes up.” He hurdled the charred remains of a chair, then pushed half a table out of his way to reach the prince.

Sadly, Phillip didn’t look too good. Between the torture and the dragon’s fire, Jack was actually surprised the prince was still conscious. As it was, one of his eyes was swollen shut, and the rest of his face was a mess of purple and red. His expensive royal clothes hadn’t survived any better—there were more tears and rips in his tunic than there were clean spots. And beneath those rips and tears were more bruises and cuts.

“We’ll get you fixed up, Phillip,” Jack said softly as he carefully sliced through the prince’s manacles with the witch’s knife.

The prince smiled, then winced at the pain. “I would like to say I have been through worse … but it hardly seems the most appropriate moment to begin telling lies.”

“Nice,” Jack said, then gently helped Phillip to his feet. On the other side of the room, May took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and asked her question.

“Mirror,” she said slowly, “please tell me where my grandmother is.”

“Your grandmother is imprisoned within the Palace of the Snow Queen,”
the Mirror replied in its monotone voice.

“That must be one of Snow White’s strongholds,” Phillip said as Jack set him down next to May. Jack then moved back to Malevolent, whose eyes hadn’t left him the entire time.

Despite the success of the reins, Jack didn’t like this situation at all. Magic had a tendency to fail … and usually at the worst possible time.

“Unfortunately, no one knows where those fortresses might be,” Phillip continued. “The locations were kept secret to keep the Wicked Queen from finding them.” He shook his head. “Apparently, that was in vain, if the Wicked Queen now holds your grandmother in one of her own castles.”

“Where is the Palace of the Snow Queen located?” May asked the Mirror, carefully wording her question. Jack nodded in approval: The princess was learning. It was never good to be ambiguous with bitter magical creatures.

“The Palace of the Snow Queen,” the Mirror said, “is located in the snowbound lands at the very top of the world, surrounded by mountains higher than the clouds.”

“Uh-oh,” Jack said.

“So, how do we get there?” May asked, panic edging into her voice.

“The palace is unreachable under your power,” the Mirror responded.

“What?!” May shouted.

The Mirror repeated itself, and this time, Jack could have sworn the genie smiled.

“Wait, May,” Jack said. “That doesn’t mean we can’t get to it. It’s just saying we can’t walk there. There’s obviously another way to get there without physically traveling the distance. After all, the Huntsman’s been there and back again, right?”

“Mirror!” May said. “No messing around … Is that right? Has the Huntsman been to the palace and back? And if so, how’d he do it?”

“The Huntsman has indeed traveled to and from the palace,” the Mirror stated. “He does so through the use of magic abilities that lie beyond your power.”

May growled in frustration. “I’m gonna break this thing again in about two seconds!” she yelled.

“That can’t be the only way,” Jack said to Phillip, since May seemed to be off on her own tangent.

“Perhaps we could find Merriweather,” Phillip said. “Once she has healed herself, she might transport us to the palace.”

“And how long would that take?!” May said, whirling around on Phillip. “My grandmother doesn’t have that kind of time!”

From behind, a deep rumbling startled all three of them. Jack whirled to find Malevolent laughing softly to herself.

“I thought I told you to be quiet,” he said, narrowing his eyes.

“You said to stop screaming, young lord,” the dragon said, and laughed harder. “Poor little humans … can’t find their way to one of their own castles.”

“Jack, if you don’t shut her up …,” May warned.

“You will what?” Malevolent said, her mouth pulling back into a smile, revealing her disgustingly sharp teeth. “Poor little princess. If only you had a way to the Palace of the Snow Queen, your grandmother might have yet lived. But now …”

“What do you know about it?” Jack said.

“Why, nothing, of course!” the dragon said, with an indignant hiss.

“She knows something,” Phillip said, and Jack nodded.

Jack climbed onto the dragon’s back and took the magic reins in his hands again. “Answer me truthfully,” Jack ordered her. “Can you take us to the Palace of the Snow Queen?”

Without struggling in the least, the dragon responded. “Of course,” she said. “Though I will not.”

“Yes, you will,” May said, grabbing the Mirror and shoving it into Jack’s grandfather’s bag. “Wolf, help me get Phillip onto her back.”

“I tell you, I will not help,” the dragon said again. Jack stared at her suspiciously. She had to know he could order her. Why give them the idea in the first place?

“Mellifluent, you
will
transport us all to the Palace of the Snow Queen,” he said. He paused, then added, “Including yourself.”

That did it. “There is no reason for
me
to go!” Malevolent said furiously, sounding as if she wanted to scream but still bound by Jack’s earlier command. “The spell doesn’t allow me to go along—”

“Are you lying?” Jack asked quietly.

“… Yes!”
Malevolent hissed, and her whole body shook so hard Jack almost tumbled off. “I
will
transport us all, little human, but I swear on my last breath I shall hunt all of you down, and your mothers shall cry when they hear tales of what I’ve done.”

“Right, right, mothers crying, whatever,” May said, pulling herself up behind Jack, then turning around to help pull Phillip up. After they’d secured the prince, May reached down to help up the wolf, but the animal, still in human form, hesitated, a
growl rumbling in the back of his throat. Suddenly, Jack remembered the wolf’s earlier words.

“You said she betrayed your mistress,” Jack said to the wolf. “She betrayed Snow White somehow, didn’t she?” The animal just stared at him, not responding. “That explains how she knows where the Palace of the Snow Queen is,” Jack continued. “She’s been there before. Is that true, Mellifluent?”

“Yes,” the dragon hissed. “I have been to the palace. And I will take you. But only if you release me after I do so!”

“So you can hunt us down and make our mothers cry?” May said as the wolf slowly climbed up behind Phillip. “Not likely. You’ll be lucky if you make it out of this alive.”

“Oh, I will live,” the dragon said. “Believe me. And we will meet again, much sooner than you think.”

“Right,” May said. “Whatever you say there, Puff. We’re all ready to go, so let’s get a move on!” And then she kicked her heels into the dragon twice. “Giddyup!”

The dragon hissed again, but didn’t move.

“What’s the hold up, Malleable?” May said with another kick. “I’m serious, let’s go!”

“I … cannot … move,” Malevolent growled furiously, “until the young human—”

“Oh!” Jack said. “Sorry!” May smacked him on the back of his head, but he let it go. “Okay, Mellifluent, you can move … but
only
enough to get us to the Palace of the Snow Queen. Got it?”

Then Jack kicked the dragon too, just for the heck of it. He figured that might not be the smartest idea, but frankly, it was just too tempting to resist.

The dragon hissed in rage, but began chanting quietly. The entire room started to shimmer in time to Malevolent’s harmony, a rainbow of colors melting in and out of their vision.

Jack shuddered with excitement. They were finally going to rescue May’s grandmother!

Except … it occurred to him that they’d been so focused on finding May’s grandmother, they’d neglected to think about who they’d have to face to rescue her.

The Wicked Queen.

Now Jack shivered for a different reason. Jack, May, Phillip, and the Wolf King—the four of them were going to personally face down the Wicked Queen? They were going to fight the woman whose armies had conquered half the world, the woman who would have ruled over the
entire
world if not for Snow White? This was the woman whose dark spirits and demons terrified people everywhere at just their mention, the woman who
controlled armies of dragons purely by the strength of her own magic. This was the woman whom the greatest heroes in the world had failed to defeat.

This was the woman who waited for them in the Palace of the Snow Queen.

As the blackened walls of the room melted into a blinding white cloud of snow and cold, Jack had just enough time to wonder if any of them would make it out alive before everything went dark.

Jack woke up facedown in a snowdrift, and for a second—before the cold cut through his shock—he wondered exactly how many times he was going to be knocked out during this quest. Then the shock wore off, and his attention shifted immediately to the fact that he couldn’t feel most of his body, and that he’d never been so cold in his entire life.

All around him the wind swirled and eddied, spinning snow into whirlwinds of wintery blankness. As a result, Jack couldn’t see more than a foot or two in front of him. Beyond that, it was as if someone had dropped a curtain of pure white. More important, though, Jack also quickly discovered that besides being blind, he also couldn’t move. He glanced down and quickly realized why.

He was sunk up to his chest in snow.

“Hello?”
he screamed out to the nothing all around him, but got no reply. He tried to kick his feet, but neither of his legs would move. After a bit of shifting, he was able to pull his arms out of the snow, then free his lower body through a combination of pushing with his arms and creating toeholds with his feet.

Soon he found himself lying on top of the snow instead of beneath it, completely exhausted by the effort to free himself.
“Hello!”
he screamed again, trying to be heard over the biting wind, but again received no response.

Where was May? And Phillip and the Wolf King? If nothing else, he should have seen the dragon, as enormous as Malevolent was. How had they ended up separated?

Jack dropped his stinging hands back onto the snow, then pushed himself to his feet—at least, as well as he could in the snowdrift. Once he was sure of his balance, he stumbled forward, exposed hands buried in his underarms to try to regain some feeling. His face was also exposed, but there wasn’t much he could do about that; besides, the rest of his body wasn’t exactly a whole lot warmer.

“Hello!”
he screamed a third time, but still heard nothing. Then a thought occurred to him.
“Mellifluent!”
he yelled out at
the top of his lungs. “If you can hear me,
get over here
!” If she heard and was still under the control of the reins …

Just like that, the ground shook as a monstrous shape plowed through the snow toward him. The shape was just a few feet from him before he could fully make out that it was Malevolent … not that the dragon seemed to be stopping. Instead, she rushed toward him at full speed, snow flying wildly around her, a vicious smile on her face.

“Stop!”
he screamed at her. “That’s close enough!”

The dragon swore in multiple languages, but did come skidding to a stop, the snow piling in front of her as she did, knocking Jack right off his feet.

“Where is everyone?” he asked her as he worked through the tedious process of getting back to his feet.

The dragon snarled, then growled, “They are all foundering, just as you were.”

“Well, rescue them, then!”

The dragon stared at him, then dropped her head and began to chant her musical magic. Just like that, Jack could hear the ever-present howling of the wind had stopped. The reason why became readily apparent: Surrounding them in every direction was a dome of green light crackling with lightning.

The dome seemed solid, yet Jack could see through it to the wind swirling on the other side. The dome wasn’t just keeping out the wind, Jack felt heat emanating off it.

“Thank you,” he said to the dragon, who just glared at him with murder in her eyes. He decided to ignore that for now, and started searching the area for the others instead. As it turned out, none of them had been too far away; the wolf had landed closest to Jack, just over a hill of snow from where Jack had woken up. The Wolf King was awake and had even managed to dig himself most of the way out, so Jack helped finish the job as fast as he could.

Next, Jack and the wolf found May, who had somehow managed to avoid being buried in the snow, landing on the sheltered side of a snowdrift. It looked like May’s fairy had been thrown from her perch when they’d arrived, but had snuggled back up into the princess’s hair to try to stay warm. Jack quickly woke May, and she seemed to be fine, if freezing.