Of Giants and Ice (Ever Afters, The) (37 page)

It didn’t matter anymore that I wasn’t special. There wasn’t anyone else.

“Yeah, actually,” I admitted. “If it’ll keep her from getting what she wants. If it’ll keep her in prison.”

A long moment passed.

“Me too,” he said softly, and I smiled in the dark, glad that I wouldn’t be going in alone.

didn’t mean to fall asleep again, but I think my dream had something to tell me.

It was exactly the same as it had been before—the beanstalk in my hands and Ever After School far below and Chase next to me, half his shirt red with blood. In the dream, I knew Lena was climbing too, but she was way ahead, almost to the ground already.

I looked down. A flicker of color circled right above the Tree of Hope.

My hand slipped from the leaf, and Chase fell with me, screaming.

“I can’t save us now!” he shouted over the wind.

I didn’t answer, but I turned midair, bending my legs under me.

The strangest thing was that I felt no fear—only a grim sort of determination.

•  •  •

“We’re going in.”

Lena stood over me. Bags had formed under her eyes, but her hands were on her hips, her chin jutting out, the way she gets when she’s ready for anything.

“We were hoping you’d say that,” Chase said, already on his feet and rolling up his sleeping bag.

Very groggily, I stood too, tripped over a twig on the way to
my backpack, and stuffed my sleeping bag inside.

“So, this is what I’m thinking.” Lena shoved her sleeping bag into my pack with so much gusto that I sleepily stumbled back a step. “There’s no way the others will get up here in time. First of all, the Canon takes
forever
to decide anything.” Chase handed me his sleeping bag, much neater than mine and Lena’s. “Second of all, the Snow Queen’s bound to ramp up her attacks now that Jimmy and Matilda are back. I’m
sure
General Searcaster told her. Also, I don’t believe for a minute that Matilda cut her vacation short just because she forgot a bill. She either didn’t trust
us
or she didn’t trust her mother-in-law, but it’s too much of a coincidence that she headed straight for the desk.”

Nodding, I zipped my backpack closed.

“Besides,” said Lena, “Rapunzel said we should take all the time we need.”

Chase stared at Lena. “You talk a lot in the morning.”

“Afternoon,” Lena corrected.

I smiled. “She’s excited.”

“Do we have everything? This way!” Lena started toward the front door. “There’s no point in crossing the whole kitchen if we don’t have to.”

“There is if someone tied up their guard dragon in front of that mousehole,” Chase said, pointing through the leaves. A tail with green and gold scales lashed on the front step.

Lena spun on her heel and marched off in the other direction. Chase and I hurried after her. “That’s okay. We’re more familiar with the kitchen anyway.”

“If we’re going to be in the kitchen, could we—”

“No, Chase. We’re not stealing food.” Lena ducked into the other mousehole. “We don’t have time.”

Chase made a face and followed her. “You’re very determined.”

“I had this dream,” Lena said, as we came out under the fridge. “I think I figured out how I can get this to work.”

“Are you going to share?” I asked, glad that
someone
on our trip had a helpful dream for once.

Lena grinned over her shoulder at me. “Get ready. We’re running.”

“I guess we don’t have time to hide, either,” Chase grumbled. “Crap.”

We looked, and Lena had already run past the kitchen table. We took off too.

“Should we be concerned?” Chase asked.

“You tell me. You’re the one who’s been on ten Tales.” Of course I was a
little
worried, but Lena’s fearless leader mode was a major improvement over her zombie mode.

“Six. I’ve never seen Lena like this, though.”

I shrugged. “When she decides to be reckless, she goes all out—Uh-oh.”

Halfway down the hall, Lena swerved into Matilda’s office without even turning back to check where we were.

“Matty!” Jimmy called from inside the office.

Lena shouldn’t be in there all alone
. I ran faster, but then Matilda came jogging down the hall, a can of bug spray dangling from her hands. It was as long as an SUV. I froze.

She hadn’t seen us yet, but if she looked down, she couldn’t avoid noticing me and Chase, pressed up against the door across from the office.

“There’s nowhere to hide,” I whispered. The hallway had no furniture, no convenient mouseholes. Matilda was almost close enough to trample us.

Chase pointed. The door we leaned against was open a tiny crack, just wide enough for a human kid to get through. I sidestepped inside, ready to run out again as soon as Matilda’s back was turned. Unfortunately, Chase had other ideas. He shoved the giant door shut behind us.

“Hey!” The room was so dark that I couldn’t see him, but I glared in his general direction. “We need to help Lena.”

“We can’t help her if we get caught,” Chase reminded me. “Or stepped on. We can pick a good moment and roll under the door.”

Still annoyed, I pressed my ear to the door.

Chase sniffed. “Sulfur?”

Matilda’s footsteps turned sharply as she ran into the office.

“I asked for the flyswatter, not the spray,” Jimmy said, exasperated.

“Do you hear that?” Chase asked.

On our side of the door, something—or several somethings—hummed in the dark. It sounded familiar—like the
Jaws
theme, but with one extra hissing note, a few octaves higher than Sparkia’s version. I should have realized what they meant right away, but I was a little distracted by what was happening in the office.

I couldn’t hear what Matilda said, but then Jimmy shouted, “He’s too quick for the spray. I need the flyswatter. Or the ax. The ax would work on him.”

“Him,”
I repeated, relieved. “The Snow Queen must’ve sent somebody else. Maybe they haven’t seen Lena yet.”

“Rory, this isn’t the time to be worrying about other people,” Chase said in a low voice.

Flame bloomed less than twenty feet from us. Green and gold scales glittered and faded into the darkness. Spots danced in front of my eyes, and the humming intensified.

“
Draconus melodius.
They don’t usually move in a herd,” Chase whispered. “I think we just walked into a litter of dragons.”

“Don’t tell me that Sparkia’s a mom,” I said, horrified.

Chase was ahead of me, closer to the danger. “We should have guessed there was more than one. Remember Solange’s letter?
‘My darlings’
? And I bet the mouseholes were dragonet holes.”

“At least they’re smaller.”
We survived the Glass Mountain,
I reminded myself as my pulse thumped in my ears.
We could survive a bunch of overgrown lizards.
“And they stopped humming.”

“So? The young ones are always hungry,” Chase said. I heard scales slide on the ground, but I couldn’t see anything. “This fight is going to suck in the dark.”

That was the lightbulb moment—the
magical
lightbulb moment.
The young will lie in the dark
. I pulled my pack in front of me.

One baby dragon started to growl.

“That means they’re about to attack,” said Chase. As I dug frantically in my pack’s front pocket, his sword rasped out of its scabbard. “Crap.”

There was movement, and then the sound of a sword against scales, and then answering growls from the other dragons. “Go,” Chase said. “Crawl under the door. I’ll try to buy you some time.”

Obviously, someone woke up in a self-sacrificing mood.

“Don’t be so dramatic.” My hand closed over the glass vial. I ripped it out, held it to my mouth, and whistled.

It flared to life, filling the room with white light. There were nine dragons, each only ten feet long from tail to snout.

“That’s helpful.” Chase slashed at a pair of jaws that nipped too close. He leaped into the air to give himself some distance, but he didn’t see the dragon at his back rear up on its hind legs.

“Behind you!” I shouted, pointing.

It was too late. The closest dragon lunged forward and sank its long gray teeth into Chase’s shoulder. He screamed.

“Chase!” I ran forward, Rapunzel’s light in one hand and my sword in the other.

Suddenly, everything else was in slow motion, and the runner’s high returned.

It was the exact same feeling I’d gotten when I realized that Ferdinand wanted to kill Lena—a fierce, clearheaded rage. By myself, I might have been baby dragon food, but I wasn’t going to let Chase get killed.

If I had to fight off a bunch of baby dragons to make sure that happened, then bring the dragons on.

One dragon swiped at me, its claws extended. I slashed without slowing, and it howled.

Thank goodness for magic swords.

The dragon that had Chase shook its head, like a puppy playing with a chew toy. Chase yelled again, moving his sword from his right hand to his left. He tried to stab at its eye, but the angle was too awkward. Another dragon reached up to nip at his dangling legs.

I rolled to dodge the teeth of the baby dragon on my right, spinning until I knelt in front of the dragon trying to eat Chase’s legs, and I shoved my sword into its chest. It gave a rattling sort of honk and started to topple over. I pulled my sword out as it fell and stepped on its shoulder, using it as leverage as I leaped toward the one biting Chase. As I fell back toward the floor, I pressed my sword down on its neck, the way I remembered George doing in Yellowstone. Its head thudded to the floor, and Chase fell with it.

“Ugh,” Chase said breathlessly.

“We have to get out of the way.” I shoved my sword between the teeth of the beheaded baby dragon, prying the jaws open. “The bodies are going to combust.”

Chase cried out again as the teeth left his shoulder with a sucking sound. “No, they won’t. Only one of them is old enough to breathe fire. Otherwise, we’d already be cooked—Crap, look out!”

Another dragon jumped toward us, its teeth open wide. I ducked and popped up on its other side to stab it through the eye. Something slimy covered the back of my hand, and I gagged, pulling back. It slid to the floor, its scales rasping across the tile.

“Three down,” Chase said hoarsely, standing up. He held the teeth-marks with his good hand. The fabric at his shoulder was already soaked with blood. We had to get down the beanstalk fast. He needed medical attention.

The six remaining dragons stood between us and the door. They eyed their fallen siblings and growled. It definitely looked bleak.

“I guess this is the part where I go, ‘Run. Save yourself,’” Chase said in a small voice.

“You already did that,” I pointed out. “Besides, we’ve just started to get along. I can’t let you get eaten now.”

“Thanks, Rory,” Chase said, and even though he was trying to be sarcastic, he did sound grateful.

I shoved Rapunzel’s light toward him. “Hold this. How long do you think we have until Matilda and Jimmy come over to see why they’re so noisy?”

“I’m sure the giants are preoccupied with the new intruder. If they hear anything, they’ll probably think the litter is play-fighting. Dragonets do that, you know—same as puppies. And believe me—not even a giant wants to get in the middle of a dragonet scuffle.”

The littermates started to move into a semicircle around us,
their claws clicking on the hard floor. I didn’t know any puppies that did that.

“Lucky us,” I muttered.

“Don’t even worry about killing them. We just need to make it to the exit alive.” He sighed. “I’m not going to be much help.”

“You can still run, right?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s helpful.” Evan’s sister hadn’t even been able to do that much.

I stepped in front, wondering when I’d started liking Chase so much that I was willing to die for him.

The biggest dragon, the leader, warbled a long note. It was a signal. The two at the far ends galloped forward.

The faster dragon came straight at us, teeth extended. I dodged and smashed my hilt into its face, right between its eyes. It dropped.