Of Sorcery and Snow (24 page)

Okay. It was official. This conversation had stolen my appetite.

Hadriane broke the silence. “Conviction is a sort of weapon.”

“Even then, you are outmatched, captain,” Forrel replied. “Our people don't know the Snow Queen stole the twins. They know only that she offers us our homeland if we promise to go to the human world and fight for it.”

“Can she do that?” Miriam asked, alarmed.

“She makes a lot of promises like that,” Lena said. “That's how she gets her allies.”

“Too bad we can't just tell her allies the truth about her,” I said, but when everybody's head turned to me, I wished I hadn't. I didn't know what I meant. I fumbled around, thinking out loud. “I mean, she
makes
all these promises, but has she ever delivered? Even once?”

“She will only say that she must win the war before she can dispense what she owes,” Forrel said. Hadriane looked kind of interested, though.

“But she doesn't treat her allies much better than her enemies,” I said. “So she made your people promises. So she gave you guys a city. She also basically held the whole city hostage
and
she kidnapped the heirs to the crown. How many allies has she treated the same way? How many of them haven't spoken out because Solange is such a huge bully?”

“You are forgetting how many of our people are already devoted to the Snow Queen,” said Forrel, not unkindly. “They may believe her if she says that she is only giving the twins a place of honor in her court. It's difficult to overshadow the lure of our homeland.”

“There has to be
some
other way to get your homeland back,” I said, frustrated. “A way without fighting.”

Forrel smiled. “Now you sound like someone else I know.”

“Quiet, Forrel,” Hadriane said, smiling too. Definitely an inside joke.

“She's scared of Rory,” Chase said. “Maybe we can use that.”

I squirmed. I hated how discussions of the Snow Queen
always
shifted back to me somehow. I hated the reminder that maybe I was meant to stop her. “She is
not
.”

“Yeah, why would the Snow Queen be scared of
Rory
?” said Miriam.

“Well, maybe not you
exactly
, Rory,” said Lena slowly, thinking. “But however you're
like
her, that scares the Snow Queen.”

“You mean you don't know? Rory's—” Then Hadriane's face twisted sharply, like she'd almost swallowed her own tongue.

I sighed. I knew what that meant. “The Director put that secret in the Pounce Pot. You won't be able to tell me, Lena, or Chase.”

“
What
secret?” Miriam asked impatiently.

“That's the problem with the Pounce Pot,” Chase said. “We don't know, and the dwarves physically
can't
tell us.”

“It doesn't matter,” said Forrel. “What you three have done to oppose Solange is admirable, and it has been on the lips of many. But the Snow Queen's resources are old and the stuff of legends. It is impossible to compete.”

Well, that was
super
depressing. The only thing worse than believing that I was the one who was meant to stop the Snow Queen was believing no one could defeat her, no matter
what
I did.

“You won't convince any of us to turn back,” Miriam said edgily.

Hadriane raised her eyebrows. “The secret to truly understanding Forrel is to ignore what he says and examine instead what he
does
. He's here, isn't he? He didn't turn back.”

Yeah, but he
would
probably turn around if he convinced his captain to go with him. He was loyal that way.

“Of course I am here,” the dwarf said impatiently, “but the humans should know the consequences of taking action.”

He was right. I hadn't really thought this through.

“And what about the consequences of
not
taking action?” said Miriam. “If we didn't come, I would lose Philip forever, and I would know that I didn't even try to save him. I couldn't live with that.”

“Nor I,” said the princess. Forrel raised both hands in surrender under Miriam and Hadriane's glares. But even though I agreed with them, I couldn't help worrying now—over the king and Rebdo and the city we'd put in danger.

Hours later, the dwarves shook me and Lena awake for guard duty. I don't know how we got stuck with the second shift. It was hard to get up in the middle of the night, and it was harder to get back to sleep after you've been watching for bad guys.

Lena went straight out. I couldn't face the cold without ordering a steaming hot chocolate from the Lunch Box.

Hadriane shuffled over to the fleeces the dwarves had brought instead of sleeping bags. She dropped onto it so fast that Forrel reached up to steady her, his tiny smile making a brief reappearance. The dwarf princess caught his hand and squeezed it before she bent down to unlace her boots. Trying not to feel jealous about the dwarves wriggling under the covers, I crawled out the door after Lena, careful not to spill my cocoa.

The moon hovered just above the horizon, and a chilly silver glow hung over the big ice chunks scattered below our ridge. From here, the plain we'd crossed today looked so smooth, so
easy
.

“Hadriane and Forrel made up, I think,” I whispered. “They have such a weird relationship.”

“Of course they do,” Lena said, examining her dragon scale in
the moonlight. It was about the size of a quarter. “They're in love.”

For a second I thought my sleepy ears had misheard her. “Really?”

“Yeah.” Lena looked up, surprised. “I overheard Hadriane telling Miriam last night. Everybody in Kiivinsh knew it. That was the
real
reason he couldn't enter the tournament. Hadriane would just toss an apple as soon as Forrel got close.” She giggled. “Geez. You didn't figure that out? Even Chase knew before you.”

Wow. If Chase knew, I must have been
really
clueless.

Seeing how tired I was, Lena took pity on me and stopped teasing. “Let me see your dragon scale.”

Groggily I tried to remember which pocket I'd left it in. After patting down half of my jacket, I pulled it out of my jeans, careful not to drop it.

She squinted at it. “I thought so. They're shrinking faster now. It must be colder here. The spell has to burn up the scale quicker to keep up.”

I'd never noticed Lena could be so perky in the middle of the night. After an embarrassingly long pause, I figured out a good reply. “Is that a problem?”

“I don't think so,” Lena said. “I brought extras, but we should start rationing them just in case. No more unnecessary spells. But that means I brought all those baseball bats with me for no good reason.”

I slurped from my mug, trying to remember. “You mean, like the Bats of Destruction?”

Lena nodded with a proud grin. Oh gumdrops—I knew that look. She was going to talk my ear off. “I tested a few more the day before we left, but they all moved exactly the same, tried to hit the exact same spot. It wouldn't help us if they all concentrated on
just one wolf, so I asked Melodie, and Melodie said maybe I should try cross-enchanting them with the same spell that powers the practice dummies, but I didn't have time to do it before we left. I brought them anyway, thinking I could change the spell up here, but if I can't use the dragon scales . . . I guess I'll just have to sit out the battles like always.”

I didn't follow all that, but she sounded so unhappy about it. “You don't have to. You still have your spear.”

“So I can take out
one
wolf while you and Chase take out tons of them?” Lena said. “That's not much help.”

“Depends on the wolf you take out,” I said. She'd forgotten to defend herself in
several
battles before I convinced her to start training with the spear again. “I don't want you to get hurt.”

But Lena was still focused on her inventions. “Maybe
this
is what Rapunzel meant. Before I left, she said . . .” She pulled her notepad out of her jacket and flipped through it. “‘Not every invention needs to be brought forth. A sword has two edges.' We must need the dragon scales for something else.”

“That sounds right to me,” I said softly, and her face fell. She must have really wanted to invent something to help the quest, but I didn't understand why. I was happy she was here, whether she brought her inventions or not.

I pulled my M3 out of my pocket and flipped open the cover. My sleep-deprived brain was trying to remember the spell for bad-guy radar, so I was completely unprepared for what Lena said next.

“Rory, I think Chase has Fey blood,” she said in a rush. That startled me awake. “Like, a lot of it.”

Yep. She'd figured it out.

“The trick Chase's dad taught him, the one he used at the pavilion, I'm almost sure it was a glamour,” she continued. “I
researched all the ways to cast an illusion for the one at the ball, and it's impossible for a normal person to cast with just dragon scales. If there was, Melodie and I would have done it. I think he can even do a glamour with scent. The dwarves think so. What they asked him this afternoon . . .”

I didn't say anything. I
couldn't.
The Binding Oath he'd made me swear would break the magic in my sword if I even hinted Chase's mother was Fey.

“And what Forrel said about the whole beard situation, it reminded me of something,” she said. “Do you know what ‘Turnleaf' means to fairies?”

Lena looked at me. I felt my face smooth out. The Binding Oath even made sure my expression didn't give anything away.

“You do, don't you?” she said. “He told you already.”

“Um . . .” Either it was a really eloquent “um,” or Lena knows me
really
well.

“And he made you swear not to tell,” she said.

I braced myself. I wouldn't blame her if she got mad. And possibly grilled me until I dished, Binding Oath or no.

But she just looked really thoughtful. “Well, if he was going to tell anyone, he was going to tell you. When I found out what a Turnleaf was, I asked Rumpelstiltskin if Chase was related to a Fey who'd joined the mortal world. And Rumpel just pointed to the part in my book that said ‘Turnleaf' becomes the last name of the first Turnleaf's descendants. So I always figured there was a fairy way back in Jack's family tree, and that was why he hated them so much. The Fey aren't kind to Turnleafs, no matter
how
many generations away they are from the original one.”

Oh. Lena thought she'd been keeping secrets too. I was definitely telling
Chase
that, the next chance I got. “You never told me.”

“Well, it was way before you came,” Lena said quickly, like she was worried that
I
might be mad. “Besides, a lot of Characters have a touch of nonhuman blood. But it changes things if Chase can do glamours. That means he might be the great-grandson or even the grandson of the last Turnleaf, who left the Seelie Court in 1899. Ienna di Morgian, Torlauth's sister.”

Chase leaving the Unseelie Court must have not entered the history books yet. That was the only reason Lena hadn't read about it. He would be relieved, and as much as I wished Lena knew, I was a little relieved for him too. Maybe because I was glad he was
not
a close relative of Torlauth, who was—let's face it—kind of evil and twisted, even for a Fey.

“Am I close?” Lena asked. “Can you tell me?”

The answer was no, but something flickered across the white horizon, a dark shape with four legs. “Lena, look. Is that what I think it is?”

“You're
always
changing the subject,” Lena complained. “You're as bad as Chase now.”

The dark shape was joined by a dozen others, then dozens more. “Lena, as one guard to another—
Look, wolves!
”

With a gasp, she grabbed my M3 and whispered the spell for bad-guy radar, just to double check. Lots of gray specks appeared on it. I didn't waste any time. Fumbling for my sword hilt, I ducked my head back into the snow hut. “Battle stations, everyone! We have company!”