Of Sorcery and Snow (36 page)

Lena's hands started mixing. “She came even though the
Director cancelled the quest. She was so brave, Philip. She—”

A Miriam doll?

The Miriam in my dream had been in tears, but the Snow Queen wouldn't make one of her spies cry.

“Where exactly
is
the Miriam doll?” I had to see it, before I said anything to get Philip's hopes up.

Chase and Lena both shot me a look that clearly said,
Don't bother him with questions
. But Philip only pointed over my left shoulder, kind of numbly.

I stood on my tiptoes, trying to see over the patrol. “Chase, lift me up.”

“What?” Chase stared at me.

“Or you could jump up for me—” I started, already having second thoughts, but then Chase's arms were around my waist, and my feet left the ground. Wow, he was a
lot
stronger than he used to be. Steadying myself on his shoulders, I scanned the room.

There she was. Miriam, her straight black hair falling out of the braid Hadriane had done for her, her eyes on me, her expression flat.

Lifting a slender silver whistle to her mouth, about to call the wolves.

But
alive
.

he whistle screeched. I winced and planted hands over my ears as Chase set me back down, but the sound just multiplied. The other spies must have blown theirs too.

“Are you insane?” Evan demanded. I could barely hear him. “What do you think the sleepwalking patrol was for? We didn't want them to know you were here!”

Oops. “Miriam, she's—her braid—” I started, but with that noise stabbing my eardrums, forming whole sentences was impossible.

Lena held up a gold coin. “I wish the whistles were silent!”

It was like she'd hit a mute button, but my ears still rang. The patrol crouched down, cringing. Even some of the drugged kids were starting to stir.

“It's no use now.” Evan started to pace. “You don't understand how many wolves will come down here. Way too many to fight!”

I pointed at Miriam. “That's not a doll! That's
her
! Look at the braid! It has four strands, and a leather tie thing. Hadriane did that.”

Beyond the sleepwalking patrol, six spies crept out of the shadows. I bet all of them were real kids, just like Miriam.

We'd heard about this in Philip's Tale. Searcaster had told the Pied Piper that the Snow Queen had a plan.

The matches must have been a trap. Freezing out on the ice, the
escapees must have struck matches until a transport spell kicked in and whisked the kids here, where the Snow Queen had enchanted them. Miriam would never spend a few days right in front of her brother without trying to break him out, unless she was under a spell.

“The Snow Queen's matches could have copied what she looked like. . . .” Lena said doubtfully.

Explaining was taking too long. I pulled a gold coin out of my pocket and told it, “I wish you would show us the living Miriam Chen-Moore. The original, not a copy.”

The coin flew away, over the patrol, and sailed straight into Miriam's forehead. She didn't even flinch. The coin—now a dull pewter—tumbled to her feet, and she stepped over it.

“You're right,” Lena whispered.

“I don't get it,” Philip snapped. “How can a dumb coin tell me whether or not that spy is Miriam?”

But we didn't have time to answer his questions.

“We can't change her back if the wolves get in here,” Chase pointed out. “Evan, how much time do we have?”

“Five minutes, at most,” replied Evan, taking the axe Forrel handed him. “Small entrances will open up along the walls.”

“The dreams . . .” Hadriane hugged the twins so close that they tried to squirm free. “The ones in which we are captured.”

I went cold. This couldn't be how that happened. After standing unnoticed under the Snow Queen's balcony, after snooping through her treasury and sneaking through her prison, I couldn't have just called the soldiers that captured us into this room.

But I couldn't just leave Miriam to that brainwashing spell either.

“The combs,” I said suddenly. “We can set them along the walls so nothing can get in.”

Chase was tempted. “No,” he said reluctantly. “They're too valuable—we won't be able to retrieve them, and we can't risk losing them.”

“We can't risk losing
period
,” I reminded him.

He still shook his head. “Save them in case we need a second line of defense.”

So I dug them out of my carryall and stuck them in my pocket, where I could reach them.

Already distracted with the portal, Lena passed her pack to Chase. “The Bats.”

I breathed a sigh of relief. Maybe we didn't have to be captured after all. If
anything
could hold the wolves off long enough for us to get these kids out, it was the Bats of Destruction.

“You saw bats?” Evan said, confused.

Chase took the pack. “Evan, Forrel, come help me put these along the wall.”

The line of spies reached the sleepwalking patrol, and then they stopped, waiting for backup. When the boys jogged past them, the closest spy—a tall, skinny boy in sweatpants and a faded hockey jersey—tried to grab them, but Chase, Forrel, and Evan were way faster.

“Focus on Miriam,” Chase called back to us. “We've got this.”

Hadriane lifted a coin. “I wish that the enchantment over the spying children was broken.” But the wish must have been too big. The coin stayed gold.

Lena was obviously stressing about creating the portal under these conditions, but she told Hadriane, “The enchantment is too strong for the coin's magic to reverse. Try another wish.”

Iggy snatched the coin out of his big sister's palm. “Show us how to break the enchantment.”

Nothing happened.

“No, you have to phrase it right,” Ima said, grabbing it from him. “I wish you would show us how to break the enchantment over those spy kids.”

The coin flew up out of her hand and zoomed straight to the floor, carving out a message so fast that Hadriane and the twins scurried out of its way:
Save one, and you'll save the others
.

“I hoped for more detailed
instructions
,” Ima told it indignantly, but the coin clattered to the ice, pewter-colored and useless.

Now we had three minutes left before the wolves arrived.

Miriam's stare was so blank. I wondered if we could just capture all the spies and haul them back to EAS. The grown-ups probably knew how to fix them.

“That's really my sister?” Philip said, his voice cracking. “She's alive?”

“Yes,” said Hadriane.

Then Philip sprinted for his sister. I should have guessed that he was just as impatient to save Miriam as she had been to save him.

Every single one of the spies' heads snapped straight in Philip's direction, perfectly synchronized.

“No, wait!” I stumbled after him. “Don't go alone!”

“We'll help!” cried Ima, and the footsteps of two small dwarfs pounded behind me.

I thought Hadriane would protest, but when I glanced back, she was passing some cords to the twins. “I know you're angry that they've been working for the Snow Queen, but be gentle with these humans. They didn't know what they were doing, and the tallest is a friend of mine.”

Philip wove through the sleepwalkers like he'd borrowed
Chase's wings, and then he was right in front of his sister, grabbing her shoulders. “Miriam!”

She tried to punch him. The rest of the spies swarmed.

I threw myself between Philip and a little girl with cartoon unicorns and a chocolate stain on her nightgown. She kicked me in the shins with her bony bare feet. Then I had the really embarrassing job of wrestling with an elementary-schooler.

The royal dwarves were way more efficient. When a burly teenage girl reached for Philip with both arms, Ima stuck out a leg and tripped her. Hadriane pinned her flat, arms behind her back, and Iggy tied the teenager up.

Miriam slapped her brother's face hard, but Philip didn't let her go. “You are Miriam Yu Chen-Moore. You're
obsessed
with tennis. When Dad told us he got a new position at the University of Portland, you cried, because you thought moving meant quitting tennis.”

It was hard to tell with Unicorn Nightgown kicking me, but I thought Miriam flinched. Obviously this was an embarrassing story even if an enchantment made her forget who she was.

“Nobody messes with you on your team,” Philip continued. “They know you can smack a tennis ball in their face. No one messes with you period. Or me, when you're around. The last time someone tried was kindergarten. A fifth grader hit me on the bus, so you knocked him down and kicked him. You said . . .” Miriam punched half-heartedly at his chest, but a frown creased her face, the first expression we'd seen on any of the enchanted spies. Even Unicorn Nightgown had gone still. “You said, ‘We come as a package. You touch him, and
I
come out swinging.' You are
my
big sister, and if you don't stop trying to hit me, I'm telling Mom when we get home.”

Then Miriam looked at her brother. “Philip?”

“Hey,” he said weakly.

“Oh my God,
Philip
!” Then she hugged him so hard that they both fell down, and they were doing the same laugh-cry thing that Hadriane and the twins had done.

I wanted that. I wanted someone in my family to know me that well. I wanted someone who could understand exactly where I was coming from—from Mom's insane worry, Brie's constant talking, and Dad's general cluelessness to the awesome strange truth of EAS. Not as someone who could ground me, but someone who could live it with me. I'd
always
wanted that. I'd
always
wanted to be a sister.

I should have been happy that Brie was having a baby,
just
happy and excited to suggest names and come to the birth and help my sister grow up. But the Snow Queen had ruined it.

I hated her for that, too.

The unicorn nightgown girl head-butted me. “Who are you?”

Wow, she was back to normal, and after getting kidnapped by a magic piper, she had definitely learned the stranger-danger lesson.

“Uh. Why am I all tied up?” said the kid the dwarves had just taken down.

“‘Save one, and you'll save all the others,'” repeated Hadriane. “Ima, Iggy, release them. Quickly.”

Not that Miriam or Philip noticed any of this.

“I bet you're glad you're not the only child
now
,” Philip said, laughing.

“Of course.” Miriam wiped her face on her sleeve, but her smile was humongous. “I mean, whatever. Shut up. I come all this way to rescue you, and—”

“I just rescued
you
.” Philip grinned as they got to their feet. “You realize that, right?”

“Maybe.” Then Miriam threw an arm around his shoulders, hugging him hard.

Getting jealous was stupid. So was getting mad that I might never have that with my own sister, but that didn't stop me.

At least one disaster had been averted. “Lena, how's it coming?”

“Five minutes more,” she called back, and
that
was the moment dark narrow doors slid open along the walls, close to the floor. In the vast chamber, they looked like tiny coin slots.

The wolves were coming.

I pointed to Lena and told Unicorn Nightgown, “Go over there. That's where the portal will be.” Then I unsheathed my sword. Shadowy shapes moved in the openings. “Chase!”

He grinned. “Up, bats! Hole them up in those tunnels. Don't let them in here.”

All across the chamber, the Bats of Destruction sailed into the slots. All across the chamber, yelps and whines rang out, but not one wolf managed to make it inside.

“Whoa,” said Evan, impressed.

It was just like Golden Gate Park. We
could
escape—we just had to hold the pack off.