Of Witches and Wind (15 page)

“Ummmm . . .” Ben's face went crimson. “Mia.”

The crowd parted. Her face was as pretty and still as a sculpture.

Rapunzel drew a ribbon out of her pocket. The rings tied to it glowed neon blue.

“Rings of return,” Chase said, for Ben's benefit. “They will bring us back to the courtyard if we put them on.”

“One for each.” Rapunzel passed the ribbon to me. Which meant that I got the fun task of painstakingly unknotting the ribbon to free each ring. “You shall use it if you are injured. Any injury and you return here so I may send someone else in your place,” said Rapunzel.

Kenneth looked like he might protest. Usually, EASers only returned if they were in life-threatening situations.

“Four hundred seventy-three lives depend on this quest,” Rapunzel added. “My precautions are necessary.”

So she had thought this through, despite how weird she sounded.

Lena gasped. “I almost forgot! The spring Water only works if you've gone on the whole quest and if you seek a cure for a sick blood relative. If someone else does it, the magic might reverse, and it might kill you.”

I grimaced. “Got it. Don't touch the water before Ben brings it out.”

“So even if he gets hurt, he still gets to keep going?” Kenneth said, like this was unfair.

Personally I thought three trained Companions would be enough to keep him safe. I was more concerned about Mia. This would probably not be a good time to bring up my beheading dream.

Rapunzel regarded Kenneth coolly. “The violence of your temper will be outmatched. Be prepared. For some battles, swords will be no use. Only fire can fight fire. Only wind can fight wind.”

That shut Kenneth up.

Closing her eyes, Rapunzel drew in a long breath and then released it just as slowly. When she opened her eyes, her gaze was dark and piercing once again. She had literally pulled herself together. Whatever she said next would make all the other insanity fall into place.

“Now we need something, behind the purple and lilac door on the western side,” she told Jenny, who rushed away.

Or maybe not.

“Wait, I have a question,” Ben said. “What happens if we take
longer than three days and the Fey don't give us permission to stay? Do we just send two people back?”

Jenny returned, carrying an armful of packs and weapons. I recognized my sword belt and took it off her hands. Chase and Kenneth reached for the other two, as Jenny passed a spear to Ben and a staff to Mia.

“It is nearly impossible for a human to get what they want in Fey deals. Allow Chase to negotiate,” Rapunzel said. “He has some experience with the Unseelie Court.”

My head whipped around. Chase looked grim, but unsurprised. “Not to mention I'm the only one here fluent in their language. And the king kind of likes me.”

With a small smirk, Lena met my eyes and tapped her ear, as if to say,
That's right. You'll need that magic translator
.

“The king is touring at the moment,” said Rapunzel. “Now on his throne is his son. He owes you a favor, yes?”

Chase said, almost angrily, “No way. I was saving that for something really good.”

Rapunzel's dark eyes narrowed.

“Right. Saving four hundred seventy-three lives.” Chase sighed dramatically. “Totally worth it.”

“Okay, loyal Companions. Ready?” Ben said.

“No!” screamed someone across the Courtyard, and we all turned.

For a second I thought somebody's wicked stepmother was leaning around the doorway, but no—it was the Director. Her hair tufted out in a tangled blond clump above her right ear, and her lips were swollen to twice their normal size. I had never seen her look less than perfect.

It scared me, I realized as Lena drew closer to me, the Director
looking so awful. On a healthy day she would never have let people see her like this. She must have eaten a lot of pie.

The Director clung to the doorknob, taking great wheezing breaths. “This is a mistake. Ben's Tale is too important. You need adult supervision. We should call Jack back, or recruit help from other chapters—”

“It's okay. We had an adult.” Jenny pointed at Rapunzel.

“Rapunzel will send you into danger—poison—her sister's—” The Director's voice gave out, like her lungs had reached their limit. I couldn't tell what freaked her out more—not having control of the quest or not breathing.

Ben adjusted the straps of his pack self-importantly. “Well, I'm sorry to disobey you, Director, but I'm going. We don't have time to wait. We only have seven days.”

Then he opened the nearest door and took a half step forward until he realized where the door led—to a wall of water. Like an actual wall, the same as you see on the ground floor of an aquarium, except without glass. A school of silvery fish swam by.

“That's our special entrance to the MerKing's realm. The door to Atlantis is over there.” Chase jerked his thumb across the courtyard.

“Oh, are they different?” Ben said. “I thought that each door took you wherever you wanted to go.”

All the fight left the Director at once, and she sagged against the door frame. “You're too inexperienced.”

“I would argue with you,” Ben said, walking in the direction Chase had pointed, “but my excuses would be all washed up.”

My mouth twitched. Kenneth snickered. Chase opened the door to Atlantis, ebony with silver hinges, and said, “Do I even need to tell you how cheesy that was?”

From here Atlantis looked like a creepy forest with black, crooked trees.

Lena hugged me suddenly, squeezing so tightly I felt her bony arms dig into my ribs. I didn't want to go without her. Over her shoulder I saw Ben step through the doorway with a prom-king sort of wave, and Mia hurry after him.

Lena drew back. Her cheeks were wet. “Rory . . .”

It wasn't fair. This spring break should have been the longest, best, most junk-food-filled sleepover in the history of Lena-and-Rory-kind. The Snow Queen had ruined it.

“Do me a favor?” I pulled my phone out of my pocket and pressed it into Lena's hands. “Text my mom every night? Around dinnertime? It'll keep her from worrying about me.” Well, for a few days, anyway.

Lena swallowed and nodded. Melodie retrieved a tissue from somewhere in the bag and passed it up to her mistress.

Kenneth shoved Chase out of the way so he could be the next in, and then Chase stomped through too.

Rapunzel firmly escorted me to the door, bending down to whisper, “He'll fall under enchantment.”

“Who?” I said, alarmed. I hadn't forgotten the stone soldier from the day before.

“Chase and Ben,” Rapunzel whispered. “Chase is easy. Stay close to him. You'll know when. Skin-to-skin contact is best. But it happens twice.”

“And Ben?”

She shrugged. “All I see is glass.”

The Director roused herself. “What is she telling you, Rory? You can't trust her. She has ulterior motives.”

Ulterior motives? Rapunzel, who'd just saved us all? I couldn't
believe the Director would stoop so low to keep control of EAS.

“And beware the doll,” Rapunzel added.

Chase's head reappeared in the Atlantis doorway. “Rory—you coming?”

“What doll?” I tried to ignore Chase, but he grabbed my wrist.

“I don't know,” Rapunzel said sadly, and Chase yanked me into Atlantis.

e didn't get the welcome we were hoping for. For one thing, the time difference was crazy. It was
night
in Atlantis, but the moon hung full and low. The forest we'd stumbled into was bathed in silvery light, and we could kind of see branches zigzagging from one tree to the next, tangling together and surrounding us with a fence of black bark. I only spotted two openings. One path wound farther into the forest. The other way—bright with moonlight—led out to a grassy and open meadow.

I knew which path
I
wanted to take, but that was a decision for the quest leader.

“Something's wrong with this forest,” Ben whispered. Behind him Mia's eyes were wide.

Chase put his hand on his sword hilt, and I did too.

“No kidding,” Kenneth said. “Check out those leaves. Don't they look like they're a weird color?”

“No. I mean, why aren't the birds singing?” Ben hissed.

“We should—” Mia started.

The branch behind her moved. It was so unexpected that I didn't totally believe it, even as the branch snaked across the ground toward Ben's leg.

“Watch it!”
Chase shoved the new kid out of the way. The blunt, twiggy fingers snagged on Ben's jeans and tore off a big chunk. The branch whooshed upward and released the fabric about twenty feet up. It seesawed through the air like a feather.

“It thought it had you,” Chase told Ben. “It wanted to drop you on your head.”

A branch from another tree darted out, its sharp end stabbing toward Ben's back. My runner's high flared, and I slashed down hard. I expected the blade to slice straight through the wood, but it didn't. A terrific clang rang out. The branch pierced the forest floor with a thud we felt through our shoes.

We all backed away.

“Did you hear that?” I asked.

The trees heard it. They must have, because suddenly the whole forest woke up, tree limbs writhing like a mass of snakes.

“We have a few seconds,” Mia said, freakishly calm. “The branches are still untangling themselves.”

“That way. Now.” Chase pointed down the shadowy path.

“What? Who put you in charge?” Kenneth drew his sword.

Ben was skeptical too. “Isn't that way faster?” He pointed to the brighter path.

Chase grabbed a rock on the forest floor and threw it. At first I thought he was just losing his temper, but when the rock hit the moonlight, the meadow vanished. A pit stood in its place, riddled with spikes and full suits of rusted armor.

“Rule number 1 about Atlantis—nothing is what it seems,” Chase said, annoyed. He stepped six inches to the side, and a branch whizzed over his shoulder. He pointed down the creepy path with his sword. “Everybody down the middle.”

It was like running a gauntlet. As soon as one branch unwound
from another, it sped directly at our heads. Kenneth, Chase, and I could dodge, but Mia and Ben . . .

I shoved Ben behind me and deflected a branch away from his face for the third time. “This isn't working!” I told Chase.

“What else do you want to do?” Kenneth slashed at a branch that tried to grab Mia's hair. “Lie down and play dead?”

That was obviously Mia's plan. She'd cowered down and covered her head with both arms.

“We split up. Give them two targets.” Chase hacked at an incoming branch, knocking it out of the way before it wrapped itself around Ben's arm. “Rory, get Ben out of here.”

Ben opened his mouth, probably to say he wouldn't leave Mia, but I grabbed his wrist and sprinted. The trees didn't come after us. They kept stabbing at the ground Ben and I had just vacated. Only one branch lashed into our path—I just dragged Ben around it and raced to the edge of the forest.

“Trees!” Ben said breathlessly, as I shoved him out of the woods and into a rocky clearing. On the other side were normal-looking oaks. “Trying to kill us!”

“Yep.” I ushered him out of branches'—I mean harm's—reach. I glanced back, worried for the others. “Are you hurt, Ben?”

“No. But the trees!”

“Technically, they're not trees,” Chase said from somewhere behind us. A second later he, Mia, and Kenneth stumbled out into the open. Kenneth had a scratch on his forehead, but otherwise they were all unhurt. “It's a witch forest. Its sensor spell sucks, though. It takes a while for the trees to notice that you've moved.”

“How do you know it was witches? Couldn't it be those Unseelie people?” It was hard to look at Mia with a straight face.
It looked like something had made a nest in her long hair.