Protagonist Bound (33 page)

“Get off,” I spat as we hit the floor and the room settled. I pushed him away and shuddered like I’d just kissed a frog.

“You knocked
me
over,” he said, getting up just as vehemently.

I was about to shout back a retort, but that’s when I noticed I didn’t have to shout anymore. Just as suddenly as they’d come on, the alarms had totally stopped.

Whatever the reason seemed unimportant for the time being. I just knew that I was grateful for a moment to think things through without that awful sound ringing in my ears. As I wrung the remaining water from my hair, I began to do just that—commencing with analyzing the room we currently found ourselves in.

The place was relatively cold, yet fairly musty. Rafters crisscrossed around the ceiling, supporting strange iron gas lanterns, which emanated the greenish glow that provided the room with its limited, eerie source of light.

These lanterns, along with everything else in the room for that matter, were covered in cobwebs. Sitting in the shadowy corner across from me there was a dirty desk with a filth-covered leather chair. And all around the room—blocking entire portions of wall and stretching up to the rafters—were stacks upon stacks of dusty boxes, some open, some closed.

Not seeing another exit at first, the five of us went over to the pile of boxes to endeavor to find one behind them. In the process, though, we couldn’t help but rifle through some of the boxes’ weird contents.

Based on the layout of the room, the professional looking chair, and the desk, which still had a dusty stapler and a stack of withered yellow notepads sitting on top of it, I deduced that this was some kind of office that hadn’t been used in ages. What kind of office had it once been, though? Of that I had zero idea. The objects we proceeded to find in those boxes were as perplexing as they were diverse.

One had a bunch of bronze arrows like the kind Blue had thrown down to me. A second contained only a single item: an onyx-colored dagger with a leather handle and a golden, swirly design carved into its base. The third box I opened was filled to the brim with broken hand mirrors that must have once been beautiful before time had shattered their faces and taken their rusting toll.

I picked up one of the mirrors by the handle and turned it over in my hand. There was something engraved in the back. With the damp edge of my sleeve, I rubbed the dust around the letters away until the words “Mark One” revealed themselves.

Intrigued, I picked up a second mirror from the pile and repeated the process. Again I discovered the same words etched into the back of the destroyed mirror. “Mark One.”

Huh, weird
, I thought to myself as I fingered the aged looking glass.
I wonder what it means . . .

The five of us continued to rummage through the objects inside the various boxes. As this went on, we found stranger and stranger knickknacks. There were empty bottles, shriveled flowers, surprisingly ripe fruit, and the list only got more bizarre from there.

Jason, clearly as put off by the discoveries as we were, held up one of the ripe fruits (a perfectly yellow, practically glittering lemon) and posed the question each of us was thinking. “What is all this junk?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” Blue said as she bundled up the last of her rope and returned it to yarn form. “But we better keep moving. Something tells me this isn’t a yard sale we want to be caught looting through.”

She was right. Prolonging this aimless investigation was not in our best interest. If anything, it was just causing us to lose time and become one step closer to being apprehended.

All of us in agreement, we put down the various knickknacks that had distracted us and continued to work on shoving stacks of boxes out of the way.

Eventually we managed to clear the back wall enough to see the wooden edge of a doorframe. At that, it only took a few more moments of team effort to clear the path for our exit.

The hallway we entered into next was as white as all the others. However, there was one thing about this corridor that distinguished it from the others we’d been bolting down earlier—there were no numbers written on the doors. Rather, every door had a name and title printed on it. Looking back at the door from which we’d just exited, for instance, I saw a semi-disintegrated title that read:
“
Paige Tomkins: Magical Transfers, Tracking, & Recalls.”

My brain made a mental note of the name as we fast-walked down the hallway—anxiety rapidly building in the silence around us.

It was now starting to make me a bit nervous that everything had gotten so abruptly calm. After all, it was barely two minutes ago that we were immersed in ear-piercing alarms and sinking rooms. Going from impending doom to total tranquility without explanation or a hint of logical transition felt super suspicious.

Jason, SJ, and Blue were discussing this very thought up ahead while Daniel and I trailed behind. I didn’t get to join in the conversation though, as Daniel once again baited me into one of our own.

“That was a pretty impressive jump, Knight,” he said, his voice low so that only I could hear him.

“Whatever,” I shrugged.

“What’s the matter with you?” he asked. “You’re not still upset I followed you when you dove off those file cabinets are you?”

“No,” I replied.

“Cuz I only did it because I thought you were in trouble and could use the help.”

“I said I’m not upset, Daniel,” I insisted. “But for the record, even if I was in trouble—in case I didn’t make myself clear before—I don’t want your help.”

“Yeah, I figured that out when you chose to fall five hundred feet today instead of letting me give you a hand in the tournament.”

“Good. Glad the message got across.”

“Seriously, that’s your response?” he asked in disbelief. “Come on, Knight, what’s your damage? If you had just given me your hand back there today, you could’ve avoided the embarrassment of having everyone see what happened to you. How is that not a better option than what you ended up doing?”

Fair point. Avoiding that humiliation would have been great. But even so, I’d rather live down a blood-curdling embarrassment
like that a thousand times than let the likes of Daniel, or anyone really,
save
me.

“Just drop it okay,” I whispered back. “I’m not mad about that.”

“Well then, what’s wrong?” he probed. “Something is clearly ticking you off. It’s written all over your face.”

I ignored him and kept moving.

He cocked his eyebrow. “Oh wait, I get it. This is about what I said to you back at Adelaide, isn’t it?”

Again, I didn’t answer. But it seemed he did not need my affirmation in order to ascertain that he’d guessed correctly.

“Oh, that’s definitely what it is,” he said matter-of-factly. “Look, Knight, my job was to
hurt you.
What did you expect me to say? If what I said bothered you that much, it’s not my fault; it’s yours. Either you’re too soft and need to get thicker skin, or you believe what I said is actually true, in which case those are some identity issues you need to work out for yourself.”

“Daniel . . .” I started to say in retaliation. But we rounded a corner then and I spotted a door at the end of the hallway that better claimed my attention. It had the word
“
MANAGEMENT
”
printed on it.

I jogged ahead to catch up with the others and motioned toward the door in question. “There?” I asked them.

They shrugged in concession.

It was as good a bet as any if we were searching for straight answers, so we quickened our pace and headed directly for it. When we arrived I turned the knob and our group barged in. The second we did, though, the third most surprising thing in the last couple of hours happened. We found ourselves trapped inside of a large, pink bubble.

Right when we’d entered the room, a magical booby-trap had been triggered. Now the five of us were encased in a translucent, pastel-colored sphere. Which, despite looking like the kind of bubble a small giant might have blown out of chewing gum, we could clearly not pop or escape from. It was like a transparent force field characterized by the vague smell and color of cotton candy.

Like the bubble, the office around us was dominantly pink—with the exception of the silver carpeting, black crystal chandelier hanging from above, and black leather chair residing behind the glass desk at the other end of the room. In this chair sat a perfectly postured woman wearing a tailored, light pink suit and a pleasant smile on her face.

“Children, welcome to Fairy Godmother Headquarters,” she said. “My name is Lena Lenore and I am Godmother Supreme.”

Lena Lenore . . .

I felt my muscles tense as Lena Lenore stood and walked over to our bubble prison. When she reached it, she turned to an extremely petite blonde standing in the corner behind her. “Daisy, there is no need for this. Press the release, will you?”

Daisy pressed a green button on the wall and the bubble expanded before bursting into nothingness. Residual raspberry sparkles disintegrated into the air as our all-powerful, magical hostess strode around us.

Lena Lenore was a beautiful woman. She looked around forty years old and had dark skin and hazel eyes. Her black hair was up in a regal bun with a pencil sticking out of it like a schoolteacher. Every part of her—from her glossy fingernails to her chrome-colored pumps—was sleek and polished.

It was strange to be this close to her. I’d spent years picturing the woman behind the name who’d sent me those curt, vaguely threatening letters. However, Lena Lenore didn’t outwardly seem as nasty as I had imagined. Her face was soft, her expression curious and full of empathy. So much so that, for a moment, I was inclined to give her the benefit of the doubt.

But then I thought better of it. Well-constructed appearance could hide a lot of things from the human eye, but not from inherent instinct. And mine was telling me what I’d long already believed. I did not like, or trust Lena Lenore. The essence of her personality I’d gleaned from her writings notwithstanding, there was just something about the woman. Her gaze was a little too confident; the way she looked down on us, a little too amused; and the spark in her eyes, a bit too calculating.

Moreover, as she studied us, it became evident that the flowery perfume she wore was as noticeable as the air of self-righteousness she seemed to carry around with her.

When she stepped back, I met her eye line.

At the risk of the floor sinking again or being absorbed into another bubble, I figured I might as well speak up while I had the chance. My feelings about the woman aside, it was time to ask for the information we’d come for.

“Ms. Lenore, my name is Crisa. Uh, Crisanta Knight, that is. Cinderella Knight is my mother. And I’m—”

“That’s what you’re opening with? Really?” Daniel interrupted condescendingly. “Knight, I think we’re a bit past formal introductions since these people just tried to kill us with a watery death-trap.”

“It’s not our fault you were in the Grand File Room when our security system kicked in,” Daisy—the tiny blonde—said in a sharp, high-pitched voice.

“Some security system,” Blue snorted. “You just plunged all your files into water. Good luck drying them off.”

“It’s magic paper, you dumb-dumb. It
can’t
be destroyed,” Daisy countered in an even higher octave now that she was angry. “And for your information—”

“Daisy,” Lenore calmly interceded as she held up her hand. “These young protagonists are our guests.”

Daisy let out a slight huff, but nodded before stepping back into the corner like an ashamed, obedient child.

“Now then,” the Godmother Supreme continued as she turned to look at me again. “Please. Go on.”

“Uh, right,” I said. “Well, like I was saying, we’re looking for my mother’s Godmother, Emma Carrington. Do you think you could take us to her?”

“I’m aware of what you are after, Crisanta Knight. I have read your numerous letters over the years after all, and subtlety is far from your strong suit. But, while I applaud your . . . shall we say, persistence in this matter, I still cannot help you.”

“What’s the excuse this time?” I asked sharply. “I know it’s not security given that we’re way past that.”

SJ cleared her throat a bit and lightly put her hand on my arm—warning me to cool it.

“No, Crisanta,” Lenore responded. “As Coco already informed you, the simple fact is that I am afraid Emma no longer works here. In truth, she was relieved from duty quite some time ago.”

“Fired like a chimney is more like it,” Daisy added sassily from the corner.

“Daisy!” Lenore snapped.

Daisy blew her bangs out of her eyes and hung her head in frustration. Me? I just stood there, mouth slightly agape.

I couldn’t believe it. We’d come all this way to try and talk to Emma—the one person who might’ve been willing to tell us how to break the In and Out Spell around the Indexlands—and she wasn’t even here. I’d thought Coco had just been, to quote our mushroom-making trainee Godmother, Debbie, acting like a “trick.” But she had been telling the truth. After working so hard to find this place, my godmother wasn’t even here.

Worse still? I’d just learned she’d been
fired.

I didn’t even know that was a thing. It was my understanding that being a Fairy Godmother was basically a lifelong gig. What could Emma—a woman I remembered as being as kind, wise, and fair tempered as anyone—possibly do to warrant termination of her employment?

“Why didn’t you say anything before?” I asked Lenore outright. “All this time whenever I wrote you, you acted like Emma still worked here. If Coco was right, then you’ve been leading me on for almost ten years.”

“The Godmother Supreme does not have to explain herself to the likes of you, Crisanta Knight,” Daisy interceded. “And unless you want to get zapped like your friend did outside, I would watch your mouth and start showing her some respect.”

I crossed my arms and gave Lenore a glare. “I will when she gives me a reason to.”

“Crisa,” SJ squeaked.

Daisy took a step forward. “Why you little—”

“Daisy . . .” Lenore interrupted, completely unfazed. “Why don’t you go sign yourself up for our People Skills seminar next week? There are fliers in the level eight common room. I can handle things on my own from here.”