Protagonist Bound (43 page)

If you’ve never been turned into a frog, consider yourself lucky. I definitely wouldn’t recommend the experience.

SJ, Blue, and I were now less than six inches tall, green as ryegrass, and covered in slime. It felt neither pleasant nor attractive. But it was an ingenious plan nonetheless.

In theory, that is.

As we’d learned in class earlier this semester, it was a potion encasing the Frog Prince’s water lily—not magic—that made whomever ate it turn into a frog. Consequently, once SJ had found the right recipe in her special potions book she’d realized that if we took a petal from the water lily in the Archives, she could reverse-engineer it to recreate the same enchantment in a lighter dosage. The result would be a much more temporary froggy transformation that could be broken without relying on the shenanigans of true love’s kiss.

That exposition aside, you may still find yourself asking, “Well, why did we want to turn into frogs in the first place?”

The answer? One word: loophole.

Our school’s In and Out Spell was designed to keep
people
from passing through it, not
animals
. So, in our amphibious forms we would be able to cross Lady Agnue’s’ magical barrier with as much ease as the woodland creatures that inhabited the surrounding forest. At least, we hoped so.

Everything on the grounds was quiet as the three of us journeyed toward the border of the In and Out Spell. Ever prudent, SJ had made us wait until midnight to enact the plan and get our green on so that, with the exception of the nighttime guards, the school would be deserted and our trek unimpeded.

Since a 12:30 a.m. or 1:00 a.m. departure time would have worked just as well though, I suspected that she was also veering toward fairytale tradition in her decision to make midnight the designated hour of our departure.

Frankly, I didn’t care one way or the other. The only thing that mattered right now was that the three of us were hopping to freedom.

Victory getaway music anyone?

No?

Well, all right then, creaking staircases and cricket chirps it is I suppose.

After hopping as stealthily as we could down six flights of stairs, several hallways, and across the practice fields, we were exhausted.

Would it have been easier to walk out of the school in human form and then take the potion when we got down here? For sure. However, would it have been possible? Definitely not.

Sneaking out of Lady Agnue’s when you were barely the size of a sandwich was way easier than the alternative option ever would have been. That logic notwithstanding, I was super wiped out from the slog.

Seriously, that was
a lot
of hopping.

When we finally reached the riverbank at the edge of the grounds, I shot my tongue out in exasperation to communicate this sentiment. My amphibious friends mirrored the gesture and then waddled over to that stupid, stone gnome that marked the boundary of our school’s campus. Frog SJ and Frog Blue began to blink their big, goopy eyes at me expectantly.

They were nervous about crossing.

It was natural to hesitate. As I mentioned, this whole frog loophole thing with the In and Out Spell was just a theory. We were human on the inside and really didn’t know for certain that we could fool the In and Out Spell with our reptilian transformations.

I remembered then just how painful it had been to receive that small shock from the enchanted force field last month when my finger had barely grazed it. If we did not dupe the spell, our entire bodies would soon be violently, mercilessly fried by the magical wall of energy in the same way.

In other words, that old saying,
“Here goes nothing,”
really didn’t apply here.

I gulped down some extra slime, and my nerves, and decided to just do it. In the next instant, with a big boost from my hind legs, I leaped forward.

Thankfully, I was not zapped. I landed in the river with a splash and turned around to see a little lavender hole fade and fizzle out behind me—revealing the section of force field I’d just jumped through.

Phew! Okay, this is good. This is very good.

If only getting across the In and Out Spell surrounding the Indexlands was this easy. Too bad that one, specifically, is like a billion times stronger and designed to prevent life of any kind from getting through—human or animal.

Seeing that I remained un-barbequed, my friends followed me and were equally relieved to remain electrocution-free.

A few hundred more hops later, the three of us finally made it to Lord Channing’s’ border. Jason and Daniel were waiting on the other side of a fence beneath a large apple tree—biding their time until our arrival. Frog SJ, Blue, and I wiggled through the fence and came into their line of sight. Even at this height and in the dark I could tell that when Daniel saw us bounding over he had to try really hard to conceal his bemusement.

“Aw, does someone want a kiss?” he said mockingly as he let a short laugh escape his lips.

I wanted to tell him to shut it or go jump in the river, but my amphibian vocal cords limited me to the trite comeback of “Ribbit!” Which (let’s face it) was not my best zinger.

My froggy nerves tightened in anticipation of what inevitably came next.

Ugh, this is going to be so embarrassing.

Remember when I said that SJ’s reverse engineering had cured the potion of being permanent or reliant on true love’s kiss to break it? Well, the one thing she had not been able to modify was the necessity of a kiss of some sort to end the enchantment.

Now do you see where I’m going with this? No?

Let me spell it out for you: thy name is total mortification.

Jason proceeded to pick up Blue and give her the necessary peck on the head. Once he had, he quickly set her back down. A few seconds later, a flash of silver light enveloped our friend and returned her to human form.

“Whoo, that’s better,” Blue said happily as she stretched and checked to make sure her hunting knife, cloak, and everything else that had been on her at the time of the transformation had rematerialized with her. “Thanks, Jas.”

Next, Daniel carefully lifted SJ off the ground and did the same. After she, too, had shimmered back into herself again, it was my turn. I silently hoped Jason would at least be the one to perform the mercy kiss, but he and Blue had already started to walk off into the forest, SJ not far behind them. I appeared to be stuck with Daniel as my not so charming, not so princely partner for the task.

In hindsight, I reminded myself that this was a small price to pay for everything we were aiming to achieve with the mission at hand. Still, the idea of sharing my first kiss with a boy I barely tolerated while I was a frog was way less than ideal.

I glared at Daniel with my giant eyes and threw in another “Ribbit!” to communicate my disapproval as he picked me up. He smirked in response and gave me a slight, clearly condescending kiss on the head. Then he dropped me like a sack of potatoes right as a magical flash of light returned me to my normal size.

I didn’t see why he couldn’t have just set me down on the grass gently like he had with Frog SJ. No, he had to dump me in the dirt because apparently Frog Crisa was somehow more unbearable to touch. Human Crisa, as a result, landed on the ground with a thud.

Disgruntled, I got up, adjusted the strap of my satchel, and dusted off the remaining feelings of slime and humiliation.

My friends, of course, failed to notice Daniel’s lack of chivalry. So I had no one to lament to as he and I made our way through the woods that surrounded Lord Channing’s.

“So, where’s our ride?” I heard Blue ask excitedly up ahead.

“Come on, we’ll show you,” Jason responded.

We walked through a thick forest of trees before coming upon a clearing. In the center stood a simple, crimson carriage with five Pegasi harnessed to it. I thought one looked familiar, and I was right. One of the two rear Pegasi was Sadie. She whinnied merrily when I reached her and nuzzled my hand in greeting.

“Sadie is one of Lord Channing’s’ Pegasi?” I asked as I petted her mane.

“Yeah,” Jason replied. “Adelaide didn’t have enough Pegasi for the tournament, so we brought some of our own.”

I looked away so that Jason wouldn’t see me roll my eyes.

It was so unfair that the boys had a copious supply of Pegasi at their school. The only magical animal we’d ever had at Lady Agnue’s was a talking goat a few years back. And he’d been promptly removed from the campus after only a month due to the many complaints received about him eating tapestries and some of the girls’ dresses.

So again, I repeat myself: how unfair is it that the boys get flying horses while we get diddly squat?

I didn’t recognize the other Pegasi in the line-up. Well, except for one. Also on the team of steeds was the black Pegasus that Daniel had ridden in the tournament. The creature glared at me as if it had been trained by the man himself to do so.

SJ and Blue approached the other Pegasi attached to the carriage. Blue began scratching the ear of the steed in front of Sadie. After a moment, SJ cautiously tried to do the same. However, when her hand came within a few inches of the creature’s face, he whinnied abruptly and bucked a bit, stomping his feet and shaking his mane.

SJ jumped back and pretended like the creature’s snub didn’t bother her, although Blue and I knew perfectly well that it did. How could it not, when every other animal alive treated her like a deity?

“Not that this isn’t a great ride,” Blue said, trying to change the subject away from our friend’s awkward rejection, “but isn’t your school going to notice that you took five Pegasi and a carriage?”

“Nah.” Jason shrugged. “We’ve got tons of these for all our tournament training and hero drills. Besides, the kids at our school come and go all the time for quests and stuff so I doubt they’ll even notice we’re gone. The better question is, won’t the three of you be in a lot of trouble when they realize you’re missing?”

“Of course we’ll be in trouble,” I responded casually as I made my way over to the carriage. “But we’re in trouble most of time. At least Blue and I are anyways. I hardly think this is the time for us to start feeling bad about it though, wouldn’t you agree?”

Everyone but Daniel and SJ proceeded to follow my lead into the carriage. He went to sit up front in the driver’s seat to steer our vehicle. She, meanwhile, took a few steps back and drew out her slingshot along with one of her portable potions—an orange one, which she explained contained a levitation concoction she’d brewed specifically for our travels.

While five Pegasi were more than enough to lift a carriage, according to her prior research on air travel, most people also used an extra levitation potion to keep their vehicles airborne. That way the Pegasi’s jobs were easier because their main responsibility became steering and pulling the carriage forward, not lifting it and its various passengers off the ground in their entirety.

SJ fired the potion at our carriage and a tangerine cloud exploded around its base. As the gas subsided, we felt the vehicle rise off the ground. SJ boosted herself up on one of the back wheels and Jason offered her his hand, helping her inside.

Using the reins, Daniel signaled the Pegasi that it was time to take off. They all whinnied—their nostrils emitting multi-colored puffs of smoke and their eyes beginning to glow either stunning silver or vivid cobalt. Moments later each produced his or her own set of glittering holographic wings and we were jolted against our seats by the force of their long-awaited rise.

As we sped skywards I looked out the rear window at the school grounds we were leaving behind. Lady Agnue’s was still and dark across the river. Its towering shadow stained the gray and purple night almost as strikingly as I knew its walls had stained the majority of my life up ‘til this point.

That place had been my home for years. It’d been the greatest influence on my choices and my character development. It, in an essence, had been my whole world—setting the parameters for my path and the lines I was supposed to color inside of for the rest of my story.

Until now that is . . .

Now I was beyond its grasp. Now I was moving out of its shadow. Now—the parameters, the lines, the walls—they were crumbling more with every added meter of distance I put between us. And soon enough, I knew they would never have the authority or the strength to contain me again.

I glanced back at my friends for a second. Then—a small smile easing across my lips—I turned to face Lady Agnue’s one last time. With a strange sense of calm I watched it disappear behind the fog as we finally moved on.

My Reluctant Truth

erial road trips were fun at first, but after a couple of hours they were no better than regular ones (especially when you factored in how cold it got that high up in the clouds, and that changing wind patterns could be worse than speed bumps).