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“Rule #99: Sacrifice is necessary to gain anything of worth. Usually a pumpkin or a few mice will suffice. Never offer your firstborn though.”

—
Definitive Fairy-Tale Survival Guide: Volume 1

I wouldn't drown; my flaming hair would go out long before that. The end result would be the same though, so it wasn't worth arguing semantics. Except…my feet had no problem staying still.

My shoes!

No wonder Verte insisted I hang on to them. They hadn't stopped me from getting dusted at Crow's because I ate the stuff. But I was willing to bet that since they'd protected me from the fire flowers, they would protect me now.

“Yoo-hoo! Little fairy,” I taunted Moony. “Notice I'm not moving? And if I stay back here, your bubble bombs can't reach me. So give up and paddle away now or spend the rest of your life under glass.”

I was hoping Rexi had swiped a bug jar somewhere along her travels.

“Fairy-farting pox-ridden princess,” Moony swore. “I may not be able kill you, but I can hurt you.”

“With what?” I sneered. “By blinding me again with your full moon?”

“By taking what you care about. And without your bumbling bodyguards, you'll be easy pickins'.” He grinned wickedly.

Though I'd stopped, Kato and Rexi kept marching forward. They were at the lake now, with the water up to their ankles. If I didn't do something quickly, they'd both become more casualties of the wish.

A minefield of bubbles peppered the air between us.

I ran to my friends, weaving and dodging the bubbles the best I could but still got some back spray. If I held on to Kato, he'd pull me down with him. Instead, I grabbed Rexi by the shirt, yanked her back to the shore, and sat on her so she couldn't go anywhere.

One down, but Kato…

I felt the answer within me. The fire burned just underneath the surface my palm, fueled by the voice in my head.
Take
their
life
and
power. Like shooting frogs in a barrel.
It would be so easy. The metallic bugs would melt and Mooney would go up like tinder.

“No,” I ground out between my teeth. “There has to be another way.”

Rexi squirmed beneath me, still trying to answer the music's call. I didn't need to stop my friends; I needed to stop the music. Ignoring Rexi's shriek, I grabbed the knapsack out of her hand and looted her stash of stolen goods.

I didn't even bother checking what I was throwing. As soon as my hand held on to something solid, I pulled it out and chucked it at the Jitterbugs. I wasn't even close for the first few, but I got better, and even when I missed, I made waves. And that was a very big problem for a very little tea saucer.

Moony and the Jitterbugs swayed and staggered, trying to keep their balance while ducking to avoid an incoming snowman figure.

“This ain't what we signed up for, cuz,” said the bug playing the upright bass.

“That's right. Keep y'all's money. We quit.” This bug threw down his pipe and jumped into the water. The rest of his band abandoned their instruments and made a break for it too. They swam for the nearest gravy boat.

“What'sss goin' on? Why'm I wet?” Kato slurred, waking up slowly.

The reprieve was short. Moony ignored the deserters, picked up the panpipe, and began to play.

Kato pitched forward again, his belly now brushing the water. I reached into the sack but came up empty.

Hopping off Rexi for a moment, I retreated back to the road to find some rocks or something. A giant bubble hit me in the face, stealing some of my flame, making me wobble and fall.

“Dorthea!”

I was too dizzy to answer, but even through blurred vision, I could see Rexi's feet were scooting for the water even though she was still sitting on the ground. Worse, Kato was close to going under. I staggered into the lake, climbed onto Kato's back, and shoved my fists in his ears. He'd grown again to be the size of a court stallion, so I couldn't cover the entire hole.

The water was up to his chin and my waist. Moony somehow played with a smile on his face and increased his tempo—and the pace of Kato's death march. Unbidden, the image of Blanc's drowning prince came to mind. She hadn't been able to stop it.

But I could.

Makers
forgive
me
.

I shut my eyes, but even behind closed lids, I could
feel
where the Bumpkin stood. Bringing my flames to the surface of my palms, I held them there. Then let them go.

The music abruptly stopped.

Smoke and ash filled my lungs, making me want to throw up. I thrust my hands in the water to put out the flames because holding the power in my hands felt good.

That did make me throw up.

My vomit barely missed hitting Kato's wing as he flapped back to shore, wet but no worse for the wear.

We all looked at the fiery green glow on the lake.

“Is that… I thought you said you'd never use it,” Kato said sluggishly, clearly peeved. “What happened?”

“She saved your hide while you dozed through the epic battle and barbecue, Sleeping Beauty.” Rexi pulled herself up out of the shallow water. “Warrior princess here and her flames—”

“I don't want to talk about it,” I croaked and moved to slide off Kato's back.

He shoved me back on with his wing and covered me from an oncoming bubble. “Ride up there for a while.”

“Why?” I asked. He'd made it clear before that he was not a beast to be tamed or ridden.

“Because you need it,” he answered quietly. “Let's go, Rexi.” He turned in the direction of Sherwood Forest and ambled off the shore.

I buried my face in his fur, partly because I was cold and felt like I'd been drained of all my energy, but it was more to try and stop the tears from coming. It would've been easier to stop the suns from rising. It felt like little splinters stabbed inside my heart. Moony's revenge maybe. I couldn't get his voice, his face, or the taste of his ashes out of my mind. If I thought about it, I'd go mad, but it was hard not to, since to my eyes, the whole world still looked tinted in green flames. I wanted the world black, so I closed my eyes and sank into oblivion.

I must have fallen asleep, because when I opened my eyes again, I was on the hard ground instead of soft fur. The flames were gone, but the world hadn't returned to the right color. The lake and giant flowers were all a muted gray. Rexi lay on the ground, curled up, probably passed out from exhaustion. I didn't see Kato though.

My skin prickled with cold. And it was far too quiet. Not a single cricket chirped. Maybe they'd all been eaten by the ironwood trees. Turning in a circle, I tried to get my bearings to figure out if we'd reached the workshop yet. The forest was a short ways off, but a full-length mirror stood much closer, out of place.

I stared into the mirror, surprised this time by my reflection. A girl stared back at me. She looked lovely and innocent, and was dressed in long, white robes. She held the
Book
of
Making
and ripped out a page. It floated out of the mirror and onto the ground. The page was an illustration. A portrait of my parents. They didn't look like themselves, dressed in foreign clothes in a seemingly foreign land.

Seeing them again made my chest hurt. I reached out to grab the picture to look closer, but the wind kicked up and stole it from my fingertips. I chased after it in a circle, the page whisking away like it was taunting me. I screamed my frustration into the sky.

The sky screamed back.

Kato crested a hill of wildflowers, but he wasn't my cute little fluff ball anymore. He was a beast that could have swallowed the Emerald Palace whole. He reared back and roared again.

The ironwood trees shook in fear and the ground quaked.

With a crash, the mirror splintered into countless pieces. Each shard showed the white-haired girl, now grown into an evil empress.

Kato was drawing closer. His black claws gleamed, his eyes no longer ice blue but dark bottomless pits. There was no humanity left in him. He was flanked by flying puppies.

“I've found you, my pretty.” Blanc spoke from the mirror shards. “We are connected and you can't escape us.”

I reached down to grab Rexi and run. Up close, I could see that she wasn't sleeping peacefully. Her face stiffened in pain as red-orange tears fell. Before hitting the ground, they turned to swirling stones.

Blanc's voice came again, soft and lyrical. “Once upon a time, there was wretched girl who brought pain and misfortune to all those around her. But you won't have to worry about that anymore.”

The silver pieces of mirror melted and oozed together, forming the mercurial shape of the Gray Witch. “And the princess died unhappily ever after.”

The silver coalesced into a giant stormball and hurled itself at me. A shiny glob landed on my chest and spread. Its weight forced me to the ground. Nearly every inch of my skin was coated with the icy, silvery liquid. Then it spilled into my mouth.

I couldn't breathe.

“After a one-hundred-year nap, I like to think of myself as a bit of an expert on dreams. For starters, you never want to die in one. That would be bad luck.”

—Sleeping Beauty's Dream Dictionary

A freezing chill spread throughout my body from within. Silver frost formed along my skin. The wound from the wishing star pricked and ached.

Right as a glittering icicle started to burst out from my palm, I bolted awake from what had—hopefully—been just a nightmare. My mind must have thrown together every fear I had into one nightmare, mixing Blanc and Griz together. But it wasn't real, even though the cold followed me from the dream world, making me shiver. My palm really hurt too. A faint line of blood dribbled down from a puncture wound.

It was just a dream, right?

Besides the sound of my teeth chattering, I heard a small squeak beside me that was much too quiet to be a chimera.

I wiped the dream monster out of memory and looked down at the small gray creature. The rodent had prominent features from several different animals. It had the body and ears of a mouse, but its tail was wiry and tufted, while its face was tough, not fuzzy like the rest of it. And the nose elongated to a tusk.

“Did you wake me up with that tusk, little, um…Rhimouserous?” I whispered.

The animal, if possible, glared as it nodded its tiny head. Then it jerked its tusk, as though saying,
This
way
.

“You want me to follow you?” When I stood, it scampered off. I got a few yards, but the night was too dark, and I lost track of where it went. I
absolutely
did not lose sight of it because I got distracted by a certain prince.

Kato sat by the lake, staring at his reflection. Like the throne room's mirrors, it too showed his human nature. Sad and pensive lines marked his face even among the slight waves in the water. He jumped when my image joined his.

“I didn't know I was that scary,” I mumbled and plopped down next to him.

He grinned. “No. I was just surprised, that's all. After you fainted, we walked for hours, but you never even stirred. I thought you would never wake up.”

“Bad dreams.” I shivered, only half from the memory of the cold.

Kato nodded over to a daffodil. With feet. “You're not the only one it seems.”

I recognized Rexi's breeches and ugly brown shoes as she tossed fitfully in a flower bed and moaned in her sleep.

“Should we wake her?” I asked. I almost wanted to check and make sure the fire gem tears had stayed in the dream.

“No.” He shook his head, and the dewdrops on his mane flew everywhere. “Bad sleep is better than no sleep.”

I wasn't so sure about that. My subconscious definitely had some serious issues.

Kato stared absently into the lake.

“Are you thinking that maybe if you stare long enough, your real body will match your reflection?” I asked.

“I'm not sure I'd want to.”

“What do you mean?”

He stared at me from the water. Kato's human face was much more expressive, what with it not being covered in fur. An eyebrow quirked and he frowned slightly. There was a dimple in his chin that I hadn't noticed before.

“He looks so arrogant. The Beast King. I thought I had the power and the right to command anything. I thought I knew the best way to save everyone, and I never even once cared how it might affect you. Finding a way to end Blanc and secure my title was the only thing that mattered. So when the Emerald Sorceress suggested the alliance—”

I jerked in surprise. “This was all
Verte's idea
?”

He sighed. “Your wish turbo-charged the process, but the flames that imprison the White One have been slowly going dim for the past seventeen years. Some factions of my kingdom suggested we flee our duty, and without officially being king, it grew harder to control them. Verte came to me a week or so ago and told me about a girl that could solve all my problems. When I met you, I couldn't see how you could possible help me and thought you'd be a burden.” He had the decency to blush, the color showing even in the watery image. “The sorceress assured me she was never wrong, so I approached your parents and demanded your hand because I wanted to get it over with.”

“Gee. Thanks.” I blew a few fiery strands out of my face. Since I was calm, they weren't too bright.

“But I was wrong.” Kato placed a paw in my lap, but in the reflection, it looked like his hand brushed my knee. “Verte saw something that I was blinded to.”

He wasn't the only one. I didn't know what she had seen in me either. “I wonder what mischief she was up to. I suppose we'll never know.”

“She knew you best, knew the parts no one else could see. And I don't think it's a coincidence that the girl from the story looked a lot like you, Dot.”

I stilled. “Blanc?”

“No,” he answered. “The princess who rejected the Beast King, then helped fight and bind the White One.”

I'd been too preoccupied by the story to even notice. Who was she and why was she special enough to earn the trust of both a Storymaker and the King of Beasts? Searching my reflection in the lake, I hoped for a glimmer of insight. All I could remember were Blanc's words from my dream. I chucked a nearby stone into the pool, rippling the water and distorting the image. “Well, you're wrong. I think we've established that my best intentions and wishful thinking do nothing but put people in danger.”

“It can save them too. After you fell asleep, Rexi filled me in on what happened, on what you did for me.”

“Oh,” I said and looked at the sky because its darkness didn't remind me of white. Or green. Or wood.

Kato hooked a wing around me and turned my head back to meet his reflective eyes. “I understand the price you had to pay—are still paying—to save me. I thought your empathy was a weakness. But it's the proof you will never be
her
. It's just not possible.”

What would he think if he knew that, even now, a small part of me craved to hold the fire in my hand, to banish this feeling of helplessness. He'd probably push me in the water himself. I kept my feelings to myself and watched the wind distort our watery, mirrored images.

Our reflections looked like the cover of a fairy tale—a simple prince with his arm around his princess. Both our reflections reddened and turned away at the same time.

Kato flapped his wings and hovered around me before flopping back down to the ground. “You know, your wishful thinking hasn't been all bad. I love the feeling of flying. I'm kind of getting the hang of it. I don't really mind being a chimera.” He poked me with his tail. “Even if it makes me a disgusting beast for real.”

Now it was my turn to be embarrassed, being reminded at just how un-princesslike I'd been at the ball. “Sorry about that.”

He settled back down next to me. “No need. We both made mistakes. But I hope you feel a little differently now too.”

I did. I wasn't sure exactly what I felt, but it definitely wasn't the visceral dislike I'd had for him at the beginning. I knew I should probably say something, but no words came.

The first sun began its ascent into the sky. Its fiery hues painted the clear water in oranges and pinks. With the dark lifting, my surroundings became clear. The forest stood behind me in a familiar semicircle. The clearing was empty.

“So I guess the workshop has a habit of disappearing too.” I could feel the frown weighing down my face. “I bet Rexi was pretty happy last night getting here and finding out I was wrong…again.”

He sprang to his paws. “That's right, you were asleep and wouldn't know. The workshop was gone, but the trees still stayed back because there was still one thing in the clearing. The book.”

I gasped. Something had gone as planned. Mostly. We had a chance, which was better than we had yesterday. “Where is it? Did you read it? Does it have the uncurse?”

“Well, not exactly.” Kato winced. “The book has the cover described, but it won't open. It's sealed, glued, locked, or broken, and we can't get to the pages. And the way magic is working, I'm not sure we want you to touch something so flammable.”

Having it so close, yet out of my grasp, pixed me off and made my hair spark. So Kato was probably right about the no touching.

“You never said where it is now,” I said.

Kato sighed. “Rexi has it.”

“Seriously?” I asked, shocked he would trust her. “Is that a good idea?”

He chuffed. “With those sticky fingers? She'll guard her treasures better than any dragon.”

So true.

“Well, all right then. We need someone who can magic that sucker open,” I said and brushed off my dress. “Let's go wake snoring beauty and find the Ivory Tower?”

He offered me the tip of his wing. “I suppose we have to since she's got the book.”

Before we got close, the daffodil bolted upright. “Son of mrph murphen. Get this…off me!”

I lifted the flower off Rexi. She had her arms wrapped around the
Book
of
Making
, hugging it fiercely like a teddy bear. Her blond hair was wild on a good day, going in every direction, but bed head covered in pollen took it to a whole new level.

“What are you two laughing at?” She looked around self-consciously, then checked the side of her mouth for drool.

Forcing myself to straighten my face, I shook my head. “Not a thing. We're heading out to find the wizard.”

“We can't!” Rexi jumped up in a panic, the yellow pollen dandruff flying off. “I had a dream that something bad happens there.”

“So now you're an oracle?” Kato scoffed.

“Better than being a fur coat.” The two continued bickering back and forth.

So
this
is
what
it
must
be
like
to
have
siblings. I'm glad I'm an only child.

I started to walk to the meadow on a carpet of petals. Either they'd follow or they wouldn't. Both options had their pluses and minuses. Taking out my frustrations, I pushed several fallen flowers out of my way. I must have gone several hundred yards before the two even noticed I was missing.

“Hey, where are you going?” Kato flew up next to me. “What happened to the flowers? Why are they squished?”

Squished? I hadn't noticed, but he was right. Petals lay broken and folded on the ground. Stems were bent low at odd angles. And the path wasn't straight. It curved, almost like a footprint. But that's ridiculous. Even trolls didn't have feet that big.

I figured it out at the same moment I saw the tin leg.

“Hide!” I yelled in my most whispery voice.

Kato disappeared into the unbroken flower stalks while Rexi and I hid under a fallen bluebell. The ground shook beneath us with each step the Tinman took. Small tremors at first; then the impacts made the ground tremble harder. He was getting closer. I didn't hear any creaking though. Someone must have oiled his joints.

A shadow moved in front of the light filtering in through the petal.

“Look harder! She was here. I know it. I saw her.”

I knew that voice. It was the one that had haunted my night. Griz had found us.

The Tinman spoke to Griz, I think. It sounded like grinding gears.

“Yes. I'm sure.”

Grind.

“Because the runt bears my mark, that's why.”

Grind.

“I don't care how. Just find her.”

Griz's shadow passed our flower as she continued her search.

How did she know where we were? Then it hit me like a ton of gingerbread cookies. The nightmare. Had it been more than just a dream? My insides grew cold again at the thought.

“It's gonna happen, just like I saw it.” Rexi let go of the book and put her hands over her ears, mouthing,
no, no, no
. Her rocking back and forth made the flower twitch every time she accidentally brushed it.

Her level of fear was extreme. She needed to calm down or the big gray wolf would come over and blow our petaled house down.

I gathered Rexi onto my lap and smoothed her hair. “
Shhh…shhh.
We'll be fine. Nothing bad can happen to us.” I spoke so softly into her ear that I could barely hear my own voice.

“Yes, it can. There are no Storymakers,” she sobbed quietly.

“Storymakers or not, the bad guy never wins. It's in the rules,” I said in my softest reassuring voice.

Instead of having the calming effect I had intended, Rexi's body shook harder with her silent screams. I took her head between my hands and turned her face to me. Her eyes were huge circles. Her lips stopped quivering just long enough to mouth,
You
broke
the
rules.