Story's End (15 page)

“There were complications,” Elton was saying. “I had to double the enchantment to restore order. We’ll have to use more control at the coronation.”

“We can discuss that later.” Her mother’s voice was like silk. “And the Scroll?”

Una paused midstitch. Something about a scroll was important. Someone was looking for it.

Elton shook his head.

“That’s not good enough. We have the other Elements,” Una’s mother said. “You will bring me the Scroll by nightfall, or you will pay with your life.”

Una set the cloth aside. She was good at looking for things. “I’d love to help, Mother. Oh, please, let me.”

Elton gave her a funny look and then turned back to her mother. “Mother?”

Her mother swept across the room to Una’s side. “Mortimer, this is my long-lost daughter. The one I’ve spoken of nearly every day since she disappeared.” She rubbed Una’s shoulder lightly. “We’ve had a lovely reunion this morning, haven’t we, dear? Nothing will make me happier than having you stand next to us tonight”—she gave Una a knowing smile—“when your father is crowned King.”

Una beamed up at her. She could think of nothing better than for Story to have such a King. When she looked back at him, Mr. Elton’s face had gone a sickly gray color.

“A daughter,” he choked out, and then his mouth twisted into an ugly frown. “Fidelus must be pleased.”

“Enough,” her mother hissed. Then she laughed. “Don’t ruin our morning with silly jealousies.” She bent low so that she could whisper into Una’s ear. “My dear, I think it’s time you met your father.”

Chapter 17

Y
ou’re
the Warlock’s Apprentice?” Snow said to her mother again. The underground room felt pleasant after the swamp’s humidity, and she sat in the chair across from the crackling fireplace. Hopeful sounds of the vampire rummaging around came from the kitchen.

“Yes,” her mother said shortly. She was pawing through the rubble on the desk, tossing aside crumbling scrolls and mysterious-looking maps. “Now if I could just find his book of spells, I could release the Scroll of Fire. Even on its own, it is very powerful, and it may give us the upper hand against Fidelus and Duessa.”

“You know where it is? How?”

“Because long ago I helped discover it.” Snow’s mother frowned as she reached underneath the old desk and ran her hands back and forth. “And with luck, we’ll have it in our possession soon enough.”

Snow felt like she was looking at a stranger. She knew nothing about her mother’s past. And her mother had made no effort to change that. “Okay,” Snow said. “Let’s see here . . . you know where to find one of the Lost Elements, you’re some warlock’s apprentice, you have an
underground house
in the middle of the Enchanted Swamp, you’re an enchantress. Anything else I should know about you?” Just when Snow thought she was beginning to understand her mother, she dropped another bomb like this one.

“Which reminds me,” her mother said, grabbing an old piece of paper and scribbling something down. “I need to send a message to the Resistance.”

Snow frowned.
She’s not listening to me.
“Everything you’ve told me is a lie. How do I know if you’re good or bad? Hero or Villain?”

“You are keen on making hasty judgments, aren’t you, Snow?” Her mother shook her head and gave a low chuckle. “Just like your mother.”

“I’m nothing like you,” Snow mumbled. They might have reached an uneasy truce during their mutual imprisonment, but that didn’t mean Snow had forgotten what her mother was. An enchantress with lots of secrets. Not to mention a lousy mom.

Her mother blinked twice, turned back around, and finished her note. The sound of a pot lid clattered from the kitchen, followed by the crashing noise of pans hitting the floor and the leprechauns shouting wildly at the vampire. Her mother brushed by Snow in icy silence and started giving the leprechauns instructions about how to get to Resistance headquarters.

From the sound of it, the Resistance was part of some underground rebellion.
More secrets.
Snow pushed aside the feeling of guilt that was blooming inside her. A couple of days together didn’t make up for thirteen years. “Where is Archimago, anyway?” she asked when her mother came back into the room.

Her mother peered into the darkness below the desk. “Gone,” she said. “He wasn’t caught in the web. My best leprechaun trackers are looking for him. They say there’s no trace of him, no evidence of him returning to the castle. Perhaps he is still close by.”

“You think he’ll go back to Duessa?” Snow sucked in her breath. “I
knew
we should have left him behind. What if he turns on us? It wasn’t safe to take him with us.”

“Living isn’t safe,” her mother’s muffled voice said. “And living with other characters is least safe of all.” She emerged with a tattered shred of paper. “You can’t control everyone in Story, Snow, and you will have a very sad Tale indeed if you try. Leave Archimago to make his own choices, and we will make ours.” She got to her feet, and met Snow’s gaze. “I gave my word, Snow. He deserves a chance to make things right.”

“And if he doesn’t?” Snow hissed. “A second chance is well and good for him, but what if he betrays us? Think of what he’s already done!”

“The difference between good and bad, between hero and villain, is not so clear, Snow.” She was talking in her teacher voice. “You think Archimago is all bad because he has made mistakes? Which of us is without error? Have you done everything the way you wished? The way you ought to have done?” She looked at Snow with tired eyes. “Whether you agree or not, he
will
have his second chance.”

The last thing Snow wanted was a lecture. She didn’t care if part of what her mother said made sense. Sure, she had made mistakes, and she didn’t have any trouble admitting it. But calling Horace names or making fun of Una wasn’t quite the same thing as watching other characters die. Or lying to all of Story.

“Whatever you say, Warlock’s Apprentice,” Snow said, and didn’t care that she sounded surly. “Is
that
the spell book?”

Her mother had cleared off the desk and put the tiny shred of paper right in the middle of the flat surface. “No more questions, please,” she said without looking at Snow. “There are many traps around this, and they were all intended to kill enemies.”

Snow eyed the scrap and risked one question. “How do you know?”

Her mother’s voice was hard. “Because I set them myself.”

Of course you did.
Snow scowled at her mother’s back as it bent over the desk.
Between learning your enchantress spells and hanging out with warlocks, you had time to set stupid booby traps in some underground hut.

Despite all her glaring, Snow did as her mother said. She sat quietly as the vampire brought her a tray of beef stew.

He stood across from her, his gaze sharply following each dip of the spoon as she ate.
Creepy.

The vampire seemed eager to talk. He had learned a lot about Duessa living in the shadow of her castle. The more Snow heard the vampire talk about Duessa, the more she despised her. Duessa’s crimes seemed to have no limit: practicing the forbidden arts, dark rituals that left the denizens of the forest paralyzed with terror, underground excavations that turned acres of Story’s land to ruins, unnamed prisoners being taken to and from the castle at all hours.

He licked his lips hungrily as Snow reached for a slice of buttered bread.

“Do you want some?” she offered, then felt stupid when the vampire waved it away. Of course he didn’t want any. Snow asked if there was any recent news of Duessa.

“She’s taken a hospitable turn,” the vampire said. “All of Story is invited to a coronation ball at the Red Enchantress’s castle tonight. There’s a new King in Story.”

Snow looked sharply at her mother, who was muttering under her breath and making little circular movements in the air over the paper. Either her mother wasn’t listening, or the ball was old news to her. A tiny web of light shot out from her mother’s clasped hands, and wherever it touched, the paper flickered. There was a click and the sound of steam escaping from a hot kettle. What looked like a scrap of paper wavered, and Snow caught a glimpse of something big. The air shimmered, and the paper disappeared altogether, revealing an enormous leather-bound book.

Snow let her spoon drop to the edge of her bowl. “How did you do that?”

Her mother glanced at her and laughed. “Haven’t you learned yet?” She wiped beads of sweat off her forehead and pointed toward the book. “Story is rife with illusion. Enchantment and deception are everywhere.”

“Maybe so,” Snow said. Or maybe it was her mother that was full of deception. There was a crash from somewhere beyond the doors, and the vampire hurried away, muttering something about leprechauns not doing as they were told, leaving Snow and her mother alone.

“Oh, Amaranth, if only you were here,” her mother murmured as she flipped through the dusty pages. “How much I’ve missed you.”

“Who was he?” Snow asked in a dull voice.

“You haven’t been taught about Amaranth the Brave?” her mother said as she ran her finger down a column of spidery script. “The one who studied quicksilver?”

Snow shrugged. “Maybe I learned about him in Backstory.” Maybe not, seeing how she at best pulled a C last term.

“It would have been in Heroics, though I doubt that Heroics professor teaches anything useful,” her mother muttered. “Quicksilver is a substance found in the Enchanted Swamp. It’s why we built this”—she waved her hand toward one of the many doors—“chamber, I guess you could call it.” She stood up and looked around the room fondly. “Amaranth and I spent an entire year studying the organic composition of quicksilver. Then there was the matter of the right conditions. Too careless, and it would consume any vessel we used.” Snow’s mother strummed her fingers in the air to explain. “Too soft, and it would evaporate.”

Snow was watching her mother’s description in stony silence.

“During one of our digs,” her mother went on, “we came across an ancient chest. It had been buried in the Swamp’s quicksand for generations. Amaranth knew at once it was the Scroll of Fire. Worse men would have stolen the Scroll. Used it to write ruin on their enemies. Even alone, the Scroll is a powerful weapon. Whatever is written on it will instantly come to pass. Used in combination with the other Elements . . .” She shook her head. “It’s undefeatable.” She leaned back against the desk, the spell book momentarily forgotten. “But Amaranth wasn’t power hungry. He was a good man. We brought it back here where no one would look for it.” She barked a sharp little laugh. “Even Duessa wouldn’t deign to visit the Swamp, though it’s on her very doorstep. We never finished the quicksilver work. We didn’t complete proper testing before—” She dropped her hands to her sides, and all the energy went out of her voice. “Well, before we stopped the project.”

Snow didn’t care about the proper testing. Or the quicksilver. She hated it, in fact.
A stupid project? That
was why her mother left her with her aunt? What about all the business of her heart turning to ice and naming her Snow? Was it all just a show? “Did you love him? The Warlock of Amaranth?”

“You pry too much, Snow.”

“Too much?” Snow made her voice hard. “You tell me nothing. Was he my father?”

Her mother visibly stiffened. “Your father is dead to me now, Snow,” she said in a tired voice. “And I will not speak ill of the dead.” She turned back to the book and tore out a page. “But no. The Warlock of Amaranth was not your father. He was my friend. And I found him when I most needed a friend.” Snow’s mother came toward Snow, and her smile was soft. “We discovered some incredible things together, he and I.” She brushed by Snow and knelt before the fireplace, the paper spread out in front of her.

Snow stared speechlessly at her mother’s back as she began to perform the spell. Snow had always wanted to know why her mother had left when she was a baby, but now that the truth was in front of her, she wished it was still a mystery. Part of her had always wondered if her mother had run off for love of Snow’s father. But then why were her words about him so hard? Was it really just the excitement of working with the Warlock? Any possible answer left Snow feeling hollowed out inside. Was this what her mother had chosen over her?

The fire was changing colors. The flames were red, or perhaps gold, or maybe even black. There, in the center of its swirling darkness was what they were looking for. A glowing parchment hung suspended in the middle of the magic blaze. “Beautiful, isn’t it?” Her mother’s words sounded rapturous.

“Amazing,” Snow said in a sarcastic voice, but her mother didn’t notice. “Just amazing that you could remember exactly where something was all those years. Especially since it was so hard for you to remember your own daughter while you were off with your precious Warlock.” Snow spit all the venom she felt into her words. She was through with pretending.

Her mother’s form froze in front of her. Her head dropped down, but then her spine stiffened, and she spoke as though she hadn’t even heard Snow. “The Scroll of Fire. Right where we hid it.”

“When would that be?” Snow pronounced her words carefully. “Before you had a kid, or after you left her on someone’s doorstep?”

Her mother jumped to her feet and faced her daughter. Her hands were shaking. “What do you want from me, Snow? To pick a fight? To punish me?” Her eyes glistened wetly. “Believe me, I’ve punished myself.” Her voice broke, and she wiped hard at her eyes.

Snow blinked back her own unexpected tears. “Just tell me why you didn’t want me.”

Her mother stood very still in front of Snow. “I wanted you, Snow. How I wanted you.” She held her hands out as though she was embracing the air around Snow. “But you weren’t safe with me. After”—her mother looked down—“you were born, I was very confused. And broken. I had wanted to be a Princess, and your father . . . well, after what he did to me, I felt like the worst Villain.” She blinked furiously. “If I had known . . . To me, you were just the reminder of a terrible night. I didn’t know
you
then. I was angry. I don’t like to remember those years. At the end of them, I found the Warlock. He took me in when I had nowhere else to go. He gave me something important to do.” She pulled Snow to her feet, and her eyes were wet. “I came for you as soon as I was well again.” Her hand wavered, and then she drew Snow into an awkward embrace. “I don’t expect you to understand, Snow. How could you? What I did was unforgivable.”