Of Enemies and Endings (40 page)

The dead mask cracked. His mouth twitched. He met my gaze steadily, and for a second, all of his Chaseness was back.

“I need you,” I said. “I can't get that heart without you.”

He shot me an exasperated frown and glanced over my head. I remembered how many people were watching.

“No,” he said. “You can't get the heart, period. The Director's right. The battle's more important now.”

y hands fell from his shoulders. He couldn't have seriously said that the Director was
right
. He knew this quest needed to happen.

He sighed. His voice changed again. “I've seen the Snow Queen's plans, Rory. You haven't. We're going to need all the help we can get.” He never sounded this patronizing, even with the
third graders
he helped in the training courts.

“We can stop all her forces if we just stop her,” I said. “If she falls, her armies won't keep going. No one can take her place.”

“Searcaster could. I heard them talking about it,” Chase said.

He was just determined not to listen to me, the same way I hadn't listened to him. I couldn't believe he would be so petty. This was bigger than us. “Chase, we're still the Triumvirate. We're still the ones who are supposed to take her down.”

“Technically,” he said, “that's
your
job.”

He didn't believe that. He couldn't. He'd promised to help me. Things couldn't have gotten this messed up. “You're still mad at me.”

“I'm not.” But he said it too quickly.

“Do you want me to apologize again?” I said. “Because I'm not sorry for breaking the enchantment.”

Chase's jaw set. “I wouldn't have been under an enchantment at all if it hadn't been for you.”

That wasn't fair. “Are you
still
under an enchantment? Because you're kind of acting like it.”

“Don't be stupid,” Chase said, furious. If we didn't have important things to do, I might have been relieved he'd broken out of whatever fog he'd been in since Adelaide confessed.

“Then how can I make this better?” I asked. “What do you
want
from me?”

“I wanted you to fight for me!” Chase said. “I would have fought for you. God, dating Adelaide sucked, but at least I got to be around someone who knew
exactly
how she felt, for once.”

That last bit hurt more than the rest of the conversation put together. It hurt almost like watching Rapunzel turn to dust. This was a kind of death too.

I refused to cry here. I could
feel
all those people looking at us.

Even Chase looked kind of stricken. Shocked, like he hadn't planned to give up the moral high ground so fast.

But he'd meant what he said.

Enchantments aren't exactly subtle. Chase hadn't mentioned that something was wrong with him until the day after my birthday. He'd spent months under the wishing coin's enchantment without noticing it, and maybe this was why. Maybe a part of Chase didn't mind letting Adelaide make being his girlfriend the biggest and most important thing in her life.

First-kiss magic or not, I was never going to be like that with him.

I didn't have that in me. I couldn't help who I was.

“All right,” I said. “Good-bye, Chase.”

Then I walked away, sailing past the crowd without even looking at them, feeling my insides splintering.

Everyone probably thought I was going to my apartment to cry after arguing with Chase.

That was what I wanted them to think. It was what I wanted the Director to think.

Technically, taking down the Snow Queen
was
my job.

I could still go alone.

First stop was the storerooms. I stole two big sacks of dragon scales and threw them in my carryall. I wouldn't risk running out again, especially if I was going to the Arctic Circle by myself.

I'd decided not to hold up the quest for Lena. Waiting for the Canon meeting to end meant waiting for the Director to come out and check on what I was doing. I had just pretty much shouted my plans to go without permission to the whole courtyard. If
I
got caught, then no one would retrieve the heart, and the Snow Queen really would win. Maybe not this invasion, but eventually.

The one-key safe was my second stop.

Sebastian's statue was still there, and I wasted a few seconds examining his face, searching his expression. He'd been shielding Solange when Arica had turned him to stone. Mildred said she never confronted Solange about Rapunzel, but maybe Sebastian did. Maybe they'd fought the day she lost him.

At least he had still gone with her. I didn't want Chase to turn to stone for me, but I didn't think questing together was too much to ask.

I reached for the Pounce Pot only to realize that I didn't have paper or anything to write with, but Rapunzel had thought of everything. Some square stationery and a pen rested on top of the pedestal, right beside the dented saltshaker. I scrawled:

• The Snow Queen/Solange de Chateies

• General Genevieve Searcaster

• The pillars

• Anyone from the Snow Queen's forces who might stop me

I kind of wanted to add the names of everyone in the Canon, but I'd already put a lot of people down. Too many diluted the magic. Oh well. Once I finished up here and locked myself in my room, even the Director really couldn't do anything to stop me.

I wrote down the secret I needed kept:
Rory Landon knows about the Snow Queen's heart, and she's going on a quest to get it.

It looked so small on paper.

No wonder the Canon hadn't made a big deal over it.
How
the Snow Queen had gotten so much power wasn't nearly as scary as what she could do with it. After hearing her plans, it was easy to see why they thought I was wrong.

I grabbed the Pounce Pot and froze.

A scrap of paper had been hidden underneath it, filled with tiny writing:
I wished for Chase to be my boyfriend, and I
still have
am still using the wishing coin
. Around the edges of the paper, like a tidy little border, were the names of everyone in our grade.
Rory
was underlined three times.

Adelaide had found the Pounce Pot before Rapunzel put it inside the one-key safe.

No wonder Chase had had such a hard time explaining what was wrong with him. No wonder I hadn't been able to focus on the traitor until Adelaide had confessed and broken the spell. The Pounce Pot had protected her all summer.

Rapunzel had moved it here on purpose. She must have known.

The Pounce Pot wouldn't have let her tell me. It wouldn't have let her show me this slip of paper, but she could have told the Canon. She could have stopped it.

Time, for me, is messy, and timing delicate
, Rapunzel had told me, dozens of times.

Just once, she'd said,
Family is the one part of my life I haven't made my peace with
.

It didn't matter now. I grabbed the Pounce Pot again. I ignored the buzz of magic that rattled my teeth. I sprinkled ground unicorn horn over the square stationery I'd written on.

Finding Adelaide's secret made one thing clear: The Pounce Pot still worked.

I walked back home. Alone in the apartment, Mom was waiting on the couch.

“I heard a rumor you want to go find that Snow Queen's heart,” she said slowly, her arms crossed. “Were you going to leave without telling me?”

“I don't know.” I didn't want to admit this, but I hadn't even thought about my family since deciding to go. I'd been too focused on the heart, on making sure the Director didn't catch me. “I was going to use the closet doorway to create a temporary-transport spell.”

“So, you weren't going to say good-bye?” Mom said, clearly hurt.

“Well, ‘good-bye' with you usually turns into ‘don't go.' ” I didn't want her to tell me that now. I didn't want to argue with her, not when I was leaving to do something so dangerous. “And I
have
to go. This time, especially.”

Mom sighed. “I know.” She walked into my room, picked her way around the mess on my floor, and sat on my bed, looking mournfully at the closet door.

I followed her, expecting a trick and kind of hating myself for it. “You're really not going to try to stop me?”

“Not this time.” Mom's smile was tiny, but it had so much love in it. “I want so badly to keep you safe, Rory. You have to understand that. But your dad is right. That's not what you need from us now.”

“Dad was right?” Definitely a trick. Mom would never say that.

Mom knew what I was thinking. “Amy said it too.”

I didn't bother to hide my disbelief. “Since when?”

“Since she saw you fight for real,” Mom said.

Maybe I could believe her. If Chase could really decide not to come with me, maybe Mom could really be okay with me leaving. My face started twisting in that horrible way it does when I want to cry but won't let myself.

“Oh, sweetie.” Mom scooted off the bed, wrapped her arms around me, and kissed my hair. It was her usual
I'm the mother
routine, but I didn't mind this time. I dropped my head onto her shoulder. It was a little uncomfortable. I was taller than she was now.

“Who's my favorite daughter?” Mom whispered.

I laughed, in spite of myself. “I'm your
only
daughter.”

She pulled back a little. Her stare was intent. “That's why you have to come back. You're the most important person in the world to me.”

Don't go
had turned into
Don't die
.

I hugged her again. She didn't ask for any promises. She knew I couldn't make any.