Of Enemies and Endings (51 page)

Chase yawned. “Yeah. We can tell by the way you're barely talking.”

Lena ignored him. “Gran's right. Food, shower, sleep. That's what we need.”

And that was exactly what I did. I sleepwalked home to our EAS apartment and sat at the kitchen table, where Mom had fixed my favorite, apple-cinnamon oatmeal. I almost skipped the shower to be honest, but Amy put her foot down. “Rory, your mom needs to
see
that that blood isn't coming from a serious wound. Also, I don't want to have to wash the sheets after your nap.”

Hours later, when I woke up again, I almost regretted sleeping. I shouldn't have left Mom and Amy unsupervised for that long.

I stumbled out of my room, rubbing my eyes, and Mom said, “We're throwing you a party.”

“What?” I wondered if I should be rubbing my ears instead. There was no way I could have heard her right.

“Just roll with it,” Amy said. “It's too late to stop her. Lena came an hour ago, and your mom put her and that harp thing to work inviting everybody. By the way, does Lena always have that much energy? Or is it a sorceress thing?”

“A
party
?” I repeated, still not processing the idea.

“Well, we missed your birthday party this year,” Mom said regretfully, like we'd just gotten busy and forgotten. “So, it's more of an end-of-your-tale celebration.”

“We don't have those at EAS,” I said.

“Well, maybe you should,” Mom said. “Your Tale has been going on for years, hasn't it? It's kind of like a graduation.”

Amy leaned in closer to me. “Actually, it's more of a
Yay, I'm still alive!
celebration.”

“Amy,” Mom said. Too soon to joke about it then.

“They don't have those either,” I said, trying not to smile. “Come on, Mom—it's not the right time to celebrate. The Director's dead.” Rapunzel and Hansel too, but I didn't think I could say their names without getting emotional. “The wounded haven't healed. We haven't started rebuilding from the attack a few days ago . . .”

Mom interrupted me. “Rory, there will
always
be more reasons not to have a party than to have a party, but you've got to let me do it. We can call it whatever you want. It can be a
Welcome to high school
party. It can be a
Your mom is proud of you
party, but it's happening.”

I should have listened to Amy. There
was
no talking Mom out of it. “So what time does it start?”

Mom smiled. “You've got an hour.”

Amy plunked a couple boxes on the table, wrapped with paper patterned with balloons. “You can change into these.”

I stared at them. “The Snow Queen is gone, and the first thing you decide to do in the new safe world outside is . . . go shopping?”

“Don't be silly,” Mom said. “These are birthday presents.”

“You didn't get a chance to open them on your actual birthday,” Amy said. “Then your mom was afraid that you might wear them during a mission. You're
hard
on your clothes, Rory. I don't know if you ever noticed, but you will. In high school, you're going to start doing your own laundry.”

We might have been discussing math homework. It was just so ridiculous and so nice, talking to my family about being a Character. All the tension was gone. It was part of
my
life, so they had made it part of theirs.

I should have known that it would turn into a mini makeover somehow. The gifts turned out to be a pretty green blouse embroidered with ferns or feathers or something, plus some shorts nicer than any of the others I owned.

I almost protested when I saw the green flats that Mom was determined to lend me. They
always
fell off when I had to go slay dragons or battle trolls. Then I remembered I was done fighting for the day. I might even be done fighting for the whole month. No one was trying to kill me. I took the shoes and slipped them on. I only added one thing to the outfit—Rapunzel's light. It was too big to wear as a necklace, so I looped its chain around my belt, like I'd seen Rapunzel do a couple times. It rested where my sword used to be, and the weight was kind of reassuring.

“
Now
you look like you're going into high school,” Amy said. “Well, except for that glass thing.”

I rolled my eyes. “I won't wear it to school.” I would put the vial in my carryall. I just didn't want to leave it for a while. It had saved my life that morning.

“Hopefully your face will heal before then too.” Mom gasped. “It's only three and a half weeks away! We still need to enroll you someplace.”

“I've already looked up a few places in San Fran,” Amy said.

“Do we want to stay in San Fran?” Mom replied.

“Well,” I said, deciding to go for broke on the hint-dropping front, “if we're living here, then I can really go to school
anywhere
.”

Amy shot me a look that clearly said,
Please be joking
.

Mom just looked thoughtful. “Maybe. This place has grown on me, but if we stay, we're getting a real house and moving it into the courtyard. This apartment is way too small.”

“If we
stay
?” repeated Amy, horrified.

“Your dad's moving back to L.A. tomorrow morning,” Mom said, which probably explained why she was even
considering
moving here. It didn't matter. Now that my family knew about the Door Trek system, I could visit him, Dani, and Brie whenever I wanted. “He wants to shorten his commute. Apparently, some studios are showing interest in his screenplay.”

Mom gave me a list of invitees who hadn't confirmed yet, and she practically pushed me out the door in a way that screamed,
I need to prepare a surprise
. I bet it was cake. I sincerely hoped it was coming from the Table of Never Ending Instant Refills, not from Mom's oven.

As soon as I left, I pocketed the list. It could wait. I needed to check on something.

The library door was locked, and I was trying to decide whether or not to track down a dragon scale and try Chase's unlocking spell when the bolt slid back.

Busted. I'd been hoping Rumpelstiltskin was still in the infirmary.

But Chase opened the door. He grinned. “I thought it was you. Great minds. Come on in. I hear you're having a party.”

“My
mom
is having a party. I'm just one of the people she invited.” I stepped inside. “How did you get in?”

“You'll never guess.” Chase headed back to the only table in the room. The current volume was open on top of it.

“Um. Back door? Fey unlocking spell?”

“Not even close.” Chase lifted up a key. “Sarah Thumb made Rumpelstiltskin give it to me. She said being deputy Director didn't have many perks, but letting Characters read their own Tales was one of them.”

The illustration on the open page showed Ripper tearing after a winged fighter, but it was Chase's face in the picture that trapped my attention. He didn't look smug or even afraid. He looked calculating and determined—he'd always been that way, but very few people noticed. “You wanted to read yours?” I asked.

“I thought Dad had convinced them to pretend I was a ‘Giant-Killer' after finding out about the pillars,” Chase admitted. “Having a Sleeping Beauty for a son has been kind of embarrassing for him.”

I remembered the meeting when Jack had stared anywhere but at Chase. “Jerk,” I said pointedly.

“Yeah, yeah, I know.” Chase's eyes dropped to my collarbone. During my nap, the mark from the Snow Queen's hand had darkened to purple, and the outlines of her fingertips peeked out above the neckline of my blouse. “The Snow Queen's good-bye gift. She had to try to kill you one more time.”

I remembered Solange's face the second before she pushed me.

“Maybe. But if she hadn't pushed me, I would have been right there when the magic ripped her apart.” No matter what she'd been trying to do, I owed my life to Solange. That was a weird thought.

I wasn't sorry she was dead. I was sorry she had lived like she had—first lonely, then with so much cruelty.

We were silent for a moment. I toyed with the glass vial. Chase folded and unfolded his arms. He felt awkward, being alone with me. For some reason, that made me feel less nervous.

He nodded at the book. “Yours is the one after mine.”

I flipped the pages, and there it was: “The Tale of Rory Landon.” I turned to the end.

I read:

She returned to her home with a vaguely unfinished feeling. Other Characters were lucky. They ended their quests with their happily-ever-afters outlined in neat terms, backed up by dozens of similar Tales that had come before. She had a life she hadn't expected to keep. Making the most of it seemed like an overwhelming responsibility. She had gone from having too few choices to having too many.

Then she remembered what a friend had once told her:
So much of a Character's life is unknown. One's Tale only sheds light on one small part.

Perhaps everyone experienced this unfinished feeling. Perhaps she wasn't alone in it.

Well, of
course
I didn't know what to do now. No one was here to tell me what I should focus on next.

“Do you want my opinion?” Chase asked when he was sure I had finished reading. “Or should I pretend I haven't read it?”

“I
miss
Rapunzel,” I said. I missed Hansel too, but not like I missed her. She'd told me I could do good things with my life. Unfortunately, Solange thought she was doing good things too.

“I know you do.” Chase did know. He missed Cal as much as I missed Rapunzel. That almost made it worse, because suddenly, I realized I would miss her forever like Chase would miss Cal forever. The giant chasm her death had carved out of me would never seal up, not completely.

“I don't know who I am now that my Tale is over,” I whispered. “Solange must have felt the same way, and what
she
decided to do was become the Snow Queen.” My voice rose. I hadn't told anyone else, not even Rapunzel. But she'd known. She put it in her letter. “I want some of the same things she wanted. I want to make a
difference
. I want to help people like Matilda and the Living Stone Dwarves. I don't want them to be stuck in the forgotten corners of the world either.”

“Rory, let's tone down the freak-out for a second,” Chase said, sounding way more calm than he had any right to be. I'd basically told him I was turning into a villain. “What you're saying is that you have some stuff in common with the Snow Queen—the stuff that people actually
liked
about her. That doesn't mean you'll become her. Lena and I wouldn't let that happen.”

That was true. Solange had lost her Triumvirate. I still had Chase and Lena. We could be more like Maerwynne, Rikard, and Madame Benne. We could change things together.

“You have to stop me if I become more like her,” I told Chase fiercely. “You have to
promise
.”

“I'll swear a Binding Oath,” Chase said, and my panic subsided. He'd taken down the pillars. He could stop me too, if I became terrible enough. “But not right now. We'll fight over the wording for hours, and we have a party to go to in a few minutes.”

Oh right. The party.

Slowly, I started to feel better.

I had so much more than Solange had ever had. I had so many more people who cared about me. Maybe it was enough to change history.

“You know,” Chase said, studying me, “I think I like your new outfit.”

My cheeks betrayed me. They blushed so red that I was sure my face was stuck that way.

“What? I can't tell you you're pretty?” Chase said.

I couldn't exactly
help
what my face did. “I just wasn't expecting it!”

Chase groaned. “Look we don't have to, like, date or anything right away if you don't want to.”

“Date.” Our first kiss woke him up from a sleeping enchantment that was supposed to last a hundred years, and he wanted to
date
?

“Yeah. Go to see a movie and other human stuff,” Chase said. “I've always wanted to try that.”

“Do I get to pick the movie or do you?” I asked.

“There's more than one?” Chase said. Oh wow, he really
was
clueless. “But don't change the subject. We have to get a few things straight.”

“Uh-oh,” I said, and Chase looked pleased that I was joking around again. “I sense some oversharing in my near future.”

“Yep. Unavoidable. First . . .” He held up one finger. “If I
ever
say a last-minute quest is too dangerous, assume that I'm lying.”

“Got it.” This wasn't so bad.

“If I ever say the Director is—was—right, assume that I'm lying.”