Of Witches and Wind (41 page)

“Don't look—” I said, too late.

Kenneth whirled around to his right, both hands fisted at his sides. “Come here and say that to my face, Denton! I'll—”

We were behind him, so even looking straight ahead, Chase and I could see it happen.

“Crap,” Chase breathed, and my chest squeezed. Kenneth was gone. In his place stood a boxy stone—dark gray and flecked with mica.

Then I heard something. Not Kenneth's brother, Denton.

Madison.

What an ugly loser. No wonder your dad didn't stick up for you. He knows how uncool you are. He's too good for you.

Chase stiffened. He'd heard something too.

“We'll figure something out for Kenneth later,” I told Chase. “Just keep climbing.”

And now Dad's whisper.
You're so embarrassing. I wish you had never been born. Brie and I will have more better children. Much prettier and more talented. We don't need you.

My breath hitched, but honestly, the mirrors had sucked much more.

It had been so much more detailed. The goblin priestesses had really known what would hurt the most—what would stop me. They—

The goblin priestesses had been trying to
stop
me when they'd had me in the mirror vault.

Those scenes didn't have to be real. They just needed to be believable.

To make sure, I asked, “Chase, did you ever tell Kenneth or Ben that there aren't a lot of kids to be friends with in our grade?”

“What? No,” Chase said, distracted by whatever he was hearing. “Way to be random.”

“It's not real,” I reminded myself softly. The stones must have been enchanted to tell us our worst doubts, just like the mirror vault. It was all in my mind.

This was why Rapunzel had enlisted the goblins. She wanted me to know that what the stones said wasn't true. But I was the only one here who knew that.

“You guys, it's fake, okay?” I called up the path to Ben and Mia. “We're all hearing something different, but it's not real! The stones are making it up!”

“What did you say, Rory?” Ben shouted back.

Chase wasn't listening. He had stopped. He couldn't resist anymore. He needed to see who was talking to him like this.

Without looking, I reached out and grabbed his face to keep his head from turning. One of my fingertips found something wet.

“Oww.” He sounded like he had a cold with my hand squeezing his nose. “Thanks, Rory. I didn't need that eye or anything.”

“Whoops! Sorry!” I lifted the poking finger. “But don't look. It's not real.”

“I'm just glad that you didn't use your Left Hook of Destruction.” But he grabbed my hand off his face and held on to it, too tight,
crushing my knuckles together. Then he took a deep breath and shouted, “Ben, Mia! Hold hands! The enchantment can't work right if you're holding on to someone else!!”

Up ahead, Ben and Mia didn't hear us. They just kept going. I had figured it out too late. We'd already lost Kenneth. If we lost Ben, we couldn't get the Water. The quest would Fail.

The rocks picked up on my guilt immediately, weaving it into the spell.

Now I heard Iron Hans.
You are useless, child. You can't protect anyone. You're doomed to lose everyone who ever cared for you.

My nose started to prickle, just under the bridge. No, I refused to cry. Not again.

It doesn't matter how long you train, how much you improve yourself. You'll lose them anyway, just like you lost your brother to the Snow Queen.

But I didn't have a brother.

Chase was supposed to hear this. We had managed to screw up the spell!

As a Fey, you were vastly inferior.
That was Fael.
But do you think you are anyone special even among the humans? Your father doesn't think so.

I didn't want to hear any more.

We clambered past Kenneth, the boxy rock. I didn't step on him, but there wasn't much else I could do for him right then. Far above us, Ben and Mia climbed together, and two steps later they disappeared. Either they had turned into stones, or they had reached the top.

If he believed otherwise, he would not leave you so often,
needled Fael's voice.
Will your human friends enjoy your company so
much if they find out you have been tricking them? Or will they react like Rory? She has grown more and more distant since she met your
mother. She has barely spoken to you since she returned from the Hidden Troll Court.

But I hadn't talked to him much because I thought he liked Kenneth and Ben better.

Lena and I talk about you all the time
. If it wouldn't have turned me to stone, I would have glared at Chase right then. The Rory in his brain sounded insultingly close to Madison.

Oh, my God. If I was hearing the Rory in his head, did that mean he was listening to the Chase in mine? My face had been sweating already, but now it felt like I'd landed headfirst in a pile of flaming phoenix feathers.

“We're almost there,” I said quickly, hoping to distract him. I climbed faster.

Without your dad, you're just a kid waiting for your Tale to start, just like everybody else.
But I had actually said this a year ago, back when Chase and I were enemies. He'd gotten so angry, and now I knew why.

Only a few more steps to go. Past them the sky yawned—blue and cloudless.

Except yours won't ever ever come. You're just some useless halfling. It's only a matter of time before we drop you
.

I would never have said that. I would never have even thought it. He was one of my best friends.

I couldn't stop myself. I squeezed his hand, too stunned to feel very embarrassed anymore. Did Chase really worry about something completely untrue?

We heaved ourselves on top of the last ledge. Staring straight ahead, I spotted a tree—a really big tree, bigger even than the pine guardian at the bottom, and two figures lying on the ground, gasping for air.

“There. At the grass. That's where the voices stop,” Ben wheezed, pointing.

Chase and I hurried onto the plush, ankle-high grass, dropping hands the second we were safe. He wasn't looking at me, either. He had definitely heard stuff too. Great.

“That sucked so much more than I expected,” Chase said. I was too out of breath to do more than nod.

The tree—which I guess had to be the Tree of Beauty—looked more like seven trees together, the branches ducking in and out of each other, swirling cyclonelike into the sky. Each leaf was a fresh-looking green, and the bark was a silvery sort of white. Up at the top I caught a glimpse of fuchsia tailfeathers. Apparently, the Talking Bird didn't want to talk to
us
.

But there among the Tree's roots, bubbling up with a cheerful gurgle, was the spring. The Water of Life looked pretty ordinary, actually, trickling down a granite trough into a small pool.

It would all be over soon. We would fill up the water bottles, slip on the rings of return, heal everyone, and be safe. Within an hour, within
half
an hour.

“What happened to Kenneth?” asked Ben wearily, like he already knew the answer.

“He's a rock,” Chase said. I don't think he would have sounded so upset over it if Kenneth could hear him.

“I don't know what you're concerned about,” Mia said quietly. “To change him back, we just sprinkle a little of the Water of Life on him. It's in the original Tale.”

“Oh,” said Ben. He and Chase grinned at each other, relieved.

“Wait, how do you know?” I asked, pretty sure she had made it up to comfort us.

“Well, let's not waste any time then,” Ben said. “Rory, did I
hear you mention earlier that you have some water bottles?”

Lena had given us at least a dozen—way more than we needed to give a few hundred poisoned people one sip each. I think she was hoping to have some Water left over for experimenting. I handed over my pack, feeling extremely uneasy for someone at the end of a successful quest. “Seriously, Mia—how did you know? Rapunzel didn't tell us that.”

She shrugged delicately. “I read the Tale.”

From this spot on the plateau, right next to the pool, you could see what was on the other side of the tree—a clear, rounded structure, tall as a lone peak, glinting in the sun. The Glass Mountain. I had never seen it from the outside. It was colossal. The trees only reached a quarter of the way up. Plenty big for the Snow Queen to hide something. Even though it was leagues and leagues away, the hairs on the back of my neck stood up.

Chase noticed where I was looking. “Been there, done that.”

I hadn't told him what I had learned in my last dream. He didn't know we were going back to the Snow Queen's prison—us and Mia. But if we went now, what would happen to Ben?

“No, not from there,” Mia said, bossy like she had never been bossy before, as Ben unscrewed the first water bottle and dipped it into the pool. “The Water of Life is more potent near the spring.”

“Oh, okay.” Ben got up and knelt at the top of the trough.

“And how do you know that?” I asked.

“Same team, Rory.” Ben finished one bottle and started the next. “We can all play nice for a few more minutes.”

“I will personally help you chew her out when we get back to EAS,” Chase added.

But I'd figured out Chatty was a mermaid too late to save her, and I'd
figured out the rocks too late to help Kenneth. I wasn't going to make the same mistake again.

“No. I need you to explain,” I told Mia. “You shouldn't know that. You're the newest Character here.”

Ben dipped another water bottle in the trough. “You sound kind of jealous, Rory.”

“I don't care what I sound like.” I did care, though—just not enough to stop.

I stared hard at Mia, who blinked back calmly. Was she a halfling pretending to be a human Character, like Chase? Was she a spy?

Ben's next bottle glugged as it filled.

Finally, Mia said, “Lena told me. When you were in L.A.”

“No, she didn't. She doesn't like you,” I said, even more suspicious.

“Are you sure?” asked Mia. “Maybe she wants new friends.”

That might have worked. Before I'd gone to the Temple of Mirrors, and walked up this staircase of talking stones, I might have wondered if Mia was smarter than I was, if Lena liked her better than me. “Yes, I'm sure. Lena told me so, and she's a terrible liar.”

The corners of Mia's lips turned up slowly, the same creepy smile I remembered from the dream.

“Mia, you didn't have the magic mirror when Rory was gone,” Chase said carefully. “I didn't let it go all day. Lena couldn't have told you anything.”

Stowing the second-to-last water bottle in the pack, Ben stood up. He narrowed his eyes, thinking.

She rushed him. I thought we had been safe—Chase and I had been closer to Ben than she was—but I hadn't realized how fast she could move.

Ben stumbled back a few steps, arm raised to block off a tackle. But Mia didn't tackle him. Her dress ripped, and white silk unfurled
from her shoulders with the
shink-shink-shink
sounds of a knife being sharpened. Chase and I were still a few steps away when something clicked inside the silk, and a giant hang glider snapped into place, rising straight from her back.

Then she snatched up the strap of the pack that wasn't attached to Ben's shoulder, dragging him, the carryall, and all the bottled Water of Life off the plateau. Chase and I stared dumbly after them, as Mia's hang glider sailed straight to the Glass Mountain.

f course we're going after them,” Chase told the West Wind. “I can't believe you're even asking.”

I let him do all the talking. We were about a mile above the ground, zooming fast enough to outstrip small airplanes. West's shoulder
felt
solid under my sneakers, but this guy was made of air—he could disappear into tiny molecules at any second. It might not even matter how hard I held on to his ear.