Machines don't belong in a fairy tale realm. It's like bringing a robot to a medieval dance party – they just don't know the steps, and the knights keep mistaking them for enchanted toasters
I retreated further and further from Tyra, spinning downward through the void, like dropping into the bottom of a cyclone.
Was this teleporting?
I was pretty sure I was.
And I was doing it all by myself!
It was way simpler than Frekvic had made it sound.
Think of the possibilities! I could teleport anywhere. Who needed a driver's license or a rickety broom when you could magically transport yourself wherever you wanted to go?
Although, I was about to give up my magic, which meant no teleporting.
Think of Olivia. Your sister. You will improve her life. I reminded myself.
But the other part of me, the super evil part, hissed inside my brain. "The magic belongs to us."
"Shut up, evil self! I'm not listening to you!" I would've plugged my ears, except I couldn't feel my fingers or ears or pretty much any part of me, and, also, what good would it do to plug my ears when the voice was inside my head?
"Listen to us. You're about to make a mistake."
"Blah, blah, blah," I thought, drowning out my evil self.
The sensation of falling abruptly ended, and once again, I could feel my body.
This wasn't as fun as you might expect because I was not where I was supposed to be—in Blade's cell. Instead, I was in a dark space so narrow I could barely breathe. Something gauzy, like fine hairs, brushed against my mouth. I spat it away. Ew! What was that?
All around me was something rough and cool. Stones?
Oh, no! I was in the space between two walls. You know the spot. Where rats and spiders hang out. Spiders! It was a spiderweb on my mouth. Gross!
Maybe teleporting wasn't so easy.
Now what?
Get us out of here! My evil self demanded.
This time I agreed.
I gathered my magic, pushing it into my fingertips, and zapped the wall. It exploded outward in a shower of pebbles and dust, and I fell hard on my hands and knees. Ouch! My palms and kneecaps felt like they were on fire. Tears sprung to my eyes. Landing on gravel really hurts! I stayed there for a second, trying to recover my breath. Then I stood slowly, testing my knees to see if they still worked okay, flicking away the pebbles and dust from my arms. Directly in front of me were about a dozen rats, all shaking dust from their fur.
"Hey, lady! Watch where you're flicking," said a large gray rat, extracting a pebble from its ear.
"Sorry," I said. "It was my first teleporting attempt."
A small brown rat shrunk back. "Your first time, and you teleported into the dungeon, which is surrounded by a powerful anti-magic spell? Luckily you landed outside the wall. If you went straight into the cell, you might've broken the space/time continuum."
"Excuse me?" I said. "You're a rat who knows about the space/time continuum?"
The brown rat stood on her hind legs and puffed out her little chest. "Took an online course in physics."
"Lizzie's a nerd," said the other rats, laughing and pointing at her.
"Uhhhh," I said, definitely sounding dumber than the rat. Also, I could totally relate to being called a nerd, but in the interest of not becoming part of a rat buffet, I decided not to push it. "I'll be more careful next time."
Beyond the rats, in the corner of the cell, Blade lay on the floor, unmoving. His face was almost gray and so gaunt it barely looked like him. I swallowed down a lump in my throat. My heart squeezed. For the first time, I really understood the term heartache.
I knelt beside him and placed a hand on his chest. No movement! "Blade! Wake up! Why are you always unconscious?"
No reply. That's a big problem with unconscious people. They never answer you.
"What happened?" I asked the rats. You didn't gnaw on him or anything, did you?"
"We wouldn't dare," said Lizzie.
I arched a brow. "Why not?"
"He'd taste bad," said a fat speckled rat.
"Why won't he move?"
"They put something in his gruel. He was yelling about some witch named Rowen, and no one could sleep. The inmates threatened to revolt if he didn't shut up."
Oh, Blade!
I gripped his shoulders and shook him. Gently at first, then a little harder. "Blade, wake up. Wake up!"
No response. Grrrrr!
Well, if a magical potion put him under, maybe magic could wake him up.
Unbidden, my magic leaped into my fingertips, eager to blast the life back into my friend. But I had to summon the right amount so I didn't blow up my friend, the dungeon, the castle, and maybe the space/time continuum in the process. I needed to Goldilocks my spell. But with so little experience in magical titration, could I even do it right?
Breathe.
Breathe.
Breathe.
Gritting my teeth, I slowly, slowly, slowly allowed the magic to drizzle out of my fingertips as I incanted, "surgit!" Wake up!
Little bolts of magical lightning bounced off Blade's chest and caromed across the cell. Rats scurried to stay out of my wayward spell.
Blade hadn't budged.
So much for the Goldilocks method.
Fairy tales are useless for solutions. Turns out mirrors don't tell reassure evil queens that they're the fairest in the land; they turn you to stone. Stepparents are better than bio-parents. Glass is a stupid material for a shoe. Fairy godmothers are not sweet old ladies. You have to make your own way out of towers. And don't even get me started on 'true love's kiss.' That hadn't worked one bit back in the fairy mound.
"Now what?" I said.
"Kiss the boy," the rats cheered, sounding like the singing crab in The Little Mermaid.
"Been there, done that. Didn't work."
"Perhaps now that you've been separated and realize how much you each mean to the other, true love has blossomed," Lizzie suggested.
"There's also the issue of consent."
"What's consent?" said the gray rat. "Are they those flaky pastries chef makes, and we steal when he's not looking?"
Lizzie rolled her beady rat eyes. "Those are croissants. Consent means asking permission before you do something the other person doesn't want. But, Rowen, Blade mumbled a lot about wanting to kiss you when he was asleep before the potion. So I think that qualifies as consent. Also, it's to save his life, so I think you're legally and morally in the clear."
"Fine! I'll try." The rats scuttled closer to get a better view. "Hey, back off. I don't need an audience. Turn around."
"Fine," they whined.
I lowered my mouth to Blade's, thinking about his bravery. His kindness. His wit. Images of our encounter in the pond flashed across my mind. His hard, muscular chest. The kisses that made me burn.
Stop that, evil self! It's not his priceless abs and kissing prowess that matters. It's his intelligence and stuff.
My evil self cackled and sent more memories of his tongue, his teeth, the way we fit together and floated over the pond.
Fine, it's both! I conceded, and Blade's lips and mine collided, and I pushed all my love into him.
Please let it work!
Almost instantly, I felt his soft lips kissing me back. It was better than the kiss in my dream! Because it was real. "Mmmm," he moaned.
Oh, wait. That was me moaning. Needing to glimpse his face, I backed away. "You're okay," I breathed.
He put his hand behind my head and urged me toward him. "Uh, huh," he said, grinning.
How about you bring those lips back over here?"
"Kiss, kiss, kiss!" cheered the rats.
"These rats are awfully excited," Blade said.
"They're annoying, is what they are," I replied. "Be quiet, you guys!"
"I don't think they can understand you," Blade said.
"Oh, apparently, I speak Rat because my familiar is a rat."
"Kiss, kiss, kiss!"
"What are they saying?"
"Nothing." He raised a dark eyebrow of doubt. "Don't make me regret coming to free you! How did you end up back in the dungeon? And tell me the quick version. I don't have a lot of time."
"Let's see. I woke up in the fairy mound and went looking for you. Ended up in the garden and saw Vermeil had been turned to stone and was now a lawn ornament in the middle of a bunch of daffodils. I confronted Tyra and Olivia. They told me they sent you on a series of dangerous quests, and when I insisted on going after you, they sent me here."
"Seems like a severe punishment for 'insisting.'"
"I might've insisted with a sword."
"Oh, that kind of insisting. Look, Blade, now that I know you're okay, I need to get you to safety while I run a few, um, errands."
"What kind of errands? Why do I think these errands are dangerous?"
"It's Brittlebane! Even going to the bathroom can be hazardous. Anyway, before I leave Brittlebane and go home—"
"You're leaving Brittlebane?"
"Yes. I grew up in Coffin Ridge, and that's where I belong. With my parents and my cat. Where is that cat, anyway?"
Blade gave me a funny look. "How would I know where your cat was? Do you think I have special cat locating radar?"
"No need to get defensive," I said. How odd. Why did Blade take this so personally?
"I'm not being defensive," he defended.
"But, Blade, if you want to come back to Coffin Ridge with me, I'm sure Queen Olivia would be cool with it."
"Hold up," Blade said, raising his arm. "Olivia is going to be the queen?"
"Yes, didn't I mention that?"
"No. But she has no magic."
"Another long story. She's my sister, yada yada, and I apparently took all the magic when we were created in the cauldron together. And since I don't want to be queen, and Olivia does, it makes sense that I give it to her."
"But that's impossible," Blade said.
"It's totally possible. Olivia is a genius. You should see her clothing line. Plus, she invented a machine called the Suckonator or something like that to transfer the magic into her."
"Rowen, I don't think you understand what you're doing," he said, his face grim.
"Are you going to minion-splain me?"
"The magic chose you, Rowen. Why can't you see that?"
"Because it's not true. It's just the luck of the draw. Like I got the magic, she got the gorgeous blonde hair and creamy skin."
Blade shook his head. "I can't let you do this. You'd be giving up a big part of what makes you, you."
"I've lived without magic all my life. I don't need it. And the only thing I will truly miss about this place is you. But if you come back with me, problem solved. You'll love the human world. We have airplanes and television. I know you don't know what those are yet, but they're awesome. And maybe you could get a prosthetic for your missing arm. Medical science is brilliant."
"Rowen," he whispered, "why would I want an artificial arm? I love who I am. When I lost it, I worked ten times harder to be the best swordsman in the castle. It's our flaws that give us character. Make us who we are and who we're meant to be."
"I don't love it when you're right," I snarled.
"Too bad I'm always right then," he said, his dark eyes sparkling with his usual mischief. I think after a few good meals, he would be himself again.
"Whatever. I need to keep you hidden until after the coronation so you don't end up back in the dungeon or unconscious. Again".
"I only go unconscious when you're around," he replied. "I was thinking you liked me better that way."
"Hey!" Okay, sometimes I did prefer him unconscious, but not all the time.
"And I am not leaving your side. You need me."
"No, I don't. If I'm worried about your safety, it'll make my errands harder. The only question is how to get you out of here without magic." I walked the perimeter of the cell, running my hands over the metal bars and the stone walls and floors.
"What are you doing?"
"I'm looking for a secret exit. You know, a hidden button. A trap door. That kind of thing."
"Rowen, this is a dungeon. There are no secret exits."
"Hey, Rowen. What about that?" Lizzie interrupted our squabble and scurried toward the pile of rubble that used to be the outer wall.
Sure enough, a pencil-thin shaft of dusty light shone through the outer wall from whatever lay beyond. I stepped onto the loose rocks and leaned close to the hole. I couldn't make out much. Just a brightly lit room beyond the dungeon. If we could get in there, my magic should work, and I wouldn't corrupt the space-time continuum or anything. "Help me move these rocks," I said.
Clawing away at the stones of the inner wall, we created a larger opening. A strange, acrid odor, like someone had unscrewed all the lids from the jars in biology class and left them open for the entire summer. My stomach curdled.
Blade sniffed. "Rowen, I don't like this."
"Why not?"
He shrugged his shoulders. "It feels ... wrong."
"Look, I just got back from questing in a filthy moat, a cone of judgmental clouds, a room with a Medusan mirror, a graveyard, and a tomb occupied by an ancient demon. What's one more creepy location?" I said this more to convince myself than him.
"How about you send me and my friends in first," Lizzie said."
"I can't do that," I said.
Can I? I did not add.
"We like the smell. Like death and formaldehyde. Has promise. If someone sees us, we'll just disappear into the walls."
Before I could further protest, the rats scampered up the rubble mountain and disappeared through the hole.
"Oh, no!" squeaked a rat.
"What's wrong?" I said, heart thumping.
"There's not a thing to eat in here!" the rats said in alarm.
"But is it safe?"
"No! We'll starve!"
"But are there any threats?"
"No threats."
"Okay. Let's go," I said. Blade and I tore away at the stones on the outer wall until we opened a person-sized opening. My hands were raw and bleeding by the time we finished. "I'll go in first."
"No, I will," Blade said.
I was honestly too exhausted to even fight him, so I held out my arm, inviting him to go first, but I scuttled in quickly behind him, stepping into the strangest room I'd seen at the castle. It not only smelled like a stuffy laboratory, but it also looked like one. Two metal tables with heavy leather straps dangling over the sides, a hulking steampunk-type machine the size of a small car, and shelves upon shelves of bottles and tools. Medieval weapons hung from the walls. At the far side of the chamber was a door.
Something crashed nearby. Sounded like it came from beyond that door.
Blade swiped a sword from the wall, and we raced across the lab and flung it open, only to find another room beyond it, the floor covered in broken glass. I gasped. "What the—"
Inside this small room were seven wooden stands. One was empty, the other six had glass coffins perched on top. And these coffins were not empty. Inside each one was a witch.
"They're the witches that disappeared," Blade whispered. "I think we should get out of here."
"Maybe you're right," I said, but just then, a swirl of pink floated into the small room, followed by the rest of Tyra.
"You made it right on time," Tyra said, smoothing her skirts. "Excellent."One look at her and the rats scurried into the walls. "But you broke one of the coffins. Bad girl."
"Tyra, what's going on? Who are these people?" I said.
Olivia walked in and stood beside Tyra. "Let's call them failed experiments."
Fear prickled up my neck. "Olivia, what are you saying?"
"I needed their magic," she said as if that explained everything.
"Why are they, uh, sleeping? Unconscious? Cryogenically frozen?" I gulped. "Dead?"
Olivia smiled. "I gained valuable information from them. In the name of science."
"You ... but ... why did you do that?"
"At first, I thought it didn't matter where I got the magic, but after this," she gestured toward the unconscious witches, I realized I needed a compatible donor, silly. That's why I had to bring you here. Sis."
Blade swept in front of me, wielding his borrowed sword. "Leave her alone!" he growled.
"After all the work I put into getting her here?" Olivia said. "No way. Tyra, can you please remove this minion of massive annoyance?"
"Certainly," Tyra said. Raising her arms.
But before her fairy dust could rain down, I whispered, "eum ad salutem," and zapped Blade far away. The sword clattered to the stone floor. I scooped it up by the hilt, but it was so heavy the tip dropped to the ground, and I had to use two hands to raise it back up.
"Where did he go?" Olivia screamed.
"No one calls Blade a minion of massive annoyance except me! And I sent him somewhere you'll never find him!" I hoped.
"Tie her up," Olivia ordered. "It's time."
"My pleasure," Tyra purred.
Thank you to you, my favorite Wattpad readers of all, for reading of course, for your comments, votes, and just being plain awesome!
Any surprises in this chapter, or had you figured it out?