Of Witches and Wind (33 page)

“Rory, look at the water!” she whispered.

The bottom of the fountain was a mosaic of blue and orange tiles, patterned like flames. With the water moving over them, they seemed to flicker. “Cool optical illusion, but um . . . Oh!”

For an instant I glimpsed something else: a garden full of hedgerows, and sweeping gravel paths, and topiaries—very French, pre-Revolution. Between two topiaries lurked a hulking shape that had recently become familiar: thick legs, wide shoulders, tusks curving out of its mouth—a troll.

“I think you have to go through,” Lena whispered.

Gulping, I pulled out my sword—in case I got rushed by twelve trolls as soon as I landed. “Just jump in?”

“Yeah. Bend your knees, though—I'm not sure how far the drop is,” Lena said nervously.

If I broke my leg down there, I would be all alone, surrounded by enemies and unable to run. I stepped up on the rim. I wished that Lena and Chase could have come with me.

I squeezed my eyes closed and jumped. Water shot up my nose and splashed over my smiley face shirt.

“Is everything okay?” Lena said, kind of panicked.

“It didn't work, but besides that, yeah, I'm fine.” Across the alley, two security guards rolled by on Segways. I froze. It didn't matter how uncool they looked. If they caught me playing in the memorial
fountain when I was supposed to be at a casting call, I would still get into the kind of trouble written about in Madison's magazines.

“Okay,” Lena said, disappointed. “I'll do a little more research.”

I wondered how many girls had tried out while I was gone. I might still have time to change before it was my turn. Trying to climb out, I slipped again, banging my knee and soaking the other side of my shirt.

“I'm going to head back,” I said. Lena nodded, already leafing through one of her books.

My shoes left tracks down the alley. Awesome.

I slipped inside, down the hall, and into the waiting room, shivering under the AC. Head after head in the waiting room turned to stare at me as I unzipped my bag and avoided looking at Madison.

My cheeks flared. At least we had found the court. For the first time all morning, getting the scepter seemed slightly less impossible.

I stripped off my sneakers and my socks. They
were
looking kind of awful. They were stained brown with Atlantis mud, and the rip at the ankle had gotten bigger somewhere between Iron Hans's cave and here.

Inside my bag, the pretty orangey ballet flats Mom had given me glittered.

I pulled them out and shoved my feet inside.
Amazing
. They did actually make me feel a little less like a wet mess. Especially when I caught the girl next to me glancing at the sequins. Now for a shirt.

“Landon and McDermott,” said the bun-and-clipboard lady, just as I reached down for my discarded sneakers. “This way, please.”

No way. They couldn't have waited three more minutes until I was dry again? I'd just have to pretend I wasn't there. I would tell Dad I'd been in the bathroom.

Madison practically skipped across the room. “McDermott here.”

The bun-and-clipboard lady scowled down at her clipboard. “Where's Landon?”

My classmate pointed straight at me. “Right there, ma'am.”

I froze.

“Well? Come on, Landon. Quickly. No time for cold feet,” said bun-and-clipboard lady. I didn't have any choice except to dump my sneakers in my carryall and follow Madison.

As I passed the bun-and-clipboard lady, I dripped on her a little. She looked up, finally, kind of stunned.

Then, when I joined Madison McDermott in a small circle of light, my classmate smiled her triumphant smile, and dread weighed down my middle.

Besides the stage area, the rest of the room was dark. I wished I could run off and hide in it.

“Is this some sort of gimmick?” asked the only person in the room wearing a suit—a stout woman with a severe-looking part in her hair. She sat at a table, a few feet away from the light. The casting director, Klonsky.

I glanced around and realized that Klonsky was talking to me. “N-no.”

“Dripping wet, a black eye,” Klonsky snapped. I touched my face. All the makeup Brie had painted on must have come off. “Did you get into an accident or something? Are you trying to prove how dedicated you are?”

I shrank away. I couldn't think of any excuses except that I had jumped in a fountain on my way to the Hidden Troll Court. “No.”

Madison stood at my left elbow. I wished any of the other kids had been called with me—anyone except the one person I would
have to see again. Next Monday's homeroom would suck so much more than usual.

“Then is this some sort of joke?” Klonsky's eyes flashed even from the dim area. The bun-and-clipboard lady should have warned me that she was this type of casting director—the kind who lost it if you were rude. “This isn't a comedic role. You're not pretty, or talented, or charming, or famous enough for us to overlook this disrespectful behavior.”

I thought nothing could make me feel any worse, any smaller, but someone moved in the shadows just behind Klonsky—a man ran his hands through his hair. I couldn't see his face, but I recognized the gesture. My father.

“There's nothing appealing about you,” said Klonsky. “You're a waste of my time.”

And Dad never said a word.

hey made me do the reading anyway.

Later I remembered holding a sheet of paper in my hand and hearing words sail out of my mouth. I remembered how Madison glowed. I remembered clinging to the hope that Dad would interrupt and say that I was his daughter, that no one could treat me like that, and that he was taking me home.

I remembered not crying, not even when we finally finished, or when Klonsky pointedly thanked Madison for her time, but not me, or when I shuffled back into the waiting room, face hot, and bent over my luggage to find some dry clothes.

In the bathroom, changing, I racked my brain for something I could tell Dad. But my rebellious mind just tried to puzzle out why he hadn't stood up to the casting director.

He was waiting for me when I came out. All he said was, “Did you do it on purpose?”

“No.” My nose prickled just under the bridge. I was three seconds away from crying. If he asked what happened, I would tell him the truth—about EAS, and the quest, and the Hidden Troll Court. I would show him the fountain as proof. I would lift up the car with the ring.

It didn't matter if he freaked out and locked me in my L.A.
room. I had the ring of return. If I could get back to EAS, Lena could get me back here.

But he didn't ask. He didn't even look at me as he grabbed my duffel and walked out the doors. I followed him to the parking lot, so focused on wishing Dad would turn around and hug me that I didn't recognize the redheaded figure leaning against his car, munching on something.

Brie waved when she saw us, with that super-bright smile. She had changed out of her costume and into jeans, a flowery blouse, and a ton of dangly necklaces. “I'm so hungry. If I hadn't found this apple, I might have fainted.”

Oh, no. I couldn't go to lunch right now. I needed an excuse to return to that back lot, and it had to be a good one.

Brie glanced between us. “You two have a fight?”

“No,” Dad and I said at the same time—except I said it kind of resentfully. I would have preferred having a fight. At least then Dad would be talking to me.

“Rory, did you take a shower? And what happened to your backpack? I could have sworn you had a backpack,” Brie said.

My carryall with the temporary transport spell, with the ring of return, the M3. I'd left it in the bathroom where any child actress, cleaning crew, or studio exec could take it. I had to go back for it, but Brie was way more interested in asking questions than in getting answers. She didn't even pause for breath.

“Did the casting call today not go well or something?” she continued.

“Kind of an understatement,” Dad muttered, as Brie took another bite. Her extremely long, extremely skinny fingers were almost spidery. Even the ginormous diamond on her hand was wider than her ring finger—

I choked a little on my own spit.

Dad was engaged. Brie Catcher was going to be my stepmother.

“What?” Brie followed my gaze, and then, with an embarrassed grin, she covered the huge diamond with her other hand. “Oh. I know. Someone in the ring department told Eric that bigger is always better, but—”

“I hadn't gotten a chance to tell her yet,” Dad whispered to Brie, in a voice almost too low to hear. He didn't even seem sorry about it.

“But you said you would tell her when you picked her up.” She turned back to me. Her eyebrows pinched together. “And we talked about it in the trailer. I said it would be nice to have permission, and you said—”

“You didn't say you were engaged,” I whispered, throat dry. “You weren't even wearing a ring.”

“I take it off when I'm in costume,” Brie said slowly.

I tried to remember all the Tales that had stepmothers in them. There were too many to count. There were too many
lame
ones to count.

I didn't want a stepmother, especially not one named after a stupid smelly cheese.

“Rory, are you okay?” The concern in Brie's voice was real. I wished it hadn't been, because then I would have had reason to hate her.

My nose prickled under the bridge again. “I left my bag in the bathroom.” Before either of them could answer, before Dad even looked up, I sprinted into the building, down the hall, and into the bathroom.

My carryall was where I had left it, propped under the sink.

I locked the door behind me and checked all the stalls to make sure I was alone. I needed to talk to Lena.

I scooped the M3 out of my carryall's front pocket. “Hello?”

“You got away,” Lena said, relieved. All the coughing had taken its toll. Her eyes were bloodshot, and her shoulders kind of drooped. “I've got three options that might get you in.”

Maybe I could spare five minutes, though, just to get it off my chest.

But her image was replaced by Chase's: His blond curls were muddy. A new red welt on his forehead promised to become a pretty serious bruise. “So . . . I have good news and bad news.”

“My M3s can do conference calls?” Lena seemed kind of impressed with herself. “Chase, how did you do that?”

He rolled his eyes. “Oh, it was really hard. I picked up the magic mirror and started talking. Anyway, bad news is the escape attempt failed.” He lifted up his arms. Both wrists were encircled by heavy manacles of tarnished Fey-tempered silver.

“What? You tried to escape?” Lena asked.

Right. I'd never filled her in on what Chase had whispered to me right before I'd left Atlantis.

“Yep, and Fael—I mean, His Highness the Royal Prince of the Unseelie Court—” Chase added hastily, for the benefit of someone just beyond the mirror's frame—“well, he was kind of expecting it. But the good news is we didn't get roughed up too bad. Although there was one hairy moment when Ori'an was going to step on Ben's head, elephant execution style, and burst it like—”

Lena shuddered. “Stop. Just stop.”

I knew what Chase was trying to say. The questers would be watched even more closely than before. They wouldn't be able to escape on their own.

It was all up to me. I didn't have time to be upset.

“Your sympathy is simply overwhelming, you guys,” Chase said.

“I'm sorry. Did you want sympathy or rescue?” Melodie asked from over Lena's shoulder. “Because we've been working on the second one.”

“At least tell me good things are happening on your end?” he said.

“We found the entrance,” Melodie said proudly, like she'd helped.

“We got a little stumped getting through,” Lena said.

I took out my phone and started a good-bye text to my dad:
I'm sorry
.