Of Sorcery and Snow (10 page)

“Cross your fingers?” Lena said helplessly.

I did, and I held them up to show her, with the most reassuring smile I could manage. But it felt weird not being part of the action. Yesterday, this had been my idea. Now it was completely out of my hands.

Then Chase slipped out again, leaving the door open a crack so we could peek through. “Let's see if the Director takes the bait,” he said.

Up on the raised dais, opposite the orchestra, a row of thronelike chairs were all empty except for the Director's. Her fingers drummed on the armrest, her eyes sweeping across the floor. We drew back a little when her gaze traveled toward us.

“Not yet,” I said. “Where's Ben?”

“Beside the line of potential Cinderellas.” Chase pointed to the back, where a swooping marble staircase rose above the dance floor. Girls had lined up behind it. On a small platform at the top, an elf in a weird shirt and waistcoat announced the name of the girl who had reached the front of the line, but I couldn't hear him from this far away. I knew without looking that they were all wearing glass slippers with a flexibility spell embedded in them. The Director had announced a sign-up sheet for anyone who wanted to borrow a pair a while back, but I'd been too focused on the tournament to care.

The ninth graders shifted into position below them. I glimpsed Ben's seersucker jacket, and then a loud beat exploded from them.

A kid wearing a blazer covered in patches passed some speakers to Ben. Then he pulled a beanie out of another pocket, stuck it over his hair, flipped upside down, and started to spin, his legs at crooked angles.

The break-dance-at-the-ball-distraction. Perfect.

Looking like a
Draconus melodius
about to breathe fire, the Director deployed the troops. Hansel and Stu, the Shoemaker, both pushed through the crowd toward the commotion.

“It's not working!” Lena's whisper hissed with panic. “There are still way too many people in the courtyard for Melodie to bring the spell out here.”

Chase stepped back and opened the doors wide. Then he cupped his hands over his mouth and called to everyone outside. “Dude, Lancer Davis is b-boying! The Director's going to freak!”

Kids rushed from the Table to the ballroom. We scooted out of the way as Character after Character passed by, craning their necks to get a peek at the action. Lena sprinted four doors down toward the workshop, way faster than she should have in those heels.

“Well done,” I told Chase, and he grinned.

Soon just one couple sat in an overstuffed chair under the Tree of Hope, but they were too busy kissing to notice us. The only other people I saw in the courtyard were three figures in front of the library door. Miriam, Natalie, and Shakayla. Hard to tell in the dark, but it looked like Miriam was tapping her foot.

The metal doors to the workshop slid open, and out came Lena and Melodie, along with her dummy chauffeur. They came slowly, step by painful step, carrying a scrying bowl. It was filled with a really gross concoction: green and gold dragon scales ground down to the size of sprinkles, reeking of sulfur; random sticks and twigs; a photograph of me, Chase, and Lena; and a spoon made out of coral.

Chase inspected it too. “Please tell me the spoon isn't for eating.”

Melodie hunched over the bowl protectively and sent us her golden-eyed glare of doom. “This is a very delicate spell. Almost as touchy as brewing a portable wish. If you breathe on it funny, you mess it up.”

“Well, can you hurry?” Chase asked. “It's not going to take the Director very long to kick that kid out.”

“Is anybody looking?” Lena said. “It won't work if people are watching us.”

I glanced through the door. A circle had formed around Lancer, and now people were cheering and clapping in rhythm. Hansel and Stu couldn't get close enough to stop him. The Director looked like she was about ready to charge in herself and escort Lancer off into the dungeon. “I think we're okay,” I said.

“Then, on the count of three,” said the harp. Lena nodded and took a deep breath. “One, two . . . three.” Then the harp and her mistress unleashed a long torrent of Fey words, in a weird sort of singsong. I definitely shouldn't have taken my gumdrop translator out.

The scrying bowl boiled with color until it bubbled over the sides and all the way down to the grass. It streamed off in one direction and spilled upward, recreating a Lena, Chase, and Rory. Watching my green flats appear and then my ankles creeped me out so much that I had to look away.

Lena noticed. She smiled sympathetically. “I know. It's weird, but it's fast. Look—they're already done.”

Three new figures stood in the courtyard, identical to us, right down to Lena's long golden gloves and Chase's too-short sleeves and the tree-shaped comb Rapunzel had put in my hair. It was weird to watch my double grin and line up in the ballroom doorway with the illusion Chase and the illusion Lena. On their tiptoes, they tried to see Lancer dancing. Lena must have enchanted them to do what everyone else was doing.

With Lena's help, the harp poured the contents of the scrying bowl—now less lumpy and glowing hot pink—into a glass jar, and she put it in the satchel hanging over the fairy dummy's metal wings. Then Melodie looked at us, her golden face determined. “Better hurry.”

Lena hugged the harp so hard that some of Melodie's strings twanged.

“Be careful, mistress,” the harp said.

Oh. I guess Melodie wasn't coming.

“Don't tell,” Lena said.

The harp nodded. “Cross my heart and hope to melt.”

Then Melodie's dummy chauffeur stepped forward, and so did the illusion Lena, Chase, and Rory. They shifted down along the ballroom wall, and Melodie waved as Lena shut the doors behind them.

“Now for the library.” Lena spun on her heel and rushed across the courtyard.

I glanced back once. “We're not going in?”

Considering everything, it was stupid to feel disappointed about it, but it
had
taken three grown-ups to get me ready that night. It was hard to believe I wasn't even going to step into the ballroom.

“Sucks that we won't even have time for one dance,” Chase said as we fell in behind Lena.

I looked at him, trying to decided if he was teasing me or not.

He smiled, just a tiny bit. “I dance even better than I skateboard. You would have been really impressed.”

Still not sure. I would have asked and possibly told him off, but the door squeaked open behind us.

Oh no. We'd been discovered. We all looked back to see the person who had come to drag us in front of the Director.

Kyle Zipes.

“Hey, Lena,” he said. “Two quick questions: One, do you want to dance? And two, why did you leave a copy of yourself against that wall?”

Lena stared at him, horrified. “Oh my gumdrops.”

“I'm sensing—and go ahead and tell me if I'm wrong—that you guys are up to something you shouldn't be,” Kyle said, following us toward the library.

“Your detective skills amaze me,” Chase said.

“Born talented. What can I say?” But Kyle glanced between the three of us with a small frown, clearly waiting for someone to explain.

“We're breaking into the library,” Chase said in his most bragging voice.

Lena obviously couldn't stand not telling Kyle either. “Remember the illusion spell Gretel did for the skit last year? Well, I adapted it. It would have been easier if I was a sorceress and not a magician, but that's what Melodie carried into the ballroom.”

“Okay . . . ,” Kyle said. “So, I guess . . . no dance, then?”

“I really
want
to,” Lena said desperately. “It's just—”

“It would look weird if people noticed there were two Lenas,” Kyle finished.

“I'm really sorry!”

“It's fine, Lena. You have top secret stuff. I get it. But—” Now he looked a little nervous. “Maybe later? After you dissolve the illusion spell and—”

Poor guy. He was about to get turned down a second time, and Lena looked so unwilling to tell him that I thought the Pounce Pot forced her to swallow her tongue.

Kyle guessed. If possible, he deflated even more. Then he noticed who was waiting for us in front of the library. He stopped short, and his eyes grew so huge, I double-checked to make sure he hadn't spotted a rogue ice griffin or something.

Nope. Just Miriam arguing with her friends, so loud we could hear them.

“It doesn't have anything to do with the dance,” Natalie said. “You know you could die, right?”

“Tell that to Philip,” Miriam snapped.

Shakayla noticed us first. “Look, Miriam. More little kids to add to your collection. At this rate, you better just take the whole middle school to the Arctic Circle.”

That was annoying, especially coming from a sissy almost-Companion.

“You're not going after the Pied Piper's kids, are you?” Kyle said.

It occurred to me
wh
y Lena had such a humungous crush on him. He had to be one of the smartest kids in our grade.

“Of course.” Miriam pointed at Kyle. She'd painted her nails silver since I'd seen her last. “Are you coming too?”

“No, I'm not.” Kyle headed back to the ballroom, walking backward so he could keep talking. “Lena, your illusion's a noncorporeal spell, right? I'll try to make sure nobody walks through your decoys.”

And
he offered to help without being asked? Lena had
really
good taste in crushes.

“We trust him, right?” When no one replied, Miriam clapped once, to get our attention. “
Children
. Answer.”

“Crap,” said Chase, looking at our Tale bearer. “You're as bossy as Jenny, aren't you?”

“We trust him,” I said, but I had the sinking feeling that Chase was right. This was going to be a
long
quest.

he library door wasn't even locked, which worried me. No kids were allowed in unless the librarian invited them. I couldn't believe Rumpel would just leave it open, unless maybe the library had other defenses.

We didn't even have to search the bronze shelves, or look through the three-foot-tall books stacked on them. The current volume lay unguarded on the table. The leather cover was a deep violet, which grew even darker along the edges. The pages were gilded, and inside, all the ongoing Tales were writing and rewriting themselves, just waiting for us to read them. Maybe the Canon had booby-trapped it. Maybe an enchantment would turn us to stone as soon as we lifted the cover.

Because the Water of Life would break most spells, that wouldn't be the end of the world, but we'd definitely be caught.

I expected Lena to be even more nervous than I was, but she was a Character on a mission. She was the only kid at EAS who'd ever been invited to the library just because Rumpelstiltskin liked her. So she knew exactly where she was going, straight to the back. She knelt beside the map cabinet and tugged a long skinny drawer open. Then she began lifting maps out and laying them down one by one. When Chase got close, examining a map, she said, “I don't
need help. You don't exactly have much attention for detail, and everything has to go back exactly how it was. Rumpelstiltskin can never know I betrayed his trust.”

He knew better than to argue with Lena when she was like this. He stepped away. “I'll go stand guard.”

That left me with Miriam and the current volume. She eyed the book on the table the same way I'd eyed Jack's wyrm when I'd met him for the first time, like it might spew fire any second.

“When Shakayla, Natalie, and I came in here yesterday, Rumpel just turned a page and his whole face went white,” she whispered. “He slammed the book shut and kicked us out of the library so he could talk to the Director alone.”

I took a deep breath and lifted the violet cover. Not stone yet. Maybe it was fine. Maybe the Director never expected kids to break such a big rule.