Of Sorcery and Snow (19 page)

Every single one. So no one had a chance at beating me.

The snickers across the courtyard stopped, leaving an eerie silence.

When I looked at the stage, the king's eyebrows were a big, scary V that basically said,
Forget about the Snow Queen. You'll rot in
my
dungeon for the rest of your days
.

I'd miscalculated. The Fey would have been cool with it, but dwarves did
not
appreciate sneakiness.

But Princess Hadriane started laughing. “She has you there, Father. She asked for the rules, and we told her. You're a dwarf of your word—deliver her prize.”

I really wanted to ask him for help saving Ima, Iggy, and the kids from Hawthorne, but since he hadn't told Kiivinsh what
really
happened with the twins, I didn't think he'd be too excited about an alliance if I blabbed his secrets.

So I said, “Let us go?” Maybe later we could sit down and discuss rescue strategies.

The king smiled so happily at Hadriane that I thought she'd convinced him, that he was going to go with her plan. But he said, “I'm afraid that request is too grand for a mere favor. The best I can do is let your party roam free at our tournament, on the condition you bend that tree trunk to its original position. Would that satisfy you, or would you rather have a golden spear?”

t was weird to be relieved and disappointed at the same time. “That's good. Thank you.” It took me a minute to bend the metal tree back up. The trunk was a little warped where it had been folded, but the rings dangled from their leather cords high above my head, like they had before.

The king turned back to the square. “I said, let the tournament commence!”

Arrows thunked into targets in the archery lanes, and the first reindeer tried to gallop up Hadriane's ice hill. It took maybe two strides before its hooves slipped, and it fell, tossing its rider. That didn't bother Hadriane—she was still laughing.

“Remove their bonds,” the king told the second-in-command.

The soldier immediately moved down the line, sawing through the leather cords around our wrists. When he was done, the king continued, “Forrel, you and your squadron are officially off duty. Enjoy the tournament.”

He didn't have to tell Rebdo and Cranky Beard twice. They leaped on the backs of their mounts and galloped toward their favorite events. Forrel lingered a little, watching us.

“So,” I told the others, rubbing my wrists to get feeling back into them. “We should have a questers' meeting.”

Miriam plunged into the crowd and hurried behind the stadium seating. Chase, Lena, and I had to run to keep up. She didn't stop until we reached an event that looked like a logging contest with ice picks—the dwarves were hacking so furiously that I knew we couldn't be overheard.

Good thing too. A bunch of dwarf ladies in the bleachers, all with the funny extra-wide braids, were definitely trying to eavesdrop. They kept glancing over at us, like they couldn't decide if they wanted to say hi or start pelting us with their frozen popcorn.

“Rory, I see the brilliant plan now,” Chase said. “We steal our supplies back while they're distracted by the tournament—”

“—and we hightail it out of here before they realize we're gone,” added Miriam.

“No, we're going to convince them to let us go. We need them to help us,” I said. I repeated everything I'd overheard, as quickly as I could.

To their credit, they all listened, but Chase started to look more and more concerned. “Interesting,” he said when I finished. “Miriam, you're the Tale bearer. Use your power of veto.”

“Your plan has problems
too,
Chase,” Lena pointed out. “The king said we could walk around the tournament. If we step one foot outside the square, the dwarves are going to stop us.”

“Wait, I can't hear you all that well with the pickax action,” Miriam said. “Lena, you're with Rory? You think we should bring the princess on the quest with us?” She jerked her thumb to the ice hill, one event over.

Hadriane looked bored, and no wonder—none of the contestants were having any luck. Most dwarves who took a turn toppled off their mount when it slipped, and I'd seen a couple warriors spit out teeth. The reindeer that had just reached the front of the line was refusing to sprint straight at the ice wall.

“I don't know,” Lena said. I was hurt. I was
sure
she would side with me. “I think the king might not have a choice, Rory. The spell over this city needs some upkeep, and the dwarves don't have the magic to do it themselves. It's not just the prince and princess that the Snow Queen's holding hostage. She could freeze every single person under the dome, just by turning off the enchantment.”

Oh. That sounded a lot like the Snow Queen I knew. She'd sent them a nice invitation for a hostage situation, and the dwarves walked into it willingly. They even thanked her for it.

“On the other hand,” Lena said, “Rory's plans always sound kind of crazy, but they definitely work.”

“Yeah,” Miriam said thoughtfully. “I thought you were nuts when you entered the tournament, but without you, we'd still be all tied up.”

Chase knew he was losing ground. “Rory, Rapunzel said we needed to become champions, and you did that at the ring joust. Now we have a golden opportunity to get out of here. We can't let it pass. The dwarves haven't exactly been buddy-buddy since we got here. Those soldiers were ready to kiss Solange's feet.”

Well, when he put it like that . . .

But Miriam had decided. “Okay, so we try to win the dwarves over. How will we do it?”

I hesitated. That was the part of the plan I needed help with.

“Definitely don't try to escape,” said a voice directly behind Chase. “We'd hate that.”

It was Forrel, watching us with that tiny smile. “My captain ordered me to keep an eye on you. I could see you were plotting some mischief, but I couldn't hear you from my hiding spot.”

“You're not very subtle, are you?” Miriam said. “Isn't the point of spying not to let us know you're doing it?”

The dwarf ignored her nasty tone. “I can keep a very good eye
on you from right here. Now what were you children whispering about?”

“The tournament,” said Lena, too quickly. “We were trying to figure out which event to enter next.”

“And you pointed at the hill?” said Forrel, with a look that clearly said,
Do you think I'm as dumb as a troll?
“They won't let you anywhere near it after the trick Landon pulled. The winner of that event could be our future king, you know.”

It did sound pretty far-fetched, but Miriam had clearly decided that the best defense is a good offense. “We think it's stupid. She doesn't need a king to rule for her.”

“She would make a wonderful queen. I won't deny that,” Forrel said, so calm and polite that he was getting on my nerves. “But her people won't allow it—she's only half dwarf.”

That explained why she was so much taller than everyone else.

“Oh,”
said Miriam and Chase together.

Both Miriam and Lena turned to look at Chase, kind of shocked to hear him sound so sympathetic, but he didn't notice. He just added, “What's the other half? Fey?”

“Human,” Forrel said. “Her mother was a Character. She went easy on you this morning. You should have seen the trolls we caught trespassing last week.”

“Remind me again why we should trust you?” Chase asked, taking a step closer to Forrel, but I hoped they wouldn't actually start fighting. Even though Chase was taller, I didn't think he could beat the soldier easily. I hadn't seen someone so unmovable since Iron Hans. The only difference was that Forrel always seemed slightly amused by everything.

“He helped me eavesdrop. He told me exactly where to stand,” I told the others. That didn't mean I totally trusted Forrel, but we
could probably use him for information. I pointed out the mounted dwarves standing back from the hill, just watching other participants try and fail. “Why aren't they taking their turns?”

“Strategy,” said Forrel. “No reindeer could conquer that slope as it is now, but some of these hooves are leaving divots in the ice. Soon the divots will make a trail.”

I pointed to familiar faces at the end of the line—Rebdo and Cranky Beard. “And they're allowed to compete?”

The corners of Forrel's mouth twitched a little more. “If one were to win,” he said, as if he seriously doubted their chances, “they would replace me as lieutenant, so I would not outrank the third heir to the throne.”

“Why aren't you out there?” Miriam asked.

“The captain ordered me here,” Forrel said.

“So, would you help us?” Miriam said. “Like, do you have any supercharged reindeer at home? Could we borrow it when the trail gets a little higher?”

“A Dapplegrim could make it without any dumb trail,” Chase said. I rolled my eyes—he'd been obsessed with Dapplegrim ever since Atlantis. Then he added, “I can get one.”

“You have a boon from a Dapplegrim
and
the means to transport it here?” Forrel said, disbelieving.

No, Chase had a boon from Iron Hans, who did have them. Chase had
also
sworn to keep Iron Hans's hideout in Atlantis a secret, so he couldn't tell anyone but me and Lena about that boon. So he did—over and over and over. He loved that boon so much that I'd been sure he would keep it forever.

In other words, I was too shocked to speak.

Not Lena. “He doesn't joke around about Dapplegrim,” she told Forrel.

“One Dapplegrim won't be much help,” said the dwarf. “Its hooves will blaze a trail any half-decent reindeer could follow.”

“Three Dapplegrim, then,” Chase said. “Three of us can ride up at the same time. We'll do it disguised, so nobody will stop us.”

“Not a glamour, though,” said Lena. “The king needs to recognize the riders.”

My eyebrows flew up, and Chase said, with lots of hostility, “Who said anything about a glamour?”

“I mean, illusions,” Lena said, a little too fast.

She had definitely noticed what Chase had done at Queen Titania's pavilion. She
was
figuring it out.

I think Chase knew it too. He strategically changed the subject. “So, where can I go to contact my source without anyone yelling, ‘jailbreak'?”

Forrel escorted Chase through a restaurant on the square, into its back lot, but he kept shaking his head with a tiny smile, like this was a huge waste of time.

About a minute later the dwarf reappeared in the doorway, his dark eyes so wide they were rimmed with white like a spooked horse. He waved Lena, Miriam, and me inside and through to the back.

Yep. Chase definitely got them here.

The Dapplegrim were way too fiery for this ice-filled city. They'd melted a puddle in the middle of the alley they pranced on, and when they tossed their heads, flames flickered along their manes. Beside them, three empty suits of armor stood at attention.