Hidden Charm

by Kristine Grayson

  He took a deep breath. Enough thinking. Enough dithering. It didn’t matter how out of shape he was on dagger throwing or spell-casting. What mattered was that he was the only one left who could do this.

  Zel was watching him as if she could see the dialogue going on in his head. Did she realize just how out of practice he was?

  Probably not. Right now, he was her hero. She had said she needed one, even though he didn’t think so. But because she thought she needed one, she wasn’t going to step up, not entirely, and not in the way she should.

  And this…plague (or whatever it was) on his city would get worse.

  He was the best man for the job, not because he had the most skills, but because he had the least to lose.

  Maybe that was how Sonny’s protect spell for Zel worked: maybe it didn’t work on Charmings at all. Maybe it worked on mages with nothing to lose, so that they would step up and do the right thing.

  That dark, internal amusement rose again. As if there were a lot of highly trained mages who had nothing to lose. Sometimes, Henry was so self-involved.

  The self-involvement came from living alone. It came from not giving a crap about the rest of the world.

  It came, oddly enough, from not giving a crap about himself.

  “All right,” he said. “Let’s do this.”

  Zel nodded, looking nervous. “What should I do?”

  Run, he wanted to say. Forget about Sonny. Let someone else fight the war. Let Selda worry about it.

  But Henry didn’t say that. Because that wasn’t who he was, not deep down. He had only run once in his life, after Tiana had died. After the hope for any kind of future had died.

  He had run to the Greater World because he couldn’t face himself.

  And now, he was going to have to.

  “Put your arms around me,” he said, “and hold on tight.”

  He didn’t tell her that the ride might be more difficult than she expected. He didn’t want to tell her about the kind of pain that sword could cause both of them if it fought them.

  He didn’t want to tell her, because he didn’t want her to call a stop to this. He actually wanted to do this—not just for her, or Selda, or even for Sonny.

  Henry wanted to do this, for himself.

  To prove that he wasn’t as worthless as he had believed he was.

  To prove that he had something to contribute, even though he was the last person who should be a hero.

  To prove that he had a place in this drama, after all.

  Chapter 30

  Henry looked scared.

  Zel didn’t want him to look scared. Looking scared was something she always did, not the person whose help she needed.

  Sonny had never looked scared. Sonny had always been ridiculously confident.

  And look where that had gotten him.

  She stiffened her spine. Sonny’s sword felt twice as heavy as it should. The dagger she wore on her other hip didn’t help. That, and the war belt, added so much weight that she felt like she was carrying some kind of pack. It felt awkward.

  She felt awkward.

  And she didn’t dare.

  Henry was ready; she had to be as well.

  She leaned into him and wrapped her arms around his waist. Her skin scraped against the hilts of the daggers he had stuck into his belt. He hadn’t looked like a conventional Kingdom hero when he had done that. He looked like some kind of modern crazy—a good-looking but nervous man dressed in a T-shirt and jeans, his hair brushing against his collar, his arms a bit too thin and lacking muscle, just like anyone who spent too much time inside.

  So really, not a crazy as much as some online gamer who decided to try on real knives to test his skills. The daggers around his waist looked like gamer overkill, and the frog-things that attached to his belt made her wonder if he could even pull one of the daggers out of its sheath, let alone use it.

  He hadn’t tested it, either. Sonny would have tested it.

  But, then, she hadn’t tested her dagger either. Nor had she tried to pull the sword free, now that it was attached to her.

  It was all too late.

  Her face was pressed against Henry’s chest, which had more muscles than she would have guessed, given the state of his arms. He smelled faintly of the soap from his bathroom, but mostly he smelled warm and comfortable, as if his scent was made up of something she had loved all her life.

  He didn’t move for a moment, and she wondered what he was doing. She did hear his heartbeat. It wasn’t calming like his scent. His heartbeat was rapid, as if he had been running. And he hadn’t.

  He was as nervous as she was.

  “You need to hang on tight,” he said. “I have no idea what’s going to happen once the spell gets underway.”

  She nodded, scraping her cheek against the fabric of his shirt. Then she realized he couldn’t see her.

  “Okay,” she said. “I’m ready.”

  He slipped his arms around her, and she leaned deeper into the hug. Only one hand touched her, though, resting against the center of her back awkwardly, recalling, yet again, those thoughts she’d had earlier about their almost-teenage attempts to touch each other.

  Nerds, left to their own devices, unable to get close to each other without messing it up somehow.

  She closed her eyes, then realized that was stupid. She needed to see what was happening.

  What was happening was that her right hip was growing hot. She opened her eyes, saw a flaring red reflection on the wall across from her, and realized that Henry had touched the sword, and the sword didn’t like it.

  “Should I hold the sword?” she asked.

  “No,” Henry said. “I have to touch it for this part. Although you might want to tell it that this is the only way.”

  She didn’t know how to tell the sword anything. She hadn’t thought of the sword as a living thing until just today.

  “Sword,” she said, wondering why she had never learned the name Sonny had given this sword. He had told her it had a name, but she had never asked.

  Endlessly not curious enough about Sonny. Maybe her biggest regret ever.

  “Sword,” she said again. “Please. Let us do this. Let Henry help. It’s the only way to find Sonny.”

  The sword flared red again, as if contradicting her. And then the heat on her hip dissipated as if it had never been.

  It had been there long enough, though, to create an ache that ran all the way down her leg. She would probably have some kind of burn mark on her skin.

  But she wasn’t going to think about that. Not right now.

  She needed to focus on what was coming.

  “Thanks,” Henry said. She could feel the rumble of his voice in his chest as she heard the words he spoke. That was comforting too. She had no idea why she trusted this man as much as she did, but she was happy he was here, happy he was the one who knew what to do.

  She would never have gotten this far without him.

  “Brace yourself,” Henry said. And then he started reciting a spell she had never heard before—not that her lack of knowledge meant much. She hadn’t heard most spells before.

  She didn’t know how to brace herself either. Because she didn’t know what she was bracing herself against. She was just along for the ride, whatever that meant.

  She clung tightly to her own arms, squeezing Henry’s waist between them, hanging on for dear life.

  His words grew more intense, harder to understand. He used some language she had never heard before.

  But as he spoke, his heart rate slowed down. Reciting the spell made him calmer. She doubted any spell would have done that for her.

  The short hair on the crown of her head rose. The hair on the back of her neck rippled. The hair on the side of her face that wasn’t pressed against Henry’s chest stirred.

  There was a breeze, and it didn’t come from Henry’s breath as he spoke the spell.

  Power swirled around them, warm, then cold, then hot, then cool, and back to wa
rm again. The power thrummed with its own rhythm, and slowly a stench filled the air.

  That same stench had been in her house before it exploded—the smell of sour grape soda and burnt sugar. But beneath it was an even more foul stench. The rank smell of decaying flesh.

  Her own heart rate increased, and she hoped against all hope that the decaying flesh wasn’t Sonny’s.

  Then the sickly sweet smells of burnt sugar and sour grape soda dissipated, leaving only the rankness. It got overtaken by something more, though. An animal smell—hot and alive and dry and somehow salty. She had smelled that before, but she couldn’t remember when or where.

  And then it came to her: in one of the old adobe houses at the edge of Death Valley, where she had worked on a movie set—one of the most contentious sets of her entire life.

  At the edge of a mountain range, those old buildings looked like they had been around forever. The location scouts had no trouble entering them, but the movie crew wanted nothing to do with them.

  So she had gone in.

  And fixed them.

  She shuddered, and Henry tightened his grip around her. They were in semi-darkness, but the smell had grown so much worse. Not the grape soda/burnt sugar smell, but that acrid dryness, as if she were inhaling the very stench of the desert itself.

  And then her feet landed on something uneven. She nearly lost her balance, only managing to maintain it because she clung to Henry. And he held her.

  He had stumbled in the exact opposite direction.

  She opened her eyes—surprised that she had closed them. (She couldn’t remember closing them, but it had to be before that memory arose, before she got lost in that dry desert air.)

  Around her, she saw dark brown walls that looked like they were made of stone. If she didn’t know better, she would have thought she was in some kind of cave.

  The ground was made of sandy dirt, and covered with all kinds of detritus. Old dishes, goblets, jewelry, fake coins (or maybe not fake—she wasn’t sure) created their own mounds around the large cavernous room they found themselves in.

  And directly across from her, Sonny, chained to the wall.

  She extracted herself from Henry’s grip.

  “Sonny!” she said, running toward him. His black curls were tangled. They fell over his face. His arms were chained above his head, and had to be asleep by now. His feet were bare. They touched the floor, but not enough so that he could stand flat.

  He was still wearing the silk pajamas she had given him for his birthday. He had called it a lounging outfit. He certainly wasn’t lounging now.

  “It doesn’t work anymore,” he said tiredly. “I’m not going to say a thing about my wife. So stop trying.”

  He clearly wasn’t talking to her. He didn’t really see her.

  “Sonny!” she repeated.

  She was having trouble reaching him. The loose sandy dirt on the floor was deep, and getting through it was a slog.

  “Zel!” That voice belonged to Henry. “Stop.”

  But she didn’t want to stop. Sonny was within reach. He was alive.

  Henry’s voice seemed to bring Sonny to life. He turned toward Zel, but still didn’t seem to see her.

  “Zel?” Sonny said, only this time he didn’t sound tired. He sounded scared. “Are you there?”

  “I’m coming for you, Sonny,” she said. She just had to get through this damn dirt.

  “Don’t!” he said. “Don’t come any closer. Stay away, Zel. Make her stay away. Whoever is out there, make her stay away.”

  Henry grabbed her arm. Zel had no idea he was so close, but apparently he had been following her. She tried to shake him off, but he held on tight.

  “Let me go,” she said, trying to squirm away.

  “No,” Henry said. “You have to listen to him.”

  “We have to get him out of here,” Zel said.

  “We do, but charging in is not the way to go.”

  No matter how hard she shook her arm, she couldn’t get Henry to let go. She turned just enough so that she could see him.

  “This isn’t about you,” she said.

  He looked both fierce and frightened. “It is now. I’m the one who brought you here.”

  “Ah, yessssss.” A new voice rumbled through the cave. It was deep and male, and it made the entire cavern rumble. It also got warmer in here. “I owe you a debt of gratitude, young man. Perhaps you would like to introduce yourself?”

  Zel couldn’t find the source of the voice. It seemed to be all around her.

  Henry had stiffened beside her, and he was looking around as well. He obviously couldn’t pinpoint the source either.

  “Stop.” Sonny was shaking his head. He was looking directly at Henry now, not at Zel. “Get her out of here. Please. Get her out of here now.”

  Henry’s mouth opened slightly, and he moved his free arm, as if he was going to listen to Sonny—and make them both disappear.

  Zel raised a finger at him.

  “We’re here to rescue Sonny,” she said through her teeth, not quite whispering, but not loudly either. “We’re going to do that.”

  Henry was shaking his head.

  “Get her out!” Sonny was wailing now. Zel had never heard Sonny wail, not in all the years they had been together.

  “Spell him out first,” Zel said to Henry.

  “Oh, if only.” That gigantic voice again, rumbling the walls so hard that dirt fell in small clumps. “He’s under my protection. Your magic won’t work on him.”

  The voice sounded gleeful.

  “Really,” the voice added, almost confidentially, “if I were truly evil, I would have let you magic him out of here. But as useful as rebound magic is, I don’t like watching its effects.”

  Henry’s grip tightened on Zel’s arm.

  “Rebound magic?” she whispered.

  “What happened to the faeries,” he said, then lifted his gaze toward Sonny. Sonny was looking at them now, and for the first time, Zel thought maybe he saw them clearly.

  Rebound magic. That had nearly destroyed the faeries. And Zel didn’t want to think about it. Any of it. But she had to get Sonny out of here.

  And she had no idea who the voice belonged to.

  “See?” the voice said. “I have some compassion.”

  Then the wall moved—the entire wall, just to the side of Zel. Sonny cringed, trying to move as far away as possible.

  His cringe broke her heart. She had never seen Sonny cringe before.

  Henry wasn’t watching Sonny. He was staring at the moving wall—which wasn’t a wall at all.

  It slowly resolved itself into a form. Its color changed from sandy brown to a golden green, with iridescent scales. The color change outlined a spiky spine, a curved torso, two large haunches in the back, and a tail that extended for what seemed like miles down the corridor behind it.

  It took a moment longer for the head to appear, and that was partly because it had been turned toward Sonny. When the head moved upward, it gained the golden green color. The iridescent scales were there as well, and on the face, at least, Zel could see black edges of each scale, as if they had been outlined in charcoal.

  Those scales came together, forming a long snout. Zel could only see one nostril, and curve of the mouth.

  Then an eye opened where the snout met the larger part of the skull. That eye was a prosaic brown. The iris was slit, not round, and nearly as large as Zel herself.

  The eye moved inside its socket until it found Zel, and then it stared at her, making her grow cold. The intelligence in that eye was as striking as the eye itself. Zel stared at it, and the area around the eye crinkled—into a smile? She couldn’t quite tell.

  “You are so small for such a disruptive thing,” the creature said.

  It moved a little more revealing a mostly gold neck that had almost no scales, and small forearms that looked like they belonged to a gigantic alligator.

  And then she knew what she was looking at.

  A
dragon.

  She had only read about them. She had known they were real, but she had also known they were rare.

  And, according to the books she had read back when she had been imprisoned in Aite’s tower, dragons were also shy.

  But not this one, apparently.

  “Get her out of here!” Sonny yelled. “Get her out!”

  Henry’s grip on Zel’s arm was so tight that he was cutting off her circulation.

  “Ah.” The dragon continued to turn its head until its entire face was visible. Its eyeballs pointed forward, under the raised lids on each side of its massive snout. When it spoke, its entire jaw moved, revealing teeth as iridescent as its scales.

  The teeth weren’t pointed, thank heavens. They were worn down, as if they’d been used a lot.

  Sonny was continuing to yell, and the dragon sighed. A tiny curl of smoke wisped out of its left nostril.

  “He is such a whiner,” the dragon said, looking directly at Zel. “I have no idea why you married him.”

  Zel swallowed hard. The temperature in the cavern had risen at least five degrees, maybe more. The air smelled faintly of sulfur now, mixed with burnt sugar and rancid grape soda, along with that dry tinderbox scent of the desert itself.

  Henry shook her arm ever so gently, trying to get her attention. But she kept looking at the dragon.

  “Sonny doesn’t whine,” she said. “He’s a hero.”

  Henry had clenched his free fist, and had started to raise it over his head.

  “Do that,” Zel snapped at him, “and I will never forgive you.”

  “Do that,” the dragon said to him, “and the air might burn.”

  Henry’s shoulders slumped. He glanced uncertainly at Sonny, then at Zel.

  She ignored him. This dragon—a dragon? Seriously—a dragon had focused on her, and she didn’t know why.

  “You can get her out before the air ignites,” Sonny said. “Do it.”

  “The air ignites, and Sonny dies,” Zel said through her teeth.

  “Yeah,” Henry said. “Got that.”

  She couldn’t tell his mood any longer. She couldn’t tell if he was angry or frightened or ready to continue fighting. She couldn’t tell what, exactly, was going on.