If the dragon roared now, they would burn.
Suddenly, Mister Edwards darted forward and around the dragon, scooping up shards of quartz, screaming like a warrior through angry tears. “Get away from my friend!” He pitched stones at the cockatrice, aiming for its eye. The dragon shrieked and whipped its tail straight at them.
In a wild burst of heat, the horn twisted through Annalise’s great hand. A zing of power radiated through her mark—whatever lived within her was awake and ready to fight.
Annalise sprinted to her friend and shouted—to the cockatrice and perhaps to the one in her great hand, “I wish to rule my own destiny and rid myself of this curse, so show me what you’ve got!”
She thrust her great hand toward what she hoped was the cockatrice’s face. A blast of golden flame surged from her dark mark. The cockatrice shrieked and stumbled backward. A shock of hot wind exploded from the dragon as its cry drew farther away.
This was her chance.
Eyes low, Annalise ran at the cockatrice. When it flung its tail forward, she grabbed for the tip holding its silver heart—but missed. The cockatrice roared a stream of red flame and whipped a wing at Annalise.
“Miss Meriwether, look out!” Mister Edwards jumped toward her too late.
The dagger-sharp claw of the dragon’s wing sliced into Annalise’s great hand.
Her vison wavered. Dark blotches bloomed in her eyes. The monster in her great hand writhed. Breathing fast, mind frothy with poison and panic, Annalise forced herself up on shaking legs and leveled her horn at the cockatrice. “We are dreamers,” Annalise shouted. “And we will never surrender our dreams!”
The cockatrice thrust forward with a booming screech, but Annalise and her monster were ready.
Gold lightning blasted in a fury from the tip of her horn, obliterating the dragon’s fire with her own. Black spots obscuring her vision, Annalise shot again, striking the dragon’s right wing. The cockatrice howled and blew backward in an epic boom, striking the black mirror. Glass shattered out in a spray. The cockatrice cried humanlike whimpers of pain. When it fell, it did not rise.
Mister Edwards cheered. And Annalise fell to the ground.
“Miss Meriwether!” Mister Edwards helped Annalise up, gaping at her great hand. “Oh dear. You were cut?”
Annalise’s vision swam in and out of focus. She was dizzy and disoriented. “I’m afraid so.” Blood dripped from a gash across the knuckles of her great hand and dropped to the stone. Annalise and Mister Edwards blinked at her blood, transfixed.
Her blood was gold. And each place it dripped, shadowshine berry trees sprouted and grew and spread. Shadowshines—said to be a gift from the Spinner of Dreams.
Up through the floor, a strange breed of shadowshine tree rose between the statues of quartz and bricks, fat with black-and-gold berries, but no thorns.
How had these trees come from her?
And why was her blood gold?
Woozy, Annalise’s legs buckled under her, but Mister Edwards caught her before she fell. “I’ve got you, Miss Meriwether,” he said, little fires smoldering in his fur. “And I’m not letting go.”
Annalise decided then: no matter what happened from here, she loved the little fox for life.
Blobs of darkness pooled in Annalise’s vision. Her body went numb.
Her world faded and another appeared.
Chapter 24
From Poison and Dreams
Inside her poisoned delirium, a dream expanded around Annalise like a living entity. In the world behind her eyelids, she stood at the beginning of a long hallway of black doors. All were closed but one.
A ray of sunlight beamed inward from the door at the end. Through it, a lilac sky glowed. A crowd milled about on green grass. A delicate spring perfume blew forward, drawing Annalise in. When she started toward the crowd, they parted like a sea of colored dust, revealing a large table, with name tags on each fancy plate.
This is the place. The one Mom said was waiting for me through the door to my dreams.
The crowd raised their drinks and waved Annalise forward, welcoming her. No one was running away. Her dreams were close enough to taste.
Without warning, her great hand stabbed through with pain, the door slammed, and a dark mirror rose in its place.
The Fate Spinner’s face appeared in the glass. “You think you’re better than me,” the white-haired enchantress growled through lips black as her soul. “Such vanity to think you’re stronger than Fate. You’re just a broken child with an ugly hand, banging on the door of a dream that will never let you in.”
Annalise glanced at her great hand, the one that made her strange—the one that made her powerful. “You’re wrong,” she replied with a smile. “Thanks to the life you gave me, I’ve grown used to darkness, monsters, panic, and pain. Maybe the power I’ve gained will get me through anything. For that, I thank you, Fate Spinner.”
Annalise stared into the black eyes of Fate and saw her true self looking back. “Perhaps the hardness of my life is just what I need to achieve my dreams.”
“You won’t escape me,” the Fate Spinner snarled, glaring at Annalise’s great hand. “And when I finally get rid of you, everything you love will die, too.”
A voice rose from inside the horn.
Her poison runs through us, it whispered. Breathe deeply and wake.
A flash of fear crossed the enchantress’s face before she vanished in a whirl of black smoke.
And, from the other side of the hall, Mister Edwards called Annalise’s name.
Chapter 25
A Secret. A Story. A Truth.
Annalise gasped in a deep breath and woke.
When her eyes popped open, Mister Edwards was leaning over her, face tense with concern, holding a cluster of ripe shadowshine berries to her nose. Annalise lay beside a wall. He must have dragged her away from the cockatrice. The poison from the dragon’s sting streamed from the gash on her great hand in plumes of black smoke.
“Miss Meriwether, you’re alive! Thank goodness my mother taught me the healing properties of shadowshine berries,” he said, glancing at the hurt dragon in the distance. “You blacked out. I thought—I thought you were gone. I’m so happy you’re all right!” The fox hugged her tight.
“Me, too, Mister Edwards.” Annalise tried to stand but was too weak. The horn in her great palm had retreated, the wound the dragon made had sealed, but the cockatrice wasn’t done yet.
A weak stream of fire blew across the courtyard. A wing slashed through the trees and nearly struck them. “You stay,” Mister Edwards said, stuffing her pocket with chunks of sharp quartz. “If it attacks, try to blind it with one of these. I’ll find us a way out. Be right back.”
Mister Edwards darted off in a streak of black before Annalise had a chance to protest. She sat up after a bit of a struggle and peered anxiously through the shadowshine trees as Mister Edwards threw shards of crystal quartz at the cockatrice—and hit it. The cockatrice stumbled, let out an unholy cry, and staggered back against the wall.
Annalise stood as the cockatrice fell.
Mister Edwards arrived at Annalise’s side, huffing and puffing with pride. “You’re up—how wonderful!” He grinned, tail tip on fire. “I blinded it, Miss Meriwether! Did you see me? We can look at it now. I did it. I didn’t let it turn me to stone!”
Annalise grinned back. “Mister Edwards, that’s fantastic. I’m so proud of you!”
A glow of light, brighter than before, shone from the pocket of her cloak. But this time, when Annalise removed The Book of Remembering, she wasn’t the only one who saw it.
“Miss Meriwether? Is that . . . ?”
“The book from my dream cat, yes.” She laughed, feeling better already.
Beyond the thrones, the cockatrice whimpered and flapped its tattered wings. Guilt crushed down hard on Annalise. The poor thing. She hated hurting any creature, especially one set up by the Fate Spinner. It lay by the far wall, weak but not dead.
/> “What does the book say?” Mister Edwards asked, worrying his tail.
The book flipped open at his question. The page showed a sketch of the cockatrice’s tail, and the silver heart within. Beneath, words appeared in a golden glow: Take my heart and then my reward.
“It says the cockatrice has a reward we need to win.”
She told the fox about the message from the king and queen.
Mister Edwards breathed out a sigh of relief. “Then that’s what we do,” he said, new grit in his voice. “We take it down, claw our way to the end, and get what we came here for.”
The monster inside her great hand had grown larger. Annalise balled her fist gently and tried not to worry. “Good plan. But we’ll need to subdue it first.”
The book flipped the next page on its own. More words appeared, this time in black: Shadowshine thorns create an unseen barrier protecting dreamers from harm. The berries bring death to those who ingest the fruit. The book snapped shut so abruptly Annalise’s bangs blew back in the gust. The glow died next.
She put The Book of Remembering away and stroked her braid four times: if she could get the cockatrice to consume the berries, they could easily take its heart.
Ten feet away, just behind the shadowshine trees, the cockatrice released a mighty cry. “Follow my lead, Mister Edwards. I think I know what to do.”
Annalise plucked a handful of black-and-gold berries from the shadowshine trees; Mister Edwards did the same. They snuck around the side of the dragon, eyes bleeding, wings mostly bone. And when it opened its beak to attack, Annalise pitched the poisonous berries into its mouth.
“Yes!” Mister Edwards cheered, and followed Annalise’s lead.
The cockatrice thrashed and choked, turned in their direction, and launched its spiked tail at Annalise. Thinking fast, Annalise yelled, “Jump!” And when the tail passed, they skipped over it. “Good! Now take my small hand, Mister Edwards. And hold tight.”
“Okay,” he said, clasping on.
Are you ready? Annalise thought to the master inside her great hand.
Her horn pushed through her dark mark. I am, her monster replied.
Again, the cockatrice lashed its tail toward them. Heart thundering, Annalise narrowed her gaze to the silver spike at the tip of its tail and wrapped her first and second fingers around her horn, wielding it like a weapon. “Now, Mister Edwards, pull!” The cockatrice staggered and gave one last scream. Annalise grabbed for the silver tail tip while the fox held her in place. It passed before her and Annalise latched on. Her horn speared straight through the spike and into the dragon’s heart.
The cockatrice thrashed harder, ripping Mister Edwards free of her hand. But Annalise didn’t let go. She held tight to its tail until the dragon stopped fighting and its tail skidded to a halt.
Annalise pulled her horn free from the tail and took several steps backward. “I’m sorry,” she shouted over its terrible cries. “You left me no choice.”
The cockatrice shifted its mighty head toward her, its eyes twin black holes, and growled, “And you have left me the same.”
Mercy. The cockatrice sounded more human than beast.
“Miss Meriwether,” Mister Edwards said, hurrying to her side. “I think you might have done it!”
The cockatrice laughed low and deep. “Until you take my heart, I cannot let you pass.”
Annalise’s great hand burst with pain, and before she could stop it, the cockatrice snapped its tail forward. Not at her, toward Mister Edwards.
A swish. A thud. A keening cry echoing high overhead, “Miss Meriwetherrrr!”
The cockatrice had struck Mister Edwards from behind.
“Mister Edwards!”
Her small friend soared toward the mirror of black. Annalise moved in slow motion. The spiraled horn in her palm retreated. Blood rushed in her ears. Words bloomed from the mirror of black feathers in a shimmer of red: A Fox’s Just Rewards. They appeared a second before the mirror slurped Mister Edwards like a noodle and ate him whole.
“NO!” Annalise’s scream ripped from her throat and attacked the air with sound. She raced to the mirror, but when she got there, the glass had turned to labyrinth stone. The doorway was blocked, and Mister Edwards was gone.
No-no-no-no.
What nightmare was he stuck in? Would he ever find his way out? Would Mister Edwards survive without her?
Would she survive alone?
Panic clamped on to her shoulders with lead hands. Annalise cried through the stones, heartbeats tripping over each other too fast. “Mister Edwards!” She banged the wall with closed fists. “Can you hear me?” But all she heard was her pulse raging through her skull. “Mister Edwards—come back . . .”
“The fox is gone,” the cockatrice groaned, all sign of fight done. Annalise swept her gaze over the ruins of this ill-fated place and fixed it on the cockatrice. It lay before the twin thrones on the opposite end of the court, twisted shadowshine trees and broken statues of defeated dreamers scattered between them. Thick clouds of ash, spark, and reddish-black smoke coughed from the dragon’s beak. “He may never return.”
Both sides of her broken heart beat out of sync—half in fear, the other sorrow. All of her hurt. Annalise pulled up her large plum hood to ward off the falling ash and approached the dying beast. “Where did the black-feathered entrance lead?” she asked, stepping through the rubble and over downed limbs of wood.
The shadowshine trees still standing bent gently toward her as she passed, whispering soft words she couldn’t quite hear, soothing the ache in her great hand. But all she could think about was Mister Edwards. I need to go after him. I can’t leave him behind.
To which a deeper instinct within herself answered: What about your own dream? Would you trade it for his?
“That I cannot answer,” the cockatrice wheezed. “The fox must find his own way.” A surge of pity filled Annalise from a deep place. Maybe The Book of Remembering knew where the black-feathered entrance led. Almost to the beast, Annalise opened the book. But all the pages were blank. “As for you, child of dreams, you have beaten me fairly. Come closer and you may have my reward.”
Annalise’s great hand surged with power and her mind with fragile new hope. She stopped just out of the dragon’s reach. “What sort of reward?” Annalise asked cautiously, wondering if it was the sort mentioned by the trees at the labyrinth’s entrance.
“A secret. A story. A truth,” the cockatrice wheezed. “Something the Fate Spinner doesn’t want you to know.”
Could she trust the beast that separated her from Mister Edwards? Maybe it wanted her closer, to take her great hand?
If it tries, my monster and I will fight it off together.
Annalise took four deep breaths and knelt at the dragon’s side. “I will hear your secret, cockatrice, and thank you for it.”
A sudden shock struck her great hand. It pulled toward the cockatrice and grazed its crimson-scaled neck.
A bolt like lightning passed between them at her touch. The cockatrice and Annalise gasped.
The current that moved between them felt like love.
“I wasn’t always one of the Fate Spinner’s monsters,” the cockatrice said with warmth. “Once, the Spinner of Dreams and I were very close. So close, I know many of her secrets.” Another shock struck Annalise’s great hand. The horned creature within her churned. “And even though the magic of the Mazelands prohibits my revealing the way out of the labyrinth, I can give you a clue to finding it yourself. A clue hidden inside the truth of what happened the night of your birth.”
Annalise’s mouth opened, and her eyes grew as big as plum stars. “How do you know about my birth?”
“That is unimportant. But this is most important of all: every truth comes with consequence. With every word of your story I speak, the last exit out of this courtyard—the mirror of snow—will grow smaller. If you agree to hear my truth, you risk losing your only chance to leave. Then, when I die, you will become a trapped be
ast like me—forced to hurt others on the path to their dreams.” The massive cockatrice shrank with each spoken word. “Choose.”
Annalise had given up her parents and lost her only friend. She’d hurt Nightingale and Bowie, the spider, and the cockatrice. Until she came here, Annalise had always loved with her whole heart and put others first. And maybe it was wrong, and Annalise was as wicked as the townsfolk said, but she wouldn’t rest until she finished what she came here to do—or everything she’d done to get here would be in vain.
“I choose the story,” Annalise answered quietly, hugging herself close. “I choose the truth.” She glanced at the snow-white mirror—her last chance to escape. Annalise swore she saw Muse dart past in his hat and monocle. The creature behind her dark mark shocked her lightly—four times. She took this as a sign. “I have a good feeling, cockatrice. Maybe the mirror of snow will wait.”
“Very well,” the dragon groaned, and shrank another size. “Place your marked hand over my shattered heart, and I’ll show you what I can before I die. What you do with the information is up to you.”
White crows filled the night sky. The cockatrice slid its tail forward and laid it at her side. Annalise hesitated, but only for a second, before placing her great hand over the hole she’d made in its tail.
The ground rumbled. The white crows flooding the skies caw-caw-caw-CAWED. And a flash of lightning forceful enough to rival the gods shot through Annalise, into the cockatrice’s silver heart.
The beast cried and flailed. Annalise released her grip. “I’m sorry,” she said, and curled her great hand to her chest. “I didn’t mean to hurt you—”
“You are freeing me.” It smiled as if seeing the most heavenly sight. “Never be sorry for choosing your dream.” The cockatrice shuddered. Its body shook the floor before it shrank, and the cockatrice was a dragon no more.
A dark-skinned man in a cloak of white feathers and weathered black robes lay in the cockatrice’s place. He was old, silver hair intertwined with black. He resembled the king she’d seen in the book, but aged. A gold crown of crows and wolves circled his head. His hands rested on his chest. Within them, he clutched the dragon’s beautifully carved silver heart, a hole puncturing its center.
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