With a Kiss

by Stephanie Fowers

  Chapter Thirteen

  Around her throne, amid the mingling glooms,

  Wild—hideous forms are slowly seen to glide;

  She bids them fly to shade earth's brightest blooms,

  And spread the blast of Desolation wide.

  See! in the darkened air their fiery course!

  The sweeping ruin settles o'er the land,

  Terror leads on their steps with madd'ning force,

  And Death and Vengeance close the ghastly band!

  —Ann Radcliffe, Superstition. An Ode.

  We tore through the forest until we reached a clearing, then hesitated at the line of trees. There would be no covering out there. Crystals of snow had fallen over a field of vibrant-colored flowers. They hadn't wilted in the cold, which meant they had to be magic. Hobs hurried through the meadow, and we trailed after him, trampling through the colorful melee. The flowers screamed out in annoyance. "Ow! Ow!"

  "Get off me!"

  "Stop it!"

  "Walk somewhere else, you oaf!"

  "Wait!" I stopped short, once again able to slip my hand from Hobs' grip. "I think these things are alive."

  "Don't worry. They're nothing but a bunch of Anthousai taking up flower form to brave out the winter, and they can't feel a thing. Believe me."

  I wasn't so sure about that. I picked my way through, balancing on my toes to avoid crushing any more of them. I looked over at Babs. Her baby face was twisted in deep concentration as she attempted the same thing. "Babs, get on Hobs' back," I said.

  Hobs laughed, but had no problem hoisting her up. She wrapped her short arms around his neck like a monkey. "Don't drop me, Hobsh" she warned him unnecessarily.

  "You're the last one I'd drop, kid." He gave me a meaningful look that I made a point of ignoring. "Now, some girls put up such a fuss that you're tempted to drop them as soon as convenient. I'm too much of a gentleman for that. Well, right now, anyway."

  I grimaced. He'd better not try to lose me out here. The wolves would catch up to us, no matter how socially inept Hobs thought they were, and I wanted to make sure I had someone to hide behind.

  I tiptoed past a tiger lily. It opened crazed eyes. "Beware!"

  "Danger!" a gardenia hissed.

  "Oh, what do you know?" Hobs asked. "Have you ever fought a war? No, you always hide behind your petals when there's trouble." He rolled his eyes at me. "Don't listen to them—bunch of pansies!"

  "What kind of trouble?" I asked. "How come they keep saying 'beware'?"

  "Watch it, Hobs!" an aster cried, shaking the snow off its head. "You're headed the wrong way!"

  "How do you know where we want to go?" Hobs asked.

  "Beware!"

  "They're saying it again," I said.

  Before Hobs could reassure me, he flopped dramatically to the soft snow. Babs toppled over him with a startled cry. The Skittles scattered into the white powder. "Now that," he said with his voice smothered against the ground, "was completely uncalled for."

  It wasn't long before I figured out what he was talking about. A flower reached up with veined leaves and twisted over my clunky boots, tripping me to the snow next to him. My head collided with Hobs’ with a sickening crunch. I groaned and met the eyes of an angry daisy.

  "Where are you headed?" it demanded.

  "We don't have time for this." Hobs struggled to get up, but the flowers held him tightly. Apparently, they were sticklers for manners.

  "Just tell them where we're going!" I couldn't fight free, and I gave him an accusing look. "Or do we even know where we're going?"

  "Why don't you tell me," Hobs said. "In case you don't know what I'm talking about—try following your heart. Guess what? You have one now. The faery queen jump-started it before you came."

  I stared at him. Before I could decipher his meaning, I heard a howl in the distance. Babs gasped. I found her hand through the flowers and squeezed it. "It's going to be okay, baby girl." She nodded, but her eyes were closed as if not seeing the wolves would make them go away. I twisted to Hobs. "What are you talking about? I'm not supposed to be the leader."

  "Is that what you think I'm trying to tell you?" He looked amused in a harsh way, but there was nothing funny about this. The wolves were gaining ground, and we had nothing to defend ourselves with except a bunch of Skittles and whiny flowers—a rainbow of color in the dust of snow that gave our position away.

  To make things worse, the flowers were blabbing loudly about our sins amongst themselves. It wouldn't be long now before we lost all the ground we had gained. If Hobs wanted me to do something, he'd better give up the riddles and give it to me straight.

  Babs thrust her swirly toy at me through the complaining flowers. "What ish it?" she asked me. I grappled with the toy, but she wouldn't let it go. The mirror was no longer cloudy. I saw her mother in a flurry of frost and skirts. Her long blonde hair whipped over her face—just three shades lighter than Babs'. Now that we were in faeryland, we saw what we wanted to see in the toy, and the kid must be missing her mother. With a sinking feeling, I knew that the faery queen wasn't coming for us anytime soon. She pounded her fists against a thick prison of ice. It spread over the walls of her castle, sealing everything shut until she was trapped in its frozen cage.

  "Hobs!" I pointed to Babs' toy in her tightly clenched hand.

  His jaw tightened when he saw it. "The hag's getting too strong. We have to defeat her if we want to free our friends." The howls in the distance were getting closer. Soon we would be trapped too. "Don't worry," he said. "It will take them days to digest you. We'll think of a way out by then."

  "How can you possibly think that makes me feel any better, Hobs?"

  "I don't."

  The wolves loped over the snowcapped meadow. They let out howls of rage. I ducked further into the flowerbed. "Who are you hiding from?" an aster asked with a much-too-innocent expression. Hobs tried to get to the flower, but he couldn't reach it in time. "Hey!" the aster called out gleefully to the wolves. "You looking for somebody? Over here!"

  Hobs elbowed it in the face and I wasn't a bit sorry. I turned to the daisy and matched its glare. Somehow it read my look and its grip slackened on me. Babs broke free. Before I could stop her, she was on her feet. The wolves caught sight of the diminutive seven-year-old. They bared their teeth. "Well, looky what we got here, boys—it's a Hostess snacky. We're in business!"

  Hobs tugged me out of the flowerbed. "We can outrun them!" That seemed impossible, but at this point I was willing to try anything. Hobs dragged Babs with us.

  "It's Oberon's baby, isn't it?" the wolves shouted at our backs. "She's the name we got wrong!"

  I tried not to slow at that. Was it true? Was Babs not who everyone said she was? Who told me she was a princess anyway? Was it Hobs? Even so, her mother called Babs her baby, and wasn't she a queen?

  I listened to the snapping and snarling of the wolves rushing after us. It cleared everything else from my mind. "What are you doing?" Glasses' cultured voice drifted behind us through the yowling. He was lecturing the other wolves. "You're not eating, are you?"

  "No!" another wolf growled defensively. It sounded like Gray.

  "Yes, you are. What do you have there? Give me that!"

  Hobs clucked his tongue at the sight. "Never feed the animals." By now the wolves had descended on the Skittles, fighting for a taste of the sugary concoction. I could barely believe that stopped them. "Told you we'd outrun them." Hobs sped down the frozen slope, and we followed. Snow shot out behind our feet.

  "Don't even pretend you planned that," I yelled after him. Hobs tugged the rest of the Skittles out of the backpack and dumped them, leaving a telltale trail behind us. He was playing Hansel and Gretel with the wolves. It left us with nothing to eat; not that it was substantial to begin with, but it was the closest thing that we had—correction—I had to food. My tiara buzzed the rule through my head: The Otherworldly can't eat faery food. It's forbidden. My heart raced at the danger. "I can't eat your food.
It's forbidden!"

  "Well, I guess that gives us a reason to work a little faster."

  "Or I die?"

  "Just stay away from the apples. You remember what happened to that other black-haired chick, right?"

  "You said it was a rule. This isn't like Hades where I eat your food and have to stay here forever, is it? I like my life at home!"

  I slipped, and he grabbed my elbow, keeping me upright. It gave me a close up of his mischievous dark eyes. "That's because you've never really lived yet," he said.

  My mouth dropped. How long could I go without food? Two days? That was my time limit before I had to return Babs to her mother. I couldn't last that long. We headed over the hill. The castle lay in the valley below us, covered in frost. I wasn't sure if it was made of white stone or ice or poisoned gingerbread like a proper witch's house. Hopefully I wouldn't find out the hard way because I was starving.

  I still had Babs' toy in my hand, and I lifted it. The queen appeared as soon as I thought of her. She stared out a window caked with ice, her hands clasped in front of her. Maybe I had a chance of survival if she was a prisoner here? If we found her right away, I wouldn't starve. I studied the stone walls of her castle—they were marbled and gray. Then I compared it to the ones we were heading for. The ivory spires were polished and tipped with gold; they weren't the same. "Babs' mother isn't here, Hobs. Why are we going this way?"

  "It's safer taking a shortcut through the hag's lawn. That's why. No way am I going through nymph territory to get to the faery queen. I'm sorry."

  What? Now he hated nymphs? I thought nymphs were supposed to be cute, diminutive creatures who loved the wilderness—a cut above an evil hag. "What's so bad about nymphs?"

  "Nymphs are bad. They party all day long. They're always eating and drinking and getting merry and dancing."

  "Yeah, but compared to a witch . . ."

  "Oh, did I forget the worst part? They have love potions."

  "So instead of turning you into a frog, they can make you fall in love with someone? Sounds life-threatening."

  "You might fall in love with someone horrible . . ."

  I stared at Hobs, only now realizing that actually could be pretty bad. A little sprinkle from above, and— "They could make me fall in love with you?" I finished the thought aloud, I was so appalled.

  Hobs broke into a smile. "Well, I was actually thinking of worse things."

  "Really? Like torture, maybe? Still, there's got to be some other way besides trespassing through the hag's backyard. I . . ." Before I could finish what I was going to say, I started to hum. Weird. I had a song stuck in my head, but why was I humming it when I was trying to talk? Hobs gave me a strange look, and I felt a shock run through me. Wait. The song wasn't in my head—it was in the air. It was pretty catchy. I felt myself nodding to it. Babs skipped to the rhythm.

  "Oh, no you don't! Cover your ears!" Hobs had me by the arm, almost carrying the both of us in his panic. "It's the nymphs. Humans can't resist their music. Neither can faeries, for that matter. Babs, cover your ears. Do it!"

  Cover my ears? That was the last thing I wanted to do. No, I wanted to sing along. Hobs shouted out a clashing song, letting go of us long enough to pull out cotton from our backpack. "Put this in your ears." I wasn't sure what good that would do. The song was already in my head and I couldn't get it out. I loved it!

  The tiara rang a warning through my ears: If you hear the music of the faeries, run.

  "Told you nymphs were horrible," Hobs said between his frantic clash-singing. They were having a party by the borders—I could hear the laughter all the way from here. Despite the warnings screaming through my head, I wanted to join them. I grabbed Babs' hands and swung her through the air. She giggled and we twirled faster and faster, our feet making wild patterns in the snow. The wolves howled in the distance, and I couldn't bring myself to care.

  I felt Hobs' strong arms behind me. He tugged me back and forced the cotton into my ears. Poor Babs was next to suffer the same treatment. I collapsed next to her in the snow, breathing hard.

  The keep of drifted snow was our only sanctuary. The music was muffled, but I could still hear it, and I reached for it, wanted it. Babs tried to wriggle free, and Hobs grabbed for her wrist. As soon as he went for her, I dashed past him, pumping my arms and stomping through the snow as if my life depended on reaching the music. It was all I ever wanted.

  Hobs pushed Babs in a snow-bank and caught me by the waist, swinging me around. His lip curled with the effort of keeping me back. "Listen to me!" he cried through the music. "Stop it! Listen to me!"

  If you hear the music of the faeries, run. If you hear the music of the faeries, run. It ran through my head, but I didn't want to listen. I wanted the music. It was addicting. He watched me with pleading eyes, his face just inches from mine. "It will kill you! You've got to stop now! You'll dance to death."

  It would kill me! I tried to care, or at least force myself to survive. I took a deep breath and hummed something else to block out the sound. It was exhausting. Hobs had me in a bruising grip, but released one of my arms to scoop Babs out of the snow. He herded us toward the hag's forbidding castle. It was surrounded by an aura of brilliant lights—northern lights in the west? Everything was wrong here.

  The nymphs picked up the partying with renewed vigor. It was exciting and captivating all at once. Hobs shoved us forward, his hand at our backs. "Run! Run as if your life depends on it, because it does!" We broke into a sprint just to escape the sound of music. Tears streamed down my cheeks at the sheer torture of not dancing.

  The closer we came to the ice castle, the stiller the air. As soon as we stepped into the hallowed courtyards, the sound cut off. Even the birds fell silent. The castle was like a beautiful, intimidating woman. Nothing dared touch it but age.

  Hobs plucked the cotton from his ears and signaled me to do the same. "She doesn't allow music here." He panted for breath. ". . . never thought I'd be glad of that."

  It was an ice cave in here. I leaned down to catch my breath, watching as Hobs wandered the frozen entryway with Babs. I grew still when I looked up and saw myself stare back at me about a hundred times. "I'm guessing she allows mirrors," I said. They lined the endless corridors like a Stonehenge fun house. What would an ugly hag want with so many? Babs pulled forward in her faery costume, looking into one of them. Hobs jerked her back.

  I glanced over, and he shrugged. "You can't tell me that after all this, you trust a mirror?" he asked. He was right, I didn't, but he was also talking too fast, which made me suspicious. We followed him through the length of the courtyard to where it opened up again, letting in the bright Sidhe sky. He pointed to the valley below. "The biggest mirror is out there," he said.

  The sight below the icy crags was enough to erase everything else from my mind. The cliff edge separated us from an army that looked like a swarm of snow bees, more numerous than the snowflakes that floated over our heads. If these soldiers caught us, we'd be dead.

  "We call that the Mirror of Reason." Hobs edged out, showing me the frozen lake that had broken into thousands of ice forms; they looked almost human. "There are rumors of what's under that ice—nasty things that we don't have to worry about unless the place melts—and standing on all those nasty things are a whole lot of other nasty things; her army. See them?"

  Every detail, which was strange from this distance—it had to be an enchantment. Beasts and ethereal waifs wandered amongst the statues as if mingling at a party for the rich and famous. "They're the worst kind of rabble," Hobs said. "The Bendith y Mamau, the Ellyllon, the Tylwyth Teg. That's what makes up the Unseelie court. Their numbers have grown since last I saw them."

  They made a misfit army of the pretty and the ugly, dressed in furs and silks and boots and armor. Some were barefoot on the ice. Others hovered in the air. Some were so heavy they sank deep into the ground. They ranged from fairly normal to green, purple, and furry. Compared to them, I didn't feel like a freak at all.
r />   Hobs put his arm around Babs to keep her close. "We have to keep an eye on her. They're baby snatchers."

  "She's hardly a baby anymore."

  "They're not that picky. They'll suck every last ounce of youth out of her." His worried look passed over her to me. "Who knows? They might like you too."

  I gulped, and tried to tell myself it couldn't be that bad. "What about you, Hobs? Don't you think they'll want a piece of you, then?"

  "They don't want anything to do with me." Hobs ducked behind a rock, tugging us with him when a giant of a man stormed past her army. The giant could be nothing less than the hag's general in all that armor. He had a patch over one eye. The good eye impatiently scoured the ranks of soldiers. "He's allergic to humans," Hobs breathlessly recounted. "Keep out of the wind. He starts sneezing and we're done for."

  The giant strutted to a cluster of ice sculptures directly below us. A half-witted troll got in his way, and the giant's eye rolled back until it showed only his . . . reds (not his whites). The rusty membrane glowed with such an intense inner light that the blaze building inside him could no longer be contained. It shot out at the clumsy troll, zapping the poor thing across the lake. None of the other faeries looked surprised. They merely stepped aside to let the thing slide past in a burst of flames and smoke.

  "He's got an eye on him! Can you imagine what the guy could do with two?" Hobs yanked the black beanie down further over his blonde hair. It was now a familiar gesture as he reworked his plans. "I didn't know he still ran the place."

  "Who?"

  "Cyclops."

  "Ah, yeah, one eye. Of course."

  "I call him that." Hobs kept his voice neutral. I think he was trying to keep Babs from getting scared. "His name is . . ." Hobs stopped himself from saying the unthinkable with a laugh. "Don't worry about it." I hunted through the group for one person in particular. "Where is the hag?" Hobs extracted a kaleidoscope from his backpack. He squinted through it.

  "What are you doing?" I asked. "That's a kaleidoscope."

  "I have to find out which snowflake she's hiding in. It's all in the colors really." He adjusted the kaleidoscope to his liking. "There she is." He drew the kaleidoscope from his eye and pointed to the air a little above the heads of some tree monster with faces webbed over with branches. "Meet the worst hag in the kingdom, my friend."

  I caught sight of a tiny snowflake floating above the army's heads, and got ready. It fanned out into an elegant sparkly dress and began to form into a female. Her arms took shape, then her neck, followed by the face of the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. She sparkled from the top of her lustrous midnight-black hair to the tip of her blue slippers. A frosty maiden made entirely of ice. She was young and vibrant.

  Babs propped her elbows on the drifted snow next to us. "She'sh pretty."

  Trust Hobs to make things anti-climactic. "She's the hag, huh?" I asked him. "Yeah, I can see it. She really looks like one."

  "Sure, she's beautiful," Hobs said irritably. "Like Venus, she's beautiful." That was probably why she liked all those mirrors. I felt the tension release from my body; she didn't seem so bad. "Oh no, you don't." Hobs read me like a book. "Don't let her fool you. Close your eyes and listen to her voice."

  Both Babs and I obeyed, listening to the silky tones as she addressed her entranced minions. "My friends! My allies! All are welcome. Now is the day of liberation! Today is the day . . ."

  I opened my eyes to give Hobs an accusing look as she continued her rousing speech. "She has a beautiful voice, too."

  "Look into her eyes if you don't believe me. Even from this distance, nothing can hide the coldness in them."

  I expected to find nothing. I couldn't exactly see her eyes, but after concentrating, I could feel them glittering menacingly, and I shivered. There was no warmth in her. It was hauntingly familiar. The next second, her cackle convinced me. It was the same evil thing I’d heard in the theater, and as she talked, her silky tones turned vicious. "The princess of abundance is here in the Sidhe. We will find her . . . and finish her!" I started in fear and rage. Yeah, she pretty much is an ugly hag. Poor Babs!

  The ogres jumped up, clapping their hands. They were half-rotting animals, off-green in pukish tones of yellow, and clad in hardly anything at all. They cheered like high schoolers at a jamboree. "Eat children. Eat children!" I almost expected Daphne to do a double flip through their ranks in a cheerleading outfit. Since they were ogres, it wasn't long before they messed the chant up. "Children eat! Children eat!"

  I tried to think of a way to get past them, turning to Hobs. "Well, they don't seem very smart."

  "At least that." Hobs smoothed down Babs' fuzzy hair that had loosened from her pigtails, his hand covering most of her face. She shivered, her shoulder pressing into my arm. "It's okay, baby," he told her. "I've got your back."

  The hag hovered over the mounds of snow until she found perch on a patch of ground. A large stone jutted out behind her like a grave marker. She was well guarded. Two redheaded waifs dressed in leather and fur stood on either side of her. Behind them were tough-looking dwarves in dark sunglasses. Magic poured between them in a type of forcefield.

  With a heart-wrenching cry, the hag raised her holly-covered staff, and it all melted into a puddle in her palm. Giving it a few encouraging words, she wove a spell over it, and we watched it reassemble into ice crystals building over each other until it formed into a perfect mirror of ice. She held the handle and stared intently into it with all the drama conjured up by an evil witch.

  Hobs glared at her, his breathing forced, his expression full of pain and rage. I had never seen him this way. When he noticed me, he masked it with a lesser look of disgust. "That mirror's dangerous. You know she got it from some demon faery named Peerifool?"

  "What does she see in it?"

  "A fair maiden." He gave me a hard smile and nudged me. "Yeah, she's pretty vain. You know—mirror, mirror, on the wall?" I wasn't buying it, and he gave me the usual lift of the shoulders. "It distorts everything. It reflects bad as good, and good as bad."

  "Ssecnirp eht si erehw?" the hag chanted into the mirror.

  "And now she's talking to it. She's a little crazy." Of course Hobs was leaving out all the good stuff, like what was she was saying to it and who exactly was she talking to? All I knew was that the hag had some evil stepmother syndrome.

  "Why does the hag want Babs?" I asked.

  "The princess is the only one who can stop her. She's next in line to rule the Sidhe. It's her destiny. One's winter, the other's summer, and the hag must relinquish her rule to summer, no matter how much she hates the queen."

  "The hag wants it to be winter forever?"

  Hobs had on his guarded look again. "Winter's just a side effect here. The hag now rules through brute force, but the faery princess is the true sovereign of the Sidhe. She's the hope of this kingdom. Summer passes her powers, along with her destiny, on to her successor, to our poor little princess, a faery far too weak to fight winter or any of the other beasts after her."

  "So." I studied Babs, who looked and thought like a seven-year-old in human years, but might be our age because of some horrible enchantment. "In order for our little princess to have enough power against winter, she just needs to grow up a little?"

  Hobs smiled slowly. "Yeah, you've got it."

  Judging by the look on his face I knew I was off. So, I had to trust that Hobs knew what he was talking about, and not only that, but trust that he wasn't purposely leading me astray.

  By now the ogres were chasing each other around the frozen lake, talking about children eating. The smarter part of the hag's army watched them with disdain. The redheaded waif slid an arrow from her quiver, but the hag just shook her head—shooting the dumb lugs down would lower morale. The hag turned back to her mirror and waited. When nothing happened, she stomped her dainty little foot against the ice. She wasn't having any luck, which was good since we were the ones she was looking for.

  Hobs' hand l
eft the talisman around his neck. "We need weapons." His eyes were on the pretty little redhead. I didn't believe he was going for weapons at all—this had something to do with her. "Wait here."

  "You're just going to leave us? Are you serious?"

  Apparently, yes. Hobs was halfway down the slope, the snow jetting out under his feet as he went. "Get behind one of those mirrors if there's trouble," he whispered harshly up to us. "Everyone's so busy looking at themselves that no one thinks to look behind them."

  What was he going to do? Steal weapons from the more half-witted of these beasts? If he was as notorious as the wolves said, anybody would recognize him. Babs and I watched Hobs sneak down to the army below. As soon as he reached them on the icy lake, he straightened up and walked brazenly through them. He met a few eyes, nodding like he belonged there. No one seemed to care. The Cyclops scanned the crowds. I was afraid he would catch sight of Hobs. I'd be amazed if he didn't, but then again, Hobs didn't look like he was trying to hide, either.

  Claws on paws scuttled over the ice behind us, and my stomach dove to my feet. The wolves! How could Hobs leave us behind like this? Wait—of course he would. He was a thoughtless fanatic. I wrapped my hand around Babs' arm and ran. She gave a little yelp as soon as she realized why. The wolves snorted behind us. We skidded over the ice to the nearest mirror as millions of wolves swarmed into the hall in different directions—at least, that's what it looked like through the mirrors.

  I dragged Babs behind one, throwing myself in front of her. She whimpered. "Shh shh, it's okay." I hugged her tightly, rubbing her arms to stop her shaking.

  "There you are!" Octavius shouted.

  I caught Babs' gaze with my own and put a finger to my lips. Octavius would've seen millions of us who had just disappeared behind millions of mirrors. The trick was keeping the millions of us hidden. We scooted further back, trying to scrunch up as small as possible.

  The wolves sniffed around. "Behind a mirror of lies she hides. Her soul within her withers and dies." More bad poetry from Glasses.

  "All we want to know is the answer to the riddle," Octavius wheedled. "Then we'll let you go."

  "Yeah, tell us," Gray whined.

  "Don't waste your time. I don't think she knows," Glasses said. I knew it was a challenge. "Why would Hobs tell her?" They laughed. They knew Hobs wasn't with me. Had they not seen millions of him, or did he just always leave damsels in distress behind? "He tells you nothing, does he?" I stayed silent, listening to them prowl around the mirrors and press their snouts against the glass, grunting. "Where did he go, I wonder?"

  They were trying to get a reaction from me. I made a zipper motion across my lips. Babs nodded, but I could hear her breathing hard. I hugged her close. She was just as scared as I was.

  "Is he turning you in to the hag's armies? Or is he planning something else for you?" The others chortled at Octavius' words.

  "I can guess what he wants with you," Gray said. My head lifted. What?

  "He's not your knight in shining armor, little girl. He wouldn't save a child for nothing. He's got a lot at stake." Octavius was lying! Right? The faery queen had sent Hobs to help us. That was a good enough reason to believe he was on our side. "Oh, yes," Octavius growled under his breath. "He told us the truth when we found him at the faery transporter. He was already taking you to her." A mirror cracked when he pounded impatiently against it. "He didn't need us to take you to the witch's lair. You came so willingly. Your mistake."

  I pushed my face into my arms to keep silent. Hobs was tricking them, not us.

  "Why don't you just come out?" Glasses said. "Don't let him have the satisfaction of collecting the reward for you."

  "Yeah, let us do it!" Gray piped up with excitement.

  Babs pressed her face against my shoulder, her blonde hair catching the lights from the torches above us. I squeezed her hand to keep her from lashing out, but it was getting harder and harder not to speak out myself, especially since it seemed like we were in for it no matter what.

  "So, where is he now?" Glasses asked.

  A gray snout sniffed the glass between us and I could feel the warm breath against my leg. Gray was close. I expected him to chomp off my foot at any second. One more inch and we'd be his. "Betcha he told you to wait here while he fetched supplies."

  "Yeah, I did."

  Hobs! He came back! I was so relieved. Gray howled in pain. I listened to the following thunk, and the mirror cracked between us. He fell against it. We scrambled out into the open, seeing an arrow protruding through Gray's tail. Gray turned on us with a snarl, and we stumbled back from him, running as fast as our legs could carry us. "Hobs!" I couldn't find the real one in all his reflections.

  Octavius found us instead. He snapped his fangs at us and I kicked his snout hard. He yelped and I twisted backwards, not able to get away. The tiara over my head rang, and I knew I was in for another freak-out moment. Octavius came for us again. I knocked a mirror between us, and he rammed into it, shattering it between us. Hobs pulled another arrow from the quiver, the same one that belonged to that redheaded waif. The wolves' accusations against him wouldn't leave my head, but I had to forget about that to survive.

  Octavius sprang over the broken mirror, his sharp teeth bared, and stopped short with a howl of pain. An arrow jutted out from his tail. He glared at Hobs. Glasses snickered lazily behind him, not attempting to join his less-than-clever friends—we all knew Hobs played mean. Octavius rolled away with a whimper. "I see you got your arrows back!" The wolf got a hold of the arrow with his sharp teeth and tugged it out, yelping in pain.

  "You like them?" Hobs said in a conversational tone. "They can pierce any hide."

  "Then why bother with ours?" Gray joined Octavius in the icy hall to lick his matching wounds.

  Hobs put down his bow, watching me. "Did you figure out my riddle yet?"

  "I've got an inkling," Glasses said, his eyes on Babs. "The baby ain't the Faery King's? That's why she's not Oberon's child."

  Hobs grinned.

  Octavius licked his tail. "You the father?"

  Hobs let out a hoot of laughter. "You're way off, you dogs. The princess is the real thing. You're never going to guess it." Looking nervously behind him, Hobs edged away from the entrance hall. "Girls!" He included the wolves in that statement. "I think you'll need to run."

  I smelled the stink of rot moments before a group of hairy ogres barged into the ice cave. They ducked under the high-arched ceilings. A few didn't duck in time and got knocked out immediately. The shorter of them swung vicious-looking clubs around the room. "Children eat! Children eat!" they repeated, not in time or sync to anything.

  I hid Babs behind me, feeling like we were caught in a stampede of buffalos—really smelly ones. They swung at everything that moved. The wolves scrambled to their paws. The ogres came at them, too, since they were too dumb to figure out who was on their side. I felt a hand on my shoulder and barely had time to turn before Hobs dragged us away from the commotion. "They followed me," he said as a way of explanation.

  "Let me guess—you led them here on purpose?" He gave me a strange look, but I cut him off before he could give me some flippant remark to throw off my suspicions. "How are we supposed to stop these big guys?"

  "You don't. They'll do it to themselves." The ogres hit at the ground, some of them smashing their own feet or their neighbor's. Clubs were dropped or used against each other while they shouted out their vengeance. They grabbed each others’ throats in chokeholds. By now the wolves had clambered to a safer distance. I tried to back up, but Hobs wouldn't let me. "Don't move," he shouted. "They hit anything that moves."

  "So they're blind! How's their smell?"

  "They smell awful. It overpowers everything else. That's why they're so crazy."

  That was not what I meant. I kept my breathing shallow, looking into the mirror in front of me. Babs was gone! Where was she? I whipped around and accidentally bopped her in the head. My yelp carried along with hers. She h
ad been behind me the whole time, but she wasn't in the mirror. I wasn't the only one who noticed.

  Glasses stood in an alcove above us. "Wait." His yellow eyes slanted. "I know the answer to that riddle." A passing fist from an ogre knocked him against a mirror, and the glass splintered. He rolled away in agony. I cried out, not sure whether I should help him.

  Hobs tugged us away. He dropped down on one knee to fire off a few arrows to keep the ogres back, but it wouldn't work for long. They grunted at the impact and grappled with the arrows sticking from their flesh, which only served to pound them in harder. I flinched with disgust and fear. They had us surrounded and were too stupid to feel pain. And now they had reinforcements. Something hideous lumbered up behind them, foul and decaying. It was worse than any monster I had ever seen . . . wait, actually, no. I had seen this one before. Bugul.

  His image was duplicated millions of times in all those mirrors, and we fell back as one. The ogres and wolves screamed out and scurried away. My knees got weak, but I resisted the urge to follow after the wolves. I tried to comfort Babs instead. I shouldn't have bothered—she smiled her toothy grin at Bugul and waved like a mini-Daphne.

  The room echoed the silence of a battle's aftermath. A few ogres lay face-down on the ground. Everyone else had deserted us after taking one look at Bugul. Hobs let out a relieved breath. "I never thought I'd say this, Bugul, but I'm really glad to see you."

  If the look Bugul gave him was anything to go by, the sentiment wasn't returned. We had been the ones to desert him; it seemed useless to tell him that it was entirely Hobs' fault.

  Hobs walked off to rip out more arrows from the fallen ogres, slipping slightly on the ice. Bugul followed him with tight fists. Hobs was in for it. The wolves were long gone. Bugul had nowhere to turn his wrath except on Hobs, who didn't seem to care. After waving his arms and getting no reaction, Bugul gave a long and ragged sigh. I knew the feeling—lecturing Hobs was never satisfying.

  Hobs wiped the green blood from the last of his gathered arrows. "I suppose you're going to say I told you so." Hobs waited for Bugul's answer, but when the goblin didn't speak, Hobs couldn't resist. "Oh yeah, I forgot your vow. Guess you can't."