Story's End

by Marissa Burt

  Peter realized in a heartbeat what must have happened. “Una’s gone to the Red Castle to look for the Lost Elements,” he said. “And she’s all alone.”

  Chapter 22

  Una didn’t want to touch Horace. His body was curled up like a question mark, his chest rising and falling as he slept. The sneer on his face when he had found her at Alethia’s flashed through her mind. She could almost feel the way he had crammed the handkerchief into her mouth so that it gagged her. She kicked him again in the stomach. Hard.

  He whimpered. “No more. Please, no more.”

  Una squashed the feeling of pity that welled up within her, but she still took a few steps back and sat down on the floor.

  Horace opened one eye a crack. The other was swollen shut. “Una?” His voice was hoarse. “Is that really you?”

  “Happy to see me?” She folded her arms across her chest. “I wouldn’t be.”

  Horace pulled himself into a seated position, but he stayed hunched over like a stuffed bear that wouldn’t stay upright. “I’m sorry,” he mumbled.

  “Oh, you’re sorry. That’s nice.” She stood. All the conflicting emotions of the hour spent with her parents came rushing out. The sting of their rejection. Her unwelcome secret desire that maybe they would forget it all and still be a happy family. Her fear that she would be killed. The absolute terror that she would be stuck here forever. With them. She wanted to kick Horace so hard he cried.

  But Horace was already crying, his hands covering his face. His bare forearms were mottled with bruises, and blood, now dried, had seeped through a spot on his sleeve.

  Una let a trickle of compassion creep in. Horace had lied and unleashed Elton and his beasts on her, but who was she to judge? She was the girl who had unleashed Story’s greatest Enemy. It was her mother she should be angry at. Duessa was the one who had used Una to free Fidelus, and now both her parents would forget all about her again. “Oh, Horace, you have no idea what a sorry pair of losers we are.”

  Una walked across the little room. The window had a thick iron grating over it, but she could still peer out. Far below them, the forest stretched off until the land dipped into a misty valley. They must be in one of the castle’s towers.

  “You might be a sorry loser, but I’m only here because Elton’s a lying traitor,” Horace snarled. “I hate him.”

  Una made sure to keep the table between them. Just because Horace was pathetic didn’t mean he wasn’t dangerous. “What happened?”

  Horace wiped the back of his hand across his mouth, but the dried blood remained. “Sold me out. Blamed me for what happened at the Weaponry Arena.”

  Una tried to keep her voice patient. “What happened at the arena?”

  Horace scowled, but since one eye was shut, it didn’t look very menacing. “You mean you weren’t there with your little friend Peter? He and some other idiot were stirring up trouble, handing out papers saying rubbish about how the Muses were really good. And leaving clues about the old King.”

  The King! “Peter was there? Indy, too?” Una hadn’t heard the tiniest scrap of information about her friends, and she hoped that this meant they were somewhere safe.

  “Yeah.” Horace examined the bruises on his forearm. “And some other kid doing somersaults and making fun of Elton. Messed up Elton’s stupid announcement something awful. And I took the blame.”

  Una allowed herself a tiny smile. It sounded like the Resistance’s broadside was working. She felt a pang of homesickness at the thought of Bramble Cottage and Peter and the Merriweathers. Rufus and Bastian, little Oliver and baby Rosemary. Indy and Sam. Una choked back a sob. Story’s End would be worse than the Unbinding. Worse than the unhappiest ending the Dystopians could even imagine. She knew the Resistance would never submit to Fidelus’s rule. When Fidelus wrote Story’s End, her friends wouldn’t just be dead. They would have never existed in the first place. They were going to be unwritten. Her throat grew tight, but she wouldn’t let the tears come. There wasn’t time for crying. “Do you know anything about the coronation ball tonight?”

  “Yeah. You hear about Fidelus the Muse guy coming back?” Horace worked his jaw from side to side.

  “I’ve heard a little.”

  “He’s going to be crowned King. And all the Taleless will be there.” Horace tried to smile, and then grimaced. He held a hand up to his swollen cheek. “He’s brought back so many famous Villains. Frankenstein and the White Witch. Morgana. Mordred had the sickest-looking helmet I’ve ever seen.”

  Una couldn’t tell what this had to do with erasing Story. “They’re all going to be at the coronation?”

  Horace nodded. “They’ll come to the ball tonight and wake up tomorrow in the new Story. Fidelus is going to give a special reward to those who help him beforehand. I wonder what it will be.”

  So it was all happening tonight. Una raced over to the window and looked outside. The light was nearly gone. There wasn’t much time.

  “Wait.” Horace dropped his hand down and stared at her. “What are you doing here anyway?”

  Una felt like laughing. Horace was obviously not the smartest villain in Story. If it had taken this long for him to start asking her questions, maybe she could try a more direct approach. “Didn’t you know?” She leaned in close to make her words more dramatic. “Duessa’s my mother.”

  Horace’s mouth dropped open.

  “I’ll let you guess who my father is.”

  His one open eye bulged out from his head. “You’re Fidelus’s daughter?” He scooted a whole foot away from her. “Get back! What are you gonna do to me?”

  Una felt like a huge weight had been lifted off her shoulders after she said the words. It wasn’t as hard as she thought it would be, and now she was almost giddy. Sure, it was just Horace, but she didn’t care. Someone else knew who she really was. “Oh, I don’t know. Nothing quite as nasty as this, I suppose.” She reached out a hand and let it hover in front of the puffy skin beneath his black eye.

  “Get back.” Horace cowered against the wall. “Don’t touch me.”

  “So why do you do whatever Elton says?” she asked him. “What’s in it for you?”

  Horace sneered at her. “I’m going to be the next Tale Master. Elton promised.”

  Una did feel pity for him then. Horace was a fool. She was about to tell him so, when she heard a tapping at the window. She hopped to her feet, but Horace curled up in a ball on the floor.

  “They’re coming back,” he whimpered.

  “Stop it,” she hissed. She hardly expected her mother’s guards to come to the room through the window, but who knew what other threat they might face? She looked around the little room. It was bare except for a few sticks of furniture—the table, three chairs. No weapons. Nothing she could use to defend herself. She eyed the pan on the table before deciding on the heavy-looking candlestick that sat on the floor. The next moment, a cloud of dust billowed through the window. She couldn’t see or hear anything. Una kept the wall at her back and gripped the candlestick hard in her hand. The air began to clear. When it did, Una saw that everything was just as it had been, except dirtier. The windows were still barred. One of the chairs had toppled onto its back. Horace was doubled over, hacking mercilessly. Something brushed her shoulder, and she spun around, candlestick held high.

  The man in front of her wasn’t wearing his mask, but Una recognized him anyway. He scooped up his hat from the floor, straightened the feather on it, and gave Una a comic bow.

  “Kai?” Una let the candlestick fall heavily to her side. “What are you doing here?”

  Chapter 23

  Snow swallowed hard, but her mouth was dry as dust. The ashes from the explosions had covered everything with a thick gray coating. Including the goblin in front of her. Like the other Taleless in the corral, his skin hung in loose patches, and Snow thought it would probably flake off at the slightest pressure. But she had no choice. She had to touch him. Snow looped the glowing rope her mother had woven to c
ontain the prisoners over his bony wrists, and pulled tight.

  There weren’t very many Taleless left. Once they clothed themselves with flesh, the Taleless bled—and died—just like any character. Snow hoped that she wouldn’t see anything like that ever again. The Westerns had been furious when the enchantment broke and they found themselves in the branding pens. And the ones who had actually been branded! The Taleless that the cowboys and Indians hadn’t torn to pieces were tied to the branding pens until the Resistance had time to figure out what to do with them. Snow grimaced as she loosened the rope just a bit. The battle had proven that whatever flesh Duessa had given her minions was not attached very well. Snow didn’t want pieces of goblin on her hands.

  She looked across the corral. Her mother, the borrowed cloak streaming behind her, darted here and there among the Westerns. Some were dead. Others needed healing. All of them needed baths.

  Snow finished linking the goblin’s rope to the others and moved toward her mother. Too late she saw the circle of Western girls. Effie Lou stood in the center of them, her filthy face a mark of how close she had been to the actual explosion. She saw Snow coming and lifted her arm in the air with a whoop.

  “Bully for Snow!”

  The Westerns had been doing this whenever they saw Snow or her mother. They wouldn’t stop until Snow responded in kind, and it was beginning to get old.

  “Bully for all of us!” She waved her wrist weakly in the air. The Westerns seemed to enjoy retelling the battle as much as they had relished fighting it in the first place.

  “I lit the fuse myself,” Pearl was saying with a gap-toothed grin.

  “But I set the powder off.” Effie Lou flexed a muscle. “Let’s tell the whole tale, eh, Pearl?”

  Her mother’s shouted instructions drifted across the air. “Move out! Cowboys, you bring up the rear. Indians, scout ahead. Everyone else stay close and look sharp. The Enchanted Forest is no place to relax your guard.”

  They might have won the battle, but the war was far from over. If what the witch queen had told them was true, the Muse Fidelus was about to crown himself King.

  Snow didn’t know if they had much hope of stopping Fidelus and Duessa. Some of Effie Lou’s friends had heard rumors about a gathering somewhere near Fairy Village, but even if there were other characters willing to fight Fidelus, it didn’t matter. The Enemy would have the Scroll soon, if he didn’t already. Her mother thought the Enemy would try to rewrite Story with the Lost Elements, and if the Taleless were any indication of Fidelus’s plans, Snow felt sure that whatever he wrote for Story’s future would be a nightmare. What good had stopping the Taleless really done? Now the Westerns might live another few days. Until the next Taleless attack. Or until Story’s End. But her mother said they had to try. And for once Snow agreed with her.

  “Good work, Snow,” her mother had said after the battle, patting her awkwardly on the shoulder. She said it in the same voice she might have used if Snow had done well on an exam. Snow felt like laughing. Even now, after what they had been through together, her mother was all formality. Maybe that’s just her way. Snow still didn’t know everything about her mother. She didn’t know why she had chosen the Warlock over her baby, where her mother had learned to incinerate half-dead Taleless, or how she had concocted the miraculous potion she had used to heal the wounded. But Snow did know that her mother was brave. And that she cared for the weak.

  Her mother could have left the Westerns to die on the Ranch. Snow probably would have. She looked back up to the front of the company, where her mother’s familiar form leaned in to consult with an Indian chief. Snow’s mouth twisted into a bitter smile. Despite all the questions surrounding her mother, despite all she had seen that appalled her, Snow realized one thing that surprised her. She was actually starting to like her mother.

  Sooner than Snow would have liked, they entered the Enchanted Forest with its dense trees looming overhead, an especially unwelcome sight now that it was nearly dark. The Westerns had spread out. Those who were unarmed had their hands up, as though their very bodies could somehow become weapons. The forest itself seemed like it was waiting for something, and the air was heavy with a cold humidity. Snow’s muscles tensed at the smallest sounds. Even Effie Lou and her gang were quiet, their bragging finally silenced. Snow groped for the heavy branding iron that hung at her side. Just the weight of it made her braver.

  Their whole plan depended on locating one of Archimago’s tunnels into the dungeons and entering the castle that way. Back at the Warlock’s hideout, her mother had written a message to the other Resistance members saying as much, but Snow didn’t know if the leprechauns had made it out before Archimago attacked. She had brought up the idea of attending the coronation ball, but Snow’s mother thought it would be too risky. “What if Fidelus enchants us with his voice?” she had said, and the Westerns had unanimously vetoed the plan. That left, at best, launching an unexpected attack from the bowels of the castle. At worst, it meant they’d be caught and have to fight outside the castle walls.

  A full-on attack against the castle was preposterous. The Westerns were brave, that was for sure, but there weren’t very many of them. What had happened at the Ranch had been lucky. The explosion had taken the Taleless by surprise, her mother had worked some fast charms, and the rage of the prisoners had done the rest. But to lay siege to the castle? Against the forces of the Enemy and the Red Enchantress? Snow knew as well as anyone that she and the Westerns were basically marching to their deaths.

  A cloud moved away from the setting sun, and for a moment the forest looked like it was awash in blood, the glistening color of the bark reflecting back the fading daylight.

  Snow felt the air bristle. Birdcalls sounded in the forest as the Indians scouted the surrounding land. The leaders of the Westerns gathered near her mother to plan their approach. Snow wrapped her fingers around her weapon and gave it a practice swing.

  There was a bustle of movement in front of her, and figures began shouting out things Snow couldn’t understand. Three low owl hoots, the Indians’ call for Enemy! was the only warning they had. Snow whipped her iron through the air. There would be no sneaking around. No tunneling under the fortress with the element of surprise. No hidden advantages. It was time to fight.

  Chapter 24

  Kai seemed unconcerned when Una told him about Fidelus’s plan to use the Lost Elements to rewrite Story. He was not shocked when he heard about Elton ripping characters out of Tales or Duessa giving the Taleless bodies or Fidelus holding a big coronation ball.

  He finished lighting the candles he had taken from his satchel while she told him that Fidelus was going to unwrite anyone who opposed him. “So the Enemy has a plot brewing.” He blew out the match. “Excellent.”

  Horace crouched behind Una. Una couldn’t tell if he thought she would protect him, or if he just wanted to hide from Kai.

  Kai, however, seemed to completely ignore Horace. He reached into his bag and pulled out a green cloth, which he covered the table with. Then he set two chairs in front of the table, unwrapped a chunk of bread, and took a bite. “You must be hungry,” he said. “I’m ravenous.” Between mouthfuls, he laid the table with some hard cheese, fruit, and more of the bread.

  Una didn’t know what to say. Thanks for the snack? It’ll be nice to eat before we’re unwritten? Kai didn’t seem to understand the urgency of their situation. “These are the Elements that were used to create Story, Kai.” She tried again. “It really will be The End.”

  “Well, it’s smart of him to try, that’s for sure.” He pulled out a flask, took a swig from it, and held it out to her. “Wine?”

  Why wasn’t Kai taking this seriously? “Um, no thanks. I’m just a kid.”

  Kai laughed long and loud. Una didn’t see what was so funny, and Kai wouldn’t explain. “As you like,” he said when he finally caught his breath. “Have something to eat at least.”

  Una joined him at the table and took a handful of grapes. They wer
e delicious. She hadn’t known how hungry she was, and Kai’s table, though simple, felt like a feast. After she had taken the edge off her hunger, she sat back. “So what do we do now?”

  “We?” Kai took his dagger and sliced off a wedge of cheese. “We are going to do whatever we want.” He gave her a wicked grin as he popped the cheese into his mouth. “As I see it, the bigger question is, What are you going to do, Una Fairchild?”

  Una snorted. “I think I’ve done enough.” She reached over for the flask and took a swallow. The wine burned going down. “I’m the one who released the Enemy to begin with.”

  Kai finished his bite, chewing very slowly. “Now, that’s very interesting.”

  Revealing her identity to Horace had been easy. Una had to work to make the words come out this time. “I’m the Enemy’s daughter. And the Red Enchantress is my mother.” She twisted a grape off its stem and rolled it around in her fingers. She didn’t want to look directly at Kai.

  Una saw Kai’s hand reach out, and she thought he might comfort her. But he only grabbed an apple from the open sack in front of him and took a big bite out of it.

  “So?” he said with his mouth full.

  Una raised her eyes to meet his and saw no condemnation there. “So? Don’t you care? I released the Enemy! I’m the one who brought him back!”

  “Yeah, I got that,” Kai said around his bite of apple.

  Una flung her hands up in the air. “No. You don’t. Fidelus has the Elements, Kai. He’s about to become the most powerful King that Story has ever seen. And all because my mother”—she spit the word out—“has been deceiving everyone in Story. They’re a pair of lying murderers.” She thrust out her wrist, the bluish-green lines starkly visible beneath her pale skin. “And their blood runs through my veins.”

  Kai slapped the table with one hand. “I. Don’t. Care.” He finished his bite of apple and wiped his mouth with the back of his forearm. “Thing is, Una, what’s done is done. And you are who you are. But you’ll sit in here and rot if you spend all your time worrying about what you or your parents or whoever else did once upon a time. The question as I see it is, what are you going to do now?” He spun the core in his hand and nibbled at the white flesh of the apple.