Of Witches and Wind

by Shelby Bach

  It didn’t work. The spell walked me straight in.

  “What are you doing?” Ben said, clearly as appalled by my rudeness as I was.

  My footsteps boomed in the huge stone corridor. It was glossy and smooth, free of torches or anything else that might block the wind. My heart thudded frantically.

  “Stop!” Kenneth hissed.

  Through the blood thrumming in my ears, I heard the other four step into the hall.

  “I can’t.” It was definitely time to panic now. Step by step, my body carried me closer to the next door—this one intricately carved, a face in every corner, each with cartoonishly bulging cheeks and wooden wind gusting out in swirls. The spell lifted my hand toward the doorknob.

  Then fingers closed around my wrist, and Chase’s face was right next to mine, scowling. The spell let me go, and my legs sagged under me. I had to clutch Chase’s arm to keep from collapsing to the stone floor in a very dramatic, embarrassing way.

  Right. For breaking enchantments, skin-on-skin contact is best.

  Lena had explained the mechanics of it once: Enchantments were extremely delicate. You could usually interrupt the spell by touching the person as it was cast. The enchantment intended for one person spread to two, but diluted like that, it couldn’t work as well. Unfortunately, if the caster was extremely powerful, the person trying to interrupt the spell could fall under the enchantment too.

  So Chase looked pretty relieved himself.

  Mia leaned against the open front door, hands over her mouth, and Kenneth and Ben both stared at me. Clearly, they were trying their best not to flip out.

  “Wow, you were like the Energizer bunny for a second there,” Kenneth told me. “You just kept going and going.”

  I had to take several deep breaths before I could answer. “I do not recommend that.”

  “Something’s wrong,” Chase said, head cocked sideways, like he was listening. “Someone should have stopped us.”

  “Let’s get out of here.” Ben turned back. But a powerful gust whipped past us. It slammed the door shut so fast the sound echoed up and down the hall.

  A voice came from nowhere, curling around each of us. “Who exactly has stumbled into my brother’s house?”

  The carved door opened a crack, and out flew a heavy-looking red rug, snapping under the strong wind. Before running even occurred to me, the fabric wrapped around us, throwing me and Chase together and pinning our arms to our sides. Ben and Kenneth thudded into the rug next. Last, Mia was thrown in, and our feet left the floor.

  “Crap!” I couldn’t see. I couldn’t tell how far we were from the ground. We could have been up near the ceiling, forty whole feet above the stone floor. “What if he drops us?”

  Chase’s voice came from behind my left shoulder. “Rory, one of the four winds just caught us sneaking in the castle. The height’s not what you should worry about.”

  “I’ll kill him,” Kenneth said in a low voice.

  “I would seriously like to see you try,” said Chase.

  “Noisy little mice, aren’t you?” said the West Wind’s brother. I wondered where he ranked on the mean-to-friendly scale. Near the likes to kill EASers for fun end, probably.

  Another door swung open, and another and another and another. Clicks and squeals filled the air, as locks unturned and unoiled hinges creaked. Then we flew, with the sudden terrifying rush of a roller coaster gaining speed.

  “Look, Brother. I discovered your rescue party,” said the voice from before. “Couldn’t you do better than human children?”

  We dropped suddenly. We couldn’t have been up very high, because we collided almost immediately with the floor. Kenneth and Chase immediately started wiggling free, and in a few seconds the rug slipped off us to the floor. Mia’s eyes were wide, her lips parted, her perfect hair sticking out in all directions.

  The room was giant, almost as big as EAS’s ballroom-turned-infirmary, but bare of any furniture. The only thing that broke up the smooth gray stone was a stained-glass window bigger than the side of our house. The colored panes showed us another bulging-cheek wind, woefully shackled.

  “Kenneth, I was joking,” Chase said suddenly. “He’s a million times stronger than—”

  Sword drawn, Kenneth charged at a man in the center of the room, who looked very out of place on Atlantis. I would have guessed he was going to a Harvard ten-year reunion, or some other event where men wore loafers and argyle sweaters knotted over their shoulders.

  “How funny,” said the man.

  I blinked, and the man swelled from six feet to somewhere around twenty-four. Kenneth’s charge didn’t falter—I had to give him credit for that. But the man just picked the kid up by his sword arm, pinching Kenneth’s right wrist the same way people grab rats by their tail. “It’s been a thousand years since I met the first of you Ever Afters, and you never fail to amuse me. You all think you’re so important. Did you really think they could stop me, Brother? Did you think they could free you?”

  But besides us five questers and the scary argyle man, the room was empty. Unless you counted that huge glass vial right behind me. The weird metal symbols embedded in the glass looked kind of familiar.

  Either the very big man in argyle was crazy and talking to himself, or someone invisible was trapped in the jar. With magic people it could really go either way. “Come now, Brother. Do as I ask and join the queen.”

  As soon as the last word was out of his mouth, my stomach flip-flopped. He meant the Snow Queen.

  “Wait. The same queen who poisoned my mom?” Ben asked.

  “Yeah. Who wants to bet we just walked in on a recruiting mission?” Chase muttered.

  “Any suggestions on how we might rescue Kenneth?” Ben asked hopefully.

  Kenneth wouldn’t let go of his sword. He kicked his legs, struggling to get free. I couldn’t think of a plan that didn’t involve fighting the argyle man, and that definitely seemed like a bad idea.

  “Otherwise I’ll find the ring you were making and I’ll use it to bind you here forever, West,” continued the man.

  The glass vial rattled the way a rattlesnake shakes its tail, furious and waiting. Definitely something in there.

  “All right. Perhaps a little shorter than forever,” said the big argyle guy. “Centuries, at least. But after a few decades in one of those, I can tell you—the boredom will drive you crazy.”

  Lena’s workshop—that was where I had seen a vial like that before. The argyle man must be the East Wind. The West Wind was in the jar.

  Chase gulped. “We really have to get out of here.”

  “Kenneth.” I didn’t like the eighth-grade idiot either, but we couldn’t just abandon him.

  “The last time the East Wind and West Wind had a fight, humans called it the Great Tri-State Tornado of 1925,” Chase hissed back. “Two hundred nineteen miles long, and six hundred ninety-five dead. That was in a human region, when they were trying not to attract attention. We want to be far away.”

  “Have you missed the part where the West Wind is imprisoned?” I whispered.

  The East Wind picked up a regular-looking cardboard box and inspected its contents—wire-rimmed spectacles appeared on his face for theatrical effect. “It’s in here somewhere. You were very clever, Brother, hiding it in plain sight.”

  “Don’t just ignore me!” Kenneth kicked both legs toward the box and knocked it out of the East Wind’s other hand. “I am going to kill you.”

  The box hit the ground, and bracelets scattered across the floor—wooden ones, and metal ones, and a jade one, and one made out of shiny, dark stone. No, they weren’t bracelets. They were rings, just sized for a twenty-foot person.

  “Stop that, little mouse.” East gave Kenneth a stern little shake. Something popped, and then Kenneth’s arm looked wrong somehow, near his shoulder. He screamed and dropped his sword. “Don’t you know how easily I could bury you?”

  You could see the power rippling off East, gusting over Kenneth. Their
clothes flapped against their bodies. I couldn’t see how we could free him, but I couldn’t see how we were going to get the four of us out of there either. All the doors were at least fifty feet away and locked.

  “Okay, Companions—this is the time for bright ideas,” Ben said. “If you have some, just throw them out here.”

  “All of us winds could bury you, little mouse.” East smiled down at Kenneth, and the wind in the room blew so hard that the discarded red rug flew back and slapped against the wall. I had to fight just to stay upright. “My brother here is as strong as I am—well, except for yesterday, when he cast off his strength and forged it into a ring. I just need to find it, and I’ll be the strongest wind there ever was.”

  So we needed to find that ring first.

  It will be the one that moves against the current.

  I stared at the bracelet-size rings on the floor, searching for the one not moving like the rest.

  “Somebody’s quick thinking has to get us out of here,” Ben added, “and I’ll be honest. It won’t be mine.”

  “Ben, seriously, if I had a bright idea, I wouldn’t share it out loud,” Chase said. “The bad guy can hear it too.”

  There. All the rings were slowly drifting toward the corner opposite East—except for one. Between an emerald ring and another forged from iron leaves, one slid straight toward the vial—toward me.

  “It will be an inconspicuous one,” said East. “The plainest of the lot. My brother was always old-fashioned like that.”

  This one had a single swirl etched into the silver. I picked it up, and as soon as the cool metal brushed my skin, it began to shrink.

  East flung Kenneth away like an unwanted toy and turned to me. Wind hit me square in the chest, pushing me back a few steps toward the glass vial. “Little girl, you have something that belongs to me.”

  Behind him, Kenneth scooted over to the wall, clutching at his right shoulder.

  My hand closed over the ring. “But it’s not yours. You just said it’s your brother’s.”

  East didn’t like that. Air gusted again and shoved me back so far I slammed into the glass vial.

  “Bargain.” Chase’s eyes lit up. “It could get us out of here. I’ll do it for you.”

  “Yes, girl. What is it you want? Your freedom?” said East.

  If he had wrestled his own brother into a glass thing that looked like a giant rainwater gauge, then I seriously doubted he would keep a promise to me.

  Only fire can fight fire; only wind can fight wind. I slid the ring on my finger.

  Mia huddled up against the glass cylinder, like she was trying to hide behind it. Yep, not that smart.

  “I would move, Mia,” I said.

  The East Wind caught on. He rushed me, but I spun as fast as I could and punched toward the vial. Glass shattered as soon as my fist struck, and the wind pressure in the room doubled—no, tripled. It lifted me off my feet and knocked me against the wall.

  “Wonderful! Now we have a brand-new Great Tornado. No, a Great Hurricane. In one room—” Chase started.

  Oh. East and West were fighting each other.

  “Hey! There are kids in here!” Hopefully, the West Wind would feel enough gratitude to make sure we didn’t all die.

  I heard a scuffle. Then, for a half instant, a very tan, very big man held his argyle brother by the throat against the stained glass. One of the panes gave way. With an earsplitting whistle, both winds slipped outside, and the room was still.

  The only sound for a moment was our heavy breathing and Ben retching up his breakfast.

  “Don’t worry,” Ben said, in between heaves. “I’m okay. Just nerves.”

  “You know, if that’s gonna happen every battle, you might skip the eggs at breakfast,” Chase said, not without sympathy. “Oatmeal comes up easier. I speak from experience.”

  Mia had fallen to the floor, limp as a rag doll. I helped her up, scared that she might be a bloody mess, full of glass shards, but she didn’t have a scratch on her. She just blinked up at me. “Is it over?”

  “Um. No, I think it just moved outside,” I said.

  The stained-glass window had changed: Two winds wrestled each other, their bulging cheeks red with fury, their long, cometlike tails twisting together.

  The gnome woman. Or, actually, the woman I’d mistaken for a gnome. She’d sent me here because she couldn’t interfere with her sons. I guess that made her the winds’ mother. Atlantis was so weird.

  Chase marched to the corner where Kenneth leaned against the stone.

  “I’m fine.” Kenneth dropped his hand from his shoulder with a wince. His face shone with sweat.

  “Your shoulder’s dislocated.” Chase fumbled through the front pockets of Kenneth’s pack. Everyone knew he was searching for the ring.

  “Stop.” Kenneth tried to shove him off, but moving clearly hurt too much.

  “Sorry, Kenneth.” Ben wiped his mouth and stood up. “This isn’t about you. This is about saving my mother. And I need four healthy Companions for that.”

  “See ya, man.” Chase shoved the ring on Kenneth’s finger. The eighth grader vanished with a shout.

  Then, before Chase could even stand up, Darcy appeared with a crunch of glass, an arrow already notched in her bow, mouth gaping. She glanced around. “Oh. This is why Rapunzel told me to stand in the corner with my longbow. I thought she was just trying to freak out the witches.”

  “Hey, Darcy,” said Ben.

  “Hey.” She took in the glass under her feet, and the hole in the window, and Mia trembling beside me. “So, no spring yet?”

  “Whoa. You weren’t here when I left,” said a voice in the middle of the room.

  West stood shirtless and barefoot in some glass shards. The only thing he wore was an unfortunate set of board shorts, orange and blue and very, very bright. With his long, tangled blond hair and his deep tan, he didn’t look much different from a surfer. Except twice as big.

  In the stained-glass window behind him, one wind figure with bulging cheeks stood triumphant, fists in the air. I guessed he’d beaten East.

  But West must have looked sufficiently scary to freak Darcy out, because she blushed and stammered. “Uh, no. You see, Rapunzel gave us these rings of return, which were really rings of exchange, and when Kenneth went back, we sort of switched—”

  Speaking of rings, I pulled West’s off—before he could ask for it back and see I was still wearing it.

  “Rings of exchange?” West’s face broke into a smile. “But they haven’t been seen since Madame Benne’s time. How did you manage five?”

  Not exactly what I’d expected to hear from an extremely powerful dude, especially not one who had been trapped in a magic vial all day long. “Lena made them.”

  “You know Lena LaMarelle?” said West, surprised.

  When he looked at me, I could kind of tell why Darcy had reacted the way she had. The room didn’t actually fill with wind the way it had earlier, but his gaze was forceful. It left me unsteady, like I was still fighting my way through a gale.

  He squatted down, peering at me with the same eager hopefulness I usually saw when Mom’s fans asked for an autograph. “Can you introduce me to her?”

  “Um . . .” I glanced at the others. It couldn’t be safe to introduce my poisoned best friend to this guy. His brother had called us little mice.

  West’s gaze swung around, and I could breathe a little more easily. “Quest, I’m guessing? Why are there five of you?

  “This quest is important,” Ben said eagerly. “We came to see if you know where the spring for the Water of Life is.”

  West grimaced. “It’s in the South—my brother’s territory. That’s all I know.”

  “Oh,” Ben said, disappointed.

  But Chase had studied a few more fairy tales than Ben had. He knew what to ask next. “Can you take us to him, then?”

  “Not a good idea,” said the West Wind. “South’s in with East, who’s not your biggest fan.”
/>   “Great,” Chase said with a sigh.

  “But I can make sure you reach the southern coast this afternoon,” said West. “Save you three days’ journey.”

  Ben grinned. “Deal.”

  “Well, wait until I finish,” the wind said, uncomfortably. “I can’t take you myself. I’ll have to put you on the Fey railway.”

  “What about Rory?” interrupted Chase.

  “Rory?” repeated West, confused.

  Chase pointed at me with two hands. “Rory Landon? Girl with crazy punch action? The one who just freed you from centuries of imprisonment?”

  “So you do know Lena LaMarelle,” said West. “You guys are buddies.”

  It was news to me that people kept tabs on who my friends were. But maybe he had just heard what had happened up the beanstalk last year.

  “I still have your ring.” I held it out, hoping to distract him.

  But he didn’t take it. “That ring only accepts one user. You’ll have to keep it now.”

  “What are you going to give her?” Chase asked West.

  “Keep in mind: You probably won’t be able to use them for this quest. I’ll need to stay here recovering for the next four days, but three boons,” said West, and Chase’s eyes bulged in a way that clearly said, Jackpot. “All you’d have to do is to tap my ring three times and say my name. But no deal unless you introduce me to Lena.”

  “Wait. Can’t we find out why he’s obsessed with Lena first?” asked Darcy.

  “Why?” repeated West, astonished. “Lena LaMarelle is the greatest inventor in living memory, or at least she will be. Aren’t you obsessed with her?”

  I couldn’t wait to see Lena’s face when she’d heard that. “But you already gave me the ring—”

  “Rory, trust me,” Chase said quickly. “This is how it works. You save the big powerful guy, and he grants you one, two, or three boons, depending on how dangerous it was. You’ll want them. With the kind of trouble you get into, they’ll definitely come in handy.”

  He probably meant my Great Destiny. I sighed. “Okay. Then thank you, sir.”

  West smiled, his eyes crinkling at the corners. But behind his back Chase gave me a big thumb’s-up—like those three boons were the best thing that had happened all week.