Of Witches and Wind

by Shelby Bach

  I let him do all the talking. We were about a mile above the ground, zooming fast enough to outstrip small airplanes. West’s shoulder felt solid under my sneakers, but this guy was made of air—he could disappear into tiny molecules at any second. It might not even matter how hard I held on to his ear.

  I’d called him almost as soon as Mia and Ben were gone. Kenneth obviously couldn’t come with us, so I had filled my pockets with enough plateau dirt for a temporary transport later. When West landed beside the Tree of Beauty, I barely recognized him. Today he wore jeans, squarish black-framed glasses, and a T-shirt that read I AM THE COMPUTER WHISPERER.

  As soon as we explained what we wanted, West lifted one of us to each shoulder and gusted over toward the Glass Mountain. He also tried to talk us out of it, which—I was almost completely sure—was not part of the boon.

  “Can’t you at least call for reinforcements?” West told us.

  “We don’t have our mini magic mirrors,” Chase said. They were both in the pack Mia had stolen. Next time we would have to remember not to store them all in the same carryall. “We’re on our own.”

  “I could take you back to your homes,” West said hopefully. “If this Mia has gone ahead of you, the Snow Queen will know you’re coming. You surprised her last time, but no one has ever escaped her when she was prepared. You won’t survive.”

  I was tired of grown-ups telling me what had never been done before. People told us that all the time, and then we did it. “Look. Lena’s poisoned. Almost every one at EAS is dying. We have to save them. So if you don’t have anything helpful to say, I think you should stop talking and fly faster.” Then I shut my mouth so I wouldn’t pull a Ben and throw up.

  Chase didn’t say anything. I was sure his face clearly said, He can still step on us as soon as we get there, it doesn’t matter how many boons he gave you.

  But West just sighed. “God, I love humans. You’re just so . . . earnest. It’s a shame you guys don’t live longer.”

  The Glass Mountain was twice as big now as it had seemed from the plateau. I could see a dark rectangular opening in the front, at ground level. An open door.

  I guessed Mia had already gotten there.

  The same thing must have occurred to Chase. “So should we rescue Mia, too, or just Ben?”

  “Where were you ten minutes ago?” I said, almost positive he was joking. “She’s a bad guy.”

  “No, this could be a blackmail situation. The Snow Queen could have her family or something,” Chase said. “We won’t know until we talk to her.”

  “I thought you didn’t like her either!”

  “No, I said she was useless. You said her head gets cut off,” Chase reminded me. “Does it seem like a good idea to chop off the head of your minion? Even the Snow Queen doesn’t have enough of them right now to waste any.”

  My gut told me that Mia was not on our side, but I didn’t want to argue about it. “So we rescue Ben definitely and Mia only if we get a good opportunity. It might be too late.”

  “Two minutes left. I see two squadrons stationed outside—one of wolves, and one of trolls.” I thought West was telling us this as a substitute for “last chance to turn back,” but then he added, “I can get you past them. I’ll hide you somewhere in the maze of rooms.”

  “Great. Rory, you go in front and focus on covering me,” Chase said. “It’s easier for you to fight more than one villain when your sword kicks in.”

  “Got it.” I probably should have drawn my sword too, but I would have had to let go of West’s ear first. Wasn’t ready for that yet.

  “I can’t get you out, though,” said the West Wind apologetically. “Don’t tell anybody, but even I’m afraid of Solange.”

  “We have rings of return. We can use those,” I said.

  “Rory?” West said hesitantly.

  I was sure he really would tell me to go home while I still could. “Yeah?”

  “Are you wearing my ring? You’re bruising my ear.”

  “Sorry!” I loosened my death grip a fraction.

  “She’s afraid of heights,” Chase explained. “You should have seen her when she broke the Cala Mourna Bridge.”

  “Really?” West said, interested. “Then I guess I shouldn’t do this.” He dipped at probably a hundred miles an hour. My stomach lurched weightlessly.

  “Don’t!” This was payback for bossing him around.

  Up ahead, two long rows of black wolves (armed with giant yellow teeth) stood to attention in front of four rows of trolls (medium-size, armed with spears in front and swords behind, complete with hockey masks). I was twice as grateful that Chase and I didn’t have to fight our way through fifty bad guys.

  “Trust me.” West dipped lower and blew, flattening both the wolf and troll squadrons as easily as blowing out candles on a birthday cake. He gusted past the heavy, dark doors, and then we were inside. I glimpsed long panes of frosted glass dividing the floor into rooms, and then West deposited us gently in a sitting room with red-and-gold sofas.

  Almost immediately I tasted sweat on my upper lip. I’d forgotten how hot the Glass Mountain was.

  “I’ll try to throw them off your trail,” West whispered. He gusted away noisily, banging doors open and shut on the other side of the mountain.

  “Great boon. Seriously,” Chase said.

  “Shhh.” I listened hard. One wolf howled, a few corridors away, and a troll grunted out orders—assigning pairs to search down each hall. “They’re looking for us, but only in teams of two. We can fight two.”

  “How convenient.” You could hear Chase’s grin in his voice.

  But instead of my friend, a troll smirked at me, tusks curving around his lower lip. My sword was out in a flash, and just as I started to swing, the troll held up both hands and said with Chase’s voice, “Rory, it’s me. I cast a glamour over us. It even has a scent to fool the wolves.”

  I lowered the sword. “Oh. Good idea.”

  Troll Chase shrugged. Behind his hockey mask his eyes were still blue. “The Snow Queen will sense it right away, but it should buy us some time.”

  “We better start searching, then.” In the glass door my reflection was faint, but it was still pretty weird to see a troll reaching for the door when I told my hand to move. Outside, the hallway was empty except for side tables that looked like they were carved out of blue gemstones.

  Chase followed. “I need to tell you something.”

  “Do you really think this is the best time?” I whispered, hurrying down the passage.

  “Yeah, I do, actually. The stones on the way to the Water, the ones that sounded like me—”

  This was not a topic I ever wanted to bring up again. My cheeks went hot. Hoping the blush didn’t show through the troll glamour, I peeked through a doorway—nothing in there but low couches.

  “Last year, on my birthday, Amya asked me if I wanted to come back and live with her,” Chase said. “She was going to ask the Unseelie king if it was okay, and she could probably have done it. He gives her pretty much whatever she wants, because of Cal. And I was thinking about it. Dad was never around.”

  Chase was lonely. That’s what he really meant. “You had Adelaide. And the triplets.” I stopped to check another door. Couches. These had gold clawed feet. What was with the Snow Queen and couches?

  “Shut up—this is my story. And they don’t actually know me that well.” He sucked in a deep breath. “But I didn’t do it. And this year she asked again, and I wanted to say no right away. That got me wondering what the difference was between this year and last year. And the only thing I could think of was you. I mean, I’m sure it’s not the only reason,” he added hastily. “But things were better after you came.”

  This was, by far, the nicest thing he’d ever said to me.

  I stopped and looked at him. “Are you telling me this because you think we’re going to die?”

  Even through the hockey mask I could tell he was scowling. “I think Mia heard what the sto
nes were saying to us.”

  “But she wasn’t touching us,” I said, kind of panicked. “It doesn’t work without skin-to-skin contact! We didn’t hear what the stones said to them.”

  Chase shrugged. “She’s a magic spy. Listening spells are the first thing you learn. Even Dad knows a few. But Mia heard. Lena, or the stone that was supposed to be Lena, said the thing about wanting new friends. She’ll use it against us. The Snow Queen likes to mess with your head.”

  The worst villain ever knew all my worst fears. Fantastic.

  “That’s actually really smart of you. I’m impressed.” It was easier to say that than tell him how grateful I was.

  Troll Chase pointed two thick thumbs at himself. “Grew up with fairies. They invented mind games.”

  I really didn’t want to admit this, but— “I never minded that you’re half Fey. But I care that you didn’t tell me. And I care that I didn’t notice.” He’d lived a whole different life before I was even born, and I’d never even suspected. “I feel like a sucky friend for not noticing. But the actual Fey bit—that’s actually pretty cool, like finding out you have superpowers.”

  Troll Chase’s face twitched around his tusks, and I thought he was trying hard not to smile. “Are we done?”

  “Done,” I agreed. “That was really awkward. Let’s not do that again.”

  “Unless our lives depend on it.”

  “Yeah, unless our lives depend on it.” But even then I would think twice. It was so much harder to talk about feelings with Chase than it was with Lena.

  I peeked inside another room. Eggs the size of my head rested on the wall’s wicker shelves, cushioned in loose feathers. A bonfire crackled in the middle of the room; even bigger eggs nestled inside the flames.

  “Hatchery,” Chase said. “For ice griffins and dragons.”

  I closed the door quickly. “I think I preferred the couches.”

  In the four halls we searched, we only ran into one troll partner team. They saw us, grunted, and jogged right past us, their spear butts striking the floor in rhythm. “Told you I was good at glamours,” Chase whispered, once they were gone.

  Then, just when I started to worry that we would find the Snow Queen before we found Ben, we got lucky. I pushed open a door and spotted something neon green sitting on a couch with embroidered snowflakes. I sprinted across the room and picked up my carryall. “Yes!”

  Rolling his eyes behind his hockey mask, Troll Chase stepped into the room. “Way to check for traps, Rory.”

  I unzipped the pack. “It looks like the bottles are all still here.”

  “So we really should suspect a trap, then.”

  I didn’t see anything unusual about this room except that it had a second door, and a worktable just beyond it.

  My stomach lurched.

  Mia was in pieces upon the table. Only her head and one arm were visible. The rest of her body lay like lumps under the white silk of the hang glider, cut apart at almost every joint.

  Chase noticed and gagged.

  Her eyes were still closed. She wasn’t dead, though. Reminding myself of that made it easier to think.

  “Okay, if Mia’s here, then Ben probably is too.” I started looking.

  “One dismembered body isn’t enough for you?” Chase said, clearly grossed out.

  “But he can’t be. We would have seen him already,” I said.

  “Should we gather Mia’s parts together?” Chase said, not helping me search for Ben. “Because I’m definitely going to let you take that job.”

  Besides the sofas, and the two marble-topped end tables, and the workstation, the only other thing in the room was a small, round paper weight, resting on the couch’s arm.

  “Rory,” Chase whispered.

  I had seen the same kind of paperweight in the Snow Queen’s office the year before. So it didn’t completely shock me to see Ben inside, shrunk down to the height of a toothpick, his face contorted with pain.

  “Rory!” Chase said, as I picked up the paperweight.

  I turned, annoyed, just in time to see Mia’s eyes open, her lips curling into a smile. Then the parts under the silk moved on their own, drawing together. An arm attached to a lumpy torso and tugged off the cloth covering to reach for a leg.

  Beware the doll, Rapunzel had said. “Chase, she’s a puppet.”

  “Then where’s the puppeteer?” Chase hissed, so freaked out that he dropped the troll glamour.

  The Snow Queen was the puppeteer. Solange had been acting through Mia all week.

  The second arm hooked back into the second shoulder, the silvery shoulder hinges clearly visible under Mia’s tank top. The tips of her wooden fingers had folded away to reveal slender blades.

  I ran, grabbing Chase on the way out. “It’s official. We won’t be rescuing Mia this afternoon.”

  “What about Ben?” Chase said, as we hurried down an empty corridor.

  “I got him. Just don’t ask me how to get him out.” I passed Chase the paperweight.

  “The Water of Life?” he said. “It’s basically pure magic. It should unravel most spells, just by overloading them.”

  I fished inside my pack for a bottle and spilled some Water of Life over the glass.

  Lena could have listed off a thousand reasons why overloading a spell was a bad idea. She would have been right.

  The paperweight exploded, showering us with tiny shards.

  “Owww,” I said. “Does anyone else feel like there’s way too much broken glass in this Tale?”

  Ben lay on the floor, normal-size. “Rory? Chase? What happened? Last thing I remember, some strange lady touched my forehead with her finger, and Mia—where’s Mia? Is she okay?”

  Chase helped him up. “Brace yourself, Ben. Mia’s a bad guy.”

  “No . . . ,” Ben said, clearly too bleary to process this.

  “What? Her stealing the Water of Life and dragging you into the Glass Mountain didn’t tip you off?” Chase said.

  I rolled my eyes. “Find your rings of return so we can get out of here.”

  “Stupid Rory,” sang Mia, somewhere behind us. “Rings of return don’t work in the Glass Mountain. What if the evil queen found one and used it to escape?”

  Crap. I slipped mine on just to make sure, but she wasn’t just trying to trick us. “Put them on anyway. They’ll take us straight home as soon as we get outside.”

  Mia appeared at the end of the corridor, her elbow joints glinting metallically in the sunlight. Even her perfect face looked different—hinges shone around her mouth. “You have to reach outside first. This prison only has one exit.”

  We fled in the opposite direction. I ran with my pack in front of me, my hand digging around for an M3.

  Ben turned to Chase, wounded. “You failed to mention that Mia was a bad guy and not a real person.”

  “Right. She’s a doll. She’s been wearing the best glamour I’ve ever seen. You had a crush on a puppet,” Chase said. “I bet you feel stupid now.”

  “Wow. Last time I ever look for sympathy from you,” Ben said. He learned fast.

  “We need a way out of here,” Chase said.

  “No kidding.” I flipped the magic mirror open. “Lena! I mean Melodie! We need a scrying spell! We’re lost in the Glass Mountain. Can you find us a way out like you led me through the mirror vault?”

  “Right. Rory, you handle the escape plan,” Chase said. A wolf leaped through a doorway, its teeth nipping at my friend’s throat. Chase ducked and drove his sword into the beast’s heart. “I’ll cover our fronts. Ben, keep an eye on Lady Pinocchio.”

  “Lay off, Chase,” Ben snapped.

  “Lena, she—she can’t come to the mirror right now.” Melodie flipped her M3 over so I could see Lena: On top of an infirmary bed full of rumpled sheets, she frowned in her sleep, a tiny line between her brows. Her lips had turned so black it looked like she was wearing Goth lipstick. The vines snaking over her face had thickened so much they showed up through her brown skin.


  Worst of all, I could hear her breath rattling around in her throat, even through the mirror. She sounded like a car engine with a broken muffler.

  She wasn’t just sick. She was dying.

  Chase paused at a fork in the hall, looking at the three paths ahead. “Which way?”

  But Mia reappeared behind us, snowflake-shaped throwing stars in each hand. She launched them at our heads.

  “No time.” Ben shoved me and Chase down the middle path, out of the way, and the throwing stars buried themselves in the wall’s frosted glass, throwing out spiderweb cracks in each direction.

  “What happened, Melodie?” I breathed. “We talked to her just this morning. That couldn’t have been more than three hours ago.”

  “She snuck away from me and Jenny. She ran to the library to see if Chatty’s Tale showed up in Rumpelstiltskin’s book, and a nurse found her there an hour later.” Melodie flipped the mirror back around. Golden tears beaded along her jaw. “She’s woken up a few times since then, but she can’t talk. Rapunzel says—” And Melodie’s face crumpled.

  “What does Rapunzel say?” Iron bands closed around my heart.

  Chase tried to lead us left, but four trolls guarded that corridor. We ran right.

  The harp pressed fists into her eyes. “She says Lena has an hour, tops. Jenny called Gran in.”

  Even though Lena had only eaten one bite, she’d run around a lot—just as much as Jenny and Rapunzel. The poison must have worked its way through her whole body. “But why would Lena do that? Didn’t she know she was getting worse?”

  “She so wanted to help you, Rory,” Melodie said, and the iron bands grew tighter. “She wanted to be involved even though she couldn’t be there. She was afraid that you would stop needing her, and that she wouldn’t be invited on the next quest. Now she won’t ever get the chance.”

  I’d been so stupid, worrying about whether or not Lena wished I was smarter. I hadn’t once wondered how she’d felt, left behind, watching us through the M3. “There’s still ointment juice left, right? Give her the rest.” We had the water. The other poisoned people could hold out.

  “Her body is too weak to even break down the ointment now. It’s too late.”