by Shelby Bach
“Hansel, I forgot to tell you,” I said, stopping beside him. “Priya wants to try the spear.”
He snorted. “Of course she does. Getting her Tale has made her even cockier.”
Priya was the new Little Red Riding Hood. The Tale had begun while she and Kelly were visiting Priya’s grandmother in Seattle for a sleepover. I’d played the part of the heroic woodsman who comes and slays the wolf, like the Snow Queen knew I would. That had been how I ended up on the roof fighting Ripper and a hundred other creatures. Before I got there, though, Priya had taken out a bunch of wolves on her own.
It had given her star status. Hansel disapproved. “I’ll talk to her about the spear thing,” he said, very ominously.
“I already did,” I said, instantly nervous. “I told her it was a great idea, but not the right time. Is that okay?” On top of the rest of my morning, the last thing I needed was to get in trouble for overstepping my boundaries as Hansel’s assistant.
He smiled. “Probably better than I would have done.” Oh. I’d overreacted. I’d gotten so used to being in trouble with Hansel over the years that I kept forgetting he had asked for my help. “I heard about this morning. Are you all right to teach for today?”
His kindness threw me too. Weirdly, it made me feel less okay, more shaky, and I tried to stave off the emotion swelling within me. “I have to. My other option is to go see my mother and listen to her yell at me about the fight.”
Hansel looked up from the row of Fey dummies he was moving into position. “The Director wants all newcomers to attend the first weapon class after their arrival. It’s mandatory.”
I’d forgotten. The training courts weren’t the escape I’d hoped it had been.
“Rory!”
I turned. My mother strode toward me, her smile cheerful but her gaze steely. She was about to say something I wouldn’t like, especially not in front of the younger staff students walking in behind her.
“There you are.” Mom pretended she didn’t notice heads turning. Some of the other students had recognized the famous actress in their midst. You’d think they would be used to celebrities. Dad and Brie had been living here for months.
“Are you in this class?” I couldn’t keep the horror out of my voice.
“No, I just wanted to ask you something—” Mom started.
“Ms. Wright, you’re going to be having class with Gretel,” Hansel said, pointing to his sister. Gretel had just clunked in, and now she stood at the front of her class, taking attendance. “You’re welcome to talk with Rory, but I have to warn you: All latecomers are welcomed with gingerbread jacks.”
That was definitely a rescue.
Mom hesitated but then made her way over to Gretel’s class. She was always a stickler about following the rules in public. Even here, she worried that people would say she thought Hollywood stars deserved special treatment.
“I am in your class,” Amy said, walking up to me with her arms crossed over her chest. She clearly didn’t want to be there.
Man, this was shaping up to be an especially challenging day.
It would be almost as uncomfortable having Amy in the staff class as having Mom. “You don’t want to try archery?” I whispered. That was where Brie was.
“Rory, I’m nearsighted,” Amy said in the exact same tone she used to remind me that I’d promised to clean my room.
“Let me show you where the staffs are.” Hansel led her away. He was still running interference, and I was grateful. “Rory, check if we’re missing anyone.”
I glanced around the room. We were all here.
Half of my students had gathered in rows in front of me, facing the witch and dragon dummies along the wall; they were young Characters, too small to be good sword fighters. The other half included some high school Characters who had goofed off instead of paying attention during their first year of weapons classes, adult Characters who had attended EAS before the Director made classes mandatory, and parents who had never been Characters but had kids who were.
In other words, the most inexperienced fighters. The most unlikely ones.
But their unlikeliness was an advantage. Our enemies would underestimate them. During a battle, my students would be placed as a final line of defense at some key point on the field. We were training them to hold off a bigger and stronger force until offensive squads could come—like Chase’s sword fighters or the archers training outside.
Two students stood in the front, as close as they could get to me without actually standing on my toes. They were ridiculously excited to see me, considering I’d seen them the afternoon before.
“Rory, you were in a fight this morning, weren’t you?” cried Kelly. I was glad to see her so eager. She’d been a little subdued since she’d gotten her second Tale. “The Feather Bird” was gruesome, but she and Puss had put Priya and her grandmother back together again. “What was it this time? Dragons?”
“No way. She would smell more like sulfur,” said Priya, right beside her. “I’d say . . . ice griffins! No, trolls!”
They loved to guess what I’d been fighting. I didn’t understand where they got their guts. They were going into sixth grade. When I was their age, I would have never been brave enough to ask random questions of someone going into ninth grade.
“Witches,” I said, a little bit surprised that they had to ask. I mean, Ben’s grade had just carried unconscious green-skinned prisoners through the courtyard.
That got everyone’s attention.
“Witches!” Kelly and Priya said together.
“Has anybody fought witches yet?” Priya asked Kelly.
“Aladdin,” replied Kelly. “But he got captured. Jack had to go rescue him.”
Their excitement made me want to warn them exactly how deadly witches could be, but it made me want to change the subject, too. They would learn about the dangers soon enough. “We’re all here,” I told Hansel.
Amy had taken a spot in the far back, on the opposite side from where I was standing.
“That’s enough,” said Hansel, and our students fell silent. He scared them nearly as much as he’d freaked me out when I was younger. “It’s time for class. Are you ready, Priya?”
Priya stepped up, her jaw set. She tossed her long dark hair back. She had definitely gotten cockier since her Tale. “Ready for anything you can throw at me.”
She reminded me of Chase when she said stuff like that. She’d never been able to handle what I’d sprung on her. It had started during my very first class. She had seen me come in with Hansel and refused to learn from anyone she could defeat by kicking them in the shins.
But she hadn’t beaten me in the Snow Queen’s prisons. I’d just been trying to restrain her. Hansel could have told her that the Director had ordered him to send anyone who refused classes to a dungeon cell, to give them a taste of what the Snow Queen had in store for them if they were captured.
But he hadn’t. He’d just looked at me, waiting to see how I’d deal with it.
So I’d said that if she could beat one of the dummies, then she could leave class.
She took me up on it. The evil Fey dummy disarmed her in less than a second. Since that embarrassing defeat, she’d worked hard in class. She was now one of the best students.
Okay, maybe she reminded me a little of myself, too.
“As long as you’re ready,” I said. I gestured to one of the wolf dummies at the edge of the room. It sprang forward and, in two bounds, reached Priya. It jumped and knocked the girl to the ground. She shrieked and threw up her arms.
Amy shot me a shocked look, obviously wondering what kind of classroom this was. She took a step forward like she would help.
Then Priya laughed, and the rest of the class laughed with her. “No fair. It attacked from behind.”
“That will happen in a battle,” Hansel said.
“Okay, class,” I said, “who would like to tell Priya what she could have done to counter the attack?”
A dozen hand
s went up. I pointed at Kelly, who’d been a fraction ahead of everyone else. “She could have dodged. You don’t need a weapon for that.”
“That might work,” Hansel said. “The Snow Queen’s wolves change direction slower than a human does, but not as slowly as a troll or a dragon. How would you counter a wolf’s charge if you had a staff?”
Kelly had an answer for this one too. “Thrust the end at its chest. That should halt the wolf in its tracks and knock the wind out of it.”
“Excellent, Kelly,” I said, and she beamed.
“Not good enough,” said Hansel, who still didn’t believe in positive reinforcement. “You need to neutralize a wolf opponent while it’s struggling for air. How?”
A boy to my left spoke up. He was one of the youngest warriors, only eight, but he made up for it in enthusiasm. “Hit it on the head—to knock it out! And then on the legs—to make sure it can’t stand!”
Hansel grunted, but he didn’t correct Melvin, which meant it was the answer he’d wanted. I grabbed my staff, the same one I’d used to teach Lena, and waited for Hansel to gesture the dummy forward.
But apparently, he wasn’t done making the class nervous. “You lot aren’t taking this seriously enough.” His voice boomed out across the training court. “You think a villain will give you time to laugh if he sees you down? You’ve never seen their speed. I’m sure you’ve heard of Iron Hans, an ancient Character with metal skin. He’s the Snow Queen’s deadliest warrior. When he last entered a battle, he cut down fifty Characters in twelve minutes.”
Melvin and most of the younger students looked decidedly uneasy. Kelly and Priya—the only ones in the class who had faced villains—were as ashen as they’d been during their Tale, and I couldn’t stand seeing them that way. “No one has seen him in years,” I whispered to them.
It was a lie. Actually, I’d fought him once, years ago, and Chase had made him swear a Binding Oath to become our secret ally. Iron Hans had actually helped us on more than one quest since then.
Across the room, Chase caught my eye and grinned. The icy knot in my chest began to thaw. We’d been through so much together, the two of us, and as Hansel gestured for the metal dummies to move forward, my anger drained away.
The bell rang two and a half hours later. Our students racked their staffs. Hansel had ordered me never to tell the whole class that they’d done well, but they had.
Priya and Kelly left, chatting like they always did. I ignored it until Priya asked, “Which one do you think is better? Rory or Chase?”
Oh geez. I felt my cheeks burn.
“That’s not even a question,” Kenneth said, walking out behind them and obviously eavesdropping. “Chase. He taught Rory everything she knows.”
I couldn’t argue with that.
Priya shot Kenneth a withering stare, which was pretty impressive, considering she was five grades below him. “I don’t believe you. I think Rory could beat Chase, if she really wanted to.”
I’d never even gotten close to beating Chase in our sparring sessions. Before I could say anything, Chase piped up. “A duel! Awesome! Let’s schedule one. Maybe Sunday.”
Priya and Kelly actually cheered.
I turned to Hansel, fully expecting him to put a stop to this, but he nodded. “It would make a good lesson.”
My jaw actually dropped open. I didn’t look forward to Chase kicking my butt in front of all our students, but I was outranked.
“We’re going to go tell everyone!” Kelly said.
“So you can’t change your mind,” Priya added, and then they ran out. Half of EAS would know about it by the time lunch ended.
“You weren’t super helpful,” I told Hansel accusingly.
He grinned, and I could see why Gretel still thought of him as her annoying little brother. “I’d like to see that fight. My money’s on you.”
“Hey,” Chase said, clearly unaware that Hansel was just trying to rile him up.
“Rory, are you coming?” Mom called from near the door. Her voice was full of forced cheerfulness again. “I’m not sure I remember how to get to our new home.”
I opened my mouth. We’d gone over this already. I didn’t want to fight in public, even if the training courts were nearly empty.
“We have a Canon meeting,” said Chase, who obviously still wanted to make up for this morning.
“I’m afraid it’s required,” Hansel said. “Each grade sends a representative. Rory will be going for the rising ninth graders.”
Mom gave me a look that clearly said we would be discussing my responsibilities later. But at least she wouldn’t follow me this time.
Chase jumped up on an empty bench and jumped again until his hands closed over the branches that formed the ceiling of the Canon’s meeting room. He pushed his head through the leaves and then dropped back to his seat, grinning at me. “Just checking. No eavesdroppers.”
He did this before almost every meeting. It usually made me smile, but this time, I only remembered my first visit here when I’d spied with Chase, watching the Canon vote on whether or not to tell me about my own Tale. He had been close to Adelaide then too, and I hadn’t liked him much at the time. I hated that it was starting to be true again.
Today wasn’t the first time he’d “left” his M3 in his room. Unfortunately, that was only one of his excuses.
Twice, after failing to show with the rest of the grade for planned missions, he’d said, “Oh, that was today? I totally forgot.” Another was, “I lost track of time.” Once, when he missed rescuing an eleventh grade Character from some invading trolls, he’d said, “I just had so many mirrorcordings to watch.” That excuse was so lame that the stepsisters almost stopped talking to him.
When he took a seat, he didn’t seem to have any clue as to what I was thinking, and that bothered me even more.
Lena dropped heavily onto the bench beside us. “The Director ordered way too many M3’s. She must think that I can make each one in five minutes. I wonder if it would be worth it to explain the cooling process to her—”
“Shhhh,” hissed the representative for the Princess and the Pea, a finger over her lipstick-covered mouth.
The Director stood in front of her chair, the one covered with roses. Her long blond hair was braided, and she wore a shirt of golden chain mail over her blue silk dress. “Be seated. We have much ground to cover.” She turned to me. “Aurora Landon, you were attacked at home by the Wolfsbane clan. They used unknown magics against you. Please report.”
I forced myself to stand, flushing. I hadn’t expected to open the meeting, but they needed the information. When I explained how the witches had stopped the comb cage from rising to the ceiling, Chase squirmed in his seat, clearly feeling even guiltier now that he knew more about the fight. When I told them how swiftly Lena’s sleeping spell had taken out the Wolfsbane clan, Stu the Shoemaker and Rumpelstiltskin smiled at our favorite inventor. Lena was too busy shooting me a worried look to notice. Chase glanced pointedly at my hands. They were shaking again, so I put them behind my back.
The first response came from the Character whose chair was taller than all the others. Rapunzel’s long silver braid hung over the side and trailed across the floor. “For every spell, there is a counterspell, but every weapon is revealed in its own time—a time determined by my sister.”
The other Characters glanced at each other, clearly confused. It wasn’t that hard to figure out what she was saying. “She’s right. They prepared to fight me,” I said. “They may have known how to stop the combs and block M3’s for a while, but they didn’t use those spells until today. They wanted to take us by surprise.”
“But they have lost that advantage today. We will question the Wolfsbane clan about these new methods,” the Director said. “Lena, where are you with those improved Bats of Destruction we spoke of? I asked to see a prototype last month.”
Lena gulped. “I’ve just been really busy. I’ve been trying to focus on the M3’s and rings of return firs
t. And Rory’s magic shield was a great idea. I’d like to run it past—”
“Shields won’t stop the pillars, Lena,” the Director said. “You have had almost three months for this. I expect to see a prototype in the next ten days, and I want to see the M3’s and rings of return in five. Have I made myself clear?”
I narrowed my eyes. We wouldn’t even have half these items if not for Lena.
Lena didn’t try to argue again. “Yes, ma’am. I understand.”
The Director swung her gaze over to the Canon’s champion, Chase’s dad. She didn’t even bother welcoming him back from his week-long mission to Atlantis. “Jack, what is the news from the Unseelie Court?”
Chase perked up, instantly interested. His mother, Lady Ayalla Aspenwind, lived there.
“King Mattanair hasn’t changed his mind,” Jack said heavily. “He refuses to move against the Snow Queen as long as his son and heir is her prisoner.”
I shifted uncomfortably. I didn’t like Fael, the Unseelie crown prince. He’d bullied Chase back when Chase still lived with his mom. But I kind of felt responsible for the Snow Queen getting her hands on him. When we were in her palace last spring, we’d watched Likon, the ice giant, carry him and the Seelie prince inside—I’d been so focused on rescuing my friends, and the kids the Pied Piper had kidnapped, that I hadn’t even thought about rescuing him.
Snow White spoke up from her glass-backed chair. She’d abandoned her recruiting duties to serve as the Director’s ambassador. “Queen Titania and King Oberon still refuse to even see me. But the other Seelie Fey say the same. They cannot fight until their prince is returned.”
We all knew what that meant. The only reason we’d defeated the Snow Queen’s forces in the first war was because the Fey had joined our side. Without them, our chances of winning weren’t so great.
Battles are about tactics, Forrel had said, but wars, they’re won with numbers and weapons. We were short on allies.
“I did visit the other EAS chapters, like you asked. Again,” said Sarah Thumb. Her chair and her husband’s sat on a pedestal so that they could give dirty looks from a decent height, just like Sarah was doing now. “I think they’re getting tired of seeing me, but they say that their position remains unchanged.”