by Shelby Bach
The whole staff class had placed themselves right in front of Ferdinand, guarding the other humans in a formation as tight as the Fey knights’ body shield. Every weapon was pointed at Ferdinand. Every jaw was set.
Mr. Swallow fluttered up and landed on my shoulder. “Rory!” said Sarah Thumb. “They said they had captured you.”
Grinning, Kelly took one hand off her staff to wave at me. “I knew you hadn’t been captured! I knew you would come!”
“Oh, good,” Brie said, spotting me. “You’re okay.”
Mom stepped up close, determined to keep watching my back even though we weren’t in any immediate danger. “You okay, Amy?” she called out.
“Spectacular,” Amy said, standing beside Kelly. She didn’t take her eyes off the villain.
“Rory Landon,” Ferdinand spat. “I was hoping to see you. My teeth still need to be avenged.”
Turning away from my students was a mistake. Priya swung hard at his elbow, just like I’d taught her. Ferdinand yelped and dropped his sword. He whirled around, so when Amy and the mom beside her swung at him, he got hit in the face with two staffs instead of on the side of the head.
He crumpled. Amy smacked him again to make sure he really was unconscious. “I think he lost a few more teeth,” she said.
Maybe I shouldn’t have grinned, but I couldn’t help it. I was one proud teacher. “Well done,” I said, and the whole class beamed back. “Is anyone badly hurt?”
“Only one,” said Kelly.
One of the teenage students raised her hand. She had a bloody bandage tied around her thigh. “It was my fault. I stepped out of formation.”
“They’ve taken out three villains so far.” Sarah Thumb pointed to the wall. Two unconscious, greasy-haired men were slumped against the mirrors, all tied up. Three of the moms dragged Ferdinand over to them and looped rope around his wrists.
Hansel would have loved this.
“And what is the purpose of your arrival?” asked the Fey captain. His green armor had a new dent in the shoulder. “Now you are as trapped as we are.”
The staff class turned to me eagerly, clearly waiting to hear my answer.
I had these students and my combs. The beginnings of a plan began to glimmer in my mind, but first, I needed to figure out what else I had to work with.
“Will you fight, Himorsal Liior?” I asked. I probably should have asked the Unseelie king first, but I didn’t.
The Fey soldiers bristled at this.
“Do not taunt my knights.” An old hand pushed one of them aside, and then King Mattanair stood in front of me. “You know my orders.”
I did know. I felt for him. Solange had killed his daughter, and now she had his son. But I needed his men. “The Snow Queen expects them to join the battle. She didn’t do anything to Prince Fael when they defended you at the Unseelie Court. Today’s not any different.”
The king sighed. He’d probably heard this argument already. “You can’t know that for certain. No one can.”
I knew he would refuse, but I’d spent years learning sneaky persuasion tactics from Chase. “Hey, Sarah Thumb. Can you check to see if Torlauth di Morgian is still in the corridor?”
At that name, every single Fey in the room tightened their grips on their weapons, and I knew I had them. Torlauth had tricked both Fey princes into raising Likon, the last pillar, and he was directly responsible for their capture. He was a traitor to both Fey courts.
Sarah Thumb and Mr. Swallow flapped up, above the dragon dummies crammed in the entrance. “Yes!”
“We will fight,” said Himorsal Liior, his voice low and laced with a dark hint of everything he’d like to do to Torlauth.
I didn’t glance at the king. I didn’t want to see him looking enraged or betrayed, and if I were him, I would have been both. “Wonderful, because I know how we’re going to get them out of the hall.” I pulled two combs out of my pocket and whispered, “We’re going to let them in.”
Sarah Thumb did the honors. She was the only one who could get us started. The dummies—including the metal dragons barricading the way in—were all spelled to follow her orders and only her orders.
The metal dragon statues moved away from the door. The villains didn’t question why. They just ran in.
They paused for a second, confused. “Where did they go?” asked one.
I willed everyone to stand perfectly still. The Fey had glamoured us all to look like the metal dummies. Each knight could only handle a few students at once. The Fey king was the best at it. He’d glamoured all two hundred of the other humans to look like rows of metal wolf statues. Mom too—I’d asked her to guard him. We blended in with the ranks of the statue army, but only if no one sneezed or breathed too deeply.
“They couldn’t have simply disappeared.” The guy with the mask spotted what we’d set in the corner as bait—Ferdinand the Unfaithful and the two other villains my students had tied up. The captain walked straight toward them, and the rest of the villains followed. I hadn’t been sure that they would even care about their fallen comrades. Villains weren’t exactly known for being loyal to each other.
“Maybe they had those things,” said a guy with a blond ponytail. He had bruises all over his face. I guess the metal dragons had done some damage after all. “Those paint things.”
“The temporary-transport spells?” said the severe-looking woman. She had a Southern accent. “It’s possible. They could have used the weapons closet there to get out.”
That would have been a good plan. Oh well.
The villains were almost close enough. They didn’t even look at the evil Fey dummies they were walking past. Good thing. The Unseelie knights’ glamour looked exactly like their cranky usual selves, except covered in metal.
The guy in the masks did examine some witch statues, most of them smaller and prettier than real witches. The staff students were doing so well. They weren’t even breathing.
I held my breath too.
I’d positioned myself right beside them, ready to jump in front and defend them if I needed to.
Torlauth prodded the bound villains with his foot. “The Unseelie have fled as well. The great King Mattanair, hiding under the protection of a child like a wolf with a tail between its—”
He broke off, frowning.
The glamour over two of my students had flickered—just long enough for a flash of pink and brown skin where the Fey had expected metal. One of the knights had lost his concentration.
Stupid Fey pride.
“They’re still here!” The man with the blond ponytail sprang forward and slashed at the students whose glamour had flickered. The girls raised their staffs to block. They probably would have been fine, but I was faster. I caught the blow on my borrowed sword and snap-kicked as hard as I could. My sneaker connected with his jaw. He toppled back, and a couple other villains stumbled under his weight.
Wow, these guys really weren’t used to fighting together.
“Now!” Himorsal Liior slashed at Torlauth’s throat, but the traitor leapt into the air with one great beat of his red-and-cobalt wings.
Weapons raised, the villains barreled straight at my students, thinking they were the weaker targets. They weren’t. In teams of two, my students picked an enemy and slammed the butts of their staffs into each respective chest. The villains gasped, the wind knocked out of them. They stumbled back into the corner just a few feet from where the guy in the mask stood, watching the skirmish. Priya gave hers an extra smack across the face.
“Rory Landon, I presume,” said the guy in the mask. “It’s pointless to—”
I tossed one of my combs between my students and our enemies. Bars zoomed out of the ground, a foot taller than every villain before they’d even recovered enough to take a step.
“Out! Now!” The guy with the mask pointed to the only side not blocked by a wall or by bars.
But the Fey knights had closed in. The lady with the accent sprinted past them. Brie shot her in the leg
. She fell with a scream, and a yellow-winged knight shoved her back toward the other villains. One of the Unseelie dropped the comb I’d given him earlier. Bars raced up toward the ceiling, so quickly that the blond ponytailed guy ran into them.
The guy with the mask interrupted the duel between the Unseelie captain and the Fey traitor. “You must escape. You must tell Her Majesty—”
Torlauth tried to fly for the door. Himorsal Liior grabbed the Fey traitor’s boots and swung him around in a circle. He let go. Torlauth slammed against the ceiling inside the comb cage before plummeting, arms and legs flopping, and knocking down half the villains inside. The last bars clanged against the stone, sealing all of them in.
The Unseelie captain landed lightly, smirking. King Mattanair dropped the glamour over the rest of the humans and swayed slightly, exhausted. Mom slowly started making her way back over to me, but it was hard with so many people celebrating. Brie was doing a happy dance with Dani.
Sarah Thumb cheered too. “Okay, statues. Get out into the courtyard and do your defending thing.”
Metal feet marched. The training courts echoed with their ringing steps. Two lines streamed out the door, down the corridor, and into the sunshine. Sarah Thumb and Mr. Swallow sailed down the hallway after them.
The guy with the mask tried to rattle the bars, but the cage didn’t budge. Most of his men were too shocked to move. I wasn’t even sure Torlauth was breathing.
The staff students were looking a little stunned themselves. Amy in particular—I don’t think she’d expected the plan to work. Mom still had her sword raised and her eyes narrowed, like she couldn’t believe it was over.
“Beautifully executed,” I told them.
At this, Torlauth snarled inside the cage. He was alive after all.
“Speak for yourself, human,” said a Fey knight, pulling on his helmet. “I have never maintained a glamour for others before, and I have no desire to do it again. You say the Turnleaf has maintained such glamours often?”
“For hours,” I said, trying not to sound as braggy as Chase. I looked at Himorsal Liior. The knights were watching him too. Some of them looked a little put out that they hadn’t used their swords very much. The Fey captain had never given me a straight answer about whether or not he was joining the battle outside.
“I am sorry, my king,” Himorsal Liior said heavily, like disobeying a royal order made him almost as big a traitor as Torlauth. “The invaders here are the very same forces who destroyed our home. I cannot fail to stand against them again. I cannot hide here.”
King Mattanair nodded slowly. He didn’t say it was okay, but he didn’t condemn them either.
Himorsal Liior flicked a hand. The knights swooped out the door and over the marching statues to the courtyard. Only two flew over to their king to stand guard, and they looked very surly about being left out of the fight.
Quietly, almost to himself, the king said, “It is what Dyani would have wanted.”
I sighed. Yep, I definitely felt bad, but I didn’t regret it. I would just have to apologize when our lives weren’t in danger.
I turned back to the staff class. “You’ll do what we talked about, right?”
“We’ll stay and defend the king.” Priya still didn’t sound happy about it.
“And everyone else,” Amy said.
I grabbed her hand and dropped my second-to-last comb into it. “Can you stand guard at the door? If it looks like someone will get in again, throw this across the threshold. It’ll trap you in here, but—”
“We’ll be trapped but safe, like before,” she said.
“Thanks, Amy.” If I’d given the comb to Priya or Kelly, they might have let a few more bad guys in here, just to get a little more action.
Mom arrived beside us. “What now?”
I didn’t ask her to stay here. I thought about it, but she would just say no. Besides, Chase was right about me needing backup. “We go out there and help,” I said.
The statues were gone. The path back to the courtyard was clear.
We dashed down it and ducked out into the sunshine.
Four metal dragons had taken on a real one. Two had chunks melted off their backs, but the living Draconus melodious had a dozen bite marks up and down its flanks. Another metal dragon tried to close its jaws over the gold scales at its throat.
One lone figure had taken on two squadrons of trolls in hockey masks. He didn’t move as fluidly as the Itari fighters, but he was just as brutal and efficient as he tore through their ranks. It was Jack, Champion of the Canon.
Farther along, the Fey knights had flown up to take on the ice griffins. From the look of it, even just a day of Itari practice had paid off. We passed metal wolves fighting some goblins and turned around the corner of a brick house.
Lena guarded the library door, retractable staff held at the ready, but she wasn’t using it. Her Axes and Swords of Destruction flashed in the sun, keeping at least fifty goblins occupied.
“What happened to take the book and run?” I called.
The grim scowl on Lena’s face faded. “Some goblins followed me to the back entrance,” she said, clearly relieved to see me. “I had to improvise.”
“Are you good here?” I said.
“Rumpelstiltskin is defending the back with the sabers.” Lena waved me on. “We have this under control. Check on the prisons. It sounded like the witches got out.”
My heart squeezed. Chase. He didn’t have his wings. That cut his dodging abilities in half. I sprinted, cutting down an alley toward the dungeons. Mom kept up, for a little while. She started to lag and grabbed my elbow to make sure I didn’t pull too far ahead. By then, we’d rounded the edge of the houses.
The prison entrance was in sight.
The witches of the Wolfsbane clan had escaped their cells, but they hadn’t gotten past the exit. Some human spearmen had surrounded them. They’d flipped the Table of Never Ending Instant Refills on its side and turned it into a barricade. Dad was there. He didn’t see us. The Wolfsbane witches were shooting off dozens of spells. Diving from above, Chase’s mom snatched one of the witches from the doorway, ripped the wand from the flailing witch’s hand, and flew up again, almost as high as the Tree of Hope. Then she dropped the witch.
While the Wolfsbane clan was distracted, the EAS Itari force inched closer to the entrance, hiding behind shields made out of iron bars.
“Lena finished making magical shields?” I said, surprised.
Maybe I shouldn’t have spoken. The second the witches all spotted me, they let out that awful screech-caw sound. Istalina pointed her wand in our direction.
Mom knocked me to the ground just in time. A passing troll ten feet behind us turned to stone.
“Rufus found the shields and brought them to us.” When I looked up, someone else was crouching right in front of us. Orange wings flickered in and out of view. Chase. He was okay. “Unfortunately, the shields can only take three or four hits. It would be great if we had some Water of Life in case any of us get enchanted.”
I spat out a mouthful of grass.
“Is that a polite hint for me to go cover the Director’s office instead?” I asked, slightly irritated. As much as I would have liked to fight with Chase, I could tell it was a terrible idea. Half of the witches were still screeching death threats at me.
Chase glanced back. “It wasn’t that polite.”
“It was for you.” I spotted a swallow fluttering overhead. “Hey, Sarah. These guys could use some cover. Got any extra dragon dummies?”
Five metal wolves and two metal dragons galloped toward the dungeon door. The Wolfsbane clan spelled a few to stone, but the humans on the ground gained about fifteen yards in ten seconds.
“Great. Thanks.” Without looking away from the witches, he helped me to my feet and passed the shield to me. “Now get out of here.”
“Wait! You can’t just walk back unprotected,” I hissed.
“I won’t.” Instead, he flew, rolling midair to a
void whatever the witches blasted at him. His wings didn’t cut out until he was ten feet from the Itari fighters. He let himself tumble the rest of the way and rolled back up next to Rufus. The elf passed him another shield.
“He shouldn’t take risks like that,” I said, furious, leading Mom to safety. A spell sizzled across the shield, and then another. A third one turned the iron bars to stone, but by then we’d reached Little Red Riding Hood’s tiny bungalow at the edge of the courtyard. I dumped the shield and we kept running. “Sometimes I swear, I could just—”
“We’ll get you some chocolate cake to throw at him later,” Mom said, not quite smiling. “Which way to the Director’s office?”
We jogged again, my calves protesting with every step. We did need to end this soon. I couldn’t be the only one tired.
When we reached the office, the triplets were dragging the Director outside the amethyst door.
“You don’t understand!” The Director tried to free her arms from Kevin and Conner’s grip. “She mustn’t get her hands on the Water of Life.”
“She won’t,” Kyle told her. An ice griffin reared in the doorway and slashed with its sharp talons. He slayed it swiftly, jabbing his spear into its heart. “The stepsisters said they would grab it.”
But then the stepsisters stumbled out. Tina had gotten an ice griffin blast directly to the face. Her skin was white and waxy, her eyes squeezed shut, her lashes laced with icicles.
“It’s all right,” said Vicky, who didn’t look all right. Talons had sliced open the shoulder of her T-shirt. Blood soaked the torn edges. Paul kept glancing at the wound anxiously, but he had his hands full, half-carrying Tina. I ran over to her other side and wrapped her arm over my shoulders, helping her walk to the others.
“Where is it?” the Director asked. “Where is the Water?”
“We had to get out. It’s too small to fight in there,” said Vicky. “Is it worth saving the Water of Life if we die trying to get it?”
“Do you recall how much damage she caused with just two bottles of Water?” the Director asked. “Can you imagine what she’ll do with all of it?”