by Shelby Bach
He hadn’t been hanging out with me just because Brie had told him to. He’d been investigating me behind the scenes. He cared about me just as much as he cared about Dani.
Dad made a face. “Are you mad? I was afraid you’d be mad.”
I shook my head. I was almost happy. “I’ll try to read it before I go back to school.”
We didn’t mention that I might not get a chance to be a freshman, but I saw a muscle twitching in Dad’s jaw, like he was trying hard not to get emotional right before he went to a meeting. “You’re going to look for that letter, aren’t you?”
I nodded. He had been paying attention.
He tossed the wet towel over the back of the leather couch, which would probably drive Brie crazy again. He picked up the carrier that usually kept Dani strapped to his chest. “Let’s get you in this thing. It’ll keep your hands free.”
He had to tighten it a lot, but it fit. Dani was so used to it that she kept snoozing. For a second, Dad kept one hand on my shoulder and one hand on the baby’s head. He stroked her hair with his thumb. “You know what I think about? I missed so much with you. I can’t get it back, but I won’t make the same mistake with Dani.”
I had it so much better than Solange. My dad never abandoned me for another family. He had just made ours bigger.
I was misty-eyed. Dad kind of was too. We were a mess, but the good kind.
“You’re ten minutes late now,” I reminded him. “If you don’t show up soon, I’ll be in trouble with Brie.”
“Better go, then.” Dad hugged me and Dani both, careful not to squeeze too tight and wake her up. “If you want to, I completely encourage you to crash the meeting. I wouldn’t mind getting rescued by my girls.”
I rolled my eyes. He grinned. Then he left, and I was alone with the baby.
Dani slept long enough for her drool to soak through my T-shirt. She woke up on the way to the courtyard, but she didn’t cry. She stared at Rapunzel’s glass vial swinging from my hand, fascinated.
The only other person I saw outside was the Director. She sat in front of the ruins that used to be her office. Someone had salvaged one of the big rose-carved armchairs. Stuffing was coming out of the back, but the Director was still sitting in it.
Rapunzel wouldn’t leave me to figure it all out on my own.
The Director might, though. My letter could have been waiting under our door, just like Chase’s and Sarah Thumb’s. She could have sent someone to steal it. She might be keeping it from me. She had a habit of withholding information.
You might say that confronting someone a lot older and more powerful than you while your baby sister was strapped to your chest would be a bad idea. You might be right, but I marched over to her anyway. “Do you have my letter?”
“Hello, Aurora,” the Director said. Standing above her, I could see the dark circles under her eyes. “What makes you believe I would take your letter?”
“You have a history,” I reminded her. Dani spat out her pacifier. I stooped to pick it up.
Yes, I was really intimidating.
“What a mild way of putting it.” The Director rubbed the back of her neck, wincing like she had a crick in it. “The Canon is probably accusing me of worse crimes at the moment.”
Oh right. The meeting.
“It didn’t occur to you, did it?” said the Director. “Why I am not there? I can tell you: The only reason they don’t invite someone to a Canon meeting is if they’re discussing that person, especially if that person is the head. First, the Tale representatives will vote to see if the families living here will get a vote. Then they’ll vote on whether or not I can keep my position.”
I didn’t know they could fire her. I couldn’t imagine EAS without her leading it. “You still didn’t answer my question.”
“I did not take your letter, Rory,” the Director said with a deep, weary sigh. I wasn’t sure if I believed her or not. Her gaze fell on the glass vial Dani was playing with. “Rapunzel’s sister gave her that. Did she tell you?”
I shook my head. I slowly tugged it out of the baby’s hands. It didn’t seem so harmless anymore. Dani started to fuss. I put a fresh pacifier in her mouth.
“We were traveling to steal the Pounce Pot,” said the Director. “We passed an elven market. Solange bought it when she saw how the vial lit up when she whistled. She said she was going to give it to her little sister, who was afraid of the dark. Sebastian and I were surprised—she hadn’t told us she’d found her father and his new family. That came later.”
Time, for me, is messy. And timing delicate, Rapunzel had said.
Something clicked into place. “She stole her sister before the end of her Tale?”
“We went with Solange to the tower to deliver the present,” said the Director softly. “Rapunzel’s hair was brown then. She was afraid of us at first. She hid behind the metal dummy enchanted to be her nurse, but Solange coaxed her out—she used the new light to make shadow puppets on the wall. She made up voices for each of them.”
I didn’t want to know how much Solange had cared about Rapunzel. The memory of their last conversation in the courtyard was too fresh. It would make me angry, and Rapunzel wouldn’t want that.
“It is hard to explain the horror of recognizing what my closest friend had done,” the Director whispered. “To steal a child from her parents, to shut her in a tower, to plan to harm her after she’d grown. Solange was shocked when we didn’t immediately exclaim over how clever she was. To be fair, we usually did. During the rest of the quest, she told us the way she had rescued her sister from her peasant mother’s hovel; how happy Rapunzel was; how happy they would be forever after they both joined the Canon; how they would take care of each other always. She’d half-convinced us by the end. Three weeks later, I was asleep.”
I wondered what I would do if Lena or Chase told me something like that. But that was the thing—they never would.
“Rapunzel was perhaps four then. I was certain she didn’t remember. I thought if she knew, she would resent me for failing to rescue her,” the Director continued. “But that is what her letter addresses. She said she never blamed me for the past. She said Solange would not have listened to me. I didn’t expect that kindness.”
“Rapunzel was kind,” I said, angry after all. I hoped the Director felt guilty for suspecting Rapunzel of betraying EAS so often.
Mr. Swallow soared between the houses. “Mildred, they’re ready for you,” Sarah Thumb called before she and her mount circled back.
The Director stood and smoothed her violet skirt. “You are thinking the wrong way about the letter, Rory. When I met her, Rapunzel was fascinated by my dress. I showed her the pockets. She liked them so much that Solange promised her a dress with pockets of her own.”
Then the Director walked to the Canon building, gloved hands folded in front of her.
I stared after her. Pockets. Rapunzel had left a letter to the Director in the Director’s pocket, a place that reminded Mildred of the first time they’d met. Maybe she’d done the same for me.
I’d first seen Rapunzel at the Table of Never Ending Instant Refills. It had been turned to stone when the spearman had used it as a barricade the day before, but it still worked.
I found nothing under any of the plates or trays or bowls. I squatted down and checked under the table. No letter taped down there either.
Well, it had been a long shot. The Table got too much traffic to be a good hiding place.
It’s pretty awkward to stand up when you have a baby strapped to you. Dani didn’t like it either. She curled her fists in my T-shirt, hanging on. Then she reached for Rapunzel’s light again. I didn’t let her touch it.
I’d always assumed Solange had stolen her sister after she had already lost Sebastian and Mildred. I’d thought being lonely had driven her a little nuts.
But she’d been my age when she’d stolen Rapunzel—or maybe even younger. She had already started to play the witch in Rapunzel’s Tale.
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br /> I curled my hand around Dani’s back. I walked along the doors that lined the courtyard, thinking.
The idea of someone hurting my sister terrified me. I couldn’t imagine planning to do it myself. I couldn’t even imagine keeping her in a tower for that long. I wanted Dani to grow up and have adventures and make friends like I had.
Maybe that is what Rapunzel meant when she said I was nothing like Solange.
Maybe wasn’t good enough. The world couldn’t survive another Snow Queen, and even if I stopped her, who would stop me if I became just as—
My eyes landed on the ruby red door. I halted so fast Dani grabbed my T-shirt again.
The first time I’d seen Rapunzel had been at the Table. The first time we’d talked had been in the hallway between that door and the outside world. She’d been chiseling something. I hadn’t been back to that corridor since the day before the Wolfsbane witches attacked us in San Francisco.
The door wasn’t locked. I stepped into the hallway. It was dark, but then it had always been dark in there. I whistled over Rapunzel’s light, held it up, and gasped.
I’d seen her carving, but I’d never seen the finished product. The walls showed four scenes.
In the first, a young woman—maybe Rapunzel—buried her face in her hands in front of a table. Spread across it was a candle, a knife, and a stack of paper. Rapunzel had even carved writing on it, upside down. French, I think, or Latin. I couldn’t read it unless I put in my gumdrop translator, but I didn’t think it was my letter. Too short. It looked more like a list.
The second panel was the one I’d seen Rapunzel carving. I recognized the woman’s profile now. Rapunzel had captured the Snow Queen’s icicle crown perfectly, but not the frosty smile she usually wore. Solange just looked confused.
The third scene was the Snow Queen’s palace, the massive doors flung open, thousands of tiny figures marching in neat lines. The only ones big enough to recognize were the pillars. I couldn’t tell if her allies were marching in or out.
The last was the strangest. It showed a tower and two figures on its roof. The Snow Queen’s arm was outstretched to defend herself, but her eyes were wide with fear.
The other figure was me. I was pretty sure. That looked like my messy ponytail. The Rory figure had something cupped in her hands, and she was sprinting at Solange, cradling whatever it was against her collarbone.
“Well, I guess this means I find something the Snow Queen is afraid of,” I told Dani, feeling a little calmer now that I had some clues to work with. I stepped closer, trying to get a better look, but paper crinkled under my sneaker.
I looked down.
An envelope, covered with my name and all the fancy curlicues Rapunzel could fit on it.
sat down and ripped the letter open. My hands shook a tiny bit.
Dear Rory,
If I had your courage, I would tell you this face-to-face. It is all but too late for that now. I must make a confession: I turned my sister into what she is.
She came to me, after the former Rapunzel had given me her place in the Canon. I was great with child, very near the birth of my twins. The scar on my neck, made by my sister’s shears, still pained me, but Solange was full of smiles.
Her plan had succeeded. She, of all Characters, had successfully manipulated a Tale. She had given me an endless, unaging life. She believed she had given herself a Companion for the centuries ahead. She spoke of raising my babes in the self-same tower she had thrown me from.
She did not understand the reason for my anger. She did not believe me at first when I told her I would never live with her again, when I said I would never allow her near my children. Then I threatened to stand before the Canon and to reveal the identity of the witch in my Tale if she dared to speak to any of us.
I told her we were no longer sisters, and she looked so hurt.
She left then and disappeared for decades. She did not return to the Canon until she had already kidnapped Kai and begun calling herself the Snow Queen.
I knew what she had planned. I had seen her books. I had read her notes. She was fully aware she could die in the attempt. I recognized that I was her only hesitation. I knew what she would do if she lost me, and I did not care.
My sister has always had two great desires—one for power and one for affection. Her mother was long dead. Her father had abandoned her for my family. Her other relatives had passed her among themselves, neglectful and distant. Sebastian was stone. Mildred was asleep. I was her last link to a different sort of life. I shunned her. I pushed her toward power.
I believed she would die in the attempt, and still I did not care.
Now she is heartless.
I tried to imagine forcing that choice on Dani: stay and try to stop me from becoming a great villain, or leave and live her whole life overshadowed by the destruction I caused.
I wished Rapunzel were still alive. I wished I could tell her that Solange had made her own decisions.
With this letter and these carvings, you have all the pieces you need to do what must be done. The first panel happened the day I told my sister we would not share our lives with each other. This last panel is a vision which will not come to pass within my lifetime. I have seen this final confrontation, but not the outcome.
Knowing you, I can guess it.
Living will carve you open. You can’t choose what wounds you. You can only choose what seals the scar. You will never choose power as my sister did.
You are willing to sacrifice too. You would die to keep safe your loved ones and the world they inhabit. But consider too, my dear Rory: There is more than one way to give your life.
Solange only speaks of uniting magical peoples and giving them aid. You have already begun acting on what she has long promised.
You have a way of looking past traditional mistrust and forging bonds previously held to be impossible. As you read this, the Living Stone Dwarves live at Ever After School. Seelie and Unseelie Fey alike flock here.
These are only the changes you have wrought in two and a half years. Think of the good you can do within a lifetime.
I gave my immortality to Lena, not simply to allow her to reach adulthood, but for you to grow together. I want this world to be transformed by Rory Landon. I want you to live.
Rapunzel
Only Rapunzel would completely fail to tell me how Solange had turned into the Snow Queen. Only Rapunzel would try to tell me who I was instead.
I was crying by then. Rapunzel wasn’t here to comfort me, and that thought made me sob even harder.
This didn’t bother Dani as much as I thought it would. She just stared at me and then at the tears landing on her baby carrier. She’d probably never seen someone so big cry before. She must have thought it was only something she did.
My sister patted my cheek with her little hand. I used my T-shirt to rub her fingers dry. Then I wiped my face on my sleeve. Took a deep breath. Examined the wall.
Rapunzel said I had all the pieces. Maybe it would have been easier if she’d just told me, but I had to trust her. I had to believe I could solve the puzzle she’d left me.
The last panel showed me taking something to the Snow Queen, something small enough for me to cover with my hands. That was a pretty solid clue.
It had to be the key to the power she’d gotten after Rapunzel left her. The magic Solange had almost died to gain.
I raised Rapunzel’s light over the first carving. I looked at Solange’s hands over her eyes. I would be devastated too, if Dani decided she didn’t want anything to do with me, but I liked to think I would understand why.
Grief is a messy thing though. It could make you reckless.
I focused on what was on the table in the panel.
A knife. It could be the same one she cut her sister with— No, Rapunzel said Solange had used shears. The knife could be for anything.
But the list . . . I dug my gumdrop translator out of my back pocket again and stuck it in my ear. The writing was upsid
e down, but the translator slowly recognized the carving had words. The letters melted into something I could read:
Limbs (all 4)
Eyes
Heart
Head
A list of body parts. Great. In the early days of my research, I’d kept a list of body parts too. Reading The Lyvves & Tymes of Sorcerers & Sorceresses, I’d jotted down which limbs regular people lost to gain their magic. I’d stopped, because they repeated so often—hands and feet and sometimes eyes.
So, we had that, a knife, and a very upset Solange who wanted more power—
I gasped and stared at the list again.
Genevieve Searcaster cut out her own eye to become the first sorceress-giant ever. Solange had helped her. What if that hadn’t been the first time the Snow Queen had tried that experiment? What if she’d done that to herself, but not with her eye?
Now she is heartless. Rapunzel had told us. She’d been telling us all along.
Solange had cut out her own heart. The magic that flared up around the bearer of the Unwritten Tale had flowed into the spot where her heart should be.
What would you do if power flowed through your veins instead of blood? Rapunzel had asked. I hadn’t realized she was being so literal then, either.
No wonder Solange was so powerful. No wonder Rapunzel had kept saying her sister was dead. No wonder nothing had happened when she’d given up the Canon’s golden apple. The Snow Queen wasn’t really human anymore.
Her heart must be what was hidden behind that ancient cracked door from my dreams. I had to bring it to her. It was the only way to stop her.
Parents were pouring out of the Canon building when I got there. The town hall portion of the program must have been over. I couldn’t tell how it had gone.
Through the crowd, Mom spotted me first. “We convinced the other families to stay. Are you all right?”
“Fine. I just—” I didn’t want to talk about it with all these worried-looking families around me. Dad started loosening the straps of the baby carrier. “I have to speak to the Canon.”
Brie plucked Dani from my arms and swung the diaper bag from my shoulder to hers. Then she kissed my cheek and whispered, “Either you really want to get out of babysitting, or you’re onto something.”