Winter Moon (Jelsa)

Chapter 19: Rapunzel

Rapunzel clenched the note in her hand. She had received it during history, slipped in between the pages of her assignment.

Come to Room C-42 at 10 P.M. tonight.

That was all it had said, but Rapunzel knew it was Moana's handwriting.

She raised her hand to the door and pushed, entering Room C-42. Shivering, Rapunzel ducked inside, shaking off the creeping suspicion that someone was following her.

"Okay, I'm here. What do you want?" She gritted her teeth angrily. Moana was sitting on a desk in the far corner of the room. She was wearing entirely black. 

"The Father has a mission for you," Moana answered calmly, crossing the room to Rapunzel. She had a bag in her hands.

"Well, what is it?" Rapunzel asked curtly, not wanting to linger here any longer than she had to. She would deal with the mission itself later. Rapunzel just wanted to be as far away from Moana and the Broken Light as she could. 

"Here," Moana pulled a scroll from her back, tied with a bit of golden ribbon. She passed it to Rapunzel, leaning over to whisper in her ear: "You will read the instructions, memorize them, and then destroy the note I gave you as well as the missive. We wouldn't want these papers to fall into the wrong hands, would we?"

"Of course not," Rapunzel murmured back quietly, subtly taking a step away from Moana. 

The other girl smiled eerily and gestured for Rapunzel to leave.

With a quick jerk of her head, Rapunzel shoved the scroll into her sweatshirt pocket and exited the classroom. When Moana didn't follow Rapunzel out, she glanced around to make sure no one else was around before sinking to the floor, back against the wall and heaving a dry sob.

What was she going to do? How could she have been this stupid? Maybe she could play along long enough to see the Father again. Then, she could kill him.

Rapunzel shuddered at the thought.

Mentally counting to five, Rapunzel rose to her feet, feeling a sense of steely determination wash through her. She was not useless. She was not some simpering damsel in distress. She would find a way to expose the Broken Light and get out of it safely. She was an Elite. A magic-user.

Then, a clang sounded above followed by a distinctly familiar voice swearing softly. 

Was that... Merida?

Suddenly panicking, Rapunzel pulled the letter opener from her jean pocket. She didn't know how useful it was going to be, but she didn't want to mean Moana unarmed. 

There was another thump. This time, Rapunzel pinpointed the source. The vents above her. The Elites had installed them years ago to help air flow without constantly leaving the windows open and weather magic around Skyara. 

With the blade, Rapunzel used the opener to pry the vent off, but it was already loose. Someone was in the vents. What if Merida had followed her here? Had she heard the whole conversation? And where the hell was Moana?

Rapunzel turned and threw the classroom door open, only to see no trace of the black-haired teenager. Dashing frantically in, she peered at the vent in the far corner where Moana had been sitting. One of the corners wasn't straight, like it hadn't been properly affixed. Was this how Moana vanished from the classroom without using the door? It had to be.

And if Merida was in the vents...

Rapunzel swore. Vowing to tell the Elites that kids were using the vents to sneak around and should therefore seal the covers with magic, she pried the cover off and crawled in.

It was pitch black in the vent system. Rapunzel felt like an overgrown rat scuttling through the inner-workings of New Dawn. She didn't know her way around. Merida probably did. Knowing her, she had been using the vents as transportation for years already.

Rapunzel had a vague memory of Merida mentioning a "secret method of sneaking around". 

Humming softly, Rapunzel let her hair light up. She had braided it back and now the passage filled with a soft golden glow. Crawling on her hands and knees in the direction Rapunzel thought Moana and Merida were, Rapunzel silently cursed her luck. 

Just ahead, she spotted a figure filling the passage in front of her. Moana. The other girl turned to spot Rapunzel, eyes widening in surprise.

"Was that you who I heard in the vents earlier?" Moana asked.

So Merida had evaded her. Rapunzel nodded jerkily. "Um, yes."

Moana frowned, confused, like something about the explanation wasn't adding up.

"I exited the system with the vent just outside the classroom," Rapunzel lied. "I went through the door from there."

"But how'd you end up behind me?"

"I thought I heard something, so I took a different path so I could figure out who else was in the vents with me without being attacked from behind. But it was... just you."

As Rapunzel continued to lie, she felt a tingle in her arm where the snake had entered. It began to throb, then burn, as if it knew she was lying. Rapunzel was disobeying the Broken Light. 

It was going to get her killed.

"I'll be going now." Rapunzel struggled to hide the pain. Clunkily, she swiveled around in the vent and began to make her way back towards the classroom. "I'll, uh, take a different path than you."

"Well, I suppose you know the system better than me," Moana replied, watching Rapunzel curiously.

Rapunzel gritted her teeth against the mounting agony and continued to scoot along the metal of the ventilation system. Once she reached the vent she had entered, she kicked the cover off and collapsed in a heap on the desk beneath, clutching her arm. 

Pain forked through her like a knife. Rapunzel forced herself to glance down at her arm.

Gently pushing up the sleeve of her sweatshirt, Rapunzel let out an involuntary gasp. Her arm was covered with black lines, poison traveling through her veins. Her arm looked like a dark spiderweb, but as she looked closer, she realized that the black lines were beginning to form the distinctive shapes of scales.