Lost Destinies

↳ 23: The Art Of Bringing Wrath Upon Your Enemies

If the Writer genuinely thought that the Ugly Duckling was the saving-the-world type, he was out of his telepathic little mind.

Was she trustworthy? Was she a woman of her word? Yes. Yes and no. She was honest when deserved, revealed the truth when needed be, and did not retract promises. She did not lie, at least never directly. But it was like Claude had said. To some extent, one had to be both a liar and a thief. There was no option of one or the other. To steal was to lie and to lie was to steal. Really, given how muddled and ambiguous it all was, what had the Writer expected from her?

Still, her bad wing weighed her down, and it felt a little like her conscience as she stood in the middle of downtown Nancourt—one of the largest, most populated cities in West Fairy.

"'Specially sunny out today," said the burly troll leaning against a brick wall amidst the crowded bustle of the weekday market, arms folded.

Ramona glanced up at the sky, shielding her eyes with one hand. "Actually, I suspect a cold front may be coming in," she responded just as she'd memorized, and he nodded, scanning the lot of them.

"Well, then, don't let the wind bite you on the way out." With that, he pressed his heel into a stone beneath him and the opposing wall to their left suddenly parted like an elevator door, allowing just enough time for Ramona, Minerva, Claude, Bear, Penny, and Lindsay to duck through before it shut again.

They were faced with a cramped and completely black room, unable to see anything except for glowing neon icons of crows on a screen in front of them.

"One for sorrow, two for mirth," Minerva whispered under her breath.

Penny couldn't help but continue the poem, knowing it by heart since childhood. "Three for a wedding, four for a birth."

"Five for silver," Ramona added, smiling a little.

"Six for gold."

"And seven for a secret never to be told," Minerva finished.

"Alright, but how do we actually get through this?" said Claude, rolling his eyes.

"It's the letters in the poem," Ramona explained. "S—one for sorrow. So we press the silver one once." She reached out and pressed the crow that glowed a silvery gray. "M for magenta." She pressed the bright pink crow twice. "W for white." Her fingers trailed along until they found the white one. "B for blue. Silver again. Then green."

Claude raised his eyebrows. "Not gold?"

"There isn't a gold one, wise guy," Ramona said dryly, pushing past him as the birds all blinked and gave way to a dimly-lit stairway that went downward.

"Right, but if there was silver—"

The two of them continued to bicker as everyone trodded into the darkness. On the way, they tore off cloaks and overgarments, pulling their hats and weapons from Ramona's enchanted bag.

"They made this way more complicated than necessary," Bear complained as they all huffed their way down the stairs that seemed to go on forever. "And it's hot."

"Have to weed out all the cops," Penny replied, although she didn't seem too thrilled about jogging down a gazillion flights of stairs either.

They finally made it to the entrance, a wide arch guarded by an ogre woman and a male wood fairy with vine-threaded dreadlocks. With a slow, lingering assessment of their clothing, the woman finally nodded her approval to Ramona at the front of the pack.

"Name."

Ramona held her stare, knowing that if she broke eye contact it could be interpreted as weakness, making her the loser in an unspoken intimidation game. "The Ugly Duckling."