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22: Ashes, Ashes, We All Go Down

"Rule #99: Sacrifice is necessary to gain anything of worth. Usually a pumpkin or a few mice will suffice. Never offer your firstborn though."

—Definitive Fairy-Tale Survival Guide: Volume 1
22

Ashes, Ashes, We All Go Down

I wouldn't drown; my flaming hair would go out long before that. The end result would be the same though, so it wasn't worth arguing semantics. Except...my feet had no problem staying still.
My shoes!
No wonder Verte insisted I hang on to them. They hadn't stopped me from getting dusted at Crow's because I ate the stuff. But I was willing to bet that since they'd protected me from the fire flowers, they would protect me now.
"Yoo-hoo! Little fairy," I taunted Moony. "Notice I'm not moving? And if I stay back here, your bubble bombs can't reach me. So give up and paddle away now or spend the rest of your life under glass."
I was hoping Rexi had swiped a bug jar somewhere along her travels.
"Fairy-farting pox-ridden princess," Moony swore. "I may not be able kill you, but I can hurt you."
"With what?" I sneered. "By blinding me again with your full moon?"
"By taking what you care about. And without your bumbling bodyguards, you'll be easy pickins'." He grinned wickedly.
Though I'd stopped, Kato and Rexi kept marching forward. They were at the lake now, with the water up to their ankles. If I didn't do something quickly, they'd both become more casualties of the wish.
A minefield of bubbles peppered the air between us.
I ran to my friends, weaving and dodging the bubbles the best I could but still got some back spray. If I held on to Kato, he'd pull me down with him. Instead, I grabbed Rexi by the shirt, yanked her back to the shore, and sat on her so she couldn't go anywhere.
One down, but Kato...
I felt the answer within me. The fire burned just underneath the surface my palm, fueled by the voice in my head. Take their life and power. Like shooting frogs in a barrel. It would be so easy. The metallic bugs would melt and Mooney would go up like tinder.
"No," I ground out between my teeth. "There has to be another way."
Rexi squirmed beneath me, still trying to answer the music's call. I didn't need to stop my friends; I needed to stop the music. Ignoring Rexi's shriek, I grabbed the knapsack out of her hand and looted her stash of stolen goods.
I didn't even bother checking what I was throwing. As soon as my hand held on to something solid, I pulled it out and chucked it at the Jitterbugs. I wasn't even close for the first few, but I got better, and even when I missed, I made waves. And that was a very big problem for a very little tea saucer.
Moony and the Jitterbugs swayed and staggered, trying to keep their balance while ducking to avoid an incoming snowman figure.
"This ain't what we signed up for, cuz," said the bug playing the upright bass.
"That's right. Keep y'all's money. We quit." This bug threw down his pipe and jumped into the water. The rest of his band abandoned their instruments and made a break for it too. They swam for the nearest gravy boat.
"What'sss goin' on? Why'm I wet?" Kato slurred, waking up slowly.
The reprieve was short. Moony ignored the deserters, picked up the panpipe, and began to play.
Kato pitched forward again, his belly now brushing the water. I reached into the sack but came up empty.
Hopping off Rexi for a moment, I retreated back to the road to find some rocks or something. A giant bubble hit me in the face, stealing some of my flame, making me wobble and fall.
"Dorthea!"
I was too dizzy to answer, but even through blurred vision, I could see Rexi's feet were scooting for the water even though she was still sitting on the ground. Worse, Kato was close to going under. I staggered into the lake, climbed onto Kato's back, and shoved my fists in his ears. He'd grown again to be the size of a court stallion, so I couldn't cover the entire hole.
The water was up to his chin and my waist. Moony somehow played with a smile on his face and increased his tempo—and the pace of Kato's death march. Unbidden, the image of Blanc's drowning prince came to mind. She hadn't been able to stop it.
But I could.
Makers forgive me.
I shut my eyes, but even behind closed lids, I could feel where the Bumpkin stood. Bringing my flames to the surface of my palms, I held them there. Then let them go.
The music abruptly stopped.
Smoke and ash filled my lungs, making me want to throw up. I thrust my hands in the water to put out the flames because holding the power in my hands felt good.
That did make me throw up.
My vomit barely missed hitting Kato's wing as he flapped back to shore, wet but no worse for the wear.
We all looked at the fiery green glow on the lake.
"Is that... I thought you said you'd never use it," Kato said sluggishly, clearly peeved. "What happened?"
"She saved your hide while you dozed through the epic battle and barbecue, Sleeping Beauty." Rexi pulled herself up out of the shallow water. "Warrior princess here and her flames—"
"I don't want to talk about it," I croaked and moved to slide off Kato's back.
He shoved me back on with his wing and covered me from an oncoming bubble. "Ride up there for a while."
"Why?" I asked. He'd made it clear before that he was not a beast to be tamed or ridden.
"Because you need it," he answered quietly. "Let's go, Rexi." He turned in the direction of Sherwood Forest and ambled off the shore.
I buried my face in his fur, partly because I was cold and felt like I'd been drained of all my energy, but it was more to try and stop the tears from coming. It would've been easier to stop the suns from rising. It felt like little splinters stabbed inside my heart. Moony's revenge maybe. I couldn't get his voice, his face, or the taste of his ashes out of my mind. If I thought about it, I'd go mad, but it was hard not to, since to my eyes, the whole world still looked tinted in green flames. I wanted the world black, so I closed my eyes and sank into oblivion.
I must have fallen asleep, because when I opened my eyes again, I was on the hard ground instead of soft fur. The flames were gone, but the world hadn't returned to the right color. The lake and giant flowers were all a muted gray. Rexi lay on the ground, curled up, probably passed out from exhaustion. I didn't see Kato though.
My skin prickled with cold. And it was far too quiet. Not a single cricket chirped. Maybe they'd all been eaten by the ironwood trees. Turning in a circle, I tried to get my bearings to figure out if we'd reached the workshop yet. The forest was a short ways off, but a full-length mirror stood much closer, out of place.
I stared into the mirror, surprised this time by my reflection. A girl stared back at me. She looked lovely and innocent, and was dressed in long, white robes. She held the Book of Making and ripped out a page. It floated out of the mirror and onto the ground. The page was an illustration. A portrait of my parents. They didn't look like themselves, dressed in foreign clothes in a seemingly foreign land.
Seeing them again made my chest hurt. I reached out to grab the picture to look closer, but the wind kicked up and stole it from my fingertips. I chased after it in a circle, the page whisking away like it was taunting me. I screamed my frustration into the sky.
The sky screamed back.
Kato crested a hill of wildflowers, but he wasn't my cute little fluff ball anymore. He was a beast that could have swallowed the Emerald Palace whole. He reared back and roared again.
The ironwood trees shook in fear and the ground quaked.
With a crash, the mirror splintered into countless pieces. Each shard showed the white-haired girl, now grown into an evil empress.
Kato was drawing closer. His black claws gleamed, his eyes no longer ice blue but dark bottomless pits. There was no humanity left in him. He was flanked by flying puppies.
"I've found you, my pretty." Blanc spoke from the mirror shards. "We are connected and you can't escape us."
I reached down to grab Rexi and run. Up close, I could see that she wasn't sleeping peacefully. Her face stiffened in pain as red-orange tears fell. Before hitting the ground, they turned to swirling stones.
Blanc's voice came again, soft and lyrical. "Once upon a time, there was wretched girl who brought pain and misfortune to all those around her. But you won't have to worry about that anymore."
The silver pieces of mirror melted and oozed together, forming the mercurial shape of the Gray Witch. "And the princess died unhappily ever after."
The silver coalesced into a giant stormball and hurled itself at me. A shiny glob landed on my chest and spread. Its weight forced me to the ground. Nearly every inch of my skin was coated with the icy, silvery liquid. Then it spilled into my mouth.
I couldn't breathe.