Skye woke up the next morning still leaning against the same tree. She had sank down quite a lot, but her forehead was still uncomforatbly pressed against the rough bark of the trunk, and her hands were still clawed around the little knotholes she had discovered. Silently groaning and stretching, Skye sat up, only to sink down again in a fit of light-headedness. There was a physical pain in her stomach today, and Skye knew that she wouldn't be able to get up and forage today, or anytime soon until she got some nourishment. She rubbed at her eyes, determined to at least be able to see any attackers or, Sisters forbid, those...those things she saw last night. A shiver ran down Skye's spine, and if she hadn't woken up on the forest floor pressed up against a tree, she might have thought it all a terrible nightmare. But Skye could just glimpse the top of the boy's head from where she lay. His hair was deeply saturated with blood, and his skull had a split down the middle but nothing inside, as if the metal children had been sucking out his brain-
Skye shook her head violently at this thought, banging it against the tree in her effort to not think about the victim of those horrendous robots. Silently groaning in pain once again, Skye rummaged around in her backpack for the book of fairy stories. Maybe the tale of Snow White could help stem her woes. However, when Skye eventually found the volume, she stared in open disbelief at the cover. It had changed again. This time there was an aerial view of a tall tower. A girl was leaning her head and shoulders out the window, and her long blonde hair fell down to the bottom of the tower. Climbing up was a young man, dressed in the attire of a Prince. His white horse stood abandoned at the bottom of the tower, pawing nervously at the ground. The girl's face was unable to be seen, but the Prince had the classically beautiful features of a man, with floppy brown hair to complete it. Skye flicked the book open, and saw two titles listed at the start; the ever-familiar Snow White, and Rapunzel. Intrigued, Skye started to read.
***
A short while later, Skye had finished the story. Most of the facts at the start of the book lined up with what Skye knew about the girl she had to help rescue in Coppelia - she was trapped in a tower by a witch, a Prince had come, they had fallen in love, and the girl - Rapunzel, she was called - Rapunzel fell pregnant. The witch returned, threw her out the tower, tricked the Prince, blinded him when he fell into some thorns, soon after he met Rapunzel and they all lived happily ever after. It seemed clear to Skye what she had to do. Somehow, she needed to find the woman looking after Rapunzel, convince her to help Rapunzel with the birth, and then let her throw the girl out her life and find her Prince. The only problem, Skye mused, was finding the witch. Skye carefully placed the book back in her bag, and felt around carefully in case there was something left in there to eat that she hadn't noticed earlier. She knew it was hopeless, which was why Skye was even more surprised when she found an apple in her bag.
Skye lifted it out. Attatched to the stem was a little wad of paper. 'From your Aunt Margaret,' it read. Skye smiled weakly. She knew her aunt wouldn't have left her to starve to death. Feeling around in the bag again, she found a bag of cheese sandwiches, two opaque bottles of an unidentified substance, and a single cake-in-a-cup that her mother was famous for. Evidently, Skye thought, there was magic in Coppelia that meant her mother and Margaret could send her food. She scribbled, 'Thank you,' on a scrap piece of paper, and folded it into her bag. Then she dined.
The sweetness of the apple, after the hard savoury cheese sandwiches, was delightful to Skye - almost as delightful as when she first had a sip of what turned out to be water from the larger of the two bottles. It was a deep, dark red, and had a surprising amount of flesh and juice for so small a fruit. Once done, Skye started on the cake-in-a-cup - it was flavoured like lemons and vanilla, her favourite. She smiled at the familiar taste, and popped open the other bottle Margaret had given her. Skye sniffed at it, and was almost overcome by an almost sickeningly sweet aroma. She searched around for a cup in which to pour the liquid, to at least see what it looked like. Skye ended up using the cap of the bottle, and pouring the strange liquid out, saw that it just looked like water. It had the same consistency and the same colour, but that overly-sweet smell made Skye wonder what it was. She sniffed it again, noted that the aroma hadn't changed, and lifted the bottle cap to her lips.
As soon as Skye tasted the drink, she grimaced and tried to spit it out. The sweet smell and ordinary appearance masked the strongest, most disgusting medicine in the Four Kingdoms - regret. In a series of flashes, Skye revisited her childhood. She never read that book about the geneaology of the aristocracy. Never danced with Ed Geruy. Never said goodbye to her father. Never smiled once at Farin Kilburn, who covered her with printer's ink at Prizegiving when she was 11 because of that. Never took that course about the geography of the Four Kingdoms. Never gave her mother a goodbye kiss while she was still conscious. Never kissed Caleb Metron. The nevers and the what-might-have-beens and the unbearable sadness because of it all was too much, and Skye wished with all her might she could do all of those things. But she couldn't. That particular book had been destroyed when she was seven. Ed Geruy was dead of consumption these past two years. She would never see her father again. Farin had moved away to Odette when Skye was 12. Skye couldn't take any courses now she was on the quest. Her mother was probably still unconscious just now. And Caleb...well, to tell the truth, Skye didn't know where Caleb was.
But she was sure as hell going to find out.
