"It didn't work." Ferah stared at Mina with awe. "You healed him somehow, though the tip of Erjad blade is still in him."

"What's happening to him?"

"This is bad. This is very bad. The blade is made of pure hate. I can only assume it nicked his heart and a piece is still there. It's changing him."

"Stop it." Mina screamed at her.

Ferah shook her head. "I can't. I don't know how." She pulled another blade from her belt. "Accept that now I have to finish the job. Otherwise he will kill us all."

Mina pulled the Grimoire from her skirt and stood in front of Teague. "I will not let that happen."

Ferah smiled ruefully. "Have it your way, human."

Mina was only slightly taken aback. "You know who I am?"

"Of course I know. I told you there's a prophecy, and I'm here to stop it from ever taking root."

"And I'm here to tell you that I've seen the future. I'm a Grimm, and the dark prince, Teague-he is my problem now," Mina snapped. She held the book in front of her as it changed into a long bow. The knife in her hand shifted into a deadly golden arrow. Mina pulled back the string with the arrow nocked and ready to release. "I dare you. Dodge this if you can."

Ferah backed away. "Okay. But don't say I didn't warn you." She nodded toward Teague, who had rolled over and was gripping his stomach and moaning uncontrollably. "We will be expecting you to handle the dark prince. If you do need help, you can call on us." Ferah continued to move away from Mina.

"Who are you?" Mina kept her sight set on the girl.

"We are a collection of Fae, dedicated to the preservat-"

"Stop!" Mina cut her off, her mind seriously spinning. "I know who you are. You're the Godmothers."

Ferah smiled wryly. "So you've heard of us? As a farewell gift, and to show you I bear you no ill will, I'll see to your friend the pixie."

"You'll get no thanks from me."

"I wouldn't expect it. Not when you are the one who will suffer more than any for your choice you made today." She turned and disappeared down the stairwell.

Mina waited and watched. When Ferah didn't return, she released the bow. It shifted back into the Grimoire. She picked up the knife and ran over to Teague to try to figure out what to do. Maybe she could use the knife to cut the wound back open and extract the tip. She looked at the tip that was missing. There couldn't be more than a quarter inch still inside of him.

Could she use Fae magic to wish it out? She closed her eyes. With everything in her, she focused on the words. "Please. Come out of Teague."

Nothing. Her own heart clenched in pain.

She tried to hold Teague still as he continued to thrash and scream. Desperate, she lifted the knife above his chest and prepared to re-open the scar. Teague chose that moment to open his eyes.

What she saw in them terrified her to her very core.

His eyes flashed from blue to gray to blue again. Dark veins ran across his face and chest. Hate radiated out from him. His hand shot up and gripped her wrist, squeezing hard. He pushed her away, and she fell backwards onto the floor.

Teague pushed himself up from the floor and stood over her. He exuded power from every pore. She could feel it flowing from him, and it made her shake in her glass slippers. She tried to crawl backwards, away from him, but he stretched out one hand toward her. By magic, she was lifted into the air. She panicked as he moved her in front of the glass windows.

"You are a liar and a deceiver. Every last one of your kind will be punished for trying to kill me."

"No, I didn't. I saved you!" Mina explained, but Teague was having none of it.

"You saved the elf. I saw you in the forest. You did it so she could come and kill me. You were the bait. Very effective and pretty bait, I do have to admit."

The tower lit up as another crackle of fireworks lit the sky, creating a mirror ball effect of colors in the room.

"Teague, listen to me. You've been poisoned. Ferah stabbed you with an enchanted knife and a piece is still inside you. Its dark magic is turning you evil."

"Evil? I've never felt better or more powerful! Watch!" Still holding her suspended in the air, Teague blinked. Every window in the towers shattered, blasting outward and raining shards of glass on the maze below.

"And now you will pay for your betrayal. An assassination attempt on me is considered treason. But I've seen how you handle our Reapers. So how about the rest of your family? Hmm? I will hunt them down, toy with them like play things, and make them pay for your sins."

"No!" she gasped out. "Please, they've done nothing wrong. I was only trying to save you. To help you, because I care about you." She continued to struggle. Through the broken window, she could see guards racing from the palace to the tower. The King and Queen followed closely behind them. It seemed the exploding windows were evidence enough that something was not right.

"Then who's Jared?" he snarled.

"It's you!" she cried out. Tears poured out of her eyes as she realized she wasn't getting through to him. "You're right. I'm not who you think I am. Elle is not my name. It's just the name of a girl in a story, a fairy tale. But I did come here to save my family."

His eyes bored into hers searching for the truth, but he must've believed all he saw were lies. His face came within inches of hers, and he reached up to touch a strand of her hair. "Instead, you've doomed them."

She was running out of time. Mina reached into her pocket for the Grimoire but her hand wrapped around something different. Something cold and cylindrical in shape.

"I will stop you," Mina threatened, as the cold air brushed against her neck. Teague was slowly turning her in mid-air. He stood in the middle of the tower, and she glanced back over her shoulder to see that he had moved her through a jagged opening where a window had been.

It was a very long drop down. She wouldn't survive.

"I can't wait to see you try." He laughed cruelly and, with a flick of his wrist, sent her flying out of the tower.

She gasped and tried to claw at the windowsill as she flew past, but she sliced her hands on glass. As she fell, she gripped the seam ripper within her bleeding hands and prayed. She stared into the night sky, alit with fireworks for her betrothal to Teague, and her heart broke. As much as she tried, she couldn't change the past.

It always had to come to this.

She wasn't scared, because she knew she'd done this before and lived. Calmly, she pushed the gem on the seam ripper. A great beam of light engulfed her, making an arc as she fell. Teague leaned over the ledge, an expression of utter disbelief on his face, as she fell through the portal-mere inches before the ground.

As she passed through he screamed in rage-swearing that he would find her.

Chapter 30.

Mina landed with a painful thud on a cold stone floor. Her eyes were blinded with specks of light and she had to blink a few times before she could see. She rolled over and saw that the gate to the Fae plane was still open. It seemed to be closing...although very slowly. She looked around the room-a crucifix hung above a small cot beside a chamber pot and a simple table. She heard a rattling cough nearby.

"Were ist da?" a fearful voice called out from above her. She'd learned that much in German class her freshman year. Who's there?

"Me," Mina groaned and pushed herself slowly off of the floor to address the man lying in the cot.

He looked pale and sickly. His hair was slightly curly and damp from sweat. "Sind Sie ein Engel?"

"Huh?" Mina had to pause and listen to his thick German accent. Was she an Angel?

"Nicht," she said, slightly proud that she remembered.

The man sat up. "Wie heien Sie?" What is your name?

"Wilhelmina Grimm."

His pale face went even paler. Rubbing his hand against his chest, he stated excitedly, "Wilhelm. Wilhelm Grimm."

This time it was Mina's turn to be shocked. She was in the room meeting her great-great-great-grandfather.

Wilhelm started to laugh, but his laugh quickly turned into a coughing fit. The door opened and she immediately recognized Jacob from sketches of the brothers she'd seen from history books.

He rushed in and quickly tried to calm his brother to stop the coughing. Lifting a wooden cup to Wilhelm's lips, he gave him something to drink and then had Wilhelm lie back down. Jacob adjusted the covers around his brother and pulled the wooden chair up beside his cot.

Wilhelm gestured to her and began to whisper excitedly to Jacob, who turned and apparently noticed her for the first time.

He looked angry, and his tone of voice conveyed it well. "Warum sind Sie in das Zimmer meines Bruders? Sie gehoren nicht hierher. Zu verlassen!"

Mina couldn't catch all of it, and she kept stumbling in her reply. Finally, she just gave up. "I'm sorry. I'm not good at German."

"English then?" Jacob's eyes narrowed and he crossed his arms. "My brother insists you are his guardian angel."

"No, I'm not his guardian angel. I'm his granddaughter."

"False. Wilhelm has no children." He smiled in triumph, believing he caught her in a lie.

"No, he doesn't have any children yet." She sighed and worried about how to explain what was happening. She was about to point out the portal to the Fae plane hanging in the air that he had walked right under, but Jacob was distracted by Wilhelm's coughing again. "What's wrong with him?"

Jacob ran his hands through his hair in defeat. "I bring him to Halle to see treatment for his...," he moved his hand to his chest, "...heart and chest. He is sick and does not get well. I fear to lose him."

Mina felt her breath catch in her throat. This was it. It was Wilhelm. If he died, then his lines of descendants would never be born. Her father. Herself. This was why some Grimms were disappearing. Somehow, through it all, she had come to where she needed to be.

But could she save him? She wasn't sure, but she had to try. Mina stepped forward and very slowly placed her hand on Wilhelm's chest. Just the touch of her hand made him sigh, and he reached up and placed his other hand on top of hers. She was misty-eyed. How many people got to travel back and see their ancestors? None.

Jacob watched her like a hawk, and it was okay. She let him.

The power didn't come as easily to her as it did on the Fae plane. In fact, it wasn't coming at all. It was impossible to find. And then she sensed it. It was just out of reach...so close...on the other side of the gate...that hadn't quite closed yet. So she did the undoable. She pulled from the Fae plane and the magic came, making her hands glow with power. She pushed it into Wilhelm's chest.

He gasped and sat straight up.

Jacob grabbed her from behind and tried to yank her away.

"No! Not yet." Wilhelm cried out and his other hand reached out and grabbed hers, keeping them pressed against his chest. A few seconds more, and he took a deep breath and smiled. "I can breathe. The pain's gone," he said in heavy accent. "You are angel."

Mina smiled and reached out to give him a very special hug. "No, you're my angel. I've so much to tell you, but there's so little time."

A loud noise came from the gate. Mina looked over in horror as a long black robed hand stretched through the glowing hole reaching out as if testing what was on the other side.

"A Reaper!" Mina grabbed the chair Jacob had just vacated and hurled it at the hand and through the gate. The hand disappeared, but the hole still remained open.

"I'm so sorry. This is my fault. I pulled power from the Fae plane to help you and I think it's linked the two worlds. The gate is not closing."

"What is coming through?" Jacob asked. She would have thought he would be terrified by what he was seeing. Instead he looked eager. Wilhelm crawled from the bed, invigorated, and stood before the portal in his pajamas. He picked up an umbrella and held it in front of him like a sword.

"Fae," Mina answered.

"Fae? Like in the stories?" Wilhelm looked over to his brother and his face mirrored Jacob's. Excitement.

"Yes, just like the stories." The room filled with glowing, moving fireflies and Mina realized that they weren't little bugs at all. The shoes were sparkling. Her darned slippers chose this moment to send her home. "No, not yet." She grabbed a pitcher of water and smashed it over the next monstrous hand that tried to crawl through the portal. It looked like a troll's. The hand quickly jerked back into the gate.

"Wilhelm. Jacob. Listen. There are good and bad Fae on the other side, and Teague will continue to send Reapers here to the human plane to hunt me down. But not only me-all of the Grimms and our kind for future generations."

Jacob looked to his brother and nodded before he turned to Mina and asked, "What will we need to do?"

"Stop them." The flickering was coming faster, and they were all retreating into the hospital hallway. "Here, you'll need this." Mina pulled the Grimoire from her dress pocket and gave it to Wilhelm. "Use it to capture the Fae within the book."

"What happens to you?" Wilhelm asked. He tried to reach for her, but she backed away.

"I told you. I'm your granddaughter. I must go home now. But you can help me-by living. Survive today and all of the rest just like this one. Don't give up."

Jacob wrapped his hand around his brother's shoulders and gave him a reassuring hug. "We won't. We have waited for this adventure for a lifetime. This is after all, a librarian's dream."

She didn't get a chance to tell them how to use the Grimoire before she saw both brothers rush back into the hospital room to battle the Fae that were coming through.

There was only a bright flash of light as she felt herself pulled away...into a bright tunnel.

Chapter 31.

Mina's body was on fire, her joints and every nerve in her zinging with pain. She was back in the parlor where she had left Brody, but the lights were off. The room was empty.

She stood but felt the crunching of glass as the slippers crumbled beneath her feet.

"Ouch," she cried. She hobbled back over to sit on the sofa to pick the pieces of glass out of her bare feet. The pain only intensified as guilt finally assailed her.

It was her. It had always been her.