I pulled and wound the power around my hand like a string. There were two lines. One, a thin, gold thread. The other was a thick braid of life magic. The curse was interested in devouring Merlin's life. I only wanted to disrupt the magic of his glamour. With a final tug, the gold thread snapped.

Merlin gasped and shuddered. He fell to the ground, writhing. For half a second, I thought I'd killed him. Then, fur started spouting all over his body, big black wings grew out of his back, and golden horns twisted from his skull.

"Um. Okay. That I was not expecting," I said, backing up from the giant chimera. His lion's body was twice the height and width of Kato's. And Kato's dragon tail didn't have barbs.

"We figured it out during the hollabaloo in the mountain with Griz. You were living impaired at that moment." Verte raised the teapot again, but not at me. "Rexi, meet Bestiamimickos. Also known as the First Beast King, Wizard of Is, Mic the Mimicman, and the most self-absorbed man with a Peter Pan complex that has ever been written, and I woulda coulda shoulda erased him from the page ages ago."

"All this just because I mimicked your hideous form," Mic growled. "You don't know me. You don't know the pain I've suffered or love I've los-ow." His pity party ended when the teapot bopped him on the nose and bounced off, getting stuck on his horn.

"Dow he's done id."

The emerald eye in Verte's belt clouded over, not in the "foretelling a prophecy" way, but as if a hurricane were imminent.

"Don't know you, ya say." She flicked her wrist, and a book flew off the shelf and pelted the large chimera in the side. "You trip trap tiptoed around me for years." Smack. Another book flew at the chimera. "Begged me to look beyond your shedding problem." And another. "Then you took up with that soggy psycho Blanc and started a war. But you wanted forgiveness." This time the whole row of Magipedia Brittanica flew at him, knocking him over with a thud. "You swore. You said you'd spend an eternity doing good to make up for all your damage." Whack "You." Whack. "Caused." Whack.

"How would you know that?" the beast grumbled.

"Becud she wad dere, idgid."

"No. The only people there when I made that promise were Blanc, the Storymaker, and my beloved Dorthea, the first Princess of Emerald." After he let that sink in, Mic shook his head, fur flying off his mane. "No. Inconceivable. My princess was beautiful and kind. And human. Nothing like this rotting, green wretch covered in warts."

Watching Verte throw books and berate Mic, I could totally see the Emerald temper family resemblance.

"It's been nearly three hundred years. Some of us age more gracefully than others. And you can blame Frank for the ozification of my skin." The hair in Verte's warts grew longer and curlier as if to spite the man. "I've watched over generations of the House of Emerald, biding my time and working until all my pieces and plots were in place to end this saga once and for all. And you and your philandering, over-chemically, hormonified beastliness has been chasing after a girl one-fiftieth your age. You should be ashamed."

"You should be dead," Dorthea said. Her flat voice put a bigger chill through my bones than her anger ever had. Through the bond, I should have known she was behind me before I heard her, but I was too wrapped up in the carriage wreck in front of me.

"Simmer down, sapling," Verte said, motioning Kato to get Dorthea out of the room. "I can handle this pox on my own."

Dorthea shook her head, the flames of her hair burning eerily stable-not snapping or popping, but bright and calm. Her eyes were blank as she called the Emerald curse along the tips of her fingers. "If you were handling this properly, he wouldn't be breathing. But I can fix that."

"Strong people don't put others down; they lift them up. Makes the fall that much more satisfying."

-Red Queen, Lots of Heart: How to Get a Head.

29.

Might Makes Right.

Dorthea flipped her hand and Mic doubled over. No one else could see what she was doing except me, because I could see the lines of power. She was burning the braided lifeline.

Kato tried to get close to her, but Merlin's owl flew from its perch and barreled into his chest. Anyone who touched Dorthea right now would be a nice snack for the Emerald curse. Last time I'd touched her, I'd nearly been eaten alive, the curse taking over me.

And now I was going to do it on purpose.

After jumping in front of Dorthea, I felt the Emerald power pull at me. This time, I pulled back. Dorthea still wore my opal, but it didn't resemble a fire opal anymore. It was mystic green with swirls of black and only tiny hints of a red-orange glow.

"Let go," she said. "Don't you remember what Mic did to me? What he's done to countless stories?"

"Memory isn't my specialty right now." I grunted because the struggle had gotten harder. "But ask yourself if you really want this slimeball crawling around in your brain."

She paused her power draw for a second. But that was all I needed. "I vote no, since we have to share our minds. So thanks for the power loan, but here, have it back." I didn't want to drain Dorthea's power-I wanted to overload her. I pushed everything I had into her. She gasped, her eyes rolling back in her head.

Kato caught Dorthea as she crumpled to the ground, out cold.

Mic was down for the count but breathing.

I swayed and fought to stay on my feet. The green opal on Dorthea's chest had darkened, and a crack was webbing out from its center.

Verte walked over to Mic and snorted. Then hawked a very unladylike loogie on the pa.s.sed-out Beast King.

"Eww." I scrunched my nose. Mic wasn't the only one having a hard time reconciling Verte with some ancient, dainty princess.

Beside me, the owl started hacking and gagging too.

"Seriously?" I pointed to the chimera. "If you've got an issue with your boss, take it up with him but don't upchuck over here."

The owl didn't listen. It barfed out a mouse. Ish. Even covered in slime, I could see the mouse was half-mini-rhino. With a puff of smoke, the rhimouserous changed into the stuffy old man in the tweed jacket.

"Sorry I'm late. I'm afraid I've been rather occupied," Oz said, combing the slime out of his mustache. "Thank you for the hospitality, Nikko, you can go," he said and shooed away the owl.

"Bah, just when we knock out one old fool, another pops up." Verte hobbled over to Oz and poked him in the gut. "You can't fool me. I know you were tick-tocking the seconds to make the flashiest entrance you could."

He wiped the sludge off his gla.s.ses next. "Not at all. I simply waited until most of the danger had pa.s.sed."

I rolled my eyes. "I forgot you Storymakers like to control the action with your pens from a safe distance."

Oz blinked. "Of course. If one gets too close to the story and the lives of the people in it, well, it makes it that much harder to do what needs to be done."

Verte glared, poking harder. "And what, in your meddling opinion, needs to be done?"

"I think you know exactly." He stared pointedly at Dorthea. "There is a very good reason that Storymakers can't linger in this realm. If you want to preserve Libraria as it is, you need to banish her to the other world."

"No," Kato said firmly. "You're here. You're a Storymaker, so surely there must be something that can be done."

Oz wiggled his mustache thoughtfully. "I doubt you'd wish my fate on her." He reached into his pants' pocket and pulled out a square. After dusting it off, he blew into one corner until the square was thick and rectangular. "There." With a final tap, he was holding The Book of Making that we had taken back from Griz.

"Okay, we have all almost died-"

"Speak for yourself," I interrupted.

Kato continued. "All right, some of us have died for that book. What is it?"

"A work in progress," Oz answered simply.

"Yeah, that makes total sense," I said, sitting down and fiddling with my pen.

Oz brightened and nodded to me. "Oh good. I was worried. Most people don't understand the pen being mightier than the sword theology."

He flipped open the book. The ill.u.s.trations moved, like watching one of the mirror pads they had at the Emerald Palace, not that I ever got to mess with them in the kitchens. But I'd seen them. He flipped through the pages. Blanc appeared on the early pages. Then the chimera prison.

Verte craned to get a peek. "Oooh, I looked good." She pointed at a girl with brown hair and a crown who was standing off against Blanc.

Kato and I gave each other a look that said more than words ever could. If we didn't want to be turned into toads, silence was the best course.

Oz skipped farther ahead.

"Hey, wait. What's in those chapters?" I asked.

Oz narrowed his eyes and peered down his nose. "Spoilers." He flipped forward to a page that showed Queen Em and King Henry. They were arguing in a white hallway. But they wore strange clothes and were without their crowns. "Now this is the world of the Storymakers. This is where we need to-"

There were dual growls overruling the Storymaker, one from the freshly awakened former Beast King, Mic, and the current Beast King, Kato.

Oz grumbled. "What is it with you chimeras and Emerald women?"

"The princess is currently the most powerful being in Story," Mic said.

Kato snorted, stealing my response. "She's not a being. She's Dot."

I finished his thought. "And how could you possibly say that with a straight face when we are in the room with a Storymaker? And whatever Hydra is. Plus, there's the Emerald Sorceress, Dorthea's great-great-great-great-great-"

"We get the point," Verte muttered.

"-great-great-granny. Surely one of you has more oomph than a shoe-obsessed girl," I finished.

The room was silent.

"We's doobed." Hydra buried her face.

"Surely she's not stronger than Blanc?" I questioned.

Mic sniffed. "While the White Empress still has the binds we placed on her, my princess, Dorthea, is at least doubly powerful."

"Which makes her doubly as dangerous too," Oz pointed out. "Right now, she is out of balance. Very few have the gift of a Storymaker, to both give and take life. And Dorthea can actually create it. Blanc could never do that. The water sorceress is adept at taking life and has somehow figured out she can return life to a select few."

I remembered the Compendium of Storybook Characters, the names being whited out. "That's where the influx of villains and legends came from."

"She's building an army," Mic said. "After I fled the mountain, I knew she would come for Excalibur and use Camelot and the grail to continue the war. That's why I stole the sword and came here first. But as soon as I entered the castle, the sword vanished."

"And so you cowered here like the yellow-bellied toad you always were, hiding while Blanc brought back the worst of the worst." Verte looked like she was going to spit again.

"Your att.i.tude has grown as ugly as your face, Verte," Mic sneered. "I could have changed into any number of faces and stayed out of the entire affair, but no. I stayed in the center of it all and warned you, sent for you, and didn't sell you out in your little hideout."

Oz scratched his nose. "He has a point."

Verte harrumphed and shut up. As it had been ever since Blanc went free, the difference between good and evil, villain and hero, was clear as obsidian.

"What about the sword?" I asked. "We know where it is now. Could Excalibur stop the Emerald curse?"

Oz flipped through the book, hiding the pages. Kato perked up for a moment, then looked darker than ever as Hydra shook her head.

"Nod widoud killing her," Hydra answered.

My insides turned colder than if Kato had frozen me on the spot. Both Dad and the Lady of the Lake had left out that part. So this was the truth of the whole thing. From the moment Griz had sealed my life into the opal, if I wanted to live, Dorthea had to die.

"My princess needs the grail." Mic finally stood on all four paws. His golden horns brushed the ceiling.

Kato hit the table with his fist, cracking it down the center. "There has to be another answer. Dorthea's only chance at life cannot be a mythical artifact that no one's ever seen or been able to find."

"I've seen it." Mic breathed in deeply. As he inhaled, his body shrank, and his horns, hair, tail, and wings receded. Suddenly, he looked like Merlin again. "And the reason why no one can find the grail is because it was locked away while its owner was asleep."

Oz's bushy eyebrows rose like hairy caterpillars. "Aha. That's how she's been bringing people back into the story. Blanc is using the grail. Well, that solves that mystery."

The sparkly green dust started to rise around him. Kato grabbed Oz by the coat before he could change into something else.

"No. You aren't leaving this time." He dragged Oz over to Dorthea. "You are going to stay put and keep her safe while we go get the grail." He turned to Mic. "Tell me where it is."

"And let you have the glory of saving my love?" He threw his head back and laughed. "Not likely. I will go and retrieve it."

The two chimeras growled in their human forms and circled the table. Green flames licked my hands as I slammed them into the triangle table again. "Knock it off. You are both going to go play fetch, and I am going to keep you from peeing on each other to prove who loves Dorky more."

Both men looked down and grumbled but didn't object.

Verte pointed her red, razor nails my way. "You've changed." Her belt clouded white and she nodded. "Good. You're nearly ready."

"For what? You make it sound like I'm a m.u.f.fin in the oven."

Verte winked. "Huh? What was that? I'm getting senile, since I'm a great-great-great-great-"

Knowing she'd only tell me when she was good and ready, I huffed and stormed out, waving behind me as I did. Mic and Kato followed. We made it partway down the hall before Mordred stepped out of the shadows.

"Can't play right now," I said, shooing him off.

"I truly am sorry, but this might hurt thee worse than me." He grabbed my wrist and whipped me around, holding a sword at my throat. "Take me to the grail."

"Pro tip: Remember, gatekeepers, it's not a real water hazard if it's not filled with creatures that can kill you."

-Field and Moat magazine.

30.