I've Got an Eye on You.

"No." Mic turned the other direction.

Kato grabbed him. "Wait."

Mic huffed and shrugged. "Rexi is dead anyway. Focus on the one that matters."

"They both matter."

Mic poked Kato in his shoulder. "And that, pup, is why you will lose. You can't save them all."

"Pardon me?" Mordred said. "Remember us?"

I stomped on his foot with my broken heel and bit his wrist, freeing his grip on me and the sword.

I swiped his sword, finally doing what I'd come to Camelot for in the first place. Not exactly stealth, but it didn't matter if Mordred knew I had Excalibur as long as I was faster. "I can save myself, thanks," I snarked at the guys as I sprinted past.

I didn't make it very far before a row of orderlies blocked my path. Sparkles stood in front of them. "You should have left the light on for me. I really do hate the dark. This means war." He opened his mouth, and that horrific, high-pitched alarm came out.

Kato grabbed my hand, and we pivoted. "Hurry."

The urgency was even more pressing once we got outside. Gwennie's little nightmares had been released. Cute and glitter-shedding teacup unicorns galloped across the field one minute, flame-snorting demons ran across it the next. When they got closer to the castle, they slowed. They sensed the same shift in the air I did. There was a powerful maiden inside. And she was waking up.

"This way." I was still holding Kato's hand and dragged him behind the castle while the mini-night-mares were confused. We doubled back to Gwen's model castle. Mic followed behind us and barred the doors. We'd lost Mordred and the lethal unicorns-for now. But if the crystal kittens kept yowling...

Mic transformed just his chimera tail and took out the entire hutch in one sparkly catastrophe.

"There. I've wanted to do that since the moment Gwenevere arrived," Mic wheezed. "You know I sent you that fair-e-mail so you would come here and keep me safe. For supposed heroes, you're rather bad at this rescue business."

"It's not over," Kato said. "We're not dead yet."

"That could change at any minute. She's awake and-ow!" I flinched as heat seared the mark on my wrist. Kato quickly let go of my hand with an apology.

"It's not you," I a.s.sured him. "But is there any way we can see what's going on with Dorthea?" I had a really bad feeling.

"There's an eyepod in the desk." Mic threw open a drawer and started chucking all the clutter. There was enough makeup and girly stuff that even Dorthea would drool. They didn't exactly match the other half of the contents, which looked like mid-evil torture devices. Finally he pulled out a purple crystal ball-with an eye carved in it.

As soon as Mic set it down on the desk, it rolled around, looking at each of us as if it were alive. "That's a lot like..."

"That green goblin's belt. Yes, don't remind me." Mic frowned, still apparently upset to be reunited with his ex, Verte.

Kato ignored him and kept talking. "If Verte's emerald belt is related to the Pendragons and Camelot, then all our story lines are tied in a much closer knot than I ever thought."

"I thought Legends and Fairy Tales weren't supposed to tangle." I'd grown up in the forest that straddled the two realms, and until Dorthea's wish, I'd never known them to mix.

"Libraria was different before the empress fell," Mic said.

Oz's voice came from the eye as the amethyst turned cloudy. "And in this realm, every action, every deed is interconnected. If a fairy dies in Neverland, the effect will be felt all the way in Emerald. Everyone matters. Every decision changes the course of a story."

"Wait, wait, wait." I c.o.c.ked my hip and slapped my hand on it. "How can you say that as a Storymaker? One's fate is written the way it is. And nothing can change that."

"Pfft. Hog-wart wash. Stories are living tales. They are always growing and changing." The crystal resonated, like someone whacking it.

"Leave my belt alone, old coot," Verte said, but it was Oz's face that suddenly appeared close up in the eyepod.

"Can you see me now?" he asked.

Verte's hand entered the picture, pushing Oz away. "Back up, or the only thing they're gonna see is up your nose."

I held the sword up to the amethyst, unsure if the picture was two-way. "We got waylaid. But tell Dorthea I have Excalibur, so Blanc's not going to get her hands on it."

"I can hear you just fine," Dorthea said, her voice low.

"Now back to what I was teaching you." Oz grabbed a book off the shelf. SCUBA: The Singing Crustacean's Underwater Ballroom in Atlantis. He flipped it open to a page that showed a little, red crab directing an orchestra for one of King Neptune's parties.

Dorthea dug her nails into the broken table. "Get to the point."

"Waid for id," Hydra said.

No sooner had she said that than the picture started to disappear. Like a watercolor left out in the rain, the image faded to nothing.

"Why did it do that? What does it mean?" I asked.

Oz took off his gla.s.ses, breathed on them, then wiped them clean. "It means that this story is changing. What you saw is no longer what happens."

Now Dorthea was interested. She took the book and flipped through the pages. They were all empty. "What happened to the crustaceans?"

Putting his gla.s.ses back on, Oz looked perfectly unconcerned as he said, "They've been erased."

Gone. In just a few moments. How many characters...gone?

"She's reclaiming the water," Mic said quietly.

No one needed any elaboration on who she was.

Dorthea frantically flipped through the book. Some of the pages still had images, but they were fading fast. She flipped to one where the ill.u.s.tration stayed static. But I wished it hadn't. King Neptune was slumped in his throne, a golden arrow in his chest. It was the same arrow that the Lady of the Lake had taken from me.

No. No. No. Please no. Not again. I didn't...

Dorthea pointed to the symbol engraved into the pillar next to him. "She's mocking me, leaving a calling card saying come get me. Wish granted."

Oz peered closer at the symbol. "The lotus rose. I've seen that somewhere... There are too many pieces in my head."

The book was too difficult for us to see through the eyepod, but I had a feeling I knew exactly what that flower looked like. And why Oz had dej vu again.

I stared at my wrist. There was nothing there now, but I knew what shimmered beneath the skin. I'd been marked with that same flower symbol by the Lady of the Lake, Blanc. The pieces snapped into place. The "service" I had done for her-aiding Griz in retrieving the spring water that eventually set her free.

I dug my nails into my wrist of the other hand, hard enough to draw blood and stop my hands from shaking. Why was it, no matter how hard I tried, I always ended up back in the same place? On the wrong side.

"What are you doing?" Kato asked.

"Nothing." I rubbed my eyes and shoved my hands in my coat. He couldn't know Blanc made me her champion. Please don't let him ever know.

"Lesson's over," Dorthea said and slammed the book closed. She whipped out her grimmoire. As she was without a pen, she lit her finger and burned her words into the pages. "This. Ends. Now."

With a flurry, pieces of the chair and books whipped around, reforming into a red umbrella. She pointed her finger at the library chimney, and green flames erupted there. After adding a few more notes to her pages, she popped open her umbrella and flew up the flue. As she disappeared, the chimney flames fanned out, consuming the room. The amethyst eyepod cracked and went purple again.

Kato hit it repeatedly, cursing the thing to come back online.

"She's going to die," Mic said and stumbled into a chair. "We're all going to die."

"I thought you said she was more powerful than Blanc," Kato snapped, throwing the broken ball at Mic.

"Fire cannot win under the water. Magical umbrella or not."

"And that witch has Neptune's trident," I added. "She didn't go after Atlantis just to wipe it out. She went to free her binds."

Mic quirked an eyebrow at me but didn't question it. He'd felt the mark when he'd grabbed my wrist at Gwen's the first time. He knew.

All at once, a blinding pain seared my mind.

Kato rushed to my side, helping me to the ground before I toppled. "What's wrong?"

I couldn't answer, but I didn't need to since Mic seemed to understand. "Our warrior princess is traveling to Atlantis using this girl's life force as a force field. It won't be enough though. The empress will have closed the whirlpools, locking down the city."

"So Rexi and Dorthea..."

"Yes, they'll both be dead before Dorthea ever gets to Blanc."

"Love is the strongest of any power, yet it is like a double-edged sword. Use it as a weapon and keep it at arm's length at all times."

-Seven Habits of Highly Evil People.

31.

Other True Love's Kiss.

Kato roared his human throat hoa.r.s.e. When he finished, he shoved his finger in his mouth and ripped the nail off his ring finger.

He cradled my head in his hands, and I could feel myself getting stronger.

"Please, Rexi. I'm going to go bring her back. Hang on for both of you until I do."

"Didn't you hear me, mutt?" Mic sneered. "There's not enough time. And there's no way we can get past those hexed night terrors and make it to the water."

"If you loved Dot like you say, you'd try," Kato yelled back.

They argued, helping no one. Not Dorthea. Not the others in the burning library. Mic grew angry and shuddered, changing to his true form.

"How dare you challenge your progenitor?"

That was it. I knew what to do. "Kato, you have to fly," I said.

He looked at me, crestfallen. "If I use the last nail for power, I'll die. And I can't change at will like this one can."

"Ah yes, your ability to change is tied to that magic-kiss nonsense." Mic scrunched up his muzzle in condescension. "But Rexi's right. Flying, we might make it. But we have to go now. Hurry and kiss her already."

"For being magical, you are a narcissistic nimrod. It has to be true love's kiss," Kato argued, his chest rising and falling. "Gwen kissed me and nothing happened."

Mic looked at me. Really, more like looked into me.

"Oh, be a beast already, and do it." Mic swiped his tail across the floor, knocking Kato off his feet, then spun him around so he rammed into me.

Kato opened his mouth to say something, but I didn't let him. I pulled him close before I chickened out.

I'd already lived this moment once, through Dorthea's memory. That memory couldn't compete with the real thing. It didn't matter where Dorthea ended and I began; in that moment, Kato was kissing me. His hand cupped my chin. His lips pushed against mine. And then it was over. I didn't want to open my eyes. I didn't want my once upon a time proved to be an illusion.

"Oh, Rexi," Kato said. His voice was gruff, and I knew our kiss had worked. "Look at me," he commanded.

I obeyed, letting his eyes search mine for some explanation, some loophole to the rule. When he found his answer, saw the truth, he bowed his furry head against mine. "I'm sorry."

I hadn't expected a different reaction, but my heart shattered anyway. I forced the corner of my wavering lips to turn up.

"S'okay. Go," I croaked out.

Kato nodded and bounded up, breaking through the roof and flying off to save his princess.

Mic padded over to me, a mix of pity and disgust telegraphed across his muzzle. "I don't understand you. I protected you so you could tear him away from her. When you were drained, I saw that pearl in your pocket. Why didn't you use it? You'd have to be blind as a mouse not to see there is chemistry between you two."

"If I won his love that way, with the pearl, I wouldn't deserve it."

Mic shook his head. "You are either far too wise or too foolish to live." He crouched on his haunches and then sprang up into the sky after Kato.

The extra life magic Kato pushed into me was helping, but Dorthea was draining it faster than it could replenish.

"Seriously," I muttered to myself. "She spent how long shrieking at the hint of a sprinkle of rain and now she goes and jumps in a lake?"

Groaning, I rolled over and spotted the sword. "I may not be able to fly, but I bet those glitter-poxed ponies will think twice before tangling with Excalibur."

"Pssst," a voice called from the window. "Are they gone?"

"Good timing," I said as Robin Hood jimmied open the lock and slipped inside. "You do realize the whole roof is open."

He shrugged, shooting me a grin. "Where's the challenge in that?" Looking down at the treasure I held, he whistled long and low. "Is that what I think it is?"