With a grunt, Kato rose off his haunches. Including his twisted horns, he was now nearly twice my height and his set of white-and-tan mismatched wings were easily as wide when extended. He wrapped his scaled dragon tail around me and started to pull me to my feet.

"Well, excuse my rudeness," I said, rolling my eyes at Dorthea. "Maybe I wasn't too excited to get back since it's mostly your fault that I've died three times!"

Kato stilled, halting before I was all the way standing. "Rexi," he said quietly, the creases in his brow growing deeper. "You've died six times."

"Ha. Ha." I stood up the rest of the way on my own. "Hil-hexing-larious. Make fun of the zombie girl."

"No, really." Even in chimera form, Kato had humanlike expressions. Just fuzzier. And at the moment, his muzzle showed no sign of his teasing.

I turned to the others, who'd gathered around me. Dorthea looked like she might burst into tears again. Hydra was still perched on the bow, which was now stuck in the gra.s.s like a head on a pike. Her decrepit forehead wrinkled even further. And Verte stared off into s.p.a.ce, the carved emerald eye in her belt growing cloudy.

I chuckled awkwardly, trying to fill the silence. "C'mon, guys. I think I would remember." No one laughed with me. One: storm bolt to the back. Two: tree to the gut. Three: ground to the spine.

I staggered, feeling as if something were trying to pull me under the soil as I tried to remember more. Kato was by my side, supporting my weight before I fell. On its chain, the bright-green swirl in the opal pendant pulsed and widened slightly, swallowing a piece of the surrounding iridescent red.

Dorthea's emotions welled in me-concern for me as well as a tidal wave of love for Kato. I'd felt this particular combination before, but I couldn't place when.

As Kato looked down at me, I wanted to drown in those borrowed feelings and his wintery-blue eyes.

"Turning into a swooning maiden, little hero?" my shadow whispered beneath me.

Morte.

Rejecting the warmth growing in my chest and cheeks, I shoved myself away from the lion-bodied King of Beasts. "I didn't ask for your help, you big mutt. Don't you have to get back to your mountain and toast marsh-spellows over Blanc's prison?"

I thought it was quiet before.

I was wrong.

Even the wind seemed to hold its breath.

"What's wrong?" I asked.

With everyone else so quiet, I couldn't block out the grim chuckling that no one else seemed to hear.

"You are wrong. Allow to refresh memory. The vhite empress is running off. This vorld is doomed to kerput. And you seem losing slowly mind." Hydra clucked her tongue. "Any questions?"

Questions? Only enough to fill all the pages of Witchipedia. But I hated all the pitying looks on their faces, like I was Dopey's half-as-smart little sister.

"Oh that." I snorted. "Yeah. I know. Totally just messing with you." I forced a laugh and a smirk, punching Kato in the haunches. "I sure got you good, didn't I? And you," I said, pointing to Dorthea. "Just a little payback for killing me off six times. Make it seven and don't blame me if your gowns magically turn into hammocks."

Dorthea's lips curled, and her hair flared green in disgust. "You are soo-AHHH!"

"Right back atcha," I said, ducking while Kato took a fake swipe at me with his paw.

We were an odd group. My life force was trapped in a necklace, Dorthea's in her hair, and Kato's in his nails. I hadn't noticed until then, but one of his nails was shorter than before I plunged to my death.

Now Kato was down to four claws and I was more indebted than ever.

"So what now?" I asked, tearing my eyes away from Kato.

Answering me with a groan, the earth beneath our feet shifted. Cracks spread out as the magic workshop sprouted from the dirt. Like an ill-omened weed, it popped up randomly and obnoxiously from time to time. On each occasion, a bit more of the structure seemed to have been eaten by the earth. I refused to go inside anymore since the building wouldn't even pa.s.s the three little pigs' building code. The current workshop was two and a half walls of mossy stone and about half of a thatched roof-unless you counted the giant hole as a skylight.

A small, slimy, green worm inched its way out of the workshop. It stared at us with large eyes magnified by thick gla.s.ses that wiggled a bit as it chewed on a meal of paper.

"Oh, get on with it already, you old meddler." Verte's eyes refocused and narrowed on the bibliobug, but her belt's eye remained cloudy.

At the sorceress's prompting, the creature flickered and transformed back into an old man with untamed salt-and-pepper hair. As he tried to spit out the wad of paper cud, it got stuck in his mustache. He sure didn't come off as an all-supreme magical being. But I could feel his power thrum through me, similar to Dorthea's-but stronger. The Storymaker of Oz. One of the beings responsible for writing everyone's fate.

I shook my head. The Storymaker of Oz was a lie. A fable taught to children to help them sleep at night. An excuse to absolve the wicked of their sins. One look at my story was all the proof I needed that n.o.body was looking out for me but me.

Oz was a Storyfaker if you asked me.

But chock-full of magical goodness to protect us all the same.

Oz was supposed to be training Dorthea to be Maker's apprentice, so she could fix all the rules of magic and get her parents back. Part of that meant harnessing the Emerald curse to work with creation magic. I didn't think it was going so well since she kept killing me with it.

My back flared again in pain at the thought. "What are you doing here?"

Dorthea might have gasped at my lack of respect, but Oz only tilted his head to the side, like a cat watching will-o'-the-wisps. "I'm intrigued to see what you'll do."

"You're the all-powerful whatever Oz, so haven't you already written that part? What are we all doing sitting and playing magic tutor if the biggest bad is on the loose? In fact, tell me again why you don't just grab a pen, lock Blanc back up, and give us all unicorn rides while you're at it."

"Rexi!" Dorthea yelled, her hands glowing green.

"That's enough," Kato roared at us both.

The old man fluffed his moth-eaten, oversize, tweed jacket. "It's just Frank now, not Oz. This story is no longer in my hands, and I swore not to meddle and just advise." He ignored Verte's disgruntled snort and continued. "My Storymaking days have pa.s.sed."

"Very convenient," I muttered. Storyfaker, I added silently because I didn't want Dorthea to zap me. "Then how about you advise already? It's been..." I wasn't sure how long it had been anymore, so I ignored that part. "Where's the gloomy 'the end' you've been moaning about?"

At that, Oz snapped to attention and focused his stare on me-no, more like through me. "That battle is coming, I a.s.sure you. Blanc is dangerous because she doesn't make the same mistakes other villains do. She won't face you head-on until the last possible moment. She's not hiding. She's growing her strength while she lets other p.a.w.ns do the work for her."

"I'm no one's p.a.w.n," I ground out, keeping the sour taste at the back of my throat.

Dorthea reached out to touch my arm but pulled back as green flames licked the edges of her fingers when she got close. With a sigh, she rubbed her temple. There were dark circles under her eyes that weren't there before I died this last time.

I sensed her blasted concern again, and it only made me feel worse.

Shrugging, I looked away. "Whatever. Sorry dying puts me in a foul mood."

Kato bridged the gap between us and wrapped his wings around both Dorthea's and my shoulders. "Fair enough, hearth sister, but remember this: there is a very fine line between strength and stupidity. Don't confuse the two."

The aim of Kato's barbed comment was much better than mine with an arrow. His words. .h.i.t me right in the heart.

Folding his wings back, he turned to Dorthea. "Now, my lady, if you don't mind, since I have no more need to fly anywhere, I'd just as soon get back to human form." A smile crept over her face as Dorthea nodded, taking his furry muzzle in her hands.

I looked away.

At first, the magical malfunction of the "true love's kiss" rule had been pretty funny to watch. But after a dozen smooches that switched the enchanted prince back and forth between his forms, I was ever after over the show.

Dorthea's feelings swelled in my chest again, all warm and gooshy. Even with my eyes closed, I had a very clear mental picture of the dark and handsome boy whose auburn hair had grown just long enough to cover the little horned nubs he retained even in human form.

I could hear Dorthea whisper, "Hey, you."

"Hey back," Kato answered in his human voice, still almost a purr.

Like the rest of us weren't even there.

Ech.

Love turned people into utter morons. I didn't need what they had. Didn't want it. I'd figure out the minimum I needed to do to trick the Compendium of Storybook Characters into accepting me. Who cared how many times I'd come back from the dead? This time would be the last, and that's what mattered. I'd get it right this time so I could live a long and uneventful ever after.

Morte was a problem though, and my thoughts circled back to my plotline, the number of dark knots slowly growing in number compared to my untarnished ones. How much of myself had I already forgotten? What would happen if the entire line went black?

"Rexi will cease to exist," both my shadow and Verte answered in an eerie tandem. "Long live the king."

"Organization Tip #3: A place for everything and everything in its place. A tidy torture chamber is far more inviting than a sloppy cell. Just because you're imprisoning someone doesn't mean it can't be pleasant."

-Better Castles and Dungeons.

5.

You've Got Male.

"Speaking up!" Hydra said, her head starting to slip off the tip of the bow.

Verte blinked, her eyes regaining focus. The emerald eye in her belt did the same, winking away its cloudiness. "What are you on about? I didn't say nothing. You're getting senile, you old bat."

"Sharper than old, green goat."

The two bickered back and forth while Oz tried to referee-or more specifically tried to stop Verte from kicking Hydra's head like a goal between the chicken legs.

Their cranky "look at the harmless ancient hag" routine didn't fool me for a bit. After years of indentured servitude in the Emerald palace kitchens, I knew one of Verte's prophecies when I heard one. And this foreshadowing made my feet itch to run as far-and as fast-from here as I possibly could.

"That is one of the few talents you do possess."

"Grimm, would you mud your mouth already?!" I shouted at Morte, forgetting no one else could hear him.

"Who do you think you're sa.s.sing?" Verte pointed her sharp, poppy-red fingernail at me while the smell of burned bread and magic filled the air. "One set of frog legs fricker fracker coming right up."

Remembering the last toad-ally awful evening she'd given me, I took a leaping dive for the gra.s.s, a tinkle of bells ringing behind me.

*tinkle tinkle* "You've got mail." *tinkle tinkle*

Verte's spell flew over my head.

"You've got m-ribbit."

After rolling onto my back, I looked to where I had been standing. A hot-pink toad with shimmering wings and a messenger pouch hovered there, spitting out ribbit-laced profanities unfit for translating.

I snickered. "Way to turn fair-e-mail into a fairy fail."

Verte harrumphed and stared indignantly. "Bah. Shows what you know. I clear as murk altered the directional fizzics of my spell to stop the intruder."

"I would be impressed if I thought you could react that fast. However"-Oz plucked the fairy frog out of the air by its wings-"right now I am more interested in what this message is and how it managed to find us here."

And when Oz said "interested," that is precisely what he meant. Not excited. Not concerned. Merely engrossed in the puzzles and paradoxes that seemed to sprout up around us. Including him. The old crank made me twitchy. Oz was twice the trouble of that princess-obsessed Mimicman and half as nice to look at.

Oz tried to take the pouch off the frog, who croaked in protest, shooting out its tongue, which got snarled on the Maker's mustache, startling him enough to drop the message. The fairy frog flittered about Oz's facial hair in a sparkly, sneezy cloud of dust.

Picking up the miniature messenger pouch, I squinted so I could read the To line. "G. Pendragon. So is it a wrong address?"

Hydra's face paled to match her hair. "Ach, nyet."

Verte's green complexion also dimmed, going from a dark moss to princess pea soup. "Spells bells. Anything but that."

I racked my brain going through all of Fairy Tale's families. The surname was familiar, but it wasn't coming to me. Who knows what other chunks of memory I'd sacrificed to Morte?

Oz stroked his mustache, seemingly forgetting that the toad was attached to it, despite the angry ribbits. "There are few wizards powerful enough to charm a fair-e-mail across Myth and into Fairy Tales. But only one wizard is left who'd actually want to talk to her. Good luck. You'll need it."

Puzzle solved, his curiosity waned, so he poofed himself into a fist-size, horned rhimouserous and scampered off into his workshop.

Immediately after, the building shrank back into the ground, the cracks knitting back together as if they had never been there.

"Coward," Verte said with a tsk.

"Do I want to know the her Oz referred to?" Without waiting for an answer, I held the message as far from me as possible. If the useless Storyfaker wanted nothing to do with it, then surely I didn't either.

"Ooh, is it a love letter? The suspense is killing me." Dorthea took the pouch off my finger, then yelped trying to open it.

The fairy frog beat its wings together at Tinker Bell speed. It darted away like a pink, slimy, mutant humdinger bird, with ribbits that sounded suspiciously like laughter.

Verte swiped the letter and bonked Dorthea on the head with it for good measure. "You newt-brained ninny. What sort of big shot wizard would send a message that any nosy princess could read? Good thing that Merl has a wee bit of a cauldron problem"-she brought her hand to her lips and mimed drinking-"or else he might have remembered to add a self-destruct spell."

"Yeah, lucky me." Dorthea shook out her injured hand and stared after the rapidly disappearing winged frog. "I don't imagine it's good for anyone to know where we are. Will you go after her?" Dorthea asked Kato.

He'd been human for all of two minutes, but still Kato grinned (all too eagerly in my opinion) and spun Dorthea dramatically into his arms as he puckered up.

I groaned. "Hey, Tweedle Ditz and Tweedle Dumb. Anyone else think that, I don't know, maybe sending the furry beast that's on wanted posters all over the forest is a really bad idea?" I held my hand up.

Verte raised her hand and cackled. Hydra made a few gagging sounds, which I was counting as a solid vote in agreement.

"Besides." I squinted and pointed to the frog sitting atop of the tallest ironwood. "Everyone knows that fair-e-mail messengers don't get paid until the letter is delivered to the actual recipient. She's not going anywhere."