Of Enemies and Endings (20 page)

Our reinforcements had crowded around them. The comb cage had been taken down, and two hundred high-school fighters lined up in front of the portal. Their ranks bristled with raised swords, spears, and bows, but they didn't attack.

A second later, I spotted the reason.

Our sword master was in Jimmy's other fist. Blood poured from a cut over his eye, down his cheek and off his jaw, and he squirmed in the giant's grip, trying to fight fingers longer than he was tall.

“Hansel!” I charged at the giants, furious at our fighters for not helping him. He didn't even have his broadsword.

Hansel looked straight at me. He threw a hand up, telling me to stop.

So he had a plan. Maybe he had a knife in his boot. Maybe he wanted to use it to prick Jimmy and get him to loosen his grip. Maybe he thought it was too embarrassing to let his students rescue him, especially when so many of us were here.

“I told you, Maddy.” Jimmy Searcaster thrust his wife back, holding her at arm's length. “We have our orders. We can't retreat.”

Then Jimmy squeezed, like he was wringing out a sponge, and all the life went out of Hansel. The giant tossed him to the ground.

I didn't notice the screaming at first. Not when Lena caught up to me, not when she and Kyle held me back. Not when Jimmy smiled and dropped his arms, and Matilda's pale, shocked face turned our way. Not when the giantess plucked the snowflake charm from her husband's wrist, and both Searcasters disappeared, leaving four huge footprints and Hansel's body.

It wasn't until Lena grabbed my face with both hands that I heard the wail. The sound was coming from
me
. I stopped. My throat felt raw.

All of me felt raw.

The house lights glittered on Hansel's armor, and his chain mail dipped into his rib cage—a crater the same width as Jimmy Searcaster's thumb. I was shaking, so Lena took my sword away and passed it to one of the stepsisters. I tried not to cry. This kind of crying would horrify Chase. Then I remembered that Chase wasn't here.

“It's okay,” I heard Lena saying, as she started to guide me toward the Door Trek door. “The reinforcements will round up the goblins in the trees. Let's just get you home.”

Someone brought a horse blanket from the barn and covered Hansel—an eleventh grader who was sobbing so hard she was hiccuping. “I'm sorry,” I told her as we passed. “I'm so sorry.”

“It's not your fault, Rory.” Lena opened the dusty green door. “He told you to stop. He told everyone to stop.” Then she pushed me through the portal.

I stumbled into the EAS courtyard, exhausted and numb, and totally unprepared to see Chase kissing Adelaide a few feet away.

e'd buckled on his sword belt, and she had her quiver slung over a flouncy silk dress. They had been on their way. They had no idea they were too late. They didn't even know we were there.

Their lips were locked, and their eyes were closed, and he was stroking her pretty blond hair.

I had refused to think about this. I'd been determined to go on believing that Chase hadn't had his first kiss, the same way I'd never had mine.

I opened my mouth to yell, to tell them to
stop
, but my throat—still aching from my scream—closed up tight. All I managed was a tiny squeak.

The rest of my grade didn't have that problem. “How was
dinner
?” snapped Daisy behind me.

Chase and Adelaide burst apart.

Her gaze slid to me. Triumph rolled off her in waves, but I didn't look back. This wasn't about her.

Chase blinked at us. He'd looked less dazed the time a troll's club had knocked him flat. “You're back
already
? I thought Mr. Zipes wouldn't be ready until at least midnight.”

We were the Triumvirate. I thought the three of us were fated to help each other. I thought I could rely on them—on
him
.

But I didn't even
know
him anymore. Triumvirate or not, I didn't
want
to know him. I swallowed hard, and my voice came back, cracked and ragged. “You should have
been
there.”

“You said we would only be fifteen minutes late, tops,” Chase told his girlfriend.

“Fifteen minutes is a long time in a battle.” Even Lena—my careful, neutral friend—sounded livid.

Chase focused on me, and then, like he was finally seeing us, he said, “Something happened.” He reached out.

I flinched away from his hand. I hated him for making me break the news. “Hansel's
dead
, Chase. Jimmy killed him, and if you'd been there, like you
promised
, he wouldn't have had to take on a pillar alone. He—”

I stopped myself. If I kept going, I would have to explain how I could have stopped it too. I should have gone to help Hansel with Jimmy instead of helping the others with the goblins. No, I shouldn't have let Matilda go. I should have taken
her
as a four-story-tall hostage. I should have threatened her to control Jimmy. It was the last thing Hansel had asked me to do.

At the news, Adelaide reeled back, hands covering her mouth, stunned and guilty, but Chase just stood there, like he hadn't understood what I'd just said.

He glanced toward Adelaide and back to me again. “Listen, Rory—”

“I don't
want
to listen.” He couldn't give me an excuse today—not for this.

Characters began to push through the Door Trek door behind us. Eventually, some of them would be carrying Hansel's body back through the portal, and I didn't want to be here when that happened.

So I ran.

I didn't even try to go home. I knew what Mom would say.
You see? Even experienced adults like Hansel aren't safe. You can't expect to make a difference
.

But I was
supposed
to make a difference. Everyone was counting on me.

I went to Dad's apartment, but through the door, I could hear Danica wailing. It didn't seem fair to make Dad and Brie deal with
two
daughters having a meltdown.

Kelly and Priya came down the hall, chatting excitedly. They didn't know yet. I couldn't bear it if they asked me what monsters I'd fought today. I couldn't listen to them ooh and ahh over battling giants and goblins. They hadn't been there. They hadn't seen their teacher die. They didn't know how horrible that instant was—the second between realizing what Jimmy was about to do and him actually doing it, the fraction of an instant when I saw Hansel's death coming and knew I was powerless to stop it. Kids shouldn't have to deal with stuff like this.
I
shouldn't have to carry those memories in my head, of Hansel and Hadriane. I turned and walked in the opposite direction. I turned around every time I spotted a Character I knew.

The thing about EAS is that it seems endless. It seems like you could explore it for days and always find an unknown corridor, a new door, fresh mysteries to puzzle out. But after living there, you realize the labyrinth folds back on itself. It doesn't keep going and going. It always takes you to the same places, and sometimes, it takes you exactly where you need to go.

Rapunzel was waiting for me at the base of her tower. Her long silver braid trailed across the bottom three steps, like she had just come down from her room.

“I know the news of Hansel.” The sympathy on Rapunzel's face made me feel all shaky again. She touched my arm, very gently. “And I know of Matilda, too.”

I burst into tears.

It was all so messed up. The Snow Queen would keep killing people, and I would keep trying to stop her and totally failing. And eventually, it would be
me
she killed, and I didn't want to die. But I didn't want to live, either, if I would end up just like the Snow Queen. I didn't want to hurt all the people I loved.

Rapunzel lifted some folded handkerchiefs from the bottom of the banister; she was always prepared.

I cried my way through half the stack. Rapunzel didn't hug me, like I kind of wanted. But she didn't ask anything of me either. She didn't try to calm me down or tell me everything was going to be okay or strategize on ways I might live through this.

Somehow, that was exactly what I needed.

Finally I took a shaky breath and blew my nose. I knew how this scene was supposed to play out. “You're going to tell me that it's not my fault Hansel is dead. Just like with Hadriane.”

“This death is different than Hadriane's,” Rapunzel said. “Yes, it was unfair. Yes, his was a purposeful sacrifice, but Hansel was much older than he looked. He was at the end of his life. Some can live centuries, and still not be ready for death, but Hansel was.”

I stared hard at the crumpled mound of handkerchiefs next to me. “But I could have
stopped
it.”

“If you had threatened Matilda, you may have convinced Jimmy Searcaster to release Hansel,” Rapunzel said, “but Hansel's fate was sealed the moment Solange gave Jimmy his orders. She wanted to create in you a terrible grief. She wanted to distract you.”

A terrible grief. Those words seemed too small for what I was feeling. “But we could have gotten him out of there.” No one should have died.

“A pillar could not be slain on that field. So the next safest solution would be to
give
Jimmy the life he wanted to take. Otherwise, the giant may have taken a student's life, and Hansel would have done anything to prevent that.”

Rapunzel dropped a hand on my head. She waited until I looked up. Her dark eyes glistened, bright with tears, and I remembered: She had known the sword master longer than I had. She was even older than Hansel was. She had probably watched him grow up. “Every instructor here would make the same sacrifice Hansel did. Our time is almost past, and you children are the future we fight for. We would
prefer
to die to protect you than to witness your deaths, your futures snuffed out. It is natural for the old to die before the young. You gave that gift to Hansel, even if you can't give it to your mother.”

I shot her a look. That was a low blow, especially right then. Mom and I argued about that constantly. We would probably fight over it the next time I saw her. Finding out that Rapunzel took her side didn't help.

Rapunzel must have known she was pushing it. She pulled a Chase and changed the subject. “Rory, have you thought about who you might become after the war ends?”

I almost snorted. I couldn't think past the death, winter, and despair the Snow Queen kept throwing my way. When I thought about the future, I thought about dealing with the fate of magic and defeating the Snow Queen. Reaching high school seemed a little less possible every day.

“I don't believe anyone ever asked my sister such a question,” Rapunzel said softly. “She focused only on King Navaire's destruction.”

So. There it was—one more thing Solange and I had in common.

“It may be better if . . .” I was relieved that my hoarse voice only trembled a little bit. “. . . if I didn't see the end of the war. The world doesn't need a second Snow Queen.”

I hadn't told this to anyone. No one else would listen. Mom wouldn't have let me finish my sentence. Amy would have given me her thin-lipped glare of doom. Dad and Brie had their hands full with the baby. Lena would just cry, and Chase would say, in his cocky way,
You're not going to die, Rory
. And the Director, well, she might agree with me.

Rapunzel's expression didn't change, like maybe she'd known I'd felt this way all along. “You are seeing only two options—Hadriane's end and Solange's change. It is not like you to lack imagination. Usually, you see a dozen choices where others see only a few. Your own life should be no exception.”

“So you still don't see my future?” I asked. I'd gotten used to her knowing what would happen.

“I do see it,” said Rapunzel. “But not with my foresight.”