I smiled.
My reflection smiled back, growing bigger.
I looked.
It looked back, eyes a bit bigger than usual.
My nose was bigger, too.
My face…
Oh…my God…
How was that possible?
Was that how I looked?
Who was that staring back at me?
Part 3
True Love & Lies
42
Fable's Dreamworld
Jack jumped back, pulled Ladle's scythe, and used the tip of it to cut his finger immediately. "Well," he sighed, "I never thought I'd do it, but let's see if the Chosen One's heart is good enough against burning fire. I'm not going to die this young."
Jack's influence was instantaneous. Everyone pricked their fingers and meshed their blood with Shew's. The grass and trees were already crackling outside. The shimmer of fire was slanting through the spider web.
Fable asked them to hold hands and close eyes. She was holding Jack's hand to the left and Marmalade's to her right.
The incantation was hard to spell; it seemed to be in a language no one had ever spoken. Fable just recited what her mind told her to, as if she had been possessed by her older self. She was reciting it from a memory she didn't quite remember, if that made any sense.
Like every other type of magic, it came with a price—one Fable could feel immediately.
An unexplained darkness began ruling over her. She could feel her soul changing again. And she wondered if she'd ever go back to the Waking World the same pigtailed, clumsy girl she was before.
It was a horrible thing to do, but it was the only way out. This, or the Lost Seven would be soon killed by the huntsmen.
She really hoped this was a memory relived, and that she wasn't messing with anything from the past. She convinced herself that two centuries ago she had used evil to defeat evil. No wonder most of the Lost Seven lived horribly ever after. She was curious about what happened to each of them after that day.
Fable recited the spell and asked them to repeat after her. Her insides ached again. Every pore in her had let that cruel darkness seep through her fragile soul.
The sky split somewhere nearby, and a loud lightning bolt hit the ground. It wasn't the fire's doing or natural causes. It was the dark spell, summoned from an abandoned corner in the pits of hell. The earth beneath them trembled, like a light earthquake rushing all over the Kingdom of Sorrow. Fable could hear one of the huntsmen outside say, "It's the whale! Someone has upset the whale!"
So Sorrow's whale had always been here? Did the spell upset him? What am I doing? God help me.
Fable wondered if the spell shook everything in Sorrow, even the Queen's throne.
Shew's body shook violently. Her back arched forward, as if she were being lifted from the floor by an invisible force. Blood seeped out of her nose, and then another lightning bolt struck.
Fable hung tough. She didn't stop reciting for a second. She wasn't going to give up now, although the pain was strong. If they were going to pay for doing this later, at least it had to be done efficiently.
And it worked.
Fable could feel an eminent heaviness in her heart. A distinct weight. Something unmeasurable with human scales. She was sweating. So were the rest of them. Even the Beast shivered in the transformation.
"Where are you, Princess of Sorrow?" Loki was going mad outside. Although he had ordered the burning, the shaking of the earth must have driven him crazy.
It certainly maddened him when the third lightning bolt came down with rain, putting out his fire.
"What kind of witch are you, Princess?" Loki screamed, and Fable thought she heard a woman's voice next to him. Was it possible that the Queen of Sorrow had arrived outside?
Would she risk it?
Fable's body was shattering into pieces from the inside. Lifting her head for a moment, she saw Cerené bleeding from her eyes. Each one had different levels of tolerance. It amused Fable how strong Jack was. Ladle was the strongest of all, but that wasn't a surprise.
The lightning stopped.
Their hands parted as they fell to their sides and bent their bodies over the floor.
Loki was still shouting, madly looking for Shew, angered by the falling rain that seemed to put all fire out. Fable could faintly hear that the woman next to him wasn't the Queen. She couldn't tell who she was, but she could hear parts of what she was saying.
"This isn't natural," the woman shouted. "This is Black Art. The kind no witch should practice. Whoever did that has cursed each and every one who participated."
Inside the cave, they had barely begun catching their breath.
"Is it done?" Cerené asked.
Fable nodded.
"I feel it." Ladle patted her chest. "I feel her heart in me."
"If it had only rained before we started this," Jack murmured.
The weakest was Cerené, but she had an exquisite smile on her pale face. "I feel Shew's presence in me, too. I feel like I'm bonding with her. I love you, Princess," she said to the comatose girl. "Do you feel it, Jack?"