She stood up, opened the door, and went inside. Neither Babushka nor Shew noticed. Of course, Loki took all the attention.
Who was this boy they were resurrecting? Fable was going crazy. How could he be so nice in the Waking World and someone else in the Dreamworld? This boy had never been in love with Shew in the past. From what I have seen, it's all a lie. A beautiful lie? I doubt it.
Still standing, she remembered meeting Alice Grimm before she returned from the Dreamworld. She had asked her about Loki's story, but Alice told her she didn't have enough time to explain. She helped Fable return to the Waking World, and asked her to go on with the plan and resurrect Loki, so he could help resurrect Charmwill and find the Lost Seven later. Fable had so many unanswered questions, but like always, there was not enough time.
When was there ever going to be enough time?
Fable found herself walking down to the cellar. She walked as if hypnotized. The secrets she kept were too much for her.
If Baba Yaga put Loki's heart inside Shew, and the Lost Seven had a piece of Shew's real heart in them, how was Loki alive? Whose heart did he have inside him?
It was mind-boggling, but not as frustrating as Fable's own story. How did she learn those Dark Arts, and where had she been the past few months? Why did Cerené stop her from telling anyone, saying, "They wouldn't understand"?
One of Fable's favorite books was H.G. Wells' The Time Machine, where the protagonist decided to use the eponymous device and return to the world he had just discovered, because not all of his questions had been answered.
Fable decided she'd do the same.
She lay down in the Dream Temple, not sure if she could enter the Dreamworld on her own, without another dreamer beside her. But she was some kind of Dreamhunter now, wasn't she? Why couldn't a Dreamhunter enter their own dreams?
She began the ritual, hoping it would work. She needed to go back. Really needed to go back. This time to know who she was. Who she really was. She put the two Obol coins on her eyes and whispered the Incubator to herself. This time she knew what it was without anyone telling her.
"The Witch," she said, and wondered why her eyes itched while she drifted away.
55
The Schloss
Lucy Rumpelstein didn't like the Queen's diary one bit. The itching in her eyes increased while she read, but she didn't pay it any attention. It might have been her lenses. What really bothered her was her disappointment with the Queen of Sorrow's diary. She had never pictured the Queen to be the person she had been reading about.
Axel, on the other hand, never thought he'd sympathize with Carmilla that much.
"This can't be her," Lucy gasped with frustration. "Where is her power, the cunningness, the evil? I bet this diary is fake."
"I doubt Pickwick is fake," Axel reminded her. "This diary has been guarded for one hundred years."
"Then what's wrong with the Queen of Sorrow?" Lucy said. "None of these events explain how she ended up the way we saw her. The way I love and adore her."
"She ended up selling her soul to Fate, didn't she?" Axel speculated. "I think that will have a great effect on the rest of the story."
"You think so?" Lucy's eyes brightened. It must be Fate, she thought. Fate must have wrapped her in perpetual sorrow and she'd ended up some kind of monster. Lucy liked the idea.
"I'm really more interested in the seven items in the sack," Axel said.
"What about them?"
"Never mind." Axel waved his hand in the air. Lucy didn't care about the sack. "Tell me something, Lucy. Do you have any idea why Carmilla didn't get the diary herself? Why ask you?"
Lucy said nothing. She had thought about it before, but couldn't find an answer. "See? I'm telling you something is wrong with all this diary thing."
"Tell you what," Axel said. "I see we're only halfway through the diary. There is a whole other story there, and there are so many unfinished threads to the tale."
"Okay, I will read on." Alice peeked back into the diary. "Look," she said. "There is a note, right after the chapter with the Moongirl."
"Then read it, please."
56
The Queen's Diary
All Hallows' Eve,
10th Year in the Reign of King Angel Von Sorrow.
1803 AD in the Waking World.
Less than a day until the Eclipse.
As I take a small break from the writing, I see you must think I have made this story up. You must think I am a deceitful liar, or how in the world did I end up where I am now?
You can surely find the answers in the events that followed on my journey to build my own Kingdom of Sorrow. You'd know things like what was inside the sack, and why I was given it. You'd know about the Moongirl and the Tower of Tales, and all the unimaginable things that shaped our lives inside the kingdom—the sort of things that don't even happen in fairy tales.
When you know about these things, I think you will understand.