“Or what?”
“Or this town will wither away,” she explained. “My soul is connected to this town somehow. As long as I’m in the castle, the town is safe. But if I play tricks on it and stay out for more than forty two minutes, the whale, which this town is settled upon, will sink into the ocean, dragging the town down with it.”
“Wow,” Axel said. “Better keep the princess inside the Schloss.”
“How is this possible?” Loki asked.
“It’s part of my curse,” she said. “Can I trust you with my life?” she looked straight in his eyes as the world around them fell apart.
“And the town’s life, including mine!” Axel felt the need to remind them.
It was a hard question to answer. Can I trust you with my life? Loki wondered why she asked him this when all he needed to go home was to kill her.
Why me? Why do I have to answer this? I don’t want to sound like a whining hero who can’t handle obstacles, but no one feels the way I do. I need to know who I am. It’s a basic need for every human. I need to know why I’m being punished and why I was thrown into this world. I need to go home.
Snow White looked disappointed. So did Fable, glaring at Loki for his indecisiveness.
“Use the Chanta,” Fable told him, pointing at her heart. “Some questions aren’t answered with logic. Use the Chanta like you mother told you, and you’ll be able answer her truthfully.”
Loki didn’t care about the Chanta. He still couldn’t understand what it was. But he knew he had strong feelings for Snow White. This time, it wasn’t like Pippi Luvbug and all those demon girls who fooled him before. This time, the demon girl spared his life. If he had to choose between knowing who he was before and why Snow White spared his life, he was going to choose the thing he was in control of now. He wanted to know why she needed saving and why she spared his life.
“You can trust me with your life outside,” he nodded, his thumbs pressing on Snow White’s hands. “I have to know your story!”
Fable did a secret fist pump in the air behind Show White’s shoulder. She had to duck to avoid a flying vase. The castle’s anger was a million times worse than Fable’s spells from her second-hand witchcraft books.
Snow White’s demonic transformation was complete.
“Stake her!” Lucy shouted as a lightning bolt struck outside and the castle shook. “Or she will kill us all.”
Loki raised his Alicorn and carved it into Snow White’s chest, putting her to sleep again.
“Sorry,” he whispered in her ear, catching her before she fell on the floor, her arms wrapping around his shoulder.
It was amazing how fast her black eyes turned back to blue. Doors slammed and windows broke on their own. The floor cracked from underneath and the banister turned into snakes gliding toward them.
Loki held Snow White in his arms, brushed her hair off her eyes with the back of his hand then looked back at Fable. “We have to get her out of here,” he said. “I have to enter her dream.”
“Did I tell you that most boys are slow when it comes to comprehending? It’s about time,” Fable screamed.
***
Loki, Fable, Axel, and Lucy were about to pull Snow White out of the castle into the light of a thin moonbeam. They needed to prepare their Dream Temple about a hundred feet ahead in the snow. The two opposite mirrors, the Epidaurus Circle, and Loki’s items all had to be prepared like an exact science. Time was tight and they had to move fast.
Axel and Loki dragged two mirrors from the angry castle to the chosen location. They fixed them opposite to each other, and propped them up with two heavy armoires they’d managed to steal from the castle in spite of the door slamming in their faces, chandeliers falling from the ceiling and swirling winds.
Fable drew the Epidaurus circle using black oil that Loki had told her to drain from his Cadillac. It wasn’t exactly a girl’s job, but she never ceased to amaze. She insisted on pouring the oil counter-clockwise since this should empower the spell. She had also suggested they place the mirrors facing North and South. Not something that was written in Loki’s notebook, but he didn’t mind the input.
Loki brought his hourglass, Alicorn, and Ariadne Fleece along while Lucy did nothing but stand back and protect her manicured fingernails.