The Fleece was gone.
The Queen of Sorrow laughed in a high pitch that sent a chill through their spines. Loki knew she was laughing at him. He looked back at her and saw her wrapping his Fleece around the fingers of her right hand. She was biting into an apple with the left. He had no idea how he lost his Fleece, or how the Queen had possession of it. It didn’t matter. The Queen wasn’t going to give it back, and now he was trapped in this dream until the Waker’s sand passed through the hourglass in the waking world.
Loki’s instant reflex was to step forward to protect Snow White who stood behind him, as if he was ready to take a bullet for her.
“What are you doing?” Snow White snapped.
“I will try to distract her,” Loki said. “You should escape, and then wait until the dream is over and wake up in the real world. I’m sure Axel and Fable will pull you back to the castle safely.”
“And you?”
“I lost my Fleece, which means I’m trapped here. I can only wake up when the dream ends, or—“Loki shrugged, and didn’t know what to say. All that came to his mind was to flash his Alicorn at the silently observing Queen. Her silence and confidence were scarier than her wrath. It was as if she’d known they couldn’t escape so she was in no rush to finish them off.
Carmilla smirked at Loki’s heroic reaction. It was a belittling gesture, and Loki wished his Alicorn would finally provide some usefulness. He’d taken the long journey to Sorrow wanting to kill Snow White, only to realize that the Queen was the evil one behind all of this. All this talk about going back home didn’t matter now. He remembered when his mother had told him that he’d come to Sorrow to discover who he really was, and that there was a difference between who he was and where he came from. Right now, Loki was where he wanted to be; in love with a girl he came to kill, again. Snow White was his home.
Carmilla handed one of her servants the bitten apple, which had a small worm climbing out of it. She wiped her mouth with the tip of one of the dead girls’ dresses. Loki assumed she had that eerie power over him because of the Fleece. He wondered if owning a Dreamhunter’s Fleece was the same as owning his soul. Flashing his Alicorn, he wanted to step forward to fight like a man, but the Queen was faster.
Carmilla showed her snake tongue again, curling from between her lips toward them. Reciting an indecipherable incantation she rippled her tongue in the air, spraying some kind of invisible force at Loki. It wasn’t poison. Instead, Loki found himself elevated off the floor. She pushed him with her tongue without laying a hand on him, the same way Snow White had manhandled Big Bad in the castle in the waking world.
Against his will, Loki flew in the air, his arms stretched sideways as if he were a man floating in space. Carmilla pushed her hand a little further and Loki flipped back in the air. He was prepared to hit the wall with his back and then land on his tailbone. Instead, he ended up plummeting downward, splashing back into the bathtub he’d came through when he first entered the dream, only the tub was full this time.
Loki made sure he still gripped his Alicorn as he slipped underneath the blood, milk, and chocolate. He doubted he’d make it out alive. He was dizzy from the Queen’s push and imagined he’d lose consciousness under water.
Is this the way it’s going to end? In a bathtub? That’s some fairy tale.
Lying on his back with eyes closed at the bottom of the tub, he wished there was something he could do to energize himself and go back to fight the Queen and save Snow White. He was fighting the urge to pass out.
No one’s supposed to die before they know who they are. He remembered Charmwill had told him once. This can’t be the end.
If only there was some magic he could use like in the fairy tales. Where were the Godmothers, the Godfathers, and Mother Goose when you needed them?
But Loki wasn’t used to believing in fairy tales—at least not before this dream, and he doubted such a person would appear right at this moment and save his life. His head was too weary to give ‘Ora Pedora’ one last try. How could he even speak underwater if he had the strength to?
Pick yourself up, Loki. You can do it.
His inner voice gave him a momentary burst of strength, and he tried to lift up his hand.
But he was too late. The tub grew arms, like an octopus, and wrapped them around his hand, pulling it back down. He tried to move his legs but the octopus’ arms chained them as well. The octopus seemed to only move when Loki resisted drowning.
Loki decided he wouldn’t move his free arm for now, or it would chain it, too.