“Bring. Them. Back.”
Crow’s eyes went impossibly wide and her mouth went slack. She looked like she had seen the devil, and maybe she had. Backing farther away, she offered more denials, but her excuses fell on deaf ears. I could only hear a little voice whispering to me in the back of my head. It no longer chirped like a cricket. Now it slithered through my consciousness like a snake.
This woman has taken everything from you, just to make a quick buck. She deserves to pay. You could make her pay.
Yeah, I should make her pay. But first she was going to tell me how to undo this spell.
I sent my hands out to snatch her, but green flames burst from my palms instead. They slammed into Black Crow, knocking her into the potions case. All the remaining vials and bottles broke, spilling their contents onto her.
She didn’t burst into flames like I had. Her skin turned a sallow yellow and bubbled, dripping like hot wax. One eye drooped down her cheek; the other pleaded with me. Her mouth tilted into a sickening mockery of a grin. Her limbs flattened and went boneless.
Without a doubt, the most horrifying thing I had ever seen.
And I had done it.
My earlier rage was extinguished immediately, replaced with a shame deep enough to bury a giant. “Oh my Grimm. I’m… I didn’t…”
Her hand stretched out to me, and I rushed to it. Before I had a chance to help her, she slashed across my palm with a razored feather. Blood flowed freely from the almost surgical slice. I sat motionless as she applied my blood to her melting skin.
Within the room, the air changed. Something was happening but probably not what she wanted.
The puddling stopped and her skin re-formed into a solid state. She got a little taller and stiffer, the surface of her skin taking a clothlike appearance. Her face looked flat, like someone had painted all her features on. Her limbs got bulbous and lumpy, as though they were stuffed with straw. When the magic finished with her, the only thing that remained was a scarecrow.
The horror in front of me would not compute. I could have blamed a lot of things, but deep inside, I’d wanted this. Not this per se. But I’d needed Crow to pay, and she had. In full.
Mentally, I added Verte’s and Black Crow’s names to the tally of things I had a hand in destroying.
The list kept growing.
Kato sat by the bed; he had been ever since putting out the fire, quietly watching the events unfold. He hadn’t reacted at all, and that just seemed wrong. Spell’s bells, he still wasn’t reacting at all to the fact that I had just changed a living being into a scarecrow.
He calmly stood and padded to the door.
“We can’t leave. We have to do something.” My voice cracked.
“There’s nothing we can do for her. And she doesn’t deserve your pity. Don’t forget she tried to kill you and keep me for a pet.”
“I don’t need the reminder, thanks.” Crow was in league with the wicked witch of the west, but right now, I felt like the bigger monster.
“Maybe you do. Evil needs to be stopped, whatever the cost.”
The crackle of shattering glass came from outside, and the floor shook from some sort of impact.
“It’s time for us to go.” Kato turned again to leave.
“I’m staying. Rexi might still be here somewhere. And maybe I can help—” That plan went out the window. Or rather out the roof.
With a loud creaking sound, a large metallic gigan, with an equally large ax, sliced the roof off from the house. He peered down at us with empty black eyes and a nose that poked out crookedly, like the tip of an oilcan. Shiny, pieced-together tin plates made up the rest of his enormous body—including the hand that reaching down into the room.
“Rule of Heroics: If you want to be remembered as a heroic ruler, face danger head on. If you wanted to be remembered as a wise ruler who lived a long life, face danger from a very safe distance.”
—Thomason’s Tips for Ruthless Ruling
16
Who Needs Fairy Dust to Fly?
“Run!” Kato roared over the shrill creaking of the gigan.
Like I really needed that little piece of advice. I was already down the hall. “What the spell is that?” I shouted behind me.
“My guess would be the Tinman.”
We ran out the front door and headlong into a different giant monster.
We were trapped. And I was out of ideas. “Glam it all. Isn’t this a tad bit of overkill?”
“You wanted to know the plan, well, this is the plan,” Kato sniped at me, then yelled up to the huge creature. “Bobbledandrophous, can you carry both of us on your back?”
The beast looked down in surprise. He was easily the size of the house, and now that I looked past the huge legs and really sharp talons, I could see that he bore a striking resemblance to Kato: lion head, ram horns, dragon tail, and ginormous wings. Oh, fairy fudge. Had I turned Kato’s entire family into chimeras?
His voice boomed. “My Lord? How did—”