“No wonder you look so much like the princess from the book. Your ancestor must have been the girl who helped the Beast King lock Blanc away,” Kato said, his face weary.
“Is true.” Hydra hopped off her chicken bowl, walked over, and put a bloated and clammy hand on my shoulder. “Beast King double-cross vitch sisters to make little Emerald princess happy. Gray Vitch vant to beat two birdies one stone. So she try make your great-great-great-great vhatever elder burn him to crisp along with whole world. But Griz is just a hatched chickie then. Not even finish her curse school. She made mistake in spell so is skipping down generation.”
Everything from the past seemed to come together to create this storm of craziness. Griz’s curse, the chimera’s Fire Priestess, Blanc being nearly indestructible—and I was sitting smack in the middle of the tornado.
“So I just happened to pick the short wand?”
“Perkhaps it is pickink you.” Hydra flung her hand out dismissively. “But that is nother bowl of goulash.” She jumped way too spryly back into her bowl and started the chicken feet power walking again. “As sure as bears relieve self in vood, Griz is knowink Dorthea’s power can be turnink sister into charcoal, so vill not vait for magic prison flames to go out. Best ve hurry and beat that vitch to the spring. I must say it vill feel good to see her, how you say, get hers.” She grinned, and I could see her tongue moving between the gaps of her teeth.
“So you think we’ll be able to beat her?”
“Is fifty-fifty. I vould have better idea if had crystal ball.” My face fell. “Pardon, me. I am not realizink I vas supposed to lie. This head has not been vorn for century and out of practice. I vill try again.” Hydra cleared her throat, touched her fingers to her temples, and stood up a little taller. “Da. I am seeink it now. Ve vill win.”
I wonder why that didn’t make me feel any better?
Kato caught up to us and grabbed my hand, giving it a reassuring squeeze. “They were beaten by the Beast King and Emerald Princess once, so you and I can definitely do it again.”
The clouds in front of us thinned out, becoming wispy enough to see through.
“Is there!” Hydra cackled, pointing down to a lush green spot of land.
“Great. So how do we get do—” I shrieked as my foot went through the dissipating fluffy floor.
Kato, still holding on to my hand, snatched me back.
That had been close. I’d been saved by the chimera a few times, but being rescued by the boy felt completely different.
“My hero,” I huffed and put a hand to my chest to keep my heart from bursting out of it.
He brushed his hand along my cheek. “My lady.”
“My village idiots,” Hydra snapped, completely ruining the mood. “Clouds no longer safe. Unless vant to arrive on ground as pancake, am suggestink hurry.”
“After you,” I grumbled, then paused. Something was missing. Rather someone was missing. No way Rexi would have let the mushy stuff go by without a snarky comment.
Kato, on the same wavelength, looked around. “Where is she?”
Parts of the cloud floor had thinned, while others had turned dark and stormy. A thunderous rumble vibrated through the ground beneath our feet.
At the same time, a loud bellow echoed through the air. “Fe-fi-fo-fum. Leave right now or turn to crumb.”
Kato groaned. “She wouldn’t.”
“Gold-laying tweety bird?” I thought it over for a millisecond. “Yeah, she would.”
Kato and I started for the giant’s house, but it didn’t look right. I put my arm in front of Kato, making him stop. “Does it look like that house is shrinking to you?”
“Not shrinking. Sinking.”
“Let thief have vhat comink to her. Must make escape now, before we go kaput in more cloudquake,” Hydra mumbled and cursed.
I crossed my arms defiantly. “She may be a thief, but she’s our thief.”
“Nyet. You have got to be pulling legs.”
“I mean it.” I pointed out the tilted house that looked like a ship after hitting an iceberg. “Rexi is probably in there, and we can’t leave her behind.”
“Thief will be fine. Have strong self-survival sense, like cockroach. You…not as much.” Without warning, Hydra grabbed me by the ear and hauled me back to her chicken bowl. She’d wrangled Kato too. “I am meaning literally pull off legs.”
Hydra took off her head and set it on the ground, then had her body jack up the underside of the chicken bowl onto her shoulders so the little chicken feet had no weight on them.
Kato shrugged at me and started yanking the left chicken leg, so I got to work on the right. Hydra’s head supervised. Both gangly legs came off from the bowl with a pop. After setting the legless bowl back on the darkening cloud, Hydra’s body retrieved her head, then took the drumsticks off our hands.
“Good. Now have less than two minute to make RV into ATV, Air Traveling Vehicle.”
“Two minutes!” Another rumble shook the clouds, making me hang on to the sides of the bowl.