Kato set me down. I tossed him the goggles and rounded angrily on Hydra. “That’s not a spring. A spring is a bubbling brook or fountain-ish thing. That is a geyser.”
It might have looked like I was overreacting, but I sure didn’t think so. If I got anywhere near that thing, water was sure to fall on me and put my hair out. And I wouldn’t even see it coming, because it was invisible.
Hydra shrugged off my mini-tirade and put the spectacles back on. “You paid to have palm read, no refund if not likink your fortunes.” I interpreted the gypsy speak as, Your wish, your problem.
There was a rumble in the clouds followed by the booming of blood thumping in my ears as my heart beat in alarm. Was it thunder, heralding the return of our least-favorite wicked witch? It sounded again, and Rexi’s head turned to look so fast that if she’d been Hydra, her head would’ve come clean off.
I looked at the sky where I thought the sound had come from, searching for Griz and her flying puppies. Wasn’t her. With a resounding crash, another building fell from the sky. The Mimicman Wizard had lied through his perfectly capped teeth about glammed near everything—except ozmosis, it appeared. I could almost feel the magics moving around me, like it was alive. It was chaotic, and that made it dangerous, because there was no nursery-rhyming reason to it, no way to guess which part was going to fall apart next—with you standing on it, under it, or in it.
The closer we got to where I figured the spring must be, the slower and more careful each step got. I was excited, nervous, anxious, and relieved for what was to come. The star would soon be unmagicked or disenchanted or…whatever. I imagined what would happen when I tossed the star into the water—from a very safe distance, mind you. Would all the rules just start working again, or would it be like hitting a rewind button on the magic mirror remote?
First thing I planned on doing was apologizing for every rotten thought I’d ever had about my mom and dad. Then I was going to take a bath. I had more layers of grime on my skin than the pea princess had mattresses.
Hydra interrupted my musings with a hand, pushing me to a stop. Though with her hunchback and lumbering mass, she was about as stealthy as a Minotaur, Hydra got down on her stomach and motioned for the rest of us to do the same.
“What the pix are we doing?” I asked.
“Shhh,” hissed Hydra. “Rainbow spook easy. Is moving the moment ve are gettink close.”
She passed the spectacles down the line, so I could take a peek. Without the glasses, it looked like any of the other countless rainbows I’d seen from my room at the Emerald Palace. With the glasses on, I saw not one arch, but three, forming a deadly triangle around the spring.
Kato took the glasses back, so he could have a closer look. “Sprite must be using the light from the three suns to reflect the water spraying up and create the barrier.”
“So how are we going to get close?” I asked. “And then, when we do, how do we get to what’s over the rainbow?”
Hydra stood slowly, making no sudden movements, and put her back to the rainbow. “Ve approach very slow. No lookink at straight.” She reached inside her housecoat and pulled out a piece of glass she must have swiped from the giant’s house. When the sun hit it in just the right way, you could see a reflection of the rainbow—all three of them.
Gotta say, out of all the rules that wish had broken, the reflection one was certainly turning out to be useful. So we all turned around and started walking backward, Hydra going first since she had the glass.
Beside me, Rexi tripped over a rock or something and fell on her rear. “This is by far the absolute dumbest thing we have ever done. And that is saying something.” She thumped the ground with her fist in frustration.
And with that little tidbit, things felt normal again—at least normal for our little band of misfits.
As I back-walked past her, I noticed that she hadn’t tripped on a rock. It was sparkling. Being very careful not to accidentally catch a glimpse of the rainbow head-on, I bent down to take a closer look. The rock was actually a golden horseshoe. I picked it up and, nearly immediately afterward, got a sharp bang against my shins.
“Get your greedy little mitts off me lucky charms.” A little orange-skinned, green-haired leprechaun stood in front of me—and kicked me in the shins again before I had a chance to give the horseshoe back. So I dropped it on his head, which was just below my waist.
After rubbing his noggin, he carefully placed the horseshoe exactly where it had been. “This here’s a piece o’ me fairy ring. I’ve got the wee rainbow surrounded now, so it can’t escape.” He laughed giddily, rubbing his little orange hands together.