“Sabrina, are you OK?” Veronica asked.
Sabrina shook off the vision. She nodded. “Just a little tired. We’ll go to Charming and convince him to help us,” she said. “But listen, if we manage to get lucky and stop Atticus, there will be no more obstacles between us and Mirror. I want to be honest with you all. I don’t know what will happen. Our army is savaged, our coven is broken, and Mirror wants the spell that turns off the barrier. I have no idea what he’s going to do to get it, but it’s not going to be fun. I just know he can’t have it. If you’ve thought about bailing on us, you should do it now so we know what we’re working with.”
Beauty stepped forward. “I have known your family a long time, and my rage at being trapped in this town has caused me to do things I regret. But there was always something that I respected about your family—your infernal principles! Wilhelm taught his children to stand for something, to look after our community and protect us, even when we didn’t want it. Douglas taught Sterling, and Sterling taught Spaulding, and Spaulding taught Josef, and so on and so on. Well, you can imagine how that integrity made us crazy. Now I marvel at it. I envy it. I will do anything to emulate it, so my daughter will know what it is to be a good person. I will die to protect you.”
“I will lay my life down for you,” the Wicked Queen said.
“You can count on me and my son,” the Pied Piper said.
“You have the birds,” the Widow crowed.
“You have my men,” Robin Hood said.
“And mine,” King Arthur shouted.
“It was never a question,” Goldi said. The roars of three fierce brown bears echoed her promise.
“I will fight,” Pinocchio said through his tears. “I will fight.”
All present made the promise, though Mayor Heart did so reluctantly. At the end of the chorus of cheers, the only person who hadn’t spoken up was Puck. The crowd looked at him for his answer.
“Well, duh!” Puck said.
? ? ?
Sabrina, Puck, and the Wicked Queen marched out to find Charming. Bunny claimed she would force William to come back to the army if he wouldn’t listen to reason. The group hiked toward the old mayor’s mansion. The others were perplexed as to how Sabrina knew where to find the prince. She couldn’t explain, but she was beginning to believe that whatever gave her the visions was also making her sick. She was both fevered and chilled and had to stop several times to shake off dizzy spells and nausea. She was having a difficult time concentrating and her mind kept flashing on something she had seen many times before—a fiery red handprint. There were times when she thought she couldn’t take another step, but she couldn’t go back. Charming had to know what happened to Snow.
“What’s wrong with you?” Puck said. “You’re starting to look a little green.”
“I’m just tired,” Sabrina lied.
Puck spun around on his heels and transformed into a donkey. Bunny helped Sabrina climb on his back, but not before examining the jagged slash on her arm where the piece of magic mirror had cut her skin. Bunny’s face looked worried, but she didn’t say anything.
The front door of the mayor’s mansion hung open, and all the windows were broken. When they stepped inside, it was obvious that it had been looted. There were huge holes in the floors and graffiti covered the walls. Sabrina hardly recognized the place.
The group climbed the once-grand staircase and found Charming asleep on the floor of his old office, just as in Sabrina’s strange, painful vision. His weapons and maps were gone, as was the portrait of Snow he kept on the wall, and the poor man looked and smelled as if he had been drinking.
“Wakey wakey, eggs and bakey,” Puck said.
Charming lifted his head as if the motion hurt him. He groaned and closed his eyes. “I told you to leave me alone.”
“That’s not an option anymore,” the Wicked Queen said. “Atticus has Snow.”
Charming strained to focus his eyes. “What? When?”
“A few hours ago,” Sabrina said.
“We would have come sooner, but we weren’t sure you were finished feeling sorry for yourself,” Bunny said.
Charming growled. “How dare you, Bunny? You meddled with my life—my memories, my identity—and you think I should just snap out of it? You try to be a fictional character for a minute!”
“I’ve been a fictional character just as long as you have, William. I had to rewrite myself to keep Snow safe. I had to give up my daughter! I had to make her believe I was evil. I had to make her fear me, not to mention every Everafter I’ve encountered since. Do you think that was easy, being the scorn of an entire town for hundreds of years? I had to take on a completely different persona for centuries.”
“That was your choice,” Charming cried.