We peered out at a long, brightly lit hallway with numerous doors lining its walls and gray tiles leading to single door at the very end. I knew we were in the right place. I could feel it in the air, a faint buzz, a sharp tingle just below my skin. It made my neck hairs stand on end, and was oddly familiar. Glancing at Puck and Ironhorse, I knew they could feel it, too.
We inched down the corridor, Puck in front and Ironhorse bringing up the rear. Around us, our footsteps echoed in the silence. We passed doors without hesitation, knowing they were the wrong ones. I could feel the buzzing getting louder the closer we got to the end of the hall.
Then, we were at the last door, and Puck leaned against it, putting his ear to the wood. I don’t hear anything, he mouthed at us, and pointed to the handle. Shall we?
Ironhorse nodded, clenching his massive fists. Puck reached down and freed his daggers, gesturing to me with a point. Biting my lip, I reached out and carefully turned the handle.
The door swung forward with a creak, and a waft of frigid air hit me in the face. I shivered, resisting the impulse to rub my arms as my breath clouded the air before me. Someone had cranked the AC down to like zero degrees; the room was a freezer box as we stepped inside.
A dozen or so humans in expensive business suits sat around a long, U-shaped table in the center of the floor. From the looks of it, we had interrupted a business meeting, for they all turned and stared at me with various degrees of annoyance and confusion. At the end of the table, a swivel chair sat with its back to us, hiding the speaker or CEO or whoever was in charge. I suddenly remembered all the times I’d snuck into class late and had to scurry down the aisles to my desk while everyone watched. My face burned, and for a moment, you could hear a pin drop.
“Um, sorry,” I muttered, backing away. The business suits continued to stare at me. “Sorry. Wrong room. We’ll just…go.”
“Oh, why don’t you stick around, my dear.” The buzzing, high-pitched voice made my skin crawl. At the front of the table, the figure swiveled the chair around to face us, smiling. She wore a neon-green business suit, radioactive-blue lipstick, and bright yellow glasses above a thin, sneering face. Her hair, a myriad of computer cables, was bound atop her head in a colorful mockery of a bun. She held the scepter in green-nailed hands, like a queen observing her subjects, and my stomach gave a jolt of recognition.
“VIRUS!” Ironhorse boomed.
“No need to shout, old man. I’m right here.” Virus put her heels on the table and regarded us smugly. “I’ve been waiting for you, girl. Looking for this, are you?” She lifted her arm, and I gasped. The Scepter of the Seasons pulsed a strange, sickly green light through her fingers. Virus bared her teeth in a smile. “I was expecting the girl and her clown to come sniffing after it, but I never expected the honorable Ironhorse to turn on us. Tsk-tsk.” She shook her head. “Loyalty is so overrated these days. How the mighty have fallen.”
“YOU DARE ACCUSE ME?” Ironhorse stalked forward, smoke drifting from his mouth and nostrils. We hurried after him. “YOU ARE THE BETRAYER, WHO FOLLOWS THE COMMANDS OF THE FALSE KING. YOU ARE THE ONE WHO HAS FALLEN.”
“Don’t be so melodramatic,” Virus sighed. “As usual, you have no idea what is really going on. You think I want to follow the wheezings of an obsolete monarch? I want that even less than you. When he put me in charge of stealing the scepter, I knew that was the last command I would ever follow. Poor Tertius, believing I was still loyal to his false king. The gullible fool handed me the scepter without a second thought.” She smiled at us, fierce and terrible. “Now, I have the Scepter of the Seasons. I have the power. And if the false king wants it, he’ll have to take it from me by force.”
“I see,” I said, coming to a stop a few feet from her. Around us, the men in business suits continued to stare. “You want to become the next ruler. You had no intention of giving it to the Iron King.”
“Can you blame me?” Virus swung her feet off the table to smile at me. “How often have you disobeyed your king because his commands were rubbish? Goodfellow—” she pointed the scepter at Puck “—how often has the thought of rebelling crossed your mind? Don’t tell me you’ve been a faithful little monkey, catering to Oberon’s every desire, in all the years you’ve known him.”
“That’s different,” I said.