Wanted (Spelled #2)
Betsy Schow
Dedicated to my beta-reading wizard, Jess. And to the wicked and pun-tastic adventures of PB&J. This book wouldn’t exist without you guys.
“Rule #52: No matter how difficult the obstacles or all-powerful the evil villain may appear, one can rest assured that the hero of the story never dies. The sidekicks though…they should be worried.”
—Definitive Fairy-Tale Survival Guide, Volume 2: Villains
1
Happily Never After
“And they all lived happily ever after,” I muttered in falsetto. “Yeah, not so much.”
I stared at the wanted poster on an ironwood tree in the Sherwood Forest that had my name, Rexi Hood, emblazoned across the bottom.
Being an outlaw, I could deal with—after all, it was sort of a family tradition. No, I took issue with the fact that the illustration above my name featured my red-caped, directionally challenged cousin with her nauseatingly cute, dimpled smile and long, brown, braided hair, rather than my perma-smirk and short, blond spikes.
“I can’t believe those troll turds at Fox and the Hound News,” I grumbled.
Even worse were the charges listed on the bulletin: Accomplice to Princess Dorthea of Emerald’s wishing crimes. Grand treason against the land of Story.
“Accomplice,” I ranted, pacing back and forth in front of the poster, using the bow I’d borrowed from Nottingham Pawn to swat at the tall weeds. “They make it sound like I’m her sidekick! I will go on record to anyone who will listen and state that I absolutely, definitely, no way, no how had a blasted thing to do with that. Dorthea pixed off the Ever After crowd by making a wish on a cursed star. She turned all the rules of fairy tales upside down and scorched everyone’s happy endings. I claim zero responsibility for it.”
“No, you can merely claim responsibility for enabling the release of Blanc, the wickedest of witches, who will white-out ALL endings. Both happy and otherwise,” a voice whispered, dark and cold as a night in the forest during the new moon. “Well done.”
“Shut it, grim reaper,” I hissed down at my shadow, or rather the disembodied voice that taunted me from it. “Nobody asked you.” Princesses and heroines got fairy godmothers or a guardian angel. I got the equivalent of a guardian demon.
Long story. Short version: a potent mix of temporary insanity and guilt made me jump in front of a stormbolt meant for Dorthea. I died in the process. Well, I sorta died, since she used her powers to bring me back to life. Only something followed me back from the underworld. So as usual, my fairy tale sucks. The end.
Except, not really the end I guess, since Chimera Mountain erupted with Dorthea, Kato, Verte, Hydra, and me still in it. The rest of Story’s happy endings were still a bit mucked up because of the wish fallout, so now my friends and I were all outlaws, hiding out in Sherwood Forest. Oh, and the equivalent of the devil’s wicked stepmother had been free for about a week.
Minor details.
“Blanc is many things. Never a minor detail,” my shadow sniped.
“That evil water hag can have a slumber party with the Little Mermaid for all I care. As long as she stays away from me.”
“That’s my little hero.”
“Go to spell, shadow man.” In a fit of frustration I nocked an arrow, aiming straight for the cutesy dimple on the poster. “This rots!”
Thwack. My arrow landed dead center—in the tree next to the one I was shooting at.
“Your aim appears to be what’s rotten.”
“For hex’s sake, Morte. Does the King of the Underworld seriously have nothing better to do than—”
The rest of what I was going to say got lost as green specks clouded the edges of my vision. The pendant I wore cracked, emerald streaks flaring throughout the red-orange fire opal.
Morte wasn’t the only souvenir from my unplanned vacation to the underworld. When Dorthea brought me back, she used the opal to pour her life magic into me, becoming my tether to the living world. That tether was really more like a chain that now weighs heavily around my neck. It forged a bond that made it so I can sense her, feel her in my head.
All the time.
I’d have loved to sever our connection and smash the hexed gemstone into a giant pile of glitter, except the opal pendant was the only thing keeping me alive. Once again, minor details.
The bond and the opal also made me Dorthea’s backup power source. And right now, for some reason, she was tapping into that. Her presence in the back of my mind, which usually felt like a wispy breeze, turned into a raging cyclone. As the crack in the pendant widened, the air was ripped from my lungs, bringing me to my knees.
Why did Dorthea need so much power? The bright-orange swirls from the pendant dimmed along with more of my sight. My vision was completely awash in that awful, inescapable, green light.
Energy leeched out of me. All I wanted to do was lay down and sleep.
“Coming back to see me again so soon?”
Screw that. “I’m not dying today.” I forced myself to my feet with a grunt.
I needed to have a few words with the spoiled wench who kept borrowing my life force as if I were a pair of overpriced shoes.
Unlike Hansel and Gretel, I didn’t need any moldy bread crumbs to find my way home. My body seemed to guide itself, like a puppet being pulled by a glittering emerald thread back to its master. With each step, my strength returned and my sight shifted back to normal.
Before long, a thick, twisted wall of ironwood trees stopped my progress. Their branches rustled and bent, while the knots in the center tree’s trunk squeezed smaller, as if squinting to get a better view of the intruder. The trees of the forest still retained a piece of the wild magic that had thrown the world of Story into chaos—yet another lasting memento of Dorthea’s wish-pocalypse.
“Move,” I commanded in a low and growly voice on par with Prince Kato’s or one of the overgrown chimera beasts he ruled. Either the tone worked or the trees could see the threat of murder in my eyes.
Pulling up their roots, they shifted to the side, creating an arched path, so I could enter the clearing. A shack towering atop troll-size chicken legs stood in the center of our sanctuary. It belonged to Hydra, the head-swapping witch—and the shack matched the Baba Yaga head she was currently wearing.
As a headhunter, she had quite the collection. It’s not the most savory of hobbies, but I filched random things people left behind, so who was I to judge?
Standing at the base of the chicken legs, I looked up and yelled, “Dorthea, get your bejeweled butt down here!”
Silence.
“You know you can’t hide. Not from me.” I could feel her up there.
Still nothing.