“No,” Kato said firmly. “You’re here. You’re a Storymaker, so surely there must be something that can be done.”
Oz wiggled his mustache thoughtfully. “I doubt you’d wish my fate on her.” He reached into his pants’ pocket and pulled out a square. After dusting it off, he blew into one corner until the square was thick and rectangular. “There.” With a final tap, he was holding The Book of Making that we had taken back from Griz.
“Okay, we have all almost died—”
“Speak for yourself,” I interrupted.
Kato continued. “All right, some of us have died for that book. What is it?”
“A work in progress,” Oz answered simply.
“Yeah, that makes total sense,” I said, sitting down and fiddling with my pen.
Oz brightened and nodded to me. “Oh good. I was worried. Most people don’t understand the pen being mightier than the sword theology.”
He flipped open the book. The illustrations moved, like watching one of the mirror pads they had at the Emerald Palace, not that I ever got to mess with them in the kitchens. But I’d seen them. He flipped through the pages. Blanc appeared on the early pages. Then the chimera prison.
Verte craned to get a peek. “Oooh, I looked good.” She pointed at a girl with brown hair and a crown who was standing off against Blanc.
Kato and I gave each other a look that said more than words ever could. If we didn’t want to be turned into toads, silence was the best course.
Oz skipped farther ahead.
“Hey, wait. What’s in those chapters?” I asked.
Oz narrowed his eyes and peered down his nose. “Spoilers.” He flipped forward to a page that showed Queen Em and King Henry. They were arguing in a white hallway. But they wore strange clothes and were without their crowns. “Now this is the world of the Storymakers. This is where we need to—”
There were dual growls overruling the Storymaker, one from the freshly awakened former Beast King, Mic, and the current Beast King, Kato.
Oz grumbled. “What is it with you chimeras and Emerald women?”
“The princess is currently the most powerful being in Story,” Mic said.
Kato snorted, stealing my response. “She’s not a being. She’s Dot.”
I finished his thought. “And how could you possibly say that with a straight face when we are in the room with a Storymaker? And whatever Hydra is. Plus, there’s the Emerald Sorceress, Dorthea’s great-great-great-great-great—”
“We get the point,” Verte muttered.
“—great-great-granny. Surely one of you has more oomph than a shoe-obsessed girl,” I finished.
The room was silent.
“We’s doobed.” Hydra buried her face.
“Surely she’s not stronger than Blanc?” I questioned.
Mic sniffed. “While the White Empress still has the binds we placed on her, my princess, Dorthea, is at least doubly powerful.”
“Which makes her doubly as dangerous too,” Oz pointed out. “Right now, she is out of balance. Very few have the gift of a Storymaker, to both give and take life. And Dorthea can actually create it. Blanc could never do that. The water sorceress is adept at taking life and has somehow figured out she can return life to a select few.”
I remembered the Compendium of Storybook Characters, the names being whited out. “That’s where the influx of villains and legends came from.”
“She’s building an army,” Mic said. “After I fled the mountain, I knew she would come for Excalibur and use Camelot and the grail to continue the war. That’s why I stole the sword and came here first. But as soon as I entered the castle, the sword vanished.”
“And so you cowered here like the yellow-bellied toad you always were, hiding while Blanc brought back the worst of the worst.” Verte looked like she was going to spit again.
“Your attitude has grown as ugly as your face, Verte,” Mic sneered. “I could have changed into any number of faces and stayed out of the entire affair, but no. I stayed in the center of it all and warned you, sent for you, and didn’t sell you out in your little hideout.”
Oz scratched his nose. “He has a point.”
Verte harrumphed and shut up. As it had been ever since Blanc went free, the difference between good and evil, villain and hero, was clear as obsidian.
“What about the sword?” I asked. “We know where it is now. Could Excalibur stop the Emerald curse?”
Oz flipped through the book, hiding the pages. Kato perked up for a moment, then looked darker than ever as Hydra shook her head.
“Nod widoud killing her,” Hydra answered.
My insides turned colder than if Kato had frozen me on the spot. Both Dad and the Lady of the Lake had left out that part. So this was the truth of the whole thing. From the moment Griz had sealed my life into the opal, if I wanted to live, Dorthea had to die.
“My princess needs the grail.” Mic finally stood on all four paws. His golden horns brushed the ceiling.
Kato hit the table with his fist, cracking it down the center. “There has to be another answer. Dorthea’s only chance at life cannot be a mythical artifact that no one’s ever seen or been able to find.”
“I’ve seen it.” Mic breathed in deeply. As he inhaled, his body shrank, and his horns, hair, tail, and wings receded. Suddenly, he looked like Merlin again. “And the reason why no one can find the grail is because it was locked away while its owner was asleep.”
Oz’s bushy eyebrows rose like hairy caterpillars. “Aha. That’s how she’s been bringing people back into the story. Blanc is using the grail. Well, that solves that mystery.”
The sparkly green dust started to rise around him. Kato grabbed Oz by the coat before he could change into something else.
“No. You aren’t leaving this time.” He dragged Oz over to Dorthea. “You are going to stay put and keep her safe while we go get the grail.” He turned to Mic. “Tell me where it is.”
“And let you have the glory of saving my love?” He threw his head back and laughed. “Not likely. I will go and retrieve it.”
The two chimeras growled in their human forms and circled the table. Green flames licked my hands as I slammed them into the triangle table again. “Knock it off. You are both going to go play fetch, and I am going to keep you from peeing on each other to prove who loves Dorky more.”
Both men looked down and grumbled but didn’t object.
Verte pointed her red, razor nails my way. “You’ve changed.” Her belt clouded white and she nodded. “Good. You’re nearly ready.”
“For what? You make it sound like I’m a muffin in the oven.”
Verte winked. “Huh? What was that? I’m getting senile, since I’m a great-great-great-great—”
Knowing she’d only tell me when she was good and ready, I huffed and stormed out, waving behind me as I did. Mic and Kato followed. We made it partway down the hall before Mordred stepped out of the shadows.
“Can’t play right now,” I said, shooing him off.
“I truly am sorry, but this might hurt thee worse than me.” He grabbed my wrist and whipped me around, holding a sword at my throat. “Take me to the grail.”
“Pro tip: Remember, gatekeepers, it’s not a real water hazard if it’s not filled with creatures that can kill you.”
—Field and Moat magazine