“What are you doing?” Kato asked.
“Nothing.” I rubbed my eyes and shoved my hands in my coat. He couldn’t know Blanc made me her champion. Please don’t let him ever know.
“Lesson’s over,” Dorthea said and slammed the book closed. She whipped out her grimmoire. As she was without a pen, she lit her finger and burned her words into the pages. “This. Ends. Now.”
With a flurry, pieces of the chair and books whipped around, reforming into a red umbrella. She pointed her finger at the library chimney, and green flames erupted there. After adding a few more notes to her pages, she popped open her umbrella and flew up the flue. As she disappeared, the chimney flames fanned out, consuming the room. The amethyst eyepod cracked and went purple again.
Kato hit it repeatedly, cursing the thing to come back online.
“She’s going to die,” Mic said and stumbled into a chair. “We’re all going to die.”
“I thought you said she was more powerful than Blanc,” Kato snapped, throwing the broken ball at Mic.
“Fire cannot win under the water. Magical umbrella or not.”
“And that witch has Neptune’s trident,” I added. “She didn’t go after Atlantis just to wipe it out. She went to free her binds.”
Mic quirked an eyebrow at me but didn’t question it. He’d felt the mark when he’d grabbed my wrist at Gwen’s the first time. He knew.
All at once, a blinding pain seared my mind.
Kato rushed to my side, helping me to the ground before I toppled. “What’s wrong?”
I couldn’t answer, but I didn’t need to since Mic seemed to understand. “Our warrior princess is traveling to Atlantis using this girl’s life force as a force field. It won’t be enough though. The empress will have closed the whirlpools, locking down the city.”
“So Rexi and Dorthea…”
“Yes, they’ll both be dead before Dorthea ever gets to Blanc.”
“Love is the strongest of any power, yet it is like a double-edged sword. Use it as a weapon and keep it at arm’s length at all times.”
—Seven Habits of Highly Evil People
31
Other True Love’s Kiss
Kato roared his human throat hoarse. When he finished, he shoved his finger in his mouth and ripped the nail off his ring finger.
He cradled my head in his hands, and I could feel myself getting stronger.
“Please, Rexi. I’m going to go bring her back. Hang on for both of you until I do.”
“Didn’t you hear me, mutt?” Mic sneered. “There’s not enough time. And there’s no way we can get past those hexed night terrors and make it to the water.”
“If you loved Dot like you say, you’d try,” Kato yelled back.
They argued, helping no one. Not Dorthea. Not the others in the burning library. Mic grew angry and shuddered, changing to his true form.
“How dare you challenge your progenitor?”
That was it. I knew what to do. “Kato, you have to fly,” I said.
He looked at me, crestfallen. “If I use the last nail for power, I’ll die. And I can’t change at will like this one can.”
“Ah yes, your ability to change is tied to that magic-kiss nonsense.” Mic scrunched up his muzzle in condescension. “But Rexi’s right. Flying, we might make it. But we have to go now. Hurry and kiss her already.”
“For being magical, you are a narcissistic nimrod. It has to be true love’s kiss,” Kato argued, his chest rising and falling. “Gwen kissed me and nothing happened.”
Mic looked at me. Really, more like looked into me.
“Oh, be a beast already, and do it.” Mic swiped his tail across the floor, knocking Kato off his feet, then spun him around so he rammed into me.
Kato opened his mouth to say something, but I didn’t let him. I pulled him close before I chickened out.
I’d already lived this moment once, through Dorthea’s memory. That memory couldn’t compete with the real thing. It didn’t matter where Dorthea ended and I began; in that moment, Kato was kissing me. His hand cupped my chin. His lips pushed against mine. And then it was over. I didn’t want to open my eyes. I didn’t want my once upon a time proved to be an illusion.
“Oh, Rexi,” Kato said. His voice was gruff, and I knew our kiss had worked. “Look at me,” he commanded.
I obeyed, letting his eyes search mine for some explanation, some loophole to the rule. When he found his answer, saw the truth, he bowed his furry head against mine. “I’m sorry.”
I hadn’t expected a different reaction, but my heart shattered anyway. I forced the corner of my wavering lips to turn up.
“S’okay. Go,” I croaked out.
Kato nodded and bounded up, breaking through the roof and flying off to save his princess.
Mic padded over to me, a mix of pity and disgust telegraphed across his muzzle. “I don’t understand you. I protected you so you could tear him away from her. When you were drained, I saw that pearl in your pocket. Why didn’t you use it? You’d have to be blind as a mouse not to see there is chemistry between you two.”
“If I won his love that way, with the pearl, I wouldn’t deserve it.”
Mic shook his head. “You are either far too wise or too foolish to live.” He crouched on his haunches and then sprang up into the sky after Kato.
The extra life magic Kato pushed into me was helping, but Dorthea was draining it faster than it could replenish.
“Seriously,” I muttered to myself. “She spent how long shrieking at the hint of a sprinkle of rain and now she goes and jumps in a lake?”
Groaning, I rolled over and spotted the sword. “I may not be able to fly, but I bet those glitter-poxed ponies will think twice before tangling with Excalibur.”
“Pssst,” a voice called from the window. “Are they gone?”
“Good timing,” I said as Robin Hood jimmied open the lock and slipped inside. “You do realize the whole roof is open.”
He shrugged, shooting me a grin. “Where’s the challenge in that?” Looking down at the treasure I held, he whistled long and low. “Is that what I think it is?”
“In the steel.”
I gasped as another wave of power drained out of me. Dad picked up the sword as if it were made of delicate glass.
“Wait, whatever you were planning on doing, you can’t. The Lady of the Lake is Blanc. And she’s in Atlantis stealing the trident. And Verte said that whoever uses the sword to break the curse and bond will kill Dorthea. Which is exactly what Blanc wants, so we have to make sure that doesn’t happen.” I was gasping by the end.
“I made a promise.” He nudged my boots. “The situation has changed, it seems, but I am a man of my oaths. And I swore to get these off you.”
The power drain was coming faster, making it hard to move. I couldn’t catch my breath. I tried to keep Dad from taking off my boots, but in the end, he slid them off with ease. Inky blackness spilled out, puddling and spreading beneath me.
“Ahh. Thank you. It was getting cramped in there.”
“As a gesture of goodwill, I offer you a trade,” Robin said.
“I’m listening,” said Morte.