There was a problem with this plan: The person who petrified the beast must have non-magical blood. Otherwise, the beast would defend itself by sucking all of the magic out of its attacker in an instant, killing the person and preventing the beast’s petrification. In the whole of the Other Place, only Hunter and I had non-magical blood, so the task had to fall to one of us. I was ready to agree to this task, when the sage revealed one thing more: The person who wields the spell would petrify not only the beast but also himself. He would give his life for the Other Place.
Still, I was willing. I loved the Other Place with all my heart and would do anything to save it. And yet I came to realize I did not have the strength to wield the spell. The bristle that had been lodged in my arm so long had slowly poisoned me so that I had almost died journeying to the Wasted Wood and back.
I could not save the land that Hunter and I had doomed.
Upon realizing this, Hunter fled the palace, never to be seen again. For him, the Other Place was only ever a dreamland, and he was not willing to give his life for it.
I determined to find some other non-magical person to complete the task. But by this time I couldn’t remember how I had first come to the land, or that I had once lived in a non-magical world. The sage revealed to me that there were other non-magical people in existence somewhere, people I had once known but had lost, though he didn’t know where I could find them. I set off to search, with the fate of the Other Place growing ever more precarious. I wandered into your world.
Now I must see my task completed. Here, where the earth has opened, someone must cast the spell to petrify the beast and save the Other Place. Whoever is willing must be ready to give her life. If no one is willing, it will mean death to that magical land, and to the queen I love.
The Third Day
DYLAN & QUINN
Quinn made up her mind. She knew what her choice would be. She was surprised to feel disappointment.
Dylan too was surprised at how his heart sank when he saw Quinn coming back from her camp. The crevice where the earth had opened revealing a swath of rock either black or deepest red was too terrible for him to look at straight on. In the corner of his vision, Dylan saw the molecules of the rock shifting and sliding into tangled knots. The juncture of two universes. He felt his own body weaken at the sight of it so that he could hardly keep on his feet.
Quinn took the shining scepter from Dylan while he explained how to use it. He pressed himself against the mossy far wall of the crevice and gave her instructions for how to perform the spell that would petrify the Bristle Beast. The beast’s flesh showed through the wall of the crevice, a wound open to the air. Quinn wondered why Dylan wouldn’t look at it, why he squirmed now like an agitated animal.
“Will you perform the spell?” Dylan asked, breathless and wincing.
Quinn lifted the scepter, admired its smooth silvery handle, the clear bulb of an eye at its tip. “You aren’t who you say you are, Dylan.”
Quinn stood before him, brandishing the device he’d given her like a club, brandishing her vorpal too. Here, near the juncture of the two universes, his vorpal was weaker than it had ever been, distracted by the ever-shifting molecules Quinn didn’t seem to see. He felt her vorpal pressing at him, testing him.
Could it be that his story hadn’t worked after all?
But then, why was she still here?
Quinn hated to admit it: Dylan’s story was a lie.
No one had listened more closely to the elders’ stories about the Other Place than Quinn had. She knew them all—up to the point where Dylan and Hunter had found the Bristle Beast and had agreed to return it to the Warped Wood.
She turned to find that Dylan had stopped his tortured squirming and was watching her, a faint line creasing his brow.
“You made three mistakes in your story,” Quinn said. Dylan’s expression was all curiosity—not what Quinn had expected. Her conviction wavered for a moment.
“First,” she said, “the jewels on the silver scepter—you talked about ‘a rainbow array.’ But everyone knows the silver scepter’s power comes from a band of sapphires from the crystal waters of a fairy cove.
“Second, you called the lair of trolls and fell beasts the Wasted Wood. But I’ve always heard the place of trolls called the Warped Wood.
“Third, the way you described the Bristle Beast—the creature you hate so much that its image must be seared into your mind. You said its eyes were white. But the stories say they’re as black as its body, that its one weak point is almost impossible to find.”
She held the scepter out in front of her as if it might offer some protection against whatever reaction Dylan might decide to have. He went on gaping at her.
He was going soft at the edges like something dissolving in water.
Dylan felt he might collapse at any moment. From relief or fear or exhaustion.
She hadn’t believed his story. Everyone believed his story.
She lowered the scepter, dropped her stony expression. “I wanted you to be the real Dylan,” she said. “I wanted this to be my Special Work.” She nodded at the terrible face of the rock. “Now my only work will be to walk away. And cut Artak’s meat and wash his pots and hope birthing his babies doesn’t kill me.”