A Spindle Splintered (Fractured Fables #1)(10)

A few hours ago it had seemed like a perfectly fine idea to go have a little adventure, face down a fairy, rescue a princess (and maybe, somehow, myself), and zap back home like Bilbo strolling back into the Shire. But now—huddled in the cold dark with a cursed princess and a tightness in my chest that’s either terror or impending death—I’m feeling more like Frodo, whose story was full of danger. Who never did get to return home, or at least not for long.

I text Charm. going to face Maleficent and break curse, should be home in three days.

She texts back so fast I feel a hot stab of guilt, knowing she’s sleeping with her ringer on. how are you getting home??

portkey?

there’s no such thing as portkeys asshole. A brief pause. and i thought we agreed never to mention joanne or her works ever again

I consider asking her how she would explain interdimensional travel into overlapping fictional narratives, but Charm probably has at least three solid theories she would like to discuss. At length. With slides. So instead I lean over to take another picture of Primrose. Even on my mediocre camera, blurred and dim, she’s luminous. Her face glows white out of the gloom, a sleeping beauty by way of Rembrandt.

A slight pause before she replies: do not attempt to distract me with your hot imaginary friend. I repeat: there’s no such thing as portkeys

says who

says physics

hon, I respond patiently, I am currently on a quest to find and defeat a wicked fairy. pretty sure the laws of physics no longer apply

the laws of physics always apply, that’s why we call them laws

There’s a long gap while her texting bubble appears and disappears.

give her hell from me, babe

I can almost hear the rasp of Charm’s voice as she says it, the sudden sincerity that no one expects from a girl with a giant Golden Age Superman tattoo on her shoulder. There’s no reason to choke up over it, so I don’t. I send her another xoxo and power the phone off before the battery can dip below 20 percent.

After that I sit with my arms around my shins and my cheek on my knees, watching the dawn paint the princess in silver and shadow and wondering what it would feel like to sleep and keep sleeping. Better than dying, I guess, but Jesus—what a shitty story the two of us were given. I don’t know about the moral arc of the universe, but our arcs sure as hell don’t bend toward justice.



Unless we change them. Unless we grab our narratives by the ear and drag them kicking and screaming toward better endings. Maybe the universe doesn’t naturally bend toward justice either; maybe it’s only the weight of hands and hearts pulling it true, inch by stubborn inch.



* * *



“SO, WHY IS the moor forbidden?” I’m aiming for nonchalant, but my voice sounds tense in my ears. “Are there flying monkeys? Rodents of Unusual Size?”

“What?”

“Just checking.”

It’s the morning of the third day and we’ve abandoned the road, picking our way over scrubby hills and wind-scoured stone. The sun is grayish and reluctant here, as if it’s shining through greasy paper, and the trees are stunted and crabbed.

Primrose has pulled the horse to a stop before a pair of tall, jagged stones. They aren’t carved with strange symbols or glowing or anything, but there’s something deliberate about the angle of them, like they aren’t there by accident.

The princess makes her graceful dismount and touches her palm to the sharp edge of the stone. “It’s forbidden because my father wishes to protect his people, and the moor is dangerous if you don’t know the way.”

“Do we know the way?”

“Harold told me. In some detail.” The flatness of her tone suggests that Harold is one of those men whose conversations are more like long, boastful speeches. “I listened well.”

Without the slightest change of expression, without even drawing a breath, Primrose drags her palm hard across the edge. When she draws back the stone shines slick and dark with blood.

“Jesus, Primrose, what are you doing?”

She doesn’t answer, but merely lifts her hand to the sky, palm up. I watch her blood run down her wrist, red as roses, red as riding hoods. I was so sure I’d landed in one of those soft, G-rated fairy tales, stripped of medieval horrors; I can feel it shifting beneath my feet, twisting toward the kind of tale where prices are paid and blood is spilled.

A shape wings toward us across the moor, ragged and black. It lands on the standing stone in a rush of feathers, and for the first time in my life I fully appreciate the difference between a crow and a raven. This bird is huge and wild-looking, clearly built for midnights dreary rather than McDonald’s parking lots.

It dips forward and laps at Primrose’s palm with a thick tongue and this, I find, is a little much. “Okay, what the fuck?”

“We’ll leave Buttercup behind and continue on foot,” Primrose says evenly. “Walk close behind me, and do not stray to either side.” The raven launches back into the air, cutting a curving path through the smeary sky, and lands on a low branch a quarter mile ahead. Primrose follows it, stepping between the standing stones with her bloodied palm held tight to her chest. I follow them both, muttering about antibiotics and blood poisoning and tetanus, feeling the cold knock of the knife against my ribs, hoping to God all this nonsense is worth it.