A Spindle Splintered (Fractured Fables #1)(24)

The five of us rush into the hallway and I grab the princess’s sleeve. “Primrose! We need to get back to the tower. Can you lead us there?”

“I-I don’t know. I’m not asleep, so I don’t know if the curse—”

“You were always fighting it before, right? So it could only take hold of you when you were sleeping. Now I need you to stop fighting.”

Primrose looks like she’s considering telling me that’s not how it works, that it’s impossible, but she pauses. Her eyes flick around to the four interdimensional sleeping beauties gathered around her, armed with swords and spears and space-blasters, and I watch her recalculate her definition of what is and isn’t possible.

She closes her eyes. Charm gives her hand a small, encouraging squeeze.

I didn’t realize how tense she was, how constantly on guard, until I watch her let it all go. Her shoulders fall. Her arms loosen at her sides. When she opens her eyes, they’re the deep, haunted green of undersea caves.

She looks at each of us in turn, dreamy, almost drunk. “Follow me.”





9


WE FOLLOW HER. Up staircases and down corridors, running through deep pools of shadow and beams of dust-specked sunlight, cries of alarm sounding behind us.

I run with the others at first. But something’s gone tight and funny in my chest, as if my organs are held in a pair of clumsy fists. My lungs are sacks of wet sand and my pulse is a clock tick-tocking in my ears. Not now, I plead with it. Please, give me a little more time.

I would laugh at myself if I had the breath to spare. It’s what I’ve always wanted, what I’ll never get.

My legs weaken, starved of blood and breath. The other beauties stream past me and I wheeze behind them, too breathless to call for help, even to swear. The gap between us widens. They round a corner ahead and I’m deciding whether to limp faster or rest for a moment against this friendly-looking wall when I hear Charm’s voice say, “Everybody hold the fuck up. Where’s Zin?”

I lean against the wall, letting the chill of the stones seep through my T-shirt. A vast pair of boots appears in my vision. “Oh, hi Brunhilda. If that’s your … actual…” I have to pause mid-sentence to gulp air. I’m not a medical professional, but that seems like a not-great sign. “… name.”

“It is Brünhilt.” A hand settles on my shoulder, wide and warm. “May I?” It’s the first time I’ve heard her speak. Her voice is surprisingly high, like a hawk calling in the distance.

I’m pretty sure I nod because the next thing I feel is a pair of arms gathering me up and armor grating against my cheek. My body jars with every step but the pain is harmless, almost pleasant, compared to the ache in my chest. Bruises fade, after all.

Charm’s worried face swims above me. “Zin?”

“It’s fine,” I assure her, but my breath whistles weirdly in my throat. She doesn’t look comforted.

Clanging sounds echo up the corridor, booted feet and armored legs moving closer. “Let’s just go, okay?” I don’t hear Charm’s answer, but Brünhilt starts moving again. I try to look up once or twice to see how close the guards are and whether we’re going fast enough, but everything jounces and rattles and hurts so I give up, lolling against Brünhilt instead. There’s a soupy, suffocating lethargy spreading from my extremities, inching up my limbs, tugging me toward sleep.

I tell myself a story to stay awake. Once upon a time there was a princess cursed to sleep for a hundred years.

I open my eyes and catch the blurred gleam of Primrose’s hair as she leads us up the winding tower steps, her spine stiff and her crown high, a princess refusing to go gently into her own good night.

Once upon a time she asked for help.

And I answered her. All of us did. We followed the lonely threads of our stories across the vast nothing of the universe and found our way here, to this tower, to save at least one princess from her curse. I’ve always resented people for trying to save me, but maybe this is how it works, maybe we save one another.

I become aware that Brünhilt has stopped climbing just before Charm says, tentatively, “Zin?” I try to respond but succeed only in making a sound like a plunger in a clogged sink. “Was there supposed to be something up here? Like, say, a spinning wheel?” Charm’s voice is strung tight.

I struggle out of Brünhilt’s arms and stand on fizzing, trembling legs. Her hand hovers at my back, ready to catch me, and I don’t trust myself enough to pull away. I blink around the tower room. There’s nothing but smooth flagstones and five sleeping beauties, their expressions reflecting five variations of “Now what, bitch?”

There’s no spinning wheel. Even the busted remains of the one Harold smashed are gone, neatly swept away by some fastidious guard. Shouldn’t it have magically reconstituted itself in our absence? My plan was to prick my finger on something and fall asleep and hope that was enough to send us back into the whirling multiverse—but what the hell am I going to do now?

Distantly, I hear the thudding of boots on the winding tower steps. We don’t have long, and if we’re captured there won’t be any secret pacts or miraculous escapes. I picture the ’90s heroine forced into skirts and deprived of her sword; Brünhilt in chains; the space princess peeled out of her chrome and silver armor, stuck forever on a single planet rather than sailing among the stars. Primrose, trapped in her silk sheets; Charm, unable to save her.