There was no time for talking as we raced through the shadows of the halls, but Iolanta didn’t seem to care. Or maybe she knew better.
“There are things you must know,” she continued. “Meena and the Entente coexisted peacefully because she wasn’t interested in seeing the Future. She trusted us to keep the balance of Ever After. But her daughter . . . Magrit is a different story. Hecate foretold her Future, which ends in death, as it does for all of us. And that is why the Entente are banished. As for me, I never saw good in any version of Magrit’s Presents. She never chooses good.”
Then she leaned into South’s ear and whispered something that made him stop in his tracks.
I shuddered and came to a halt too. I already knew that Queen Magrit was pure evil. Killing her was the right thing—not just for the Entente but for the other Queendoms as well. And the farther South led us to the exit, the further I was from fulfilling my mission.
South looked at me, clearly shaken by whatever Iolanta had told him. But all he said was, “Farrow, we have to keep moving.”
Iolanta grabbed my hand. “Anger can take you where you need to go until it holds you back. I hope when it’s time, you can let it go.” She looked at me, reading me like she had all those years ago.
“I can’t leave until I kill the Queen,” I said haltingly.
“I told you once: Do not lift the knife or the wand unless you are prepared to do what you must with it. Otherwise, it can be used against you,” Iolanta mused, still staring at me.
I thought back to when she first gave me that advice. I had let my emotions control me—and my magic. But that was then.
“It is time to choose between your family and your revenge. The Entente live. If you want to find them, you have to go right this second. If you stay, you can have your revenge, but you will lose your chance to find them.”
“But can’t I do both?” I pleaded, knowing her answer.
“You have to choose,” she repeated.
I took a deep breath and looked at the family I never thought I would see again.
“We just got you back, Iolanta. We’re not going to lose you now. I choose you. I choose the Entente. I choose us,” I said forcefully.
Out of nowhere I remembered the words that Tork had written for Lavendra: I would forgo today if we could have forever. He had written those words about love, not revenge, but they still applied.
“Better to fight for what we have, not what we’ve lost,” Iolanta said quietly.
South cleared his throat. “Now can we get out of here?”
“Yes,” she commanded. “I know the Present. I know every step of every soldier in the palace at this moment. I can feel their breath. I know their thoughts. They know that there are Entente in the palace.” She pointed a crooked finger and said, “That way.”
With Iolanta’s guidance, we found the kitchen and wound through the countertops, stoves, and prep stations until we reached a locked door covered in Black Glass.
“It’s an entrance to the Fallen’s wing. She kept us apart from the rest.”
South dropped Iolanta to her feet. She waved her hand over the lock, and the door swung open.
It took me a minute to understand as we rushed through and the door closed behind us. The Queen had made a mini prison between the kitchen and the entrance to the larger dungeon. The corridor opened to ten cells, each with Black Glass doors.
“The guards are here. You and Farrow need to run. I will hold them off,” Iolanta said.
“I won’t leave you. I just found you,” South said desperately.
She put up both hands. “Go,” she said.
“I won’t leave you,” South repeated.
But before Iolanta could respond, the door we were headed toward swung open and there were guards behind it. We turned back, but it was too late—the other door we had come from creaked behind us. More guards.
We were trapped on all sides.
“What an incredibly sweet picture,” Queen Magrit said, standing in the doorway with a victorious smile.
She was wearing a nightdress and slippers, not her usual armor of a corset and heels. Her hair was down, and her face was bare. She looked older than she had this afternoon. I could see every line that the years had marked upon her.
“A Couterie, a witch, and a Fallen . . . This is quite the alliance. I must say, I am surprised. But you’ve made a grave mistake breaking Iolanta out. She’s hardly a witch at all anymore. Are you, pet?”
Iolanta’s eyes bore into her captor’s. She’d been kept in a cage, surrounded with Presents, and yet she had survived.
“Iolanta couldn’t perform magic to save her life. Or yours,” Magrit taunted.
“You never knew the difference between a broken thing and a patient one,” Iolanta said. “My sister saw it before the rest of us. She was right about you. Your hubris will be your undoing. You’ve completely underestimated us.”
As she spoke, I felt a wave of pride for Iolanta and for the Entente.
The Queen laughed as Iolanta raised her hand.
“Kill them,” ordered the Queen to the soldiers.
The guards in the back let loose a wave of arrows, and we ducked. I checked Iolanta and South for arrows, but we were all clear. Iolanta closed her eyes and recited a spell under her breath. With a wave of her arm she let loose an arc of Pale Fire. But the Queen’s soldiers were ready with their shields.
Iolanta raised her arm again and whispered.
Open the Black Doors,
And the Fallen will be free forever more . . .
As she spoke, loud noises echoed through the halls: all the Black Glass doors in the palace must have opened. Iolanta had unlocked the cages in the dungeon. The Fallen had been freed.
“What have you done?” the Queen cried as a man with a face comprised half of beetles and half flesh lumbered into the corridor joined by a half-scorpion creature.
A soldier raised his sword. But the beetles left the man’s face and began to devour the soldier.
The Queen ordered another soldier to advance, only to watch him meet the same gory fate.
More and more of the Fallen attacked the Queen’s army, who sent arrows into the crowd. Scorpions and beetles began climbing and attacking the soldiers’ flesh.
“Now we run,” South said, looking at the clear path that the monsters had created for us.
South led us back through the palace, taking every shortcut he knew from his years there. Iolanta helped guide him, stopping him with a wave of her hand when she sensed soldiers around the corner. There were soldiers everywhere. And arrows. We kept moving. More whizzed by us with every step we took.
Suddenly Iolanta sank to the floor.
South leaned over her, but she waved him off.
Then I saw the blood. The right side of her dress had a blooming dark-red stain, and when I peered closer, I saw that there was an arrow sticking out of it.
“I can pull it out. You can heal it with your magic,” I said.
“The Entente do not step between life and death,” Iolanta said.
“That’s not true,” I argued, thinking of Hecate. She’d defied death for me.
“Ashes, ashes, we all fall down,” she whispered to me. She reached for the pouch beneath my dress, where Hecate’s ashes rustled in response.
“Hecate couldn’t leave you, not even in death,” she whispered. “I’m afraid it’s too late for me, children.” She looked at South. “But not for you. It’s yours now, child. Guard it well.”
I followed her gaze to South.
“No, Iolanta. Stay with me,” he pleaded.
The ashes exploded from the pouch on their own. Hecate’s silhouette leaned over Iolanta, her hand reaching for Iolanta’s.
Her eyes fluttered. She looked up at Hecate and smiled.
“Hello, Sister,” Iolanta said.
I reached for them at the same time as South did, trying to help Iolanta back up. But the second our hands met, we were all somewhere else.