RAVEN’S FINGERTIPS WERE BLISTERED, HER shoulder ached, and her throat was as dry as Milton Grimm’s attempts at jokes. After a long night of spell practice, all she wanted was to lie down on her bed, pull the comforter over her head, and play Sleeping Beauty.
But… Maddie.
“No, you’re doing it wrong!” said Raven’s mother. “I told you, hold it straight.”
“I am holding it straight,” said Raven. “It’d be easier to get the arrow through the eye socket if the dragon skull was full-sized.”
“Be practical. The full-size skull won’t fit in the Treasury. You need to practice with it this size.”
Raven pulled back Cupid’s bowstring. She notched the giant’s-hair-arrow, tipped with the pea, and aimed for the empty eye socket in the dragon’s skull for the hundredth time. She wobbled. Goblin guts, but was she ever tired. She released the arrow. It missed, bouncing off the skull’s forehead.
“If you would just do exactly what I tell you to do, then everything would be better.”
“Everything?” Raven lowered the bow. “Like the time you told me to push over that little village girl who was trying to balance on the fountain’s edge?”
The queen stuck out her bottom lip, pouting. “A harmless prank. Imagine how funny it would have been when she popped out of the water, drenched and confused!”
“Or the time you sent me to a picnic at the Charming family’s palace with a potion you wanted me to pour down their well? Drinking it would have turned them all into cockroaches.”
“Again—funny. Grow a sense of humor, Raven. Besides, the potion wasn’t even permanent! They would have been back to their normal, goody-goody selves in a year or two. Or three. Probably.”
“I didn’t want to turn anyone into cockroaches!”
The queen shrugged. “A sense of humor is individual, I suppose. But the past is no excuse for why you’re failing now.”
The bow felt as heavy as a house. Raven’s arms lowered. “This has been a hard day, Mother. And night. The tasks, no sleep, and, worst of all, on Maddie’s last day in Ever After I had to ignore her.”
“What? You’ve been upset about that? Ha! You could have talked to Maddie. I made up the silence part. I just wanted you to be focused. Besides, Wonderlandians are too mad to be trusted. You should find yourself more powerful friends.”
“You mean… I was mean to her… for… for nothing?” Raven dropped the bow, her fists clenched and sparking with magical energy. “You’re evil!”
“Why, yes, I am!” said the Evil Queen brightly. “Thank you for noticing. Oh my badness, but you do look simply gorgeous when you’re angry. Brightens the eyes and the cheeks! My fairest girl, I’m so proud.”
Raven sat on the floor, resting her forehead on her knees. “I don’t care about being fairest. I just… I don’t know…”
“You’ve been away from me too long.” The queen breathed on her side of the glass and then rubbed it clean with the sleeve of her scarlet velvet gown. “You’ve forgotten how wickedly wonderful it is to be evil. Stop wasting your life thinking about poor widdle Maddie or poor widdle anyone and just do what you want! I didn’t raise you to be good and weak, I raised you to be powerful and happy.”
“I am happy.” Raven kept her head down, embarrassed, as she said quietly, “Happier here than I ever was with you.”
Her mother didn’t hear. “Don’t let the inconsequential fairytales stand in your way! You do what makes you happy, no matter what.”
Raven sat upright. “What if what makes you happy hurts other people?”
The queen shrugged. “You think too much, Raven. Look at the natural world—do we cry and whine when a wolf kills a deer? When an eagle takes a hare? Some animals are predators, and they do as they were born to do. You were born to be a predator. You were born to rule.”
“I don’t want to rule,” Raven said. “But… they want me to. The Rebels. They look to me.”
“Of course they do.” The queen leaned in till her earnest eyes were large in the mirror. “Lead them wherever you want to go, and you’ll always have a devoted army at your back.”
“I don’t know how to do it, Mom,” she said. “I’m not like you. I just want…” Raven shrugged.
“Come here, darling,” said the queen.
Raven scooted closer to the mirror. Her mother smiled, and Raven wanted nothing more than to be a little girl again, sit on her mother’s lap, lean her head against her mother’s shoulder, and let her stroke her hair. She lifted her hand but stopped just shy of touching the mirror.
“You are special, Raven,” said the queen. “You are more important than most. You are my daughter. And I love you.”
Part of Raven wanted to take her mother’s words like a potion and drink them down, no matter what that potion might do inside her—make her strong, turn her invisible, change her into a cockroach.
“I always wanted you to be proud of me.”
“I am proud of you, Raven. Why, look at you! Rebelling against the great Milton Grimm. Ha! You showed him. He wanted you to be evil, and so you are, but what a shock that you don’t play by his rules.”
“But I’m not evil.”
“Of course you are! We both rebelled against the system because wonderful, freeing evil courses through our veins.”
“No, that doesn’t sound right,” Raven said. Her mother was so beautiful, her voice as rich as hot chocolate, dark and warm in a mug. The enticing bittersweetness of it made it hard for Raven to think.
“Goodness is weakness. Weak and boring as peas porridge in the pot nine days old. Some actually like it cold, you know. Imagine. Now let’s get back to work. Practice the incantation again. Remember, you need to speak everyone’s name who was in the room, the day and time of the event, and the magic words before accurately shooting the arrow through the dragon skull’s eye socket.”
“I need five, Mom,” said Raven, standing. Her thoughts felt as thick in her head as mulberry syrup.
“What? Evil sorceresses don’t take five. You succeed because you’re willing to give everything to your craft—everything!”
“Just five minutes.”
Raven didn’t have enough time for a nap, and she wouldn’t risk oversleeping through Maddie’s banishment anyway. She just needed to clear her head.
She sat at the keyboard her father had sent and began to play a Tailor Quick tune. Her fingers had stumbled over the string of Cupid’s bow, but on the keyboard they knew what to do. Her voice had caught on the words of the incantation, but a song drew them out straight. She played and she sang, and the knotted, snarly mess inside her seemed to settle, as relaxed as Maddie at a tea party.
You look around
And you only see what you want to see
You come undone
Trying to be who they want you to be
Raven sang all three verses, searching for meaning in the words. She held out the final note and played the last chord. It was an odd song, ending on a minor chord halfway through a measure as though it were unfinished. And she liked it. The song felt as true as life.
Raven left the keyboard and sat on the floor in front of the mirror.
“That was…” The Evil Queen looked up as if at clouds, smiling. “That was wicked good.”
“Thanks.” Raven took a breath. “Here’s what I think, Mom. We both rebelled because we wanted to choose our own path, not what destiny dictated. But choice and evil aren’t the same. Now that I’m free from my story, I can write my own destiny. I’m sorry, but I won’t choose evil. I won’t choose your path. I’ll find my own.”
The Evil Queen opened her mouth as if she would argue, but then she nodded. “And if you change your mind, well, you know where to find me. I’m not going anywhere.”
Apple’s cuckoo clock cheeped.
Raven jumped to her feet. “Is that the time? Oh, no, I’ve got to get to the Treasury.”
“Go then, and come back and tell me all about it!” Her mother’s eyes sparkled as if she truly was excited.
“Okay, I will,” said Raven. She stooped to shut off the mirror but hesitated. The mirror path to the prison was wicked complicated, and having Apple do it for her was kind of a pain. Maybe she could just leave the connection open for now, so she could talk to her mother after the spell—or get extra help if something went wrong. Raven took a second to smile at her mother and said again, “I’ll be back soon.”
The queen nodded. Her smile seemed truly happy.
Nevermore had curled up on Apple’s bed, drooling on her red satin bedspread.
“Nevermore, sweetie, can you get the dragon’s skull and follow me?” Raven grabbed the bow, chin hair, and pea, and waved to her mother in the mirror.
“Wish me luck!”
“You don’t need luck,” said her mother. “You are powerful, clever, and fearless. After all, you are a Queen!”
Raven ran down the stairs, a shrunken-sized Nevermore flying with the shrunken-sized dragon skull in her claws. Raven burst through the Treasury door to find everybody there, staring at Apple.
“Raven!” said Apple. “Here she is. We’re ready, Headmaster.”
“Whoa, okay,” said Raven. “We’re ready ready? But where’s—?”
“Hi, Raven,” said Maddie. She couldn’t wave. She was standing between Baba Yaga and Gepetto, and her wrists were chained together.
“I’m going to try to help, Maddie,” said Raven. “Cross all your crossables for me.”
In truth, Raven wasn’t feeling all that confident, but Apple was smiling like this was going to be a piece of fig cake.
“Raven,” Apple said with warning. “We’re not supposed to talk to Maddie.”
“It’s okay,” Raven whispered back. “She was lying.”
Apple groaned. “You mean I’ve spent the last several minutes frantically thinking about bunnies for no reason?”
“Bunnies? What?”
“Never mind. Um, ready?” Apple said, still with that confident smile.
“Yes, okay,” said Raven.
“I did not give you permission to—” Milton Grimm began.
“Please, Headmaster Grimm?” said Apple. “You said only Irrefutable Evidence could pardon Maddie, and we’re prepared to show you just that.”
“Raven Queen isn’t capable of casting a level thirty-eight spell.” He shook his head. “You have precisely one minute, Your Majesty, and then I must ask you not to interfere with this serious school business.”
“Thank you, Headmaster,” Apple said. She took Raven’s hands and made the most direct of direct eye contact Raven had ever experienced. Apple’s confident smile twinkled, brilliant, inspiring. “You can do this, Raven Queen.”
And for the first time, Raven believed that she could. “Okay,” she said. Her heart was thumping, slammed unexpectedly with a tremendous amount of hope.
She spared a glance to admire the clean and ordered Treasury and then asked everyone to stand back by the door. Nevermore placed the dragon skull before them.
“Everyone who was here that night, please look at the skull,” said Raven.
She spoke their names, the date and time of the event, and then the words of the incantation, hoping that they were all correct. Her mother had to relay them to her through riddles.
“ ‘I call down evidence of pure truth,’ ” she intoned. “ ‘I call up the spirits of memory. Rewind, replay, speak up, stand out. Through the eye of a monster, let the past dance again!’ ”
Raven secured the pea on the tip of the hair, drew back the bowstring, and aimed straight. She released. The arrow went through the eye socket.
Out of the empty eye, pink smoke billowed, engulfing the room. When it overtook Raven, she could smell nothing. It was all illusion. The smoke pulled back into a ball spiked like the claws of some amorphous beast. The smoke claws lengthened, pointing at the eyes of Raven, Apple, Maddie, and all the other students. Then the smoke broke into a hundred pieces and took on colors and shapes. And suddenly Sparrow Hood was running into the Treasury.
Raven almost yelled at him to stay back, but then the real Sparrow, who was still standing back by the door, said, “That’s one handsome kid!”
Raven was watching a ghost, a memory: It looked like Sparrow, but his colors were slightly washed out, his body a little transparent. He was talking, but no noise came out. His Merry Men followed, and Sparrow began taking items and putting them into his pockets.
It was like watching a silent play or an eerily real three-dimensional movie. The smoky memories of the other students entered the Treasury, shouting silently to one another, romping around.
Kitty appeared suddenly in front of Ashlynn, who was startled and bumped into Hunter. Hunter backed up, the sword in his hand cracking the glass in a display case. Sparrow nocked an arrow, aiming at King Arthur’s shield on the wall. Dexter flying on a broomstick wobbled to avoid the arrow and bumped into the helmet of a giant’s suit of armor. Sparrow’s arrow grazed against the falling helmet, knocking the arrow off course and into the cracked display case, breaking the glass further.
At the same moment, Blondie tripped over the cape she was wearing, knocking into Lizzie, who stumbled into Duchess, who was puppeting Humphrey Dumpty on Pinocchio’s strings. Duchess glided out of the way, letting Lizzie bang into the display case. The tiny unicorn inside fell off its pedestal.
The Merry Men had found the instruments, and one played a horn so loudly the sound lengthened the glass break even more, just as Briar and Cedar skipped by. Helga tossed a jug to Gus. It nearly hit Cedar, but Dexter caught it in time. His elbow grazed the case, and the unicorn fell all the way out. Daring moved to heroically help his sister Darling over the broken glass and nudged the unicorn with his foot, sending it across the floor.
Almost every person’s foot touched the unicorn as he or she ran around the Treasury, unknowingly knocking it this way and that until it came to rest before the giant helmet just as Maddie entered.
She never even touched the unicorn as she picked a few things off the floor, stuffed them in her pockets, and climbed atop the helmet. She lifted her arms happily. The image froze and disappeared.
For a few moments, everyone was quiet.
“Baba Yaga—?” the headmaster began.
“It was the real deal,” Baba Yaga said, tasting the air. She turned her stony gaze on Raven and raised one gray eyebrow. “An Irrefutable Evidence spell. Impossible to fake.”
The headmaster stared at Raven, too, eyes blazing, as if he didn’t know whether to be angry or afraid.
“It seems to me,” Mr. Badwolf growled, “that if you were to banish those responsible for the broken Uni Cairn, you would need to banish nearly every student in this room except Madeline Hatter.”
“And all those destinies would be banished with them,” said Apple.
The headmaster’s frown was so severe his mustache tilted down with it so that he seemed to have two frowns.
“But… she was clearly stealing items from the Treasury,” he said, “and that alone—”
“Um, pardon me, Headmaster Grimm,” said Apple, “but perhaps you could ask her why she took those things?”
He blew out his cheeks but nodded and turned to Maddie. “Why?” he said.
“I thought it was the Swappersnatch Gyre, of course!” said Maddie. “Everyone stealing for fun, and all the hiding and hunting and finding that follows. In Wonderland we do it every spring.”
Lizzie Hearts nodded. “I declare Madeline Hatter is correct!”
“It’s how we play,” Kitty said with a smile just as large as the headmaster’s frown.
“In that case—” Headmaster Grimm said.
“Finally!” Baba Yaga interrupted. She pointed a crooked finger at Maddie, and the chains sizzled and fell from her wrists. “I’ve got better things to do than banish a little girl to that pirate-infested island. My office has been exceedingly grumpy for some reason. Excuse me, I have to go soothe a walking cottage.”
Baba Yaga stormed out.
The cottage…
Raven began to think something important, but the thought was chased from her head by a furious-faced Headmaster Grimm.
“Just how did you manage to cast a level thirty-eight spell?” he asked, his shoulders tense and rising to his ears.
“My mom taught me,” she said truthfully. “After all, she wants me to grow up to be just like her.”
The headmaster’s eyes narrowed, but he’d have to assume her mother taught her the spell years ago. After all, Raven had no access to a mother locked away in a spell-repellent cell.
“Hmph,” he said and stalked off.
And suddenly Raven was jounced by a quick and hard hug.
“I knew it!” said Maddie. “I just knew you were still my best friend till The End.”
“There were a few times this week I did think it was actually The End,” said Raven. “I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you. I thought silence was a condition of the spell. I know you must have felt like a pile of giant toenail clippings when I ignored you.”
For some reason, Apple shuddered.
“Think no more gloomy fussy gussy thoughts about it.” Maddie hugged her again. “Thank you.”
Everyone began congratulating Maddie, Sparrow loudly taking all the credit for her miraculous rescue.
Raven received another surprise hug, this time from Apple.
“I was confident, Raven!” she said. “So many times the last couple of days, I worried that I didn’t know how to be a leader anymore. But I smiled, and I looked, and I had ideas, and I led them! And you were so amazing—the spell, and—Wow! We did it! Maddie is safe!”
“The Treasury looks amazing,” said Raven. “You seriously rock for pulling it off.”
“We both seriously, enchantingly, perfectly rock,” said Apple. Her voice dropped lower. “You know, there were moments I was so afraid she was just trying to trick us. I had a plan B prepared for when the spell backfired and caused some horrible havoc. But it worked!”
“What was your plan B?”
“Hmm?” said Apple. “Oh, subvert the banishment route through the wishing well. I thought maybe I could hack into the travel app and change her route from Neverland to my home castle. Watching Humphrey on the Mirror Network gave me some ideas. It wasn’t a certain thing, but no worries! Now I don’t have to even try!”
“And it worked, even though we did get a lot of help,” said Raven.
“Yeah, no offense, but your mom’s advice about not depending on anyone but yourself was kind of evil.”
Raven laughed.
“We would have completely failed without all our friends!” said Apple. “The Mad Hatter, Ashlynn, Gala, the pixies—”
“Cedar and Nevermore—”
“—and Cerise,” said Raven. “And Cupid, too.”
“Ooh, and Humphrey and Dexter—”
“Her…”
“And then practically everyone helped me with the Treasury,” said Apple.
“I know she’s evil, but she seemed like she really did want me to succeed,” Raven whispered. “She’s waiting to hear about the victory.”
Apple froze. “You didn’t leave the mirror on, did you? Surely, you at least put it in standby mode.”
“Should I have? I mean, she can’t escape. Oh, I was thinking earlier. Baba Yaga’s cottage? We didn’t need to use all the ingredients for the spell after all. The egg, nor the tea, either, now that I think of it. It’s funny that—”
Raven stopped. Apple seized her hand. Her own was ice cold.
“The tea and the egg,” Apple whispered. “They’re still in our room? With the mirror?”
Raven suddenly wanted a weapon in hand. She grabbed something long, skinny, and gold from a nearby pedestal. Apple was still gripping her other hand, and she pulled. Together, they ran.
They ran through the middle of the crowd of students and muddle of faculty. They ran down the hall, their heels clacking against stones.
“Will o’ the wisps!” Apple said. “How did I not realize? Will o’ the wisps move between worlds, see? So drinking will o’ the wisp tea imbues someone with the ability to cross over borders!”
“Borders like the one between our world and mirror prison,” said Raven. “And the cottage! It’s bigger on the inside than on the out. Even big enough for a woman to climb inside. Besides, it’s an enchanted cottage, born with chicken legs, inherently free range. No foundation can hold it, and no prison would confine it. Baba Yaga told me she began using it as her office as a protection against capture by evil sorceresses like my mother!”
“So if the hutling hatched and drank the will o’ the wisps tea…”
“It might be empowered to cross over through our viewing mirror and into actual mirror prison,” said Raven as they raced up some stairs. “And once inside…”
“Your mother would be able to climb inside the hutling, and its natural freedom would carry them out of the prison!”
“And back into our world.”
“We’d be banished for meddling with one of the Great Glass Prisons!” said Apple.
“Forget that,” said Raven. “Think what my mother would do to Ever After!”
Apple sped up.
They slammed open their dorm door.
From inside the mirror, the Evil Queen was chanting. The words came out as nonsense, and with each one spoken she winced as if feeling the stings of the spell repellent. When she saw Raven and Apple, she began chanting faster.
A long, thin line like steam trailed from the mirror through the room and into the cup of tea. The heat from the tea was warming the egg, steamy tendrils rising, wrapping around its bright spotted shell. Already there were cracks.
“Get the egg!” Raven said.
Raven and Apple ran forward. Raven leaped to tackle it, but while she was still in midleap, the egg burst. A cottage the size of a large dog wobbled forward on its thin chicken legs, leaving Raven to land on a pile of shell shards. The hutling shook itself, made a raspy screech, and started to run.
“Get it!” Raven said. “Stop it!”
The cottage sniffed, inhaling with an open door. It trotted over to the cup of tea and with a peck from its front door took a sip from the cup.
“No!” said Apple. She’d pulled the satin bedspread from her bed and ran at the hutling, leaping onto it.
“Ha-ha!” said Apple, trapping the little cottage beneath the bedspread.
A rip. The hutling’s door gnawed a hole through the cloth and leaped through.
The queen’s chanting had stopped. Now she was calling.
“Here, boy! Come here, boy! That’s a good hutling. Look at what a good hutling! I have some yummy treats for you! Just come through the mirror.”
The hutling paused as if to listen. It started toward the mirror.
“No, you don’t,” said Raven, intercepting it. She was still holding whatever she’d grabbed from the Treasury, and she swung it, missing the hutling.
“Raven!” said the Evil Queen. “Stop it at once!”
“Sorry, Mom,” said Raven.
The queen took a breath and her voice softened. “Raven, darling, why can’t you help your own mother?”
Like its parent, the hutling did not like to be chased. It squawked and ran faster and faster, dodging Apple and Raven. They leaped at it, landing in a dog pile on its roof, but the little hut kept running, leaving the girls clinging to its rain gutters. And still the hutling ran. It was small, but it was as solid as a full-grown house, and in its speed, it left destruction in its wake. Apple’s bed was demolished. Her dresser reduced to firewood. Wardrobe knocked over with a crash. Clothing ripped and flying in the air like confetti.
“No,” Apple said with a sob.
Next the cottage dragged them through Raven’s part of the room, destroying everything it touched. Raven winced at the loss of her bed and wardrobe, but ahead was her vanity and its hidden keyboard.
“No! Stop!”
Raven dug her heels into the floor, trying desperately to slow the hutling, but it barreled ahead. A crash and a musical twang, and Raven’s beautiful keyboard was nothing more than scrap wood and metal.
Raven let go, rolling into the keyboard debris. A single sob escaped her lips. Then she turned her gaze to her mother, still calling from the mirror.
“Come here, boy! Come on!”
“No!” Raven yelled.
Her mother startled, the words drying in her mouth.
Raven didn’t dare touch the glass but felt around the back of the mirror, trying to find an off switch.
“Don’t let go, Apple!” Raven yelled.
“Ack, ow, uhhh…” Apple said, dragging behind the hutling.
Raven was about to drop the tool to better feel for the off switch, but then she recognized what she was really holding in her hand: her mother’s own scepter that had been on display in the Treasury. It had no magic and yet was a symbol of queenly power—heavy, golden, magnificent.
Raven walked to the front mirror and raised the scepter up.
“No!” Her mother’s beautiful face twisted with rage. “I thought you were finally evil, Raven!”
“You took away Maddie’s Wonderland,” said Raven. “I’m sorry, Mom. I respect your right to make your own path, but when your choices hurt people, you have to face the consequences. You need to stay where you are.”
“I love you!” her mother shouted.
Part of Raven’s heart cracked, but she gripped the heavy gold stick even tighter.
The mirror was the only unbroken thing left in the room. Raven smashed it with her mother’s scepter.
“Me too,” she whispered.