Protagonist Bound (34 page)

Daisy’s eyebrows crinkled as she gestured at me. “But she—”

“Is a guest here,” Lenore responded, eyeing me. “And a particularly interesting one at that. So go, now, before I demote you back to the accounts payable department.”

With a nervous look and an irritated huff, Daisy removed a silvery bracelet from her wrist. The second she did, it transformed into a wand like Debbie’s, and like mine. With two waves of the wand, the door behind us opened and Daisy dematerialized into a ball of lime green sparkling energy that shot into the hall and caused the door to slam forcefully behind her.

“Now then,” Lenore continued. “Where were we?”

“Emma,” Blue said. “Are you going to tell us why she was let go or not?”

“It’s really not very complicated,” Lenore replied. “Personal reasons made it so that she was no longer fit to be a part of this organization.”

“Well, can you tell us where she is?” Jason suggested.

“I’m afraid that is classified information, my dear,” the Godmother Supreme responded automatically.

SJ came forward timidly. “Ms. Lenore, we mean no disrespect . . . but can you not help us at all? It is really rather crucial that Crisa finds a way to speak with her godmother.”

“She already has. In fact, I believe Debbie was assigned to her just this very evening.”

“No,” I explained. “Not my
Fairy
Godmother. Emma Carrington is my
actual
godmother. And you have no idea how important it is for me to talk to her.”

“Oh yes, that’s right. I do recall hearing something to that end. But actual godmother or not, I’m afraid I still cannot allow you to speak with Emma, Crisanta,” Lenore said, forgetting her smile for a moment and giving me a look of pure wickedness that made me shiver.

Although it only lasted for an instant, the impression it left was nothing short of substantial. The look reaffirmed what my instincts had been telling me since the start of this meeting. And I knew then that I would never forget that first glance at Lena Lenore’s true colors—at the shrewd, patient darkness that was lurking beneath her perfect, shiny surface.

The Godmother Supreme swiftly changed the expression on her face back to a smile so sweet it made my teeth hurt. She walked over to me and patted my damp head as if I were a rambunctious puppy that had gotten into mischief.

“It was a good effort, though. Truly, dear, I am very impressed with you children. Few people have made it this far. So at the very least return home knowing that you gave us a nice surprise as you pointed out some minor holes in our security measures.”

“Gaping holes is more like it,” Blue started to argue. “I mean, come on, we’re kids and we broke in here with a plan we cooked up over dinner. And we did it because it’s seriously important we find Emma. So why can’t you just—” Lenore silenced Blue by holding up a single finger in warning, glaring at her threateningly before turning her attention wholly back on me.

“Do understand, I know why you are
really
here, princess,” she said carefully. “Why you want so desperately to speak with Emma, and were driven to such lengths to find her on this night. And the best advice I can give you in turn is to leave the matter alone. The rest of you children need not concern yourselves with things that are out of your control either. Believe me, doing so would be pointless and very unwise.”

Lenore straightened her suit jacket then and sauntered back over to her desk. “On that note,” she said as she casually pressed a large, black button beside the quill holder, “it is nearing midnight and your have a carriage to catch, don’t you, Ms. Knight? So, on behalf of all the Godmothers, have a safe flight and a magical day. Francisco and Cederick here will see you and your friends out.”

Two surprisingly buff Fairy Godfathers (each seven feet in height and carrying wands the size of guitars) suddenly materialized in the doorway behind us. They hustled my friends, Daniel, and I toward the office’s exit.

“It was nice meeting you, Crisanta Knight,” the Godmother Supreme called after me as we were being led out. “Do try and keep out of trouble.”

I shot Lena Lenore a final glance over my shoulder. She was leaning back against her desk watching me. Her smile was gone and her eyes were cold, causing me to wonder if her earlier characterization of me as “interesting” had been something more to be feared than flattered by.

Francisco and Cederick hurriedly escorted us through the maze-like building. (The time we spent crammed in the elevator with them was by far the most uncomfortable thirty-seven seconds of my life).

When we reached the lobby again they pushed us out the silver, jeweled front door and slammed it behind us with all the formality a prestigious cook showed toward any rats that dared enter his kitchen.

It was over. Wordlessly, I got into my carriage while the others mounted their Pegasi. “Let’s go, mushroom,” I sighed.

Responding appropriately, my ride took off into the night without protest. I didn’t feel like looking out at the stars anymore, so I resigned myself to solemnly staring at the inside of my slowly rotting vehicle. I supposed the carriage knew it was getting close to midnight and wanted to get a head start on decomposing, because the whole thing was starting to reek as badly as the ending to our evening’s disastrous adventure.

My hand absentmindedly wandered into my satchel to pull out my wand. Fiddling with it always made me feel a bit better
.
But then I felt something else inside the bag . . .

The folder! The folder from the file room!

I snatched my prize out of the satchel with a feeling of excitement and dread. Debbie and Daisy had been right about magic paper. The folder and its contents were not only still perfectly intact, but they were as pristine as if I’d just purchased them from an office supply store.

All I could do was hold up the folder then—hold it and study it and take in its general existence as best I could to make sure it was actually real, and that I really, truly had it.

The verdict: It was and I did.

In my hand I held a file with the name “Natalie Poole” printed on it.

Pay Attention: This Chapter’s Important

t had been about a week since our epic fail at Fairy Godmother HQ, and we were once again imprisoned at Lady Agnue’s while the boys were back at Lord Channing’s.

As none of our classmates or school staff had been the wiser about our little, disenchanting venture, everything had more or less returned to normal . . . with the exception of the dirty looks I’d been getting from some of the other students, that is.

I supposed dirty looks was putting it mildly, considering how much backlash I’d received from my princess counterparts as punishment for my vigilante performance in the Twenty-Three Skidd tournament. Most of them highly disapproved of my actions. And they voiced this disapproval through snide whispers, nasty notes passed to me in class, and snarky eyebrow raises whenever I passed them in the halls.

It was a good thing I had SJ at my side most of the time to keep me from acting on any of these gestures of malice; that was for sure. Otherwise at least one of my snooty princess classmates would’ve gotten punched in the jaw by now.

Despite all this persecution, there was at least one good thing that had come out of the whole tournament debacle—the new level of respect a lot of the students had for Blue. The common protagonists were widely impressed with what she’d achieved that afternoon in the tournament. They applauded her fearlessness in entering the competition, recognizing that she had been the first one of them to really prove her capacity for heroics.

Add to that, any objections by the princesses of Blue’s behavior were a lot fewer in number and a lot more subtle in nature than their objections of mine. After all—as Lady Agnue had so kindly pointed out at our last assembly—Blue’s participation in the stunt was less surprising and insulting to them than my actions were because I was expected to be bound by my princess responsibilities whereas she was not.

I mean, even the headmistress herself had acknowledged during our first week of school that Blue had the potential to be a hero. Me, apparently not so much.

Whatever. I had bigger problems to worry about than the opinions of my classmates.

I had no idea how I was going to find my godmother, Emma. Furthermore, even if I did know where she was, I was utterly stumped on how to physically get out of Lady Agnue’s now that the In and Out Spell had been reactivated.

Then there was the ticking time bomb that was my prologue prophecy. Over the last several days it had been consuming my thoughts like a virus that was slowly taking me over.

I hated that. And I devoted whatever clear headspace I could muster to trying to think of some kind of plan for fighting against it. Alas, ten days later I still had nothing.

As mounting frustration ate away at me, the only source of release I had anymore was in the practice fields. While every other aspect of my existence seemed to be in turmoil, there I found the one form of change in my life that I was actually happy to embrace.

After the Twenty-Three Skidd match, I realized that I’d been missing my true calling all these years and there actually was something in the world that I was good at.

The lacrosse sword I’d naturally taken to had given me the idea to transform my wand into a spear. The staff of my new weapon was about the same length as the original tool from the tournament, minus the extra grip function—around five feet. The only alterations I’d made to the lacrosse sword’s base design were reducing the size of its blade and scrapping the basket.

The result was a simple weapon, and a much less typical one since I’d never seen any of the boys at Lord Channing’s—nor any of our own common protagonists for that matter—employ it. Frankly, I’d never even seen a spear in the weapons shed at our school. That sorry excuse for an artillery was predominantly stocked with second-hand, standard fighting tools like swords, knives, shields, and so on.

I’d certainly never used one of these myself. Heck, the closest thing I’d ever fiddled with that remotely resembled the spear’s weight and extension was that broomstick I’d messed around with playing dung hockey an eternity ago.

Yet, despite my inexperience with the weapon, and my tendency to stink at anything I tried at this school, the bottom-line was that it simply worked for me. And since I’d completely refocused my fighting style around it, I’d become, well . . .

You could say that I was no longer what one might call a sucky opponent. Of course you could also say that I was now totally awesome. Which I thought was a much more apt description of my combatant transformation. I worked that spear like Rumpelstiltskin on a spinning wheel—with shrewd decisiveness and skill unmatched.

To say that I relished my newfound skill would’ve been an understatement. Like a dog learning to fetch or a bird finding it could fly, so was the feeling that came with the discovery of this new and exciting part of myself.

While our practice sessions had become more taxing on Blue as a result of my drastic improvement, she too was very much enjoying the turnaround. The surprisingly high level of skill I possessed with the spear challenged her in a way that most could not. And in this test of her abilities, she also found temporary relief from our shared problems outside the barn.

Today, Blue was fighting with two swords (one in each hand) to push herself even further. I held my wand in my right hand and tapped it against my left as I waited for her to charge. She grinned and came at me a second later—leading with her left sword.

Shield
.

I blocked her strike. She’d expected that, and swung around with her right sword toward my head.

Sword
.

I mirrored her motion and our blades clashed. Then in the next instant, when she lunged with two low, sweeping strikes, I morphed my wand into the new form I was so fond of.

Spear
.

My wand thickened and stretched out in my hand with a blade protruding at the upper end. I whirled the staff in the same direction as her swords and easily fended off her strikes.

We continued fighting like this for some time. Occasionally I changed the wand back into a shield or a sword, but for the majority of the duel I kept it in its spear shape. It made my strikes so much more powerful, fluid, and unpredictable than I ever could’ve hoped for. Plus, I had so much reach with it that I was easily able to defend myself from both her weapons—unafraid of the staff snapping since, at its root, it was a magic wand and could not be broken by even the sharpest of blades.