The Unfairest of Them All

SEEK THE SPAWN OF THE PAWN

  OF THE CRONE OF BONES

  THAT COTTAGE OF DOOM

  THE ROOM NOT A ROOM

  THE BEAST NOT A BEAST

  THAT MOVES SOUTH AND WEST AND NORTH AND EAST

  SEARCH IN NEST, COOP, OR DEN

  OF THE COBBLED TRUSSED HEN

  RAVEN WAS CATAPULTING THROUGH THE AIR.

  I’m going to die now, Raven thought. I’m going to smash against the side of the castle like that spoonful of porridge against Apple’s cheek.

  Beyond the breathless terror and dizzy delirium, she noticed that the sun was lingering over the horizon. Only a couple of more hours of daylight.

  Maddie…

  Raven refused to die. She shook her head to focus her thoughts, fought the air to point her hands toward her feet, and tried a spell she’d never attempted before. Streams of high-powered fire shot from her hands. Her speed increased, rocketing her through the cool air, but she could move her hands and control her angle at least. She wiggled her hands, adjusting her trajectory, aiming for the open door on her dorm balcony.

  She hurtled through it and crashed in a heap on Apple’s bed. The remnant of her fire-hands spell spurted out, but not before setting afire one of Apple’s throw pillows. It had been her favorite, too—Briar had ironed on a photo of the five boys from the band One Reflection. Their smiling faces scorched and turned into ash. Raven whimpered. Apple would not be happy. They were really cute boys.

  Raven quickly swept off the ash and straightened the satin bedspread. Apple always kept her things tidy.

  Nevermore was perched proudly atop the shrunken dragon skull, flapping her wings and squawking like a chicken.

  “Good girl!” said Raven. “Could you go back to the park? I kind of promised the kids you’d play with them. Come back at sunset, okay? Or before that if people show up with torches and pitchforks.” Always good advice.

  She gave Nevermore a good-bye neck scratch and then unfolded the parchment from her pocket.

  “ ‘Seek the spawn of the pawn…’ ”

  She read the next riddle over and over again, pacing. The sun was lowering still. “ ‘… the beast not a beast…’ ” No time, no time. “ ‘… search in nest, coop, or den…’ ” Maddie. Save Maddie. Her panicked heart scattered her thoughts. She needed to calm down and refocus.

  Raven gave up on pacing and sat at her vanity, opening it to reveal a hidden keyboard.

  It was a Legacy Day gift from her father. He didn’t know yet that she hadn’t signed, only that she hadn’t been excited about it. But he had known the most perfect gift possible. Raven sat, letting her fingers roll out a melody that was both haunting and sweet, a tune that whispered a new day was full of possibilities, risks, fears, and joy. She didn’t have to be evil. She didn’t have to take after her mother. The past couple of days she’d been feeling afraid of the unknown hole uprooting her destiny had left inside of her. The music reminded her that while freedom was a little frightening, it was also beautiful.

  She had claimed her own destiny. There was power in choice. And she would use the power to help save Maddie.

  Raven began to sing the riddle into the melody. “ ‘The crone of bones… that cottage of doom… the room not a room…’ ”

  She stopped and laughed.

  “I’ve got it!”

  She laughed so hard she put a hand over her mouth and tensed for the sound of Professor Momma Bear’s knock. It didn’t come.

  Raven ran out to the balcony and scanned the courtyard below.

  Every day at sunset Baba Yaga’s hut dropped the witch off at the dungeons. Whatever Baba Yaga did down there had to be done in the dark of night, and, frankly, Raven didn’t really want to know what it was. She was more concerned with the Hut.

  A “cottage of doom,” both a “beast” and a “room.” One of Madam Yaga’s titles was “Bone Witch,” and that was about as close to “Crone of Bones” as you could get. She needed to track the Hut to where it “slept” at night. Its den or nest, as the riddle said. Whatever she needed would be there.

  With a heavy flapping of wings, Nevermore dropped from the darkening sky to land on the balcony beside Raven. The dragon had a ribbon tied around one horn and what looked like princess pea-butter smeared above one eye. Raven wiped off the smear.

  “Did you have fun playing with the kids, girl?”

  Nevermore cocked her head in a noncommittal gesture. Raven smiled. At least she didn’t get hurt by any overprotective parents, and… Raven examined the dragon’s teeth, claws, and other pointy bits. No blood, so nobody else was hurt, either.

  “I’m going on another treasure hunt,” Raven said, scratching the dragon along her spine. “Want to come?”

  The dragon hopped up like an excited dog, and Raven laughed. “I guess that means yes. First, we need to watch for Baba Yaga’s hut—hey!” She turned just in time to see the Hut walking on its giant chicken legs away from the dungeon entrance. She’d almost missed it! “That! I need to follow that!”

  Nevermore took to the air and popped into her large size. Raven hurriedly shoved on her Coat of Infinite Darkness, climbed on the balcony railing, and jumped. When she landed on Nevermore’s back, the dragon dipped down a bit. Even full-sized, she wasn’t a grown dragon, and carrying Raven was an exertion, especially after she was tired out from hauling the shrunken skull and playing with children. Raven patted her neck, grateful.

  The evening air was cool, the remains of sunlight making the sky a golden gray. Nevermore swooped down around the castle and spotted the Hut just as it leaped over the ravine and started across the meadow toward the Enchanted Forest.

  Nevermore dove as if for an impact attack.

  “We can’t catch it, sweetie.” Raven leaned forward to speak into Nevermore’s ear. “We have to be quiet. Just follow it.” The dragon let out a screech of understanding, and Raven winced. That was the opposite of quiet.

  The Hut’s two front windows looked around warily, and then it hopped into the Enchanted Forest.

  “Okay,” Raven whispered, and the dragon gently lowered her to the ground.

  Raven ran to the forest’s edge. Under the canopy, the forest was too dark to see. Raven risked a small spell, producing a pale purple light from her fingertip. She spotted the large chicken foot tracks and followed.

  She stopped. In a small clearing the Hut waited, blinds open, windows staring in her direction. Raven held her breath, but from behind she heard the loud slap-clack of her pet dragon’s clawed feet as she ran toward her. The Hut tensed, and when Nevermore crashed into the clearing, the Hut bolted. The dragon started to give chase, but Raven leaped on her tail.

  “Wait!” she said, dragging along. “We can’t chase it! We have to just follow it. Quietly!”

  Nevermore looked back at her, confused. Raven groaned. This wasn’t going to work.

  “Okay, girl, I’m going to need you to scout for me. Fly over the forest. Look for the chicken house.” The dragon poised to leap into the air, but Raven put a hand on her muzzle. “But stay in the air. Just stay above it. That way I’ll know where to go, okay?”

  The dragon bobbed her head and took to the sky. Raven watched as Nevermore flew back and forth over the forest, stopping, circling, and then moving on. Eventually, she hovered in one place. Raven ran into the darkness.

  She tried to go as straight as she could in the direction that Nevermore had shown, but she ended up darting around and back and forward, over a rabbit warren and under dangling sprite nests, gleaming as silver as new coins in the thin shafts of moonlight. After a few minutes she was completely lost.

  Cerise would be better at this. She could dart through this forest with no trouble and probably sniff out the Hut. But the Evil Queen had said to work alone.

  The forest canopy was too thick here to find Nevermore. Raven sidled up to a tree and looked for a branch to grab. She had never been much of a tree climber. It had always seemed sort of creepy to climb all over something that was alive. She sig
hed and leaped to grab the lowest branch. She caught it and swung to pull herself up, but the branch snapped with a loud crack.

  The tree screamed. Raven scrambled back from where she had fallen. She’d never heard a tree scream before, but this was the Enchanted Forest, after all.

  “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” she whispered, wincing for the thing to uproot itself and eat her.

  It didn’t, but the scream did come again, and this time she realized it wasn’t the tree, it was something behind the tree, and farther away. When she heard a grunt she recognized as Nevermore, she ran toward the sound. She stumbled several times, finally crashing down into a broad, treeless gully. Nevermore was hopping back and forth like a puppy waiting to chase a ball and facing a very angry Hut.

  The Hut scratched deep furrows into the ground with its chicken claws and let out another one of those screams that Raven had thought was a tree in pain. Nevermore darted forward and nipped the Hut on one of its eaves. The Hut growled, stomped its feet, and charged. The dragon let out a happy screech and scrambled into the forest, the Hut in angry pursuit.

  Which left Raven alone, except for the egg.

  The egg! There was a giant nest in the center of the clearing made of branches, mud, and a few hextbooks. And in the center of the nest was an egg. “Seek the spawn,” the riddle had said. The offspring of Baba Yaga’s cottage. And there it was, a dotted oblong egg nearly as big as Raven was. She ran to the nest and tried to lift it, without success. She pushed, and it rolled. She shoved, and it slid. All she had managed to do was shift the egg’s position in the nest.

  That scream again, in the trees off to her left.

  Raven scrambled away from the egg, out of the nest and into the shadows of the forest just as the Hut returned. It sniffed around with its front door opening and closing rapidly, its blinds all the way open. It sat on the nest protectively. Raven’s Coat of Infinite Darkness helped her blend with the shadows, but it couldn’t completely hide her from the cottage’s notice.

  Nevermore returned. The Hut chased it away. But as soon as Raven crept back into the nest, the Hut smelled or heard or sensed her somehow and returned to sit on its egg.

  This happened over and over again until Raven spotted the moon rising high above the canopy.

  Maddie, Maddie, no time, no time…

  She walked around to find Nevermore.

  “One more favor?” she whispered.

  Several minutes later Nevermore landed. Cerise Hood was clinging to the dragon’s neck spikes, her white-streaked dark hair wild, her hood down, her wolf ears up. Her eyes were wide, her mouth frozen in a grimace.

  “Cerise,” Raven whispered, waving her arms so that Cerise could spot her despite the magical camouflaging of her Coat of Infinite Darkness. Cerise’s gaze landed on her, and she blinked in surprise.

  “Riding a dragon is kind of fun, isn’t it?” said Raven.

  “I think I prefer my own two feet,” Cerise said through her grimace.

  “I could really use those feet,” said Raven. “And the rest of you as well.”

  Raven explained the situation.

  “So you need me to steal the egg of Baba Yaga’s monstrous cottage but can’t tell me why?”

  Raven nodded.

  “But you swear it’s for a really, really, really good reason?”

  Raven nodded again.

  “Um… okay,” said Cerise.

  “Okay?” said Raven. “You mean, you just believe me?”

  Cerise put a hand on her hip. “Raven, it doesn’t take a genius to put this together. Whatever you’re doing, you’re trying to help someone else, because that’s the kind of thing you do. And that someone is obviously Maddie, and you can’t tell me because spells are involved somehow and spells often require secrets or silence, and so I won’t ask. But I trust you.”

  Raven nodded. She felt a little sniffy, any reply stuck with the emotions in her throat.

  This time, when Nevermore led the Hut away, Cerise put up her hood and vanished, not camouflaging with the background as Raven’s coat allowed her to do but actually traveling through the shadows. Cerise was swift and invisible in the darkness, only a moment later appearing in the nest. She bent her knees, lifted the egg with both arms, leaped out of the nest, and ran.

  Good godmothers, but that girl was strong.

  Raven ran, too, following Cerise away from the nest. Another scream. The Hut was following. Cerise was strong and darted through shadow to shadow, but the heavy egg was slowing her down. If they couldn’t outrun the Hut, they’d end up on the wrong end of a giant chicken foot.

  They were stealing. That was evil, right? Maybe dark magic would work.

  “Wait,” said Raven, catching up to put her hands on the egg.

  “Hover, float, levitate,” she whispered.

  Her hands began to glow purple, but nothing happened. She started to hear crashing sounds in the forest. The Hut was getting closer.

  “Balloon, fluff, glide,” she said.

  The light around her hands flickered and went out. The ground was shaking beneath Raven.

  “Hurry,” Cerise said.

  Raven slapped her hands on the egg. “Up!” she yelled. There was a bright purple flash, and the egg went up. Fast, like a launched cannonball. It flew into the sky, and Raven’s stomach dropped. It was going to fall. It was going to crack, the spell would fail, and Maddie would be lost forever.

  Raven and Cerise watched the egg sail up, up, up, and into the claws of Nevermore, who swooped away with it.

  “Yes!” Raven cried, and started to clap until she felt the light from the windows of a very angry cottage hit her. She stopped, turning slowly. The Hut was standing five feet from her, staring. She still had her Coat of Infinite Darkness on and felt herself trying to dissolve further into it. Cerise, hood up, had already melted into a shadow. Raven stayed frozen. She waited for what felt like twenty minutes, and then finally the Hut backed itself into the nest, and its windows darkened. Raven waited one more minute to be safe, and then slowly crept out of the forest.

  She started the run back to the castle. She was one item closer to performing the spell and saving Maddie.

  APPLE TRUDGED THROUGH THE DOOR OF their dorm room, dropped something long and stick-like on the floor, edged around the dragon skull, and flopped onto her bed.

  Raven looked up from the riddle parchment. “You look less, er, radiant than usual.”

  “I met up with Briar, again,” Apple said, her voice muffled from the pillow her face was pressed against. “I fell from a tremendous height into a pile of giant garbage. It was a long walk back from the Beanstalk. A bunch of songbirds tried to help me. You know how sweet they are, but it took, like, a hundred of them to lift me up, and, honestly, we traveled about as fast as I could walk, so… wait, where’s my One Reflection pillow?”

  “Um… is that a giant hair?” Raven said quickly.

  “Mmm-hmm,” Apple said.

  “That makes sense,” Raven said. “Big to the small, plucked, wig, right. Good thinking.”

  Apple turned her face from the pillow. “Is that a dragon’s skull?”

  “Yup,” Raven said. “Crown of terror past.”

  Apple sat up. “Did you… slay it?”

  Raven let out a giggle before she could stop it. “No. It’s old. Kids were playing on it in the park in town.”

  “You stole a toy from children? You are evil,” she said, with a tone of mock horror.

  “Stop,” Raven said, smiling. “I let them ride Nevermore in trade. I’m not sure she’s forgiven me.”

  “Is that a huge egg?”

  “Yep, the spawn of Baba Yaga’s chicken-legged cottage. And I see you brewed some will o’ the wisps tea.”

  “Though it’s surely cold now. We’ll have to heat it up when we need it,” Apple said, sitting up. “Okay, enough rest. What are you working on?”

  Raven held up the parchment and read aloud.

  THE STONIEST OF GREENS


  PLAGUE QUEENS NOT YET QUEENS

  JUST ONE BENEATH CAN STEAL THE SLEEP

  OF MAIDENS COUNTING SHEEP

  “I have no idea what ‘stoniest of greens’ means,” Raven said. “It’s driving me crazy.”

  Apple thought for a moment. “Oh! I know this one!” she said, and reached under her mattress. “A-ha! I thought I felt one under there.” She pulled out a pea and handed it to Raven. “A pea. Only the best for princesses’ mattresses.”

  “Of course!” Raven gasped. “I’ve been trying to figure this out for like an hour, and you just walk in and get it. Duh. A pea. Well, good.”

  “We do have one more,” Apple said, pulling out her parchment.

  A TOOL USED BY FEW, INDEED JUST ONE

  WHOSE SONG THIS WAY IS SUNG:

  BARBS FLUNG

  HEARTS STUNG

  BELLS RUNG

  “What could that be?” Apple asked.

  Raven reached behind the couch and held up a pink archer’s bow. “Cupid’s bow,” she said.

  “You have it!” Apple said. “How did you get it?”

  “Um… I asked Cupid if I could borrow it, and she said yes,” Raven said.

  “Enchanting! Let’s save Maddie!”

  They smiled at each other. Then looked around at the spell ingredients.

  “Um… what do we do with these?” asked Apple.

  “I’m going to have to talk to my mom again,” said Raven.

  Raven performed another locking spell on their door and took the blanket off the mirror.

  Apple pulled her chair up to the mirror. “I’ll start Humphrey’s loop.”

  Raven sat beside her. “I’ll do this alone, if you want.”

  “Not on your destiny. I want Maddie saved, too. I’m staying.”

  They made the connection to the Evil Queen, who immediately looked at Apple and said, “You’re not staying.”

  Apple, indignant, crossed her arms. “Yes, I am. I’m here to help.”

  “Sitting there like a shiftless albino mouse does not count as helpful,” the queen said. “Are you a witch, a sorceress, a medium, or possessed of any totems of incredible power? No? Then go away. You will only distract us.”