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Kato took a turn patting them and swore.

Rexi looked like she was in the final death throes on the floor. “Horndog takes on a whole new meaning.”

Even I couldn't hold back a chuckle. “It's no big deal, I promise. And we can figure out the whole kiss thing as soon as we fix the rules. So let's figure out how we're going to do that.” Then I noticed that my hand was on his bare chest. My face heated again. “But first maybe we can find something for you to wear.”

Hydra tossed Kato some clothes. “Dese belonged to me fourt husband. Mebe dey be fittin' ya.”

I turned around but noticed both Rexi and Hydra were still watching. Grabbing them by the hand, I hauled them outside. “We'll just step out for a sec and give you some privacy.” I closed the door and hit my head against it.

Rexi pouted next to me. “Come on. Aren't you just the least—”

“No!”

“I tink we's bess go back inside.”

I groaned and trudged myself around. “Not you too, Hy—”

Something was stepping out of the water. They were short, blue-gray, muscled guys with hammer heads. I didn't need to wonder if they were friendly or not, because the wizard was leading them from his flying balloon.

“The Rule of Duty: Always ask someone else to do, so you won't have to do for yourself.”

—
Thomason's Tips to Ruthless Ruling

“We've got company,” I said breathlessly, rushing inside and slamming the door.

Kato was in the middle of buttoning his shirt. “What do you mean?” He ran over and took a peek out the door—then slammed it shut, quickly putting his weight against it. “That doesn't look good.”

“Is there a back door or a secret exit or something?” I asked Hydra.

“No in so muny wordins,” she replied.

Someone pounded on the door. “Ozma. I know you're in there. Just hand over my princess and I'll leave you alone.”

Hydra leaned her mouth near the door crack. “Sorry, wrong numba. Der be no Ozma here.”

“I don't care what you're calling yourself now. Just do yourself a favor and stay out of it like you have the last two hundred years.”

I really hoped she didn't hand us over, but you don't get to be that old by taking risks for near strangers. She didn't owe us anything.

Hydra pursed her lips and seemed to think over his proposal, then shook her head—the opossums swinging wildly. “No tanks, dat would be borin'.”

I wanted to cheer, but the door pounded against my back.

“Let. Me. In.”

“Not by da hairs of me chinny chin chin.”

“Then I'll huff.” The voice behind the door started changing. “And I'll puff.” Getting rougher and gravelly. “And I'll blow your house in.” When the wizard—no, Mimicman finished, I can only imagine that his body had shape-shifted to match his voice. There was a big bad wolf outside our door.

I took a deep breath and called the flames to my hands. It wasn't hard to summon hatred for that man. He'd tried to use and manipulate me. And Grimm knows what his plans were for after the marriage. My body shuddered, and my hair flared bright in anger.

Hydra put her hand to my heart. “No child. Dat is not da way. Using it will only feed da hunger inside until da madness gobble ya whole.”

The power gnawed inside right now, trying to claw its way to the surface. The wind and something worse howled outside. “I don't think we have a better option. Can you freeze them all, Kato?”

He thought about it for a moment. “Not with my normal powers. Maybe if I used my life magic.”

“No,” Hydra said. “Between da two beasties, I's not sure you be winnin'.”

I really didn't like that idea either. He was burning through those way too fast, and our enemies just kept growing in numbers.

Rexi ransacked Hydra's hut, pulling boxes and jars off the shelves, opening drawers and looking under the counters. “Where is it?”

I couldn't help but notice she hadn't frozen up with fear like she did any time Griz was around. Maybe that's because she had a trick up her sleeve—or under Hydra's cauldron or something. “Where's what? Do you have a huntsman stashed somewhere in here?”

The howling outside increased, and there was the sound of knocking coming from the walls—probably the hammerheads looking to do a little home remodeling.

Rexi yelled at Hydra over the din. “Where does it go? The black hole, wormhole, or rabbit hole that your houses keep disappearing into? Can't we just escape through that?”

“That's brilliant, Rexi!” I cried.

Hydra shook her head. “It only opens when I be puttin' on a new head.”

Kato's back bucked against the banging of the door. “So switch already.”

“I neber doned it while inside. Even with a transmigra-mogr-whosa, we's might be gettin' squished.”

Rexi grabbed a random head off the shelf. “I think the house is comin' down either way.”

“Okay. Donna be sayin' I dinna warn ya.”

The tip of one of the hammerheads broke through the back wall.

“If it doesn't work, we'll be dead. Then we won't be saying anything.” Rexi yanked the voodoo head off by its yellow afro and placed the new head on Hydra's shoulders.

“Wait for it,” I whispered to Kato. He grasped my hand and squeezed.

The hut shook fiercely, making my shoes click together. Up above, the ceiling started to crack. The walls buckled. Pressure built up in the room, making my head ache and my ears clog. Just when I thought my head would explode, there was a loud pop.

We were no longer in the hut, but pieces of it were strewn all around us. Not only that, but we were surrounded by mountains of, well, junk. Old rockers, bed frames, doors, a giant shoe—all piled high in some kind of warehouse.

“Where are we?” I marveled.

Kato still had his back up against the door, but instead of the door to a wooden hut, it was now heavy, riveted steel. He pulled on the handle and opened it with a loud creak.

Hydra wrapped a purple shawl with clinking coins around her shoulders. “Should I read you your fortune, or perkhaps you might just be taking clue? Ve are in the cloud storage, da?” The new head had more wrinkles than smooth, while her nose and chin looked like a withered squash. She spoke like a native of the Old World, from the times when Grimm was the only Storymaker. They weren't spoken of in polite conversation, but from everything I'd heard about them, they made Rexi seem like a ray of sunshine.

To emphasize the point, she chucked a dead rat at Rexi, making her drop a pocket watch she'd been looking at. “Little thieves have a tendency to lose little hands.”

I ignored Rexi's shoplifting attempt and subsequent rodent freak-out to look over Kato's shoulder and out the front door. The beach was gone. Thankfully, so was the Mimicman and his hammerhead soldiers. The ground had been replaced by white, fluffy clouds. Up above, the sky was dark, but the clouds were backlit from below, like the three suns were shining underneath the clouds. So while it was day down there, it was night up where we were.

“Is it safe to step on?” Kato asked and gently placed one bare foot outside.

“Why don't you try it? If we don't hear you plunging to your death, we'll know it's safe.” Rexi batted her eyes and gave Kato an innocent, toothy grin.

Kato got a mischievous look on his face. “Watch this,” he whispered and cupped his hands in front of his mouth. He took a deep breath and blew. Snow built up in his hands. When he had enough, he chucked the snowball at the unsuspecting Rexi.

She wiped the snow off her face. “That's it. The abominable snow boy is going down.” She lowered her spiky blond head like a ram and charged full speed at him. With an
oof!
he doubled over, clutching his stomach, and fell out the door. He landed on his back, the fluffy clouds holding him up.

I smacked Rexi. “He doesn't have wings anymore. You could've killed him.”

She waved me off. “Nah. I've been up here before. I knew it was safe.”

That was news to me. “When?”

“The Emerald Palace has storage up here someplace too.” My face must have shown my surprise, so she continued. “Think about it. You've ordered enough stuff from the Castle Shopping Network to clothe every storybook character ever written. Your closet's big, but not
that
big. It all has to go someplace.”

She was right. I hadn't really thought of it before. I guess I hadn't really thought about a lot of things.

“I think I'm stuck,” Kato called and waved his arms, having trouble getting out of the squishy clouds.

Rexi and I ran outside to get him out.

He grasped both our hands. “You know, we've had a rough day. I think you deserve some
down
time.”

Instead of pulling him up, on the word
down
, he yanked us to him. Soon, we were all rolling and playing in the clouds' banks, making cloud angels. It reminded me of winters in the courtyard when I was a kid, but this was so much better. For one, it wasn't cold and wet. And for another, I wasn't playing alone with palace guards standing watch. Aside from the hair and layers of grime, that was one of the biggest changes from the Emerald Palace: I wasn't alone anymore.

I had friends.

And now that I knew my parents and Verte were still alive somewhere, I was glad I'd stepped out of my Emerald Palace. Seeing the world up close looked a lot different than from my gilded window.

I had a whole new perspective.

Though I still believed in the Storymakers, I'd started to question how much control I had on how this story turned out. Maybe it was me and not the curse that would determine the kind of person I became. The power alone wouldn't make me evil. It all depended on what I did with it. But that didn't mean I had to be helpless either, waiting for someone else to solve my problems.

Hero or villain—it was up to me to decide.

I let the flame come to my hand. The power was sluggish, sleepy without having an immediate target. I thought back to the times I had used it, especially at the Ivory Tower. That voice, guiding me to burn it all. And the feeling of being invincible, being powerful—of having control. But who had really been in control? That was the question. If I didn't use the power in anger, if I only gave it my life to eat, was I strong enough to harness the flame and use it to my benefit? I'd used it to save Kato once…

Let's hope that in addition to my mother's temper, I also got her strength.

Leaving Kato and Rexi to finish their cloudball fight, I went back in the storage unit to find Hydra. “What do I need to do to put back the rules of magic and set everything right again?”

“Iz bout time you grow brain and stop vith the froo froo and play. Iz like carryink fire in one hand and vater in other. Maybe vere you to listen to me first time, you vould not have been burned, da?” Hydra spoke to me but didn't bother looking up while she sifted through piles of her things. She tucked the strands of her new salt-and-pepper hair behind her big gold hoop earrings.

Squatting down to her level, my dress pooled around my feet. “No offense, but you smelled and looked like the headless horseman's long-dead granny.”

Hydra muttered under her breath. “Vise men say to never judge book by cover.” She tossed a cannonball over her shoulder, narrowly missing me.

I cocked my head to the side and chuckled. “Hello…princess here. My whole life was about the cover—the clothes, the wrapping on the package.” I put a hand on her arm, stilling her search. “But I was wrong. And I'm ready now to hear what you have to say.”

She cocked her head to match mine and searched for the truth in my words. Apparently satisfied, she pulled her hand out of the pile. Opening her fist, Hydra's palm held a wishing star. Not just any wishing star—my wishing star.

“Rule #83: When on a quest, there's safety in numbers. The dumb one that goes off alone always gets cursed first.”

—Definitive Fairy-Tale Survival Guide, Volume 1

I hadn't thought I'd ever see that star again after I'd left it at Hydra's house the first time. “But I've already used up the wish. I've tried unwishing on it. Nothing works,” I protested.

Hydra grasped my hand and placed the star in it. “Vish is not gone, just stuck inside. Vere you to find some magic bleach to be unstickink it, perkhaps vish would be
dasvidanya
.”

Rolling the star in my hand, I contemplated what that might mean. “As in never happened? Or everything just goes back to normal?”

Hydra shrugged. “Oy! How I be knowink? Pig might fly. Might be breakfast.
Nyet
. All my years, never see big mess as this.” She stood, her back cracking underneath her shawl and floral housecoat.

Great. If the wish had never happened, I would be the same shallow princess I was before. But it wasn't like I had a whole lot of options. I would do whatever it took to make things right. “Okay. So where do you keep your strongest cleaners?” I started, looking through the piles for a big bottle of bleach.

“Say I be havink? Is not been made for hundred years or more.” She shook her head and made a face, showing a mouth full of sharpened teeth. “Case of cure being more trouble than the curse.”

I threw my hands up in sheer exasperation. “First, there was a killer rainbow that no one could find. Then we got the
Book
of
Making
, just to have it swiped by the wizard and Griz. And after all that, we're back to page one again.”

Hydra clucked her tongue at me. “In sense. Book would be helpful, but that is flown coup, so back to plan A and finding of glasses.”

And I used to think it was tough to get a straight answer out of Verte, that it had to be something with being incredibly ancient. The cobwebs built up in the brain and got their thoughts tangled or something.

Hydra harrumphed around the storage, opening baskets and boxes, and crawling under tables until she spied a leather sack. “Ahh,” she said, opening the satchel. Then she frowned and shook it upside down. Nothing came out.

She stormed out the door, grabbing a walking stick and miniature suitcase on the way.

Rexi and Kato were outside, breathless, but still in one piece. I was glad that the play fight hadn't turned into a war. With those two, you never could tell.

Whistling through the points of her front teeth, Hydra caught Rexi's attention before sweeping under her legs with the walking stick. “If not vanting to be made into soup, then save rotten tuchus and give back spectacles.”

Rexi opened her mouth to protest, looked again at the pointy stick, and thought better of it. Reaching around to the back of her shirt, she pulled out a pair of goggles with multicolored lenses.

Hydra inspected them and nodded. “
Da
. Will do job, but better to be goink at once. A little late is too late in this cases.”

She unlatched the small suitcase and set it on the cloud. “Vait.” Like a miniature version of her house, the bag suddenly expanded and left a carriage-sized mortar with chicken feet.

“What's that?” Rexi asked, staying well away from it.

“Have never seen RV? Running Vehicle. Is somethink I von from Baba Yaga playink roulette.” She climbed in the bowl and gestured to the little bit of space left behind her. “Comink?”

Even Kato eyed it with a leery expression. “We'll walk, thanks. But where are we going?”

“Hopefully not there.” I pointed east, to the extremely large house made of stone and metal—with a bean stalk in the garden.

“
Nyet
, but if hungry, giant make very tasty golden egg omelet.” Hydra put on the colored goggles and rotated the pestle, heading out at a brisk pace across the clouds.

“I'll pass,” I said and looked at the bean stalk again. Instead of going down, the bean stalk started in the clouds and grew upward, higher than the eye could track. Guess we weren't getting down that way.

We followed after Hydra, but walking on clouds was nothing like walking on air; it was like walking in snow. Maybe those big chicken feet acted like snowshoes, but my heels kept getting stuck. The darker clouds were especially gooey.

After a few hundred yards, the chicken bowl stopped. Hydra pulled off her head, tied it to her walking stick, and thrust it down through the cloud cover. “What are you doing?” I asked, hoping she knew how to tie a good knot, because if not, we'd be going head hunting.

Hydra's body hoisted the stick back up, her head still on it, and moved the bowl to a new spot. “What look like? Head periscope plus color-spectrum glasses find invisible rainbow. Is not rocketink science,” she said before plunging her head down under the clouds again.

The grayish clouds beneath our feet rumbled. Or maybe that was Kato. “You can't be thinking about using the spring,” he yelled loud enough so Hydra could hear.

“
Da
. Unless you are havink better plan,” she hollered back, her head still out of sight.

Wanting answers and to see for myself, I crouched down and poked my head through the dense clouds. From so high, I could see the patchwork of kingdoms, each setting so different from the next. But no rainbow. Then again, I didn't have the glasses on. “When Griz attacked the palace, the Emerald Sorceress said my only hope was over the rainbow at the spring. What's the big deal?” Being so high—and upside down—was making me a little dizzy. As I started to sway, Kato's arms circled my waist, keeping me steady as he pulled me up.

My hair cracked and hissed from more than the condensation in the cloud.

Once Hydra got her head back on straight, she launched into a long, extremely hard to follow history lesson on the springs.
SpiffNotes
version: Guy named Rainbow Sprite found a magic spring and had issues sharing, so he made it invisible, built a killer rainbow to guard it, and moved it regularly. Don't ask me how.

“So in other words,” I said, trying very hard to control my temper even though I was really pixed at Verte. “Last week, when we started looking for the spring without the glasses, we wouldn't have seen the rainbow—unless we walked into it, and then
poof!
Princess Crispies.”

Hydra popped her head off for another rainbow fishing expedition. Before she went under, she said very matter-of-factly, “If was easy, das Gray Vitch have given sister spring vater shower a goat's age ago.”

“What?” Kato roared. If I had closed my eyes right then, I would have thought he was still a chimera.

At the sound, Hydra's bird-legged RV took off like, well, a chicken with its head cut off.

“Hydra, please wait.” I had an unpleasant feeling that I knew what she was talking about. Grimm, I hoped I was wrong. “Are Griz and Blanc sisters?”

“How did I not know this?” Kato put his head in his hands, causing his ill-fitting shirt to flap open.

“Bah. Is obvious. You must have memory vorse than Anastazia. Vhite Vitch. Gray Vitch. Das entire line have the boring colors with silver eyes.” Hydra glared down her lumpy nose at me. “Just who are you thinkink have put curse on high and mighty House of Emerald in first place?”

I had already figured it out a while ago; I just hadn't wanted to believe it. The story of the sisters and the Emerald curse, my dream—all the pieces came together, and I didn't like them.

“No wonder you look so much like the princess from the book. Your ancestor must have been the girl who helped the Beast King lock Blanc away,” Kato said, his face weary.

“Is true.” Hydra hopped off her chicken bowl, walked over, and put a bloated and clammy hand on my shoulder. “Beast King double-cross vitch sisters to make little Emerald princess happy. Gray Vitch vant to beat two birdies one stone. So she try make your great-great-great-great vhatever elder burn him to crisp along with whole world. But Griz is just a hatched chickie then. Not even finish her curse school. She made mistake in spell so is skipping down generation.”

Everything from the past seemed to come together to create this storm of craziness. Griz's curse, the chimera's Fire Priestess, Blanc being nearly indestructible—and I was sitting smack in the middle of the tornado.

“So I just happened to pick the short wand?”

“Perkhaps it is pickink you.” Hydra flung her hand out dismissively. “But that is nother bowl of goulash.” She jumped way too spryly back into her bowl and started the chicken feet power walking again. “As sure as bears relieve self in vood, Griz is knowink Dorthea's power can be turnink sister into charcoal, so vill not vait for magic prison flames to go out. Best ve hurry and beat that vitch to the spring. I must say it vill feel good to see her, how you say, get hers.” She grinned, and I could see her tongue moving between the gaps of her teeth.

“So you think we'll be able to beat her?”

“Is fifty-fifty. I vould have better idea if had crystal ball.” My face fell. “Pardon, me. I am not realizink I vas supposed to lie. This head has not been vorn for century and out of practice. I vill try again.” Hydra cleared her throat, touched her fingers to her temples, and stood up a little taller. “
Da
. I am seeink it now. Ve vill win.”

I wonder why that didn't make me feel any better?

Kato caught up to us and grabbed my hand, giving it a reassuring squeeze. “They were beaten by the Beast King and Emerald Princess once, so you and I can definitely do it again.”

The clouds in front of us thinned out, becoming wispy enough to see through.

“Is there!” Hydra cackled, pointing down to a lush green spot of land.

“Great. So how do we get do—” I shrieked as my foot went through the dissipating fluffy floor.

Kato, still holding on to my hand, snatched me back.

That had been close. I'd been saved by the chimera a few times, but being rescued by the boy felt completely different.

“My hero,” I huffed and put a hand to my chest to keep my heart from bursting out of it.

He brushed his hand along my cheek. “My lady.”

“My village idiots,” Hydra snapped, completely ruining the mood. “Clouds no longer safe. Unless vant to arrive on ground as pancake, am suggestink hurry.”

“After you,” I grumbled, then paused. Something was missing. Rather
someone
was missing. No way Rexi would have let the mushy stuff go by without a snarky comment.

Kato, on the same wavelength, looked around. “Where is she?”

Parts of the cloud floor had thinned, while others had turned dark and stormy. A thunderous rumble vibrated through the ground beneath our feet.

At the same time, a loud bellow echoed through the air. “Fe-fi-fo-fum. Leave right now or turn to crumb.”

Kato groaned. “She wouldn't.”

“Gold-laying tweety bird?” I thought it over for a millisecond. “Yeah, she would.”

Kato and I started for the giant's house, but it didn't look right. I put my arm in front of Kato, making him stop. “Does it look like that house is shrinking to you?”

“Not shrinking. Sinking.”

“Let thief have vhat comink to her. Must make escape now, before we go kaput in more cloudquake,” Hydra mumbled and cursed.

I crossed my arms defiantly. “She may be a thief, but she's our thief.”

“
Nyet
. You have got to be pulling legs.”

“I mean it.” I pointed out the tilted house that looked like a ship after hitting an iceberg. “Rexi is probably in there, and we can't leave her behind.”

“Thief will be fine. Have strong self-survival sense, like cockroach. You…not as much.” Without warning, Hydra grabbed me by the ear and hauled me back to her chicken bowl. She'd wrangled Kato too. “I am meaning literally pull off legs.”

Hydra took off her head and set it on the ground, then had her body jack up the underside of the chicken bowl onto her shoulders so the little chicken feet had no weight on them.

Kato shrugged at me and started yanking the left chicken leg, so I got to work on the right. Hydra's head supervised. Both gangly legs came off from the bowl with a pop. After setting the legless bowl back on the darkening cloud, Hydra's body retrieved her head, then took the drumsticks off our hands.

“Good. Now have less than two minute to make RV into ATV, Air Traveling Vehicle.”

“Two minutes!” Another rumble shook the clouds, making me hang on to the sides of the bowl.

With a crash, stone and metal crumbled off the giant's house to the ground below.

Hydra climbed back into the bowl and put the legs inside, feet end up. She fussed and fiddled, spit and mumbled until the combination of legs and bowl somewhat resembled a whirligig.

Kato scoffed. “There's no way that thing will fly.”

With a smug and defiant snort, Hydra pulled her scarf off from where she'd tied it around the legs, and the “propeller” began to spin.

“I smell storm comink. Get on or all fall down,” Hydra said as the chicken-copter started to hover.

My stomach was in knots, worrying where Rexi was and if she was okay.

“Dead princess have hard time savink realm from Blanc. So move!”

Kato put his hands on my waist and hoisted me into the getaway vehicle. “Have faith.”

That was asking a lot, considering that, right then, the house groaned and plummeted through the air.