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“Rule #79: Never try to take gold from a leprechaun, a dragon, or the demon bankers at Gold Man's Sacks.”

—
Definitive Fairy-Tale
Survival Guide, Volume 1

The giant's house broke and fell to the ground. It actually held up better than I had thought it would. Only a few big cracks and… Oh, never mind. The stone walls fell inward, crumbling worse than last year's solstice fruitcakes.

Someone had managed to flee to the cloud from the house at the last moment, though it wasn't Rexi or a normal giant either. It bellowed, sounding like a giant, but then, why did he have furry, purple polka dots? I stopped caring because no one else was on the cloud with him.

Crossing my fingers and toes, I prayed Rexi had escaped death at the last possible moment in some odd or unlikely way that no sane person could ever imagine.

The wind shifted slightly, blowing away the rapidly dissipating wisps of cloud. I could hear more thuds as things fell from the sky.

“Must go to rainbow now.” Hydra hooked the goggled spectacles around her ears and blinked. The fractured pieces of glass made her look like a bug with multicolored eyes. She pulled her head off her shoulders and lowered it by scarf this time, rotating it for a three-hundred-sixty-degree view.

She gave her body directions to steer the pestle toward the right spot. “Oy. Right there.”

“The rainbow?” Kato asked.

“Think smaller and more trouble.”

The bowl tilted as I ran to the side and leaned over. Not too far away from the decimated and pointy stick remains of the giant's home, Rexi ran around like a pokey-haired Chicken Little screaming that the sky was falling. And, well, it was.

The chicken-copter landed right beside her, not nearly as gently as I would have hoped but without breaking any bones.

Excited to see Rexi alive, and pixed she'd disappeared in the first place, I tried to jump out of the bowl without watching my feet. I tripped and ended up flattening her.

“Ugh. Do we really have to do this every day?” She shoved me off her with a grunt. “It wasn't enough to try and drop a house on me. You had to make sure I busted a rib or two?”

Kato freed himself as well and joined us. “You were already down here? We thought the giant had ground your bones to dust. Did one of the clouds drop and take you down here?”

Rexi got a weird, frozen look on her face. “Yeah, something like that.” Her eyes darted away, a guilty look on her face that made me want to check her pockets.

“See? Vhat I tell you? Like cockroach,” Hydra said as she walked past Rexi.

I waited for the requisite snarky reply, but Rexi was quieter than the Little Mermaid after she'd lost her voice. Maybe it was the shock of nearly having a house fall on her. She was probably silently picturing herself squished, with only her feet sticking out from under the house.

Hydra pulled off the goggles and flung them at me. “Your turn to find rainbow spring.”

I put on the goggles and looked around, but I still had trouble finding the rainbow, and not just because the world through the stained-glass lenses looked like a paint factory had blown up. I stood on my tiptoes, but it was no use.

Just when I was about to pull the goggles back off, hands gripped me from behind and lifted me higher. Kato set me on his shoulder and kept one arm around my lap. The emerald tips of my hair sparked like fireworks. He chuckled, aware of the effect he had on me.

Yeah, it sucks to have hair that emotes along with you.

I got myself back under control and looked again. The extra height improved the view, and just above the Sherwood Forest, something sparkled and moved up. A lot of somethings. It was kind of like looking at a waterfall going in reverse. I took off the spectacles, and the sight disappeared.

Kato set me down. I tossed him the goggles and rounded angrily on Hydra. “That's not a spring. A spring is a bubbling brook or fountain-ish thing. That is a geyser.”

It might have looked like I was overreacting, but I sure didn't think so. If I got anywhere near that thing, water was sure to fall on me and put my hair out. And I wouldn't even see it coming, because it was invisible.

Hydra shrugged off my mini-tirade and put the spectacles back on. “You paid to have palm read, no refund if not likink your fortunes.” I interpreted the gypsy speak as,
Your
wish, your problem.

There was a rumble in the clouds followed by the booming of blood thumping in my ears as my heart beat in alarm. Was it thunder, heralding the return of our least-favorite wicked witch? It sounded again, and Rexi's head turned to look so fast that if she'd been Hydra, her head would've come clean off.

I looked at the sky where I thought the sound had come from, searching for Griz and her flying puppies. Wasn't her. With a resounding crash, another building fell from the sky. The Mimicman Wizard had lied through his perfectly capped teeth about glammed near everything—except ozmosis, it appeared. I could almost feel the magics moving around me, like it was alive. It was chaotic, and that made it dangerous, because there was no nursery-rhyming reason to it, no way to guess which part was going to fall apart next—with you standing on it, under it, or in it.

The closer we got to where I figured the spring must be, the slower and more careful each step got. I was excited, nervous, anxious, and relieved for what was to come. The star would soon be unmagicked or disenchanted or…whatever. I imagined what would happen when I tossed the star into the water—from a very safe distance, mind you. Would all the rules just start working again, or would it be like hitting a rewind button on the magic mirror remote?

First thing I planned on doing was apologizing for every rotten thought I'd ever had about my mom and dad. Then I was going to take a bath. I had more layers of grime on my skin than the pea princess had mattresses.

Hydra interrupted my musings with a hand, pushing me to a stop. Though with her hunchback and lumbering mass, she was about as stealthy as a Minotaur, Hydra got down on her stomach and motioned for the rest of us to do the same.

“What the pix are we doing?” I asked.

“
Shhh,
” hissed Hydra. “Rainbow spook easy. Is moving the moment ve are gettink close.”

She passed the spectacles down the line, so I could take a peek. Without the glasses, it looked like any of the other countless rainbows I'd seen from my room at the Emerald Palace. With the glasses on, I saw not one arch, but three, forming a deadly triangle around the spring.

Kato took the glasses back, so he could have a closer look. “Sprite must be using the light from the three suns to reflect the water spraying up and create the barrier.”

“So how are we going to get close?” I asked. “And then, when we do, how do we get to what's over the rainbow?”

Hydra stood slowly, making no sudden movements, and put her back to the rainbow. “Ve approach very slow. No lookink at straight.” She reached inside her housecoat and pulled out a piece of glass she must have swiped from the giant's house. When the sun hit it in just the right way, you could see a reflection of the rainbow—all three of them.

Gotta say, out of all the rules that wish had broken, the reflection one was certainly turning out to be useful. So we all turned around and started walking backward, Hydra going first since she had the glass.

Beside me, Rexi tripped over a rock or something and fell on her rear. “This is by far the absolute dumbest thing we have ever done. And that is saying something.” She thumped the ground with her fist in frustration.

And with that little tidbit, things felt normal again—at least normal for our little band of misfits.

As I back-walked past her, I noticed that she hadn't tripped on a rock. It was sparkling. Being very careful not to accidentally catch a glimpse of the rainbow head-on, I bent down to take a closer look. The rock was actually a golden horseshoe. I picked it up and, nearly immediately afterward, got a sharp bang against my shins.

“Get your greedy little mitts off me lucky charms.” A little orange-skinned, green-haired leprechaun stood in front of me—and kicked me in the shins again before I had a chance to give the horseshoe back. So I dropped it on his head, which was just below my waist.

After rubbing his noggin, he carefully placed the horseshoe exactly where it had been. “This here's a piece o' me fairy ring. I've got the wee rainbow surrounded now, so it can't escape.” He laughed giddily, rubbing his little orange hands together.

“Does that mean we can stop walking backward now?” Rexi asked wryly and stood up, brushing at the grass stain on her trousers' behind.

Apparently it did, because the leprechaun hurried straight toward the rainbow, only stopping a few feet away. The rainbow didn't move. Either blarney boy had really trapped it with a ring of lucky charms, or ozmosis had taken its toll again and was keeping the rainbow from running away. At this point, one seemed just as likely as the next.

Kato's face darkened with worry. “What interest do the wee folk have with this rainbow?” Did he suspect the leprechaun of being an agent of Griz?

“Do na be daft. The wee folk have claim to
every
rainbow. But this pot o' gold is mine. And you canna have it.” That said, the little man ran around us in a circle, moving faster than my eyes could track.

“Look, you've—” I went to walk toward him but found that I couldn't. The clover in the ground had risen up and entangled my feet, tying them to the earth. My friends were snared as well, but their bindings moved well past their feet. The clover and vines dragged them to the ground and coiled around their bodies, even covering their mouths. All of them were making angry, muffled cries.

I didn't take it for granted that the clover couldn't reach above my shoes, and not for the first time, I blessed Verte's good taste in enchanted footwear. My mouth was free, and by Grimm, I would use it. “Wait…please. You don't want to go near that rainbow.” I put every ounce of sincerity I had into my voice, pleading that he would listen to me. If the leprechaun was telling the truth and not working for Griz, then he was about to make a lethal mistake. I couldn't let that happen.

The little orange-and-green man was intrigued by my plea—and probably by the fact that his fae bindings weren't working. He scooted a little closer, making sure to stay out of arm's length from me. “And why wouldn't I be wantin' to do that?” he asked.

“Because there's no pot of gold at the end of the rainbow,” I said, pointing through his white panty hose–covered legs to the point where the colored arch met the grass.

He leaned forward, bending down to where I lay on the ground. “If there be no gold, what be there?” His eyes squinted as if he were really listening and considering the possibility.

Um, I had no idea what to tell him, so I stuck with the truth. “A special spring. But you can't see it because it's invisible.” This was my chance to convince him, and it sounded bad to me, so I know it must have sounded even crazier to him.

He flopped his hands dismissively at me and straightened again. “Now you're just blowin' a bunch of blarney. Next, you'll be tellin' me there be silver-winged unicorns and the spring's really a fountain of youth.” He turned away from me and headed back toward the rainbow.

“I'm telling the truth,” I pleaded. Tears of frustration welled up in my eyes. He wasn't going to stop, and there was nothing I could do. What would Mom say? She could make anyone listen and obey. “That's not a normal rainbow. It's going to kill you if you touch it. Please.” My voice hitched with a sob.

It was enough to give him pause, but only just. The others were still wriggling in their viney cocoons. He looked at them and then me, a puzzled look obscuring his face. Still, it wasn't enough. He sidestepped slowly, inching under the rainbow.

I called again for him to stop. I prayed that the magical mishaps had already struck the rainbow, making it harmless. But when his hand crossed under the arch of the rainbow, I saw that it hadn't.

I closed my eyes so I didn't have to watch him die.

“You never know what you're gonna find when you look under those covers—Grandma or the wolf.”

—
Little Red, excerpt from
Tales from the Hood

In the past few hours, my emotions had been all over the map—from the heights of hope, to the lows of loss. And of course, the highs made bottoming out that much rougher.

So I lay there and cried. When my throat was so raw that it hurt to breathe, I let the sound stop but kept my mouth frozen in a silent scream. Why hadn't he listened? I didn't even know his name, so I only had his face to add to the growing list of things that would haunt my waking moments—to say nothing of the sleeping ones.

Someone wrapped their arms around my body and gathered me into their lap like a small child. I finally opened my eyes and looked into Kato's. He held me in his arms, smoothing my flaming hair, murmuring things in a language I didn't understand. My heart recognized them as tender reassurances, but my head rejected them as lies.

It was not okay. I should have been able to make the wee man stop. My mother would have been able to do it. She once convinced an evil genie to seal himself back into the bottle. With only the power of her words, she was able to inspire, lead, or instill the fear of Grimm into a man. Once again, at my opportunity to follow her example, I failed. And I didn't even have the courage to watch, to witness his last moments.

I would look now. Kato tried to stop me, tried to shield my eyes, but I would see the consequences of my failure.

The prone form of the leprechaun lay next to the rainbow. The vines and clover had abandoned my friends and gone back to their master. They covered the body like a death shroud. There was no menace; the vines were gentle, almost caressing as they wrapped around the leprechaun. Once finished, they pulled the body down, entombing it in the ground, returning it to the earth.

Hydra watched the funeral solemnly. Her normally animated face looked worn, showing each one of her two hundred fifty-plus years.

I wanted to stay in Kato's arms and sleep for centuries, be like Rip Van Winkle and let the world continue to spin around me. A harsh sound hit my ears and intruded on my attempt at oblivion. Rexi was retching into a nearby bush. When she straightened, her arms shook and her face was pale, bordering on phantomlike.

Seeing her suffer gave me a jolt. If I laid there and did nothing, I would be failing her too. She deserved a chance to have her old life back—or a better one, if I could manage it. To not be chased from one corner of Story to another, looking over her shoulder for the boogeyman. This needed to end, and the answer was right there. We just needed a way to get to the other side.

I wiped my tears and summoned the bravest face I could, pushing myself away from Kato's comfort. “We need to get to the spring. It's time to write a big
the
end
and, with any luck, a
happily
ever
after
. Hydra, do you think my flames could break the rainbow?”

Hydra considered and then shook her head. “
Nyet
. Rainbows all the same. Nothing solid to hit. Now if sprite vere to be hit…” Apparently, this head was not a pacifist, like the witch doctor one.

Even if she approved, it wasn't an option. For starters, I didn't know where this Rainbow Sprite character was. And second, I didn't want any non-Griz cronies getting hurt if I could help it. There had been enough of that already.

Kato looked glum. “If I still had wings, I could fly over and drop the star in.” His broad shoulders slumped inward in defeat.

“Maybe, but who knows how high the barrier reaches?” A thought was beginning to snowball in my mind. “We can't go under, over, or through the rainbow. And we can't get the sprite to break the magic tied to it.” I paused to finish working out the details in my head. “Hydra, if there were no rainbow, would there still be a barrier?”

Hydra stroked her chin and pulled on a lone hair that was curling along the bottom of it. “Is possible. No rainbow. Nothing for sprite magic to be magickink.”

“How sure are you?” I asked, grabbing her arms.

She smacked her lips and used her tongue to fish something out of her tooth. “Is fifty-fifty.”

Rexi threw her hands in the air. “What's the pixing point? You can't make the rainbow disappear. And even if you could, there's a fifty percent chance we'll all die crossing. Please, let's just go.”

I shook my head emphatically, surer than ever of what we had to do now. “I can get rid of the rainbow, but we're all going to have to work together. Here's the plan.”

I laid out everything that was racing through the jumble of my brain. Kato had said earlier that the rainbow was triangled, because of the three suns' light passing through the moving water. So what if the water stopped moving?

Kato needed to use his ice magic to freeze the water.

His eyebrows shot up. I think he was a bit skeptical. “I'm not sure I can freeze the whole thing at once. Especially if I can't see it.”

I pushed the glasses at him. “Now you can. As soon as the spring is frozen, the rainbow should fade, hopefully taking the barrier with it.”

Hydra moved her jaw like she was a cow chewing her cud. “That is big whopper of chance.”

“I'm not done yet. Hydra, you're in charge of the sprite if he comes out. Talk to him, distract him, whatever.”

“And vhat is it I am be distraction of?” she asked, winking one eye down.

“Rexi,” I answered.

At the sound of her name, Rexi jumped and put her hands to her chest. “Why shouldn't he see me? I haven't—”

I walked over to her and grasped her hands. “You have the most important job. Kato is going to be freezing the spring, but I can't drop the star in ice. And when he unfreezes it, I won't be able to get close enough in case the spring unmagicks me.” I took the star from the pocket of the sack dress and gently placed it in Rexi's hand. “As soon as the spring is liquid again, you run and toss this in.”

She shook her head, her spiky hair waving back and forth. “I can't. You don't—”

“Yes, you can,” I said with the utmost confidence. “Kato will guide you while he's wearing the glasses, so you'll know where to drop it.” I took a deep breath and turned to Kato. “Are you ready?”

“No. But I get the feeling this isn't optional.” Worry clouded his features again.

I kissed the wrinkles on his brow. “It'll work.” It had to.

He pursed his lips and huffed through his nose, unhappy, but still he nodded and put on the spectacles.

Magic was happening, even though you couldn't see it directly. The temperature dropped, and my breath turned to foggy mist in front of me. There was a crackling and tinkling sound, like when you swish a drink with ice cubes. I could see Kato's eyes focused intently through the lenses. His lips quivered, and a bead of sweat rolled down the side of his face, then froze before it could drip off.

The rainbow faded from view.

Rexi took a tentative step. “Did it work? Are the barriers gone?”

I took a deep breath and steadied myself. “Let's find out.” I walked toward the bright green patch of clover that marked the leprechaun's final resting place.

“Wait!” Kato protested.

I'd left out my part of the plan on purpose because I knew Kato wouldn't go along with it if he knew that I was going to be the one to test the barrier. But I couldn't ask any of them to risk their lives for my crazy idea.

There were more cracking sounds ahead of me. I called back to Kato. “Focus only on the ice. If you don't, I'll get zapped and soggy.”

He set his jaw and stared ahead with a single-minded purpose.

I needed to make sure it was safe for Rexi to cross. That meant I needed to stretch my hand across where the barrier should be but hopefully wasn't. I stuck out my arm and inched forward. Then a little more. When I was ten paces past the clover patch without getting electrocuted, I finally exhaled the breath I'd been holding. It was probably safe to call for Rexi.

To the side of me, there was a shimmer in front of a tree. My eyes refused to focus on the glitter, blurring the outlines of the bark. A seam of light formed a door in the trunk of the tree, and out stepped a tall, thin man. He had a hard gleam in his eyes that matched the razor-sharp, rainbow-colored tips of his Mohawk. His face and body were dotted with metal spikes and balls that hooked through and pierced his multicolored skin. With a name like Rainbow Sprite, I had been expecting a small, winged, fragile creature, not the sharp and very angry man in front of me.

Hydra remembered her role just in time. She tossed her head at the sprite, and he, acting on instinct, put his hands out in front of him to catch the projectile. When Verte told me to use my head, I don't think this was what she'd had in mind. The sprite didn't expect it either though, and so, understandably surprised at holding a head in his hands, he didn't pay attention to where he put his fingers. Hydra bit him. And her teeth were wicked sharp.

The sprite yelled in pain and tossed Hydra's head away from him. Hydra yelled as her head flew past me. I yelled for Rexi to run and for Kato to let go of the spring. Kato yelled at me to watch out.

The sprite stopped yelling when a stormball crashed into his back.

A lot of things happened at once. I saw Griz, the Tinman, and a few demon puppies on the other side of the clearing. The spring became visible between us even before the sprite hit the ground. Kato released his control of the ice magic, allowing the water to move again, spitting droplets of disenchantment. I ran as fast as I could, but some still landed on me. It felt like I was being stabbed in the head with a pickax.

I made it to Kato and looked back at Griz. She was throwing stormballs, but when they hit the water, the balls dissolved. She couldn't attack or come any closer with the water between us. The same applied to me; I couldn't blast her with emerald flame and I couldn't get any closer either.

When I had played chess with Verte, she'd called something like this a stalemate. But I still had a pawn on the board. Rexi stood at the edge of the clearing, doing her best impression of Pinocchio before he came to life. I couldn't even see her breathing, she was so terrified.

Come
on, come on. Move
. I willed it silently because, if I called out to her, it would draw Griz's attention.

Finally, Rexi took one step. Then another. I could see the bulge of the star in her pocket. If she would have ran, she might have gotten rid of it before Griz noticed her. But she kept advancing slowly, and Griz and I both watched in complete silence.

Rexi made it within throwing distance of the spring and stuck her hand in her pocket. But instead of pulling out the star and tossing it in, she turned and looked at me. Her face had droplets of water running down it and maybe a few tears. Her eyes were wide with sadness. She opened her mouth to speak but closed it again without uttering a sound.

Then she dropped her head and kept walking.

To Griz.