With a Kiss (Twisted Tales) (20 page)

Every detail, which was strange from this distance—it had to be an enchantment. Beasts and ethereal waifs wandered amongst the statues as if mingling at a party for the rich and famous. “They’re the worst kind of rabble,” Hobs said. “The Bendith y Mamau, the Ellyllon, the Tylwyth Teg. That’s what makes up the Unseelie court. Their numbers have grown since last I saw them.”

They made a misfit army of the pretty and the ugly, dressed in furs and silks and boots and armor. Some were barefoot on the ice. Others hovered in the air. Some were so heavy they sank deep into the ground. They ranged from fairly normal to green, purple, and furry. Compared to them, I didn’t feel like a freak at all.

Hobs put his arm around Babs to keep her close. “We have to keep an eye on her. They’re baby snatchers.”

“She’s hardly a baby anymore.”

“They’re not that picky. They’ll suck every last ounce of youth out of her.” His worried look passed over her to me. “Who knows? They might like you too.”

I gulped, and tried to tell myself it couldn’t be that bad. “What about you, Hobs? Don’t you think they’ll want a piece of you then?”

“They don’t want anything to do with me.” Hobs ducked behind a rock, tugging us with him when a giant of a man stormed past
her
army. The giant could be nothing less than the hag’s general in all that armor. He had a patch over one eye. The good eye impatiently scoured the ranks of soldiers. “He’s allergic to humans,” Hobs breathlessly recounted. “Keep out of the wind. He starts sneezing and we’re done for.”

The giant strutted to a cluster of ice sculptures directly below us. A half-witted troll got in his way and the giant’s eye rolled back until it showed only his . . . reds (not his whites). The rusty membrane glowed with such an intense inner light that the blaze building inside him could no longer be contained. It shot out at the clumsy troll, zapping the poor thing across the lake. None of the other faeries looked surprised. They merely stepped aside to let the thing slide past in a burst of flames and smoke.

 “He’s got an eye on him! Can you imagine what the guy could do with two?” Hobs yanked the black beanie down further over his blonde hair. It was now a familiar gesture as he reworked his plans. “I didn’t know he still ran the place.”

“Who?”

“Cyclops.”

“Ah, yeah, one eye. Of course.”

“
I
call him that.” Hobs kept his voice neutral. I think he was trying to keep Babs from getting scared. “His name is . . .” Hobs stopped himself from saying the unthinkable with a laugh. “Don’t worry about it.” I hunted through the group for one person in particular. “Where is the hag?” Hobs extracted a kaleidoscope from his backpack. He squinted through it.

“What are you doing?” I asked. “That’s a kaleidoscope.”

“I have to find out which snowflake she’s hiding in. It’s all in the colors really.” He adjusted the kaleidoscope to his liking. “There she
is.” He drew the kaleidoscope from his eye and pointed to the air a little above the heads of some tree monster with faces webbed over with branches. “Meet the worst hag in the kingdom, my friend.”

I caught sight of a tiny snowflake floating above the army’s heads, and got ready. It fanned out into an elegant sparkly dress and began to form into a female. Her arms took shape, then her neck, followed by the face of the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. She sparkled from the top of her lustrous midnight-black hair to the tip of her blue slippers. A frosty maiden made entirely of ice. She was young and vibrant.

Babs propped her elbows on the drifted snow next to us. “She’sh pretty.”

Trust Hobs to make things anti-climactic. “She’s the hag, huh?” I asked him. “Yeah, I can see it. She really looks like one.”

“Sure,
she’s beautiful,” Hobs said irritably. “Like Venus, she’s beautiful.” That was probably why she liked all those mirrors. I felt the tension release from my body; she didn’t seem so bad. “Oh no, you don’t.” Hobs read me like a book. “Don’t let her fool you. Close your eyes and listen to her voice.”

Both Babs and I obeyed, listening to the silky tones as she addressed her entranced minions. “My friends! My allies! All are welcome. Now is the day of liberation! Today is the day . . .”

I opened my eyes to give Hobs an accusing look as she continued her rousing speech. “She
has a beautiful voice, too.”

“Look into
her eyes if you don’t believe me. Even from this distance, nothing can hide the coldness in them.”

I expected to find nothing. I couldn’t exactly see her eyes, but after concentrating, I could feel them glittering menacingly and I shivered. There was no warmth in her. It was hauntingly familiar. The next second, her cackle convinced me. It was the same evil thing I heard in the theater, and as she talked, her silky tones turned vicious. “The princess of abundance is here in the Sidhe. We will find her . . . and finish her!” I started in fear and rage.
Yeah, she pretty much is an ugly hag.
Poor Babs!

The ogres jumped up, clapping their hands. They were half-rotting animals, off-green in pukish tones of yellow and clad in hardly anything at all. They cheered like high schoolers at a jamboree. “Eat children. Eat children!” I almost expected Daphne to do a double flip through their ranks in a cheerleading outfit. Since they were ogres, it wasn’t long before they messed the chant up. “Children eat! Children eat!”

I tried to think of a way to get past them, turning to Hobs. “Well, they don’t seem very smart.”

“At least that.” Hobs smoothed down Babs’ fuzzy hair that had loosened from her pigtails, his hand covering most of her face. She shivered, her shoulder pressing into my arm. “It’s okay, baby,” he told her. “I’ve got your back.”

The hag hovered over the mounds of snow until she found perch on a patch of ground. A large stone jutted out behind her like a grave marker. She was well guarded. Two redheaded waifs dressed in leather and fur stood on either side of her. Behind them were tough-looking dwarves in dark sunglasses. Magic poured between them in a type of forcefield.

With a heart-wrenching cry, the hag raised her holly-covered staff, and it all melted into a puddle in her palm. Giving it a few encouraging words, she wove a spell over it and we watched it reassemble into ice crystals, building over each other until it formed into a perfect mirror of ice. She held the handle and stared intently into it with all the drama conjured up by an evil witch.

Hobs glared at her, his breathing forced, his expression full of pain and rage. I had never seen him this way. When he noticed me, he masked it with a lesser look of disgust. “That mirror’s dangerous. You know she got it from some demon faery named Peerifool?”

“What does she see in it?”

“A fair maiden.” He gave me a hard smile and nudged me. “Yeah, she’s pretty vain. You know—mirror, mirror, on the wall?” I wasn’t buying it and he gave me the usual lift of the shoulders. “It distorts everything. It reflects bad as good, and good as bad.”

“Ssecnirp eht si erehw?” the hag chanted into the mirror.

“And now she’s talking to it. She’s a little crazy.” Of course Hobs was leaving out all the good stuff, like what was she was saying to it and who exactly was she talking to? All I knew was that the hag had some evil stepmother syndrome.

“Why does the hag want Babs?” I asked.

“The princess is the only one who can stop her. She’s next in line to rule the Sidhe. It’s her destiny. One’s winter, the other’s summer, and the hag must relinquish her rule to summer, no matter how much she hates the queen.”

“The hag wants it to be winter forever?”

 Hobs had on his guarded look again. “Winter’s just a side effect here. The hag now rules through brute force, but the faery princess is the true sovereign of the Sidhe. She’s the hope of this kingdom. Summer passes her powers, along with her destiny, onto her successor, to our poor little princess, a faery far too weak to fight winter or any of the other beasts after her.”

“So.” I studied Babs, who looked and thought like a seven-year-old in human years, but might be our age because of some horrible enchantment. “In order for our little princess to have enough power against winter, she just needs to grow up a little?”

Hobs smiled slowly. “Yeah, you’ve got it.”

Judging by the look on his face I knew I was off. So, I had to trust that Hobs knew what he was talking about, and not only that, but trust that he wasn’t purposely leading me astray.

By now the ogres were chasing each other around the frozen lake, talking about children eating. The smarter part of the hag’s army watched them with disdain. The redheaded waif slid an arrow from her quiver, but the hag just shook her head—shooting the dumb lugs down would lower morale. The hag turned back to her mirror and waited. When nothing happened, she stomped her dainty little foot against the ice. She wasn’t having any luck, which was good since we were the ones she was looking for.

Hobs’ hand left the talisman around his neck. “We need weapons.” His eyes were on the pretty little redhead. I didn’t believe he was going for weapons at all—this had something to do with her. “Wait here.”

“You’re just going to leave us? Are you serious?”

Apparently, yes.
Hobs was halfway down the slope, the snow jetting out under his feet as he went. “Get behind one of those mirrors if there’s trouble,” he whispered harshly up to us. “Everyone’s so busy looking at themselves that no one thinks to look behind them.”

What was he going to do? Steal weapons from the more half-witted of these beasts? If he was as notorious as the wolves said, anybody would recognize him. Babs and I watched Hobs sneak down to the army below. As soon as he reached them on the icy lake, he straightened up and walked brazenly through them. He met a few eyes, nodding like he belonged there. No one seemed to care. The Cyclops scanned the crowds. I was afraid he would catch sight of Hobs. I’d be amazed if he didn’t, but then again, Hobs didn’t look like he was trying to hide, either.

Claws on paws scuttled over the ice behind us, and my stomach dove to my feet. The wolves! How could Hobs leave us behind like this? Wait—of course, he would. He was a thoughtless fanatic. I wrapped my hand around Babs’ arm and ran. She gave a little yelp as soon as she realized why. The wolves snorted behind us. We skidded over the ice to the nearest mirror as millions of wolves swarmed into the hall in different directions—at least, that’s what it looked like through the mirrors.

I dragged Babs behind one, throwing myself in front of her. She whimpered. “Shh shh, it’s okay.” I hugged her tightly, rubbing her arms to stop her shaking.

“There you are!” Octavius shouted.

I caught Babs’ gaze with my own and put a finger to my lips. Octavius would’ve seen millions of us who had just disappeared behind millions of mirrors. The trick was keeping the millions of us hidden. We scooted further back, trying to scrunch up as small as possible.

The wolves sniffed around. “
Behind a mirror of lies she hides. Her soul within her withers and dies.
” More bad poetry from Glasses.

“All we want to know is the answer to the riddle,” Octavius wheedled. “Then we’ll let you go.”

“Yeah, tell us,” Gray whined.

“Don’t waste your time. I don’t think she knows,” Glasses said. I knew it was a challenge. “Why would Hobs tell her?” They laughed. They knew Hobs wasn’t with me. Had they not seen millions of him or did he just always leave damsels in distress behind? “He tells you nothing, does he?” I stayed silent, listening to them prowl around the mirrors and press their snouts against the glass, grunting. “Where
did
he go, I wonder?”

They were trying to get a reaction from me. I made a zipper motion across my lips. Babs nodded, but I could hear her breathing hard. I hugged her close. She was just as scared as I was.

“Is he turning you in to the hag’s armies? Or is he planning something else for you?” The others chortled at Octavius’ words.

“I can guess what he wants with you,” Gray said. My head lifted. What?

“He’s not your knight in shining armor, little girl. He wouldn’t save a child for nothing. He’s got a lot at stake.” Octavius was lying!
Right?
The faery queen had sent Hobs to help us. That was a good enough reason to believe he was on our side. “Oh, yes,” Octavius growled under his breath. “He told us the truth when we found him at the faery transporter. He was already taking you to
her
.” A mirror cracked when he pounded impatiently against it. “He didn’t need us
to take you to the witch’s lair. You came so willingly. Your mistake.”

I pushed my face into my arms to keep silent. Hobs was tricking them, not us.

“Why don’t you just come out?” Glasses said. “Don’t let him have the satisfaction of collecting the reward for you.”

“Yeah, let us do it!” Gray piped up with excitement.

Babs pressed her face against my shoulder, her blonde hair catching the lights from the torches above us. I squeezed her hand to keep her from lashing out, but it was getting harder and harder not to speak out myself, especially since it seemed like we were in for it no matter what.

“So, where is he now?” Glasses asked.