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  The larger chimera did exactly as he was told, swooping low and using his tail to swat the Tinman.

  That saying, the bigger they are, the harder they fall? Totally true. The Tinman flew back and landed right on the house, squishing it flat. He looked like a silver turtle stuck on its back, unable to flip itself over.

  We took advantage of our fallen foe and flew back over to the clothesline. The chimera gingerly gathered the poles in his mouth, letting the line—and Rexi—hang down. If screaming and cursing were any indication, Rexi was not happy with her mode of rescue.

  The Tinman creaked and groaned as he rolled off to the side, readying himself to stand.

  “Fly, Bobbledandrophous! Take us home,” Kato ordered.

  Bobblewhatshisbucket curved sharply and flew away, hitting and denting the tin gigan with his barbed tail.

  The chimera flew quickly, and I watched Crow’s house and the Tinman grow rapidly smaller. Soon, I no longer heard his scraping sound, just Rexi’s shrill shrieks as she kicked and flailed helplessly in midair.

  “Shouldn’t we get her up now?” I said.

  Kato looked sheepish—and on a lion’s face, that is something to see. “Do we have to? It might do her some good, you know.”

  “It might, but she’ll also scream herself hoarse.”

  “I’m not hearing a downside.”

  I smacked his furry side. “Do I have to try and do it myself?”

  Kato’s cool blue eyes stared into mine.

  “What?” I squirmed, suddenly feeling very self-conscious in my extremely expensive dress/now rag.

  “I don’t understand you. If you wanted, you could have that girl executed for treason for striking you. You lost an opportunity to get help from the wizard because you were too soft. Even Crow manage to garner your concern. You think personal accountability is something to do with your pocketbook, yet for some reason you still keep attempting to help people that don’t deserve it.”

  “Thanks, I think.”

  He shook his head. “It’s not a compliment, Dot.”

  My chest felt like it was being shredded by the shards of glass that still littered the big chimera’s fur. Dot. That was the nickname Verte had given me as a child.

  Kato huffed in his growing mane. “At best it’s slightly noble. At worse it’s dangerous and puts everyone around you at risk. You mean well, but that won’t keep us alive.” He turned away, carefully padding his way up to speak to his friend and figure out a way to better secure Rexi.

  I felt anything but secure. Sitting alone, I had nothing left to distract me from…me. Or what Kato said. Was he right? From playing with a lost child in the garden, to giving Crow information for food, my best intentions had brought nothing but ruins.

  Soaring high in the clouds, my thoughts weighed me down like lead balloons. Everything was…wrong. This wasn’t the way my life should be written. The Storymakers had made a misstep somewhere. Verte couldn’t really, truly be gone. She had to be missing, just like my parents.

  But she had been my one hope to setting the whole mess right-side up again. And now I had no idea what to do or where to go—or if I should go anywhere. Maybe with the curse, the world would be safer if I was dropped in a deep fireproof pit somewhere.

  Kato and our beast pilot must have argued during their talk because as the enchanted prince made his way back down the larger chimera’s back, his face looked like he’d sucked down a gallon of rotten curds and whey. I did my best to push all thoughts of the curse out of my head before he reached me. Denial, thy new princess is Dorthea.

  Kato approached and shrugged his wings. “The best Bobbledandrophous can do is lower her down into his paws. It would be too risky to try and bring her up here midflight. She’ll be fine…probably.” He tilted his head and narrowed his eyes before plopping down in a big heap. On my lap.

  “Ahh!” I tried to use his horns to pick his head up, but even that part of him weighed a ton. “What are you doing? Did you just die?”

  “No,” he growled and turned his face up, pursing his lips in total seriousness. “I’ve recently been advised that you might find the cute and fuzzy approach much less threatening. Supposedly it’s also more endearing.”

  “I hate to tell you, but that Jolly Roger has sailed, sunk, and been eaten by ticking crocodiles.” I tried to stifle a laugh, but it was too large to contain. Kato really had zero skill at manipulation, but at least he was honest.

  “I told him it was a stupid idea,” he grumbled and rolled off me.

  “What gives? You’ve gone more than five minutes without finding some new way to call me incompetent.”

  Shaking his head, he swiped a paw across his face to hide what looked like a smile. “I can’t decide if the Storymakers are brilliant or mad as hares for bringing us together as partners.”

  “Partner is an awfully strong word. Let’s go with associates for a brief duration until the ever-after part.”

  He sighed. “Well, I suppose that’s an improvement over disgusting beast.” Finally he looked me in the eye. His glacial stare was serious but neutral and without disapproval—an improvement of its own. “We need to talk.”

  “Good, I’ll go first.” I sucked in the biggest breath possible to blurt out all the questions on my mind before Kato had a chance to change the subject. “The way I figure it, you seem to know a lot about me while I know next to nothing about you. Why is that? Were you friends with my parents? And what’s this big threat thing to both our kingdoms? And where is your kingdom anyway? I’ve never ever heard of a chimera or seen pictures. Bob here looks like something out of a nightmare, especially the big pointy fangs.”

  “Bob?” Kato’s muzzle quirked up in amusement. “He’s not so scary, and he’d do anything to keep me from harm. And now you too.”

  “Avoiding the more important part of that rant.”

  Kato huffed and sat on his haunches across from me. His eyebrows drew together while he unfurled his right wing out wide. “That’s where I’m from.” He gestured to the mountain we were rapidly approaching. “Even though I lived a day’s flight away, you could see the tall, glittering green towers to the South. I’d never been there or met your parents before Muse Day though. In fact, I rarely needed to venture away from my domain.”

  Instinctively, I scanned the skyline for the towers of Emerald City. They weren’t there anymore.

  He continued. “My home is nothing like yours. And I’ll give you bit of warning now that you would be wise not to make a fuss about…” His face scrunched up as he searched until he found the term he was looking for. “The decor.”

  I stiffened in defense at the insinuation, but I really didn’t have room to talk. When we first met, I had thought I was better than him because my clothes were designer and he had dirt smudges on his.

  His tail poked my back in what I think was supposed to be a reassuring pat. “But don’t feel too bad about not being in the know about chimeras. My people are a well-kept secret.” He craned his neck and looked at the horizon. “You’ll see soon enough though. We’re almost there.” He rose to all fours and turned away. “I’ll be right back.”

  “Wait. Almost where?” I yelled and leaned forward as far as I dared. Before I could get any answers, he’d already kind of hopped, skipped, and flew back up to the top. I still didn’t understand why he pushed for the alliance. (A much better word than engagement.) And what exactly did he mean, his “people”? What kind of kingdom was Kato prince to?

  “Hang on, my lady,” Bob bellowed. That’s all the warning I got before he arched into a steep swan dive on a crash course with the mountain.

  I did the only thing I could—took a death grip on his fur and joined Rexi in screaming my head off. As the mountain got closer and we hadn’t slowed, I closed my eyes. I didn’t need to know which jagged edge was going to rupture my spleen.

  My first clue that we didn’t hit the mountain was the lack of a bone-crunching splat. The second was a little more subtle—our screams
echoed back at me. I’d missed it because my eyes were shut, but we must have flown into a cavern or tunnel or something.

  No, that wasn’t right either. I think we were somehow inside the mountain.

  Everything was pitch-black; the only light came from my flaming hair. The sinking in the pit of my stomach told me that we were headed down. I saw a warm, red glow bouncing off the walls ahead. The closer we got, the hotter the temperature.

  Please, Grimm, don’t let us be traveling to the pits of hell.

  The rocky chute ended abruptly, dumping us into a surreal new world. My first thought was, There is no way all of this could fit inside of a mountain. My second was, Of course it has to be made up almost completely of fire.

  “When visiting a neighboring kingdom, a proper princess must always be impeccably attired, with never a hair out of place. If you are having a bad hair day, stuff it under one of those pointy cone hats.”

  —Mrs. Butterwing’s Guide to Proper Princesses

  17

  A Whole New Hotter World

  A river of bubbling lava bisected the ground. On the right half was a meadow of sorts. Bright flowers bloomed up from the solid obsidian ground. Not your ordinary tulips though. These blossoms reminded me of the fireworks the kingdom shot off on festival days. They glowed and crackled, making starbursts of colorful flames—red, blue, purple, yellow, orange, white…every color but green.

  What exactly did you call a large group of chimeras? A flock? A parliament? A pride? Whatever you called it, that’s what was on the other side of the lava flow—lots and lots of chimeras. With their overgrown wings tucked around them, they reminded me of nesting birds, except their nests looked like giant hearths. Great rings of glowing red embers made the perfect bed for a chimera apparently.

  Most of them were sleeping, and I was all about letting sleeping chimeras lie. If Kato’s penchant for eating everything that wasn’t nailed down was a common chimera trait, then I didn’t want to be close at hand when they awoke for supper.

  Luckily, our ride banked off to the right, coasting to a stop amid the colorful blooms. I slid down his back, anxious to be on solid ground again.

  “Dot, wait!” Kato shouted right as my feet squished one of the blooms.

  When I craned my neck to look up at him, he was staring at the flowers, aghast. My silver slippers reflected the light from the fire blossoms. “Sorry,” I said. “Are they important?”

  Kato flapped down to me awkwardly. He was still getting used to the whole flying bit. “You shouldn’t be able to stand. Fire flowers are thousands of degrees. No human can survive them.”

  “Nice of you tell me now as opposed to before I hopped off into a floral minefield.” But I couldn’t be too mad, since I was no worse for wear. “My toes feel a little warm, but that’s it.” I picked up my feet, one at a time, and looked down at my ruby-soled heels. They were top quality, but I’m pretty sure they weren’t designed with heat resistance in mind. They had been a gift from Verte. Maybe she’d added a little something extra to the original design.

  I looked them over with a whole new appreciation. “Enchanted shoes. Awesome.”

  Rexi had stopped screaming herself hoarse the minute Kato yelled, “Wait!” Now she stepped out of Bob’s paws and walked lightly on tippy toes around the fiery meadow. Then she bopped Kato on the nose the moment he got within range.

  Kato flinched from the blow. “Ow! You can’t do that to me in my own kingdom.”

  “Yes, I can. Because you keep trying to kill me. First, you dangle me like a worm from a giant bird’s beak, and now you drop me down someplace that’s supposed to melt my feet off.” Rexi stopped, straightened the wrinkles in her tunic, and jerked her thumb in my direction, not really looking at me. “Dorky’s glammed lucky her shoe fetish finally paid off, but indentured servitude doesn’t exactly pay for magical footwear.” She made a fist as if to bop him again, but he flapped himself out of range.

  Rexi was really starting—okay, not starting, more like continuing—to pix me off. The big piece of hair draped over my shoulder sparked and flared, mirroring my irritation. Before that, the bright glow had died down a bit, almost making the pieces I could see look like they came from a natural redhead—with green tips.

  Guess it brought a whole meaning to the idea of a temper flare.

  The flash drew Rexi’s attention, and she walked, carefully, over to me. She peered closer around my head, apparently noticing it for the first time. “What happened to your hair? New fashion trend or something else equally stupid? Because I’ve got to tell you, it doesn’t really suit you.”

  “For Grimm’s sake, will you shut your mouth for one fairy-loving minute,” I snapped, losing the last sliver of patience I had.

  She jerked back as if I’d slapped her. I’d have to worry about her hurt feelings later, because right now, we had other problems. We were about to have guests.

  Curious chimeras flew over the lava flow to see what all the fuss was. They conferred and whispered with one another, pointing at us with their tails. A shiver racked my body, traveling up my spine. Some of their tails were serpentlike—with actual serpent heads.

  I couldn’t make out what anyone was saying though, and not just because they were whispering. Have you ever heard a one-ton beast whisper? It’s not very quiet. No, it was all the voices talking at once that created a buzz so that no one voice could be easily picked out from the group.

  Kato launched himself in the air and landed on the nearest outcropping of rock. He let out what was probably meant to be a mighty roar, but it came out more like a squeak. The room full of chimeras guffawed and heckled him.

  “Whose hatchling is that?”

  “From the belly, pup. Ha ha, try again. From the belly.”

  Kato did not take to being mocked very well. He sent them all frostbite-worthy looks, but the other beasts paid him no mind. To them, he was a pipsqueak who had left the hatchery too soon. Kato’s voice could not rise above the din.

  Chimeras surrounded us. Rexi jostled into me, and I took a step back, my heel landing on something squishy. Angry hissing rose from the floor and traveled up the length of my body until the forked tongue from a serpent tail licked along my arm. I followed the line of the tail up to its chimera owner. His body was patched with scars interrupting his fur, his wings looked like they were molting, and one of his horns was broken off. The other was sharper than any sword I’ve seen. Both the chimera and his snake tail raised part of their lip in a snarl, exposing fangs.

  “Enough!”

  I looked up at Kato, grateful that he had finally found his voice. But it wasn’t him speaking.

  Bob parted the circle and walked toward Rexi and me, fire flowers falling victim to each step. “How dare you mock our lord?”

  Bob was the largest of the bunch, but not by much. He also seemed to be well respected because the other chimeras backed off. Most of them, anyway. The chimera that owned the stepped-on tail got in Bob’s face.

  “Our lord is not here. He abandoned us to go collect some child bride. I only see a walking matchstick girl and her mouthy human. I, for one, am tired of outsiders coming into our home. First the green witch, and now this piece of kindling.” Using his snake-headed tail, he gestured over to me in disgust.

  I skipped over the insults and focused on the really important part. Verte had been here. Why and when? I wanted to go over and beat it out of him, but even I wasn’t that stupid.

  Kato flew haltingly next to me, staring fearlessly up at the bully, even though the tips of Kato’s horns only came up to the bully’s armpits. “Grifflespontus, I suggest that you apologize to your future queen. And then you may apologize to me.”

  I thought I’d been pretty clear with him and itched to argue about the whole “future queen” part of that, but now didn’t seem like the right time.

  Griff was a little slow on the uptake. He didn’t notice the other chimeras gasp and hurriedly bow on their forepaws. He lowered himself muzzle to muzzl
e with Kato. “And why should I apologize to a runt like you?”

  Kato’s ice-blue eyes honed in on Griff. “Because I am your liege, and if you don’t, I will continue to freeze you where you stand.”

  I looked down at the bully’s paws. They were covered in frost crystals.

  Rexi scooted away from me to get a closer look. “Whoa. Is fur ball doing that? When did he get that little nifty trick?” She shook her head in disgust. “Typical, everyone else gets cool magic and all I get is tied up with old lady tights.”

  Whatever he was doing, it didn’t look easy. I don’t think anyone else noticed because they were all looking at the ice growing up Griff’s legs, but Kato’s shoulders held a fine tremor. He swayed slightly, unsteady on his feet.

  I walked over and laid a hand on his back, which now rested just above my waist. “Enough.”

  Kato continued to do his icy stare but whispered, just barely audible, “Stay out of it. This isn’t your concern.”

  I leaned into his ear. “I’m saving your tail before you fall over on it from exhaustion. Remember, finesse over force.” Loud enough for all to hear, I said in my best princess voice, “Please spare this poor fool. He obviously could not recognize you in your new form.”

  Rexi may have rolled her eyes at the change in my tone, but the bully was not as dumb as he looked. He grabbed on to the lifeline I offered him. “Forgive me,” he said through chattering fangs. “I could never have expected to see the future Beast King as a beast himself.”

  Griff let out one more frosted breath before Kato released him, apparently accepting his quasi-apology. I let out the breath I was holding too, relieved that this little confrontation was over and that everyone was still standing—and uneaten.

  Bob, however, wasn’t going to let Griff get off that easy. “You forgot the priestess.” He pushed his way through to stand next to me.

  Rexi didn’t take too well with being pushed aside. “Look, Bob, I don’t know what baby fur ball over here”—she stuck her thumb out at Kato—“has been telling you. But she’s no priestess. Just a delusional princess with major hair issues.”