Chapter 34 Ban
“Zarev,” Legs says, hugging him first. She’s already given Odette and Neve a hug like she’s actually happy to have guests, which I know from experience is a lie. “You visit twice in a few months? I haven’t seen you so much in ten years.”
He shoots me a look before shrugging. “Thank Ban for that. He’s the one who almost got us killed.”
Legs gives me a mischievous look, her eyes full of life for once. Half the time, the burdens of working beneath the Mad Queen wipe all the joy from her. “You crossed the pass?”
“We crossed the pass. We brought them along.” I nod toward Neve and Odette.
The Swan Princess is doing a decent job distracting Margo from hating me, which is a nice change from the norm, where she spends the entirety of my visit glaring.
Odette is asking enough questions to keep Legs’s lover distracted, for now.
Legs focuses on Neve, who has done a remarkable job of adapting to Wonderland.
The gardens are the prettiest part of this hellish land.
Neve is enchanted by the colors of the garden, the wildlife in the trees, and the flowers and blooms that are Legs’s pride and joy.
The butterfly smiles at my queen, clasping one of her hands.
She’s already spoken briefly to Odette. “And you are the Queen?”
Neve bows her head. “The Ice Queen, but you can call me Neve.”
The look she gives Neve is guarded, but there’s distrust growing in her eyes the longer we are here. Legs is an old friend who is amicable with Zarev, but for every new stranger who journeys here, her trust shrinks.
It’s not hard to understand why. Legs sits now at the table in her home, one of the many things she’s crafted with her magic.
She’s akin to a gardener, her magic enriching the earth here in the Butterfly Garden, and as trade for her and her companions’ safety she helps the Mad Queen craft the Flowerborne.
It’s something I’ve always disagreed with, but Legs does what she must to survive.
Margo is her person and still at the service of the Mad Queen.
When they last failed to appease Davina, she broke and removed Legs’s legs from the knee down.
Now her magic is the main reason she can move as freely as she does, but she’s still trapped in the garden.
Legs presses her lips together, looking between the four of us. The longer she keeps us in suspense, the more I know whatever she needs to say is going to sting. “You must leave.”
“We don’t plan on staying,” I tell her easily, narrowing my eyes.
When I was here on my way to the Frostlands, when I had enough sense about me to travel back down to Icicle Pass to make the crossing, she was resigned to my fate but not determined to keep me away.
This is different. “We’re just passing through.
Crossing the pass with a passenger took a lot of magic from both of us.
We’ll be walking until we have enough shadow magic to hop. ”
Legs looks around again, crossing her arms. “And the Barrens?”
“Crossable with shadows,” Zarev points out with a shrug. “It’ll be the fastest route out of Wonderland.”
“And no one will have any reason to question you once we’re away,” I reason, trying to calm her worries. I can already see the gears in her head turning, which is what I feared.
Legs can accept one visitor without causing much of a fuss.
Maybe two. But two Reapers and two royals will draw attention from anyone who spots us, and I already can feel the pull of Death all around us.
Wonderland is a dark place, and Death lingers just beyond the bright flowers.
Spirits are nearby, and if we start reaping them like we’re supposed to, the news will eventually get back to Davina.
I don’t know what the right answer is here.
Neve shifts beside me, and behind us, Odette and Margo have grown quiet. A weight settles over all of us as Legs glares at me, time seeming to slow as I wait for her answer.
She stares at me for a long time before moving on, turning instead to Zarev. “Did you figure out anything from the beanstalk?”
He looks surprised, crossing his arms. No one’s mentioned anything about that yet, and Neve shifts curiously at my side. She hasn’t even seen it. Behind the trees in Wonderland, the stalk is hidden, but once we leave this place and go back to the Barrens and Sherwood, she’ll see it along the way.
“I went up with Odette to explore it,” he replies carefully, his brows pinching together. “Do you know something about it?”
“Let’s hear what you found first,” Legs says easily. It’s hard to rattle her, and even now, with unexpected guests, she’s easily controlling the direction of our chat.
Zarev blows out a breath. “It plateaus at the top, and the clouds there are strange. Thick, sort of like the shadows, and disorienting. We walked for ages without moving, but a few feet until I used my shadows. After that, we could walk around more freely.”
“There’s a giant up there,” Odette pipes in, making my skin crawl at the reminder. “We avoided it until we found this pool, and then I was reading a book Zarev had–”
“Through the Looking Glass,” he grumbles.
“Right. That’s the book. He didn’t even read it ahead of time.” I bite back a laugh at the irritation in Odette’s voice. “I was trying to figure out how it worked, but then Zarev had this, this feeling I guess, and we could see Ban.”
I glance toward Zarev, who’s avoiding looking at me.
He had been vague about the details, but I don’t recall him mentioning a feeling.
He just summarized the pool. Despite our shared magic, I’ve never been able to feel when one of my fellow Reapers is in great distress.
That’s not how our connection has ever worked.
“That’s how you ended up in the Frostlands,” Neve muses, and after hearing this tale a couple of times, it’s only slightly irritating to realize this is the first moment we’re getting the whole story.
Legs’s eyes sparkle as she looks between us. “So the beans delivered in unexpected ways.”
Her words startle me, making me rock back on my heels. It’s eerily close to what she said when the beanstalk first grew, the words falling out of my thoughts until now. There were so many other things to fret about at the time, including waking Neve from her sleep.
“So, someone finally planted the beans to find the Pool of Truth.”
“How did you know about the beans?” Zarev asks suspiciously.
Folding her hands, Legs looks unbothered by his distrust. “A long time ago, when things were rough but not so unsettled, Jacob came to see me here in the garden.”
Silence blankets us, even as Neve fidgets beside me. I’m not sure she recalls who Jacob is, or if I’ve even mentioned him to her before.
“Why was Jacob up here?” Zarev asks, taking a step closer.
Legs waves a hand, completely unbothered. “Oh, Jacob and William came to see me many times before Jacob settled down.” A fond smile crosses her face. “Jacob married Dahlia shortly after the visit, while his brother continued his travels to lands far and away. Jacob told Dahlia about the beans.”
“And you just know about the magical beans?” Odette pipes up.
“I should, as I gave them to him,” she says, lifting one eyebrow.
“I gave them to Jacob before his wedding day. He said he wanted one more chance for adventure, but closer to home. I knew the beans would plant a beanstalk meant to stretch into the clouds. That’s what I saw when I grew the beans myself. ”
“You. Grew. The. Beans,” I repeat slowly, not able to believe the words myself. It contradicts what she told me weeks ago, here in the gardens. “Why?”
A darkness crosses her eyes, and her settled hands clench into tight fists. “Why do I do anything? For the Queen.”
Pursing my lips, I meet Zarev’s gaze. I don’t really know what happened with the beans after them being planted. All the stories about the clouds and everything else are a second-hand recount of what he experienced.
“Did you have any idea where they would lead?” he asks seriously. “Or did you just know planting them would result in a big-ass beanstalk and hope for the best?”
“I knew a beanstalk would grow,” Legs allows, peering around the little group again. “But the clouds… There are some places even a butterfly can’t go.”
As if on cue, we all peer skyward. Between the thick branches, I can see clouds far above, but they are little wisps with almost no substance this early in the morning.
What Zarev describes would take something sturdy or, else they would have fallen back to the earth. But a pool of water and a giant?
“The Queen wanted to find it,” Legs whispers, her voice turning hollow. “The Pool of Truth. The final looking glass. She believed the beanstalk would take her there when infused with enough magic.”
“So it is a looking glass!” Odette squeals, sounding delighted. “I figured it had to be something along those lines. Like the secondary lake in Swan Lake, Swanling. And Zarev said the Fountain of Youth used to be in Tressa before Midas destroyed it.”
I feel Neve rising to the challenge to ask questions of her own, but I squeeze her hand instead. We’re getting off track.
“Not so many details,” Legs says, placing a finger carefully to her lips. “The trees here listen for certain things. Mind yourself, Princess.”
I don’t look her way, but I’m sure Odette is glaring. Legs doesn’t usually reprimand people.
“The Pool of Truth is something I’ve never seen for myself,” Legs continues in a quieter voice.
“None of the butterflies have. Some saw the fountain in Tressa, but it’s all but useless now.
Swanling… is another place that’s untouchable to our queen.
The blood of a royal is required, and she doesn’t have an ally left within the royal family. ”