Once Upon Another Time, page 15
“Well, he does have one wish if he wants me to stop you,” Jin said, still grinning. “But then I’d be free of his service, so I hope he puts some thought into it.”
The king went silent, his eyes darting all over the room as he considered. The knight let him for a moment, then used the hilt of his sword to knock the Golden King’s crown from his head. “That’s better,” the knight said. “The whole point of having the people choose their chancellor was that a king wouldn’t rule over them, and now look at what you’ve done. The princess who came up with this idea would be so disappointed in you.”
The king growled in annoyance. “Would she? Why not ask her yourself? She’s right over there, with her friends.” He nodded at the golden statues closest to the throne, and Jin glanced over in curiosity. Sure enough, his new power from the Spark gave him access to the knowledge that was his birthright—
Except you haven’t earned it.
—letting Jin find out quite a bit more about each of the cursed statues that he’d seen a thousand times but never bothered looking at closely. The four the king pointed at were royalty, though from what Jin could see of their histories, all four had given their kingdoms up, allowing whoever the people chose in the Choosing—the election for chancellor—to rule over them instead.
Each of the four statues also had odd bits of magic about them, something Jin had never noticed. The first woman, the princess the knight had been talking about, wore a pair of crystal slippers on her feet, somehow still translucent even after the rest of her had been turned to gold. The next two, a man and a woman, had vines wrapping up around their legs, thorny, ropy vines that seemed to come from nowhere.
And the fourth—
“Oh, there they are,” the knight said, his playful tone hiding a bottomless pit of anger, from what Jin could tell. He might be pretending he didn’t care, but this man hated the king for what he’d done. “I’ve been trying to free them for years, and you’ve had them on display?”
“Of course,” the king said, sneering. “They were the famous faces of your whole pathetic rebellion, the ones the people told stories about. The sleeping princess, the prince who slayed giants, the girl who destroyed the Wicked Queen… the people listened to them, trusted them.” He tried to twist and look over his shoulder at the knight. “But were you even on their side? We’ve all heard the rumors that you once served the Wicked Queen.”
Jin’s eyebrows shot up. The Last Knight had served the Wicked Queen, the woman who’d almost taken over the world twelve years earlier?
Not to mention the last wielder of the shadow magic, the cosmic knowledge told him.
Really? Now that sounded interesting. The rebel knight had been on the other side?
“You seem to know a lot about me,” the Last Knight said, his anger now less hidden than before. “But I know quite a bit about you, too, Midas.” The king looked startled at the sound of his real name. “How’s your sister doing? Still hiding from you, thinking you’ll turn her to gold as well?”
The Golden King growled softly. “Don’t even speak of her to me. She’s worth a thousand of you!”
“Oh, so she’s got it wrong?” the knight said. “Maybe I should let her know that, the next time I see her. She’s been aiding the rebellion, trying to take you down, you know. But that’s probably only because you turned the rest of her family to gold, right?”
Jin and the knight both turned to look at the statues of the king’s brothers and father behind the throne.
“Enough of this!” the king shouted, his face red with rage. “What do you want?”
“You know why I’m here,” the knight said, sounding far angrier than before. “Where are the twins? The shadow children?”
Jin blinked. The twins… were children? Human children, or something made of shadow? Were they related to the Faceless’s shadow-magic swords?
“Oh, they’re safe,” the king said, grinning as he turned to look at Jin. “I moved them to the shadow kingdoms in the south after your last appearance here. They’re currently feeding the shadow magic with the power of all the magical creatures I rounded up. The shadows grow stronger every single day. Soon they will sweep across this land, bringing fear wherever they fall, and I will no longer need to bother with this chancellor nonsense. Instead, I will rule everything—”
This time, the knight hit the king’s bare head with the hilt of his sword. The king roared in pain, but the knight just shrugged. “Last question. Where’s the object that controls the genie for you? Hand it over, or next time I’ll use the blade of my sword.”
Both Jin and the king looked down at the ring on the king’s finger, and the knight nodded. “Ah, keeping it close. Smart. I would too. So much for that, though.” And he reached around to take the ring off the king’s finger.
Before he could, though, the king turned to Jin. “For my final wish,” he shouted, “I wish for more wishes!”
For a moment, no one said anything. And then both the Last Knight and Jin began to laugh.
“What’s so funny?” the Golden King asked, looking more angry at Jin than at the knight.
“Greedy until the end,” the knight said, shaking his head.
“Right?” Jin said. “And nice try, Your Majesty, but you’re not getting more wishes. It doesn’t work that way.”
Actually, the cosmic knowledge said, sounding a bit smug, it does.
Wait, what? Jin shouted inside his head. How does that wish count? It’s a loophole! He only gets three wishes!
Well, he did only get three, but now he apparently gets more. Seems like something the elders would have made sure didn’t fly, but here we are.
Jin’s mouth dropped open. You’re serious?
When am I ever not?
No. No no no no no. This pathetic human was going to get more wishes just because no one had thought to make a rule forbidding it? That wasn’t fair!
Why would you ever think any of this is fair?
Jin started to yell back, but gave up. The cosmic knowledge had a point: none of this was at all fair. But more wishes? He could be granting the Golden King’s every desire for centuries to come!
If not the entire thousand and thirty-eight years you have left. You didn’t ask him how many “more” is.
Jin winced, then sighed deeply. “Um, so as it turns out, I’m going to need a specific number of wishes—”
“As many as I want!” the king shouted.
“Oh, come on,” both Jin and the Last Knight said at the same time.
“And for my fourth wish, I want you to chain this knight up and take his sword!” the king finished.
The knight didn’t wait for Jin to fulfill the wish. He grabbed for the ring, too fast for the king to even see, but Jin was even faster, even if he would have preferred not to be. As the Last Knight tried to steal Jin’s ring, Jin quickly magicked chains around the Last Knight and teleported the man’s sword into his own hand.
The knight yelled in surprise, his hand just inches from the ring, then toppled to the floor, chains wrapped around every inch of his armor.
The Golden King, now freed, dusted himself off, then leaned over the knight, sneering down at him. “You’re going to be the treasure of my collection, do you know that? I hope you enjoy living the rest of your life as a golden statue. But first? Let’s see who you’ve been all along.”
And with that, he reached down and tried to pull off the knight’s helmet.
Oooh, that was interesting, considering the knight’s armor had messed with Jin’s reading of the man, so he leaned forward to see what he could tell without the helmet on. But his movement caught the king’s eye, and the man shook his head. “You have more wishes to fulfill. Why don’t you start with removing the Cursed City’s misdirection spell? They need to pay for harboring this rebel for so long.”
“No!” the knight shouted. “There are giants looking for the city. If they find it, they’ll raze it in seconds!”
This made the king’s smile widen. “You heard the rebel,” he said to Jin. “I wish for the Cursed City to no longer be hidden. Let it be revealed to all!”
CHAPTER 29
Lena and Rufus reappeared in the middle of the Cursed City, only to find themselves on the edge of a massive crowd. Almost everyone that Lena knew from the city was gathered around a stage where Pinocchio, the former chancellor, was addressing them, even as the ground shook constantly with the giants’ steps, throwing them all around.
“I know you’re all worried about the giants!” he was saying, trying to keep his footing as even some fairies watched nervously from a nearby rooftop. “I am too! But there’s no reason to panic. We know the misdirection spell is still working, as it appears to be sending them in circles. I want to make it very clear that as long as the spell holds up, we’re all completely safe!”
His nose began to grow, and he cursed, smushing it back into his face.
“He’s lying!” someone shouted.
“I am not!” Pinocchio said, shaking his head. “My nose just takes things far too literally. We are safe here. They can’t get through the misdirection spell!”
His nose grew again.
“Tell us the truth!” someone else shouted.
“Stop lying to us!” said a third human.
“Cut off his nose!” said a fourth.
“Whoa!” Pinocchio said, putting his hands up defensively. “Let’s not get out of hand! I am telling the truth. We should be safe, as long as the spell holds. So the best thing everyone can do is go back to your homes and wait this out, because nothing on earth could disrupt the spell at this point, as we all know what a powerful witch Mrs. Hubbard used to be.”
An enormous tree trunk flew through the air above them and crashed through several buildings just beyond where Pinocchio was speaking.
“Okay, we might be in trouble,” the wooden man said, wincing. “Apparently the misdirection spell doesn’t work on trees.”
“They’re destroying the town and we’re all going to die, just like Pinocchio said!” someone shouted.
“What?” Pinocchio said. “I never—”
But he was quickly overwhelmed by the rest of the mob.
“We can’t leave!” yelled someone else. “There are Faceless out there!”
“What’s going to fall on us next, the sky?” yelled Lil, the chicken.
“It’s going to be okay!” Lena shouted, pushing her way through the crowd to where Pinocchio was standing. Rufus, meanwhile, slunk to the back, not liking this many people around him. “Please, everyone, you need to listen to me!”
The crowd quickly went silent, as Pinocchio breathed a sigh of relief. “Good luck, Lena,” he whispered to her as he leapt off the stage. “They’re out for blood.”
Pinocchio slipped out into the crowd, while Lena climbed up to where he’d stood and turned to the assembled residents of the Cursed City. “First, let me say that everyone is going to be fine,” she said, giving the humans what she hoped was a calming smile. “Second, in spite of the Faceless, it might be a good idea if we all left the city and hid in the woods, just in case the giants do find a way through the misdirection spell—”
Apparently her calming smile didn’t take, as the crowd immediately burst into terrified screaming. “They are going to destroy the city! We need to run!”
“But then the Faceless will get us!”
“Why is all of this happening, Lena?”
She put up her hands for quiet, but the crowd was too riled up this time, forcing her to yell. “Someone… accidentally took something from the giants, so they’ve come down to the ground to take it back. But it’s all just a big misunderstanding—!”
“A misunderstanding? They’re giants! They want to eat us!”
“No one’s going to eat anyone!” Lena shouted, not really sure if that was true. Yes, she’d heard the stories around the giant village about how humans were tasty, but she figured that was just talk. “Giants are just like you: they eat regular food, like pumpkins!” She pointed over at Peter’s house.
“She’s lying!” someone shouted. “My cousin was eaten by giants, I think! Either that or he moved, we were never sure.”
“So they are going to eat us and destroy our city?”
“How are there even giants anymore? Didn’t the Golden King send all the magical creatures away?”
Right, Mrs. Hubbard had mentioned that. One of the first things the Golden King had done after winning the Choosing and becoming chancellor was to round up all the magical creatures and exile them… somewhere. The Cursed City had welcomed anyone who’d come looking for refuge, but most had been taken by the king. “He might have, but those would have been giants who lived here, on the ground. The ones we’re dealing with now come from above, in the sky!”
This actually made the crowd go silent for a moment. Someone snorted. “The sky? Do they fly around on little wings like the fairies?”
“Oh, stop it, George,” said someone else. “Everyone knows clouds are like pillows, the most comfortable place to sleep anywhere. And that’s where the Sun Giant lives. Of course there are giants in the sky.”
“But none of us even knew there were giants up there! How could we have stolen anything from them?”
“How do you know all of this, Lena? Did you steal whatever it is they’re looking for?”
At that last question, Lena sighed, knowing she didn’t have any choice. She started to respond but then caught sight of Mrs. Hubbard standing near the back, a worried expression on her face as she looked Lena directly in the eye and shook her head back and forth.
Did she not want Lena to say how she knew the giants were coming? Yes, Mrs. Hubbard had told her all along that the other residents might not be okay with learning Lena was a giant, but this was a pretty special situation. She couldn’t just not tell them, not if she wanted them to listen to her, to believe her.
There’d been enough hiding. They had to know the truth. All of it.
“I’ll tell you how I know!” Lena shouted, and again they quieted down to listen, though there was still a little murmuring going on. “There’s… something you should know about me.”
Now even the murmuring stopped, while Mrs. Hubbard grew more animated, waving her hands dramatically to catch Lena’s attention again. Lena nodded at her, trying to say she understood but had to do it, but that just seemed to egg Mrs. Hubbard on.
“You’ve all known me for years now,” Lena said, hoping they’d remember that in the next few minutes. “And I’m friends with many of you. If we’ve never spoken, that’s more my fault than yours.”
The crowd muttered an acknowledgment to this, so Lena took a deep breath and dived in.
“But almost none of you know who I really am,” she said slowly. Another deep breath. “You see, I actually live—or did live—in the clouds above you too. I’m… well, I’m a giant. A tiny giant, but a giant.”
And just like that, all the murmuring stopped dead as everyone stared at her in shock.
She laughed nervously. “Okay, now that the secret’s out, I’ve got a plan to save everyone. The Last Knight has a cave—”
“You’re no giant,” someone shouted, sending a familiar feeling of nausea bubbling up from Lena’s stomach.
“How could you be? You’re so short!”
“She’s only twelve. She’s actually pretty tall for her age!”
“She’d be short for a giant.”
“That’s because she’s clearly not one. She’s obviously human!”
Suddenly the giants, the Spark, the Golden King, none of it mattered to Lena. All she could hear in her head was King Denir’s voice, over and over.
You are no giant.
Her heart began to race as her anger rose. The crowd continued shouting out how they didn’t believe her, and she started to feel dizzy.
You are no giant.
“Why would she lie?” someone shouted.
“Probably just wants to feel all special,” someone else said. “Important. But she’s not better than any of us. She’s just some ordinary human, like we are.”
You are no giant.
An enormous growl ripped from the depths of Lena’s soul, and the entire crowd went silent. “I AM A GIANT!” she roared, stepping down from the stage. She turned, grabbed the wooden platform in her hands, then ripped it apart before the stunned mob, tossing both sides out and over the city walls. “As true a giant as ever lived! I don’t care if you don’t believe me. I am a giant!”
As quickly as her anger had come, it dissipated, especially before the frightened faces all staring at her in horror. With the rage gone, she was left feeling exhausted and embarrassed as she looked around at the humans who’d been her friends, who’d taken her in. “I’m… I’m sorry,” she said. “But you need to listen to me—”
“She is one of them!”
“She’s been a spy for the giants all along!”
“Get her!”
To Lena’s shock, the mob began to surge toward her, and she backed away in surprise. Even many of her friends were on the attack, including Peter and some of the nutcracker guards.
“I’m not a spy!” she shouted as hands reached out for her. A cabbage came flying at her, thrown by a donkey, but she dodged, and it slammed into the ground next to Lil, who shrieked. “I’m your friend! And I can help save everyone, but we have to get out while the misdirection spell is still working!”
The crowd continued forward, ignoring her, grabbing for her… until a weird buzzing filled the air.
It was only there for a moment before disappearing, but Lena sadly thought she knew what had happened.
“The spell,” she whispered, looking up in the direction of the mountain.
“I see it now!” shouted one of the giant guards, his voice echoing in the distance. “The human town, it’s right in front of us!”
All eyes in the village turned up to the sky, where five giants, including the king, stared down at them from only a few miles away, the misdirection spell now either gone or no longer working.
“Destroy the city!” a second giant shouted.
