Blue

“Celastrina Blue, control yourself,” Herman whispered, his grip tight enough to bruise my wrist. Strange enough, the Author was exceptionally strong today—of all days.

“I am fine,” I gritted and shoved him harder than I meant to. He staggered a step backward, eyes wide enough to rival a toad’s. “I am fine, really,” I repeated. 

Just keep breathing. Just keep breathing. 

I will be fine. We will be fine. She didn’t belong here anymore, I shouldn’t be affected by her. Yes, that’s it. Why would I be affected by a villain?

I stared at the one I once called sister. Questions swarmed my mind and fought to be heard. Had it only been a year since we last met? Is this really the Atala I knew? The one who used to look after us, the one who used to sneak out with us to watch the royal parade? Is this really the same person? 

A cold shiver licked the length of my neck, leaving a trail of prickling unease. 

This is the price for wishing for the impossible, for believing the Star would grant her wish, a soft voice whispered in my head. And you will be next.

I shook my head hard. I only wished for our happily ever after. I didn’t wish for a fairy tale ending, I didn’t wish for the love of the century. 

For once, the voice stopped.

“What do we have here?” Atala cooed, forcibly yanking my attention back to reality. “A new lamb of the Council?”

“Back off!” By the time I realized the words had slipped off my tongue, all eyes were on me, shocked. Only Atala’s were amused. Even from a distance, I could feel tendrils of enchantment rolling off Atala in dark, oily strips, trying to claw their way into Jayden Forst’s mind. 

“If you’re going to mess with him, you’ll have to go through me first,” I gritted out the words. Star forbids anyone from openly provoking a fae mom by turning her new charge into a mindless puppet right in front of her. 

I spread my arms out wide, standing between the two. Atala turned to her pet crow with a mocking chuckle, reminding me again how my height wasn’t as threatening as I wished it was. 

“Have you heard her, my darling? We’ll have to go through her. How adorable.” The dark creature cawed, flapping its wings in reply, its beady eyes glowed bright red as if ready to go through me. 

I could sense Jayden Forst tensing behind me. Though his bare fists probably wouldn’t last a second longer against the shape shifter, it was reassuring to know he hadn’t fallen under Atala’s spell. At least he could still run away on his own.  

“The child is Grimm’s new apprentice,” Lily announced, her face neutral but the wand in her hand glowed a dangerous silver. “You will be standing against the whole Council if you were to harm the boy.”

Atala whipped around, black robe billowed with a hint of dark emerald behind her. “Just a little joke for old time’s sake.” Her lips took on a dramatic downturn and shoulders sagged a little for emphasis—but only for a second before it shot up into a devilish grin again. “So, why did I hear Mother’s name back there?” 

My gaze involuntarily flickered to Lily. For one who was the epitome of feelings, she did well masking hers. Except for a slight twitch in her eyelids, her smile didn’t falter for a second at Atala’s choice of address for the witch.

“Well, since you are here,” Lily began as if she hadn’t heard Atala’s obvious challenge, her voice dripping with formality. “Do you happen to know where my sister is?”

Atala flashed a faux-sorrowful expression that would make FTAA’s lead lecturer of acting pale in comparison. “I do not know where Mother is. Haven’t seen her since…well, you know. Not that we ever needed to look for her. If Mother needs you, you’ll see her—whether you like it or not—but if she doesn’t, my condolences.” 

Her face was nowhere near an inch of sorry. 

“But I do know someone who had seen her last.” Her eyes glowed bright green as she turned to me with a smirk that proved she didn’t have an ounce of fae left in her. Just a witch. Pure evil witch. “Someone you knew.”

“We don’t have the time for riddles, Atala Magenta,” I hissed. Even her name tasted bitter on my tongue.

“Always the impatient one, I see.” She shook her head in disapproval and the crow followed suit. 

“Who?” I tried again, this time with my wand in hand. 

“Ursula.”

I didn’t realize my legs had given away until a large hand came behind my back and held me upright. Jayden Forst. 

“You alright?” he asked in a soft voice. 

I nodded and sent him a grateful look quietly. The last thing I needed was to appear weak in front of the witch. I straightened my back and forced my legs to work as I peeled myself away from him. I was about to head for the doors when Atala called after me. 

“You don’t think she’s still in the West Sea, do you?” she smirked. “Do you really think old Poseidon would let her stay there after what she did to his daughter?”

“What they presumed she did,” Herman corrected on cue, his eyes gleaming with rage that he fought hard to subdue.

Atala tilted her head to the crow, stroking its stretched neck as if she hadn’t heard him.

“Where is she then, Maleficent?” I pressed, desperate to be free from the cold glare of her emerald eyes. Yet, it only made her gaze harden, cutting to me as she clucked her tongue to an infuriating tick-tock. 

“Now dearie, you don’t suppose I will tell you what you want like a good old fairy godmother now do you? It takes a price to ask from witches.”

Lily’s grip on her wand instantly tightened, as did Herman’s fists. “What do you want in exchange?” 

Atala’s smile was menacing enough to make one think she had been destined to be a witch since birth. 

“I am working on a shape-shifting spell, you see,” she lamented as she circled me, a vulture waiting for its prey to give up its last struggle. “Begrudgingly, it needs both light and dark magic to work”.

The staff in her hand glowed an eerie green to match her eyes. My gaze involuntarily flickered to the orb on her staff. Shards of magenta floated in its semi-transparent body, flickering in and out of sight as she moved. 

“So you want me to work with you?” I crossed my arms, a sudden chill crept up the length of my back. Those are the remains of her wand.

Atala shook her head. “On the contrary, I only need your wand.”

“No!” 

It wasn’t until Herman whirled me around that I realized it was him who had shouted. “You don’t have to do this, we can ask Poseidon about it, there’s no need to risk—”

“Poseidon can’t help you,” Atala yawned while studying her blood red fingernails, her expression unreadable. “Even the old fish wouldn’t know where she is in a sea that isn’t under his reign to begin with.”

I swallowed the fist-sized lump forming in my throat. If there was one thing I know for sure about Atala, she never lies. Not even as a witch. 

I peered over my shoulder at Jayden Forst who still looked as clueless as when he first met us. There wasn’t much change in him, at least not physically like a sudden addition of horn or eye. But if Herman’s theory was right, a Reader can’t stay in Taledom for too long without any side effects. They just weren’t made to be in a Tale, they were made for Tales.

Just half a day ago, he nearly gave out from a scorpion's sting. We can’t risk him mutating or turning over to darkness while he is here. Or worse, going mad after destroying half of what remained of the land.

That won’t happen to him. Not when he’s my charge and not while I could help it. 

Lily and Herman almost screamed in shrilled harmony the moment I held my wand out to Atala. Her eyes lit up as she reached for it. 

Lily stepped in between us, her brilliant white wand extended. “If you need a wand, take mine,” she said, her back to me.

Atala sighed and rolled her eyes, “Once a White Fairy, always a White Fairy.” She tilted her head and regarded me with a weary look, “What do you say, Blue? Yours or hers? It’s fine with me either way.”

There was no question at all. “Mine,” I sidestepped Lily and placed my wand straight into Atala’s hands. “This is between us. The price’s not Lily’s to pay.” 

“Ever the righteous, self-serving bunch,” Atala sneered, her eyes tracing the length of my wand. “But I do not hate that trait of yours.”

Colour drained from Lily’s originally pale face. She sank into Jayden Forst’s arms, her eyelids flickered as she drifted in and out of consciousness. Herman who had been silent since a while ago clenched his fists again.

“Have some faith in the old enchantress will you? I meant to borrow it, not destroy it,” a look that reminded me of the old Atala flashed across her face as she brought my wand to the orb of her staff. It disappeared as it would with our lockets. 

“We both know what happens when it breaks,” she added in a small voice, more to herself than to us. She would know, of course, being there to experience it first-hand. In the hands of the man she used to love, no less.

“I’ll have Diaval return it to you when I am done,” she said, her face an unreadable mask all over again. “Unless you are thinking of joining our ranks?”

I rolled my eyes, moments of pity shattered. “Now, where’s Pieris?”

“The East Sea, right beside Mermaid’s Lagoon. Ironically.”

East Sea. 

Captain Hook’s territory.

Darn his flower petals. 

Considering Hook’s history with the pixies, we could only count on him to help if the sea dries up and the crocodiles are nothing but a bunch of meat jerkies. Without my wand, we wouldn’t even last a minute against his deadly pets. 

“And Blue?” 

I glanced up in time to see the two words forming silently on Atala’s lips before she dissolved in a cloud of dark green. 

Thank you.