Page 117 of Down from the Tower

He hesitates, before pointing behind him to his headless body. The Queen left his remains and the timepiece lying in the grass, though his head is now smashed from a tree that fell. The timepiece looks like it’s alright, but I don’t move to pick it up. “Take that with you, Reaper. You cannot let the flowerborne or the Queen’s armies find it.”

“What good is a timepiece to me?”

“Someday, the Queen’s clock will begin ticking again. The timepiece will move. Her reign isn’t infinite, and she knows the countdown is coming. Why do you think she’s trying so hard to claim all of Mystica?”

I frown. I’ve never thought about it like that. She’s remained in power since the King of Diamonds passed and it’s not unusual for the royals of Mystica to live exceptionally long lives. But if her clock isn’t moving, and she isn’t aging, her tyranny could last untold amounts of time. “I assumed she wanted to rule.”

“She wants to control Life and Death,” he explains, looking between myself and Rapunzel, who is glowing now. If she decides to attack her father’s spirit, I won’t stand in the way. With so much destruction already, there isn’t much she can cause further damage to.

And for all the hell her father put her through, a final act of vengeance is the least she deserves.

“Not the people who embody them,” Theo continues, filling the silence as I think over his words. “If she has control of both, she can call the shadows to her even without your magic. Her ability to use hearts and Life for her blood magic gives her power, and if she can play with Death and control shadows like the Reapers do, she’ll be unstoppable.”

“Unless the Mad Queen decides she’s ready to die, there’s no way she can have control of both.” My gaze flickers to Rapunzel, a glowing golden beauty as she rages at her father, and I think of her ability to wield my scythe. She can touch the weapon of a Reaper, because her father gave her power that killed her twin, and possibly, for many moments, claimed her too. “Only those touched by Death have a chance to control the shadows.”

I won’t say any more out loud, but it’s true. I haven’t had but a few moments to consider Rapunzel’s ability to wield a weapon of the dead, but she did so effortlessly. If she can control my scythe, she could possibly wield any weapon that a Reaper carries, since we all built our tools from the stones that crushed us. I doubt the Mad Queen picked apart all of those details, since she wasn’t even around for every step of our journey, but Rapunzel might be one of the only people in existence who has a chance of controlling both Life and Death.

But as I watch her arguing with Midas, I seriously doubt she wants to. Rapunzel has plenty left to discover about herself without tossing in more magical abilities. She’s already powerful on her own. Being able to wield my weapons is just a bonus for her at this point.

Theo clears his throat, drawing me out of my thoughts. He’s been silent, like he’s also trying to decide what to make of things. “The shadow man lives in the Mad Queen’s mind, always. A being of Death and nightmares, unobtainable and haunting. She saw him only once when the King of Diamonds perished. His presence, and whatever words he whispered to her, live on like a prophecy in her head.”

He rubs his ghostly hands together until they disappear, looking out into the fallen trees. “She wants to reach him again. She saw him that one time and claims it was one of the most prolific moments of her life. And when the madness gets too much in her head, she’ll whisper like she’s just recently seen him again in the shadows.”

My eyes flash, thinking of the man I saw standing behind the Queen when I died. “She wants to reach the shadow man? That’s what all this is about?”

His eyes remain unfocused. “I think so… it’s so hard to piece together what she’s saying, Zarev. She’s dedicated to finding him. Surely he can help share her madness with all of Mystica, right? She called him the Boogeyman, the shadow who once visited her in her dreams.”

Boogeyman? Over the years I’ve talked to my fellow Reapers about who we think the shadow man was, but I’ve never heard the name Boogeyman before. When I have time someday, maybe I can ask Lucius to do some research in that dusty library of his. Surely if the Boogeyman ever existed, he would be documented someplace in one of those many, many books.

“She never said much more than that,” he goes on, and I wait to see if this spirit will spill anything else. “But I never did see this shadow man of hers, or Boogeyman, or whatever name she thinks he claims. She sent me here, to Tressa, to try and find a weak point so she could breach the kingdom. That fountain, the Fountain of Youth? Midas uses it to keep himself young with his golden touch and his all-consuming control of the people. But the fountain plays another part too. Remember the looking glass in Wonderland?”

I narrow my eyes. The looking glass is one of a thousand rumors from Wonderland, nothing more. “I’ve heard of it.”

Theo nods, like I’m getting his point. “There’s one here in the fountain, too. Youth is a type of looking glass, is it not? It’s a reflection of time lost. Getting access to Tressa and breaching the wall was supposed to give her access to the looking glass in the fountain, but now that it’s cracked, it won’t do her any good. The connection won’t work as the fountain empties. She wanted a way to travel all the way across Mystica in a matter of moments if need be.”

“And yet she never used it.” My eyes turn back to Rapunzel for a brief moment and it looks as if the arguments between might have run their course. She’s too exhausted from the buildup to right now, and Midas has nothing to hold over her anymore.

“The fountain is contaminated by Midas’ greed,” Theo explains. “He poisoned the magic within with his Golden Touch. The connection is spotty at best. She needed it to be absolute, so there was no fear of the connection hurting her while she passed through the looking glass.”

Sure, that kind of made sense. It sounded overly complicated, but if she needed to be discrete about her plans, she would find a way. “And you were privy to this?”

“All rabbits are. We track time, document dates. We…” he trails off, chuckling. “We’re supposed to be speedy, reliable. I didn’t live up to my duties as I lived in the castle. Midas offered me his daughter’s gift of Life to stay quiet, and so long as I ensured that Queen Dorah and Rapunzel had privacy during tea time, he left me alone.”

I look towards the two again. They’ve stopped arguing altogether now, Rapunzel glowing a brilliant gold and Midas glaring at the two of us. “Be quiet, Theo.” The King’s voice was full of anger, hatred and maybe some betrayal.

“No, you can’t tell me what to do anymore,” he argues, turning from Midas and facing me once again. “The tea was a recipe one of the butterflies in the Red Woods designed, and it’s worked well all these long years. It kept either of them from being controlled by Midas’ power should he decide to use his Golden Touch to drag the souls from their bodies to his side so he could absorb them. With that kind of pull, he could never run out of power.”

“I said enough,” Midas barks, but there’s nothing they can do to each other right now. The King gets in his face, but Theo doesn’t stop talking.

“The tea helped to control the princess’ powers, too, so she couldn’t gain more power than the King. If she stayed with a simple, nonviolent power, like healing, the Mad Queen wouldn’t pay any attention to her. It kept Tressa in the dark too, so she didn’t feel the need to check in on the kingdom unless she had a need to test the fountain. And with everything else she’s got her hands in in Mystica, she didn’t have the time to bother with Tressa for a long while.”

“No, she sent spies like Arthur,” Rapunzel snaps, and there’s no holding her back now that she’s been enlightened. She’s still full of vengeance and rage, and I hope she holds onto that fire. “And then Modred came along with a hidden agenda. Not to mention the fleet of ships that followed to storm the kingdom to kill the citizens!”

Theo shrugs. “Midas took care of that part so there was no need-”

“Theo!” Midas roars, cutting him off. He holds out a hand, aiming it at the guard, but nothing happens. He has no power in the afterlife, and as realization flickers across his face, Theo surges forward, sharing exactly what the dead King wants to hide.

“Midas captured any souls that passed in Tressa because of his magical pull,” Theo explains, focusing on me. “He has the cursed water all the citizens consumed to thank for that. But the wall that surrounds the kingdom? It’s designed from his own Golden Touch. Despite what the King might think, he doesn’t have the strength to draw in spirits from all over Mystica and claim their spiritual power. You know this, Zarev. Spirits have their own energy before they pass on. When people exploit it, it can create power they don’t deserve to control.”

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