Page 55 of Down from the Tower

“You promise to get him?” Gretel snaps. “Not just your friend?”

“I will do all I can. But you need to show me where Madame's house is.”

She slowly nods, holding her hand out blindly. “And you have to kill the thing pretending to be him.”

“What thing?” I ask, placing my hand in hers. Being blind doesn't deter her, and she immediately pivots and starts to drag me the other direction, her grip strong for a wayward soul.

“I - I don't know. It's something Madame takes care of. He looked like a man I've seen on wanted posters before. Robin the Brave. Then they took all of Hansel’s skin and now he looks like my brother. He had the face of my family before I lost my eyes.”

My shoulders tense. I saw Robin the Brave rotting in misery back in Tressa. “The thing looks like Robin?”

“And sometimes Hansel. I don't know what he looks like now. Can't see.”

It's not a good sign that this woman - a witch, most likely - has what sounds like shape-shifting at her disposal. That makes her powerful, and Rapunzel is already in enough danger being out here.

Briefly, guilt builds in my chest. I never intended for her to be hurt when I brought her outside the walls of Tressa. There was no real plan, just a lot of chaos. Now I’m trying to figure out what to do with her, and abandoning her in Sherwood is out of the question.

I look down at my hands, testing the shadows. I can probably get Rapunzel out, and what's left of Gretel's brother, but I'll burn through my magic again and Modred and the rest of the spirits won't be able to pass on.

Maybe Raymundo will sense so much death that he will head this way. He hasn't been stabbed by magic gold recently. Perhaps his magic is stronger.

“Show me,” I urge Gretel, and she quickens her pace. The sooner I find Rapunzel, the sooner we can leave this place.

15 Rapunzel

A burning pain wakes me up. I don’t remember falling asleep, but the sizzling sound of something burning makes me gasp, and a moment later the pain registers.

It’s in my neck. At my throat and down my collarbone to my chest. I scream, the pain intensifying as I sit here.

Pain is foreign to me. Midas and Dorah struck me occasionally, but they would never torture me. Even when Midas would use my hair to bind me, the pain was brutal but short lived, and he would ensure that the marks and suffering were short lived. He wanted me disciplined, not fearful, so I would keep using my gift for him. But I saw the bodies of those poor souls after he was finished abusing them, and I got to see what real torture is.

This feels like that.

“Ah, pretty girl is awake,” the voice says, and I whimper as I turn. My hair is a knotted mess around me, and my scalp aches in pain as I turn. The being sitting beside me makes me start screaming again.

The man who fed me a cookie and brought me to the gingerbread house looked normal, if a little strange. Whatever is sitting next to me is nothing like a man.

The head is a flower, literally. Petals blossom around his head, and the center seems to be his smushed face. He’s light blue and inhuman, his eyes blinking vertical instead of horizontal as he stares at me.

I scream, struggling against the chair I’m sitting on. It’s hard wood, and there’s something sticky and stretchy around my wrists. I pull hard, but the restraint doesn’t give.

With my mouth open to scream, the creature has the perfect opportunity to shove something between my lips. I gag on the thick substance, the taste burning my tongue and making my eyes water.

“Shh! I told you to keep the girl still!”

“I gave her some more of the taffy. Sorry, Madame.”

I try to spit out whatever he shoved into my mouth, but it won’t move. It’s sticking to the roof of my mouth and my tongue, clinging to every single tooth. I can’t breathe around the substance. This is like no taffy I’ve had before.

I cry out, my voice muffled, and snap my head back and forth. It makes the pain in my neck intensify, and briefly my vision fogs.

No. If I pass out in this place, I’m as good as dead.

“Keep going,” the other voice croaks, and a strong hand grabs my face. “We need all the juicy bits. Take the pretty pieces, bake them up, oh so sweet!”

Wherever I am, I’m trapped in madness. When the flower-headed man twists my face back again, he flashes me a set of inhumanly sharp teeth. I vaguely remember that from when I first came into the house.

“You’ll be tasty. Tasty and sweet,” he says, keeping his grip on my face. I try to struggle, but the longer I’m awake the more aware I am of how painfully hot it is here. I’m covered in sticky sweat.

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