Page 188 of Sigils & Spells

No escape. No easy way out. I closed the curtain again and collapsed back into the soft bed. My head pounded. I closed my eyes and pressed my fists into my eye sockets.

“I don’t know what to do!”

I laid like that for a moment. Taking deep breaths.

Alice made the squeaky bark noise again. I rolled over onto my stomach to look at her, propping my head up on my fist.

“If I don’t eat the apple, who knows what Maeve will do to Minho and Ruby.” I said. “But if I do eat the apple, they’ll end up as slaves to Maeve.”

The sugar glider cocked her head at me.

“She said they’d be free to go if they wanted after a year, which is probably true considering Fae can’t lie, but if they’re here for a whole year they’ll have no choice but to eat Fae food, and then they’ll never want to leave. They’ll stay Maeve’s slaves.”

Another little bark sound.

“I know right.” I rubbed my face again. “I’m not smart enough to figure this out.”

Another bark.

And then, all of a sudden, instead of the little sugar glider on the bed in front of me, was Alice, standing on the bed.

I jumped, and she yelped and tumbled, losing her balance, falling onto the bed and bouncing off, landing with a resounding thud on the ground.

“What the hell,” too surprised to get up, I army-crawled across the bed and looked down at where Alice was in the process of levering herself up, grimacing and rubbing her shoulder.

“Are you ok?” I couldn’t help but stifle a laugh, the image of her bouncing off the bed, wide eyed replaying in my head. “You’re not a rodent anymore!”

“Thank you, captain obvious,” She grunted. Her voice sounded rough and hoarse like mine did whenever I turned back into a person. “And I think sugar gliders are marsupials, not rodents.”

I laughed aloud now, and though I was still lying on my stomach and looking down at her, I offered her my hand. She grabbed it and pulled herself up, stumbling a bit as she stood.

“Why did I…” Alice pat herself down, as if remembering what her own body felt like, at the same time we realized she still had on her back pack. “Why did Ruby turn me into a sugar glider?”

Alice slipped the backpack off as she spoke and set it on the bed, rummaging through its contents for a moment. She wordlessly handed me a packet of powdered donuts and a disposable bottle of water. I opened the donuts as she sat next to me.

“I don’t think she meant to.” I shoved one of the little donuts whole into my mouth, talking around it and spraying the powder everywhere. It occurred to me that that might look really slobish of me, until I noticed Alice do the same. I continued. “I think she wanted to do some kind of protection spell. Which did seem to work, because the Fae didn’t even know you were there, even though you barely fit in my pocket.”

“Yeah, that was nice. It was like being in a hammock.”

I snorted, and pushed myself to my feet and found myself pacing. “I have no idea what to do now.”

“Could we escape?” Alice watched me from the bed, eating another donut, ignoring the powder that fell all over the scarlet comforter.

“No,” I shook my head. “Because she has Minho and Ruby.”

“Maybe we could break them out too?”

“I know you were a marsupial at the time, but did you see how big this tree castle thing is? It’s like the pixie dust tree in pixie hollow. And we’re the fairies!”

She frowned. “So it would be like looking for two people in a skyscraper made of magic.”

“Exactly.” I ran both hands through my hair nervously, still pacing. “And we don’t have the magic to find them. I feel like we are the worst pair to get separated. We know jack about magic.”

“Any pair without Ruby would be the worst.” Alice grumbled, crossing her arms over her chest, but then she softened a little and looked at me. “Well, actually I am glad it’s you I ended up with. I don’t know any of you very well, but… I don’t know.”

I opened my mouth, not sure what I was going to say, but luckily I never had to figure it out, because the next moment someone knocked hard on the door. Three solid slams sent my heart out my ears. I looked from the door, to Alice, but Alice was gone. A moment of confusion washed over me until I saw the angry sugar glider sitting where she had been standing. The shock from the door must have startled her back into a sugar glider.

I didn’t have time to think about how little sense that made, but I had enough foresight to motion her under the bed. As long as they still didn’t know she was here, she remained the safest out of the four of us.

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