Crisanta Knight: To Death & Back Read online

  “Dang,” I replied. “And I thought I’d seen a lot. Are you going to keep going to the other Wonderlands?”

  “Yeah, but I’m not sure when. I’ve been in Neverland a while. Other than Atlantis and Book, it’s the only other realm I’ve come across with a mermaid population. I might not like Stella, but I owe her, so I’m sticking around. She and her sisters saved me from one of Captain Hook’s fishing nets when I got here.” Lonna huffed in disgust. “That guy sucks.”

  I nodded, remembering how I’d walked the plank on Captain Hook’s ship. “Yeah, he does. You’ll be happy to know that Blue punched him in the face and we burned down his ship.”

  “That was you?”

  “Who else?”

  Lonna smiled. “I only wish your destruction lasted longer. My mermaid crew and I were out at sea earlier and the ship is already halfway rebuilt.”

  “That was fast.” I frowned for a moment, then changed the subject. “What’s been your favorite Wonderland so far?”

  “Probably either the Super Dome or Cloud Nine,” Lonna replied. “The worst was Oz. A bunch of flying monkeys tried to snatch me out of the water like I was their lunch.”

  I shuddered at the thought of Glinda’s flying monkeys. They’d attacked us during our time in Oz too.

  I checked the time and called out to my friends that we had to go. The mermaids pouted when the boys said they had to leave. The lot of us began our return swim through the underwater tunnel. I loved being able to keep my eyes open during the swim. It was absolutely breathtaking.

  And yes, that play on words was intentional.

  My hand grazed the squishy, bright red algae at the bottom of the tunnel. Unusual fish with glimmering scales swam by lazily. My heart skipped a beat when what I thought were pink and lime-green flowers suddenly morphed into lime green baby octopuses with pink underbellies.

  As we neared the exit of the tunnel, I looked up and saw Daniel. He seemed equally fascinated by the surroundings. When he saw me, he smiled. I smiled too. We came out of the tunnel and rays of light glimmered between our bodies as we rose. The two of us broke the surface at the same time and floated facing each other. Then Stella splashed me with a faceful of water and the moment was over.

  Jason, Daniel, and I made for the rocky ledge and climbed out. The instant we exited the water, our SRBs sent a flurry of silver sparks around our bodies that dried us off in less than three seconds. Dang, I loved those things. SJ had invented SRBs to solve an under-discussed problem in all great adventure stories: how do the main characters stay clean and looking good along the way? This innovation—like her portable potions—was a perfect reflection of her brilliance and practicality.

  Once again, I checked my Hole Tracker. We had five minutes until the wormhole opened.

  “Thanks for showing us the waterfall, Lonna,” I said. “I hope we cross paths again.”

  “Maybe we will,” she replied. “I’ll probably be moving on soon, going wherever the tide and mischief takes me.” She nodded to Daniel and Jason. “Always a pleasure, boys.”

  “Good to see you, Lonna,” Daniel said. He smiled at the other mermaids. “Ladies.”

  They giggled giddily and whispered to each other as they waved goodbye. I rolled my eyes. The three of us began our return march through the forest.

  “Lonna’s nice, but those other girls were weird,” Jason commented.

  “All girls are weird,” I replied. “It just varies to what degree, and how proud we are to embrace it.” I tilted my chin at Daniel. “You seemed to enjoy yourself.”

  “The waterfall was cool.”

  “And Kai wouldn’t have felt threatened that a gaggle of sparkly, aquatic girls were the ones that showed it to you?”

  “She’s not the jealous type. Why would she be? You’ve met her. She’s awesome.”

  It was a fair point. Daniel’s girlfriend in Century City was beautiful, smart, kind, and an extremely skilled swordfighter. I guess if you were that awesome, you wouldn’t worry about anybody else catching your boyfriend’s attention. Nobody could threaten you. Well, except for me. Not in the traditional sense, but in terms of prophecy.

  Daniel’s prophecy said that I was going to be a key ally to him and Kai; however, it also indicated that I had the potential to destroy her. We didn’t know any of the specifics in regards to how this was going to happen, but the possibility was an ongoing burden Daniel and I had to deal with.

  For a time this had been a point of awkwardness between us. Luckily, we’d eventually made peace with it. Daniel didn’t blame me for his prophecy, and he took full responsibility for trying to influence the outcome so Kai could be saved and the two of them could end up together. I had also volunteered to help protect her. I was just as adamant about controlling our fates as he was. And I saw no reason why—as I tried to shape a future where my magic helped stop the antagonists—I couldn’t take steps to ensure Kai’s safety as well.

  Daniel may not have held me responsible for his prophecy, or for Kai’s wellbeing, but I held myself responsible for his. He was my friend. And he’d been there for me too many times for me not to return the favor.

  The boys and I entered the clearing where we’d left our friends. SJ was pacing while Blue sat in the branch of a tree.

  “There you are. I was starting to get worried,” SJ said when she spotted us. She tossed me my backpack and I swung it over my shoulders.

  “You’re always worried,” I replied.

  “You always give me a reason to be.”

  I shrugged, conceding that it was a fair accusation. No sooner did I do this than the air in front of us began to change, rippling and wavering us until a tear in reality created a silvery wormhole. The Portalscape Portal floated above the ground. It was the size of a throw rug—only big enough for one person to fit through at a time.

  I consulted my Hole Tracker again. “This wormhole is meant to stay open for ten minutes.” I moved a finger over the face of the watch with a light, circular motion. The action forwarded through time on the map. “The next portal in Neverland opens in eight hours.”

  “That’s fast,” Jason commented. “We had to wait a day and half between this wormhole and the last one.”

  “Looks like the holes are getting closer together,” I replied, continuing my circular motion. “The next one may open in eight hours, but the one after that comes after seven. And look at tomorrow … six hours, four hours …”

  “It must be the Vicennalia Aurora,” SJ said. “The event causes magic fluctuation and instability across all the Wonderlands, so the barriers between the worlds are breaking down the closer we get to it.”

  “Then I guess we better take this head start on Arian while we have the chance,” Daniel said.

  Blue came up behind Jason and me and put her arms around our shoulders. “All right then. Who wants to jump through the inter-dimensional portal first?”

  Before we could decide, a White Rabbit bounded out of the wormhole from the other side. Unlike my friend Harry the White Rabbit, this rabbit struck me as a no-nonsense type.

  “Conflabbit, thirty-eight seconds late,” the White Rabbit huffed, checking her Hole Tracker, which had a purple band that matched her velvet blazer. When she finally noticed us, her ears stood as stiff as the ruffled collar poking out of her jacket.

  “What are you children up to?” she asked suspiciously. “Stay away from this wormhole. It’s dangerous.”

  “It’s not dangerous,” I commented. “It leads to the Portalscape.”

  The White Rabbit raised her eyebrows. “Travelers, are you? Let me see your SVs.”

  “Our what?” Blue asked.

  The White Rabbit totally freaked out. Her ears vibrated with the speed of mosquito wings and her eyes turned the color of fresh blood. Then—blam—she mutated. Her body expanded, but her head grew much larger, turning White Rabbit into a scary, gigantic bobble-head. Her ears were now sharp and stiff like swords, her face was Rottweiler-esque, her paws sprouted claws
, and her body became thick and muscular.

  “No visas, no access!” she snarled.

  The intensity of the creature’s roar caused an updraft that blew my hair back. I raised an arm to shield myself from some of the spittle that came with it.

  “She means storyteller visas,” Daniel said urgently.

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Jason said, raising his hands to show the monster he meant no harm. “Sorry, we didn’t get the SV abbreviation, but we do have visas.” He approached the White Rabbit slowly, holding up the back of his hand.

  The White Rabbit narrowed her red eyes but reached inside her jacket and removed a black wand from a massive zip-up wallet. She passed the wand over Jason’s body. It glowed as she scanned him. After a beat, a formerly invisible stamp on Jason’s hand revealed itself. It was in the shape of a crescent and sparkled a myriad of different colors in a matter of seconds.

  “All access; no expiration,” the lady White Rabbit said. In the blink of an eye, she returned to her normal size. Jason stepped away and the stamp on his hand faded.

  Harry the White Rabbit had given us storyteller visas so we could travel the Wonderlands without interference. White Rabbits usually guarded the wormholes that led to the Portalscape because that realm gave you access to all the others. He had warned us that we wouldn’t want to get caught by a White Rabbit without the proper access pass. Now I knew why.

  “It is very rare that all access, no expiration visas are issued,” the lady White Rabbit said, now in a perfectly amicable mood. “Let me scan the rest of you.”

  We all took turns being scanned. Each of our hands revealed the same stamp as Jason’s. When the lady White Rabbit was through, she nodded to us. “You are all approved. Now hurry on your way before I change my mind.”

  “All right, all right.” I stepped in front of the wormhole and took one last glance at the Neverland forest. We’d be back. I could feel it.

  Just maybe not in this story arc.

  “See you on the other side,” I said to my friends. With that, I leapt from this realm into the clutches of a new one.

  was not a fan of Portalscape Portals.

  Going through a Pop-Up Portal to the next realm in the Wonderland sequence was like stepping through a door. The transition lasted a second, and other than not knowing what kind of environment you would end up in, the journey posed no physical danger.

  Portalscape Portals were far more perilous. The instant you stepped through, you fell into an underground abyss that smelled like topsoil. It was a wonder that none of us dislocated a shoulder or sustained a concussion on the way down.

  My hands and feet scraped against dirt and roots as I tumbled through the void. After about thirty seconds the tunnel opened up and spat me out into a massive room—the Portalscape. Regrettably, it expelled me at the top of that room, twenty feet above the ground.

  At least there was something to land on. Directly below the ejection point was a comically large bed. My friends and I had learned from our previous trips to the Portalscape that the mattress was incredibly springy. So if someone landed beside you while you were still on it, the resulting bounce would send you flying. The second I touched down I leapt from the bed before my friends’ incoming bodies could throw me off. Unfortunately, Blue didn’t have time to do the same before SJ landed, so the both of them were flung to the floor when they bounced off the bed. Blue hit the ground hardest.

  “Ow.” She rubbed the side of her arm as she got up.

  I took in the mystifying Portalscape. The entire realm consisted of a circular room forty feet in diameter and was filled with a mist that hung around our knees. A similar wraithlike fog drifted around the curved earth ceiling with the hole that spat us out at its very center. Vines dangled around the opening like creepy plant arms.

  The main points of interest in the Portalscape, though, lined the walls. Each of the fourteen magnificent doors along the rounded walls of the Portalscape led to a different Wonderland. The doors were as unique as the mystical worlds that lay beyond their frames. Now that I was becoming familiar with the different Wonderlands, I could more easily peg which door led to what realm. The dark brown wooden door with vines sprouting orange tiger lilies, for example, went to Neverland. The bright yellow door led to Oz. The ice door decorated with holly and garlands led to the North Pole.

  My eyes lingered on a forest green door opposite me. It was elegant and enchanting with a gold floral design etched into it.

  It was the door back to Book.

  Blue moved over and stood next to me, still rubbing her arm.

  “You okay?” I asked.

  “Fine. I probably deserved it after screwing up back there. My big mouth almost got us killed by a giant bunny.”

  “Bunnies are different than rabbits, Blue,” SJ commented, dusting herself off.

  Blue’s mouth was halfway open with a retort before SJ cut her off. “And anyway, it does not matter that you made a mistake. It happens. Your combat skill and vast knowledge of all things fairytale have saved us on too many occasions for this incident to tarnish your record.”

  The indignant expression on Blue’s face disappeared. “Thanks, SJ.”

  I allowed a small smile to curve my lips.

  SJ, Blue, and I had been a dynamic trio for years, but because my friends were so different they often squabbled over trivial things. SJ was the perfect traditional princess—kind, graceful, polite—just like you would imagine the daughter of Snow White to be. Conversely, Blue was the scrappy, bold, and outspoken younger sister of the famed Little Red Riding Hood. While SJ preferred singing with birds and mixing potions, Blue fancied rough combat and weapons. SJ steered toward a logical, rational approach. Blue was driven by instinct and impulse.

  Yet, despite their core dissimilarities, the two were true friends who cared deeply for one another. In moments like this it was easy to see the fondness and respect they had for each other.

  “Now then,” SJ continued. “Shall we?”

  She was pointing to the gray stone door that led to Camelot. Silver and gold glitter stretched from the edges the way frost climbed windowpanes. In the center of the door was a familiar symbol—a cross with a ten-pointed star in the upper right quadrant. I had spotted the same symbol in the form of a birthmark on Arthur’s left forearm yesterday. I would’ve never known it was there if it hadn’t been for his sleeve getting accidentally pushed up when he was helping me out of a trapping pit. I wondered what the symbol meant.

  Daniel stepped forward and opened the door. We saw the shadowy depths of a cave on the other side. Not promising.

  He gestured to us. “Ladies first.”

  “You heard him, SJ,” Blue said. “That’s all you.”

  SJ rolled her eyes. “Fine.” She walked up to the door, took a deep breath, then stepped through. I went swiftly after her. A breezy energy passed over me as I crossed into the new realm. Once in the cave, I looked back as the rest of our friends followed. From this side, the door we’d come through had the appearance of another silver wormhole.

  The cave we found ourselves in was small with a low ceiling, but not dark. Streaks of light poured in from around the corner ahead of us—the way out. A large rock sat in the center of the cave where another White Rabbit sat, half asleep. His whiskers drooped and his fur had touches of gray. He wore the top half of a three-piece suit—a collared shirt, vest, and jacket—and held a cane in one hand. He looked feeble, but I regarded him with proper respect. I had no doubt he would turn into a monster if we crossed him. That cane would probably become a massive battering ram he could smash us with.

  “Storyteller visas,” he said in a rusty voice with a partial yawn, slowly getting up from his seat.

  We all presented our hands and repeated the scanning process. When the White Rabbit was satisfied, he waved us along. My friends and I followed the sunlight around the corner and out of the cave. We stepped into the outside world and took in our first real sight of Camelot.

  The forest
before us was breathtaking, and not eerie like so many others we’d been through. The blossoms of a massive magnolia tree next to the cave filled the air with sweetness. Dandelions and mushroom circles sprang up from the grass. A rush of red-chested hummingbirds flew by, their updraft causing my dress to flutter.

  Blue tilted her chin at me. “Right. Now we have to find our way to Camelot’s citadel so you can get that Boar’s Mouth blessing.”

  “So, we should head left then,” Daniel said.

  Blue gave him a skeptical look. “How do you know that?”

  Daniel pointed at a tree. Hanging from one of the lower branches was an arrow-shaped sign with the word “Citadel” pointing to our left.

  “Oh,” she said.

  Enchanted creatures we came across while trekking through the forest: six. Conversations we had that focused on topics unrelated to the Vicennalia Aurora: three. Minutes that went by without me worrying about one of our enemies: zero.

  I think we were all still a bit wiped from this morning and didn’t feel much like casual chatter. We also weren’t in the mood to strategize yet. We briefly discussed a few thoughts regarding what awaited us at the citadel, and I mentioned that Mauvrey had given a name to the ruler currently on the throne—Rampart—but past that our focus remained on the hike itself.

  There were additional sporadic direction signs mounted throughout the forest, but to get to the citadel we relied mainly on our map of the realm that SJ pulled from her potions sack. Jason, as our primary navigator for the time being, studied it intently before leading the way. We walked for an hour and a half before we ran into an issue.

  “That’s weird,” Jason commented as we paused by a signpost. One sign pointed right and was labeled “Canyon of Geene” while all others pointed left, one of which was labeled “Citadel.”

  “I don’t know why the sign wants us to go left,” he said. “The map shows this canyon as the fastest direct path to the citadel. If we go around it, it could take seven or eight hours. If we go through it, we can get to the citadel in, like, half that time.”