“Let me go,” she whispered.
“Never,” Teague warned under his breath just as T.J’s hand gripped his shoulder. He turned in surprise, and his grip loosened just enough for her to slip out of it.
Mina realized that Brody was nowhere in sight, and she used the moment to dart into the crowd and disappear into the fair.
Chapter 6
What had she done?
Mina ran through the crowds of people and ducked behind the chipped yellow and blue house of mirrors. Her trembling hand touched her lips as she tried to process what had just happened. She’d been about to kiss a stranger to get back at Brody but decided she couldn’t do that to him. And the strange boy she picked out of the group happened to be Teague, wearing a glamour. What were the chances, and what did it mean?
Why was he even at the fair, and why the kissing booth? She wracked her brain and remembered that he had been standing there for a while. He’d probably somehow instigated the whole Savannah and Brody kiss, knowing Mina was in the line and would see—his own way of tormenting her. Except that it hadn’t really worked. She didn’t feel jealous at the sight of Brody kissing the other girls.
Could it be that her heart was finally catching up with her mind? That she was outgrowing her high school crush? She needed to search for the others, but she found herself back at the Date a Cheerleader booth. The whole squad had returned from their break to resume their dating fundraisers.
The line of guys had formed again, and Mina was close enough to overhear Savannah and Pri talking.
“So do you think he’ll leave her for you?” Pri asked.
Savannah had pulled out her compact and was fixing her lipstick, wiping where kissing Brody had smeared it. “He’d be dumb if he didn’t. I don’t get what he sees in that Grimey golddigger. But for a moment there, he really was kissing me back, just like old times.”
A Grimey golddigger? Mina stormed past the dunk tank and flicked her hand at the target. Mina was so angry she didn’t even realize she’d released a burst of power toward the tank. The dunk lever depressed and sent Savannah screaming into the tank. She spewed out water and started screaming at Pri to find her a towel.
Then, while Savannah was still inside the tank, a crack stretched along the clear acrylic and fanned out. Seconds later, the tank burst and water spilled out and knocked the entire squad of cheerleaders from their feet. They gasped and screamed and tried to stand, but all they could do was slip and slide in the mud.
Savannah and Pri cried about their muddy uniforms, while a crowd of onlookers pulled out their phones and snapped pictures.
Unfortunately, Mina missed all of the events that she had released onto the cheerleaders. Once Savannah screamed, something else had caught her attention. Someone who looked familiar ducked behind a red and white tent.
No. It couldn’t be. I haven’t seen him since… the bakery. Mina had to find out to make sure she wasn’t losing her mind. She’d trapped him in the Grimoire, after all. She carefully followed the tattooed man as he entered the tent. Mina went around to the back and tried to look in through a small hole in the tarp. At first, all she saw was a bunch of blurry shapes, but then they came into focus, and she saw the man with long, greasy, black hair. He didn’t bother to cover the wolf tattoo on his bare chest wearing only his black leather vest on his upper half.
It was Grey Tail!
He spoke quietly to an old woman wearing a bright colored dress and sash around her waist. Her white hair was covered with a shawl, and she argued quietly with the Fae wolf.
“I don’t care if everyone thinks fortune telling is lame. You get people into this tent, and I don’t care how. Threaten them, bribe them, or kidnap them. Just get them in this tent. I don’t want to be old forever. I need to regain my strength before our next attack!” she hissed.
The woman turned with a dramatic flair to sit behind a round table that held a fortune teller’s crystal ball.
“Claire,” Mina breathed out the witch’s name before taking a step back and tripping over a tent stake, causing it to shake.
“What was that?” Claire’s voice said from inside. “Go, and deal with it.”
Mina scrambled to her knees and took off running toward the middle of the fair. She bumped into someone, and a tall girl yelled at her and elbowed her in the side. She almost crashed into another person but regained her balance when she saw a large Tesla display.
The large electric coil reached high into the air, and there was warning tape that roped off the viewing area to keep spectators at a safe distance. But it was the two people she saw putting on the demonstration that made her mouth go dry. They matched this time in their black suits. Temple wore a dark suit with gold spats on his shoes and matching top hat. Reid wore a similar outfit with a bowler hat. It was unmistakably the Stiltskins, both of them.
Reid held his hand over the lever of the Tesla machine, and it started to pop as electricity ran up and down the coil. The hair on the back of her neck stood up. Not them too!
She ran from the Tesla display to check out some of the boosters’ booths. She found Mr. Hamm behind the booth helping to sell Kennedy High souvenirs. There were a bunch of Kennedy High keychains, magnets, cozies, and—she quickly scanned the table and picked up a laser pointer.
She gave Mr. Hamm the money before twisting the cap to see if the pointer worked. It did. The laser pointer could cut through planes and reveal a Fae’s true self through their glamour. Only Royals were strong enough to shift their shape and hold it.
Mina ran back out into the crowd and used the laser pointer, flashing it at passersby and at each of the booth vendors. Nothing morphed or changed. Maybe that was it for the rogue Fae.
She spotted Nan and Charlie on the large carousel and jogged to the metal security fence. She tried to wave at them to hurry and get off.
“Can’t,” Nan called from her perch on a giant brown dog before it spun out of sight. Charlie sat next to her on a smaller tan dog.
“Not till the ride is over,” Nan yelled again as it went around a second time.
Mina found Ever waiting impatiently by the carousel exit.
“Ever! We have to get out of here now! Claire and the wolves are here. So are the Stiltskins.”
“Wait, what?” Ever jumped to attention. “Didn’t you trap them in the Grimoire?”
“Well yeah, I did, but after the Grimoire lost its guardian, it became just became a book again.”
“But what about the pages… inside?”
“Blank. They were blank.”
“Then they must have been freed from their prisons.”
“All of them?” Mina asked, utter fear rising within her.
Ever nodded. “I’m afraid so.”
Mina and Ever looked at each other, and neither one could process what was happening.
Ever turned to yell at Nan. “Nan, get off that dang wolf now!”
“Wolf?” Mina looked closer at the carousel and what she’d thought was a dog. Gold windmills and flowers were painted along the trim. In the middle stood a large colorful landscape with a castle. Instead of wooden white horses, giraffes, and swans, this carousel had wooden wolves, bears, and griffins.
Her hand trembled as the carousel slowed to a stop. She lifted the laser pointer and flicked it at a currently unoccupied golden griffin.