"Oh." Lucy frowned. "How do I find it, then?"
"Before I tell you, I have to warn you again. This is my diary. I wrote it in the Kingdom of Sorrow, and I would not accept failure if I ask you to get it for me." Unexpectedly, the Queen shrugged—long enough to get Lucy's mind working.
"I'm honored to be in your service, My Queen," Lucy said. "Does the book say something like 'The Diary of Carmilla Karnstein'?"
"No," the Queen said, but it looked like she wasn't sure. Lucy felt confused. "I'm not sure. I wrote it a long time ago. The first sentence in the diary should read something like, 'I wrote this on the night of October 31st.'"
"You wrote it on Halloween?" Lucy had to hide her excitement. This was getting better and better.
"I will permit you to read the first page only," the Queen said. "Just to make sure it's the diary I am looking for. But if you flip one page further, I will hang you from your beautiful long hair and dangle you from the highest tower in the world, make the pigeons feed on your eyes, and curse you with immortality so you suffer for eternity. Do you understand?"
Lucy nodded thrice. Out of fear this time, not understanding. So I don't get to read this diary? She sighed disappointedly.
"Now, go do as I told you while I watch Snow White's Dreamory through Loki's Fleece." She pulled out a small crystal ball and placed it on the table.
Lucy didn't know what she meant by that, but it didn't matter. She had all those conflicting feelings swirling in her chest now. She turned around, about to leave, but one last question had to be asked. "You didn't tell me where the diary is," Lucy remarked.
"I didn't?" The Queen smirked.
"No."
"Remember when I told you that Books of Sand take different shapes after being read?" The Queen didn't await an answer. "This diary took the shape of a parrot."
"Parrot?"
"Pickwick the Parrot." The Queen rubbed her crystal ball. "You must have seen him around."
"I—"
"Whether you did or not, it's now your job to get the parrot." The Queen tapped her crystal ball to life, and it radiated silver and blue colors. "Find the book or I will kill you."
Lucy ran out of the house immediately, not just to get Pickwick the Parrot. She was now really scared of the Queen of Sorrow. Scared enough that she almost regretted not leaving when she had a chance. And damn those eyes. Why did they keep itching?
Part 1
Breadcrumbs & Mirrors
1
Candy House
No one in Candy House had any idea of the horrible event awaiting them.
Only Fable, feeling distressed since she'd occupied Loki's body to save him in the Dreamworld, couldn't escape the feeling that something dreadful was on its way. What it was, she couldn't tell. But she was sure her wannabe witch's sixth sense smelled something wrong in the air.
But maybe she was wrong. Maybe this was nothing but the aftermath of one of her wrongfully spelled charms, like when she had scared Loki away when he first came to visit Axel in Candy House. But then again, maybe she was right, or why did everything around her feel so wrong?
Fable began her day, struggling to wake herself up from a dream of Loki killing children in the name of the Queen of Sorrow. A nightmare where she felt she'd been buried deep under the linen of her bedsheets, so deep she couldn't breathe.
In the nightmare, Loki was looking for children with splinters in their eyes. Loki wasn't the loving person she knew anymore. He was a vicious and heartless huntsman ready to chop off heads.
Fable wondered why the word "heartless" resonated strongly in her chest when she thought about Loki, as if it were telling her something. Still, she couldn't find what that something was.
Eventually, Fable snapped out of the nightmare and straightened herself in her bed.
The morning sun kissed her skin and assured her she was awake and back in her bed in Candy House. She clapped her small hands on her chest and let out a long breath. Poor Shew, was the first thing Fable thought. Shew had to kill Loki after he'd chopped off Cerené's hands. She had to kill the one she loved so she could wake up from an endless dream and stop her evil mother from finding the Lost Seven in the Waking World. Fable wondered how it felt to kill your one True Love.
Still in her bed, Fable noticed the house was be silent. She couldn't hear Axel's or Shew's voices outside her room. Why hadn't anyone come to check on her? She must have been screaming in her nightmare. Usually Axel would hurry to help his younger sister, since he had always been overprotective of her.
But no one came.
Maybe they hadn't woken up yet, Fable imagined.
She let the sun heal her soul for a while before she pulled off the cover to go brush her teeth. To her surprise, she found Pickwick hiding underneath it.
"Pickwick?" Fable reached for her glasses on the drawer to make sure it was Charmwill's parrot. Her shortsightedness wasn't helping the first few hours after waking up.