Daphne hissed. “I can’t believe he was working with the Master. I mean, Mirror. Whoever.”
“It makes me wonder who I can trust,” Sabrina whispered. She felt her sister’s hand slide into her own. It helped unravel the knot of worry in Sabrina’s belly a little.
“You can trust me,” Daphne said. “And you can trust Sammy.”
Sabrina’s heart sank a little. Whenever she thought about the little boy and Mirror’s cruel plans, she felt ill. “I doubt he has a name,” she replied. “Mirror doesn’t see him as a person. He’s just a body. To him, our little brother is nothing more than a box for his soul. Don’t forget, he let Red Riding Hood babysit when she was at her craziest.”
“Well, I’m naming him. Do you think Mom and Dad will mind?”
Sabrina chuckled. “Probably. I think that’s one of the perks of having kids. You get to name them.”
Daphne sighed. “You’re probably right. Still, he needs a name. Mom and Dad can rename him when we get him home.”
“Fine, but I vote against Sammy Grimm,” Sabrina said. “You remember Sammy from the orphanage?”
Sammy Cartwright was a bed-wetter, but not, unfortunately, when he was in his own bed. Sabrina could still remember leaping into her cot only to find herself swimming in damp sheets.
Daphne cringed. “How could I forget Soggy Sammy? I’ll get to work on a better name.”
A moment later, she was sleeping deeply, the hum of her snoring drifting into the tree branches above. Sabrina closed her eyes and tried to imagine her brother. He would have red hair, like her grandmother Relda, and round cheeks, like her father and Daphne. But he would also have her mother’s eyes; eyes like Sabrina had too. Sadly, it was impossible to imagine his innocent little face without Mirror holding him in his arms. She had only met the boy once, and for only a brief moment, but losing him felt like losing a limb.
But Mirror had stolen more than her baby brother. His betrayal had robbed her of her best friend, too. With monsters, madmen, and mermaids running around the town, there had been one constant—one confidant—for Sabrina: Mirror. Sabrina had turned to him more times than she could count. He had always been happy to see her and had been quick with good advice. He was, she thought, her one true friend, but it had all been a lie. With every smile and kind word, he had been plotting and scheming against her and her family—every betrayal and attack the Grimms faced could be traced back to Mirror.
What hurt more was that Sabrina hadn’t seen it coming. She prided herself on her instincts. She could smell a rotten egg long before anyone else, but she had been wrong about Mirror. Now every decision she had made in the last two years was in doubt. All of the responsibility she had—taking care of Daphne, keeping them safe, and now saving her brother—it was all too much. She was just a kid! How could she stop Mirror’s plan? He was so powerful and clever.
She knew she needed a plan, but thinking about it made her nauseated. Her heart beat too rapidly and she felt as if she couldn’t get enough air into her lungs. How could she lead when nearly every choice she had made in recent history had been a horrible mistake?
The morning arrived sooner than expected. Sleeping on the ground had made the girls achy and stiff, but they knew there was no time to complain. They collected more of the weird fruit and shoved as much as they could into their pockets. Daphne found a stream and the girls drank greedily and washed their faces and hands. Then they were off, once more, down the Yellow Brick Road.
“We’ve been here a whole day,” Sabrina said as she eyed the rising sun. “Everyone out there in the real world is going to freak out. They have no idea where we are. It could take weeks to search every room in the Hall of Wonders before they find the Book of Everafter. And then what if they don’t figure out how to get into the stories?”
“You forget we come from a very smart family,” Daphne said. “Granny Relda will figure it out in no time, and Mom and Dad are like geniuses. I wouldn’t be surprised if we ran into them on the way to the Emerald City.”
Sabrina shook her head. “I think smarts don’t count for much in this book—what they need is a whole lot of luck. It seems pretty random. When you step into the Book, you could literally end up anywhere. That might explain where Puck and Pinocchio are—they may have been dropped into a completely different story. The same thing could happen to our family. I hate to say it, but I think it would be best if they just stayed where they are. The last thing we need is our whole family as lost as we are.”