Free Fairest of All (Whatever After #1) by Sarah Mlynowski Page B

Two angry blue eyes glare in the reflection. There’s no nose, no lips, and no chin. Just eyes.
    Jonah freezes. “Sorry,” he says in a tiny voice.
    “You should be,” the mirror says. “You have to follow the rules!”
    This is my kind of mirror. I can deal with rules. I turn to Snow. “What rules?”
    “It likes when you address it twice and then ask it a question. Like, ‘Mirror, Mirror, how are you?’ ”
    “I also like when you don’t attack me,” the mirror grumbles.
    “My brother’s really sorry,” I say. “Mirror, Mirror, can you take us home?”
    “Sure,” it says. “Now?”
    “Wow,” I squeal, surprised.
    “You’re just going to take us home, Mirror, Mirror?” Jonah asks, sounding a little disappointed. “No quest or anything?”
    “Nope. You want to go, you can go right now, but only right now.”
    “Why only right now?” I ask.
    The mirror doesn’t answer.
    I roll my eyes. “Mirror, Mirror, why only right now?”
    “Because the queen is coming home early.”
    Oh, no! “How early, Mirror, Mirror?”
    “Soon,” it says.
    “How soon?” I ask.
    The front door slams. “I’m home!”
    “She can’t find us here!” Snow shrieks. “She’ll kill me and throw you in the dungeons!”
    “No, she’d probably just kill you all,” the mirror says. “The dungeons are already —”
    It stops mid-sentence.
    “Are already what?” I ask. “Mirror, Mirror?”
    “Pretty full,” it finishes.
    I have a bad feeling about this.
    “Mirror, Mirror,” I say, “who’s in the dungeon?”
    “Xavier the huntsman,” it says.
    Snow gasps. “Oh, no! For sparing my life?”
    “No, for spilling juice on the white carpet. Of course for sparing your life!”
    “Someone woke up on the wrong side of the mirror this morning,” I grumble.
    “Excuse me?!” the mirror yells.
    “Nothing, nothing. Mirror, Mirror, is anyone else down there?” I ask.
    “Prince Trevor,” it says.
    WHAT?! Now all three of us gasp.
    “That c-can’t be,” I stammer.
    “But it is,” the mirror says. “He came by yesterday claiming he’d been summoned by a letter. The queen thought he was attempting to overthrow her. She ordered her guards to lock him in the dungeon. Anyway,” the mirror continues, “if you two kids want to get home, you’d better hurry up. You have about thirty seconds before she gets here.”
    ARGH! This is no good. I glance down at my watch. It’s just before six in Smithville. We need to go home already. My parents are going to be up in less than an hour! We have to go home TODAY. But the prince is in the dungeon. Because of us. It was my idea to write him a letter. It’s my fault. “We need to save the prince,” I say solemnly.
    Jonah’s eyes light up. “A quest! Let’s go!”
    Snow puts her hand on my arm. “But, Abby, this could be your only chance to go home.”
    I can’t go home knowing someone is in a dungeon because of me. My heart thumps. “We have to save him. And the huntsman, too. We’ll get another chance to go home.”
    “But —” Snow says.
    “No buts,” I say.
    Jonah is jumping up and down. “We have to escape before Evil Evelyn finds us!”
    I turn to the mirror. “Is there another way out?”
    The mirror clucks its tongue. “Mirror, Mirror.”
    Seriously? There’s no time for Mirror, Mirror ! “Mirror, Mirror,” I spit out. “Is there another way out?”
    “There’s the window.”
    “Let’s go, let’s go!” I whisper, hurrying to the window. I pull back the thick purple drapes and heave open the shutters. I look outside. We’re two stories high.
    “Now that’s how you break your head,” Jonah says.
    I turn to Snow. “Right now I’m kind of wishing you were Rapunzel.”
    “Who?”
    “Never mind. How do we do this?” I look around the room for ideas. All I see are the mirror, a wardrobe, a desk, and a four-poster bed. “Jonah, any chance you have a rope in your backpack?”
    He shakes his head. “Just stew sandwiches. Hey. I’m