Free Of Sorcery and Snow by Shelby Bach Page A

asked.
    â€œAccording to Melodie, the spell can’t be moved that far after it’s cast,” he said. “Pack up your carryall so we can meet her. She can’t actually start the spell without us.”
    Supplies were spread across the floor beside him. I unzipped my pack and started shoving stuff inside: my enchanted sleeping bag; a new sword belt to attach to my sheath; an ancient SAVE THE PLANET sack, heavy with green-gold dragon scales; a clay tile that looked a lot like the one I’d just set up; a scuffed Lunch Box of Plenty, the same pony-stickered one Chase and I had taken to Atlantis.
    â€œDid anyone grab some rings of return?” I asked.
    â€œWe couldn’t find them. The Director keeps them in her office, and we didn’t want to risk breaking into there,” Chase said.
    I stopped packing to stare at him. He shouldn’t sound so calm. “So how are we going to get back?”
    â€œLena packed fifty extra dragon scales so we can make a portal straight back to Hawthorne,” Chase said, eyes still glued to his M3. “So we can get the kids back too.”
    â€œOh.” This was the problem with not being able to chat on your M3 all day: your friends made a bunch of plans without you, and you had to play catch-up.
    I peered around his shoulder to see the M3. He was staring at the ballroom.
    If the well-dressed EASers didn’t give it away, its pretty sky-blue walls did. Even the members of the Canon had gotten fancy—Hansel wore a suit without a tie, and the Director was in a violet ball gown with a skirt so huge it almost hid her seat, a high-backed chair engraved with thorns. Both of them looked kind of worried, which wasn’t great news, but not particularly attentive, which was way more helpful.
    â€œDid Lena ask you to spy on the Director?” I asked.
    â€œNope. I volunteered. Adelaide keeps trying to bribe me into dancing with her.” He looked up to kind of grin at me. I say “kind of” because the grin lasted about half a second. Then he justgoggled at me as if I had walked in wearing towering icicles, like the Snow Queen’s favorite crown.
    â€œWhat?” I said, touching my hair to check that I hadn’t gotten anything in it.
    â€œYou’re wearing makeup,” Chase said. He never looked at me that closely unless I was doing a move wrong during one of our lessons. Even then, his eyes didn’t travel up and down like that.
    Suddenly the dress I was wearing felt stupid. I wished I could have spent the day researching spells to keep warm in the Arctic, like Lena, or sneaking around EAS’s storerooms to gather supplies, like Chase. A blush was coming on. I wondered if he could see it under all the dumb makeup. “It’s not my fault. Mom put it on me.”
    Chase snorted. “And you let her?”
    â€œIt was the only way she would let me out of the house,” I said. “I told her I was excited about the dance.”
    He rolled his eyes. “Well, that explains why you haven’t finished packing yet. You’re worried about breaking a nail.”
    I shoved the lunch box into my carryall, feeling even more defensive. “I haven’t finished because nobody’s helping .”
    â€œLena entrusted me with a very important task.” Chase waved his M3.
    â€œThen you should be staring at that instead of at me ,” I said.
    Chase jerked his head back to the mirror. Point to Rory, but I didn’t really feel any less awkward. We were silent for the minute it took me to finish packing.
    â€œDone. Where do we leave this, then?” I asked him, pointing at my carryall.
    â€œI’ll show you.” Chase hopped up from the floor and slid to a spot across from the carving of the Snow Queen. Then he whispered something in Fey. Without my gumdrop translator in, Icouldn’t catch the words, but I’d heard it so many times that I recognized the spell: Break what was whole,