Page 18 of The Broken Mirror
“Coward, am I?” Robin seethes. He steps forward, slashing madly.
Jack dodges and swerves, but the Dragon’s Tooth sword is too sharp and Robin too fast; he lands a blow that slices open Jack’s leg almost to the bone. This sends Jack crashing onto the knee of his other leg.
“JACK!” Filomena screams, and she and Gretel rush forward to defend him.
“I’m all right,” Jack grunts, holding his hands up. “Stayback!” He doesn’t want his friends to get hurt; that would wound him more than the cut on his leg. He looks to Robin, cold with rage. “Don’t hurt them,” he warns, “or else.”
Robin’s chin lifts, his face arrogant. He positions his sword so the blade grazes Jack’s throat. “Oh yeah? If you haven’t noticed, I have the upper hand. So what are you going to do about it now,loser?”
Jack clenches his jaw and shuts his eyes, grimacing from the pain. Then he says one word. “This.” And before Robin Hood can dodge or swerve, Jack’s vines flash out of his wrists and grab the Dragon’s Tooth sword at his throat. In seconds he’s wrestled it cleanly out of Robin Hood’s grasp and back into his own.
“Hey! That’s not fair!” objects Robin, but he’s slippery like an eel and manages to dance away before Jack’s vines can return to trap him. Disarmed, he does what Robin Hood does best.
He flees.
“Give Princess Jeanne my best!” Robin yells as he runs out the doors.
Jack only shakes his head as he presses a hand to his bleeding leg. “Moron.”
CHAPTEREIGHTANUNEXPECTEDVISIT
Despite the softest of pillows and the warmest of beds, no one sleeps well at Northphalia Castle that night. The cut on Jack’s leg is deep, and though the royal physicians do their best to make him comfortable, he still tosses and turns from the wound. Alistair whimpers for his missing pots in his sleep. Gretel worries over the state of her skin without her nighttime routine. Filomena keeps being awoken by nothing in particular, rather a general sense of unease. It certainly isn’t the restful night that they all desperately need. And their new friends fare just as poorly. Riffhas nightmares of being locked in the tower again, and Princess Jeanne refuses to accept that her old friend is working not just with her uncle but also with the ogres.
In the morning, they gather around the breakfast table in low spirits. Filomena can’t help but feel like, after all that happened yesterday, they’re back to square one. Still robbed, still searching for Robin Hood, still needing to retrieve Princess Jeanne’s crown or else lose another kingdom to the reign of the ogres.
Little Jeanne walks into the breakfast room and takes stock of the low morale. She laughs. “Did someone die?”
Filomena doesn’t find this funny.
“Tough crowd,” Little Jeanne says, sitting down.
“How are you feeling?” Filomena asks Jack. She’s worried about his leg. He arrived for breakfast with a pair of crutches. When Robin Hood slashed Jack’s leg, Filomena’s heart had stopped; she’d felt the pain, too, almost as if it had happened to her.
“I’m okay,” Jack says with a strained smile.
“What did the doctors say?” asks Gretel.
“To not move for three months at least,” he mumbles. “But obviously I can’t do that.”
“Oh no you don’t,” says Filomena. “You have to stay put.”
“Yeah, you gotta let that heal, man,” agrees Alistair. “You can’t risk it. It’s your health!”
Jack’s mood darkens. “We’ll see.”
“You rest. We’ll keep looking for the crown,” Filomena says. “Right, guys?”
Riff and Princess Jeanne are subdued as well. Alistair reported that, while no one was injured during the ransacking of the Merry Greenwood Tavern, it hurt to see the cozy little pub damaged and terrorized. When they arrived to help, they’d found the tavern a complete ruin—windows smashed, tables and chairs overturned, patrons hiding in fear, and the White Rabbit shaking uncontrollably. Robin’s goons robbed them of their coin and jewels and took every last penny from the till. It would take months to right the place.
Little Jeanne reaches for the last snozzleberry muffin without asking if anyone wants it. (No manners, especially for a princess!thinks Filomena. Filomena’s own mother would die of embarrassment if Filomena did the same.) The young princess looks around at all the glum faces. “Maybe you should all stop for a while,” she suggests.
“Stop?” Filomena furrows her brow.
“Yes, stop. You’ve been working so hard! Have you looked in a mirror lately? You guys have aged years since Robin Hood robbed you.”
“Is it that bad? I mean, I know I don’t have my moisturizer, but I didn’t think anyone had noticed!” Gretel starts looking around for the nearest mirror with panic on her face.
“Uh, no offense,” Little Jeanne adds.
