“She must be assessed,” another deeper voice murmurs.
“The queen, or the hatter?” another answers.
Hatter? Like someone who makes hats? What an odd job for a person. I guess someone needs to make them.
“Let the girl decide,” the high-pitched one says.
The whispers die down and everyone turns to look at me. I don’t understand what is happening, but royalty tends to be a bad thing for me.
“We should talk about this,” Malachi says.
“Hatter,” I shout at the same time.Oops.
Hart snorts. Charming mutters something about queens and kings being far more qualified to decide worthiness. I disagree, but his tiny Prince Poopfloof brain can’t think beyond his conceitedness.
The flowers gasp like I murdered all their seedlings.
“That’s not worrisome,” the genie grumbles.
“Fuck this,” Malachi says. He dives forward with a war cry and breaks into a run. I glance at Gwyneth, shrug, then run after my crazy knight and capons who joined the sprint.
The flowers weave on their stems, shouting insults and slapping us with their leaves as we weave around them.
Theo sneezes, and my heart beats double time as fire erupts from his mouth and catches one of the flowers. It screeches loudly, and the other flowers lean away from it, but it’s no use—the fire spreads to the flower’s neighbor, followed by the next, and the next.
“At least it wasn’t me,” I mumble between pants. Running, it turns out, is hard work. I do not recommend it.
“Should we help them?” Gwyneth wonders.
Sir Sweeps-A-Lot darts forward and waves his bristles in the air, wafting the flames higher.
“Ahh, Bernard, my love, make it stop,” a flowers cries. I think the broom is trying to help. Bernard?
I slow and stop, turning in a circle to view the shrieking flowers. Oh my Idols, they need to stop swaying and panicking. It’s spreading the fire faster. “How can we help?”
“Sing,” one of them shouts.
“Sing?” Nash repeats. Maybe they will enjoy a tune while their entire kind is wiped out by an errant dragon flame.
“Quickly, and loudly.”
“Any requests?” Nash asks.
“Just do it in tune,” one cries.
The knights turn their eyes to Hart. My lips twitch as he sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose. Then he belts out a perfect rendition of a famous ballad. My mouth falls open, and my eyes go wide. Hart Stirling can sing.
The sky darkens, and clouds form in the sky. The louder Hart gets, the faster they form, growing pregnant with the weight of rain. When he hits the crescendo, they dump their water, extinguishing the fire and drenching us at the same time.
“Thank you,” one of the flowers whispers. “Now please leave and don’t return.”
“Quickly, they come,” another says ominously.
The genie makes a show of wringing his top knot onto the ground as we continue down the path, taking fast but measured steps. A few brave flowers hiss at us, and Theo snaps his teeth in warning. That’s right, my fire-breathing knight is intimidating the plant life.
“Do you hear that?” Charming asks, tilting his head.
“You got an intelligent thought for a hot tempo and it made a funny noise. Don’t worry, Charming, it will pass,” Hart says.
