Between the lines

OLIVER

I’VE BEEN WAITING PATIENTLY ALL DAY FOR Delilah to get out of school and come back to me. I want to talk to her more about the fairy tale I found at Rapscullio’s. I want to know if she thinks this new plan will work better so that I won’t wind up as a flat blue stick figure in her world. I want to ask her opinion on what I should write in the book and where, since she seems to have great experience as a reader. I want to form a plan about what we’ll do if-when-I get out of here.

Who am I kidding? What I want is simply to spend time, more time, with Delilah.

I think that when you live in a world with limits, as I have-when you’ve met everyone and seen everything you’re ever going to see-you lose the hope that something extraordinary will happen in your life. Your actions and interactions will always be shades of the same old routine. But with Delilah, everything is new and fascinating. Who knew, for example, that there is a huffing sort of air gun to make wet hair dry, so that the ends don’t freeze when you’re riding on a cold morning? Who knew that there are devices that have just a single page, but with the click of a button fill that screen with new text over and over? For every question I ask Delilah, she has one for me: Are other books like this one, and do all characters exist when we’re not reading? (I have to beg off answering that, because all I know is my own experience.) When did I first become aware that I was trapped inside a story, instead of just assuming that I was living my life? (Again, hard to answer, as I have always been and always will be sixteen in here.) And then there are the questions she asks me in a whisper, when night falls and it is just the two of us in the dark: Who would you be, if you could be anyone? Where would you go?

I don’t always have a ready reply. But the mere fact that Delilah is asking is magical to me. Never before has anyone ever thought I might be anything other than what I appear to be on the page. No Reader has assumed that there are thoughts in my head other than the ones put there by an author.

Last night, Delilah asked me if I believe in Fate.

“I don’t think so,” I said. “Since I just can’t accept that my destiny is to play a role in someone else’s story.”

“But what if that isn’t the case?” Delilah whispered. It was late, after midnight, and the moon had silvered half of her face. It made her look otherworldly, magical. Like someone who’d belong in a fairy tale.

“I’m not following you…”

“What if you and I were meant to be together?” she said. “What if the reason Jessamyn Jacobs wrote this story in the first place was because some higher power-Fate, Destiny, whatever-compelled her to do it, since it was the only way for us to meet?”

I liked that idea. I liked thinking that whatever Delilah and I had between us was so strong that there was no boundary between the true and the imagined, the book and the Reader. I liked the idea that although I started my life as a figment of someone’s imagination, that didn’t make me any less real.

Today, while Delilah is in classes, I’m sitting on a crooked, twisting branch in the Enchanted Forest. The fairies flutter around me, chattering. Although they do like gossip, unlike the characters they play they’re actually not nasty little creatures at all. They’re always happy to be pawns when Frump and I play chess, and they are good sports about shimmying down cracks and crevices too tight for the rest of us to pick up a dropped penny or a lost button. They’re also the strongest creatures in the story, with more strength than even the thuggish trolls, and they don’t mind helping Queen Maureen redecorate by hauling furniture up and down the castle steps. I’ve seen a single fairy roll aside a boulder that had blocked the road to the castle without even breaking a sweat.

“Glint, can I borrow your poisonberry lip gloss?” asks Sparks.

“Get your own,” Glint says. “I’m tired of you using all my stuff.” But she tosses an acorn to Sparks, who twists off the cap and dips her finger into the cosmetic. She leans toward a dewdrop to see her reflection and then swipes her tiny finger across her lips. I try to read the book in front of me, but branches block out the light. Suddenly, a hovering glow illuminates the page. I squint at it and see Ember shining.

“Thanks for that,” I say.

She flashes a brilliant smile. “No problem.”

I flip through the pages, absently wondering if in some other world, there is a cast of royalty and mermaids and pirates all racing into position so that I can enjoy my story.

I wonder if in some other world a prince is pining away for a girl he loves.

“Love?” I say out loud.

“Love?” Glint repeats.

“Did someone say love?” Ember asks.

“Love?” I hear again, followed by an echo, and another, and another, as every fairy in the forest repeats the word.

“Oh yes,” Sparks says, “I totally called this.”

“Remember yesterday, when you walked into a tree?” Ember asks.

“That,” Glint says, “is when we started taking bets.”

The fairies perch on my shoulders and arms. “Who’s the lucky princess?” Ember asks.

I have no intention of telling them; I couldn’t betray Delilah that way. “You wouldn’t know her. She’s not from around here.”

“Uh… who isn’t?” Sparks says.

All of a sudden I hear a bark from across the woods. “Frump,” I say with relief.

“I’m pretty sure Frump is from around here,” Sparks replies.

Waving them away, I hop off the tree branch and land on the ground just as Frump skids to a stop at my feet.

“Hey, buddy… you got a minute?” he asks. The look on his face is one I’ve seen before-mostly when he’s under the table begging for scraps.

With reluctance I tuck the book beneath my tunic. He leads me out of the forest, away from the keen ears of the fairies. As soon as we clear the woods, Frump breaks into a run. I have to sprint to catch up to him.

We race past the cliff walk and the turnoff for the trail to where Orville the wizard lives. “Is there a reason we’re in a hurry?” I pant.

“We have to get to the unicorn meadow in time,” Frump shouts back to me.

“What’s in the unicorn meadow?” I ask as we break into its center. The field is full of snowy, horned creatures grazing on lush silver grass.

“You are,” Frump admits, coming to a stop. “I told Seraphima you’d be here.”

“Why?”

He looks down at the ground. “So she’d come. If it had just been me, she’d never bother.”

Frump was, according to the backstory we all know by heart, once human. My best friend, as a matter of fact, until Rapscullio stole some herbs from Orville, intending to kill the young prince (namely, me) he saw as an obstacle to his love for Maureen. The draught into which he mixed the herbs, however, was mistakenly drunk by Frump. He would have died without Orville’s intervention. The wizard couldn’t reverse the curse, yet he managed a transfiguration: Frump would live, but in the body of a different creature. In this way, he’d be safe from Rapscullio’s wrath.

This, anyway, is what the text says during the course of our story. But I have known Frump only as a dog, because that’s what he is when the fairy tale begins. He’s a boy only in flashbacks, and flashback characters don’t exist the way the rest of us do, flesh and blood even when we’re offstage. It’s why I’ve never met King Maurice; it’s why Frump is a hound… with the heart and mind of a young man.

One who is utterly, incomprehensibly, madly in love with Seraphima. Who wouldn’t give him the time of day, even if he didn’t have fleas.

“Aw, Frump.” I scratch behind his ears. “You don’t need me to get a girl interested in you.”

“Oh yeah? Then how come she lit up like a firecracker as soon as I mentioned your name?”

I wince, thinking of Seraphima. “Doesn’t it bother you to know she can’t tell the difference between when the book is closed and when it’s open?”

“Not really. I keep telling myself that’s why she isn’t interested in me. To her, I’m just a dog.”

I suppose it could be argued that Delilah doesn’t have the best track record either, when it comes to telling reality from fiction. “Can I ask you a question?”

“Sure.”

“How do you know she’s the one for you?”

Frump wags his tail. “Well, she’s got that beautiful, shiny blond coat… er… I mean, hair… and there’s that little space between her front teeth… and did you ever notice how, when she’s nervous, she sings? Off-key?”

“You like that?”

“Well, that’s the thing,” Frump says. “I think her flaws make me love her even more. She’s not perfect, but she’s perfect to me.”

I think about Delilah-how she snorts when she laughs, how she bites her nails when she’s thinking hard about something. How she doesn’t seem to know the simplest things-like that if one has an ache of the head, a leech-not some small round white candy-will do the trick. How she makes wishes on eyelashes and stars or when her clock reads 11:11. “Yes,” I say softly. “I understand.”

Frump lets out a painful yowl. “You love her too?”

“Seraphima? No. A million times no.”

He gives me a look that betrays just the slightest doubt.

Even if I didn’t want to kiss Seraphima, the book would pull me into the embrace. And she’s pretty enough. So kissing her isn’t really a hardship, and if I have to do it, I might as well pretend I am having fun.

Still, my intimate moments with Seraphima always leave me feeling guilty. Not just because of Frump, but because I know she is putting all her passion into that kiss since she thinks it’s real, when for me, it’s a day’s work… with some pleasant benefits.

“Then you’ve got to help me, Oliver,” Frump begs. “How do I get her to notice me?”

For a moment, I let myself consider this. Delilah saw me all on her own, and I doubt that even if Frump mowed the word HELP into this field, it would do anything but annoy the unicorns. “What about a gift?” I suggest.

“I gave her a bone-the best one I’ve ever buried. She threw it away!”

“What did you do?” I ask.

Frump shrugs. “I fetched.”

I start pacing. “The problem is that Seraphima always sees me as the conquering hero, when she needs to look at you that way. Which means, my friend, that you need a damsel in distress.” Several unicorns whinny as I pass by too closely. “That’s it.” I snap my fingers. “I’m going to die.”

“What?”

“Not for real. Just pretend. Then you can rescue me in front of Seraphima.”

“Ollie, no offense, but you make a really ugly princess. And I’m not going to kiss you to wake you up from your fake sleep, no matter what.”

“You don’t have to, Frump. We’re going to pretend I’ve been gored by a unicorn. All you have to do is stop the fake bleeding.” I bend down in front of a sugarberry bush and grab a handful of the fruit.

Frump looks anxiously off in the distance. “Could you maybe pick berries afterward? She’s going to be here any minute.”

“I’m not going to eat them,” I mutter, mashing the berries between my hands. They are a red, runny mess. Opening my tunic so that my white shirt shows through, I smear the berry juice into the fabric. A red stain bleeds from the center of my chest.

“There’s just one problem,” Frump says. “No one’s ever been gored by a unicorn. They’re the sweetest creatures in the book.”

“Well… maybe I made one really angry,” I suggest. I lie down with my head against a boulder and cover my fake wound with my hand.

Frump is turning in nervous circles. “It’s not going to work, Oliver. She’s going to figure it out. I can’t act…”

“Are you kidding me? You act like a dog every day. Surely this has to be easier.”

Suddenly we hear a high, off-key tune floating over the meadow. The unicorns bleat and scatter. “Oh, Oliver…” Seraphima trills. “Are we playing hide-and-seek, my darling?”

“Oh, that’s good, that’s really good,” Frump whispers, glancing at my face. “You look really sick.”

“Focus,” I hiss. “Fr… ump…” I gasp. “Help me…”

Seraphima races across the field, but when she sees me fallen and bloody, she shrieks. “Oliver!”

Frump leaps onto my chest. “Hang in there, my friend,” he says. He turns to Seraphima. “One of the unicorns went berserk. Oliver’s lost a great deal of blood.” Frump presses his paw down in the center of the wound. “Take off my collar,” he orders.

“I beg your pardon!”

“For a tourniquet,” Frump says.

Out of the corner of my eye, I watch Seraphima stare at Frump in a way I’ve never seen her look at him. But it’s not adoration I’m seeing.

It’s competition.

She lifts him up with two hands and hurls him off my body. “Out of my way, puppy,” she grunts, and she kneels in front of me. “Don’t go with the angels, Oliver!” she cries. “Stay with me!”

With that, she leans down and seals her lips over mine in a massive huff that is supposed to be artificial respiration but feels more like a sloppy, wet kiss. Sputtering, I sit up and push her off me.

“I did it! I saved you!” Seraphima cries, pulling me into her arms. “Oh, Oliver. I don’t know if this is life imitating art or art imitating life… I’m just so glad to know that you and I will have our chance to live happily ever after!”

I groan. “Where’s the unicorn…”

“Far, far away, my love. Why?”

“I was hoping it could run me through again.”

Frump shuffles closer, his tail between his legs. Sorry, I silently mouth.

Seraphima plops herself down on the ground beside me and starts tearing the bottom of her skirt to make bandages. “We need to get you to Orville for a poultice…”

The last thing I want is for Seraphima to stay here playing nursemaid-or worse, to treat me for an injury I’ve never had. Thinking quickly, I frown and whip my head to the left. “Did you hear that?”

Frump barks.

“Right, old buddy. It did sound a lot like Rapscullio…” I know that will put Seraphima into a panic. For someone who can’t tell the difference between real life and the story, Rapscullio is a constant threat.

“Rapscullio!” Seraphima gasps. “What if he finds me?”

“Quick-run away.” Steeling myself, I give her a fast, firm peck on the lips. “Your life is more important than mine. I’ll come as quickly as I can. Frump, can I trust you to keep Seraphima safe?”

Frump smiles slowly. “It would be my honor and my privilege, Your Highness,” he says. “My lady?” He holds out a paw, and after a reluctant moment, Seraphima takes it.

I watch them hurry across the meadow, a delusional princess who can’t distinguish reality from fiction, and a lovesick basset hound. Well, there have been stranger couples, I suppose. “Good luck,” I whisper to Frump, although I know he cannot hear me. “I’ll miss you, if I ever get out of here.”

Not if, I tell myself. When.

As I’m changing into clean clothes, I wonder about the seeming discrepancies of my life in this book. Why is it that I have a closet full of tunics and doublets I am never seen wearing during the course of the story, but Frump, who by text used to be a boy, is never seen in that form? Why is the barn where Socks lives stocked with geese and chickens and cows who play no other discernible role in the fairy tale but Seraphima doesn’t recognize that the part she plays isn’t necessarily who she is? These are contradictions I don’t understand and, to be honest, haven’t considered before. Before meeting Delilah, that is.

I am still mulling over this when I hear Frump call a full-book alarm. “All fairy-tale personnel, report immediately to the stables,” he commands. “I repeat, this is an emergency-not a drill!”

On the way down the castle staircase, I nearly bump into the queen. “Oliver, dear,” she says. “Do you have any idea what’s happening?”

I don’t. But my heart is pounding and my hands are shaking… and I am hoping like mad this has nothing to do with me and Delilah. Has Rapscullio discovered the book is missing? Have the fairies figured out more from our earlier conversation? “I don’t know,” I tell the queen, “but I don’t like the sound of it.”

The sound actually gets worse as we approach the stables. There is a frantic snort and a series of low grunts. Overhead is the telltale sliver of light that indicates the book is about to be opened. But if that’s the case, why are we all just milling around?

Because I am a main character, I am able to push my way through the crowd to the open stable door. There, Frump paces back and forth on a clot of hay as chickens scurry and flap to get out of his way. “Frump, what’s this about?” I ask.

He turns. “Thank goodness you’re here.” He glances up at the slice of sky that is growing wider. “It’s Socks. He’s talking about a strike.”

“Strike? What did he strike?”

“No, he’s on strike. He refuses to come out of his stall for the next telling of the story.”

I hesitate. No one in this story has ever resisted the telling of it. That is, every time the book opens, characters scramble into position. I’m the only one I know of who’s ever defied it in any way-and I know from experience that the book will correct itself and yank Socks into position whether he likes it or not. But if I admit that out loud, I’ll create an even bigger stir, because everyone will realize that I have been actively resisting the book too.

“What’s the worst that could happen?” I say lightly. “So I’m missing a trusty steed. No one will ever notice.” No one will ever notice, I think, because the minute we’re all back on page one, Socks will have been dragged against his will to meet us where he belongs.

“We can’t take that chance. We’re trying to buy some time.” Frump jerks his chin up to the corner of the barn, where Orville teeters on a ladder, pointing his wand at the crack of light. “Obscurius manturius…” he intones, and a shower of sparks creates a gummy seal across the line of light, falling to the hayloft and igniting several small fires that Rapscullio, standing below, stomps out.

“Someone’s opening the book even now, Oliver,” Frump says. “I don’t know how long we can hold it shut.”

I am knocked sideways as the trolls lumber past me into Socks’s stall. “From the back, boys,” Frump orders. “Give him your best shove.”

I approach the open stall door. Socks is standing with his face in the corner, head ducked. “Socks?” I murmur. “What’s going on, buddy?”

“Just go away,” the pony sobs.

“Whatever it is, I’m sure we can work it out. I’m here for you. We’re all here for you.”

He tosses his mane. “I am a hideous, monstrous beast. Please let me wallow in my own misery.”

“I’m afraid I can’t do that, Socks. I mean, a lot of people are counting on you. We’ve got a story to tell. And you-you’re one of the stars of the show.”

He hesitates. “I… I am?”

“How else would I get anywhere?” I say. But there is a part of me wondering if I’m right about what will happen if Socks just stays in his stall. Will he be ripped into position on the page, like I was? Or will he do what I so badly crave: change the way this story goes?

“Ein… zwei… drei… stoß!” the trolls shout, and Socks whinnies as they shove at him, trying to make him budge.

“Frump,” Orville shrieks, “I’m afraid I can’t make this hold any longer!”

I glance up. By now, long streaks of light are falling on the floor of the barn. “We’re on it!” Glint calls. A battalion of fairies flutters up to the corner of the scene. Like an acrobatic circus troupe, they arch their bodies over the growing gap, their small faces twisted with determination as they struggle to keep the pages shut.

Stepping into the stall, I sink down to the ground so that I can shimmy underneath Socks. He immediately averts his nose. “I can’t. I can’t.”

“Socks,” I beg. “Please. At least tell me what the problem is so that I can fix it.”

“It’s too horrendously embarrassing.”

“As embarrassing as the time I fell overboard on the pirate ship?”

“Worse,” Socks groans. “I have… I have… Oh, I can’t say it out loud.”

“Chicken pox?” I guess. “Poison ivy? Heartburn?”

“A zit,” Socks bursts out. “A huge, red, swollen zit on my nose.”

“Horses don’t get zits, Socks,” I say gently.

“Oh, great. So now I’m a zoological abnormality with acne.”

“Let me look.” Gently, I pull his velvety muzzle down to my face. I scrutinize from nostril to nostril, finding no blemish of any kind. “Socks,” I say, “there’s nothing there.”

“You’re just saying that to make me feel better!” he wails. “I cannot go out in public with a big red clown nose, Oliver!”

There is a commotion as Captain Crabbe comes through the crowd. He is wearing his dentist’s coat and carrying a blue-paper-wrapped pack of sterilized instruments. “Did someone call for a surgical consult?” he asks.

Socks’s eyes widen. “Surgery! Who said anything about surgery?”

“Don’t worry, my little horseshoed friend. You’ll only feel a pinch,” Captain Crabbe promises.

He motions the trolls out of the way and stands directly behind Socks. As he unwraps the sterilized tools, several points of light shimmer from the corner of the scene onto Socks’s back, dappling his hide. “Frump,” Sparks grits out from the top edge of the page, “it’s T minus ten…”

Is Delilah wondering why the book is stuck? Is she attributing the trouble to humidity, faulty binding, a smear of jam?

Captain Crabbe brandishes the dental scraper, a blinding silver hook.

“Nine,” Ember says.

He holds it up to a shaft of light, examining the point.

“Eight…”

Socks twists his neck, looking at the tool with dread.

“Seven…”

I swing my leg over the pony and lean down against his mane. “It’s your call, Socks. You can do this your way, or his way.”

“Six…”

“I love a good lancing at twilight,” Captain Crabbe says with a sigh.

“Five…”

“Well?” I say. “What’s it going to be?”

“Four… three…”

Socks shifts nervously. “Um… um…”

“Two…”

Captain Crabbe raises his arm high as several fairies fall, exhausted, to the barn floor in small puffs of golden glitter.

“One!”

“Wait!” Socks cries, but Captain Crabbe has already jammed the tool into his hindquarters, sending the pony crashing through the wall of the barn. The wooden wall splinters and shatters just as the sky above us becomes blindingly white and the rest of the fairies lose their hold on the seam of the scene. “Places, everyone!” Frump screams. Even though I dig in my heels, Socks runs blisteringly fast, and I can barely hang on. I look back to see utter chaos-characters trampling each other to get to their correct spots, words jamming and tangling as they rearrange themselves on the page, the barn shattered by Socks in his escape.

Except, it’s not.

As Socks continues his gallop, I stare over my shoulder and watch the wooden boards that have been torn from the barn frame slowly knitting themselves back together, until the wall that was broken a moment before is just as good as new.

Rapscullio.

Why didn’t I think of Rapscullio?

Every time we tell the story, it ends with a fight between us. There I am, unarmed, as Rapscullio swings his sword back and forth. Eventually, he backs me up against the tower window. Sixty feet below me, the angry ocean crashes against a stony cliff. The sea mist sprays upward in a plume. “Goodbye, Prince Oliver,” Rapscullio says with a sneer, every time. But as he lunges toward me with his sword pointed, I duck to the side. Without the resistance he’s expecting, Rapscullio falls forward through the open window and shrieks to his death below.

Here’s the thing:

After the next few pages are finished and Seraphima and I have our wedding on the beach, the book closes, and there’s Rapscullio walking around from page to page-chasing another butterfly, or doing needlepoint, or trying out a new lemon square recipe with the trolls as his willing taste testers. In other words, he’s no worse for wear.

He falls sixty feet onto jagged rocks and pounding surf, and winds up as good as new.

Now that I’m thinking about it, there are plenty of instances I’ve witnessed where something happens on the page, only to undo itself moments later. Pyro’s braces vanish the moment the story’s over. The bridges that the trolls have built collapse again.

So even if I write myself out of the fairy tale… I might wake up the next morning to find myself right back where I started.

What this calls for, I realize, is a test. A personal test. As scary as it is, I have to be the one to get hurt-because that’s the only way to know whether my story has any hope of changing for good.

“I’ll show you,” Delilah says, her voice filling every corner of my mind. “I’m not making this up.” Suddenly, I am clinging to the rock wall for dear life, looking up at the tower that houses Seraphima.

In other words, the book is open again, and I’m on page 43.

Who is she talking to?

I glance over my shoulder and see Delilah-with another face peering down at me.

Some fellow I’ve never seen before, with a sweep of brown hair and kind blue eyes.

He seems a bit old for her, but that doesn’t stop me from feeling a burning jealousy in my belly. If I took my dagger out from between my teeth, could I throw it at him? Would it just bounce back against the barrier between us?

“Oliver,” Delilah says.

That’s more like it, sweetheart.

“Say something.”

I freeze. I’m completely confused. Am I supposed to speak out loud or not? Delilah seems to change her mind about this as frequently as Socks changes horseshoes. She wants me to be quiet when her mother is nearby; but then she’s angry when I don’t speak for her friend Jules. I honestly don’t know what she wants of me this time.

“Oliver!” Delilah groans. She turns to the man. “I don’t know why he’s not talking to me.”

“And how does that make you feel?” the man asks.

She leans closer to me. “Oliver,” Delilah whispers. “Speak!”

I can feel her breath ruffling my hair. She seems to want me to speak, but then again, maybe this is a trick. And besides, even if I yell at the top of my lungs, Delilah is the only person who’s ever heard me loud and clear. Better to be safe than sorry, to stay the course so that Delilah doesn’t come off as completely mad.

I carefully remain frozen on the page.

“Fine, then. Let’s try this scene,” Delilah says, and she flips through the book. I find myself tumbling sideways, smacking into several trees, the letter y, and Socks’s considerable rear end before landing in Seraphima’s embrace on the final page. Her lips are locked against mine, and her body is pressed along the length of me. The other characters stand in a semicircle around us. I roll my eyes upward, only to see those famous last words: THE END.

“Hmm. Let’s look at that again,” Delilah says, her voice sugary sweet, as she flips backward a few pages. This time I tumble across the slick deck of the pirate ship, splash into the frigid ocean, and get my tunic caught on the c of the word captain before finding myself facing an angry dragon.

Pre-orthodontia.

Pyro barely has time to blow a stream of fire at me before Delilah flips back to the last page, slamming me once again into Seraphima’s sloppy kiss.

She is totally doing this on purpose. Well, two can play this game. I tighten my arms around Seraphima and kiss her like… like… well, like she’s Delilah.

Seraphima melts against me, her eyes widening.

Twice more Delilah jumps between the scene with Pyro and the last page of the book. By the time Seraphima leans in for a fourth kiss, I can’t even pretend it’s fun anymore. She’s mauling me, and from behind, I can hear the slightest whimper escape from Frump.

That’s it. I am ready to say anything Delilah wants me to.

“I give up,” I cry out, and immediately, Delilah turns to the strange man.

“Did you hear that?” she says, and she lets the book fall open, mercifully to the page with Pyro instead of the one with Seraphima.

“You heard something?” the man asks.

“Didn’t you?” Delilah says.

Pyro is snorting small puffs of smoke.

It is the strangest feeling, to have words drawn out of your throat like water from a well, as if you have no control over stopping it from happening. I know these same words will float across the minds of Delilah and this man as they read the story. “Wait!” I cry, my mouth twisting into a conversation I’ve had a hundred times. “I didn’t come here to fight you. I’m here to help!”

The dragon’s scales shimmer in the strong sunlight. He pulls himself upright, to a full muscular height of twelve feet, and his teeth gnash as he takes a step forward. He belches, and sparks shoot from his nostrils.

I cannot take my eyes off Pyro’s mouth, the smoke seeping through his lips. One more line and he is going to shoot a fireball that sets a tree beside me into flames.

Suddenly I realize: this is my chance.

Pyro’s huge jaws open, and a blazing streak curls off the run of his tongue. I grab the fairy-tale book I’ve stolen from Rapscullio, hold it up to cover my face, and leap forward, setting myself on fire.

The last thing I remember is hearing Delilah scream.