“As I said, could be a storm.” Heath looks up at the treetops. The canopy is so thick we can’t even see the sky. “Either way, we should find cover.”

“Hide in a cave?” Raina is shouting now. “Are you crazy, Brother?” She holds up the bottom of her midnight-blue ball gown. “I spent months designing this dress with Marta Marigold. I am not ruining it hiking to a cave!” I don’t mention the hem is torn and covered in black mud. “What we are going to do is call for Olivina! Fairy godmothers come when called, right?” She looks around, her eyes wild. “She can poof us right out of here to the castle where we will sort this whole mess out. It’s just a misunderstanding! We could never truly be banished, could we? We are future leaders. We need to go home. She’ll let us go home. Right? Right? Right?”

Sasha and I make eye contact. The woods are making Raina hysterical. She needs a sedative. I wonder if there are any medicinal berries nearby. Or chamomile leaves that would settle her stomach.

“Raina, she’s not letting us go back to RA,” Heath says gently. “We’re on our own. We have to find our own way.”

“Or we can find Red. Lily is already looking for her.” Raina gives me a look, and I hold up the note Professor Pierce gave me right before we met with Olivina. Lily reminded me I had it in my dress when we were banished here. “The note Professor Pierce wrote is cryptic, but the line ‘Be ready for anything’ in the woods has to refer to Red. After all, her shop is called Red’s Ready-for-Anything Shoppe. Professor Pierce wants us to find her. She’s in the woods. I’m sure of it.”

“Running back to Olivina is not going to get us anywhere,” Sasha agrees. “She’ll poof us somewhere remote next. Do you want to be sent to an arctic tundra run by the Ice Queen? Or banished under the sea with a sea witch?” Raina looks away.

“It’s like the time we were in the burning princess tower at school—the only way we were going to get out of there was on our own,” I tell her.

“Exactly!” Sasha agrees, applauding. Heath gives a whistle.

“This is our chance to save ourselves and every royal at that school who doesn’t know how wicked the fairy godmother truly is.” I stand up on a small rock, feeling empowered by my own words. It’s as if I can hear the music crescendo in my head. Raina is staring at me now. I must be getting through to her.

“Red is here in these woods. Professor Pierce is trying to help us.”

“Yes!” Logan agrees.

“I can feel it, just like I can feel an owl who is crying out for eye drops. Don’t you see? Red must know how to help us stop Olivina! We’re going to get the help we need to take her down and make our own future! Now who’s with me?” I raise my right fist into the air, lose my balance, and slip off the mossy rock, landing in… Oh my. What is that smell?