"When battling villains, never put too much trust in the element of surprise. Villains are sneaky. They cheat. And often they have surveillance devices tracking your every move. Your best bet is to think like a villain. Arm yourself to the hilt, find some useful sidekicks, and be prepared for anything."—Rowen Keckilpenny Brown

"Who you calling a sidekick?"—Blade

"I said 'useful' sidekick."—Rowen Keckilpenny Brown

"And I suppose I should be grateful?"—Blade

"Yes?"—Rowen Keckilpenny Brown

"Hey! Careful where you aim that thing!" I said. I raised my hand in the universal gesture of "cut it out," then checked my silver jumpsuit for snags. What? It was my favorite item of clothing since I'd arrived, and I didn't want it wrecked the first day. Olivia's outfits were stunning, but everyone knows it's better to kick butt in Lycra vs. a ballgown. Also, the thought of wearing her creations gave me the creeps. Given what happened to her poor test subjects while working on the magic-sucking machine of evil, she probably sacrificed puppies and unicorns testing her fabrics.

A brown eye peered at me through the gash in the door. "Aim what thing?" Blade said.

"Your sword! You nearly ruined my outfit."

The eyeball moved up and down. "I'd say nothing could ruin your outfit. You look—"

"What? Too shiny? Too silver? Too wannabe superhero?"

"No. Amazing is what I was going to say. Don't put words in my mouth."

" This is no time for you to be checking me out. Get to work. We have a queendom to save, and Olivia could be taking the oath as we stand here arguing!"

"I was working, but now I think I'll just ogle you."

"Move your eye away from the door and get me out!" I stomped my foot.

He winked at me through the crack. "Nope. Too busy ogling."

"Ugh! Fine, I'll do it myself."

I eyed a less enormous sword on the wall. Not as flashy as the longsword but possibly more deadly because it was one I could probably wield. "Veni ad me gladio," I encanted. 'Come to me, sword' in Latin. The sword flew off the wall.

"Help!" Vermeil cried, falling flat, the sword missing him by a whisker.

"Vermeil!" I screamed as the sword continued its hurtling, straight at me, pointy part first.

"Duck!" Vermeil said.

So, I ducked, heart galloping, as the tip of the blade bit into the door like an arrow hitting a bullseye. Two inches lower, it would've flown straight through the hole and skewered Blade like a kabob. Out in the hallway, a sword clattered onto the stone, followed by a grunt from what sounded like a very annoyed minion. Luckily none of us had been permanently harmed by my poor magical aim.

"That's how you treat your knight in shining armor?" Blade said, gasping for breath.

"You. Are. Not. My. Knight!" I shouted. "And you're not wearing armor."

"Am too," he said.

I rolled my eyes. What some minions will do for attention! I approached the door to retrieve my weapon and took a quick look through the hole. Blade was wearing—you guessed it—a suit of armor.

"Where did you get that?" I said.

"From a mannequin in the hallway. What? He didn't need it."

Shaking my head, I yanked the errant sword out of the wooden door like King Arthur liberating Excalibur from the stone, except in my case, no angels were singing a halleluiah chorus, the sun didn't break through the clouds, and I didn't see a single person bowing and scraping and shouting with joy. It was just me, my rat, and a Minion of Massive Annoyance.

Whatever. I had to get this party going. I whacked at the door, but the blade skittered over the hard wood, and I practically sprained my wrist from the effort. Fine. I'd let Blade think he saved me.

"Can I rescue you now?" Blade said.

I backed up.

Whack. Whack. Whack. Finally, the door was losing its battle to Blade. Why did castle doors have to be so thick?

Calming breaths, Rowen. Your anxiety will not alter physics and make the door succumb faster.

I closed my eyes and breathed.

Nope. I sucked at being calm.

Suddenly, something icy cold jolted through my body, making the hairs on my neck stand at attention. Heart pounding, I spun, swinging my sword, slicing through a ghostly neck. Ectoplasm. Yuk!

"Hiya, lassie."

"Malcolm! Never sneak up behind an armed witch."

He laughed full-throated, doubling over. "You kill me, lassie."

I growled at him, which only amused him further. "If you were alive, I would've killed you."

"Now, why you bein' so cruel to ol' Malcolm? I can't be helpin' it if I'm corporally challenged."

"Sorry, Malcolm. You just caught me off guard."

"Don' be frettin', lass."

"I'm not—"

The door gave way, and Blade rolled into the room like a ninja, his adorable, I mean stupid, curl flapping into his eyes.

"Voila!" he said. "You are free, my princess."

"Aren't you a little short for a stormtrooper?" I quipped.

"What is this stormtrooper that you speak of?" he said.

"Star Wars. Never mind." I was going to have to issue a Brittlebane movie night proclamation. These people needed a film education. Otherwise, no one could appreciate all my great movie quotes.

"Can't you just thank me?"

"Thank you."

"See, that wasn't hard."

"It also wasn't easy. Let's go," I said, already climbing out through the opening with my sword, careful not to snag my jumpsuit. "We have the element of surprise. Let's use it."

"I'm always surprising people," Malcolm moaned, floating through the wall into the cold, damp hallway. "Side effect of being a ghost."

Blade dove out of the hole, turned a flip midair (in armor, which was quite a feat), and landed on his feet—the showoff. I discovered a nearly invisible loop in the hip of my jumpsuit, perfect for carrying a sword! Dropping my sword into the loop, I scooped up Vermeil and took off down the torch-lit dungeon hall. I had no clue which direction was right, but eventually, I'd find a stairway leading to the upper floors. I was pretty sure. Most important was avoiding the worst of the dungeon residents, like the sirens that wanted to lure me to my death or the minions imprisoned for their appalling manicures.

"Rowen?" Blade called. Wow! He'd waited almost two whole seconds before vexing me. "Wait up. Shouldn't we have a plan?" He ran up so close behind me I could feel his warm breath on my neck. I did not enjoy the tightening and twinges that traveled downward from my neck a bit ... um ... lower. The jumpsuit felt even tighter.

Liar! said my logical brain.

Hey! You're supposed to be logical. Not honest! I replied.

"I have a plan," I said, not stopping. I stepped into a muddy puddle. Ugh! I ruined my silver boots.

"You gonna clue us in?" Blade said.

We passed a super ugly painting of a headless Gorgon turning a bunny to stone, a giant cobweb with a giant spider watching us with its eight-million eyes, obviously hoping we'd be lunch and a mischief of rats kicking around a golden ball in what looked like some weird rodent soccer game. The ball rolled toward me, and I kicked it back.

"Thanks!" said a fat gray rat.

"Hey, Cousin Angus, nice ball!" Vermeil said.

"Hi, Vermie," the rat replied. "Stole it from a stuck-up princess who lost it in a well. I tried to get her to kiss me, but she wouldn't, so I took her ball. Word on the street is that a powerful mage enchanted it."

"Nice!" Vermeil said.

Cousin Angus returned to his game.

"Rowen, the plan?" Blade said as we walked past another bunny/gorgon painting, an unnaturally large spiderweb, and a new group of rats playing with a golden ball.

"Sure," I said. "Once we're out of the dungeon, I teleport to the ballroom, defeat Olivia, take the oath, become queen, and live in a castle with no friends for 500 years."

"That's not a plan," Blade said, catching up to me.

"What is it then?"

"It's whining."

"I'm not whining," I whined.

"The place is crawling with guards. You need a better plan."

"I'll improvise," I said as we passed another gorgon/bunny painting. "Wait, are we going in circles?"

Vermeil licked his paw, then held it in the air like he was testing the wind direction. "Just as I thought. It's a Circumlocution Spell," Vermeil said.

"Excuse me?"

"We're going in circles."

"That's what I said," I said. "This conversation is also going in circles."

"Part of the Spell," Vermeil said.

"Aye," Malcolm said. "When I still had a breathin' body, I got caught in a Circumlocution Spell."

"What happened?"

He shrugged his ghostly shoulders. "Can't remember, quite. But now I'm a ghost."

"You mean, you died from the spell?" I said. "I thought you displeased Petronella." May she rest in peace.

"Who do you think cast the spell?" he said.

"How do we get out of it?" I growled.

"We need to break the circle," Vermeil said.

"How?"

"With another circle."

"Where do we get another circle?"

"Magic?" Vermeil suggested.

"We're in the dungeon. I can't use magic. Also, how is the Circle Spell working in the dungeon when you're not supposed to be able to use magic?" I really hated it when magic didn't follow the rules.

"It must've been cast from outside the dungeon by a powerful witch," he said.

Yeah, I had a good idea who that witch was.

We walked past the soccer game again.

The golden ball! Sure, it was a sphere, not a circle, but it was circle-ish. And it had supposedly been enchanted by a powerful mage. It was worth a try. "Hey, Angus, could I borrow your ball?"

He kicked it toward me. I picked it up and hurled it at the ugly painting. There was a loud pop, like someone popping a balloon with a pin. The bottom of the stairway appeared right in front of us.

"How'd you know the ball would break the spell," Blade said.

"Geometry," I replied, taking the first step.

Four thousand hours later ...

"There are way more steps than before. I'm sure of it," I said, my leg muscles on fire. My first decree when I became queen would be to install elevators in this place. Unreal! "Why is the castle messing with us? And it's stupid that teleporting won't work. I don't care if it's a security measure during the coronation. It's dumb!"

"Then give up," Blade said.

"What? No. I'm not doing that. I'm just—"

"Whining?"

"No. I'm commenting on the stupidity of endless stairs. I wish—"

"What?" Blade said.

"Careful," Vermeil said.

"I wish I didn't have to climb these stairs to get to the ballroom," I said.

"Oh, no," Vermail said.

"What?"

"You wished."

"So?"

We turned a corner, and I nearly walked straight into a giant spider. "Argh!" I cried. The spider's twelve-foot-long legs were worryingly hairy. And it had so many eyes. And were those teeth? I was pretty sure they were teeth.

"See?" Vermeil said.

"Nowhere in my wish were giant spiders mentioned."

I didn't have the luxury of being arachnophobic right now.

"Excuse me. I need to get past you without being, um, eaten. Would you mind standing aside?"

Instead of obeying its queen like a good castle resident, the spider grabbed me with two fuzzy legs and scooped me off the floor. I cradled Vermeil into my chest.

"Put me down!" I screamed as more spiders appeared above us in the stairwell. The giant spider who had me in its clutches, a spider I should point out that looked starving (was that drool?), raised me higher toward what I was sure must be its mouth. Still, instead of eating me, it passed me up the stairs to another giant spider who took me in its hairy legs and passed me to another. After a while, I stopped screaming and just went with it.

It was like crowd surfing at a concert, except at a concert, there was music, $20 sodas, and no giant spiders. Usually. I mean, I've never been to a concert, so I can't say for sure. Before I knew it, we'd made it to the top. "Hey, thanks," I said to the spiders. "But why did you help me?"

"Because Olivia already hired an exterminator," the spider hissed. I could talk to spiders now? Weird.

"You have a 'lifetime Brittlebane no exterminator guarantee,'" I assured them.

"Thanks!"

Blade was carried up right behind me. The last spider lowered him to the ground, his armor hitting the ground with a metallic clang. "Thanks for the ride, guys," he said.

Malcolm was already at the top, having floated there. One good thing about being a ghost is not having to deal with stairs.

"Okay, now to the ballroom!" I said, setting Vermeil on the floor, grabbing my sword, and running at top speed past more depressing paintings and rusty suits of armor. Behind me, Blade's suit of armor clanged closer and closer.

"Rowen! No! Stop!" he said.

I was about to turn a corner when he caught me by the neck of my jumpsuit, stopping me dead. "Hey!" I hissed. "You're going to stretch it out."

He put his index finger over his mouth, released me, then pointed toward the hall I was about to barrel into. I peeked around the corner and saw dozens of armed minions and, at the far end, a twenty-foot-tall gold door. That had to be the ballroom. But how was I going to get past them? "Now what?" I mouthed. The torches along the wall flickered, casting eerie shadows, making me shiver.

I was shivering because of the eerie shadows, not from Blade's nearness!

Liar, logical me sassed. I ignored her.

Wait! Shadows! That gave me an idea. All I had to do was become invisible. Apply my lessons from the Shadowling. Yeah, I never succeeded in doing it, but I had to try. "I'm going to become invisible," I whispered. "I'll open the door, and then the guards will be confused and come to investigate. Then you can follow me in."

"But—"

Ignoring Blade's constant disagreement, I imagined myself as ephemeral as smoke, dark and formless, slipping outside of reality. Like a ghost but without the nasty side-effect of being dead. I felt different. Like I weighed no more than a feather.

"Rowen?" Blade asked.

It worked! He couldn't see me. "What?" I whispered.

"Maybe Malcolm and I should distract them instead."

"But I'm invisible."

Grinning, he reached out and tweaked my chin. I slapped away his hand. "Allow me, Your Highness," he said. "Come on, Malcolm."

Screaming like banshees, they rounded the corner, swords raised. "En garde!" Blade said. Then he ran in the opposite direction of the ballroom door, a dozen guards on his heels.

What was really annoying was that his plan worked. The hall was silent now, except for the scritch, scritch, scritch of Vermeil hurrying after me. I walked straight up to the door. It had a gargoyle doorknocker that looked a lot like Lubris, but using it to knock would probably be a mistake. I needed the element of surprise. I eyed the doorknob. The pain of trying to open the lab door was still pretty fresh. I could practically smell the burning flesh. Hmmm. What were the chances this knob was spelled? Pretty high. The hallway had been guarded. Which meant they didn't want anyone going in or out.

The gargoyle looked opened its mouth and yawned. "Well?" it said.

"I'd like to come in."

"Password?"

"If you don't let me in, I'll have you melted down and made into a shoe buckle?"

"Incorrect," the door knocker said. "Two more tries before I sound the alarm." Ugh! Obstacles, obstacles everywhere. Nothing was ever simple. But I was a hacker extraordinaire. A simple password could not thwart me! "Or I could sound the alarm now and save us both the hassle."

"No, the password is, 'Olivia is the True Queen.'"

"Beeep. Incorrect. One more try."

"One, two, three, four," I said. What? It works more times than you'd think.

"Beeep! Incorrect. The alarm will sound in five, four, three—"

"No, please don't. Can't you just let me in this once?"

"No can do. Sorry, but your pathetic threat was nothing compared to Olivia's."

"She's Rowen, the true queen," Vermeil said, huffing and puffing, he'd finally caught up to me.

"You're Rowen?" the gargoyle said.

"I am."

"Why didn't you say so?"

"I didn't think it would matter."

"You kidding? My cousin Lubris can't stop talking about you through the door-knocker network. It's an honor to meet you."

I cocked my head and raised an eyebrow. "Metal doorknockers have relatives?"

"Sure, when you're from the same crucible, you're family."

Before I could respond, the door swung open, and five hundred pairs of eyes turned to look at me. Some of those eyes were even human. The ballroom was gargantuan, at least the size of the Coffin Ridge gym, with floor-to-ceiling stained glass windows, moonlight streaming through, puffy chandeliers floating near the ceiling like clouds of light, a stage at the far end, and an orchestra in the balcony that screeched to a halt.

"Rowen, watch out!" Blade cried from just behind me.

"Took you long enough," Olivia said as a giant cage dropped from the ceiling.

So much for the element of surprise.

Alas! Poor Rowen didn't take her own advice. Will she prevail or will she end up in Olivia's clutches? Tune in next week for the exciting conclusion. (Almost conclusion? Not sure if it's one or two more chapters.)

Don't leave before you vote and comment and stuff!!!