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looked the same. Recognition sparked in his face immediately and his eyes widened in something between shock and fear. Snow spoke first.
    “Don’t worry, I’m not here on official Court business.”
    “Then they don’t know I’m here?”
    Snow sighed, “I don’t know and I don’t care, I just know that it’s not what brings me here.
    Bluebeard brightened ever so slightly. “This is a social call?”
    “You wish,” Snow said, pushing past him into the house. He stepped to the side, too late since she was already inside, but he tried to make up for it by bowing slightly. Snow rolled her eyes. She’d hated this guy the last time she’d met him and it seemed nothing had changed. When he looked up, Snow gave him a tight smile and looked around the grand house, filled end to end with antiques and fussy- looking furniture.
    “Nice place,” she said, turning on him. “I see you’ve been abusing your Story talents.”
    Bluebeard closed the door and stood with her in the large foyer. “Well…” he began.
    Snow cut him off with a wave of her hand. “I don’t really care. Get me a drink already,” she said sighing. Bluebeard escorted her into the parlor and went to a bar cart in the corner while Snow sat back on a dark red velvet couch, crossing her long legs in front of her and inspecting the room if only to cure her boredom.
    “So, if you’re not here on Court business, then what?” Bluebeard asked, a creepy grin spreading across his face, “I don’t suppose you’re in the market for a husband.”
    “Gross,” Snow said, frowning. Out the far window, at the back of the house, Snow saw a flash of Tessa running across the lawn. She slit her eyes dangerously and looked back to Bluebeard. “Get yourself a drink too. This is going to take a while.”
     

     
    Tessa looped around the back and was happy to find there was no fence, just more woods, endless woods. She arced around the house, trying to get a lay of the land before making her move.
    Dropping through an unlatched basement window, Tessa landed with a soft thud on the concrete floor. The basement was piled high with paintings and furniture covered in white sheets. She hurried across the floor to the stairs near the center of the room. Tessa made her way up the stairs, listening for Snow’s melodic yet cutting voice drifting through the house, demanding more ice, then her lilting false laugh, the occasional baritone of what Tessa assumed was Bluebeard. Tessa opened the basement door and found herself just under the main stair in the foyer.
    She slipped up the stairs to the second level to find a slew of doors off of a long hallway. Tessa opened door after door to find only empty, overly furnished rooms. Finally, she reached the end of the hallway where a pair of doors stood opposite one another. Both were locked. Under the one on the right, Tessa could hear a distinctive shuffle that could totally be a couple kidnapped someones trying to escape. Tessa laid down on the wood floor and peeked under the wide gap at the bottom. She saw Micah, her hands and feet bound in thick rope. Next to her, similarly tied but knocked unconscious, was Brand and another man, perhaps mid-30s, dark hair, attractive in a stuffy young professor kind of way, his glasses broken and a trickle of blood running across his face. Tessa bit her lip.
    “Micah,” Tessa whispered under the door. Micah’s head yanked up and she stopped struggling.
    “Tessa?” she asked, shocked and confused, but clearly relieved.
    “Stay back,” Tessa whispered. “I’m coming in.”
    Micah scooted around a little behind the door and Tessa stood up. She sized up the door. She was pretty sure she could break it down if she still had whatever she’d had when fighting the Troll, but it would be loud. And then she’d have three tied-up hostages, two of them possibly unconscious, while Bluebeard came crashing up the stairs. But she didn’t know how to pick a lock. She thought maybe she could just