Sicilienne Verelia spun in circles about the library, bouncing up on her toes to reach higher shelves and swinging with one arm onto the wheeled stepladder to slide across rows that seemed to go on endlessly. She would probably never manage to read through every book as there were millions, maybe billions bound in leather, thick paper, and cloth. And this was just one section. There were infinite books written by the citizens of Fairytaletopia—nonfiction and fiction alike, in the genres of fantasy, thriller, politics, mathematics... on and on and on. The Writer was something of a collector, and Sicilienne was his prodigy, ever ready to learn from any new addition to the shelves or any new task he decided to put her on.

Oh, but that was just the ordinary books. The truly extraordinary ones were all upstairs; the other level of the library, what the Writer liked to call the Library of Life. Although many called them fairy tales, he and Sicilienne often called them life-books, stories that were entirely real and true. Stories that wrote themselves with only a bit of nudging and adjusting along the way. Stories powered by magic, filled with wonder and hope. A book you could hold in your hands and watch as shimmering ink filled the pages. One for every person who had ever lived. That was where the Writer spent nearly all his waking hours. Keeping all the stories in check... she couldn't imagine bearing that weight on her shoulders. She knew she would have to eventually. But it all seemed like such a large and terrifying responsibility.

Sometimes she worried that she hadn't fully understood what she was getting into when she became the Writer's apprentice. That couldn't have been more than... what? Two, three years ago? Somehow time had flown by, even though it simultaneously felt as though her old life had been... well... a lifetime ago. Her days had been filled with constant movement, traveling in what felt like circles through Fairy Kingdom, jumping from inn to inn, hovel to hovel, homeless shelter to homeless shelter. Just her and her brother against the world. Now they had diverged on separate paths, Sicilienne embarking on a new kind of journey—the stable kind. She wondered which was harder: to leave everything you've ever known behind in exchange for the stability you never had, or to continue chasing the wind only because you'd grown so accustomed to it you didn't know where else to go?

She fingered her necklace, thinking of Claude, and wondering, selfishly, if he, too, was thinking of her.

Around her neck, resting just above her collarbone, sat a thin gold band which emanated a very soft humming noise you would only hear if you were standing very close and remained silent enough to notice your own heartbeat. Its purpose was frankly quite silly, but she was far too attached to it to even consider parting with it despite the fact that she was probably a bit old to be playing with such toys. It was an enchanted voice corrector—straight out of Tech Zone, if her brother was to be believed. Those things that made you talk like royalty. She figured after all those lessons in literature and language she didn't need it anymore, but perhaps it was slightly sentimental. For a girl who'd never had so much as a day of traditional schooling, as she was when she received it, it was a wondrous gift. She'd always cherished it.

It was truly a wonder how her brother delivered her such nice things. But he was a traveling merchant now, which was good, because she'd always felt slightly guilty for leaving him. There was still that little nagging worry at the back of her mind, even though they regularly wrote letters, that maybe Claude was a little lost, a little sadder without her. Surely that wasn't the case, him being a grown man and the older brother and perfectly capable of taking care of himself, but... well, perhaps she wanted him to miss her.

Sicilienne suddenly tripped, the feather duster flying out of her hands as she fell. Thankfully, she miraculously clutched onto the ladder rail at the last moment. She swallowed, eyeing the floor far below her and suddenly felt a bit queasy. She really needed to be less—

A ridiculously loud string of expletives reached her from the upper tower floor, making her wince. The Writer, who was to most a mysterious and fearsome figure of myth, was truthfully a bundle of anxiety masquerading as a wise and calm elder. He wasn't even all that old, she knew, and whenever anything went wrong he did his best to keep his cool if only for her sake, but sometimes... well, it was best just to say that innocent children should cover their ears when the Writer stubbed his toe.

"What is it this time?" she murmured, carefully clambering down from the ladder and retrieving the duster from where she'd dropped it. Undoubtedly there was another rogue imp on the loose in some unsuspecting young maiden's story, or alternatively, one of those pesky sprites had gotten in through the open window again and knocked a book over on his head.

She crossed the room with a frown, her lavender Mary Janes clicking softly on the tower floor. No sooner had she passed one of her cats—the calico named Rumpel—heading for the door when it burst open, the Writer emerging in a wild frenzy, wide-eyed and tearing at his normally gelled-back hair.

"What's the matter, sir?"

"Snow White!" he exclaimed frantically, grabbing her shoulders and shaking her rather dramatically. "Snow White! She's gone! Gone!"

Sicilienne's mind raced, her worry showing through her distressed brow and pursed lips. "Gone; whatever does that mean?"

The Writer's gaze darted around once more, as if searching for answers that would never come. "I—I felt something was off. You know where we keep the Famous Six?"

"Why—yes." All in glass cases embellished with gold. On the top floor, with the rest of the life-books, on a special shelf with the enchanted potted plant that grew massive roses.

His jaw trembled, his eyes roaming hers for some sort of clarity. She had none to offer, knowing nothing of what was going on. "It was glowing."

"I wasn't aware they possess bioluminescent qualities...?"

"It was glowing," he rasped, clutching the door for support. Sicilienne realized then that he wasn't carrying his walking stick. She grasped his hand for whatever form of support she could give, gazing up at him. "They don't glow when someone dies. Something bigger is happening."

Of course they didn't glow. The books didn't glow. Once someone died, the Writer sensed it—some magic Sicilienne hadn't been gifted yet. There was a sound that came with it as well. Sometimes even she heard it too; a whisper in the wind, soft chiming somewhere far away. But there was no physical change to the book, until you opened it up and flipped it to the last page and there were those ever-familiar words in looping red scrawl:

THE END.

Wait. Sicilienne swiveled, eyes going wide. "Dead? Snow White is dead?"

"Yes," he said exasperatedly, and, his temporary bout of panic over, he promptly turned and began trudging back up the stairs. Sicilienne felt that she had no choice but to follow him.

In the Library of Life, the tales of the Famous Six were waiting. Indeed, one was glowing—on the far right, beside Ella Hartley's legendary story, dubbed Cinderella. That was it. Snow White.

Sicilienne was practically frozen in place, mesmerized by the strange situation, and so she didn't stop the Writer when he picked up his walking stick, approached the glass case, took a breath, and swung. She jumped back instinctively as an explosion of glass shards rained down from the shelf.

"And what was that for?"

The look in his eyes was one she knew better than to cross—something that anyone else might struggle to decipher but she knew was his manifestation of pure, unbridled rage. She held out a cautious hand, stepping forward. The Writer beat her to her goal, snatching the newly exposed book from its place and flipping through it himself. The glow immediately faded. Briefly he paused, glancing toward the window, his expression twitching slightly.

That, at least, Sicilienne was used to. "Another death for the day?"

"Old age," he muttered, dismissing the feeling she knew he must be experiencing (whatever it felt like) and returning his attention quickly to the book he held in his hands. He wandered over to the massive oak desk where he did most of his work, slumping into the chair. Frustratedly he cleared the space in front of him and dropped the book onto the empty surface. It didn't need his help to flip to the page they needed to see.

THE END. That was what it said. The red ink blurred in her vision. Carefully, as if she could somehow make the situation worse by handling the artifact recklessly, she picked it up, examining it.

This couldn't be possible. Snow White's story wasn't supposed to end yet. Even she knew that.

Sicilienne's eyes flicked up to the Writer again—it was unsettling seeing him so terrified when he always seemed to be in control. Even when he was anxious, he composed himself quickly, even when he was unsure, he promised her he wasn't. Usually a few expletives and maybe a short rant followed anything major that occurred, but this must be something much, much bigger than she could possibly comprehend. In her mind, it made sense for the Writer to stay in control of situations like this. After all, he was supposed to know everything, wasn't he? Then again, maybe it was his omniscience that burdened him so. It couldn't be easy sensing every death.

Snow White's book was sealed with worn but still relatively new leather, deep red, with gold lettering imprinted on the cover and an image of a bitten apple. It had always been medium-sized, not the thickest she'd seen but not a particularly thin one either, with text fairly small but still certainly visible enough to read. After her childhood she was supposed to live a simple life (or at least relatively, considering she would rule a kingdom), but then there was the incident where a troll had granted her powers and temporarily she'd frozen the castle over. The Writer had told her that it was times like those when he had had to interfere, to ensure the happily ever afters of everyone involved. Leading a little fairy girl to the castle to rescue the queen from her own magic was the saving grace of Snow White's story, and her life hadn't been compromised since.

But here they were.

And this time, Snow White's happily ever after was over.

Sicilienne flipped through it, cringing at the image of herself in the Evil Queen's quote-unquote 'Magic Mirror'. She skimmed past the page about the poisoned apple, past the page about being kissed by a prince, past the page where she became queen of her own kingdom, past the page where she was given powers—all of which had occurred in the span of just three years. About three-quarters of the way through the book, she froze.

And then Snow White was struck down dead, and that was the end of her.

There was the expected THE END, and the rest of the pages were blank.

"What does this mean?" Sicilienne asked anxiously, hastily flipping through the back of the book. Blank, blank, blank. As if the story had ended prematurely.

"That's because it did," the Writer groaned, and he rose and began to pace, his hands folded behind his back. She couldn't help but think of her brother. Pacing had always been a habit of his. "That wasn't supposed to happen. Snow was supposed to live a long and fruitful life. Someone has decided to go about changing the course of destiny."

Sicilienne started again from the beginning, catching glimpses of the story here and there. But the Evil Queen began talking to a voice in her Magic Mirror, which told her that she was no longer the fairest of them all... Snow White married the prince who had traveled far and wide to rescue her from her dastardly fate, and they became the king and queen, renaming their kingdom 'Snow', and with that she took in her husband's son Everette as her own... The brutish troll smashed the mirror onto her, cursing her to live with ice running through her veins and the power of demons in her hands... And so the girl called Gerda freed the Snow Queen from her spell, and the queen was eternally grateful... The queen was so exhausted and so weighed down by all the responsibility that she carried that she became harried and neglectful, forgetting what was important about her duties... And then Snow White was struck down dead, and that was the end of her.

The drastic change made her shudder. So much drama could fit into such a short time. She looked to the Writer with alarm, realizing what he'd said.

"Surely you do not mean that—how could one death turn the tides of fate?"

"Because this isn't just any death," he emphasized, pausing to turn to her, wide-eyed. "This is Snow White. Name the six most influential fairy tales of our lifetimes—go."

Sicilienne straightened, going into pop quiz mode. "Rapunzel. The Little Mermaid. Sleeping Beauty. Beauty and the Beast. Cinderella. And..." She frowned. "Snow White. The Famous Six. We just looked at them. Is this significant?"

"Very. The Famous Six aren't just stories, Sicilee, and they aren't just people's lives. They're beacons of hope, rays of light in the darkness, proof that happily ever after really does exist. With everything that was happening across the world before these last few years... the plague, the rampages, the poverty... You of all people surely know that many struggle to believe in it anymore."

She nodded.

"This also means they're powerful. Despite only occurring in the last decade, these are legendary fairy tales; poor maiden girls who became queens with wealth far beyond imaginable and valiant young men who had the courage to rescue them from their state of damsel-in-distress. The glow..." He turned to the window, his mind traveling somewhere far away. "The glow has to mean something. What does it mean?"

"Well, should we not start with who killed her?"

The Writer turned abruptly, short-circuiting for a moment.

"Of course."

A skill Sicilienne was, admittedly, still waist-deep in the process of learning, was replay. Wading through memories, using a story as an old path to follow like a curious girl traveling through a forest filled with ancient magic. The Writer said that one day she would master it.

Today it might be their only clue to the mystery that had fallen into their laps.

The Writer walked over to his shelf of personal belongings, settled among which was a row of little elixir bottles filled with golden liquid. He uncorked one and knocked it down, shaking himself out a little afterward (it likely had an odd taste). He returned to the book, flipping it back to what appeared to be the events of the previous morning. He placed his hand on the page, and his veins lit up gold, the letters on the paper beginning to glow and lift into the air. Sicilienne hesitated but rested her hand atop the Writer's.

He closed his eyes, and she shut hers, focusing on the past, searching for what, precisely, had happened yesterday morning...

In her mind's eye Sicilienne witnessed a whirlwind of glittering magic, and then all was still again. When she opened her eyes she was clinging to the Writer for dear life, in an all-too-familiar state of in-between, hovering before a blurred gray landscape of a bird's eye view of what must have been Central Snow Kingdom. Sicilienne couldn't see herself, only bear the knowledge that she currently existed in a loophole through time and space.

"You alright?" the Writer murmured, invisibly patting her hand as he assessed where they were. With her free hand Sicilienne clutched her head.

"A bit nauseous."

"It'll pass. This way."

"Should we not be going to the palace?"

"No, my dear; I don't believe all this started there."

Every muddled sensation cleared itself as they touched down onto reality. One minute Sicilienne was on a dizzying ride up in the sky and then quite suddenly she was on the ground again, surrounded by green but still able to catch glimpses of Snow Palace if she glanced over her shoulder. Moreover, she held out her hands and turned them over and could see them quite plainly, color having seeped back into the world again.

The Writer was already moving aside underbrush to go deeper into the wood, which seemed to be a little ways past the castle, with scraggly trees frosted at the tips with snow. Sicilienne followed, and they both entered a clearing that was a little dark for her taste. The sun hardly dared to come out of hiding in Central Snow for fear of purposelessly melting any of the queen's namesake, which she loved so dearly. If Snow White hadn't blessed the air with icy magic that hummed and swayed then maybe the sun wouldn't have thought twice, but, Sicilienne knew, the brighter and slightly less frigid days of Lakeland were in the past—leaving the lonely clump of trees and the occasional hare in dim grayness.

As it was, it made the perfect meeting spot for those who were now coming slowly out of the shadows, one with a rolled map in hand and a plan arranged in his head. They gathered together in the ashy air, snow squishing softly under boots, almost silently but not quite. It was rare that they all came together in one place at the same time, and probably a questionable idea. Anyone watching would easily notice the tension, the safe distances away from each other—but of course no one was watching and so it was irrelevant whether they got along well or not.

No one, that is, except for the Writer and his young apprentice, invisible to everyone except each other.

A man Sicilienne didn't recognize was the first to speak as everyone dared come close enough to see each other's faces.

"It's so wonderful to see you all here, together, united under the banner of free will. I trust that everyone arrived prepared." His voice somehow managed to be deep and ethereal at the same time, as if you weren't really hearing his words aloud but that they had actually swam directly into your head. "We have a job today, one that will transform the world as we know it. The transformation we so desperately need. And while I wish the royals could be spared, as they are just as human as you, our grand mission cannot allow it."

There was some scowling and nose-wrinkling that suggested he may very well have been alone in that line of thinking, but he pressed on regardless. "Our first target, Snow White, will die a beautiful execution as a symbol of the death of fate. Every one of you before me is held back by the chains of destiny, and I will not stand for it. None of us will. For I have seen your dreams, your deepest wants and fears. You deserve to have the destiny you choose, the destiny you deserve. Snow White received her happily ever after on a silver platter." He swept his gaze across the lot of them. "Yours awaits."

The others, at least, could get on board with that, and so there was a silent chorus of nodding and squaring of shoulders. Sicilienne began to circle the group slowly, seeking a familiar face as many of them muttered in hushed tones to one another. The Writer scowled, leaning on his cane.

"I should have known."

She paused. "Should have known what?" she whispered, as if afraid the people in the memory might somehow hear her.

The Writer's gaze had fallen upon the man who must have been leading the meeting, who seemed to hold an aura of authority despite being entirely unintimidating in appearance. Sicilienne was taking in the sight of every mysterious figure in turn, struggling to memorize faces and determine if it was even possible to connect them to names she'd read about or heard before. Walking a curious circle, slowly taking in everything she could see and hear. The Writer, however, was fixated on one man and one man only. She turned her attention to the subject of his scrutiny.

"I do not believe I recognize anyone. Who is he?"

"One who has, many years ago, declared himself my sworn enemy," he said through gritted teeth. "Before I became the Writer, in fact, the Sandman considered himself the antithesis of all that the position of the Writer stands for. I have met him only once before. The father of dreamers and a protector of children, that's what he calls himself. But you see, Sicilienne, ignorance is what makes a child. Children do not fully understand what they need protection from or that they need protection at all, and once they do, they are children no longer. A man stands for himself because he knows what threats he has to face. That who you see there is the Sandman, and he is no man at all. He takes lost children under his wing and leads them to believe that their dreams and aspirations should rule them, that freedom is immortal, that they themselves are gods. Then they grow up, because their ignorance has faded, but in his eyes his children never grow up, and so he breeds strange hybrids of babes and men. Ruled by their hopes and desires, his philosophy turns on itself, his prodigies becoming men and ignorance befalling him instead. All immortals are either blind to the plights of humanity or hate them, and this one is of the blind sort. He never realizes that he has created lost boys who never truly matured—older, but still foolishly believing they can go anywhere and do anything. So is the selfishness of a being who walks the earth just like the rest of us and somehow thinks he is the father of all the living. As if no one fathered him," he muttered bitterly, taking a step forward to assess the members of the meeting.

Sicilienne turned over his words in her head. She hadn't known the Writer had enemies—well, that wasn't exactly true. Many hated him. It was easy to blindly direct hate at something you believe controlled you and had never understood. But an enemy like this? One that would organize an assassination of an innocent ruler in order to strike a blow to fate?

The Writer joined her in circling the group. "Gretel," he said curtly, pointing to a hooded figure whose blond hair and crooked nose could still be noted despite her black cloak.

A memory clicked. "As in, Hansel and Gretel?"

"Correct."

"Her brother was taken in by a minor royal family, I thought."

"And she never was..." He stopped in front of a small bright-eyed girl with short red hair, a flute tucked into her belt. In her hair rested an odd barrette shaped like a rat. "The Pied Piper."

Sicilienne did a double take. "That's the Pied Piper? She looks so... unassuming."

"Yes, yes," he said dismissively, focused on picking out the identities of the others. "Goldilocks." He spun, his attention landing on another familiar face. "Rose Red."

Sicilienne's eyes were soon occupied with something entirely new, for a tiny man no bigger than a thumb had been climbing to the top of a nearby tree stump as the Writer spoke, and now he hopped atop it, taking a moment to run a hand through his hair and dust himself off before clearing his throat.

"Tom Thumb," she realized aloud. She remembered his story, or at least the earlier parts of it. He went from an adventurous little boy to a downright nuisance. A killer, though? Was he?

He spoke in a voice just as loud as any of them, albeit a little scratchy. "Okay. Let's review the plan. According to my sources, Ms. White is having a carriage prepared to take herself and her husband to the christening of the Charmings' newborn son today at a quarter past eleven. Her morning tea with her advisors and the palace ladies should run from nine-thirty to ten-thirty, but she has a thing for wildlife and has a tendency to get distracted when she's outdoors, so I'm going to add a ten-minute buffer in case she wants to go rescue a hurt squirrel or something. I don't know, this is Snow White. Anyway, adjusting for how long it'll take her maids to ready her new gown and prepare her things, and that one guy who always asks her when she plans to review the citizen letters of complaint, I would say she won't be officially ready to leave until half past. I imagine she'll be taking a walk through the garden still when a guard notifies her of a commotion at the palace gates." He nodded pointedly to the Pied Piper, who bounced eagerly on her toes.

"And that's your cue to head inside while they're distracted," the Sandman told Goldilocks, whose only sign that she had registered what he said was a wry twisting of her lips. Sicilienne couldn't place her finger on her real name. Was it... Alice? Aurora?

"Right," agreed Tom. "Ms. Luemont will use her runes to seal off all the exits in the castle, which should also effectively transform the halls into a continuously moving maze to confuse anyone inside, so I hope you did your homework and studied the map thoroughly. I will proceed to direct her in the proper direction to let in Mr. Regulus and Ms. Barrett. Obviously, I'll already be inside, because I'm awesome—"

"Because you're puny," someone grunted.

"—and I'll take this time to cause a, shall we say, distraction in the kitchens to occupy the servants and the king for a while. At this point our wonderful leader will have arrived at the front gates with the child—"

"Oh, shut up," said a boy who couldn't seem to stop twitching and moving this way and that, swinging a large firearm the likes of which Sicilienne had never seen before. He had a thick accent. Hailing from Pirate's Bay, no doubt. "I ain't a kid. I should be doing somethin', too!"

"You're the supplier," Gretel said in a harsh tone. "Stick to the job you're good at."

"But I wanna shoot people," he emphasized, jiggling his gun in the air. "How come Tommy Boy gets ter blow stuff up?"

"Have patience," the Sandman said gently. "Your time will come."

"ANYWAY," Tom huffed, irritated by the interruptions, "Mr. Sandman will babysit while he puts all the guards in the front to sleep, which is your cue—" he gestured to Gretel and the dwarf standing with his feet apart and his arms crossed beside her— "to head in through the unguarded entrance and take care of any guards Ms. Luemont and company haven't handled yet. If everyone does their job properly," he added, eyeing a few of them suspiciously, "there should be no more soldiers flooding in from the roof, but you never know." Sicilienne wondered if he provoked the others with passive-aggressive comments on purpose, because it was certainly serving to make several meeting members look annoyed.

"And then Red'll disguise 'erself, Corpse Flower, Aurele, and Piper as servants, she casts the illusion in the queen's quarters, Aurele and Piper bring 'er to the throne room, blah, blah," the young pirate finished. "Let's get this over with."

A man carrying a tall scythe leveled his concentrated gaze at Tom. "And if anything goes wrong?"

Tom smirked. "Our backup plan is waiting."

Piper frowned. "How will she get out? If we don't need her, I mean?"

"Never underestimate a witch with that foul of an attitude. Alright, did I miss anything, boss man?"

The Sandman shook his head. "I believe we all know what our duties are. Just our escape is left. Everyone knows the meeting place...?"

A chorus of muttered yeses followed.

Goldilocks, dressed in leg warmers and a black miniskirt and turning over a pin in her teeth, finally spoke. "The panic attack and the travel to the throne room. That gives us how much time?"

"A few minutes maybe," Tom Thumb conceded, tilting his head to one side. "We could run into trouble at any point in this plan—a guard manages to cross paths with one of us and escape, or someone reaches the throne before we do. So we need to move quickly. But in all honesty I estimate she'll be left alone until the incidents around the castle are managed at least. She won't be going anywhere until noon."

"She won't be going anywhere at all, that imposter," snapped their resident dwarf, crossing his arms over his chest.

"We don't need a ton of time," Piper said with a wicked smile, clapping her hands together. "We all know what we're doing. We've been going over this again and again for months. This'll be easy!"

"Easy if everything goes according to plan," the Sandman said serenely, shooting her a warm smile. "As long as everyone keeps a level head, and adapts well to any challenges that come our way, after today Snow White will be no more. And you all will be one step closer to your freedom."

"What twisted morality," the Writer spat disgustedly. Rarely did Sicilienne see him this angry. The Snow White story meant a lot to him. It meant a lot to her. She had been so afraid when she accidentally interfered that something would go horribly wrong, but the Writer had assured her that a little peril never made a story less interesting. This was different. This was finality. This was evil.

-ˋˏ✄┈┈┈┈

This cutoff is so awkward I hate it. Poll: which do you find the most interesting; the hero, the anti-hero, or the villain? I'm an anti-hero gal myself.