The disguises worked like a charm on airport goers.

"Oh my fairy godmother. Is that Eloise Diamond?"

"The Pea Princess is here. She's here, right now, breathing my same air—"

"Eloise! Can I get your autograph?"

Lindsay played the part astonishingly well. She took on a rather snooty voice and badgered Bear and Claude constantly about her allegedly tight schedule and the state of her latest nose job, waving pretentiously to fans and posing for several pictures. Claude had crowds of gushing fans as well, and he lifted his voice an octave and put on an impressively accurate Rosish accent to play the part. Ramona was crossing her fingers no one would look too closely at his face through all the layers of makeup. Bear seemed to be the most hesitant about all the acting, but he mostly had to nod along with whatever Lindsay said and scribble things down on his notepad.

Ramona watched everyone around them carefully, trailing after the main attraction side-by-side with Minerva and Penny in matching bodyguard uniforms. Every muscle in her body felt tense, as though something might go wrong any moment. She found comfort in the familiar routine of observing her surroundings, counting cameras and sweeping her eyes across exits, elevators, and ventilation ducts. Certainly, though, what stood out the most was the theme of the whole place—the commercialism behind the FastTrav company itself.

It was harrowing to see such illustrious propaganda on display. Every corner the thieves turned was peppered with promotional posters and sprawling murals of legendary fairytale moments. Crowds funneled through a large walkway painted completely with scenes of little cottages and tranquil farmland disrupted by the enormous boot of a giant, a twirling beanstalk snaking up the opposite wall. As they entered the security hall they stepped into a world of glass slippers and castles and coils of hair flowing out the window of tall towers. It was difficult not to feel a wave of disgust at how people's lives had been twisted into legends and marketed as attainable if only one paid a hefty fee. Despite her better judgment, Ramona found herself scanning for an exaggerated depiction of her own life. None was to be found, and she wasn't sure whether to be relieved or slightly offended.

Lindsay slowed in front of a wall displaying an imposing woman and her two daughters, looking upon an instantly recognizable Cinderella trying on the notorious glass slipper before the prince. Ramona watched her face slip, melting first into heartbreak before going stony and eventually resuming her composure and returning to character. The illustrations weren't kind to Madam Amata and her family. Alexis and Lindsay were depicted as trollish girls in frumpy, unattractive dresses, watching their stepsister with disdain, and their mother was painted wiry and much older than Lindsay had described her, with a large, crooked nose and gray hair pulled into a tight updo. While her character was probably relatively true to the stories, Lindsay's actual appearance was nothing at all like the mural and in fact the only resemblance she bore to it was dark hair and narrow green eyes. It was no wonder police had never recognized her.

Claude touched her lightly on the shoulder, pulling her gaze from it. "Eloise, love, we can't be late now!" he chirped in his close imitation of Ruby. His eyes said everything he couldn't in the moment.

Lindsay turned up her nose. "Right. We've got to waste time going through security like common peasants. I'd nearly forgotten."

Ramona exhaled lightly. She couldn't afford for Lindsay to be distracted.

"Who do I have to talk to to get some travel service around here?" Lindsay hollered, fanning herself with a lace hand fan that matched her lavender high-low cut dress. Minerva had copied Eloise's preferred style to a T, right down to the gem-encrusted heeled boots. Claude cleared his throat.

"Out of the way! Pop star that is far wealthier and more important than you coming through!"

With glares from Penny, Minerva, and Ramona, people tripped over themselves trying to clear a walkable path. They arrived at the security entrance desk much quicker once everyone had parted for Lindsay, and she slammed her hands on the desk. The attendant's jaw was practically on the floor.

"What do you need to get me a vacation stat? I need to get away from the life, you know how it is. Besides, the mister is a total cow. Have you ever had to pull globs of hair out of the sink drain? Well, I haven't, because I'm not poor and obviously would never do such a nasty job myself."

"I—Miss Diamond, it's an honor, I—"

Lindsay waved her hand impatiently. "Shut your trap and tell me what papers I've got to hand over. It's six of us. Party of six, you hear me? Do I look like I have time for this? I've been harassed by cameras and fans asking for signatures for the last ten minutes—I love my fans, of course, so I'd sign for hours, but Walter insists on a strict schedule, you see."

Bear nodded vehemently. "Strict indeed."

The attendant nodded, wide-eyed. "Yes, yes, of course, well—to cross border lines, you need identification and valid birth certificates along with—"

Claude snapped pink gum. "Get the paperwork, ladies." Ramona momentarily wondered where he'd gotten it. She recalled the real Ruby blowing bubblegum in Lindsay's magazine page. Quick thinking and a nice touch, but she had never caught him make the steal from anyone. Still far more subtle than I'll ever be, she thought with amusement. Well, at least on good days.

Ramona pulled the file envelope from the backpack she was carrying by hand—no bodyguard would be wearing a silver backpack, but she and Penny were holding luggage bags stuffed completely with clothes to avoid suspicion—and slid it towards the attendant. Even the air itself held its breath as she silently counted in her head. The longer the attendant took to read through the papers, the more her pulse quickened. Hayden's work was covering Lindsay, Claude, and Baby Bear with striking replicas of the real celebrities' identification, and her own old documents should be covering herself, Minerva, and Penny. But what if Hayden's seemed too rushed, not believable enough? And what if the information on hers was outdated or...

She was stressing herself out. She felt like she would suddenly collapse into a panic attack.

There were so many documents that could have mistakes. Passports were difficult to forge. Birth certificates were easy enough, but photo identification was always a hit-or-miss. Lindsay's eyes were more green than Eloise's, which seemed to be somewhere closer to turquoise, and she weighed more, which hopefully wouldn't be too much of a problem since the attendant had to know that suggesting so would lead to a celebrity tantrum and cause a huge scene. Generally the average person understood enough social cues to prefer to avoid such confrontation. Then there were Ramona's documents, which actually had photos of Minerva, Penny, and herself printed on them with false names and birthdates. Would she be recognized and reported to the police? If she was identified, she'd be taking the whole crew down with her—

"Alright, you're cleared, Miss Diamond," the attendant said, and Ramona was slammed with a surge of relief and surprise. "Price is on the screen in front of you. Although I will say, Mr. Wagner—" her heart sank— "you're not quite as tall as I imagined."

Bear straightened to his full height, a whopping seven feet, and with all his sheer muscle mass he was imposing enough to make even Ramona draw back a bit involuntarily. Lindsay had added lines to his face, so the softness that had been there was gone. "I'm not?" he said with a frown, and Ramona could have laughed aloud, because there wasn't a hint of malice in his voice, but he was terrifyingly intimidating all the same. "Must be good camera angles, I s'pose."

The attendant swallowed, her face frozen in fearful amazement. "Actually," she amended, "nevermind."

She handed back the papers after they paid for their tickets in gold and gave them waivers to sign. Ramona skimmed them. There was a suspicious lack of refund for what she knew was a highly dangerous form of transportation. Besides that, the FastTrav company wasn't liable for any injury or death that occurred if you chose to travel to a randomized adventure destination and ended up in a torturous, unsurvivable hellscape. The modern world was a consumerist trap.

The attendant waved them in the direction of security with no further suspicion. Bear tucked their travel passes into his pocket. The thieves left the desk, silently celebrating their success. Minerva and Penny both lifted a hand and Ramona grasped them, squeezing briefly in an acknowledgement of the victory. Lindsay kept her head held high and her eyes ahead, but Claude gave Bear a light punch on the arm in a moment of solidarity. They'd made it. That was checkpoint one.

The security lines were hopelessly long. Lindsay and Claude offered free signatures and selfies to anyone who would let them cut past them, and she was more grateful than ever for their over-the-top acting skills—particularly Lindsay's. They weren't really in a rush, but the less time they spent here in these attention-grabbing disguises, the better. Ramona kept reminding herself that no one had recognized her or Claude so far, and once they got through these lines they were in the clear. It had really been rather brilliant of Lindsay to dress Claude in drag, because he was almost entirely unrecognizable. It was terribly strange every time he turned his head and a totally different person looked back at her.

Focus.

She repeated the spell in her head while they waited. She, Penny, and Minerva had to block overzealous fans more than once as they all moved ever so slowly forward. Besides being boring, the waiting only served to build the rising tension in her chest. They finally reached the front, all the luggage confiscated to be taken through the shrinking system before they stepped up to be scanned and searched. Ramona watched her backpack go with a feeling like homesickness. She felt naked without it.

The only magic now was that running through her veins.

A male security guard, a dwarf, waved them through a body scanner. It lit up green for Lindsay and Claude, then blue for Bear, Minerva, Ramona, and Penny. The latter four were directed through a separate security system. Ramona deduced the reason why immediately, before another guard explained it.

"Different process for anyone with a magic blood level higher than twelve percent. It's the law," he droned, as if repeating something he'd had to recite a thousand times before. Penny looked annoyed, probably because her blood level was somewhere between fourteen and seventeen percent, just shy of getting out of extra screening. Individually, they were each thoroughly patted down and walked through an X-ray machine. This wasn't Ramona's first rodeo in terms of illegally crossing kingdom borders, and she'd coated her whole body along with Bear's in peppermint oil ahead of time. They'd even covered up the smell with perfume and cologne respectively—Claude's idea. The only concern was whether it would work on Bear, as she'd never tested it on an animagus before. She'd never needed to hide the fact that he was one.

"No extra appendages, no extra appendages..." he murmured, eyes trained on his screen as they passed through. Ramona made quick note of how much the crowds in the airport had thickened. There was a terminal open now, right in her line of sight. It dinged, the electronic sign above it blinking with the words NORTHWEST TOWER VACATION DESTINATION: AMANDA KISSINGER, PARTY OF EIGHT. A woman pressed a button on the control pad, and a portal flared to life, spinning in real time. Ramona's breath hitched as the traveling party stepped through, vanishing into Tower Kingdom somewhere. Her eyes flicked to another terminal. RANDOMIZED ADVENTURE: ELIO TSUKUDA, PARTY OF ONE. A boy who couldn't be much older than eighteen or nineteen stepped through the portal to what would undoubtedly be his stupid demise.

"Right, clear."

He gestured for them to hold out their arms. A standing machine clasped electronic wristbands on them as they shuffled out past the end of the security rope. Ramona felt just for a moment like the air was being sucked out of her before whooshing back in. Magic suppressors. Couldn't risk an outbreak of chaos in an already shakily secured building. Ramona discreetly spun the ring on her left hand with her thumb, fingering the small pick hidden inside it. Simple enough problem to solve. All four thieves relaxed, at ease again.

That was when the beeping started.

He held up a hand. "Hold on."

And now Ramona's world was falling apart around her.

"I've got an alert from the blood magic scan. Can you all hand me your ID cards again?" Reluctantly they all obeyed. He checked them with more thorough examination this time. Minerva's, Penny's, Ramona's. He was ensuring their species identification was correct, she realized. "Okay, demon, human, fairy. That checks out." He handed them back, and Bear held out his card with trembling hands. The security guard furrowed his brows.

"What seems to be the problem, sir?" Penny asked, authority in her voice. There was no sign of the horror and dread that was consuming Ramona.

"Mr. Wagner, is it? Your ID doesn't match your scan. I've got 'giant' on your card, but this is telling me you're an animagus." He glanced up at Bear. "Care to explain?"

Bear clammed up immediately, his breaths shallowing. "Uh, I... um..."

It hadn't been enough. It hadn't been enough. She hadn't anticipated electronic species identification systems. She'd been anticipating an X-ray discovering excess tissue or bone, the telltale sign of a shapeshifter, or the skeleton of hidden wings. I should have given Hayden more details. He could have put 'animagus' on the ID. I shouldn't have rushed things. She'd ruined it, and now the whole plan was crumbling. Bear would be arrested and everything would go to complete hell.

Lindsay and Claude had come over, having also finished their security run. "Everything alright?" Claude said in that voice that wasn't really his, dressed as someone who wasn't really him. Ramona met his eyes with panic, trying to somehow convey to him in a glance that she needed his help. Claude was always the backup plan. She was scraped-together, half-baked ideas, and making things up as she went along. He would know what to do.

Unless he didn't.

Unless she was putting far too much trust in a handful of street thieves.

If she couldn't even trust herself to do things right...

She was already recalculating, considering new options. The terminal was right there. They could make a run for it. She'd be counting on security guards being so surprised at anyone actually trying to breach the rules that they'd be a little slow on the uptake. She hadn't missed the fact that this place was so overreliant on technology that it was understaffed and employees seemed to be better trained to operate machines than they were to guard anything. It was crazy, but maybe, just maybe—

Claude gripped her by the arm. Lindsay had begun to argue loudly with the airport employee. "You know the spell?" he whispered. It was his voice again. His real voice.

"Yeah," she breathed. She'd already broken out in a nervous sweat.

"Lindsay's making a scene. Minerva will take care of the guard. He's about to call backup. We're going to be through that randomization portal by the time they arrive. Look to your right."

Ramona's gaze slid right. The conveyor belt where shrunken luggage was emerging from the massive machine. Not large vehicles, those would be shrunk from outside, but suitcases, surfboards, backpacks, bikes. It took her a moment to find what he intended her to—there was a table beside it where normal-sized belongings sat, those that had been deemed a violation of security policy. Among the pile was a rolled magic carpet, squirming from underneath a briefcase in an attempt to wriggle its way out. Slowly she understood.

"We can grab the carpet and our stuff in one fell swoop. A speed spell from Penny and we're shooting for that portal before anyone can stop us. You think you're up for it?"

Ramona could have laughed or cried or maybe screamed. It was almost as ludicrous as stealing the queen's crown, as if he'd plucked it straight from her head and added a few haphazard safeguards.

"Spell yeah."

It all happened in fast succession, one thing after another. Lindsay's voice heightened to a shrill shout and the attendant lifted a walkie-talkie to his mouth. "I've got a false ID and a hostile person over at main security," he said, sounding as bored as ever. Ramona's magic suppressor fell off silently, her catching it before the guard noticed and carefully slipping the lockpick to Penny, who would have to in turn pass it on to Minerva once her own band was removed. The tiny screws dug into her fingertips. She checked the target portal again, a glance shot in its direction. The line was inching forward as traveling parties went through one by one. The security guard made a halfhearted effort to calm down Lindsay and Claude, who had joined her in berating him, insisting that Bear stay behind to have another scan done.

Minerva's band and its accompanying screws clattered to the floor, and the guard swiveled. "Hey! What are you doing?"

Before anyone could blink, she tore out the bangle fastened to her ponytail and removed a hairpin that grew into an amber-encrusted bow of onyx. Her fingers moved with practiced, swift precision, like a smooth steal from an easy mark. She drew a thin, wispy shadow seemingly out of thin air and whipped it across the bow to string it. She spun towards the guard and he hardly had the chance to pull out his taser before she'd struck him with an arrow that formed as she pulled back. He froze in place immediately, paralyzed. Ramona had already reached the conveyor belt by the time there came an uproar from onlookers who had realized what was going on. She located their miniature belongings quickly and swept them into her bodyguard costume's breast pocket before snatching up the magic carpet. The guard working the belt reacted far too slowly, her dodging his fruitless lunge forward and breaking into a run.

Sorry, she thought uselessly to whoever this actually belonged to. She tossed it in the air and it began to unroll as it went. The enchantment on the carpet had it preparing for flight fast, but Penny's reflexes were faster. She managed to catch the corner tassel before it escaped. Yanking it down, she muttered a spell Ramona had seen her use more than once—temporary enhanced speed.

They all piled onto the carpet as backup security guards arrived with tasers. Ramona smiled and offered a fluttery wave goodbye. No guns in Snow Kingdom. And thank the Writer for that. Penny jumped on, pulling Bear with her; Ramona made a running leap and grabbed ahold of Bear's hand, collapsing backwards; Claude yanked Lindsay by the wrist as they both clambered on; and finally Minerva lowered her bow, rushing to make the last desperate jump before the carpet sped away. Penny blew out a puff of air, and the carpet built speed.

The security guards were so in awe that they just stood and watched, everyone quickly diving out of the way as their stolen magic carpet careened toward the vacation portal. The flight attendant operating it had already pressed the button. It was open, and they were heading straight for whatever its destination was.

Ramona's eyes were wide. "Well, we just botched our plan and cheated our way out of it."

Penny shrugged, breathless as she clutched onto Bear to keep all of his weight on the carpet. "Sometimes to win you gotta cheat."

"What a waste of money on those stupid tickets," Claude said bitterly. Ramona kept her eyes on the portal, an endless vortex of gold. Gold like the magic that was swelling at her fingertips. This was the moment of truth. She had but a split second to perform the spell correctly or they would all end up stranded on the other side of the world.

She tried to catch her breath as the portal grew closer, everything around her falling away. There was only this moment and the incantation she had to whisper.

She felt someone squeeze her hand, a reassurance. She glanced over. Bloodred lip tint and pale blond hair. Minerva.

There was a blinding flash and an emptiness, as if they were being consumed whole by the light. Ramona muttered the spell over and over again, pushing every ounce of fear and desperation and adrenaline into the magic she was funneling from inside her. She kept repeating it, terrified that it wouldn't work, until she watched the landscape before her eyes completely change from a peaceful beach to a darkening forest. They were suspended between time and space, everywhere and nowhere at all, but the forest was in reach—she could see it. It looked even more vivid than she'd pictured in her head.

"Why are those portal places called airports, anyway?" Lindsay said out of the blue, and just as soon as her voice brought Ramona through her dreamlike state and into reality, all of them began to fall.

They were plummeting from impossible heights towards unforgiving ground. Everything blurred, and someone was screaming.

-ˋˏ✄┈┈┈┈

Hey guys! I'll be honest, this didn't quite follow my chapter outline, because I decided in the heat of writing the scene to change things up a bit in order to keep it interesting... I think it's fittingly chaotic considering the whole tone of this story, lol. Fall term is about to start and I'm praying I'll still have time to write as often as I have been over the summer. The plot is just starting to get juicy! Oh man... I have so much planned for this bad boy. This story is like my unruly satirical fantasy baby.

I feel like I've been delving a lot into Ramona's character in particular, and I hope you like her as much as I've grown to :D Stay tuned for the next chapter! It's... well, honestly, I don't even have words for it. I am having fun writing it, I'll give you that. That's my favorite thing about this book - I genuinely enjoy coming up with new plot points because it's just such a fun and over-the-top project for me as a longtime fairytale lover and someone with a sarcastic sense of humor. I hope that you guys are having just as much fun reading it, and I really hope that any other writers out there are also writing because they love it, regardless of whether it'll ever be validated. (That being said, if anyone has any tips on reaching a wider base of readers, feel free to give me some.)

Anyway, that's all my rambles for the day. Here's today's poll: what's your favorite classic novel? Personally, I like Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Animal Farm.