I woke up in a frigid, damp place with very little light for me to see my surroundings. My muscles hurt, and it took me a little while before I even attempted to move. A light flickered on, and an enormous wolf stood in a rocky entryway. Its grey fur was tinged in lavender, and I backed to the cave wall, glancing around for anything I could use to defend myself.

The wolf trotted over and stared at the rock in my hand. "That's only going to annoy me. You can try it if it makes you feel better, but it won't go how you hope."

"You talk?"

Her golden eyes rolled back. "Trust me, it's weirder for me to have my food talk to me. I tried being a vegetarian because of it once, but I became malnourished, so a protein source becomes a necessary evil for an amorak. We're carnivores at heart."

I stood slowly to not startle her into charging me. "I have no plans to be anyone's meal."

"That works out for me then, because I have no plans to eat you."

"You called me food."

She waved her paw and let out a giggle. "You're right, and my father totally expects me to fry you up for dinner. But he has rabbits stored that will feed him and my twenty-seven siblings just fine. No need to eat an elf girl."

"You're going to let me leave then?" I edged toward an opening to my left. The slimy walls touching my palms made me cringe.

"I will. On one condition."

"Name it."

"You help me."

"Done," I said.

She narrowed her eyes and closed one tighter than the other. "You haven't heard the details yet. Here, I thought you'd have more brains."

"Me giving you what you want is a lack of intelligence?"

"Giving me what I want without knowing what I want is foolish." Her eyes moved to the opening I inched to. "Don't try to escape. I'm much faster than you. Is that why you agreed? To distract me? That isn't very nice. Perhaps I should serve you up for supper."

I stopped my progress. "You're right. That was rude of me to not hear you out. Fierce predator or not, you deserve a chance. Tell me what you want, and I'll listen with full attention."

Her cream snout pointed at a rock a few feet from me. "Sit, so I don't have to be insulted again by your anxious legs."

I did as she asked and leaned my back against the wall to conserve energy. "I'm sorry to insult you. It's just that I'm highly against being a meal."

"You shouldn't have come into our territory then, Zinnia."

"How do you know my name?"

She reached behind her and tossed my leather satchel at me. "I went through your bag and found your journal. You're the one who saved the magic lands last year."

"Yes, that's me. I was given the opportunity and did what any soul would do."

"Probably not. I wouldn't have, but that's not something I really care about. It's not that you're a hero that made who you are striking to me." She leaped across a small hole and came within a few feet of me. "It's the questing experience you have to have by now. I want to take advantage of your ability to survive difficult things."

"You have a quest to complete?"

She brought my bag next to me and towered over me, several times larger than a typical wolf. "Yes, I have an issue." She closed her eyes and looked away. "There's a reason they force me to cook meals and kill the prey they bring. They first realize it bothers me and see it as a fitting punishment."

"Punishment for what?"

She bared her teeth, revealing gaps where her fangs should be. "My fangs never came in, and my kind says I can't be a loyal pack member without fangs to protect them with."

"My best friend had this very problem."

"Your best friend was missing teeth that caused them to be rejected by everyone they care about?"

"No, that's not it, but it's a similar situation." I stroked my chin. "He's a dwarf with no beard. You know what they say about beardless dwarves?"

She blinked and finally shook her head. "No, I don't get out much, which is the main reason I need your help."

"They say a dwarf's courage is found in their beard. He discovered through our adventures that he was perfectly fine at bravery and never grew even a stubble of facial hair."

She plopped on her bottom and lowered her eyes to the grimy ground. "This is different. People don't only say things, but they ostracize me and make me do things they don't anyone else, and I want to fit in. That's why I need your help, because you know all about questing. I need to go on a quest, but I'm never allowed to leave here because of having no fangs. My father thinks my other teeth are useless, and I'll be a liability. My name is Lotus, by the way. It's only fair that if I'm going to know who you are, you know who I am."

"It's nice to meet you, Lotus. Where exactly are you wanting to go?"

"I need to go to Orkbury to the southeast. There's a magic dentist there who can help give me fangs that will pass all the tests my people would place on them and would last all my life. You're a quester, so you can take me and help me navigate the dangers of the world. That's what I want you to help me with."

I studied the ground and dread gripped my heart that either way I wouldn't be meeting the goal I so desperately needed to accomplish. "I would love to help you, but I have an urgent mission of my own. One that is needed to save my mother. She is very ill, and I have to find three ingredients to cure her and three items for payment. If I delay too much, she will die."

A low growl rumbled from Lotus. "I could just eat you. What do I care what happens to prey's mother?" She growled again, and her shoulders drooped. "Okay. We will gather the things for your mother, so we have them ready, but you must take me to the dentist and bring me home. If you do that, I will let you go without any trouble."

I undid my bag and pulled out my map, spreading it out on the rock in front of me. "I needed the honeysuckle on the top of this mountain and had gotten it before I was dragged into this den."

"That one will be easy. There are inside tunnels that not much of my pack uses. What else?"

"We need crow's thorn on the other side of the dragon lands and siren sand from Juniper Cove. For payment, I need a golden hen from Beanstalk Fields in Giant Country, Five golden pieces from the Leprechaun Rainbow Cities, and an arrow from the first cupid's bow in the Olympian Museum."

"Those are dangerous places. I'm not sure I want to go to all those places."

I folded the map back up and tucked it in my bag. "You said you never get to go anywhere. This could be your grand adventure."

"I would have you drop me off at the dentist and let you quest while I got work done, but who knows how long it will take you or if you'd return for me. Which one is closest to Orkbury?"

"That's the Olympian museum. That's why I said it last, because I figured it would be the final thing we grabbed. This can't take long. My mother has two weeks left to live. After that, the entity keeping her ill will have no more patience."

"Then we better get a move on. Climb onto my back and cover yourself with the blanket in your bag."

I followed her instructions, and she carried me through the darkness. At times, the path became steep, but I held onto her fur while trying not to pull. Lotus didn't complain, so it made me think I succeeded. She tore the blanket off me at the same time light and cold air slammed into my senses. I put on my wool hat that was a present from Oscar last spring. He'd knitted it in his magic art class, and the yarn prevented frostbite to the tips of my misshapen half-elven ears. It rested a little lopsided, so that my left ear lobe always took the brunt of the icy temperatures, but I wore it just the same.

She lowered her front paws and let me climb off her back. "I'm too big to balance on rope. You'll have to continue. Don't die on the bridge. It'll make me grumpy that I wasted dinner for nothing."

"Noted."

A frigid tundra spanned in all directions except the cave behind us and the rope bridge in front of us. Snow whipped around as chills pecked my cheeks. On the other side of the blast stood a magical fairy haven where only the pure of heart could take a single thing. I'd already taken my one thing and doubted Gemly, the whisper fairy, would allow me a second go, but there was no choice but to try. The honeysuckle I needed only resided in the amorak mountains.

Frost covered the thick rope that ran from the cliff I stood on to the out-of-sight haven. Two more ropes ran on either side to act as the only safety net to prevent plummeting to jagged rocks at the bottom of an enormous canyon. I put on my gripper gloves that I'd used the first time but gave the ones from Oscar a pat. They matched the hat, but the pinkies were extra long, almost two times the needed size, while the thumbs were too short. It hindered gripping significantly, so I wore them when keeping warm was the only objective.

I hoisted myself onto the rope and took one step and then another. Each time my feet slipped, I dangled above my doom, saved only by the magic gloves I'd bought in the wizard lands the last time I'd visited Oscar. I arrived at the grassy warmth of the whisper fairies, only to be met by gnashing blue fangs.

"Greedy, elf girl! We told you one thing!" The first, Lorna, buzzed around my head like an infuriated bumblebee after eating zip powder. Her sparkling transparent wings beat on her leafy back, and her twig hair wobbled in all directions from her fury. Her needle ears spun in circles around her, and her lavender skin glistened with strong emotion as it neared a glow.

The one next to her, Gemly, looked much calmer with her wavy ivy locks bobbing gently as she drifted in the air. "It would not have let her in if she were greedy, now would it have? She is still pure of heart."

The first shoved a dandelion in my face. "She didn't follow the rules! We should give her a good toss to die."

"That's pretty hasty, Lorna."

"A shove into the pond, then! Let her get icy as soon as she leaves here!"

The second fairy sighed. "Zinnia, can you tell us why you have disobeyed the rules and are here for a second attempt?"

I pointed behind me. "An Amorak stopped me, and my honeysuckle was lost. If it wasn't for my sick mother, I would have followed the rules, but I have to risk your anger to save her."

Gemly nodded and zoomed to the honeysuckle. "That is a reasonable request."

Lorna blocked her path. "This is ridiculous! Duty demands fairness."

"What would be unfair is to let her mother die because you love rules to a fault. Now move before I enact my authority and freeze you for five hundred years."

Lorna crossed her arms and stuck her green tongue out at me. "Fine!" She threw herself into a daisy and shut its petals around her.

Gemly handed me the honeysuckle. "Be more careful this time."

"It won't leave my bag now. I'd taken it out to access something else when the amorak caught me off guard, but it'll stay by itself in an inner pocket."

"Wiser choice. Good fortune on your quest." She curtsied in the air and waved, signaling my need to leave.

My legs grew tired as I neared the end of the bridge. My feet slipped, and I gripped the ropes hard. My right hand loosened, and my body flung out over the canyon. My attempts to swing to the safe rocky ground failed, and my left hand slipped.

Teeth grabbed me by the collar and set me on solid ground. "I told you not to die!" Lotus snarled.

"Accomplished that."

"With my help."

"You didn't say how I had to accomplish it," I said.

"Get on my back. We have many more places to hurry to." Lotus demanded I cover with the blanket again and carried me toward the bottom of the mountain differently than I had taken the first time.

Our forced alliance would hopefully help us both.