Chapter Text
just because I live in the woodlands, holly, doesn't mean I'm not one of your strays.
show you what all that howl is for
new york, new york, 1986
Throwing a masquerade ball at the height of a New York summer is a terrible fucking idea, but nobody ever listens to Snow. It's Bluebeard's idea and Bluebeard's money funding everything from designer cupcakes to free glamours for Fabletown's nonhuman residents, so it's not like Snow gets much of a say anyway.
Crane's all for it. He's too stupid--or too greedy, maybe--to realize that Bluebeard's making a bid for King Cole's position, and Snow feels like she's not under any obligation to tell him that, so she lets it go.
"Make sure you come in costume," Bluebeard says over his shoulder as Snow heads out to Toad's for some domestic disturbance call. He has his hands on his hips and a merciless interest in watching Buffkin hang up decorations exactly to his specifications. "The whole point of the masquerade is to forget who we are for a night."
Snow doesn't want to be anyone else. She likes who she is, for once. Her life isn't perfect, sure. Being the Sheriff of Fabletown isn't exactly an easy job, and she's been at it for something like three hundred years, ever since they tried to find the Big Bad Wolf and failed. She might feel like she's fighting a long, losing battle, most days, but at least she's fighting.
She doesn't want to even pretend to be someone who wouldn't fight, not even for an evening.
Though, she thinks later, looking down the blade of the Woodsman's axe, I wouldn't mind being taller. And heavier. It would certainly make this part of her job easier.
"Woody," she warns, shifting back on her heels. She'd pulled Winter out of her pocket on the way up the stairs, judging correctly by the crashing and expletives that she'd probably have to get violent. The girl Snow came to protect snarls something nasty. "Put the axe down."
"Or what?" Woody roars, his voice whiskey-sodden. "Or you an' this stupid bitch--"
Snow sighs, and before the Woodsman can react smacks him with the flat of her sword. She's fast and he's drunk; Woody rears up to strike back, but it's not much of a fight. Snow cuts his wrist, deep enough that he'll remember, and slams Woody in the chest with Winter's pommel.
Woody goes down with a wounded grunt, and Winter, sharp at his throat, keeps him on the floor.
"Feh," the girl--prostitute, by the look of her, short skirt and bruises rising on her cheeks and lips--spits, glaring at Woody. "You're lucky Snow White got here first. He's not gonna be happy to hear about what you've been up to, Woody."
"He?" Snow says, not taking her eyes off the Woodsman. She's tangled with Woody a few times over the years. Mostly he's harmless, just loud, but every o
nce and a while he goes on a bender that turns violent. He's a big fucking dude; Snow has beaten him every time, but she'd like to avoid a visit to Dr. Swineheart, if she can. No sense in going to a ball with stitches. "Who's this he?" The girl's pimp, maybe? Usually, Snow doesn't see much of this part of Fabletown. She's the Sheriff, which makes her popular in the Woodlands and unpopular everywhere else. Frankly, she's surprised Toad called her at all; the last time she was here, she told him she'd send him to the Farm if he didn't glamour up, and she meant it, too.
The Woodsman snarls, "You tell that fuckin' dog if he wants a piece, he can come here an' get it, you slut. I ain't scared of him. I'll just cut him open again, sew his belly full of stones--"
Snow pointedly pushes Winter against the Woodsman's pulse. The blade flashes blue in the shitty lighting. Woody gulps and shuts up.
"Who?" Snow says, giving the girl a hard look. She's pretty, Snow supposes, though she has the unmistakable look of a Fable who's lived too long and too hard in the mundane world. She looks more like a ghost than a girl.
The girl rolls her eyes. "Nobody you'd care about, Sheriff."
"I care about everybody," Snow says. And she does. She tries. It's just. Not very easy, when half of the community she swore to protect looks at her and sees another pretty princess living high up on her hill, way above the commoners.
The girl only smiles, a little crooked, and says, "Sorry. I'm just talking shit, Sheriff. I only wanted to scare Woody so he pays me what he owes me."
Woody spits. Snow tightens her grip on Winter. She doesn't need to be the Sheriff to know when somebody's bullshitting her. "I can't help if you won't let me, you know." She tries to think of who in the other half of Fabletown would come to a prostitute's rescue. Flycatcher, maybe, but he's just skin and bones. None of the trolls would lift a finger, Snow thinks, but what does she know? Maybe there is honor among drunks and thieves.
The thought is unkind, and it stings a bit, but Snow White has never gotten anywhere in her life by being kind.
"These lips are sealed," the girl says, flatly. "I don't need your help, Sheriff. Things like this tend to work themselves out."
Snow sighs. Any other night she'd push, but she's tired and it's hot and she has to get ready for Bluebeard's fucking ball. "If you don't want to press charges, you're free to go," she says to the girl. To Woody, she says, "And you're spending the night in lockup. I catch you hitting women again, I'll throw you down the Witching Well."
Woody looks like he might say something, but Winter is a very good incentive not to. Snow tries not to be a violent Sheriff, but sometimes violence is unavoidable. She's made sure that her reputation precedes her and that Winter is always sharp.
"Hey," Snow says at the girl's back, "I meant what I said. I want to help you. But I can't if you won't let me."
The girl turns a little, smiles. Snow should know her. She should know everybody in Fabletown. But she doesn't. "I'm not crying wolf just yet, Sheriff," she says. "But when I do, I promise you'll be the first to know. Well," she adds, looking down at Woody, "second. Because he's gonna come for you first, asshole, and I hope he tears you to fucking pieces."
---
"I need to use the Mirror," Snow says when she gets back to the Woodlands, brushing past the ridiculous velvet curtains that are currently dividing up the Business Office into Bluebeard's ballroom and Snow's actual place of employment. "Now."
She's been turning the prostitute's words over in her head since she left Toad's. He's gonna tear you to fucking pieces.
What had Woody said, the first time the girl threatened him? I'll just cut him open again, sew his belly full of stones.
Snow doesn't spend a lot of time in the Woodsman's company, but everyone in Fabletown knows that long ago in a land far, far away, the Big Bad Wolf tried to eat a little girl, and Woody saved the kid's life by sewing the Wolf's belly full of stones and sinking him to the bottom of a river.
Snow's never been clear on the details—if someone filled her stomach with stones, she certainly wouldn't be walking around, Fable healing be damned—but Woody's shouted that story so many times at her she's surprised it took her this long to put it together.
I'm not crying wolf just yet, the prostitute had said.
He can't be back, Snow thinks. It's been three hundred years.
Bluebeard and Crane both turn to look at her. Crane looks nervously at Bluebeard. Bluebeard frowns. "Why?" he says.
Snow would think that it's obvious, but Bluebeard likes to pretend that Snow's job is all sunshine and roses. Maybe she should take to wearing Winter at her hip instead of spelled as a pen in her pocket and see if he gets the hint.
"I need to look for someone," she says.
"Who?"
Snow sighs. "If it becomes relevant to your business, I'll tell you," she says. "Right now it's just a hunch." You're not Mayor yet.
Bluebeard frowns. "Ms. White," he says.
"Sheriff White," snaps Snow. "If I find anything, I'll let you know. But right now it's Sheriff's business only, not yours."
Bluebeard holds his hands up. "We'll leave you alone, then," he says graciously, and backs away. Crane, spineless fool that he is, goes with him, looking over his shoulder at Snow like he wants to say something but can't find the words.
"Buffkin," Snow says loudly, "you too."
There's more rustling, a swish of curtains, and then Snow's as alone as she ever is, surrounded on all sides by crushed velvet.
She sighs. Sometimes, she hates Fabletown's melodramatics. Mundies are narrow-minded and short-lived, but they have a very reasonable way of living.
"Mirror, Mirror, on the wall," she says. "I need you to find someone for me, and nothing fucking rhymes with the word 'wolf.'"
The Mirror considers. "That's fair," he says. "I assume you're looking for the Wolf?"
"Yes," Snow says.
Nobody has seen the Big Bad Wolf since they came over from the Homelands. Bluebeard thinks that the Adversary killed him. The Wolf guarded the portal between the Homelands and the mundane world for a long time, harrying the Adversary's forces whenever the mood struck him, but nobody remembers seeing him come through himself.
Snow's pretty sure he made it through. It's been three hundred years and she still remembers the Wolf's thick fur underneath her hands, his bright yellow eyes, the howling song he'd sung when he freed her from the Adversary and carried her across the Homelands on his back. The Adversary hadn't been able to touch the Wolf. His shadow soldiers had fled in terror. He must have made it through.
Crane and Cole think that the mundies got him, long ago. There aren't many places left in the world for a giant goddamn wolf to hide, not anymore. Maybe the Wolf could have made it here in America for a while, somewhere out West, but it's 1986. There's nowhere for him to hide.
It's a little depressing to think of some hunter with a deer rifle finally killing the Big Bad Wolf, but the mundane world is killing them all by slow inches anyway, so. Snow wouldn't be surprised, exactly.
The Mirror swirls emerald, solidifying into a dark wood. The trees are black, the leaves thick, and nothing moves in the reflected gloom.
It's the same thing the Mirror shows Snow every time she looks for the Wolf. His graveyard, Snow thinks. I'm looking at the Wolf's graveyard.
"I think," the Mirror says, his theatrical, absurd voice gentle, "that the Wolf is dead, Sheriff White."
Snow sighs. "I think you're right. Thanks for your help."
"Any time," the Mirror intones. "Have a good time at the ball, Sheriff."
"Unlikely," Snow mutters, and puts the Big Bad Wolf out of her mind.
---
Every few decades, somebody starts a rumor that the Wolf is coming. It's an old, familiar cry. Snow remembers hearing it from her father's castle, perched at the edge of the Black Forest. "The Wolf is coming, the Wolf is coming!"
Most of the time, the peasants in the villages around the castle saw a shaggy dog prowling through the woods, or maybe a wolf that was a little bigger than average. Snow doesn't think that the Big Bad Wolf ever actually came to her father's lands. Hunting in open field wasn't his style. But she remembers rushing to her window, searching the horizon eagerly, trying to catch a glimpse of the fabled monster.
The Wolf never came.
Some habits, Snow supposes, are hard to break. Like crying wolf and throwing big, stupid, opulent balls during the hottest month of the past fifty years. She tugs at her gown and huffs, reaching up to readjust her mask.
To fuck with Bluebeard, she's wearing all red. Red gown, red heels, red lips, a red fox mask studded with rubies. She feels like Rose, which is weird, but then Rose isn't going to show up tonight and Rose has spent her whole life stealing bits of Snow, so Snow feels like this is justified.
She hates balls, but if she's going to go, she's going to go all out.
Stop thinking about the Wolf, she scolds herself. The girl was just trying to scare Woody. This happens all the time.
In the twenties, Colin the Pig and his brothers swore the Wolf was running bootleg spelled liquor between the Farm and Fabletown. They'd caught him in the path, they'd said, and barely escaped with their lives. A full investigation later, it turned out that Eustace the Pig was the one making bootleg liquor and sending it down the road. The brothers had made the Wolf up to save their own skins.
Fables have a bad habit of bringing the past with them. Even though they all started over here, in this miserable, magicless world, even though they all promised to give each other clean slates, Fables remember. Trolls hate humans, dwarves hate elves, evil stepmothers hate sweet stepdaughters, yada yada. Heroes are still heroes—like Prince fucking Charming—and villains are still villains.
There is no bigger villain in Fabletown than the Big Bad Wolf.
He's dead, Snow tells herself. He's dead. He's dead.
"Wow," says Beauty, leaning on Snow's office door. "You're going all out."
Snow almost smiles. "So are you."
Beauty's gone with an old-style dress in deep, vibrant blue. Her mask is some kind of bird, wrought with emerald and sapphire feathers, diamonds glittering under the eyes.
"What," Beauty says, "this old thing?" But she's smiling, pleased, and pushes herself up off Snow's doorway.
"Where's Beast?"
Beauty sighs. "Sulking," she says. "He'll be around. Appearances, you know." She offers Snow her arm.
"Are you two on the outs again?" Snow takes Beauty's arm, and they head down the hall together towards the Business Office.
"You're so quaint, with all your mundy phrases."
"Beauty."
"Fine," Beauty grumbles. "Yes, we're fighting. Beast's not here yet because he's half-transformed in our bathroom. Once he gets himself under control he'll be here."
Snow knows better than to push, so she just squeezes Beauty's arm comfortingly, and steps inside the Business Office.
Almost all of Fabletown is crammed inside. There's a mask on every face and a glass of wine in every hand. Buffkin—well, a green-haired man in a monkey mask, so Buffkin in glamour—is handing out little carved spells and potions to a line of trolls and goblins and other non-humans. All of them ignore Snow and Beauty as they pass.
"Pricks," Beauty mutters, but Snow says nothing.
(She misses the little weight of Winter in her pocket.)
"Well," Beauty says, looking out at the swirling mass of dancing, drinking Fables, "shall we mingle?"
---
The rest of the night passes... oddly. Snow hates balls, and has since she divorced Charming—since she's left the Homelands, if she's being honest—but this one is alright, as far as balls go. It's hot in the Business Office, and strange. The crushed velvet curtains and cavernous space remind Snow of the Black Forest. Every mask, bird and fox and deer, monkey, lion, raven, reminds Snow of the long dark days she spent running from her stepmother, from her husband, from the dwarves, from the Adversary.
But she's not scared, not really. Snow White usually wears white, black, and blue. She never wears red, so her dress and her mask give her anonymity. Nobody knows she's the Sheriff.
She dances with a handsome man in a half-crow mask, accepts drinks from a lion, and makes small talk with a pair of solemn butterflies. When she's not socializing, she plays a guessing game with herself. Bluebeard is under a glossy black panther mask. King Cole has chosen, like an idiot, a blackbird. Beast shows up around midnight with a snarling boar mask and real horns on his head.
"Having fun?" a stranger shambles up to Snow, hands in his pockets. He's broad-shouldered, dressed in just a pair of black slacks and a white dress shirt, a tie hanging loose around his throat. He has reddish hair and a plain black mask, a dog of some kind with a long muzzle. His eyes, underneath it, are brown.
Snow, once she's looked him up and down, smiles. "Of a sort," she admits.
The stranger huffs what could be a laugh. "You haven't danced with anyone in a while, Sheriff."
Snow stiffens. "How do you know who I am?" she demands. She hasn't told anyone. Beauty knows, but Beauty's been with Beast since he showed up. She finds herself reaching for Winter, only to remember as she brushes her hip that her sword is currently a pen, and in her office.
The stranger holds up his hands. "Lucky guess," he says. He has a strange, growling voice, but it's warm. "I'm good with faces."
"I'm wearing a mask," Snow says, still wary. The stranger shrugs.
"Like I said. Lucky guess."
"Mm," says Snow. "You know who I am, but I don't know you."
The stranger taps his mask. "You have to guess too," he says. "Otherwise it's no fun. This is a masquerade, Sheriff White." His tone is playful, and Snow focuses herself to relax. She wishes she knew everyone in Fabletown, but she doesn't. Judging by the stranger's simple clothes and plain mask, he's one of the poorer Fables; it's likely, if he's kept his nose clean and stayed out of trouble, that he and Snow have never met.
"I suppose it is," she says. "What can I do for you, Sir Stranger?"
The stranger looks at her for a moment, brown eyes sharp and thoughtful. Then, he offers Snow his hand. "A dance?"
Snow sighs. "Of course," she says, and lets the stranger take her out on the floor. He's not a very good dancer. He's not clumsy, but it's obvious that he's never really done this before. Snow is an excellent dancer, though, and after a turn or two around the floor her strange partner picks up the basics, and their next dance is smoother.
"Are you going to tell me your name now?" Snow asks, a little playful now, after their third dance. This stranger feels—familiar. Maybe he's someone she knew in the Homelands. Some peasant boy she danced with on a harvest festival, or some hedge knight she offered her favor to for a joust. "I feel like I know you. Did you live on my father's lands?"
The stranger laughs behind his mask. "No," he says. "You wouldn't know me, Sheriff. I think that spindly little man over there wants to cut in." He turns them both around so that Snow can see Crane. She holds onto her stranger a little tighter.
"I'd rather keep dancing with you," she says. "If you don't mind?"
She gets the feeling that she's pleased her stranger. He doesn't let her go, and says, "Sure."
Snow and the stranger dance for another three songs, around and around, and then Snow is finally pried from his arms by Bluebeard, who pulls her off to the edge of the crowd. It's nearly three in the morning. Flushed, Snow yanks her arm out of Bluebeard's grip and glares.
"I was in the middle of something," she growls.
"I don't really care," Bluebeard says, flatly. "You can go back to dancing with your dog later."
Snow huffs, and turns back towards the crowd. Her stranger is gone, lost in the swirl of bodies. "What's so important that you had to interrupt me?" she hisses.
She can't see Bluebeard's eyes underneath his mask, and she doesn't like it.
"You've got work, Sheriff," he says. "There's been a murder."
---
They get the prostitute's head inside without anybody seeing. Snow places it, very gently, on her desk. Guilt is already tearing through her. Snow was at a party dancing with strangers while this girl was getting murdered, while her severed head was laid on the Woodlands' doorstep.
I'm supposed to protect them, Snow thinks, and she doesn't even know the girl's name. Where she lives or who she works for, who could have possibly killed her.
"Well?" King Cole rumbles, looking down at the head. "Who did this?"
"I don't know yet," Snow says heavily. "I don't recognize her—she's not from anywhere I know in the Homelands. Was she one of yours?"
"No," King Cole says. "Find out who she is."
"I can't. There's a fucking ball in the Business Office."
"Ms. White!"
"Sheriff," Snow growls.
"Sheriff," King Cole says, putting on his jovial face. It's a bit strained, and his cheeks sag a little. The mundane world is even hard on kings. "Please. Bluebeard is clearing out the partygoers. You'll have access to the library in less than an hour. Until then, is there anything you can tell me? Anything you might know about this poor girl?"
"She's... a prostitute," Snow says, turning over the last twenty-four hours in her head. "She was—I met her earlier tonight, at Toad's place. The Woodsman was beating on her."
"The Woodsman?"
Snow nods. "You know, the one from Little Red Riding Hood?"
"Yes," King Cole says. "He's an unsavory fellow, isn't he? Some kind of drunk or addict?"
Some kind of something. "Yeah," Snow admits. "I was forced to get... violent with him, earlier today. He was going after the girl like he was going to kill her."
"Well, there you have it," King Cole says. "The Woodsman killed her. That axe of his is dwarven, isn't it? I offered to buy it off of him some years ago. Sharp enough to do... this." He gestures at the head. "He was angry with this girl, and angry with you for stopping him earlier. He drinks a bit too much, goes out and finds the girl, kills her, and brings her... head... here."
A straightforward explanation, and probably even the correct one. Woody's been getting worse for centuries. But something stops Snow from agreeing.
"Maybe," she allows. "But this is... a little showy, for Woody. He's not usually so dramatic."
"Please," says King Cole dryly, "he cut the Big Bad Wolf's belly open and filled it with stones when he could have just cut the damn beast's throat. He's plenty dramatic."
Well, he's not wrong. "I'll look into it," she promises. "But I want to find out who this girl is first."
King Cole sighs, and waves his hand. "You know what you're doing, I'm sure. Just keep this quiet, alright? The girl is only a prostitute. There shouldn't be too big a fuss, but this is not what Fabletown needs right now."
Snow bristles. She's a Fable too, she wants to shout. She matters as much as you or me or anybody here in the Woodlands. But she doesn't know the girl's name; she can't say anything. Guilt stabs at her belly.
"I'll take care of it," she says briskly, and King Cole leaves her alone with the head. "I'll find who did this," she tells the girl. "I will."
The girl looks up at her with blank, empty eyes. Something is hanging out of the corner of her mouth.
Please, Snow thinks, reaching for it, please don't be your tongue.
When she grabs hold of the edge of a ribbon, she frowns.
---
Two hundred years ago, when Buffkin was hired to be Fabletown's official historian and librarian, Snow had the good sense to treat him like an actual coworker and not a little green servant, so she's only in the library for fifteen minutes before she has a name and a place to go.
Faith, she thinks to herself, wrapping her hand around Winter in her pocket. Her name was Faith.
She goes to Toad's first, and finds out that all of his shit's been wrecked. Somebody's trying to hide something. One of the Tweedles. She has no idea how they're involved—Woody's too fucking poor to afford them.
But if the Tweedles are involved in this mess somehow, that means that Woody probably didn't kill Faith. Somebody else did. Snow's money is on Faith's pimp. Prostitute steps out of line, prostitute gets murdered, it's an old story, almost as old as Snow's own. Her blood burns.
She heads for Prince Lawrence's next, and finds him almost dead in his living room. Then, as she's heading out to find the Woodsman—he might know Faith's pimp, and she will get a name out of him—one of the Tweedle brothers jumps her, and Snow gets to carve him up a little bit before the other brother pops out of nowhere and whacks Snow on the head.
By the time she wakes up and manages to drag herself to a little shithole bar—the Trip Trap, which Snow's never even heard of until today, when the Mirror spat it out—it's been almost twenty-four hours since Snow first responded to Toad's domestic disturbance call.
She's exhausted.
So exhausted, in fact, that she's nearly knocked over when a man comes storming out of the Trip Trap, his shoulder clipping hers with such force she's thrown back into the wall.
"Hey!" she shouts at his retreating back. "Watch where you're going!"
The man doesn't even turn around. He's grimy, his shirt discolored by rusty stains, and smoking some godawful cigarettes that Snow can smell even as he rounds the corner and disappears.
On another night, she'd go after him, but tonight she has a Woodsman to question. She straightens her clothes, rubs the pain out of her shoulder, and takes a deep breath. This is very much not her part of Fabletown, and she's not likely to be welcomed here.
She opens the door, and steps inside.
The Trip Trap is a fucking shitshow. There's blood and broken furniture everywhere; the pool table is overturned, balls scattered. One of the cues is broken, half of it embedded in the wall. Picture frames have fallen down and shattered. A barstool is in ruins, as are several tumblers. The whole bar reeks of spilled whiskey and shed blood.
At the bar, a bright orange troll is cursing up a storm, a wad of bills in her fist, while a one-eyed man in a red coat slouches in what looks like the only unbroken stool in the whole place.
"'s the last time I let that mangy asshole in here," the troll is ranting, shaking her fist. "Stupid, bite-happy motherfucker, comin' in here like he owns the place, smashin' up shit, tearin' into my customers. Who does he fuckin' think he is?"
"Take it easy, Holly," the slouching man soothes. "Bee's good for whatever money ya need. He'll make sure ya get this place fixed back up."
"I don't care about the fuckin' money!" Holly shouts. "I care about my fuckin' customer that he ripped up!"
"From what Bee said, Woody had it comin'," the slouching man says darkly. "What if he hurt Lily too? Once a man starts hittin' women—"
"Excuse me," Snow says, as authoritatively as she can manage, "What happened here?"
The troll and the man both turn to she her.
"S-sheriff White," Holly says. She looks at Snow, then at the money in her fist, and promptly shoves the money underneath the bar. "Nice of you to show up," she sneers, "but as you can see, you're already a bit too late. He's been here an' wrecked all my stuff already."
"Who's been here? The Woodsman?"
"No, not the Woodsman, the fucking—"
"Actually, Sheriff," the man cuts in, tone sharp, "I don't see how that's any of your business, seein' as how you've never given a shit about what goes on 'round here before."
Snow eyes him, cool. "And who are you?"
The man smiles at her, nasty-like. "Don't think that's any of your business neither."
"Gren," Holly warns. "There's a time an' a place. This ain't one of 'em. What do you want, Sheriff?"
"The Woodsman," Snow says. "And this Bee person. I'm guessing he's the one who tore up your bar?"
Gren and Holly trade glances.
"Look," Snow says, heavily. "I know that you don't—that you don't trust me, or even really know me."
"Course we know you," Gren sneers. "Pretty Sheriff Snow fuckin' White, Queen of Fabletown. We know who you are."
Snow's hackles go up. "I'm not anybody's queen," she says.
"You sure act like it, hangin' around them pricks at the Woodlands," Gren hisses. "Doin' their dirty work, makin' sure they don't want for nothin', leavin' the rest of us here in the dirt. Where're you when we need ya, huh?"
"I'm—I try and help all of Fabletown's residents," Snow says, defensive. She reaches for Winter on instinct. "Everyone, no matter who they are or where they live."
"Bullshit," Gren spits.
"Gren," Holly says sharply, "knock it off!"
"You're so fuckin' full of it," Gren presses on, seething. "You don't do shit for us! Where were you when Faith was gettin' her head chopped off? Where were you when Holly's sister went missin'? You don't help us! We take care of our own down here."
"Like this Bee person took care of Woody?" There's blood all over the place; whatever happened here, to Woody, was bad. "Is Woody even still alive?"
"Yes," Holly cuts in, before Gren can. "Yeah, Woody's alive, he's in the bathroom, okay, Gren, just shut up."
"What are ya gonna do, Sheriff? Ya gonna drag Woody off to the Woodlands an' throw him down the Witching Well? Get rid of more riffraff instead of findin' the sick rich fuck who hurt Faith?" Gren growls. His voice has dropped, and green light is shimmering around him.
His glamour's coming off.
Fuck, Snow thinks, and draws Winter. The sight of her sword, if anything, only enrages Gren further.
"Let's go, Princess!" he roars, and abandons his glamour entirely.
Ah, Snow thinks, wincing, Gren is short for Grendel.
She's about to go for his throat—a quick end to what could be a very nasty fight—when Holly launches herself across the bar and bowls into Gren, knocking him over.
"Are you fucking stupid?" she shrieks, in the way that only trolls can. "He'll kill you if you touch a hair on her head. You think I want that kinda shit happenin' in my bar?"
"He wouldn't," Gren growls. He has many long, sharp teeth, and Snow tightens her grip on Winter, filing away this exchange. "Bee's the only one tough enough to do it, and we're buddies."
"So?" Holly hisses. "Bee does what he's told, 's far as he goes. If you fuck with the Sheriff—"
Gren relaxes a fraction, glaring at Snow. "I just wanna teach her a lesson," he says.
"Trust me," growls Snow, "you're the one who'd be learning a lesson, not me." Winter's edge gleams.
"There's enough blood in the bar already," Holly says, letting Gren up. Gren shakes himself, glaring.
"Fine," he spits. "But you better hope I don't catch ya outside of here, Princess."
Snow rolls her eyes and lowers Winter. "We'll see," she says.
"Look," says Holly, "Woody's in the bathroom, okay? Woody! Get your bitch ass out here!" To Snow, she says, "Just take him and get out, alright? Before I change my fuckin' mind and let Gren have ya."
"Thank you for your cooperation," Snow says coolly, and carefully turns towards the bathroom.
There's a muffled groan, and then the door is pushed open and the Woodsman stumbles out. Well, most of the Woodsman. His right arm has been torn away at the shoulder, and his whole right side is red with blood. There are deep gouges in his face, too, five of them, like some great beast tried its level best to peel Woody's face away.
Snow's blood runs cold.
"Bee," she whispers. "Oh my god. The Big Bad Wolf."
"Aw, fuck me," one of the Tweedle brothers says behind her, "this ain't what I needed today."