“Ah,” the beaver grinned. “That’s where pretty lady needs tour guide.”
Out of his pocket, Ajubaju drew a white, five-pointed star the size of a sand dollar. Sophie instantly recognized it as the same kind of star that Merlin had once laid in honor at King Arthur’s tomb.
“Hey, how’d you get that . . . ,” she said as the beaver pressed the star against the wall—
But the star was already glowing, as if burning from within. Little by little, the outline of a door whittled into the stone around the star. The beaver pressed hard and a door creaked open where there’d been no door before, just wide enough to let someone through.
“Lady of Lake must have let your friend inside,” the beaver said. “We can go inside too, if you like. Maybe your friend still there.”
Agatha was hardly listening. She was staring off towards the stairs. Horse . . . apples . . . no body . . .
Is Chaddick still alive?
But the Quest Map said he was dead . . . and so did the Storian’s painting. . . .
Had there been a mistake?
Eyes wide, she glanced back at the newly opened door into the tower.
Is the beaver right?
Is Chaddick inside?
“Agatha?”
She looked up and saw her crew watching her.
“Come on. We have to trace his steps,” she said quickly, waving them in.
One by one, the crew followed the beaver into the towers.
Agatha hurried in last, cramming through the stone door—
She stopped short.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a drop of blood in the snow behind her, near one of the beaver’s webbed pawprints. Sliding out the door, she dug her clump into the soft whiteness and swept off the top layer.
Crimson soaked the path below.
As she watched the others move into the tower, Agatha followed the trail, chipping away snow with her clump and uncovering a streak of red down the stairs.
There was so much blood.
Chest pounding, she descended the stairs. . . .
“What happened to ‘stay with the group’?” Sophie snapped, bumping next to her.
Then Sophie saw the blood.
“Go with the others,” Agatha said tensely.
But Sophie ignored her, rushing down the icy steps and slipping hard—
Agatha seized her arm before she could fall. Sophie gave her a sheepish glance, then charged ahead. Agatha held on, stumbling after her. Like it or not, this was a team effort now.
Coming down the jagged staircase, Agatha could see the mist of their twin breaths. Avalon was dead quiet, save the few pigeons on the staircase banister and the ripples of water below. Beneath the drab skies and white towers, the only flashes of color were the shiny green apples growing off rocks and the trail of blood down the snow-slicked stairs. Together, the two girls followed the stream of red, step by step, until they reached the bottom.
“The Storian painted him right here,” Agatha said, rushing to the water’s edge. She cleared away the mound of fresh snow on the shore—
“Sophie . . . ,” she whispered.
The outline of a boy was framed in blood next to the lake.
Only there was no boy.
“He was here,” said Agatha. “He was definitely here—”
“He still is.”
Agatha looked up and saw Sophie was a sick shade of white. Sophie raised her finger, pointing behind Agatha.
Agatha turned.
Deep in the corner against the staircase wall, Chaddick sat in the shadows. He had his knees to his bare, broad chest, his back flat against the stone, his eyes wide open.
He was holding something between his hands.
“Chaddick?” Agatha gasped.
She rushed forward, diving into the snow and grabbing him—
He was stone cold.
His skin looked waxy and colorless, the gash in his flank turned rusty-brown. He gazed right at them, his pupils big and glassy.
“He’s dead, isn’t he?” Sophie said softly.
Agatha’s heart caved in. Of course he was dead. The Storian was right. . . . The Storian was always right. . . .
Except—
“How did his body move?” Agatha asked. “He died over there. The Storian said so. Someone must have moved him . . . after he was dead. . . .”
“But why?” Sophie asked. “It doesn’t make any sense—”
Then Agatha saw what Chaddick was holding.
A folded piece of parchment.
She pried it out of his stiff fingers and held it to the light. Someone had drawn on it.
“It’s the Camelot seal,” said Agatha. “But around the sword . . . now there’s . . .”
“The Snake knows we’re looking for him,” Sophie said, ashen.
Fingers quivering, Agatha turned the page over.
It was one of the beaver’s maps of Avalon, streaked with Chaddick’s blood, fingerprints smeared through it.
Only as they looked closer, they saw they weren’t fingerprints.
They were pawprints.
Pawprints that looked a lot like the ones belonging to a beaver they’d just left with their friends.
The two girls locked eyes, faces dawning with horror. . . .
Then they heard someone scream.
12
SOPHIE
First Loyalty
“Sophie, hurry!” Agatha called, far up the steps in front of her.
“It’s these blasted shoes!” Sophie moaned, slipping on stairs like a cow on ice.
“Who told you to wear heels!”
More screams rang out from inside the tower.
“Sounds like Nicola!” cried Agatha, speeding up.
Sophie frowned, slowing down. “Well, in that case—”
“Move, you fool!” Agatha berated.
Sophie scurried after her, resorting to crawling on her hands and knees, wondering how she was huffing like a hog while Agatha, who ate every cookie in a 50-mile radius, was sprinting up the stairs with ease. But soon she reached the top and was hustling behind her friend towards the stone door, still open a sliver. Both girls threw their weight against it, barely shoving it ajar, before Sophie’s heels lost traction in the snow and she face-planted with a shriek. By the time she staggered up, Agatha was already inside. Sophie squeezed through behind her—
It was pitch dark.
“Aggie?” Sophie wisped.
“My fingerglow won’t light,” Agatha said nearby.
“Magic doesn’t work here, remember? Raccoon rock or whatever he called it. Doesn’t allow magic inside its bounds. Aggie, I can’t see anything. Where are y—”
A cold hand seized her wrist.
“Listen,” Agatha’s voice said.
Then Sophie heard it.
A hissing sound somewhere far away. Or was it buzzing? Like a set of pipes leaking air . . .
Another scream echoed. This time a boy’s.
“Come on,” Agatha said, yanking Sophie down the tunnel.
“I hate it when you treat me like your sidekick,” Sophie said, stumbling behind. “I’m a Dean and you’re not even queen yet. If anyone’s a sidekick here, it’s—”
They slammed into a wall and careened to the ground.
In her haze of pain, Sophie thought they were back at school, foiled by the invisible barrier on Halfway Bridge that had set their original fairy tale into motion. But as the pain wore off, she could feel Agatha lumber up next to her, hands on the wall.
Sophie heard that strange hissing behind it, along with muffled voices—
“They’re inside! I hear them!” she said.
She thrust her ear to the stone, trying to hear more, and felt it creak under her weight.
“It’s another door,” said Sophie, surprised.
“But there’s no handle,” said Agatha. “On the count of three, push as hard as you can. One . . . two . . .”
“On three or after three?”
“Af
ter three, you dolt.”
“So on four, really.”
“NO! After three!”
“Let me count, then,” said Sophie.
“Hurry, you idiot!”
“One . . . two . . . three!”
They shoved the door as hard as they could and plunged through into a blitz of daylight—
“Watch out!” Hort’s voice cried.
Toppling forward, Sophie snagged Agatha by the waist, trapping her in place. The two girls froze like mannequins, muscles clenched, breaths held.
Their bodies were an inch from being impaled on a bloodstained sword, planted handle-first into the dirt of a stone cave that opened into gray skies and a view of Avalon’s coastline below.
The sword had Camelot’s seal on the hilt.
Chaddick’s sword.
Curled around it were two king cobras, hissing with forked tongues, mimicking the warped Camelot seal they’d seen on the map in Chaddick’s dead hands. Behind the sword were dozens of treasure chests, hanging open and empty, with black velvet lining inside and the same snake-and-sword emblem carved on the outside. But that wasn’t the most ominous sight. Because as Sophie peered closer, she saw now that the chests weren’t empty at all. . . .
The black velvet was moving.
Snakes.
Hundreds of them.
Thin black ribbons, slowly slithering out of the chests and slipping into the sand.
“Don’t move,” said Nicola’s voice above her.
Slowly Sophie’s eyes lifted and saw the crew clinging to icicles on the ceiling of the cave.
“They’re asps. They only see motion,” warned Nicola, hanging on the same icicle as Hort. “I read about them in The Brahman and the Jackal—”
“No one cares,” Sophie retorted. “All we care about is are they deadly?”
“Why do you think we’re up here, you oaf!” Hort lashed. “Beaver trapped us while you two were off kissing somewhere!”
Sophie’s eyes bulged—not just because Hort had never been so rude, but because even if the asps hadn’t spotted her and Agatha, the cobras had. The two bigger snakes flicked off the sword, coiled in the dirt, and slithered towards the two girls.
“Aggie . . . ,” Sophie hissed, watching their hoods spread with fiery red-and-orange patterns. She and Agatha stepped back, but the cobras accelerated, fangs gleaming.
“Agatha . . .”
The two snakes split paths, each heading for a different girl, faster, faster, like eels gliding through sea.
“Agatha!”
The cobras launched for their throats, jaws wide—
Agatha threw Sophie out the door and heaved it closed, hearing the cobras’ bodies smack against stone.
Sweating hard, Agatha shouted through a slit in the door, “Where’s the beaver?”
“Escaped, the sleazy trash-ball,” Hester spat back. “Managed to get him by the neck with my legs for a second. Long enough to squeeze him into confessing that he got paid to kill us. Someone in a green mask. Didn’t have the faintest clue who the guy was. Said they all get paid for the attacks.”
“Who’s ‘they’?” Sophie asked.
“Everyone who’s been attacking our friends’ quests and terrorizing the kingdoms! Snake’s behind all of it!” said Hester, still in disbelief. “Snake recruited this army of goons to throw the Woods into chaos. Forget that we spent three years trying to keep the balance between Good and Evil. Apparently there’s a whole lot of creeps out there who don’t have any loyalty to either side if you pay them enough. You thought Aric was bad? At least he had a cause. This lot can be bought—”
The echo of hoofbeats cut her off. Inside the cave, the crew turned, looking out the opening. From outside the door, Sophie could see through the cave opening too, down to the faint outline of a beaver astride a gray horse galloping along the coast and out of view.
“Guess that answers the question of who’s been feeding the horse,” said Dot.
“I’m losing grip!” Anadil yelped.
Hester swiveled to her best friend slipping off a melting icicle, her three rats hanging by each other’s tails. Hester spun to Dot. “Turn it to chocolate—something she can hold—”
“First, it’ll melt, and second, magic doesn’t work here!” Dot railed.
“I’m gonna fall!” Anadil gasped.
Without thinking, Agatha pulled at the door, about to rush in, but Sophie yanked her back. “You’ll get killed!”
Agatha kicked the wall in frustration. “In storybooks, what kills snakes?”
“Handsome princes with swords?” said Sophie.
“WHAT KILLS SNAKES,” Agatha shouted into the cave.
“Lions!” Dot replied. “That’s what The Lion and the Snake said!”
“No lions here,” clipped Bogden, wrapped around Willam’s icicle.
“What about cats!” said Agatha. “Reaper hates snakes!”
“No cats,” said Bogden.
“Demons!” said Hort. “In Bloodbrook, that’s how we get rid of—”
“Magic doesn’t work,” said Bogden, nodding at Hester’s dormant tattoo.
“Instead of telling us what doesn’t work, why don’t you tell us what does!” Sophie yelled through the door.
“Look, any moron knows only one thing kills snakes in fairy tales!” Nicola exploded, as if she couldn’t take it anymore.
All eyes shifted to her.
“Well?” Sophie bellowed.
“MONGOOSES, for God’s sake,” Nicola blared. “It’s always the mongoose that kills a snake at the end of the tale! Haven’t you heard of ‘Rikki-Tikki–Tavi’ or Indira and the Mongoose or The Tales of Panchatantra? Don’t any of you know anything besides Snow White and Rapunzel and stories about creamy fair princesses?”
“No mongoose,” Bogden quipped.
“Wait! Yes, mongoose!” Agatha said, spinning to Sophie. “Where is he!”
“On the boat, obviously. He’s steam-cleaning my boudoir. After the storm, it smelt of fish,” Sophie said.
The whole crew groaned.
“So we have no weapons, no mongoose, and no plan. What do we have?” said Agatha.
“Hello, little chickadees!” a singsong voice called.
Jolted, Agatha and Sophie put their eyes to the door crack and saw a vision of Princess Uma’s olive-skinned face floating in the cave.
“Professor Dovey asked me to let you know she’s running late,” said Uma, framed by the Dean’s alarmingly messy office. “She’s dealing with a few Neverboys who tried to feed Professor Manley to a stymph. I only just got back to school myself. Had to miss the first weeks of class because . . . well, it’s personal. But I’m here now and . . . Why do you all look so grim? And why are you hanging from lanterns? And is that licorice under your feet? Sorry, it’s quite blurry from my side. . . . This crystal ball is ancient. . . .” Her face distorted, turning upside down. “Sometimes if you give it a good joggle—”
She was flung out of the way by Professor Dovey, more disheveled than ever. “Those are snakes!” she squawked, peering through the rip in the air. “And the children are hanging from—dear God! Uma, you speak reptile! Put them to sleep or something!”
“Princesses don’t speak snake, Clarissa,” Uma huffed, tugging at her smooth black hair. “But I do speak a great many other animal languages, including—”
“I don’t need your résumé, Uma! And please get out of my way!” Professor Dovey scolded, clawing spellbooks off her shelf. “Surely there’s a sleeping hex in here that will work on snakes!”
Uma started to wail loudly. Sophie could see Agatha gnashing her teeth. If there’s one thing they both hated, it was thin-skinned princesses.
“I can’t hold on!” Dot howled, backside sagging two inches above the snakes.
“Hurry, Professor!” Agatha shouted into the cave.
“What’s that, Agatha?” Dovey said, hand to ear.
But Uma was mewling more than ever.
“It has my pants!” Do
t shrieked, an asp’s fangs digging into her breeches.
“HURRY, PROFESSOR!” Sophie hollered.
“Uma, I can’t hear a word!” Dovey yelled. “If you don’t stop your crying—”
“Crying?” Uma scoffed. “I’m not crying. I’m calling a friend.”
“Friend!” Dovey wheeled to her. “Our students are about to die, you ninny, and you’re calling a friend—”
Suddenly, behind Dovey’s bubble, a fleet of tiny furry heads poked over the cave hole in a perfect circle like synchronized swimmers, echoing Uma’s wailful call. A white one with beady eyes took in the scene.
“Hardeep,” he squeaked. “Uma friend.”
“Moti-Lal,” said the next. “Uma friend.”
“Ganeshanathan. Uma friend.”
“Pushpa. Uma friend.”
“Ramanujan. Uma friend.”
“Gutloo. Uma friend.”
“Santanam. Uma friend.”
And finally, one black as night, smiling pearly sharp teeth . . .
“Boobeshwar. Uma friend.”
Princess Uma smiled into the crystal ball. “Close your eyes, children. This could get messy.”
The snakes unleashed a panicked hiss—
Like cyclones, eight mongooses swung into the cave, screeching so loudly that Sophie and the crew not only closed their eyes, but also plugged their ears.
Five minutes later, Hort and Willam swept bloody asp and cobra carcasses out of the cave while Bogden sliced fresh apples with the tip of an icicle and fed them to the exhausted mongooses. Princess Uma thanked her friends with a few short wails (and promised to officiate Boobeshwar’s wedding to Pushpa later that month).
Then Professor Dovey’s face, already beginning to fade, looked down at Sophie and Agatha, who had finished explaining everything they’d faced in Avalon.
“Girls, our connection will end soon,” said the Dean quickly. “From what you’ve told me, this Snake has trespassed into Avalon, killed one of our own, and wants Tedros’ crown. And he’s throwing the entire Woods into upheaval along the way. He’s attacking kingdoms. He’s attacking our students. Just this morning, Kiko’s team didn’t appear for its check-in with me, nor did Ravan’s team in Akgul, and I’m quite sure the Snake has something to do with it. Luckily, both teams are still alive on my map in their respective kingdoms, so they could just be hiding. I’m looking into it. But whoever this Snake is, he’s the worst kind of villain: he’s a terrorist.” She took a deep breath. “And all you know is we’re searching for a man in a green mask?”