“It’s lovely, Hort,” Agatha said, feeling let down, “but it’s just your wish—”
“That’s what I thought,” Hort replied, “until I saw that.”
He pointed to the corner of the fish’s painting, where two guests holding hands—a teenage boy and girl—looked happiest of all for the new couple. The boy had a crown of silver and diamonds upon his golden head. The girl wore a matching crown in her black hair.
Agatha lost her breath.
“It’s me and . . . Tedros,” she whispered.
“And I’d never wish for you to marry that prat,” snorted Hort. “I hate him too much to wish him the slightest happiness, let alone a queen with as much class and integrity as you. So if that’s inside my wish, it means it’s already going to happen. It means this whole picture is deeper than a wish, Agatha. It’s the truth. I’m going to end with Sophie and you’re going to end with Tedros. That’s our happy ending. The four of us together. No one left out.”
Agatha’s eyes bulged, pink streaks rising on her cheeks. Oh my God. . . . This is it! She could have grabbed Hort and kissed him. This was the answer they’d been waiting for . . . the way out of this tangled fairy tale . . . the Last Ever After revealed once and for all. Sophie with Hort and she with—
Slowly the color seeped out of Agatha’s cheeks.
“No . . . it can’t be the truth, Hort,” she croaked. “Because I’ll never marry Tedros. And Sophie will never love you.”
The glow in Hort’s face snuffed out.
“Sophie loves Tedros. And unlike me, she never doubted that love,” Agatha said, hunched in the grass next to him. “All I did was doubt Tedros. The more time he and I spent together, the more I couldn’t understand why he wanted me when he could have a real princess. That’s why I wanted to keep him in Gavaldon. In my mother’s house, he wasn’t a prince. He was a scared teenage boy, as lost and confused as I was. But here, in the Woods, Tedros is different: he’s true to himself and lives with a purpose. In his heart, he’s already a king—a king who needs a queen just as confident and self-assured as he is, who can lead his people to hope again. That’s not me. I’m still learning to like what I see in the mirror and accept that someone can actually love me for who I really am. I’m not a leader. I’m not . . . special.”
She gazed at her crowned self in the painting. “When we were at school in the wrong bodies, Tedros said he was afraid of me seeing him once the prince is stripped away. That I’d see he’s nothing special . . . just an ordinary boy. But that’s the Tedros I love. Because the real Tedros—the prince who will grow into a strong, powerful king—will see one day that I’m no different than his mother. I never wanted a prince or a fairy tale. I never wanted a big life. I’m just a girl struggling to be ordinary.”
She looked up at Hort, eyes wet. “But Sophie? Sophie believes she deserves a prince. Sophie wants to be queen. Enough that she’s willing to risk the future of Good for it—”
“Which is exactly why she can’t be Good’s queen!” Hort fought, nodding at his Wish Fish. “Don’t you get it? You belong with Tedros and I belong with—”
“Then why can’t I see my future together with him? If I belonged with him, why can’t I see myself as this girl in your wish? I’m meant to be alone, Hort. That’s why I’ll lose him. Because I need to learn to be happy on my own. Like my mother was. That can be an Ever After, can’t it?”
“You haven’t lost him,” Hort pressed, still looking at his fish. “It’s never too late in a fairy tale!”
Agatha sighed wistfully and touched his cheek. “Even fairy tales have limits, Hort. Both of us have to let go. Let Sophie and Tedros live their Ever After. For your own happiness.”
Hort scorched pink. “For my own happiness? That’s rich coming from you,” he sneered, yanking his finger from the water, dissolving the painting. “You’re the one forcing Tedros to love Sophie, just so she’ll destroy that ring. I heard what she said behind that curtain in the cave. At least I’m willing to fight for my happy ending. You’re giving away your true love to someone he doesn’t belong with and expecting him to live with it forever! Tell yourself all you want that you’re not good enough for him, Agatha. Tell yourself you’re doing it to save Good. Tell yourself any excuse that lets you sleep at night. But we both know you’re just too afraid to fight for the person you belong with. And you know what, princess? Even if I hate the boy to his bones, that doesn’t sound Good to me at all.”
Hort stalked away, leaving Agatha alone by the pond.
She watched him go, her heart wasting to a small, dark hollow.
Soft burbles echoed behind her and she turned to see the Wish Fish, white-hued once more and bobbing at the pond’s edge for her turn.
“Please help me, little fish,” she said softly.
The fish’s eyes twinkled with moonlight, like a thousand wishing stars.
With a breath, Agatha dipped her finger in the water and waited for her heart to give her an answer . . . the way Sophie’s heart had led her so clearly to Tedros . . .
Tell me what I really want, she asked.
Instantly the fish began to turn different colors . . . pink, blue, green, red . . . vibrating and shaking madly, like corn kernels in a fire—
Agatha closed her eyes, knowing the fish were about to paint the answer . . . her path towards goodness and happiness, once and for all . . .
Her lashes fluttered open.
The Wish Fish hadn’t moved.
Like fading flowers, they drained to white, looking up at her, tired and defeated.
Agatha smiled sadly, remembering what her teacher once decreed of such a result.
“Foggy mind,” she whispered.
She caressed the fish goodbye and followed Hort’s receding shadow back towards the house.
Neither Hort nor Agatha had noticed there was a third person by the pond the whole time, sitting behind a tall oak.
The blond prince never moved from his spot, even when the sun rose the next morning like a golden ring and cast him in precarious light. Instead, he lay against the tree and listened again and again to the echo of everything he’d just heard, a single tear shining on his face.
25
The Scorpion and the Frog
For the next week, Tedros was a ghost.
No one saw him during the days—not in the house, nor on the moors, or near the oak grove—and no one had the slightest clue if or where he slept. Guinevere fretted her son would starve, until Agatha gently suggested they leave a basket of food on the porch for him in the evenings. By the morning, it was always gone.
To Agatha, his disappearing act was at once a terror and a relief. On the one hand, the sun was getting smaller every day, leaving the moors streaked in permanent pink and purple sunset. The world was barreling to an end and the prince who could save it with a kiss was nowhere to be found.
And yet, it also meant for the first time in weeks, Agatha didn’t have to think about that prince. The two of them had become inextricable, the way she and Sophie had once been. Every thought she’d had these past few weeks had been consumed with Tedros: worrying about Tedros, fighting with Tedros, making up with Tedros—Tedros, Tedros, Tedros, until she’d run herself ragged living life from both their points of view. With the prince gone, she suddenly remembered she was a full human being without him. And indeed, if being alone was her ending to come . . . then now was the time to start preparing for it.
By the sixth day, she and the group had settled into a routine, like a ragtag family. Hort spent his days with Lancelot doing chores around the farm. From morning until night, they’d milk cows, till the vegetable garden, gather eggs from chickens, shear sheep, bathe the horses, and manage a frisky goat named Fred who chased any animal of female persuasion halfway across the moors. Caked in sweat, smelling of hay and manure, Hort seemed elated to be useful to such a virile man, and they looked almost like father and son with their oily black hair, puffed-up chests, and swaggering gaits.
Guinev
ere, meanwhile, had the house to manage, with an endless amount of laundry, sewing, cooking, and cleaning on account of the extra guests, all of which she did eagerly, rejecting any offer of help, as if she needed the work to distract her from her thoughts.
Which left Agatha and Sophie on their own.
For the first time since they lost their Ever After, the two girls didn’t have a boy between them. Trapped on these heaths with nothing to do, it was like they were back in sheltered Gavaldon, with a world of princes and fairy tales far far away.
While Hort slept on the couch in the den, the two girls had to share a bed in the small guest room. Each morning, they’d have bacon and eggs with Hort, Lancelot, and Guinevere, do their best to tidy up before Tedros’ mother shooed them out, and spend the rest of the morning walking the moors or riding horses together.
The first week, they seemed to have forgotten how to be friends at all. At night, each girl rolled to her side of the bed and murmured something half-hearted. During walks and rides, their stilted conversation revolved around what might be for lunch, the abundance of farm animals, and the weather (which given the magical location, was invariably the same). Agatha noticed Sophie was edgy and preoccupied, constantly peeking at her ring and Tedros’ name tattooed beneath it. Whenever Lancelot crossed their path, Sophie pretended to fix a fingernail or adjust her shoe, avoiding eye contact. Sometimes, Agatha would catch her tossing in her sleep, murmuring disconnected phrases: “Don’t listen to him” . . . “black-swan gold” . . . “hearts don’t lie,” before Sophie would wake up shaky and red faced and seal herself in the bathroom.
Agatha, meanwhile, still couldn’t get comfortable around her old friend. While traveling with Merlin, she’d convinced herself that letting Sophie end with Tedros was the Good thing to do—first, because Sophie would destroy her ring and kill the School Master; and second, because if she couldn’t be the queen Tedros needed, shouldn’t Sophie have her chance?
But Hort’s words at the pond had put a dent in her convictions. For one thing, while Sophie aspired to rule one of Good’s kingdoms, here she was holding Good hostage over her ring. Even if agreeing to her terms would save Good’s future . . . it still seemed Evil.
More importantly, could Sophie really make Tedros happy? Tedros might appear strong and swaggery, but deep inside he was gentle, lonely, and soft. How could Sophie know every part of him? How could she take care of him? The more Agatha tried to envision their Ever After, the more she had a sinking feeling, as if reliving an old story. As if she were Lancelot now, surrendering Tedros to Sophie, like the knight had once surrendered Guinevere to Arthur. What Good had come of that in the end?
As the days passed and Tedros didn’t return, each girl seemed to slip further into private doubts, speaking less and less to the other . . .
Then came Nellie Mae.
For the past six days, Agatha had been riding a horse named Benedict, which she’d chosen for his scrawny legs, rumpled black coat, and hacking cough.
“Goodness, Aggie, don’t you read storybooks?” Sophie said after Guinevere had opened the stable of riding horses that first day. “Black horses are untrainable, untamable, and mean. Besides, he sounds like he’s on death’s door. What in the world possessed you to pick him?”
“Reminded me of myself,” Agatha said, rubbing his neck and finding a handful of fleas.
Sophie, meanwhile, had chosen an elegant, chestnut-skinned Arabian mare named Nellie Mae, with a striking white tail.
“So much character in her eyes,” Sophie admired. “For all we know, she belonged to Scheherazade.”
“Schehere-who?”
“Oh Aggie, didn’t they teach you any princess history at that Good school?” Sophie said, mounting her horse. “Not every fairy-tale princess is creamy white with a small nose and a name like Buttercup or—”
Agatha didn’t hear the rest because Nellie Mae had bolted from the stables like a demon out of hell.
For the rest of the week, Sophie tried in vain to control her mare, which kicked and neighed and spat at her, only obeying Sophie if she strangled it by the reins . . . while Agatha calmly rode Benedict as if coasting down a river.
Still, day after day, Sophie refused to switch Nellie Mae, as if admitting her poor taste in horses would somehow invalidate all her life choices. But this morning, after Nellie Mae stomped on her toe, farted in her face, and spent a good deal of time walking in a circle, Sophie finally turned to Agatha. “She’s as difficult as me, isn’t she?”
Agatha snorted. “You’re worse.”
“What is it with me and foul-tempered animals?” Sophie mewled as Nellie Mae swayed back and forth, trying to fling her off. “Is this because I didn’t take Animal Communication?”
“Problem is you’re fighting it instead of trusting it,” said Agatha. “Sometimes there’s more to the story than you, Sophie. You can’t pick everything at first sight, just because it looks good, and then force it to be with you, like a handbag or a dress. Relationships are more complicated than that. You can’t control the story from both sides.”
“Wouldn’t you try to control your story if everyone told you your heart was Evil, when you know it isn’t? Wouldn’t you try to prove them wrong?” Sophie fought, gripping the reins. “I have a Good heart, just like you, and I trust what it chooses for me. I have to. Because if I don’t, what do I have left?”
Agatha met her eyes. Neither of them were talking about horses anymore.
Sophie stroked Nellie Mae’s head. “I am ready for a relationship, Aggie. You’ll see.” She whispered into the horse’s ear. “Right, Nellie Mae? We’re a team for Good, you and I. I trust you and you trust m—”
Nellie Mae bucked Sophie so hard she flipped backwards and landed face-first on her horse’s rump, before Nellie Mae took off across the moors.
“Aggggieeeeeeeee!” Sophie screamed.
For a moment, Agatha relished the sight of Sophie dragged into oblivion, her nose in the horse’s buttocks, her buttocks on the horse’s head, before Agatha realized that if she didn’t stop them, Nellie Mae wouldn’t ever stop.
With a firm kick to Benedict’s side, Agatha raced after Sophie’s horse, while Hort and Lancelot hooted from the sheep’s meadow, thoroughly entertained.
The problem, of course, was that as kind as he was, Benedict lived life at a glacial pace and saw no reason to move any faster, especially given how little regard he had for both Sophie and Nellie Mae. But now Agatha glimpsed a deep swamp patch ahead of Sophie’s horse, bounded by a fallen tree the size of a boulder.
Nellie Mae accelerated towards the tree, perhaps seeing a chance to rid herself of her rider once and for all.
“Sophie, watch out!” Agatha yelled.
Sophie looked up and gasped—
Nellie Mae leapt over the tree, throwing Sophie headlong into swamp mud, before the horse landed gracefully on the other side and galloped into the sunrise.
Sophie heard Agatha’s horse trotting up. “Now do you take back the part about me being more difficult?” Sophie groaned, caked in mud.
Agatha looked down from her horse and held out a hand. “No.”
“Fair enough,” Sophie sighed, pulling up and climbing onto Benedict behind her.
As they rode towards the house, Sophie gripping onto her, Agatha felt her friend’s head rest on her shoulder.
“Still rescuing me after all these years, Aggie,” Sophie whispered, nuzzling in.
“Have you ever heard of a fairy tale called The Scorpion and the Frog?” Agatha asked.
“Obviously. Do you not know it? Really, as much as I like Clarissa Dovey, her curriculum seems woefully thin.” Sophie cleared her throat. “Once upon a time, a scorpion desperate to cross a stream sees a frog safe on the other side and asks him for a ride. The frog doesn’t want to help, of course, because he says the scorpion will surely sting and kill him. The scorpion replies that to kill the frog would be foolish, for he can’t swim, and if the frog dies, so will he. Convinced of this
logic, the frog offers the scorpion a ride . . . but as they start to cross the river, the scorpion instantly stings the frog. ‘You fool!’ the frog croaks as he sinks. ‘Now we both shall die!’ But the scorpion only shrugs and does a jig on the drowning frog’s back. ‘I could not help myself,’ the scorpion says—”
“It’s my nature,” Agatha finished.
Sophie smiled, surprised. “So you do know it!”
“Better than you can imagine,” Agatha said sharply.
Sophie didn’t say another word for the rest of the ride.
By the next day, the girls had fallen back into their old friendship, with Agatha grumbling at Sophie’s monologues, Sophie teasing Agatha over her clumsiness, and the two of them bickering and giggling like teenagers in love. The days rolled by, into the second week, and still there was no sign of the prince, except for the missing baskets of food each morning. And yet, his absence brought Sophie and Agatha closer and closer, whether they were drinking cherry punch in front of a fire, exploring the moorlands, or gabbing and snuggling with each other well after the rest of the house was asleep.
“Why do you think Lancelot and Guinevere have a guest room at all?” asked Agatha one evening, as they shared a picnic basket in a wild garden about a mile from the house. “It’s not like they can have guests. Except Merlin, I suppose, but he prefers to sleep in a tree.”
Sophie stared at her.
“The things you learn when you’re camping with someone,” Agatha smirked, picking at a slice of Guinevere’s almond cake. “Do you think she and Lancelot wanted a child together?”
“It would explain the puerile choice of wallpaper,” groused Sophie, sipping at homemade cucumber juice.
“But what’s stopping them? Been more than six years since Merlin hid them here.”
“Maybe Guinevere realized she didn’t want a child with a man whose personality is as odious as his hygiene,” Sophie snipped.