Agatha shook her head. “I don’t know if there’s any of Sophie left to fight for, Ella.”
Her mentor touched her cheek. “You can’t give up, Agatha. Not yet. Show the world what I couldn’t. Love that means just as much as a boy’s. Love that’s stronger than blood. Do it for the both of us.”
Agatha gazed at Ella and for the first time the dark fear inside of her gave way to a ray of light . . .
Then Cinderella’s expression changed.
Agatha turned and saw the entire group stopped on the path, gawking at her and her mentor, as if they were a lion and rabbit having a garden party.
“Oh good grief, the fools think I’ve gone soft,” Cinderella growled.
“I’ll tell them I groveled for forgiveness,” said Agatha.
“And pledged your eternal servitude too,” snapped Cinderella. “Now get back to your blasted prince before you completely ruin my reputation.”
With a wink, she gave her charge a swift kick in the buttocks, and Agatha couldn’t help but smile as she stumbled away, wondering how different her life might have been if she’d just learned to say sorry more often.
31
Spies in the Stymph Forest
By the time they made it to the outskirts of the Stymph Forest, the sun’s shrinking glow was firmly in the east.
“Only a few hours until the sun sets,” Tedros said nervously, his hand moving to Excalibur as if to make sure it was there. “Even Lance keeps looking at the sun like he knows we’re doomed.”
“Lance. He gets a nickname from you and I don’t?”
Tedros glanced at Agatha. She cracked a smile.
“It’s not funny,” he said, seeing the entrance to the Stymph Forest ahead. “There is no escape this time. The dark is coming, Agatha. This is The End for us. The real End—”
“I know.” She squeezed his hand, still affected by Cinderella’s story. “So let’s try to hold on to every last bit of light that we can.”
He stared at her. “Now you decide to be romantic? Now?”
Agatha stopped smiling. “Look, Merlin has a plan, all right? He has to have a plan.”
In front of them, the other pairs began to slow down as they approached the gates of the Stymph Forest. At the entrance stood two colossal elm trees, as tall as castle towers, with their trunks bowed towards each other and dead branches whittled into the shape of a bristling black swan, beak open, feathers beating, so lifelike in its impending attack that Agatha felt herself clutch Tedros tighter as they crossed beneath it.
She shook off her fear. “I mean, it’s Merlin we’re talking about, the Merlin of legend and myth, who never fails Good in times of crisis—”
“Except when he deserts us for six days, forgets to recruit a real army, drags us straight into School Master territory without weapons, and doesn’t teach us a single fire spell to kill any of the two hundred zombies about to eat us.”
Agatha swallowed.
They couldn’t see anything now, for the Stymph Forest was so dense with sky-high elms that it scrubbed out the last pinprick of sun. Agatha waited for someone to light a torch or a fingerglow, but no one took the initiative, as if it was less frightening to be in the dark than to see what was lurking in the trees. With no other light source, the nineteen heroes folded in a tight hive behind the wizard, whose hat led the way with its glowing white stars.
The deeper they drew into the Stymph Forest, the more they began to smell the acrid smoke seeping from the bonfire in Gavaldon beyond the Woods. Instinctively, the younger members shielded their older mentors, remembering their duty to protect them and keep the shield over the Reader World intact. Anadil’s rats spread out across Anadil’s, Jack’s, and Briar Rose’s shoulders like bodyguards; Hester and Lancelot wheeled Hansel and Gretel through the pebbly dirt; Yuba stuck by the White Rabbit, whose night vision was quite acute; Dot and Red Riding Hood hewed to Princess Uma, insisting a teacher of Animal Communication should know how to manage stymphs (“Stymphs aren’t animals; they’re beasts,” Uma moaned); and Hort held out a rusty training sword, guarding Peter Pan and Tinkerbell.
Slowly their eyes drifted upwards, pinned to the trees, and as they adjusted to the darkness, they began to make them out . . . bony, vulturous shadows, eerily still on the elm branches, not making a sound.
“They’re watching us,” Lancelot murmured.
Merlin stopped suddenly, causing a pileup behind him and an array of hissed curses and crushed toes. The wizard peered ahead.
“Gretel, why is wizard stopping—” Hansel started.
“Shhh!” Gretel retorted. “Listen . . .”
That’s when Agatha heard it too.
The low thunder of marching, reverberating through the Forest.
Far away, pulses of bright green glow pierced the blackness like blinking stars . . . first a few . . . then a dozen . . . then hundreds, lighting up all at once before vanishing back to dark. With every second, the pulsing lights grew closer, matching the crescendo of footsteps—left, right, left, right—until Agatha wasn’t sure whether it was the light following the march or the march following the light. As the flashes grew bigger, brighter, she honed in on the green detonations, like mini-fireworks, holding just long enough to illuminate the trees in the distance . . .
And the bodies coming towards them.
The Dark Army skulked into the Stymph Forest in perfect rows, carrying axes, swords, and spears. Over their heads floated a cloud of black zombie fairies that kept the beat of their march with their glowing green tails, extinguishing and rekindling again and again. With every flash of light, the army strobed closer, as if time was skipping forward, and soon Agatha could make out their dead-eyed glares, stitched-up skin, and infamous faces.
Peter Pan and Tinkerbell shrank against a tree at the sight of Captain Hook and his curved steel blade; Cinderella clutched Agatha’s arm when she saw her wicked stepmother with a rusty axe; Jack pulled Briar Rose close, glimpsing his club-wielding giant and her dagger-carrying fairy; Hansel and Gretel wheeled to the rear of the pack to hide from their zombie witch; and Red Riding Hood shifted from cowering behind Dot to cowering behind Lancelot when she snagged a look at her salivating wolf.
“Merlin, this is where we ‘leave it to you’!” Hort called out.
If Merlin did answer him, it was drowned out by the swell of the villains’ march. Agatha searched for the glow of the wizard’s hat, but the Forest was too dark and the heroes huddled too close.
“Looks just like when I saw him in Granny’s nightdress,” Red Riding Hood rasped, watching the wolf in the front line, only fifty yards away. “Ate me in one swallow then. But I’m a grown woman now. Which means he’d have to chew first—”
“I’d take a wolf’s teeth over a hook any day,” said Peter Pan anxiously.
“My stepmother has an axe!” Cinderella boomed.
“You win,” said Hansel.
“It’s not your stepmother, okay? They’re not any of your old villains,” Hester retorted. “They’re zombies. They’re not real.”
“They look plenty real to me,” Lancelot growled, drawing his sword.
Hands shaking, Tedros pulled Excalibur, as the Dark Army marched closer. “Lead the way, Sir Lancelot.”
“Look who’s suddenly showin’ me respect!” Lancelot snorted. “You, who spent all week blathering that you could win this war without my help!”
“You don’t know me well enough to know that I spend half my life saying stupid things and the other half apologizing for them,” said Tedros. “Please, Lance. You’re the greatest knight who’s ever lived. Surely you’ve faced tougher battles. . . . Surely this isn’t as bad as it looks?”
The knight could see Agatha and the rest gazing at him with the same hopeful expressions.
Lancelot glanced up at two hundred villains brandishing weapons, thirty yards away now . . . then back down at his army of defenseless Evers and Nevers, crotchety old heroes, and a prince who held the world’s greatest sword but st
ill wasn’t much good at using it.
“Not as bad as it looks,” he said. “Worse.”
The Dark Army halted their advance, twenty yards from the knight. The fairies lit up to full blast as the villains sneered across the forest, eyes red and murderous, mouths clamped in flat, lifeless lines. They raised their weapons in the fairy light, waiting for the order to charge.
“Think I just wet myself,” peeped Hansel.
“M-M-Merlin?” Agatha spluttered, fixed on the zombies. “Merlin, tell us what to do!”
“That’ll be difficult, ’cause Merlin ain’t here,” said Hort.
Everyone spun around.
Merlin was gone.
Agatha and Tedros gripped each other in horror. “We’re dead,” they gasped—
From the sky came a blast of wind and they looked up to see two shadows, embraced in flight, float down through the trees.
The boy touched down first, his white hair spiked as sharp as the black crown of the girl he held in his arms. He wore a sleeveless black shirt that showed off his porcelain skin and lean muscles, and long black breeches that hung low on his hips, revealing a piece of his rippled stomach. The girl was as pale as he was, her cheeks and lips so colorless that for a moment Agatha thought her a marble statue, until she pulled away from the boy wearing a black leather catsuit that hugged every curve of her frame. She moved towards Agatha, her hair a gold wave beneath her jagged crown, her skin so tight against her bones the veins glowed through, and her mouth curled in a cold, nasty smile.
But it was only when Agatha saw the green of her eyes, the wicked emerald green, as bright as the fairy tails around her, that Agatha knew who the girl was.
“Hello, darling,” said Sophie.
Agatha’s throat felt like a vise, trapping her voice. Her vision blurred, Sophie lapsing out of focus, as if Agatha’s whole body was rejecting the moment, searching for the ends of a dream. She could hear nothing, only a furious ringing in her ears. Darkness curled in at the corners of the scene and she knew she was losing consciousness; her legs weakened, her heartbeat fizzled, the world funneling to black . . .
Only there was light through the darkness now, gold like a beacon . . . a gold light like the one that glowed from her own finger when she needed it most . . .
But it wasn’t coming from her finger.
It was coming from the Evil Queen’s.
The ring.
Make her destroy the ring.
Agatha felt the mulch beneath her feet again, the bleak night air, her eyes refocusing ahead . . .
And there she was. Sophie, as Evil and dead cold as the boy she’d chosen.
But Sophie still the same.
“Agatha of Woods Beyond. The girl who never wanted to be a princess,” said Sophie. “And here she is with a crown.”
Agatha held her ground. “Evil has a queen. So too does Good.”
“If I have a prince, you want a prince. If I have a crown, you want a crown. It’s what I love about you best, Aggie. Always a step behind me.” Sophie looked past her at ragged, frightened Tedros, before her gaze moved to Rafal, immaculate in fairy light. “Until I do it better.”
Tedros took Agatha’s hand and scowled at Sophie. “You call him better? A demon? A devil’s spawn?”
“Oh Teddy. Don’t be transparent,” said Sophie. “We can make you a paper crown if you like. For the boy not yet a man. The prince not yet a king.”
Tedros flushed. “Well, perhaps you were too busy admiring your own crown to notice you’re missing half your army!” he scoffed, struggling to sound intimidating. “What happened, lost ’em on the way here?”
A sharp laugh echoed and Rafal sauntered forward. “Oh I’m quite sure my queen would have preferred we attack you with full force, little prince. Now that she has her crown, she makes me look quite soft in comparison. But our students represent Evil’s precious future. I wouldn’t risk a single one of them when Evil’s past is perfectly able to destroy you all on their own.”
Agatha followed his eyes to the Dark Army, teeth gnashed, impatient for their Master’s signal. She thought of Reena, Chaddick, Ravan, and all the other students she’d come to know, trapped in the School for Evil. One day, Rafal would ensure they ended up as dark-hearted and ruthless as these undead killers hungry for war.
But then Agatha remembered Kiko . . . lovely, sweet-faced Kiko, who just wanted everyone to find happiness and love . . . who could never be Evil no matter what anyone did to her.
“Evil will never have a future,” said Agatha, thinking of her kind Evergirl friend. “Not when there are those who want to be Good.”
“And no one wanted to be more Good than me, Aggie,” said Sophie. “But no matter how hard you try to make an Evil heart Good, it won’t take. You know that, or you’d never have given me a chance with your precious prince. You knew full well that I’d make a fool of myself.” Sophie’s pupils gleamed. “But to make a Good heart Evil . . . oh that’s child’s play, Aggie. Because Good hearts are like the softest underbelly, ripe for Evil to rip through. Just ask your friend, Kiko, who I heard crying last night, wishing she still had her ‘best friend’ Agatha to talk to. Quite popular, weren’t you, in your time at school, darling? Too bad your ‘best friend’ won’t be able to talk much longer. She’ll end up making a nice wicked goose, when her Evil education resumes and her mogrification is complete.”
“You know what they say,” Rafal said, smirking. “Even the purest Good excels at Evil when it might end up as Christmas dinner.”
The two of them burst into snickers.
Agatha tensed, thrown by the glee in their laughter. With their ghostly skin, ice-blue veins, and sharp cheekbones, they looked so much alike now.
“Well, there’ll be no goose and there’ll be no Christmas dinner,” Tedros blustered. “Because we’re winning this war.”
“Are you?” Rafal said bitingly. “With your formidable League of . . . Nineteen? Seems you lost your wizard, though there’s so many rallying to your cause that it’s hard to keep up. My, my, how will I ever kill the one hero I need to break the shield?” He scanned the meager group huddled against the trees: eight famous old heroes quailing in fear, four young Never turncoats, a languid white rabbit, a potbellied green fairy, an animal-language teacher, and a feeble old gnome . . . before his eyes fell on Lancelot, sword in hand, watching the conversation between this young foursome with a confused look on his face.
Rafal’s smile darkened. “A complication.”
“Who the devil are you?” Lancelot blustered, squinting at the snow-haired boy. “And when does the School Master get here?”
“That is the School Master!” Hort hissed. “I told you he turned young!”
Lancelot’s eyes bulged in shock. “Good God, why didn’t anyone say so?”
In a split second, he launched forward, with a running start, and hurled his sword like a tomahawk at Rafal’s head. Caught off guard, the young School Master raised his hand too late. Sophie let out a cry of surprise—
The sword blade smashed into Rafal’s forehead, cleaving right through his skull.
Villains froze. Heroes held their breath.
The Stymph Forest was as silent as a corpse.
Lancelot scratched his ear, stunned by how easy it all was, before he flashed a boastful smile. “Hooah! See that, boy? One shot and the cad goes down! School Master dead. Storybook closed. Now where’s our bright sunshine—”
His smile eroded.
Rafal was still standing there, a sword in his head, a cheeky grin on his face. Slowly the blood seeped back into the wound around the sword before the young School Master reached up, took a hold of the hilt, and drew the blade out of his skull. The hole in his head sealed up, smoothing to fresh, young skin, as Rafal wiped the blood off the steel edge with his bare palm, his eyes never leaving Lancelot.
Sophie too was grinning now, stroking the gold ring on her finger, which had kept her true love alive.
“Our friend seems to have misplace
d his sword,” the young School Master said to her.
“Tends to have a habit of meddling in other people’s business, if I remember,” said Sophie. “Especially mine.”
“Then perhaps you’d like to be the one to return his weapon?” Rafal asked.
Sophie gripped the sword by the hilt. “Would be my honor.”
Slowly she lifted cold eyes to Lancelot, her fingertip glowing pink. “Never liked him much anyway.”
She fired her glow to the knight’s blade and shot it like a bullet across the Forest—
Lancelot didn’t even have time to breathe. His own sword rammed into his shoulder, cutting clean through skin and tissue before spearing into the tree trunk. The knight let out a lion’s roar of pain, pinned to the elm like a piece of meat.
Sophie cozied up to Rafal. “Complication solved.”
Agatha and Tedros were white as death. All the other heroes cowered against the trees, watching their greatest warrior whimper and flail, immobilized by his own weapon.
Rafal caressed Sophie’s cheek. “Like I said, my queen makes me look soft.”
Agatha could see the dark pleasure in Sophie’s face and the yellow, catlike glow in her pupils. Suddenly her hope to make her friend destroy her ring seemed numbskulled and naive. Merlin had warned her: there would be no easy path to Ever After. Because there was nothing she could say to make Sophie destroy that ring now . . . nothing she could say to bring her back to Good. . . .
Because there was no Good in Sophie anymore.
“Help me, boy,” Lancelot cried out to Tedros. “Help me loose!”
Tedros didn’t budge.
Agatha could see him watching Lancelot on the tree. The sword was buried at the top of the knight’s shoulder, away from vital organs and clotting the wound from bleeding out. As long as Lancelot stayed there, he’d be in excruciating pain . . . but safe. Because the second Tedros helped Lancelot off that tree, Lance would make another charge for Rafal and end up dead on the spot. Villains didn’t offer mercy more than once. And whatever happened to Tedros from here, whatever he had to sacrifice to help Good win—even his own self—he’d make damned well sure of one thing: Lancelot would go back to his mother alive.