That’s when Sophie noticed it.
The scroll inside the queen’s bag.
Sophie homed onto it, a moth to a flame.
Scrolls should not fall from the sky.
Scrolls should not fall from the sky.
Scrolls should not fall from the sky.
The pair were almost through the door—
“Jacinda! Sweetie, darling!”
Queen and king froze. Both looked up at the bedraggled girl in her nightgown.
“My apologies, Jacinda. I was feeling quite poorly this morning, but I’m turned around now,” Sophie chimed, forcing words through the pain. “Shall we keep our appointment? The king will be relieved I’m well enough to sit with you. Won’t you, pumpkin?”
Sophie smiled down at Rhian, her hair like a wild animal’s, her lipstick smeared like a clown’s.
The king gave her a stare so cold she thought he’d turned to stone.
SOPHIE BET THAT whatever business lay in Putsi was too important for the king to be waylaid by his princess’s sudden appearance. She’d bet well, the king having ridden off with his captain as planned, unable to supervise her meeting with Jaunt Jolie’s queen.
What she hadn’t accounted for was that he’d leave someone to supervise her in his place.
Now, as she cozied up to Jacinda in a Blue Tower sitting room, laid out with ginger tea and pastries, she endured the watchful eyes of the Mistral Sisters, seated on couches in the corner, notepads and pens in hand.
“Would you prefer to speak . . . privately?” the Queen of Jaunt Jolie asked Sophie, who’d cleaned herself up, her white dress reshaped to its prim, ruffled form. “Perhaps we can meet in your chambers—”
“This is a scheduled meeting between dignitaries, is it not?” said Alpa from the corner.
“And all scheduled meetings must be recorded,” Omeida added. “Besides, there’s been mischief in the castle of late. A precious map burned to ash. An intruder at the press gathering. We have to keep our eye on everyone. Queens included.”
The Queen of Jaunt Jolie turned to them. “When King Rhian pursued the powers of the One True King, I believed he had noble intentions. Now that I know it’s the Mistral Sisters advising him, I’m relieved that pursuit came to naught.”
“Still holding grudges, are you?” cooed Alpa.
“All because Arthur wouldn’t betroth your eldest to his son,” said Omeida.
“You took advantage of Arthur when he was grief-stricken and alone. You isolated him and poisoned his mind. You made him believe he was the One True King,” the queen shot back. “Suddenly, he wouldn’t let Tedros and my Betty have their usual playdates. He wouldn’t meet with me or any other leaders. Arthur lost respect in the last months of his life because of you. Which is why no one trusts you.”
“Until now,” said Alpa, with a thin smile. “Seems like we found the One True King after all.”
“And yet there’s one ring still left,” the queen replied. “Worn by a son of Arthur who reminds me more of the Arthur I knew than the one you currently advise. If there is such a thing as the One True King, perhaps it’s Tedros.”
Alpa’s face darkened. “We’ll let King Rhian know the next time your children are in danger, he should leave them to their fate.”
For the first time, the queen looked shaken.
Sophie hadn’t the faintest clue what they were prattling on about. All she knew was she needed that scroll in the queen’s bag. Everything else had sloughed away in the pounding thud of her head. Indeed, she’d almost forgotten who the woman seated in front of her was.
The scroll, she reminded herself, clawing the thought back from the brink. I need that scroll.
But new thoughts were coming, thoughts not hers, pushing words onto her tongue. Behind the queen, Sophie could see the Mistrals, subtly moving their hands over their notebooks . . .
“What did you want to discuss?” Sophie asked Jacinda, pouring tea into the queen’s cup.
Her brain felt like it was axed in two: one part ramming words and actions through her body; the other trying to hold on to the reason she was here.
The scroll.
She started losing the thought . . .
What scroll?
More words flooded through, the pain in her head evaporating, everything running smooth as milk.
“How is your eldest daughter?” Sophie said, confident and controlled, the way she’d been when she briefed the press. “I wish she and I could have had a chance to be friends at school.”
“Betty wasn’t taken,” Jacinda replied bitterly. “Another from Jaunt Jolie was kidnapped instead. This stultifying Beatrix girl who kept trying to be Betty’s friend, hoping it would ingratiate her in royal circles. But it’s all worked out in the end. Betty doesn’t need that school or the Storian. She’s found her own way to tell tales . . .”
“Aren’t you glad you burned your ring, then? If Betty doesn’t need the school or Storian, the rest of the Woods shouldn’t either,” quipped Sophie brightly, without a clue what she was saying.
The queen searched Sophie’s face. “Something’s not right with you,” she said quietly. “Tell me what’s going on. Even if those two witches are listening. I’ll take you to Jaunt Jolie. My Knights of the Eleven are fierce warriors and will keep you safe. And I have the ear of other leaders, Good and Evil. I have the power to protect you, Sophie.”
Jacinda looked back at the Mistral Sisters, as if expecting them to revolt or attack, but Alpa and Omeida said nothing, their hands fidgeting over their notebooks.
“Would you like a rum baba?” Sophie offered, on cue, holding out a cream-topped cake. “The new chef here is marvelous.”
“Didn’t know you were one to eat pastries,” the queen said tartly. “And it looks soggy and ill-made.” Jacinda locked eyes with Sophie. “I saw you at Tedros’ execution. I saw you and your Dean. I know whose side you’re really on.”
Sophie’s mind went stiff, the script aborted.
Behind the queen, the Mistral Sisters mirrored her pause.
“Me and the Dean?” Sophie asked, using her own words now. “Which Dean? What execution? I’m sorry . . . I don’t know what you’re talking about . . .”
The queen stared into the void of her gaze. “What’s happened to you?” she whispered, clasping Sophie’s wrist. “Why are you here instead of with Agatha?”
The warmth of touch.
The comfort of skin.
The sound of a name.
Agatha.
It slashed through the fog of Sophie’s mind like a lightning bolt to a lake.
Scrolls should not fall from the sky.
Scrolls should not fall from the sky.
Scrolls should not fall from the sky.
She saw the Mistral Sisters’ hands moving again, their faces tight, but Sophie was already short-circuiting the script.
“I’m feeling a bit ill,” said Sophie, standing up—
As she did, she knocked over the queen’s purse, which fell to the floor. “Oopsy,” said Sophie, reaching for it, only to punt it farther under the couch.
“Let me—” the queen started.
“I’ve got it,” said Sophie, already on her knees, reaching beneath the couch. “I certainly gave it a good kick . . . oh, here it is . . .” She stood and handed the purse back to the queen. “My advisors will see you out.” Sophie smiled at the Mistral Sisters, who looked more at ease now, as if Sophie had steered things back on track.
Jaunt Jolie’s queen studied Sophie one last time. “I wish . . .” She shook her head, trying to finish the thought—
Sophie kissed her on the cheek. “Thank you,” she whispered.
Then before anyone could say another word, the princess ushered herself back to her chambers, like a good little girl.
SOMETHING WAS INSIDE her head.
Something was controlling this pain.
Sophie had figured it out while sitting with the queen. First, there were those sisters, pretending to take
notes. But every time they moved their hands, she lost control, someone else’s words coming out of her mouth, someone else’s thoughts usurping her mind. And if she tried to reclaim her thoughts, to think for herself, the pain came to hurt her.
Yet the pain attacked even when the Mistrals weren’t there. She could feel it now, slithering around her mind, waiting to strike.
Which meant the Mistrals might be able to control the pain . . .
But they weren’t its source.
The source was her head. Inside her head.
She didn’t yet know what was causing this pain, exactly. But she knew how to keep it at bay . . .
Don’t think.
So rather than thinking about the scroll in her fist, Sophie focused on the sounds of her feet: plip, plop, plip, plop, like the patter of rain, pulling her towards her chamber. Her white dress itched at her skin, surely suspecting something, but the dress stopped short of anything more as she slipped into her sun-drenched room and closed the door.
Quickly she tried to lock it, but the latch was broken. Her fault, of course. She’d burned through it to leave this room. Already her head was starting to throb harder, sensing mischief afoot.
She could hear footsteps coming down the hall.
Voices growing closer.
But then something strange happened.
A ribbon of white lace fluttered off her dress, fully alive. For a moment, Sophie thought it might attack her: this dress, which had a mind of its own. Instead, it slid through the broken lock and morphed into a white-stone bolt, jamming the door.
There was no time to think about why the dress was helping her.
The pain was already coming like an alarm.
Sophie flung open her fist, yanking the crumpled scroll out and matting it against a mirror on the wall, the bold, black ink slick in the sunlight—
So it begins, the first test arrives
Two kings race to stay alive
For a king cannot rule if he is dead
Or lead a kingdom without his head
But once upon a time, a man came to my court
Who gave up his head, just for sport
He wanted one thing, this headless knave
Tried to claim it and dug his grave
What did he want? Only my true heir will know
Now go and find it, where wizard trees grow!
Sophie couldn’t make any sense of it, not with her head about to pop like a balloon. Headless knights . . . wizard trees . . . ? The pain intensified, about to rip open her brain. She shoved the scroll into her pocket. It had to mean something. Something the pain didn’t want her to figure out—
Loud knocks attacked the door.
“Sophie!” Alpa said.
Hands jostled the lock, blocked by the ribbon of stone.
“Don’t do anything stupid!” Omeida harassed. “The king will know! He’ll see you! Wherever he is, he’ll come back and punish you!”
Sophie stared at the door, pain blotting out all thoughts but one.
“See” me?
Fists pummeled harder, but the stone held tight.
“Open this door!” Alpa demanded.
How can the king see me if he isn’t here? Sophie thought. Unless . . .
She peered at the scroll’s poem, flattened against the mirror.
Then, slowly, her gaze shifted to her reflection.
She heard guards coming now, the sisters ordering them to bash down the door . . . but Sophie was lost in her own eyes, studying her electric-green irises and big black pupils, the pain cleaving through her head, harder, angrier, as if it knew she was getting close. She couldn’t breathe, her mind impaled from every direction, her vision dotting with lights, her body seconds from passing out. But Sophie didn’t yield, glaring into the gems of her eyes, mining deeper, deeper, searching the darkness and light for something that wasn’t hers . . . until at last she found them.
Hiding like two snakes in a hole.
Guards bludgeoned the door with axes and clubs, the wood splintering.
Sophie had already lit her finger.
Pink glow reflected in her pupils like a torch in a cave.
She could hear their screams, the scaly eels, as they stabbed harder and harder behind her eyes, trying to regain control.
But the truth was in her sights now. Pain had become pleasure.
Sophie raised her finger and slipped it into her ear.
She grinned in the mirror like a devil facing itself.
This is going to hurt.
STONE SHATTERED IN the lock.
The door burst open, guards and Mistrals coming through.
A breeze sifted through the room, rippling across the blood-soaked curtains, the window wide open.
On the windowsill lay two scims crushed to filth.
But it was outside where the real message had been left.
Dripped in crimson across the white snow of scrolls, across the white dresses of maids, lying stunned by a spell.
Five bloody words.
The remnants of a princess.
The warning of a witch.
ALL OF YOU WILL DIE
7
TEDROS
Mahameep
“Your first test to become king . . . ,” said Hort, mouth full of cotton candy, “and you don’t know what it means?”
Tedros ignored him, kicking away scrolls that littered the cotton-candy grove just past the border of Sherwood Forest. He didn’t have to answer to the weasel. He didn’t have to answer to anyone. He was the heir. He was the king.
Yet he’d failed his first test before it had even begun.
The Green Knight. Why did it have to be about the Green Knight?
It was the one part of his dad’s history he’d never learned. On purpose. And his dad had known it.
Is that why Dad made it a test? To punish me?
Tedros shook it off, trying to find clues in the poem: “He wanted one thing, this headless knave . . .” “Tried to claim it and dug his grave . . .” “Now go and find it where wizard trees grow . . .”
He couldn’t focus, his thoughts spiraling—
What did the Green Knight want?
Why didn’t I ask Dad!
Does Japeth know?
Suppose he finishes before me? Is he already on to the second test? What if I’m too late—
A hand squeezed his.
Tedros looked up at Agatha, her hair dotted with blue and pink cotton candy.
“I’m sure Japeth doesn’t have the answer either,” his princess assured, her lips dusted with sugar. “How could he?”
“Well, we can’t just loaf around the Woods until I figure it out,” said Tedros, watching Hort and Nicola pluck trees and feed each other candy. “This forest is the path into Pifflepaff Hills. Where the Living Library is. We need to go to my dad’s archive there. It’s the only place where I can find out what the Green Knight wanted.”
“Tedros, we decided it’s too dangerous—”
“You decided. And it’s more dangerous for me to lose the first test!” said Tedros. “If Japeth doesn’t know the answer, the Living Library is the first place he’ll look. We should have gone when I suggested it instead of wasting time back there with Merry Men!”
“They were starving and homeless!” said Agatha. “We got them scraps from Beauty and the Feast and helped fix their houses. It was the Good thing to do.”
“Even I know that and I’m Evil,” Hort said behind them, mouth stained blue.
“We’re going to the Library. My orders,” Tedros said firmly, walking ahead.
He glanced up at school fairies tracking him from above, keeping a lookout over sugar-spun trees, while Tinkerbell squeaked at any who snuck down for a bite. Behind him, he could hear Agatha reassuring his mother that she would protect her prince, no matter how dangerous the new plan was.
Having a princess wasn’t supposed to be like this, Tedros thought. In all the stories he knew, princes protected their princesses. Princes were in
charge and princesses followed. Yes, Agatha was a rebel, which is why he loved her. But sometimes he wished she was less rebel and a little more princess, even if he felt like an ogre for thinking it. Tedros flung aside a pink bough, barreling ahead. One thing was for sure: Agatha couldn’t win the first test for him. From here on out, they’d do things his way.
A short while later, the prince peeked between a last cluster of sweet-cotton branches.
The Pifflepaff Pavilion was painted pink and blue and nothing in between. There were blue “boy” shops—the Virile Vintner, the Hardy Folk Furriers, the Handsome Barber—and there were pink “girl” shops: Silkmaid’s Stockings, the Good Lady’s Bookshop, Ingenue’s Combs & Brushes. In the morning rush, men in blue stayed apart from girls in pink, including the pink-clad sweepers, who cleaned the pavilion of leftover scrolls. (Tedros’ dad had left no kingdom untouched in announcing the first test.) Then there were the trees dotting the streets, like the ones in the forest, blooming with bell-shaped tufts of cotton candy, the trees either blue or pink, from which only the appropriate sex could eat. Pifflepaffers tore off candy as they walked, men inhaling blue, women sucking on pink, as if they lived on nothing but their assigned clouds of color. There was no crossing of lines, no blurring of boundaries. Boys were boys and girls were girls. (Maybe it would rub off on Agatha, Tedros thought grouchily.)
At a coffee stand, a merchant had his blue stall divided into two sides: TEAM RHIAN and TEAM TEDROS, hawking themed drinks for each. Team Rhian’s side offered a Lion Latte (turmeric, cashew milk, cloves), a Golden Lionsmane (horchata, chocolate ganache), and the Winner’s Elixir (espresso, maca root, and honey) . . . while Team Tedros’ side sold a Snake Tongue (matcha powder, hot oat milk, ghee), a Cold Storian (iced coffee, cinnamon), and a Headless Prince (hazelnut, mocha, goat milk). The Rhian aisle was packed with men making orders, picking up drinks, catching up with friends. The Tedros table was deserted. “Who Will Win the Tournament?” read two tip jars, one with Rhian’s name, overflowing with copper and silver coins, the other with Tedros’ name, toting a few farthings.
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