Except now a new flower was talking to her.
“I know a way out of the Evil in your heart . . .”
The green glow within the petals throbbed, like a magical seed.
“A way you can be as Good as Agatha . . . Just open me . . . I’ll show you the way . . .”
Sophie hustled past it, wishing she could plug her ears. She let her feet skid down the rope as she rebounded around the side of the ridge, spotting her teammates once more. But now there were new flowers, bending towards her.
“I know a way out of your dress . . . Evelyn Sader’s dress . . . I know how to escape its magic . . .”
Sophie clenched her teeth and rushed past.
“I know a way out of the mystery . . . I can tell you who the Snake’s parents really are . . .”
“I know a way out of your question . . . why Rhian had a fingerglow and the Snake doesn’t . . .”
“I know a way out of Lady Lesso’s secrets . . . I know who fathered her child . . . who Aric’s real dad is . . . just open me up . . .”
Sophie resisted these new whispers, each pulling on the strings of her heart, promising to unravel a knot. Nearby, Robin seemed to be battling too, his jaw flexed, his muscles tense. For a moment, Sophie could hear his vine’s taunts—
“I know a way out of your resentment towards Marian . . . a way to forgive her for what she did . . . Open me, Robin . . .”
Robin paused, teeth gnashed, before he shook his head and kept going, faster than before. He and Bettina were racing towards the bottom from opposite sides, the Courier scribe unfazed by her flowers, as if she’d already investigated every last question of her heart. Willam and Bogden, too, were close to the exit, until Willam hesitated in front of a sealed bloom—
“I know a way out of your brother’s grave . . . a way to bring Tristan back to life . . .”
Bogden tugged Willam by the leg, forcing him down.
Tristan, Sophie thought. The name kept coming up when Willam was around. And yet the only Tristan she’d known was a boy who’d gone to the School for Good: a redheaded, freckled waif who’d been brutally killed in a tree by Aric—
Sophie swiveled, looking back at the redheaded, freckled waif with Bogden.
Of course!
Willam was Tristan’s brother.
It explained everything: Willam’s resentment towards Tedros . . . his insistence that the prince bullied his brother . . .
Does he know how Tristan died?
Does he know the Snake was friends with Tristan’s killer?
That he’s trying to bring that killer back to life?
It’s why Japeth wanted the Pen’s power, Sophie remembered. It’s why he’d killed his own twin.
For Aric.
This was about more than being king to Japeth, more than killing Tedros or erasing his opponents.
This was about Japeth getting his best friend back.
This was about love.
Sophie knew that story well. She’d climbed out of hell to find her Ever After with her best friend, again and again, and yet there was always something in the way.
“Sophie! Hurry!”
She looked down at Robin, Bogden, Willam, and Bettina, converged on the pool of light, poised to jump through and escape back into the Woods. They’d survived the flower traps. Only she was left to finish. Sophie smiled with relief, hurrying down her vine. More blooms ambushed her, their voices louder, more insistent, but she was untouchable now, like a last wolf charging for her pack.
“I know the way out of being a Dean . . . a way to feel more fulfilled . . .”
(Sophie thought: I’ll feel fulfilled when the Snake is dead.)
“I know a way to check on your father in Gavaldon . . . to see if he’s alive or dead . . .”
(Stefan has a new family now, Sophie dismissed.)
“I know a way for you to look even more beautiful . . .”
(“Impossible,” Sophie wisped.)
“I know a way out of your secret cravings for cheese . . .”
(“Now you’re just being daft.”)
“I know a way out of your fairy tale . . . so that you and Agatha can be how you once were . . .”
Sophie hesitated. The very last flower on her vine loomed over her, white petals cupped by thorns, the trapped glow flashing hot pink.
“Two best friends . . . before Tedros . . . before princes . . . when you only lived for each other . . .”
Sophie told herself to keep moving, to shut out the voice. Her body didn’t listen.
“I can restore you like you used to be . . . Agatha and Sophie . . . Sophie and Agatha . . .”
Her heart was outracing her breaths now, something inside her taking over.
“Back to two girls . . . Back to the beginning . . .”
“Sophie!” a boy’s voice called below.
“The true way out . . . Open me, Sophie . . .”
Sophie dripped with sweat, her fingers curling into a fist.
“Open me for Agatha . . .”
“Sophie, no!” another voice cried.
She ripped open the petals, pricking her finger on a thorn like the tip of a spindle.
Blood dripped onto her white dress.
Inside the bloom, the pink glow withered, white petals desiccating to dust. Only the thorns remained, thickening, growing longer and longer.
Sophie snapped out of her trance.
Oh no.
She glimpsed movement below and spotted Robin and Bettina rushing up their vines towards her, as if something was about to happen, something terrible she couldn’t understand. She spun back to the flower—
The thorns snatched her like fingers, before green moss lassoed on top of her, binding her in. Harder and thicker these binds grew, morphing into wood—into bark—from which a new tree began to grow. Sophie couldn’t breathe; a few more seconds, and she’d be fossilized into this new tree. Tearing her hand free, she seared through wood with her glow, freeing herself, and instantly plummeted backwards, ricocheting off a branch, then another, then another. Around the pit, new trees erupted from white flowers, an explosion of branches and leaves, ping-ponging Sophie up into darkness. She could hear the shrieks of her friends, careening off new-growing trees, their bodies tiny shadows in the cast of her glow. More trees detonated to life, volleying Sophie up in an endless white canopy, higher, higher, until she saw a ceiling of earth above. Branches suddenly cradled her like a throne and crashed her through dirt, then through stone—
The wizard tree smashed into the lobby of the bank, multiplying out of the marble, bludgeoning the stunned phoenixes aside, and throttling straight for the ceiling. Sophie hung on tight, ducking under branches . . . BOOM! The force of the tree shattered the walls, infinite limbs burgeoning freely into the night, scraps of Ever and Never flags that once flew over the bank now caught limply on twigs. Taller and taller the wizard tree grew, new trees flowering off every branch, with Sophie thrust into the night atop the uppermost bough, like a crowning star. She was so far above ground she couldn’t see where the tree began, her body lofted against gravity, angling for the moon. Clinging to the top, she let out a piercing cry—
The tree stopped growing.
Clouds swept in, drenching the land in darkness.
Slowly, Sophie peeked down at the wizard tree.
A storm of life, rooted in the ruins of wealth.
She couldn’t see Robin or Bettina or the boys.
She couldn’t see anyone.
How am I alive?
Am I alive?
Wind slashed through, shaking Sophie’s branch, nearly blowing her off it.
Yeah . . . I’m alive.
She wouldn’t last long up here. Nor was her dress any protection against the chill, the ghost of Evelyn Sader useless when she needed her most.
Shivering violently, Sophie started to descend, but the gusts were too strong. Her foot slid and she plunged onto the next branch, which snapped under her, leaving her gripping on to a sliver of wo
od with a single fist. Reaching her toes for the next limb down, she slowly lowered herself, but new gusts assaulted her, tossing her against the branch, her head tipped over it, her feet kicking in midair. From the inside of her dress, she saw the pearl with Merlin’s beard slip out—
Sophie yelped, flailing for it, but she toppled harder, about to fall out of the tree.
She had to choose.
Sophie grabbed on to the branch.
The pearl fell.
The tournament’s first test.
Tedros’ only hope.
Down, down, down, into the darkness—
And then . . .
And then . . .
The pearl started floating back up.
Shielded in sparkly green dust.
A small, pale hand caught it, coated in the same green dust.
“Agatha?” Sophie breathed.
Slowly her best friend landed on Sophie’s bough, shimmering like a phantom.
Tears sprung to Sophie’s eyes. “Are . . . are you . . . real?”
Agatha pressed her hand to Sophie’s cheek, warm and soft.
“But how—” Sophie choked.
A grumpy, green-dressed fairy poked out of Agatha’s hair, flinging a spritz of fairy dust into the air as if to make it clear whose magic was responsible.
Agatha raised the pearl into the moonlight, inspecting Merlin’s beard. She smiled with relief at her friend. “Quite a team, you and I.”
Gobsmacked, Sophie glanced around.
No Tedros.
No Hort.
No boys.
Just her and Agatha, high in a tree.
The way they once were, atop an oak in Gavaldon, before a stymph arrived and kidnapped them into the Woods. It was on a branch, just like this, that they had their final moments together before everything changed.
And suddenly Sophie understood.
That flower she’d opened.
Sophie and Agatha.
Agatha and Sophie.
This was it.
The tree had given her what she wanted.
Back to two girls.
Back to the beginning.
The way they used to be.
The true way out.
Two girls stared into each other’s eyes, savoring this Ever After, waiting for the Storian to write it . . . waiting for the Pen to make it real . . .
But Man isn’t Pen.
Not yet.
Tinkerbell let out a scream of warning.
Both girls reached for the other, as if to hold on to the moment—
But time was up.
Their beginning had come to an end.
13
TEDROS
Pride and Princess
“You sure your girlfriend isn’t a crackpot?” Hort’s man-wolf growled, pacing in the dark forest.
Tedros ignored him as he tried to rock Merlin to sleep.
“Consider the evidence,” Hort went on. “First she says Robin Hood left her a message in magic dust at the Arrow. A message no one else saw. Then she says Merlin appeared to her and told her to come to Putsi. Both sound pretty crackpot to me.”
Through the thicket, Tedros glimpsed the wizard tree in the distance, rising high over the land. Movement flickered in its branches, but they were too far away to see more. Putsi was a well-armed city: the shock of a wizard tree bursting out of the bank would bring the bank’s guards and the Empress’s flying minions. Tedros’ stomach knotted, the baby fussing with his shirt. He shouldn’t have let Agatha go off alone.
“You’re worrying if she’s wrong? I’m worried if she’s right,” the prince returned, so focused on the tree he didn’t notice Merlin squiggling out of his arms. “What if the answer was in Putsi all along?”
“Then pray we find it before the Snake,” Hort said, rescuing Merlin into his paws before the baby slipped. “Whoever wins the first test gets a head start for the second. And if the Snake gets too far ahead . . .”
Wind axed through the trees, finishing Hort’s thought. Tedros watched him cradle Merlin into his dark fur, the baby’s eyes starting to close. How could I be so stupid? Tedros thought. His dad wouldn’t have expected him to track down the wizard in his old age and lop off his beard. Especially after Arthur and Merlin had gone their separate ways. For all his father knew, Merlin would have been long dead. And yet, Tedros had done what he’d always done: made assumptions without thinking.
Agatha was right.
The beard was here in Putsi.
Only he’d come to this realization too late.
Which meant his first test was no longer up to him.
It was up to her.
Agatha, who was out there right now, fighting Tedros’ battle. All on her own.
And here Tedros was, twiddling his thumbs, just like he had at Camelot when Agatha usurped his quest the first time. Long before there was a King Rhian or King Japeth, there was a masked attacker, daring Tedros to come fight him. But it had been Agatha who answered the call instead of Tedros, the prince willing to stay behind.
The mistake that started it all.
But he’d learned from that, Tedros thought angrily. He was different now. He was ready to be a king. If only his princess would stay out of the way.
Tedros’ blood simmered, his father’s ring cold on his hand.
That’s what this tournament was supposed to be about, wasn’t it? Proving himself? Even Agatha had admitted that, back at the inn. So why was he still loitering here like a princess in waiting while she was off hunting the answer to his test?
He’d tried to stop her. On the short trip from Bloodbrook, Tedros had assumed they’d battle the Snake together. That they’d track down Merlin’s lost beard as a team. But just as they’d gotten to the forest’s edge, the wizard tree rising into view, Agatha ordered him and Hort to stay put.
“What? The Snake’s out there!” Tedros said, thrown.
“And if he kills you now and takes your ring, we’re all dead,” said Agatha, dismounting Hort’s wolf. “Keep Merlin safe. I’ll be back soon.”
“Don’t be a fool,” Tedros scoffed, chasing her. “No way you’re going alone—”
Agatha turned. “I won’t be alone.”
The way she said it.
So sharp and clear that by the time he’d regathered his wits, she was lost in the dark.
“I won’t be alone.”
I won’t be alone?
Then it hit him.
That cry.
The one that echoed as the wizard tree sprung over the land . . . The one that made Agatha’s eyes spark before she had taken control of their plans.
I won’t be alone.
The shine in her eyes.
That hint of a smile.
Agatha could only mean one person.
That’s why she’d driven Hort so hard on the ride here.
That’s why she’d left the prince and man-wolf behind.
Agatha was after more than Merlin’s beard.
Agatha was after her own grail.
Sophie.
Sophie, who she’d heard out there, crying for help.
Sophie, always the witch between him and his princess.
Tedros’ gut twisted tighter.
Where Sophie went, Evil followed.
He fished Tinkerbell out of his pocket and shook her until she woke up. “Follow Agatha and keep her safe. The moment she’s in trouble, send a flare. Understood?”
Tinkerbell yawned and jingled back.
“No, I will not kiss you in exchange,” Tedros retorted.
Tink argued her case—
“I don’t care if Peter kissed you,” said the prince. “Go. Before I feed you to Hort.”
Grumbling, the fairy flitted off to find Tedros’ princess.
And this is how he’d gotten here: pent-up and frustrated, saddled with a baby, while his princess went after her best friend. Again.
“Now you know how I felt with Sophie all those years,” a voice groused.
The prince lo
oked up at Hort.
“Always second best,” the man-wolf sighed.
Tedros sucked in a breath.
Hort was right.
This was The Tale of Sophie and Agatha.
It always would be.
Until he had the courage to make it his story too.
Light flashed through the darkness, a flare of gold.
Tedros and Hort spun—
Flames bounded towards them.
For a second, Tedros thought they were under attack.
Then he saw the blaze had a face.
A fairy, wings afire.
“Tink?” he breathed.
Burning up, Tinkerbell choked out a single squeak.
A word that shook Tedros’ soul.
“Snake.”
The flare swallowed her.
She was gone.
HE WAS TOO poisoned by rage to have a plan.
Throttling towards the wizard tree, his boots skidding across the forest, Tedros thought only of his true love, out there against an enemy who burned fairies alive.
This was the clarity of Evil. Its humiliation of your weaknesses, its savaging of your mercies. Every time Tedros hesitated, the Snake was there to punish him. Japeth was more than a Nemesis. He was his shadow, like the Green Knight to King Arthur, a curse that had been with him all along and yet one he was fully unprepared for.
Hort had tried to come too, but Tedros had repelled him with orders to stay and protect Merlin. (He made no mention of Sophie; if the weasel knew she might be out there, he’d bring the baby into battle.) But without the man-wolf, Tedros had no weapon or shield against someone he still wasn’t sure how to kill. Stumbling over a stick, he kicked it into his fist, using his fingerglow to whittle it to a stake.
Soon he heard sounds of war: cries, human and animal; clashes of steel; the groans of a tree under siege. He sprinted out of the Woods, onto open land, the ruins of the bank covered in ghostly white leaves.
As Tedros drew nearer, he saw spatters of blood.
The corpses of geese.
Twelve, he counted.
Then the body of a bank guard, his limbs twisted, as if he’d fallen from a great height.
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