One True King

by Soman Chainani

  “What is it?” Sophie asked.

  “Come on,” Agatha said, dragging her down the tunnels. “This place gives me the spooks.”

  Sophie expected her friend to hound her as to why she’d gone to the dungeons or at the very least berate her for abandoning the wedding planning that Sophie herself had volunteered for. But Agatha was quiet, as if in rescuing Sophie from her ghosts, her friend had seen a ghost herself.

  Finally Agatha turned to her. “What time is it?”

  “Nearly four, I think,” said Sophie.

  “At five, I need to get ready,” said Agatha. “I used the castle tunnels to come here, so I haven’t seen the decorations yet. Maybe we should check on them. Heard the witches are involved . . .”

  Sophie’s eyes flashed. “Prepare for war.”

  They surfaced from the sewers and hustled up the banks of the bay towards the sun-gilded grass in front of Good’s castle—

  Both girls stopped.

  The Great Lawn had turned into a feast of color. Everywhere they looked, bubbles of red and blue and gold light floated through the air like lanterns, a few filled with tuxedoed frogs playing a bright waltz on tiny violins. Professor Emma Anemone cast more glowing orbs, the Beautification teacher draped in a yellow gown with a pattern of tiny diamond mirrors. She was helped by a coterie of Evers, Bodhi, Laithan, Priyanka included, dressed in their finest clothes for the wedding, while Professor Anemone led them in blossoming more brilliant bubbles from lit fingers: “Fill your hearts with love and well-wishes for our new king and queen and the beauty will show in your work! Bert, Beckett! Those better not be dungbombs!”

  Meanwhile, a stained-glass altar gleamed atop the hill, which Aja and Valentina carved with rich fairy-tale scenes: Agatha and Tedros battling witch Sophie at the No Ball . . . Sophie beheading Rafal . . . Sophie as the Sugar Queen—

  “What is this foolishness!” Professor Sheeba Sheeks yelped. “This is the wedding of Tedros and Agatha! Not a valediction to Sophie!”

  “But Sophie is the best,” said Aja.

  Down the hill were columns of red, blue, and gold seats, which Willam and Bogden wove through, both boys in ruffled blue suits, placing name cards on cushions. They saved the best seats for C. R. R. Teapea of Gnomeland, Queen Jacinda of Jaunt Jolie, Maid Marian of Nottingham, Golem of Pifflepaff Hills, followed by rows for the faculty of the School for Good and Evil. Behind the teachers was a section for Teapea’s gnomes, a testament to their help in fighting the Snake, followed by rows for all students of the school, Ever and Never. Then the seats for journalists and artists, who would document the wedding, along with room for families of students as well as Camelot maids and staff. And way, way, way in the back, sunken and teetering at the lake’s edge, were chairs for the leaders of the Kingdom Council.

  “EXCUSE ME!” Castor boomed, assessing their seating plan from atop Honor Tower. “YOU’RE PUTTIN’ THE KINGS AND QUEENS OF THE WOODS, THE 99 LEADERS OF THE FOUNDING REALMS, BEHIND FIRST YEARS AND PEONS AND A BUNCHA GNOMES, WITH SEATS HALF IN THE LAKE, SO THEY CAN’T CATCH ANYTHIN’ OF THE WEDDING BUT SOGGY KNICKERS?”

  Willam and Bogden looked up. “Yes,” they chorused.

  Castor grinned. “Good lads.”

  Between the columns of seats was an aisle of white silk, aglow in more floating bubbles of color, filled with lovebirds singing along to the frog’s symphony. Hester popped a bubble, the bird inside shrieking and fleeing past the black-clad witch.

  “Couldn’t help it,” Hester said as her demon whittled an ice sculpture of Agatha in a fierce warrior pose.

  “How’s this?” Anadil asked, in matching black across the aisle, her rats chiseling an ice statue of a short boy with clownish curls and a wide, grotesque smile.

  “Looks like an overeager dwarf,” said Hester.

  “But this is what Tedros looks like,” Anadil maintained.

  A blast of glow hit the sculpture, coating it smooth and milky white, obscuring its worst details.

  “Chocolate solves everything,” Dot trumped, arriving in a voluminous, bright pink gown with an explosion of bows. She zapped Hester’s statue with a white chocolate sheen too. “And it goes better with the theme. Unlike your outfits. Who wears black to a wedding?”

  “Witches with dignity,” said Hester.

  “Witches who don’t want to look like they fell out of a flamingo,” Anadil echoed.

  “Well, now that I’m young again, I want to enjoy it,” Dot vowed. “Get enough darkness and pointless cynicism hanging around you two. Oh, look. Aggie! Sophie! Why are you hiding!”

  Dot spied the girls beneath the hill and hustled towards them.

  How quickly things turn from dark to light, Agatha thought, the sun sending glittering shivers up Good’s glass spires. She soaked in the sumptuous scene, a wedding in full bloom. No more dark edges lurking. No more tests to pass. Just color and chaos and love.

  Sophie clasped her best friend’s hand.

  “You’re getting married, Aggie,” Sophie said softly.

  Agatha saw nothing but happiness and joy in her friend’s eyes, as if this was Ever After enough for them both. Which was a testament to how much Sophie loved her, Agatha thought. Because Sophie had lost her happy ending, just as Agatha had won hers.

  “Oh, not you too in black,” Dot chided Sophie, sweeping in.

  “Everyone can wear what they wish,” Agatha corrected, for Sophie had been wearing funeral colors for several days now. “All that matters is we’re here together.”

  “For now,” said Hester, appearing with Anadil. “Ani, Dot, and I were thinking about what comes after the wedding.”

  “Agatha and Tedros will live at Camelot, obviously,” Anadil pointed out, “and first years and teachers will stay here at school, Nicola, Bogden, and Willam included. Willam was officially invited to be an Ever by Professor Anemone.”

  “A lot of our classmates want to go back to their quests, like Ravan, Vex, and Brone,” Dot added. “And Beatrix, Reena, and Kiko are planning to sail the Igraine across the Savage Sea to chart the unmapped realms . . .”

  “Which leaves us,” said Hester, glancing at her coven mates.

  “You’d be perfect as Deans of Evil,” Sophie proposed sincerely. “Patrolling halls. Managing curriculum. Disciplining students. I mean, you almost took as much delight in dumping those Mistral Sisters back in the Camelot dungeons as I did. Almost.”

  The witches stared at her. So did Agatha.

  “But if they’re the Deans . . . what about you?” Agatha asked.

  Sophie smiled at her friend. “Thought I could come live at the castle with you and Teddy.”

  Agatha hesitated, looking tense, and Sophie instantly flushed, with Hester jumping in to stop the awkwardness—

  “Appreciate you thinking of us as Deans, but we’re not meant for office jobs,” Hester touted. “Besides, now that Manley has the title, it’ll have to be pried out of his cold, warted fingers.”

  “He and Professor Anemone already brought in sorcerers to dismantle Sophie’s suite in the School Master’s tower,” said Anadil. “Looks like they have both schools well in hand.”

  “So what will you do, then?” Agatha asked, fixing on Dot. “Still thinking about being a witch doctor?”

  “Our coven had something else in mind, actually,” Dot volunteered. She peeked at Hester and Anadil, who nodded at her, urging her to go on. “Well, with Daddy gone, there’s no Sheriff in the Woods anymore,” said Dot. “No one protecting law and order. As king, Tedros will have his knights, but if we’ve learned anything, Good has a blind spot to the worst kind of Evil. More Snakes could pop up. The Woods needs a real Sheriff. Like my dad was. So we thought maybe . . . we’d do it. Be the new Sheriff. Be the new law and order.”

  “Go searching for villains that don’t play by the rules,” Hester explained, her demon twitching on her neck. “And bring them to justice, our way.”

  “Hell hath no fury like three witches who think you’re giving Evil a bad name,”
said Anadil, rats poking from her pocket with a hiss.

  Agatha smiled, looking at Sophie, but there was still tension between them, Agatha quickly turning to assure the witches: “That’s a magnificent idea. Tedros will give you any resources you need—”

  “No, no, no. Covens don’t work on behalf of kings,” Hester retorted. “We are independent witches, with no master or patron or affiliations, working in the shadows on our own missions. You will reap the benefits of our work, but you won’t hear about it and we intend to keep it that way.”

  Dot whispered to Agatha: “I’ll send postcards.”

  “Did you hear?” Kiko gushed, cramming in. “Reena’s boyfriend is coming from Shazabah!”

  “Jeevan is not my boyfriend,” Reena objected behind her.

  “If a boy’s flying in on a magic carpet for you, he’s your boyfriend,” said Beatrix. “Speaking of, who is that?”

  From the South Gates came a sultry boy in a gray suit, with a pompadour of blue hair, a gold earring in one ear, and thin, intense eyes.

  “That is Yoshi,” Kiko ogled. “She found him in Jaunt Jolie.”

  “She?” said Beatrix.

  But now they saw the girl on his arm, coming through the gate: Nicola, nuzzled against him, in a matching gray dress.

  “Rebound boys are the best,” Dot marveled.

  “How do I get one?” Kiko complained. “I figured out Willam doesn’t like girls like me.” She paused. “He only likes tall girls.”

  Everyone else groaned.

  All this talk of boys made Agatha remember the days when she didn’t believe in princes or castles or fairy tales.

  She, the new Queen of Camelot.

  She, who dreamed of an ordinary life, only to have the most extraordinary one of all.

  Then she noticed Sophie, as the other girls dispersed into their groups, her best friend shifting in her boots, as if she didn’t have a place to go. Agatha knew the pain Sophie was feeling: deep in her heart, Agatha would always be the old Graveyard Girl.

  The castle clock sounded five, strong and bold.

  Agatha breathed a sigh of relief, touching Sophie’s wrist.

  “Come and help me get ready, will you?” Agatha asked.

  HOW THE TABLES TURN, Sophie thought, following Princess Agatha through Valor Tower.

  Once upon a time, it was Sophie with a prince, eager to get rid of Agatha as a third wheel. Now Agatha had the prince to herself and was leaving Sophie out in the cold. For Sophie, there would be no royal triumvirate, no busying herself at the castle with her best friend, no escaping her deepening loneliness. She had never wanted to end at Camelot, of course. But she had nowhere else to go to feel loved. And she thought Aggie of all people might understand that. Until she saw the way Agatha hesitated when she’d proposed it . . .

  Not that Sophie blamed her. Of course Queen Agatha wouldn’t want Sophie swanning around the castle, stealing focus away from her and King Tedros. Sophie would have been a good girl and done everything possible to cede the stage . . . but Agatha knew her friend too well. The spotlight always found Sophie, especially when Sophie felt lost and scared like she did now.

  Where to go? What to do?

  She was so caught up in her thoughts she hardly noticed Agatha lead her up a staircase and through an office door, already cracked open. Agatha closed the door, while Sophie glanced at the cramped room with a single window and broom closet and a mess of soggy books, scraggly-written scrolls, and moldy food crumbs.

  “Professor Sader’s old office?” Sophie asked. “You want to get ready for your wedding in here?”

  “Don’t want Tedros seeing my dress. Bad luck,” Agatha said, peering around. “No mirror, though.”

  Sophie frowned. “Where are the nymphs? Who’s helping you get ready?”

  Agatha pulled a small mirror from her dress. “Brought one with me in case,” she said, handing it to Sophie. “Show me what I look like, will you?”

  Sophie stared at her.

  Agatha who used to hide from mirrors.

  Now carrying one with her.

  Sophie shook her head. You really have changed, she thought, reflecting her friend in the glass—

  Only then did Sophie look at the mirror closely.

  A mirror she’d seen before, in a land far away.

  Agatha’s eyes reflected yellow.

  Then Sophie was falling through them.

  AGATHA’S SECRETS.

  She was inside Agatha’s secrets.

  That’s all Sophie had heard about the mirror. It revealed the things a person wanted to hide.

  But now Sophie was in a familiar place, dank tunnels melting into view around her, a river of sludge rushing past . . .

  The sewers.

  “Sophie, is that you?” a voice called.

  Sophie spun to see Agatha hustling towards her, barefoot in her blue dress—

  Sophie grabbed at her: “Aggie! Why are we here!”

  But her hand went through her friend like a ghost, Agatha continuing to move along the sludge, heading towards a blond girl in a black leather dress, farther down the tunnel . . .

  Me, Sophie realized.

  This isn’t now.

  This is before.

  When Agatha found her in the dungeon.

  Quickly Sophie chased after Agatha, catching up to her just as her friend pulled the old Sophie out of the cell.

  “You okay?” Agatha was panting. “Why are you in here?”

  Sophie’s past self stammered, her skin damp: “S-s-sorry, I didn’t mean for you to . . .”

  But Agatha wasn’t looking at the old Sophie anymore. She was looking over her shoulder into the dungeon. Agatha’s eyes narrowed before she closed the grating, hugging her chest to it, making sure it was shut—

  Except now the scene magically pivoted, like a projection rotating on itself, allowing Sophie to see what was happening on the other side of the grating, inside the cell . . .

  A shadow, crouched on the floor, seizing onto Agatha’s wrist and handing her a mirror through the grate.

  And on this mirror, a message etched in dust:

  MY OFFICE

  5 PM

  Agatha hid the mirror in her dress before spinning on her heel and ushering Sophie out of the sewers, that strange, spooked look on Agatha’s face that Sophie remembered—

  But now the scene was vanishing, the secret exposed, as Sophie felt herself pulled back into Professor Sader’s office, her head faint and blood throttling, her eyes flying to the desk . . . the food crumbs and soggy books and bad penmanship that hadn’t belonged to Professor Sader at all . . . but to the boy who had taken over as History Professor once the old seer was gone . . .

  My Office.

  My.

  Slowly Sophie turned to Agatha, her heart on fire, her body shaking so hard she couldn’t see straight.

  Agatha nodded towards the broom closet.

  Sweat dripped off Sophie’s palms. Every step she took seemed as if she was taking eight steps back, like she was clinging to the fringes of a dream just when she was waking up. She couldn’t breathe, her hand grasping for the closet door, stuttering onto the knob, turning it the wrong way, then the right way, the jamb stuck before she shot it with a spell, blasting the door off its hinges, the darkness inside overwhelmed with light—

  Sophie dropped the mirror, shattering the glass.

  Every shard reflected him.

  He was skinnier than before, weakly pale in a thin black shirt and black breeches, his hair dark and jagged, his arms and legs cut up and heavy white bandages peeking out from his shoulders and chest. But his eyes were strong, hot with life and locked on Sophie, as if he was afraid to blink.

  “It’s a trick . . . ,” Sophie croaked. “It’s impossible . . .”

  The boy stepped out of the closet.

  “Every good story needs a little impossible,” said Hort. “Otherwise no one would believe it.”

  Sophie’s legs jellied, the distance between them feeling as w
ide as an ocean.

  “I’ll leave you two,” said Agatha at the door—

  “Aggie?” Sophie gasped.

  Agatha looked back at her, her eyes shining with happy tears, brimming with love. And suddenly, Sophie realized that she had it all wrong. Agatha would do anything for her. She always had. She always would. And on this, her wedding day, it wasn’t her own happy ending that Agatha had been determined to make happen. It was her best friend’s.

  Agatha gave her a wink, then closed the door behind her.

  Sophie swallowed, struggling to focus on Hort, as if gazing into the sun. “How?”

  “Kept myself alive just long enough to be rescued,” he said. “An old friend found me, who happened to be an expert in forest survival. Nursed me back to health.”

  “An old friend? Who?” Sophie asked.

  “I mean . . . really, really old,” said Hort, nodding out the window.

  Sophie peeked through and glimpsed a wrinkled, bearded gnome on the lawn, swatting at Neverboys with his staff: “Eating the wedding cake! Hooligans! Yuba is back! Shipshape! Shipshape!”

  “This whole time, Yuba was searching for missing files on Rhian and Japeth from the Living Library,” Hort said behind her. “Never found them, but he found Aladdin’s mirror in a Pasha Dunes pawnshop. Tedros must have lost the mirror in the desert before one of the Sultan’s soldiers sold it off, not realizing what it was. I had a plan to use the mirror, to bring you into my secrets, but then Agatha showed up and ruined everything as usual . . . so I had to improvise . . .”

  This is real, Sophie thought.

  This is happening.

  She turned back, taking Hort in, finally letting herself believe it. “I thought I’d lost you . . . I thought you were dead . . . ,” she rasped, moving towards him. She reached for him—

  “Wait,” he said, drawing back. He turned away, his face quivering. “There’s something I need to tell you.”

  Sophie’s stomach wrenched.

  She’d been waiting for it.

  Her happy endings always came with a catch.

  Tears slid onto Hort’s cheeks. “The wolf part of me,” he said quietly. “The wolf that was shot in the tree . . .” He couldn’t look at her. “It’s . . . dead.”

  Sophie went still.