The Last Ever After

by Soman Chainani

  Rising to her knees, she peered through the window to see Guinevere dancing in the garden as Lancelot played the piccolo, dancing beside her. Lancelot took her arm as they twirled and laughed, the two of them celebrating the end of each song with a kiss.

  Agatha watched, mesmerized. All this time, she’d thought of them as woeful exiles, banished to purgatory and surely bored stiff of each other after six long years. Instead, they were swaying and kissing at midnight for no reason at all, like two punch-drunk teenagers. It didn’t matter where they were, who was around them, what they had and what they didn’t.

  They still had each other.

  They still had love.

  Agatha colored with shame. Here she was, surrendering her prince because she was too afraid to fight for her own self-worth. And not only that, she was pretending she was doing it to protect Good’s old heroes. What would those old heroes think of her now? A true princess didn’t hide from her fate behind the shield of Good. A true princess knew fate wasn’t just hers—but her prince’s too. By not being with Tedros, she was ruining both of their lives. Gavaldon or Woods, royals or peasants, Good, Evil, Boys, Girls, Young, Old . . . none of it mattered as long as they were together.

  She didn’t have to be a queen. She had to be his queen.

  And that, she knew how to do.

  Without thinking, she was staggering out of the bedroom and down the hall. She flung open the front door and darted down the porch steps to the dewy moors. She squinted into the dark night, heart breaking . . .

  Because it was too late. Tedros and Sophie were long gone.

  Crestfallen, she hung her head and trudged back towards the door.

  A soft crunching sound crackled in the distance.

  Agatha looked up and saw a hulking outline far across the heath moving towards the house.

  She slunk forward, eyes fixed ahead as they adjusted to the darkness.

  “Hort?” she called out.

  But now she recognized the heft of the walk . . . the long, muscular arms . . . the thick belt on his waist, missing a sword.

  Tedros’ gaze locked on her as he strode towards the house.

  Before she knew it, Agatha was sprinting towards him and Tedros sprinting towards her. Stumbling in the dark, Agatha could hear herself panting, choking up, as his shadow hurtled towards her, faster, faster, until they collided like stars and Agatha fell. Tedros swept her up in his arms as she laughed and he kissed her long and hard, like he’d never kissed her before—

  “You think I don’t know you, Agatha,” he whispered. “You think I can’t see who you are.”

  “It’s not enough for you to see it, Tedros,” said Agatha. “I have to see it too.”

  “And now my whole kingdom will see it. The greatest queen who will ever live.”

  Agatha stared into his eyes, so clear, so convinced. “But I’m just me—I’m just a girl . . . and you . . . you’re . . .”

  “You think I know how to be a king?” Tedros blurted.

  “What? But you always act so—”

  “Act. Act!” He shook his head, voice breaking. “Tell me you love me, Agatha. Tell me you’ll never give me up again. Tell me you’ll be my queen forever—”

  “I love you, Tedros,” Agatha wept. “I love you more than you know.”

  “Say the rest too!”

  “I—”

  But there were no more words, as tears streamed down their faces and mixed on their lips, the sugar and salt of love.

  Far across the moors, Hort waited a long time after Tedros left the cave before he made his move. He’d followed the prince when he’d brought Sophie here, so it was unsettling to see him leave the cave without her. Skulking out from behind a tree, Hort stole through the opening, his fingertip glowing, until the sapphire walls blinded him with their glare.

  “Sophie?” he called, shielding his eyes. “Sophie, where are you?”

  But all Hort found was an unused sword and a spatter of black feathers, as if she’d been rescued away by a swan.

  PART III

  26

  In Darkness Comes a Queen

  When Sophie woke up in the School Master’s tower, there was a dress waiting for her on the bed, spotlit by the dawn.

  Now she stood at the window in the strapless black velvet, tight to her skin, with a long, flowing train that made her look like a sinister bride.

  Across the bay, green fog snaked over the quiet black castles of Old and New, hazy beneath a morning sun no bigger than a yellow marble. So peaceful, she thought. All these years, she’d clawed and strained and agonized to be Good, trying to bully her way to Ever After. But as she looked out at her Evil kingdom, Sophie realized she never should have tried at all. Two years ago, the School Master had put her in the school where she belonged—the school she was meant to one day rule. And if she’d just embraced that fact instead of denied it, if she’d just loved herself the way she was, she would have saved herself a world of pain.

  She glanced down at her arms. “No warts or wrinkles yet. When will I, um, turn into a . . . you know . . .”

  Rafal came up beside her, wearing a black velvet coat with a mandarin collar that matched his velvet trousers. “Professor Manley begins his first day of Uglification class by explaining why villains must be ugly to succeed. Ugliness releases you from the surface—from the prison of vanity and your own looks—and sets you free to embrace the soul within. The first time you turned into a witch, your soul needed you to be ugly so you could see beyond your beauty and access your own Evil. But you’re a different witch now, Sophie. You accept yourself as you are, inside and out. Ugliness would serve you no purpose. Just as it serves no purpose to me.”

  She expected to feel relief at keeping her beauty, but instead felt a strange hollowness, as if what she looked like no longer mattered after all she’d been through. Her eyes moved to the ring on her finger. “It’s black-swan gold, isn’t it? You knew it would lead me to Tedros.”

  His mouth tightened, as if deliberating whether to find out how she’d learned this or to let go of anything that might have happened during the time she had strayed. “Let’s put it this way,” he said at last. “As long as you didn’t destroy it, I knew it would lead you back to me.”

  “And what if I had destroyed it?” she asked, turning to him. “What if Tedros loved me?”

  “A kiss of true love has to go both ways, remember? I’m quite sure the prince felt as little from your kiss as you felt from his.” His face softened. “Besides . . . I’d rather you’d have killed me than deserted me forever.”

  Sophie looked down, quiet. Then she looked back at the beautiful, young School Master. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m sorry for leaving—”

  He put his finger to her lips. “You’re here now. That’s all that matters.”

  “You’re not angry with me for betraying you?”

  “How can I be angry when your betrayal made us stronger? If anything I should be thankful. That is, if it’s you I’m meant to thank at all.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Rafal bit his lip thoughtfully. “Your friend Agatha used to have a rare talent—the ability not just to hear wishes, but to grant them too. Her first year, she wasted her talent on pointless concerns: setting a few fish free, befriending a gargoyle, standing up for some wolves. . . . But now I suspect she’s learned to use it on something more worthwhile.” He stared into Sophie’s eyes. “You.”

  “What?” said Sophie, jarred. “How could she—”

  “Your wish was to have Tedros kiss you, was it not? And it was Agatha who gave you and Tedros the clean slate to let that kiss happen. Perhaps she even went one step further, giving you your kiss with a prince like a genie from a lamp, knowing all along that Tedros would feel nothing and return to her in the end—his love for her stronger, because it’d been tested. That’d be something now, wouldn’t it? Granting your wish in order to fulfill her own.”

  Sophie furrowed. “I know Agatha and Agatha doesn�
��t think like that—”

  “Not consciously, perhaps. But her soul spins towards Good the same way yours does towards Evil. Maybe she even thought in your heartbreak and anger at losing your prince, you’d turn your back on me too and destroy my ring. Good would have its perfect Ever After, clean and efficient, all because of a princess’s secret talent.”

  Sophie’s face calcified. “So she wanted me to end up alone.”

  “Indeed,” the young School Master smiled. “Only she hadn’t counted on you discovering the difference between me and Prince Tedros of Camelot.”

  Sophie gazed into his riddling blue eyes. “What’s that?”

  Rafal’s hand found her waist, pulling her in, and he pressed his lips to hers. His mouth was delicate yet firm, and from the moment it touched hers, Sophie felt her thoughts go silent, rapturously silent, like a dark bomb had imploded in her head. Then came her heart, rioting between fire and chills, as if it’d found its other half. He’d kissed her before, but this time she kissed him back harder, and as a breeze blew her hair over both their young faces, in streaks of sun-tinged gold, she knew there was no more guilt or doubt or shame, because she’d found love . . . everlasting love . . . as beautiful as it was Evil . . .

  Rafal’s lips floated off hers.

  “The difference is to a girl like you, Evil feels good,” he said.

  Sophie could hear the Storian behind them, inking their kiss in a vibrant splash of color.

  “And it’s time I finally felt good, isn’t it?” she grinned, feeling the dark stirrings of her heart.

  She kissed her beautiful boy again, biting his lip so hard she tasted blood. “I’m your queen now, in heart and soul,” she whispered.

  Rafal licked his lips with pleasure and ran his hands through her hair. “Only one thing still missing, then . . .”

  The dress was no accident, it turned out. He’d planned the whole ceremony while she was sleeping.

  Now Sophie waited outside tall double doors inside the old Evil castle, her chest drumming with anticipation.

  With a baleful creak, the dark-wood doors slid open and eerie off-key music began, like a wedding march played backwards. She looked up at two black fairies perched on the door, sliding their green stingers across tiny violins.

  “Are you ready?” his voice said.

  She turned to Rafal, his young face framed by a wall of defaced old portraits in the leaky stair room.

  “Yes,” she said.

  His fingers slipped through hers and he led her through the open doors.

  Everyone in the Theater of Tales stood up as Master and Queen paraded down the long silver aisle. Once divided into Good and Evil, the vast, torchlit room was now fully devoted to Evil, Old and New. On one side of the aisle, the Dark Army of zombie villains watched from crumbling wooden pews, bounded by scorched walls spattered with green mold. Most of the old villains wore crossbone pins over their hearts, except for some of the most famous, including Red Riding Hood’s wolf, Cinderella’s stepmother, Jack’s giant, and Captain Hook, alive despite the bloody sword wound in his chest. Hook flashed Sophie a cheeky smirk and she stiffened, reminding herself she was his queen and he could do nothing to hurt her.

  “Crossbones mean they’ve killed their old Nemesis and rewritten their storybooks,” Rafal whispered, noticing her expression. “Pesky old wizard’s been hiding the most famous heroes in his so-called League. That’s why the shield over your world has yet to fall. But they’re running out of time. Soon Merlin and his League will come to us.”

  Sophie felt a hot glow of satisfaction at the thought of those foul old freaks being slain, after the way they’d bullied her in their cave.

  “Readers are believing in the power of Evil, my queen,” he said. “The shield hangs by a thread now. Any one of those famous heroes dead and Readers will surely lose their last faith in Good. The shield will break and then you will seal Evil’s victory once and for all.”

  “How?” Sophie whispered back. “What do we need in Gavaldon?”

  But Rafal only smiled.

  Over his shoulder, Sophie glimpsed the other side of the theater and her young Ever and Never classmates, who’d trekked across the Bridge from the old Good castle, and were standing in ivory pews made of polished bone. The last time she saw them, they looked defiant and resentful of their new Evil school. Now all of the young students were goggling across the aisle at the old villains, finally seeing what the School Master had been hiding in the other school and looking completely scared out of their wits. But joining the two schools wasn’t the only thing that had brought the New students into line. Because as Sophie peered closer, she saw her former classmates had been sectioned into three groups.

  In the front were the tracked Leaders, with gold swan pins over their hearts and new forest-green berets on their heads—Beatrix, Ravan, and Chaddick amongst them. In the middle pews, she spotted Reena, Nicholas, Arachne, and Vex amongst the tracked Henchmen, with silver swan pins and no hats at all. And behind these sidekicks, to Sophie’s astonishment, was the final group: the lowest-ranked students, with bronze swan pins, who’d already begun the process of mogrification. Kiko sniffled back tears, trying to hide limbs covered with white goose feathers; Tarquin snorted through a pig’s nose; Millicent itched at the deer antlers growing out of her red hair; and Brone’s arms were already sprouting fresh, green leaves.

  Serves them right, Sophie thought, for being hopelessly incompetent. She assumed Dot would be amongst the Mogrifs, turned into a chocolate-guzzling cow, but she couldn’t spot her in any of the groups. Or Anadil for that matter, or . . .

  Where were the witches? Sophie wondered, scanning the room.

  But the only other people in the room were the Evil faculty against the back wall, with the Good teachers still nowhere to be found. Professor Manley and Professor Sheeks looked blissfully proud of their student-turned-queen, as did Castor, whose ferocious canine head had been reunited with his brother Pollux’s on their dog’s body. (Pollux waved at Sophie and dabbed at his eyes with a handkerchief, pretending to be happy for her.) Next to them, Sophie could see Lady Lesso, seemingly pleased she’d returned to Evil, while her son and fellow Dean stood at her side—

  Sophie recoiled. Because Aric didn’t look like a Dean anymore at all. He had a blackened eye, deep claw marks across a swollen nose, and the word “CREEP” had been slashed into the skin of his forehead and was only just starting to heal. He glowered back at Sophie, as if daring her to keep gawking.

  Sophie turned away and caught her first glimpse of the raised stage at the front of the theater. The stone surface was cracked down the middle as always, but now there was a frost-blue mist seeping through the crack from beneath. If it was for magical effect, it was rather pitiful, Sophie thought, given the heft of the occasion. Unless it isn’t magic at all. . . . As Rafal led her up the steps, she squinted through the crack, trying to see if there was something below the stage—

  But then Sophie noticed what was above the stage.

  A black crown of spikes floated high in the air, glimmering in the green flame light of a skull-shaped chandelier. It was the same crown she’d seen herself wearing in the E-V-I-L murals back at the old Good castle, her smiling, painted self wrapped in Rafal’s arms.

  Sophie matched the smile now, clutching her handsome love, as they took center stage. Two years ago, the Circus Crown dangled above this spot the same way, awaiting the winning student of the first-year talent contest. She’d won her crown that night by disavowing Good and embracing Evil . . . just as she would tonight.

  Only this time, she wasn’t alone.

  So much for Agatha’s wish, she smiled bitterly.

  So much for Agatha at all.

  As the whole theater watched, Rafal magically lowered Evil’s crown onto Sophie’s head, before he gently fit it in place and kissed her on the forehead. His cold lips clashed with the iron at her temples, still warm from the chandelier flames, and she closed her eyes, imprinting the feeling and m
oment into her memory. When she opened her eyes, the young School Master was turned to his audience.

  “Light fades over our Woods and darkness rises. And in darkness comes a queen,” he declared. “Like every true love, Sophie and I have gone through harsh trials to find and commit to each other. But doubt and pain have only made us stronger. Now we are as unshakable as any two Evers who loved for Good. But our love, bonded by Evil, is still not enough to win our Never After. For Evil to find its first happy ending in two hundred years, a happy ending that will bring forth a Golden Age of wickedness and sin . . .” He stepped to the edge of the stage. “We need each of you.”

  The theater was dead quiet now.

  “In seven days, the Woods will go dark,” said Rafal. “We must enter the Reader World before the seventh sunset or all our lives will be at an end. With the most famous heroes yet to be killed, Readers still cling to their faith in Good. But that will soon change. For now that my queen has returned, the forces of Good have no choice but to attack our castle. Killing me is the only way they can win. I assure you, then, that Merlin and his heroes will charge our School for Evil before the week is done. Our mission is to kill these old heroes and break the Readers’ last faith in Good. That is our path into their world where we will seal Evil’s victory once and for all. Until Merlin’s heroes arrive, however, every one of us—young and old, Ever and Never, Leaders, Henchmen, and Mogrifs of future and past—must work together to defend our school. Our Deans of Evil and teachers shall lead our preparations and you will obey them.”

  He clasped Sophie’s hand. “In the past, Evil has lost every war because it had only something to fight against, rather than something to fight for. But now you have a queen who has given Evil a true chance at glory. A queen who once sat in the very seats in which you sit. A queen who will fight for you the way you fight for her.”

  Rafal’s face hardened. “And if anyone dare question that queen, then they will suffer the fate of all those who have failed their allegiance to Evil . . .”