The Last Ever After

by Soman Chainani

  Agatha tried to look supportive.

  “I’m not scared,” Tedros said loudly. “Even if Merlin doesn’t come back, I’ll command the Lady of the Lake to let us through. I can lead this war all on my own!”

  “After Lancelot beats you into another pile of crap, you mean,” snorted Hort.

  Tedros ignored him and took another cookie.

  Through the archway, Agatha could see the old heroes gathered around the dining room table, the tiny, paired-up figurines still in place on the surface. The League members were no doubt having a similar conversation about Merlin’s disappearance.

  “I say we all go to sleep,” Dot yawned. “Sleep always fixes things.”

  No one had a better plan.

  Hours later, Agatha curled up in a blanket on the floor of the guest room, listening to the house rumble with every tone of snore and snuffle imaginable. She’d given the bed to Dot, Anadil, and Hester, who spooned and slept on each other like puppies, occasionally knocking one of their pillows down onto Agatha’s head.

  It wasn’t like she could sleep anyway. All she could think about was whether Merlin had made a fatal mistake leaving her and Tedros in this safe house for so long. It’d been almost three weeks since the Lady of the Lake had stashed them here. They’d been lulled into the languid pace and tranquility of Guinevere and Lancelot’s life, forgetting that out in the Woods, legendary heroes were dead and Readers like her were losing their faith in Good. Here on the moors, the sun was strong and bright, the food was plentiful, and they were safe from Evil . . . while in real life, darkness was falling, an Evil army was rising, and her best friend was fighting at the School Master’s side. What would it be like when they went back through the portal? Would she and Tedros be ready for what they’d find?

  If they went back through the portal, that is.

  If Merlin ever returned for them.

  Her heart flurried faster and she knew that if she didn’t find a way to sleep now, she wouldn’t sleep at all. She pulled her blanket tighter, about to roll over—

  Only there was something odd about the blanket. It was thicker than usual, with furry, velvety fabric that smelled like a musty cabinet. As her eyes adjusted to the dark, she saw the purple inseam . . . the lining stitched with silver stars . . .

  Agatha gasped.

  Chest pounding, she yanked the wizard’s cape over her head and felt herself floating through violet sky before she landed softly on a cloud . . .

  Merlin was waiting for her.

  Agatha sat cross-legged in white mist beside him, her shoulder touching his. For a short while, neither of them said a word, basking in the vast silence of the Celestium. Just being next to the wizard again made Agatha feel calmer, even if he did look alarmingly thin.

  “Where have you been?” she asked finally.

  “Visiting a dear old friend.”

  “For six days?”

  “We would have stayed together far longer if we had the time,” said Merlin wistfully. “I do wish I had my hat, though. Never realized how difficult it is to procure a decent meal without magic. I suppose that’s why people find companions eventually; it makes it easier to manage the burden of food when there’s two of you. Then again, living life alone comes with its benefits. Like learning self-reliance or traveling on a whim or washing your hair only once a year.”

  Agatha waited for him to get to the point.

  “It is marvelous up here, isn’t it?” he sighed, gazing into star-spattered emptiness. “Almost makes me forget the things I’ve seen—Good’s old heroes, slain and discarded, their bodies left in the Woods to rot. Some as famous as Thumbelina and Aladdin, others never known by their proper name, but only as the ‘Clever Tailor’ or the ‘Wily Beggar Boy.’ I buried as many of them as I could, but we’ll have to give them proper graves in the Garden of Good and Evil when the time comes.”

  A haunted sadness clouded his face, his thoughts still somewhere in the Woods. Agatha knew she should be just as sad for these dead heroes, and yet, all she could think about was finding a way not to join them.

  “Merlin,” Agatha prodded gently. “You are aware that you left us here and never explained how to beat an army twenty times our size—”

  “I’m well aware, Agatha. But what’s most important to me now is whether you’ve made any progress in how you’re going to convince Sophie to destroy her ring.”

  “I can’t do it, Merlin. You told us that Sophie has to destroy the ring by choice. Threatening to kill her doesn’t give her a choice at all, nor does it seem Good.”

  “Is that how Cinderella told you to get Sophie to destroy the ring?” Merlin said, aghast.

  “Um, she spent the last five days trying to get me to torture the White Rabbit.”

  Merlin groaned. “Should have known that’s why she wanted Dovey’s wand. A bit of a guerrilla, that girl; no doubt a product of her upbringing. Yes, I’m afraid bullying your best friend to get what you want isn’t just morally questionable, but utterly useless. As I’ve said, the School Master is only destroyed if Sophie destroys the ring. If Sophie dies without destroying the ring, the School Master loses his true love in body, but not in spirit. Meaning he’ll lose his immortality and be mortal like the rest of us, but still very much alive, with an army of villains at his command, and nearly impossible to kill. Hardly the end that we seek.”

  He paused thoughtfully. “And yet Cinderella is onto something. Sophie is Evil’s queen now. You will not convince her to destroy the ring by appealing to her Goodness. You have to confront the deepest Evil in her and prove she has a reason to do so.”

  Agatha looked at him.

  “But you will only have one chance,” said the wizard. “Use it wisely.”

  Agatha thought about what she’d do with this one chance . . . but still, nothing came.

  “Merlin, before you left, you said the School Master is looking for something in Gavaldon. Something that will destroy Good forever. Do you know what it is yet?”

  “I’m afraid I’ve been as successful with my assignment as you with yours,” the wizard smiled dryly. “And yet, I keep coming back to something you said to me when we were traveling to Avalon. That the School Master suggested it was Sophie who would destroy Good in the end . . . not him.”

  Agatha remembered what Rafal told her in Evil’s museum. “He said the most dangerous person in a fairy tale is the one willing to do anything for love.”

  Merlin tugged at his beard, spectacles slipping down his nose.

  “Do you think it has something to do with Sophie’s mother?” Agatha nudged. “We never did find where her body is. Could the School Master have her?”

  “Perhaps it has do with Sophie’s mother or perhaps it has to do with much, much more,” said Merlin. “Remember what I told you the last time we were here. For hundreds of years, Good has had love on its side, making Good invincible against Evil. But why? Because the School Master killed his own brother in the pursuit of power, proving that Evil could never love. To balance that one terrible deed, the Storian has made Good win every single story, as long as it has real love on its side. But now that Rafal has Sophie as his queen, he believes that her love is finally enough to redeem the murder of his brother.”

  “But that doesn’t make any sense,” Agatha countered. “Even if he does have Sophie’s love, that doesn’t erase the fact he killed his own blood.”

  “Precisely,” said Merlin. “So the question remains: what is it he expects Sophie to do for him at the end of this story? Does he think she can redeem that original sin? And if so . . . is that why he chose Sophie as his true love in the first place?”

  Agatha’s gut twisted. “Merlin, whatever it is he’s planning, we can’t win. Not without help. Don’t you understand? We’re just a few students and rickety old heroes!”

  Merlin wasn’t listening. “What if we have the whole story wrong, Agatha?” he said softly. “What if he can prove killing his brother was never a crime at all? That love is the greatest Evil
instead of the greatest Good? What then?” His body straightened. “Then Good would become Evil and Evil would become Good, wouldn’t it? Just like he promised . . .”

  Agatha shook her head. “Merlin, you’re not making any sense—”

  He flinched as if he suddenly remembered she was there. “This was thoughtless, wasn’t it, bringing you here in the middle of the night when you haven’t had a wink of sleep, especially with all that’s to come. Come, come, off to bed—every minute counts—”

  Agatha frowned. “But wait, how are we supposed to fight him? How are we supposed to . . .”

  But she was yawning now, and she knew he’d done something to her, for her body grew numb and her head so heavy that she sank through the cloud like an anchor. She thrust out her hand for Merlin, striving to stay awake, trying to grab hold of him, but all she felt was a fistful of stars as she fell into the dark, and the warm taste of sky in her mouth.

  Voices swelled sharply out of the void and Agatha’s eyes opened.

  She was sprawled on the floor in one of Guinevere’s blue tattered blankets. The witches were gone from the room, their bed neatly made. Through the window, she could see the inky night sky, with no sign of the sunrise.

  Agatha followed the voices towards the den and glimpsed her friends, young and old, packing burlap sacks with crackers and fruit and tins of water, while devouring last bowls of oatmeal. Everyone was clad in thick black cloaks, buzzing in hushed whispers, except for Guinevere, who was still in her nightdress, packing a bag for Lancelot while the knight polished his sword. As Agatha inched into the den, she noticed that the group was no longer divided into old on one side and young on the other as usual, but into the various mentor groups—Hort with Peter Pan, Anadil with Jack and Briar Rose, Hester with Hansel and Gretel, Dot with Red Riding Hood . . . before Hort caught sight of Agatha and he and Pan went quiet. All the other pairs did too.

  Merlin sauntered into the den from the dining room, sipping a mug of coffee.

  “Tried to keep our voices low, my dear. Wanted to give you a bit more rest.”

  In her sleepy daze, Agatha didn’t understand.

  But then she felt someone touch her shoulder.

  She looked up at Tedros, clean and beautiful in a black cloak, Excalibur strapped to his back. He clasped her hand with a scared smile.

  “It’s time,” he said.

  30

  Apologies and Confessions

  Agatha knew they were all doomed when Tedros tried to convince Lancelot to stay behind with his mother.

  Tedros knew as well as Agatha did that they needed the knight to join their army in the war to come. So for him to beg Lancelot to remain at the house meant Tedros knew they were all going to die. For as much as the prince despised the scalawag knight, he couldn’t bear the thought of his mother losing him.

  Not that his wishes mattered in the end. Guinevere wouldn’t hear of it.

  She said her goodbye to Lancelot out on the moonlit moors, just as she did with the rest of her guests, taking the time to give brisk hugs to each, as if they were all popping off to a shop and would be back by lunch.

  It was only when Guinevere hugged Agatha that the old queen lingered. Agatha could see her lips trembling and the wet sheen of her eyes.

  “Take care of my Tedros,” Guinevere whispered.

  “I will,” said Agatha, trying not to cry.

  Something cold touched her head and Agatha looked up at her prince as he fit her crown back on her.

  “You left it in your room,” he said, with a droll smile. “An oversight, I’m sure.”

  Then he met his mother’s gaze.

  Agatha could see each of them overwhelmed with emotion . . . a mother and son who’d battled so much pain to come back together, only to be pulled apart once more.

  “Let me come with you, Tedros. Please,” Guinevere pleaded. “I can fight—we’ll be together—”

  “No,” said the prince. “It’s the one thing Lancelot and I agree on.”

  Guinevere shook her head, tears falling.

  Tedros hugged her to his chest. “Listen to me. You’ll be at Camelot for my coronation. Once Agatha and I close her storybook and the School Master is dead. That’s where your story will end, all right? Not here, but Camelot, where you’ll be a mother . . . then a grandmother . . . and you’ll have so much love for the rest of your life. . . . You can even bring the ogre.”

  Guinevere sniffled a laugh. “Promise me, Tedros. Promise me you’ll come back.”

  “I promise,” Tedros rasped.

  But Agatha knew he was lying.

  Guinevere spotted something over her son’s shoulder and pulled away.

  Agatha and Tedros turned to see Merlin leading his League of heroes, young and old, towards a floating portal of white glow atop a distant hill.

  Lancelot climbed through first, evaporating like a shadow into the sun, before the old and new heroes followed him into the light, one by one . . . until only Merlin was left, raising consoling eyes to Agatha and Tedros across the moors, as if he wished he could let them stay.

  “Has to be morning by now, surely,” said Tedros to Agatha, peering through the darkness of the Woods, as they tried to keep up with the pair in front of them.

  “Then where’s the sun?” Agatha asked, searching a horizon of fast-moving black clouds with a pinprick of light pulsing through it. “All I see is the North Star and storm clouds—”

  Only they weren’t clouds, as Agatha looked closer.

  It was smoke, emanating from somewhere far ahead, directly in the path of where Merlin was leading their army. Huddled into a black cloak, Agatha stood on tiptoes, squinting over the pairs in front of her, but she couldn’t see where the smoke was coming from.

  “Lift me up,” she nudged Tedros.

  “What?”

  “On your shoulders.”

  Tedros frowned. “Just because you’re wearing a crown doesn’t mean—”

  “Now.”

  The prince sighed. “And I thought Sophie was high maintenance.”

  He swung her up onto his shoulders, grunting softly as she clasped her arms around his cloak collar, her clumps digging into his chest. She could see Hort and Peter Pan paired in front of them and hear Cinderella and Pinocchio a ways behind, trading jokes at the sight of them.

  “Someone’s whipped,” said Pinocchio.

  “Finally as tall as his father,” Cinderella groused.

  Tedros gritted his teeth, laboring under Agatha’s weight. “How much longer you need up there?”

  Agatha leaned forward, the lattice of tree branches brushing against her crown, as she gazed far into the darkness, tracking the smoke.

  It was coming from a fire.

  Far into the black horizon, a tall tower of yellow-red flames raged into the sky. As the blaze licked higher and higher, it lit up the surroundings: a crooked clock tower, the shops of a square, turreted cottage rooftops, and the rest of a crystal-clear village, glowing in the flame light beneath a tattered shield . . .

  Gavaldon.

  Gavaldon was on fire.

  Suddenly, she remembered the painting in the Exhibition of Evil . . . August Sader’s last vision of a giant bonfire in the middle of the village . . .

  “No, it’s not on fire. They’re burning the storybooks,” she whispered, clutching Tedros tighter. “Sader knew they’d burn the books.”

  She could see the shield over Gavaldon riddled with small holes and quivering in the wind, as if about to shatter at any moment.

  “They’re believing in the new endings, Tedros. Merlin was right. They’re losing faith in Good . . .”

  “I don’t get where M is taking us,” Tedros murmured, not listening to her. “The school is to the east, and your village is to the west. If Merlin keeps us on this path, we’ll run straight into the Stymph Forest between them.”

  “Stymph Forest?”

  “Where stymphs come from. You know those bony birds we used to have at school before the crogs ate
them all,” said Tedros impatiently, sweating under her. “Merlin’s insane if he thinks we’d last a minute in there. No one in their right mind ever goes in that Forest, because the School Master controls the stymphs.”

  “I thought stymphs hate villains,” said Agatha.

  “Because the School Master’s trained them to seek out Evil souls. Only time anyone even gets near the Stymph Forest is on November 11, every four years, when the new Nevers are picked for school. Families have picnics on the perimeter and watch the stymphs blast out of the trees to kidnap kids and bring ’em to Evil castle.”

  From Tedros’ shoulders, Agatha could see the dark stretch of woods that separated Gavaldon from the faint outlines of the School for Evil.

  She’d been in that Forest before.

  That night more than two years ago, when the School Master took her and Sophie from Gavaldon . . . he’d dragged them into the Endless Woods, where a stymph hatched out of a black egg, snatched them in its jaws, and flown them off to their fateful schools.

  But why would Merlin be taking them to the Forest where their story began? They were supposed to be attacking the School for Evil. They were supposed to be finding Sophie, so she’d destroy her ring—

  If Agatha could convince her to, that is.

  Quickly she looked into the sky, trying to distract herself from her impossible task. How long did they have until the Woods went dark anyway? And why hadn’t the sun risen yet?

  Her eyes drifted back to that tiny speck of light, trapped behind the smoke clouds. As she focused harder, she saw it was dripping: orange pieces of flame that scorched through the smoke and extinguished midair.

  “Not the North Star,” she rasped. “Tedros, that’s the sun.”

  Tedros glanced at the sky, irritated. “Don’t be daft. The sun can’t be that small—” His expression tensed. “Can it?”

  Agatha knew he’d just realized the same thing she had last night. They’d been away from the Woods too long.

  Slowly he lowered her back to the ground. “Seven days. That’s what Merlin said, didn’t he?”

  “Meaning the sun will die at sunset . . . tonight,” said Agatha.