فصل 13

Chapter 13

AGATHA

Sometimes the Story Leads You

“How many men!” Agatha cried, sprinting through the pink breezeway.

“I lost count at twenty!” Dot panted, behind her.

“They got through the shield . . . I saw some kind of purple light attacking it . . . ,” Agatha called back, the bag with Dovey’s crystal ball pounding against her shoulder. “But how? Rhian’s thugs can’t do magic!” “Maybe they learned a spell!”

“Only students who went to the school can do spells! And those pirates didn’t go to the school!” “I can’t run and talk at the same time!” Dot wheezed.

Agatha glanced back at Dot and the twenty first years herding behind her through Good’s glass tunnel towards Honor Tower. Against the darkening sky, the new students shuffled like spooked sheep, whispering anxiously, their eyes wide, their feet pattering high over the Great Lawn.

Out of the corner of her eye, Agatha saw movement through the other colorful glass breezeways that connected the towers of the School for Good: Hester and Professor Anemone leading a group of first years through the blue breezeway to Valor Tower, Hort and Anadil guiding their first years along the yellow tunnel to Purity, and Yuba and Beatrix’s group using the peach passage to Charity. Meanwhile, on the roof over the crisscrossing breezeways, Agatha glimpsed Castor booting first years along. . . .

Agatha knew Rhian’s men were searching for her. To throw them off, she and the teachers had divided up the students into Forest Groups, with each group taking a different route to the same place. The one and only place in the school they would all be safe. If they could get there alive, that is.

“Who are those men?” she heard Priyanka ask.

“Camelot guards,” said a hairy, three-eyed Never tagged BOSSAM.

“They don’t look like Camelot guards,” said Priyanka.

Agatha tracked their stares through the pink glass to the dirt-caked, dead-eyed pirates in silver chainmail as they came into view, stepping over slaughtered wolf bodies and creeping towards the castle behind their captain, wielding swords and bows and clubs. If the pirates looked straight up, they’d see Agatha and her charges in the tunnel. They needed to get out of this breezeway now— “Wait!” Dot yipped, pulling to a halt.

“We don’t have time to wait!” said Agatha.

“No, look,” Dot said, hands against the glass. “It’s Kei.” Agatha glanced down at Tedros’ former guard leading the pirates, sword in hand as he skulked up the hill towards Good’s castle doors, a second man at his side. Neither Kei nor his lieutenant seemed in a rush, nor did any of the thugs fanned out behind them, as if they didn’t need to chase Agatha at all. As if they were waiting for her to come to them. Their movements unsettled her. Agatha peered closer.

“Kei was the one who took me on a date to Beauty and the Feast,” Dot said softly. “He was my first kiss. . . .” “That guy kissed you?” said Bossam. Priyanka kicked him.

“Only so he could put something in my drink and steal my keys,” Dot sniffled. “That’s how the Snake got out of Daddy’s jail. He better hope we don’t come face-to-face or I’ll—” She saw Agatha gazing downwards. “I know. Soooo handsome, right?” But Agatha wasn’t looking at Kei.

She was looking at his lieutenant. A short, big-bellied man in a brown robe, with a red beard and even redder face, who appeared less like a pirate and more like Santa Claus’ surly brother. A sleek glass orb floated over his open palm and he and Kei were studying it like a compass as they walked. Purple light filled the glass orb . . . the same purple light that Agatha had seen attacking Manley’s shield. . . .

“That’s a crystal ball,” said Dot. “Smaller than Dovey’s. Means it’s newer.” She glanced at the bag on Agatha’s arm. “Old ones are like cinder blocks.” Agatha had the bruises to prove it.

“Thought only fairy godmothers can use crystal balls,” Priyanka said.

“Fairy godfathers too,” Bossam corrected, blinking his third eye. “Must be a strong one if he got through Professor Manley’s shield.” “But what’s the captain of Camelot’s guard doing with a crystal ball?” Priyanka asked.

“Can’t see the inside from here,” said Agatha, squinting hard.

“We can if I mirrorspell it,” Dot said quickly. “I watched Hester do it in the dungeons—” Her fingertip glowed and she pressed it against the glass, before closing her eyes to summon the right emotion. “Reflecta asimova!” From her finger spewed a puff of purple fog that formed a two-dimensional projection, floating in the breezeway above the group’s heads.

“This is a close-up of what they’re seeing inside the ball,” said Dot.

Agatha watched as the purple mist swirled in the projection, half-heartedly forming various scenes: a castle . . . a bridge . . . a forest . . . before it finally seemed to settle on one: a tunnel . . . with bodies packed inside . . .

The image sharpened, revealing a group of boys and girls in crisp uniforms, swan emblems on their chests . . . led by a tall, pale girl with big bug eyes and helmet-cut hair. . . .

A girl who was gazing up at a projection of the very same scene.

Agatha’s heart stopped.

“They’re seeing . . . us,” she breathed.

Rhian’s men hadn’t gone looking for her because they didn’t need to. The crystal ball told them exactly where she was.

Slowly Agatha and the group looked down through the glass.

Down on the ground, Kei and his companion slowly looked up.

Arrows launched from the pirates’ bows, spinning towards Agatha and the students. They came too fast. No time to run. She thrust out her arms and uselessly shielded her group as the arrows hit— They rebounded off the glass, clinking and chiming with different tones like a strummed harp. The arrows halted midair, suddenly glowing the same pink as the breezeway glass, the castle’s defenses activated. Then they magically turned around and whizzed back down, impaling several of the pirates, while Kei and the others ducked for cover.

Two of the arrows stayed back, however, hovering over the field, as if calculating their target. . . .

Crouched on the ground, the fairy godfather swished his palm over his crystal, kindling a purple bonfire inside it. The orb shuddered above his hand, the storm inside burning hotter, hotter. Then it shot like a cannonball at Agatha’s breezeway, poised to obliterate it like a bomb.

The last two arrows waited a beat as if to make no mistake. . . .

Then they flew with a vengeance, one ripping through the fairy godfather’s heart, the other through the lit crystal ball, shattering it into a thousand pieces.

The robed man’s eyes bulged with shock. Then he fell forward, his corpse landing hard in the glowing wreckage of glass.

First years blinked through the breezeway.

“Didn’t see that in his ball, did he?” Dot puffed.

“Come on!” Agatha gasped, pushing the group forward—

She spotted Kei rising from the ground, jaw clenched, as he swiped a bloodstained bow from beneath a dead pirate . . . then a fragment of glass from the broken crystal ball, alive with purple glow. . . .

He aimed it right at Agatha.

Kei unleashed the glass shard, which speared through the breezeway like a bullet, grazing Agatha’s ear and blasting out the other glass wall.

For a moment, everything went quiet.

Then a slow cracking sound filled the tunnel.

Agatha looked up at the breezeway walls, splintering like a frozen pond hit by the sun.

“Run!” she screamed.

The breezeway imploded around her as students dashed for their lives, hurdling over the breaking glass and diving for the Honor Tower landing. Agatha and Dot chased behind the first years, but they were a step too late. The floor exploded beneath their feet and they went plunging off the tower, along with Priyanka and Bossam. Agatha felt the cool night wind as she fell past the other breezeways, Dovey’s bag on her arm dropping her like an anchor. Her hands flailed for Dot and the others as if she could somehow save them— Then a big, hairy paw slapped Agatha hard, knocking her backwards.

For a moment, she thought she must be hallucinating, but now she was batted into wide, open jaws, and she landed on a wet tongue alongside Dot, who looked just as dazed. Agatha poked her head between sharp teeth and peeked up at Castor’s long snout and bloodshot eyes as he balanced atop the blue breezeway, with Priyanka and Bossam squired in his paw. A gob of drool splashed on Agatha’s cheek.

Down below, pirates began stringing their bows, while Kei raced into the School for Good, Agatha tracking him through the castle’s glass. Kei bounded up the spiral staircase, his boots skipping steps.

“Castor, he’s coming!” Agatha cried.

Instantly, the dog was on the move, leaping between breezeways towards the roof, clamping Agatha and Dot in his hot, rancid mouth— An arrow struck Castor in the buttock and he roared in pain, nearly spewing Agatha and Dot out into the air, but the two girls held on by the tips of his teeth as Castor dove off the last breezeway, his claw catching onto the rooftop. Agatha saw Castor’s legs dangling over the edge and she thrust out her arms, pulling him up, before an arrow almost decapitated her and she dove back under his tongue. With a last surge, Castor threw himself forward, sliding onto the roof, and a moment later, he was on his feet again, weaving through the hedge sculptures of Merlin’s Menagerie, as Priyanka and Bossam yanked the arrow out of his rump.

Agatha could feel Castor’s heartbeat in his throat as she and Dot lit their fingerglows and magically erased the blood he was dripping, so it wouldn’t leave a trail. It would take Kei another minute to make it to the roof, but Castor’s pace was slowing, his leg limping as he hustled past hedge scenes of King Arthur crowned . . . Arthur and Guinevere married . . . their son’s birth . . . until he turned a corner to the final one: the Lady of the Lake rising from a pond to bestow Excalibur on the king. Agatha knew the sculpture well: not just because of her own history with the Lady and the sword, but because the pond was a secret portal to Halfway Bridge. A portal she’d used often in her time at school. Now, as Castor lumbered towards it, Agatha glimpsed Yuba and Beatrix on the shore of the pond, frantically herding a few last first years into the water’s portal. The students vanished beneath the surface in a blast of white light, before the gnome and fourth year jumped in themselves.

Agatha heard the door to the rooftop slam open behind the hedge . . . the rush of Kei’s bootsteps . . .

But Castor was already in midair, flopping towards the water, its portal gleaming with magic— Rhian’s captain turned the corner a few seconds later.

With his sword, Kei probed at a boy’s blue tie caught on a hedge, a girl’s pink slipper under a bush, a spot of blood on the stone floor. His narrow eyes scanned the horizon . . . the moonlit hedges . . . the rippling pond . . . But there were no signs of life, except the shadow of a cloud moving across Halfway Bridge.

If only he’d looked closer at that shadow, he would have found what he was looking for— A dog hobbling into the School for Evil, the last of his tail slithering into the castle like a snake.

“YOU CAN PUT us down now,” said Agatha.

“Not until we get there,” Castor garbled, girls in his mouth.

He clamped his teeth harder on her and Dot and clutched the first years tighter as he limped through the School for Evil, still leaking blood.

“You’re as stubborn as your brother,” Agatha sighed.

“My brother is a prat,” said Castor, pulling the girls out and fixing them with a stare. “First Dovey fires him. Then he goes to Camelot and Tedros fires him. I wrote him telling him to come here to Evil. That we could rejoin heads and work together. Never heard from him again. Probably working for Rhian now. Sucks up to whoever will have him, my brother. Doesn’t realize I’m the only one who will always be there.” There was a sadness in Castor’s voice that surprised Agatha. Castor and Pollux may have tried to kill each other at times, but Castor loved his brother to the end. Who knew that she and a dog could have so much in common, Agatha thought wryly. Her relationship with Sophie wasn’t so different.

“Poor thing,” Dot said, turning a passing roach to chocolate.

For a moment, Agatha thought Dot was talking about Castor . . . then saw her watching Bossam, who had fainted in the dog’s paw, as if the stress of the chase had been too much for him.

Meanwhile, Priyanka was staring wide-eyed at her new surroundings.

“If I’d known Evil would be like this, I wouldn’t have been so Good,” Priyanka marveled.

“You should see my room,” said Bossam, stirring.

“No, thanks,” said Priyanka curtly.

Castor snorted.

Indeed, this was Agatha’s first look inside Dean Sophie’s School for Evil: its black onyx floors, chandeliers with S-shaped crystals, walls of violet vines, bouquets of black roses, and floating lanterns that flooded the foyer with purple light. Black marble columns broadcasted magical replays from Sophie’s fairy tale—Sophie winning the Circus of Talents, Sophie fighting the Trial by Tale as a boy, Sophie destroying the School Master’s ring—while the floor tiles lit up bright purple as Castor stepped on them, with Sophie appearing in each one in different high-fashion ensembles, posing, giggling, blowing bubbles as if the entire castle was an advertisement for herself. The walls of the foyer, meanwhile, had been repainted with murals of Sophie looking windswept and ravishing, each labeled with a different motto.

THE FUTURE IS EVIL

LOOK GOOD . . . BE BAD

EVERS WANT TO BE HEROES; NEVERS WANT TO BE LEGENDS

INSIDE EVERY WITCH . . . IS A QUEEN

“Not sure this is what Lady Lesso had in mind when she made Sophie Dean,” Dot quipped.

“Where is everyone?” Bossam asked, surveying the empty halls.

“At the meeting point,” said Agatha.

“Or dead,” Castor muttered.

Priyanka and Bossam paled.

Agatha knew Castor was in pain, that he was just being sour, but his words hung in the air as he limped towards the spiral staircases, leading up to Evil’s dormitory towers. For a while, the only sounds in the whole castle were the dog’s lagging footsteps, Bossam’s and Priyanka’s whispering, and Dot’s chomping on chocolate carcasses of whatever insect or rodent crossed her path.

Agatha thought of those left behind at Camelot: Tedros . . . Nicola . . . Professor Dovey . . . Sophie . . . What would happen to them? Were they still alive? She stifled the panic just as it began. Don’t think about it. Not when an entire class of first years was counting on her to keep them safe. She had to trust that Sophie would protect her friends at Camelot the way she was protecting Sophie’s students at school.

Castor climbed the Malice staircase, laboring harder and harder.

“Look, my old room!” said Dot as they passed Malice Room 66.

“Everyone wanted that room since your coven lived there,” Bossam pointed out. “It’s famous.” “Really?” said Dot, agog. “Wish Daddy knew that.”

“As soon as we get outside, keep your heads down and be quiet,” Castor commanded, approaching the end of the hall. “Pirates see any of us and we’re all dead.” Dot frowned. “But won’t they see us when we jump into the—” “Quiet starts now,” Castor snarled.

He pulled open a door and they slipped onto a catwalk high over Evil’s sludgy moat. Castor’s body stayed flat to the ground as he prowled forward, the stone rails concealing him from the pirates down below. Agatha could see the red-and-gold lights of a sign, SOPHIE’S WAY, blinking over the walk that connected the School for Evil to the School Master’s tower. As they proceeded, the sign shined a red spotlight on each of their faces, before blinking green and moving to the next, magically vetting them. Ahead, the silver spire loomed in shadow as Castor inched closer.

Pirates’ shouts echoed below—

“No one inna Good towers!”

“Imma tear up the Evil school, then!”

“Bet they’re cowerin’ inna Blue Forest like mole rats!” Castor slid across the catwalk floor on his stomach, approaching the School Master’s window, ten feet over their heads. From this angle, Agatha couldn’t see anyone inside the tower.

Castor paused beneath the window, breathing hard.

“It’s a big jump, Castor. And you’re hurt,” Agatha whispered. “Can you make it? Without them seeing us?” Castor gritted his teeth. “We’ll find out.”

Holding his breath, he sprung onto his paws and vaulted off the catwalk. His wounded leg buckled, pulling his jump short. His head grazed the wall and his stomach scraped hard across the windowsill, forcing a bellow of pain that nearly blew the girls off the dog’s tongue, before Castor lunged up and dragged his legs over the edge into the tower, landing face-first on a plush white carpet.

“Yeh hear ‘at?” a pirate yelled below.

“Hear what?”

“The dog, yeh fool! Heard ‘im o’er there!”

Castor’s fist opened, dropping Priyanka and Bossam. His mouth slackened, letting Agatha and Dot slide out in a spurt of drool. Then he gurgled a last moan of pain—“Tell my brother he can have the body”—and he passed out cold.

“Still breathing,” Agatha heard Yuba say.

Flat on her back, she smeared drool out of her eyes and saw the entire first-year class crammed inside the School Master’s tower, now Dean Sophie’s lavish chamber, where they safely crouched beneath the window line so they wouldn’t be spotted by the pirates below. Everywhere she looked there were students: jammed into Sophie’s closet between shoe racks, peeking out from the mirrored bathroom, blinking owlishly from under the bed. In the corner, the Storian painted in its open book, its silver tip glancing back at Agatha before scribbling again, as if trying to keep up with the story.

Meanwhile, the teachers huddled around Castor.

“Arrow wound in the muscle,” Yuba said to the others.

“Is he okay?” Agatha asked urgently, tossing Dovey’s bag aside.

“Lost a lot of blood to get you here,” said Princess Uma, tying her shawl around Castor’s back leg to staunch the wound. “But he’ll recover. Let him rest for now.” “Rest?” Agatha scoffed. “Pirates are trying to kill us. Call the stymphs! We’ll fly somewhere safe—” “And where’s that?” said a familiar voice.

Agatha turned to Hester, spotlit beneath the glittery aquarium in Sophie’s ceiling next to Hort, Anadil, Beatrix, Reena, and Kiko, all still caked in rubble from Camelot’s dungeons.

“Every kingdom is on Rhian’s side,” Hester argued. “Where can we hide a whole school?” “Plus, the Snake’s Quest Map is tracking us,” Anadil added, her arm bandaged.

“We don’t even have enough stymphs to get us all out of here,” said Hort.

“And even if we did, the pirates have arrows to shoot us down,” Kiko pointed out.

“We’re trapped,” said Beatrix.

Agatha shook her head. “But . . . but . . .”

“Most of the wolves are dead, Agatha,” said Professor Manley. “Rest probably escaped through the hole in my shield. That sorcerer must have helped the pirates break through; crystal balls can find weakness in any magic.” “Even more reason for us to get out of here, before another sorcerer comes,” Agatha insisted.

“I sent the fairies to look for help in the Woods. Someone who can rescue us,” Princess Uma advised. “In the meantime, the castle will defend itself against intruders. Our best hope is to hide here until they leave.” “And if they don’t?” Agatha countered. “We can’t just wait while monsters invade our school!” “The only way to the tower is Sophie’s catwalk, which is charmed to attack trespassers. Even if Rhian’s men try to break in here, we’re safe,” Professor Anemone said, pulling pillows off Sophie’s gold-veiled bed and laying them under Castor’s head. “For now, the smart move is no move.” “If I know Sophie, she’s at Camelot, doing everything she can to rescue our friends. She’d want me to do the same for her students, not sit around and hope we don’t die!” Agatha challenged. “What if we mogrify and make a run for it?” “First years haven’t even learned mogrification,” Professor Sheeks argued, “let alone how to control it under stress—” “Or what if some of us distract the pirates while the rest of you run?” Agatha hounded, her voice shallowing. “Or what if we use a spell . . . any spell . . . There has to be something we can do!” “Agatha,” said Yuba sharply. “Remember the first lesson of Surviving Fairy Tales. Survive. I know you want to keep our students safe. But Emma and Uma are right: there is no move to make. Not yet.” Agatha’s eyes followed the gnome’s to the Storian in the corner, halted over the open storybook and its painting of this very scene: the School Master’s tower . . . the children hiding inside . . . the pirates down below. . . . The pen stayed completely still, a gleam at its tip, as if watching Agatha the way she was watching it. “You’re like all the best heroes, Agatha. You think you lead your story,” said Yuba. “You think you control your own fate. That the pen follows in your wake. But that’s not always the truth. Sometimes the story leads you.” Agatha resisted. “Defeating Evil means fighting for Good. Defeating Evil means action. You told me not to use the crystal ball. You told me not to send first years to Camelot. But that’s how we saved people!” “At what cost?” said Yuba. “Those left may be in even greater danger than before.” Agatha felt her stomach hollow. The gnome had spoken her biggest fear: that in her effort to save Tedros and her friends, she’d ensured their doom. She turned to Hester, Hort, and the others who’d returned, waiting for them to reassure her. To tell her she’d done well. But they said nothing, their faces solemn, as if this was a question with no right answer.

Once upon a time, there’d been Good and Evil.

Now they lived in the in-between.

“I say we fight these thugs,” said another familiar voice.

Agatha turned to Ravan, Mona, and Vex stuffed into a corner, along with other fourth years she hadn’t seen since the Four Point, each of them bandaged and bruised.

“Ever since our quests, we’ve been trapped in the infirmary, with nothing to do but read books, search for clues about the Snake, and watch first years do our job,” Ravan grouched, a book under his arm. “This is our school and we have to defend it.” “If you fight, we’re fighting too,” said Bodhi, crouched with Laithan and the first-year Evers.

“Us too,” said Laralisa with the Nevers. “Between all of us, we have numbers on our side.” “So did the wolves,” Hort retorted. “I’m not a coward, but I know pirates and they fight dirty. Everything about them is dirty. And Rhian has my girlfriend and Sophie and Dovey and Tedros. I know we need to save them. But we also can’t rush out of here and die a stupid death. Because then they’re really doomed.” The tower went quiet.

Agatha could see the mix of fear and courage in her schoolmates’ eyes, all of them locked on her as their leader.

She instinctively looked at Hester.

“This is your decision, Agatha,” the witch said. “You’re Queen of the Castle, here or Camelot or anywhere else. We trust you.” “All of us do,” said Anadil.

Kiko and Reena nodded. “Me too,” said Beatrix.

Hort crossed his arms.

They glowered at him.

“Okay, fine. I’ll do what she says,” Hort grumped, “as long as she doesn’t kiss my new girlfriend like she kissed Sophie.” “Priorities,” Dot wisped.

Agatha was lost in thought, gazing at her quest crew, depending on her as their leader . . . at her injured classmates, itching to go into battle . . . at the teachers, who were looking at her for directions the way she once looked at them . . . at the first years who would risk their lives on her command. . . .

She’d always been a fighter.

That’s who she was.

But Good isn’t about who you are. Her best friend had taught her that lesson once upon a time. Good is about what you do.

She took a deep breath and looked at her army.

“We wait,” she said.

Everyone heaved a sigh of relief.

As they went back to whispering amongst themselves, Agatha suddenly heard scratching from the corner. . . .

The Storian was drawing again, amending its painting of the tower.

Strange, she thought. Nothing in the scene had changed.

She crawled over to the Storian’s table and slid up the wall, out of view from the window, so she could see what the pen was drawing.

The painting was the same as it was before: Agatha, the teachers, her friends, and the students hiding in the tower, while down below the pirates searched the shore. But the Storian was adding something else now. . . .

A blast of gold in the sky.

The beginnings of a new message from Lionsmane.

High over the Endless Woods.

Even stranger, Agatha thought, peeking out the window at the clear sky with no message from Rhian’s pen in sight. Why would the Storian draw something that isn’t there?

Agatha gazed at the night’s blank canvas, listening to the pen behind her, presumably filling in the fictional message. It didn’t make sense. The Storian recorded history. It didn’t invent things. She felt herself tighten, doubting the pen for the very first time— Then a flash of gold lit up the sky.

A message from Lionsmane.

Just like the Storian promised.

Sometimes the story leads you, the gnome had said.

As the light settled over the Woods, Agatha read Rhian’s new tale in the sky, praying it was still by Sophie’s hand, praying she’d snuck another code into it— She stumbled back in shock.

She read the message again.

“Agatha?” a voice said. “What is it?”

She turned to see her whole army quietly staring at her.

Agatha bared her teeth like a lion.

“We need to get to Camelot,” she said. “Now.”