فصل 22

Chapter 22

SOPHIE

Script of a Murder

Evelyn Sader, Sophie thought, steering the rickshaw up the spiral track.

A name from the past. Now a curse in the present.

Evelyn Sader: imperious and milky-smooth, with that wicked dress made out of butterflies. Evelyn Sader, Dean of the School for Girls, who’d brought the School Master back from the dead to show her love for him. But Rafal never loved Evelyn. He’d loved Sophie. He wanted Sophie as his bride. So he’d killed Evelyn Sader to get her out of the way. That was supposed to be the end of Evelyn’s story. Her dark, devious schemes of love had borne no fruit.

But somewhere earlier in Evelyn’s story, those dark schemes had borne fruit.

Because Evelyn had hexed King Arthur to have his sons. That much was clear. (Unless the scene was a fake . . . Not possible, thought Sophie. It had come from Rhian’s blood, not his mind.) But there were still so many questions. How had Evelyn Sader met Lady Gremlaine? Did Gremlaine know Evelyn had used the spansel she herself had disavowed? Did Gremlaine know Evelyn had borne Arthur’s sons? Was that Lady Gremlaine’s terrible “secret”? And had the School Master, Evelyn’s true love, learned of it?

Sophie was so distracted, she was driving the rickshaw straight towards the side of the track— She corrected course, holding down her panic.

She’d stolen the rickshaw from that noisy page boy (Snubby? Smarmy? Sauron?), who had parked his cart outside the window of the bedroom where she’d slept. She’d tiptoed past his snoring body, slumped against a tree, and found the snakeskin in the rickshaw’s front seat. Wheels screeched against stone, and the gnome bolted awake to see his cart scuttling away, no driver in sight. “Bhoot!” he brayed. “Bhoooot! There’s a ghost in my cart! Bhooooot!” Sophie guessed that bhoot meant ghost in Gnome, so she did her best to play the part, swerving menacingly as the page boy chased. Soon his rickshaw was long gone, cruising upwards into the bright lights of the city.

She pedaled harder now, past Teapea’s Temple and the Musée de Gnome, stress wrenching at her ribs. Tedros would hate her for leaving. He’d think Evelyn Sader being revealed as Rhian’s mother and Arthur as his father had sent Sophie running back into the king’s arms. Because now Sophie knew that Rhian was the true heir. Rhian was king. Which meant Sophie could be queen of Camelot. The real queen. And Tedros knew nothing came between Sophie and a crown.

Agatha would try to defend her, of course. Agatha would search for some kind of sign that her best friend was still on their side.

But Aggie wouldn’t find any. Not just because Sophie had no time to leave one . . . but because if she’d let Agatha in on her plan, her best friend would have come after her, right back into Rhian’s hands.

Which meant Tedros would win for now. Sophie would be branded a soulless, two-faced fink. The same girl who left them for Rafal and had played them for fools once more. Sophie, who had no loyalty. Sophie, who only cared about herself.

She didn’t blame Tedros. If she were him, she would think the same things.

But losing her friends’ trust was the price she had to pay.

Because this had nothing to do with Evelyn Sader.

This had to do with what Sophie had seen in a crystal.

Not the blood crystal.

Another crystal.

A crystal she’d found on her own.

The crystal Agatha had caught her staring at before she’d pretended it was junk and slipped it into her pocket.

But it wasn’t junk.

That crystal was the reason she was abandoning her friends in the middle of the night.

And this is what she’d seen inside . . .

Her own self.

Cowering in the corner of the king’s bedroom, her cheek gashed, her white, ruffled dress soaked with blood.

Rhian was across the room, in his blue-and-gold king’s suit.

So was Japeth, in his gold-and-blue liege’s suit.

They were fighting.

More than fighting.

A Lion and Snake, going for the kill.

Hands clawed at eyes and hair. Teeth sank into skin. Punches landed, spewing blood from mouths, their faces mangled to crimson pulps. The twins battled onto the bed, each straining to get to Excalibur— Rhian got there first.

The blade swung through the air, the edge catching the light like a sunflare— It impaled Japeth’s chest.

Clean through the heart.

Rhian drew the sword out and his brother fell.

Slowly, Rhian kneeled over Japeth’s body, watching him take his last breath. The king bowed his head, holding his brother’s corpse.

Excalibur lay abandoned behind him.

Rhian didn’t see Sophie move from the corner.

The fear was gone from her face.

Replaced with intent.

She raised the sword over Rhian’s back—

The crystal went dark.

Sophie had watched this scene play out silently in the glass droplet, again and again and again.

Rhian kills Japeth.

Sophie kills Rhian.

That’s how this fairy tale ended.

Or it’s how she wished this fairy tale ended.

The crystals were unreliable, Reaper had warned.

Especially hers.

But it didn’t matter.

This was her future.

She’d make it her future.

She drove the rickshaw faster, her teeth grinding hard.

Dovey said something to her once: “This is about whether you are capable of growing from the snake of your own story into the hero of someone else’s.” Deep down, Sophie never thought it possible.

At her core, she was a villain, not a hero.

Agatha and Tedros were the heroes.

The best she could do was to help them.

The witch turned sidekick.

And yet, joining forces with Good hadn’t worked.

The son of Evelyn Sader sat on Camelot’s throne.

Evelyn Sader! Sophie thought, still stunned.

Her bastard son from Arthur, born of black magic.

It didn’t matter what Agatha and Tedros did.

This Evil was one step ahead.

This Evil was beyond Good’s reach, a two-headed dragon scorching every shield.

This Evil was seeded so deep in the past that only Evil in the present could undo it.

Agatha and Tedros were the wrong heroes for this war.

But Sophie?

Evil was her blood.

She was the hero to slay this dragon.

And she had the crystal in her pocket to prove it.

Not that she could watch it again, since only Agatha had the power to make a crystal work. But just having it on her body gave her a cold-blooded resolve. All she had to do was follow the script of what she’d seen. The script of a murder. It’s why she’d changed back into this repellent white dress. The future told her to.

As Sophie ascended through Gnome City, the lights of the kingdom blinked and beamed, but it was quiet now, not a gnome in sight, except a toothless grandma filling street lanterns with glowing fireflies and sweeping out the dead ones. Grandma Gnome glanced up at the ghost rickshaw, then shrugged and went back to work. Sophie heard a buzz growing as she pedaled higher, towards the top of the track, like she was a bee outside the hive.

With one steep push, she found the track’s end, a landing pad beneath the ceiling of dirt that she, Teddy, and Aggie had fallen through to arrive in Gnomeland. Sophie climbed out of the rickshaw, the snakeskin cloaked tightly around her, and raised her palm into the dirt. Like quicksand, it grew wet and thick around her fingers, sucking up her hand, then her arm, then her hair, then her face. . . .

She pulled herself out the other side.

The din of war detonated through the abandoned Flowerground tunnel, shrieks and screams and thunderous slams reverberating. Lit green by glowing vines, the gnome blockade rose as far as she could see into the hollow, male and female gnomes of every age balancing on each other’s shoulders and locking arms to withstand the shattering smashes of Japeth’s scims against the pit.

But the gnomes’ defense had started to crack. Two scims had broken into the tunnel, scudding around the lattice of bodies, stabbing at will, as the gnomes tried to fend them off without losing grip on each other and collapsing the blockade.

Sophie pushed the rest of her body through the dirt, sliding between the legs of a big, muscled gnome—and almost knocked straight into Guinevere and the Sheriff. Agatha’s cat was clinging to the Sheriff’s sack, tied around the Sheriff’s bicep, the group of them hidden in the shadows of the blockade.

“I’m gonna fight those eely maggots and you can’t stop me,” the Sheriff growled at Reaper, but the cat knifed his claws into the Sheriff’s shoulder, baring his teeth.

“Meow,” the Gnome King commanded.

The Sheriff shoved his nose to the cat’s. “You rat-faced, skunk-smelling troll—” Reaper’s body stiffened, his yellow eyes flaring.

“Meow!” he blurted suddenly. “Meow meow!”

He jumped off the Sheriff’s shoulder and sprinted for the dirt patch Sophie had just come through.

“Agatha! He says she’s in trouble!” Guinevere conveyed, dragging the Sheriff after Reaper. “And Tedros is with Agatha! If she’s in trouble, so is he—” Agatha’s cat was about to dive through the dirt, back into Gnomeland, when he froze sharply. He glanced in Sophie’s direction, her body hidden beneath the snakeskin, and she ducked on all fours behind the hulking gnome. The cat peered harder. . . .

“Let’s go, then,” the Sheriff barked, shoving Reaper down through the dirt and helping Guinevere too, until both had disappeared.

Except the Sheriff didn’t follow.

The moment the cat was gone, the Sheriff flung his enchanted sack over the dirt pit, so that if anyone came back for him, they’d go flying into the sack instead. Then the Sheriff stormed towards the gnome Sophie was hiding behind and put his dirty boot on the gnome’s shoulder. The gnome yelped in surprise, but the Sheriff had already started to climb. More gnomes shrieked, alarmed by the massive, hairy human scaling them like a mountain, but they were arranged too precariously to fight, reduced to wayward slaps at the Sheriff’s head and bops at his nose. The Sheriff gritted his teeth, his boots digging into gnomes’ backs, their shouts and smacks getting louder and harder, until he was high enough to spot one of the two free-flying scims, puncturing gnome after gnome, about to collapse the center of the pyramid and send half the kingdom tumbling to its death. The loose scim shot towards the strongest gnome, who’d already been stabbed twice and was struggling to hold the blockade together. The scim’s sharp tip lined straight for the gnome’s neck— The Sheriff swiped the eel into his bare hand. He bit off the scim’s head and spat it out, pulverized the rest with his fist, and dripped the goo into the darkness of the pit.

A thousand gnomes gaped at him.

They exploded into cheers, drowning out the rumbles of the scims outside.

Suddenly man’s best friend, the gnomes helped the Sheriff climb higher, chanting “GO SMELLY! GO SMELLY!” in reedy chorus. Taking advantage of their distraction, Sophie hopped up gnomes in the Sheriff’s wake, the dwarfish creatures grunting at her weight and swiveling their heads, only to see nothing there. As she scaled higher, Sophie heard more boisterous cheers and glimpsed the Sheriff crushing the second scim, sending its leaky guts spattering down and spraying onto Sophie’s snakeskin. The gnome she was climbing gawked at the seemingly levitating goo, but Sophie was already past him, chasing the Sheriff, who was headed for the lid of the tree stump.

Outside, the scim assault on the stump ceased, the vibration of the thunderous blasts against the pit petering out to nothing. Gnomes erupted in celebration, thinking the battle won, but the Sheriff only climbed faster, as if the real villain was about to get away. Sophie struggled to keep up, losing ground. The Sheriff was clawing up the last group of gnomes, reaching out his meaty palms and forcing open the heavy stump, the chill of the forest flooding the hollow. With a snarl, he thrust his big belly and hips out the hole, letting the lid fly closed. Gasping, Sophie swung between gnomes, her soft slippers dancing on their shoulders. She dove for the last sliver of moonlight— Brisk night air kissed her face before she yanked her last leg through and the stump slammed shut.

THE WOODS WAS silent.

Sophie lay only a few inches from the Sheriff, flat on her stomach, but he couldn’t see her with the snakeskin coating her body. She stayed dead still as the Sheriff rose to his feet.

“I know you’re out there,” he growled, his eyes roaming the darkness, weakly lit by the stump’s fireflies. “Hiding like the coward you are.” A leaf crackled—

The Sheriff spun.

Kiko froze, her rosy face and pigtailed hair painted in moonlight. “Beatrix and Reena heard noises and went to investigate and left me on guard, but I had to pee so I did it over there because those fireflies on the stump watch everyth—” She stopped.

The Sheriff had a finger to his lips.

“Hide,” he mouthed.

Kiko ducked behind a tree.

The Sheriff listened closer, the silence widening around him. He prowled forward, his boot about to crush Sophie— Then his eyes chilled.

Slowly, he turned around.

Japeth snaked out of the shadows, the orange glow of the stump reflecting in his scaly black suit like flames.

“Clever, clever. Giving Robin Hood your ring so he could sneak into the Council meeting undetected,” the Snake said, face unmasked. “But why? What did he do there? Leave a message for a princess, perhaps?” He held up his eel-covered hand, the scims pulling apart over his milky skin like ants fleeing a nest, revealing a blank card in his palm. Japeth bit hard into his own lip, drawing blood. Then he dipped the tip of his finger in the blood and streaked it across the parchment, the blood countering the magic, making words visible.

The Sheriff didn’t flinch.

“It had to be your ring that Robin used, because Robin doesn’t have a ring,” Japeth pointed out. “Sherwood Forest left those duties to Nottingham, where the forest lives. Ironic, isn’t it? Robin Hood, a subject of his mortal Nemesis? Which means it’s not Robin who can save the day this time. It’s the dear, misunderstood Sheriff.” The Sheriff snorted. “So that’s why your brother sent his half-wit pirates to kill me in Nottingham. Thought they could get my ring. Got some smashed bones instead.” Sophie’s heart shuddered so hard under the snakeskin she thought it’d fly off. So I was right about Robin having a ring, she thought. Only it wasn’t Robin’s. That’s why Reaper wouldn’t let the Sheriff fight. He was protecting the Sheriff. He was protecting his ring.

“Only three rulers still wear their rings. Three out of a hundred,” said Japeth crisply. “And when tonight’s attacks on two of those kingdoms are over, those three will be down to one. You, the last man standing.” “And so here you are to kill me,” the Sheriff grinned.

“Didn’t think it’d be so simple, to be honest,” said the Snake. “I thought I’d have to kill Agatha, Tedros, and all the rebels to get my chance at you. Figured once you knew my brother was onto you, your friends would hide you well—” He saw the Sheriff’s face twitch.

“Ah, I see. They don’t know you’re here. They don’t know you left your hiding place to come and fight me,” Japeth mused. “Pride is the deadliest sin.” “Oh, there are deadlier ones,” said the Sheriff. “Killin’ a fairy godmother. Stealin’ the Lady of the Lake’s powers. Playin’ henchman for a lying mongrel.” Japeth’s eyes slashed through him. “And yet, the Lady of the Lake kissed me. The Lady of the Lake wanted me. That’s how I stole her powers. Would Good’s greatest defender fall in love with a henchman?” The Sheriff had no answer. Neither did Sophie, trapped on the ground.

“Let’s see it, then,” Japeth ordered. “Show me your ring.” “Robin still has it. You’ll have to fight him for it,” the Sheriff replied calmly. “Good luck surviving in Sherwood Forest. Bet my boots you won’t.” “I see,” Japeth cooed. “It’s just . . . I don’t believe you. I’d bet my boots, as you say, that you wouldn’t let that ring out of your hands, now that you know my brother’s after it. You wouldn’t trust anyone to protect it but yourself. Especially not Robin Hood.” The Sheriff met Japeth’s eyes. Sophie waited for the Sheriff to laugh . . . to show he’d outwitted his opponent . . . to prove Robin still had the ring, like he’d said. . . .

“Think you’re smart little arses,” the Sheriff spewed, reddening. “You and your brother. You’ll never win. Killin’ me won’t do a thing. Only the ruler of Nottingham can burn the ring. If I die, it goes to the next in line, and Dot ain’t burnin’ it, no matter what you do. Her friends will protect her—” “I’m afraid your memory fails you,” said the Snake. “If you die, that ring transfers to your successor, who according to Nottingham law should have been your daughter, until you changed the law so that your successor would be Bertie, your jail attendant, instead. According to the Nottingham News, you did it in quite the fit of rage after Dot rescued Robin from jail. I take it you and your daughter have a spotted history? In any case, Bertie’s been basking at a new estate in Camelot, paid for by my brother. Which means Bertie will gladly burn your ring before your body makes it to a grave.” Japeth’s eyes flashed. “Betraying your own blood has costs, it turns out.” The Sheriff roared and charged the Snake like a battering ram. The Sheriff hit him so hard that Japeth went flying to the ground, knocked out cold. In an instant, the Sheriff was on him, beating him with both fists, gashing open the Snake’s ghost-white cheeks, the Sheriff’s punches fueled by a fire so deep Sophie wasn’t sure he would ever stop. But something was moving on Japeth’s thigh: a single scim still wiggling . . . struggling to peel itself off the Snake’s suit. . . .

Sophie lunged too late—

The eel stabbed into the Sheriff’s ear.

The Sheriff screamed in pain, writhing onto his back and mauling at his ear spouting blood, before he finally yanked out the scim and tore it to shreds. He crawled to get up, but Japeth kicked him in the chest, then delivered a hammer blow to the Sheriff’s head with both fists, crushing him to his knees.

A blast of yellow light shot past the Snake’s head.

Japeth turned to see Kiko sprinting towards him.

Scims shot off his suit, aimed for Kiko’s face— Sophie sprang to her knees. She fired a flare of hot pink glow that bashed into Kiko’s chest, blasting her like a cannonball into the darkness of trees.

It was the strongest stun spell Sophie could muster, powered with the resolve to keep Kiko alive. Wherever Kiko was, she’d be slow to recover, but hopefully Beatrix and Reena would find her before any of Rhian’s men did.

Meanwhile, the Snake had glimpsed the spell hitting Kiko and wheeled in Sophie’s direction, but he couldn’t see anyone there— The Sheriff took advantage of Japeth’s distraction and clubbed him in the neck, throttling him to the ground. The Snake flipped over and kneed him in the groin, climbing on top of the Sheriff with lightning speed and pressing his hands to his throat.

Wrapped in snakeskin, Sophie scrambled to her feet, rushing for Japeth, another stun spell at her fingertips— Then she stopped.

Or rather, something stopped Sophie.

Her dress.

It flayed at her body, the white lace hardening like a corset, tighter, tighter against her skin, burning hotter, hotter, until beneath the snakeskin, her white dress began to turn black.

What’s happening? she gasped, stuck in place.

The entire dress morphed as shiny and dark as obsidian, hugging her body like a second skin, the once white ruffles hardening, elongating, sharper, sharper, into spiny, needling . . . quills.

Sophie’s stomach dropped.

This dress.

She’d seen it before.

In a crystal.

The first time she went inside the ball: a vision of her clad in this porcupine dress as she climbed a tree.

She’d pooh-poohed the scene back then. The thought that she’d wear such a travesty. And not just that, but to wear this spiny-quilled dress in the middle of the Woods and then to start climbing trees— Sophie’s eyes quivered.

Oh no.

Like a gale wind, the dress began moving Sophie towards the nearest tree, an invisible force so strong she couldn’t fight it. The dress dragged her up the trunk, so she wasn’t climbing as much as ascending, being pulled past branches to the top, where the quills of the dress gouged into the thick bark, securing Sophie in place like a straitjacket, far away from the Snake and the Sheriff, still warring on the ground.

Sophie thrashed against the tree, the snakeskin shrouding her. Why couldn’t she get the dress off like she could before? Japeth didn’t even know she was here. How could a dress have a mind of its own? How could it come alive now? She should have known not to trust it: from the way Japeth insisted she wear it . . . to the way it itched when he’d been close . . . to the way it’d reappeared after she’d burned it to ash. . . .

It was his beloved mother’s dress.

Evelyn Sader’s dress.

And like the butterfly dress Evelyn once wore and her son’s suit of eels, this was alive too.

Down on the ground, Japeth was strangling the Sheriff so hard that the Sheriff’s face had gone cherry-red, the veins of his throat shearing at his skin.

The Sheriff raised a big, trembling palm—

And slapped Japeth in the face with all his strength.

Japeth let loose a startled shout, drowned out by a primal war cry, the Sheriff bounding off the ground and snaring the Snake like a lion. A blade-sharp scim shot off Japeth’s suit but the Sheriff caught it midair and stabbed Japeth in the rib. The eels on Japeth’s body shrieked in terrible chorus, before they all launched from the Snake’s suit like a thousand black knives and impaled the Sheriff’s wrists and ankles, crucifying him into dirt. The Sheriff grunted in shock, then stared upwards, his black eyes big, his lips wheezing panicked breaths.

Bolted to the tree, Sophie floundered to make her finger glow, but was thwarted by the dress. She’d never felt so beaten, so scared. This was Dot’s father. A villain who’d redeemed himself. A man of Evil who’d sided with Good when it mattered. He didn’t deserve to die. Not now. And yet, she couldn’t help him. She couldn’t do anything.

Japeth stood up, face bludgeoned to an ugly shade of purple, rivers of blood flowing down his naked form.

He picked up a heavy stick off the ground and broke it over his knee, the end of it sharp as a stake.

The Snake approached the Sheriff and straddled his helpless body, his eyes empty and cold.

“You’ll . . . never . . . win. . . . ,” the Sheriff rasped.

“Isn’t that what you said before this started?” Japeth replied.

Sophie let out a silent cry—

The stake ripped through the Sheriff’s heart.

Sophie turned away, tears spilling onto her hands, leaves and branches scratching at her cheeks. She could hear Japeth ransacking the Sheriff’s body for the ring. The Snake’s breaths grew louder, his movements more frantic. He couldn’t find it. . . .

Then it went quiet.

Sophie looked down at Japeth kneeled over the Sheriff’s body.

He was frozen still.

Thinking.

“Bet my boots . . . ,” Japeth murmured.

His eyes floated to the Sheriff’s shoe.

He pulled off the dirty leather boot.

Then the other.

The silver ring glinted around a blackened toe, almost as bright as the Snake’s smile.

Japeth sauntered into the Endless Woods, whistling a tune, his bare snow-white skin glowing through the darkness, before he glanced back at his minions. The eels released the Sheriff’s body to the dirt and chased after their master.

Up in the tree, Sophie’s dress melted back to white lace, gently unlocking her from the bark as if the dress was suddenly her friend. In a flash, she was sliding down branches, diving onto the ground, falling onto the Sheriff’s body— His eyes were still open, blood foaming from his mouth.

“Tell . . . Dot . . .”

“Shhh! I’ll get the gnomes! I’ll get help!” Sophie said, spinning for the stump— The Sheriff seized her hand. “Tell Dot . . . me and her mother . . .” He choked out blood. “It was . . . love.” His heart stopped.

Slowly his eyes closed.

His hand let go of Sophie’s, the skin ice-cold.

“No . . . ,” Sophie whispered. She sobbed over the Sheriff, soaked with his blood. She would have saved him. She would have stopped this. She was the Witch of Woods Beyond. She would have torn out Japeth’s heart and fed it to his eels. She’d have given her life to protect that ring, to protect the Woods and her friends. If only she’d been given the chance.

Enraged, she ripped at the white dress, shredding its layers and flinging them into the wind, but the dress instantly repaired and erased the Sheriff’s blood, its magic sealing her in tighter, like a suit of armor.

Sophie hunched there, wet with sweat and tears, as dawn threatened the dark.

Something cut against her thigh. Inside her pocket.

The crystal.

The one that made her leave her friends and escape here in the first place.

The one that showed her a way to fight back.

A thick rumble echoed in the forest—

Sophie turned.

Seeds of flames flickered through the trees, gliding in her direction.

Sophie’s eyes knifed to green glass.

Follow the crystal, she thought.

Follow the script.

The Sheriff would be avenged.

Payback was coming.

For Japeth and his brother.

Quickly, Sophie pulled the Sheriff’s body into the trees, away from the haze of sunrise bleeding onto the forest floor.

She paced by the stump, her eyes darting around the Woods.

No sign of Kiko, Beatrix, Reena.

No sign of Reaper or the gnomes.

She needed to contact Agatha . . . to ask her a question she needed answered . . .

But how?

Something Kiko said floated back to her: “Those fireflies on the stump watch everything . . .” The rumbling grew closer . . . the torches brighter. . . .

A blue-and-gold carriage approached, carved with Camelot’s crest, bathing Sophie in flamelight as the driver slowed the horses.

Through the window, Sophie spotted a boy inside the carriage, his face shadowed.

The door opened.

Using her pink glow to light her steps, Sophie climbed in next to the boy and shut the door.

He turned towards Sophie, his square jaw and thin eyes sculpted in silhouette.

“Rhian saw your message,” said Kei.

He held up a familiar piece of parchment.

The letter from Arthur to Lady Gremlaine.

“Dear Grisella, I know you’ve gone to stay with your sister Gemma . . .” The letter Sophie had shoved in Rhian’s face as he fought her in his bed.

The letter that had made the king’s eyes go wide, his bloody hands limp against hers.

But it wasn’t the letter that had done it.

It was the words Sophie had painted over the letter, out of Agatha’s sight.

The words she’d secretly scrawled with Rhian’s blood.

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She’d lied to Agatha, pretending to go along with her plan.

She’d betrayed her friends and the forces of Good.

But only Sophie had seen the crystal now hidden in her pocket.

Only she had witnessed how this tale really ended.

Soon the Lion and the Snake would be dead.

Sophie looked up at Kei. “He knows I’m on his side, doesn’t he? The king?” The captain didn’t answer. He faced forward as the driver whipped the horses and the carriage veered on its wheel, back towards Camelot.