فصل 23

Chapter 23

AGATHA

Cat in a Museum

Agatha stood at the center of the earth, her body coated with sweat, an endless pit of blue lava swelling beneath her like a luminescent sea.

Slowly, a glowing green vine lowered the Sheriff’s body towards the lava.

Behind Agatha, hundreds of gnomes gathered on Lands End, a grassy slab suspended by vines, dominated by a golden obelisk, carved with the names of gnomes come and gone. Beneath the levitating field of grass, an ocean of fluorescing lava roiled, where the dead had been cremated. The audience of gnomes held their hats and bowed heads as the lava welcomed its first ever human, molten waves storming and splashing over the Sheriff’s body, before devouring it in a hiss of smoke.

Agatha didn’t shed any tears. The Sheriff was dead by the time she, Tedros, Reaper, and Guinevere had made it past the enchanted sack the Sheriff had left as a trap. They’d tried to gather the fireflies from the stump and extract everything they’d seen, but the scims had decimated nearly all of them, corrupting the footage. But they’d watched enough to know that Japeth had killed the Sheriff in cold blood and stripped him of his ring. The one ring that could stand between Rhian and infinite power.

Agatha’s soul raged like the inferno below.

Japeth killed Chaddick.

Japeth killed Millicent.

Japeth killed Lancelot, Dovey, the Sheriff.

All this time, she’d been obsessed with a lying king and his throne.

Meanwhile, his brother was murdering her friends without mercy.

Tedros and Guinevere flanked her, their eyes reflecting bright lava and dark thoughts.

“Your Highness?” a voice said.

They all turned.

Subby, the king’s page boy, stepped forward. “Someone stole my rickshaw,” he puled, gnomes watching. “Took it right from the palace!” “Meow, meow,” Reaper exhaled, with no patience for this.

“I thought it was a bhoot!” Subby insisted. “But it was a human bhoot!” “Meow! Meow!” the cat assailed—

“A human who was up there!” Subby blurted. “Up there when the Sheriff died!” Reaper’s face changed.

“I found this near his body,” his page explained.

Subby held up something, catching the light of the graveyard.

All the gnomes let out a startled oooooh.

Tedros turned on his princess with a glare.

So did Reaper.

Agatha gritted her teeth.

Even from here, she could smell it.

The snakeskin in Subby’s hands.

Stinking of dirt and mulch . . .

And lavender.

A TOOTHLESS GRANDMA gnome sat cross-legged on the floor, tapping her fingers across the bellies of a hundred dead fireflies like they were piano keys.

“Stop there,” said Agatha.

Grandma Gnome stopped her tapping, pausing the distorted footage playing out on a glowing wall in the throne room.

Tedros, Guinevere, Agatha, and Reaper all leaned in, studying the scene on the wall.

“Any way to fill it in a bit more?” Agatha asked the old gnome.

The toothless grandma fussed with the dead fireflies, repairing broken carcasses and wings with her fingertip, which seemed to fill in the corrupted frame. “A birdie doo doo on you,” Granny Gnome warbled as she worked. “A birdie doo doo on you . . . A birdie doo doo—” “Can you work any faster?” Tedros said, exasperated.

The grandma gave him a fetid look, punctuated by a fart. Then she went back to fussing and singing, exactly as before.

Tedros appealed to Reaper.

The cat mumbled as if to say, “Try ruling a kingdom full of them.” “Look! That’s her!” Agatha exclaimed, studying the filled-in frame of Kiko bum-rushing the Snake, derailed by a blast of pink light to her chest. Agatha pointed at the disembodied glow. “It’s Sophie’s spell. She must have been hiding nearby.” “There’s your proof, then. Your supposed best friend attacked Kiko to stop her from fighting the Snake,” Tedros seethed. “Your supposed best friend was helping Dovey’s and the Sheriff’s murderer.” “Or she was trying to save Kiko from being killed,” said Agatha reflexively.

“Still defending her! Still defending that witch!” Tedros spat, angrier than she’d ever seen him. “I never thought you could be so stupid!” Agatha fought with Tedros often. Her prince was well aware that she was as tough as he was and he loved her for it. But this time, Agatha had no ground to stand on. Sophie had deserted her friends and crawled back to the enemy. Not only that, but now Agatha recalled the way Sophie pinned Rhian to the bed when they went into the crystal . . . the rushed way she’d confronted him . . . as if trying to play out a different script than the one she and Agatha had agreed on. . . .

“I did what had to be done,” Sophie had defended after. “I did what was right.” She botched the plan on purpose, Agatha realized.

But why?

That crystal, she thought.

The one she’d caught Sophie staring at and sneaking into her pocket.

Sophie had seen something inside of it.

Something that made her want to go back to Camelot.

“Hmm . . . if this is Sophie’s spell, then this must be Sophie,” Guinevere deduced, pointing to a wrinkle of glow in the corner of the frame. “The stump’s fireflies picked up the presence of the snakeskin. Is there any way to track this spot of light through the rest of the footage?” Granny Gnome strummed her fingers across firefly bellies once more, scanning through images and dexterously filling in scenes, following the blip of glow as it scaled a tree, where it remained until the end of the Snake and Sheriff’s battle, when Sophie doffed the snakeskin and dragged the Sheriff into the darkness, before climbing into the royal carriage with a shadowed boy. Agatha watched as Sophie used her pink glow to light her steps into the carriage and close the door, before the footage froze on a final frame: the carriage driving off, dust kicking up from its wheels.

Tedros was about to combust. “So Sophie watches the entire fight from the safety of a tree, then cries over the Sheriff’s body like a bad actress, then dumps him in the bushes and returns to the castle to be with those two monsters. If I get back my throne—when I get back my throne—that devil minx will lose her head with them.” He’s right, Agatha thought, still at a loss. Everything Tedros was saying about Sophie was indisputable fact.

But why couldn’t she accept it, then?

Why was her heart still defending her best friend?

Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed Guinevere chewing on her lip, just as conflicted.

“What is it?” Tedros growled.

“When Sophie was at the castle, she played Rhian’s side so convincingly that I believed she’d betrayed you,” said Guinevere. “But even under Rhian’s thumb, she found a way to show me her loyalty. She found a way to tell me the truth. Suppose we’re missing something?” “Well, that was when she thought I was the real king,” Tedros retorted. “But now that she thinks—” He clammed up.

Guinevere frowned. “What do you mean ‘when’? What’s changed?” Reaper, too, looked suspicious.

Agatha and Tedros shared a harsh glance. Her prince still seemed in denial about what his princess had seen in the blood crystal. And now the thought of him sharing the possibility with his mother that he might not be the true heir . . . that her husband had been hexed to father someone else’s sons . . . that Excalibur had been correct to spurn him. . . .

Tedros turned back to Guinevere. “N-n-nothing. Nothing’s changed.” “But why would you say Sophie doesn’t think you’re the real king—” As Tedros deflected, Agatha found herself pondering something Guinevere said.

“She found a way to show me her loyalty.”

“She found a way to tell me the truth.”

Agatha’s eyes floated back to the final frame, paused on the wall.

“There’s something you’re not telling me, Tedros,” Guinevere strong-armed.

“Mother, I promise you—”

“Don’t promise, if it’s a lie.”

Tedros swallowed.

His mother and Reaper stared him down.

Tedros began to sweat. “Uh . . . the name Evelyn Sader doesn’t mean anything to you, does it?” Guinevere’s eyes flickered. “Evelyn Sader?”

“August Sader’s sister?” Tedros said quickly. “Took over as Dean our second year at school? You and Dad wouldn’t have known her. I’m just making sure—” “Wait,” said Agatha, cutting off mother and son.

She gestured towards the screen and the cloud of dust, stirred up by the carriage. “Can we zoom in on this?” The old gnome brushed her fingers across the heap of dead fireflies, back and forth, widening the image on the wall until Agatha held up her hand.

“Right there,” she said.

Amongst the dust, something didn’t fit.

A small cloud of mist.

Pink mist.

“Go closer,” Agatha ordered.

The gnome obeyed, honing in on the pink dust with increasing detail, clearer, clearer— “Stop,” said Agatha.

Tedros held his breath, peering at the wall.

Reaper and Guinevere had gone quiet too.

Agatha ran her fingers over the frozen frame . . . over the smoky pink words that Sophie had cast as she’d lit her steps into the carriage . . . an unmistakable message she’d left for her friends to find . . .

images

Behind the words, in extreme close-up, Sophie was glaring through the carriage’s window, right at the screen, right at Agatha, her emerald eyes shining like stars in the dark.

“What does it mean?” Tedros asked, mystified.

Agatha gazed at the message, her own eyes reflecting Sophie’s.

She turned to her prince. “It means your Devil Minx left us some homework.” AGATHA FACED TEDROS, Guinevere, and her cat as they sat on the velvet floor of the throne room, snacking from bowls of yogurt-covered almonds, caramel-soaked figs, and sweet potato chips. She hadn’t the faintest clue what time it was, with several hours gone since Sophie escaped.

“Here’s what we know,” Agatha started. “Sophie is still on our side—” “We don’t know that,” Tedros argued, mouth full of nuts.

“King Teapea, there’s a stranger trying to enter the palace,” a gnome guard announced from the door. “A highly suspicious stranger.” Reaper flashed a perturbed look and followed the guard out.

Agatha still hadn’t gotten used to her cat having kingly duties, but she had bigger things to worry about. She leveled a stare at Tedros. “We know Sophie’s on our side because she left that message.” “Agatha’s right, Tedros,” Guinevere confirmed. “Sophie’s playing a dangerous game. Just like she did when she pushed me to save you from losing your head.” Her son scowled. “So she went back to Rhian and his monster brother . . . for me? Sophie, the saint? Sophie, the selfless? Wonder why she wasn’t in the School for Good. Oh, I remember. She was too busy trying to kill us all.” “Sophie is unpredictable,” Agatha conceded. “And we don’t know why she went back or what she’s up to. But we know she’s trying to help us. That’s why she gave us that question. It’s the mission she wants us to focus on while she focuses on hers.” “You got all that from a dusty riddle? Wish you could read my mind the way you read hers,” Tedros groused, grabbing a fistful of chips. “That message doesn’t mean anything. ‘Why did the Lady kiss him’? Who’s ‘the Lady’? Who’s ‘him’?” “The Lady of the Lake and the Snake,” Agatha replied calmly. “Sophie wants us to figure out why the Lady kissed Japeth.” “The kiss that stripped the nymph of her powers. Merlin told Tedros and me about it when he came to Camelot,” Guinevere remembered. “It was after the Snake killed Chaddick. The Lady of the Lake kissed him, thinking he was the true king.” “And thinking the Snake would make her his queen,” Agatha added.

“But if that’s true, why would she kiss Japeth instead of Rhian?” Tedros puffed. “Rhian is the heir. Not his brother.” “Exactly. Hence Sophie’s question,” Agatha pounced. “And it’s the same question I had for the Lady when I went back to Avalon. She’d told Sophie and me that Japeth had King Arthur’s blood. But not just that. She’d claimed Japeth had the blood of Arthur’s eldest son. Only we know that’s untrue, because Rhian was the one to free Excalibur from the stone. Which means Rhian is the eldest son, not Japeth. I told the Lady she’d made a mistake. She hadn’t kissed the real king. But she insisted that I was wrong. That whoever she’d kissed had the heir’s blood and whoever she’d kissed was the one who pulled Excalibur. Which means something is still wrong here. Magically wrong. And now Sophie is asking us to find out why.” “But we already know the answer. Rhian and Japeth don’t have Arthur’s blood!” Guinevere snapped, losing patience. “Either one of them. They’re liars. They’re frauds. They found black magic that helped Rhian pull Excalibur and it’s that same magic that made the Lady kiss his brother. That’s the only explanation. Because they’re not Arthur’s sons! So it doesn’t matter who the Lady kissed! It’s all a big bluff! My son is the heir! My son is the king!” Agatha and Tedros went mum.

Guinevere glanced between them, her face drawing in. “What’s happened?” Her eyes clouded. “Does this have anything to do with that Sader woman?” “It has everything to do with that Sader woman,” said a weaselly voice behind them.

They turned to see two gnome guards and Reaper usher in a shock-blond boy Agatha didn’t recognize— Her eyes flared.

Hort.

But that wasn’t the surprise.

He was holding something in his open palm.

A butterfly.

A blue butterfly.

Agatha glimpsed Tedros’ face, denial giving way to horror.

And right then and there, Agatha knew it was time to tell his mother the truth.

BY THE TIME Agatha had finished speaking, Guinevere was pale as a ghost and Tedros was no longer in the room.

Agatha, Hort, and the former queen sat in pained silence, the prince’s absence palpable.

“The woman in the butterfly dress. I met her once, a long time ago,” Guinevere rasped finally, wiping away tears. “I didn’t know her as Evelyn. Lady Gremlaine called her ‘Elle.’” “Elle was the name she used in Foxwood, when she raised Rhian and Japeth in secret,” said Hort, eyeing the bowls of snacks but dissuaded by the moment. “I thought Elle was for the ‘el’ in Grisella Gremlaine. Thought it was proof Lady Gremlaine was Rhian and Japeth’s mother. Except there’s an ‘el’ in Evelyn too.” Hort looked uneasy without his girlfriend there, but Nicola and Reaper had gone with two gnome guards to retrieve Kiko, who Nicola and Hort had found badly stunned in the Woods.

Hort looked at Agatha. “Do you think Tedros will come back?” Agatha didn’t answer, lost in her own thoughts.

She’d told Tedros and his mother the truth about the blood crystal.

She’d told them the truth about Arthur’s heir.

At first, mother and son had looked incredulous. The idea that King Arthur could be linked to the half-sister of August Sader, the seer who painted Tedros’ coronation portrait, wasn’t just preposterous, but daft. Yet as Agatha relived each moment—the way Lady Gremlaine had enlisted Evelyn and her spansel to seduce Arthur and have his child; the way Gremlaine abandoned her plan and fled the room; the way Evelyn had retrieved the spansel, her snake-colored eyes dancing with Evil—Guinevere’s face had seemingly aged in minutes, her hand grasping at her throat as if suffocated from the inside. When Agatha reached the moment where Evelyn hooked the spansel around sleeping Arthur’s neck, Tedros thrust out his palm, stopping her, and fled the room without a word, leaving Agatha alone with his mother and Hort.

The silence thickened now, Guinevere’s face a death mask. Hort peeked at Agatha, expecting her to comfort the old queen. But the truth left no room for comfort.

“Elle came to dine at Camelot at Arthur’s invitation. That was the only time I met her,” Guinevere went on, still shaken. “The dinner was a peace offering. After Arthur and I graduated from the School for Good, he’d brought me back to the castle to meet the staff, led by Lady Gremlaine. Arthur told them we were to be married.” Guinevere paused. “Gremlaine was caught off guard. She treated me snidely and I chastised her for it in front of her staff. If I had known she was in love with Arthur, I would have handled it better, but the damage was done. She went to stay with her sister in Foxwood and refused to return, ignoring Arthur’s pleas. That is, until Arthur met a friend of Gremlaine’s prowling around the castle: a woman named Elle Sader. He invited Elle to dine with us as a way of letting Gremlaine return with an ally at her side. He thought it would help her save face and come home.” “What happened at dinner?” Hort asked.

Guinevere choked up. “I’m sorry. It’s just . . . the whole idea of it!” she cried, face in her hands. “That Arthur’s steward conspired with a witch to make him have children he didn’t want . . . and then for the witch to take them for herself . . .” She shook her head. “Did Arthur know about this? Did he know a stranger had his heirs? Could he really have kept such a secret from me? From everyone?” Agatha looked down. “I don’t know. I only know what I saw.” Guinevere’s eyes suddenly widened. “It must have happened after that night. There were signs at the dinner. Between Gremlaine and that snake—” “What signs?” said Tedros’ voice.

The prince came back into the room, his eyes stained red, his shirt wet with snot. He sat beside Guinevere and took her hand. All the defiance had melted out of his face, replaced with vulnerability and fear, as if in accepting that he might not be a king, he’d found permission to be a son.

Tedros’ touch settled the old queen. “What signs?” he repeated.

His mother took a deep breath. “The way they whispered and snickered anytime Arthur spoke about our impending wedding. As if they knew something we didn’t. And when Arthur mentioned that he wanted a seer to one day paint his child’s coronation portrait, Elle’s mood darkened. She said her brother August was a seer, but that his powers paled beside hers. That he might see the future, but she could hear the present—people’s desires, fears, darkest secrets—and that the present had far more force to change lives than the future or past. I suggested that she use her powers to be a fairy godmother. She cackled like a witch. That’s what her brother had told her. Use your powers to help people, he’d insisted. As if she would spend her life flitting around the Woods, making dresses for homely girls and reforming selfish princes, Elle mocked. Meanwhile, her brother grew more and more famous amongst kings and wizards, even coming to the attention of the School Master himself. A woman didn’t have the same opportunities a man had, Elle said bitterly. A woman had to rely on her wiles. But that’s what made her befriend women like Grisella, Elle added, grinning at Lady Gremlaine. To help other women use their wiles to their advantage . . . For a price, of course.” Guinevere wrung her hands. “She’d cackled again as she said this, and Arthur took it as a joke, laughing with her. He found Elle harmless. He liked that Lady Gremlaine had made a new friend. But I’d found Elle strange and unsettling. I remember feeling great relief when dinner was over and she’d left the castle. Later, that night, I found a blue butterfly in my room as I drew a bath.” She looked into Agatha’s eyes. “I killed it on the spot.” Guinevere sobbed into her son’s shoulder. Tedros held her and caressed her ash-white hair. His eyes met Agatha’s, any residue from their fights erased, the two resolved to battle through this somehow, to not let this be the end of the story.

“Evil may have won in the Past, but it will not win in the Present,” the prince simmered, the veins in his neck pulsing. “Rhian might be my father’s heir by birth. But that doesn’t make him King of Camelot. Camelot is the great defender of Good. The leader of these Woods. And Evil will not sit upon its throne. Not while I’m alive. I’ll protect my father’s legacy. Whether I’m king or not, I’m still his son. I’ll protect his right to rest in peace.” “Whatever we do, it has to be soon,” Hort warned. “When Reaper let us in, a message arrived for him from Yuba, coded in Gnome. The first years and teachers are safe. But there’s only three swans left in the Storian’s carving. Or was it four. My Gnome is awful. Just a few rings that haven’t been burned, then. And Japeth has the Sheriff’s . . .” Agatha was lost in her head, Tedros’ words replaying.

“I’ll protect his right to rest in peace.”

Rest in peace.

Rest in peace.

Agatha jolted, as if a butterfly had taken wing in her chest.

“Tedros?”

Her prince looked at her.

“You mentioned something earlier,” she said. “When Reaper gave us our mission. Something about a riddle from the Lady of the Lake. A riddle about ‘unburying’ your father. What did you mean?” Guinevere raised her head, suddenly alert.

“After she lost her powers, the Lady of the Lake let Merlin ask her a question,” Tedros replied, feeling the weight of his princess’s stare. “One question and then he could never return to Avalon again.” Agatha remembered what the Lady told her about the wizard: “We made a deal.” The same deal she’d made with Agatha. One question and one question only. Except in the stress of the moment, Agatha hadn’t thought to ask her what Merlin’s question was.

“Merlin wanted to know if my father’s sword had a message for me. The Lady wrote the answer to Merlin’s question on a slip of parchment,” the prince went on. “’Unbury Me.’ That’s all it said. Except I recognized those words. They were the same ones my father said to me in my dreams. It’s his message.” He looked at his mother. “But I don’t understand it. It can’t mean to literally unbury him—” “Of course not,” Guinevere agreed. “But it has to mean something!” Tedros shifted anxiously. “Maybe it meant Dad has secrets. Secrets we’ve now found. Dad wanted me to know the truth about his real heir.” “And so la-di-da The End? Leave a pig on the throne?” Hort scorned. “If your dad gave you that message, it wasn’t to stop you from fighting! It was to make you fight back!” “But how?” Tedros asked. “What am I supposed to unbury?” “Maybe he hid something in Excalibur’s hilt?” said his mother.

“Or in his statue in King’s Cove?” said Tedros.

“Or maybe the message means exactly what it says,” said his princess.

They all turned to her.

Agatha raised her gaze from the floor.

“What if he did mean it literally?” she said. “What if ‘Unbury Me’ means unbury King Arthur from his grave?” The throne room was so quiet, Agatha could hear the thumps of Tedros’ heart.

“Dig up my father?” he breathed.

“But Arthur’s been dead for years,” said Guinevere, her voice cold. “There’s nothing left but bones and dust.” “No. Merlin enchanted his tomb,” Tedros countered tentatively. “He’s preserved exactly as he was.” His mother tensed, her years absent from Tedros’ and Arthur’s lives suddenly obvious.

“Even so, disturbing his grave is out of the question,” the prince assailed, stronger now. “I’m not dragging my father’s body out of the ground.” “Even if it’s what your father would have wanted?” Agatha asked. “Even if it was his command?” Hort cleared his throat. “Look, not that I’m afraid to dig up a grave, since Nevers do that kinda thing on Friday nights, but having waited my whole life for my dad to get a proper grave, shoveling up Tedros’ doesn’t seem right to me. Plus, there’s no way we can get to Avalon to unbury him. Whole Woods is hunting us and the Snake is on the loose. Nic and I barely escaped Foxwood alive.” “And, even if we did get to Avalon, we can’t reach Arthur’s grave,” Guinevere added quickly. “The Lady of the Lake has to give us permission to enter her waters and from what you’ve told me, we’re not welcome anymore.” “On top of all that, my father’s coffin is guarded by Merlin’s spell to prevent people like us from desecrating it. Only Merlin can unlock it,” said Tedros, relieved by all these obstacles. His mother and Hort murmured their agreement.

Agatha didn’t have the heart to argue. They were right: the risks were too steep. And more than that, she was asking her prince to raid his own father’s grave. Would she do the same to her mother’s? With no assurance of the outcome?

A shadow flew across the waterfall veiling the entrance to the throne room, and a body leapt through, hands aflutter.

“Come quick!” Nicola gasped at Agatha. “It’s Reaper!”

“What happened!” Hort asked, but his girlfriend was already diving back through the waterfall. Hort chased after her, and Agatha and Tedros followed close behind with Guinevere, all of them bounding through the magical curtain, into the foyer, where Subby and his banged-up rickshaw awaited, its cart now stamped with dozens of stickers of Sophie’s face, X’ed out with the warning: “BAD BHOOT!” “Hurry!” Subby jabbed. “King’s waiting!”

Poof! The page boy morphed into a girl gnome—

“Girl Subby drives faster!” he/she pipped. “Let’s go! No time to waste!” Agatha and the rest crammed in, sitting in each other’s laps, bottoms barely settled before Subby was off and careening up the spiral tracks, twisting around the thick glowing vines that connected the different levels of Gnomeland. She drove past gnomes haggardly returning to their houses after the all-night blockade and funeral, past shopkeepers pulling down their anti-human posters, past gnome doctors wheeling Kiko flat on a gurney into Smallview General Hospital . . . before Subby and her cart headed straight for the Musée de Gnome. She screeched to a halt at the entrance.

“Follow me!” Nicola ordered, hopping out.

“Why is the cat in a museum?” Tedros asked, but Agatha was already sprinting at full pace next to Nicola, through the Musée’s doors— Agatha banged her head on molding. “Ow!”

“Keep your head down!” Nicola said. “It’s made for gnomes!” Agatha rubbed her skull as she crouch-walked into the pint-sized hall, an ornate banner with “THE GOLDEN AGE OF TEAPEA” grazing her head, while Tedros and the others stooped down behind her. She tried to keep up with Nicola, passing regal portraits of her cat along with scenes of Reaper’s history, including the banishing of his father and brothers from Gnomeland, and his spectacular coronation, complete with a confetti-filled parade, a royal feast, and a city square jammed with dancing gnomes. Agatha hustled through more exhibits: a chronicle of the underground construction of Gnomeland . . . the biology of the luminescent vines wiring through the kingdom . . . a celebration of the years without human interference . . . until at last they reached a narrow, twisting staircase at the back of the museum, with a sign overhead: HUMAN WORLD OBSERVATORY

A chain barred the stairs. “Permanently Closed.”

“He’s waiting up there,” Nicola said, face fraught.

“What is it? What’s wrong?” Agatha pressed.

Nicola nodded towards the steps. “Hurry.”

Agatha jumped over the chain, as did Tedros and the others, and they scuttled up the stairs, with Hort tripping on the tiny, cobwebbed planks, nearly taking down the entire group before they reached the top— Agatha froze on the landing, the others crowding behind her.

They were on an open-air platform, looking up into the bright-lit tracks of Gnomeland city spiraling above them like glowing snakes. In the middle of the observing platform rose a colossal telescope, the size of a grown gnome, with a wide circular eyepiece and a long white tube that disappeared into the hollow of a glowing green vine that stretched up towards the top of the kingdom.

Reaper was clasped onto this telescope like a koala to a tree, his body a quarter the size of the contraption, his pink, hairless head bowed as he peered into the eyepiece.

The cat looked up at the group.

Agatha, Tedros, Hort, and Guinevere gathered around him, each taking a sliver of the eyepiece.

The telescope magnified a long, deep view: up through Gnomeland city, up through the abandoned Flowerground tunnel, up through the stump, up through the dense treetops of the Woods . . . all the way into wide, red-lit sky and a magnificent view of the Woods at sunset, the expanse of kingdoms extending in every direction.

For a moment, Agatha was mesmerized by how beautiful it was.

Then she saw it.

Glittering in gold.

Lionsmane’s latest screed, emblazoned against the evening sky.

The wedding of King Rhian and Princess Sophie will take place as scheduled, this Saturday, at sundown, at Camelot Castle. All citizens of the Woods are invited to attend.

Slowly, Agatha raised her head.

Reaper glowered back at her. So did Tedros.

“Still think she’s on our side?” he said.

Agatha’s heart went up in smoke.

Was I wrong?

After all this?

Was I wrong about Sophie this whole time?

“But . . . her message . . . the way she looked right at us . . . ,” Agatha said. “I don’t understand. . . .” Tedros just shook his head, less with anger than with pity, at his princess who couldn’t help but trust the one person who couldn’t be trusted.

“Saturday at sundown,” Guinevere spoke. “That’s two days.” “And now he has Nottingham’s ring,” said Nicola, near the staircase. “Which means, unless the remaining kingdoms stop him . . .” “Rhian becomes the One True King,” said Hort. “Rhian becomes the Storian. Sophie said it would happen at the wedding. Which means in two days, he has the power to write anything he wants and make it come true. In two days—” “We all die,” said Agatha.

Everyone fell quiet.

“And all I have is a message from my father that I’m too afraid to obey,” said a voice.

Tedros’.

“Agatha’s right,” the prince said, looking up at the group. “Rhian is my father’s son. He is my father’s heir, I accept that. But then why is my father reaching out to me from his grave? Why did the Lady of the Lake give me that message? There has to be a reason. There has to be something we don’t know yet. When I was king, I let others take the lead too often. But either I lead now or our story is at an end. We’re beaten from all sides and this isn’t the time to hold back. Not against an enemy that will kill us all and erase everything we stand for. We have to go to Avalon and unbury my father. We have to dig up the Past if we’re going to save the Present. We have to step into the belly of the Lion. There is no other choice. It doesn’t matter if people in the Woods want to kill us or if the Lady isn’t on our side or if the coffin is hexed with a thousand locks. It’s what Merlin would have wanted us to do. It’s what Dovey and Lesso would have wanted us to do. It’s what my father would have wanted us to do. They’re our guides now, even if they’re not here. They’ve left behind a path.” Tears hovered in Tedros’ eyes, his jaw clenched. “And like my princess, I must have the courage to follow it.” He gazed hard at Agatha. “Now . . . who’s coming with us?” Agatha held his stare, prince and princess united.

“Guess I should put on my grave-robbin’ boots,” she heard Hort murmur.