فصل 20

Chapter 20

One Step Ahead

On his knees, Tedros snatched another lamb chop off the floor and ripped into it like a lion, shredding off the meat and flinging the bone onto the heap of others. After devouring six more, he clutched his stomach, slightly green, trying to hold it all down.

The cell door squeaked open, and he looked up at Filip slicked with sweat, forearm streaked with dried blood, carrying two steaming mugs.

“Knew you’d overeat,” Filip said, and put down a mug of frothy liquid in front of him. “Bit of rice stewed in hot water calms the stomach. Wish we had some peppermint or fresh ginger—brew a nice digestif—” Sophie saw Tedros staring and she cleared her throat with a macho grunt. “Drink up.” Tedros stuck his tongue in the tea and put it down, frowning. “Late for Storian duty, aren’t you, Filip?” “Told Manley I should interrogate you first,” Sophie said sternly as she sat facing him.

That’s why I saved his life, she scolded herself, resting her bulky shoulders against the wall. Because Tedros would tell her where the Storian was. That’s why. Not because she cared the slightest bit about him. She glared at him, muscles clenched, refocusing on the goal.

“Tell me where it is, Tedros.”

“For the last time, Tristan and I buried it to keep it away from Sophie and Agatha,” he snapped. “We hid it under a loose brick. I don’t know how it could have moved.” He saw Filip studying him and hung his head. “Look, I wouldn’t lie to you, Filip. Not after what you’ve done for me.” “But who took it, then?” Sophie said, stomach turning. “Did they question Tristan?” “Pfffft, he’d be the first one to hand it over to a teacher,” Tedros groused, kicking off his boots. “Besides, no one’s seen that mouse for days. Probably left before classes started. Never liked the other boys.” “But Castor said we’re all doomed if we don’t find—”

“Because the pen reflects the soul of its master,” Tedros mumbled, slumping deeper. “If it gets into Dean Sader’s hands, you can bet there’ll be a lot of boys dying at the end of stories. Starting with mine.” Mine. The word hit Sophie harder than the prospect of Woods-wide death. She had always thought of it as her story, with Tedros the villain in her way. But now she realized: Tedros thought it was his fairy tale . . . and that he deserved a happy ending just as much as she did.

“Agatha’s wish for you,” Sophie said quietly. “How did you hear it?” Tedros paused, jaw clenching. “I was nine when my mother left. It was the middle of the night, and I was asleep in the opposite wing. I remember bolting up in a pool of sweat and stumbling to the window without knowing why, my heart feeling like it was ripped open. The last thing I saw was my mother on my favorite horse, galloping into the Woods.” He traced the space between bricks with his finger. “I woke up the same way when I felt Agatha’s wish. She wanted me to hear it, Filip.” His eyes watered. “And I believed it was true.” Sophie fidgeted with her grubby nails. “Maybe it was true,” she said, almost to herself. “Maybe something just . . . got in the way.” Tedros rubbed his eyes and sat up straighter. “You’re a good friend, Filip. You didn’t have to help me.” Sophie shook her head. “I couldn’t let you die,” she breathed, unable to look at him. “I couldn’t.” “Sophie said the same thing last year. Vowed to protect me in the Trial—then left me to die alone,” Tedros said, picking at a hole in his dirty black sock. “Suppose that’s the difference between a girl and a boy.” Sophie finally looked up, blinking wide.

Tedros nodded. “Trust me, I know, Filip. She was every bit as Evil as the storybook says.” Sophie swallowed. “Can you . . . tell me about her?”

“She was the most beautiful girl I’d ever seen—blond hair just like yours . . . and now that I think about it, green eyes a lot like yours too,” Tedros said, peering at Filip. His cell mate glanced away, uncomfortable, and Tedros quickly looked down. “But there was nothing beneath it. Every time I gave her a new chance, I saw more and more deceit. It was like she wanted a prince only to have one, caring nothing about who I actually was. I never knew what Agatha saw in her worth saving.” “Perhaps you don’t know Agatha the way Sophie knows her.”

“I know Agatha used to be a Good soul who deserved happiness with a prince,” Tedros retorted. “Now she gave up true love for something masking as it. Sophie did that to her. Sophie ruined her.” “Only because you made your princess choose,” Sophie shot back, elfish face flushing. “You’re responsible for your own fate, Tedros. Not Agatha. And not Sophie.” Tedros grimaced and said nothing.

“Why can’t a girl have both?” Sophie asked softly. She looked at her boy face reflected in the bed frame. “Why can’t she have the love of her prince and the love of her best friend?” “Because we grow up, Filip,” Tedros exhaled. “When you’re young, you think your best friend is everything. But once you find real love . . . it changes. Your friendship can never be the same after that. Because no matter how much you try to keep both, your loyalty can only lie with one.” He smiled sadly at his cell mate. “That’s Agatha’s greatest mistake. She can’t see that she and Sophie were doomed the moment she let herself love me.” Sophie felt the wall of muscle encasing her new body slacken, as if Tedros had put words to the truth she’d been shutting out. That night, Agatha was supposed to kiss Tedros and live out her Ever After. That night, she herself was supposed to go home all alone, her only friend moved on to a boy.

But she’d rewritten their story. She’d held her best friend back.

At what cost?

“It’s too late,” Tedros breathed, resting his forehead on his clasped arms. “I won’t love someone again.” “Maybe Sophie needs Agatha more than you need her,” his cell mate pressed, tears in his eyes. “Maybe Agatha is the closest to love that Sophie will ever get. Maybe Sophie did the Good thing after all!” Tedros raised his head, glowering.

“Don’t you see, Tedros? You’ll find someone else,” Filip said, voice shaky. “Sophie won’t.” “You’re as bad as a Reader, Filip,” said Tedros darkly. “There’s only one true love. Only one.” The boys gazed hard at each other before they turned away and sat in silence, two silhouettes beneath a dying torch.

Filip lurched up for the door. “Come on.”

“What?” Tedros blurted. “I’m not allowed to leave—”

“Difference between you and me.” Filip glared down at him. “You’re a prince who plays by rules. And I’m not.” Tedros stared at his new friend waiting impatiently.

“Takes quite the boy to boss me around,” Tedros muttered, pulling himself up.

Filip held the door open. “You have no idea.”

On the rehearsal stage in the Supper Hall, Pollux barked at his cast of five baffled-looking Nevergirls heaped with white clown makeup and poorly fitted cheongsams. “For the last time, you are a living metaphor for the Trial . . . an embodiment of eons of female submission and objectification . . . a monument to a deadly Trial that may cost us lives—” “This play looks more deadly than a Trial,” Dot murmured to Yara, who ignored her and cheerfully readied the burkas and swan headdresses for the next act. Dot eyed Hester and Anadil across the room, whispering while they painted one of the sets, an odd gap between them that Dot surmised must be Agatha. “If I’d known this was what Book Club would turn into, I’d have tried out for chorus,” she sighed, turning a swan feather to arugula before traipsing over to join their conversation.

“What could the Dean possibly be doing with Merlin’s spell?” Anadil was saying.

“Could she have used it herself?” Agatha said, slipping back her cape’s hood so they could just see her big brown eyes.

“First of all, we would have noticed if the Dean had turned herself into a man,” Hester returned. “Second, either be invisible or not. Your eyes are too big and sentimental to be taken seriously.” “Well I didn’t know we were all volunteering for stage crew,” Agatha snapped as Anadil’s rats took turns bathing in paint and rolling across the set.

“You didn’t seem to have any better ideas of where we should meet—”

“Because I’m too busy trying not to die—”

“And you think we aren’t?” Anadil shot back. “We’ve been killing ourselves to make the Trial team in case this all goes to hell—” “Do you think the Dean sent a girl into the boys’ castle?” Dot wondered airily, chomping salad greens.

The other girls turned to her.

“If she did, that might explain why Sophie hasn’t found the Storian yet,” Dot said. “The Dean might have had one of the girls turn into a boy and hide the pen so you can’t make your wish. You know—to make sure the Trial goes on as planned.” Anadil blinked at her. “Maybe I should start eating vegetables.”

“And who would this Storian-stashing girl be?” Hester leered, looking irritated she hadn’t come up with the idea.

“Beatrix,” Agatha returned, pulling the hood back to reveal her face. “This is her cape, isn’t it? And she had that boys’ uniform under her bed too! She loves the Dean! It has to be her!” “Look, we’ll see what we can get out of her,” Anadil said, scooting to block Agatha’s face from view. “But there’s only two nights left, Agatha. Sophie has to find the Storian by tomorrow. Where was her lantern tonight?” “Can’t see a thing outside tonight. Completely fogged out,” said Agatha miserably. “Left my lantern in my window, but can’t see hers until it clears.” “She has to bring that pen back, Agatha,” Hester pressured. “Or we’re all going into that Trial.” If Agatha wasn’t scared enough, the fear in Hester’s face turned her stomach to jelly.

“The Dean had a Trial map too—” Agatha stammered. “She marked the Cyan Caves—” “Cyan Caves?” Hester scoffed, exchanging looks with Anadil. “They’re just a decoration by the south gate. Caves don’t go deeper than fifty feet. What could possibly be in them?” “Well, she canceled the pre-Trial scout, so we can’t even look,” Agatha griped, disappearing back under her hood.

“Unless she already gave you permission to.”

Agatha looked up at Hester, peering slyly at her invisible friend.

“As far as the Dean knows, you’re in the Blue Forest with a gnome.”

As the clock tolled midnight, Agatha prowled through the foggy Blue Forest towards the south gate, concealed under her cape. She’d never seen fog like this, swirling white clouds of mist that obscured every last blade of navy grass. She squinted through the haze at the School for Boys but couldn’t see a single brick.

It certainly was a coincidence, Agatha thought—that her only means of communication with Sophie had been severed by strange weather.

Lady Lesso’s warning floated into Agatha’s mind . . . “Evelyn’s always one step ahead.” Agatha shook off the thought and snuck deeper into the Forest, moving slowly in case she collided with any trees or equally fog-blinded animals. In the eerie silence, she began to feel thoughts of Tedros rising faster than she could hold them down. The more she denied him, the stronger he seemed to become, like a monster at the door. Nerves shredding, she focused harder on the fog-covered path. As soon as she got home to the graveyard, she’d burn every last storybook she could find. Gavaldon would be a world without princes, indeed.

She felt the path begin to slope uphill, meaning she was beyond the pumpkin patch and nearing the south gate. Tomorrow night would be Trial eve, featuring Pollux’s infernal play and the announcement of the team. By then, Dean Sader and Professor Manley would have laced the Forest with their traps. They’d agreed that the Cyan Caves were off-limits. . . . So what was the Dean hiding there?

A white rabbit scurried past her clumps, carrying its terrified baby in its mouth, and vanished into the white fog as if erased off a page. Agatha treaded carefully, step by step, until she glimpsed the wall of blue-green rock in front of her.

Buried high on a cliff at the southeast corner, cloaked by giant overhanging blue pines, the Cyan Caves were a bubbled arrangement of three circular, sea-green holes of different sizes. Agatha gazed up at the caves atop the ledge, unsure how to even get up to them. She couldn’t mogrify and lose her magic cape, so her only option was to climb one of the blue pines and jump onto the cliff. Luckily, the pine branches were thick and sturdy, and Agatha made her way up quickly, thankful for the prickly needles to guide her hands through the fog. At last she reached the highest bough and with a deep breath leapt down invisible onto jagged rock, with only a small stutter in her landing.

Agatha peered at the row of caves in front of her: three circles of different sizes that looked like they belonged in Goldilocks’ story—the first cave too big, the second cave too small, the third just right. She could feel her neck rashing red under the invisible cape collar. Something told her that whatever was in these caves would answer her question of why Evelyn Sader was in her fairy tale . . . and how she planned for it to end.

Legs shaking, Agatha headed into the first giant cave, feeling her fingertip glow gold like a torch. The cavernous walls were glassy aquamarine, dimly reflecting her fingerglow and tense face. Step by step, she moved through the mirrored den, scanning every inch, seeing nothing but a few scraggly meerworms and beetles, until she reached a dead end.

Frowning, Agatha retreated to try the second cave. But with its hole no bigger than a dinner plate, Agatha couldn’t fit more than her head in. Worse still, this cave was even shallower than the first, with her fingerglow illuminating only bare walls and a few patches of mold. Agatha wrenched back out, irritated.

What am I doing here? she chastised herself as she stomped into the third cave. She should be waiting for Sophie in the castle, she thought, lighting up the midsized, deserted den. Her friend would be back with that pen any moment. . . . Last year, she herself had been the rock, the finisher, the one who would do anything to get them home. Now it was Sophie. That’s why Sophie had won the challenge to be a boy instead of her. Sophie was the prince this time. Sophie wouldn’t let her down. . . .

Extinguishing her glow, Agatha hurried back towards the mouth of the cave—and stopped cold. A strange hum echoed behind her, like a chorus of angry whispers.

Slowly Agatha turned around, hearing the whir grow louder and louder. She held up her lit finger, flickering with dread. . . .

A storm of blue butterflies crashed into her from darkness, swamping her invisible body like bees and ripping her invisible cape to threads. They moved with deliberate purpose and ruthless speed, eviscerating the snakeskin and bashing her back onto the cliff edge. Beneath their beating wings, Agatha could see her skin and clothes reappearing in moonlight, patch by patch, until they finally tore the last of the cape from her and swarmed away with a violent gust, blowing her off the ledge. Agatha fell down the cliff with a scream, flailing through fog, and landed on her tailbone in a tangled pine shrub. Bruised and aching, she looked up to see the cloud of butterflies vanish into fog, shedding the last black slivers of the cape over the Forest like ash.

Agatha couldn’t breathe, feeling the relief of being alive give way to the panic of what had just happened.

The Dean had planted that map in her office for her to find. Which meant the Dean knew she hadn’t been with Yuba in the Blue Forest the past two days . . .

Or with Sophie.

An alarm roared in her brain and Agatha was already running.

She dashed down the fogged path, forgetting her pain, trying to remember where Yuba’s den was. Branches and thorns ripped at her clothes as she crouched to the dirt, scanning the glen between the Fernfield and Thicket—until she saw wisps of black smoke rising from a hole in the ground ahead. She fell to her stomach and plunged her head through the tiny opening— But it was too late.

Yuba’s home had been incinerated, every inch burnt to a crisp, except a few hydrangea petals, scattered over cinders . . . the gnome nowhere in sight.

Stomach sinking, Agatha stood back up in the Blue Forest and watched the fog magically recede, as if its work was done. The mist thinned into a trail and slurped back towards the School for Girls, vanishing into its highest office.

Agatha looked up at Evelyn Sader in the window, circled by returning butterflies, her gap-toothed smile glowing through darkness like a Cheshire cat’s.

A smile that said Evelyn knew exactly where Sophie was right now . . .

Because she’d been one step ahead all along.

Slowly Agatha turned to see the fog evaporate around the School for Boys, leaving it bare and clear in the night.

No green glow in any of its windows.

No sign from her friend at all.

“Shouldn’t you be looking for the Storian?” Tedros asked in the dark hall, trying to track Filip’s fluffy blond hair past the teacher dormitories. “Past midnight now—” “Want to show you something first,” Filip said, sliding through two narrow rock columns.

“Where are we going?” Tedros moaned, stomach still bloated from his dungeon feast. “All I want to do is take a bath and go to be—” He fell quiet.

They were standing on the teachers’ balcony, perched over the Blue Forest, giving them a panoramic view of the terrain. A strange, icy haze broke apart in the air, as if a thick fog had just passed.

As the air grew clearer over the Forest, Tedros saw the leaves and grass fluorescing magically with an arctic-blue sheen. Wind raked across fronds and flowers in harplike waves, sounding steady, oceanic breaths. Close to the north gate, the electric-blue Fernfield, dotted with silver spores, fanned over the thin west path; over the east path, the willows lost more of their sapphire leaves with every sweeping gust, while the Cyan Caves to the south cast a bubbled shadow over the blue pumpkin patch.

Tedros had seen so much beauty traveling with his parents when he was little—the paradise grottos in the Murmuring Mountains, the siren lakes in Avonlea, the Wish Fish oases in the Shazabah Deserts. . . . But from high above, the prince looked at this small, gated Forest, innocent to the dangers of the world, and knew what heaven could be. Two nights from now, he’d be the one who turned it to hell.

He suddenly noticed movement near the gate . . . a human shadow slipping out of the Forest. . . .

Tedros squinted closer—

“You going to join me?” Filip said behind him.

Tedros turned to see him sitting on the wide, flat marble ledge, kicking legs over the Forest.

“Or do you still want that bath?” his cell mate said archly.

Tedros climbed up onto the ledge and sat closer to Filip than he would under ordinary circumstances. He wasn’t especially fond of heights.

“How’s your arm?” Tedros said, inspecting his cell mate’s gash, still raw and bloody. “I don’t want it to get infected—” Filip pulled it away, staring out at the Forest. “How can you sleep knowing you’re sentencing two girls to death out there? Two girls who each loved you?” Tedros said nothing for a moment. “There’s always three in a fairy tale, Filip. The true loves and the villain. In the end, someone has to die. The moment Agatha hid Sophie in my tower, the moment Agatha attacked me, she made me the villain.” He glared at Filip. “And I have no problem playing the part if it means saving my life.” Tedros saw his cell mate gaping at him, cheeks going redder, redder. . . . All of a sudden Filip started laughing so convulsively he started tearing up.

“What in God’s name is wrong with you?” Tedros frowned.

“Everyone just wanted to find love, and now everyone wants to kill each other,” Filip giggled, wiping his eyes. “No one knows the truth anymore.” “With all due respect, Filip, what the hell do you know?”

Filip laughed and cried louder, burying his face in his hands.

“You’re worse than a girl,” Tedros mumbled.

Now Filip was howling, but seeing Tedros’ stony face, his laughs turned to pants and then to silence.

Somewhere below, crickets thrummed off rhythm. Tedros peered down at a stork wading through the Blue Brook, while two squirrels chased each other over the bridge’s railing. Tomorrow Manley and the girls’ Dean would lace the Forest with traps, and the animals would go into hiding until the Trial was over and its dangers passed.

“So what’s your castle like, Filip?”

His cell mate blinked. “Castle?”

“You’re a prince, aren’t you? You don’t live in a tiki hut, I presume.” “Oh, yes—it’s a, um, small . . . castle. Shaped like a . . . cottage.” “Sounds cozy. Never liked living in a big castle. Spend most of the day trying to find people. Does your whole family live with you?” “Just my father,” said Filip sourly.

“Least you have a dad,” sighed Tedros. “I have nothing to go home to when school’s done. Just an empty castle, thieving servants, and a failing kingdom.” “Think you’ll ever see your mother again?”

Tedros shook his head. “Don’t want to, either. Dad put a death warrant out for her. Once I turn 16, I become king. I’d have to honor Dad’s warrant if I found her.” Filip swiveled to him in shock, but Tedros quickly squinted up at the sky. “You should look for the Storian, Filip. It’ll be light soon.” “How could you ever hurt your mother?” Filip asked, astonished. “I’d do anything to see mine again. Anything. That would be my real Ever After.” He sighed and hunched over. “But I’m not like Agatha. No one hears my wishes.” “Tell me what she was like . . . your mother.”

“Her name was Vanessa. Means ‘butterfly.’ I still remember her face when they used to fly through the lane every spring, in big blue swarms. . . . She used to say that one day I’d fly away just like them—find a life bigger than hers, somewhere where all my dreams came true. ‘Don’t let anyone stop you from your happy ending,’ she used to say. ‘Don’t let anyone stop you from being loved,’” Filip said, voice cracking. “’Caterpillars can’t know a butterfly.’” Tedros touched his shoulder. Filip leaned against him and finally let himself cry.

“Her only friend took the only boy she ever loved, Tedros,” Filip said. “I don’t want to end up like her. All alone.” Silence thickened between the two boys.

“Never met a boy who wanted to be a butterfly,” said Tedros softly.

Filip looked up. The two boys gazed into each other’s eyes, legs touching on the ledge.

Tedros swallowed and jumped onto the balcony. “Heading back. Go find that pen.” “Tedros, wait for me—”

But the prince sprinted away, stumbling between columns, before he faded into shadow.

Sophie’s hand slowly drifted to the place on the ledge where Tedros had been.

She told herself to hurry to the silver tower, to find the pen in the hours she had left and get Agatha home—to get up now— But instead she just stayed there, alone over the Forest, until morning light shattered the dark.