فصل 22

Chapter 22

Last One In

“Feels like home.”

Ripples of water strummed beneath the boy’s words, like harp strings to a song.

Agatha opened her eyes to sun spilling across the surface of a familiar lake, the water shivering and spangling in a warm breeze. For a brief moment it stilled, reflecting her dumpy black dress and ghostly pale face, next to a golden-haired boy in a blue Evers’ coat.

“H-h-how did we get here?” Agatha breathed, looking up at him.

“There’s my princess,” Tedros said, gazing out at the water. “Old Agatha would have flushed like a tomato, asking ‘Where’s Sophie?’” Agatha flushed like a tomato. “Where is she! Is she safe?” she blurted, swiveling to a blinding glare of gold light, erasing everything around the lake. “Is she here—” “Been meaning to ask you,” Tedros said, flicking a blade of grass into the water. “From the moment we met, you despised me . . . called me a murderer, a puffed-up windbag, a donkey’s behind, and who knows what else. . . .” He flicked another blade, not looking at her. “What made you change your mind?” “I don’t understand—where are we—” said Agatha anxiously, scanning the fiery gold walls of light hemming them in, like the black walls of wind that had once hidden her prince’s phantom. “What happened to our story—” “That’s what we’re both trying to figure out, isn’t it? It’s why I need the answer, Agatha,” Tedros said, still looking ahead. “I need to know what you saw in me.” The red seeped out of Agatha’s cheeks. Once upon a time, she’d been here on this same shore, flicking matches instead of grass, asking Sophie what her friend saw in her.

“It was one moment,” Agatha said softly. “That’s all.” Her prince finally met her eyes.

“It was the way you looked at Sophie after she abandoned you in last year’s Trial,” she said. “The heartbreak in your face. As if all you’d ever wanted was for someone to protect you the way you protect them.” Tedros growled and turned away. “You make me sound like a girl.” Agatha smiled to herself. “It’s what made me see a boy.” The prince’s shoulders tensed.

“A boy as vulnerable as he is strong,” Agatha said, watching him.

“And yet you think I’m weak enough to hurt you,” he said quietly. “You, the only person who ever saw who I truly am.” Tedros turned with a piercing, pleading stare.

“Feels like there’s a piece still missing, don’t you think?” The wall of gold behind him cracked open, swallowing him with light before Agatha could reach for him. The grass suddenly colored navy blue around her, the trees turned periwinkle, the lake scorched to fire, waves rising out of flame— Agatha shot her eyes open in the dark, head hammering. Silver stars blinked back at her in a dead-clear sky. She jolted up, swaddled in puppy-patterned blankets, to the warmth of a small crackling fire beside her, two girls’ shadowy faces gaping at her in the barren, deserted Clearing.

“You’re awake,” Kiko peeped. “She’s awake!”

Reena choked on a chocolate lollipop. “I-I-I’ll go get the Dean,” she stammered, big backside wobbling into the dark.

Agatha felt words garbling and shriveling away in her dry mouth. Her limbs were ice-cold, her temples throbbing as her mind sloshed around panicked images . . . Tedros’ beseeching, beautiful face by a lake . . . Sophie’s petrified face as a boy . . . Evelyn’s face charging towards her . . .

“The School Master—have to tell Dovey—” Agatha rasped frantically, her last moments awake blurring back. “She’s bringing him to life—” “Oh dear. Dean told us you’d be a bit batty when you woke,” Kiko fussed, palm to Agatha’s forehead. “Mmm, terrible fever, like you’ve baked near a fire.” “There’s a fire right there,” Agatha croaked—

“Dean said you had a reaction to the phantom smoke,” Kiko motormouthed obliviously. “’Cause you’re a Reader, sensitive immunity and all that. Hester, Anadil, and Dot kept raving the Dean did something to you, but everyone thinks they inhaled too much smoke too. Last I saw, Hester was waving some red lantern out a window like a loon. Only thing worse than a tattooed witch is a deranged tattooed witch. Still, to be out cold for a whole day is pathetic, Agatha, immunity or not. You missed everything: the team announcement, the big feast, the play—though it ended early because Mona’s headdress tried to eat her. I say Hester cursed it, if you ask m—” Agatha seized her collar. “Listen, you nutbrained canary!” she barked, still ragged and slow. “The Dean’s dangerous! I have to tell Dovey and Lesso before the Trial—” “Agatha.” Kiko’s voice was hard and firm. “The Trial started two hours ago.” “What?” Agatha let go of her in shock. “But that’s—that’s—” Dread clamped her voice.

Slowly she looked down and pulled away the puppied blankets, revealing her body clad in a sapphire-blue Trial tunic, made of thin armored mesh and a matching hooded wool cloak over it lined with silver brocade. Tucked into the cloak’s front pocket, crested with a blue butterfly, was a white silk handkerchief, glinting at the seams with enchantment.

Agatha spun to the Blue Forest gates towering over her, magically aglow with flames, sealing those inside, while a fuzzy, enchanted gray haze veiled the trees through the gates, preventing a view into the Forest. Agatha craned up to the giant wooden board over the west gate, glowing fireflies spelling out each word: TRIAL BY TALE: GIRLS

SOPHIE

HESTER

DOT

BEATRIX

ANADIL

MONA

ARACHNE

MILLICENT

YARA

“That’s who’s in the Forest now,” said Kiko. “They’re sending pairs in every ten minutes: one girl, one boy. Nine pairs in, with one left to go. No one’s dropped their flags, so no surrenders yet—” But Agatha was still gaping at the board. “Sophie? Sophie’s . . . inside?” “Went in with the first pair, the Dean said. Thing is, no one saw her go in. But the fireflies lit her name up, which means she has to be in the Forest! Thank God, ‘cause we can’t win without you two. Dean never doubted you’d wake up—” “But how can Sophie be in the Trial!” Agatha sputtered, staggering back towards the gates. “When did she come back? Why didn’t she help me? I need to see Dovey or Lesso or—” A cheer exploded above her.

“AG-A-THA! AG-A-THA! AG-A-THA!”

Agatha gawked up at the blue castle balconies, teeming with students who now had a direct view of her through the Clearing’s bare trees. They hollered her name as they rang noisemakers and rained confetti, waving colorful signs: GO GIRLS! BOYS = SLAVES! S&A SAVE THE DAY!

Agatha squinted at the highest Charity balcony, where all the teachers were cramped together, faces barely visible. But she could see Professor Dovey’s and Lady Lesso’s stiff silhouettes, their terrified gapes—and Pollux guarding the door behind them, head on a massive bear’s body.

“See, Bilious, I told you she’d be ready,” a voice chimed.

Agatha whirled to the Dean sweeping around the west gate corner with pockmarked, pear-headed Professor Manley, accompanied by two floating, green-haired nymphs. Professor Manley growled at Kiko, who fled like a lamb, before snarling even more menacingly at the sight of Agatha.

“Lucky you,” he sneered. “Just in time.”

“Lucky indeed,” the Dean said, with a smirk that told Agatha it wasn’t luck at all.

Manley tramped towards the east gate. “Evelyn, any more funny business and it’ll be open season on all of you,” he spat back. “Sending in our last boy in two minutes whether the Reader’s ready or not.” As soon as he vanished, Agatha spun to the Dean, scarlet red. “How’d you get Sophie into the Trial, you witch! Did you trap her when she came back for me? Did you stun her too?” The Dean slunk towards her, lips curling into a grin. “You see, Agatha, in your version of the story, I’m the villain. In your version, I caused Sophie’s symptoms . . . I put Sophie in the Trial . . . I can bring back a ghost . . . ,” she cooed. “But haven’t you learned by now?” She took Agatha’s cheeks into her sharp, gilded nails. “Your version of the story is usually wrong.” Agatha bared teeth in her face. “Really? Pray tell, if it’s not you doing all these things, who is?” The Dean smiled darkly. “What’s that my brother used to say? Sometimes the answer is too close to see. Sometimes the answer”—she pressed her cold lips to Agatha’s ear—“is right under your nose.” “You’re nothing but a pack of lies,” Agatha seethed, shoving her away, but the Dean just grinned wider, as if savoring a secret.

“Take her to the gates,” she declared.

Nymphs grabbed each of Agatha’s arms, and together they pulled her off the ground, floating her towards the Forest’s west gate— “No! Sophie’s coming out alive, you hear me!” Agatha yelled back. “We’re coming out alive!” But the Dean’s Cheshire cat smile receded as the nymphs flew Agatha around the corner, past the gate’s flaming, crisscrossed bars, the girls’ cheers amplifying above.

The nymphs dragged her towards a swarm of butterflies, hovering deliberately over a portion of the west gate beneath the girls’ scoreboard. Writhing uselessly in the nymphs’ grip, Agatha peered up at the boys’ red castle, towering over the Forest from the east. She could see boys cramming the balconies in their red-and-black leather uniforms, waving signs and bellowing faraway chants that faded into the girls’. The boys’ scoreboard angled towards their school over the east gate, lit up with fireflies. That’s where the boys must be going in, she thought— Suddenly the moment hit her dead-on. This was it. It was really happening.

She was going into the Trial against her own prince. Outlast him and all the other bloodthirsty boys and princes, and she and Sophie might escape alive. Lose, and she and her best friend would be executed together.

There is no missing piece, she gritted, cursing her weak, prince-filled dreams.

It was she and Sophie against Tedros in a Trial to the death.

But when did Sophie come back? Had she found the Storian? Agatha thought frantically, looking at her friend’s name on the scoreboard. Did she fight going into the Trial?

And yet . . . none of the girls had seen Sophie go in, Kiko said. Agatha frowned, confused. Had the Dean not forced her friend in, after all?

“What happened to Sophie?” she appealed to the nymphs as they flew her closer to the butterflies under the girl’s scoreboard. “Did you see her—” Her voice dropped off. Because now she could read the names on the boys’ scoreboard across the Forest.

TEDROS

ARIC

PRINCE OF AVONLEA

PRINCE OF GINNYMILL

RAVAN

NICHOLAS

PRINCE OF SHAZABAH DESERT

PRINCE OF FOXWOOD

Only there was one more name, glowing at the top.

FILIP.

Agatha held in a scream.

FILIP.

FILIP.

FILIP.

Sophie was in the Trial as a boy.

Sophie was in the Trial fighting with the same boys who wanted to kill her.

Agatha’s horror abated, all questions of how it had happened fading away. If Sophie was a boy, she’d be safe from Tedros, wouldn’t she? As long as Sophie stays Filip, Tedros can’t find her, Agatha thought, heartbeat slowing as the nymphs set her down in front of the circling butterflies. And if he can’t find her, he can’t kill her. Perhaps her friend had made an ingenious move after all. . . .

Agatha’s stomach took a sharp twist.

Three days. Yuba had said Merlin’s spell would only last three days . . . until the start of the Trial.

Sophie would revert back to a girl any second.

Right in a pack of boys who would kill her on the spot.

Blood shot through Agatha’s legs, priming her to run.

She had to find Sophie now.

From the boys’ and girls’ scoreboards came a detonation of red and blue flares into the sky. AGATHA’s name sparked in firefly glow onto the girls’ board as their last combatant, VEX’s onto the boys’— The blue butterflies zoomed towards the gate, outlining a shape of a door against its flaming bars. Through this door, the flames instantly melted to water, opening a small rain-curtain into the Forest. Agatha squinted through the blurring downpour at a slim dirt path ahead, snaking through shimmering blue ferns.

A year ago, she and Sophie had fought this Trial together and come out alive.

This year, they’d have to find each other.

All Agatha could hope was that Tedros hadn’t found Sophie first.

I’m coming, Sophie.

The nymphs shoved her through the gate and she felt a warm, embracing rain. Then Agatha heard the roar of flames behind her and she knew she was inside.