فصل 3

Chapter 3

TEDROS

Secret School

Tedros and Agatha stood between two graves.

The light of the fading sun caught the ring on the prince’s hand, the silver surface glinting with carved symbols that matched the Storian’s.

“That ring belongs to Camelot,” said Agatha, stunned. “Your father wouldn’t have left it to you if it wasn’t yours by right. Which means you’re the heir, Tedros. Just like he raised you to be.” Tedros blinked at the ring, taking this in, before his eyes sharpened and rose to Agatha’s. “Then who’s sitting on the throne?” “Not the heir, that’s for sure,” said his princess in her rumpled black dress. “We need to get to Camelot and show the people they’ve been duped by a Snake. And save our best friend from marrying him while we’re at it.” “She deserves to marry him,” Tedros muttered. “Got herself into this mess going back to Rhian.” “To help us—”

“We don’t know that.”

“I do,” Agatha said firmly. “We’re going back to Camelot. For your throne. And my friend.” Tedros gazed at the grove’s two graves, each marked with a glass cross: one his father’s, dug up and empty; the other Chaddick’s, untouched in the shadows. Tedros’ shirt clung to his chest, soaked with his sweat, his breeches smeared with dirt from his father’s grave. Pain rattled his body, the exhaustion of the journey and the wounds he’d suffered against his enemies soothed by knowing now that his dad was on his side. He’d followed his heart to Avalon, trusting in his father’s last message—“Unbury Me”—which brought him here, to King Arthur’s tomb, in the Lady of the Lake’s secret haven. But there was no body to find. Instead, Tedros had encountered his father’s soul, magically preserved by Merlin so that he could appear to Tedros one last time and bequeath his son the ring that would save him. And Camelot. For as long as Tedros wore this ring, the Snake couldn’t be the One True King. The Snake who had killed his own brother to claim the Storian’s power. But it was in vain. With this ring, Tedros’ father had ensured that a Snake would never take the Storian’s place. That Lionsmane would never replace free will with Japeth’s will. That Man would never become Pen. With this ring, Tedros’ father had given his son one last chance at his throne.

A king’s true coronation test.

The prince noticed Agatha peering edgily at the sky, her black clumps shifting.

“Sun will set soon,” she worried. “How will we get there in time? We need to mogrify into birds . . . or use Tinkerbell and the school fairies to fly. . . . They’re waiting with your mother at the lake—” “Still won’t get there by sunset,” Tedros pointed out. “We’re half a day’s journey, at least, even by flight.” “Maybe the Lady of the Lake knows a way—”

“The Lady who’s lost her magic and almost killed me. Twice. We’ll be lucky if she lets us out of this cove,” said Tedros, his lit finger about to cast a flare for the Lady. “Let’s find my mother and use the fairies to fly back to school. Then we can plan our attack.” “I’m not leaving Sophie with the Snake!” Agatha blistered, her eyes watering. “I don’t care if it’s just me, up against every one of his thugs. I’m getting my best friend back.” Tedros clasped her palm. “Look, I know what Sophie means to you. Which is why I’ll go to the ends of the earth to keep her safe, even if she and I make better enemies than friends. But there’s no way to Camelot in time. There’s no way to shrink a hundred miles.” Agatha pulled her hand away. “Does your mother know a spell? Or Hort or Nicola? They’re with her! Maybe they have a talent that’s useful—” “Hort’s talent is busting out of his clothes. Nicola’s is reminding us how smart she is. And my mother’s is an unhelpful mix of cluelessness and evading responsibility. What about your talent? You’re the one who saved us from that spitfire camel.” “By hearing its wishes, and you can’t use that as a means to teleport across half the—” Agatha’s eyes sparked. “Wishes!” She bolted past him. “Hurry! Before it’s too late!”

He watched Agatha weave between trees, disappearing into the darkness of the grove. Tedros knew better than to ask. Standing between his dad’s and his knight’s graves, the prince let his fingerglow dim before he sucked in a breath and summoned what strength he had left in his legs to chase her.

HE FOLLOWED THE sounds of Agatha’s steps pattering across the forest floor, crackling on fallen branches. But the deeper Tedros drew through the oaks, the more he began to remember his way. Soon, he saw his princess kneeling at the edge of a pond, hidden within the thicket. Just as he’d seen her the first time he’d been here.

Back then, it was Hort who’d led Agatha to the pond, when they’d been hiding from Rafal at his mother and Lancelot’s safehouse. Tedros had concealed himself behind a tree, listening as the weasel berated Agatha for not following her heart, for sacrificing Tedros instead of fighting for him: a revelation that made Tedros realize just how much Agatha needed him and how much he needed her, right when both of them were doubting it the most. It was here at this pond, only a short distance from two graves, that their love was sealed. The love that would never be broken again, no matter what Evils lay ahead.

Tedros crouched beside her, the mud soft under his boots. Beneath the heavy veil of trees, the pond glistened with embers of sunset. Agatha met her prince’s blue gaze in the water’s mirror.

“Where are they?” he asked, searching the surface.

The pond stayed still, its inhabitants gone.

Agatha’s lips trembled as the sun shimmers faded in the reflection. “But . . .” Tedros stroked her hair. “Let’s get back to the others—”

But then the shimmers changed color, from gold to silver, nuggets of glow pulsing in rhythmic synch. All at once, the glows began to move, rocketing through the pond in crisscrossing patterns like underwater fireworks, rising towards the prince and princess, closer, closer, brighter, brighter, until they splashed through the surface, a thousand tiny fish, spitting tails of water like fountains of light.

“Not gone after all,” said Tedros, watching the Wish Fish crowd towards his princess as if they knew her well. “Your secret little school.” “If I put my finger in the water, they’ll paint my soul’s greatest wish,” said Agatha breathlessly. “And my wish is to find a way to rescue Sophie before she marries the Snake. If there’s a way, the fish will show it to us!” Agatha slipped her finger in the water.

Instantly, the Wish Fish dispersed, flickering different colors as they joined fins like pieces in a jigsaw puzzle. At first, Tedros had no clue what he was seeing, with the fish switching hues and rearranging feverishly, as if they were still debating Agatha’s wish. But little by little, the fish committed to colors and then to their places, and a painting came into focus across their smooth, silky scales. . . .

A royal garden gleamed beneath a sunset, Camelot’s castle silhouetted against the pink and purple sky. Masses of well-dressed spectators gathered, the people and creatures of the Woods watching something attentively, something neither Tedros nor Agatha could make out, since the crowd was obscuring it. But there was something else in the painting, foregrounded and sharply clear, floating over the mob: a pair of watery bubbles, each the size of a crystal ball, two tiny figures enclosed within.

“Those are us,” Agatha said, peering at the bubbled clones.

“Those are not us,” Tedros rejected. “You and I are full-grown, we live on the ground, and we breathe air.” Agatha turned to him. Her distraction snapped the spell, and the fish splintered, colors draining from their scales.

“Not all that surprised, though. First time I tried Wish Fish after Dad died, it showed me crying in Lancelot’s arms. Lancelot, who destroyed my Dad,” said Tedros. “Wish Fish are batty.” “Or your soul craved a new father and Lancelot was the closest you had to one at the time,” Agatha disputed. “Wish Fish aren’t batty. That painting meant something. And this painting is how we get to Sophie.” “By levitating in body-shrinking bubbles?” the prince repelled. “And I would never wish to cuddle with Lancelot—” But Agatha wasn’t looking at him anymore. She was looking at the fish, which had rearranged into a stark-white arrow, pointing directly, unmistakably at . . . Tedros.

“Your turn,” said Agatha.

Tedros grimaced. “Next thing you know, they’ll show me baking cookies with the Snake.” He thrust his finger in the water.

Nothing happened.

Instead, the fish clung tighter to their arrow, pointing insistently at Tedros’ hand.

“Told you. They’re addled, these fish,” Tedros carped.

“Wrong finger,” his princess said. “Look.”

The Wish Fish were pointing at another finger of Tedros’ hand.

The one with King Arthur’s ring.

Tedros’ heart beat faster.

Without a word, he dipped the finger in, warm water filling the cold, steel grooves of the ring— A shockwave of light detonated across the pond.

Prince and princess stared at each other.

“What was that?” said Tedros.

But now the fish were gluing into a silver mob, fastening hard around the steel circle, trying to kiss the ring with their bobbing little mouths. With each kiss, the fish flashed with light, as if a secret power had been transferred. Soon they were strobing like stars in the dark, faster and faster, this power magnifying, charging their bodies with mysterious force. Tedros waited for them to disperse, to paint his wish, like they’d done with his princess, but instead, the fish gobbed tighter, a ragged mass, sucking wet and tight to his ring. Then slowly they slid up his palm . . . his wrist . . .

“Wait!” he rasped, yanking at his hand, but Agatha held him in place, the fish surging out of the pond, gripping his elbow, his bicep, his armpit— “Let go!” he cried, fighting Agatha.

“Trust me,” she soothed.

The swarming school was at his shoulder, his throat . . . his chin . . . their interlocked bodies turning clear as glass, revealing small throbbing hearts. Then, all at once, the fish began to swell. Inflating like balloons, they amassed into a clear, gelatinous globe, expanding in every direction, pressing into Tedros’ face.

“Help!” he yelled, but the warm, slobbery bubble laminated his mouth, his nose, his eyes, suffocating him with a salty smell. He could feel Agatha’s arms on him, but he couldn’t see her. He couldn’t see anything. He closed his eyes, his lashes lacquered in itchy scales, his chest pumping shallow breaths, leaking last bits of air— Then it stopped. The pressure. The smell. As if his head had separated from his body. The prince opened his eyes to find himself inside the fish bubble, floating above the pond.

Agatha was in the bubble with him.

“Like I said,” she smiled. “Trust me.”

Then his princess began to shrink. And now, so did the prince, his whole body pinching down, inch by inch, to the size of a tea mug. The bubble closed in, too, its watery edges leaving just enough room around them.

Tedros glanced at his pants. “This better not be permanent.”

Instantly the bubble split in two, each sealing up whole, separating prince and princess in their own orbs.

“Agatha?” Tedros called, his voice bouncing against liquid walls.

He saw his tiny princess call back, her lips moving but only a squeak coming through.

Rays of light refracted against the bubbles and Tedros watched the pond opening up like a portal, revealing a familiar castle and a pink-purple sky . . . the scene of a Wish Fish painting he’d mocked, now come to life. . . .

“Trust me.”

Tedros looked up at Agatha, eyes wide—

He never had time to scream. The two balls plunged into the portal like they’d been shot from a cannon, vanishing into the glare of a faraway sun.