فصل 31

Chapter 31

MERLIN

Return to Ender’s Forest

Nearly ten years before, Tedros and I had a lesson in Ender’s Forest.

I hadn’t intended it to be a lesson.

It was supposed to be a goodbye.

Arthur had killed Kay and I’d resolved to leave Camelot altogether, but not without seeing the young prince one last time.

As I’d waited beneath a purple oak, my eyes clouded with tears behind my spectacles and my hand grasped anxiously at my beardless chin. How could I leave the boy? Just when we were getting started? I’d intended to stay with his father and then with the son until a day far into the future when the work was done. But things had changed. Arthur had become secretive and volatile; instead of his mentor, I’d become a nuisance to rebel against. Somewhere inside him, he’d either lost faith in me or more likely, himself. The only cure was to leave and make him face his fate on his own. As for Tedros, I’d keep an eye on him from afar, like a hawk on high, until a day came where he needed me most. I couldn’t tell him this, of course, or he’d spend his life searching and waiting for my return, instead of learning to stand on his own two feet. No, the farewell had to be a clean blow, no matter how many tears were shed between us— “Merlin!” a voice chirruped.

I’d turned to see him scooting between lavender bushes, his gold curls strewn with leaves, his princely vest torn. He was so small then, perpetually flushed and in motion, like a rambunctious fox.

“Merlin, it only took me five tries to get in! I did everything you taught me! I closed my eyes and thought about finding the portal and then I focused on relaxing my brain and let my feet take me and then I opened my eyes and there it was! But I tried to jump in too fast, so I took deep breaths and that didn’t work but then I calmed down and—poof!—the forest opened and that’s the first time I did it on my own without you feeling sorry for me and letting me in. Only five times! Aren’t you proud of me? Merlin?” He suddenly screwed his eyes on me and cocked his head. “You look very strange without a beard. Can you put it back?” In that moment, any plans to tell him this was our last lesson evaporated.

He’d just turned nine and having been nine years old myself a week ago, I know firsthand how sensitive one is at that age, how live-wired with energy and ambition, especially Tedros, who used to stand so upright, almost on his tiptoes, as if he couldn’t wait to grow taller. He’d lost his mother only weeks before and now I’d lost the strength to admit that I, too, was about to desert him. Instead, I vowed to make our last lesson one he would remember.

“Tell me, future king,” I’d said, picking leaves out of his hair. “What would you like me to teach you more than anything else in the world? This is your chance. No limits. Anything you desire.” “How to die and come back to life,” the prince said instantly, as if he’d already given it a good thought.

I kneeled in front of him. “Well, that’s impossible, unless you’re a wizard with a Wizard Wish—” “No, it isn’t,” Tedros contended. “That Green Knight who came got his head cut off by Dad and then he put his head right back on his neck. Everyone at the castle is saying it. He did it right there, in front of Dad! Slash! Plunk! Peekaboo! I want to be able to do that! I want to be strong and never die! I want to be a Green Knight!” “The Green Knight is dead,” I pointed out.

“Fine, then give me your Wizard Wish, because you just said it’ll let me die and come back to life.” “I don’t have it.”

Tedros balled up his fists, his cheeks hot. “You asked what I wanted you to teach me, no rules, and now you’re going back on it.” He looked like he was about to cry.

Then and in the years to come, Tedros clung to a profound sense of justice. I looked into his quivering blue eyes and saw there’d be no reasoning with him. Of course, there wasn’t any way to teach him to die and come back to life—Kay’s immortality had been a unique curse—but perhaps if I could give the boy the feeling of death, so he’d no longer see it as an enemy, he might let go of his wish altogether.

“Come,” I said, striding into my forest, the lilac spruces, purple pines, and plum-colored dragon trees bowing their limbs to me, sensing my tendency to reimagine the foliage of Ender’s Forest at any moment and hoping to stay in my good graces. I could hear Tedros bopping along behind, singing coded songs about his mother and Lancelot (“When I’m a headless knight, I’ll go hunting other knights! Knights that I don’t like!”), eagerly scrambling over rocks and logs I conjured into his path (“Merlin, make them harder!”), and spooking every bird and squirrel he could: “Peekaboo! Peekaboo!” In time, the forest opened up and we arrived at a mirrored pool, surrounded by neat purple grass, an oasis in a field. Overhead the sky was clear, nothing beyond the pool except more amethyst lawns, none of Tedros’ favorite squirrels or flowers or insects, the scene conjured to induce zero distractions in the boy, so he would focus keenly on what we were about to do.

“Never been to this part of the forest!” he pipped, dropping to his knees at the pool’s edge and plunging his fist into the water.

“What did I tell you about looking before doing, Tedros. For all you know, this pool is filled with piranhas.” “Is it?” Tedros said, wide-eyed. Now he put both hands in and his whole face to it, hunting its depths. “I heard they have sharp teeth and eat people!” I shook my head. He was stubborn, rash, prideful, overemotional, and had poor instincts . . . and oh, how I’d miss the boy. “Let’s get on with it,” I said.

Sparkling nuggets rushed to the surface, spitting him with water.

“Wish Fish!” the prince chimed, ogling the silvery creatures swirling through the pool. “Dad says the School for Good has a lake full of them! That’s where I’ll go when I’m thirteen, as long as I keep eating vegetables and cleaning up after myself. That’s what Dad told me. But don’t know how much I believe him these days . . .” He looked up at me. “These are real Wish Fish?” “Put your finger in and see,” I said. “If dying and coming back to life is your greatest wish, that’s what the fish will show you.” Tedros stuffed his tiny finger in the water.

The fish darted away from each other, like a firework dispersing, before shuttling back together, painting a picture of . . . Guinevere. Instantly, the prince withdrew his finger, his face pale. “Stupid fish!” He closed his eyes, as if wishing the vision of his mother away, and shoved his finger in again.

This time, the fish painted Lancelot, cuddling him with love.

Tedros sprung to his feet, kicking the water, sending the fish diving deep for cover. “I hate this game,” he said, sprawling onto his stomach in the grass. Not realizing, of course, that he’d just seen the wishes he truly wanted most.

So I sat down beside him. “Tell me. Why do you want to die and come back to life?” He didn’t look at me. “It just seems amazing.” “But why, Tedros?”

He thought about this awhile, before craning his head up. “Because if I can die and come back to life, then no one can hurt me.” “Oh, my boy,” I said. “I’m afraid being able to come back from death can’t stop you from getting hurt. If anything, living longer means you’ll get hurt more. Because life is also about opening yourself to all emotions, even the bad ones.” Tedros turned away. “I don’t like being hurt.” “Who is hurting you?”

“No one.” He swallowed. “I’m okay.”

“You’re lucky, then, because I feel quite hurt myself.” He looked back at me. “You do? Where are you hurt?” “Here,” I said, my hand on my heart.

“Oh.” He nodded. “Who hurt you?”

“Someone I loved very much,” I said.

Tedros nodded. “Me too.” He sniffled and curled into a bean shape, his back against my knee. “When does the hurt go away?” “Once you make friends with it. Once you come to see the hurt not as something to fear or run away from, but as an important part of you. As important as love and hope and happiness. All of them are pieces of your heart, each as important as the other. But ignoring the hurt or pretending it’s not there doesn’t make it go away. It just means you’re not using all of your heart. Soon that piece might even dry up and break away. We don’t want that. A strong king needs all of his heart. And the funny thing is, once you’re bold enough to welcome the hurt, to give it a hug and face it unafraid . . . then suddenly, it’s gone.” Tedros was quiet, his big blue eyes fixed on his chest, where his heart would be. He rolled over to me. “What happened to your Wizard Wish?” I hunched forward and sighed.

“Come on, give it to me,” he pleaded.

“I don’t have it, Tedros.”

“If you did, would you let me take it?”

“No.”

“I’m going to find it and steal it. Or another wizard’s. And I won’t tell you when I do,” he snapped. “At least tell me what you were going to wish for. To die and come back to life? Like me?” “Oh no. When it’s my time to die, I won’t need to come back,” I replied.

Tedros sat up. “Why not? Why not live forever?” I ruffled his hair. “Because the work will be done, dear boy.” “You never make any sense,” the prince growled, before lunging forward and dipping his finger back in the water.

“Concentrate now . . . ,” I urged. “Think hard about your wish . . .” The fish swerved into formation, colors dancing across their shiny scales, steel blue and treasure gold and dusty peach, a rich vision reflecting back at the young prince . . . of his own small head, the eyes closed, severed from his body and carried under his arm . . .

“Merlin, I did it! I’m dead! Like the Green Knight!” he yipped, gaping at the water. “I made it come true! Look! See, Merlin! See!” “I’m seeing, Tedros.”

He whistled proudly, hopping and pointing at his decapitated twin . . . then quieted suddenly, as if absorbing the scene of his death, the reality behind his wish. His smile disappeared, anxiousness surging to his face. But he was looking at the painting closer now, at the calmness in his imagined self, the peace in his shut eyes, for this was the wish he’d wanted, the death he chose to prove something to himself, so that he could come back stronger. The fear went out of him, a new sense of power alighting— His eyes shot open in the painting, the head roaring to life: “Peekaboo!” Tedros screamed and took off into the fields.

“Well, you did say you wanted to come back to life, didn’t you?” I said when I found him.

But he just hugged me tightly, gripping at my robes, long after the fright was gone, as if somewhere deep inside, he knew that he and I were about to have our own death, our days together at an end.

I left Camelot with a heavy heart, plagued with doubts as to what would happen to Arthur and his son in the years to follow. But I knew two things for sure about Prince Tedros after that last lesson in the forest.

He wouldn’t be scared of death when the time came.

And he’d steal another’s Wizard Wish the first chance he got.

THE APPLE.

The one the Lady of the Lake had given him.

Kept in Tedros’ coat, near his heart.

I’d thought it a strange parting gift, since it couldn’t have any real magic, her powers mostly gone. But from what I’d seen, Tedros had laid it on thick, whispering in the Lady’s ear, eliciting a smile of love and gratitude, until she’d drawn the apple out of her waters, a token of affection for him. I’d assumed the prince had told Nimue that her sins were forgiven, that he still loved and admired her, so she would have the peace she needed . . . but now, looking back, it was more than that . . .

He wanted something from her.

He wanted her Wizard Wish.

And whatever he’d said to her at the lake had made her give it to him.

These are the thoughts that run through me watching Tedros’ head severed from his body, like I’d seen in the boy’s Wish Fish painting so long ago. Trapped on the staircase, I calculate quickly, my fists cuffed to the prisoner’s chain, my mind firing with teenage adrenaline.

If Tedros has the Lady’s wish, then he had to have said his wish. He had to have spoken it out loud.

Of course!

He did speak it out loud.

After the Snake had taunted him about having the blood of the heir, the blood of the king.

Tedros had looked right at him: “Then I wish Excalibur take my head for as long as it is true.” As long as it is true.

As long as what is true?

Japeth having the heir’s blood.

Japeth having the blood of the king.

But Chaddick was the heir.

Which means Japeth has Chaddick’s blood on him.

And Agatha knows it.

That’s why she looked stricken when she passed Japeth at the door.

That’s why she screamed through her gag to warn Tedros.

That’s why Tedros looked right at her before Excalibur cut off his head.

Because he knows she knows it.

He’s counting on her to know it.

Only she hasn’t made the connection yet . . . My head swivels to Agatha and I see why. She’s too shocked, her face dead white, her whole body tremoring, lost to the horror of seeing her prince cut in two. Meanwhile, Japeth stands triumphant in the chaos of fawning leaders, Excalibur back in his fists. I need Agatha to look at me, but Sophie and the witches are huddled around her, all of them a mess of tears. Guards will come any moment to take us to the dungeons. Look at me, Agatha, I think. Look at me. Look at— My hat pokes out of my pocket, hearing my thoughts.

Not you. Agatha.

My hat launches up the stairs and smacks Agatha in the head.

Good boy.

Agatha glances at me.

For the slightest second.

The magic is already forming between my bound hands, my fingers prying apart just enough to release it into the air . . . floating out of my palms . . . a pink orb of light . . . in the shape of . . .

. . . an apple.

Agatha stares at it through tears, then at me, confounded.

I glare at her hard, willing her to think like me.

She looks at the apple again.

The apple Tedros wouldn’t let her eat on our journey, even when she’d asked.

Her gaze sharpens like a knife.

The apple.

The Lady.

The magic.

She understands.

Tears dry up.

Her jaw sets.

Sophie sees the shift in her, follows her eyes to me— But Agatha is already jumping on top of the banister, diving with her cuffed arms out, swooping like a phoenix towards the Snake.

Only one problem: all of us are chained to her— Sophie goes jerking up after Agatha, tumbling with a scream towards the first level, before the witches and I and the others yank the chain back, suspending the two girls in air, upside down, their heads swinging for the floor. Japeth whirls around in surprise, but Agatha is right there in his face. She bludgeons him with shackled hands, knocking him off-kilter, then snatches at his collar, grabbing something from beneath it. Dot manages to fire a spell from her lit finger, turning the chain over Agatha to chocolate. Agatha and Sophie snap free, crashing down onto King Dutra and Empress Vaisilla, who shriek and swat at them, pinned beneath the girls and yelling for their guards. Meanwhile, Sophie angles her bound fists to burn her glow through Agatha’s cuffs, Agatha doing the same to Sophie’s. Chains break at the same time, before Sophie swipes a brooch from Vaisilla and spears through her and Agatha’s gags. But now soldiers are running for both girls, Japeth leading them, swords out to slash them through— The soldiers pull back, startled.

Because Japeth’s crown is . . . moving.

Rising off his head without a sound.

It drifts across the room, five spires of gold, shining in sunlight through the roof, passing over stunned leaders, before Camelot’s crown fits down onto another’s head.

Agatha’s head.

Japeth surges for her, but Sophie blocks him, her fingertip glowing hot pink.

“Bow down, worm,” Sophie hisses.

Then she peeks back at King Agatha, mouthing: “What’s happening?” Agatha’s eyes stay locked on Japeth.

Baffled guards pivot their weapons between them.

When Agatha speaks, it is with pure fire.

“Here is your liar. Here is your Snake. He stole the blood of the heir and faked being king this whole time.” She holds up a piece of fabric, stained with blood. “Excalibur never chose him. Not the first time. Not now. It chose this. Without it, he’s not king. He’s no one. He’s nothing.” “More rebel tricks—” Japeth mocks, appealing to the leaders.

“Oh?” says Agatha.

She thrusts the scrap of fabric at Sophie, who’s caught on to the game. Sophie takes Chaddick’s blood into her hand, smiling imperiously as the crown flies from Agatha’s head to her own. Her white dress magically morphs into a coronation gown.

“I could get used to this,” King Sophie says.

King Dutra of Foxwood stumbles to his feet. “Explain this, Rhian!” “I don’t understand!” Empress Vaisilla cries. “Why would the crown go to them, Rhian—” “Rhian?” Sophie puffs. “Oh, no, no, no. Rhian is dead.” Her emerald eyes cut through the Snake. “This is Japeth. He killed his twin and has been pretending to be Rhian ever since, like a grand old stooge. All of you are his fools.” At first, they think she’s joking. Then they see the steel in Sophie’s glare, coupled with the crown on her head . . . The room erupts into commotion, demanding King Rhian respond to the charges and punish the girls’ lies.

I can see Japeth’s cool shell cracking. He wants to turn into the Snake right here, to crucify these girls with a thousand scims. But he can’t give himself away. He’s playing his brother now. His Good, kingly brother.

Japeth turns to his soldiers. “Kill them!”

But they don’t move, even his Camelot pirates stupefied by the crown on Sophie’s head.

Japeth’s facade breaks. He roars with murder, his face monstrous and gnarled. Excalibur out, he rushes at Sophie, for the blood clasped in her hand. Sophie rears in surprise, the scrap of blood fumbled from her palm, into the air, about to catch on Japeth’s sword— Agatha’s glow scorches the blood, setting it aflame, incinerating it to nothing.

Ashes dangle in the sunlight like dust . . .

Then they’re gone.

So, too, is Camelot’s crown.

Excalibur rips from Japeth’s hands and plunges back into the pile of stone.

No one moves, the house silent as a grave.

Japeth faces Agatha, her gold fingertip still smoking.

“There is only one true heir now. Only one true king,” Agatha says, her voice big as thunder. “A king who warned you. The truth cannot be spoken. It can only be seen.” A truth Japeth doesn’t see at first.

Then he hears the gasps.

Slowly the Snake turns.

Tedros rises, the Lion, the King, the crown of Camelot glittering in his hair.

Leaders drop to their knees, awed and overcome, a wave of humility and allegiance.

“Long live the King!” Agatha proclaims.

“Long live the King!” the leaders resound.

Tedros steps into the sunlight and pulls Excalibur free, the stone shattering from his force.

His gaze never leaves Japeth.

Arthur’s sword soars out of Tedros’ hands.

It lifts over the Snake, glowing hot red.

Japeth’s eyes widen, reptilian blue—

“Like father, like son,” says the King.

The sword falls.

This time, no mistakes.