فصل 32

Chapter 32

THE STORIAN

Samsara

When it comes to wedding preparations, a witch can only take so much.

Which is why Sophie was in a dank sewer, her black-spike heels clacking along the path that bordered a river of sludge. When she was Dean, Sophie had tried to make the School for Evil more enticing, fumigating these sewers with sandalwood incense, changing the color of the sludge to a resplendent blue, even turning the dungeons into a nightclub party on Saturday nights for the highest-ranking Nevers. But in her absence at Camelot, Professor Manley had seized control of the school and restored everything to its old, decrepit gloom.

Evelyn Sader’s dress hugged her tightly, refitted into a black leather sheath. Once, she’d have done anything to get the dress off; now, it was her loyal companion, shape-shifting to her moods and desires, like her own version of Hester’s tattoo. If it was up to her, she’d mold the dress into a black vampire gown for the wedding, complete with thigh-high boots, a shimmering red cape, and heavy necklaces laden with blood rubies and signs of the cross.

But that wouldn’t go over well with the groom.

Boys, Sophie sighed, running her fingers over walls, struggling to see down the tunnel. Soon the solid stone turned to rusty grating and Sophie found the keyhole, using her old Dean’s key to pry the door open. She’d wanted to escape the wedding planning for just a moment, to catch her breath and be with her thoughts, but something had compelled her towards the Doom Room, even though she hadn’t the faintest clue why. She only had terrible memories of this torture chamber for wayward Nevers and the big, hairy man-wolf that probed for weaknesses and made nightmares out of them. She still remembered the way he sniffed her hair, his paws stroking her. He’d paid the price in the end. Pushed into the sludge and left to drown. For daring to touch her. For awakening her Evil. The Doom Room had stayed beastless ever since, the punishment of students left to the teachers.

But now she’d felt called back, all these years later. Sophie stood alone in the dark, taking in the bare walls, as if there was still something here for her, something she couldn’t yet see. She closed her eyes, listening to the silence, the creak of the grate, the flit of a moth. Her heartbeat picked up, a tight pitter-patter, as if struggling to keep control. She tried to focus on the river sounds, a thick, soothing rush. But now the sludge had a life of its own, churning faster, harder, its roar thundering in her chest, swallowing her up. Something brushed her ear, the kiss of fur. Heat clawed her body, the threat of an animal’s touch. She tasted tears. “I’m sorry,” she gasped. This is why she’d come: to find her beasts, to make peace with them. The one she’d killed. And the one she couldn’t save. Both had to forgive her if she was to be free. She could feel them now, the two beasts inside her, entwined around her heart, pulling her towards an ending, life or death, she couldn’t know— A chill hit her.

She startled awake.

Something was there.

In the darkness.

Two coal-black eyes.

“Sophie? Is that you?” a voice echoed.

She turned, a thin shadow coming down the tunnel for her—

Sophie spun back to the dark, her fingerglow lit.

But there was nothing, except the memory of ghosts.

A SHORT TIME before, the bride had been in her last fitting, poised on a pedestal in Good Hall as tall, floating nymphs poked her with pins and clips and measuring sticks. The groom lay on his back on the blue marble, sweaty and shirtless from a workout, eating chips out of Merlin’s hat and reading the Royal Rot.

“You shouldn’t be here, you know,” Agatha warned him, as the neon-haired nymphs hovered over her. “Bad luck for you to see the dress before the wedding.” “Bad luck for me to get my head cut off too, but here I am,” said Tedros, his nose in the paper. “Besides, I can’t see anything with all those overgrown pixies around you. Listen to this hogwash: Tonight, King Tedros and Princess Agatha will be married at the School for Good and Evil by their own choosing, even though every king of Camelot has married at Camelot Castle since the founding of the realm thousands of years ago. In an exclusive interview, King Tedros insisted this is because he wants to ‘show unity between the School and Camelot,’ after Rhian and his brother sought to overthrow the school and the Storian kept within. But privately, sources tell us King Tedros moved the wedding because the castle is under repair, due to a ‘de-Snake-ification,’ which the king ordered to rid Camelot of every last vestige of Rhian and Japeth’s reign.” “Um, that’s all true,” said Agatha, but Tedros barreled on—

“We at the Royal Rot will keep a keen eye on the king’s expenditures, now that the Camelot Beautiful funds have been unfrozen. Word is he’s also spending a pretty penny to revive the Camelot Courier with a new staff, so the Rot isn’t left ‘unchallenged,’” Tedros scoffed.

“That’s true too,” said Agatha.

“Don’t encourage them,” Tedros growled. He grabbed more chips from the hat and kept reading.

His bride sighed. “There will always be people looking over our shoulder. But that’s why I wanted the wedding here,” she said, the nymphs finishing their work. “This world is powered by its stories. Stories that are real to those who live them, but stories that also inspire and teach and belong to every last soul in these Woods. And this wedding is about our story: a prince from this world and a girl from beyond it, brought together by an unlikely education.” Agatha looked out the window into the golden afternoon, my steel edges glinting high in the School Master’s tower, writing the words she was speaking at this very moment. “Camelot might be our Ever After,” said Agatha. “But this is where our fairy tale began.” “See? Why didn’t they write that?” Tedros asked, mouth full, finally looking at her— He dropped Merlin’s hat, his eyes wide.

Agatha smiled down, the nymphs parted. “Because they only talked to you.” The dress was as white as a summer cloud, a three-quarter-sleeve gown with a plunging neck and a cascade of shimmering tulle from the waist sweeping out across the floor, catching the light of the hall’s torches and casting sparkles on Agatha’s face. Her hair had been pulled into a delicate twist and wrapped in a wide white-silk band, her makeup fresh and light with a peach sheen on her lips. Diamond studs shined in her ears, a matching bracelet on her wrist. As for the shoes . . .

“The nymphs had their ideas,” said Agatha, lifting her dress to reveal two silver clumps, covered in crystals. “And I had mine.” Tedros had no words, his skin so pink in his neck and chest that Agatha thought he might burst into flames.

Luckily the nymphs needed the dress for final adjustments and stripped Agatha of it, along with the hairband and jewels and shoes, leaving her in the unfussy blue frock she had on underneath. She wiped away her lipstick, hopping off the pedestal— “Can you please wear your wedding dress every day?” Tedros asked.

“Can you please wear clothes in public?” Agatha replied, sprawling onto his chest.

They were alone in the vast hall, the half-dressed king and his barefoot princess, like two first years who’d snuck out after curfew. Neither spoke for a long while, Tedros running his fingers through her hair, their breaths falling in synch.

“Only a few hours now,” said Agatha. “They’ll start letting guests in soon.” Tedros didn’t say anything.

Agatha rolled over, her chin on his chest. “Something’s bothering you.” “No, no. I mean . . . it’s just strange, isn’t it? Not having anyone to give us away?” said Tedros. “No mom. No dad. For either of us. Dad’s at peace now, his ghost finally at rest. But still . . . No Dovey or Lesso. No Robin or Sheriff or even Lance. Not even Tink. None of them lived to see the end. But we did. We made it somehow. Through the tests. Through the darkness. I just wish the others had made it with us.” Agatha saw the emotion in his eyes, the elation and sadness of everything that had happened, and she, too, felt it in her throat. “I wish the same thing, Tedros,” she said, lying back and holding him. “We do have Merlin, though.” Tedros smiled. “Nineteen-year-old Merlin who we’ll get to watch grow old, day by day.” “Where is he? Haven’t seen him since we got to school.”

“In the Gallery of Good,” said Tedros, fidgeting with his ring. “They have an exhibit there with some of his old spellbooks and things. Probably wants to break the glass and get them all back.” Agatha laughed. “Doesn’t seem happy to be young again, does he?” “Merlin’s happy as long as he has a pupil to badger and nitpick,” said Tedros. “Thankfully, he’ll be badgering me for a very long time.” He fell quiet, turning the ring round on his finger, studying its carvings. “On our carriage ride here, he asked me what I was going to do with it. The last of the Storian’s rings. He said all the leaders look to me as the Lion now. If I burn Camelot’s ring, I’ll be the One True King, with the power to write others’ fates. The power to claim the Storian’s magic and remake our world as Good as I want.” Agatha sat up. “And what did you tell him?”

“That I will never be the One True King,” Tedros answered calmly. “Because a true king knows there is more than one king. I will be followed by another and another, each protecting this ring, each leading the Woods for as long as we are alive. And with my time on the throne, I’ll be the best leader I can, while knowing that the Storian is the true master of our fate. I can’t stop new tests from arising, but I can will myself to conquer them. Man and Pen in balance. Me and the Pen. The Storian has a larger plan for all of us. I am only one part of it.” Agatha held her breath, looking at him, the boy she once knew, become a man.

High in a tower, I paint this in their storybook: Agatha and the King. The last swan in my steel goes calm, my days of writing out of turn at an end, a Pen returned to its familiar rhythms . . .

Tedros shrugged. “But then Merlin’s hat bit him, insisting it was time for Merlin’s nap, and M said he’s not a child anymore and they had a holy row. That’s how I ended up with his hat. M said he wanted to be left alone for once—” He saw Agatha still staring at him. “What?”

She traced the faint pink scar on his neck, Excalibur’s mark. “Of all the tales in all the kingdoms in all the Woods, you had to walk into mine . . .” “Now she’s stealing my lines,” said the boy, wrestling her playfully. “Did you really think I was dead for good?” “I still haven’t forgiven you for it,” Agatha said, trying in vain to pin him. “What if I had died from the sheer shock and then you came back to life?” “Dunno. Marry Sophie instead?”

Agatha smacked him. Tedros pinned her. They kissed passionately on the cold marble floor.

“Oh, kill me now,” a voice grouched—

Agatha and Tedros turned to see Beatrix tramp in with Reena and Kiko.

“Romping like rabbits while we manage the wedding,” said Beatrix.

“You?” Agatha asked. “I thought Sophie was in charge!”

“Sophie went running off right when we were doing decorations,” said Reena. “Professor Anemone helped us instead.” “And the witches,” Kiko chimed.

“Witches,” said Tedros, his face clouding. “Helping with wedding decorations . . .” “But why would Sophie run off?” Agatha pressed. “Did anyone see where she went?” “Towards the Doom Room, last I saw,” said Reena.

Agatha sat up. “The Doom Room?”

“YOU OKAY?” AGATHA panted, pulling Sophie out of the dungeon cell. “Why are you in here?” Sophie stammered, her skin damp: “S-s-sorry, I didn’t mean for you to . . .” But Agatha wasn’t looking at her anymore, her gaze over Sophie’s shoulder into the Doom Room. Agatha’s eyes narrowed before she closed the grating, hugging her chest to it, making sure it was shut.

“What is it?” Sophie asked.

“Come on,” Agatha said, dragging her down the tunnels. “This place gives me the spooks.” Sophie expected her friend to hound her as to why she’d gone to the dungeons or at the very least berate her for abandoning the wedding planning that Sophie herself had volunteered for. But Agatha was quiet, as if in rescuing Sophie from her ghosts, her friend had seen a ghost herself.

Finally Agatha turned to her. “What time is it?”

“Nearly four, I think,” said Sophie.

“At five, I need to get ready,” said Agatha. “I used the castle tunnels to come here, so I haven’t seen the decorations yet. Maybe we should check on them. Heard the witches are involved . . .” Sophie’s eyes flashed. “Prepare for war.”

They surfaced from the sewers and hustled up the banks of the bay towards the sun-gilded grass in front of Good’s castle— Both girls stopped.

The Great Lawn had turned into a feast of color. Everywhere they looked, bubbles of red and blue and gold light floated through the air like lanterns, a few filled with tuxedoed frogs playing a bright waltz on tiny violins. Professor Emma Anemone cast more glowing orbs, the Beautification teacher draped in a yellow gown with a pattern of tiny diamond mirrors. She was helped by a coterie of Evers, Bodhi, Laithan, Priyanka included, dressed in their finest clothes for the wedding, while Professor Anemone led them in blossoming more brilliant bubbles from lit fingers: “Fill your hearts with love and well-wishes for our new king and queen and the beauty will show in your work! Bert, Beckett! Those better not be dungbombs!” Meanwhile, a stained-glass altar gleamed atop the hill, which Aja and Valentina carved with rich fairy-tale scenes: Agatha and Tedros battling witch Sophie at the No Ball . . . Sophie beheading Rafal . . . Sophie as the Sugar Queen— “What is this foolishness!” Professor Sheeba Sheeks yelped. “This is the wedding of Tedros and Agatha! Not a valediction to Sophie!” “But Sophie is the best,” said Aja.

Down the hill were columns of red, blue, and gold seats, which Willam and Bogden wove through, both boys in ruffled blue suits, placing name cards on cushions. They saved the best seats for C. R. R. Teapea of Gnomeland, Queen Jacinda of Jaunt Jolie, Maid Marian of Nottingham, Golem of Pifflepaff Hills, followed by rows for the faculty of the School for Good and Evil. Behind the teachers was a section for Teapea’s gnomes, a testament to their help in fighting the Snake, followed by rows for all students of the school, Ever and Never. Then the seats for journalists and artists, who would document the wedding, along with room for families of students as well as Camelot maids and staff. And way, way, way in the back, sunken and teetering at the lake’s edge, were chairs for the leaders of the Kingdom Council.

“EXCUSE ME!” Castor boomed, assessing their seating plan from atop Honor Tower. “YOU’RE PUTTIN’ THE KINGS AND QUEENS OF THE WOODS, THE 99 LEADERS OF THE FOUNDING REALMS, BEHIND FIRST YEARS AND PEONS AND A BUNCHA GNOMES, WITH SEATS HALF IN THE LAKE, SO THEY CAN’T CATCH ANYTHIN’ OF THE WEDDING BUT SOGGY KNICKERS?” Willam and Bogden looked up. “Yes,” they chorused.

Castor grinned. “Good lads.”

Between the columns of seats was an aisle of white silk, aglow in more floating bubbles of color, filled with lovebirds singing along to the frog’s symphony. Hester popped a bubble, the bird inside shrieking and fleeing past the black-clad witch.

“Couldn’t help it,” Hester said as her demon whittled an ice sculpture of Agatha in a fierce warrior pose.

“How’s this?” Anadil asked, in matching black across the aisle, her rats chiseling an ice statue of a short boy with clownish curls and a wide, grotesque smile.

“Looks like an overeager dwarf,” said Hester.

“But this is what Tedros looks like,” Anadil maintained.

A blast of glow hit the sculpture, coating it smooth and milky white, obscuring its worst details.

“Chocolate solves everything,” Dot trumped, arriving in a voluminous, bright pink gown with an explosion of bows. She zapped Hester’s statue with a white chocolate sheen too. “And it goes better with the theme. Unlike your outfits. Who wears black to a wedding?” “Witches with dignity,” said Hester.

“Witches who don’t want to look like they fell out of a flamingo,” Anadil echoed.

“Well, now that I’m young again, I want to enjoy it,” Dot vowed. “Get enough darkness and pointless cynicism hanging around you two. Oh, look. Aggie! Sophie! Why are you hiding!” Dot spied the girls beneath the hill and hustled towards them.

How quickly things turn from dark to light, Agatha thought, the sun sending glittering shivers up Good’s glass spires. She soaked in the sumptuous scene, a wedding in full bloom. No more dark edges lurking. No more tests to pass. Just color and chaos and love.

Sophie clasped her best friend’s hand.

“You’re getting married, Aggie,” Sophie said softly.

Agatha saw nothing but happiness and joy in her friend’s eyes, as if this was Ever After enough for them both. Which was a testament to how much Sophie loved her, Agatha thought. Because Sophie had lost her happy ending, just as Agatha had won hers.

“Oh, not you too in black,” Dot chided Sophie, sweeping in.

“Everyone can wear what they wish,” Agatha corrected, for Sophie had been wearing funeral colors for several days now. “All that matters is we’re here together.” “For now,” said Hester, appearing with Anadil. “Ani, Dot, and I were thinking about what comes after the wedding.” “Agatha and Tedros will live at Camelot, obviously,” Anadil pointed out, “and first years and teachers will stay here at school, Nicola, Bogden, and Willam included. Willam was officially invited to be an Ever by Professor Anemone.” “A lot of our classmates want to go back to their quests, like Ravan, Vex, and Brone,” Dot added. “And Beatrix, Reena, and Kiko are planning to sail the Igraine across the Savage Sea to chart the unmapped realms . . .” “Which leaves us,” said Hester, glancing at her coven mates.

“You’d be perfect as Deans of Evil,” Sophie proposed sincerely. “Patrolling halls. Managing curriculum. Disciplining students. I mean, you almost took as much delight in dumping those Mistral Sisters back in the Camelot dungeons as I did. Almost.” The witches stared at her. So did Agatha.

“But if they’re the Deans . . . what about you?” Agatha asked.

Sophie smiled at her friend. “Thought I could come live at the castle with you and Teddy.” Agatha hesitated, looking tense, and Sophie instantly flushed, with Hester jumping in to stop the awkwardness— “Appreciate you thinking of us as Deans, but we’re not meant for office jobs,” Hester touted. “Besides, now that Manley has the title, it’ll have to be pried out of his cold, warted fingers.” “He and Professor Anemone already brought in sorcerers to dismantle Sophie’s suite in the School Master’s tower,” said Anadil. “Looks like they have both schools well in hand.” “So what will you do, then?” Agatha asked, fixing on Dot. “Still thinking about being a witch doctor?” “Our coven had something else in mind, actually,” Dot volunteered. She peeked at Hester and Anadil, who nodded at her, urging her to go on. “Well, with Daddy gone, there’s no Sheriff in the Woods anymore,” said Dot. “No one protecting law and order. As king, Tedros will have his knights, but if we’ve learned anything, Good has a blind spot to the worst kind of Evil. More Snakes could pop up. The Woods needs a real Sheriff. Like my dad was. So we thought maybe . . . we’d do it. Be the new Sheriff. Be the new law and order.” “Go searching for villains that don’t play by the rules,” Hester explained, her demon twitching on her neck. “And bring them to justice, our way.” “Hell hath no fury like three witches who think you’re giving Evil a bad name,” said Anadil, rats poking from her pocket with a hiss.

Agatha smiled, looking at Sophie, but there was still tension between them, Agatha quickly turning to assure the witches: “That’s a magnificent idea. Tedros will give you any resources you need—” “No, no, no. Covens don’t work on behalf of kings,” Hester retorted. “We are independent witches, with no master or patron or affiliations, working in the shadows on our own missions. You will reap the benefits of our work, but you won’t hear about it and we intend to keep it that way.” Dot whispered to Agatha: “I’ll send postcards.”

“Did you hear?” Kiko gushed, cramming in. “Reena’s boyfriend is coming from Shazabah!” “Jeevan is not my boyfriend,” Reena objected behind her.

“If a boy’s flying in on a magic carpet for you, he’s your boyfriend,” said Beatrix. “Speaking of, who is that?” From the South Gates came a sultry boy in a gray suit, with a pompadour of blue hair, a gold earring in one ear, and thin, intense eyes.

“That is Yoshi,” Kiko ogled. “She found him in Jaunt Jolie.”

“She?” said Beatrix.

But now they saw the girl on his arm, coming through the gate: Nicola, nuzzled against him, in a matching gray dress.

“Rebound boys are the best,” Dot marveled.

“How do I get one?” Kiko complained. “I figured out Willam doesn’t like girls like me.” She paused. “He only likes tall girls.” Everyone else groaned.

All this talk of boys made Agatha remember the days when she didn’t believe in princes or castles or fairy tales.

She, the new Queen of Camelot.

She, who dreamed of an ordinary life, only to have the most extraordinary one of all.

Then she noticed Sophie, as the other girls dispersed into their groups, her best friend shifting in her boots, as if she didn’t have a place to go. Agatha knew the pain Sophie was feeling: deep in her heart, Agatha would always be the old Graveyard Girl.

The castle clock sounded five, strong and bold.

Agatha breathed a sigh of relief, touching Sophie’s wrist.

“Come and help me get ready, will you?” Agatha asked.

HOW THE TABLES TURN, Sophie thought, following Princess Agatha through Valor Tower.

Once upon a time, it was Sophie with a prince, eager to get rid of Agatha as a third wheel. Now Agatha had the prince to herself and was leaving Sophie out in the cold. For Sophie, there would be no royal triumvirate, no busying herself at the castle with her best friend, no escaping her deepening loneliness. She had never wanted to end at Camelot, of course. But she had nowhere else to go to feel loved. And she thought Aggie of all people might understand that. Until she saw the way Agatha hesitated when she’d proposed it . . .

Not that Sophie blamed her. Of course Queen Agatha wouldn’t want Sophie swanning around the castle, stealing focus away from her and King Tedros. Sophie would have been a good girl and done everything possible to cede the stage . . . but Agatha knew her friend too well. The spotlight always found Sophie, especially when Sophie felt lost and scared like she did now.

Where to go? What to do?

She was so caught up in her thoughts she hardly noticed Agatha lead her up a staircase and through an office door, already cracked open. Agatha closed the door, while Sophie glanced at the cramped room with a single window and broom closet and a mess of soggy books, scraggly-written scrolls, and moldy food crumbs.

“Professor Sader’s old office?” Sophie asked. “You want to get ready for your wedding in here?” “Don’t want Tedros seeing my dress. Bad luck,” Agatha said, peering around. “No mirror, though.” Sophie frowned. “Where are the nymphs? Who’s helping you get ready?” Agatha pulled a small mirror from her dress. “Brought one with me in case,” she said, handing it to Sophie. “Show me what I look like, will you?” Sophie stared at her.

Agatha who used to hide from mirrors.

Now carrying one with her.

Sophie shook her head. You really have changed, she thought, reflecting her friend in the glass— Only then did Sophie look at the mirror closely.

A mirror she’d seen before, in a land far away.

Agatha’s eyes reflected yellow.

Then Sophie was falling through them.

AGATHA’S SECRETS.

She was inside Agatha’s secrets.

That’s all Sophie had heard about the mirror. It revealed the things a person wanted to hide.

But now Sophie was in a familiar place, dank tunnels melting into view around her, a river of sludge rushing past . . .

The sewers.

“Sophie, is that you?” a voice called.

Sophie spun to see Agatha hustling towards her, barefoot in her blue dress— Sophie grabbed at her: “Aggie! Why are we here!”

But her hand went through her friend like a ghost, Agatha continuing to move along the sludge, heading towards a blond girl in a black leather dress, farther down the tunnel . . .

Me, Sophie realized.

This isn’t now.

This is before.

When Agatha found her in the dungeon.

Quickly Sophie chased after Agatha, catching up to her just as her friend pulled the old Sophie out of the cell.

“You okay?” Agatha was panting. “Why are you in here?”

Sophie’s past self stammered, her skin damp: “S-s-sorry, I didn’t mean for you to . . .” But Agatha wasn’t looking at the old Sophie anymore. She was looking over her shoulder into the dungeon. Agatha’s eyes narrowed before she closed the grating, hugging her chest to it, making sure it was shut— Except now the scene magically pivoted, like a projection rotating on itself, allowing Sophie to see what was happening on the other side of the grating, inside the cell . . .

A shadow, crouched on the floor, seizing onto Agatha’s wrist and handing her a mirror through the grate.

And on this mirror, a message etched in dust:

MY OFFICE

5 PM

Agatha hid the mirror in her dress before spinning on her heel and ushering Sophie out of the sewers, that strange, spooked look on Agatha’s face that Sophie remembered— But now the scene was vanishing, the secret exposed, as Sophie felt herself pulled back into Professor Sader’s office, her head faint and blood throttling, her eyes flying to the desk . . . the food crumbs and soggy books and bad penmanship that hadn’t belonged to Professor Sader at all . . . but to the boy who had taken over as History Professor once the old seer was gone . . .

My Office.

My.

Slowly Sophie turned to Agatha, her heart on fire, her body shaking so hard she couldn’t see straight.

Agatha nodded towards the broom closet.

Sweat dripped off Sophie’s palms. Every step she took seemed as if she was taking eight steps back, like she was clinging to the fringes of a dream just when she was waking up. She couldn’t breathe, her hand grasping for the closet door, stuttering onto the knob, turning it the wrong way, then the right way, the jamb stuck before she shot it with a spell, blasting the door off its hinges, the darkness inside overwhelmed with light— Sophie dropped the mirror, shattering the glass.

Every shard reflected him.

He was skinnier than before, weakly pale in a thin black shirt and black breeches, his hair dark and jagged, his arms and legs cut up and heavy white bandages peeking out from his shoulders and chest. But his eyes were strong, hot with life and locked on Sophie, as if he was afraid to blink.

“It’s a trick . . . ,” Sophie croaked. “It’s impossible . . .” The boy stepped out of the closet.

“Every good story needs a little impossible,” said Hort. “Otherwise no one would believe it.” Sophie’s legs jellied, the distance between them feeling as wide as an ocean.

“I’ll leave you two,” said Agatha at the door—

“Aggie?” Sophie gasped.

Agatha looked back at her, her eyes shining with happy tears, brimming with love. And suddenly, Sophie realized that she had it all wrong. Agatha would do anything for her. She always had. She always would. And on this, her wedding day, it wasn’t her own happy ending that Agatha had been determined to make happen. It was her best friend’s.

Agatha gave her a wink, then closed the door behind her.

Sophie swallowed, struggling to focus on Hort, as if gazing into the sun. “How?” “Kept myself alive just long enough to be rescued,” he said. “An old friend found me, who happened to be an expert in forest survival. Nursed me back to health.” “An old friend? Who?” Sophie asked.

“I mean . . . really, really old,” said Hort, nodding out the window.

Sophie peeked through and glimpsed a wrinkled, bearded gnome on the lawn, swatting at Neverboys with his staff: “Eating the wedding cake! Hooligans! Yuba is back! Shipshape! Shipshape!” “This whole time, Yuba was searching for missing files on Rhian and Japeth from the Living Library,” Hort said behind her. “Never found them, but he found Aladdin’s mirror in a Pasha Dunes pawnshop. Tedros must have lost the mirror in the desert before one of the Sultan’s soldiers sold it off, not realizing what it was. I had a plan to use the mirror, to bring you into my secrets, but then Agatha showed up and ruined everything as usual . . . so I had to improvise . . .” This is real, Sophie thought.

This is happening.

She turned back, taking Hort in, finally letting herself believe it. “I thought I’d lost you . . . I thought you were dead . . . ,” she rasped, moving towards him. She reached for him— “Wait,” he said, drawing back. He turned away, his face quivering. “There’s something I need to tell you.” Sophie’s stomach wrenched.

She’d been waiting for it.

Her happy endings always came with a catch.

Tears slid onto Hort’s cheeks. “The wolf part of me,” he said quietly. “The wolf that was shot in the tree . . .” He couldn’t look at her. “It’s . . . dead.” Sophie went still.

“The part of me you liked. The strong part. The beast. My wounds were too great for it to survive,” Hort confessed, his voice broken. “It’s just me now. Weaselly old me. And I know that isn’t enough for you.” Sophie didn’t say anything for a moment. She stood taller on her heels. “No, it isn’t enough for me.” Hort hung his head.

Tears frosted Sophie’s eyes, watching him. “It’s more than enough.” He froze, slowly raising his chin.

“You’ve always been enough, Hort of Bloodbrook,” said Sophie. “You, who are strong enough to die for the girl you love and still find your way back to her. You. Bold, big-hearted, beautiful you. It’s me who wasn’t enough. Me who kept searching for fantasy love instead of real love. It’s me who didn’t deserve you.” She touched his cheek. “Until I opened my heart big enough and found you there, waiting patiently, a piece of me all along.” She kissed him, holding on to him tight, his lips so soft and perfect they felt like home. Where they would go from here, who they would become, she didn’t know, the two of them bound by nothing except their feelings for each other and thankfulness for this moment. For the first time, Sophie didn’t need to know the future to be happy. She didn’t need promises or princes or a storybook life. All she wanted was the most ordinary of ends: to love with all of her heart and to be loved the same way in return.

Their mouths parted, Sophie taking in air. “Should we go and tell the others?” she asked, moving for the door.

“Not yet,” said Hort, locking it sharply. “They can wait.”

Sophie grinned as he came for her. “Who says the beast is dead?” TEDROS WAS TEMPTED to peek into Sader’s office and see Hort in the flesh, but from the scene Agatha had described to him and the rapture between Sophie and her weasel . . . better he didn’t.

Leave it to Agatha to execute the perfect love plot on the day of her own wedding, Tedros thought, heading through a glass breezeway, dressed in a white-and-gold suit and matching white boots, his golden hair perfectly arranged, his heart pumping with happiness. Happiness that he’d kissed his bride before he’d left her with the nymphs to get ready. Happiness that Hort was alive and on the way to recovery. Happiness that Agatha could get married, knowing her best friend had found love. And happiness for Sophie, who he no longer thought of as a thorn in his side, but as a true, irreplaceable friend. His castle would be open to her always, his once-nemesis now part of his family, and no doubt fresh challenges would arise in the course of his reign where the King of Camelot would call upon the Witch of Woods Beyond for her help.

Through the glass breezeway, he could see guests arriving: Maid Marian, with some of Robin Hood’s old Merry Men . . . Queen Jacinda, looking resplendent, with eleven new female knights flanking her like bodyguards, the coup in her castle put down . . . Boobeshwar and his troop of mongooses, each kissed on their furry heads by Princess Uma for their work slowing Japeth’s armies . . . Caleb and Cedric and Headmistress Gremlaine, who Tedros personally visited a few days earlier to tell them the truth about Chaddick of Foxwood, his liege, friend, and brother . . . Hansel and Gretel and Briar Rose and giant-slaying Jack, old members of the League of Thirteen . . .

All made their way to the lawn, savoring cups of masala tea and plates of saffron pudding and pistachio cookies from Reena’s mother, who insisted that she and Yousuf handle the food and drink for the wedding, including the elaborate feast to follow and the twelve-layer cardamom and rosewater cake.

Then Tedros noticed Pollux slinking up the hill, his oily head atop a poodle’s body, the dog trying to keep away from Castor, who’d already spotted his brother and was giving him a rabid glare. Pollux hadn’t been invited, of course, but he always came sucking up to power when he saw the chance. More guests flooded in: the Fairy Queen of Gillikin, the Ice Giant of Frostplains, the Dwarf Queen of Ooty, mixed amongst the students and teachers of the school. Pospisil, too, had come, the old priest dressed in gold and brought to the altar, where he would conduct the wedding. Everyone was here, Tedros thought, past divisions and sins forgiven, the Woods united under the Lion, all friends accounted for . . .

Except one.

Tedros hastened towards the Gallery of Good. He would have forgotten entirely about Merlin, except Merlin’s hat was making such a fuss about being away from the wizard that Tedros had stuffed it under pillows where the nymphs were dressing his bride.

At first, Tedros had assumed Merlin was down on the lawn, but Tedros hadn’t seen him and at nineteen years old, the wizard couldn’t be expected to be a model of timeliness and responsibility. Most likely he got sidetracked in the Gallery of Good, practicing his old spells, determined to return to the master wizard he once was. Tedros hopped off the staircase, jogging past corridors to the double doors at their end, shoving through and ready to give the boy a stern talking-to— But he wasn’t there.

Tedros glanced around the deserted gallery and its exhibits and displays, celebrating the best of its alumni. Merlin had his own corner in the museum, a tribute to the wizard’s humble beginnings as a student at the school a long time ago. But nothing in Merlin’s display had been disturbed, not the glass cases with his old spellbooks or his first-year assignments or his medal for winning the Trial by Tale, as if the wizard boy had never come here like he’d said.

Must be with the guests after all, Tedros sighed, heading back— Then something caught his eye.

One of the spellbooks.

It was open to a young painting of a radiant beach at sunset with pink sand and purple waters, the sea leading out in calm, brilliant waves . . . where it abruptly stopped. The waters, the waves: it all went blank, as if the painting was unfinished.

But it was the title that Tedros noticed.

SAMSARA

“Where Time Ends”

Samsara.

Tedros had heard it before.

Merlin had used the word in Avalon, when the teenage wizard was annoyed with him and Agatha.

“Think I would be here, decades younger than I’m supposed to be . . . instead of basking on the beaches of Samsara?” he’d groused. “That’s where I’d like to spend my future.” Tedros looked at the painting again, the vibrant purple waters cut short.

Where Time Ends.

Something in Tedros went cold.

“Tedros?”

He turned.

Agatha.

She was in her wedding dress, Sophie and Hort at her side. Their faces were pale, watching something in Agatha’s hands.

Merlin’s hat.

The blue velvet fading, the threads coming apart, magically aging in front of their eyes.

It hacked out a cloud of dust: “Honor Commons.”

Tedros was already running.

BY THE TIME they arrived, his hair had gone gray, wrinkles creasing into his smooth face.

He was reclined on the couch, his old, velvet robes fanned around him like a purple sea, while a fire burned in the fireplace, casting light on murals of mermaids and kings.

They gathered around him, Tedros on his knees.

“My boy,” Merlin said.

“M, what’s happening . . . you have to make it stop . . . ,” the prince begged, watching him grow older, forty, forty-five, fifty at Tedros’ best guess, his cheeks weathering, his skin loosening on his bones. “Please, Merlin.” “No one gets to be young again for free, Tedros,” the wizard spoke. “Once upon a time, the King and Queen of Borna Coric learned that lesson when they tried to stay young forever, only to learn they were on borrowed time. I, too, was on borrowed time. Nineteen years of added life, lived in nineteen days. More years than I had left to live. And now Father Time has come to collect.” “But surely you can fight it,” Agatha pressed. “Surely you can do something—” “What I want to do is be right here, with you,” said the wizard, his hair gone white. He looked at Tedros in his suit and Agatha in her wedding dress, Sophie’s lips smeared and Hort’s hair in disarray. “The great things you will do. So much love between you.” His shoulders hunched, liver spots dotting his arms.

Sixty. Seventy. Seventy-five.

Tears wet Tedros’ face. “Stay with me, Merlin . . . We can be together . . . We can see the world . . .” Merlin’s eyes fogged behind his spectacles. “I’ve seen the world in you, my boy. Now it is time to go where time ends. To cross the line between seeing and silence . . .” His words slowed. “Tell me . . . what did you say to the Lady of the Lake . . . What did you say that made her give you her Wizard Wish?” Tedros watched him turn bony and limp. “Merlin—”

Merlin clutched his hand. “Tell me, my boy.”

Tedros held down tears. “I told her how I proposed to Agatha.” Merlin’s chest rose and fell.

Agatha looked at Tedros, nodding at him to go on.

“I woke Agatha in the middle of the night,” said Tedros, gripping the old man tight. “We were at Camelot. Not too long after we came from school. She was asleep in her chamber. I said that I needed her help. Naturally, she came at once. We snuck past the guards, through the gardens, and down the shore to the Savage Sea. I explained that I’d found a seer, who told me my reign could be protected from Evil by a magical talisman. A secret jewel that appeared once a year where the moon met the sea. Tonight was that night, I told Agatha, pointing to a moonlit rock far out into the waves. The waters were frigid, the currents rough. But I promised her: if we could get the jewel, we’d be shielded against Evil forever. No surprise, she dove in before I could. We swam together, through the ripping undertow, she dragging me out when I got pulled down, me chewing through seaweed that had snared her, both of us chilled to the bone and losing steam as we pushed length after length into icy water. And just when we thought we could swim no more, our lungs failing, our eyes too salt-stung to see, we were there, at the end, the surface of the rock polished by the light, the talisman in plain sight. That’s when Agatha found it: the diamond ring I’d left there. Now, she understood. The talisman was a question. Our journey to get to it the proof of our love. I was asking to be her husband and she my wife. That we would risk our lives for each other in a winter sea was answer enough. Death would be no obstacle to our love, only another challenge to overcome. Which is why I need your Wizard Wish, I told the Lady. To hold on to the love I fought so hard to find. Love that the Lady could still find herself, even without her powers. She had to give her story a chance. She had to trust the will of fate. Fate that had brought she and I together. It is not your time for death, I told her. And it is not the time for mine. We’re part of each other’s story now, the way you and I were part of my father’s, bound by love and pain and forgiveness, but most of all hope. Hope that we can all be as valiant as the Lady, to face our mistakes, to accept our weakness and keep going, wherever it takes us, not for Good or Evil, not for glory, but to find the truth of who we are meant to be.” Merlin gazed into Tedros’ eyes.

“My king,” he whispered.

The room was quiet, the four youths kneeled over the wizard.

Merlin looked at them all. “The End of Ends . . . the stories told . . . What wondrous souls you are.” He let go of Tedros, fading deeper into purple velvet.

“Please, M,” said the king. “Stay a little longer.”

Merlin breathed out a smile. “Don’t you see . . .” He closed his eyes, on to new shores. “The work is done.”