فصل 20

20

Last Stop on the Fairy Dust Express

A clock struck somewhere across the bay. 11:30.

Thirty minutes to find Excalibur. What happens if I’m not at the gates by midnight? Agatha thought, scuttling through the air shaft to follow the School Master. Will Tedros come looking for me? Will he try to get into the castle? She couldn’t let that happen. He’d be walking into a death trap— She stopped short.

Agatha stared at a wall of black rock sealing off the vent, as the sound of the School Master’s footsteps receded into the buzz of villains hunting her.

Alarmed, she was about to turn back and search for another route to the museum, when she noticed there was a small gap in the vent before the dead end. Agatha crept to the edge of the gap and looked down.

A black void.

Either she backtracked to the last crossroads in the vent and risked losing the School Master . . . or she took a stupidly lethal chance.

Agatha slid her legs over the edge of the gap.

She let go.

Gravity blasted her into free fall—then her backside clamped onto a smooth stone slide, rocketing her through darkness. Without warning, the slide swerved left and Agatha was thrown onto her side with no idea where she was going. There were no more gratings, no more rays of light, just merciless black, with the odd green flicker of a dead fairy, caught in the sealed-off maze. Crossing her arms over her chest, Agatha let go like a swimmer in a riptide as she veered at the sharpest, scariest angles, convinced this would all end in a gruesome death, before she shot off the slide like shrapnel, skidded onto a smooth metal surface, and halted face-first over a steel grating.

Ow.

Agatha pried off the slats, rubbing the welts on her cheeks. Through the grate, she could see an empty room underneath her, lit by a weak green torch. No one inside it, nothing on the walls, nothing on the sooty black floor. And yet, something about the place seemed familiar. Bending closer to the grate, she squinted across the room, until she made out an ash-spattered door and its simmering red letters: THE EXHIBITION OF EVIL

Evil’s museum.

Agatha bobbed to her knees. Given how quickly she crossed the castle, there was no way the School Master could have gotten here already, which meant . . .

I made it before him.

Sweating in the shadows, Agatha waited for him to come and lead her to the weapon that could kill him.

She waited.

And waited.

And waited.

A clock in the castle tolled once.

11:45.

Something stopped him on the way, she thought. But there was no more time to wait. In fifteen minutes, Merlin would be at the gates.

She grabbed hold of the steel grating, which dislodged easily from stone. She left her remaining clump behind and lowered down through the hole, hanging on to the sides of the shaft. Arms stretched, she kicked the air as if to dismount a swing and landed on her soles without a sound.

Agatha scanned the museum, once filled with relics of Evil’s scant victories and now wiped clean. True, she hadn’t expected Excalibur to be waiting on a table for her, but there was nowhere in this room that Tedros’ sword could possibly be hidden. The floor was a single slab of stone, every case and frame was gone, every wall bare— Not every wall, Agatha realized, moving towards the corner.

For on the far wall, hidden in shadows, there was one painting left.

Agatha stalked closer, her eyes adjusting to the dark, until she realized it was a painting she knew well.

In a village square, raging children heaved storybooks into a bonfire and watched them burn. Behind the village, a dark forest went up in flames, blanketing the sky with red and black smoke.

The colors were gauzy and impressionistic, the style unmistakable. It was the work of Professor August Sader, a blind seer who once taught History before he sacrificed his life fighting the School Master. Agatha recognized the scene as the last in his Reader Prophecy, a series of paintings once mounted in the Gallery of Good. As part of the Prophecy, Sader had predicted pairs of Readers kidnapped to the School for Good and Evil, leading up to her and Sophie. But there had been no more Readers predicted after them . . . instead, only this scene of Gavaldon’s children burning its fairy tales as smoke clouds closed in.

And yet they weren’t smoke clouds, Agatha remembered now from her first year, focusing harder on them. They were shadows, hulking and monstrous, invading the town . . . and as Agatha leaned closer, her nose to the canvas, she began to see familiar shapes in the smoke . . .

A giant’s bald head . . . a wolf’s toothy snout . . . a stepmother’s coiled bun . . . a captain’s round hook . . .

These weren’t just shadows.

These were villains. Real villains.

All coming to Gavaldon.

Agatha backed up, hearing the stepmother’s ominous warning: “Every story changed brings us one step closer to the Reader World . . .” Before his death, Sader had seen this too: the School Master’s Dark Army crossing into her village.

But why? What could the School Master possibly want in Gavaldon?

Terrified, Agatha studied the shadows harder, trying to understand . . .

But something else caught her attention in the painting now.

Behind the bonfire, in the recesses of the square, there was a tiny slash of gold beneath the canopy of Mr. Deauville’s hollowed-out book shop. Agatha made out a pattern of diamonds on a golden hilt and the start of a wide silver sword, buried blade-first in an anvil. She rubbed her eyes.

No doubt about it.

Excalibur was inside the picture.

Flummoxed, Agatha ran her hand along the surface of the oil-painted canvas, hard and stubbly . . . until her fingers touched the sword hilt. All of a sudden, the texture was different: warm, smooth, and metallic. She pushed harder against the canvas and watched her nails slowly penetrate the tight, viscous surface, a strange wetness soaking her fingertips. Further and further her hand sucked in, all the way to the wrist, before Agatha began to see her fingers appear within the painting itself, reaching for the hilt of the sword. Eyes widening, she grasped Excalibur’s handle from inside the picture, her knuckles locking a firm grip, and pulled as hard as she could. The sword flew out of the anvil like a flower out of water—Agatha reeled as hand and sword ejected from the frame, and the weight of the blade sent her toppling to the floor.

Slowly, Agatha raised her head and looked at Excalibur, still clenched in her fist. Then she looked up at the painting, where an empty anvil posed in front of Mr. Deauville’s.

Oh my God.

She launched to her feet, thrusting her prince’s sword into the torchlight.

I did it.

I really did it!

Mission complete.

With ten minutes to spare.

A beam of pride and relief ripped across her face and she whirled to the door, sword in hand, ready to mogrify out of this depraved castle — Agatha dropped the sword.

“I never underestimate you, Agatha,” the young School Master said, leaning against a wall, barechested in black breeches. “And yet you underestimate me. A sorcerer who defeats death, returns to youth, takes your best friend as my queen, and here you think that I can’t hear your breath in a vent ten feet over my head . . . that I’d randomly announce my need to secure a museum . . . that I’d willfully leave the search for an intruder in my castle . . . all for no good reason . . .” The beautiful boy arched a brow. “Unless, of course, I knew you’d overhear it.” Agatha’s heart imploded. “Then w-w-why didn’t you just kill me in the hall?” “For one thing, I’ve been suspecting for a while that a pesky old wizard has been advising you and your prince as to how to defeat me, and now I have proof my suspicions are correct. For another, I was curious as to whether Excalibur is really as powerful as Merlin believes. So I put a charm on the sword when I hid it in the painting, so that no one except me could retrieve it. Which means that if you pulled it out, Excalibur’s magic indeed exceeds mine, at once able to recognize its allies and surely powerful enough to destroy the ring that keeps me alive. But I suppose there’s also a third reason I haven’t killed you just yet, Agatha. I thought you should meet the boy who’s claimed your best friend’s heart, up close and personal. You may call me, Rafal, by the way.” He smiled, striding towards her. “Sophie does.” Agatha snatched the sword and flung it out at him, halting his advance. “Why did Sader paint the villains in Gavaldon? What’s the painting mean?” Rafal eyed the sword blade, bemused. “Agatha, can you recall what I told you when you and Sophie visited my tower first year? I gave you a riddle to solve and sent you back to your schools, but you were angry with me. You said I should prey on other villages and leave yours alone. Do you remember what I answered?” Agatha could feel herself transported back to that very moment, his reply vivid in her memory . . . the old masked School Master, so different from this young boy in front of her, leaving her with a single question as she and Sophie free-fell into a sea of white . . .

A question that had tormented her for two years.

A question that never made any sense.

“What other villages?” she whispered.

“That’s the one,” Rafal grinned. “You see, Agatha, all this time you thought the Reader World was the ‘real world’ far away from the realm of magic . . . when, in fact, your world is part of the Endless Woods. For how can a land of stories exist without Readers to believe in them?” Agatha paled. “Gavaldon is in the Woods?”

“Why do you think Readers from your village are the only ones kidnapped? Why do you think any attempt to escape your village leads right back to it?” said Rafal. “Yours is the one unenchanted kingdom of our world, but still part of the fairy-tale world—as much a part of fairy tales as Camelot, or Netherwood, or this school itself. It is why no class here is ever complete without two Readers: one who believes in Good and one who believes in Evil.” Agatha felt her brain whirring, trying to grasp the enormity of his words.

“Actually, the only access I have to Readers is to make sure they are fairly and safely represented at my school, like every other realm of the Woods,” Rafal went on. “Our world needs new Readers to survive just as much as it needs new stories. That is why there are magic gates that protect Gavaldon from the rest of our world. That is why we call it the Woods Beyond. Because Readers keep our stories alive, long after the people in them are dead and gone. You could even say that Readers are the one force in our world more powerful than me. Because as long as there are Readers who believe in Good’s power over Evil, Good will still win, even if I obliterate every Ever kingdom in the Woods. Because there will always be Readers, no matter what I do. Readers who put their faith in the Old stories, passing them down, forever and ever, keeping Good alive beyond my control . . .” The young School Master paused. “And yet, what if Readers learn that the Old has been made New, just like all your fellow students? What if the one power to keep stories alive discovers that the Good stories they hold dear are all a lie? That Evil always wins, has always won, and always will? What then?” His sapphire eyes reflected the fires of the painting. “The gates to Gavaldon will open for the true ending to your fairy tale—an ending that will erase every Ever After down to the very last one . . . and put an end to Good forever.” Agatha was corpse white. “What’s the ending? What do you want with Gavaldon?” “Me?” Rafal cocked a grin. “Oh no. It isn’t me you should be worrying about, Agatha. If there’s one thing you should have learned from Evelyn Sader, it’s that the most dangerous person in a fairy tale is the one willing to do anything for love. A description that fits your best friend, doesn’t it?” The School Master held out his palm and Excalibur flew out of her hand and into his. He smiled wider, handsome as the devil.

“And it just happens your best friend’s love is me.”

“Me?” Tedros leapt off the bed. “Have me back?”

Sophie lifted to her knees on the mattress. “I know you chose Agatha over me, Teddy. I know she’s your princess now. All I’m asking is that you keep yourself open before you decide for sure. The End isn’t written yet, is it? I’ll come with you and Aggie to Camelot. I’ll do anything you want. Just give me another chance to be your Ever After.” Tedros looked like he’d been kicked in the pants. “I . . . I don’t know what you’re saying . . .” “That if you’re asking me to question my happy ending, so should you,” said Sophie.

Tedros shrank against a wall, clutching the shreds of his shirt. He could see the Storian furiously capturing the two of them, alone in the School Master’s chamber. “And if I won’t?” Sophie’s fingertip glowed pink. “Then I’ll choose Rafal and my loyalty will be to him. Which means I have to tell him you’re here.” “Listen to yourself, Sophie. Listen to what you’re asking me,” Tedros pleaded. “You’re dazzling, intelligent, and absolutely mental in every way and I can’t imagine my life without you. From the moment I saw you first year, I thought you were my future queen. But we already tried to be together. No matter how good we might seem on paper, in the end, we’re meant to be friends. Just friends. Like we were last year—” “When you tried to kiss me?” said Sophie.

“That . . . that’s irrelevant . . .” Tedros stuttered. “What matters is that Agatha and I are happy together—” “Really?” said Sophie, sliding off the bed and moving towards him. “You said I was the one who brought you two back together. Which means you two had broken apart. Which means you two aren’t particularly happy if it takes a third person to fix your love.” “Look, happy endings take time and work and commitment,” Tedros retorted. “Mine and Agatha’s won’t be the last Ever After that wrestles and doubts and fights to hold on to love. Just look at your own.” Sophie paused. “You’re right, Teddy. That’s why I asked my heart to tell me my real ending. And this is what it said.” She held up the ink on her skin, desperation creeping into her voice. “I want to love Rafal. I want to love anyone but you. You bring me nothing but pain and hurt and humiliation. Yet my heart only knows your name, Teddy. What else can I do but see if it’s right?” She gazed at him through tears. “Our fairy tale brought us back together, here and now, because it wants a different ending. Why else would you be here alone without Agatha? Why else would you be the one to rescue me instead of my best friend?” Tedros went rigid, thinking of all the twists and turns that brought him and Sophie to this very moment. The two of them alone, face-to-face, no disguises, no tricks, for the first time in two years. Then his cheeks went apple red. “I could never do that to Agatha. Neither could you, Sophie. You’re not a witch, anymore—” “And yet, Agatha and I had our own Ever After until you made her reconsider,” Sophie said, treading closer. “So if asking you to open your heart makes me a witch, then you’re one too, Tedros. Because you did the same thing to Agatha when she was my princess.” Tedros was speechless.

“But now it’s time for all of us to face the truth. It’s time for the last Ever After,” Sophie pressed, cornering him. “Don’t you want to know who your princess is without a doubt, Teddy?” She stared into his eyes. “Wouldn’t your father want you to look closer one last time?” Tedros’ turned away, gritting so hard she could see the bones of his jaw. “You know nothing about my father,” he said.

“Teddy, listen to me. I’ll leave Rafal, just like you ask,” said Sophie gently. “I’ll destroy his ring and commit my heart to Good forever. I’ll follow you and Agatha to your kingdom, fully accepting you might choose her and I’ll end up alone, the sidekick to your happy ending. All I ask of you is a simple promise: that you’ll give me another chance before picking your princess forever.” Slowly Tedros looked back at her . . .

“Sounds like quite a deal,” said a voice.

They spun to the window.

Rafal glared at Sophie, Excalibur to Agatha’s throat.

But his expression wasn’t nearly as surprised as Agatha’s.

Hort woke up when he heard teachers’ muffled shouts upstairs. He couldn’t make out more than a few words: something about Aric attacked? An intruder on the loose?

His first thought was to check if Sophie was safe. Then he remembered she was in the old cretin’s tower, far away from the castle, and he’d been so good at not thinking about her and now wasn’t the time to regress.

He glanced at Chaddick and Nicholas asleep in their beds, handsome, beloved Everboys who girls once drooled over.

Hort smirked. Now the girls all wanted him.

He saw the way they goggled at his new muscles and flirted shamelessly in the hall, sizing him up like a lamb shank. He could have anyone at this school, Ever or Never.

And yet, as he leaned against the window, staring at the School Master’s spire over the Blue Forest, Hort found himself wondering what it would be like to live there with Sophie. The two of them, ruling all of Evil together . . . A hot, burning feeling edged through his body as he imagined her in his arms for a perfect kiss— He flushed pink, smearing away sweat.

No.

She hurts you.

She only hurts you.

You don’t love her anymore.

Tearing his eyes away from the Forest, he clenched his teeth, sank to his pillow—and bolted back up.

A small pinpoint of gold glowed from the School Master’s window.

Not just gold. Buff, brassy gold, halfway between flaxen and amber.

He knew this because he knew everything about Camelot’s prince, down to the precise hue of his glow.

What he didn’t know is why that prince’s glow was in the School Master’s tower.

Tedros grabbed Sophie by the waist and held his glowing finger to her throat. “Hurt Agatha and I kill your queen,” he warned the young School Master, only to see Rafal press Excalibur deeper into Agatha’s neck.

“Teddy . . . not a good deal . . . ,” Sophie wheezed, straining for breath.

But the two barechested boys locked eyes across the chamber, gripping their hostages tighter.

Feeling the sword’s cold blade, Agatha shivered with confusion. Here she was, counting on her prince and best friend to rescue her from a lethal villain. Instead, she’d arrived to find Tedros’ shirt ripped open and Sophie asking to be his princess.

“I said let Agatha go,” Tedros growled at Rafal, his torso red with heat.

“Oh-ho, now you’re my prince?” said Agatha, against the School Master’s cold, pale chest. “The prince who a second ago seemed rather open to testing out a new princess?” “Stop it, Agatha,” Tedros snapped, digging his lit fingertip into Sophie’s throat. “Rafal, release her or—” “Or what?” Rafal was strangely calm, staring at Sophie. “You’ll kill a girl you’ve come all this way to save? A girl pledging her heart to you?” There was no anger or vengeance in his face, only a cool evenness that left Sophie unnerved. “Rafal, I’m sorry,” she said. “But I have to make the right choice this time. The right choice for me.” “Like betraying your best friend?” Agatha lambasted her, before turning on Tedros. “Or telling your princess to her face how much you love her and the moment she’s out of sight, pretending she doesn’t exist?” “I was just hearing her out,” Tedros fired back. “Sophie said she’d come with us if I gave her a second chance. With everything on the line, don’t you think that’s a worthy request?” “A second chance?” Agatha scoffed. “After all we’ve been through, after everything we said to each other in Hester’s room, now you want to try out another girl?” “You’re not getting it,” said Tedros, temper flaring. “Why can’t you ever trust me? Why can’t you trust us?” Rafal raised his brows. “And here I am asking the same of my queen. For the first time, I have something in common with an Everboy.” He grinned at the handsome prince and Tedros looked away.

Silence fell between the two couples. Even the Storian faltered, unsure who was defending who anymore.

“Don’t mind me,” Rafal prodded, smiling. “Who needs a villain when you three have each other?” “Ignore him, Agatha—” Tedros started.

“If you want me to ‘trust us,’ then tell her, Tedros,” said Agatha quietly. “Tell Sophie I’m your princess forever. Right here. Right now.” Tedros looked at her, dejected, as if they were talking past each other.

“You can’t do it, can you?” Agatha breathed.

“Agatha, dear, I know we haven’t seen each other in a while,” Sophie jumped in, “but knowing the male species as well as I do, ultimatums only drive them awa—” “I’d rather have my throat slit than talk to you,” Agatha thrashed.

Sophie shut up.

“Agatha, I love you,” Tedros said, firm and clear. “But all Sophie wants is for me to think twice before we seal our Ever After, just like we’re asking her to do. That’s fair, isn’t it?” He turned to Sophie. “Promise me that if I give you a chance you’ll destroy the ring. Promise me you’ll destroy it as soon as we leave here.” Sophie waited for Rafal to get angry, to threaten her, but he looked oddly entertained.

She nodded, distracted by Rafal’s smirk. “I promise.”

Rafal snorted.

“See?” Tedros pressed Agatha. “All I have to do is be willing to follow my heart and everything will end happily.” Agatha could see his frustration, as if she was the problem here, not him. It only rankled her more. “And what about my heart? Tedros, how can you stand there and look me in the eye and—” She froze, finally feeling the clarity of her prince’s blue stare.

He was lying.

Tedros was lying.

The prince bound to his promises, bound to the truth, was lying for her.

He was telling Sophie only what she wanted to hear. He’d do whatever he had to in order to rescue their best friend from Evil’s clutches and destroy that ring, including pretending to give Sophie a real chance at his heart.

This whole time Tedros had been trying to tell her the stakes were worth it. A ring destroyed. Good heroes spared. Her best friend saved. Her prince still hers . . .

And all Agatha had to do was go along with the lie.

So much for being 100% Good, she thought, resisting tackling and kissing him right there.

“Do you understand the terms?” her prince smiled, seeing the change in her face.

“You’ll give Sophie a chance and follow your heart . . .” Agatha smiled back, her face glowing.

Sophie was beaming now too, glancing between them obliviously.

“. . . straight to Camelot’s future queen,” said Tedros, eyes on Agatha.

Agatha’s smile vanished.

Queen.

That word again. That word that never seemed real.

From the moment they came back to the Woods, she’d put off thoughts of ever making it to Camelot, assuming Tedros and her would break up first or she’d die rescuing Sophie or the Woods would go dark and kill them all. Indeed, the closer they got to finding Sophie again, the more she’d fought with Tedros, as if unconsciously trying to tell them they couldn’t ever get to Camelot.

But here she was, on the cusp of her future as queen of the most famous kingdom ever known. As a queen who the people would judge so closely after Tedros’ mother failed them. As a queen who must restore the legend of her crown.

And nothing standing in the way between her and that crown except one big little lie.

Right then and there, in a moment where Agatha had accused Tedros of doubting their future, only to see he was, in fact, rock solid . . . it was she who suddenly had the doubts.

Me. A queen? A real queen?

Tedros saw her face darken and his smile dissipated too, as if he knew she’d stalled before the last hurdle.

“Aggie?” said Sophie’s voice.

Agatha looked up.

“I still feel like his queen,” Sophie said, reading her expression. “Which means something in our story’s still wrong, isn’t it?” Agatha could see the unswerving belief in Sophie’s face and her gut twisted deeper. Something was wrong. For how could she and Tedros be The End if everything in her heart told her she’d never make a queen to Camelot, while everything in Sophie’s heart told her she would?

Maybe that’s why she and Tedros never sealed their happy ending, Agatha thought. Because something was broken between them. And maybe that something couldn’t be fixed. Because that something was . . . her.

“Mmmm, now it’s getting interesting, isn’t it?” said a chilling voice.

All eyes went to the young School Master, his sensual lips in a twisted grin.

“Evil’s queen, ladies and gentlemen, still vying for Good’s throne,” Rafal said, Excalibur’s blade reflecting him. “But trust her at your peril, because in the end, she’ll end up right back here, my ring on her finger, her heart belonging to me.” Sophie felt his placid stare and sweat trickled down her side.

“You don’t know what will happen any more than we do, Rafal,” said Agatha, still looking at her best friend.

“You’re trying to talk reason to a murderer?” Tedros blurted.

Agatha’s eyes never left Sophie. “Maybe she’s right, Tedros. Maybe we have to think twice about our happy ending if we’re ever going to find it.” Sophie looked at Agatha, stunned.

Tedros brightened instantly. “Wait . . . Agatha, you’re saying that you’re okay with Sophie’s terms? That you get what I’m proposing? That—” “—we question our happy ending, Tedros, just like you said,” spoke Agatha, still looking at Sophie.

“That we all wipe the slate clean,” Sophie said eagerly, looking at Agatha.

“The three of us,” said Agatha. “This time with no secrets, no hiding, no guilt. We go in with eyes wide open and let the truth lead us to The End. That’s the only way we’ll know how each of us can be happy.” Tedros glanced between them, baffled. “Okay . . . this got a little deep for me . . .” He smiled lovingly at Agatha. “But I knew you’d understand.” Agatha smiled back at him sadly.

He couldn’t see she meant it for real.

Midnight tolled from distant castles, a deadline come and gone.

Agatha took a full breath, looking at her prince. “To new beginnings.” Tedros smiled at his princess. “New beginnings.”

They both turned to Sophie.

Sophie smiled at Tedros. “New beginnings.”

The three students’ eyes held for just a moment . . . then all at once moved to Rafal.

The young School Master’s smirk vanished. In a flash, he seized Agatha tighter to the sword, about to slice her throat— “Now!” Tedros yelled.

Sophie shot Rafal’s hand with a scorching pink spell and he dropped Tedros’ sword in shock. Agatha caught it and rammed the hilt into his gut, sending him reeling into a bookcase, which crashed on top of him along with hundreds of colorful fairy tales. Agatha flipped Excalibur to Tedros, who slid the hilt into the back of his shorts, the flat of the blade against his spine. Instantly he, Sophie, and Agatha sprinted to the window and climbed onto the ledge— “We need to get to Merlin,” Tedros panted. “Mogrifying is our only chance!” “The School Master can fly, Tedros! He’ll catch us!” said Agatha, watching Rafal blast through the bookcase with magic. “We need something faster!” “You came in without a plan to get me out?” Sophie said, the sounds of the bookcase splintering behind them.

“Was pretty sure we’d be dead by now,” puffed Tedros. “What’s faster than mogrifying?” The bookcase over Rafal flew across the room, shattering against the opposite wall.

“He’s c-c-coming,” Agatha stammered, spinning back to her friends. “We have to leave right no—” Her eyes bulged. Sweeping from the Woods towards the School Master’s tower was a sooty black cloud, boxy and elongated like a passenger train, and strangely moldy in texture. For a moment, she thought it was smoke from a distant fire, until she saw the familiar twinkles sewn into the cloud, glittering like . . .

“Fairy dust?” Agatha said, agape.

And indeed, now she, Sophie, and Tedros all glimpsed the shadow inside the fairy-dust cloud: a shadow with flowing purple robes and a cone-shaped hat, flying and flapping his arms as he steered towards the window.

“If you don’t come to Merlin, Merlin comes to you,” the wizard trumpeted, bringing the cloud a few feet from the window ledge. “Quickly, children! Tink’s dust won’t last much longer!” Agatha glanced back and saw Rafal starting to rise. She spun to Sophie and Tedros. “We have to jump into the fairy dust!” “Jump?” Sophie squeaked, peering off the ledge.

“On three!” said Agatha. “One . . .”

“Two . . . ,” said Tedros.

“Three!” they yelled—

Agatha and Tedros cannonballed into the thick of the cloud and felt a magic lightness buoy them into air, as if they’d lost all mass. As Merlin veered the cloud train towards the school gates, Agatha closed her eyes, abandoning to weightless flight. Tedros, meanwhile, couldn’t stop somersaulting in midair, like an asteroid knocked from its path.

“How do I stop spinning!” Tedros howled.

“Relax your buttocks, dear boy!” Merlin called back.

Swimming through dust, Agatha grabbed on to the prince’s wrist, stopping his orbit. Tedros smiled gratefully . . . then frowned.

“Where’s Sophie?” he asked.

They twirled to see her standing on the windowsill, white as a ghost while the dust train floated away.

“Sophie, what are you doing!” Agatha cried.

“Jump now!” Tedros hollered.

Terrified, Sophie inched closer to the ledge and suddenly felt a clamp on her left hand. She spun to see Rafal holding on to her, calmer than ever.

“You’ll come back to me, Sophie,” he promised. “Leave now and you’ll come back, begging for forgiveness.” Sophie saw the cold confidence in his pupils, reflecting her scared face. His grip on her hardened, her hand weakening in his . . .

“Sophie, come on!” a boy’s voice called.

She turned and saw the golden, shirtless prince suspended in the sparkle cloud, beckoning her to his side . . . like the first day they ever met . . .

“I’ll never be your queen, Rafal,” Sophie whispered, a pink princess’s song swelling in her heart. She turned to the young School Master. “Because I’ll be someone else’s.” Her pink fingertip glowed, lighting up TEDROS beneath Rafal’s golden ring. The School Master reddened in surprise, his hand slipping off his queen’s. Like a dove breaking free, Sophie leapt backwards out of his window, beaming radiantly as she floated into the last tail of glitterdust.

Agatha and Tedros swam through twinkling soot and caught Sophie in their arms, the three of them drifting over the bay like flowers in a sandstorm, as Merlin helmed the dust train towards the school gates.

Tedros draped his arms over the two levitating girls. “We’re together,” he marveled. “We’re actually together.” “And finally on the same side,” said Sophie, hugging him.

Watching Sophie and Tedros as friends for the first time, Agatha smiled tightly, at once relieved and on edge . . . until her face deadened.

“What is it, Aggie?” Sophie asked.

Agatha squinted at the beautiful, white-haired boy in the window, letting them escape. “He’s not chasing us. Why isn’t he chasing us?” “Ummm, because everyone else is?” said Tedros.

The two girls spun to see two hundred undead villains exploding out of the School for Old: witches, warlocks, ogres, giants, and trolls roaring and shrieking like banshees and hurtling after the fairy-dust cloud.

“Speed up, Merlin!” Agatha shouted at the wizard, who was turned away at the front of the cloud.

“What, what? Can’t be feeding you now, child,” Merlin bellowed, sucking on a lemon lollipop. “Tink’s dust’s already lasted longer than I expected.” “Not feed! Speed!” Agatha blared.

But now the dust train sputtered with an ominous hiss and broke apart like a weak mist, sending the three students parachuting on sooty wisps to the shore, barely clearing the corrosive bay. Shell-shocked, they looked up from the ground and saw Merlin flying towards the gates in a piece of cloud, blissfully unaware that he’d lost his passengers.

Horrified, Agatha glanced back and saw the zombie army smashing towards them— “RUN!” she yelled, bolting up onto bare feet and hot stepping towards the gates.

Sophie and Tedros thundered after her, the three of them waving and screaming at Merlin, trying to get his attention.

“Why can’t he hear us!” Agatha shouted.

“He’s old!” Tedros barked.

Hobbling in her stilettos, Sophie lagged behind, an ogre within arm’s reach, before she slung off a high heel and pelted him in the head, sending him spinning into a three-troll pileup. Flinging her other heel into the pestilent bay, Sophie raced after her friends, who were so far ahead she could hardly see them. “Wait for me! Already the third wheel and we’re still at school!” Agatha and Tedros scampered side by side for the gates, whose green glow seeped through a patch of pine bushes. But as the gates came into full view, Agatha’s eyes bulged in horror. “They’re sealed, Tedros!” “’Cause Merlin has Dovey’s wand!” he moaned.

They craned up to see Merlin’s cloud wisp crossing over the towering school gates, about to abscond safely into the Woods. Aghast, Tedros unleashed a two-fingered whistle— Merlin flicked back a dismissive smile, only to see the caboose of his train missing and Tedros and Agatha on the ground inside the school gates.

“The wand, Merlin!” Agatha hollered. “Use Dovey’s wand!”

Merlin frantically pulled off his hat, rifling through it and yanking out champagne bottles, throw pillows, an empty birdcage— “God help us,” Tedros breathed.

Agatha looked back and saw Captain Hook, Jack’s giant, and Red Riding Hood’s wolf closing in on Sophie, the latter’s jaws snapping at her behind.

“Aggggieee . . . I’m hallllluccinnattinnggg!” Sophie squealed. “Therrre’sss faaamous villlainnssss chassinngggg meeeee!!!” Agatha whipped back to Merlin. “Hurry, Merlin!”

The wizard pulled out a bowl of cashews, a chain of rainbow Christmas lights—“Oooh, these are lovely!”—before he heard Sophie’s screams and glimpsed the wolf rip the hem of her dress as Sophie skidded towards her best friends, who were still trapped behind the gates.

Pursing his lips, Merlin dug deeper into his hat, his arm all the way in, and fished out Professor Dovey’s wand with a relieved smile. “Goodness, this really should come with a case.” “MERLIN!” Agatha screeched.

Merlin wheeled and stabbed Dovey’s wand at the glowing green gates, which slid open on command— Tedros swept Agatha through in his arms and they collapsed together face-first into dirt.

“Close the gates!” Tedros wheezed at Merlin.

“No!” Agatha yelled.

Because Sophie was still bungling towards the opening, the wolf shredding more of her clothes with every second, and the rest of the villain army nipping at the wolf’s heels, poised to stampede through the gate with Sophie. “DON’T STAND THERE LIKE LUMPS!” she shrieked at her friends. “DOOOO SOMETHINGGGG!” Tedros drew his sword, but it was shaking in his hand. “There’s too many of them!” he said to Agatha, watching Merlin awkwardly trying to turn his cloud around. “They’ll tear us apart!” Agatha saw Merlin flash the same panicked expression, because the prince was right. By the time Merlin turned, the villains would be picking their bones. The three of them needed a place to disappear . . . a place the villains couldn’t get to . . . a cave or a tunnel or a— “Wait!” she cried, waving at the wizard. “Your cloak!”

This time, Merlin understood. He stripped off his purple robe, hurled it into the air like a kite, and with Dovey’s wand, shot it down like a comet into Agatha’s hands.

Standing in the gate opening, Agatha flung open Merlin’s cloak like a bullfighter, the childish stitching of a night sky shimmering in the moonlight. She and Tedros climbed into the wizard’s cloak, half their bodies magically disappearing into the silk, before the two Evers gripped on to the collar with both hands, like miners about to drop into a cave.

“Sophie, hurry!” Agatha shouted, holding open the cloak lining.

Sophie staggered through grass towards the gate opening, the wolf clawing into her petticoat, a giant about to throttle her from the left, Captain Hook hacking at her from the right— Only there was another shadow coming from the other side of the shore . . . tall, muscular, and astonishingly fast, smashing out of the trees. “Oh my God! He’s coming!” she choked, as she raced towards the magic cloak, waving madly at Tedros and Agatha. “Help! The School Master’s coming!” But it wasn’t the School Master at all.

It was a pallid, dark-haired boy, weasel-quick and charging towards Sophie, black eyes aflame.

Agatha gasped. “Hort, no!”

Forces collided into the cloak, knocking Agatha into free fall. Losing consciousness, she looked up in horror as four bodies, not three, tumbled through a starry purple sky . . .

Then a blast of white sun blinded her and the universe went dark.