فصل 20

20

SOPHIE

The Lion and the Snake

Sophie awoke to the smell of roses.

She opened her eyes, feeling their petals drizzle down her back. A single wine-red bloom lay cupped in the lap of her baby-blue dress. Her body was moving, magically coasting past bushes and flower beds as if pushed by a strong wind. White leaves and florets fluttered from trees overhead like an enchanted snow.

I’m in a dream, she thought, her eyes still on the rose in her lap, its lush folds sparkling under a pink sunset.

Not only because she was magically gliding through a garden under someone else’s power, but because the rose matched the one Tedros had thrown into the crowd on the first day of school, hunting for the girl who would be his princess . . . a rose Agatha had caught just like this . . . the happy ending to a fairy tale that hadn’t yet begun. . . .

But now the rose was in Sophie’s lap, which meant it must be a dream, for this rose wasn’t meant for her. If there was one lesson the whole world learned from her fairy tale, it was certainly that.

Unless it isn’t Tedros’ rose at all, Sophie thought. Unless someone else threw it and I caught it, just like Agatha caught her prince’s. Which means this is a new fairy tale and this time I won’t end up alone. There’s someone else in this story . . . someone just for me. . . .

Sophie looked up, curious . . . fearful . . . hopeful. . . .

Her face changed.

It was no dream.

Agatha glided beside her, bound, blindfolded, and gagged by the Snake’s slimy, scaly scims. Not only that, but the entire back of her best friend’s body was covered in scims like a coat of armor, from the dome of her hair, down to her calves, down to the soles of her shoes, not a shred of clothes or skin left bare. With high-pitched gurgles, like a chorus of helium-voiced rats, the scims pushed Agatha along, twitching and waggling, as she writhed blindly under her binds.

Sophie grew aware of the drizzling feeling on her back again . . . the one she’d dreamily ascribed to falling flowers. . . .

Dread rising, she peeked over her own shoulder and saw that she too was coated in thick, gooey scims, all the way down to her dainty slippers. Fear bolted her spine straight, upending the rose, which fell to the ground and smashed under her feet. A scream stalled in her throat.

“Aggie,” she wheezed. “What do we—”

But Agatha shook her head sharply and Sophie read the gesture at once: He’s listening.

Sophie’s eyes darted around, looking for the Snake in the garden.

Where is he?

The scims were moving her faster now, through blue-and-white gates and up a steep grassy slope. Sophie looked at Agatha, who was unable to see or talk, her friend’s body helpless to the scims. A swell of panic crashed over her. Sophie liked to pretend the two of them were a team, but in truth, it was always Agatha who took charge, Agatha who kept her safe. No matter how much of a witch Sophie could be, she was Agatha’s princess, riding behind her on her white horse. Maybe that’s why Agatha had been drawn to Nicola as a friend. Because she wasn’t a spinning top like Sophie. Because with Sophie, Agatha always had to take the reins of the story when it counted.

Only now the roles were reversed, with Agatha left helpless. Which meant for once, it was Sophie who had the reins.

She tried to remember what had happened in the Map Room. Slowly it all came back to her . . . the Quest Map with their classmates’ names . . . the storybook that called Tedros a Snake and the Snake a Lion . . . the new pen he vowed would shatter their fairy tale forever. . . .

All of these were pieces of a bigger plan, the Snake said. A plan Chaddick had figured out.

It’s why he’d had to die.

The Snake wasn’t Rafal. That much was clear.

And yet, he seemed to know her, Agatha, and Tedros intimately . . . as if he’d come from inside their storybook. . . .

Something had happened in that story. Something that made him want revenge.

So who was he, then?

Terror attacks.

Arthur’s blood.

Tedros’ crown.

All of it was connected. How?

Aric.

He’d been friends with Aric, he said. Close friends.

But Aric was dead, slain during the School Master’s war . . . so the Snake and Aric had to have been friends before that. . . .

Could the Snake have been a student at school?

She pictured the Snake’s long, youthful body . . . his lean, perfect muscles . . . his glacial blue eyes. . . .

Or was it someone Aric met before school?

Sophie’s forehead throbbed. Think harder.

But all she could think about was the Snake pinning her against the pillar, with his minty Tedros scent, before he fractured into a thousand eels, which came flying towards her. . . .

That’s when Sophie had passed out.

Now these same eels were plastered across hers and Agatha’s backs, wheeling them around like corpses. Sophie felt faint once more, but she forced herself to stay conscious.

The scims pushed the two girls down the hill, through a gathering mist, the fading sun infusing it with a bruised-purple glow. Over the scims’ loud burbles, Sophie heard dark rumbling ahead. But she couldn’t see anything but thick, gray fog. . . .

Sophie coughed.

Not fog. Smoke.

Only now it was clearing and Sophie’s eyes flared wide— The scims drove them smack into a screaming mob, brandishing fiery torches and weapons under a darkening sky. The crowd spread as far as Sophie could see in every direction, converging from four different kingdoms around a walled-off plot of land.

The Four Point, Sophie thought. It’s where her quest mates were headed on the Snake’s Quest Map. Now she and Agatha were heading there too.

Sophie spotted Camelot’s flag flying high above the Four Point.

Chills ran down her spine.

The Snake was bringing them all there for a reason.

Even so, the Four Point was still a hundred yards off with at least a thousand bodies in the way— The scims paid no mind, barreling straight for the jagged-ice walls and thrusting the two girls into the crowd with reckless force. Sophie ducked her head, jammed between men and trolls, children and centaurs, scims gripping her tighter and tighter. She could hear the crowd as she squeezed through— “King Tedros is on his way with his knights,” a horned ogre said to his family.

“But I thought Camelot had no knights anymore,” said his lumpy ogre daughter.

“Then he’ll fight single-handedly,” his humpbacked mother assured. “He’s King Arthur’s son.” “A useless king, that’s what he is,” groused her surly son. “Don’t even have Excalibur.” “Watch your mouth, boy. Heard folk say they saw him riding down Glass Mountain,” a pastel-dressed man cut in. “He’ll be here soon—” “And he’ll make whoever’s responsible for this pay,” growled a troll.

Sophie’s head jerked up. If they were all waiting for Tedros to save them . . .

That means they’re on our side!

This whole crowd was on their side, Good and Evil! Everyone knew Agatha was Tedros’ princess and Sophie his friend. Everyone knew their fairy tale— She swiveled her head left and right, frantically making eye contact with the ogres and everyone else near her. But as the scims rammed her and Agatha through the crowd, no one seemed to notice. Confused, Sophie started bucking against her binds, knocking hard into people and creatures, who whirled around, peering angrily, but then went back to surging towards the walls.

Undaunted, Sophie cried out: “Help! Someone help us!” A few people glanced in her direction, perplexed.

Sophie tried harder. “We need help! It’s us, Sophie and Aga—” A scim gagged her.

Can’t anyone see us? Sophie thought, flailing wildly. They’re acting like we’re— She stiffened.

The scims on her and Agatha’s backs.

They were made of snake scales.

Which meant . . .

We’re invisible.

Snakeskin was the one fabric that could hide its wearers, given the right hex. Sophie had used it for her own devilish designs at school; indeed, her famous snakeskin cape now hung inside the Exhibition of Evil, cased in a special gallery dedicated to her and Agatha’s fairy tale. But now the Snake was cheekily ambushing her with snakeskin as if to turn her own fairy tale on its head. . . .

They were almost at the frozen walls. Just as Sophie could glimpse through them as to what lay inside, the scims yanked her and Agatha into the air, flying them up and over the walls, their backs caressing the Camelot flag flying over the Four Point. Embers of sun blinded her before they extinguished in the horizon, and it was only as she descended that Sophie could see what lay beneath her, illuminated by the crowd’s torch flames. . . .

Gallows.

Sophie lost her breath, scanning three rows of prisoners to be hanged, their nooses made of oily black scims. The first row had Hester, Anadil, Dot, Hort, and the rest of her crew mates, still chained together, hands cuffed behind their backs. . . . In the second row, leaders of Ever and Never kingdoms were strung up by the neck, which had drawn the raging crowd, desperate to save them. . . . But it was the third row that startled Sophie the most, loaded with fourth years from the School for Good and Evil, kidnapped from their quests. These captives gazed fearfully into the crowd, unable to see Sophie or Agatha descending to the stage in front of them. Ravan looked gaunt, his once-flowing black hair crudely shaved; Mona’s green skin was littered with bruises; Vex was missing a chunk of his pointy right ear; Kiko cried to herself, burn marks on her arms. More classmates teetered on trapdoors near them, all injured in one way or another: Brone . . . Giselle . . . Drax. . . .

The last light in the sky went dark as the scims parachuted Sophie towards the wooden platform, Agatha floating down next to her. Their feet touched the stage— Instantly the scims scattered off them, stripping them of their invisibility and revealing them to the mob.

The crowd froze in shock.

Agatha spun around, finally able to see. She took in the stunned prisoners, her eyes assessing the scene like a panther’s, her fingertip glowing gold. “The Snake . . . Where is he?” Sophie scanned the stage, her fingertip glowing pink. “I don’t see him!” A buzz swept through the crowd, hopeful and intense— “IT’S TEDROS’ FRIENDS!” someone cried.

“THAT MEANS HE’S HERE!” shouted another.

“WE’RE SAVED!”

“Hurry up, you nitwits!” Hester barked at Sophie from the front row, demon strung up next to her. “Cut us loose!” “No, the children first!” the King of Jaunt Jolie said— Sophie was about to sprint for his young princes, but then she saw Agatha hadn’t moved, her friend’s eyes wide and pinned ahead.

Slowly Sophie turned to see the scims reassembling at the front of the stage, globbing and sticking to each other at lightning speed, until they’d reformed the Snake, his mask glimmering green in the mob’s torchlight.

It’s why Agatha had silenced her in the garden.

The Snake had been with them all along. Split up into scims on their backs, waiting for the moment to reunite.

Now the Snake’s cold blue gaze crept across the crowd, which was silent as a tomb. “For thousands of years, you thought your pen told you the Truth,” he said, voice resounding. “The pen of Good and Evil. The pen whose stories you have believed without the slightest doubt. And what does that pen tell you now? It tells you I am the one who attacks your kingdoms. It tells you I am Evil. That I am the enemy.” The Snake paused. “But what if I tell you everything you think is Truth is Lies?” His eyes moved to the flag flying over them. “You won’t believe me, of course. No one will. Not even your greatest heroes,” he said, glancing at Sophie and Agatha.

“You think a Lion is your only hope. You think only a Lion can save you. All of you. That’s what Camelot promised. A Lion who can destroy Evil like me. A Lion with King Arthur’s blood.” He looked back down at the people. “You wait for this Lion named Tedros. You wait for him to answer your prayers. Yet here we are on the Lion’s land . . . with the Lion’s princess . . . with the Lion’s friends . . . with the rulers who call on the Lion to lead. . . . Everyone but the Lion himself,” he mocked. “He stays in his castle while your kingdoms burn. He stays in his castle while his friends die. He stays in his castle like a coward.” He turned to the crowd. “Say it with me. ‘Cowardly. Little. Lion.’” Nobody made a sound.

The Snake stabbed out his finger and the noose around the youngest prince of Jaunt Jolie strangled him. The prince choked, legs twitching.

The crowd screamed in horror—

“Say it with me,” the Snake hissed. “Cowardly. Little. Lion.” “Cowardly Little Lion!” the crowd shouted.

“So he can hear you from his castle in the sky,” the Snake demanded.

“Cowardly Little Lion!” the crowd yelled louder.

“He can’t hear you!” the Snake lashed.

“COWARDLY LITTLE LION!” the crowd thundered, shuddering the land.

The Snake dropped his finger and the prince’s noose relaxed, the young child wheezing for breath. His mother and father crumbled into sobs.

“Cowardly Little Lion indeed,” said the Snake.

His eyes flicked to Sophie and Agatha. “Well, then. Let’s see if he comes out of his cage.” He whirled to the mob and with a wave of his hand, snuffed out the sea of torches.

The stage plunged into darkness.

In the vast, empty night, two dozen nooses glowed green, fluorescing like electric eels, lighting up the prisoners with heads looped through.

At the front of the stage, Sophie and Agatha faced off against the Snake, awash in the gallows’ alien green haze.

Beyond the iced walls, the crowd was hushed in the dark, like an audience in wait of a play. Sophie could see them looking back anxiously, searching for any sign of Tedros.

“Perhaps we shouldn’t write off the Lion so soon. By now he knows of your predicament,” the Snake said to the girls, the edge coming off his voice. “I’ll give him ten more seconds to show his face.” Neither Sophie nor Agatha moved.

“Aren’t you going to help your friends?” the Snake said serenely. “1 . . . 2 . . .” “Go!” Kiko shrieked.

Sophie twirled to Agatha. “I’ll take front row.” “He’s lying, Sophie,” Agatha breathed—

“3 . . . ,” said the Snake.

Sophie took off, shooting the back nooses with her pink glow. Agatha unleashed her gold glow at the front row’s.

“It’s not working!” Sophie shouted—

“Magic won’t break it!” said Dot.

“Try something else!” said Anadil, her three rats dangling from tiny nooses next to her.

“4 . . . 5 . . .”

“Break the wood!” Nicola cried, eyeing the beams over their heads.

Agatha and Sophie both fired at them—

The beams only turned thicker and stronger.

“6 . . .”

“Hurry!” Hester bellowed.

Sophie magically sealed the trapdoors around her feet, but the doors grew weaker, threatening to break.

“Spells are backfiring!” Hort said.

“7 . . . 8 . . .”

Sophie shot the frozen walls with her glow, hoping to shatter them and let the crowd storm in— Nothing.

“9 . . .”

Agatha climbed the beams and tried to undo the nooses by hand. They shocked her like lightning and she fell to the platform— “10,” said the Snake.

The two girls turned to him, panting.

“And still no Lion . . . ,” the Snake tutted. “So now the real show begins.” He opened his palm and a pack of playing cards appeared with a tuft of smoke. He spread them out in his fingers, revealing some of their faces— Not card faces, Sophie realized. Actual faces. For each of the cards had a prisoner painted on it: Dot . . . Bogden . . . Nicola . . . the King of Bloodbrook . . .

“Each of you takes a turn picking a card,” the Snake said to Sophie and Agatha. “Whoever you pick, their door drops.” The crowd drew a breath, cocking towards the horizon like panicked chickens. Surely Tedros would stop this. Surely he would slay this villain the way King Arthur had slain many before. . . .

“Why are you doing this?” Agatha rasped.

The Snake’s eyes glittered like gems. “Ask my father.” He held out the deck. “Pick.”

Sophie looked at Agatha, paralyzed.

Agatha slackened, her cheeks bright red.

Then she picked the first card, the back of it painted with the Snake’s crest.

Her hands shook as she turned the card over.

The face on it was Kiko’s.

The door under Kiko’s feet dropped open but Agatha was already diving, snagging her friend by the legs and pulling her back onto the platform so she couldn’t fall through.

It happened so fast that the crowd didn’t make a sound.

Agatha stayed on her knees, hugging Kiko’s calves with all of her strength, as Kiko hung from the noose at an angle. If Agatha let her go, her friend would drop and break her neck. Which meant both of them were trapped in their position.

“Don’t leave me,” Sophie heard Kiko whimper.

“I won’t,” Agatha assured.

“Bad things happen when you leave me,” Kiko said. “Bad things happen to all of us.” “Your turn,” a voice said.

Sophie looked up to see the Snake glaring at her.

He held out the deck of cards.

There was a flatness in his eyes, a ruthless insistence on the rules of the game as if he knew precisely how it would end.

“Pick,” he said.

Sophie did.

The card was Nicola’s.

Across the platform, Nicola’s trapdoor opened.

In a flash, Sophie sprinted across the stage and tackled the first year just before she fell through, shoving her to the side of the opening and holding her by the ankles.

Sophie looked up and saw Nicola goggling at her. Agatha too.

“Guess we’re friends now,” Sophie said to Nicola.

With no sign of Tedros, the crowd revolted, battering the walls with renewed force— Suddenly, thirty young pirates broke through the crowd, seizing the hardest protestors from behind, swords to their necks. The rest of the mob went quiet with fear.

“It seems we have a dilemma . . . ,” the Snake continued, watching the two girls in opposite corners, clutching their friends. “Because someone has to pick next.” Neither girl budged.

The terrified crowd glanced between them and the Snake.

“Ah, I see,” the Snake said. “It seems you’re both a bit tied up. Well, then.” He held out the deck in his open palm.

“I’ll pick.”

He turned the first card over.

Hort.

Sophie and Agatha whirled to each other. Either one of them had to let go of their friend or Hort would hang.

“Go!” Nicola said to Sophie.

“No! Stay!” Hort cried.

Tears fogged Sophie’s eyes. She couldn’t watch Hort die— His trapdoor opened. The noose around his neck yanked tight.

Sophie and Nicola screamed—

Instantly, the rest of the prisoners in the row kicked their legs out, using the chain cuffed across them to swing like a five-headed dragon: Hester, Anadil, Willam, Bogden, and finally Dot, who thrust her legs and caught Hort’s backside with her shins before he fell through the door. With every ounce of strength, she held him up by the tailbone, their bodies planked at right angles, like trapeze performers midflight.

Sophie buckled in relief, briefly losing grip of Nicola but catching her just in time.

Hort was dripping sweat, rope burns around his neck.

“Thanks, Dot,” he croaked.

“Don’t thank me, thank Uncle Miyazaki,” Dot panted, smiling over at Nicola. She looked back at Hort. “Though I’ll take a date too if you’re offering.” Hort coughed.

The Snake watched all of this, his body still, his green mask obscuring any reaction, except for his winnowing blue eyes.

“So much for the rules of the game,” he said.

With a flourish, he flung the cards into the air, dozens of painted faces glinting in green glow as they fluttered to the stage.

Sophie locked eyes with Agatha, their hearts stopped.

Every trapdoor started to magically open, all the prisoners about to drop through.

The crowd reeled, preparing for mass carnage—

Suddenly fire-tipped arrows bombed down from the sky, just missing the Snake and igniting the wooden platform.

The Snake swiveled, taken by surprise, the gallows doors still half-open.

In the distance, the mob parted a path as two figures in buckskin tunics blazed through, astride a red-spotted deer: a blond shooting arrows from a bow as someone behind, dark-skinned with long brown hair, lit arrows on fire with her purple fingerglow. They were being chased by at least fifty bellowing pirates with swords and spears, trying to catch up with the sprinting deer. Sophie recognized the riders at once— “Beatrix and Reena,” Sophie marveled.

And the deer was . . .

“Millicent,” Agatha realized.

More of Beatrix’s arrows rained over the wall, aimed at the Snake— He split into a thousand squealing scims, dispersing like leeches to elude them.

Reenergized, the crowd came to Beatrix’s and Reena’s defense, rushing headlong at the pirates, while onstage flames from the missed arrows started to spread.

Agatha whirled to Sophie. “Fire kills the scims! Just like fire killed Rafal’s zombies!” She grabbed one of Beatrix’s missed arrows and lit Kiko’s noose, searing away the shrieking eel and setting her classmate free.

Kiko blubbered: “I thought I was going to die and then I would see my beautiful Tristan up there in heaven and I would say—” “Kiko!” Agatha said, glaring at all the prisoners still hanging.

“Good point,” said Kiko.

Like a rabbit, Kiko dashed across the blazing stage, grabbing arrows out of the wood and lighting the scaly nooses on fire along with the chains between prisoners, starting with Nicola’s.

“I have no idea who you are, but Sophie doesn’t help anyone unless they’re important,” Kiko cheeped, before burning through Nicola’s cuffs, which let Sophie drop the first year to the stage, grab one of Kiko’s arrows, and start helping the others in the row, while Agatha took the second and third rows.

“Hurry, Sophie!” Agatha cried, as she freed the young princes of Jaunt Jolie. “The fire is spreading!” Sophie ran to Hort first. But out of the side of her eye, she glimpsed Beatrix and Reena outside the iced walls, cornered by the pair of young pirates they’d seen kicking cages in Castle Jolie. The boys had stripped the Evergirls of their bows and arrows and were aiming the arrows back at their heads. Beatrix and Reena leapt off Millicent and hewed together, confronting the pirates with lit fingers. . . .

“Man-wolf. Now,” Sophie ordered Hort as she freed him.

“Aye-aye, Captain,” Hort said, lighting his fingerglow and bursting out of his breeches a mighty, hairy beast, before scaling the Camelot flagpole in a single bound and bellyflopping onto the pirates with a howl.

As Kiko, Nicola, and the other freed prisoners helped burn away more nooses, Sophie felt Agatha seize her from behind.

“Whole stage will collapse!” Agatha said, covering her mouth from the smoke. “We have to get everyone out of here!” Sophie squinted up at the high walls that sealed them into the Four Point, while the war against the pirates raged beyond them. “But how can we get them over that?” “Leave it to me,” Hester grunted, prying between the girls, fingerglow lit. The tattooed demon on her neck engorged with blood, turning redder, redder, until it tore out of its chains and flew off her skin, swelling to three-dimensional life. Mumbling hissy gibberish, it began snatching prisoners from the stage, three at a time, starting with kings and queens, and ferrying them over the walls and to the ground beyond, where throngs of citizens shielded them and spirited them back towards their kingdoms.

“Move faster, Hester!” Agatha cried as the witch directed the demon with her glow from inside the Four Point. “Stage is burning up!” “And I’m on the stage so believe me when I say I’m moving as fast as I can!” Hester berated.

Eyes watering from the smoke, Sophie weaved around the fires, intending to free Mona and Brone next— But now she saw Hort’s man-wolf slammed up against the glass wall in front of her by tattooed Thiago, who’d pinned the tip of his pirate blade against Hort’s hairy belly.

“Knew I’d seen yer grubby lil’ face before,” Thiago seethed. “Scourie’s son. Bragged ye’d be the first man-wolf pirate at Hook’s Parley years ago. Took a blood oath to help us fight the Lost Boys. Instead ye turn round and kill Hook’s captain like yer Pan’s stooge. Ye killed my father.” He dug his blade into Hort’s stomach, drawing drops of blood. “Shoulda bragged ye’d be the first fink.” “I did what any true man would have, unlike your lot,” Hort growled in pain. “You kill for money. You follow a leader with no soul. You’re the real Lost Boys.” Thiago cut him deeper. “Bleats a pirate who killed one of ‘is own.” “What I killed wasn’t your father,” Hort insisted.

“Tell yerself all the lies ye want,” Thiago snarled. “But this I know fer sure. The thing I’m about to kill is you.” He gripped the sword hilt to run Hort through, but Hort grabbed the blade by the tip and muscled it away from his stomach, the steel slicing into his hand. Before Thiago could react, Hort slapped him across the head as hard as he could with his big, hairy palm. The pirate wheeled wildly, swinging his sword and biting it into Hort’s bicep, spattering the frozen wall with blood and obscuring Sophie’s view.

Spinning around, Sophie saw Hester’s demon had rescued nearly all the prisoners from the stage, with only her, Agatha, Hester, Anadil, and Dot left. On the battlefield, Willam, Bogden, Beatrix, Reena, and Nicola were fighting pirates with weapons flung at them by fleeing citizens— Hester’s demon swooped to rescue Sophie, his beady eyes flashing: “Lookie missie witchie fishie!” “No, take the witches!” Sophie said, ducking his grab. “You three! Go help Hort!” The witches gaped at Sophie, then at Agatha, as if they didn’t trust Sophie could possibly be deferring her own rescue.

“Go!” Agatha cried.

Immediately the three witches hooked on to the demon’s claws and flew up and over the walls. As he streaked down, Hester’s demon attacked Thiago, blasting red firebolts from the demon’s mouth, while Anadil’s rats grew twenty feet tall and crashed into the fray, rampaging through pirates as the three witches rode on the rats’ backs, shooting stun spells right and left.

Onstage, Sophie and Agatha were the only two left behind, pushed to the edge by the fires.

“Aggie, we don’t have time for the demon to come back,” Sophie said. “It’s spreading too fast!” “Maybe this’ll work,” said Agatha, thrusting her glowing fingertip into the air. Heavy rain started falling over the Four Point, dousing the blaze. It was one of Agatha’s trusty spells from her first year at school— Then, all of a sudden, the fires seemed to grow stronger in the rain . . . the orange flames turning a glowing emerald green. . . .

Agatha’s eyes bulged. “What in the—”

But now there was something falling towards them, straight out of the sky: a deer bounding over the wall, hooftip glowing red, and landing on the stage, which half crumbled like a giant sinkhole, before the deer recovered, lurching for the two girls.

“Come on! Get on my back!” Millicent said.

Sophie and Agatha leapt onto her, just as the gallows imploded in the green flames. Millicent sprinted for the walls, her legs tensing with power, about to magically propel over the barrier— Something slammed into Sophie and Agatha like harpoons, bashing them off the deer’s back and pinning them into opposing walls.

Scims.

They glued down the girls’ wrists and legs and spread them against the inside of the glass, like mice caught in a trap.

Petrified, Sophie swung her head towards Agatha, the two of them struggling against the scaly black eels.

At the center of the stage, the Snake reformed again, rising out of the green bonfire like a phoenix.

Millicent charged for him, hurdling over the holes in the stage.

The Snake calmly peeled one of the scims off his chest, which rolled up in his palm like a tiny tube. Instantly it turned to shiny black steel, razor sharp at both ends.

Millicent leapt, hooves aimed at his chest, poised to crush him— The Snake hurled the scim at her, spearing the deer in the heart. She fell down dead and burnt up in the green flames.

Outside the walls, the students saw Millicent fall and stopped fighting, paralyzed in horror. The pirates seized them at once, knives and swords to their throats. With a pirate’s dagger to her own neck, Hester stalled her demon, as did Anadil her rats, afraid to cost any more friends their lives. Hort gnashed his teeth, feeling Thiago’s sword point on his spine, poised to slice him open. Nicola, Bogden, Dot, and Willam were all trapped by pirates, along with the rest of the questing Evers and Nevers.

Onstage, the Snake was circled in green flames like a ringmaster. His eyes shifted between Sophie and Agatha, pressed against the glass on either side of him, as if he was deciding which girl to handle first.

Instead, he pulled two scims off his body, one in each hand, letting them morph into steel black blades.

Slowly he raised both arms, extended outwards, each blade aimed at a girl’s heart.

This was how I died, Sophie thought. Rafal had killed her with a shot to the heart before Agatha had woken her with true love’s kiss.

But this time there would be no kiss.

Because her true love was about to die with her.

The Snake gripped the blades and coiled to throw— A roar exploded through the land.

So full and deep it shook the earth.

The Snake stilled, the green flames cooling around him.

Sophie and Agatha gaped at each other.

Again came the roar, this time louder than before, shattering the iced wall between the two girls. Jagged shards rained over the Snake, who turned away, shielding himself.

As he looked back up, so did Sophie, craning her head to see through the wall.

Someone was coming towards the stage.

Galloping through the crowd on a white horse, his body tall and muscular, in a dark blue jacket with a brilliant gold pattern, dark blue riding pants, and gold-lined boots.

He was wearing a mask.

A mask of gold that glimmered in the moonlight and shrouded his face.

The mask of a Lion.

As his horse accelerated towards the stage, the lion-masked figure rose, feet sturdy in the stirrups, and climbed to stand on the horse’s back, the reins in his hands. Then he lowered into a crouch, balanced on the horse’s hide as if surfing a wave, and just as the horse started to buck him off, he jumped from the animal, sailing through the air like a ball from a cannon, through the busted ice wall, and onto the gallows stage. As he stood to full height, he thrust out his finger like a wand, lighting the tip up with hot gold glow and illuminating the stage.

Sophie saw Agatha’s eyes widen.

Only one person they knew had that glow.

A glow that matched his true love’s.

Tedros.

The crowd exploded with cheers.

The Lion had come.

Across the stage, Sophie saw Agatha stop resisting her scims. All this time, Agatha had tried to fight Tedros’ battles on his behalf, but now he’d come to wrest back control of his quest from his princess. Sophie could see Agatha sigh with exhaustion and relief, as if at last, her fairy tale with Tedros was back on track, their Ever After salvaged from the ashes. Slowly Agatha looked up and met the Lion’s aqua-blue eyes. Camelot’s princess smiled, even though she was squashed against a wall like a fly in a spider’s web . . . even though there was a deadly villain still on the stage. . . .

Sophie knew that smile.

It was the smile of love.

The Lion and the Snake faced off on a charred heap of ruins, all that remained of the stage. They circled each other inside a ring of dying green flames.

“This is Camelot’s land,” said the Lion in his low, strapping voice.

“To which I have a rightful claim,” the Snake returned, chilly and sure.

His opponent peered through his lion mask. “And what gives you that right?” “My birth,” said the Snake, casting shadows in the green light. “I am the true heir to Camelot’s throne. I am King Arthur’s eldest son.” This last word snapped over the quiet crowd like a whip-crack.

Sophie’s stomach dropped.

Son.

Son?

She locked eyes with Agatha, both of them stupefied.

Even the pirates looked stunned, still clutching their prisoners.

But the Lion held his ground. “There is no son but Tedros of Camelot. The one true king.” “And yet Excalibur remains in a stone,” the Snake said. “Until I free it, that is, and prove the throne is mine.” “You will never touch Excalibur as long as I’m alive,” the Lion vowed.

The Snake’s eyes sparkled. “So it is written. So it is done.” He tore scims off his body, which turned to steel in his hands, before hurling them at the Lion’s chest. The Lion deflected them with gold rays from his finger, then scooped up a handful of jagged ice from the shattered walls and whizzed it at the Snake. The shards shot into his flank, shearing away scims and embedding in youthful, snow-white skin beneath that started oozing blood. The Snake stumbled back, surprised, and crashed through a hole in the stage.

Taking advantage, the Lion glanced between Sophie and Agatha and dashed for Agatha. He grabbed a piece of smoking wood off the stage and burnt the scims off her, careful not to burn her too.

“Tedros,” Agatha breathed.

Across the stage, Sophie watched them together, feeling her own heart fill up. For Tedros to risk his life and be this courageous when his people needed it most . . . He wasn’t just a prince. He was every inch a king. Any residue of Sophie’s envy drained away, replaced by gratitude and admiration. She’d give him and his queen the best wedding two friends could ask for.

The Lion freed Agatha and gazed into her big brown eyes.

“Go,” he said. “Before the rogue comes back.”

“No,” Agatha said firmly. “We’re a team now. We’re fighting him togeth—” The Lion pointed his gold glow and sent her flying way up the flagpole. Camelot’s flag magically came loose and tied around her waist, lashing her to the pole and out of the Snake’s reach.

“Get me down!” Agatha yelled.

The Lion winked at her and stormed back into battle— The Snake rushed him headfirst, smashing the Lion against the pole, before the Lion delivered a vicious kick to his thigh, scattering a few scims and revealing more of the Snake’s milk-white flesh. The two masked men launched at each other, firing spells and scims, shattering two more frozen walls, the remainder of the stage collapsing under their every step, until they were on the final piece of the gallows, a small square of scorched wood. With their bodies jammed together, they could no longer rely on magic and the two set on each other with their fists, trying to knock the other off the platform and into the fiery pit below.

As the Lion clocked the Snake, a scim crawled out of a hole and snagged the Lion by the ankle, yanking him towards the edge of the stage. The Lion swiveled and stomped on the scim, crushing it. But now the Snake came from behind, hands out, about to push the Lion off the stage and face-first into the blaze below— Sophie screamed.

The Lion whirled just in time, belting the Snake with all of his might, who staggered backwards and plummeted off the stage, landing in the fire and dispersing to a thousand shrieking scims. Wounded, the scims glowed green and rose shakily into the air, forming a massive phantom cobra in the sky. It hissed at the Lion with the promise of vengeance before spraying into the night, terrible shrieks echoing.

Covered in blood and bruises, the Lion stood on what was left of the stage, gold mask glistening in the moonlight, his chest heaving.

Slowly he raised his head to the boy pirates clutching prisoners in the field.

The Lion roared.

Pirates dropped their weapons and ran.

Students and citizens let out a raucous cry, the Four Point reclaimed and the Snake beaten back.

“LONG LIVE KING TEDROS!” someone shouted.

“LONG LIVE THE KING!” said another.

As Nicola climbed the flagpole to bring Agatha down, Hort and Dot kneeled to comfort Reena and Beatrix, who were sobbing over their lost best friend. Hester and the witches hurried to the sides of the other Evers and Nevers, many of who’d been wounded in their battle against the pirates.

Indeed, the questers were so quick to help each other that none of them noticed that inside the billows of smoke coming off the stage Sophie was still trapped on the lone wall standing.

But the Lion had.

He strode over the misty crumbles of stage until at last he reached her, his jacket ripped open and sweat soaking his light blue shirt. He burnt her scims away and squashed them under his boot, leaving a puddle of black goo. Then he looked at Sophie through his mask.

“Thank you,” he said. “If you hadn’t screamed to warn me, I’d be dead.” “Can’t have you dying yet, Teddy,” Sophie sighed, rubbing at her sore wrists. “I’m your wedding planner.” “Are you?” he said.

His eyes reflected mischief, like a hall of mirrors.

Something flooded inside Sophie. Something hot and stormy in the deepest swells of her heart.

It was something she’d never felt with a prince.

Slowly she reached up and pulled the mask off the Lion’s face.

Sophie staggered back.

It wasn’t Tedros.

The boy had tanned skin the color of amber and copper-brown hair cropped close to his head like a soldier’s helmet. He had a strong brow bone, a long, straight nose, sensual lips, and thick dark brows that ran flat over his eyes like two streaks of paint. Beads of sweat dotted his coat of brown stubble and his eyes seemed to change colors with the intensity of his stare, from blue to hazel and all the shades in between.

He looked her age. Perhaps a bit older.

One thing was for sure, though. She’d never seen such a beautiful boy in her life, masculine, sultry, and smelling of salt and sand, as if he’d been dewed from the mouth of a desert flower.

“Who are you?” she choked.

“A humble servant of Camelot,” he said, calm and commanding. “Come to protect the king and his princess.” Sophie shook her head. “But . . . but . . .”

“I suppose that isn’t the whole truth,” said the boy. “My loyalty is to Camelot and I will fight until my dying breath to make sure the rightful king weds his rightful queen. But I’ve also come to find someone else along the way. Someone I saw in a storybook and haven’t been able to stop thinking about since. Someone who in my quest to protect Camelot . . . perhaps I can protect too.” “Who?” Sophie asked, confused.

From inside his shirt, the boy pulled a red rose.

“The girl who’s already protected me,” he whispered.

He leaned in and kissed her, slowly and deeply, his hands taking her by the waist. Sophie heard herself gasp, his breath filling her mouth, her body lighting up in his grip. She closed her eyes, lost in the softness of his lips, his hot-spice scent, and the impossibility of this moment in the wake of all that had come before. . . .

His lips slipped off hers.

She opened her eyes and the Lion was gone.

Sophie stood there in the fading smoke, her heart throttling.

A delusion.

A dream.

Something.

But then she felt a drizzle on her neck.

She raised her fingers and pulled down the perfect red rose, dripping with his sweat, that he’d slid into her hair as he kissed her.

But that wasn’t all that the Lion had left behind.

Because across the stage, as the last smoke cleared, she saw a girl wrapped in Camelot’s flag watching her . . . her pale, big-eyed face as shell-shocked as Sophie’s had been once upon a time, when another red rose had dropped into their story just like this. . . .

A rose from a boy who was never supposed to be in their story at all.