The Last Ever After (22 page)

Agatha watched him in silence, all the stress she'd been festering slowly seeping away.

Tedros didn't flinch as she climbed onto the bed next to him, keeping a space between their bodies. Together, they lay side by side in the dark, staring at the burnt ceiling.

Girl and boy.

Boy and girl.

“Hester's right. All I've ever had going for me is a crown, a fortune, and a face,” Tedros said quietly. “Dovey used to say we'd need more than looks and charm to find our happy ending. Chaddick and the boys made fun of the old bat, and I'd join in. But when I saw Sophie on the shore and I was no longer a prince, I knew she was right. I felt naked, powerless . . . like I was hollow inside. You all think I'm scared of being a girl? It's not being a girl I'm scared of. It's that I'll only be loved for what's on the outside, rather than the real me. That's been my biggest fear my whole life. That all anyone sees is a tall, blond prince, straight out of a storybook, and fills in the rest without seeing what's actually there. But now, for the first time, that outside is gone and I'm in a weird body that isn't mine . . . and all I have is the Tedros inside me. The Tedros that I don't
know is good enough for anybody to love.”

He blinked faster. “That's what happened to my father, isn't it? He made my mother see the king as long as he could, until she saw underneath the power and good looks and saw what was really inside of him . . . Arthur . . . just Arthur, who wasn't even worth a goodbye to her. What if I'm the same as my father, Agatha? What if you see what I am when you take away the prince and it isn't good enough? Maybe that's why you've been fighting with me so much the closer we get to Camelot. Because underneath the prince, you see I'm . . . I'm . . .
nothing
.” He smeared at his eyes. “I've always been the Prince. Without that Prince, I don't know how to do this. I don't know how to get Sophie alone. I don't know what to say to her, I don't know how to convince her to trust me, I don't know how to get her out of this castle without the School Master killing all of us.”

Agatha looked into his tear-streaked face. “And I don't know how to get your sword,” she said.

Tedros couldn't help but laugh through his sniffles.

Agatha cozied her head under his soft arm, her big, boyish palm wrapping his delicate hand.

“When I look at you, I don't see a prince,” Agatha breathed. “Even when you're at your most handsome and macho and charming, I
can't
see a prince. Because if I see a prince, then I'll have to see the king, and if I see the king, then I'll have to see myself as a queen . . . a queen of the most famous kingdom ever known . . .” She could feel the panic rising and held it down. “That's why I struggle so much. That's why I said what I did to Princess Uma. Because to be with you, I have to pretend you're
not
a prince. I have to pretend it'll always be you and me like we were those first few days in Gavaldon, an ordinary girl with an ordinary boy, and no kingdom waiting for you. And I can only do that by looking closer, beyond what's in front of me, to the heart and soul that made me fall in love with you. A soul that's sensitive, honest, and deep feeling. A heart whose love is like a big golden sun that makes you feel so warm when you have it and so cold when it's gone and all anyone wants to do is find their way back to it.” A tear slipped down Agatha's cheek. “It doesn't matter if you're a boy or a girl. It doesn't matter who your father is or where you come from or what you look like. Here you are worried that I'll leave when I see your real self . . . when that's the part of you that lets me stay.”

Tedros propped up on his elbows and gazed at Agatha, his blue eyes wide and wet. Even though their bodies hadn't changed, Agatha didn't feel like a boy anymore and Tedros no longer felt like a girl. As he slowly leaned towards her, she smelled his minty breath and closed her eyes . . .

“This is where you tell me how to get your sword,” Agatha whispered.

“No idea,” Tedros whispered back.

She tasted his lips against hers—

“Well, well,” a sharp voice stung.

Agatha twirled in Tedros' arms to see three shadows in the doorway, Hester's eyes gleaming through darkness.

“So much for using your time
wisely
.”

18
Tedros in the Sky with Chocolate

I
t wasn't until after she and Tedros split up that Agatha wondered if she would ever see him again.

“Showtime, kids,” said Hester, storming into the room and snatching Agatha off the bed. “Ani, Dot, you take Essa. Edgar's with me. We have two hours until midnight.”

“Why do we get the twit?” Anadil moaned.

“Because you're the henchmen!” Hester snapped, sweeping Agatha out of the room. Agatha looked back frantically just in time to see her prince-turned-princess lunge off the bed and catch her at the door.

“See you soon,” he breathed.

“See you soon,” Agatha said.

The door closed between
them and Tedros was gone.

Hester yanked Agatha's boy body down a dim hall. “Anadil and I tried for weeks to find a path into the School for Old with zero luck, so you better have a damn good plan.”

“Barely said goodbye,” Agatha mourned, looking back at the receding door.

“Didn't look like you two were
saying
much of anything,” Hester snarked, pulling her past a few Evers and Nevers hightailing into rooms as if their lives depended on it. Kiko froze in her tracks, gawking at them.

“What are you looking at?” Hester growled.

Kiko shut her door, her voice echoing from inside: “Mona, Hester has a
boyfriend
!”

Hester dragged Agatha ahead. “Halfway Bridge is suicide, obviously; we'll be sitting ducks and no way can you get past the invisible barrier a third time. Sewers are still blocked off from last year, so that's a no-go. Best bet is to risk the fairy patrol around the bay—”

“Hold on.
We
?” Agatha asked excitedly. “Merlin said I'd be on my own—”

“Because Merlin thinks you're the only one who can get into the School for Old alive,” said Hester. “What he doesn't understand is that a coven is a coven and we protect each other to the death. Besides, no chance I'm letting you see inside that school without me.” She saw Agatha's expression, grateful and moved, and Hester glowered impatiently. “Well? Which way? Anything but the—”

“Bridge,” Agatha smiled.

“I knew you'd say that,” Hester sighed, towing her into a dark breezeway. “And don't tell Dot I said you're in the coven. She'll turn us both to mocha pudding.”

Agatha followed her out the glass passage into a shadowy Honor dormitory, noticing more students ducking into rooms as if outrunning a monster. “How did you get to be Merlin's spies anyway?”

“We used Anadil's rat to ferry a message into the Woods, looking for help to fight the School Master. Turns out your cat Reaper was in the Woods at the same time, delivering your mother's message. Well, cat found rat and chased it halfway to Maidenvale, intent on eating it, before Yuba discovered both of them. Ever since then, Reaper—
so
cute, by the way—brings Merlin's messages to us while Ani's rat brings our messages back to Merlin.”

Agatha slowed down. “
League business
,” she thought, remembering why Merlin said she couldn't see Reaper. Meanwhile, her bald, mashed-up cat who she thought had no other use than scaring away strangers and decapitating birds had been communicating with her three witch friends all this time. She suddenly missed that vile old coot even more and wondered if Reaper knew her mother was dead. Agatha's heart sank. She didn't have the strength to tell him.

Hester was far down the hall now and Agatha could barely see her, with the sky ink-black out the porthole windows and a brisk crosswind blowing through. As her eyes adjusted, she had to put her hands out to find a stuccoed wall and resisted calling out Hester's name—

Only then did she notice the mural splashed beneath her fingers . . .

Seven brightly dressed dwarves facedown in blood.

Slowly Agatha backed up, taking in more scenes: Tom Thumb devoured by a giant . . . Rapunzel and her prince thrown from a tower by a witch . . .

Good endings she'd seen tacked to a wall in Yuba's cave. Good endings already rewritten for Evil.

Agatha remembered what Merlin had warned her in the Woods. The School Master was behind all of this. Each fairy tale revised a piece of a bigger plan.

But what plan?

Why was he killing old heroes? Why did he need the old stories at all?

“Unless the Old gives him power over the New,”
Merlin's voice echoed.

Stomach squeezing, Agatha crept further along the muraled walls: Captain Hook plunging his hook into Peter Pan's heart . . . a wolf biting into Red Riding Hood's neck . . . a pockmarked old witch jamming Hansel and Gretel into an oven . . .

“Hurry up!” Hester hissed ahead.

Agatha bustled to catch up, terrified for the old League members she'd left behind, safe in a cave for the time being. Whatever the School Master's plan, they had to destroy his ring before any more of these scenes came true.

As the tower clock tolled ten o'clock, Agatha noticed the dormitories dead quiet now. “Where'd everyone go?”

“Aric declared mandatory study time, since tracking week
is next week,” said Hester, tugging her up the rear staircase. “No club meetings, no common rooms, all bodies in assigned rooms. Anyone who saw us thinks we were trying to make curfew. Weird hearing your voice come out of that body, by the way. You look like a creepy page boy.”

“What if teachers see me? Or fairies?” Agatha pushed.

“Doing room checks, starting with first floor. Relax, no one will stop you if you're with me. Teachers all love me, except—”

Hester froze, staring upwards. Agatha squinted through the dark gap in the staircase to see a tall, spike-haired shadow glaring down from the fifth floor. Glittering purple eyes flashed like warning flares.

“Hester, my sweet. Shouldn't you be in your room?” said Aric, slinking down the stairs.

“Edgar forgot his book bag in the library,” said Hester, foisting Agatha past Aric. “You know how disorganized boys are—”

Aric barred them with his big arm. “You may be teacher's pet, but that doesn't mean you can break the rules, Hester. Even
I
can't break the rules, or I'd have cut my mother into pieces by now and served her as a midnight treat.” His tongue traced his teeth, his eyes on Hester. “Strange, though. My mother insists you're one of Evil's Great Hopes, sure to become an illustrious witch. And yet, I can't imagine Evil's Great Hope cavorting about with a dodgy boy after curfew.” His pupils flicked to Agatha. “Stranger indeed, given I've personally punished almost every boy in school but don't recognize this one in the slightest.” He fingered the coiled whip on his belt
hook, prowling towards the twiggy stranger. “The muscleless legs . . . flaccid wrists . . . weak jaw . . . almost feminine, don't you think?”

“Edgar keeps to himself,” Hester replied calmly. “With all the Evers and Nevers mixed together and your being new here, no wonder you don't recognize—”

“Oh I'd remember a boy this . . .
soft
,” Aric purred, backing Agatha against the banister. “You see, Edgar, I don't like boys who don't act like boys. I spent years trapped in a cave, abandoned by my own mother, and yet I taught myself not to shed a tear. Boys don't cry or snivel or bend over like passive little princesses. Boys fight. Boys
dominate
. It's what I told Tristan in the Trial, when he begged for his life like a dog. No matter how many times I'd taken that tart to the dungeon, teaching him what it meant to be a boy . . . still he didn't learn his lesson. And then to find him high up in that tree, unashamedly a
girl
!” Aric's cheeks raged red. “Never again. Every boy in this school belongs to me now. Especially ones like my new friend Edgar, who don't seem much like boys at all.
”
He leaned in, his lips almost touching Agatha's, as he grinned into her eyes. “Best move along, Hester dear. I need some alone time with our young Edgar tonight. And when I send him back in the morning, he'll be a
real
boy.”

Agatha couldn't breathe.

Hester didn't move.

“Go,”
Aric hissed at Hester, viper-quick. “Because this time, when I slit you open, you won't have a Trial flag to save you.”

Hester swallowed and gave Edgar a helpless stare.

Legs shaking, Agatha watched her friend quail up the stairs and vanish. Agatha hastily focused on her fear, feeling her own fingertip start to burn gold. She had only one hope to escape—

Aric's whip lashed around her wrist. Agatha's glow extinguished in surprise.

“Magic? How feeble.” He yanked her down the stairs by the whip like a leash. “Can't even fight like a boy.”

Agatha's fear scorched to adrenaline. “How's this, then?”

Aric turned—

She punched him in the face.

Aric reeled backwards into the wall, nose gushing blood, before he recovered and charged her like a bear. Agatha dove under him, but he grappled her by the belly, ramming her headfirst into the banister. Bleary with pain, Agatha made out a hard stone floor four flights down—

Aric hoisted her over the deadly drop and smiled brutally, teeth speckled with blood. “Say hello to Tristan for me.” He loosened his grip—

A red, horned demon smashed into his groin and Aric cried out in shock, throwing Agatha's boy body to the stairs. Shrieking like a banshee, the shoe-sized demon spread-eagled on Aric's face like a mask, blinding him as he writhed against the wall.

Agatha gaped at Hester, slithering down the staircase.

“Best move along, Edgar dear,” Hester cooed, lurking towards Aric. “The Dean and I have some old business to settle.”

“No! I can't leave you alone!” Agatha hissed in her ear. “Not like last time!”

“This isn't like last time at all.” Hester swished her red-lit finger and her demon squeezed Aric by the throat, choking him until he gurgled.

“But he's dangerous!” Agatha sputtered. “What if—”

“You're forgetting something very important about me, my dear,” said Hester. She turned to Agatha, eyeballs clouding with blood. “I'm a
villain
.”

Agatha didn't ask any more questions. She sprinted up the last two flights, hearing Aric's muffled wails as she pushed through the frosted door and slammed it shut behind her.

Fingerglow lighting her path, Agatha dashed along the dark, chilly rooftop between the scenes of Merlin's Menagerie, guzzling in air—
Hester's fine, Hester's fine, Hester's fine—

What wasn't fine was the fact that she was all alone in her mission now, just as Merlin predicted, and the fact that teachers were surely on the way, given the noise they'd made in the stairwell. She didn't risk the time to study the hedges or see how they'd changed. She had to find the scene with water . . . that was the secret portal from the roof to the Bridge . . .

Just find water.

Three minutes later, Agatha was still running in circles, hyper breaths fogging, spying nothing but landlocked hedges as she swerved deeper and deeper into the maze . . .