The Last Ever After (43 page)

Agatha naturally assumed, then, that once paired with Lancelot for training, Tedros would extend the same kindness and openness to the knight as he had to his mother.

She was wrong.

Face red-hot, Tedros slashed and hacked at Lancelot with his father's sword, only to be beaten again and again. Not just beaten, but humiliated, with Lancelot nicking Tedros' ear every time he won a round, lopping off a bit of his hair, or smacking him on the backside with the flat of his blade. No doubt Merlin paired the two together knowing Tedros would benefit from the great knight's sword skills, but by the sixth day of their sparring the prince was a deranged beast, stabbing Excalibur wildly at the knight and grunting and salivating, as if fighting not just for his pride now, but for his father's, for his kingdom's—

Lancelot beat him even worse than before.

When Tedros ended up face-first in a pile of horse manure a few bouts later, Agatha couldn't watch anymore. She took a long bath and sauntered down to the kitchen, hoping there was food still left.

“Shouldn't you be out training?” Guinevere asked, laying out a spinach omelet and mug of tea for her.

Agatha eyed Cinderella lounging in the den with curlers in her bluish hair, stuffing a cheese biscuit with roasted marshmallows. “You know how well things are going with Tedros
and Lancelot?” She turned back to Guinevere. “They're practically lovers compared to us.”

“I NEED ANOTHER BISCUIT,” Cinderella boomed from the den. “THIS ONE BROKE.”

Agatha ignored her. “I really need to speak to Merlin,” she said to Guinevere. “It's been six days. Surely you know where he is—”

“If you haven't noticed, Merlin isn't particularly forthcoming about his thought process or whereabouts,” said Guinevere.

Agatha looked out the window at the silhouettes of her old and young friends in the distant oak grove. “He hasn't even told us how he thinks we can win this war. The School Master has both the Dark Army
and
the students. We're outnumbered twenty to one.”

“Merlin wouldn't send children off to war unless he had a plan,” Guinevere smiled.

“Or unless he was desperate,” said Agatha.

Guinevere's smile wavered. She poured Agatha more tea. “Well, at least he's left his hat!” she said, with forced cheer. “Otherwise I have no idea how I'd manage meals for such a mob. Poor thing is a bit run-down.” She glanced at the hat drooped over a houseplant and snoring softly. “Everyone seems to be helping our war effort. Except me, I mean.”

“You're managing almost twenty people in your house, including a half-dozen cranky old heroes and their meals, laundry, dishes, and demands. That isn't just helping the war effort, that's
leading
it,” said Agatha. “If anything, I'm the disappointment. Merlin trusted me with the most important
assignment of all and I can't even do it. And if I could just tell him, then he'd know there's no way I can get Sophie to destroy that ring and no way for us to win this war if it's all left to me.”

Guinevere raised her brows. “Convenient he left, then, isn't it?”

Agatha was thinking the same thing.

No one else seemed as concerned by Merlin's absence, perhaps assuming that he was off forging a flawless plan to take on Evil. But once another dinner came and went without the wizard returning, panic began to set in.

“We're running out of time and we can't fight all of Evil by ourselves!” Hort fretted, as he, Agatha, Tedros, and the three witches shared a midnight snack of chocolate cookies (they started as gingersnaps before Dot had her way with them). “For one thing, we don't even have weapons! Lancelot hardly had use for them out here, so all we have are a couple of his rusty old training swords and a few carving knives that won't stop a rat, let alone zombies that can only be killed by fire. What are we supposed to fight with? How are we supposed to win?”

“Win? How do we even
get
to Evil if Merlin doesn't come back to let us through the portal?” said Hester.

Hort gaped at her. He swiveled to Agatha. “This is your fault! You give some highfalutin speech about young and old working together, making us all feel guilty, when Merlin never even told us the plan!”

“
My
fault?” Agatha shot back. “Merlin said ‘Leave it to me' as if he'd return with some giant army to fight behind us!
How was I suppose to know that a week later, there's no Merlin and no army—”

“And there'll
be
no army,” said Anadil. “The Ever kingdoms won't help us, remember?”

“It isn't just numbers,” said Hester. “Before we broke Agatha and Tedros into school, we spent weeks with Merlin working out every detail. The stakes are far higher now and he's nowhere to be found.”

“What if he's hurt?” Dot asked, paling. “What if he's
dead
?”

“Don't be stupid!” Tedros huffed. “He'll be back soon. Everything's fine.”

But Agatha noticed the prince was eating his third chocolate cookie, which meant everything wasn't fine at all. She clasped his hand to comfort him and noticed it slick with sweat. Tedros drew it away.

“Hot in here,” he said, even though it wasn't.

Agatha tried to look supportive.

“I'm not scared,” Tedros said loudly. “Even if Merlin doesn't come back, I'll command the Lady of the Lake to let us through. I can lead this war all on my own!”

“After Lancelot beats you into another pile of crap, you mean,” snorted Hort.

Tedros ignored him and took another cookie.

Through the archway, Agatha could see the old heroes gathered around the dining room table, the tiny, paired-up figurines still in place on the surface. The League members were no doubt having a similar conversation about Merlin's disappearance.

“I say we all go to sleep,” Dot yawned. “Sleep always fixes things.”

No one had a better plan.

Hours later, Agatha curled up in a blanket on the floor of the guest room, listening to the house rumble with every tone of snore and snuffle imaginable. She'd given the bed to Dot, Anadil, and Hester, who spooned and slept on each other like puppies, occasionally knocking one of their pillows down onto Agatha's head.

It wasn't like she could sleep anyway. All she could think about was whether Merlin had made a fatal mistake leaving her and Tedros in this safe house for so long. It'd been almost three weeks since the Lady of the Lake had stashed them here. They'd been lulled into the languid pace and tranquility of Guinevere and Lancelot's life, forgetting that out in the Woods, legendary heroes were dead and Readers like her were losing their faith in Good. Here on the moors, the sun was strong and bright, the food was plentiful, and they were safe from Evil . . . while in real life, darkness was falling, an Evil army was rising, and her best friend was fighting at the School Master's side. What would it be like when they went back through the portal? Would she and Tedros be ready for what they'd find?

If they went back through the portal, that is.

If Merlin ever returned for them.

Her heart flurried faster and she knew that if she didn't find a way to sleep now, she wouldn't sleep at all. She pulled her blanket tighter, about to roll over—

Only there was something odd about the blanket. It was
thicker than usual, with furry, velvety fabric that smelled like a musty cabinet. As her eyes adjusted to the dark, she saw the purple inseam . . . the lining stitched with silver stars . . .

Agatha gasped.

Chest pounding, she yanked the wizard's cape over her head and felt herself floating through violet sky before she landed softly on a cloud . . .

Merlin was waiting for her.

Agatha sat cross-legged in white mist beside him, her shoulder touching his. For a short while, neither of them said a word, basking in the vast silence of the Celestium. Just being next to the wizard again made Agatha feel calmer, even if he did look alarmingly thin.

“Where have you been?” she asked finally.

“Visiting a dear old friend.”

“For six days?”

“We would have stayed together far longer if we had the time,” said Merlin wistfully. “I do wish I had my hat, though. Never realized how difficult it is to procure a decent meal without magic. I suppose that's why people find companions eventually; it makes it easier to manage the burden of food when there's two of you. Then again, living life alone comes with its benefits. Like learning self-reliance or traveling on a whim or washing your hair only once a year.”

Agatha waited for him to get to the point.

“It is marvelous up here, isn't it?” he sighed, gazing into star-spattered emptiness. “Almost makes me forget the things I've seen—Good's old heroes, slain and discarded, their bodies
left in the Woods to rot. Some as famous as Thumbelina and Aladdin, others never known by their proper name, but only as the ‘Clever Tailor' or the ‘Wily Beggar Boy.' I buried as many of them as I could, but we'll have to give them proper graves in the Garden of Good and Evil when the time comes.”

A haunted sadness clouded his face, his thoughts still somewhere in the Woods. Agatha knew she should be just as sad for these dead heroes, and yet, all she could think about was finding a way not to join them.

“Merlin,” Agatha prodded gently. “You are aware that you left us here and never explained how to beat an army twenty times our size—”

“I'm well aware, Agatha. But what's most important to me now is whether you've made any progress in how you're going to convince Sophie to destroy her ring.”

“I can't do it, Merlin. You told us that Sophie has to destroy the ring by choice. Threatening to kill her doesn't give her a choice at all, nor does it seem Good.”

“Is
that
how Cinderella told you to get Sophie to destroy the ring?” Merlin said, aghast.

“Um, she spent the last five days trying to get me to torture the White Rabbit.”

Merlin groaned. “Should have known that's why she wanted Dovey's wand. A bit of a guerrilla, that girl; no doubt a product of her upbringing. Yes, I'm afraid bullying your best friend to get what you want isn't just morally questionable, but utterly useless. As I've said, the School Master is only destroyed if
Sophie
destroys the ring. If Sophie dies without destroying
the ring, the School Master loses his true love in body, but not in spirit. Meaning he'll lose his immortality and be mortal like the rest of us, but still very much alive, with an army of villains at his command, and nearly impossible to kill. Hardly the end that we seek.”

He paused thoughtfully. “And yet Cinderella is onto something. Sophie is Evil's queen now. You will not convince her to destroy the ring by appealing to her Goodness. You have to confront the deepest Evil in her and prove she has a reason to do so.”

Agatha looked at him.

“But you will only have one chance,” said the wizard. “Use it
wisely.
”

Agatha thought about what she'd do with this one chance . . . but still, nothing came.

“Merlin, before you left, you said the School Master is looking for something in Gavaldon. Something that will destroy Good forever. Do you know what it is yet?”

“I'm afraid I've been as successful with my assignment as you with yours,” the wizard smiled dryly. “And yet, I keep coming back to something you said to me when we were traveling to Avalon. That the School Master suggested it was
Sophie
who would destroy Good in the end . . . not him.”

Agatha remembered what Rafal told her in Evil's museum. “He said the most dangerous person in a fairy tale is the one willing to do anything for love.”

Merlin tugged at his beard, spectacles slipping down his nose.

“Do you think it has something to do with Sophie's mother?” Agatha nudged. “We never did find where her body is. Could the School Master have her?”

“Perhaps it has do with Sophie's mother or perhaps it has to do with much, much more,” said Merlin. “Remember what I told you the last time we were here. For hundreds of years, Good has had love on its side, making Good invincible against Evil. But
why
? Because the School Master killed his own brother in the pursuit of power, proving that Evil could never love. To balance that one terrible deed, the Storian has made Good win every single story, as long as it has real love on its side. But now that Rafal has Sophie as his queen, he believes that her love is finally enough to redeem the murder of his brother.”

“But that doesn't make any sense,” Agatha countered. “Even if he does have Sophie's love, that doesn't erase the fact he killed his own blood.”

“Precisely,” said Merlin. “So the question remains: what is it he expects Sophie to do for him at the end of this story? Does he think
she
can redeem that original sin? And if so . . . is that why he chose Sophie as his true love in the first place?”

Agatha's gut twisted. “Merlin, whatever it is he's planning, we can't win. Not without help. Don't you understand? We're just a few students and rickety old heroes!”

Merlin wasn't listening. “What if we have the whole story wrong, Agatha?” he said softly. “What if he can prove killing his brother was never a crime at all? That love is the greatest Evil instead of the greatest Good? What then?” His body
straightened. “Then Good would become Evil and Evil would become Good, wouldn't it? Just like he promised . . .”

Agatha shook her head. “Merlin, you're not making any sense—”

He flinched as if he suddenly remembered she was there. “This was thoughtless, wasn't it, bringing you here in the middle of the night when you haven't had a wink of sleep, especially with all that's to come. Come, come, off to bed—every minute counts—”

Agatha frowned. “But wait, how are we supposed to fight him? How are we supposed to . . .”