The Last Ever After (48 page)

Sophie couldn't find air. “You . . . I heard you . . .”

Agatha and Tedros were just as floored.
That's why Merlin was gone all week
, Agatha thought.
That was the old friend he said he was visiting . . .

Hester, Anadil, and Dot weren't his real spies.

“It was Lady Lesso,” said Sophie, realizing it too. “She was the spy all along—”

“Playing Evil's fervent champion and your loyal mentor until I needed her. And with your return to Evil and the darkening of the Woods, that time finally came,” said Merlin.

“You are a fool, old man, if you think a bitter, feckless hag of a Dean can make a difference in your fate,” Rafal sneered.

“Given Lady Lesso has been Evil's greatest Dean of all, I'll
happily play the fool,” said the wizard. “For even she knows that Evil cannot exist without Good, the two of them in constant tension, refining and defining each other as nature's balance. Try to erase Good and you only tilt the balance more in Good's favor. Which means despite all your efforts, you haven't made Evil the new Good at all. . . . You've made Evil as old as it ever was.”

The wizard smiled at Rafal. “And it seems you've trained your stymphs all too
well
.”

He let out a piercing wolf whistle and with a rousing war cry two-hundred strong, the students leapt astride the birds and dive-bombed the birds off the trees, launching flaming arrows at the old villains—

Arrow blades ripped through their targets, igniting zombie bodies on fire.

Chaddick spiraled his stymph straight into the Dark Army, skewering three ogres with a single arrow . . . Beatrix managed a flying loop before she sparked fire to Snow White's witch with an arrow to the neck . . . Arachne took out a cyclops' eye with a straight shot and spinning dive . . .

Agatha watched a fleet of Nevers spray arrows into more zombie heads, utterly flabbergasted. Neither stymph-flying nor archery was ever taught at school. How had students as bumbling as Brone or Mona or Millicent become bird-riding, weapon-firing warriors in a
week
?

But it was only when Agatha saw Kiko, flying wildly with absolutely no direction, her hand puttering on her bow, unleashing an arrow miles off target, that Agatha realized
what was really happening. For all of a sudden, Kiko's stymph magically leveled and her arrow magically veered, before tearing through a troll's throat and setting him aflame.

Slowly Agatha looked up to see Merlin high up in his tree, waving his palms like a symphony conductor, managing the stymph and arrow flights of his Ever-Never army with a sorcerer's touch.
Leave it to me
, he'd insisted all along. For if the School Master would bring forth an army under his control, so too would Merlin.

He swished his arms once more and four unmanned stymphs with bows and fiery arrows in their mouths throttled towards the ground, scooping Hester, Anadil, Dot, and Hort onto their backs, who immediately began taking aim at zombie targets and letting arrows fly.

“If Daddy could see me now . . . ,” Dot cheered, lancing a headless horseman through the chest.

“He'd ask why we're fighting for Good,” Anadil crabbed, taking out two Harpies.

“Always the party pooper, Ani,” said Hester, firing arrows as her demon flung firebolts from its mouth, igniting zombies on the spot.

“No wonder Good always wins,” Hort marveled as he flew above them, watching Merlin correct the witches' shots. “You guys cheat!”

For a moment, Agatha felt a surge of relief, knowing the wizard was in command of Good's whole army—well, almost the whole army. The old heroes were trying to charge into the fray, but were held back to the trees by Princess Uma, Yuba,
the White Rabbit, and Tinkerbell, who knew even one of their deaths would break the Readers' shield. Meanwhile, Lancelot yelled for the wizard to help him off the tree, but Merlin was so distracted trying to orchestrate his army that he flicked his hand in the knight's direction and accidentally buried the sword deeper into his shoulder. As Lancelot hollered in pain, Agatha started towards him, but stopped short—

Tedros.

Where was Tedros?

She whirled to see him, Excalibur in hand, charging towards Rafal, whose back was turned. Agatha held in a scream as Tedros raised his sword—

Rafal spun just in time, shooting a bomb of black glow which Tedros barely deflected with his blade.

“Always so impulsive, little prince,” the young School Master snorted. “And now you've taken yourself into battle against someone who can't be
killed.
”

“When I'm done, you'll be in so many pieces, I'd like to see you
try
to put yourself back together!” Tedros roared.

As the two clashed viciously, Rafal firing more death spells and Tedros repelling them, Agatha could see her prince already losing ground. The School Master was rifling spells so fast and blasting away trees with such force that Tedros was diving behind stumps to avoid being toasted alive.

Agatha couldn't breathe. Her prince was going to die. She had to help him!
But how?
The School Master was invincible. There was no way to save Tedros unless—

The ring.

She looked up urgently and saw Sophie, crimson with rage, firing spells at stymph birds and crashing them with their riders to the ground. Sophie sensed something and froze still, before she turned and saw Agatha glowering at her . . . at the ring on her finger . . . her jaw set with determination. Slowly the two friends locked eyes.

Sophie took off, fleeing through the Forest.

Agatha started chasing, then heard Tedros cry with pain. She whirled and saw him crawling through flaming bodies, clutching his singed arm, as he tried to dodge Rafal's spells.

At the same time, the Dark Army was starting to regain a foothold in battle, thanks to Jack's giant, knocking down stymphs with his fist, while Captain Hook slashed his weapon, sending students careening to the ground. Merlin's gestures were increasingly frantic, and he had the same anxious look that he'd had when he'd lost control of his fairy-dust train.

Agatha swiveled to Tedros and saw him using a stymph corpse as a shield against Rafal, as the School Master closed in. Petrified, Agatha spun and saw Sophie getting farther away—

Either she went to help Tedros or she went after the ring.

She looked up to the sun's glow sinking in the dead-east. There wasn't much time—

“Let me free!” Lancelot's voice ripped through the chaos. “The boy'll die without me!”

Agatha's eyes veered to him, speared to the tree. The knight was caked with blood, his hair ragged and beast-like, his face filled with primal rage.

“
I
fight,” he snarled at her. “
You
go after her.”

Agatha knew there wasn't an argument. In a heartbeat, she hurdled over burning bodies and yanked the sword out of the knight's shoulder.

Lancelot howled in agony and relief before he stumbled forward and snatched the sword out of her hands.

“Get her back here,” he panted, squeezing her arm hard.

“But Tedros . . . what about Ted—”

“He'll be here, safe and sound, with Excalibur ready to destroy the ring when you return. I promise you, Agatha: I
will
keep the boy safe. But we need you to bring Sophie back,” Lancelot pressed. “Don't fail me and I won't fail you. Understood?”

Agatha nodded, breathless.

He shoved her away and she hurtled after Sophie into the trees. She peeked over her shoulder at Tedros, trying to repel Rafal's death spells with a broken stymph bone, before she saw Lancelot storming towards them, the gang of old heroes at his back.

“Do we fight or do we cower!” Lancelot yelled.

“We fight!”
the League roared.

They followed him into battle as Agatha ran away from it, Good's last and only hope to survive.

32
The Meaning of Evil

W
ith the light of the black fairies and flaming arrows illuminating her path, Agatha launched after Sophie, who was sprinting eastwards towards the edge of the Stymph Forest. Sophie had a good thirty-yard lead on her, but the farther she ran, the more the lights receded from the Good-Evil war, and soon Sophie was stumbling through the dark in her black-leather catsuit, trying to find her way out of the Woods.

“Wait!” Agatha shouted, unable to see her anymore. If
she lost Sophie here, she'd never find her before the sun set. “Sophie—”

A pink blast of light blazed towards her head and Agatha dove just in time. She looked up to see Sophie racing ahead.

Where is she going?
Agatha thought, holding out her own gold fingerglow like a lantern.

But then she saw it, through the gaps of skeletal branches overhead . . . the outlines of the two school castles.

Agatha stopped cold.

Sophie was Queen of Evil. She could open and close the school gates now, like any of the teachers. Which meant if Sophie crossed before Agatha caught her, she'd slam the gates shut.

Agatha exploded forward, trying to make up ground, as the two of them broke out of the Woods and into a grove of purple, giant-thorned trees separating the Stymph Forest from the School for Good and Evil. The lethal-sharp thorns stirred languidly, as if woken from a deep sleep, and Agatha knew she only had seconds before they spotted her. Ahead, Sophie was nearing the school gates, but Agatha suddenly couldn't see her anymore as deadly thorns started stabbing down in front of her like falling stalactites.

“Sophie!
”

Agatha hurdled and dodged thorns, feeling the ground caving in as more and more thorns smashed holes around her. A thorn sliced from the left and she slid beneath it, only to have one gash her arm from the right; Agatha bit back the pain and fumbled forward, eyes locked on Sophie as the gates magically
opened for her and started slatting shut the second she surged through. Agatha skidded towards them, still ten yards away, knowing she wasn't going to make it. The gate was closing too fast—

She glanced back and saw another thorn lashing down like a wave, about to impale her against the closing gates—

Only one play to make.

With a gasp, Agatha turned towards the thorn. Just as it hit her heart, she skirted its edge and leapt onto its side, like a hapless Tarzan, as the thorn reared up in surprise over the school gates. Agatha clung to the leathery purple thorn stem for dear life, swinging her legs through the air as she glanced down at the knife-edged gate spikes beneath her. The thorn coiled and flapped higher, about to shake her off. This was her last chance—

Agatha dug her nails into the stem, kicked her legs for momentum and flung herself off the thorn, over the gates, and shielded her head before she landed hard on her tailbone in a pine shrub. Any elation at being alive was scrubbed out by her throbbing backside. She lumbered to her feet to chase Sophie once more—

Agatha froze.

Sophie glared back at her from the shores of Halfway Bay.

Before Agatha could move, a pink spell slammed into her chest, flattening her to the ground.

The shock of being attacked with a stun spell by her best friend gave way to an onslaught of pain. It was as if she'd been stomped on by an elephant or bashed in the chest by a streaking
comet. For a second, she forgot who and where she was. All she could think about was air and finding a way to get it inside of her, but her lungs were paralyzed, rejecting her breaths. She tried to inhale through her mouth, but her ears were ringing with a tone so shrill and piercing that she clenched her teeth and closed her eyes, waiting for it to end. It only got louder, compounded by crippling nausea. Every second brought a new surprise, like a house of horrors, until she realized the biggest, most obvious problem of all: she couldn't
move
.

She tried to crack open her eyes and see what was behind her, but her head felt like it'd been hacked open with an axe. Her field of vision was upside-down and shaky, her eyes watering too much to see any more than a dim, blurry fog. All she could make out through the quaking darkness was a blur of green coming off Halfway Bay—

And a black shadow, upside-down, running through it towards the old Evil castle.

Agatha could feel her heart trying in vain to pump blood to her muscles. Sophie . . . she had to follow Sophie. . . .

Only she was still nailed to the dirt.

How long do stun spells last?

She'd seen students recover from them easily in Yuba's class and during the past two Trials. That's why the teachers never taught a counterspell: stunning was so innocuous that even the most belligerent first year couldn't wreak havoc with it. So what had Sophie possibly done to make this spell so noxious and hateful . . .

Magic follows emotion
.

Agatha's breaths shallowed. Sophie had hit her with everything raging inside of her: fury, frustration, revenge . . . she'd turned an ordinary spell into a missile of hate.

And there was only one counterspell to hate.

Magic follows emotion.

Agatha pictured her beautiful, brave prince in the Stymph Forest, fighting a deadly School Master. She focused on valiant Lancelot, who just wanted to go home to his one true love. She thought of noble, incorrigible old heroes, rushing into battle to repel old villains, who were starting to gain the upper hand. She looked up into the sky and watched the faint plumes of smoke blowing in from a shield over Gavaldon she couldn't let break . . .

They need me.

They need me to destroy the ring.

Gold heat surged to her fingertip and a rush of air inflated her chest. With a cry of pain, she curled up into a fetal position and lurched to her knees.

For the first few paces, she could only crawl, her vision so misty and poor that she almost floundered straight into the bay's lethal slime. Squinting up the hill at the old Evil castle, she could see Sophie propelling through the main doors. Agatha knew how vast the inside of Evil castle was; if Sophie got too far ahead, she'd never find her before nightfall—

Panicked, she glanced up at the sky over the bay and saw the needlepoint glow sinking east.

A couple hours at most.

Agatha willed her way to her feet, her hands and arms
still locked up, her legs still spasming with pain. She limped past the bay, lumbered up the muddy hill towards the castle entrance, and shambled through the wide open doors. She'd find her. . . . She
had
to find her . . .

Her feet staggered onto the stone floor of the foyer before she slid down a wall of old portraits, drained of strength.

The castle was dead quiet, with the only sound a leaky drip that trickled down the portrait frames.

Sophie was long gone.

Head hammering, Agatha scanned the deserted halls off the foyer . . . the stairs in the anteroom leading to the towers . . .

I can't move. Not anymore.

How can I find her if I can't move?

She leaned against the wall, trying not to panic, trying to see straight—

Voices.

She heard voices. Carrying softly from the other side of the tall double doors at the end of the stair room.

Nauseous with pain, Agatha squirmed forward on her stomach like a seal, her hands and arms still paralyzed. Pouring sweat, she shoved her face to the doors and peeked through the gap between them.

Inside the dark Theater of Tales, Lady Lesso and Professor Clarissa Dovey were kneeling on the stone stage, hovering over the giant crack, revealing the deep, frozen Brig of Betrayers beneath. Thick, glowing blue mist billowed from inside the glacial dungeon, lighting up the Deans' faces. From her vantage point at the west doors, Agatha could make out Dovey
using her wand to melt one of the ice tombs on a dungeon wall, as Lady Lesso tried to extract Professor Emma Anemone from inside it by hacking at the ice with the tip of her stiletto heel.

“Do the part around her mouth last, Lesso dear,” said Dovey over Professor Anemone's muffled shouts. “I could do without hearing Emma speak until absolutely necessary.”

Dovey's silver bun of hair and beetle-winged, green gown were drenched, no doubt the result of having been freed from her own ice tomb. Yet, her smile was as luminous as ever, as if she'd forgotten her frozen torment the moment she was reunited with her friend and fellow Dean.

Meanwhile, in the back corner of the misty blue pit, Agatha could make out a new addition to the Brig—Aric, tied up and gagged, thrashing on the dungeon's deep, snow-coated floor. Despite his muscles and height, there was nothing intimidating about him now as he whimpered and shivered on his side, “CREEP” still scarred into his forehead.

“Mother, please!” he garbled into his gag, but Lady Lesso ignored him.

“Couldn't we seal him in his dormitory, like we did the other Evil teachers?” Professor Dovey asked, frowning at her sputtering wand. “We just need to keep them out of the way until the war is won—”

“Aric will stay in the Brig,” said Lady Lesso.

“Mother, I'm sorry!” he cried, trying to chew through his gag, but Lady Lesso still wouldn't look at him.

“He is your son, even if he is vile,” Professor Dovey appealed. “And to leave your son in the Brig all alone seems rather—”

“I'm beginning to doubt my decision to free you,” Lady Lesso snapped.

Professor Dovey pursed her lips and refocused on melting the tomb, only to see her wand fizzle again. “Goodness, what
did
Merlin do to my wand? If I hadn't been frozen stiff, I'd never have let that rodent take it from me—”

“Then I would have taken it from you myself,” said Lady Lesso, tightening her braid.

Professor Dovey stared at her.

“Who do you think let the rodent
in
the Brig, Clarissa? Who do you think showed it where you were!” Lady Lesso groaned. “Really, I hope old age doesn't sap my brain as much as it has yours.”

“If it does, I'll be there to remind you what you just said, dear.”

“You'll be
dead,
Clarissa.”

The sound of the two Deans bantering made Agatha want to run to them and tackle them both in a hug, but her arms were still numb and her body crumpled on the floor, too weak to kick open or pound on the door. She tried to scream, but no voice came out, clotted inside her throat.

Helpless, she watched her Good fairy godmother lean over the side of the pit with Lady Lesso and finally pull Professor Anemone from her ice grave, while Aric flailed and sniveled below.

“I still don't see how a Beautification professor is going to help us during
war
,” Lady Lesso panted, as she and Professor Dovey heaved their colleague onto the stone stage before
collapsing on their sides.

“Emma is a
friend
, Lady Lesso,” Clarissa puffed, dabbing at sweat. “A friend who actually had the courtesy of telling me her first name.”