The house plunged to an anxious hush, every last body stuffed behind a wall or chair or chaise or stashed in the kitchen or upstairs, leaving only Sophie standing in the middle of the living room. Agatha scrambled back up, grabbing Sophie’s arm—
“Hide, you goose!” Sophie hissed, burying her friend in a gaggle of gnomes, who were armed with jagged pieces of candy. But Agatha clung to Sophie’s wrist.
“Where’s Tedros?” she pressed.
“Hiding quietly, like you should be!” Sophie said. She wrenched free of Agatha, sweeping towards the foyer in blood-colored silk—
Sophie stopped cold.
“Teddy?” she breathed.
Agatha leapt up.
He was at the door.
His hand on the knob.
Tedros gazed at Agatha.
“Remember your promise,” he said.
Sophie’s eyes shot to her friend: “What promise?”
Tedros had already opened the door.
Sophie and Agatha both dashed for him, stumbling through the mess of candy, Sophie throwing off her veil, Agatha hurtling into the sun first. “Tedros, no!” she cried—
Her prince stood unarmed at the gates, a thousand swords and arrows and spears pointed at him.
The white horse cantered to within a few feet of him, the forest falling quiet as Japeth dismounted, still disguised as his dead brother.
The Snake stared at Sophie and Agatha, frozen at the door to the house.
His focus lowered to the prince.
“One turn at the sword each,” Tedros declared. “Excalibur decides the king.”
The prince reached his hand through the gate.
For a moment, his enemy said nothing.
They just looked at each other, two rivals for a throne.
Truth against Lies. Present against Past. Pen against Man.
All the Woods held its breath.
The Snake’s eyes glittered.
“Excalibur decides the king,” he said.
He took Tedros’ hand.
The deal done.
Arthur’s son and Rafal’s.
Agatha’s legs buckled, Sophie there to catch her, asking again and again in scared whispers what Agatha had promised him, what vow she’d given, but all Agatha could remember was the last time she touched her prince, somewhere in the dark, lost in the smell of bad candy.
30
AGATHA
The Sword and the Lion
When making a deal, one must be specific.
That’s all Agatha could think as she lurched through the streets of Foxwood, yoked to a chain, her mouth gagged with rope. As soon as the terms between Tedros and the Snake were settled—Excalibur to decide the king—Chateau Sugar East was raided by a hundred armies, all of Tedros’ friends captured and bound. The prince said nothing, watching this happen, even as his friends were cuffed into a prisoners’ parade, even as Reaper and his gnomes were kept behind and jailed inside the cottage, even as Tedros’ princess was kicked into the back of the line with Sophie. At their wings were thousands of soldiers marshaling them along, Good and Evil, prodding Tedros’ friends with swords and spears, while Foxwood citizens pelted the rebels with rubbish, chanting “Rhian is King! Rhian is King!” In front of Agatha, a soiled rag smacked Dot in the face, while a rotted peach slapped Agatha’s ear, spurting her cheek with juice.
She remembered one of the first times she’d left the castle at Camelot when she was its new princess, citizens in the village attacking her with mashed hunks of food, rejecting Tedros as king. Back then, Agatha too had her doubts about Tedros. So much had happened since. A Snake unmasked. A Lion brought to light. And yet the people of the Woods were still deep in the dark.
Agatha could hear Sophie’s choked breaths behind her, her friend the last in the chain, her mouth stuffed with King Dutra’s brown scarf, the runty Foxwood king waddling alongside and giving Sophie a boot whenever she slowed, sniping, “Sugar Queen! Ha!” Farther ahead, the witches were chained too, Hester’s demon hemmed by an iron collar around its master’s neck and Anadil’s two rats tied with rope around Anadil’s belly. A grim déjà vu came over Agatha, remembering the last time she, Sophie, and the witches were in a chain gang, captive to pirates who took them to their leader.
That was the first time they’d met the Snake.
Now here they were again in his grip. They had magic at their disposal and the will to fight back, but resistance was futile; they were both outnumbered and irrelevant, the outcome of the tournament confined to a contest between Tedros and the Snake, just as King Arthur had intended. Even Merlin slogged along the chain dutifully, peeking back at Agatha with a glum expression, as if whatever incited the prince to challenge Japeth had been done without consulting him.
Tedros was the only one free, walking at the front of the chain gang, his black coat buttoned up tight, Japeth riding next to him on a white horse. Twelve Camelot soldiers guarded Tedros from the front, crossbows cocked at him, the soldiers shuffling backwards along the last bumpy cobblestones of the square, Agatha terrified that any misstep might trigger one of the bows. Still, Tedros looked impossibly calm, as if he himself had seen the future and picked this path, knowing where it would lead. And yet, Japeth had the same serene expression, towering high over the prince, having seized Tedros’ friends preemptively, as if there could only be one outcome to whom Excalibur would choose.
They couldn’t both be right.
Agatha wanted desperately to trust Tedros’ instincts. No doubt he’d assumed that under fair conditions, in full view of the people, his father’s sword would anoint him king. But the Snake was always one step ahead, just like his own father, and to play by the rules against him was the surest way to lose.
Hoping to calm herself, Agatha looked back at Sophie, but her friend was quailed silently in her white dress, her eyes pinned downwards. She sensed Agatha watching her, about to look up, but Agatha turned, letting her be. It was the same consuming grief she’d seen in Sophie at Snow White’s. She could almost read her friend’s mind: that Hort wouldn’t have stood for this or gone along quietly. He would have erupted into a raging man-wolf and smashed soldiers with his fists and raised holy, apocalyptic hell, no matter what deal Tedros had made. And even though it would have served no use and certainly made things worse, Sophie would have loved him all the more for it.
That Sophie had fallen in love with Hort was as natural as it was surprising. On the one hand, Agatha couldn’t believe it had happened and on the other, she couldn’t fathom it not happening, even after Sophie had rejected the possibility time and time again. Around Hort, Sophie was the Sophiest of all and the Hort the Hortiest, each the deepest version of themselves, bared to each other without shame or fear or regret, and isn’t that what love is? That magical force that makes you more you. The way Agatha made Tedros more Tedros and Tedros made Agatha more Agatha. Sophie had tried to find another equation for love. All the boys she’d loved before were gorgeous or edgy or mystical, but they’d held her back or pushed her towards something she didn’t want or couldn’t be. Hort loved Sophie as herself. And any boy who could love the real Sophie in all her incarnations was the only prince deserving of her love. It just took Hort dying for Sophie to see it.
Tears stung Agatha’s eyes. Is this how the story would end? Sophie stripped of her Ever After and Agatha robbed of her own? Two friends alone again, love found and lost? For a moment, Agatha felt like they’d returned to Gavaldon, she and Sophie pulled through streets of ordinary, tulip-lined cottages . . .