Rising off his head without a sound.
It drifts across the room, five spires of gold, shining in sunlight through the roof, passing over stunned leaders, before Camelot’s crown fits down onto another’s head.
Agatha’s head.
Japeth surges for her, but Sophie blocks him, her fingertip glowing hot pink.
“Bow down, worm,” Sophie hisses.
Then she peeks back at King Agatha, mouthing: “What’s happening?”
Agatha’s eyes stay locked on Japeth.
Baffled guards pivot their weapons between them.
When Agatha speaks, it is with pure fire.
“Here is your liar. Here is your Snake. He stole the blood of the heir and faked being king this whole time.” She holds up a piece of fabric, stained with blood. “Excalibur never chose him. Not the first time. Not now. It chose this. Without it, he’s not king. He’s no one. He’s nothing.”
“More rebel tricks—” Japeth mocks, appealing to the leaders.
“Oh?” says Agatha.
She thrusts the scrap of fabric at Sophie, who’s caught on to the game. Sophie takes Chaddick’s blood into her hand, smiling imperiously as the crown flies from Agatha’s head to her own. Her white dress magically morphs into a coronation gown.
“I could get used to this,” King Sophie says.
King Dutra of Foxwood stumbles to his feet. “Explain this, Rhian!”
“I don’t understand!” Empress Vaisilla cries. “Why would the crown go to them, Rhian—”
“Rhian?” Sophie puffs. “Oh, no, no, no. Rhian is dead.” Her emerald eyes cut through the Snake. “This is Japeth. He killed his twin and has been pretending to be Rhian ever since, like a grand old stooge. All of you are his fools.”
At first, they think she’s joking. Then they see the steel in Sophie’s glare, coupled with the crown on her head . . . The room erupts into commotion, demanding King Rhian respond to the charges and punish the girls’ lies.
I can see Japeth’s cool shell cracking. He wants to turn into the Snake right here, to crucify these girls with a thousand scims. But he can’t give himself away. He’s playing his brother now. His Good, kingly brother.
Japeth turns to his soldiers. “Kill them!”
But they don’t move, even his Camelot pirates stupefied by the crown on Sophie’s head.
Japeth’s facade breaks. He roars with murder, his face monstrous and gnarled. Excalibur out, he rushes at Sophie, for the blood clasped in her hand. Sophie rears in surprise, the scrap of blood fumbled from her palm, into the air, about to catch on Japeth’s sword—
Agatha’s glow scorches the blood, setting it aflame, incinerating it to nothing.
Ashes dangle in the sunlight like dust . . .
Then they’re gone.
So, too, is Camelot’s crown.
Excalibur rips from Japeth’s hands and plunges back into the pile of stone.
No one moves, the house silent as a grave.
Japeth faces Agatha, her gold fingertip still smoking.
“There is only one true heir now. Only one true king,” Agatha says, her voice big as thunder. “A king who warned you. The truth cannot be spoken. It can only be seen.”
A truth Japeth doesn’t see at first.
Then he hears the gasps.
Slowly the Snake turns.
Tedros rises, the Lion, the King, the crown of Camelot glittering in his hair.
Leaders drop to their knees, awed and overcome, a wave of humility and allegiance.
“Long live the King!” Agatha proclaims.
“Long live the King!” the leaders resound.
Tedros steps into the sunlight and pulls Excalibur free, the stone shattering from his force.
His gaze never leaves Japeth.
Arthur’s sword soars out of Tedros’ hands.
It lifts over the Snake, glowing hot red.
Japeth’s eyes widen, reptilian blue—
“Like father, like son,” says the King.
The sword falls.
This time, no mistakes.
32
THE STORIAN
Samsara
When it comes to wedding preparations, a witch can only take so much.
Which is why Sophie was in a dank sewer, her black-spike heels clacking along the path that bordered a river of sludge. When she was Dean, Sophie had tried to make the School for Evil more enticing, fumigating these sewers with sandalwood incense, changing the color of the sludge to a resplendent blue, even turning the dungeons into a nightclub party on Saturday nights for the highest-ranking Nevers. But in her absence at Camelot, Professor Manley had seized control of the school and restored everything to its old, decrepit gloom.
Evelyn Sader’s dress hugged her tightly, refitted into a black leather sheath. Once, she’d have done anything to get the dress off; now, it was her loyal companion, shape-shifting to her moods and desires, like her own version of Hester’s tattoo. If it was up to her, she’d mold the dress into a black vampire gown for the wedding, complete with thigh-high boots, a shimmering red cape, and heavy necklaces laden with blood rubies and signs of the cross.
But that wouldn’t go over well with the groom.
Boys, Sophie sighed, running her fingers over walls, struggling to see down the tunnel. Soon the solid stone turned to rusty grating and Sophie found the keyhole, using her old Dean’s key to pry the door open. She’d wanted to escape the wedding planning for just a moment, to catch her breath and be with her thoughts, but something had compelled her towards the Doom Room, even though she hadn’t the faintest clue why. She only had terrible memories of this torture chamber for wayward Nevers and the big, hairy man-wolf that probed for weaknesses and made nightmares out of them. She still remembered the way he sniffed her hair, his paws stroking her. He’d paid the price in the end. Pushed into the sludge and left to drown. For daring to touch her. For awakening her Evil. The Doom Room had stayed beastless ever since, the punishment of students left to the teachers.
But now she’d felt called back, all these years later. Sophie stood alone in the dark, taking in the bare walls, as if there was still something here for her, something she couldn’t yet see. She closed her eyes, listening to the silence, the creak of the grate, the flit of a moth. Her heartbeat picked up, a tight pitter-patter, as if struggling to keep control. She tried to focus on the river sounds, a thick, soothing rush. But now the sludge had a life of its own, churning faster, harder, its roar thundering in her chest, swallowing her up. Something brushed her ear, the kiss of fur. Heat clawed her body, the threat of an animal’s touch. She tasted tears. “I’m sorry,” she gasped. This is why she’d come: to find her beasts, to make peace with them. The one she’d killed. And the one she couldn’t save. Both had to forgive her if she was to be free. She could feel them now, the two beasts inside her, entwined around her heart, pulling her towards an ending, life or death, she couldn’t know—
A chill hit her.
She startled awake.
Something was there.
In the darkness.
Two coal-black eyes.
“Sophie? Is that you?” a voice echoed.
She turned, a thin shadow coming down the tunnel for her—
Sophie spun back to the dark, her fingerglow lit.
But there was nothing, except the memory of ghosts.