“Now she’s stealing my lines,” said the boy, wrestling her playfully. “Did you really think I was dead for good?”
“I still haven’t forgiven you for it,” Agatha said, trying in vain to pin him. “What if I had died from the sheer shock and then you came back to life?”
“Dunno. Marry Sophie instead?”
Agatha smacked him. Tedros pinned her. They kissed passionately on the cold marble floor.
“Oh, kill me now,” a voice grouched—
Agatha and Tedros turned to see Beatrix tramp in with Reena and Kiko.
“Romping like rabbits while we manage the wedding,” said Beatrix.
“You?” Agatha asked. “I thought Sophie was in charge!”
“Sophie went running off right when we were doing decorations,” said Reena. “Professor Anemone helped us instead.”
“And the witches,” Kiko chimed.
“Witches,” said Tedros, his face clouding. “Helping with wedding decorations . . .”
“But why would Sophie run off?” Agatha pressed. “Did anyone see where she went?”
“Towards the Doom Room, last I saw,” said Reena.
Agatha sat up. “The Doom Room?”
“YOU OKAY?” AGATHA panted, pulling Sophie out of the dungeon cell. “Why are you in here?”
Sophie stammered, her skin damp: “S-s-sorry, I didn’t mean for you to . . .”
But Agatha wasn’t looking at her anymore, her gaze over Sophie’s shoulder into the Doom Room. Agatha’s eyes narrowed before she closed the grating, hugging her chest to it, making sure it was shut.
“What is it?” Sophie asked.
“Come on,” Agatha said, dragging her down the tunnels. “This place gives me the spooks.”
Sophie expected her friend to hound her as to why she’d gone to the dungeons or at the very least berate her for abandoning the wedding planning that Sophie herself had volunteered for. But Agatha was quiet, as if in rescuing Sophie from her ghosts, her friend had seen a ghost herself.
Finally Agatha turned to her. “What time is it?”
“Nearly four, I think,” said Sophie.
“At five, I need to get ready,” said Agatha. “I used the castle tunnels to come here, so I haven’t seen the decorations yet. Maybe we should check on them. Heard the witches are involved . . .”
Sophie’s eyes flashed. “Prepare for war.”
They surfaced from the sewers and hustled up the banks of the bay towards the sun-gilded grass in front of Good’s castle—
Both girls stopped.
The Great Lawn had turned into a feast of color. Everywhere they looked, bubbles of red and blue and gold light floated through the air like lanterns, a few filled with tuxedoed frogs playing a bright waltz on tiny violins. Professor Emma Anemone cast more glowing orbs, the Beautification teacher draped in a yellow gown with a pattern of tiny diamond mirrors. She was helped by a coterie of Evers, Bodhi, Laithan, Priyanka included, dressed in their finest clothes for the wedding, while Professor Anemone led them in blossoming more brilliant bubbles from lit fingers: “Fill your hearts with love and well-wishes for our new king and queen and the beauty will show in your work! Bert, Beckett! Those better not be dungbombs!”
Meanwhile, a stained-glass altar gleamed atop the hill, which Aja and Valentina carved with rich fairy-tale scenes: Agatha and Tedros battling witch Sophie at the No Ball . . . Sophie beheading Rafal . . . Sophie as the Sugar Queen—
“What is this foolishness!” Professor Sheeba Sheeks yelped. “This is the wedding of Tedros and Agatha! Not a valediction to Sophie!”
“But Sophie is the best,” said Aja.
Down the hill were columns of red, blue, and gold seats, which Willam and Bogden wove through, both boys in ruffled blue suits, placing name cards on cushions. They saved the best seats for C. R. R. Teapea of Gnomeland, Queen Jacinda of Jaunt Jolie, Maid Marian of Nottingham, Golem of Pifflepaff Hills, followed by rows for the faculty of the School for Good and Evil. Behind the teachers was a section for Teapea’s gnomes, a testament to their help in fighting the Snake, followed by rows for all students of the school, Ever and Never. Then the seats for journalists and artists, who would document the wedding, along with room for families of students as well as Camelot maids and staff. And way, way, way in the back, sunken and teetering at the lake’s edge, were chairs for the leaders of the Kingdom Council.
“EXCUSE ME!” Castor boomed, assessing their seating plan from atop Honor Tower. “YOU’RE PUTTIN’ THE KINGS AND QUEENS OF THE WOODS, THE 99 LEADERS OF THE FOUNDING REALMS, BEHIND FIRST YEARS AND PEONS AND A BUNCHA GNOMES, WITH SEATS HALF IN THE LAKE, SO THEY CAN’T CATCH ANYTHIN’ OF THE WEDDING BUT SOGGY KNICKERS?”
Willam and Bogden looked up. “Yes,” they chorused.
Castor grinned. “Good lads.”
Between the columns of seats was an aisle of white silk, aglow in more floating bubbles of color, filled with lovebirds singing along to the frog’s symphony. Hester popped a bubble, the bird inside shrieking and fleeing past the black-clad witch.
“Couldn’t help it,” Hester said as her demon whittled an ice sculpture of Agatha in a fierce warrior pose.
“How’s this?” Anadil asked, in matching black across the aisle, her rats chiseling an ice statue of a short boy with clownish curls and a wide, grotesque smile.
“Looks like an overeager dwarf,” said Hester.
“But this is what Tedros looks like,” Anadil maintained.
A blast of glow hit the sculpture, coating it smooth and milky white, obscuring its worst details.
“Chocolate solves everything,” Dot trumped, arriving in a voluminous, bright pink gown with an explosion of bows. She zapped Hester’s statue with a white chocolate sheen too. “And it goes better with the theme. Unlike your outfits. Who wears black to a wedding?”
“Witches with dignity,” said Hester.
“Witches who don’t want to look like they fell out of a flamingo,” Anadil echoed.
“Well, now that I’m young again, I want to enjoy it,” Dot vowed. “Get enough darkness and pointless cynicism hanging around you two. Oh, look. Aggie! Sophie! Why are you hiding!”
Dot spied the girls beneath the hill and hustled towards them.
How quickly things turn from dark to light, Agatha thought, the sun sending glittering shivers up Good’s glass spires. She soaked in the sumptuous scene, a wedding in full bloom. No more dark edges lurking. No more tests to pass. Just color and chaos and love.
Sophie clasped her best friend’s hand.
“You’re getting married, Aggie,” Sophie said softly.
Agatha saw nothing but happiness and joy in her friend’s eyes, as if this was Ever After enough for them both. Which was a testament to how much Sophie loved her, Agatha thought. Because Sophie had lost her happy ending, just as Agatha had won hers.
“Oh, not you too in black,” Dot chided Sophie, sweeping in.
“Everyone can wear what they wish,” Agatha corrected, for Sophie had been wearing funeral colors for several days now. “All that matters is we’re here together.”
“For now,” said Hester, appearing with Anadil. “Ani, Dot, and I were thinking about what comes after the wedding.”