Sophie grabbed at her: “Aggie! Why are we here!”
But her hand went through her friend like a ghost, Agatha continuing to move along the sludge, heading towards a blond girl in a black leather dress, farther down the tunnel . . .
Me, Sophie realized.
This isn’t now.
This is before.
When Agatha found her in the dungeon.
Quickly Sophie chased after Agatha, catching up to her just as her friend pulled the old Sophie out of the cell.
“You okay?” Agatha was panting. “Why are you in here?”
Sophie’s past self stammered, her skin damp: “S-s-sorry, I didn’t mean for you to . . .”
But Agatha wasn’t looking at the old Sophie anymore. She was looking over her shoulder into the dungeon. Agatha’s eyes narrowed before she closed the grating, hugging her chest to it, making sure it was shut—
Except now the scene magically pivoted, like a projection rotating on itself, allowing Sophie to see what was happening on the other side of the grating, inside the cell . . .
A shadow, crouched on the floor, seizing onto Agatha’s wrist and handing her a mirror through the grate.
And on this mirror, a message etched in dust:
MY OFFICE
5 PM
Agatha hid the mirror in her dress before spinning on her heel and ushering Sophie out of the sewers, that strange, spooked look on Agatha’s face that Sophie remembered—
But now the scene was vanishing, the secret exposed, as Sophie felt herself pulled back into Professor Sader’s office, her head faint and blood throttling, her eyes flying to the desk . . . the food crumbs and soggy books and bad penmanship that hadn’t belonged to Professor Sader at all . . . but to the boy who had taken over as History Professor once the old seer was gone . . .
My Office.
My.
Slowly Sophie turned to Agatha, her heart on fire, her body shaking so hard she couldn’t see straight.
Agatha nodded towards the broom closet.
Sweat dripped off Sophie’s palms. Every step she took seemed as if she was taking eight steps back, like she was clinging to the fringes of a dream just when she was waking up. She couldn’t breathe, her hand grasping for the closet door, stuttering onto the knob, turning it the wrong way, then the right way, the jamb stuck before she shot it with a spell, blasting the door off its hinges, the darkness inside overwhelmed with light—
Sophie dropped the mirror, shattering the glass.
Every shard reflected him.
He was skinnier than before, weakly pale in a thin black shirt and black breeches, his hair dark and jagged, his arms and legs cut up and heavy white bandages peeking out from his shoulders and chest. But his eyes were strong, hot with life and locked on Sophie, as if he was afraid to blink.
“It’s a trick . . . ,” Sophie croaked. “It’s impossible . . .”
The boy stepped out of the closet.
“Every good story needs a little impossible,” said Hort. “Otherwise no one would believe it.”
Sophie’s legs jellied, the distance between them feeling as wide as an ocean.
“I’ll leave you two,” said Agatha at the door—
“Aggie?” Sophie gasped.
Agatha looked back at her, her eyes shining with happy tears, brimming with love. And suddenly, Sophie realized that she had it all wrong. Agatha would do anything for her. She always had. She always would. And on this, her wedding day, it wasn’t her own happy ending that Agatha had been determined to make happen. It was her best friend’s.
Agatha gave her a wink, then closed the door behind her.
Sophie swallowed, struggling to focus on Hort, as if gazing into the sun. “How?”
“Kept myself alive just long enough to be rescued,” he said. “An old friend found me, who happened to be an expert in forest survival. Nursed me back to health.”
“An old friend? Who?” Sophie asked.
“I mean . . . really, really old,” said Hort, nodding out the window.
Sophie peeked through and glimpsed a wrinkled, bearded gnome on the lawn, swatting at Neverboys with his staff: “Eating the wedding cake! Hooligans! Yuba is back! Shipshape! Shipshape!”
“This whole time, Yuba was searching for missing files on Rhian and Japeth from the Living Library,” Hort said behind her. “Never found them, but he found Aladdin’s mirror in a Pasha Dunes pawnshop. Tedros must have lost the mirror in the desert before one of the Sultan’s soldiers sold it off, not realizing what it was. I had a plan to use the mirror, to bring you into my secrets, but then Agatha showed up and ruined everything as usual . . . so I had to improvise . . .”
This is real, Sophie thought.
This is happening.
She turned back, taking Hort in, finally letting herself believe it. “I thought I’d lost you . . . I thought you were dead . . . ,” she rasped, moving towards him. She reached for him—
“Wait,” he said, drawing back. He turned away, his face quivering. “There’s something I need to tell you.”
Sophie’s stomach wrenched.
She’d been waiting for it.
Her happy endings always came with a catch.
Tears slid onto Hort’s cheeks. “The wolf part of me,” he said quietly. “The wolf that was shot in the tree . . .” He couldn’t look at her. “It’s . . . dead.”
Sophie went still.
“The part of me you liked. The strong part. The beast. My wounds were too great for it to survive,” Hort confessed, his voice broken. “It’s just me now. Weaselly old me. And I know that isn’t enough for you.”
Sophie didn’t say anything for a moment. She stood taller on her heels. “No, it isn’t enough for me.”
Hort hung his head.
Tears frosted Sophie’s eyes, watching him. “It’s more than enough.”
He froze, slowly raising his chin.
“You’ve always been enough, Hort of Bloodbrook,” said Sophie. “You, who are strong enough to die for the girl you love and still find your way back to her. You. Bold, big-hearted, beautiful you. It’s me who wasn’t enough. Me who kept searching for fantasy love instead of real love. It’s me who didn’t deserve you.” She touched his cheek. “Until I opened my heart big enough and found you there, waiting patiently, a piece of me all along.”
She kissed him, holding on to him tight, his lips so soft and perfect they felt like home. Where they would go from here, who they would become, she didn’t know, the two of them bound by nothing except their feelings for each other and thankfulness for this moment. For the first time, Sophie didn’t need to know the future to be happy. She didn’t need promises or princes or a storybook life. All she wanted was the most ordinary of ends: to love with all of her heart and to be loved the same way in return.
Their mouths parted, Sophie taking in air. “Should we go and tell the others?” she asked, moving for the door.
“Not yet,” said Hort, locking it sharply. “They can wait.”
Sophie grinned as he came for her. “Who says the beast is dead?”
TEDROS WAS TEMPTED to peek into Sader’s office and see Hort in the flesh, but from the scene Agatha had described to him and the rapture between Sophie and her weasel . . . better he didn’t.
Leave it to Agatha to execute the perfect love plot on the day of her own wedding, Tedros thought, heading through a glass breezeway, dressed in a white-and-gold suit and matching white boots, his golden hair perfectly arranged, his heart pumping with happiness. Happiness that he’d kissed his bride before he’d left her with the nymphs to get ready. Happiness that Hort was alive and on the way to recovery. Happiness that Agatha could get married, knowing her best friend had found love. And happiness for Sophie, who he no longer thought of as a thorn in his side, but as a true, irreplaceable friend. His castle would be open to her always, his once-nemesis now part of his family, and no doubt fresh challenges would arise in the course of his reign where the King of Camelot would call upon the Witch of Woods Beyond for her help.