The baby made a gurgling noise and his wards glanced down to see Merlin clutching his tiny hat, lapping up milk, magically bubbling up from inside it.
“Wizard baby, indeed,” Tedros marveled.
Merlin fussed as he finished, wiggling in Agatha’s arms.
“Think you’re supposed to burp him,” said Hort.
“Be my guest,” Agatha said, thrusting Merlin at the weasel.
Tedros intercepted him, taking the baby against his chest and gently thumping his back.
“Hi, M,” he whispered.
The baby belched softly, wrapping a tiny hand around Tedros’ thumb and the other around Agatha’s. Princess and prince couldn’t help but smile at each other.
“Thought you two were supposed to get married first,” said Hort sourly. “You know. Before having a baby.”
Agatha shot him a look.
“Thank the stars I wasn’t an Ever,” Hort grouched. “Zero sense of humor.”
“Mama,” the baby said, clamoring for Agatha.
“Think he likes you better,” Tedros said, parceling him back to his princess. Agatha reached out, taking him—
The baby disappeared.
Everything disappeared.
Agatha was alone in the Celestium, the sky purple around her.
A bearded man sat beside her on a cloud, returned to full age.
“Merlin?” Agatha said, stunned.
The old wizard didn’t look at her. Instead, he gazed straight ahead . . . at a sky full of stars, rearranging into a constellation . . . a pattern Agatha recognized . . . a symbol she’d seen only a short while before . . .
Merlin turned to her.
“Think like me,” said the wizard.
Then he was gone.
The Celestium too.
Agatha was back at the inn, inside a muggy, dim room, her prince at her side, a baby in her arms.
Except the wizard child was watching her now, with a cryptic smile.
You did that, Agatha thought.
Merlin smiled wider.
“What is it?” Tedros asked, confused by Agatha’s silence. Clearly, neither he nor Hort had been transported. Neither had seen what she had.
Quickly, the princess lit her fingerglow. She drew it in the air with slashes of gold . . . the pattern she’d found inside Marian’s Arrow and now again in the Celestium . . . the clue that both Robin Hood and Merlin had wanted her to see . . .
“This,” she said, swiveling to the boys. “What is it?”
Hort and Tedros exchanged glances.
“Crest with geese on it . . . ,” Hort pondered. “Putsi?”
“Definitely Putsi,” said Tedros, before looking at Agatha. “Why?”
Agatha looked down at the baby, staring right at her.
Think like me.
Think like me.
Think like—
Agatha’s heart thumped.
Putsi.
Now she remembered.
That file.
The one they’d dismissed.
That’s where she’d seen the kingdom’s name.
Deceased.
Buried in Vault 41.
Bank of Putsi.
“Sir Kay’s file. The one in the Living Library,” Agatha breathed. “Japeth isn’t going after Merlin. He’s going after Merlin’s beard.” She looked up at Tedros. “The Snake knows the answer to the test.”
Tedros scoffed. “Impossible. How could he know my father’s secret?”
“Because Japeth and Sir Japeth are linked somehow. The Snake and the Green Knight. There must be more to the story than we know,” said Agatha, swaddling Merlin tight. “Come on. We have to get to Putsi. That’s where the beard is—”
“But we have the beard!” Tedros fought. “Once we find an aging spell, I mean—”
“Not that beard! The beard the Green Knight cut from Merlin! The beard that had the wish! It must be buried with Kay’s body in Putsi!” Agatha said, feeling the wizard baby grip her harder, as if she was on the right track. “That’s the ending to this test. The beard. The original beard. The beard your nemesis is about to steal!” She shuttled Merlin to the door. “We have it all wrong. We’re going to Putsi!”
“But that’s where the Snake is!” said Hort.
“For a reason!” Agatha said. She trusted the baby in her arms more than two boys’ fears. The same way she should have trusted the Snake’s movements over her own. “Hurry. If it’s the next kingdom east, we can go on foot!”
“Weasel’s right,” Tedros argued, not following her. “Can’t take Merlin near Japeth. He could steal the wizard from us—we’d be handing him our best weapon—”
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
Pulsing slams thundered outside, like a cosmic hammer shattering the sky.
Baby Merlin started screaming, hands at his ears.
Clutching him tight, Agatha rushed to the window, the two boys flanking her.
To the east, moonlight shined down on green shoots rising, reaching up, up, up, over the land . . .
A tree, shimmering against the night, each branch blossoming into a new tree, which spawned more trees from its boughs, hundreds of them, thousands, higher and higher, wider and wider, the lattice of trunks and branches vanishing into the clouds.
For a split second, Agatha thought she saw bodies tossed between branches, human bodies, the size of acorns or leaves—
A cry echoed on the wind.
A cry she knew.
Clouds passed over the moon, sweeping the east into darkness.
Whatever she’d seen faded into the night, like a vision or a dream.
Three pairs of eyes stayed glued out the window, into the void.
Merlin’s too, his shrieks gone quiet.
“Uh, guys?” Hort swallowed. “I’m sure it’s just me . . . But did that kinda look like . . . you know . . .” He spun to his friends. “A wizard tree?”
Agatha held her breath.
One look at Tedros’ face and she knew what they were both thinking.
Yes, Hort.
Yes, it did.
11
SOPHIE
Vault 41
The witch was back.
Sophie strutted through the feather-strewn streets of Putsi, her hair bloodred and cropped into a bob, her white dress skintight and beaded with sharp red spikes.
It was listening to her now, Evelyn Sader’s old dress. Helping to disguise her. Melding to her desires. Doing exactly what she wanted it to do. She didn’t trust it, of course. But as long it was on her side, she’d use it to her advantage.
Putsi’s hoggishly pale citizens shot her looks, yet no one recognized her. They’d all watched the same spellcast. As far as they knew, Sophie was still a blond angel, playing house at Camelot, tending to her king.
How dare he, Sophie raged. How dare he hijack her mind. How dare he control her.
No one controlled her.
No one.
What a coward, she thought. Rhian, at least, had battled her on fair terms.
Japeth cheated.
Her ears still throbbed where she’d ripped out those scims.
The reckoning was nigh.
That’s why she’d come to Putsi.
To find him.
To stare into his eyes as she cut out his heart.
Until now, she’d been fighting for her friends. To get Tedros and Agatha their Ever After.