“Get to Agatha. Get the pearl,” he told the prince. “I’ll hold him off.”
Tedros tried to push past Robin—
“Princess, not pride!” Hood snarled at him.
The words hit Tedros hard.
Robin was right.
If the Snake killed him, Agatha would be next.
Even his nemesis wasn’t worth that.
With a leap, he was already on to the next branch, leaving Hood behind. The prince glanced back—scims mobbing Robin as he rushed the Snake—before Tedros bit down and kept moving, telling himself that Robin Hood thrived in trees, that he’d find a way to survive. The Snake couldn’t kill another friend . . . not today . . .
Up and up into the wizard tree, the prince climbed, sounds of Robin and Japeth trailing away. He was alone now, no geese, no guards, no more enemies to fight. From this vantage point, he could see the specks of villagers, gathering outside houses, beholding the magic tree that had grown over their kingdom like Jack’s beanstalk. Putsi guards would be on the way soon, along with others loyal to “Rhian,” but Tedros was nearing the summit, his hands torn, his body suffering, yet propelled by the silent chant of a name: Agatha. Agatha. Agatha. Many a prince had scaled a tower to rescue his princess, but it was only fitting that his required a climb to the top of the world. And yet, despite all that was lost, there was a steadiness to him now, a harmony of will and fate, Man and Pen. It was Agatha who had left him behind, thinking she could save him. But in the end, he would save her. At last, he was leading this story. At last, he was the prince. He pulled himself up—
Tedros stopped on a branch, eyes wide.
“Teddy?” a blond girl said softly.
Across the limb, Sophie clutched Agatha in her hands.
Tedros’ princess was strewn with leaves, her lungs pumping shallow breaths. Her face and arms were cut up. Her leg was broken badly, twisted at the knee. And yet, even in terrible pain, Agatha managed the happiest smile at the sight of her prince.
“You came,” she said.
“Says the girl who ordered me not to,” Tedros growled, lurching to her side. He snatched her from Sophie and clasped her to his chest, kissing her all over. “You’re hurt. This is what happens when you trust her over me. This is what happens when you fight my battles for me.”
“And yet, she has the answer to your test,” said Sophie. “An answer I found. The two of us do just fine without you.”
Tedros clenched his teeth. “Where is it?”
Agatha reached into her dress. “Kei saved us. He rescued us from—”
“I know,” Tedros said.
Agatha looked at him. The wounds on his chest. The bruises and marks on his face and throat.
“Where’s Robin?” asked Sophie. “Where’s Betty and Bogden and Willam?”
“We need to get you to school,” Tedros pressed Agatha. “Yuba and the teachers can fix your leg. I’ll carry you down—”
“There’s no time, Tedros. Leave me with Sophie,” Agatha argued. “You have to move on to the second test.”
Tedros put his nose to hers. “I’m not leaving you here.”
Agatha held up a glowing pearl. “This is what matters. Winning the race. Taking the Woods back. For Good.”
Tedros studied the small frosted orb, Merlin’s beard a tight circle inside it.
“Swallow it, Tedros,” Agatha ordered. “Learn the next test.”
“Whatever it is can wait ’til you’re safe,” Tedros resisted.
“No, it can’t,” Sophie snapped. “Swallow now. Fight later.”
She’s right, Tedros admitted, even if he had no intention of leaving his princess behind. He took a deep breath, focused on the pearl in Agatha’s hand. Then he reached his mouth for it—
The branch shook hard from beneath.
In a split second, the pearl slipped from Agatha’s fingers, cascading off Tedros’ lips.
Startled, the prince, his princess, and Sophie watched Merlin’s beard tumble to the next bough and nestle in a canopy of leaves.
The tree continued to rattle beneath them, the pearl quivering precariously, branches bending below.
Someone was coming.
Tedros scanned the darkness with his glow.
“Robin?”
Through leaves, the outlines of a face appeared.
Agatha went rigid under Tedros’ arm. Next to him, Sophie stopped breathing.
Japeth loomed closer, slithering towards their branch.
His hands were covered with blood.
Robin’s blood, Tedros thought, going cold.
The prince darted a glance at the pearl, couched between leaves.
Japeth caught him looking.
He, too, honed in on the glass orb.
Silence hung between the prince and the Snake.
Both leapt for it.
They smashed into each other, vaulting the pearl upwards. Scims shot off Japeth’s suit, about to claim it—
Sophie snatched Merlin’s beard in her fist, her body balanced over a branch, before the branch broke and sent her crashing three limbs down. Instantly, eels spiked towards her, Japeth heading her way.
“Tedros! Swallow it!” she yelled, flinging the beard in the prince’s direction—
Tedros lunged, losing the pearl in the glare of Sophie’s glow. It bounced off his skull, rebounding into the night sky.
Tedros, Japeth, and Sophie dove for it, each from a different direction, each with a chance—
But one was faster than the rest, limbs coated in white leaves, falling through the night like a broken swan.
Agatha.
Her mouth open.
Tedros gasped—
She swallowed the pearl.
Agatha plunged into Tedros’ arms, the two plowing hard into tree bark. Sophie and the Snake snagged on branches above them.
For a moment, it was quiet.
All eyes flew to Agatha, crumpled with pain.
Winner of the first test.
Tedros’ test.
“Aggie?” Sophie rasped quietly. “What did you do?”
Tedros and Agatha locked eyes, as if the tale had taken a turn both inevitable and unexpected.
Then Agatha choked, her neck convulsing, her cheeks coloring, something brewing inside her. She parted her lips and breathed a silvery dust that lifted into the dark, coalescing into the ghost of a familiar face.
King Arthur glared down at Agatha in the wizard tree.
“A twist in the tale . . .
Two vie for my crown.
But you are neither.
Are you friend?
Or are you enemy?
Both can bring down a king.
You have interfered in the quest
And so must die.
That is the second test.
Whoever slays you shall learn the third.”
King Arthur vanished.
Agatha and Tedros whirled to each other—
But now they were floating upwards, Sophie too, as stymph claws hooked under them, rescuing them high into the night, veering west on the command of Ravan, Vex, Mona, and more fourth years astride the bony birds.
Shell-shocked, Tedros looked back at Japeth in the tree, but Japeth hadn’t moved. Instead, he posed calmly against white leaves like a shadow, watching the prince recede into the clouds, the Snake gazing up at him with the darkest of smiles . . .
The next test already won before it started.
14