“Strange you don’t know Markle Markle,” Sophie cooed, eyeing him. “Look more pirate than Camelot guard to me.”
Wolves gave Wesley an odd glance as if they agreed.
“Best of luck finding your fugitive. Come, Hafsah,” Sophie said, snatching Merlin from a guard and strutting towards the tied-up camel—
“Stop.”
Sophie turned.
The wolf was pointing at Agatha. “She dances too.”
Sophie cleared her throat. “Hafsah only does private dances. For kings who pay their weight in gold.”
“Dance,” Wesley commanded, honed in on Agatha.
A guard stripped Merlin from Sophie.
The music began again.
Tikka tik tok.
Tikka tik tok.
Agatha peeked at the treetops, the stymph long gone, then at baby Merlin in the guard’s arms, as if hoping the wizard would rescue them. But he just chewed on his gag like a pacifier, beaming at his “Mama” and clapping along to the wolves’ beat.
The man-wolf tapped his claw in the dirt, his lips curling over jagged teeth.
Sophie gave Agatha an encouraging nod. Come on, Aggie. Surely she could muster a competent waltz or volta or something. Her friend had received dance lessons at school. And more lessons at Camelot. Besides, dancing was the easiest thing in the world. All it required was comfort of body, grace of movement, and a child’s sense of rhythm.
Then she saw the ghostly pallor of her friend’s face and remembered that Agatha had none of these things.
Agatha lifted her leg and shook it a few times. At first Sophie thought this was the warm-up for the dance, but no, this was the dance, her friend gyrating like a flamingo before dropping into a hideous squat and rocking from side to side, her bony knees cracking. “Ooh de lally, ooh de lally,” Aggie mumbled, as if keeping time to a beat that had nothing to do with the one being played. Aggie glanced at Sophie and must have seen her expression because now she was shaking her bottom and waving her arms as if hailing a carriage, before she started running in place as if the carriage had left without her. This went on, the phantom sprint, along with strange hand sweeps like a sad version of tai chi, until she tripped on her cloak and crashed onto her stomach, only to pretend this, too, was the dance, flailing her legs, flashing her dusty petticoat, before lumbering onto her side, caked in dirt, like a mummy washed ashore at the beach.
Her veil fell off.
Agatha and Sophie stared at the shrunken wizard hat on the ground.
Merlin stopped clapping.
The music halted too, the audience stone silent.
Slowly Agatha looked up, face in plain sight.
“Oh, hullo,” she said.
Like a storm, they came for her, swords and snouts. Sophie blasted her pink glow, but the wolves were already on her, tying her and Agatha up with pig-smelling rope, while Merlin was stuffed into a burlap sack. Sophie strained for breath, Wesley’s knees on her chest, his black nails stabbing her neck, his rancid face in hers—
“King wants yer friend alive. Never said anythin’ ’bout you.”
He strangled her so hard that her heart jolted to a stop, the life squeezed out of her, while Agatha screamed into a gag, forced to watch her best friend die—
Thunder hammered from above.
A roaring wolf-bomb straight for Wesley, shattering his skull with his fists.
A crater imploded beneath, swallowing wolves and guards as the new man-wolf landed, swinging Agatha, Sophie, and Merlin onto his back. He grabbed the boar off the roast, axing it at the remaining wolves, painting them with flames and sending them fleeing into the Woods, before savaging the last few guards with blows to the head. Only when they were all gone did he take a breath, his wolf teeth smeared with blood, his fur lit with embers, before Hort held Sophie up by his paw, gnashing into her face.
“I’ll take that slap now.”
A DAY LATER, they camped on the frigid banks of the Frostplains, under frozen docks that stretched out into the Savage Sea.
When night came, Uma woke her charges, expecting the camel to lead them on the next leg of the journey.
But the camel didn’t move, remaining curled up beneath the docks.
“What are we waiting for?” Uma asked, shivering.
“For our ship to come in,” the camel told her.
TWO DAYS LATER, the ship still hadn’t come in.
While Uma flew the stymph out to sea to forage for more fish, her wards huddled beneath the docks as the sun rose, warmed by a small fire and their own body heat as they cuddled against the camel’s belly. None of them could sleep, including Merlin, age five and fully alert, who was skipping around the fire, tossing sticks and seaweed and whatever else he could find into the flames and watching them burn.
“When’s this damned ship coming?” Tedros groused, eyeing the sleeping camel. “And where’s this blasted beast taking us?”
“As far from Shazabah as it can get,” Hort guessed, fire-smoking pieces of salmon and handing them to Sophie, who Hort was spooning under his arm. “Probably hiding us in the unmapped realms.”
“But how does that help me win the second test without killing Agatha?” said Tedros, harboring his princess to his chest. “Wherever we go, the Snake will hunt us. Running away doesn’t stop him or keep Agatha safe. Running away isn’t what my father would have wanted me to do. It’s just . . . cowardice.”
“‘Trust is the way.’ That’s what the camel said,” Agatha sighed, nestling deeper into her prince’s arms.
“Trust also means ‘death’ in Camel,” Tedros cracked.
“It’s saved our life before,” Agatha reminded. “That’s why the Storian pointed us to it.”
“Same Storian wrote murdering twins into our fairy tale right when we should have been getting married.”
Something about the way Tedros said this, at once angry and loving, made Agatha’s face change. “I wish I hadn’t swallowed the pearl,” she said quietly. “I wish I’d caught it and given it to you. You’d be on to the second test. The real second test, whatever it should have been.”
Tedros stroked her hair. “Trust is the way, remember?”
Sophie could see Agatha relaxing under her prince’s fingers, her eyes closed with pleasure. “Better stop doing that or I’ll get used to it,” Agatha murmured to him.
“You’re very bossy,” said Tedros. “Just stop thinking and let go for once.”
Agatha settled deeper into his chest. Then she sprung up on her elbows. “And that vision I saw in the pearl means nothing to you? Evelyn Sader as the link between Japeth and the Green Knight?”
Tedros gave up on his massage. “Thought about it on the stymph ride, after you mentioned it. But Evelyn Sader had nothing to do with the Green Knight. Nor does Japeth, as far as we know. Why would my father hide that in the pearl? Doesn’t make the slightest sense. Like everything else in this story.”
They watched Merlin throw more things into the fire and pip “Shazam!” as if he was the one spawning the flames.
“Our kid is growing up,” Tedros mused, pulling Agatha towards him.
Sophie nibbled on salmon, watching them kiss.
“Hope it tastes okay,” Hort said, his bicep hugging her. “Tried to cook it just right.”