Reena.
Kiko.
Maid Marian.
They faced Hester and the witches, who were now dressed in armor and seated at the table with them, Dot feeling the stares at her adult form.
Together, with the Queen of Jaunt Jolie, they made ten knights.
The eleventh sat at the far end, a stout woman, hair pulled back into a bun.
“Friedegund Brunhilde,” she identified herself. “Dean of Arbed House at the Foxwood School for Boys.”
Slowly, the story unfolded. Nicola and Guinevere had come to Jaunt Jolie to ask for the queen’s help fighting the Snake: help that the queen refused, given her fear of Japeth’s retaliation. But then Maid Marian arrived in Jaunt Jolie with news of Bettina’s death, which she’d learned of from Robin Hood. When Robin failed to retrieve her from Glass Mountain, Marian had gone searching for him. She found her love in Putsi’s forest, scim-stabbed and bleeding. Robin urged Marian to go to Jaunt Jolie . . . to tell Queen Jacinda what became of him and her daughter and ask for shelter . . .
“That was his dying wish,” Marian recounted, her voice tremoring. “But what about my wish? I can’t ever see Robin again. I can’t claim the Storian for myself and rewrite the story. No magic can bring him back. Not even a wish in Aladdin’s Cave or the darkest sorcerer’s spell.” She smeared away tears. “Robin made me promise to hide . . . but there can be no hiding anymore. He’s gone. My true love. The Snake took him from me.”
“He took my daughter, too,” said Queen Jacinda.
“And my dad,” said Dot.
“And our Millicent,” said Beatrix with Reena.
“And my Lancelot,” said Guinevere, white-haired and drawn. “He’s made us widows, orphans, and killed our children. He finds the thing you love the most and destroys it, like the darkest curse. But I won’t let him take Tedros. Arthur left him his ring for a reason. Tedros can bring us back. To balance. To truth. If only he gets the chance.”
“Which is why we’re all here,” said Queen Jacinda. “To defend your son. To give the true Lion his pack.”
“Then I am your servant, Your Highness,” said Guinevere.
Two queens bowed to each other, bonded by loss.
As for how they’d all made it to this table, Jacinda had the answers to that. After Marian came to her, she’d kept Bettina’s murder a secret. Even her husband, the king, was left in the dark. She sent him on a mission in Runyon Mills and packed her younger children off to their grandmother’s.
Then she went to work.
“I didn’t trust the Knights of Eleven to avenge Bettina’s death,” said the queen. “For one thing, they still believe in King Rhian and I have no proof of Japeth’s ruse. Nor do I even have evidence of my daughter’s death; inquiries to both Camelot and Putsi yielded nothing but silence and stonewalling. And then, of course, there was the last time I sent my Knights to confront the Snake, when his pirates first invaded my kingdom. They were lured by the Snake to a Sleeping Willow and put into a slumber before striking a single blow, while me and my children were noosed up to hang . . . No, I needed to find better knights to fight Japeth this time, equipped with more than weapons or brute strength. Knights who had a stake in this war. Knights who knew the depths of love and loss. Knights who would persist until the end.”
Jacinda looked around the table. “Such knights wouldn’t be found amongst men.”
Thus Nicola and Guinevere were summoned back to the castle, where they joined Maid Marian. At the same time, the queen had been hearing of three warrior princesses who’d been attacking Agatha bounty hunters in the forest, ever since Lionsmane had announced the second test to the Woods. She had these girls brought in, too—Beatrix, Reena, and Kiko—which made seven knights for her table.
The eighth came easier than expected: Dean Brunhilde of Arbed House, who Jaunt Jolie had sent many an Everboy to for rehabilitation. Only this time, it was Dean Brunhilde who had traveled to Jaunt Jolie for help . . . asking if its queen had noticed any similarities between the masked attacker who’d tried to hang her and the new, cold-eyed king . . .
“Which left three knights still to be named,” said the queen, turning to the witches. “And I know The Tale of Sophie and Agatha well enough to be certain that there are no fiercer protectors of justice than you.” She smiled towards Dot. “At any age.”
“It’s highly temporary,” Dot contended.
Jacinda looked at the rest. “So now our work begins, Knights of Eleven.”
“But what work, Your Highness?” Beatrix asked. “The whole Woods is after Agatha. If a single person finds her and brings her to Japeth, he’ll win the second test. He’ll be a step away from being the One True King. From having the Storian’s powers and wiping us out before we ever have the chance to fight him.”
“Beatrix, Kiko, and I tried to stop the Agatha hunters,” Reena agreed. “But every kingdom has people searching for her. Even in my homeland of Shazabah, my father is leading the search for Agatha. He thinks I’m still at school. He has no clue I’m fighting for the ‘rebels.’ If he did, he’d throw me in prison or have me killed. No one is on Tedros’ side anymore. We’re outnumbered by thousands.”
“And we don’t even know where Agatha’s gone,” said Dot. “The camel swept her, Tedros, and Sophie off to some secret place.”
“Which means we don’t know how to protect her,” said Beatrix.
“If killing Agatha is the second test, imagine what the third test will be,” Kiko peeped.
“Nor can we just go riding after the Snake. The Snake killed Robin and the Sheriff. The two strongest men I knew,” said Marian, with a quick glance at Dot.
“And their strength was surpassed by Lancelot’s, who suffered the same fate,” Guinevere added. “Marian is right. We’re not warriors. We can’t succeed in killing a monster where men have failed.”
“On the contrary.” Jacinda sat taller. “True, we cannot win the second test for Tedros. Surviving the death warrant hung on his princess is his quest alone. But there are other weapons we have to defeat the Snake. Cleverness. Resilience. Insight. Weapons that a woman wields far better than a man. It is why we wear the armor of the Eleven now.”
Dot and Anadil peeked at Hester, both unsettled that they’d come here to get the help of knights and were instead asked to be those knights . . . But Hester was staring squarely at the queen, intrigued.
“When Betty chose to continue writing for the Courier, even after the others fled, I asked her why,” the queen said. “Why risk her life when she could be safe? And she told me, with so much conviction, ‘Not everyone can see the truth, Mother. It is so easy to be blind to it. But those of us who can see the truth have the responsibility to help others see it too. Even if it’s dangerous. Even if it puts us at risk. The truth is worth it.’” The queen’s voice wavered. “We know the truth about Japeth. All of us. We just need the Woods to see it. And for that, we must have courage. Like my daughter had. Like your Lancelot and your Robin and your father.” She looked at Guinevere, Marian, Dot. “We may not be knights in body. But we are knights in heart. And I’d take that knight against our enemy over any other kind.”