This time, there was no argument.
The queen turned to Dean Brunhilde. “You’ve known the Snake since he was a boy. What does he want? Why does he seek the Storian’s power?”
“He’s hateful. Pure Evil. From the beginning,” said the Dean, instantly.
“You’ve made a life out of taking those believed to be Evil and leading them to Good,” the queen pointed out. “It was your mission at Arbed House. This one thwarted your efforts, but surely you had a glimpse into his soul along the way. Evil, yes. Hateful, surely. But his hatred might be the chink in his armor, if we can come to understand it.”
“He was always a beast,” Brunhilde dismissed. “From the moment his mother brought him and Rhian to me. RJ was bitter and cruel in all the ways Rhian was earnest and warm.”
“What does RJ stand for?” Nicola asked. “J for Japeth, and R for . . .”
“It’s been more than a decade. My files have his records,” said Dean Brunhilde.
“We searched for them in your office. Rhian’s and Japeth’s files,” said Nicola. “But we found a squirrelly nut to Merlin that claimed you’d hidden them somewhere.”
The Dean bolted straight. “You? You were the one who broke in?”
“And now we’re on the same side, so it doesn’t matter,” said Nicola, impatient. “We found other files in your office. A letter from Aric to Japeth. Proof of their friendship. But we couldn’t find Japeth’s. Where did you hide it?”
Dean Brunhilde crossed her arms. “I’m not confiding in a thief.”
“Perhaps you’ll confide in us once you, too, lose everyone you love,” said Maid Marian.
Dean Brunhilde felt the eyes of Marian and two queens upon her.
“That letter from Aric to Japeth,” said Hester delicately, turning to Nicola. “What did it say?”
Nicola opened her mouth, but Dean Brunhilde cut her off. “They were my students,” she said briskly. “Aric and RJ were close. Aric was the only one who could keep RJ’s rages at bay, even more than Rhian. Perhaps they recognized something in each other. Two poisoned hearts that were each other’s antidote. But Rhian was RJ’s twin. There was jealousy there. Aric envious of the bond Rhian had with his brother. Rhian resentful of Aric and RJ’s friendship. It all boiled over when Aric stabbed Rhian in the head. Somehow Rhian managed to survive. And when the time came, I let the students vote on Aric’s fate. RJ begged his brother to forgive Aric . . . if Rhian forgave Aric, so would the others . . . But Rhian voted to expel him instead. Aric was sent back into the Woods. Other than his letters to RJ, I don’t know what became of him.”
“Ended up at the School for Boys, torturing everyone in sight,” Anadil muttered. “Unleashed his fury on all of us. Until Lady Lesso stabbed him. His own mother.”
Dean Brunhilde took this in. “So Aric might still be alive today if Rhian had forgiven him.”
“At least Rhian did one thing right,” Kiko sighed.
Hester caught Anadil and Dot staring at her. No one else in the room knew what the coven did. No one else knew what Sophie had told them at school.
“No, he didn’t do it right,” Hester said. “Rhian should have forgiven Aric. He should have followed the rules of Good and Evil. Rule #1. The Good forgive. And Rhian wanted to be Good. Taking Aric from Japeth was his fatal mistake.”
“What are you saying?” Beatrix asked.
“Japeth killed Rhian. And it all traces back to him losing Aric,” said Hester. “That’s why Japeth wants to be the One True King. That’s why he wants the powers of the Storian. For Aric. He wants to bring his friend back to life.”
Dean Brunhilde froze in her seat.
Sweat beaded Hester’s forehead, the room sucked of air.
“Love. Friendship. These are the oldest stories of time,” said Queen Jacinda finally. “And not just the domain of Good. An Evil School Master believed love gave him the right to claim the Storian, just as the Snake believes love gives him the right to replace it. It’s not the pen they ultimately seek to control. It’s love itself. But love can’t be controlled. Love requires surrender and faith. A trust in the winds of fate that the darkest hearts reject. If Aric and Japeth were meant to be together, they already would be. But fate is a power beyond our grasp. That is why we fight for the Pen. Because Man cannot be trusted to write his own fate. And the Snake shows us why. He believes fate made a mistake in separating him and Aric. That blood must be spilled, over and over, until he claims the power to rewrite that mistake and bring his friend back to him. Even if it spawns nothing but lies and murder and suffering along the way.”
She raised her eyes to her knights. “And it is this rejection of fate, this terrible misunderstanding, that is his greatest weakness,” said the queen. “We cannot help Tedros win the second test. For him to kill Agatha is unfathomable. He has no way to win. But what if we could make Japeth abandon the test too? What if we could make him surrender the tournament altogether?”
“Now that sounds unfathomable,” Beatrix scoffed.
Other knights murmured agreement. “Nothing could make Japeth give up the crown,” said Dean Brunhilde.
“Nothing except the person that’s making him fight for the crown in the first place,” Hester countered.
Everyone looked at her.
“Japeth wants his Ever After with Aric,” the witch reasoned. “So we have to make him believe that Aric never wanted one with him. That Aric is rejecting his plan. That he doesn’t want to be brought back. The queen is right. It just might work . . .”
“Um, Aric is dead,” said Beatrix, “and unless I’m missing something, no one but the Storian has the power to raise people from the grave.”
“We don’t need to raise him from the grave,” said Anadil, catching on to Hester’s plan. “We just need to make it seem as if he has. Long enough for him to give Japeth a message. A brutal, undeniable message.”
“A message which will make him doubt,” the queen confirmed. “If his guard is down, then we stand a chance.”
Dot frowned. “How can you fake a message from the dead?”
“Only one place,” Maid Marian realized, looking at Jacinda. “A faraway cave where anything can come true for the right price . . . even a message from the grave . . .”
“Aladdin’s Cave,” said Guinevere. “The lost Cave of Wishes.”
“Lost cave?” Kiko wisped. “How do you find a lost cave?”
“You ask the last man who found it, of course,” the Queen of Jaunt Jolie replied.
Her eyes fixed on the knight a few seats down.
Eyes wide. Sunk in her chair.
Pale as a ghost.
“My father,” Reena gasped.
17
AGATHA
Never Trust a Princess
In the storybooks Agatha read back in Gavaldon, the land of Aladdin was a feast of color and fragrance and earthy delights: loafing camels, dusty spice markets, palaces veiled by storms of sand.
But in real life, that’s not what it was like at all.
As the Shazabah Sikander had neared its homeland, Agatha, caged in the bowels of the ship, peered out a porthole at a fertile metropolis lording over the desert. Jewel-green palms bowed to each other over paved streets. Sleek red-and-gold buildings speared through the sky, with a controlled traffic of magic carpets transporting citizens around the kingdom. And everywhere she’d looked: camels, squads of them, military-garbed and precise in their march, patrolled the city while also guarding the imperial palace at its center, a pyramid of red-and-gold glass.