Marian let go of Dot’s collar, putting the pin back in her hair. Her hand trembled. Her throat bobbed. Tears slipped down her cheeks.
“What is it?” Dot asked, confused.
Marian hugged old Dot tight. “Your mother would be so proud of you.”
Agatha gasped audibly and dropped to another cloud before Marian or Dot spotted her.
The emotions hit her hard.
Marian is Dot’s mother.
The clues had always been there, but she hadn’t put the pieces together until now. The way Marian skirted tensely around Dot and her friends. The way the Sheriff treated Dot, his pent-up fury and cruelty borne of unrequited love. The way Robin had a soft spot for Dot, as if he knew Marian’s secret. Dot’s warmhearted charm, inherited from her mother, balanced with the dark edge of her father. Agatha peeked up to see Dot, joined by Anadil and Hester, with Marian studying the latter’s tattoo, mystified by how it worked. From Dot’s relaxed pose, it was clear Dot didn’t know the truth about her mother. Or didn’t want to know. Young or old, Dot had a new family now. A family that, unlike her own, had been there for her from the beginning.
Agatha heard a loud sigh and turned to find Nicola in the shadows of the cloud.
“If you’ve come to tell me to be more social, I’m perfectly fine on my own,” Nicola said. “Always have been.”
“Actually I didn’t even know you were here—” Agatha started, but Nicola was already unburdening herself.
“In the pub, I felt okay at first, because it was my decision to break up with him. He needed to know he wasn’t treating me right. That I deserved to be more than second best. But now he doesn’t even seem upset about it”—Nic swished a hand at Hort and Sophie on a faraway cloud—“as if he and I never were together. He hasn’t even come to check on me. I know I broke up with him, but still! He should see how I’m feeling! He was my first boyfriend. My first kiss. And now he’s talking to her. Again.”
“To be fair, he’s been talking to ‘her’ since the first day of school,” Agatha pointed out. “And if Tedros ever broke up with me, I would bomb his castle before I ever checked in on him.”
“But Hort did like me,” Nicola barreled on. “We had time together in Sherwood Forest and Foxwood when Sophie wasn’t around . . . We were happy. But when she’s there, it’s like I don’t exist. Because of how I look. Because I don’t look like her.”
“No,” said Agatha. “It’s not about that.”
“She’s blond and thin and has a small nose and no pores and I’m—”
“It’s not about how you look,” Agatha repeated.
She said this so sharply that Nicola stopped her monologue.
“And as long as you have doubts about the way you look, you’ll never be able to truly love someone,” Agatha preached. “Take it from me. Even if you have the most loving, doting fairy-tale boyfriend, you’ll reject his love if you don’t believe you deserve it. And then it’s only too easy to blame it on looks or something else that you can’t possibly control, because the one thing you can control—how you feel about yourself—you were too afraid to change.”
Nicola grimaced. “But—”
“Let me finish,” Agatha said. “Yes, Sophie is beautiful. Yes, Hort has always been fond of her. But Hort also believes in true love, even though he’s a Never. And he wouldn’t have kissed you and been your boyfriend if he didn’t think there was a chance that you were the one. Period. Hort is too kind and honest and real to settle for anything less. Maybe he wasn’t ready in the end. Maybe you’re not ready. Maybe you two just aren’t right for each other. But this isn’t about you not having blond hair or a princess figure or anything else. This is about letting yourself take chances at love and not giving up. That’s why love is the ultimate test. It forces us to grow, to be better, and even then, sometimes it’s not enough. We get in our own way. We’re our own worst villains. But only a true villain believes he can control love. Love can’t be controlled any more than a wildfire can. It lives in the balance of fate and free will, Man and Pen. We do our part, we hope, we wish . . . but it writes its own story in its own time, the way it’s meant to be. For you. For Hort. For everyone who believes in Ever After. For me too.” Agatha clasped Nicola’s shoulder. “Love makes fools of me and Tedros each and every day.”
Nicola didn’t say anything for a long while. Then she peered hard at Agatha. “I can’t believe I’m taking advice on boys from the girl who hung skulls in Gavaldon Square on Valentine’s Day.”
“You knew that was me?” Agatha said, surprised.
“Everyone knew it was you.”
The two girls cracked up.
“Nic!” a voice called.
It came from above: Hester, Beatrix, and Kiko crowded onto Nightwind, which had left Merlin asleep on top of the moon and now seemed enthused about new riders.
“Room for one more!” said Kiko.
Agatha smiled at Nicola. “Go.”
Nic was already running.
Agatha couldn’t leave Merlin teetering on the moon, so she hopped up clouds, like a frog jumping lily pads, but still found herself too far away to retrieve him. Only then did she realize she was hovering directly above Hort and Sophie, who were on the cloud below, the weasel looking scrawnier than usual in his fluff diaper.
“So out with it, what did you and Tedros really talk about when you were flying on that stymph?” said Sophie.
Hort’s eyes roved around. “I should find some clothes—”
“Do you think anyone here hasn’t seen you without your clothes on? Even when you were the History Professor. And don’t think of lying to me,” Sophie hectored. “First of all, you’re not good at it and second, you and I are too close for you to keep secrets from me—”
“I was asking him for girl advice, okay,” Hort blurted.
Sophie hesitated. “What kind of girl advice?”
“Like . . . what it was like to, you know . . .”
“No, I don’t know.”
“What it was like to kiss you.”
Sophie stared at him.
“Versus kissing Agatha. Like how he felt kissing you in comparison,” said Hort. “Because when I kissed Nic, it was amazing and fun . . . and yet, something was missing. And I just wanted to know what kisses feel like to him because he’s probably kissed lots of girls.”
“So let me get this straight,” said Sophie. “You asked Tedros what kissing me was like versus Agatha so you could figure out whether your kisses with your girlfriend—”
“Ex-girlfriend.”
“—were good kisses or bad kisses.”
“Essentially.”
Sophie looked so galled that Agatha wondered for a moment if she might clobber the poor boy, before Sophie flattened her lips and squinted hard at him. “What did Tedros say about kissing me versus—actually, forget it. I don’t want to know.”
“Not that I take anything that lump says seriously,” Hort offered. “Can you imagine kissing Tedros? He’s slobbery and smells like grass.” He shivered. “Bleecchh.”