“Please don’t cry,” said Arthur.
“You might be king, but I only see the boy I knew. You’re as pure a soul now as you were before,” Lady Gremlaine said softly. “Thank you, Arthur. For telling me the truth. For being so decent when I’ve been nothing but lying and deceitful.”
“You’re guilty only of being human, Grisella. Something neither a king nor a queen is allowed to be,” said Arthur, touching her. “Your story isn’t over. You’ll find love one day.”
Grisella shook her head. “Your story is mine, Arthur. You were my one love. Maybe I wasn’t worthy of you. But loving you was enough. The real you.”
Arthur’s eyes misted. “It is I who am not worthy of you,” he spoke. “I chose Guinevere so that I can erase who I used to be. The Wart who was nothing, a nobody, completely insignificant. But you loved that Wart with your whole heart. The way I loved you. And tomorrow that boy will be gone for good. I only wish our story had a different ending. One that let us forever remember what we were to each other.”
Arthur gazed deeply at her, lost in his thoughts. Grisella noticed his hand on hers, warm and soft.
She sighed, pulling her palm away. “One last night as Wart and Grizzle-Grazzle. Better enjoy our time together.”
Through the empty glass, she saw Arthur still watching her.
“What?” she asked.
“Is there somewhere we could go to talk?” he said.
“We are talking.”
Then she saw the look in his eyes.
“Course there is, laddie!” Robin chimed, swooping in, shunting Arthur and Grisella out the front door. “Use my treehouse. Perfectly empty!”
“Follow them! Hurry!” Agatha hastened Tedros, guiding him to the door, but the prince didn’t move. “Tedros, what are you wait—”
But now Agatha saw what he did.
A blue butterfly tailing behind Arthur and Gremlaine as they went into the forest.
Slowly Tedros and Agatha turned, looking back in the direction from which the butterfly came.
Those two strangers in the corner. The brown-hooded ones near where Grisella had been sitting. Tedros had thought them Merry Men. But now they slipped off their hoods, watching Arthur and Lady Gremlaine leave together.
They weren’t Merry Men at all.
“Funny what you see in Sherwood Forest,” drawled Evelyn Sader, eyes on the door.
“Everyone here has their secrets,” her male companion replied. “It’s why both of us found our way here too. In Sherwood Forest, we’re all sinners.”
He was thick and muscular, a few years older than the young Arthur. But that’s not what made Tedros recognize him.
It was the green tint to his skin.
As if Sir Japeth Kay had only begun his transformation into the Green Knight.
“The spansel was her idea, of course. And now he acts like I’m the villain, while those two serpents cozy up,” Evelyn groused to Sir Japeth. “And to think they call him the Lion! I see a Snake, through and through. Had me banished from every kingdom, that coward. I managed to find a home at the School for Good and Evil—School Master doesn’t answer to Camelot—but ended up expelled from there too, thanks to my traitorous brother. For months, I skulked around in pits and caves, a homeless hag. And then to fall ill . . . terribly ill . . . and to be in my condition, while winter raged . . .” She shifted in her chair, looking uncomfortable. “If it wasn’t for you, coming upon me and shepherding me here, I’d have been food for rats.”
“Was on my way here anyway after leaving Camelot myself,” Sir Japeth admitted. “And truth be told, you offered me friendship at a time when I had none.”
“Two fair souls, equally cursed,” Evelyn cracked.
“We do share a bit in common,” Sir Japeth remarked. “Betrayed by our families. Forced to watch our brothers steal our fate. Our glory. And they say the Storian is balanced! Bah. The Pen favors them with impunity and leaves us to rot. No wonder our brothers fight to protect it. When there is no other pen to fight for the likes of us.”
“August and Arthur. Even their names sound alike, dripping with self-importance,” Evelyn mocked. “No doubt they’ll be bosom buddies soon enough. August finds every way to suck up to power.”
“And to think, all that power blessed on a wart,” Sir Japeth said grimly, as Evelyn’s butterfly spy returned from the forest, whispering to the Dean. “If only there was a way to humble them both . . .” He sighed ruefully. “Sherwood Forest, home of outcasts and dreamers.”
But now Evelyn’s face was changing, the butterfly at her ear . . .
“My dear Sir Japeth . . . ,” she said, peering up at him. “Perhaps there is a way.”
She slipped open her hood, letting her tiny spy flit back into her dress of blue butterflies, nestling amongst the ones near her stomach—
Tedros’ eyes bulged.
Agatha choked.
She was pregnant.
Evelyn Sader was pregnant.
“Yes . . . there might be a way after all . . . ,” she mused, thinking it over.
She whispered to Sir Japeth, who cocked a brow, listening.
“Oh, how I love your wicked little mind,” he said, when she finished. “And the surest sign yet that you’ve returned to full health.”
“I have only you to thank, Sir Japeth,” Evelyn pointed out. “You could have left me to die. Instead, you’ve given my child a path to a throne. The throne of a king who hurt us both.”
“And you’ve given me a chink in my brother’s armor,” said Sir Japeth.
“Sounds like we both have work to do, then,” said Evelyn. “Our time together may soon be at an end.”
“Wherever our travels take us, know that you’ll always have a knight at your service,” said Sir Japeth.
“My Green Knight,” Evelyn anointed him. “My child will know your story.”
“Then let me bless it with all the love I have left.” Sir Japeth put his hand on her pregnant belly. Evelyn closed her eyes. For the briefest of moments, her skin tinged green, before it restored milky smooth. Her eyes fluttered open.
“The Green Knight . . . I quite like that . . . ,” Sir Japeth said. “You’ve given me a name, my lady. Perhaps I can give your child mine?”
Evelyn smiled back at him. “Perhaps.”
The lights in the bar went out, plunging Tedros and Agatha into darkness.
Crisp air chilled Tedros’ skin. He could smell the oily hollow of the serpent, he and his princess returned inside its body. Agatha’s eyes pierced through the dark.
“So the Snake is Evelyn Sader’s child,” she said, with certainty. “Only not her child with Arthur.”
“He’s the son of Sir Kay and Evelyn,” Tedros agreed. “Explains the connection between the Green Knight and the Snake. And the vision you saw in the pearl. Plus, Sir Kay and Arthur were brothers. If Sir Kay was their father, Rhian and Japeth would have had Arthur’s blood. It explains everything—”
“No it doesn’t. Kay and Arthur were foster brothers, remember? They weren’t related by blood,” said Agatha, the confidence in her voice fading. “Lady of the Lake wouldn’t have mistaken Kay’s blood for Arthur’s. And it doesn’t explain how Japeth would have wizard’s blood to get into the Celestium. And Evelyn’s tone with him . . . she called it ‘my’ child, not ‘our’ child—”