Aric hoisted her over the deadly drop and smiled brutally, teeth speckled with blood. “Say hello to Tristan for me.” He loosened his grip—

A red, horned demon smashed into his groin and Aric cried out in shock, throwing Agatha’s boy body to the stairs. Shrieking like a banshee, the shoe-sized demon spread-eagled on Aric’s face like a mask, blinding him as he writhed against the wall.

Agatha gaped at Hester, slithering down the staircase.

“Best move along, Edgar dear,” Hester cooed, lurking towards Aric. “The Dean and I have some old business to settle.”

“No! I can’t leave you alone!” Agatha hissed in her ear. “Not like last time!”

“This isn’t like last time at all.” Hester swished her red-lit finger and her demon squeezed Aric by the throat, choking him until he gurgled.

“But he’s dangerous!” Agatha sputtered. “What if—”

“You’re forgetting something very important about me, my dear,” said Hester. She turned to Agatha, eyeballs clouding with blood. “I’m a villain.”

Agatha didn’t ask any more questions. She sprinted up the last two flights, hearing Aric’s muffled wails as she pushed through the frosted door and slammed it shut behind her.

Fingerglow lighting her path, Agatha dashed along the dark, chilly rooftop between the scenes of Merlin’s Menagerie, guzzling in air—Hester’s fine, Hester’s fine, Hester’s fine—

What wasn’t fine was the fact that she was all alone in her mission now, just as Merlin predicted, and the fact that teachers were surely on the way, given the noise they’d made in the stairwell. She didn’t risk the time to study the hedges or see how they’d changed. She had to find the scene with water . . . that was the secret portal from the roof to the Bridge . . .

Just find water.

Three minutes later, Agatha was still running in circles, hyper breaths fogging, spying nothing but landlocked hedges as she swerved deeper and deeper into the maze . . .

Agatha stalled, fingerglow pinned ahead.

Dead center in the garden was a leafy sculpture of herself as a girl, floating magically above a rippling pond in Tedros’ arms. Beneath them Sophie raged on the pond’s shore, fists gnarled, mouth wide open in a scream.

Agatha shivered, reliving the moment by the lake on the night of the Evers Snow Ball. That single moment when three friends had been torn apart.

Now it was up to her and her prince to bring them back together.

From the shore, Agatha lifted her gaze to the black towers of the School for New, menacing outlines in the night. What happened to Tedros? she thought. What if he never makes it to Sophie? What if I never see him again?

Shouts rang out from the stairwell inside. “Check the roof!” Lady Lesso cried. “Find who did this to my son!”

Agatha gasped. No time to worry, only to act.

On an inhale, she closed her eyes and leapt into water.

Meanwhile, in the School Master’s tower, Sophie was still thinking about Edgar and Essa.