“You and Agatha have each other. You don’t need me.”

“She and I could barely be in the same room together until we came to find you. We should never have left you behind.” She felt his skin on her wrist, the loosening of a knot. “This journey to find you and fix our past mistakes ended up making Agatha and I closer. You brought Agatha and I together, like you always have before.”

The velvet cuff fell away, setting Sophie free. She stared into his eyes, his last words stinging her.

“Come with us, Sophie,” Tedros said, tilting her chin up, the way he once asked her to a Ball. “Come with Agatha and me to Camelot.”

Sophie curled into his chest, making him hold her. “Maybe you can’t see it. But now you brought me and Rafal closer too,” she whispered, almost to herself.

“What?”

“If I go with you, I won’t find love again,” Sophie said, nuzzling Tedros tighter. “My story proves it. I’m unlovable by anyone else. My best friend. My father. My prince. Not even Hort wants me anymore.”

“Because you’ve forgotten what love really is. Good is the path to love, Sophie. Not Evil.”

“Rafal is my only path now,” she said, remembering what it was like to be this close to a prince . . .

“There has to be a way,” Tedros pressed. “There has to be a way to make you come with us.”

“No, it’s too late . . .” Sophie inhaled his scent, trying to wrest herself away, trying to let him go. “Take Agatha and leave.”

“Not without you,” he said, his lips at her ear.

“I won’t leave him . . . I won’t leave my true love,” Sophie fought, looking to Rafal’s ring for strength.

Only now she saw something else on her finger . . . rubbed raw by the binds . . . her heart’s only answer all along . . .

“Unless . . . ,” she whispered.

“Unless . . . ?” Tedros breathed.

Sophie clasped his hand.

Tedros looked down and stiffened.

Because now he saw his name on her flesh too.

“Unless I had you back,” Sophie said.

20

Last Stop on the Fairy Dust Express

A clock struck somewhere across the bay. 11:30.

Thirty minutes to find Excalibur. What happens if I’m not at the gates by midnight? Agatha thought, scuttling through the air shaft to follow the School Master. Will Tedros come looking for me? Will he try to get into the castle? She couldn’t let that happen. He’d be walking into a death trap—

She stopped short.

Agatha stared at a wall of black rock sealing off the vent, as the sound of the School Master’s footsteps receded into the buzz of villains hunting her.

Alarmed, she was about to turn back and search for another route to the museum, when she noticed there was a small gap in the vent before the dead end. Agatha crept to the edge of the gap and looked down.