Oh my God.

She launched to her feet, thrusting her prince’s sword into the torchlight.

I did it.

I really did it!

Mission complete.

With ten minutes to spare.

A beam of pride and relief ripped across her face and she whirled to the door, sword in hand, ready to mogrify out of this depraved castle —

Agatha dropped the sword.

“I never underestimate you, Agatha,” the young School Master said, leaning against a wall, barechested in black breeches. “And yet you underestimate me. A sorcerer who defeats death, returns to youth, takes your best friend as my queen, and here you think that I can’t hear your breath in a vent ten feet over my head . . . that I’d randomly announce my need to secure a museum . . . that I’d willfully leave the search for an intruder in my castle . . . all for no good reason . . .” The beautiful boy arched a brow. “Unless, of course, I knew you’d overhear it.”

Agatha’s heart imploded. “Then w-w-why didn’t you just kill me in the hall?”

“For one thing, I’ve been suspecting for a while that a pesky old wizard has been advising you and your prince as to how to defeat me, and now I have proof my suspicions are correct. For another, I was curious as to whether Excalibur is really as powerful as Merlin believes. So I put a charm on the sword when I hid it in the painting, so that no one except me could retrieve it. Which means that if you pulled it out, Excalibur’s magic indeed exceeds mine, at once able to recognize its allies and surely powerful enough to destroy the ring that keeps me alive. But I suppose there’s also a third reason I haven’t killed you just yet, Agatha. I thought you should meet the boy who’s claimed your best friend’s heart, up close and personal. You may call me, Rafal, by the way.” He smiled, striding towards her. “Sophie does.”

Agatha snatched the sword and flung it out at him, halting his advance. “Why did Sader paint the villains in Gavaldon? What’s the painting mean?”

Rafal eyed the sword blade, bemused. “Agatha, can you recall what I told you when you and Sophie visited my tower first year? I gave you a riddle to solve and sent you back to your schools, but you were angry with me. You said I should prey on other villages and leave yours alone. Do you remember what I answered?”

Agatha could feel herself transported back to that very moment, his reply vivid in her memory . . . the old masked School Master, so different from this young boy in front of her, leaving her with a single question as she and Sophie free-fell into a sea of white . . .

A question that had tormented her for two years.

A question that never made any sense.

“What other villages?” she whispered.

“That’s the one,” Rafal grinned. “You see, Agatha, all this time you thought the Reader World was the ‘real world’ far away from the realm of magic . . . when, in fact, your world is part of the Endless Woods. For how can a land of stories exist without Readers to believe in them?”