“We need to get to Merlin,” Tedros panted. “Mogrifying is our only chance!”

“The School Master can fly, Tedros! He’ll catch us!” said Agatha, watching Rafal blast through the bookcase with magic. “We need something faster!”

“You came in without a plan to get me out?” Sophie said, the sounds of the bookcase splintering behind them.

“Was pretty sure we’d be dead by now,” puffed Tedros. “What’s faster than mogrifying?”

The bookcase over Rafal flew across the room, shattering against the opposite wall.

“He’s c-c-coming,” Agatha stammered, spinning back to her friends. “We have to leave right no—”

Her eyes bulged. Sweeping from the Woods towards the School Master’s tower was a sooty black cloud, boxy and elongated like a passenger train, and strangely moldy in texture. For a moment, she thought it was smoke from a distant fire, until she saw the familiar twinkles sewn into the cloud, glittering like . . .

“Fairy dust?” Agatha said, agape.

And indeed, now she, Sophie, and Tedros all glimpsed the shadow inside the fairy-dust cloud: a shadow with flowing purple robes and a cone-shaped hat, flying and flapping his arms as he steered towards the window.

“If you don’t come to Merlin, Merlin comes to you,” the wizard trumpeted, bringing the cloud a few feet from the window ledge. “Quickly, children! Tink’s dust won’t last much longer!”

Agatha glanced back and saw Rafal starting to rise. She spun to Sophie and Tedros. “We have to jump into the fairy dust!”

“Jump?” Sophie squeaked, peering off the ledge.

“On three!” said Agatha. “One . . .”

“Two . . . ,” said Tedros.

“Three!” they yelled—

Agatha and Tedros cannonballed into the thick of the cloud and felt a magic lightness buoy them into air, as if they’d lost all mass. As Merlin veered the cloud train towards the school gates, Agatha closed her eyes, abandoning to weightless flight. Tedros, meanwhile, couldn’t stop somersaulting in midair, like an asteroid knocked from its path.

“How do I stop spinning!” Tedros howled.

“Relax your buttocks, dear boy!” Merlin called back.

Swimming through dust, Agatha grabbed on to the prince’s wrist, stopping his orbit. Tedros smiled gratefully . . . then frowned.

“Where’s Sophie?” he asked.

They twirled to see her standing on the windowsill, white as a ghost while the dust train floated away.

“Sophie, what are you doing!” Agatha cried.

“Jump now!” Tedros hollered.

Terrified, Sophie inched closer to the ledge and suddenly felt a clamp on her left hand. She spun to see Rafal holding on to her, calmer than ever.

“You’ll come back to me, Sophie,” he promised. “Leave now and you’ll come back, begging for forgiveness.”

Sophie saw the cold confidence in his pupils, reflecting her scared face. His grip on her hardened, her hand weakening in his . . .

“Sophie, come on!” a boy’s voice called.

She turned and saw the golden, shirtless prince suspended in the sparkle cloud, beckoning her to his side . . . like the first day they ever met . . .