Agatha shook her head. “No,” she rasped. “I don’t.”

It wasn’t even a lie.

Tedros’ hurt froze to ice. He matched her expression, stiff and guarded. “You’re right. Maybe Sophie and I do need some time together,” he said, and took Sophie’s arm tight under his, his eyes searing Agatha the whole time. “Come on, Sophie. Let’s go.”

Sophie couldn’t have looked happier. She smiled at Agatha gratefully—the same smile she had first year when Agatha promised to help her get Tedros’ kiss.

Agatha didn’t smile back. She plowed ahead on the trail so brusquely that Merlin had to hike up his robes and scurry after her.

As Sophie and Tedros dropped behind, Agatha could hear Sophie’s voice lowered: “Odd that Aggie still calls you Tedros. Would have thought you two would have nicknames by now . . .”

Agatha pumped her legs faster so she wouldn’t hear Tedros’ answer.

Near the cave hole, Hort gaped at all this in horror.

“HIM? You’re going with him?” he screeched, losing his rebel-cool facade. “What about me?”

“You follow behind us and ward off danger, darling!” Sophie called, without turning. “That’s what bodyguards do.”

Hort’s chest puffed up, his rage about to blow, but it was too late.

Sophie was already cozied up to another boy—a boy Hort had come all this way to save her from—leaving the weasel alone in the dust.

Agatha peeked over her shoulder.

She’d checked a thousand times in the past four hours, trying to gauge if it was going well, but they were a mile back now, tiny halo-haired figurines against a misty, mustard-colored bog. She needed Sophie to destroy that ring. She needed Sophie to hold up her end of the bargain, after she’d forced Tedros to give her a chance.

But what if Sophie ruined it?

Suddenly Agatha felt like the old Agatha: the Agatha who’d studied spellbooks and fed Sophie lines as a cockroach and moved mountains to get Tedros to kiss her best friend and send them home. But her plans had failed then and it would fail now, if the new Sophie acted anything like the old Sophie. Because Tedros wouldn’t kiss that Sophie, then or now.

Agatha anxiously glanced back again—

She tripped badly, her new boots slipping off the wet path into a marsh of black water. A ribbon of saw grass snapped against her cheeks like a whip. Gritting her teeth, she climbed back onto the muddy trail through the mossy, yellowed Boglands, chasing after Merlin, who had grown so impatient with her distracted lagging that he was no longer waiting for her.

But Agatha’s mind couldn’t stop churning. On the one hand, she and Merlin needed Tedros to kiss Sophie. On the other hand, she could puke at the idea of Tedros kissing that lying, back-stabbing, double-crossing—

Pain pricked her ribs, a twinge Agatha felt when her thoughts went wrong.

She’d been demonizing Sophie as the old Sophie, the Evil-witch Sophie, still scheming for a prince. But had she tried to see the story from Sophie’s point of view? Behind the curtain in the cave, Sophie had looked so regretful, as if she knew what she was doing was wrong. Yet, as Sophie pointed out, all of this was Agatha’s fault to begin with. She’d given Tedros a clean slate in the tower, even if Tedros hadn’t known it at the time. She’d given all of them a clean slate when she’d balked at being queen. And with a clean slate, Sophie had done what anyone with a second chance at their fairy tale would do, just like those undead villains in the School for Old. They’d gone back to the moment in their story when things went awry.