From the moment she met Sophie, Sophie was that soul: the friend who made her feel normal, who made her feel needed, who so clearly cared about her, despite all her efforts to disguise it. Back then, Agatha had done everything she could to ensure they’d end up together forever, rather than let her best friend be stolen away by a boy . . . until Agatha somehow fell in love with that boy herself. And so the story had turned on its head, this time Sophie doing everything she could to keep a boy and her best friend apart. It was a wicked love triangle, with Sophie the point that had to be removed, until finally Agatha and Tedros had rid themselves of her, turning that triangle into a straight line between them—prince and princess united at last, just like in the storybooks buried under her bed. But now, as Agatha sat in darkness, feeling more and more like the graveyard girl of old, she wondered if the reason she missed her best friend was the simplest of all. What if Sophie wasn’t the force that kept her and Tedros apart? What if Sophie was the force that brought them together?

Without Sophie, she never could have opened up her heart.

Without Sophie, she never could have learned to love.

Without Sophie, there never could have been a Tedros and Agatha.

“Princess? What is it?”

Agatha slowly looked up at her prince, new life in her eyes. “Let’s go find our best friend.”

Tedros blinked at her, stunned. His cheeked pinked and his Adam’s apple bobbed, words swallowed by emotion. He placed his hand behind his back. “Wish to reopen our story, then?”

Agatha smiled and hid her hand. “Wish to reopen our story.”

Tedros closed his eyes. “One . . .”

“Two . . . ,” said Agatha, closing hers.

They took a joint breath and thrust out their fingers. “Three—”

The door slammed open to a sharp heel-crack of boots. Agatha lurched to her feet.

There was an Elderguard in the doorway, the outlines of a black cloak and slatted iron mask blending into the night.

Tedros instantly clasped Agatha and yanked her to the kitchen wall. He grabbed a meat knife from the sink and brandished it at the guard, blocking his princess’s body with his. “Move another inch and I’ll cut your throat!” Tedros spat.

The guard threw the door shut and hissed back at them. “Hide! Both of you!”

Agatha squinted at the big brown eyes glinting through the guard’s mask. “Mother?”

“Hide now!” Callis shrieked, shoring her body against the door.

Agatha couldn’t move, trying to process what was happening, gaping at her mother in the same uniform as the town guards ordered to execute her. “I d-d-don’t under—”

But then Agatha heard them coming . . . footsteps . . . voices . . .

She tackled Tedros to the ground. Stunned, the prince lost his grip on the knife and flailed to reach it as Agatha yanked him by the belt buckle under the bed. Tedros lunged over her and snatched the knife—