Agatha met her eyes. Neither of them were talking about horses anymore.

Sophie stroked Nellie Mae’s head. “I am ready for a relationship, Aggie. You’ll see.” She whispered into the horse’s ear. “Right, Nellie Mae? We’re a team for Good, you and I. I trust you and you trust m—”

Nellie Mae bucked Sophie so hard she flipped backwards and landed face-first on her horse’s rump, before Nellie Mae took off across the moors.

“Aggggieeeeeeeee!” Sophie screamed.

For a moment, Agatha relished the sight of Sophie dragged into oblivion, her nose in the horse’s buttocks, her buttocks on the horse’s head, before Agatha realized that if she didn’t stop them, Nellie Mae wouldn’t ever stop.

With a firm kick to Benedict’s side, Agatha raced after Sophie’s horse, while Hort and Lancelot hooted from the sheep’s meadow, thoroughly entertained.

The problem, of course, was that as kind as he was, Benedict lived life at a glacial pace and saw no reason to move any faster, especially given how little regard he had for both Sophie and Nellie Mae. But now Agatha glimpsed a deep swamp patch ahead of Sophie’s horse, bounded by a fallen tree the size of a boulder.

Nellie Mae accelerated towards the tree, perhaps seeing a chance to rid herself of her rider once and for all.

“Sophie, watch out!” Agatha yelled.

Sophie looked up and gasped—

Nellie Mae leapt over the tree, throwing Sophie headlong into swamp mud, before the horse landed gracefully on the other side and galloped into the sunrise.

Sophie heard Agatha’s horse trotting up. “Now do you take back the part about me being more difficult?” Sophie groaned, caked in mud.

Agatha looked down from her horse and held out a hand. “No.”

“Fair enough,” Sophie sighed, pulling up and climbing onto Benedict behind her.

As they rode towards the house, Sophie gripping onto her, Agatha felt her friend’s head rest on her shoulder.

“Still rescuing me after all these years, Aggie,” Sophie whispered, nuzzling in.

“Have you ever heard of a fairy tale called The Scorpion and the Frog?” Agatha asked.

“Obviously. Do you not know it? Really, as much as I like Clarissa Dovey, her curriculum seems woefully thin.” Sophie cleared her throat. “Once upon a time, a scorpion desperate to cross a stream sees a frog safe on the other side and asks him for a ride. The frog doesn’t want to help, of course, because he says the scorpion will surely sting and kill him. The scorpion replies that to kill the frog would be foolish, for he can’t swim, and if the frog dies, so will he. Convinced of this logic, the frog offers the scorpion a ride . . . but as they start to cross the river, the scorpion instantly stings the frog. ‘You fool!’ the frog croaks as he sinks. ‘Now we both shall die!’ But the scorpion only shrugs and does a jig on the drowning frog’s back. ‘I could not help myself,’ the scorpion says—”