“Callis loved you so much,” Sophie whispered, rubbing her friend’s back. “Even if she hated me.”

“She didn’t hate you. She just assumed we wouldn’t stay friends once we got to our schools,” Agatha said, wiping her eyes.

“She also assumed you’d be in Evil and me in Good,” said Sophie.

“Would have solved everything, wouldn’t it?” said Agatha.

The two girls laughed.

“Everyone thinks we’re so different, Aggie,” said Sophie. “But we both know what it’s like to lose someone who truly understands us.”

Agatha lay her head on Sophie’s shoulder. “And to find someone too.”

Now it was Sophie’s turn to cry.

“We should get back,” sighed Agatha finally. “Think Guinevere and Lancelot have enough headaches without us disappearing too.”

As they walked home, Agatha took Sophie’s arm.

“What do you think of those two, by the way? For two lovers who changed the course of a kingdom, they’re quite . . . domestic.”

“That’s sugarcoating it,” Sophie said, grimacing. “If she’d stayed with Arthur, imagine the things Guinevere would be doing with him right now: planning the Easter Ball or welcoming neighboring kings for dinner or managing the royal court. And here she is, folding a man’s shirts and taking pleasure in it. Arthur would have been better off with someone like my mother, who knew she was meant for a grander life.”

“I only saw your mother once or twice in town when I was really young,” said Agatha. “But I remember she was beautiful, like a gold-haired nymph.”

“It’s been seven years, so I can’t even picture her face anymore,” said Sophie. “The more I try to remember it, the more it shape-shifts, like I’m trying to recapture a dream. But she didn’t leave the house much. Didn’t have any friends either except Honora, until . . . well, you know. That’s how I know she never went to the school or into the Woods at all. Because she never would have gone back to Gavaldon. She despised that place.”

“Like mother, like daughter,” Agatha quipped.

“The difference between me and her is that I got out,” said Sophie, her tone steeling. “I’ll have the grand life she always wanted. I’ll have an Ever After big enough for the both of us.”

Agatha smiled tightly and they lapsed into silence.

As the two girls neared the farmhouse, they glimpsed Gavaldon lit up far away like the northern lights, the protective shield around it pocked with holes of various sizes, none bigger than the size of a melon. Through the holes, they could see the green turrets of the cottages rich and textured, the clock on the crooked tower sharp and clear, and groups of children in the square, noses buried in storybooks. They could even see some of the shop windows, including Mr. Deauville’s Storybook Shop, now reopened and teeming with kids.

“They’re reading the rewritten storybooks,” Agatha realized, remembering Merlin’s warning. “Every time Evil wins, a fairy tale rewrites itself. That’s why Gavaldon’s opening to the School Master and his Dark Army. Readers are believing in the power of Evil.”