“Noticed you and Agatha spending a lot of time together,” he said.

Sophie peeked at his arched brow and knew better than to ask how much he’d been spying on them from afar. “Well, you had your time with Agatha and you had your time with me. Isn’t it fair that she and I had our turn? Especially if it’s the last time before things . . . change.” She gave him a coy look.

Tedros nodded, picking at the candle wax. “Of course.”

“We were worried about you, Teddy. Out there on your own. It must have been overwhelming to be thrown in that house with—”

“I don’t want to talk about an old story, Sophie. It’s the new story I care about.”

He turned, his stare piercing. “When we were on the trail, you said there were two types of queens. The one who wants to be a queen and the one who doesn’t. I asked what you would do as my future queen—”

“Before we were rudely interrupted by zombie pirates,” Sophie simpered.

Tedros didn’t smile. “It was the wrong question. I should have asked you why you want to be my queen.”

Sophie’s shoulders relaxed. Finally, they’d finish what they started in the Woods. No nerves, no setbacks this time. . . . Everything was in her hands now. All Tedros wanted was the truth.

She looked up at the jagged sapphires over their heads, reflecting the two of them like a thousand crowns. Then Sophie took a deep breath and began to speak.

“I used to dream of princes. Magnificent balls filled with hundreds of beautiful boys and me the only girl. I’d walk the line examining them, trying to pick which one would be my Ever After. Every night I’d get closer and closer, only to wake up before I found him. How I dreaded that moment when my eyes opened. To be in a world of magic and romance and Goodness and then robbed back into a drab, pointless life seemed so . . . wrong. I didn’t belong in a cottage lane with fifteen houses exactly like mine. I couldn’t marry some shopkeeper or cobbler’s boy and slog at the bakery each day just to feed our children. I wanted to find real happiness, where The End didn’t mean getting old and useless and being crammed in a graveyard with everyone else. Agatha thinks all this sounds like heaven, of course, but she wants to hide in an ordinary life. I’m special. I’m different. I’m meant to have my name remembered more than Snow White and Sleeping Beauty and girls who were just pretty and passive and waited like dolls for their princes to arrive. I’m meant to live in people’s hearts for Ever After, no matter how old my story gets. Because unlike all those other Good girls, I found a happy ending for myself. I made it happen, no matter how many people tried to take it away from me. That’s why I want to be a queen, Tedros. Because no matter what anyone said, I always knew I was one. Searching for her king.”