Sophie looked down, quiet. Then she looked back at the beautiful, young School Master. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m sorry for leaving—”

He put his finger to her lips. “You’re here now. That’s all that matters.”

“You’re not angry with me for betraying you?”

“How can I be angry when your betrayal made us stronger? If anything I should be thankful. That is, if it’s you I’m meant to thank at all.”

“What do you mean?”

Rafal bit his lip thoughtfully. “Your friend Agatha used to have a rare talent—the ability not just to hear wishes, but to grant them too. Her first year, she wasted her talent on pointless concerns: setting a few fish free, befriending a gargoyle, standing up for some wolves. . . . But now I suspect she’s learned to use it on something more worthwhile.” He stared into Sophie’s eyes. “You.”

“What?” said Sophie, jarred. “How could she—”

“Your wish was to have Tedros kiss you, was it not? And it was Agatha who gave you and Tedros the clean slate to let that kiss happen. Perhaps she even went one step further, giving you your kiss with a prince like a genie from a lamp, knowing all along that Tedros would feel nothing and return to her in the end—his love for her stronger, because it’d been tested. That’d be something now, wouldn’t it? Granting your wish in order to fulfill her own.”

Sophie furrowed. “I know Agatha and Agatha doesn’t think like that—”

“Not consciously, perhaps. But her soul spins towards Good the same way yours does towards Evil. Maybe she even thought in your heartbreak and anger at losing your prince, you’d turn your back on me too and destroy my ring. Good would have its perfect Ever After, clean and efficient, all because of a princess’s secret talent.”

Sophie’s face calcified. “So she wanted me to end up alone.”

“Indeed,” the young School Master smiled. “Only she hadn’t counted on you discovering the difference between me and Prince Tedros of Camelot.”

Sophie gazed into his riddling blue eyes. “What’s that?”

Rafal’s hand found her waist, pulling her in, and he pressed his lips to hers. His mouth was delicate yet firm, and from the moment it touched hers, Sophie felt her thoughts go silent, rapturously silent, like a dark bomb had imploded in her head. Then came her heart, rioting between fire and chills, as if it’d found its other half. He’d kissed her before, but this time she kissed him back harder, and as a breeze blew her hair over both their young faces, in streaks of sun-tinged gold, she knew there was no more guilt or doubt or shame, because she’d found love . . . everlasting love . . . as beautiful as it was Evil . . .

Rafal’s lips floated off hers.

“The difference is to a girl like you, Evil feels good,” he said.

Sophie could hear the Storian behind them, inking their kiss in a vibrant splash of color.