“Never was fond of goodbyes,” piped a voice above him.

Rafal looked up.

Merlin smiled down from the rafters, holding Beezle by the throat. “Mama!” the dwarf shrieked—

Rafal stabbed out his finger, but Merlin shot first and a blast of fire exploded down the rope, hurling Rafal and Sophie off the stage and rocketing Beezle like a cannonball into the pews. From the ground, Sophie’s eyes fluttered open and she saw zombie villains stampeding the stage, Rafal lurching to his feet, the smoke over the rope clearing . . .

But Merlin and the witches were long gone.

The young School Master roared his fury and led the crush of villains from the theater to hunt the fugitives—

Sophie scrambled up from the floor to join them, only to stall in her tracks. For there was something in the lap of her dress, something that wasn’t there before.

A small five-pointed star, smoking bright white against black velvet . . . like a wizard’s reminder of Good left behind.

As the sun ascended over the moors, Agatha leaned against an oak tree in a baggy brown shirt she’d borrowed from Lancelot, her hair greasy and bedraggled, her stomach groaning with hunger. She glanced down at a diadem of silver and diamonds, shimmering from a small wooden box in Guinevere’s hands.

“Did Lance give you that? It’s lovely, I think, but I’m clueless about jewelry and clothes and anything that involves, you know . . . girls,” she said groggily. After being up half the night with Tedros and scavenging a few hours of sleep, the prince’s mother had dragged her from the house this morning, insisting she had something to show her. If Agatha had known it’d be about frilly headpieces, she would have stayed in bed.

“It is a bit formal, though. The type of thing you’d wear to a Ball or a wedding, so not exactly practical for gallivanting on the moors . . .”

Agatha’s voice trailed off. Where out here would Lancelot get silver and diamonds? Did he go spelunking into gem mines between shoveling horse poo and milking goats?

Half-asleep, she peered at the diadem and its loops of diamonds dangling off the silver circlet. It didn’t seem new at all, for that matter. And the closer she looked at it, the more a squeezing feeling rose through her throat, because suddenly she was sure she’d seen this piece before . . .

In a pond’s moonlit reflection . . .

Shining bright inside a Wish Fish painting . . .

Fixed atop her very own head.

Slowly Agatha raised eyes to Guinevere, who looked regal and imposing despite her weathered face and grubby housedress.

“This is . . . this is your . . .”

“I’m afraid it’s yours now,” said Guinevere. “Formal and impractical, as it may be.”

“Mine? No, no, no—not mine at all—” Agatha croaked, backing into the tree.

“When Lance and I spotted you and Tedros together last night on the moors, I was so cross with myself,” Guinevere sighed. “I should have known Merlin had the names right that Christmas, if only from the way you stared at me during supper when I got it wrong. How could I be so daft? I suppose sometimes it’s easier to see the simplest answer instead of the truth. That has always been hard for me.” She smiled sternly, holding out the box. “But now there will be no more mistakes.”