“Someone’s whipped,” said Pinocchio.

“Finally as tall as his father,” Cinderella groused.

Tedros gritted his teeth, laboring under Agatha’s weight. “How much longer you need up there?”

Agatha leaned forward, the lattice of tree branches brushing against her crown, as she gazed far into the darkness, tracking the smoke.

It was coming from a fire.

Far into the black horizon, a tall tower of yellow-red flames raged into the sky. As the blaze licked higher and higher, it lit up the surroundings: a crooked clock tower, the shops of a square, turreted cottage rooftops, and the rest of a crystal-clear village, glowing in the flame light beneath a tattered shield . . .

Gavaldon.

Gavaldon was on fire.

Suddenly, she remembered the painting in the Exhibition of Evil . . . August Sader’s last vision of a giant bonfire in the middle of the village . . .

“No, it’s not on fire. They’re burning the storybooks,” she whispered, clutching Tedros tighter. “Sader knew they’d burn the books.”

She could see the shield over Gavaldon riddled with small holes and quivering in the wind, as if about to shatter at any moment.

“They’re believing in the new endings, Tedros. Merlin was right. They’re losing faith in Good . . .”

“I don’t get where M is taking us,” Tedros murmured, not listening to her. “The school is to the east, and your village is to the west. If Merlin keeps us on this path, we’ll run straight into the Stymph Forest between them.”

“Stymph Forest?”

“Where stymphs come from. You know those bony birds we used to have at school before the crogs ate them all,” said Tedros impatiently, sweating under her. “Merlin’s insane if he thinks we’d last a minute in there. No one in their right mind ever goes in that Forest, because the School Master controls the stymphs.”

“I thought stymphs hate villains,” said Agatha.

“Because the School Master’s trained them to seek out Evil souls. Only time anyone even gets near the Stymph Forest is on November 11, every four years, when the new Nevers are picked for school. Families have picnics on the perimeter and watch the stymphs blast out of the trees to kidnap kids and bring ’em to Evil castle.”

From Tedros’ shoulders, Agatha could see the dark stretch of woods that separated Gavaldon from the faint outlines of the School for Evil.

She’d been in that Forest before.

That night more than two years ago, when the School Master took her and Sophie from Gavaldon . . . he’d dragged them into the Endless Woods, where a stymph hatched out of a black egg, snatched them in its jaws, and flown them off to their fateful schools.

But why would Merlin be taking them to the Forest where their story began? They were supposed to be attacking the School for Evil. They were supposed to be finding Sophie, so she’d destroy her ring—

If Agatha could convince her to, that is.

Quickly she looked into the sky, trying to distract herself from her impossible task. How long did they have until the Woods went dark anyway? And why hadn’t the sun risen yet?