Her eyes drifted back to that tiny speck of light, trapped behind the smoke clouds. As she focused harder, she saw it was dripping: orange pieces of flame that scorched through the smoke and extinguished midair.

“Not the North Star,” she rasped. “Tedros, that’s the sun.”

Tedros glanced at the sky, irritated. “Don’t be daft. The sun can’t be that small—” His expression tensed. “Can it?”

Agatha knew he’d just realized the same thing she had last night. They’d been away from the Woods too long.

Slowly he lowered her back to the ground. “Seven days. That’s what Merlin said, didn’t he?”

“Meaning the sun will die at sunset . . . tonight,” said Agatha.

“Meaning tonight the storybook closes,” said Tedros. “One way or another.”

They looked at one another, the same shade of pale.

“I won’t let anything happen to you,” he promised.

Agatha nodded. “I know.”

But she was the one lying now. Not even a prince could protect her from what was coming.

Tedros forced a gallant smile, hugging her into his flank. “Of all the tales in all the kingdoms in all the Woods, you had to walk into mine.”

Agatha feigned a smile back, holding him tight, as they followed Merlin and the rest of Good’s army towards the dark Stymph Forest.

When they’d come through the portal into the Woods, the first thing Agatha and Tedros noticed was how cold it was. After three weeks in the springtime haven of the moors, the return to a sunless winter sent them both into shivers, even under their thick cloaks. But worse than the cold was the new, nasty smell: a stink of dead trees and decomposing animals that made her and Tedros shield their noses with their sleeves for the first hour, before they got used to it.

As the morning dragged on, no warmer or brighter, the group continued on the path, two by two, old with young—except Agatha and Tedros, who paired with each other to avoid their respective mentors. At first, the teams were lulled into a sense of safety by the deserted Woods. The Ever kingdoms had sealed themselves away, just as Merlin predicted, while the Never kingdoms like Ravenbow and Netherwood knew better than to attack Good’s army, however small, until the School Master proved that Evil could win.

The safe feeling didn’t last much longer.

Soon the pairs began to notice makeshift graves off the path, topped with smoking white stars on which Merlin had written fallen heroes’ names. Walking with the White Rabbit, Yuba made a note of them in a small notebook and whispered a prayer for each. By the time he and the rest stopped for lunch a few hours later at a dried-up pond, they all had the same grim faces, knowing they were drawing closer and closer to graves of their own.

And yet, they still had faith that their leader had a plan to save them. So when Merlin lit a fire in the middle of the pond-bed and handed out turkey sandwiches, his audience settled into the dirt, relieved they were about to finally, finally hear how a small gang of heroes and students could beat an Evil army twenty times their size.