And there was only one counterspell to hate.

Magic follows emotion.

Agatha pictured her beautiful, brave prince in the Stymph Forest, fighting a deadly School Master. She focused on valiant Lancelot, who just wanted to go home to his one true love. She thought of noble, incorrigible old heroes, rushing into battle to repel old villains, who were starting to gain the upper hand. She looked up into the sky and watched the faint plumes of smoke blowing in from a shield over Gavaldon she couldn’t let break . . .

They need me.

They need me to destroy the ring.

Gold heat surged to her fingertip and a rush of air inflated her chest. With a cry of pain, she curled up into a fetal position and lurched to her knees.

For the first few paces, she could only crawl, her vision so misty and poor that she almost floundered straight into the bay’s lethal slime. Squinting up the hill at the old Evil castle, she could see Sophie propelling through the main doors. Agatha knew how vast the inside of Evil castle was; if Sophie got too far ahead, she’d never find her before nightfall—

Panicked, she glanced up at the sky over the bay and saw the needlepoint glow sinking east.

A couple hours at most.

Agatha willed her way to her feet, her hands and arms still locked up, her legs still spasming with pain. She limped past the bay, lumbered up the muddy hill towards the castle entrance, and shambled through the wide open doors. She’d find her. . . . She had to find her . . .

Her feet staggered onto the stone floor of the foyer before she slid down a wall of old portraits, drained of strength.

The castle was dead quiet, with the only sound a leaky drip that trickled down the portrait frames.

Sophie was long gone.

Head hammering, Agatha scanned the deserted halls off the foyer . . . the stairs in the anteroom leading to the towers . . .

I can’t move. Not anymore.

How can I find her if I can’t move?

She leaned against the wall, trying not to panic, trying to see straight—

Voices.

She heard voices. Carrying softly from the other side of the tall double doors at the end of the stair room.

Nauseous with pain, Agatha squirmed forward on her stomach like a seal, her hands and arms still paralyzed. Pouring sweat, she shoved her face to the doors and peeked through the gap between them.

Inside the dark Theater of Tales, Lady Lesso and Professor Clarissa Dovey were kneeling on the stone stage, hovering over the giant crack, revealing the deep, frozen Brig of Betrayers beneath. Thick, glowing blue mist billowed from inside the glacial dungeon, lighting up the Deans’ faces. From her vantage point at the west doors, Agatha could make out Dovey using her wand to melt one of the ice tombs on a dungeon wall, as Lady Lesso tried to extract Professor Emma Anemone from inside it by hacking at the ice with the tip of her stiletto heel.