By the time Guinevere dismounted, Tedros had nearly flattened her with a hug.

“You’re coming with us?” he said, tears flowing.

“Me and the ogre,” said Guinevere, kissing his cheek. “A king needs his mother.” She looked up at Agatha. “And so does his queen.”

Agatha embraced her. “You have no idea,” she breathed.

“Thank you, Mother,” Tedros sniffled, putting his arms around the both of them. “Thank you—”

“You can thank her by taking that death warrant off her head,” Lancelot crabbed.

“Oh Lance, must you ruin everything!” Guinevere sighed.

As Lancelot relented and joined the group hug, Sophie watched from a distance as Agatha wrapped tighter into the arms of a loving prince and new, beautiful family. Seeing the glow in her friend’s face, Sophie’s own heart felt light as a cloud. Lady Lesso was right. Agatha’s happiness was her happiness. And that was Ever After enough.

“Sophie, come on!”

She glanced up at Tedros and Agatha, holding the carriage door open for her.

With a smile, Sophie started heading towards them—

“Dear girl, do you mind retrieving my cape from Professor Dovey’s office?” said Merlin, sauntering by in his shirtsleeves. “These old bones won’t make it up another flight of stairs.”

Sophie frowned, pointing at her friends ahead. “But they’re—”

“Don’t worry,” said Merlin, breezing past her. “We’ll hold the carriage.”

The door to Professor Dovey’s office was open and Sophie hurried inside, not wanting to keep her friends waiting.

The second desk was gone and the Dean of Good’s office restored the way it once was, smelling of cinnamon and cloves. But Sophie couldn’t see Merlin’s cloak anywhere: not on the coat hooks, nor on the chair or desk . . .

But there was something else on the desk that made Sophie stop.

Between the pumpkin paperweights and basket of fresh sour plums lay a long white box cinched with a single purple ribbon. Attached to the box was a card that read:

Sophie

“It was on my desk when we returned.”

Sophie turned to see Professor Dovey at the door.

“Lady Lesso must have left it before she freed me from the Brig,” said Clarissa, stepping beside her. “There was no will, no letter . . . only this.”

Sophie ran her fingers along the stiff edges of the box and her inked name on the card, nothing else on the front or back, before peeking up at the Dean.

“We won’t know what it is until you look inside, dear,” Dovey said.

Slowly Sophie tugged at the purple ribbon and watched it slide away. Leaning over the desk, her hand curled around the edge of the white lid and pulled the box open.

Sophie choked.

“No. . . . How—how can—”

She spun to Professor Dovey, but the Good Dean was smiling at the box through tears.

“She told us, didn’t she?” Clarissa whispered hopefully. “The ‘Old and the New together . . .’”

She touched Sophie’s cheek. “‘Both in good hands.’”

Outside the carriage, Tedros brought his mother and Lancelot cups of tea. Leaning against a wheel, Agatha picked burrs out of Reaper’s warty skin while Merlin studied his beardless face in the coach’s glass window.