Agatha was still lost in a fog.

“But beware,” Uma added. “While you seek your true ending to The Tale of Sophie and Agatha, the School Master seeks his too.”

Tedros could see Agatha staring into space, no longer listening. “And what ending is that?” he asked.

Uma leaned in, her soft features hardening. “The wolf and giant were no accident. War is coming, Son of Arthur. As long as Sophie wears the School Master’s ring, all of Good is in terrible danger, past and present, young and old. Either you and your princess bring Sophie back to Good . . . or Good as we know it will be wiped out forever. That is the ending he seeks.”

Agatha’s heartbeat swirled in her ears.

Once upon a time, she and Sophie had slain a deadly villain who’d torn them apart.

Now her best friend had given her heart to that villain.

“But he’s Evil. She knows he’s Evil . . . and Sophie isn’t Evil anymore,” Agatha breathed, looking up. “Why would she want to be with him?”

“For the same reason you and your prince want to be with each other.” Uma gave her a wistful smile. “To be happy.”

Agatha and Tedros watched the Princess circle her finger, extinguishing the fireflies, and hasten towards the dark Woods beyond the hills. “Quickly, Evers,” she said, snatching a few more meerworms off a grave. “It’s a two-day journey to school and we must get to Sophie before they find you.”

Tedros frowned, lagging behind. “Before who finds us?”

“Who?” Uma glared back, incredulous. “Whoever else was in those graves.”

6

A Forest No Longer Blue

Rafal never slept in his chamber, so when the pen finally began to write, in the first hours of dawn, it was Sophie who was there to see it.

She’d been ill for six nights, ever since she took his ring—so ill, with a scorching fever and bone-numbing chills that she’d yet to leave her bed. Curled up in blankets, she imagined Tedros and Agatha gallivanting about town, snacking on Battersby’s cupcakes (maybe he’ll get fat, she hoped) and watching the sunset by the lake (maybe he’ll drown), while here she was cooped in a sooty tower, sniffling and shivering like a snotty Rapunzel, and no one liked Rapunzel because she was boring.

“You said—I could—see the—school,” she’d babbled to Rafal in a sweaty fit this morning. “I want to see—Hester—Anadil—”

“And infect them with whatever plague you’re carrying?” he teased, wrapping her in a fresh blanket.

She’d have pressed her case, if only he hadn’t been taking such good care of her. He barely left her side during the day: sponging her forehead, feeding her bone-marrow soup, bringing her baggy, black nightdresses that she could hibernate inside, and enduring her inane blathering about Tedros and Agatha and how little or much fun they must be having, depending on whether her jealousy was at a peak or a valley in any given moment. Soon Sophie began to dread the nights, when Rafal would go away, just as she once dreaded those first mornings when she was afraid he’d come. In her delirious haze, she began to crave the marble cradle of his arms . . . his fresh, teenage scent . . . his cold touch on her burning skin . . . his silvery voice pulling her out of nightmares . . .