The Last Ever After (38 page)

But then Sophie noticed what was
above
the stage.

A black crown of spikes floated high in the air, glimmering in the green flame light of a skull-shaped chandelier. It was the same crown she'd seen herself wearing in the E-V-I-L murals
back at the old Good castle, her smiling, painted self wrapped in Rafal's arms.

Sophie matched the smile now, clutching her handsome love, as they took center stage. Two years ago, the Circus Crown dangled above this spot the same way, awaiting the winning student of the first-year talent contest. She'd won her crown that night by disavowing Good and embracing Evil . . . just as she would tonight.

Only this time, she wasn't alone.

So much for Agatha's wish
, she smiled bitterly.

So much for Agatha at all
.

As the whole theater watched, Rafal magically lowered Evil's crown onto Sophie's head, before he gently fit it in place and kissed her on the forehead. His cold lips clashed with the iron at her temples, still warm from the chandelier flames, and she closed her eyes, imprinting the feeling and moment into her memory. When she opened her eyes, the young School Master was turned to his audience.

“Light fades over our Woods and darkness rises. And in darkness comes a queen,” he declared. “Like every true love, Sophie and I have gone through harsh trials to find and commit to each other. But doubt and pain have only made us stronger. Now we are as unshakable as any two Evers who loved for Good. But our love, bonded by Evil, is still not enough to win our Never After. For Evil to find its first happy ending in two hundred years, a happy ending that will bring forth a Golden Age of wickedness and sin . . .” He stepped to the edge of the stage. “We need each of you.”

The theater was dead quiet now.

“In seven days, the Woods will go dark,” said Rafal. “We must enter the Reader World before the seventh sunset or all our lives will be at an end. With the most famous heroes yet to be killed, Readers still cling to their faith in Good. But that will soon change. For now that my queen has returned, the forces of Good have no choice but to attack our castle. Killing me is the
only
way they can win. I assure you, then, that Merlin and his heroes will charge our School for Evil before the week is done. Our mission is to kill these old heroes and break the Readers' last faith in Good. That is our path into their world where we will seal Evil's victory once and for all. Until Merlin's heroes arrive, however, every one of us—young and old, Ever and Never, Leaders, Henchmen, and Mogrifs of future and past—must work together to defend our school. Our Deans of Evil and teachers shall lead our preparations and you
will
obey them.”

He clasped Sophie's hand. “In the past, Evil has lost every war because it had only something to fight against, rather than something to fight for. But now you have a queen who has given Evil a true chance at glory. A queen who once sat in the very seats in which you sit. A queen who will fight for you the way you fight for her.”

Rafal's face hardened. “And if anyone dare question that queen, then they will suffer the fate of all those who have failed their allegiance to Evil . . .”

The stage began to rattle, as if shaken by an earthquake, and Sophie teetered against Rafal in surprise. All at once the
stone stage tore apart at the crack, cold-blue mist spewing through the widening gap, until it cleared over a deep chasm and Sophie could see beneath the stage.

Hidden in the bowels of Evil's old castle was a cavernous frozen dungeon, with hundreds of bodies encased in ice. The first face Sophie saw was Professor Emma Anemone, eyes shocked wide under manic, blond curls, sealed in an ice tomb cut into the dungeon wall. Next to her, Dean Clarissa Dovey had her own glacial grave, her silver bun and rosy cheeks blurred by the ice—though Sophie noticed a shattered hole at the edge, where Anadil's rat must have burrowed through and borrowed Dovey's wand the night Agatha and Tedros broke in.

“The Brig of Betrayers holds all those who've shirked their loyalties to Evil throughout the history of our school—including the old faculty of the School for Good, who were each given the chance to teach for their
new
school and all refused,” said Rafal.

Pollux sniffed grievously from the back of the stage, expecting acknowledgment.

Rafal ignored him. “And lucky for you, today we have three fresh inmates to the Brig . . .”

Shrill squeaks echoed above him and the audience craned up to see Hester, Anadil, and Dot, bound together with rope, lowered over a pulley from the rafters by giggly Beezle.

“These three so-called Nevers conspired to let our enemies through our gates, while one even mutilated our own
Dean
with her Evil-given talent,” said the School Master, leering at Hester and her demon as both writhed against the suffocating
binds. “Yet even the most guilty betrayers deserve a fair trial, before they're condemned to the Brig for an
indefinite
sentence . . .”

The three witches were hardly paying attention now, for they'd caught sight of Sophie, returned to the School Master's side with her menacing crown.

“So I leave their fate to my queen, who, in addition to being intimately familiar with the accused, once even shared a room with them,” said Rafal, turning to Sophie. “So what do you say, my love? Spare them? Or condemn them?”

Sophie saw the witches hone in on her, silently pleading for mercy. Even Hester, who'd rather pluck out her own eye than show weakness, looked scared out of her wits.

How much we've been through together
, thought Sophie, she and the Three Witches of Room 66. For all their tempestuous ups and downs, she'd almost come to think of them as friends.

Almost.

For these were the friends who'd always believed she'd end up alone . . . friends who pushed Agatha to side with her prince over her . . . friends who'd spied on her inside her own school . . . friends who'd never been there for her when she needed them most . . .

And now they expected
her
to be their white-knight hero when they needed her.

Sophie's face went cold. If there was one moral to her fairy tale, it was that the witches were right all along. Nothing good ever came of her trying to be Good.

“Condemn them,” she said.

“No!” cried Dot—

Rafal smirked at the terrified witches. “Then I'm afraid this is goodbye.” He raised his finger to sever the rope over the Brig—

“Never was fond of goodbyes,” piped a voice above him.

Rafal looked up.

Merlin smiled down from the rafters, holding Beezle by the throat. “Mama!” the dwarf shrieked—

Rafal stabbed out his finger, but Merlin shot first and a blast of fire exploded down the rope, hurling Rafal and Sophie off the stage and rocketing Beezle like a cannonball into the pews. From the ground, Sophie's eyes fluttered open and she saw zombie villains stampeding the stage, Rafal lurching to his feet, the smoke over the rope clearing . . .

But Merlin and the witches were long gone.

The young School Master roared his fury and led the crush of villains from the theater to hunt the fugitives—

Sophie scrambled up from the floor to join them, only to stall in her tracks. For there was something in the lap of her dress, something that wasn't there before.

A small five-pointed star, smoking bright white against black velvet . . . like a wizard's reminder of Good left behind.

As the sun ascended over the moors, Agatha leaned against an oak tree in a baggy brown shirt she'd borrowed from Lancelot, her hair greasy and bedraggled, her stomach groaning with hunger. She glanced down at a diadem of silver and diamonds, shimmering from a small wooden box in Guinevere's hands.

“Did Lance give you that? It's lovely, I think, but I'm clueless about jewelry and clothes and anything that involves, you know . . . girls,” she said groggily. After being up half the night with Tedros and scavenging a few hours of sleep, the prince's mother had dragged her from the house this morning, insisting she had something to show her. If Agatha had known it'd be about frilly headpieces, she would have stayed in bed.

“It is a bit formal, though. The type of thing you'd wear to a Ball or a wedding, so not exactly practical for gallivanting on the moors . . .”

Agatha's voice trailed off. Where out here would Lancelot get silver and diamonds? Did he go spelunking into gem mines between shoveling horse poo and milking goats?

Half-asleep, she peered at the diadem and its loops of diamonds dangling off the silver circlet. It didn't seem new at all, for that matter. And the closer she looked at it, the more a squeezing feeling rose through her throat, because suddenly she was sure she'd seen this piece before . . .

In a pond's moonlit reflection . . .

Shining bright inside a Wish Fish painting . . .

Fixed atop her very own head.

Slowly Agatha raised eyes to Guinevere, who looked regal and imposing despite her weathered face and grubby housedress.

“This is . . . this is your . . .”

“I'm afraid it's yours now,” said Guinevere. “Formal and impractical, as it may be.”

“
Mine?
No, no, no—not mine at all—” Agatha croaked, backing into the tree.

“When Lance and I spotted you and Tedros together last night on the moors, I was so cross with myself,” Guinevere sighed. “I should have known Merlin had the names right that Christmas, if only from the way you stared at me during supper when I got it wrong. How could I be so daft? I suppose sometimes it's easier to see the simplest answer instead of the truth. That has always been hard for me.” She smiled sternly, holding out the box. “But now there will be no more mistakes.”

Agatha gaped owlishly at the crown and flicked the box shut. “Look, I can't take this! I'm not queen yet! I'm not anything yet—I haven't even taken a bath—”

“Good cannot wait anymore for its queen, Agatha,” said Guinevere, hardening. “Last night, your friend Hort went searching for Sophie and discovered she'd vanished from our safe haven and magically returned to the School Master.”

For a moment, Agatha thought she'd misheard or that this was all a sick joke, but nothing in Guinevere's face suggested either. “What? Sophie went back to
h-h-him
? But that's impossible—there's no way to leave this place—”

“The Lady of the Lake can only protect those who ally themselves with Good. All your friend had to do was wish to rejoin the School Master and he could break through the lake's enchantments and rescue her,” Guinevere replied. “Poor Hort was gutted after he found her missing. Said he'd do anything to kill the School Master and get her away from him. So he stayed up with me and Lance and told us as much of your
and Sophie's story as we needed to know. And from what I've heard, Agatha, I have no doubt that your friend has committed to be Evil's queen with all her heart. You must take your place as Good's queen with the same resolve and belief. Or you and my son will not stand a chance.”

Agatha said nothing, the words “my son” hanging between them.

A long moment passed. Slowly Agatha's fingers crept into Guinevere's palm and cracked open the wooden box just a sliver. “You, uh, kept your crown all this time?”

“Arthur's crown remains at Camelot until Tedros claims it,” the former queen replied patiently. “But I rode with mine the night I fled the castle, hoping the guards would assume I was on official business and wouldn't wake Arthur from his sleep. All these years I wanted to destroy the crown so that Lance and I could forget that part of my story ever happened. . . . But the truth is, I'm still a queen and I'm still a mother, Agatha. Nothing can change that, even if I hide away from the world. And as the holder of the crown, one of my duties to my kingdom, my son, and myself, no matter how much I've failed all three, is to pass that crown on.”

Her voice faltered and she composed herself. “I know I can never have a relationship with my child. I don't deserve to. But I still have to protect Tedros as best I can. And the only way I can do that is by making sure he has the queen that Arthur never had. A queen who isn't just sure of her crown, but is ready to fight for it when the time comes.”

Her hand slipped down and lifted the diadem out of the
box. Agatha could feel her heart throttling as Guinevere raised it into the sun.

“And that time is
now
.”

Agatha expected more protest to sputter out of her and her body to pull away . . . but instead she stayed in place, something changing inside. Looking up at Camelot's crown, Agatha felt fear and tension melt away, as if the queen's words had called up a part of her deeper than herself. Fire and purpose ripped through her, like armor beneath her skin, usurping the old Agatha and steeling her shoulders and chest.

Guinevere was right. This wasn't about her anymore.

This was about two sides, warring for love.

She and Tedros fighting for Good. Sophie and the School Master fighting for Evil.

Once upon a time, she and her best friend tried to find a happy ending together. Now only one of them could come out alive.

Right then and there, Agatha knew why she couldn't have an ordinary life.

She was never meant for one.

Because as long as her story was about her—her worth, her love, her future—she resisted her fate, as if living for herself was too much responsibility.

But the moment she saw her fate was bigger than her . . . as big as Good itself . . . she finally felt free to embrace it.

Slowly Agatha lowered her head to the queen as strands of light silver sprinkled over her forehead and a glare of red sun exploded against diamond edges.

Agatha looked up to see Guinevere clasp her hands to her mouth, fixed in a dazzling smile.

It was the only mirror Agatha needed.