The Last Ever After (44 page)

But she was yawning now, and she knew he'd done something to her, for her body grew numb and her head so heavy that she sank through the cloud like an anchor. She thrust out her hand for Merlin, striving to stay awake, trying to grab hold of him, but all she felt was a fistful of stars as she fell into the dark, and the warm taste of sky in her mouth.

Voices swelled sharply out of the void and Agatha's eyes opened.

She was sprawled on the floor in one of Guinevere's blue tattered blankets. The witches were gone from the room, their bed neatly made. Through the window, she could see the inky night sky, with no sign of the sunrise.

Agatha followed the voices towards the den and glimpsed her friends, young and old, packing burlap sacks with crackers and fruit and tins of water, while devouring last bowls of oatmeal. Everyone was clad in thick black cloaks, buzzing in hushed whispers, except for Guinevere, who was still in her
nightdress, packing a bag for Lancelot while the knight polished his sword. As Agatha inched into the den, she noticed that the group was no longer divided into old on one side and young on the other as usual, but into the various mentor groups—Hort with Peter Pan, Anadil with Jack and Briar Rose, Hester with Hansel and Gretel, Dot with Red Riding Hood . . . before Hort caught sight of Agatha and he and Pan went quiet. All the other pairs did too.

Merlin sauntered into the den from the dining room, sipping a mug of coffee.

“Tried to keep our voices low, my dear. Wanted to give you a bit more rest.”

In her sleepy daze, Agatha didn't understand.

But then she felt someone touch her shoulder.

She looked up at Tedros, clean and beautiful in a black cloak, Excalibur strapped to his back. He clasped her hand with a scared smile.

“It's time,” he said.

30
Apologies and Confessions

A
gatha knew they were all doomed when Tedros tried to convince Lancelot to stay behind with his mother.

Tedros knew as well as Agatha did that they needed the knight to join their army in the war to come. So for him to beg Lancelot to remain at the house meant Tedros knew they were all going to die. For as much as the prince despised the scalawag knight, he couldn't bear the thought of his mother losing him.

Not that his wishes mattered in the end. Guinevere wouldn't hear of it.

She said her goodbye to Lancelot out on the moonlit moors, just as she did with the rest of her guests, taking the time to give brisk hugs to each, as if they were all popping off to a shop and would be back by lunch.

It was only when Guinevere hugged Agatha that the old queen
lingered. Agatha could see her lips trembling and the wet sheen of her eyes.

“Take care of my Tedros,” Guinevere whispered.

“I will,” said Agatha, trying not to cry.

Something cold touched her head and Agatha looked up at her prince as he fit her crown back on her.

“You left it in your room,” he said, with a droll smile. “An oversight, I'm sure.”

Then he met his mother's gaze.

Agatha could see each of them overwhelmed with emotion . . . a mother and son who'd battled so much pain to come back together, only to be pulled apart once more.

“Let me come with you, Tedros. Please,” Guinevere pleaded. “I can fight—we'll be together—”

“No,” said the prince. “It's the one thing Lancelot and I agree on.”

Guinevere shook her head, tears falling.

Tedros hugged her to his chest. “Listen to me. You'll be at Camelot for my coronation. Once Agatha and I close her storybook and the School Master is dead. That's where your story will end, all right? Not here, but Camelot, where you'll be a mother . . . then a grandmother . . . and you'll have so much love for the rest of your life. . . . You can even bring the ogre.”

Guinevere sniffled a laugh. “Promise me, Tedros. Promise me you'll come back.”

“I promise,” Tedros rasped.

But Agatha knew he was lying.

Guinevere spotted something over her son's shoulder and pulled away.

Agatha and Tedros turned to see Merlin leading his League of heroes, young and old, towards a floating portal of white glow atop a distant hill.

Lancelot climbed through first, evaporating like a shadow into the sun, before the old and new heroes followed him into the light, one by one . . . until only Merlin was left, raising consoling eyes to Agatha and Tedros across the moors, as if he wished he could let them stay.

“Has to be morning by now, surely,” said Tedros to Agatha, peering through the darkness of the Woods, as they tried to keep up with the pair in front of them.

“Then where's the sun?” Agatha asked, searching a horizon of fast-moving black clouds with a pinprick of light pulsing through it. “All I see is the North Star and storm clouds—”

Only they
weren't
clouds, as Agatha looked closer.

It was smoke, emanating from somewhere far ahead, directly in the path of where Merlin was leading their army. Huddled into a black cloak, Agatha stood on tiptoes, squinting over the pairs in front of her, but she couldn't see where the smoke was coming from.

“Lift me up,” she nudged Tedros.

“What?”

“On your shoulders.”

Tedros frowned. “Just because you're wearing a crown doesn't mean—”

“Now.”

The prince sighed. “And I thought Sophie was high maintenance.”

He swung her up onto his shoulders, grunting softly as she clasped her arms around his cloak collar, her clumps digging into his chest. She could see Hort and Peter Pan paired in front of them and hear Cinderella and Pinocchio a ways behind, trading jokes at the sight of them.

“Someone's whipped,” said Pinocchio.

“Finally as tall as his father,” Cinderella groused.

Tedros gritted his teeth, laboring under Agatha's weight. “How much longer you need up there?”

Agatha leaned forward, the lattice of tree branches brushing against her crown, as she gazed far into the darkness, tracking the smoke.

It was coming from a fire.

Far into the black horizon, a tall tower of yellow-red flames raged into the sky. As the blaze licked higher and higher, it lit up the surroundings: a crooked clock tower, the shops of a square, turreted cottage rooftops, and the rest of a crystal-clear village, glowing in the flame light beneath a tattered shield . . .

Gavaldon.

Gavaldon was on fire.

Suddenly, she remembered the painting in the Exhibition of Evil . . . August Sader's last vision of a giant bonfire in the middle of the village . . .

“No, it's not on fire. They're burning the
storybooks
,” she whispered, clutching Tedros tighter. “Sader knew they'd burn the books.”

She could see the shield over Gavaldon riddled with small holes and quivering in the wind, as if about to shatter at any moment.

“They're believing in the new endings, Tedros. Merlin was right. They're losing faith in Good . . .”

“I don't get where M is taking us,” Tedros murmured, not listening to her. “The school is to the east, and your village is to the west. If Merlin keeps us on this path, we'll run straight into the Stymph Forest between them.”

“Stymph Forest?”

“Where stymphs come from. You know those bony birds we used to have at school before the crogs ate them all,” said Tedros impatiently, sweating under her. “Merlin's insane if he thinks we'd last a minute in there. No one in their right mind ever goes in that Forest, because the School Master controls the stymphs.”

“I thought stymphs hate villains,” said Agatha.

“Because the School Master's
trained
them to seek out Evil souls. Only time anyone even gets near the Stymph Forest is on November 11, every four years, when the new Nevers are picked for school. Families have picnics on the perimeter and watch the stymphs blast out of the trees to kidnap kids and bring 'em to Evil castle.”

From Tedros' shoulders, Agatha could see the dark stretch of woods that separated Gavaldon from the faint outlines of the School for Evil.

She'd been in that Forest before.

That night more than two years ago, when the School Master took her and Sophie from Gavaldon . . . he'd dragged them into the Endless Woods, where a stymph hatched out of a black egg, snatched them in its jaws, and flown them off to their fateful schools.

But why would Merlin be taking them to the Forest where their story began? They were supposed to be attacking the School for Evil. They were supposed to be finding Sophie, so she'd destroy her ring—

If Agatha could convince her to, that is.

Quickly she looked into the sky, trying to distract herself from her impossible task. How long did they have until the Woods went dark anyway? And why hadn't the sun risen yet?

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.

“Sometimes I wonder,” Merlin declared, licking a bit of mustard off his upper lip, “where exactly does the food come from? Is there a fourth dimension where a magic hat goes to fetch it? Or does it simply summon turkeys and bread out of thin air? In which case, what is this sandwich
really
made of?”

Forty eyes gaped at him.

“Merlin,” said Lancelot, simmering, “it's clear we're headed straight for the Stymph Forest, otherwise you would have turned us east hours ago. Is there a
reason
we're going there instead of the school?”

“Certainly,” said Merlin, digging in his hat for a toothpick.

He didn't elaborate.

“So? What is it?” Peter Pan snapped.

“The Stymph Forest is where the School Master plans to attack us, of course,” said Merlin, as he picked his teeth. “Shall we have some coffee? Though twenty mugs of it is a bit much to ask, given all of you are no doubt fussy about how you take your milk and sug—”