The Last Ever After (45 page)

“Merlin, for God's sakes!” growled Jack.

“When I said, ‘Leave the plan to me,' I meant it,” the wizard retorted. “All of you have enough to worry about without the intricacies of war: a war that will be all for naught if even
one
of our most famous heroes dies. The shield over the Readers is almost broken now. Peter, Cinderella, Jack, Sleeping Beauty, Red Riding Hood, Hansel, Gretel, Pinocchio—you are all that's left between the School Master and the end of Good as we know it. So let me worry about the battle plan while you and your young lieges worry about how to keep all of you
alive
.”

Tedros gave Agatha a sharp look, questioning whether leaving the plan to Merlin sounded as faulty to her as it did to him.

Agatha cleared her throat. “Merlin, you just said you're taking us into the Stymph Forest because the School Master will attack us there. Given the School Master controls the Stymph Forest, don't you think that warrants
some
details?”

“Details?” Merlin asked, pursing his lips. “How's this. The School Master plans to ambush us with the old villains before we get to school. Given I know this before it happens, I had to choose where I want this ambush to take place. The Stymph Forest seemed the best option.”

Rumbles rolled through his audience.

“He's finally lost it,” Tedros mumbled to Agatha.

“Merlin, first off, the Stymph Forest is the worst place we can go if it's under the School Master's control—” Lancelot snorted.

“Forget the stymphs,” Hester jumped in. “He's ambushing us? With two hundred zombie villains?”

“How would wizard even know they ambush us?” Hansel scoffed.

“For once Hansel is right,” Gretel agreed. “‘Ambush' means attack with
surprise
, so if there is no surprise, then there is no ambush—”

“What's surprising to me is that our future queen is worried about me,” Merlin boomed, eyes still on Agatha, “when
she
is the one ultimately responsible for winning this war and yet has no idea how to make Sophie destroy her ring.”

Everyone shut up.

Agatha slowly looked up at Merlin.

“Either the School Master dies or we die, Agatha,” the wizard impressed. “So if I were you, I would be wholly focused on Sophie instead of
stymphs
.”

His echo resounded across the Woods.

Agatha could see Tedros staring at her.

The rest of the group frowned at her too, dead silent.

“Might as well kill ourselves now, then,” Cinderella cracked.

Agatha twirled to her. “Or kill you since you're a vile, black-hearted
beast
who no one can stand!”

Cinderella went beet red.

A stillness fell over the group, with everyone looking away.

Agatha glanced at Tedros, but he couldn't meet her eyes either.

Merlin lumbered to his feet, brushing his hands of crumbs. “Another reason I've stayed a bachelor all these years . . . ,” he said, heading towards the path. “The joy of eating
alone.
”

“I'm not apologizing,” Agatha declared.

Tedros chomped on an apple, ambling beside her.

“I'm not. She deserved it,” Agatha pushed, trying not to look back at Cinderella with Pinocchio, a ways behind. “You would have done the same thing.”

Tedros didn't answer.

“Look, if you're going to make a scene about it, I'll apologize, but only if she apologizes first,” said Agatha.

Tedros gnawed at the apple core and tossed it aside. “What is she apologizing for, exactly?”

“Tedros, she's done nothing but torment us since the day we met her.”

“None of it bothered you before. If anything, you've gone out of your way to be civil to her until ten minutes ago.”

“Because I can only take so much!”

“Or because you found a convenient whipping girl during a moment of self-doubt.”

“What?”

“Agatha, do you remember first year we were in Dovey's Good Deeds class and you told me I was dumb as an ass and then—”

“You threatened to
kill
me?”

Tedros pointed at himself. “Self-doubt.” He pointed at her. “Whipping girl.”

The prince cocked a smile. “Takes one to know one.”

Agatha folded her arms. “Well, you didn't apologize to me back then, so why should I apologize to her?”

“Because you're a better person than me, obviously.”

“Is that the defense you're going to use in every argument from now until we die?”

“Works, doesn't it?”

Agatha groaned. “Fine. Given that it's impossible to get her alone at the moment, I'll wait until there's a more suitable time and plac—”

“Hey, Long Nose!” Tedros shouted to Pinocchio. “Mind walking with me for a bit?”

Pinocchio grimaced. “I'd rather not, given your air of entitlement, but seeing you're a spoiled brat who will heckle me with emasculating taunts if I don't, I'm sensing I don't have a choice,” he said, shuffling towards the prince.

Tedros blinked at him. “It must be exhausting to always tell the truth.”

“Why do you think I'm not married?” said Pinocchio, walking off with him.

And just like that, Agatha was alone with her mentor.

She expected the old princess to attack her and make a public spectacle of this, but instead, Cinderella trudged ahead, slouched and shifty-eyed, looking like a shamed child.

“Um, hello again,” said Agatha, a bit thrown. “I wanted to say sorry. I guess I felt defensive and took it out on—”

“You think I'm a bad person,” Cinderella mumbled. “Everyone thinks I'm a bad person and that I'm bitter and frigid and rude. But no one in this group will ever understand, least of all you.”

“That's not true,” said Agatha. “People used to think I was pretty rude too. Truth is I was afraid of their judgments, until I learned to—”

“Oh, no one gives a hoot what you learned,” Cinderella grouched. “You got it all wrong anyway. This ain't about me being scared of stupid judgments or people like you. Forget I said anything. I accept your apology and now you can go away, all right?”

She crossed her arms and looked away, done with this conversation.

Agatha sighed. “All right.”

She started to leave . . . but then she heard it. A quiet voice inside of her.

Don't go.

Only it wasn't her voice.

It was Cinderella's.

Once upon a time, Agatha could hear the wishes of souls in need. Since then, she thought she'd lost her talent.

But perhaps she hadn't lost it after all.

Perhaps she'd just stopped listening.

Slowly Agatha turned back to the old princess.

“Tell me,” she said.

Cinderella looked at her, startled. “Still here, are you,” she said, trying to sound annoyed.

“Look, Merlin thinks we can help each other,” said Agatha. “And I have a feeling you know why.”

Cinderella shifted her eyes to the ground. “What's the point?” she muttered softly.

“Please,” said Agatha.

They walked in silence for a long time.

“I never thought in a million years I'd get into the School for Good,” said the old princess. “I grew up with a stepmother who told me I was ugly and stupid and paunchy and wasn't worthy to scrub her toilet, let alone be an Evergirl. ‘Cinderella,' she named me: the girl who would be lucky to marry a stableboy. All her attention was focused on her two daughters, who she knew would marry eligible princes after graduating from the School for Good. So when
I
got a Flowerground ticket to school and my stepsisters didn't, I felt so ashamed, as if there'd been some great mistake. Surely someone would see it was my sisters who belonged there, not me. But then I got my uniform and schedule and portrait on the wall . . . and there I was, a real student just like the others. Ella. Sweet, cinderless Ella of Charity, Room 24.

“But I wasn't happy at school. By the end of my first year, I was horribly homesick. Because here's the thing no one knows about me: I
loved
my stepsisters. And they loved me! The storybooks never tell you that, because it would mess up everything, wouldn't it? I mean, sure, they were silly and spoiled and prince-obsessed, but they were also clever and bawdy and sassy like me. Plus, they'd saved my life. When my father died and I was orphaned to my stepmother, she'd wanted to sell me
to Bluebeard, who was looking for a new wife at the time. But knowing that Bluebeard had a reputation for hacking up his wives, my stepsisters came up with the idea of making me the housemaid instead. I could tell they felt guilty about having me wash their underpants, but I was happy as a clam, knowing they'd spared me from a terrible end. Besides, they usually were at my side while I did the sweeping and cooking, telling me all about the legendary School for Good and how glorious it would be once they got their Flowerground tickets, along with relaying the latest town gossip and carping about their troll of a mother. The three of us were so
close
. So to then be whisked off to school without them, especially when I always thought of that school as theirs . . . well, by the second month, I was moping over a bucket of ice cream before bed every night, wishing I could go home.”

She took a deep breath. “But graduation finally came and while other students went off into the Woods in search of their fairy tales, I dashed back to my stepmother's cottage in Maidenvale. At first, my sisters wouldn't speak to me, still furious that I'd ‘stolen' their place at school. But I was careful never to mention my life as a student and in time, they began giving me chores all over again. Meanwhile, my stepmother tore up any letters that arrived from my schoolmates and burned my old uniforms and textbooks, and soon it was like I'd never gone to the school at all. Which was a relief, honestly, because I was just happy to be laughing with my sisters like it was old times.

“But my stepmother was a jealous wretch and began warning her daughters to keep their distance from me—I was a wolf
in sheep's clothing and would one day betray them, just like I had when I'd taken their spots at school. The bonds between girls who weren't blood could
never
last. My stepsisters didn't believe her, of course. I was family to them. And the truth was, I wanted them to be happy. After seeing my father marry that she-devil and seeing all the stupid energy that Evergirls put into boys at school, I was more than happy to leave marriage and love and princes to my stepsisters, while I lived life in their shadows, perfectly fine with their company and my own.”

Cinderella paused. “So you have to understand, when Professor Dovey came to my house on that famous night and granted my wish to go to the Ball, she—and everyone else who knows my story—thought I wanted to go to the Ball to meet the prince. I
never
wanted to meet the damn prince! I wanted to go to the Ball because I wanted to see my
stepsisters
meet the prince! Their whole lives had been building towards the night Prince Keelan would see the eligible girls of the kingdom. And after all those years of me listening to them gush about what they'd say to him and what they'd wear and how they'd win his heart, now they'd finally get their turn in front of him. How could I not be there! They wanted me there too, of course, but they couldn't dare admit it to stepmother. You should have seen their faces when I cornered them at the Ball and revealed myself, magic slippers and all. Just as I'd played down my time at school to keep us together, now they saw again how much I really loved them: for I'd used a magic wish to see their moment with the prince.”

Her mentor's eyes slowly dimmed. “When Prince Keelan
chose me, I could see the shock in their faces, as if in a single moment, they realized they should have listened to their stepmother all along. The things they called me in that moment, with so many people listening, were so horrible that I can never forget them. I tried to explain to them that I didn't want the prince—I even ran away from the Ball to prove it. But princes always find their princesses, even when they don't want them to. He tracked me to my stepmother's house like a snoop and fit me with the glass slipper I'd left behind. When he proposed to me, I gave him one condition: my stepsisters would come and live at the palace with me, because if I was marrying a man I hardly knew, at least I could live it up in style with my best friends. But he'd seen how my sisters behaved towards me at the Ball and when his men fitted me with the slipper. He couldn't see in them what I did. Instead, he demanded I choose: either I'd go to the palace alone as his wife or be left behind at the house with my sisters forever. He gave me until the morning to decide and left with his men.”

Cinderella paused. “That night, my stepmother tried to kill me in my bed with an axe, but my prince had hidden outside my window, knowing I wasn't safe under her roof. He killed her on the spot with his sword and swept me away. The last thing my stepsisters ever saw was me riding away with the prince they'd both dreamed of, their mother dead on the floor.”

Cinderella teared up. “First I took their place at school. Then I took their prince. Then I took their mother. How could they see the Good in me now? How could they see me as anything but an enemy?” she rasped. “For years, they plotted against me
until my prince had them both killed, without my knowledge. When I discovered what he'd done, I left him forever. Because what my stepsisters never knew was that I would have stayed the next morning and given up my crown for them. Because
they
were my Ever After. More than any boy could be. And if I had to be alone the rest of my life in order to keep them in it . . . I would have. But it was all too late.”

She finally looked at Agatha, racked with pain. “That's why I told you to just stick that wand to Sophie's head and threaten her and make her do what you want. That's what my story taught me at least—might as well be a big fat bully and get what you want, 'cause love doesn't mean anything in the end. Not when a boy's gonna swoop in and ruin it forever.” She broke down in sobs.