The Last Ever After (53 page)

Agatha heaved relief, scanning for Sophie. The old heroes were safe for now. The shield wouldn't fall—

Her eyes bulged.

Cinderella was frozen near the shield, seeing her undead stepsisters for the first time. Agatha watched Ella's face melt to happiness, taking in the beloved sisters she'd once loved more than anyone else. It didn't matter that they were spear-wielding zombies or that they were on Evil's side. Like a moth to fire, Ella drifted towards them, hands up in peace. The closer she drew, the more her stepsisters' gnarled faces softened in turn, their grip on their spears weakening, as if they too felt the
stirrings of old love for their sister, erasing all new orders to hurt her. Cinderella slowly held out her arms towards them, a beautiful glow spreading across her face . . .

She didn't hear her stepmother behind her with the axe.

“No!” Agatha cried, sprinting forwards—

Cinderella turned too late.

The axe slashed down.

As the old princess fell, Agatha's vision fogged with tears, her heartbeat dragging to a crawl.

In the fiery hell pit of the forest, a war stopped.

Even Lancelot and Rafal held their blows, watching Cinderella hit the ground only a few feet from Gavaldon's shield.

Merlin turned from nursing injured Ravan. The wizard's body went stiff, his eyes flying to Agatha.

Shell-shocked, both she and the wizard wheeled towards the shield over Gavaldon.

A young boy stood inside the protective bubble, watching them.

He was no more than seven or eight years old and held a storybook open in his hands.

Agatha recognized him immediately.

Jacob.

Honora's youngest son.

He watched Cinderella dying on the other side of the thin shield, her slumped position matching the changing painting on the last page of the fairy tale in his hands.

The rewritten book slipped out of his fingers and fell to the grass.

Behind him, Agatha glimpsed a mob of shadows, led by a tall, broad man, racing towards the young boy from Gavaldon's square. She could hear Stefan calling out Jacob's name, telling him to get away . . .

But it didn't matter now.

The holes in the shield over Gavaldon were magically expanding and bleeding into each other, growing bigger, bigger, bigger—

All at once the shield exploded with an ear-splitting crack, detonating in a blinding flash of white light that jolted the Forest like an earthquake. Heroes young and old spilled to the ground, as stymphs careened headfirst into trees, exploding on impact. Agatha spun from the sizzling glare, her body thrown to the dirt as she covered her eyes.

Then the light seemed to fade.

Little by little, she peeked up through her fingers and saw twinkles of white raining over the Reader World like stars.

The shield between the Woods and Gavaldon was gone.

In the Woods, the heroes were slow to get up . . . but the zombies were already unfurling to their feet. . . . Agatha couldn't see Tedros anywhere—or Merlin or Lancelot, for that matter—

She swiveled back to where the shield had been. Jacob had been subsumed into the throng of villagers who'd swarmed in to save him. Honora gripped him hard against her waist, his elder brother, Adam, under her other arm, as she herded them into the safety of the crowd.

Staring at the firelit battlefield, the oldest Elder quivered at
the fore of the mob, too frightened to discern who was friend and who was foe. He held out his hands in surrender, backing against his people.

“Every four years you ripped our families apart. You took our children! Isn't that enough?” the Elder pleaded. “We'll do anything you want. Please don't kill us—”

“I have no intention to kill you,” said a cool, hard voice.

Agatha's spine tingled.

Slowly she turned, along with the villagers, to see Rafal, standing alone inside the boundary of the Reader World.

“Well . . . except for
him
,” he grinned.

The young School Master stepped aside, revealing Stefan kneeling in the grass, gagged with a stick.

Sophie stood over her father, cold-eyed and still.

“In fact, it's not me doing the killing at all. My true love will be the one to end this story.” Rafal kissed Sophie's hand gently, his ring on her finger gleaming against his lips. “Sacrificing her own father's blood for
love
.”

Agatha broke out in a sweat.

“The most dangerous person in a fairy tale is the one willing to do anything for love.”

It was never the Readers that Rafal was after in Gavaldon. It was only one Reader. A Reader whose murder could undo the School Master's slaying of his own brother.

Merlin's words rushed back to her . . . the ones he'd spoken in the Celestium the night before the war . . . the ones that didn't make any sense . . .

What if we have the whole story wrong, Agatha?

The day Rafal had killed his own blood, he'd proven that Evil couldn't love and doomed his side to eternal defeat.

But now he had a queen who would kill her own blood to prove Evil
could
love.

An original sin erased.

The curse on Evil reversed.

An immortal School Master with no one to stop him until every last Ever was dead. Until Good was only a memory.

Just as he'd promised.

Horror-struck, Agatha looked up at Sophie standing with Rafal, his spiked white hair like icicles against the night sky. As Sophie gazed at her beautiful true love, there was nothing in her eyes but a deep green void.

Beneath her, Stefan didn't struggle. He knew he was beaten.

Agatha felt her fingertip heat up, knowing Tedros must be nearby. Lancelot and Merlin too. Surely they could help her get to Stefan in time. Somehow they'd get Sophie away from the School Master. The wizard always had a plan—

But now she saw Rafal smirking at her, his eyes on her glowing fingertip, as if she was two steps behind.

Dread rising, Agatha turned to see Rafal's zombies restraining Merlin's army, young and old, weapons to each of their necks. Zombie trolls and ogres broke heroes' bows and crushed the last stymphs with their fists, splintering their bones. Trapped at spear- and swordpoint, the young and old heroes surrendered to their knees like Stefan. First, Hort and
Peter together . . . then Jack and Briar Rose . . . Uma, Yuba, and Pinocchio . . . even Hester knew her demon was no match for a knife-wielding zombie witch and dropped to the dirt next to Anadil and Dot.

Petrified, Agatha searched for Tedros, but she couldn't see him anywhere as she scanned the grove down to the last two trolls tying prisoners to a tree—

Her heart stopped.

The prisoners were Merlin and Lancelot.

The knight had a gash in his cheek, a scorched thigh, and his shoulder looked worse than before as he drifted in and out of consciousness, trying to keep his head up. Merlin had been stripped of hat and cloak, and one of the ogres had hacked off his beard. Slumped in the dirt, in a filthy undershirt, the wizard stared at the sun through the trees, minutes from snuffing out. She could see the despair in his sad blue eyes, reflecting the last trickle of light. Together, they'd failed to destroy Sophie's ring . . . failed to hold the shield . . . failed to stop the School Master from his ending. Instead, they'd given him just enough time to seal Good's destruction forever.

Agatha waited for Merlin to look at her . . . to tell her what to do from here . . . to give Good a way out . . .

But Merlin never did.

Rafal leered at the hapless wizard and the rest of the kneeling hostages.

“Why can't some souls love?” he asked, his young, sultry tone carrying into the night. “It's a question I've wrestled a long time, watching Good win every single story, while souls
like mine languished without a weapon to fight back. So many Nevers try to love in Good's way, in the hope that we might find a happy ending too. Even me: I tried to love my Good brother with just as much fervor as Evil's queen once loved a Good prince. But Evil can't love in Good's way, no matter how hard we try. Because our souls were never created with love. We are the discarded, the neglected, the beaten down. We are the hated, the castoffs, the
freaks
. Despair is our fuel; pain is our power. The love that wins Ever Afters could never be enough for us. Nothing will ever be enough to satisfy the black hole in our hearts. Unless we change what love means . . .”

A cutting smile slid across his face, his eyes lifting to Agatha. “. . . and Evil finds its
own
happy endings.”

An ogre seized Agatha from behind and bound her wrists.

At the same time, muffled yells tore through the silence and Agatha swiveled to see two trolls push Tedros next to her with hands tied, the prince barechested and gagged with his balled-up shirt. He no longer had his father's sword.

Rafal leaned between them, his lips at their ears.

“I promised you an ending you'd never forget,” he whispered, his breath gelid on Agatha's skin. “The Last Ever After to your fairy tale.”

One troll handed Excalibur to Sophie, who instantly put it to Stefan's throat.

The second troll pulled the axe from Cinderella's corpse and handed the weapon to Rafal.

Rafal shoved Agatha and Tedros down to their knees side by side, before he pinned a black boot between each of their
shoulder blades, first Agatha, then Tedros, crushing their faces over a fallen tree trunk, as two ogres kept their bodies from squirming.

The young School Master carefully lay the axe blade across Agatha's and Tedros' necks, the edge long enough to take care of both of them at once. Agatha could feel the blood dripping off the steel, along with rough speckles of rust.

“Good finds Ever After with a kiss. Evil finds Ever After with a
kill
.” Rafal looked up at Sophie, smoldering red patches on his snow-white cheeks. “You've been hurt by everyone you ever trusted, my queen. But one swing and they'll be gone for good. One swing and our love is sealed forever.”

There was a mad, lustful passion in his face now. “Because on this night, I take you, Sophie, as my Never After. From this day forward, in darkness and despair, for Evil and Eviler, to love and to hate, till death never do us part. This death I give to you. My one true love.”

He pressed his axe into Agatha's and Tedros' necks, taking aim.

Sophie's face was still a hard, ghostly mask. She dug Excalibur deep into Stefan's windpipe.

“This death I give to you, Rafal. My one true love,” she pledged.

“Sophie, no!” Agatha cried out, twisting to meet her eyes. “He's your fath—”

Rafal crunched his boot down, silencing her.

“Wait,”
Sophie said, sharp as a whip, stopping the young School Master cold. “I'm not finished with this one.”

Rafal's boot eased up on Agatha and he smirked at his queen, surprised. “By all means, my love . . .
Unleash
.”

Sophie turned to Agatha, the hardness in her face warping to something deeper, scarier. “You think this man deserves the name ‘father'? A man who despises me?”

Stefan tried to speak, but Sophie jammed the sword blade against his neck.

“I tried to make him love me. I tried to show him the real me. But he hated me even more. Just like Tedros. Just like everyone Good ever did,” Sophie spat at Agatha. “I am my mother. Evil to the bone. That's all anyone will ever see.”

Agatha raised her head from the log. “Except me.”

Her voice was surprisingly calm, as if rising from a place over which she had no control.

She could see the last slivers of sun glint in Excalibur's blade.

Merlin had warned her: she would have one chance with Sophie.

Use it wisely
.

She'd tried to listen to the wizard. She'd tried to have a plan . . .

But there was no plan.

There could never be a plan for her and Sophie.

There was only the truth.

She could feel Tedros struggling against his binds like he had on a pyre, once upon a time in Gavaldon, trying to help her. But this time it was she who gently touched her foot to his leg, soothing him.

No one could help her now.

This was her and Sophie's fairy tale.

And this was The End.

Agatha looked up at her friend.

“I know what's inside you, Sophie,” she said. “Beyond your mother. Beyond Evil. I know the real you.”

“
This
is the real me. This has always been the real me,” Sophie retorted, tightening her grip on the sword. “The one who doesn't have to pretend to be Good anymore. The one who doesn't have to feel like I'm not enough. The one who doesn't have to feel anything at all. I'm finally happy, Agatha.”

“No, you're not,” Agatha said quietly. “You're not happy.”

Sophie bristled. “About to die with your beloved prince and still thinking about
me
. My story will go on without you, Agatha. I don't need you anymore or your pity, like one of your decrepit cats. I'm no longer your
Good Deed
.”

“But I'm still yours,” said Agatha. “Because without your love, I'd never have become who I really am. So even if I die, I'll always be your Good Deed, Sophie. And no Evil in the world will ever erase that.”

Spots of pink seared Sophie's cheeks. Her throat bobbed. “You shouldn't have come back for me,” she rasped. “You should have lived your own life and let me have mine. None of this would have ever happened.”

“I would do it all over again,” said Agatha.

“Because we're
sisters
?” Sophie scoffed, fighting emotion.

Stefan gurgled, confused—Sophie dug the blade deeper.

“Because we're more than sisters,” said Agatha, staring
straight at her. “We chose each other, Sophie. We're best friends.”

Sophie looked away. “A princess and witch can never be friends. Our story will forever prove that.”