One True King

by Soman Chainani

  “What should I have done, then?” Agatha challenged Tedros, emboldened by Sophie. “Let Japeth win?”

  “You didn’t give me a chance to win!” Tedros said, jumping to his feet. “I’m the one fighting for the throne. I need you to help me. Not stand in my way!”

  “I’m not trying to stand in your way! I want you to have a head!” said Agatha.

  “So rarely used, though,” Sophie chimed.

  Merlin clapped with glee.

  “This is why the Snake will win,” Tedros muttered, sinking to his stump. “Because he doesn’t have anyone holding him back. Because he fights for himself!”

  “I thought that’s what made us Good,” Agatha replied. “We fight for each other.”

  Tedros looked at her.

  “And you’re wrong. Japeth isn’t fighting for himself,” Sophie added. “He wants to raise someone from the dead. That’s why he wants the Storian’s powers. That’s why he wants your ring. For love. Just like you.”

  “Don’t compare him to me,” Tedros lashed, still riled up. “He wants his mother back. That horrible Sader woman. We already know that.”

  “No. Not Evelyn,” Sophie said, starkly. “That’s who Rhian loved. It’s why Japeth killed him. The Snake wants someone else back. His best friend. His true love.”

  Sophie’s words hit Agatha like a blow. She turned to Tedros, who’d understood too, his fire dissipating.

  “Aric?” he said. “That’s what he wants? To bring Aric back to life?”

  Agatha could feel the whole school tense up, contemplating the return of Lady Lesso’s son, a sadist with a black hole for a soul. The only thing worse than a Snake was two of them, united by love.

  Tedros and Agatha locked eyes, the prince’s gaze plaintive, as if the time for blame was over.

  “There’s nowhere we can go that Japeth won’t find you,” he said to her. “There’s no solution to the test. Not that keeps us both alive.”

  “But you can stay alive,” Agatha answered, damp with sweat, her neck red. Merlin gripped her shirt with small fists. “You can still win the test.”

  Tedros’ expression changed. He leaned forward, looking very much a man. “Listen to me, Agatha. I will never hurt you. Never. I will fight until my last breath to keep you safe.”

  He spoke with such strength, such clarity, that even with death hanging between them, Agatha felt a rush of love. She didn’t want to die. But she needed to hear her prince say it. That they were in this together. That she still meant everything to him. That he loved her, no matter what.

  Tedros smiled sadly at her. Even love couldn’t save them now. They were cornered, with no way out. He sighed and glanced at Sophie, as if for once in his life, he’d take suggestions from her. But Sophie, too, was at a loss.

  The three of them were trapped.

  Their story at a dead end.

  Until a deep voice broke the silence.

  “There is a way.”

  For a second, Agatha thought it’d come from the sky or from the child in her arms.

  Then she saw Professor Manley, standing inside the mouth of Evil’s tree tunnel, his pale, lumpy flesh and the glare of his eyes reflecting through darkness.

  “Come with me,” he said, heading back into the tunnel.

  Everyone in the Clearing stood up—

  “No. You.” Manley pointed a sharp, dirty nail at Tedros and Agatha. “Only you.”

  Agatha and her prince exchanged looks. They hurried after him, Merlin at Agatha’s breast—

  Sophie blocked her path, facing off with Manley. “Where she goes, I go.”

  Manley was about to retort—

  “I still am Dean of the school in which you teach, Bilious, given I never resigned the position,” Sophie clipped.

  Professor Manley’s eggish head shivered as if it might explode. “Suit yourself,” he snarled, stomping into the tunnel, now three pairs of feet chasing him.

  Make that four.

  “Ain’t leavin’ me behind!”

  Agatha spun to see Hort bundling after Sophie, half-naked and barefoot. “Not this time, Fatima! Not ever!” the weasel spewed.

  Sophie blinked at him. “Who in lord’s name is Fatima?”

  “Don’t ask,” said Agatha, pulling her best friend ahead.

  HIGH IN THE School Master’s tower, the Storian was paused over a nearly blank page. Professor Manley looked down at it, Agatha and her friends circled around him.

  There was no painting. No scene.

  Only a single line, in bold, black script beneath the empty space.

  “There was a way.”

  Tedros frowned. “That’s it? That’s all it says?”

  “How is that supposed to help us?” Sophie asked Manley.

  “What good is a ‘way’ if we don’t know what it is?” Hort piled on.

  Agatha had the same questions.

  Then, suddenly, the Storian began to glow.

  A deep, urgent gold.

  The ring on Tedros’ finger began to glow the same hue.

  Tedros’ eyes widened. “What’s happening—”

  The glowing Storian stabbed down to the page, inking a painting in furious sweeps of color. A painting of Agatha and Tedros in this very tower. The couple was standing at the back window, the prince’s arm around her waist as Agatha clasped a baby to her chest, the two of them gazing into the sun.

  Beneath the painting, the Pen’s words remained: “There was a way.”

  Prince and princess looked at each other, baffled.

  Agatha saw Manley peering at her intently, as if she already had the answers.

  Then Agatha remembered.

  The last time she was in this tower. It happened then too. The Storian painted something that had yet to take place. At the time, she’d questioned why the pen was acting out of turn. The Storian’s job was to write the story as it happened. But suddenly the pen was jumping ahead . . . warning them of dangers . . . guiding them to clues . . .

  “Sometimes the story leads you,” Yuba the Gnome had told her.

  Agatha examined the Pen closer.

  “The Storian needs our help to keep it alive,” she said, studying its steel, a single swan left. Camelot’s swan. The last tether of the Pen’s power. “That’s why it’s helping us.”

  “You’re not making sense,” Tedros dismissed, pointing at the painting. “How is this helping us?”

  But Sophie seemed to understand. Sophie, who’d always had her own mysterious connection with the Storian, from the very first time she and her best friend had found it.

  Sophie looked at the Pen . . .

  Then at Agatha.

  In a flash, the two girls were on the move, pushing Tedros towards the back window.

  “We have to do it!” Sophie exerted.

  “Do what?” the prince asked, mystified.

  “Do the pose!” said Agatha, matching her stance in the painting, Merlin fussing against her shoulder. “Hold me the way you are in the painting, Tedros! Hurry!”

  Tedros slung his arm around Agatha’s waist. “I really don’t get why—”

  “Other side,” Sophie badgered.

  Tedros growled, letting her position him, but Merlin twitched restlessly, delivering a slap to the prince’s eye. “Ow! Why’d you bring the damn baby! Get rid of him!”

  “It’s Merlin!” Agatha barked.

  “Shhh! Both of you!” Sophie snapped. “Now look out the window.”

  Grumbling, Tedros angled towards the Woods, Agatha trying to subdue Merlin, while Sophie waited carefully out of frame.

  Nothing happened.

  Hort yawned against the wall. “I’ve seen a lot of daft things in my life but—”

  Manley kicked him. “Stay focused,” the teacher directed Agatha and Tedros. “Follow the pen—”

  The Storian crackled with blue static, pointing in Manley’s direction, as if he risked punishment by interfering any further.

  And yet, he’d said all he needed to.

&n
bsp; “When Man Becomes Pen,” Agatha remembered.

  That was August Sader’s theory.

  Man and Pen in balance.

  A calm came over Agatha as she nestled against Tedros, the wizard baby settling down, taking her cue. Soon Agatha was as still as the Agatha in the painting. And with Agatha’s stillness, Tedros stopped fidgeting, too, and found his own place of quiet, their living selves in union with their ones on the page. Fate and free will in perfect flow, each feeding the other. The silence in the tower thickened, as if the story had taken a breath . . .

  Then Agatha heard it.

  A galloping sound below.

  Tedros’ eyes widened.

  Together, they looked out into the Woods . . . at the gates of the school flying open . . . a blur of motion rushing through . . .

  A masked rider in black atop a horse.

  No. Not a horse.

  A camel.

  It skidded to a stop at the edge of the lake, the rider standing atop its hump before tilting masked eyes up towards Agatha and Tedros in the tower window.

  “Animals can help you if you help them. First thing I taught you at school!” a bright voice called. “You must have learned your lesson well.”

  The rider took off the mask.

  Princess Uma smiled. “Because this animal’s found a way to help you.”

  The camel grinned, too, craning its head up to Agatha.

  A camel Agatha knew.

  A camel she’d saved from its own trap.

  Now come to save her and her prince.

  “Mama llama!” Merlin giggled. He pointed at the camel. “Llama! Llama!”

  Agatha gaped at the baby.

  “Definitely keeping him with us,” said Tedros.

  15

  SOPHIE

  Trust Is the Way

  “What do you suppose they’re talking about?” Sophie asked, watching Hort wrap his arms around Tedros in the sky while she wrapped her arms around Agatha on the ground.

  “What do boys talk about at all?” Agatha replied, Merlin strapped to her back.

  The camel could seat three, anticipating Agatha, Tedros, and Princess Uma as its passengers, only to be confronted with Sophie and Hort, too, plus a baby. When it became clear that Agatha wouldn’t leave Merlin, Sophie wouldn’t leave Agatha, and Hort wouldn’t leave Sophie, Princess Uma summoned a stymph to ride with the boys, tracking Agatha and Sophie from above, while the girls rode the camel below. (“I can ride with Sophie,” Hort volunteered. “And me with Agatha,” Tedros seconded. “Uma already assigned teams,” Sophie nipped.) As for their destination, they had no clue, because the camel refused to disclose it: “So no one can betray us to the enemy,” it told Uma. When the princess pressed the animal to at least reveal the way they were going or the way to save Agatha from the second test, the camel replied: “Trust is the way.”

  “Or at least, that’s what I think it said,” Uma sighed later. “In Camel tongue, ‘trust’ and ‘death’ are the same word, though it’s safe to assume it meant the first over the second.”

  “And you’re sure we trust it?” Sophie had asked Agatha after Uma and the boys went to find a stymph.

  Agatha stroked the camel like a pet. “The Sultan of Shazabah sent it as a gift for Rhian’s wedding, before I saved it from the king’s hands. It wants to reunite with its family. I heard its wish. But it can’t go home to Shazabah. Not without being killed for disobeying orders. Uma said it was hiding in the Woods when it saw Lionsmane’s message about me being the second test. The camel knew I needed help, so it sent word for Princess Uma through the forest animals, hoping she’d be able to lead it to me.”

  Sophie watched Merlin nuzzle his young face in the camel’s fur. “Last time we trusted an animal, it was that despicable beaver who tried to murder us with snakes,” said Sophie. “I don’t trust vermin of any kind. No matter what Uma says.”

  “Spoken like a true witch,” Agatha quipped.

  Sophie frowned. “What’s that smell?”

  The camel had peed on her shoe.

  With half the Woods bounty-hunting Agatha, they could only ride at night, leaving sleep for the daytime. As for those left behind, Tedros assigned them new quests. A gang of first years led by Valentina and Laithan would sneak into Camelot to shadow Japeth’s movements, while Bogden and Willam were to visit the priest named Pospisil—who Willam once served as an altar boy—to see if he’d be of help against the Snake.

  “Librarian at the Living Library hinted he might be a friend to us,” said Tedros.

  Meanwhile, a squirrelly nut had arrived for Tedros while they’d been in the School Master’s tower.

  “Message from Jaunt Jolie,” Tedros disclosed, addressing the witches. “Queen Jacinda wants to see you.”

  “Jaunt Jolie?” said Hester. “That’s Ever territory.”

  “Send Beatrix or Reena instead,” Anadil agreed.

  “Except those two are still missing,” matronly Dot pointed out. “Kiko too.”

  “Not our problem,” Hester snapped. “Nor are Ever queens.”

  “Well, this Ever queen asked for you, which is why you three are going,” Tedros ordered. “Tell Jacinda that her daughter is dead, at the hands of the Snake. She should know the truth. And find out what happened to Nicola and my mother. Last we heard, they’d gone to ask for the queen’s help. Her Knights of the Eleven are our best chance to help kill Japeth before he finds Agatha. And we have to kill him. Because as long as the second test holds, he won’t stop until he kills her.”

  Sophie could see Agatha thinking this over, but Aggie made no argument.

  Along the way, Tedros added, the coven should stop at Glass Mountain to find where Robin Hood had hidden Maid Marian. (“How do we tell her Robin’s dead?” Dot lamented. “We really are the death parade,” Anadil mumbled back.)

  The rest of the Evers and Nevers, teachers included, would resume classes as usual, deflecting any suspicions they were harboring Agatha, while keeping the Storian well-protected. Besides, as Professor Sheeks pointed out, the camel had made a wise choice: by withholding its plans for Agatha, the school could play dumb—even the most potent sorcerer couldn’t extract information if they had no information to give.

  Good, Evil, Boy, Girl, Young, Old . . . the common mission was the same: forward motion, trusting a camel to guide them, even if they hadn’t a clue where the camel was going.

  Sophie felt this forward motion literally now, their journey begun, the camel bouncing her with every step, Sophie’s nose and mouth covered with white silk. Somewhere between the Clearing and the Woods, her white kimono had magically morphed into a chic riding ensemble, complete with headscarf and veil. “You know, I keep trying to get the dress off, but the more I try, the more it refashions into something divine, as if it knows exactly how to charm me. At this point, I can’t tell whether it’s good magic or bad magic.”

  “Anything of Evelyn Sader’s is bad,” said Agatha in a dark hooded cloak behind her, the baby asleep against her back.

  “And yet, Evelyn is the link between the Snake and Green Knight,” Sophie replied. “Isn’t that what you saw in the pearl?”

  “It was some kind of riddle hidden inside. A riddle Arthur wanted the winner of the first test to see,” said Agatha.

  “Must be important, then,” Sophie allowed, “even if it makes no sense.”

  “When we went into Rhian’s blood, what did we see for sure?” said Agatha. “We saw Evelyn enchant Arthur to have his child. We saw Evelyn put the spansel around his neck instead of Lady Gremlaine doing it. Which means Arthur had a secret son with Evelyn Sader. Or sons. No doubt about it.”

  “And yet, the Snake isn’t Arthur’s son at all. Or at least he claimed he isn’t,” said Sophie. “Then again, he lies about everything, just like his brother did.” She shook her head. “But why would he lie about that? Unless the Snake isn’t the son Evelyn had with Arthur . . . Unless it’s the Green Knight who’s the Snake’s father . . .”

  “But R
hian’s blood says it’s Arthur who’s the father!” Agatha argued.

  “And yet, the Green Knight has the same name as the Snake. Japeth. Plus, the wizard tree said the Snake had a connection to the Green Knight’s soul. How can that be unless Japeth shares his blood?” Sophie insisted. “The Green Knight has to be the Snake’s father.”

  “And Evelyn Sader his mother? But why did Rhian’s blood lie, then? And how did it fool Excalibur when Rhian pulled the sword from the stone?”

  “Maybe it didn’t lie,” Sophie guessed. “Maybe Rhian had Arthur as his father and Japeth had the Green Knight as his . . . Evelyn Sader the mother to both.” Sophie’s heart hummed faster. “Twins divided by magic . . .”

  “Like us,” Agatha spoke softly.

  Sophie heard the catch in her friend’s voice. They’d never talked about it. What they’d seen in August Sader’s history long ago. That they were sisters . . . but sisters in name only . . . Two souls, forever irreconcilable, each a mirror of the other: one Good, one Evil. What if Rhian and Japeth were the same? Sophie thought.

  “It doesn’t make sense,” Agatha rejected. “How can twins have different fathers?”

  Sophie threw up her hands. “But who’s their father, then? Arthur or the Green Knight? Is Rhian’s blood right or is Japeth’s blood right? And if Rhian’s blood was wrong, how do we know Evelyn Sader is their mother at all?”

  Agatha sighed, both of their brains in knots.

  They stopped speaking for a while, Merlin letting out a burble as if he’d been listening all along. Sophie glanced high at Tedros and Hort, silhouetted in their black cloaks, still locked in their own conversation, while Uma steered the stymph to match the camel’s pace.

  “You really broke your wrist to save my leg?” Agatha asked.

  “If the Snake is coming for you, we can’t have you hobbling around. Of course the repair spell could have broken my own leg in return or worse, but I figured you and I would take turns healing each other and breaking bones until we found the least inconvenient one.”

  Agatha snorted. “God, how did we get here?”

  “You mean, aboard a smelly camel to nowhere, with your prince ordered to kill you, the Woods stalking you, and a baby wizard on your back?”