Agatha grabbed him by the waist and threw him off the slope, Dovey’s bag cinched under her arm as she and her prince tumbled together, sucking in screams, before landing hard in a dune of dead leaves. Agatha hugged Tedros’ sweat-soaked body, towing him beneath the red and gold pile, their bloodied skin camouflaged—
Horses soared over them, riders flashing torches like spotlights, before the steeds slammed down and galloped into the darkness.
The Woods went quiet.
For a long while, neither of them moved, their breaths puffing leaves into the air. Agatha clung to Tedros, her face in his neck, smelling that hot, minty scent her body knew so well. Wet blood dampened her arm and she couldn’t tell if it was hers or his. Slowly her breaths deepened, her nose to his skin, with every inhale remembering that she was still alive and so was her prince. Tedros’ arm slid around her. She spooned closer, her hand tracing his stubbled chin and down to the cuts on his neck where the executioner had measured his blow. His throat quivered beneath her palm, tears pearling at his eyes.
“I love you,” he whispered.
She kissed his bottom lip. “I love you too.”
There was nothing else to say. They were together now. And despite everything that had happened, to be together even for a moment was an ember of light in the ashes.
Then she remembered something, so sharply it knocked the air out of her—
“Dovey told me where he is!”
“Who’s he?” Tedros murmured.
“Merlin! She told me when she pretended to be you!”
Tedros jolted up. “Where is he?”
“The Caves of Contempo! We have to find him!”
“Caves of Contempo? Agatha, that’s thousands of miles away! Past the frostplains, past the desert, past the man-eating hills. . . . It’s a walled-off island in a poisonous ocean. We can’t get to the caves, let alone inside them, and especially not with a million people hunting us!”
Agatha’s hope withered. “But . . .”
A branch snapped.
Tedros launched out of the leaves, sweeping his gold fingerglow across the trees. “Who’s there?”
Agatha leapt next to him, her glow lit.
A shadow stirred behind a tree.
“Make one move and I’ll kill you!” Agatha spat.
“Oh, I doubt that,” the shadow replied smoothly, prowling into the open. “Because we both know I’d kill you first.”
A glow sparked in the dark, pink and hot as a sunset.
“And I really don’t want to kill you after we’ve come all this way,” said Sophie.
She grinned at Agatha.
Agatha gasped and ran towards her, Sophie practically buckling from the force of her embrace.
“I didn’t think I would ever see you again . . . ,” Sophie breathed. “You don’t know what I’ve been through . . .”
“Never again,” Agatha whispered. “Never again will we be apart. Swear to me.”
“I swear,” Sophie said back.
They held each other closer, welling tears at the same time.
Sophie pulled away. “And Dovey?”
Agatha shook her head. A sob choked out of her.
Sophie’s face lost its blood. “To let you get away.”
Agatha nodded.
Her friend wiped her eyes with her ruffly white dress. “I knew. She was the only one who could have cast that spell. And when you three didn’t show up in the Woods, I knew she’d stayed to help you . . . that she’d do what she had to for you to be free. That’s why I came back . . . to find you . . . to find her. . . .” She looked at the bag on Agatha’s arm. “That crystal must have weakened her more than we thought. She was dying and I think she knew.” Sophie sniffled, tears lit pink by her glow. “She used every last drop of her life to save us.”
“Dovey told me where Merlin is,” Agatha said, composing herself. “But there’s no way to get there. At least not yet. We need to find the others and search for a new hideout. Somewhere we can plot our next move. Last I saw, Robin was pulling you into the Woods. Where is he? Where are Robin and Guinevere and—”
But now Sophie was watching Tedros. The prince hadn’t moved from the base of the hill, his arms folded over his bare chest.
“Hello, Teddy,” said Sophie. “Strange saying that when just a moment ago I was you.”
Tedros’ eyes flashed like cut gems. “Now you come crawling back? After everything you said about me to that monster? That I’m a rot at Camelot’s core? That I should die?”
Sophie’s lips pressed into a line. “I’m here, aren’t I?”
“Yeah, but whose side are you on?” Tedros spewed back.
Agatha turned on her prince. “Sophie pretended to be on Rhian’s side. She said what she had to so he wouldn’t suspect anything—”
“Don’t bother, Aggie,” Sophie said starkly. “A Dean is dead, his Dean, and he’s thinking about himself as usual. And they say I’m Evil. I dove into that battle to save him. I stayed behind after the jailbreak to save him. I endured two monsters to save him, one of whom sucked my blood, and here he is, questioning my loyalty.”
“You don’t think I mourn for Dovey? You don’t think I feel responsible? Don’t you dare make this about her!” Tedros retorted. “This is about the fact that no matter how Good you play, I still don’t trust you, not with the things you said about me and not when you had a chance to free me from the dungeons and you freed Hort instead!”
“Freeing you would have led to you dying even faster than you almost did, you rock-brained oaf!” Sophie hissed.
Tedros looked confused. He stood up straighter.
“Then tell me it was all a lie,” he insisted. “Everything you said about me to Rhian.”
Sophie gazed at him keenly . . . then walked away. “I don’t even remember what I said, to be honest. I was too focused on keeping you and your princess alive. But if you’re this touchy, then there must have been a kernel of truth in it. Hurry, Aggie, before Rhian’s men hear this buffoon shouting and come and kill us all. We still have miles to go and they’re waiting for us.”
“They?” Agatha asked. “Who’s they?”
Sophie didn’t answer.
Agatha hurried after her, leaving Tedros by the hill, still scowling.
She knew she should wait for him, that she should be the peacemaker between her friend and prince like always, but Agatha was already latching onto Sophie’s arm, the two of them whispering and cuddling as if they’d never been apart. Sophie brushed the hair out of her best friend’s face and smiled brilliantly at her, two girls forging through a dark wood.
It wasn’t long before they heard Tedros’ footsteps behind them.
“WHERE ARE WE going?” Agatha badgered.
“The only place in the Woods where we can be safe,” Sophie replied, her voice low. “I need you to tell me everything that happened after you escaped.”
Agatha thought they might be headed for the old League of Thirteen hideout, just like Professor Dovey urged, but then she remembered the League had disbanded and their den was nowhere near Camelot. Dovey had just wanted her and Tedros to get as far away as possible before the spell broke.
“Is your safe place the school?” Agatha nudged. “Because that’s the first spot Rhian will look for us—”
“No,” said Sophie tersely. “Now answer my question.”
“Let me see your Quest Map. It’ll show me where everyone is.”
“No, it won’t,” said Sophie, pointing at the swan crest on Agatha’s dress. “Not as long as it thinks you and the others are first years. When Robin and I escaped together, he told me you switched crests to fool the Snake’s map.”
“But his map will still show you and Tedros! You two don’t have crests! That means Rhian can still see you! He can find us, wherever you’re taking us! There is no safe place in the Woods—”
“Aggie, do you trust me?” Sophie said.
“Of course—”
“Then stop changing the s
ubject. Have you learned anything new about Rhian and Japeth?”
Agatha’s chest tightened. She needed to know what had happened to Robin, the Sheriff, and the rest of their team. She needed to know how she could possibly elude Rhian, with his map tracking her and Tedros’ every move. . . .
But Sophie’s stare was unyielding.
Agatha took a deep breath.
She told Sophie what she’d read in Sader’s book while Sophie told her what she’d endured at Rhian’s side, Agatha peeking back every so often at her prince. They moved stealthily, three silhouettes against the forest, taking cover at any sound of horses, but never seeing them appear. Agatha’s gut gnarled with hunger and she needed water, but Sophie distracted her with more questions.
“So you’re telling me that if a hundred rulers destroy their rings, Rhian will claim the Storian’s powers,” Sophie prompted. “Lionsmane will become the new Storian. Anything Rhian writes with it will come true, no matter how Evil. He can kill me with a penstroke. He can kill all of us. He’ll be invincible.”
“That’s what Sader’s prophecy says,” Agatha replied.
“But plenty of leaders still have their rings,” said Sophie. “They challenged Rhian at the Council meeting. Not everyone is ready to declare war on the school.”
“After what we just did on the battlefield, that may change,” Agatha muttered.
“Wait a second . . . Robin had a ring!” Sophie exclaimed. “At the meeting. He flashed it at me. That means we’re safe. He’d never burn it!”
“Must have been a fake or you saw wrong. Sherwood Forest isn’t an official kingdom,” Agatha dismissed. “First-year geography test in Sader’s class, remember? Robin can’t have a ring.”
“But I swear I . . .” Sophie deflated, doubting her memory. “So there’s no one we can count on? No leader who will hold the line?”
Agatha gave her an empty look.
“How badly was Rhian beaten by his men?” Sophie asked, trying to sound hopeful. “There were a lot of them. Maybe he’s . . .”
“Snakes don’t die that easy,” said Agatha. “Speaking of snakes: you said Japeth used you for your blood. Your blood heals him, but not Rhian?”
Sophie shook her head.
“But they’re twins,” said Agatha. “How can you heal one and not the other?”
“The more important question is what they’ll do with the Storian’s powers if they get them,” said Sophie. “I heard Rhian say there’s something specific Japeth wants. Something they both want. And it can only happen when the last ring is destroyed.”
Her eyes widened. “Wait. Rhian said something to me. The night I had dinner with him. That the day would come when the One True King would rule forever. That it would come sooner than I thought. That our wedding would bring everyone together.”
“Your wedding?” said Agatha.
“He said it to the Mistral Sisters too. That they had to keep the kingdoms on his side until the wedding.” Sophie paused. “So I must be part of this also. Whatever Rhian’s planning to do with the Storian’s powers . . . He needs me as his queen.”
Agatha mulled this over. “And he said a ‘pen’ picked you?”
Sophie nodded. “Doesn’t make the slightest sense.”
“More riddles,” Agatha agreed. “But if Rhian needs you for his plan, one thing’s for sure.” She looked at her best friend. “He’s coming for you.”
Sophie paled.
They didn’t speak for a moment.
“No Dovey. No Lesso. No way to Merlin . . . ,” said Agatha finally, almost to herself. “We need help, Sophie.”
“Almost there,” said Sophie vaguely.
Agatha peered at her. “You smell funny. Like you rolled around in dirt.”
If Agatha expected a retort, it didn’t come. Instead Sophie just sighed.
Agatha glanced back at Tedros, head bowed, listening to everything the girls had endured while he was in prison. Without a shirt, he trembled as a cold gust knifed through, his pained breaths thinning. . . .
An arm draped across his bruised back and he looked up as Agatha pulled him into her warmth. Then Sophie flanked Tedros from the other side, cozying him into her dress.
Tedros didn’t resist, as if what he’d heard of their travails had humbled him.
Little by little, his body stopped shivering as the two girls sheltered him the rest of the way.
“The Storian has to survive. The Woods have to survive,” Tedros said finally. “And the only way it’ll survive is if I take back my throne. Rhian won’t rest until every last ring is destroyed. I have to stop him myself. I have to defeat him once and for all.”
“Tedros, you can barely walk,” said Agatha. “You have no sword, no support in the Woods, and no way to get near Rhian without his brother or his men killing you first. You don’t even have a shirt. Right now, we need a place to hide—”
“And here we are,” said Sophie, stopping suddenly.
She stood over a tree stump swarming with fireflies, blinking orange in the dark.
“This is it,” she said, relieved. “Only place in the Woods we’ll be safe.”
Agatha peered at the stump. “Um.”
Horses thundered somewhere nearby, this time layered with voices.
“You’re joking, I hope,” said Tedros. “This was the old Gnomeland station for the Flowerground, when gnomes still had their home in Camelot. They disappeared after my father banished magic from the kingdom. Trains don’t even run here anymore—”
He scrunched up his nose.
Agatha smelled it too: a familiar smoky scent, like the earthiest tea. Before she could place it, something peeped out of the stump, lit by the fireflies, staring right at her.
A turnip.
Or rather an upside-down turnip, with two blinking eyes and a mouth shaped like an O.
“Did you say gnomes?” asked the turnip. “No gnomes here. That would be illegal. No gnomes allowed in Camelot. But vegetables? Vegetables are definitely allowed. So kindly go on your way and—”
“Teapea,” said Sophie.
The turnip’s eyes darted to her. “Excuse me?”
“Teapea,” she repeated.
“Well, then,” said the turnip, clearing his throat.
He ducked out of sight and the top of the stump opened like a lid, revealing a wide hole.
The sound of horses grew louder.
“Follow me,” said Sophie.
She put one foot on the edge of the stump and leapt inside.
Agatha looked back through the trees: a sea of torches rushed towards her atop sprinting stallions. Tedros was already lunging for the stump, pulling his princess in behind him—
Agatha careened headfirst through darkness and the top of the stump snapped shut above her. Clinging to her prince’s hand, she plummeted until she couldn’t hold him any longer and they ripped apart, twisting in free fall like sands through an hourglass. Then Agatha’s foot snagged onto something and her pace slowed, her body floating like she’d lost gravity.
Tedros’ gold glow illuminated, lighting up his own floating form. Agatha sparked her glow and cast it around them.
A lush green vine was caught around Tedros’ waist like a lasso, another around Agatha’s foot, drifting the prince and princess down through an abandoned Flowerground station, the carcasses of dead trains piled against the walls. Flowercars, once brilliant with the color of their respective lines, had rotted brown, molting petals and leaves into the hollow. A decayed stench stung Agatha’s nostrils, cobwebs stringing onto her ears and legs. The vines around her and Tedros seemed like the only things still alive. An old, faded sign lay broken in the wreckage:
The vines towing Agatha and Tedros lit up with luminous glow, their green surfaces crackling with electric current, before they tightened around the prince and princess like safety belts. . . .
And started dropping them faster.
Agatha squinted down for Sophie, but all she saw was the bottom of the pit rising. The
vines unraveled like anchors, spinning the prince and princess towards hard, dark soil. Before Agatha or Tedros could react, the vines let go entirely.
“Tedros!” Agatha screamed.
“Ahhhhhh!” Tedros yelled.
They crashed into the earth, straight through to the other side, where they landed in the back of a rickshaw cart, Agatha in Tedros’ lap, Sophie scrunched beside them.
“Now you know why I smell like dirt,” Sophie said.
“This the rest of ’em?” piped a sprightly voice.
Agatha and Tedros looked up at a young gnome perched on a bicycle attached to the bright orange rickshaw, his eyes on Sophie. He had dark, ruddy skin, a sparkly, cone-shaped blue hat, and a spiffy matching suit.
“Thought ya said there’d be three more comin’,” said the gnome.
Sophie swallowed. “No. This is it.”
“Good. Can’t keep the king waiting!” the gnome said, reaching back and handing Sophie a fold of fabric. “Kindly fasten your snakeskin.”
Sophie unfurled a blanket of transparent scales and draped it over her and her friends’ heads. Its cold, waxy surface crinkled against Agatha’s cheeks and the bag on her arm.
“That’ll keep you invisible till we get to the king’s palace. Can’t have anyone seein’ ya on the way or you’re dead, dead, dead,” said the gnome, pedaling onto a lone track in the dark, which reminded Agatha of the roller coaster at the Gavaldon fair. “Non-gnomes are banned in Gnomeland, ever since King Arthur expelled us. Any gnome catches ya and they have full right to put a knife through your eye. A squirrel wandered in the other day and got barbecued for Friday Feast.”
Sophie yanked more of the snakeskin to her side.
“King Teapea sent me to fetch ya,” the gnome prattled. “Teapea letting humans hide in Gnomeland?” He whistled skeptically. “Either he wants somethin’ from ya or he’ll kill ya to warn any other non-gnomes who get too close. Don’t think ya have anything to worry about, though. It’s not like you’re King Arthur’s family or anything.”
Agatha’s and Sophie’s eyes shot to Tedros.
Tedros slid deeper under the snakeskin.
“To be honest, I didn’t even know the king was home,” the gnome rambled obliviously. “Comes and goes without warning, often for months at a time. But then I get word from the palace that there’s humans roaming near the stump, lookin’ for a hiding place, and I’m to bring them to him.” He pedaled faster, approaching a steep drop—
The School for Good and Evil #5: A Crystal of Time Page 27
