The School for Good and Evil #6: One True King

by Soman Chainani

  His spell trapping Arthur broke, dropping the king face-first into dirt.

  Arthur scraped himself to his elbows.

  The wizard wouldn’t look at him.

  “Merlin—” the king appealed.

  The wizard thrust out a hand, silencing him. When he spoke at last, it was in a cold, harsh voice. “Kay could have had a second chance at life. I would have convinced him. I would have helped him. He might have finally had a path to become the man he was meant to be. But your sword gave him a way out. You gave him a way out instead of letting me fight for him.” Merlin paused, his back to the king. “People will say you killed the Green Knight. That you are the hero of this tale . . . But we both know the truth, Arthur. You broke your word to me. A king’s word.” The wizard’s voice crackled with anger. “Too many trusts broken between us. Too much gone wrong.”

  Slowly Merlin lay Kay down and rose into the light.

  “I no longer have a Wizard Wish or the choice of when to end my days. But I can choose to end this. I’m leaving you, Arthur,” he said, standing over the king. “Our time together is done.”

  Ender’s Forest went silent and still.

  Merlin and Arthur gazed upon each other for the last time . . .

  The scene evaporated into darkness.

  So too did the box around Agatha and Tedros, the prince and princess floating back down in the black room, a dim, cold star on the floor between their feet.

  “Merlin’s beard,” said Tedros, choked with emotion. “That’s where Merlin hid his wish. That’s what the Green Knight wanted. Merlin’s beard is the answer to my first test.”

  Agatha looked at him, lost in a fog. “We have to get Merlin’s beard?”

  “To show Dad I know the truth,” said Tedros. “‘Three tests. Three answers to find.’ He wanted me to learn that slaying the Green Knight wasn’t a victory. It was his greatest mistake. A mistake I have to learn from.”

  Voices amplified in the hall. Footsteps clattered closer.

  “Beaver saw ’em. Said the girl was that rebel Agatha,” a guard echoed. “Apparently she slayed the beaver’s cousin in a camel attack. Traveling with that traitor prince. If we kill ’em, imagine the reward—”

  Tedros dragged Agatha into shadows.

  “How can we get Merlin’s beard?” the prince questioned, still clammy and pale. “Merlin’s trapped in the Caves of Contempo—”

  “Where the witches are supposed to be,” Agatha remembered. “They have to rescue him before Japeth figures out the test, before he gets to Merlin . . .”

  The guards’ voices were nearing the exhibit, their steps closing in.

  “We need to get in touch with the witches,” Tedros said urgently. “We need to know if they have Merlin!”

  “We need to get out of this library first!” Agatha pressed.

  Frantically, they searched for a door, a window—

  But it was too late.

  Five guards turned the corner, Matchers reflecting in Tedros’ and Agatha’s faces, crossbows aimed at their necks.

  “No, don’t!” Agatha screamed.

  Guards cocked their triggers, arrows poised to fly.

  “Fire!” the leader yelled—

  The wall bashed in behind him, crushing the guards in a heap of rubble.

  Agatha and her prince gaped as the dust cleared, sunlight filling the giant hole.

  A big, hairy man-wolf peeped through, Nicola and Guinevere on his back.

  “What’d we miss?” Hort chimed.

  9

  THE COVEN

  The Cave at Two O’Clock

  “‘Now go and find it where wizard trees grow,’” Dot panted, an open scroll in her fist. “What does that mean?”

  “Merlin was Arthur’s wizard during the time of the Green Knight. Maybe the answer has to do with Merlin,” Hester surmised, a few last scrolls blizzarding upside down, from her feet past her head. “More reason to rescue the wizard quickly.”

  “But Merlin’s in the Caves of Contempo,” Anadil noted, hustling across Borna Coric’s night sky. “What does that have to do with trees?”

  “Ani’s right,” Dot added. “Doesn’t say find the wizard. It says find where wizard trees grow—”

  “Which Merlin will surely know,” Hester snapped, passing beneath the last upturned shops, strung between inverted beanstalks. The shops were closed, the crowds back in their upside-down cottages. “Should have been to the caves by now,” said Hester, glowering back at Dot. “If someone didn’t force us to stop at All Night Pies.”

  “Excuse me, I had to eat after that wedding spellcast,” said Dot. “My nerves were in pieces.”

  “Well, at least we know Tedros and Agatha are still alive,” said Hester. “Let them worry about the first test. Our mission is to get Merlin out of the caves.”

  “If Merlin’s even there,” Dot noted. “Dovey was the one who told us to go to the caves. She could have been wrong, first off. Plus, those caves are dangerous. People go in and ten minutes later, they come out 50 years older. It’s been weeks since Merlin’s been gone. And he’s old to begin with.” She shook out a few scrolls that had flooded up her skirt. “Imagine when it rains here. Everyone’s knickers must be drenched.”

  “Just follow the smell of the sea,” Hester grouched, irritated that Dot was making sense for once. She tried to focus on the wet, salty scent, getting stronger and stronger. “That’s where the caves will be.”

  “Need to get there before sunrise or we’ll be in plain sight,” Anadil murmured. The witches pulled into the shadows as two upside-down ministers in purple suits padded across the beanstalk above them, gripping opened scrolls and whispering anxiously.

  Hester tailed beneath, catching phrases: “Rhian saved us from Tedros’ rebels . . .” “Can’t let Tedros win . . .” “King is en route to Putsi . . .” “Says the first answer is there . . .”

  The ministers sensed something, glancing down, but Hester was gone.

  Putsi? Why would Japeth go to Putsi? the witch thought, rejoining her friends as they hustled under toppled cottages. Nothing there but sand and geese . . .

  “Hester!” Anadil hissed, yanking her back—

  Distracted, Hester had almost barreled over a cliff. She peered down at the dark skyfloor, dropping off into infinite fog.

  “If you die and leave me with Dot, I’ll find my way to hell just to kill you again,” said Anadil.

  “How romantic,” said Hester. Slowly, she inched towards the white, swirling mist, her boots scratching the cliff edge, but even close-up, she could see nothing through the fog. Nor could she locate the smell of salt water that led them here.

  Anadil’s nose twitched, noticing the same thing. “How did we lose an entire sea?” She probed over the cliff, squinting into fog—

  Her foot slipped. A hand pulled her back.

  “You catch me, I catch you,” said Hester.

  “Is that a Tedros line?” Anadil replied. “Are you quoting princes at me?”

  “Should have dropped you.”

  They noticed Dot behind them, pensive.

  “What is it?” Anadil asked.

  “Daddy’s ring,” Dot rasped. “The man who burned it . . . It was Bertie. I saw his face through his helmet. I keep trying to tell myself it wasn’t . . . But I know it was him. Daddy would never have let his ring fall into Bertie’s hands. He knew Rhian was after it. Daddy would have protected it until his last breath. Which means if Bertie had it . . .” Her eyes welled up.

  Hester looked at Anadil. Neither knew what to say. Both of them had lost their parents. They knew what it was like to be alone. Dot, now, was part of their tribe. Each took one of her hands, holding their friend close.

  “Maybe Daddy’s still alive,” Dot croaked, tears falling. “Maybe I’ve got it wrong?”

  Hester smiled as best she could. “Maybe.”

  “You’re my real family, you know,” Dot said softly to her friends. “And I know I’m a part of yours too. Even if you act like
I’m not. Even if you two pretend you don’t need me. A coven is three. It has to be three. Because I’d be so lonely without you.”

  Now Hester had teared up, and so did Anadil, which only Hester could tell, since Ani’s face never moved, even when she was crying.

  “We love you, Dot,” Hester whispered, hugging her tight.

  “Even if sometimes we want to push you down a well,” said Anadil, joining the hug.

  “Now I’ll look like a fat raccoon,” Dot muttered, wiping at her mascara and glancing upwards. “Oh, good heavens. That’s where it’s been!”

  Anadil and Hester looked up.

  The Savage Sea glittered high over their heads, where the sky should be, the dark waters extending into the wall of mist.

  “Caves must be up there too,” said Anadil. “In that fog . . .”

  “But how are we supposed to get up there?” Hester pressed.

  “Oh, that’s easy,” Dot sighed.

  Two witches turned to the third.

  “WALLS CAN BE useful,” said Dot as she climbed the fog. “Without a wall, you might not know where to begin. But a wall is a challenge. Put a wall in front of a witch and she’ll find her way past it.”

  Where Hester and Anadil had seen an impossible gap between skyfloor and sea, an insurmountable fog . . . Dot had seen opportunity.

  With a lit finger, she’d turned the wall of fog to chocolate: the misty swirls now made of cocoa meringue, buttressed with sticky fudge to help the witches keep grip. One after the other, the witches climbed, Dot in the lead, the coven hidden by night.

  For the time being, at least, Hester mulled. Morning was coming fast. They’d been at it for ages and were barely halfway up the wall. Already they’d climbed so high that Hester’s demon was chapped, her nose ring frozen, and she couldn’t see the stars in the skyfloor anymore. Luckily, she wasn’t scared of heights. (What she was scared of was the wall’s sugary stench, which reminded her of babies and boyfriends and Easter bunnies, things Hester thought should be outlawed or dead.)

  “Let’s say we do make it up there,” Anadil puffed. “How will we get into the sea? We need to swim through to get to the caves. But we can’t just jump in the water. It’s upside down. Won’t we just fall out and die?”

  Hester looked up at the ocean, high over their heads, an undulating ceiling. “Let’s hope Dot has the answer to that too.”

  “I don’t,” said Dot, dripping sweat and fudge. “Really, I might go back to turning things to kale after this.”

  But they had bigger problems now, for the first rays of sun had broken through the skyfloor, lighting up the chocolate wall.

  Already Hester could see people in the vales, upside down and tiny as newts, stepping out from inverted houses, peering at a chocolate wall that had appeared overnight.

  “Climb faster,” Hester growled, shoving Anadil, who shoved Dot, but all three were flagging.

  “I wish I were Tedros,” Dot wheezed. “He has muscles.”

  “Rather die,” said Hester.

  “Same,” said Ani.

  Sunrays detonated through the iced meringue, refracting rainbow beams up the wall. Not only were the three of them visible now, but they were spotlit like roaches on an ice sculpture. Hester glanced down at upturned guards throttling through the village, armed with swords and headed for the clifftop. Even worse, heat was assaulting the wall, the sun rising full-force in the skyfloor.

  “Almost there,” Dot breathed, the sea getting closer.

  But every inch up seemed to slide them two inches down, the chocolate melting to goo under their hands, the meringue starting to crack. Down below, the Borna guards had leapt onto the wall, their bodies closing the gap with alarming speed.

  “How are they so quick?” Dot gasped.

  “They live on beanstalks! They spend their lives climbing!” said Hester, head-butting Anadil. “Hurry!”

  Each witch struggled up the meringue, pieces chipping off and hitting the witch beneath. By the time they were within arm’s length of the sea, the guards were more than halfway up the wall.

  Dot reached a hand into the waters overhead. “We need a way to stay upside down and swim,” she said, scanning the sea beyond the wall, shrouded in fog. “Caves must be out there somewhere.”

  “The sea around the caves is supposed to be poisonous,” said Ani, eyeing Dot’s wet, perfectly healthy hand.

  “Caves must not be that close, then,” Hester grimaced, before peeking down at the guards. “They’re getting closer, though.”

  “Wait a second,” Dot said, focused overhead. “Look.”

  Hester peered up at the waters, shimmering with sun.

  Except the shimmers were moving. It wasn’t sun. It was . . . fish. Big and small, swimming in an overturned sea.

  “How are they managing it?” Anadil wondered.

  Dot punched her hand into the fish-filled waters again, keeping it in longer, gauging something . . . Her eyes narrowed. “Only one way to find out,” she said.

  With a deep breath, she launched upwards, cannoning into the sea.

  “Dot, no!” Hester and Ani screamed, both prepared to catch their falling friend, even if it meant death for them all—

  Only Dot didn’t fall.

  “Currents!” she pipped, dangling from the water, her head upside down. “They hold you in place, like the air holds birds in the sky. Jump in!”

  Anadil didn’t hesitate, flinging herself up and bellyflopping onto Dot. A second later, the pair popped their heads out of the sea like lemurs, but Hester still hadn’t moved from her spot down the meringue. Fudge crumbled under her fingers, her body slipping. Below, she heard men’s shouts . . . the scrape of their boots against chocolate . . .

  “You need to jump. Now,” Anadil demanded.

  Hester didn’t know how to put feelings into words: her fear of letting go . . . her inability to trust . . . the vulnerability of a leap . . .

  But a true friend can sense these things without them spoken.

  “Trust me,” said Anadil.

  Hester closed her eyes, launched high, and felt Ani’s embrace as they dunked underwater. The sea was warm, its currents viscous, sucking onto her body like the arms of a starfish. Hester opened her eyes to a miles-long drop to the sky below. She panicked, blood surging to her head, her limbs thrashing against the waves, but the warmth held her close and she couldn’t tell if it was Ani or the sea. Her head felt light and empty. Salt water slipped down her throat. Cold arms wrapped her tighter. Hester looked into Anadil’s eyes, the currents locking them together, fish brushing their legs.

  “Sorry to interrupt,” Dot chirped, “but what about them?”

  Hester glanced at the guards bounding higher. They were within ten yards, teeth bared, Lion badges hooked to their armor, reflecting a witch’s darkening glare . . .

  “What goes up must come down,” Hester vowed.

  Three friends lit their fingers.

  A helix of glow attacked the wall, red, green, and blue, crisscrossing and searing through chocolate. Fudge spewed into guards’ faces, the meringue cracking like glass. But the men kept climbing, the first guard within range of the sea. With a bloody yell, he primed to jump at Anadil. Hester locked eyes with him, redoubling her glow—

  The wall combusted under his hands.

  Chocolate, cream, and meringue shattered, spraying into the air, as the Borna guards plummeted, screams echoing before they were lost to the sun.

  “Let’s go,” Hester ordered, paddling upside down into fog. “Don’t know how long we’ll last with blood filling our heads like this.”

  But Dot stayed in place, eyes pinned downwards, throat bobbing, as if their survival had come at a cost she wasn’t ready for.

  “Dot?”

  She turned to her coven mates, both shadowed in mist.

  Anadil’s red eyes pierced through.

  “They wouldn’t have mourned for you,” she said.

  ANADIL HAD ASKED a pertinent question: If the sea aroun
d the caves was said to be poisonous, why were the witches still alive?

  Prowling through fog, heads hanging out of the water, they hunted for the caves, alert for poison. But all they found was more inverted sea, the fog breaking to reveal open water again and again, until Hester’s head was so swollen with blood that she began to hallucinate tiny Easter bunnies. Anadil and Dot, too, were swimming slower and slower, their eyes rolling to the backs of their skulls, as if they were lost in their own visions—

  “Stop,” Hester said, throwing out her arm.

  Ani and Dot collided with her.

  Ahead, the upturned sea ended in a waterfall, plunging at impossible speed . . .

  . . . into a new sea, down below, the sky restored overhead.

  “Who knew I’d be so excited for a sea to be where it should be,” Anadil said.

  “Waterfall must be the end of the kingdom,” Dot assessed.

  But any comfort the witches had in seeing the Woods right side up beyond the waterfall was offset by the hue of this distant sea, thick and red, the color of rust. And, in the middle of the sea: an island of towering rock. The surface of this rock looked like a clock face, with an opening to a cave at every hour—twelve Caves of Contempo in all.

  The cave openings were well-protected. First by a rim of sharp rock spikes around the perimeter of each cave. And second, by a mob of long, spiny-white creatures with black-toothed snouts, floating through the red sea around the island . . .

  “Crogs,” said Dot.

  “Special taste for girls,” Hester added, remembering the beasts that guarded the old School for Boys.

  “Maybe that’s what they mean by ‘poisoned’ sea,” Anadil guessed.

  A seagull glided over it, letting its feet touch the water—

  The bird vanished in an acid char of smoke.

  “No, they mean actually poisoned,” said Dot.

  Head hanging, Hester studied the waterfall ahead, a vertical straight shot, blue sea to red, upside down to right side up, a dividing line between a world in chaos and the hope of setting things right.

  Now they just had to find a way to cross it.

  “That’s a death plunge, first off,” Hester said. “Then poisoned water. Girl-eating crogs. Armored rock. Caves that mess with time.”