The Last Ever After

  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.”

  “No, our story proves a princess and a witch have to be friends. Because each of us has played both parts,” said Agatha. “And we’ll always play both parts. That’s who we are. That’s why we’re us.”

  Sophie still couldn’t look at her. “All I ever wanted was love, Aggie,” she breathed, voice breaking. “All I ever wanted was a happy ending like yours.”

  “You already have one, Sophie. You’ve always had one.” Agatha smiled through tears. “With me.”

  Sophie finally met her eyes.

  For the briefest of moments, sound and space fell away, the two of them locked in a gaze so strong that they became reflections of each other. Light and Dark. Good and Evil. Hero and Villain. Only as each looked deeper, neither knew who was who. For in each other’s eyes, they saw the answers to their own soul’s silent questions, as if they weren’t reflections at all, but two halves of the same.

  A tear slipped down Sophie’s cheek, her mouth falling open to the softest of gasps, as if a fire inside her had gone out.

  The young School Master looked ruffled, his hands twitching on the axe, pupils darting between his prisoner and his queen—

  Sophie blinked, the moment gone. She looked at Agatha as if she were a stranger, her face chilling back to its dead-numb shell. Slowly Sophie turned to Rafal.

  “On three,” she said.

  Rafal smiled cruelly at Sophie and slammed Agatha’s head back down on the tree.

  “
On three,” said Rafal, measuring the blade against her and Tedros’ necks.

  Agatha went limp, her heart broken.

  “One,” said Sophie.

  Tedros stopped thrashing as if he knew the end had come. He pressed his bare shoulder against Agatha’s and she pulled even closer, wanting to feel every part of him as they died.

  “Two,” said Rafal, both fists on the axe.

  She tasted the warmth of Tedros’ breath.

  “Forever,” he whispered.

  “Forever,” she whispered.

  Rafal raised the axe over their heads.

  Sophie aimed her sword at her father’s neck—

  “Three,” Sophie said.

  Agatha felt the wind of the falling axe and saw Sophie swing Tedros’ sword, the sun imploding to darkness in the mirror of its steel. But as Excalibur grazed Stefan’s skin, about to rip into his throat, Sophie suddenly diverted her swing, looping the sword upwards. Her right hand came off the hilt, brushing across her left hand, sweeping the School Master’s ring clean off her finger and high into the air, the gold circle catching the last spear of light in the sky, like a bold new sun—

  The glare blinded Rafal and he froze the axe in shock, whirling back towards his queen. As the ring fell towards Sophie, his eyes widened in horror and he thrust out his palm, a blast of black glow scorching towards her—

  Clasping the sword with both fists, Sophie looked dead into the School Master’s eyes and smashed Excalibur down with all her might, shattering the ring out of the air into a million shards of gold.

  Gold shimmer enveloped Sophie’s body like a shield as the School Master’s death spell ripped into her, the black cloud breaking apart on impact and dissipating like the last mists of a storm.

  Thunderstruck, Rafal watched the last embers of his ring go cold, betrayal flushing through his young, beautiful face . . .

  Then he began to change. His face shriveled like rancid fruit; his thick white hair sloughed off in clumps over his mottled skull; his spine hunched with sickening crackles, jerking his body into ugly contortions. Liver spots rashed across decaying skin, his blue eyes clouding toxic gray, his muscled limbs shrinking to bony sticks. With each second, he grew older and older, thousands of years old, screams of rage tearing from inside of him as his flesh boiled with heat. His clothes burned off of him, smoke spitting through his mummifying skin, until the School Master was unmasked at last, a naked corpse of blackened, hateful flesh.

  His red eyes met Sophie’s. Roaring with vengeance, he staggered towards her, faster, faster, stabbing out a rotted claw for her face—

  His hand crumbled to dust as he touched her.

  Rafal let out a monstrous cry and burst into ashes, cascading to the ground like the sands of an hourglass.

  All through the trees, his Dark Army of old villains crumbled too, their weapons dropping and clinking to earth in clouds of dust.

  A last gust of wind swept trails of smoke across the Forest like a curtain.

  The night was quieter than the depths of a tomb.

  Stupefied, Tedros ripped out his gag and scraped to his knees first, gaping into the black sky.

  “We’re here,” he said, spinning around. “We’re still here. Agatha . . . we’re alive! The storybook’s closed—”

  His princess hadn’t moved, facedown on the log.

  “Agatha?”

  Slowly Agatha looked up at him. “Tedros, I think I’m going to faint.”

  Her prince smiled. “You catch me. I catch you.”

  The color drained from Agatha’s face and she slackened into his waiting arms.

  Across from them, petrified villagers freed Stefan, who tearfully embraced Honora and her two young sons. In the mulch of the Forest, young and old heroes pulled themselves off the ground, surveying the carnage of war. Hester cut Lancelot and Merlin loose, while Hort reunited the wizard with his hat and starry cloak. Meanwhile, Anadil and Dot hustled between old mentors, propping them up to their feet.

  “We’ll make you a new wing, Tink,” Peter said, comforting his weeping fairy.

  “Make me a new chair too,” said Hansel, frowning at a broken wheel on his wheelchair.

  With his spectacles cracked, the White Rabbit depended on Yuba to guide him, while Princess Uma said a silent prayer for all the animals that had died during the war.

  “Anyone seen Jack?” Pinocchio asked.

  Red Riding Hood pointed to him and Briar Rose kissing behind a tree.

  As Merlin tended to the wounded students, Beatrix used what few skills she’d learned leading Evil’s infirmary to help Lancelot bind his bloody shoulder.

  “Gwen will never let me leave the house again,” he grumbled.

  As Agatha stirred, she felt Tedros running his fingers through her hair.

  The first thing she saw was Merlin crouched over Cinderella, wrapping her body in his cloak. The old princess looked so peaceful and light, the way she had when she saw her stepsisters one last time.

  The wizard met Agatha’s eyes and gave her the warmest of smiles, as if to reassure her that even though she was no longer alive, Cinderella had finally found her happy ending.

  Agatha watched as Hort and Chaddick helped the wizard carry her away. Tomorrow, there would be a funeral, where she could say goodbye . . .

  Tomorrow.

  “The sun,” she choked, peering into the dark sky. “Where’s the sun?”

  “Waiting to rise in the morning,” said her barechested prince, helping her up. “Thanks to you.”

  Agatha exhaled. “Takes two for a happy ending,” she said, searching for her best friend. But Sophie was nowhere to be seen.

  “You know what went through my head as the axe was coming down?” Tedros asked. “That we never had nicknames for each other, like every other couple.”

  “We’re not like every other couple,” said Agatha, looking at him.

  “No, we’re not,” Tedros admitted. “Not every king finds a queen who’s smarter, stronger, and better than him in every way.”

  Agatha put her hand to his golden cheek. “You are the pretty one, at least.”

  Tedros grinned, leaning in. “Mmm, you might have me beat there too.”

  He kissed her long and soft, leaving Agatha even more wobbly on her feet. Tedros steadied her with his strong arm, bringing her into his sweaty chest. After all this, he somehow smelled better than he ever did before. She kissed him again, a blush blooming on her cheeks—

  Then her smile faded.

  Tedros noticed and turned.

  Through the trees, Sophie was kneeling beside Lady Lesso, shivering on her back, as Professor Dovey clutched her friend’s hand.

  The Evil Dean’s dress was soaked with blood.

  “Oh no,” Agatha whispered.

  Sophie stroked Lady Lesso’s cheek, gazing into her violet eyes. The Dean was wheezing shallowly, trying in vain to say something.

  “Shhh,” Professor Dovey said to her, stoic and firm. “Just rest.”

  The Good Dean had known the moment she’d seen the wound from Aric’s knife that magic would serve no use.

  Sophie glanced up and saw Agatha, Tedros, and all the other young and old heroes gathered at a distance, watching solemnly.

  “What . . . made you . . . do it?”

  Sophie slowly looked down.

  “Tell . . . me,” Lady Lesso said.

  Sophie smiled. “The same thing that made you turn your back on Evil too,” she said. “A friend.”

  Lady Lesso took Sophie’s hand in hers, the Dean’s other hand still on Clarissa’s. “The Old and the New together,” she whispered. “Both in good hands.”

  Tears slipped down Sophie’s face. “This is my fault—”

  “No,” said Lady Lesso, steeling willfully. “Never that. You’re my child. As much as my own son. You are loved, Sophie.” Her voice faltered. “Always remember. You are loved—”

  Clarissa touched her. “Lady Lesso, please . . .”

  “Leonora.”

>   Lady Lesso looked up at her best friend. “My name . . . is Leonora.”

  Slowly the Dean’s eyes closed. She never took another breath.

  Professor Dovey finally wept, draping herself over her best friend.

  Sophie quietly left the two of them alone.

  Agatha was waiting for her at Gavaldon’s edge.

  They stood together in silence, watching Dovey hold Lesso’s dead body the way Agatha once held Sophie’s.

  Sophie’s fingers clasped Agatha’s.

  Agatha gently squeezed Sophie back.

  “Where’s Tedros?” Sophie said at last.

  “Rounding up the others so we can head to the school,” Agatha replied, watching Tedros and Lancelot in the Forest lifting Ravan, Professor Anemone, and the other injured atop the rumps of Princess Uma’s few surviving animals. “So many hurt that we’ll need the other teachers’ help.”

  “Come on. Let’s chip in,” Sophie said, heading towards the trees—

  “Not yet,” said Agatha. “There’s someone waiting for you, first.”

  Sophie looked over her friend’s shoulder and saw Stefan, standing in the grass, the rest of the villagers gathered at a distance.

  Sophie’s heart caved in.

  Stefan never said a word. He just hugged his daughter tight, as both of them sobbed.

  “I’m sorry,” she breathed. “I’m sorry, Father.”

  “I never hated you. Never,” Stefan fought. “I tried to be a good father—you don’t know how hard I tried—”

  “You were,” Sophie sniffled. “You were a good father.”

  “I love you more than anything in the world,” Stefan whispered. “You’re my child, Sophie.”

  Stefan saw Agatha crying now, watching him with Sophie.

  “Though you’ve always made Agatha feel like one of mine too,” he said, smiling tenderly at her.

  Sophie wiped her cheek. “Come on, Aggie.”