“Well I didn’t know we were all volunteering for stage crew,” Agatha snapped as Anadil’s rats took turns bathing in paint and rolling across the set.
“You didn’t seem to have any better ideas of where we should meet—”
“Because I’m too busy trying not to die—”
“And you think we aren’t?” Anadil shot back. “We’ve been killing ourselves to make the Trial team in case this all goes to hell—”
“Do you think the Dean sent a girl into the boys’ castle?” Dot wondered airily, chomping salad greens.
The other girls turned to her.
“If she did, that might explain why Sophie hasn’t found the Storian yet,” Dot said. “The Dean might have had one of the girls turn into a boy and hide the pen so you can’t make your wish. You know—to make sure the Trial goes on as planned.”
Anadil blinked at her. “Maybe I should start eating vegetables.”
“And who would this Storian-stashing girl be?” Hester leered, looking irritated she hadn’t come up with the idea.
“Beatrix,” Agatha returned, pulling the hood back to reveal her face. “This is her cape, isn’t it? And she had that boys’ uniform under her bed too! She loves the Dean! It has to be her!”
“Look, we’ll see what we can get out of her,” Anadil said, scooting to block Agatha’s face from view. “But there’s only two nights left, Agatha. Sophie has to find the Storian by tomorrow. Where was her lantern tonight?”
“Can’t see a thing outside tonight. Completely fogged out,” said Agatha miserably. “Left my lantern in my window, but can’t see hers until it clears.”
“She has to bring that pen back, Agatha,” Hester pressured. “Or we’re all going into that Trial.”
If Agatha wasn’t scared enough, the fear in Hester’s face turned her stomach to jelly.
“The Dean had a Trial map too—” Agatha stammered. “She marked the Cyan Caves—”
“Cyan Caves?” Hester scoffed, exchanging looks with Anadil. “They’re just a decoration by the south gates. Caves don’t go deeper than fifty feet. What could possibly be in them?”
“Well, she canceled the pre-Trial scout, so we can’t even look,” Agatha griped, disappearing back under her hood—
“Unless she already gave you permission to.”
Agatha looked up at Hester, peering slyly at her invisible friend.
“As far as the Dean knows, you’re in the Blue Forest with a gnome.”
As the clock tolled midnight, Agatha prowled through the foggy Blue Forest towards the south gates, invisible under her cape. She’d never seen fog like this—swirling white clouds of mist that obscured every last blade of navy grass. She squinted through the haze at the School for Boys but couldn’t see a single brick.
It certainly was a coincidence, Agatha thought—that her only means of communication with Sophie had been severed by strange weather.
Lady Lesso’s warning floated into Agatha’s mind . . . Evelyn’s always one step ahead.
Agatha shook off the thought and snuck deeper into the Forest, moving slowly in case she collided with any trees or equally fog-blinded animals. In the eerie silence, she began to feel thoughts of Tedros rising faster than she could hold them down. The more she denied him, the stronger he seemed to become, like a monster at the door. Nerves shredding, she focused harder on the fog-covered path. As soon as she got home to the graveyard, she’d burn every last storybook she could find. Gavaldon would be a world without princes, indeed.
She felt the path begin to slope uphill, meaning she was beyond the pumpkin patch and nearing the south gates. Tomorrow night would be Trial eve, featuring Pollux’s infernal play and the announcement of the team. By then, Dean Sader and Professor Manley would have laced the Forest with their traps. They’d agreed that the Cyan Caves were off-limits. . . . So what was the Dean hiding there?
A white rabbit scurried past her clumps, carrying its terrified baby in its mouth, and vanished into the white fog as if erased off a page. Agatha treaded carefully, step by step, until she glimpsed the wall of blue-green rock in front of her.
Buried high on a cliff at the southeast corner, cloaked by giant overhanging blue pines, the Cyan Caves were a bubbled arrangement of three circular, sea-green holes of different sizes. Agatha gazed up at the caves atop the ledge, unsure how to even get up to them. She couldn’t Mogrify and lose her magic cape, so her only option was to climb one of the blue pines and jump onto the cliff. Luckily, the pine branches were thick and sturdy, and Agatha made her way up quickly, thankful for the prickly needles to guide her hands through the fog. At last she reached the highest bough and with a deep breath leapt down invisible onto jagged rock, with only a small stutter in her landing.
Agatha peered at the row of caves in front of her: three circles of different sizes that looked like they belonged in Goldilocks’ story—the first cave too big, the second cave too small, the third just right. She could feel her neck rashing red under the invisible cape collar. Something told her that whatever was in these caves would answer her question of why Evelyn Sader was in her fairy tale—and how she planned for it to end.
Legs shaking, Agatha headed into the first giant cave, feeling her fingertip glow gold like a torch. The cavernous walls were glassy aquamarine, dimly reflecting her fingerglow and tense face. Step by step, she moved through the mirrored den, scanning every inch, seeing nothing but a few scraggly meerworms and beetles, until she reached a dead end.
Frowning, Agatha retreated to try the second cave. But with its hole no bigger than a dinner plate, Agatha couldn’t fit more than her head in. Worse still, this cave was even shallower than the first, with her fingerglow illuminating only bare walls and a few patches of mold. Agatha wrenched back out, irritated.
What am I doing here? she chastised herself as she stomped into the third cave. She should be waiting for Sophie in the castle, she thought, lighting up the midsized, deserted den. Her friend would be back with that pen any moment. . . . Last year, she herself had been the rock, the finisher, the one who would do anything to get them home. Now it was Sophie. That’s why Sophie had won the challenge to be a boy instead of her. Sophie was the prince this time. Sophie wouldn’t let her down. . . .
Extinguishing her glow, Agatha hurried back towards the mouth of the cave—and stopped cold. A strange hum echoed behind her, like a chorus of angry whispers.
Slowly Agatha turned around, hearing the whir grow louder and louder. She held up her lit finger, flickering with dread. . . .
A storm of blue butterflies crashed into her from darkness, swamping her invisible body like bees and ripping her invisible cape to threads. They moved with deliberate purpose and ruthless speed, eviscerating the snakeskin and bashing her back onto the cliff edge. Beneath their beating wings, Agatha could see her skin and clothes reappearing in moonlight, patch by patch, until they finally tore the last of the cape from her and swarmed away with a violent gust, blowing her off the ledge. Agatha fell down the cliff with a scream, flailing through fog, and landed on her tailbone in a tangled pine shrub. Bruised and aching, she looked up to see the cloud of butterflies vanish into fog, shedding the last black slivers of the cape over the Forest like ash.
Agatha couldn’t breathe, feeling the relief of being alive give way to the panic of what had just happened.
The Dean had planted that map in her office for her to find. Which meant the Dean knew she hadn’t been with Yuba in the Blue Forest the past two days . . .
Or with Sophie.
An alarm roared in her brain and Agatha was already running.
She dashed down the fogged path, forgetting her pain, trying to remember where Yuba’s den was. Branches and thorns ripped at her clothes as she crouched to the dirt, scanning the glen between the Fernfield and Thicket—until she saw wisps of black smoke rising from a hole in the ground ahead. She fell to her stomach and plunged her head through the tiny opening—
But it was too late.
Y
uba’s home had been incinerated, every inch burned to a crisp, except for a few hydrangea petals, scattered over cinders . . . the gnome nowhere in sight.
Stomach sinking, Agatha stood back up in the Blue Forest and watched the fog magically recede, as if its work was done. The mist thinned into a trail and slurped back towards the School for Girls, vanishing into its highest office.
Agatha looked up at Evelyn Sader in the window, circled by returning butterflies, her gap-toothed smile glowing through darkness like a Cheshire cat’s.
A smile that said Evelyn knew exactly where Sophie was right now . . .
Because she’d been one step ahead all along.
Slowly Agatha turned to see the fog evaporate around the School for Boys, leaving it bare and clear in the night.
No green glow in any of its windows.
No sign from her friend at all.
“Shouldn’t you be looking for the Storian?” Tedros asked in the dark hall, trying to track Filip’s fluffy blond hair past the teacher dormitories. “Past midnight now—”
“Want to show you something first,” Filip said, sliding through two narrow rock columns.
“Where are we going?” Tedros moaned, stomach still bloated from his dungeon feast. “All I want to do is take a bath and go to be—” He fell quiet.
They were standing on the teachers’ balcony, perched over the Blue Forest, giving them a panoramic view of the terrain. A strange, icy haze broke apart in the air, as if a thick fog had just passed.
As the air grew clearer over the Forest, Tedros saw the leaves and grass fluorescing magically with an arctic blue sheen. Wind raked across fronds and flowers in harplike waves, sounding steady, oceanic breaths. Close to the north gates, the electric blue Fernfield, dotted with silver spores, fanned over the thin west path; over the east path, the willows lost more of their sapphire leaves with every sweeping gust, while the Cyan Caves to the south cast a bubbled shadow over the blue pumpkin patch.
Tedros had seen so much beauty traveling with his parents when he was little—the paradise grottos in the Murmuring Mountains, the siren lakes in Avonlea, the Wish Fish oases in the Shazabah Deserts. . . . But from high above, the prince looked at this small, gated Forest, innocent to the dangers of the world, and knew what heaven could be. Two nights from now, he’d be the one who turned it to hell.
He suddenly noticed movement near the gates . . . a human shadow slipping out of the Forest. . . .
Tedros squinted closer—
“You going to join me?” Filip said behind him.
Tedros turned to see him sitting on the wide, flat marble ledge, kicking legs over the Forest.
“Or do you still want that bath?” his cell mate said archly.
Tedros climbed up onto the ledge and sat closer to Filip than he would under ordinary circumstances. He wasn’t especially fond of heights.
“How’s your arm?” Tedros said, inspecting his cell mate’s gash, still raw and bloody. “I don’t want it to get infected—”
Filip pulled it away, staring out at the Forest. “How can you sleep knowing you’re sentencing two girls to death out there? Two girls who each loved you?”
Tedros said nothing for a moment. “There’s always three in a fairy tale, Filip. The true loves and the villain. In the end, someone has to die. The moment Agatha hid Sophie in my tower, the moment Agatha attacked me, she made me the villain.” He glared at Filip. “And I have no problem playing the part if it means saving my life.”
Tedros saw his cell mate gaping at him, cheeks going redder, redder. . . . All of a sudden Filip started laughing so convulsively he started tearing up.
“What in God’s name is wrong with you?” Tedros frowned.
“Everyone just wanted to find love, and now everyone wants to kill each other,” Filip giggled, wiping his eyes. “No one knows the truth anymore.”
“With all due respect, Filip, what the hell do you know?”
Filip laughed and cried louder, burying his face in his hands.
“You’re worse than a girl,” Tedros mumbled.
Now Filip was practically howling, but seeing Tedros’ stony face, his laughs turned to pants and then to silence.
Somewhere below, crickets thrummed off rhythm. Tedros peered down at a stork wading through the Blue Brook, while two squirrels chased each other over the bridge’s banister. Tomorrow Manley and the girls’ Dean would lace the Forest with traps, and the animals would go into hiding until the Trial was over and its dangers passed.
“So what’s your castle like, Filip?”
His cell mate blinked. “Castle?”
“You’re a prince, aren’t you? You don’t live in a tiki hut, I presume.”
“Oh, yes—it’s a, um, small . . . castle. Shaped like a . . . cottage.”
“Sounds cozy. Never liked living in a big castle. Spend most of the day trying to find people. Does your whole family live with you?”
“Just my father,” said Filip sourly.
“Least you have a dad,” sighed Tedros. “I have nothing to go home to when school’s done. Just an empty castle, thieving servants, and a failing kingdom.”
“Think you’ll ever see your mother again?”
Tedros shook his head. “Don’t want to, either. Dad put a death warrant out for her. Once I turn 16, I become king. I’d have to honor Dad’s warrant if I found her.”
Filip swiveled to him in shock, but Tedros quickly squinted up at the sky. “You should look for the Storian, Filip. It’ll be light soon—”
“How could you ever hurt your mother?” Filip asked, astonished. “I’d do anything to see mine again. Anything. That would be my real Ever After.” He sighed and hunched over. “But I’m not like Agatha. No one hears my wishes.”
“Tell me what she was like, your mother.”
“Her name was Vanessa. Means ‘butterfly.’ I still remember her face when they used to fly through the lane every spring, in big blue swarms. . . . She used to say that one day I’d fly away just like them—find a life bigger than hers, somewhere where all my dreams came true. ‘Don’t let anyone stop you from your happy ending,’ she used to say. ‘Don’t let anyone stop you from being loved,’” Filip said, voice cracking. “‘Caterpillars can’t know a butterfly.’”
Tedros touched his shoulder. Filip leaned against him and finally let himself cry.
“Her only friend took the only boy she ever loved, Tedros,” Filip said. “I don’t want to end up like her. All alone.”
Silence thickened between the two boys.
“Never met a boy who wanted to be a butterfly,” said Tedros softly.
Filip looked up. The two boys gazed into each other’s eyes, legs touching on the ledge.
Tedros swallowed and jumped onto the balcony. “Heading back. Go find that pen.”
“Tedros, wait for me—”
But she watched as the prince sprinted away, stumbling between columns, before he faded into shadow.
Sophie’s hand slowly drifted to the place on the ledge where he’d been.
She told herself to hurry to the silver tower, to find the pen in the hours she had left and get her best friend home—to get up now—
But instead she just stayed there, alone over the Forest, until morning light shattered the dark.
UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
HarperCollins Publishers
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21
Red Light
By now, the three witches considered Agatha a good friend, despite their generally poor abilities to make good friends. Thus one might expect Hester, Anadil, and Dot to grin, wave, or, at the very least, make room for Agatha as she entered Good Hall for History on the last day before the Trial. But as Agatha squeezed next to them in her school uniform, eyes red and sleepless, the witches acted as if seeing their new friend was the worst possible thing in the world.
* * *
Art to come
* * * r />
“What are you doing here?” Hester hissed. “And why can we see you—”
“She knows,” Agatha hissed back.
The witches spun to her. “Knows?” Dot blurted.
“How much?” breathed Hester.
The double doors flung open behind them and the Dean breezed in, revised textbook in hand, and gave Agatha a puckish smile as she ascended the stage.
“Pleasure to see our Captain has returned from her training. I’m sure it’s been time well spent,” she said smoothly. “I hear Sophie isn’t feeling herself?”
Agatha withstood the sting and glared back at her. “She’s looking for something as we speak.”
All the girls in the hall swiveled to the Dean, befuddled by this exchange.
“Oh, dear. Time is of the essence, with both your lives at stake tomorrow,” replied Evelyn innocently. “Suppose it’s something she can’t find?”
“She’ll find it,” Agatha spat as girls whiplashed back to her. “You don’t know Sophie.”
“And you know her, of course,” said the Dean, eyes twinkling. “Warts and all.”
Agatha bleached white as confused girls in the hall gibbered around her.
“Everything,” Hester gasped. “She knows . . . everything.”
“Tonight at supper, we’ll have our Trial eve festivities, featuring our play pageant, announcement of the Trial team, and a proper feast to wish our combatants luck against the boys,” the Dean declared from her brother’s old wooden lectern. “But this morning, we still have one history lesson left to prepare us for the Trial—”
“She couldn’t possibly know Sophie’s a boy,” Dot whispered to Agatha and the witches. She saw two butterflies over Anadil’s shoulder and turned them to brussels sprouts. “For one thing, how could she know we used Merlin’s spell—”
“She taught us about Merlin’s spell, didn’t she?” Agatha said, remembering the Dean’s cryptic smile that day. “She practically dared us to find it.”