A World Without Princes

  Agatha nodded, tears streaming down her cheeks.

  “And everything you said in the tower was true?” said Tedros, eyes wet.

  Agatha nodded, crying harder.

  “Why didn’t I kiss you?” Tedros said, voice cracking. “Why didn’t I trust you?”

  “You’re . . . so stupid,” Agatha wept, shaking her head. “Why are boys so stupid?”

  Tedros smiled through tears. “Maybe a world without princes is a good idea after all.”

  Agatha choked a laugh, finally letting her heart flutter unashamed.

  Standing between them, Sophie stood helpless, watching true loves reunited—more invisible than she’d ever been.

  A blast of purple light flew past Tedros like a warning shot—

  Lady Lesso stormed out of the trees, smoking finger raised menacingly at Tedros. “Agatha, Sophie, get away from him now!” she hissed, backing towards the south gate. “I’ll hide you in the Woods until it’s safe—”

  Neither girls nor boy moved.

  “What are you doing!” she spat at Sophie and Agatha. “The other boys will be here any sec—”

  But now Lady Lesso’s eyes widened, for Agatha was backing away from Sophie towards the prince, who took her protectively into his arms. Clutching each other, Tedros and Agatha glared at Sophie in her boy’s uniform, standing in tree shadow, all alone.

  “What’s—what’s happening—” Lady Lesso said, head whipping between the two girls—

  “I thought stopping your wish was Good, Aggie,” Sophie wept, voice faltering. “I thought I was doing Good.”

  Sophie saw even Lady Lesso retreat from her now, violet eyes chilling with understanding. “A boy killed . . . students hurt . . . a Trial to the death . . . because of . . . you?”

  “Come on,” said Tedros, taking his princess’s arm. “Let her fend for herself.”

  “I didn’t want to be like my mother. I didn’t want to end all alone,” Sophie begged Agatha, cheeks wet. “I never meant to hurt anyone—”

  “Let’s go, Agatha,” Tedros said harder.

  Agatha looked up at her prince, as pure and devoted as he was in her dream . . . then at Sophie, sobbing repentantly across the willow glen.

  No tricks. No more secrets.

  This time the choice was for real.

  A jet of red fire rocketed into the middle of the glen, sending Agatha and Tedros reeling back in a cloud of red smoke. Dazed, they swiveled to see red and white fireworks blast through the sky from every direction, ricocheting and out of control, like a raining meteor shower. Instantly, the fireflies on the boy’s scoreboard combusted to flames, scorching all the remaining names, Tedros’ and Filip’s included. . . . With a deafening crack, the board erupted in a blinding fireball. Across the forest, the girls’ scoreboard detonated in another shattering explosion, billowing black plumes of smoke over the west gate.

  “What’s happening?” Agatha breathed, ears ringing—

  She and Tedros sensed a low, dull rumble behind them, growing louder . . . louder. . . .

  Faces draining blood, they slowly looked up.

  The enchanted haze over the castles broke like mist, revealing the boys’ and girls’ schools overrun with roaring, descending bodies like swarming ants. Charging girls leapt onto broken Halfway Bridge from the balconies, wielding weapons and glowing fingertips, clamoring at the edge of the broken gap. Across the bay, hundreds of rabid boys and mercenary princes thundered onto the bridge from the other side, lethally armed and bellowing for blood.

  “They know I’m here.”

  Agatha looked up at Lady Lesso behind them, her violet gaze fixed on the castles.

  “Trial’s over,” her teacher rasped.

  Agatha swallowed. “What does that mean?”

  They peered up at four hundred boys and girls raring to kill each other, separated only by a gap in a bridge.

  “War,” said Tedros. “It means war.”

  Over their heads, the willow branches began to shimmer brighter like blue tinsel until the shimmer detonated like a storm cloud, sweeping down over the trees. In the moon’s glow, they saw the sparkles were butterflies, thousands of blue butterflies, that had given the willows their neon glow. Like locusts, they swarmed through the glen in a violent gale – Agatha shielded her face, while Tedros hacked uselessly at them with his sword and stumbled to the ground –

  A loud gasp suddenly flew behind them, and Agatha spun to see Lady Lesso pulled off the ground by a cloud of butterflies.

  “Evelyn—” Lady Lesso gasped, horror-struck. “She heard everything—”

  “Wait!” Agatha cried, trying to hold on to her—

  Panicked, Lady Lesso pressed her lips to Agatha’s ear as the butterflies dragged her off. “Kiss him, Agatha!” she whispered. “Kiss him when the time comes—”

  And then she was ripped away, as butterflies kidnapped her back to school, her last pleas to Agatha drowned out by the roars of war.

  Agatha froze in the moonlit glen, gulping shallow breaths.

  “What did she say?”

  She looked down at Tedros staggering up, golden hair mussed.

  “Agatha?” said another voice.

  Agatha turned to see the last of the hellish red smoke dissipating through the trees, Sophie revealed behind it.

  “What did she say?” her friend asked, face tense.

  Agatha stared at Sophie across the willow glen, a moonlit stage, boys’ and girls’ war cries echoing faraway like a chorus.

  Overhead, the treetops suddenly began to rustle and sway, a heavy, crackling sound tearing towards them—

  Agatha recoiled in shock as the School Master’s silver tower crashed through into the willows. The moving tower glided into the moonlight and skidded to a stop, rupturing the ground with its force – splitting Tedros on one side, Sophie on the other, across a long, ragged crack in the ground, with Agatha straddling the fault line between them.

  From the tower’s window, a last throng of butterflies fluttered down behind the three students, magically congealing into form as they touched ground. Like an actress on cue, Evelyn Sader stepped into the clearing’s spotlight, her long nails clutching a red cherrywood storybook that Agatha knew.

  It was her and Sophie’s fairy tale.

  “‘Trial,’” the Dean cooed. “Such a delicious word. So many relevant meanings. An experiment in service of a conclusion, for instance. Or a test of faith and stamina. Or a difficult moment in one’s own life. And yet . . . I prefer the more formal definition.” She paused dramatically, taking in Sophie and Tedros on opposite sides, dark brows knitted over her forest-green eyes. “A formal court before witnesses to determine guilt.”

  Her eyes moved to Agatha in the middle. The Dean smiled cryptically.

  “Now the real Trial begins.”

  With her sharp nail, Evelyn slit open the sewn binding atop the book’s spine. The gleaming Storian ripped through, glowing furious red, as The Tale of Sophie and Agatha magically floated out of the Dean’s hands and into the moonlight. The pen flung the book open with its razor-steel nib, spilling ink across pages as colorful scenes filled in the gaps in the story. At last the pen slowed on a final page, taking its time as it painted Agatha between Tedros and Sophie. . . .

  Only Sophie didn’t look like the Sophie in front of Agatha now.

  The Sophie on the page was a bald, warted old witch.

  Beneath the witch, the pen wrote a single line:

  “The villain had been hidden all this time.”

  Agatha and Tedros slowly looked up at Sophie, milky beautiful in the moonlit glen.

  “You see, Agatha, you thought I conjured Sophie’s symptoms. That I was the villain.” Evelyn sat on a stump at the glen’s dark fringe. “When it wasn’t me at all, was it?”

  “Agatha, I’m not a witch—you know I’m not a witch—” Sophie scoffed—

  But Agatha took a step back from her friend, crossing into Tedros’ side of the glen. Sophie’s face reddened with surprise
.

  “You think I can still be Evil?” Sophie breathed. “That I could hurt you?”

  Agatha’s hands were shaking. “Witches ruin fairy tales, Sophie. Witches lie to get their endings.”

  Sophie appealed to Tedros. “I was a good friend to you, wasn’t I? A friend like that could never be a witch! Tell her!”

  “A friend built on a lie isn’t a friend,” Tedros blazed across the divide. “The School Master went to the ends of the earth to find someone as Evil as him. Now we see why he picked you, Sophie. You’ll always be Evil as long as you live.”

  “I’m not E-E-Evil! I’m trying to be Good! Can’t you see? I’m trying!” Sophie cried. “The School Master was wrong! He was wrong about me!”

  Agatha stared at the terrifying hag in the storybook, as she backed farther towards Tedros. “The Storian doesn’t lie, Sophie. . . .”

  “No—Aggie, please—” Sophie said. “You know the truth—”

  Devastated, she ran to Agatha across the cracked glen—but a blistering pain in her neck made her cry out, before more pain seared through her wrist and forearm.

  Agatha and Tedros cowered from her, eyes wide, and Sophie’s stomach went ice-cold. Slowly she raised her arm and saw it marred with two gruesome black warts. More warts sizzled through as her skin started to wrinkle like curdling milk, mottling with liver spots.

  “No—it’s her—it’s the Dean—” Sophie choked, but she couldn’t see Evelyn at the fringe. “She’s doing this to me—”

  Agatha retreated next to Tedros, fingers both raised at Sophie with matching gold glows, as Sophie’s blond hair fell out in clumps, her back swelled to a hump, her legs spindled to bony sticks.

  Agatha shook her head, torn between pity and anger. “It was you, Sophie. It was always you.”

  “I’m sorry—for everything I did—” Sophie cried, writhing in pain. “But I’m not this!”

  “You can’t be here anymore, Sophie,” Agatha said, misting up. “We’ll only be happy apart.”

  Tedros looked at his princess, stunned.

  “Agatha, no!” Sophie screamed—

  The Storian suddenly glowed redder, sensing The End.

  Agatha hesitated, as her friend’s teeth blackened and dissolved, her hair shedding faster, faster. Agatha’s face softened with grief—

  “We’ll be happy as long as we live, Agatha,” Tedros pressured her. “And she’ll be gone.”

  Agatha nodded, tears in her eyes.

  “YOU HAVE TO BELIEVE ME!” Sophie begged—

  “I can’t, Sophie,” Agatha said, clasping Tedros. “I can’t believe you anymore.”

  “NO!” Sophie screamed, charging for her, but more pain sent her buckling.

  Agatha gripped Tedros tighter as Sophie shriveled with a howl, her warted scalp gleaming, her face gnarling to an old, Evil hag’s—

  “Now, Agatha,” Tedros said, for Sophie was crawling towards them across the crack.

  “Agatha, I don’t want to be like her!” Sophie pleaded. “I don’t want to end like my mother!” She reached out her shriveled hand for her only friend—

  Agatha met her eyes with deep, terrible sorrow. Then she turned away.

  Sophie recoiled, watching Agatha in Tedros’ arms. “No . . . not this . . .” she gasped—

  Tedros’ blue eyes pierced Agatha’s with a promise. “Forever.”

  Agatha heard her wish for him, echoing louder in every heartbeat, begging her to trust it.

  This time she listened.

  Agatha gave herself to her prince.

  “Forever.”

  Tedros clasped her cheeks and kissed her, their lips touching for the first time. Agatha’s head went light, a blinding glow coursing through her veins. As his warmth spilled through her, Agatha heard Sophie’s animal scream recede behind her, softer, softer, into silence. Holding Tedros closer, Agatha felt her heart floating, time expanding, fear crumbling to ash, as if at last she’d found her Ever After, as if at last she’d found an ending that couldn’t be taken away. . . .

  Their lips finally parted, as prince and princess broke apart, each panting for breath. They looked up at their open storybook in the light of the moon, a vision of their sealing kiss splashed across the page, a witch vanished from their story . . . two last words penned beneath . . .

  THE EN

  Evelyn Sader had her fingertip under the pen’s sharp nib, blood dripping as if she’d pricked it on a spindle—

  The D left unwritten.

  Agatha’s eyes slowly lowered in front of her. . . .

  A bald, wrinkled witch gaped up at her and Tedros from the grass, her decayed face a mess of tears. Then, just as it quickly as it happened, Sophie melted back into her own young, beautiful skin, and the witch was gone, replaced by a betrayed, broken-hearted girl.

  Agatha’s heart caught in her throat, gawking at the friend she’d left behind . . . still right here. A friend who’d just witnessed a kiss that failed to banish her home, loveless and alone.

  But there was no appeal in Sophie’s eyes, no forgiveness. Just a blank distance, as if she no longer knew the dark-haired princess in front of her.

  Doom rising, Agatha looked up at the dean.

  “Some might consider conjuring witch symptoms and then blaming them on a poor innocent girl as conduct unbecoming of a Dean. But then again, I do have a weakness for good endings,” Evelyn simpered as a crowd of butterflies took the Storian from beneath her finger and restrained it in midair. She sucked the blood off her fingertip, eying the halted pen. “Funny thing about endings, you see. The story isn’t quite over until the Storian writes ‘The End.’ And as you can see, you are in fact, one letter short. Meaning, we haven’t reached ‘The End’ after all.” Evelyn smiled at Agatha. “And now that you’ve had your ending, dear princess, it seems Sophie should have a fair chance, don’t you think? After all, it is her fairy tale too.”

  Sophie gazed up at her, eyes big as emeralds.

  “Give us the pen,” Tedros spat, pulling his sword—

  Evelyn stabbed her finger at him, and a willow tree magically grabbed him by its branches and lashed him against the trunk.

  Tedros struggled angrily. “What are you—” A branch gagged him.

  “You see, Agatha, my butterflies led you both back to school because I heard a wish worthy of ending your fairy tale. But it wasn’t your wish,” the Dean said, circling Agatha. “It was Sophie’s.”

  “W-w-w-what?” Sophie spluttered—

  “Oh, yes, you made a wish too, dear,” said the Dean. “Don’t you remember?”

  A butterfly fluttered off her dress, a disembodied voice playing back as its wings pulsed neon with every word:

  “I wish I could see her again,” spoke Sophie’s voice. “I’d do anything. Anything.”

  Agatha remembered the words . . . spoken by a grave . . . the two of them in each other’s arms. . . .

  “My m-m-mother?” Sophie gasped, suddenly brightening. Then the light in her face dimmed. “But my mother’s dead . . . nothing can bring her back. . . .”

  “And yet you’re in your own fairy tale, dear,” the dean offered. “Wishes are powerful things if you’re willing to do anything for them.”

  Agatha’s heart stopped. She stared at the Dean, her big bug eyes widening.

  “The villain had been hidden all this time.”

  It wasn’t Sophie. Or Evelyn. It was—

  “NO!” She launched towards Sophie. “Sophie, no! She’s using yo—”

  Willow arms snatched her, gagging the princess with her prince on the tree trunk.

  Sophie ignored Agatha’s garbled cries. Her eyes lifted back to the Dean’s. “What do I have to do?”

  Evelyn leaned over, sharp nails caressing Sophie’s face. “Only be true to your wish, Sophie. Be willing to pay any price to see her again.”

  Agatha screeched through her gag, but couldn’t get words out—

  “What price?” Sophie frowned.

  “Agatha kissed a prince,
Sophie. She tried to banish you forever and made you watch,” Evelyn said darkly. “You have no one anymore. No prince. No friend. No father. No one to go home to. No one to trust.”

  Sophie looked into her eyes, crestfallen.

  “Isn’t seeing the only person who loves you worth any price?” Evelyn coaxed.

  Sophie didn’t move, listening to Agatha’s muffled screams behind her.

  “I can really see her again?” Sophie asked.

  “Your wish can end your fairy tale just as much as Agatha’s,” replied Evelyn. “All you have to do is mean it.”

  Agatha tore against the willow tree, the branches lacerating her arms—

  “I’m ready,” Sophie nodded, swallowing.

  Evelyn grinned toothily. Reaching towards her breast, she magically drew out a long, blue sliver of glow from her heart that lit up the night sky. As she did, the butterflies on her dress turned scarlet red . . .

  Agatha howled in horror, but Sophie’s eyes stayed on the blue light as it swirled into a hypnotic, hovering orb.

  “Now close your eyes and say your wish out loud,” the Dean wheedled.

  Sophie closed her eyes. “I will do anything to see my mother again,” she rasped, trying to ignore Agatha’s cries.

  “Mean it,” the Dean said wolfishly. “The wish only works if you mean it.”

  Sophie gritted her teeth. “I will do anything to see my mother again.”

  Then there was silence, for even Agatha had gone quiet.

  Sophie peeked open her eyes to see the orb begin to spin in midair, expelling a sweep of eerie blue light. Inch by inch, the light morphed and sculpted, taking on dimension, until Sophie staggered back, seeing a human phantom take form. Two ghostly, delicate bare feet floated above the navy grass. Sophie’s eyes slowly moved up the billowing blue robes, the pale stick-thin limbs angled from its sleeves, the long, white-swan neck . . . and then a face that could have been a mirror, with ageless vanilla skin, a small, rounded nose, and cool hazel eyes. The ghost smiled lovingly at her, and Sophie fell to her knees.

  “Mother?” she whispered. “Is it really you?”

  “Kiss me, Sophie,” her mother said, her voice distant and foggy. “Kiss me, and bring back a life. That is the only price I ask.”