Sophie and the witches exchanged glances, as if the old Dean had stayed up too long past her bedtime.
“Um, wouldn’t they be arriving at the South Gate?” Sophie said delicately.
Suddenly, a ripple burped at the midpoint of the bay, right in front of the School Master’s tower. The sound it made was low and croaky like a dyspeptic toad’s. Then more ripples formed, faster and faster, spewing bubbles of clear water and blue sludge into the sky, each burp more violent than the last, as if the bay was trying to expel something it’d swallowed. Then, in one willful spurt, the hull of a ship popped through the surface, only upside down, with the rest of the ship buried beneath the bay. It took a final cacophonous belch to send the hull toppling over and turn the ship right-side up, a glorious blue and gold, billowing with creamy white sails and the name “IGRAINE” painted along the bow near a masthead statue of a young, dark-haired woman dangling a lantern over the sea.
For a moment, as water and slime drained off the vessel and it propelled towards the shore, Sophie thought it must be a ghost ship, for there didn’t seem to be a captain. But then she saw a shadowy figure at the prow in a dark leather jacket and cut-off breeches, hair tied up in a bandana. And from what she could see, he was sharp-jawed, fine-featured, and handsome. . . .
Yet as the boat slid onto torchlit banks and stuttered to a stop, Sophie saw for the second time in one evening that the boy she’d been expecting was not a boy at all.
“Agatha?” she choked.
Her friend was already throwing a rope over the side of the ship and sliding down—
The two girls dashed towards each other and collided in a breathless hug, falling into the bay. Sophie’s white dress was slopped in sludge, but she didn’t care, gripping Agatha like she might never let go, both of them caught between giggles and tears.
On the shore, Professor Dovey was dabbing her eyes, as were Dot and Anadil, each of who knew what it meant to have a best friend. Even Hester was biting her lip.
“I missed you, Aggie,” Sophie whispered.
“Not as much as I missed you. They made Pollux give me wedding lessons,” Agatha said breathlessly.
“That little weenie? In Camelot?” Sophie squeaked. “Giving wedding advice?”
“A wedding you’re now in charge of planning,” said Agatha.
Sophie burst into laughter. “Good heavens, we have a lot to catch up on.” She kissed her dearest friend and nuzzled against her. “But now that I have you, I’m not letting you go. Even if you didn’t write me. Even if I thought you’d forgotten all about me. I love you, Agatha. I always will.”
Her friend held her close. “I love you too. And I never forgot about you, Sophie. I never could.”
Sophie hugged her tighter.
“I’m here!” a voice shouted.
The girls turned to see Hort bounding around the side of the bay, naked except for a tablecloth from the party wrapped around his waist. “I tried to follow you, but then my man-wolf started shrinking and it got really bad and then it took me forever to find you guys, so yeah . . .” He bent over, panting. “What’d I miss?”
He took one look at Professor Dovey and three witches goggling at him. Then at two girls embraced in the sand, gaping at him too, Sophie’s red lipstick on Agatha’s cheek.
“Not again!” Hort gasped.
Only the girls weren’t looking at Hort at all.
They were looking past him at a tall, silver tower rising out of the bay . . . an open window lit by the moon . . . a sharp, steel pen sweeping ink across a page . . .
The Storian.
Writing.
A new fairy tale had begun.
9
HORT
Who Would Want a Hort?
“Come, girls! We need to see what the pen is writing before it turns the page!” Professor Dovey said, leading the group towards Evil’s castle. “Once it moves on, it won’t let us flip back—”
Hort was desperate to take a bath and put pants on, but he couldn’t let Agatha run off with Sophie unsupervised, so he followed them up the shore.
Every time he was free of rivals for Sophie’s attention, they always returned, more meddling than ever. Why couldn’t these toads mind their own business? Or die like Rafal did? True, he’d had Sophie to himself these past six months, but most of that was spent waiting out her I’m-an-Independent-Woman phase, which consisted of her doing a lot of yoga, reading poetry in her study, and hosting girls’ nights in the Common Room. But after what he just saw at the party, it was clear Sophie was slobbering after boys again. And not just boys.
Everboys.
Uggggh.
Did those preening stallions have any idea what it was like to be normal? Because that’s what being a Never was. “Normal” as in you woke up with smelly armpits and you broke out in pimples if you ate too many fried pig’s feet and you had to slave in the Groom Room gym for every ounce of muscle—time that you would rather spend learning spells or catching lizards or doing something useful; but if you didn’t waste half your day pumping Norse hammers and swinging kettlebells and doing one-handed pushups, then you’d be a skinny, oily loser for the rest of your life.
And yet, in the end, it didn’t matter how much work Hort did to improve himself. He still couldn’t find love. At least not the love he wanted. Not Sophie.
He thought about the anonymous fan letters he’d been getting these past few months. (“Dear Hort, I don’t know why you chase girls who don’t appreciate you. There are girls like me who’ve read The Tale of Sophie and Agatha and think you’re the real hero. . . .”) At first, he thought they were from a Reader in Sophie’s old town, but then he’d noticed that the letters were written on school parchment. Which meant Sophie was right all along. They were just a prank to embarrass him. Hort felt ashamed for getting suckered yet again. It was so obvious the letters were fakes. Who would want a Hort when there were Bodhis and Laithans running around?
That’s what he resented most about Everboys. Girls liked them for their looks, when they’d done nothing to earn those looks. The stupid idiots were born like sculpted gods out of sheer dumb luck, the way other people are born with crooked faces or clubbed legs, and instead of being thankful or humble about this luck, they acted like they’d deserved it!
But even if Sophie was smart enough to see through these arrogant gasbags, she still fell for them, like a mouse who couldn’t tell the trap from the cheese.
Why did he want her then? Why care about a girl who couldn’t see he was better than those soft-headed lumps? Why idolize someone who would rather kiss the hot blond boy with the charm of a pineapple over a thinking, feeling boy like him?
Maybe I’m broken, Hort thought to himself. Maybe he was drawn to mean girls the way a girl like Agatha was drawn to Good boys.
Then again, Agatha was about to marry Tedros. A boil on the backside of humanity.
Whatever. The point was that he should be free of Sophie by now.