“Poor little weasel,” Agatha said, pointing her glowing gold finger and unzipping his mouth.
Hort exploded at Sophie: “Adventure? Adventure? If you think you’re going into the Woods with . . . with . . . her, then you have another thing coming! You reassigned my quest and made me a teacher and I didn’t complain because you made it sound like you’d be my girlfriend and we’d go on dates and eat ice cream and kiss like normal couples do! And instead you treat me like a servant and now you’re trying to abandon me at school and take skinny, stinky Bogden? Are you kidding? Just because Agatha deserted her stupid boyfriend to go gallivanting around the Woods doesn’t mean you can! I spend every day teaching kids about Elf Wars and Wizard Summits and things I don’t care a lick about to spend time with you and you think you can leave? Kiss my big, blooming arse! I’ll set that ship on fire if you even get close!”
Sophie blinked at him, speechless.
“You know, sometimes I wonder what he sees in you,” said Agatha.
Sophie laughed and took her hand. “Everything, darling. Everything.”
As the two girls continued towards the School Master’s tower, Hort watched them go.
He knew what he saw in her. The same thing he’d always seen, no matter how badly she treated him. He saw a girl as soft and vulnerable as he was, if only she’d let herself feel it instead of distracting herself with the next best thing.
Don’t follow her, Hort begged himself.
Please.
Don’t. Follow. Her.
He followed.
As he scrambled to keep up with the girls, Hort told himself it was only because he’d never entered the School Master’s tower before. But that wasn’t the real reason, of course. The real reason was because the tower was now Sophie’s private chamber. And he wanted to see the inside.
The scaffolding shrouding the spire was dotted with sleeping stymphs, slumbering after a long day of renovations. Stymphs detested Hort, so he held his breath as he passed. Skirting between two more watchful wolf guards, he followed Dovey and the girls through a gap in the silky black scaffold.
Don’t act like it’s a big deal, Hort thought as he climbed through the open window. Don’t be creepy.
But he was creepy. He was always creepy. Creepiness was an inalienable, undeniable part of his essential Hortness— His bare feet touched the carpet and Hort snapped out of his thoughts. Every inch of the floor of Sophie’s chamber was blanketed in lush white threads, so soft and deep they swallowed his feet like warm milk. His eyes roamed the sky-blue walls, studded with thousands of tiny silver balls like congealed drops of rain. The stone ceiling had been knocked out and replaced with a shallow aquarium, filled with water that changed color every ten seconds, and glittery, floating glass flowers. In one corner, Sophie’s king-sized bed was veiled in a gold lace canopy, and beyond it, he could see inside the all-mirrored bathroom, teeming with vials and bottles of potions and creams. Nearby was a walk-in closet with racks of magically suspended dresses, organized by color and theme, and presided over by a grim-faced black mongoose with the name BOOBESHWAR on a tag around his neck, who was in the process of steaming one of Sophie’s kimonos.
“Crikey. All I got in my closet is moths and soggy breeches,” Hort murmured.
He turned, expecting Dovey and the witches to be as surprised by all this as he was— But the six of them were circled around the Storian as it wrote in a storybook, its gold-hued cover spread open on the white stone table.
Hort moved in closer and saw the pen’s sharp nib sweeping colors across a painting of a boy lying by a lake, his eyes closed. Blood leaked from a wound in the boy’s ribs, framing him in a crimson puddle.
Hort and Agatha looked up at Professor Dovey. But neither she, nor the witches, nor Sophie seemed as frozen with shock.
“Chaddick?” Agatha rasped. “He’s . . . he’s . . .”
“We don’t know who killed him or why,” Sophie said softly, studying the storybook. “But if this is right, his body is by the lake that took us to Guinevere and Lancelot’s safe house.”
“That’s where the Lady of the Lake lives,” Hester added. “How did Chaddick get through her castle’s gates? Maybe there’s a part of the story we’re missing. . . .”
Quickly Hester slipped her fingernail under the storybook’s page to see the pages that came before. The Storian scorched red with fury and stabbed at her finger— Hester withdrew it before it impaled her. “It’s the first page.”
“What?” Sophie blurted. “‘Once upon a time a handsome boy died?’”
“Under other circumstances, I’d be enthralled,” said Anadil.
“This proves that Chaddick was onto something,” said Professor Dovey, giving her a look. “His death is part of a larger story, just as Merlin thought.”
Hort could see Agatha staring at the storybook, tears on her cheeks. Even though Agatha was a nagging goat, the fact she was crying made Hort’s eyes mist up too. Chaddick had been a boy at school, just like him. A boy who’d been on a quest in the Endless Woods and had now died for it. And here Hort was, a spineless sap confined to the castle because he’d given up his real quest to chase a girl. Guilt and determination flushed through him, two crisscrossing rivers. Like Chaddick, Hort’s own father had been killed on a quest: a lifelong mission to serve Captain Hook in the fight against Peter Pan. Hort had come to the School for Evil to be better than his father. But what would his father think of him now? Still at school, pretending to be a teacher, puttering after someone who wouldn’t give him the time of day. . . .
For the first time, he felt the death grip Sophie had on his soul weaken.
This wasn’t about her anymore. This was about making something of his life.
Even Peter Pan had learned to grow up.
Hort gazed out the window at the Igraine in Evil’s harbor, sails flapping in the wind.
Wherever that ship was going, he would be on it.
Suddenly the girls tensed all at once and huddled closer to the storybook— “What is it?” he asked.
But now he saw for himself.
The Storian was writing its first words of the story.
Beneath the painting of Chaddick’s body, the pen etched its bold, beautiful script: Once upon a time, a Snake made its way into the Woods. Its plan was simple: take down the Lion.
The Storian turned the page and began to paint once more.
“A snake?” Hester asked, baffled.
“A lion?” Anadil echoed.
“So this is about, uh, disgruntled animals?” Dot said.
“No,” Agatha replied, peering at the storybook. “It’s not about animals at all.”
Everyone watched her, waiting for her to elaborate.
“Um, then what’s it about?” Hort prodded.
Agatha raised her eyes. “It’s about getting to Avalon now.”
There was panic in her face, as if she’d put a puzzle together the rest of them hadn’t.
“How soon can you leave?” Professor Dovey pressed.
“We need food and weapons,” said Agatha.
“I’ll make sure you have both,” said the Dean.