“Nor I,” said Hester as the witches took dishes from Nicola and cleaned them with their fingerglows.
“Well, I’ve certainly heard of it,” Sophie preened, cozying up to Agatha.
“No, you haven’t,” Agatha snapped to Nicola’s delight. “No one here knows The Lion and the Snake because it’s a fairy tale about Camelot and one mainly told inside its walls. I read it out loud to spoiled children yesterday to raise money for our broken drawbridge.”
“How plebeian,” murmured Sophie.
Says a girl whose father worked at the mill, Nicola thought, rolling her eyes.
“Apparently it’s the only story that every child in Camelot knows,” Agatha was saying. “Luckily, when you read a story out loud, you remember most of it. It went something like this.”
She raised her glowing finger and tendrils of gold magically streamed from its tip, dispersing like threads over Nicola’s head. . . .
“Once upon a time, a beautiful new kingdom appeared at the edge of the sea,” said Agatha. “Only it had no king.”
The golden threads morphed into majestic spires with rounded turrets. . . .
“Every kingdom must have a king, so it waited for someone to take the throne. But to be king requires strength and cleverness, values rarely found in the same being. In the end, only two came forward to claim the crown. The Lion. And the Snake.”
Each of the two rivals appeared out of Agatha’s glow, striking and slashing at each other.
“No one knew how to decide between them, so a vote was held. Those who believed the new kingdom should be ruled with strength chose the Lion. Those who believed the new kingdom should be ruled with cleverness chose the Snake. Both drew an equal number of votes, the kingdom in perfect balance.”
Between the Lion and the Snake, a third glowing outline appeared. . . .
“And so the Eagle was brought in to make the final choice, since he flew high above and saw the world in a way no one else could. The Eagle asked each rival a single question: ‘If you were king, would the Eagle be subject to your rule?’
“The Lion said yes. As long as the Eagle flew over his kingdom, he would receive his protection, but also be bound by his rule. The Snake said no. If he were king, the Eagle would be as free as he was before.”
Slowly, the Lion’s phantom disappeared.
“So the Eagle chose the Snake.”
In a flash of glow, an army of hooded snakes descended on the Eagle—
“That night, without protection, the eagles were attacked. The Snake and his minions hid in the trees, decimating the eagles before the Lion and his friends came to their rescue. Soon, the Lion caught the murderous Snake. As he prepared to kill it, however, the Snake warned him. . . .”
The glowing serpent now had a voice:
“You dare not kill a king. The Eagle chossssse me because he wanted freedom. He got that freedom. What happened after doesn’t change the Truth. The throne is mine. I am your king. Just because you do not like the Truth does not mean you can replacccce it with a Lie. And if you kill me, your new king will be a Lie. Kill me and I ssssshall return to take my crown. . . .”
The Lion paused, glowing brighter, seemingly taking this in. . . .
Then it tore apart the Snake.
“The Snake’s warning was ignored. The Lion became King of Camelot and defender of all creatures. And to atone for his earlier mistake in choosing the Snake, the Eagle became the Lion’s loyal advisor from that day forward, defending the realm in case the Snake should ever return.”
The shadows dissolved as Agatha’s fingerglow cooled.
“And that’s how the kingdom of Camelot came to be,” Agatha finished.
Nicola followed Agatha’s eyes to the Camelot crest painted on the table: Excalibur, flanked by two eagles.
Only as she looked closer at the famous crest, Nicola saw something she hadn’t seen before. . . .
The eagles had the bodies of lions.
“Wouldn’t have ever thought of it again but clearly the Storian wants us to,” said Agatha. “The pen said the Snake has come to take down the Lion—”
“Which means the Lion is the King of Camelot,” Sophie proclaimed proudly.
Duh, thought Nicola.
“And the Snake wants his crown back,” said Sophie. “And to take down the king.”
Duhhhhh, Nicola scowled, seeing Agatha grow increasingly anxious.
“Tedros is definitely the Lion,” said Sophie.
“Yes, we know,” said Nicola impatiently. “What we don’t know is: Who is the Snake? And how do we catch him before he gets to Tedros?”
“There’s another question. And it’s the reason we’re going to Avalon first,” said Agatha, meeting Nicola’s eyes. “If the Lion is Tedros and the Snake wants to take him down . . . then why hasn’t he gone after Tedros already? Why is he going after Tedros’ friends?”
This time, even Nicola was quiet.
Standing at the captain’s wheel, Nicola gazed out at the pink-and-gold sky, thin clouds knitted across it like snake scales. Agatha had gone to take a brief nap after commanding the Igraine to forge southeast and leaving Nicola on watch. But it’d been smooth sailing for the past few hours and Nicola was about to fall asleep too. Even Sophie’s mad mongoose had passed out, curled luxuriously around her ankle.
Perhaps I should wake Agatha, Nicola thought.
But the girl had sailed all night from Camelot, and from what the mongoose had told her, Agatha and Tedros had been having a rough time. Plus, Agatha had asked her to watch the ship—not Hester, not Anadil, not Willam—and Nicola felt honored. The other crew silently nodded when Agatha had made this decision, as if the first year had already earned her place.
Just like that, Nicola’s bitterness about being on this boat was gone. Part of this was getting to meet Hort, of course. He’d even smiled at her in the galley. Maybe my letters didn’t put him off after all. . . .
Suddenly she wasn’t tired anymore. She could sleep for the rest of her life when she made it back home.
If she made it back, that is.
In a fairy tale, someone always dies so the others can live, she worried, thinking of Tristan, Nicholas, Cinderella, and others brutally killed in the last fairy tale that the Storian wrote. Is that why the pen added her to this story? To sacrifice her?
No way. She wasn’t going to die here. No matter what the Storian had planned, she’d get back home to Pa and they’d celebrate Christmas together. If only she could let him know she was safe in the meantime. Then she could make the most of her stay here without worry or guilt. But how to get a letter to Gavaldon? Sophie would know, wouldn’t she. . . . The one person she didn’t want to ask for favors.
A flash of gold caught her attention and Nicola leaned over the wheel to see a chain hanging off it, carrying a small gold vial.
The Quest Map.