She’d seen Agatha and Sophie examining it earlier. Sophie had said something about Dovey fixing the map so it tracked quests accurately, before Agatha had borrowed it from Sophie to study it closer. She must have left the necklace here when she’d gone to nap. . . .
Nicola glanced back towards the galley. Through the windows, she could see Willam and Bogden huddling over what looked like tarot cards, while the three witches were still in a secret meeting about how to find a School Master on this quest (she’d eavesdropped in the bathroom). No one was on the deck with her. And no one could see her if she inched behind one of the masts. . . .
Remembering how Sophie and Agatha conjured the Quest Map, Nicola emptied the vial and watched the liquid gold suspend and congeal. Leaning into the map, she peered at a three-dimensional toy ship sailing towards Avalon, with Hester’s, Agatha’s, Sophie’s, Anadil’s, Hort’s, and Dot’s figurines aboard. There wasn’t one for Willam since he wasn’t a student, but there was one for Bogden and one for her, complete with a pink Ever’s dress and curly black hair. The crew’s names were bright blue, unlike the names in red scattered around the map. Was the Snake tampering with these red-lettered quests? And hadn’t the mongoose mentioned something about unrest in the kingdoms? Did the Snake have something to do with that too?
The answers were waiting in Avalon.
Instead of feeling scared, Nicola felt charged. There was danger ahead. But the idea that she was in a realm of adventure and magic and might meet more characters like Kiko, Merlin, or Guinevere . . . Her chest thumped faster. She wasn’t just some observer anymore, reading a book while she stirred chowder at the pub. She was inside the book. And unlike other stories she’d read, this time she’d only find the ending by living through it.
Nicola’s eyes shifted back to the toy Igraine, gliding across the map. It was millimeters away from Avalon. If the map was right, she would sight land any moment.
“Barely a first year and they’ve made you Captain,” a voice said behind her.
Nicola’s stomach dropped. Hort!
She turned. “Barely a fourth year and they made you a professor,” she said, acting nonchalant.
“It could be worse. I was supposed to teach Evers too,” said Hort. “But Professor Dovey put a stop to that.”
He was in short black breeches, high black socks, and a long-sleeved white cotton shirt, the laces untied to reveal his muscular chest. His cheeks had a rosy glow as if he’d just scrubbed them and his black hair was wet and spiky. He smelled like clean laundry, which surprised her—from reading about him, she assumed he’d smell like wet rat or dead flowers. But instead, he smelled lovely . . . so either books got things wrong or Hort had cleaned up to talk to her. Both ideas were alarming.
“You’re looking at me funny,” said Hort.
“Oh, uh—” Nicola turned from him and collided loudly with the Quest Map, waking up Boobeshwar, who darted around as if he’d been fired out of a cannon. “Um, you had a fly in your hair. Shouldn’t you be checking on Sophie?”
“Shouldn’t you be giving her back her Quest Map?” said Hort.
“I found it like this,” said Nicola.
“Spoken like a first year.”
“Yet the Storian wrote me into this quest and not you,” said Nicola.
“A feisty first year,” said Hort.
“You have no idea,” said Nicola.
Hort raised his brows.
Nicola stared into his beautiful, velvet-brown eyes.
“I would have answered your letters,” said Hort.
“You read them? For real?” Nicola asked.
“Yeah, but I thought they were pranks.”
“Oh.”
“I liked them, though.”
“Everything you just said . . . you could have written back to me,” said Nicola.
Hort blinked at her. “You’re not much of an Ever.”
“Because I don’t look like a princess?” Nicola asked, hurt. “I mean, I know they all look a certain way—”
“Because you’re better than a princess,” said Hort, moving closer to her. “And that uniform.”
Nicola turned the color of her dress. “Well, seeing this is the only outfit I own at the moment and that I’m not going to be in the Woods very long . . .”
Hort cocked his head.
“I need to get home to my father,” Nicola explained, wishing she could lay her head on his shoulder. “Even if I wanted to stay . . . even if I had good reason . . .”
“Your dad comes first,” said Hort definitively.
Nicola sighed. He understands. Not just because Hort was a sensitive soul, but because from what Nicola had read, he’d been close to his dad too.
“Is it weird meeting people you’ve read about?” he asked, as if sensing her thoughts. “Do you feel like you know me because you’ve read about me?”
Nicola gazed at him. “I thought I did.”
Hort went quiet for a moment.
Then he said: “I don’t only like blond, skinny girls, you know.”
Nicola’s legs turned to jelly.
“That’s not for a student’s eyes,” a voice said—
Sophie cut between Nicola and Hort, instantly shrinking the Quest Map into the vial and clasping it around her own neck. “Agatha should be more careful leaving a Dean’s property around. Hort, will you go wake her up?”
“Actually, me and Nicola were—”
“Thank you, darling,” Sophie said, giving him a peck on the cheek. “Hurry off now.”
Hort frowned and walked towards the galley, touching his kissed cheek. “Whole world’s gone mad . . . ,” Nicola heard him murmur.
“I feel like we’ve started badly, Nicola,” said Sophie, facing her. “We’re going to have to work together and right now you and I are . . .” Sophie stopped because her mongoose had hopped onto Nicola’s shoulder. Sophie glared at him slit-eyed. “I don’t know whether it’s because you’ve read stories about me or because you keep insisting that we’ve met before—”
“We have met,” Nicola said. “You wrote a review of my father’s pub in the town paper and said ‘if the nut crumble is any indication, it’s time Gavaldon moved on to more sophisticated cuisine.’”
Sophie waved dismissively. “Well, I’m sorry if I insulted your father’s nuts—”
“It was my nut crumble,” said Nicola. “I made it.”
“And had I known that, I would have said it was delightful,” Sophie chimed. “In any case, you can return home as soon as our quest is finished and you’ll bake all the crumbles you like. But until then, I really do want us to be friends.”
Nicola was stupefied. Whenever she’d read about Sophie, she’d always been frustrated that no one in the story stood up to her. But here she was in front of the girl, who was brazenly insulting her to her face, and all she could do was laugh.
“See, that’s better,” Sophie cooed cozily. “And don’t think I haven’t noticed that Professor Hort’s taken a liking to you. You two seem to be quite fond of each other. Naughty girl.”