“No,” Agatha ordered. “Stay with the group.”
Not that Agatha had any intention of staying with the group herself. The Storian had told them Chaddick would be here and the Storian was never wrong. Chills rippled down Agatha’s spine. She needed to get to the Lady of the Lake. Surely she would have answers. But Agatha didn’t want Sophie or the others to come. Not when she didn’t know what else might be down there. It was too dangerous.
“All the storybooks I’ve read say the Lady of the Lake is immortal,” she heard Nicola telling the beaver. “Don’t say anything about losing powers if she kisses a boy.”
“’Cause she’s been around thousands of years and never is gonna kiss a boy,” Willam chipped in. “Storybooks don’t waste ink on something that’ll never happen.”
“Like you not puking every time the boat moves,” Bogden cracked. Willam kicked him.
“Or like the Lady of the Lake becoming School Master,” Hester said, glaring at Dot.
“We should at least ask,” Dot said, appealing to Anadil.
“She’s the Lady of the Lake, you lump,” Anadil scorned.
“Lady or not, it sounds like she needs a kiss,” said Hort, puckering his lips, to which Nicola made a farting noise and Hort poked her playfully (Sophie gagged).
“This is what your friend was looking for,” Ajubaju said, stopping abruptly.
The crew stopped joshing around. Agatha gazed up at the fortress of white towers.
“Said he’d been following the attacks in Woods,” the beaver went on. “Lots of kingdoms having trouble lately. Attacks on both Evers and Nevers. Your friend thought whoever was doing attacks might be hiding in Lady of Lake’s castle.”
“How could someone hide here? There’s no doors or windows to get inside,” said Nicola, knocking on the tower’s solid walls.
“Ah,” the beaver grinned. “That’s where pretty lady needs tour guide.”
Out of his pocket, Ajubaju drew a white, five-pointed star the size of a sand dollar. Sophie instantly recognized it as the same kind of star that Merlin had once laid in honor at King Arthur’s tomb.
“Hey, how’d you get that . . . ,” she said as the beaver pressed the star against the wall— But the star was already glowing, as if burning from within. Little by little, the outline of a door whittled into the stone around the star. The beaver pressed hard and a door creaked open where there’d been no door before, just wide enough to let someone through.
“Lady of Lake must have let your friend inside,” the beaver said. “We can go inside too, if you like. Maybe your friend still there.”
Agatha was hardly listening. She was staring off towards the stairs. Horse . . . apples . . . no body . . .
Is Chaddick still alive?
But the Quest Map said he was dead . . . and so did the Storian’s painting. . . .
Had there been a mistake?
Eyes wide, she glanced back at the newly opened door into the tower.
Is the beaver right?
Is Chaddick inside?
“Agatha?”
She looked up and saw her crew watching her.
“Come on. We have to trace his steps,” she said quickly, waving them in.
One by one, the crew followed the beaver into the towers.
Agatha hurried in last, cramming through the stone door—
She stopped short.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a drop of blood in the snow behind her, near one of the beaver’s webbed pawprints. Sliding out the door, she dug her clump into the soft whiteness and swept off the top layer.
Crimson soaked the path below.
As she watched the others move into the tower, Agatha followed the trail, chipping away snow with her clump and uncovering a streak of red down the stairs.
There was so much blood.
Chest pounding, she descended the stairs. . . .
“What happened to ‘stay with the group’?” Sophie snapped, bumping next to her.
Then Sophie saw the blood.
“Go with the others,” Agatha said tensely.
But Sophie ignored her, rushing down the icy steps and slipping hard—
Agatha seized her arm before she could fall. Sophie gave her a sheepish glance, then charged ahead. Agatha held on, stumbling after her. Like it or not, this was a team effort now.
Coming down the jagged staircase, Agatha could see the mist of their twin breaths. Avalon was dead quiet, save the few pigeons on the staircase banister and the ripples of water below. Beneath the drab skies and white towers, the only flashes of color were the shiny green apples growing off rocks and the trail of blood down the snow-slicked stairs. Together, the two girls followed the stream of red, step by step, until they reached the bottom.
“The Storian painted him right here,” Agatha said, rushing to the water’s edge. She cleared away the mound of fresh snow on the shore— “Sophie . . . ,” she whispered.
The outline of a boy was framed in blood next to the lake.
Only there was no boy.
“He was here,” said Agatha. “He was definitely here—”
“He still is.”
Agatha looked up and saw Sophie was a sick shade of white. Sophie raised her finger, pointing behind Agatha.
Agatha turned.
Deep in the corner against the staircase wall, Chaddick sat in the shadows. He had his knees to his bare, broad chest, his back flat against the stone, his eyes wide open.
He was holding something between his hands.
“Chaddick?” Agatha gasped.
She rushed forward, diving into the snow and grabbing him—
He was stone cold.
His skin looked waxy and colorless, the gash in his flank turned rusty-brown. He gazed right at them, his pupils big and glassy.
“He’s dead, isn’t he?” Sophie said softly.
Agatha’s heart caved in. Of course he was dead. The Storian was right. . . . The Storian was always right. . . .
Except—
“How did his body move?” Agatha asked. “He died over there. The Storian said so. Someone must have moved him . . . after he was dead. . . .”
“But why?” Sophie asked. “It doesn’t make any sense—”
Then Agatha saw what Chaddick was holding.
A folded piece of parchment.
She pried it out of his stiff fingers and held it to the light. Someone had drawn on it.
“It’s the Camelot seal,” said Agatha. “But around the sword . . . now there’s . . .”
“The Snake knows we’re looking for him,” Sophie said, ashen.
Fingers quivering, Agatha turned the page over.
It was one of the beaver’s maps of Avalon, streaked with Chaddick’s blood, fingerprints smeared through it.
Only as they looked closer, they saw they weren’t fingerprints.
They were pawprints.
Pawprints that looked a lot like the ones belonging to a beaver they’d just left with their friends.
The two girls locked eyes, faces dawning with horror. . . .
Then they heard someone scream.
12
SOPHIE
First Loyalty
“Sophie, hurry!” Agatha called, far up the steps in front of her.
“It’s these blasted shoes!” Sophie moaned, slipping on stairs like a cow on ice.
“Who told you to wear heels!”
More screams rang out from inside the tower.
“Sounds like Nicola!” cried Agatha, speeding up.
Sophie frowned, slowing down. “Well, in that case—”