“Oh no,” Sophie croaked. “Beatrix.”
“And judging from the fact that some of our quest teams aren’t communicating with me, Beatrix’s team may be in danger too,” said Professor Dovey. “Make haste to your next kingdom and find her. I won’t be able to check in with you for a few days. My crystal ball only lets me use it a certain amount of time each day and tomorrow I have to use it for . . .” She didn’t finish.
“Professor, is there no way to get a new ball?” Dot prodded respectfully.
“Along with a new cooking pot, new wand, and new maid for your office,” Sophie murmured.
Professor Dovey was fading faster. “Listen, my children. Every second you spend in that cave is one more second a steadfast Ever of Good lies unburied in the cold. All I ask is that before you leave Avalon, you give him a worthy goodbye. Go to the Lady of the Lake. Find out how a boy of our own came to lie on her shores. At the very least, she must help you bury him.” Professor Dovey choked up, her face translucent. “He is worthy of a home in the same grove as King Arthur, for he was a devoted friend to his son. Chaddick was an honorable boy. He didn’t deserve to die alone. I should be there with you to pay my respects. . . . I wish I could, but I’m doing the best I can. . . .”
Tears filled the Dean’s eyes, as if she could say no more.
Then she was gone.
“Lady of the Lake? Are you there?” Sophie asked a third time, her foot dipped in the glacial gray waters.
But again the Lady didn’t answer.
A few minutes earlier, the crew had each taken a private moment with Chaddick to honor him. When it was her turn, Sophie had kneeled down and taken his rigid, chilled hands in hers.
“Thank you for being such a faithful, valiant friend to Teddy. A better friend than I’ve ever been, that’s for sure. We’ll protect him for you now, okay? And in the end, you’ll be the reason we were able to save him.”
She kissed his cheek. “Wherever you are, you’ll have no pain or bad memories anymore. Only love. And one day, me, Teddy, and all the rest of your friends will be with you again. Not too soon, of course . . . but one day. So wait for us and watch over us if you can.”
When she was finished, Agatha kneeled in front of Chaddick, then Hort kneeled, then Hester, then the others, one by one, even those who hadn’t known him. They washed Chaddick’s body clean with lake water and fitted him into Hort’s clothes, leaving the weasel pink-skinned and shivering in his underpants. (“Always lose my clothes anyway, so might as well be for a good cause,” he’d said.) The boys lifted Chaddick’s body and lay him gently on the lakeshore, the water lapping up to his side. Without the use of magic, they could do little else to adorn him, but Nicola combed his hair and Bogden smoothed his shirt as the rest watched Agatha step into the water and call out for the Lady of the Lake to help bury their friend.
The Lady didn’t answer.
And now, she wasn’t responding to Sophie either.
“Maybe if we go farther in?” Anadil offered.
“Come on,” Hester said, grabbing her and Dot and hauling them into the lake. Dot squealed, arctic water up to her thighs, but she gritted her teeth and plowed forward.
Sophie remained with Agatha, watching the witches wade deeper.
“What do you think Dovey meant when she said she’s doing the best she can?” Agatha asked.
“Before you arrived at school, she told me she couldn’t come on this quest because it was our fairy tale, not hers. But I’m starting to suspect there was another reason she had to stay behind,” said Sophie.
“Is she sick?”
“Can fairy godmothers get sick? Besides, she doesn’t look ill. She looks . . . chaotic. As if her mind is elsewhere,” Sophie said. “But what could be more important for a Dean than protecting her students? Lady Lesso lied to a deadly School Master to keep her Nevers safe. She betrayed Evil itself, a cause she’d worked for her whole life. She betrayed her own son. And though I hate saying this, Dovey is just as good a Dean as Lady Lesso. Which means there’s something else wrong with her. Something she isn’t telling us. Do you think it might have to do with that crystal ball?”
“Even if it’s broken, a crystal ball should help her, not leave her frazzled and overwhelmed.” Agatha shook her head. “I’m scared, Sophie. You heard Dovey—she’s never seen a villain like this before. And if she’s not at full strength to guide us . . .” She paused. “The Woods is under siege. Our friend is dead. Quest teams are missing. And Tedros is alone at Camelot, with this Snake plotting to destroy him. We don’t know who the Snake is. We don’t know what his plan is. All we know is we’re in a fairy tale again and this time the villain is playing games with us.” She gazed at her friend. “It’s as if there’s no such thing as a happy ending anymore.”
“Or perhaps we’ve traded in Good and Evil, black and white, happy and unhappy for a thousand shades of gray,” said Sophie.
“Hey, guys?” Hester’s voice called.
The two girls turned and saw the three witches looking back at them, chest-deep.
“There’s someone out there,” said Hester.
Sophie stepped forward, squinting past the witches across the lake. Then she saw it: a hundred yards away, a silhouette hunched on top of the water. She couldn’t see whose it was. She couldn’t even tell if it was man . . . animal . . . monster.
But whatever it was gave her a dark feeling.
“I’ll go—” Agatha started.
“I’ll go too,” Sophie said without thinking, clasping Agatha’s wrist and dragging her past the witches and Hort, who’d rushed to follow. The icy water knifed through Sophie’s dress as she swam, but she didn’t make a sound nor stop swimming, her breaths achy and shallow.
But then something curious happened.
As the two girls swam farther, Agatha sank like the others, down to her neck. But Sophie didn’t sink at all. Her body started floating, higher, higher, magically sloughing off water, until suddenly she was walking on top of the lake as if it were solid ground.
She looked down at Agatha, dumbfounded.
Agatha seemed equally stunned, as did the rest of the crew, but there was no time to ask questions.
“Go,” said Agatha quickly. “But be careful.”
Sophie swallowed hard. Then she kept walking.
The lake felt rubbery under her heels and baffled fish ogled her from beneath the surface. Under dreary skies, the figure ahead remained cloaked in shadow as Sophie grew closer, closer. She could see its stooped back, wrapped in soaked gray robes.
The ominous churning in her stomach deepened.
“Hello?” she called out, inching nearer.
No answer.
From behind, the figure had scanty knots of white hair, a shiny skull gleaming through.
“Can you hear me?” Sophie asked.
Still nothing.