Sophie spun around.
Agatha was holding on to the maps with KIKO’s and VEX’s teams, one with each hand, both threatening to tug her off the ground. Gritting her teeth, she muscled them like puzzle pieces next to the one Sophie was holding.
“Look at where they’re going,” said Agatha.
For a moment, Sophie didn’t understand. Then she saw it. The missing quest teams were each headed towards a corner of their maps. So was RAVAN’s team. So was the crew of the Igraine.
Four teams.
Four corners.
All meeting at the same point, a short distance from where SOPHIE’s and AGATHA’s figurines stood now.
“The Four Point,” said Agatha. “They’re all going to the Four Point.” She looked at Sophie. “Which means the Snake’s thugs didn’t just sabotage their quests. They must have kidnapped them too. That’s why they aren’t responding to Dovey. Because all of them are in the Snake’s hands.”
The two girls slowly raised their eyes to the only map left, floating over their heads.
TEDROS, alone in Camelot.
Agatha stiffened.
“We don’t even know if these maps are real,” Sophie argued quickly. “Dovey said only the Storian can make a Quest Map. How can the Snake have the Storian’s maps? This could be more hocus-pocus to scare us, just like he lied about killing the queen—”
But Agatha wasn’t paying attention anymore. “Listen,” she said.
A soft scratching sound filled the room, like a cat clawing at a window.
It was coming from the black stone table against the back wall.
The two girls approached, their shoes padding on the green carpet. . . .
A gold-covered book lay open on the table. Hovering above, a magical pen drew on a blank page: a painting of the two girls as they were right now, gazing at a black pen drawing in a storybook.
The book on the table looked just like the one in the School Master’s tower that held their new fairy tale. And the pen floating over it drew in the same bold colors and clean lines as the Storian.
Only this pen didn’t look like the Storian, Sophie thought, peering closer. It was black, for one thing, not silver. And it wasn’t steel like the Storian; it was flexible and eel-like, as if made out of sticky black goo, contorting with every stroke. It looked a lot like the piece of chain that had magically released her and Agatha before it flew into this room. Plus, the pen didn’t have those strange symbols carved into its side either. Instead, it seemed to be covered in . . . scales.
Beneath the painting of the two girls, it wrote a caption:
“One of them would die today. But which one?”
Sophie saw the horror in Agatha’s face.
“It’s lying, Aggie. It’s not the real story. It’s not the Storian—”
But Agatha was dead white, her eyes darting around the room. “This is how it happened before.”
“What?”
“He wanted us to find this, Sophie. . . . Just like we did then . . .”
“You’re not making any sense—”
“This is how we met the School Master. We found the pen and book on the table. The pen was drawing a picture of us that looked exactly like this one. Sophie, don’t you remember?” Agatha backed away from the storybook. “We were alone in a strange room just like this. We were standing just like this. The Storian began our fairy tale in front of our eyes and then we heard the School Master say behind us—”
“It must suspect a good ending,” a voice echoed.
The two girls froze.
The voice came from behind them.
18
AGATHA
The Pen That Writes the Truth
Agatha gripped Sophie’s palm.
The voice was low and crisp.
Definitely a man’s.
Holding tight, the two girls turned.
At first Agatha couldn’t see anyone, the Map Room as quiet and deserted as when they came in.
Then she saw him.
He was camouflaged into a pillar, hanging upside down, his body covered in the same shiny green scales as the rest of the room. His pose was like a lizard’s: legs in a crouch, his torso flat against the column, with one hand outstretched and cupping the stone. Agatha could only make him out because of the whites of his unblinking eyes, glaring right at her, ice blue at the center.
Sophie squeezed Agatha harder.
Agatha knew why.
Rafal had those eyes.
He slithered down the column, his scales undulating along green stone like a snake through grass, his eyes never leaving the girls. As his hands touched the floor and he rose to stand, the scales on his body magically turned black, becoming snug black armor from neck to toe. He had Rafal’s long and lean body, like a teenager’s rather than a man’s, muscles throbbing against his supple, skintight suit. His face, however, stayed green, his features obscured by the smooth, thick scales that shrouded his face like the School Master’s mask.
As Agatha watched him come closer, her heart jumped.
The scales on his face and body were moving.
They rippled in gooey, wave-like ribbons that looked strangely similar to the pen writing in the storybook on the table. Only now there were hundreds of these scaly strips, like a mass of eels, crisscrossing up and down, right and left, as if his body was made out of them.
From the way Sophie was crushing Agatha’s hand, it was clear she was seeing this too.
“Rafal?” Sophie whispered.
He circled them quietly, his well-built chest rising and falling with his breath, his scales gleaming in the green torchlight, until he spoke again.
“Once upon a time, two girls wanted to find their way home. That was how your fairy tale began. All along, the pen sensed a good ending. Why else would it choose two Readers to become legends?” His blue eyes sparkled through his mask. “And what an ending it was. One girl becomes Good’s next queen. The other becomes Evil’s future. And the boy they each loved becomes Camelot’s Lion.”
He sounds like Rafal too, Agatha thought. But how? The School Master was dead, his corpse shattered to ash by Tedros’ sword—
Her muscles locked. Unless the sword being stuck in the stone reversed the spell . . . Unless Tedros failing his test brought Rafal back . . . Can a sword do that?
“But that’s not how your story ends,” he said, his tone sharpening. He looked at Sophie. “You’re not Evil’s future.” He looked at Agatha. “You’re not Good’s next queen.” He looked up at the map with TEDROS’ name. “And he’s not Camelot’s Lion.”
He continued to circle. “You won’t believe me, of course. Because you trust the Storian. The pen that gave you a happy ending. The pen you think tells the truth.”
His shoulder grazed Agatha’s arm and she felt the eels on his body squiggle across her skin. She swallowed a scream.
“But just as there are two sides with Good and Evil, with Boys and Girls, with Old and New . . . there are also two sides to the Truth. And until now, there’s only been one pen. A pen that says I am the Snake come into the Woods; I am the Snake here to take down the Lion . . . and you are the ones here to stop me.”