“Which means there’s only one way to prove the real Truth,” Sophie egged on. “Show us your face. Show us what you showed her.”
He took this in, staring at her, and then began to circle, closer than before. Agatha could see his chiseled muscles cutting against the thin scales of his suit. She could smell him now: a cool, minty scent she hadn’t expected, like a forest after a snowstorm. She could see Sophie stiffen slightly, smelling it too. Because he didn’t smell like Rafal did. He smelled more like . . . Tedros.
“Your friend Chaddick thought he knew things about me,” said the Snake, passing behind them. “Girls at school must have enjoyed him. Such lovely thick hair and big gray eyes. And not just handsome, but sharp too. Sharper than you two and your boyfriend at least. He put together all the clues. He found the answers that are lying right under your nose . . . Such a pity. If only he’d just gone back to his king and told him what he’d found. If only he hadn’t tried to be a hero. But he thought he had a way to trap me. He thought he had the perfect plan. . . .” The Snake curved past Agatha’s shoulder and moved in front of the girls. “The last thing he saw as he died on the shore was the sorceress supposed to protect him kissing the one who’d killed him. And the last thing he heard was her telling me how beautiful I am, just like a king named Arthur who once had my blood.” He glowered at Sophie. “That’s what became of dear Chaddick’s plan.”
Agatha could see Sophie’s eyes dart to her. Rafal’s ego could be stoked, his attentions diverted. But this Snake was onto them. And their plan.
“At least Chaddick wasn’t a coward,” Agatha intervened, quickly changing tactics. “If it’s true you have King Arthur’s blood, then show us your face. Otherwise it’s just another Lie—”
Eels shot off the Snake’s body like ropes, shackling Agatha to a pillar. Before Agatha could scream, a last eel gagged her, sticky scales twisting against her tongue.
Sophie paled in horror, her whole body shaking.
“Sweet things, aren’t they?” the Snake said, caressing the eel in Agatha’s mouth. “My little scims.”
The Snake skulked towards her. Sophie retreated until her back flattened against the column next to Agatha, who flailed under the scims.
“I see why boys love you, Sophie,” he cooed, trapping her against the pillar. “I see why so many want you as their own. Everything about you is . . . sumptuous.”
He stroked her cheek, scales against skin. Sophie shivered, breath shallowing. Agatha could feel Sophie’s hand move along the stone, trying to find hers.
“That was Rafal’s weakness, wasn’t it?” the Snake said, curling closer. “Kissing beautiful girls.”
Sophie’s clammy palm found Agatha’s beneath her binds. Agatha held it tight, while trying to break free—
“And I too had the same weakness for someone in your story. Someone I called a friend,” the Snake said to Sophie, pressing against her. “Someone kinder than me . . . Someone gentler than me . . . Someone who never went quite far enough.” He gazed into Sophie’s scared eyes. “Do you know who it was?”
Sophie choked out a word: “Me?”
The Snake laughed. “No, not you.”
His long tongue licked at her lips. . . .
“Aric.”
Agatha gasped, thrashing wildly against her binds. But two scims blindfolded her, lashing across her eyes. . . . Another squeezed her throat so hard she started to black out. . . .
She heard scims shriek with bloodcurdling madness, then Sophie screaming like she’d never screamed before.
Something ripped Sophie’s hand from hers.
Agatha lunged blindly to find it—
Darkness pulled her under like a sheet.
19
HORT
Four Point
A scream tore through the royal garden.
“Sophie,” Hort choked, taking off towards the castle, barechested and bellowing—
But he’d forgotten he had six prisoners cuffed to him and they all went tumbling down into brilliant flowers, Hort included, like friends playing Ring Around the Rosie.
Nicola groaned, gashed badly by a pink rosebush, thorns still stuck in her skin. She looked to Hort for help, but he was up and running again, trying to pull the other bodies towards the castle. “The Snake has her! Sophie needs me—”
A force held him back, keeping him running in place, slipping and sliding on flower petals.
Furious, he swung around to see Thiago stepping on the chain while sunburnt Wesley puffed on a cigar beside him.
“Thought the Snake killed ’em already,” Wesley groused.
“Took the two girls. Rest comin’ to the Four Point,” said Thiago, studying Hort with his tattooed eyes.
“Four Point?” Wesley raised his brows. “Should be quite a show, then.”
The pirates snickered before they each curled the chain around their boots and yanked it, sending the kids swinging to their feet and stumbling forward.
As they trudged through the hot, humid gardens, Hort kept peeping back at the castle.
“Hey, why does that pirate keep giving you strange looks?” Dot whispered in front of him.
Hort looked up and saw Thiago eyeing him again as he muttered something to Wesley.
Hort tried to keep his face in shadow.
“You know him, don’t you?” Dot said.
“Shhh,” Hort whispered. “He’s Smee’s son. I recognize him from a Pirate Parley that Dad took me to in Neverland.”
“Smee? Captain Hook’s henchman? You’re friends with his son?” Dot retorted. “Then why are we chained up here like dogs—”
“Because I killed Smee, you fool.”
Dot stared at him.
“Last year during the war against Rafal,” Hort whispered. “Granted it was Smee’s zombie, but even so. If he recognizes me, we’re dead meat. Luckily Thiago hasn’t seen me for a few years and I’ve buffed up and changed my hair, but not enough that he won’t figure it out if we don’t stop talking about it.”
Hort looked back anxiously at the castle again—
“Hort, sweetie. We’re well aware the Snake has Sophie,” Dot simpered. “We all heard the scream and we’re scared for her. Well, not really her, since she’s horrible, but Agatha at least, since she’s the only one who can command our ship and get us out of here. Meanwhile, we’ve been taken captive by pirates, are being marched to our doom, and this chain not only won’t turn into chocolate, but I’m also pretty sure we saw a piece of it turn into an eel back there and fly away. So if I were you, I’d stop worrying about rescuing Sophie and use those lovely buffed-up muscles of yours to rescue us.”
“I thought weasel and Sophie were old news,” said Anadil in front of Dot.
“Left ‘new news’ crying with thorns in her bum,” said Hester in front of her.
Hort glanced back at Nicola, who averted her eyes. Hort sighed gloomily. Here he thought he’d moved on to a girl who was smart and pretty and normal, a girl who actually liked him for his weird, scuzzy self, and then when it came time to show her he liked her too . . .
He’d picked You-Know-Who instead.
Again.