“Aggie, we don’t have time for the demon to come back,” Sophie said. “It’s spreading too fast!”
“Maybe this’ll work,” said Agatha, thrusting her glowing fingertip into the air. Heavy rain started falling over the Four Point, dousing the blaze. It was one of Agatha’s trusty spells from her first year at school— Then, all of a sudden, the fires seemed to grow stronger in the rain . . . the orange flames turning a glowing emerald green. . . .
Agatha’s eyes bulged. “What in the—”
But now there was something falling towards them, straight out of the sky: a deer bounding over the wall, hooftip glowing red, and landing on the stage, which half crumbled like a giant sinkhole, before the deer recovered, lurching for the two girls.
“Come on! Get on my back!” Millicent said.
Sophie and Agatha leapt onto her, just as the gallows imploded in the green flames. Millicent sprinted for the walls, her legs tensing with power, about to magically propel over the barrier— Something slammed into Sophie and Agatha like harpoons, bashing them off the deer’s back and pinning them into opposing walls.
Scims.
They glued down the girls’ wrists and legs and spread them against the inside of the glass, like mice caught in a trap.
Petrified, Sophie swung her head towards Agatha, the two of them struggling against the scaly black eels.
At the center of the stage, the Snake reformed again, rising out of the green bonfire like a phoenix.
Millicent charged for him, hurdling over the holes in the stage.
The Snake calmly peeled one of the scims off his chest, which rolled up in his palm like a tiny tube. Instantly it turned to shiny black steel, razor sharp at both ends.
Millicent leapt, hooves aimed at his chest, poised to crush him—
The Snake hurled the scim at her, spearing the deer in the heart. She fell down dead and burnt up in the green flames.
Outside the walls, the students saw Millicent fall and stopped fighting, paralyzed in horror. The pirates seized them at once, knives and swords to their throats. With a pirate’s dagger to her own neck, Hester stalled her demon, as did Anadil her rats, afraid to cost any more friends their lives. Hort gnashed his teeth, feeling Thiago’s sword point on his spine, poised to slice him open. Nicola, Bogden, Dot, and Willam were all trapped by pirates, along with the rest of the questing Evers and Nevers.
Onstage, the Snake was circled in green flames like a ringmaster. His eyes shifted between Sophie and Agatha, pressed against the glass on either side of him, as if he was deciding which girl to handle first.
Instead, he pulled two scims off his body, one in each hand, letting them morph into steel black blades.
Slowly he raised both arms, extended outwards, each blade aimed at a girl’s heart.
This was how I died, Sophie thought. Rafal had killed her with a shot to the heart before Agatha had woken her with true love’s kiss.
But this time there would be no kiss.
Because her true love was about to die with her.
The Snake gripped the blades and coiled to throw—
A roar exploded through the land.
So full and deep it shook the earth.
The Snake stilled, the green flames cooling around him.
Sophie and Agatha gaped at each other.
Again came the roar, this time louder than before, shattering the iced wall between the two girls. Jagged shards rained over the Snake, who turned away, shielding himself.
As he looked back up, so did Sophie, craning her head to see through the wall.
Someone was coming towards the stage.
Galloping through the crowd on a white horse, his body tall and muscular, in a dark blue jacket with a brilliant gold pattern, dark blue riding pants, and gold-lined boots.
He was wearing a mask.
A mask of gold that glimmered in the moonlight and shrouded his face.
The mask of a Lion.
As his horse accelerated towards the stage, the lion-masked figure rose, feet sturdy in the stirrups, and climbed to stand on the horse’s back, the reins in his hands. Then he lowered into a crouch, balanced on the horse’s hide as if surfing a wave, and just as the horse started to buck him off, he jumped from the animal, sailing through the air like a ball from a cannon, through the busted ice wall, and onto the gallows stage. As he stood to full height, he thrust out his finger like a wand, lighting the tip up with hot gold glow and illuminating the stage.
Sophie saw Agatha’s eyes widen.
Only one person they knew had that glow.
A glow that matched his true love’s.
Tedros.
The crowd exploded with cheers.
The Lion had come.
Across the stage, Sophie saw Agatha stop resisting her scims. All this time, Agatha had tried to fight Tedros’ battles on his behalf, but now he’d come to wrest back control of his quest from his princess. Sophie could see Agatha sigh with exhaustion and relief, as if at last, her fairy tale with Tedros was back on track, their Ever After salvaged from the ashes. Slowly Agatha looked up and met the Lion’s aqua-blue eyes. Camelot’s princess smiled, even though she was squashed against a wall like a fly in a spider’s web . . . even though there was a deadly villain still on the stage. . . .
Sophie knew that smile.
It was the smile of love.
The Lion and the Snake faced off on a charred heap of ruins, all that remained of the stage. They circled each other inside a ring of dying green flames.
“This is Camelot’s land,” said the Lion in his low, strapping voice.
“To which I have a rightful claim,” the Snake returned, chilly and sure.
His opponent peered through his lion mask. “And what gives you that right?”
“My birth,” said the Snake, casting shadows in the green light. “I am the true heir to Camelot’s throne. I am King Arthur’s eldest son.”
This last word snapped over the quiet crowd like a whip-crack.
Sophie’s stomach dropped.
Son.
Son?
She locked eyes with Agatha, both of them stupefied.
Even the pirates looked stunned, still clutching their prisoners.
But the Lion held his ground. “There is no son but Tedros of Camelot. The one true king.”
“And yet Excalibur remains in a stone,” the Snake said. “Until I free it, that is, and prove the throne is mine.”
“You will never touch Excalibur as long as I’m alive,” the Lion vowed.
The Snake’s eyes sparkled. “So it is written. So it is done.”
He tore scims off his body, which turned to steel in his hands, before hurling them at the Lion’s chest. The Lion deflected them with gold rays from his finger, then scooped up a handful of jagged ice from the shattered walls and whizzed it at the Snake. The shards shot into his flank, shearing away scims and embedding in youthful, snow-white skin beneath that started oozing blood. The Snake stumbled back, surprised, and crashed through a hole in the stage.
Taking advantage, the Lion glanced between Sophie and Agatha and dashed for Agatha. He grabbed a piece of smoking wood off the stage and burnt the scims off her, careful not to burn her too.