"AGATHA!" Sophie roared. "AGATHA, WAKE UP–"

Agatha, convinced she was having a nightmare, turned over and slapped herself. Nothing happened.

Horrified to discover this was apparently real and she was awake, she sat up slowly...

"Get out of my room." she said. "And stop shouting, it can't be much after seven–"

"It's almost nine," snapped Sophie, holding Tedros like a puppy by the collar of his shirt. Tedros dangled disdainfully in her grip, examining his nails. "And it's urgent. Want to know where I found him this morning?"

"Doing press-ups in a field at an obscene hour," said Agatha, which she thought was a pretty good guess.

"This," said Sophie. "Is not a joke."

She thrust something into Agatha's hands. Agatha stared at it, half-awake and confused. It was a storybook page, but not one she recognised; an old hag, a witch, standing onstage in a theatre, hounding a princess in blue at the–

Agatha froze, staring at Sophie... she and Sophie, their painted selves...

She looked at the caption:

AND the witch said:

"But look closer, children, and see the vampire she is, come to suck our souls. Since she doesn't have one of her own."

Beneath her dress, Agatha trembled. But she withstood her withering glare, until Sophie swivelled to Tedros and smiled–

Agatha stopped reading, heart slamming. It was the Tale of Sophie and Agatha. It was Sophie's storybook. Her storybook.

But the only copies were– Tedros had said they were at School...

Tedros had said they were at School.

And who had been at School all summer?

"That is what was shoved under my door this morning," said Sophie. She reached into Tedros's pocket. "And this... is what Tedros saw fit to show my brothers."

It was another page; a split illustration. A girl in pink, falling towards the black spires, and a girl in black, falling towards the pink–

"You told Sophie's brothers they had it wrong," realised Agatha, heart clunking in dread. "Tedros, you told them that their sister was a witc–"

"He'll be sorry," said Sophie quietly. Agatha looked at her, spine prickling at the tone.

"Will I, now." said Tedros, who couldn't have sounded less bothered. Agatha turned to look at him, genuinely alarmed. She knew he never thought things through, but this was too premeditated to be truly impulsive. This was–

"You brought a copy with you, didn't you?" said Agatha. "Tedros? Why would you–"

"Was meant to be fun, since I knew you'd never seen it." Tedros glanced between the two of them with a narrow, sharp look that Agatha had never seen on him before. "Guess not so much, now..."

"You bought the whole book?" Sophie said slowly. "Then where's..."

They both looked around, but there was nothing new on the shelf, or on the floor, or the messy heap of blankets and cloaks where Tedros had been sleeping...

They clearly remembered at the same time. What was it that he'd said last night? He'd said...

What will you do if your storybook reaches Deauville's shop?

"Teddy," chirped Sophie, seconds away from snapping completely. "Do tell us where the rest of the book is, there's a good boy..."

Tedros yawned.

"What's the magic word?"

"NOW, TEDROS!"

But Tedros had clearly been waiting for this– he ducked under Sophie's arm the second she swung for him, and she stumbled on the momentum, not half as used to fistfights as he was. He dodged past her and out of the door, clattering down the stairs.

"Tedros!" Agatha cried, scrambling after him. "Tedros, where's the rest of the book?!"

Feeling sick, she skidded down the corridor. He couldn't have... he couldn't have really spread it around the village, could he–?

Sophie flew past her, pushed her into the wall, and caught up with Tedros in the doorway to the kitchen. She seized him, spun him around, and slapped him: a real ringing slap, one that snapped his head sideways and practically echoed. Her nails caught his cheek and drew blood.

Tedros laughed madly as Sophie bullied him into the kitchen, shaking him furiously.

"I'LL SKIN YOU, YOU MEDDLING LITTLE WHORESON!"

"Stop it–!"

Agatha tried to get between them, but Tedros shunted her away– and at any rate it was too late, since Sophie had seized his throat and tried to hound him into a corner. They scuffled, hit the back table and knocked over Callis's rosemary cuttings. Sophie gasped exaggeratedly as they scuffled:

"Not supposed to fight girls, Teddyyy–" she cackled, trying to dig her nails into his neck. In response, Tedros pushed her hard, her ankle rolled in her heels, and she dragged him down onto the floor as she fell, with a shriek that set Agatha's teeth on edge. Agatha flung herself into the corner as Tedros put Sophie in a headlock, she bit him, Tedros twisted her wrist backwards and she drove her heel into his stomach–

A flare of green lacerated between them and flung them into opposite corners.

"In my kitchen, you wretched brats!" thundered Callis from the other doorway.

"...ow," said Tedros, who was mostly upside down between wall and floor, like his arms had given out in the middle of a headstand. Excalibur had slid halfway out of its scabbard. Sophie tottered to her feet from where she'd landed on her side, seething.

"Callis, Tedros has–"

Callis held something up. Lettering gleamed;

THE TALE OF SOPHIE AND AGATHA.

Agatha felt suddenly so painfully relieved, that she sat down hard on the bench, aborting her attempt to rescue Tedros. Her mother had the copy. Tedros hadn't taken it to Deauville after all. Surely she should have known he wasn't capable of being that spiteful...

"I know what he's done," said Callis. Agatha stared suspiciously. How could she...

"Did you let him–?"

But Sophie was already hissing:

"My stepbrothers, Callis! He told my stepbrothers! And now everyone's going to know, and you know that the villagers are going to haul m– us both off–"

"Sophie, how did the villagers realise that the missing children were inside the storybooks?" said Callis, at a normal volume.

"The other children noticed, and they told their parents," snapped Sophie.

"Yes, the children told the adults," said Callis. "But they didn't listen, remember? They ignored them, and went back to mature nonsense, like digging bears and flying cannibals. They aged believing that it was bears and cannibals. They died believing it was bears and cannibals. But their children knew. And their children grew up, and they had children, and in a few generations, it was agreed; the children were inside the storybooks." She paced forwards and threw Agatha and Sophie's book onto the table. "You don't change people's minds immediately. Especially this village. Isn't that why you pulled this ridiculous farce in the first place?"

Agatha and Sophie avoided each other's eyes, but Callis kept going:

"Who takes a child seriously? No one. Why d'you think Camelot waited until this boy looked like a man to crown him? No one listens to kids, even kids with crowns... so you can be damned well sure that no one listens to kids with nothing but a scrappy storybook."

Tedros, impressively, made no comment. He'd crouched in the corner with his forearms on his knees, eyes narrowed. His neck and temple were bleeding.

"Whatever you're getting at, spit it out," snapped Sophie.

"I'm saying he's not done what you think." said Callis. "He's not signed your death warrant. The village won't declare you a witch and haul you off to the stake. The children will know, because kids always know, and that's where he's planted the rumour. Some of the older villagers might suspect, but no one will risk their neck to accuse you based on a kids' rumour. Tedros hasn't condemned you to the stake... he's condemned you to suspicious stares and whispered comments and slightly fixed smiles. I think he thinks that's worse. I expected him to tie you to that stupid charger of his and send him running, but perhaps he's more progressive than princes used to be..."

Agatha worried her fingers, looking between the three of them. She desperately hoped her mother was right, but had Tedros really thought it through that much? He wasn't exactly known for carefully constructed plots...

"He has no idea what he's condemning us to! He's from a big fairytale court in the Endless Woods! The villagers will gossip–"

"Oh, yes, Sophie, tell me how gossip works." Tedros cut in, at long last. "Educate the son of Queen Guinevere on the intricacies of rumour and slander, do go on..."

"Don't pull your mommy issues out to try and win this one," Sophie snarled, wheeling on him.

"Small town gossip, is school gossip, is court gossip, darling." said Tedros, still crouched in his corner. "I'd have been knifed and thrown in the moat if I hadn't grasped that, by now. Come on. You took me to that dinner expecting me to perform, and how are you meant to perform if you can't grasp the audience you're playing to?"

"Don't act like you were operating on anything cleverer than sheer spite."

"Wasn't," said Tedros, honestly. "I just wanted to think of something that would upset you the most, and making you subject to the kind of thing you seem happy to rake Agatha through seemed pretty g–"

"My own stepbrothers, Teddy!"

"Yes, your stepbrothers." sighed Tedros. "Who took precisely no convincing to believe that you're actually a witch."

"I'll show you actually a witch–"

"You don't need to," said Tedros. "We know what you are. Don't reckon Callis will want to clean up all the broken glass if you scream, though, and if anyone hears you? Hah, well–"

"You can't guarantee any of this!" Sophie turned to furious pacing, skirt bunched in her fists. "You're just speculating based on what you want to happen, to wash your own hands of whatever consequences–" she suddenly pointed a finger at Agatha. "What are you going to do if they accuse both of us? If my brothers tell everyone, and the Elders decide we're both proper old-fashioned witches, dishonest and suspicious women who are a threat to the town?"

"You're not listening," said Tedros. "You heard Callis. D'you reckon the preteen scullery maid that first saw my mother and Lancelot in the orangery was entertained? Listened to? No. They told her she was mistaken, and to run along. She knew what she saw, but the powers that be told her to keep her damn mouth shut– my mother bribed guards and servants and her ladies to say it was slanderous rumour, and so it was accepted thus, until she did something to prove otherwise. If you're confronted, all you need to do is laugh, and say oh, well, kids will make up anything. In your word against a bunch of schoolkids', the villagers will always accept yours, so long as you don't prove the kids right. You might just have to put up with a bit of badly suppressed suspicion." he glanced at Agatha. "Guess you can ask someone for advice on that..."

They stared at each other.

"You're a spiteful little brat." said Sophie icily. "You didn't think that hard about it. You just wanted a way to show me that you were furious at me."

"Yeah," said Tedros softly. "Sucks to be on the receiving end of such a sentiment, doesn't it?"

Sophie smiled slowly.

"I suppose it does..." she said. "So, I'll leave you to enjoy a really potent one."

Like snapping a mask back in place, she beamed. "Au revoir, darling, and do enjoy your argument with Agatha... I'm going to clean up your mess, as usual–"

She flounced to the door, blew them all a kiss, and slammed it shut so hard that one of Callis's weird art pieces fell off the wall and nearly killed Reaper.

Three heads turned slowly to stare at her.

Agatha dithered, trying to avoid their stares. This proved tricky, since Callis could catch gazes like foxes caught rabbits, and Reaper had come to sit directly at her feet to stare. She wasn't sure what to do. Besides the fact she felt fuzzy and irate, like she was made of bees, she didn't think she wanted to get angry at Tedros. Well– she did, because true to form, Tedros had done something indescribably stupid... but Sophie had implied she should, and she didn't want to do anything that Sophie told her to do. Except she usually ended up doing what Sophie told her to do anyway. Which was how they'd ended up in this mess in the first place, as it happened...

What the hell do I do? Agatha thought desperately. She could pick a fight with Tedros, but Tedros would inevitably start playing holier-than-thou and tell her she was a doormat and come up with a bunch of annoyingly straightforward reasons as to why he was right. She could chase after Sophie, since Sophie had been mad at Tedros, not her, and that way she could make sure that Sophie's brothers–

"Under no circumstances are you to follow Sophie," said Callis, in a moment of incredible maternal prescience. Or maybe she knew a spell for mind reading. She'd certainly had a sixth sense for catching Agatha with her hand in the biscuit tin or peeling back the foil on a pie dish when she was little...

"B–"

"Sit down."

Agatha, who hadn't even realised she'd been getting up, slowly lowered her backside back onto the bench, amazed.

"You can't seriously be on Tedros's side."

Callis being on Tedros's side was like birds of prey advocating for the rights of mice. Like... like... witches being in cahoots with princes, as it happened.

"Who said I was?" said Callis, with a glance of towering disdain in Tedros's direction. "I said you're not to follow her. She's not in danger of anything except a bruised ego and a few suspicious stares from little boys."

"You don't know that."

"Yes I do, Agatha. Sophie is the closest thing Gavaldon has to celebrity, and a playground rumour will not easily unseat her. She's not an unmarried outsider who's come from nowhere, running around making love potions and upsetting the societal order. That was why they tried to burn me. Sophie doesn't prove a threat to the village's peace. In fact, she's trying to preserve it."

"You never liked her..." muttered Agatha.

"I don't like any of your friends... or suitors..." Callis threw Tedros another filthy look– "Except the Coven. Certainly I'd prefer it if you were marrying Hester."

Tedros smirked.

"Not marrying anyone," said Agatha, determinedly surly. Tedros stopped smirking.

"I'm sure," said Callis. She sighed, and sat down on the other side of the table, putting her hand on top of the storybook. Agatha stared at it as if it were a snake, suddenly realising that her mother had read it.

"Um. Good read, was it...?"

"...an enlightening one," said Callis. There was an odd tone creeping into her voice, and she glanced between them, lips thin.

"Look," said Agatha, trying to climb off the bench, "I should at least get dressed–"

Reaper bit her ankle and she sat back down again.

"Mom." she snapped. She'd long been convinced that Reaper operated on Callis's orders, and this was just proving it.

"Fill the kettle and put it on, boy, if that's not too servile for you." said Callis crisply. With a great clattering of scabbard and boot buckles, Tedros dutifully got up to retrieve the kettle. Agatha ignored his attempts to catch her eye until the back door opened and shut behind him.

Callis exhaled and put her elbows on the table.

"I know you let him do that," said Agatha.

"Yes, I did," said Callis, staring with narrowed eyes at the book. "I found that storybook in his bag when the two of you were at Sophie's, and read the entire thing before you got back. The second I saw him down there this morning, I knew what he was doing. I took it again in the interest of stopping him coming back to get any more pages."

"You snooped through his stuff." muttered Agatha. "Of course you did..." she leant forwards. "But it was completely stupid, you have to see that–"

"Yes, admittedly anyone else might have been subtle about it, but at least he provides a bit of drama..."

"It's not funny!"

"At least Sophie could escape, now," sighed Callis. "Not like me. She can use a bit of that murderous magic and take off running, and they'd never catch her. Not that they'll arrest her in the first place, but that's the failsafe..."

"How can you say that? How can you want her to have a taste of what we've been through?"

"Because I read this." snapped Callis, slamming a hand on the storybook. "And all the bits you conveniently left out."

"But–" Agatha stopped. Callis had raised her, but she was still a Never, and they didn't tend to take generous perspectives on much of anything.

"She's not going to turn into a town pariah, Agatha. She won't stay in the town long enough for that. It's a temporary inconvenience she can escape at any time. You really think she's intending on coming back here once she's graduated? Don't make me laugh. She'll go and find an abandoned castle somewhere, make a witch's lair, and spend her life luring and murdering Everboys and buying haute couture with money she's laundered from the local Ever nobility. Maybe she'll have a few stints as an Evil Queen of various kingdoms."

Agatha hesitated. Admittedly, that was true. Sophie had slowly been moving more and more of her things to her Evil dorm, and she certainly hadn't really anticipated Sophie returning here for more than short visits...

"So, does it matter what the town thinks of her?" said Callis, taking the abandoned pages Tedros had removed and tucking them back into the book. "Not in the long run, which is what Tedros's plan needs..."

"She thinks it matters," said Agatha, wringing her hands. "And I don't want her to spend all her time here paranoid and miserable..."

"But it's alright if you do?"

"Will both of you stop saying that!?" Agatha snapped. "I'm used to it, alright? It doesn't matter!"

Callis kept her eyes on the book, fingers smoothing a wrinkled page. Agatha glanced down at it–

Then she saw Agatha, regal in blue, and lost her smile. Sophie stared at her, gray pupils clouding with horror.

"I see we have a new princess," she said quietly. "Beautiful, isn't she?"

Agatha returned her stare, feeling no more pity, no more desire to please.

Agatha's head snapped guiltily back up.

"Doesn't half get in your head, that pen..." she muttered, reaching for the book–

"My baby..." Callis mumbled, eyeing the page next to it. "Adorned with prince and ballgown and crown and still more worried about everyone else... who knows how I've raised such a woman..."

"Well, I– well. Didn't get the Circus Crown, actually," Agatha huffed, scrabbling for the book to cover how she was going pink. "Look, I think you're oversimplifying, I was kind of selfish–"

Callis batted her hand away from the book and snatched it off her.

"There is not a single moment of selfishness in here, and if you ever say that again I shall make you eat it page by