reason I’m unpopular,” her father said, rubbing his black eye. “Whoever’s after you blasted the other houses in our lane, but left ours alone. Our food store’s all gone, but Honora still finds a way to feed us every night.”
Sophie gripped the pouch tighter. “Us?”
“Boys moved to your room until all’s safe and we can finish the wedding.”
Sophie spurted him with white gobs. Stefan smelled the honeycream and instantly started scrounging through her bag—“Anything here the boys can eat?”
Agatha could see Sophie about to faint and stepped in. “Stefan, do you know where the Elders will hide her?”
He shook his head. “But they assure me the villagers won’t find her either,” he said, watching Sophie whisk her bag as far across the church from him as she could. Stefan waited until she was out of earshot. “It’s not just the assassins we have to keep her safe from,” he whispered.
“But she can’t last long alone,” Agatha pressed him.
Stefan looked through the window at the woods shutting Gavaldon in, dark and endless in the fading light. “What happened when you were out there, Agatha? Who wants my daughter dead?”
Agatha still had no answer. “Suppose the plan doesn’t work?” she asked.
“We have to trust the Elders,” Stefan said, averting his eyes. “They know what’s best.”
Agatha saw pain cloud his face. “Stefan suffered worst of all.” That’s what her mother had said.
“I’ll fix this somehow,” Agatha said, guilt squeezing her voice. “I’ll keep her safe. I promise.”
Stefan leaned in and took her face into his hands. “And it’s a promise I need you to keep.”
Agatha looked into his scared eyes.
“Oh good grief.”
They turned to see Sophie at the altar, bag clenched to her chest.
“I’ll be home by the weekend,” she frowned. “And my bed better have clean sheets.”
As eight o’clock approached, Sophie sat on the altar table, surrounded by dripping candles, listening to her stomach rumble. She’d let her father take the last of her butterless bran oat crackers for the boys, because Agatha had practically forced her. The boys would gag on them, surely. That made her feel better.
Sophie sighed. The School Master was right. I am Evil.
Yet for all his powers and sorcery, he hadn’t known there was a cure. A friend who made her Good. As long as she had Agatha, she’d never be that ugly, horrible witch again.
When the church darkened, Agatha had resisted leaving her alone, but Stefan forced her. The Elders had been clear—“Only Sophie”—and now was not the time to disobey their orders. Not when they were about to save her life.
Without Agatha there now, Sophie suddenly felt anxious. Was this how Agatha used to feel about her? Sophie had treated her so callously back then, lost in her princess fantasies. Now she couldn’t imagine a future without her. No matter how hard it was, she’d endure the days ahead in hiding—but only because she knew she’d have her friend at the end of it. Her friend who had become her real family.
But then why had Agatha been acting so strange lately?
The past month, Sophie had noticed a growing distance. Agatha didn’t laugh as much on their walks, was often cold to the touch, and seemed preoccupied with her thoughts. For the first time since they met, Sophie had started to feel she had more invested in this friendship.
Then came the wedding. She had pretended not to notice Agatha’s hand, dripping, trembling in hers as if wanting to slip out. As if gripping a terrible secret.
“Maybe I’m not as Good as you think.”
Sophie’s pulse hammered in her ears. Agatha’s finger couldn’t have glowed that day.
Could it?
She thought of her mother, who too had beauty, wit, and charm … who too had a friend she had long trusted … only to be betrayed by her and die broken and alone.
Sophie shook off the thought. Agatha had given up a prince for her. Almost given her life for her. Agatha had found them a happy ending against all odds.
In the cold, dark church, Sophie’s heart skittered out of beat.
So why would she ruin our fairy tale?
Behind her, the church doors creaked open. Sophie turned with relief and saw the shadows waiting in their gray cloaks, black hats in hand.
Only the Eldest was holding something else.
Something sharper.
The problem with living in a graveyard is the dead have no need for light. Besides the flittering torches over the gates, the cemetery was pitch-black at midnight, and anything beyond just an inky shadow. Peering through her window’s broken shutters, Agatha caught the sheen of white tents down the hill, pitched to house those left homeless by the attacks. Somewhere out there, the Elders were about to move Sophie to safety. All she could do was wait.
“I should have hidden near the church,” she said, and licked a fresh scratch from Reaper, who still acted like she was a stranger.
“You can’t disobey the Elders,” said her mother, sitting stiffly on her bed, eyes on a mantel clock with hands made of bones. “They’ve been civil since you stopped the kidnappings. Let’s keep it that way.”
“Oh please,” Agatha scoffed. “What could three old men possibly do to me?”
“What all men do in times of fear.” Callis’ eyes stayed on the clock. “Blame the witch.”
“Mmhmm. Burn us at the stake too,” Agatha snorted, flopping onto her bed.
Tension thickened the silence. She sat up and saw her mother’s strained face, still staring ahead.
“You’re not serious, Mother.”
Sweat beaded on Callis’ lip. “They needed a scapegoat when the kidnappings wouldn’t stop.”
“They burnt women?” Agatha uttered in shock.
“Unless we married. That’s what the storybooks taught them to do.”
“But you never married—” Agatha countered. “How did you survive—”
“Because I had someone stand up for me,” her mother said, watching the bones strike eight. “And he paid the price.”
“My father? You said he was a rotten two-timer who died in a mill accident.”
Callis didn’t
