Agatha opened her eyes. On a breath, she forged deeper into the house.
The living room had a snuggly feel to it, with a sooty fireplace facing big-armed calico chairs, a fluffy red-brown rug made out of hawk feathers, a shelf of gemstones, seashells, and animal eggs beneath a shut, slatted window, and a steep, stumpy wooden staircase in the back corner, barricaded with red velvet rope. Agatha peered at a brass plaque on the wall:
Behind the den, the kitchen was roped off, just like the staircase, but Agatha peeked in to see a dusty, deserted nook, no footprints on the floor or signs of life, except for a few flies milling around a leaky faucet.
“Agatha?” Tedros called outside. “Where are you?”
Agatha sighed, stomach relaxing. The scream must have been one of the dwarves’ after all. She shuddered at such a morbid thought and hustled towards the front door, determined to get to League Headquarters. Whoever this League was, her mother had trusted them to help her. “You must save Sophie as Stefan saved you,” Callis’ voice echoed—
Agatha stopped cold in the foyer.
A creak echoed somewhere upstairs …
Then it went quiet.
Slowly she raised her eyes to the ceiling.
She knew a sensible princess would have called her prince, but instead, she was moving into the den again, slipping off her clumps one by one before she left them on the lambskin chair. She felt her bare toes rake through the feathers of the rug, her eyes pinned on the ceiling until she squeezed under the rope at the rear of the room. She slid up the stairs on her hands and knees like a cat, taking time between steps, so the cricks and cracks of the stairs were camouflaged by the swinging squeaks of the front door.
At the top of the stairs was a narrow hallway with two rooms. Agatha rose up carefully and peeked into the first. Seven small beds lay in a cramped row, as if in an orphanage hall, each neatly made with different colored sheets, matching the tunics of the seven dead bodies outside.
Agatha felt a rush of sadness. Death had been rare to her before last night and now it followed her like a shroud. What was it like to be alive one moment—like her mother, like the Crypt Keeper, like these seven helpers of Good—and then be gone the next? What happens to all your thoughts, your fears, your dreams? What happens to all the love you’ve yet to give? Her body quivered, as if she’d gone too deep, and she was suddenly aware of the stillness around her. Why am I still here? she berated herself, turning around. Tedros would be worried sick by now. Quickly she stepped out of the dwarves’ quarters and leaned over to check the next room—
Agatha grabbed the wall in shock.
In a frost-white bedroom, a frail female’s body lay facedown on the wood floor, her head hidden under the canopied bed. A crystal crown gleamed on its side nearby, as if it’d tumbled off her when she fell. But the dead woman wasn’t what made Agatha gape in horror.
An old crone in black was kneeling next to the body. She had red eyes and a pig nose, a patchwork of stitches, and brown, shriveled flesh flaking off her, just like Red Riding Hood’s wolf and Jack’s giant in the Woods. In her clawlike hand, she clutched a musty storybook, pulled open to its last page: a painting of a prince kissing Snow White back to life, while seven dwarves smiled on blissfully, a dead witch on the ground behind them.
A dead witch that looked just like the old crone holding the storybook.
“That was the old,” the witch purred, leering at the book’s last page …
Before Agatha’s eyes, the painting magically redrew, until the old witch now crouched over Snow White’s dead body instead, the dwarves behind her all slain.
“And this is the new,” the witch grinned.
Agatha’s focus swung back to the corpse half-hidden under the bed … to the royal crown askew … and a deep dread snaked up her spine, remembering something Jack’s giant had said on Necro Ridge …
“Should be out fixin’ our stories like the others.”
“He’ll give us a turn at our stories soon enough,” Red Riding Hood’s wolf had answered.
The witch snapped the storybook shut with a triumphant cackle, jolting Agatha out of her thoughts. She glanced up to see the hag rearing to her feet, her back angled to the door—
“Agatha!” Tedros’ voice yelled outside.
The witch dropped the book to the floor. Before Agatha could move, she spun and met her eyes with a lethal stare.
Agatha shrank into the hall’s corner, flattening against the wall.
The witch drew a thin, jewel-handled dagger from her cloak, caked with dried blood.
Agatha whirled towards the staircase. Too far to run. She spun back to see the witch prowl towards her, trapping her in the corner. Agatha’s finger glowed gold with terror, the witch ten feet away, but she couldn’t remember a single spell from class. Agatha opened her mouth to scream for her prince. The witch was too fast. She hurled the knife for Agatha’s throat like a bullet—
With a cry, Agatha shot a ray of gold light from her finger and the knife turned into a peach-petaled daisy, floating to the floor.
Gulping breaths, Agatha stared at the flower, thankful Sophie had used the hex against her first year. It was the only spell she’d never forget.
“Agatha!” Tedros shouted again.
Agatha looked up urgently, but it was too late. The witch slammed her against the wall, appallingly powerful, reeking of decay, and held her up by the throat with her liver-spotted hand. Breath choked, Agatha glimpsed the charred scars across the witch’s ankles and legs. “Ordered to dance … until she fell dead …,” Agatha remembered, struggling to stay conscious as the witch squeezed her neck harder. She and Sophie once danced in red-hot shoes too … a first-year punishment from Yuba … Or was it second year? … Agatha could feel her mind fading, the witch’s thumb crushing her windpipe. She tried to think of Sophie’s face as they danced … her helpless face, those suffering eyes … Darkness strangled her, pulling her under. No … please … not yet … Sophie—I’ll save—you—
A bolt of will flashed through her and she sank her teeth into the witch’s bony arm and bit as hard as she could. The old crone shrieked and let go. Agatha doubled over, gagging and wheezing, the witch still gaping at her, as if biting wasn’t part of a Good girl’s playbook, as if this greasy-haired, bug-eyed punk might be one of Evil’s after all—
Agatha kneed her in the gut and dove for the stairs, about to reach the first step, only to feel the witch’s boot crush the back of her leg. Agatha buckled to the floor, slamming her nose into the wood. She felt the hot blood seeping out of it and staunched it with her hand as she twirled around to defend against the witch—
But the hallway was empty, the witch gone.
Agatha hobbled to the edge of the stairs. The den was as quiet as when she came in, the slatted window over the bookshelf wide open and blowing in the breeze.
Tedros burst through the front door, his face cherry red. “Agatha, where are—” He saw her on the staircase and flushed two shades redder. “DO YOU WANT ME TO HAVE A HEART ATTACK! I’M SCREAMING LIKE A FOOL, NOT KNOWING IF YOU’RE ALIVE OR DEAD, AND HERE YOU ARE PLAYING HIDE-AND-SEEK LIKE A CHILD ON A PLAYGROUND, LOOKING A HOLY BLOODY MESS AND—”
Tedros’ face changed.
“Agatha,” he whispered, looking very scared. “Why are you bleeding?”
Agatha shook her head, tears welling, hyperventilating too fast to talk—
A