Soman Chainani - The Last Ever After

Firelight swept over the both of them.

Agatha and Tedros flattened to the ground and swiveled to see the guards five rows back.

“We found the swans—we found the grave—” Tedros panicked, gaping at the bigger headstone. “Where’s the help?”

Agatha shook her head. “We can’t fight the guards without magic, Tedros! We need to make our wish!”

The prince swallowed. “Wish to reopen our story on three, okay? Hands behind our back—” He stopped.

His right fingertip was already glowing gold.

Agatha looked down at hers, glowing almost an identical shade.

“Did you make the wish?” Tedros asked.

Agatha shook her head.

“Neither did I,” Tedros said, confused. “How could our fingers be glowing, then?”

Torchlight shined in their faces.

“They’re here!” a guard cried. “They’re over here!”

Agatha spun to see shadows vaulting over the last rows of graves. “Unless my mother didn’t interrupt our wish in the house. Unless our wish worked when we made it the first time. Unless our fairy tale was open all along.”

Agatha looked at her prince, deathly white. “We’re already back in our story, Tedros. We’ve been in our story from the moment the guards found us …”

Tedros looked up at the spears slashing towards their hearts. “Which means we die at The End, Agatha!”

Terrified, she and Tedros clasped hands, each backing away from the spears into one of the swans—

Just in time to see a pale hand reach out of the grave between them and pull them both in.

raves are meant for dead people, who have no reason to see, breathe, or use the toilet. Unfortunately for Agatha, she needed to do all three. Trapped underground in darkness, she and Tedros inhaled mouthfuls of soil while tangled in each other’s sweaty limbs. Agatha couldn’t make out her prince’s face, but heard him hyperventilating with panic.

“You’re using up all our air!” Agatha hissed.

“Graves have b-b-bodies—d-d-dead bodies—”

Agatha blanched with understanding and gripped on to any of Tedros’ flesh she could find. “Sophie’s mother … she p-p-pulled us in?”

“C-c-can’t see a thing. For all we know she’s right next to us!”

“Magic,” Agatha wheezed. “Use magic!”

Tedros gulped a breath and focused on his fear, until his finger flickered gold like a candle, lighting up a wide, shallow grave the size of a large bed. Shivering on top of each other, Tedros and Agatha slowly turned to their right.

Dirt.

No body. No bones.

Just dirt.

“Where is she?” Agatha choked, rolling off Tedros, who groaned and rubbed his chest. She snatched her prince’s wrist and swept his fingerglow over the right half of the grave, spotting only a pair of dung beetles fighting over a dirt ball in the corner. She shook her head, baffled, and swung Tedros’ hand to the left—

Both of them froze.

Two sparkling brown eyes glared at them through a black ninja mask.

Agatha and Tedros opened their mouths to scream, but the figure gagged them with slender hands.

“Shhhh! They’ll hear you!” the stranger whispered in a low, breathy voice.

Tedros gaped at the ninja in the grave with them, wrapped in draping black robes. “Are you … are you Sophie’s mother …”

The ninja let out a giggly squeak. “Oh how absurd. Now shhhh!”

Agatha tensed. That squeak. Where had she heard it before? She tried to catch Tedros’ eye, hoping he’d heard it too, but her prince was smothering the stranger in a hug.

“Oh thank God! We’ve been trapped for a month in the smallest, foulest house you can imagine, almost burned at the stake, almost skewered by an army, and then you pulled us in, whoever you are, which means you have to get us out! We need to get to the School for Good and Evil and rescue our best friend. Surely you know it. It’s halfway between the Murmuring Mountains and—”

The ninja gagged him with a fist. “I know cats that listen better than you.”

“You have no idea,” Agatha murmured, punchy from the lack of air.

A sharp crackle ripped above their heads, like a sword splitting earth, and the grave tremored, caving clumps of dirt into their faces.

“Check ’em all,” someone growled gruffly, followed by more sharp tremors. “Intercepted a message from the League of Thirteen. Said they’d be comin’ through a grave.”

Agatha’s stomach plunged. The voice didn’t sound like an Elder’s.

“Coulda been more specific. Thousands of ’em and I’m starvin’,” a thick, oafish voice added. “Besides, should be out fixin’ our stories like the others, not diggin’ around in graves. What’s so important about these two anyway?”

“School Master wants ’em. Reason enough for you,” said the gruff one, punctuated by another violent crackle. “He’ll give us a turn at our stories soon enough.”

Agatha and Tedros swiveled to each other. The School Master’s men in Gavaldon? How had they gotten past the guards? The ceiling shook harder, showering clumps of earth.

“Think he’ll let us eat an Everboy as a reward?” asked the oafish one.

“Might even let us eat two,” the gruff voice chortled—

A black furry claw smashed through the ceiling into the grave, with five knife-edged talons snatching right and left. Agatha and Tedros choked back screams as the ninja flattened them against the dirt wall, the hooked talons swiping at air, missing the inseam of Tedros’ breeches by a whisker. It slashed in vain a few more times and then curled into a fist.

“Nothin’ here,” the gruff voice growled. “Come on, let’s eat. Maybe we’ll find a juicy little boy in the Oakwood.”

The claw withdrew empty-handed and vanished, followed by loud, thudding stomps.

A terrorized silence passed … then Tedros and Agatha shoved mouths to a hole in the ceiling and sucked down air. Agatha glanced at Tedros to make sure he was okay, expecting he’d be doing the same for her. Instead, her prince was pulling at his breeches, looking down his own pants. Tedros smiled, relieved … then saw Agatha frowning.

“What?” Tedros said.

Agatha was about to question his priorities, then noticed the footsteps had stopped. The voices too. Agatha’s eyes shot wide open and she dove for her prince—“Tedros, watch out!”

The black claw crashed through the ceiling and grabbed Agatha off her prince, dragging her out of the grave. Tedros leapt to clasp her leg too late. He craned up in horror to see the claw pull his princess into the night sky, dangling her like a caught mouse.

Agatha stared into the bloodshot yellow eyes of a tall, bony brown wolf on two legs, fur and flesh flaking off his face, leaving gaping holes over pieces of his skull.

“Lookie here. A princess returns,” the wolf snarled gruffly, cheekbones poking through one of these holes.

Agatha paled. Was he the one talking about the School Master before? How could an Evil wolf have crossed into Gavaldon? And where was the Elderguard? Her eyes darted around, but all she could see in the darkness was a smattering of crooked headstones. She tried to make her finger glow, but the wolf was gripping her hand too tightly.

“Storian ain’t writing, world dying, armies rising—all ’cause of you?” he purred, tracing her pallid skin and charcoal hair. “Less princess, I’d say, and more … skunk. How Good’s fallen in my time away. Even runty Red Riding Hood was a more tempting treat.”