the Lake kissed him, thinking he was the true king.”
“And thinking the Snake would make her his queen,” Agatha added.
“But if that’s true, why would she kiss Japeth instead of Rhian?” Tedros puffed. “Rhian is the heir. Not his brother.”
“Exactly. Hence Sophie’s question,” Agatha pounced. “And it’s the same question I had for the Lady when I went back to Avalon. She’d told Sophie and me that Japeth had King Arthur’s blood. But not just that. She’d claimed Japeth had the blood of Arthur’s eldest son. Only we know that’s untrue, because Rhian was the one to free Excalibur from the stone. Which means Rhian is the eldest son, not Japeth. I told the Lady she’d made a mistake. She hadn’t kissed the real king. But she insisted that I was wrong. That whoever she’d kissed had the heir’s blood and whoever she’d kissed was the one who pulled Excalibur. Which means something is still wrong here. Magically wrong. And now Sophie is asking us to find out why.”
“But we already know the answer. Rhian and Japeth don’t have Arthur’s blood!” Guinevere snapped, losing patience. “Either one of them. They’re liars. They’re frauds. They found black magic that helped Rhian pull Excalibur and it’s that same magic that made the Lady kiss his brother. That’s the only explanation. Because they’re not Arthur’s sons! So it doesn’t matter who the Lady kissed! It’s all a big bluff! My son is the heir! My son is the king!”
Agatha and Tedros went mum.
Guinevere glanced between them, her face drawing in. “What’s happened?” Her eyes clouded. “Does this have anything to do with that Sader woman?”
“It has everything to do with that Sader woman,” said a weaselly voice behind them.
They turned to see two gnome guards and Reaper usher in a shock-blond boy Agatha didn’t recognize—
Her eyes flared.
Hort.
But that wasn’t the surprise.
He was holding something in his open palm.
A butterfly.
A blue butterfly.
Agatha glimpsed Tedros’ face, denial giving way to horror.
And right then and there, Agatha knew it was time to tell his mother the truth.
BY THE TIME Agatha had finished speaking, Guinevere was pale as a ghost and Tedros was no longer in the room.
Agatha, Hort, and the former queen sat in pained silence, the prince’s absence palpable.
“The woman in the butterfly dress. I met her once, a long time ago,” Guinevere rasped finally, wiping away tears. “I didn’t know her as Evelyn. Lady Gremlaine called her ‘Elle.’”
“Elle was the name she used in Foxwood, when she raised Rhian and Japeth in secret,” said Hort, eyeing the bowls of snacks but dissuaded by the moment. “I thought Elle was for the ‘el’ in Grisella Gremlaine. Thought it was proof Lady Gremlaine was Rhian and Japeth’s mother. Except there’s an ‘el’ in Evelyn too.”
Hort looked uneasy without his girlfriend there, but Nicola and Reaper had gone with two gnome guards to retrieve Kiko, who Nicola and Hort had found badly stunned in the Woods.
Hort looked at Agatha. “Do you think Tedros will come back?”
Agatha didn’t answer, lost in her own thoughts.
She’d told Tedros and his mother the truth about the blood crystal.
She’d told them the truth about Arthur’s heir.
At first, mother and son had looked incredulous. The idea that King Arthur could be linked to the half-sister of August Sader, the seer who painted Tedros’ coronation portrait, wasn’t just preposterous, but daft. Yet as Agatha relived each moment—the way Lady Gremlaine had enlisted Evelyn and her spansel to seduce Arthur and have his child; the way Gremlaine abandoned her plan and fled the room; the way Evelyn had retrieved the spansel, her snake-colored eyes dancing with Evil—Guinevere’s face had seemingly aged in minutes, her hand grasping at her throat as if suffocated from the inside. When Agatha reached the moment where Evelyn hooked the spansel around sleeping Arthur’s neck, Tedros thrust out his palm, stopping her, and fled the room without a word, leaving Agatha alone with his mother and Hort.
The silence thickened now, Guinevere’s face a death mask. Hort peeked at Agatha, expecting her to comfort the old queen. But the truth left no room for comfort.
“Elle came to dine at Camelot at Arthur’s invitation. That was the only time I met her,” Guinevere went on, still shaken. “The dinner was a peace offering. After Arthur and I graduated from the School for Good, he’d brought me back to the castle to meet the staff, led by Lady Gremlaine. Arthur told them we were to be married.” Guinevere paused. “Gremlaine was caught off guard.