.

For me to return to life, to return to youth … the kiss had to go both ways, didn’t it?” He looked into Sophie’s stunned face and grinned. “Surely your best friend taught you that.”

      Sophie said nothing, the truth extinguishing her fight. Just as Agatha once could have taken Tedros’ hand before she chose Sophie instead, Sophie too could have sent the School Master back to the grave. But here they were, both beautiful and young, victims of a kiss she was trying to deny. Why had she held on to him that night? Sophie asked herself. Even once she knew it was him she was kissing? Looking up at the porcelain boy, she thought of everything he’d done to win her, across death and time … his unyielding faith that he could make her happy, beyond any family, friend, or prince. He had come for her when no one else wanted her. He had believed in her when no one else did. Sophie’s voice clumped in her throat. “Why do you want me so much?” she rasped.

      He stared at her, the clamp of his jaw easing, his lips falling open slightly. For a moment, Sophie thought he looked the way Tedros did when he let down his guard—a lost boy playing at a grown-up. “Because once upon a time, I was just like you,” he said softly. He blinked fast, falling into memory. “I tried to love my brother. I tried to escape my fate. I even thought I’d found—” He caught himself. “But it only led to more pain … more Evil. Just as every time you seek love, it leads you to the same. Your mother, your father, your best friend, your prince … The more you chase the light, the more darkness you find. And yet still you doubt your place in Evil.”

      Sophie tensed as he gently lifted her chin. “For thousands of years, Good has told us what love is. Both you and I have tried to love in their way, only to suffer pain,” he said. “But what if there’s a different kind of love? A darker love that turns pain into power. A love that can only be understood by the two who share it. That’s why you held our kiss, Sophie. Because I see you for who you really are and love you for it when no one else can. Because what we’ve sacrificed for each other is beyond what Good can even fathom. It doesn’t matter if they don’t call it love. We know it is, just as we know the thorns are as much a part of the rose as the petals.” He leaned in, lips caressing her ear. “I am the mirror of your soul, Sophie. To love me is to love yourself,” he whispered. Then he raised her hand to his mouth and kissed it like a prince, before he gently let it go.

      Sophie’s heart wrenched so sharply she thought he’d torn it out of her. She’d never felt so naked in her life and huddled tighter into her black cloak. Then little by little, staring into the harsh symmetry of his face, Sophie felt her breath come back, a strange safe warmth flooding her core. He understood her, this dark-souled boy, and in the sapphire facets of his eyes, she suddenly saw how deep they went. She shook her head, rattled. “I don’t even know if you’re really a boy.”

      He smiled at her. “If your fairy tale has taught you one lesson, Sophie, it is that things are only as you see.”

      Sophie frowned. “I don’t understand—” she started … but somewhere in her soul she did.

      The boy looked out at the sun, frail and hazy over his school, and Sophie knew that the time for questions was over. As he slid his hand into his pocket, Sophie could feel her whole body trembling, as if pulled towards a waterfall she wouldn’t escape.

      “Will we be as happy as Tedros and Agatha?” she pressed, voice cracking.

      “You must trust your story, Sophie. It has come to The End for a reason.” He turned to her. “But now it’s time for you to believe it.”

      Sophie looked down at the gold circle in his hand, breaths growing faster, faster … With a shudder, she pushed him away. He reached for her and Sophie shoved him against the wall, pinning her own palm flat against his frigid chest. He didn’t resist as Sophie moved her hand over his sternum, eyes wild, panting hard. She didn’t know what she was looking for until she found it beneath her fingers and froze. Her hand rose and fell on his chest, rose and fell, his heart throbbing between them. Slowly Sophie looked up at him, drinking in his strong, hopeful beat, no different than her own.

      “Rafal,” she whispered, wishing a boy to life.

      His fingertips caressed her face and for the first time, Sophie didn’t flinch from the cold. As he drew her in, Sophie felt the doubts melt out of her, fear giving way to faith. Black cloak pressed to his white body, like two swans in balance, Sophie raised her left hand into the sunlight, steady and sure. Then Rafal slipped his ring onto her finger, the warm gold sliding up her skin inch by inch, until it fit tight. Sophie let out a gasp and the snow-white boy smiled, never breaking his gaze.

      In each other’s arms, Master and Queen turned to the enchanted pen over their fairy tale, ready for it to bless their love … ready for it to close their book at last …

      The pen didn’t move.

      The book stayed open.

      Sophie’s heart stalled. “What happened?”

      She followed Rafal’s eyes to the red-amber sun, which had darkened another shade. His face steeled to a deadly mask. “It seems our happy ending isn’t the one the pen doubts.”

      

      ou don’t know the first thing about me,” Tedros spat, and clubbed his princess in the face with a musty pillow.

      Agatha coughed and bashed him with a pillow right back, knocking him against her black bed frame, as feathers burst all over him. Reaper leapt onto Tedros’ face, trying to eat them. “I know too much about you is the problem,” Agatha snarled and grabbed at the poorly set bandage under her prince’s blue collar. Tedros shoved her away—Agatha tackled him back, before Tedros snatched Reaper and threw the cat at her head. Agatha ducked and Reaper sailed into the bathroom, flailing bald, wrinkled paws, before landing headfirst in the toilet. “If you knew me, you’d know I do things myself,” Tedros huffed, tightening his shirt laces.

      “You threw my cat at me?” Agatha yelled, launching to her feet. “Because I’m trying to save you from gangrene?”

      “That cat is Satan,” Tedros hissed, watching Reaper try to climb out of the toilet bowl and slide back down. “And if you knew me, you’d know I hate cats.”

      “No doubt you like dogs—wet-mouthed, simple, and now that I think about it, a lot like you.”

      Tedros glowered at her. “Getting personal over a bandage, are we?”

      “Three weeks and the wound isn’t healing, Tedros,” Agatha pressed, scooping Reaper up and toweling him off with her sleeve. “It’ll fester if I don’t treat it—”

      “Maybe they do it differently in graveyards, but where I come from, a bandage does the trick.”

      “A bandage that looks like it was made by a two-year-old?” Agatha mocked.

      “You try getting stabbed with your own sword as you’re vanishing,” said Tedros. “You’re lucky I’m even alive—one more second and he’d have run me through—”

      “One more second and I’d have remembered what an ape you are and left you behind.”

      “As if you could find a boy in this rat trap town better than me.”

      “At this point, I’d trade you for a little space and quiet—”

      “I’d trade you for a decent meal and a warm bath!” Tedros boomed.

      Agatha glared at him, Reaper shivering in her arms. Finally Tedros exhaled, looking ashamed. He stripped off his shirt, spread out his arms,