The Last Ever After. Soman Chainani

back to her task. She didn’t need to think about it—not when the screaming nightmares did the job of reminding her well enough. The School Master turning young … grinning at Tedros, bound to a tree … eyes flashing red as he stabbed … How Tedros didn’t have nightmares about their last moments at school, Agatha couldn’t grasp, but maybe that was the difference between a prince and a Reader. To a boy from the Woods, every day that didn’t end in death was a good one.

      Agatha sprinkled boiled turmeric on his wound and Tedros clenched with low moans. “Told you it wasn’t healing,” she murmured.

      Tedros gave her a lion’s growl and turned away. “Your mother hates me. That’s why she’s never home.”

      “She’s busy looking for patients,” said Agatha, rubbing the yellow powder in. “Have to eat, don’t we?”

      “Then why does she leave her medicine cart here?”

      Agatha’s hand paused on Tedros’ chest. She’d been asking herself the same question about her mother’s long disappearances. Agatha rubbed harder and her prince winced. “Look, for the last time, she doesn’t hate you.”

      “We’ve been trapped in this house for three weeks, Agatha. I eat all her food, am crap at cleaning, tend to clog the toilet, and she keeps seeing us fighting. If she doesn’t hate me, she will soon.”

      “She just thinks you’re a complication to an already complicated situation.”

      “Agatha, there is an entire town out there that will kill us on sight. There’s nothing complicated about it,” Tedros argued, sitting up on his knees. “Listen, I’ll be sixteen in a month. That means I take over Camelot as king from my father’s council. Sure, the kingdom’s broke, half the people are gone, and the place is in shambles, but we’ll change all that! That’s where we belong, Agatha. Why can’t we go back—”

      “You know why, Tedros.”

      “Right. Because you don’t want to leave your mother forever. Because I don’t have a family anymore and you do,” he said, looking away.

      Agatha’s neck rashed red. “Tedros—”

      “You don’t need to explain,” her prince said quietly. “If my father was still alive, I’d never leave him either.”

      Agatha moved closer to him. He still didn’t look at her. “Tedros, if your kingdom needs you … you should go back,” she forced herself to say.

      Her prince sighed. “I’d never leave you, Agatha.” He pulled at a thread in his dirty socks. “Couldn’t even if I wanted to. Only way back into the Woods is to make the wish together.”

      Agatha went rigid. He’d thought about leaving her behind? She swallowed hard and grasped his arm. “I can’t go back, Tedros. Terrible things happen to us in the Woods,” she rasped anxiously. “We were lucky to escape—”

      “You call this ‘lucky’?” He finally looked at her. “How long can we stay trapped in this house, Agatha? How long can we be prisoners?”

      Agatha tensed. She knew he deserved answers, but she still didn’t have them. “It doesn’t matter where your Ever After is, does it? It just matters who you’re with,” she said, trying to sound hopeful. “Surely a teacher said that once.”

      Tedros didn’t smile. Agatha lurched up and ripped a strip from a clean towel hanging on the bedpost. Tedros flopped back onto the bed, arms splayed cactus-style, and lapsed into silence, as Agatha bound his wound tight with the cloth.

      “Sometimes I miss Filip,” he said softly.

      Agatha looked at him, startled. Tedros turned pink and picked at his nails. “It’s stupid, given all he did to us—or she … or whatever. I should hate him—her, I mean. But boys get each other in a way girls can’t. Even if he wasn’t really a boy.” Tedros saw Agatha’s face. “Forget it.”

      “You really think I don’t know you?” Agatha asked, hurt.

      Tedros held his breath a moment, as if contemplating whether to be honest or to lie. “It’s just … those first two years, we were chasing the idea of being together, rather than actually being together. I got to know Filip better than I ever got to know you: staying up past curfew together, stealing lamb chops from the Supper Hall, or even just sitting on a rooftop and talking—you know, about our families or what we’re afraid of or what kind of pie we like. Doesn’t matter how it all turned out, really … He was my first real friend.” Tedros couldn’t look at Agatha. “You and I never even got to be friends. Don’t even have nicknames for each other. With you, it was always stolen moments and faith that love would somehow be enough. And now, here we are, three weeks cooped up in a house, no time alone or room to go for a walk or a hunt or a swim, and then sleeping, eating, breathing with the other person hovering around like a keeper, and still we feel like strangers. I’ve never felt so old.” He glimpsed Agatha’s face. “Oh come on, surely you feel it too. We’re like fusty married saps. Every tiny thing that bothers you about me must be magnified a thousand times.”

      Agatha tried to look understanding. “What bothers you about me?”

      “Oh let’s not play this game,” Tedros puffed, rolling onto his stomach.

      “I want to know. What bothers you about me?”

      Her prince didn’t answer. Agatha flicked hot turmeric onto his back.

      Tedros flipped over angrily. “First off, you treat me like I’m an idiot.”

      “That’s not true—”

      Tedros frowned at her. “Do you want to know or not?”

      Agatha folded her arms.

      “You treat me like I’m an idiot,” Tedros repeated. “You pretend to be busy every time I attempt conversation. You act like it’s easy for me to give up my home, even though a princess is supposed to follow her prince. You clump around the house in those horrible shoes like an elephant, you leave the floor wet after your baths, you never even try to smile these days, and if I question anything you say or do, you give me this attitude that I shouldn’t dare challenge you because you’re just so … so …”

      “So what?” Agatha glared.

      “Good,” said Tedros.

      “My turn,” said Agatha. “First off, you act like you’re my captive, as if I kidnapped you away from your best friend, who doesn’t even exist—”

      “Now you’re just being spiteful—”

      “You make me feel guilty for bringing you here, as if I shouldn’t have saved your life. You act like you’re all sensitive and chivalrous and then declare things like a princess should ‘follow’ her prince. You’re impulsive, you sweat too much, you make sweeping generalizations about things you know nothing about, and whenever you knock things over, which is often, you blame my house instead of yourself—”

      “There’s barely any room to walk—”

      “You’re used to living in a castle! With west wings and throne rooms and pretty little maids,” Agatha snapped. “Well, we’re not in a castle, oh princely one—we’re in real life. Have you thought that maybe I’m spending all my time worrying about keeping us alive? Have you thought that maybe I’m trying to figure out how to make our happy ending happy and that’s why I’m not spending all my time smiling like a clown and having deep conversations over cappuccino? Of course not, because you’re Tedros of Camelot, handsomest boy in the Woods and god forbid he feel old!”

      Tedros cocked a grin. “That handsome, am I?”

      “Even Sophie was more tolerable than you!” Agatha yelled into a pillow. “And she tried to kill me! Twice!”

      “So go into the Woods and get your Sophie back!” Tedros retorted.

      “Why don’t you go and get your Filip