One True Queen (School for Good and Evil Book 2)

Chapter 29

Tedros lifted his head blearily, quite sure he'd imagined the whole thing.

He hadn't.

Reaper sat on the gilded throne, his bald, shriveled skin looking especially sickly beneath his crooked crown, his one good eye glowering at the prince, while Agatha looked stultified, her mouth agape.

Two more gnome guards wielding scimitars emerged from the darkness behind the throne and flanked the cat from both sides, while the gnome with the trumpet manned the door. On the head of the throne, the carved letters C. R. R. TEAPEA rearranged to . . .

REAPER CAT.

Tedros choked.

Reaper sat on his hind legs and meowed loudly into the silence.

Princess Uma stepped forward from her place amongst the first years. "Yes, Your, um . . . Highness?"

Reaper meowed again.

Princess Uma approached the throne.

Agatha's cat whispered to her.

Uma nodded and tapped a glowing fingertip to his throat.

"This is impossible," said Agatha, blinking like a fool. "There has to be some mistake—"

"No mistake," said her cat with a firm, deep voice. "You just haven't been paying attention."

Agatha rocked back on her heels. "You talk?"

"I find man's language a limited and ugly one, but thanks to Uma's spell, I can communicate for the purposes of our meeting," said Reaper, before turning his bold yellow eyes on Tedros. "And you're lucky I haven't spoken before today, given you've kicked me, called me Satan, and thrown me in a toilet, even though I've been a good friend to you when you've needed it." He looked at Agatha. "Both of you."

Agatha shook her head. "But . . . but . . . you're my cat!"

"Your mother's cat," said Reaper, "which should have been your first clue that I'm a cat of the Woods, not Woods Beyond. As for my place here, gnomes believe that to be ruled by one of their own is to invite greed, selfinterest, and corruption. If a gnome ruled Gnomeland, it would be just as broken as your human kingdoms. Since the beginning, then, gnomes have looked outside their kind for a king . . . a leader who could understand their way of life without abusing his power over it. The answer was obvious. Cats and gnomes are the same: at once friends to humans and indifferent to them. And yet cats are also solitary creatures, content with a bowl of milk and a warm bed. A cat king, then, would do what was best for the gnomes, while keeping apart and letting them live their lives."

"This is insane!" Agatha barked, finding her voice. "You lived with me! In my house!"

"And I was there!" Tedros touted, stepping next to his princess. "I spent weeks with you in that graveyard! This doesn't make sense—"

"I've been King of Gnomeland for five years and in those five years, I came and went from your side as I pleased," Reaper told Agatha. "I was with the gnomes when they needed me, just as I was with you when you needed me, with neither of you aware that I was living two lives. If I were a dog, you might have noticed my absences, since dogs are needy, odious beasts. But cats . . . we slip in and out of your life like old memories."

A gnome guard brought Reaper a goblet of spice-dusted cream, which he lapped at, before the gnome took it away.

Agatha went quiet, her face changing.

This is real, Tedros realized.

The cat is king.

"My father was ruler of Gnomeland before me. He, my mother, and my three brothers were beautiful, majestic black cats. I, on the other hand, was born like this," Reaper explained, nodding down at his scrawny, hairless frame. "My father was ashamed and had me exiled deep into the Woods, a defenseless kitten, where Callis found me and made me her pet."