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

Chapter 34

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 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. She treated me snidely and I chastised her for it in front of her staff. If I had known she was in love with Arthur, I would have handled it better, but the damage was done. She went to stay with her sister in Foxwood and refused to return, ignoring Arthur's pleas. That is, until Arthur met a friend of Gremlaine's prowling around the castle: a woman named Elle Sader. He invited Elle to dine with us as a way of letting Gremlaine return with an ally at her side. He thought it would help her save face and come home."

"What happened at dinner?" Hort asked.

Guinevere choked up. "I'm sorry. It's just . . . the whole idea of it!" she cried, face in her hands. "That Arthur's steward conspired with a witch to make him have children he didn't want . . . and then for the witch to take them for herself . . ." She shook her head. "Did Arthur know about this? Did he know a stranger had his heirs? Could he really have kept such a secret from me? From everyone?"

Agatha looked down. "I don't know. I only know what I saw."

Guinevere's eyes suddenly widened. "It must have happened after that night. There were signs at the dinner. Between Gremlaine and that snake—"

"What signs?" said Tedros' voice.

The prince came back into the room, his eyes stained red, his shirt wet with snot. He sat beside Guinevere and took her hand. All the defiance had melted out of his face, replaced with vulnerability and fear, as if in accepting that he might not be a king, he'd found permission to be a son. Tedros' touch settled the old queen.