Simmer: Or, The Second Life of Callis Wardwell, Witch

PART 2: HUNTING THE WREN

(NOTE: references to miscarriage and suicide (both are hypothetical and don't actually occur), and some violence at the end of this chapter.)

If I had seen my reflection / As something more precious / He would've never... / And if my child needed protection / From a fucker like that man / I'd sooner gut him / 'Cause nothing cuts like a mother / Give in

(Simmer, Hayley Williams)

None of Callis's old clothes fitted Agatha particularly well, so, twenty minutes later, dress more safety pin than actual dress, they dithered outside a door which looked more or less like any other door on the corridor. Callis was making an awful fuss over the safety pins, that Agatha suspected was more procrastination than actual care for the fit of the dress, a hypothesis that was almost immediately proven;

"Before we go in," Callis said quietly, trying to flatten part of the fabric on Agatha's shoulder. "You need to understand that my mother is..." she paused, struggling for the wording, then seemed to give up. "...never mind."

"But she's on our side." said Agatha. "She's your mother."

Callis didn't respond to that. Instead, she said;

"She probably won't say much for a good few minutes, don't stress about it. She's just... ponderous."

She turned and opened the door without knocking, giving Agatha no time to respond.

"None of you knock, anymore." said the voice of Callis's mother, which, Agatha realised with a start, was not dissimilar to Callis's own.

"Because you always know who it is anyway, so what's the point?" said Callis. "I brought Agatha. And Lancelot tagged along."

"So I see."
Agatha, who had been attempting to hide behind Callis and Lancelot as if she was a child, was shunted out into the open by a strategic turn of Callis's hip.

The Grand Duchess Unspeakable, who Rhian had been building up as some kind of major threat just weeks ago, shot her a very brief glance, then looked back at her papers. Agatha got the uncomfortable impression, however, that it was all that Iphigenia needed to get an impression.

Callis's mother was a slightly gaunt, physically unimpressive woman in her late sixties, with long features and a stiff fall of iron-grey hair that had clearly used to be black, plaited rigidly at the back of her head. Like many of the other witches Agatha had seen here, she was wearing a gown of some heavy, dark fabric with a sharp neckline and cuffs; the only variation being in rings, earrings, and the fact that she was wearing a malachite pendant in her neckline, carved with what looked like an eagle.

A little girl suddenly popped up from beneath the table, and stared curiously across the desk Agatha. She was dressed in much the same manner as the adult witches, only with shorter sleeves and hemlines, and flat shoes; Agatha could see the thin iron heels of Iphigenia's boots glinting under the table.

Iphigenia put her hands under the girl's armpits and lifted her onto the bench next to her.

"Grandmamma says we're cousins," the little girl told Agatha. Her hair was plaited in the same manner as her grandmother's, which gave Agatha the impression Iphigenia had done it for her.

"...oh?" said Agatha. "That's, um. Cool."

"I'm Tisiphone." she said. "I'm eight."

"I'm Agatha."

"I know," said Tisiphone. Then, in a faintly accusing manner; "You're seventeen, and you're a Princess."

"...yeah...?"

"I thought princesses smiled and wore pretty dresses."

Callis snorted. Agatha swung her foot haphazardly backwards and kicked her.

"Having a hard week," said Agatha blithely.

"Is your prince dead?" asked Tisiphone.

"Tisiphone," cut in Iphigenia smoothly. "Go and find your Mother, and tell her we'll be down for lunch in about twenty minutes."

"Aww, Grandmamma, I'm hungry, can't it be less time..."

"Fifteen minutes, then. Go on..."

Tisiphone sloped off, casting Agatha one last curious look–

Then she kicked Lancelot, darted out of the door and was gone. From somewhere on top of a cabinet, Reaper laughed.

"What is it with all the brats picking on me?" demanded Lancelot, clutching his shin.

"Never children sense an easy target like sharks in bloody water," said Callis. Grumbling, Lancelot flung himself down in some ancient chair. At Iphigenia's sideways glance, Agatha uncertainly took the one closest to the desk, and Callis sat behind her, looking narrowly at her mother with some sort of warning that Agatha couldn't quite parse. Iphigenia blinked slowly at her, then got up and went to a samovar in the corner, next to a row of steaming cauldrons. Agatha turned in her chair.

"Whose kid is Tisiphone?"

"She's Ismene's daughter," Callis muttered. "She's a complete clone of her mother. I'm sure I have permanent dents in my shins from how many times she did to me, what Tisiphone just did to Lancelot."

"Ismene seems... calmer than Eris, though."

"Yeah, seems." came Reaper's voice, as Iphigenia returned, with a tea-tray.

She handed Agatha the first cup, and Agatha heard Callis exhale. Was it something that passed for approval, from Iphigenia? Agatha didn't know, just took it with a mumbled thank you and clutched it with both hands. Maybe she should have been nervous, at being handed something to drink by the Grand Duchess Unspeakable, but she was tired, and it was hot, and no one was making her use a saucer.

"Made us use saucers at Good." she whispered to Callis as Iphigenia turned her back. Callis sighed.

"No etiquette to grapple with, here. Mother uses them, but it's a power play." She definitely knew Iphigenia could hear her. "Proves her hands are steady."

Iphigenia turned back to hand Callis hers, then Lancelot, then got her own. Agatha looked down and realised she was gripping the teacup as if it was going to turn out sentient and run from her. Then again, you never knew, in the Woods.

Iphigenia sat down, drank, and then just looked at them, for a minute. Agatha shifted nervously, and Callis got her a biscuit to distract her, an unfortunately effective tactic that Agatha suspected had worked ever since she could eat solid food.

She heard a light thud, and turned to see that Reaper had jumped back down to their level. She offered him a quarter of her biscuit. He snorted and took it, then jumped onto the back of Callis's chair and sat there, eyes narrowed. Some sort of pressure in her chest, one that Agatha had barely noticed, eased, watching them sitting there like they had for as long as she could remember. She'd felt so alone, for the past few months...

Her nose prickled, and she bit her tongue, but thankfully, Iphigenia had finally decided to start talking;

"There is still no obvious news from Camelot. Guinevere was brought in, but it wasn't by force, and she looked unharmed, I'm told. I suspect they told her Tedros was ill. Tedros hasn't been seen, but servants have still been bringing him meals, so as far as the castle is concerned, he is at least still alive..."

"That doesn't mean anything," Agatha said anxiously. "It could be a cover to throw off spies. I know that Rhian's guards beat him up pretty badly, he might be incapacitated–"

"It could be a cover," Iphigenia said, with something slightly like approval. "But it's hard to keep up a cover like that for very long, without someone letting slip. The kitchen staff certainly seem very convinced that he is alive, if unwell."

"What about Merlin?" said Agatha. Iphigenia looked completely unaffected.

"What about him?"

"...he's probably also a prisoner in Camelot, Grand Duchess?" said Lancelot.

"Oh." said Iphigenia, with towering apathy. She went back to her notes. Callis sighed.

"I thought they might have killed him." she admitted. "To stop him meddling. Is he definitely alive?"

"Merlin is never as proactive, or as useful, as he makes himself out to be," said Iphigenia.

"I asked you if you knew whether or not he was dead, not if you think he's useless, Mother." said Callis, unimpressed–

"He's in the Caves of Contempo." said Iphigenia.

Reaper looked up.

"What?" said Lancelot.

"What are the Caves of Contempo?" demanded Agatha.

"Time caves," said Callis. "He'll be suspended in limbo until someone gets him out... drat, that's clever. Mother, how do you know that?"

"The carriage with him held prisoner within passed several of my scouts on the way."

A beat.

"...and at no point did you think to interfere, or try to rescue him?" said Lancelot.

Iphigenia stared at him.

"Why would I do that?"

Agatha was getting the distinct impression that Iphigenia did not like Merlin. But Lancelot persisted;

"...he's quite powerful, Grand Duchess, and he'd definitely be an asset to trying to help Tedros–"

"I don't recall him being much of an asset to Tedros in the last eight or so years," said Iphigenia. "It makes one wonder what he does with all that untold power, if it's not to be helpful. I think I would call it gallivanting."

Callis kissed her teeth and went back to the biscuit plate. Agatha, who had never thought of it that way, looked in mild alarm at Lancelot, who winced.

"Um. Well, in the battle against Rafal–"

"Do you feel you owe something to Merlin, Lancelot?"

"...what?"

"It's the only way I can understand your compulsion to defend him."

It was delivered in a manner that suggested she knew exactly what Lancelot owed to Merlin. Lancelot opened his mouth, seemed to have several thoughts, and shut it again.

"So, all we know is that Guinevere and Tedros are prisoners in Camelot, and they're both not dead?" said Callis.

"Great. Big whoopee." said Reaper. "That's so helpful. Listen– I overheard Rhian and the Mistral Sisters. Rhian is definitely going for the crown, which means Tedros is either being blackmailed, manipulated, or murdered. And they definitely don't want you interfering, Grand Duchess, which means acting fast. They were actively plotting to try and keep you away from Agatha." he turned to her; "It's why Rhian started trying to play up the Wardwell threat that dinner. He didn't want you anywhere near Iphigenia."

"I'm flattered," said Iphigenia, in the most apathetic tone Agatha had ever heard anyone achieve. "However, that's not quite the extent of our knowledge."

She held up a paper.

"News has just reached me that Tedros is making an announcement this afternoon. To be broadcast on Spellcast to the whole Woods."

The other four stared at her.

"He is?" said Callis. "Not Rhian?"

"Not Rhian."

A brief silence. Agatha clenched her fists into her skirt, feeling ill, suddenly.

"Well, what the bloody hell does that mean?" said Lancelot.

No one laughed.

------

They gathered to watch the Spellcast that afternoon, around lunch. No one really ate, except Agatha, who was clearly stress-eating.

"You'll make yourself sick." Callis told Agatha, heading her arm off as she attempted to go for a fourth helping. Agatha stared at her.

"Can't feel more sick than I already do."

Callis sighed and let her finish off the fruit.

Iphigenia and the senior witches were at the other end of the table, muttering urgently and constantly checking the Spellcast. Ismene, sitting with her children, watched silently, head slightly on one side.

"You're getting a lot like Mother." Callis told her reproachfully.

"Not really," said Ismene. "Mother's having an excellent time. Chattiest she's been in years."

This was, Callis reflected as they watched their mother, unfortunately true. Iphigenia thrived in political turmoil like no one else, and Callis thought she might do well to remind her mother– sooner, rather than later– that Tedros was Agatha's fiancé, not a case study, or something to dismantle and put back together.

The Spellcast flickered to life, and Lancelot bounced his knees anxiously, eyes darting. Callis, who thought he'd had more influence on Tedros than either of them would care to know, leant over and took his arm.

"You know the Camelot court. What do you think is about to happen?"

Lancelot bit his cheek, glancing at Agatha, who was obviously eavesdropping.

"Couldn't say. It might be a regency agreement. If he's going to be passed off as too poorly to rule, somehow..."

There was the sound of commotion from the Spellcast, and Agatha suddenly burst out;

"What's wrong with him?"

Callis and Lancelot looked. So did everyone else.

Tedros had emerged from within, onto the low balcony that the crowd was waiting below. He was dressed formally enough, but he was without crown, sword, or jewels, and the crowd seemed taken aback to see him appear so abruptly. He was carrying a set of papers in uncharacteristically still hands. Callis had never seen him not fidgeting before.

"Well, he's alive..." said Eris, in an unconvincing attempt to be optimistic for Agatha's sake. She seemed to have taken a liking to Agatha, in the same way she took a liking to stray feral animals and droopy poisonous plants.

"He's not right," Agatha insisted, rendering Eris's attempt fairly useless. "Lance? Lance, he looks wrong, doesn't he?"

Lancelot caught the expectant glances from the other witches and nodded slowly, in confirmation.

"He looks... strange. But I can't work out what the matter is."

Agatha grabbed Callis's arm, hands trembling. "Mom? Why's he like that?"

Callis shook her head, watching Tedros reach the podium. She didn't know what was wrong, but Agatha was right; there was something off, here. His expression was wrong, his manner. "He looks..." she began slowly, dread slithering in her chest. "...blank."

"I was going to say empty." said Lancelot.

"Is he being impersonated?" frowned Tisiphone.

Everyone looked at Agatha for a verdict, who worried her lower lip so hard she made it bleed.

"I don't think... I mean..." she wiped her bleeding lip anxiously and got blood on her chin. Callis got her a handkerchief. "I don't think so, but he doesn't seem... right."

Her voice was shaking. Iphigenia glanced at Callis.

"He doesn't." agreed Callis. "I'd think he was drugged, or enchanted."

"I also expected him to look like they'd kicked the shit out of him." said Eris, arms folded. "He's pristine."

"Too pristine." said Callis, squinting at the Spellcast. "They're hiding it. But if you look, he's limping." Her finger drifted to a point on his jaw, then above his eye. "They've tailored his face magically. Used all the tricks I used to use."

"So he could be being impersonated?" said Ismene.

"No, it's him," said Callis. "I know what it looks like when you wear a new face, and there's no hint of anything being concealed, save injuries."

"Was gonna say, if they'd got someone else pretending to be him, god knows what had happened to the real one..." muttered Eris.

"Probably tried to escape and fell in the moat," said Callis sourly. She glanced at Eris and decided that laughing was probably in bad faith at this moment. It would have been more nervous than genuine, anyway.

"Callis is right." cut in Iphigenia. "It's too much effort to take on someone's entire face and manner, and they're presenting him to a crowd of people who've been familiar with him since his infancy. The odds are poor. An impersonator will be caught in an instant, unless they've spent months in preparation. It's him, but they've done something to him."

"I don't understand." said Agatha hoarsely. "What can they have done to him? And what's he doing?"

"Making a speech, it seems, but god knows what about." said Callis. Iphigenia opened her mouth, and Callis kicked her under the table. She didn't want Iphigenia fearmongering about Tedros with Agatha right in front of her, not until they knew.

Tedros reached the podium, set the notes down, and looked up.

"Thank you for your attendance and patience. I will be brief."

Lancelot snorted, but it was half-hearted.

"Never been brief in his life..."

Agatha was shaking her head slowly, still clutching Callis.

"He doesn't talk like that... he doesn't sound like that..."

He was too clipped, too formal, too unemotional. Callis could never have accused Tedros of being apathetic a day in his life, but he was now. His speech was as drained of colour as his manner and movement.

"I, Tedros, first of my name, of Camelot, Albion and Avalon, King– do, with great regret, hereby declare my irrevocable determination to renounce the throne for myself and for my descendants, and announce my desire that effect should be given to this immediately. My health is too compromised and I am too unsound of mind to allow me to rule in good stead, and to ensure the continued wellbeing of my father's kingdom, I announce an intent to pass the crown to my hand and liege, Rhian of Foxwood. He will henceforth be known as King Rhian of Camelot, Albion and Avalon–"

The clamour from the witches matched the uproar of the crowd on the Spellcast. Tedros was cut off, and waited with uncharacteristic patience as the crowd in Camelot exploded into a ruckus. Around the table, people shouted; Eris stood up and nearly pushed the bench over, Ismene's eyebrows shot up, Lancelot swore and thumped the table, the senior witches burst into an argument. Abdication? Abdication, he was abdicating–
Agatha sat there, pinched and clammy, her complexion greying to the extent that Callis worried she was going to pass out. But she didn't; she just sat there, gripping her knees in white knuckles. Callis pried her hands off so she didn't catch her scabs and squeezed them, but Agatha didn't look at her. Callis looked around the table–

And her eyes found her mother, sitting quite still, watching everything that was happening in the Spellcast despite the chaos around her. For some reason, it was a comforting sight...

Or it was, until Rhian emerged from behind Tedros, wearing the crown of Camelot. Lancelot put his head in his hands.

"He looks fucking stupid!" Eris shouted, in the comforting malice that could achieve nothing, but was still satisfying to dole out. The witches jeered and pounded on the table.

"Is it legally binding?" someone demanded of Lancelot. He nodded helplessly.

"What about Excalibur?" said Ismene.

"Don't need it, it's just tradition," moaned Lancelot. "Abdication notices cancel everything out. It's chivalric to honour the wishes of the outgoing king–"

"Excalibur is in the gardens," said Agatha miserably. "Tedros put it in the ground before we tried to run. I think he thought it would undermine Rhian if it got stuck and he couldn't pull it..."

"He might be able to pull it, in time." warned Lancelot. "He might have already– oh god, Callis, look, that's why he didn't follow us–"
Callis whipped around.

Tedros was retreating, and coming to take his place was a boy Callis didn't technically recognise– but he was such a copy of Rhian, and moved in the same sinuous, stalking way...

"That's the Snake." Callis said. "Everyone shut up! What's he saying–"

The clamour lowered enough for them to hear;

"Name my liege... my brother, Japeth..."

Everyone groaned.

"Not going to disclose that his liege is a murderer and mercenary, then?" grumped Eris–

"His ear," said Iphigenia softly.

Everyone turned. Callis got the uncanny feeling that her mother thought she'd just hit on something absolutely key.

"What?" said Eris.

"Tedros's ear."

Callis craned her neck to look at Tedros, who was standing silently behind Rhian and Japeth, with his head down. Occasionally, he looked to his left, at Japeth...

When his head was turned, Callis caught sight of a flash of a black, glimmering something in his ear.

"It's a scim," said Lancelot. He leant forward. "It's a scim."

"A what?" snapped Callis.

"It's what the Snake called those stupid eels, snakes, the little things that come off his suit–"

But Callis had stopped, remembering something... the drunk that the Snake had sent away. How had he done it? He'd done it by...

By putting one of those eels in his head.

She stood up.

"He's controlling him," she said. She pointed to Japeth. "He can use these eels on his suit, like Evelyn Sader and her butterflies. I saw him do it to someone in Akgul. He put it in his head, through his ear, and forced him to forget what he was doing and walk away. I'll bet you anything they're piloting Tedros around, making him say all of this, and he doesn't have a clue what he's doing. He seems blank because he's more or less possessed. He probably hasn't been in control of himself since yesterday evening!"

The clamour started up again, at twice the volume, completely drowning out Rhian's speech.

If Callis was honest, Agatha had made it far further than she'd expected her to. She was a lot tougher than most people thought, but everyone had a breaking point...

So she wasn't particularly surprised when Agatha crumpled into a dead faint, and she and Lancelot scrambled to catch her.

-----

Agatha woke up on the sofa of one of the sitting rooms in the Wardwell Base.

She was sure she'd woken up at another point, slung over Lancelot's shoulder, and then again, earlier, but Callis had more or less talked her into going back to sleep, which she'd been too exhausted to try and argue with. Now, it was dark, and no one was here, except–

Lancelot leant over her, and shook her.

"Come on, kid, we're going."

"What?" Agatha sat up groggily. She hadn't slept well, that was for sure. Why was that? It was–

Lancelot prodded her hard in the back.

"Quiet, now. Get up, we're going to get the lad."

Then Agatha was awake. Tedros. They were going–

She swung her legs off the sofa and crammed her feet into her clumps, nearly losing her balance in the process.

"Maybe your witchy mum and grandma won't hear of it, but I know better, and I know you'd be mad if I went without you," Lancelot hissed. "We leave him there any longer and they'll kill him, once he's served his purpose. They'll make it look like an accident, you think they won't? If they're truly controlling him, they can make him throw himself down the stairs, or dash his own skull on the floor, or stab himself. They'll frame it as an escape attempt gone wrong, or they'll say he's gone mad with guilt, or tried to attack them, or even make it look like a suicide. They'll do it, too– oh, hurry up, girl..." Lancelot saw her fumbling with her laces and snatched them off her, doing them at twice the speed.

"Does my mother know–"

"Of course she doesn't, you think I'm dumb?" scoffed Lancelot. "Me and Callis go way back, I know how she works."

"But..."

"Oh, come on, Agatha. You know Callis is, at best, apathetic on Tedros, and you must have gotten enough of an impression of Iphigenia to know that she'll want to play some long game with him. Neither of them are going to act fast enough. Callis doesn't want Tedros to die, but only for your sake."

"I could convince her."

"Your mother? Maybe, but it's time we don't have. Your grandmother? No. No one can."

"But she's–"

"Iphigenia is your mother's mother, but she is not a woman who is easily convinced." said Lancelot, triple-knotting her laces. "If she's not acted already, she's stalling for something, and it's going to take too long, again..." he sighed. "With anyone else, I'd tell you to make a go at being beseeching– even though you're not very good at that– since these are your relatives. But I know both me and Callis have noticed."

"Noticed what?"

"That Callis's father is missing, and that no one is mentioning him." said Lancelot, hauling her to her feet. "Deo Onasis. Bloodbrook man-wolf. He was flaky at best, I heard, but he's completely gone, now. Which means he's been blacklisted, or something horrible has probably happened to him. Probably both. If sentiment couldn't save the father of all three of Iphigenia's daughters, she is not going to give a single shit about our boy."

Agatha stared at him. Lancelot smiled grimly.

"These are Nevers, after all, Agatha..."

He went to the door and opened it, looking left and right down the hall.

"We're clear. Let's go."

----

They broke off where the Woods met the castle grounds.

"It'll be patrolled," Lancelot was hissing. "But the guard changeover is in five, all you have to do is run across before the new ones get here. Stick close to the wall and the watchtower can't see you."

"How are you planning on getting in?"

Lancelot grinned wryly.

"Agatha, I spent years sneaking around here with Guinevere. I know exactly how to get back in without being seen."

"But do you know exactly how to find Tedros and Guinevere without being caught?"

"That's trickier." said Lancelot, but he patted his stolen sword. "We'll see."

"...Lance?"

"Hmm?"

"Don't you think this was a bit... easy?"

"What, sneaking into Camelot?"

"No. Sneaking out of the Wardwell base."

A sliver of doubt passed across Lancelot's face, but all he said was;

"Get to the door you left through, I'll meet you there."

Then he was off, sword-belt clinking. Agatha watched him go, grinding her teeth, and then turned to the horse they'd stolen, getting it to stand out of view–

When a muffled voice sing-songed from the saddle bag.

"Agatha and Lancelot are in soooo much trouble... soooo much... Callis is going to cook Lancelot Du Loc..."

Agatha tore the saddle bag open. Reaper's head emerged imperiously, like an ugly periscope.

"Stuffy as hell in there."

Agatha stared at him. He narrowed his eyes.

"Come on, Agatha, you can't be this stupid." his head swivelled this way and that. "Do you have a secret fantasy of perishing gorgeously in the arms of your beloved? It won't be gorgeous. There will be lots of blood, and it will be stinky."

"Did Mom send you?"

"Pssh. No. I'm my own... cat." He paused. "You know, people think Callis has a lot more sway over me than she actually does..."

"Then Iphigenia?"

"No, Agatha, I came all on my lonesome to stop you getting murdered. Again."

"You know what it's like here!" Agatha hissed. "If we leave him with Rhian, he'll die!"

Reaper yawned widely.

"I think your mother was sort of banking on it."

Agatha, in no mood for funny little Callis hates Tedros jokes, huffed in irritation, checked the time, and stalked off down the path, pressing close to the rhododendrons. Reaper followed her;

"She could find you a new groom, you know. One with a smaller ego and less of a trauma baggage. He might be a Never, but some Never grooms are quite nice–"

"If you're going to be here, can you shut up and be useful, rather than following me around making twee witticisms that aren't funny?" Agatha snapped, whirling on him. Reaper blinked slowly.

"Alright. But your mother is going to give you such a verbal hiding when she catches up, as you know she will." Then, seemingly unable to resist; "I liked you better when you were a baby and couldn't give me attitude."

"Clearly you've blocked out all the times I puked on you, pulled your tail, tried to chew your ears and manhandled you." Agatha snapped.

She peeked around the wall, and found nothing...

Except Excalibur, gleaming obstinately in the ground.

Reaper gave a low whistle.

"They haven't even sent Tedros to get it?"

Tentatively, Agatha cut out from behind the wall and went towards it.

"Maybe he can't." she said. "If he doesn't have control of himself, maybe he can't pull it..."

"Aren't you astute."

Agatha spun.

The liege she'd seen on the Spellcast was standing behind her, liege's doublet replaced with a seething bodysuit of black eels. No mistaking him; this, then, was the Snake– Rhian's twin, Chaddick's murderer.

Agatha lit her fingerglow, but he just looked at it, dismissive. Reaper, who had jumped onto her shoulders, snarled in warning.

"I'd not try that, if I were you." said the Snake.

"Wouldn't you." snapped Agatha.

"Don't, don't..." whispered Reaper urgently. "He– oh, shit, not him as well..."

"Oh, Agatha."

Agatha knew that voice. Reaper's hackles raised.

"I should have known you'd come back for him." Rhian stepped down from the rockery above them, and Agatha's stomach clenched to see what he was dressed in. "Not your best idea, but noble enough..."

"No fine clothes of your own?" Agatha hissed, backing behind the sword. "Resorting to stealing from Tedros?"

Rhian tugged on the lapels in a manner that was played off as idle, but was actually proving that the doublet didn't quite fit him.

"Tedros is deficient in most areas, but he does have a good sense of fashionable presentation. Don't worry. Once things have settled down, I'll commision clothes of my own. I don't like borrowed goods." His eyes travelled between them, into the trees. "Where's your family backup?"

Agatha shrugged obstinately.

"Don't know."

"Don't know because you set off without telling them, or don't know because you don't want to tell me?" Rhian waved a lazy hand. "Doesn't matter, doesn't matter. Either way, I'm sure they'll be here soon. Japeth will deal with them." He shot a glance sideways at his brother. "Call it a second chance. Your mother won't have her mongrel students to help her, this time..."

Japeth stiffened, but Agatha cut in;

"Where's Tedros?" she demanded, hoping to get him off the topic of Callis. Rhian smiled.

"He's... around. My brother isn't lying, he is alive."

"Alive, and your brother's puppet."

"Oh, did you figure that out?" Rhian sat down in the grass and crossed his legs, like a child in a school assembly. "Well, I doubt you did. More likely it was your mother, or your grandmother. But yes. We, amorally and reprehensibly, have possessed and piloted your beloved. He's fine. He doesn't have a clue what's happening to him. Really, it's a kindness. It makes it a lot less painful for him. He doesn't have to know what he's doing, this way. I anticipated a lot of resistance, but Japeth made it easy."

"Looks like he got you pretty good anyway." Agatha said, eyeing Rhian's blacked eye and scratched face, which had been covered up on the Spellcast. Rhian sighed.

"Turns out that without a sword, he's still a bit of a brawler. Tried to claw my eyes out, the git." It was almost said fondly. Almost. "But I maintain that our way is a more generous way of doing it. I don't hate Tedros so much that I'd want him to deal with the shame of letting his beloved father down."

"I do," murmured Japeth. Rhian ignored him.

"You're bats." Agatha said, leaning on Excalibur. "Didn't you hear the crowd? Don't you think people are going to know he's being forced to say all that?"

Rhian frowned.

"I did worry about that, actually. But then Tedros gave me a cover, by going mad at precisely the best moment." he saw the look on her face. "Oh, I'm not causing that. Come on, Agatha. I'm not pulling every string to make your lives miserable. Just the ones that matter, to pry the crown out of his hands. I don't know what the matter with the poor bastard is, but it's awfully convenient. People are going to think he's just too... what did you just say? Too bats to rule. I think I actually owe him one. It's made this so easy. If he was just a smidgen more noble, a tad more vulnerable, I probably could have talked him into giving the throne to me, without all of this drama. Unfortunately, he had a superior influence that I had to get rid of."

He stared pointedly at her. Agatha blinked, unimpressed.

"Went well, didn't it? Getting rid of me?"
Rhian smiled languidly.

"Could have gone better, I suppose, but you're here now. I underestimated how obsessed Tedros is with you. I thought you annoyed each other all the time, but I realised I was... wrong, about that." he leant back on his elbows. "Say I hand Tedros over now, in a more or less intact condition. Would you slink off into some little corner, lick your wounds, and let me save Camelot from the egotistical whims of Arthur's coddled, crazy son?" He held a hand up. "Don't answer. I know you wouldn't."

Agatha, who had been about to say yes, hesitated.

"If it meant we both lived–"

Rhian's eyes bored into her.

"Firstly," he said coldly. "You have your brand new family ties to contend with. Iphigenia Wardwell has been looking for a way back into mainstream political... influencing for years, and she has always wanted Camelot. Now Rafal is dead–"

"Your father."

"Yes, yes my father that I never met, good on you for finding out the family tree..." he leant forward. "Now Rafal is dead, Iphigenia won't let you give this up, because it's her first chance in years to interfere. And, even if it were just you... you still wouldn't. You know that the concept of being King is so deeply entrenched into Tedros's psyche that he could never, ever let it go. He'd eventually get himself killed, trying to get it back. I couldn't tolerate his attempts forever. Or, failing that, he'd be snappish and miserable for the rest of his life, and he'd make you miserable. And I know you say you're only taking the mantle of Queen because of him, but I don't believe that. There's some part of you that wants to be important to people, and what's more important than Queen? Besides, you like deconstructing rules, norms, mores... being a righteous agitator. I watched you argue with Tedros's courtiers about that winter support package. You were so passionate about it, even while they tried to ignore you. I told you. We're similar, in that regard. We want to help, not just cruise. It's a shame you waste so much time on such an inadequate man, really..."

"And I told you, that you were wrong." said Agatha bitterly, hating the deeply convincing picture of a life without Camelot he'd just painted. She scoffed. "Righteous agitator. You're such a twat."

"Just because you can't see it doesn't mean it's not true." said Rhian. His face hardened. "To tell you the truth, Agatha, it's not Tedros, or your mother, or the knights, or even your grandmother, that bother me. That worry me." He leant forward. "It's you."

"What do I win?" snipped Agatha. Rhian straightened and stood up, suddenly all business again.

"You bother me. You're deeply predictable and yet also deeply perverse. You make yourself impossible to manipulate, except for the conviction of that wretched Evil girl of yours, who clearly has some handle on you that the rest of us don't. I can't waste time working out what it is that makes you tick. It's clearly complicated..." He tucked his hands in his pockets. "Which is why I can't let you live. It's a pity, but there you are. You could have been great." He turned to his brother. "Go on, then, Japeth."

Agatha spun, tensing, but all Japeth did was flick his hand lazily. There was the clatter of armour, heralding the arrival of four guards, who were dragging in–

Reaper groaned.

"For someone who spent so long sneaking around in this castle, you'd think he'd do better."

The guards were towing in Lancelot, who shot them a grim look. He was clutching Guinevere to his side, so clearly he'd at least succeeded somewhat, but hadn't been able to get back out. Agatha exhaled, relieved to see that Tedros's mother had also survived the brothers... then lost the sentiment in a blare of panic, when she noticed who Guinevere was towing.

Agatha's legs twitched, and she nearly ran towards him, before remembering the presence of Rhian and Japeth, and the distinct concept that this was not a generous gesture...

Tedros still looked as blank and disaffected as he had on the Spellcast, only with far more obvious injuries; a black eye and a split lip, maybe a cracked rib. He was looking about uncomprehendingly– his eyes skimmed right over her, even when he looked directly at them.

"Stop it." said Agatha softly, as they came to a halt near Japeth. Rhian smiled.

"Do you think you can convince him to stand down? If we release him from the scim's control, do you think you can convince him that it's better for everybody if I'm King?"

"It would be hard, since I don't believe it. And you just admitted he would never accept it."

Rhian shrugged.

"True, but fairytales can sometimes manage the impossible. But if you think it's not possible, then Japeth will make the scim hit his brain right now, and kill him where he stands."

Agatha cast desperately around for a distraction, a way out, even a weapon. Rhian went on;

"Maybe I'll have him do it slowly, so he can recognise you before he dies, and know you did come back for him. I feel that's kinder. Or is it worse, since he'll know you deliberately put yourself in danger again after he tried to send you away, and it was all for naught?"

His hand half rose, to give the order–

A weapon.

Agatha clamped her hand around the hilt of Excalibur, and pulled.

She expected it not to come out.

It came out.

It was heavier than she'd anticipated... so it was with two hands, that she hauled up the Sword of Kings, and pointed it at Rhian's throat.

Guinevere gasped, and Lancelot laughed slightly hysterically. Rhian put his head on one side.

"Interesting. Tell me, what did you think wh–" His gaze completely refocused. "What in the world..."

Agatha whirled– and froze.

Evelyn Sader stepped primly down the rockery, butterfly-strewn skirts held up in red-nailed hands, teetering slightly in heels. She got to the middle or so, and dropped her skirts, and frowned a little.

"I see I'll still get no help from either of you," she said, looking between her two sons. She looked at Agatha, and smiled, exposing the tooth-gap, the red-lipped leer that had followed them around in second year. "Where's your witch, little princess?"

Agatha stared at her, horrified. Even Japeth had stopped dead. How had... how had she survived?

"...Mother?"

Agatha wasn't even sure if it was Rhian or Japeth who had spoken. It was the way they spoke that distinguished them, and this random piece of vulnerability was seemingly out of character for both of them. Evelyn cut them a glance, and smiled wider.

"I see your ending hasn't gone quite the way you wanted." she said to Agatha. "Don't say I didn't warn you..."

Agatha stared at her, feeling as if something was...

Off.

Not quite. It was so nearly perfect.

But it wasn't Japeth and Rhian's mother. Agatha should know. She'd probably have known at thirty paces and half-blind.

It wasn't their mother; it was hers.

"Holy shit," whispered Reaper.

"Go to hell, you rotten bitch!" said Agatha, covering instantly, putting some serious spirit in it. "Didn't Rafal already try and send you there?"

"You have no idea what Rafal and I had planned," said 'Evelyn' acidly. "As you can clearly see." She gestured to the twins, who were stock-still.

"Mother–" It was Rhian for sure this time, some of his composure coming back. 'Evelyn' smiled.

"This is passable work, Rhian. Finish the job, why don't you?"

Agatha tensed, but Japeth wasn't paying any attention to Tedros; he pushed past Agatha and started towards 'Evelyn', who watched him, smiling slightly...

Until Rhian spoke, again, from behind Agatha.

"It's the Wardwell woman." he hissed, regaining himself. Agatha startled, horrified. It really was impossible to lead him on, for long. "My mother would never have said..." He stopped, and shouted; "Japeth, it's a trick–!"

But Evelyn's face was shifting, blurring–

It disappeared.

"Stupid boy." snarled Callis, and pushed Japeth mercilessly down onto the rocks, with a sickening crack.

It was a particular piece of theatre, but it was quite satisfying anyway.

As Callis changed back, everyone ran in different directions; Agatha ran towards Tedros, Reaper ran towards Callis, Lancelot ran towards Rhian, Rhian ran towards Japeth. Callis couldn't see Gwenhwyfar, which, while she usually would have considered a heavenly blessing, was vaguely worrying in this context. But at least Agatha wasn't running towards Callis, since that would have made them both a far more obvious target.

Japeth rolled over, spitting blood, and his suit rippled and seethed–

Callis swooped and lunged for him, but he scrabbled sideways, out of the path of her fire, and Callis ducked to avoid the rush of scims that came squealing at her head.

Nearby, Agatha had reached Tedros, and was–

"DON'T GIVE HIM THAT!" Callis shouted, but Agatha wasn't listening. She handed over Excalibur, which Tedros held with uncharacteristic apathy, and seized him by the hand, trying to pull him away...

Japeth tumbled from the rockery into the grass, driven into some sort of biting fury despite the blood running into his eyes from the gash on his temple. He flung his hand out;

"KILL HER!" he screamed.

Callis stamped on his head and crushed his face into the dirt, but it was too late: Tedros had heard him.

Japeth shoved Callis off and rolled over, the two of them watching breathlessly– Callis in horror, Japeth in glee– as Tedros spun. Agatha froze, finally realising she'd just given him a weapon, when he'd not been armed, before. She didn't step back, but she skittered slightly.

"Tedros...?" she hazarded. Lancelot looked in panic at Callis, and the two of them started forward–

But Tedros stood... then turned and stared blankly at Japeth, who was glaring impatiently at him.

Callis slowed, tense. Was it possible the order hadn't been precise enough?

Japeth frowned.

"I told you to kill her!"

Tedros looked over his shoulder at Agatha, but again, he didn't move. Japeth got up, leaning heavily on Rhian, seething. At a look from his brother, Rhian started forward, but Callis cut across his path.

"I don't want to." said Tedros, sounding slightly puzzled, as if he didn't know what to make of his own resistance. It was the first time Callis had heard him have any kind of life in his voice for a while.

Japeth stared, askance, at Tedros.

Then he snarled and flung his hand out again, and Tedros doubled over, clutching his head.

"Kill her!" repeated Japeth. Tedros twitched and jerked like he was seizing, but, again, he didn't actually carry out the order. He was bleeding from the nose and the ears, but he didn't move. A blood vessel had burst in one of his eyes, and even as Callis watched, another one went.

Agatha, who had been pulled away by Lancelot, shot Callis a panicked look, and Callis shook her head...

Japeth got impatient.

With a violent tearing gesture, he ripped the scim out of Tedros's head, and Tedros collapsed, Excalibur skittering across the grass, Lancelot and Agatha catching him as he crumpled into a fit. Japeth put his hand out for the scim, teeth clenched–

A rock cracked across the back of Japeth's skull, and he collapsed too, the scim falling with a splat before it could return to him. Guinevere flung the rock dismissively back into the pile and stomped repeatedly on the scim, crushing it into goo.

Callis gawked at her. She'd not even seen her move, but apparently Lancelot wasn't the only one proficient at sneaking around the grounds.

"It won't last," said Guinevere, wiping her shoe in the grass. "Get them out of here."

But there was still Rhian– where was Rhian?

Callis spun, and found him approaching Agatha and Lancelot at a serious clip, eyes narrowed–

"Oh Aggie! Co-ee!"

Everyone's heads swivelled.

A ridiculously high pair of heeled leather boots cracked down on the rockery, one at a time. Agatha almost cheered. Callis groaned.

Ascending the pile of stone like a primadonna onto the opera house stage, Sophie– who else would have worn stilettos to a coup?– reached the top, flung her arms wide, and beamed maniacally.

"Do take that off, Rhian," she cooed, crooking a red-taloned nail at the crown. "It's too small for your swollen head."

Rhian stared at her, apparently baffled. Behind Sophie, three teenage witches Callis didn't recognise came careening across the garden towards Agatha. They didn't seem much interested in Tedros, but he had, at least, stopped fitting and simply gone glassy-eyed and incoherent, so perhaps he didn't seem so alarming, now.

"A teenage schoolteacher, and a ragtag trio of freshly-graduated witches." sneered Rhian, recovering. "Oh! How I tremble under the advance of the Great Front of Wasted Potential..."

"Can't be much of a King if you look down upon the institution of education, darling." said Sophie, unmoved, picking up bits of stone and examining them. "Don't Kings like infrastructure? Teddy loves a nice bridge. But I suppose you're not much of a King, are you?" Her eyes travelled slowly, her great talent for soul-crushing looks finally coming in useful. "Don't you look... parodic."

"The first time we met, I recall someone told me I was more competent than Tedros," said Rhian icily.

"Oh, pish, I might have done." Sophie stepped down, marching across to the rest of them. "I enjoyed my chats with you, the couple of times we met. Seeing how far I could push your ego at dinners. I must admit, though, I thought you were just pompous, not traitorous." She crouched down. "Hullo, Teddy. Not doing well, sweetie?"

Tedros looked vaguely at her, but didn't seem to have the ability, or energy, to respond.

"He's bleeding from every orifice in his head, Sophie," said the tallest witch.

"So he is. Poor thing." Sophie stood and pivoted. "This is a lovely... field trip, for a schoolteacher like me–" She smiled at Rhian, who kept his face quite neutral– "But we'll be going now. Where's your pet murdering machine?" She looked over and saw Japeth crumpled at the bottom of the rockery. "Gosh, who did that?"

"He'll live," said Rhian harshly. "This little group, however–"

"Who are you going to kill us with? I think the majority of the guards are a little distracted." said Sophie cheerfully. "There's lots of frumpy old women murdering people in the courtyard."

Callis's head snapped up. Rhian's turned towards the direction of the courtyard...

Agatha, who had apparently been looking for a window of opportunity, jumped Rhian.

It was profoundly stupid, but Agatha was very tall, very angry, and fought with zero honour. They went down in a screaming, clawing heap, and the crown was knocked from Rhian's head, where it landed upside down with a surprisingly heavy thud. The witches rushed to help– someone's boot crushed into his face, and Callis was pretty sure Agatha bit Rhian when he tried to grab her head, because she heard the bone crack–

"Don't kill him, you don't have time!" bellowed Lancelot as Agatha tried to slam Rhian's head into the earth. There was the clank and clatter of armour from the walkways above them, and Callis whirled to see guards careening onto them, hauling crossbows and longbows and–

"We're leaving!" Callis rushed over, grabbed Agatha, and bodily hauled her off the bleeding mess of what had been a passable teenage King, about two minutes ago. "Come on–"

"STOP IN THE NAME OF THE KING!"

Tedros, apparently not completely out of it, spluttered out a sort of sick half-laugh as Lancelot and Guinevere dragged him across the garden.

The first crossbow bolt shot down for them, but Sophie was young, fast, and (unfortunately) immensely powerful. It splintered into rose petals and smacked uselessly into the grass. A second and third followed it, but she was wickedly quick to intercept, and clearly it was a common spell, these days, because the other witches picked it up too–

Before something exploded from the tallest witch's neck and shot upwards– a second later, there was a shriek, and several men tumbled from the walkways, rolling uselessly down hills. Callis slowed, curious, but Agatha grabbed her hand and dragged her after them.

Lancelot had given up on trying to get Tedros to walk at all, and was carrying him over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes, which might have been funny if they hadn't been in such a dire situation. They clattered down the paths, down the steps into the courtyard–

Callis drew up short.

"Ah, good." said Iphigenia, standing imperiously in the courtyard. Callis watched her hand disappear serenely into her cloak pocket with some trepidation, but couldn't tell what she'd just been holding. Something glass? "Join your sisters, won't you?"

Callis let her eyes scan the courtyard once. Iphigenia, standing before the smirking Mistral Sisters, who had the remainder of the conspicuously absent pirate guards arrayed around them. The rest were arranged in various prone or painful looking positions on the floor. Some looked alive. Some didn't.

Ismene and Eris waved her aggressively over, from the overhang of the stables, where Lancelot and Guinevere had already taken Tedros. Callis went over, jaw clenched, and the kids followed her.

"What's she doing?" she hissed to Eris. "We need to get out of here."

Eris shook her head slowly.

"Something's about to happen. The Mistrals like to toy, and she's entertaining them, but..."

"Something?" demanded Callis.

"One of her arrangements," said Ismene.

Callis looked between them.

"...did she tell you to stay here?"

"Yes." said Eris. "Wouldn't leave for all the Saints and Gods in the Woods, now–"

"I find myself," said Iphigenia suddenly from the courtyard, tugging on her gloves, "Quite weary of obsolete old witches."

Callis stared at her, anxiously aware of how much older she looked, these days. She was imperious in her black riding clothes, but...

I hope she knows what she's doing." she muttered.

"She always does." said Ismene, gaze pinned on the four witches. Callis and Eris glanced at each other. They'd never quite had the same blind faith in their mother as Ismene.

"You're one to talk," Alpa told Iphigenia.

"I am sixty-six," said Iphigenia, with unsettling patience. "How old are you, Alpa? Two hundred and thirty four, was it? Older? It must be hard to keep track, nowadays..."

Callis looked for Agatha, and found her, obviously, on the floor, trying to get a response out of Tedros. It was fine. She was fine. The boy was... well. He'd probably be alright, reasonably...

It was starting to rain. Callis squinted nervously. Iphigenia was too calm. A glassy, undisturbed pool of water. Her sisters were right; she'd arranged something. The serenity was the biggest sign of all. Something was about to strike with devastating accuracy, but they all knew Iphigenia wasn't much of a sorceress, and manipulation didn't work on the Mistral Sisters like it did on most.

So what was the something?

She turned on Eris and Ismene.

"What's she about to do?"

"What do you mean?" asked Agatha, clutching Tedros in the hay nearby. Callis shook her head, unsure. Eris and Ismene exchanged glances.

"She was brewing something," said Eris dubiously. "Last night. But how could she have known what she'd need?"

"Forget Evelyn Sader being two steps ahead, grandmother's apparently about thirty steps ahead at all times." muttered Agatha. "Speaking of Evelyn; almost flawless, by the way."

"I hear that dead mothers appearing out of nowhere is quite upsetting, regardless of circumstances." said Callis. "I ruined it by damning Rhian with faint praise. I should have known he was the golden child, he acts exactly like one..."

"I'm quite finished with you." Iphigenia said from outside. Omeida grinned.

"Ginny, we've not even begun! We need to have a catch-up, and, frankly..." she gestured to the guards. "None of you are going anywhere."

Iphigenia looked at the guards blankly. Alpa shrugged.

"Your brood may have incapacitated our nephews, but it's not forever. And as for us... we older witches are above barbarity. We know your methods, and you know ours. We're all puppeteers, manipulators. We should have a nice chat. Negotiations."

"I suppose I came to negotiate, in a fashion."

It was raining harder, now. Bethna winced slightly, nudged her sister.

"Alpa, is there something wrong with–"

"Shush, Bethna."

But now Omeida was looking up, as well. A fat raindrop splattered on her forehead, and she cringed.

"Sister, I really think–"

"Shush!" snapped Alpa. "Stop bellyaching! We have them all here! Your time is up, Grand Duchess. It's been lovely, but–"

"I don't think so." said Iphigenia softly.

"The rain," said Ismene, from behind Callis and Eris.

"Ow! Alpa, she's– ow! Alpa!"

Bethna had started to cower, and, since she was closest, Callis could see her properly– wherever water hit her, her skin welted and reddened, curdling into blisters. One of her legs seemed to have seized up, and one of her hands wasn't moving properly.

"Oh, shit." whispered Eris.

Hadn't Callis seen it earlier? Iphigenia slipping glass into her pocket? Glass which could have easily been a potion bottle?

Weather spells were so rudimentary. It was the first thing they taught students, and even witches who didn't go to Evil, like Iphigenia, knew them. It wouldn't take much to infuse one with something...

To poison something.

The Poison Woman, remembered Callis.

It began to rain in earnest, hammering into the courtyard in a great monsoon. Horrible screams erupted from the pirates and the sisters, but Callis didn't stop to look; she grabbed Tedros and Agatha by the collars and bodily dragged them further under the stable roof. Nearby, the witches' eyes were wide and excited, even Sophie's.

"It's... poison?" said Agatha hoarsely, watching the Mistrals and guards crumple and convulse with a sort of morbid amazement. Callis followed her gaze–

"Not quite," she said, recognising the effects when she saw it. "It's venom." she paused. "Snake venom."

Ismene started to laugh.

Iphigenia stood in the monsoon and watched, hands behind her back, head slightly on one side, as if she was mildly interested. It had no effect on her, whatever it was, besides plastering her hair to her face and her skirt to her legs. Callis vaguely hoped she wasn't about to give herself pneumonia.

Agatha had crept forward to watch, but the tattooed witch intervened;

"That's dark, dark magic Agatha," she said, trying to pull her away– which was at odds with the sickeningly eager look on her face. "That's the sort of stuff Lesso used to tell us you'd have to kill someone to achieve. Someone close to you. She said wives had killed their husbands, mothers their children, children their parents, to get that sort of power."

Callis was barely listening, staring at her mother. This, then, was why they called her what they did. Grand Duchess Unspeakable, indomitable Iphigenia. Cutting down the King's Guard and the Mistral Sisters like new saplings.

Omeida crumpled in a puddle first, nose and mouth bleeding, then Alpa. Bethna staggered, heaving, for a little longer– then finally fell, too. The sensible guards had fled for cover. The less sensible had perished alongside the Sisters.

Slowly, the rain began to subside. Iphigenia stood there for as long as it took for it to stop completely.

Then she turned to them, and pushed her sodden hair from her face. Two dozen gawking faces stared back at her.

"Come along," she said. "And bring the Boy-King."

------

Tedros gaining coherence was not, in Callis's mind, necessarily a good thing.

"I sent you away–" Tedros fumbled, confused, as Agatha tried to get him up the steps to the wagon just outside the castle gates. "Somewhere–"

"Yeah I– um, I went and got help and came back for you."

"From the school?" Tedros craned his neck to look at Sophie, who blew him a kiss.

"Partially. Also from my family."

Tedros looked baffled. "But you don't have any family...?"

"My mother's family in Netherwood. I didn't know about them until recently."

Tedros's still-bloodshot eyes snapped suddenly onto Callis.

"But that's your mother– I thought she died–"

"She um– she faked her death, Tedros, I'll explain everything later... please get in the wagon, I'm not strong enough to pick you up–"

Tedros wasn't listening, still peering past her. He noticed Callis staring at him and managed a feeble wave.

"Hi Callis..."

Callis scowled and went to help Agatha haul him into the wagon.

"What do you want, boy?" she said by way of greeting, helping Agatha grab him under the armpits and drag him up the steps.

"That's crazy... faking your death like that..."

"Necessary to escape the villagers, until I could follow you."

"'S' wicked..."

"Not the word I'd use, but I'll take it as a compliment." Callis muttered.

"Who's the hardarse older lady who murdered the Mistrals with that crazy rain?" Tedros demanded, probably loud enough for Iphigenia to overhear. Agatha winced.

"That's my mother, Iphigenia." sighed Callis.

"Oh! I knew it!" Tedros insisted as they hauled him onto the bit of bench that presented the least threat if he fell off it. "You're the Callis that was in my Dad's class that Rafal chased down and tried to kill because you stabbed him a bunch of times like bam and then everyone thought he killed you but guess he didn't..."

Callis stared at him.

"You knew that?"

"Mm? Yeah, no, I..." He thought very hard for a few seconds. "Agatha?"

"Yeah?"

"Is your grandma the Grand Duchess Unspeakable?"

Callis shook her head and left them to it, turned around–

Sophie, bashing inside in her huge fur coat, pointy-sleeved gown and six-inch knife-like heels, drew up short.

"Callis? It is you."

"Oh." said Callis, feeling stinky and old and tired and not really wanting to talk to Sophie, the lovechild of fine haute couture and audacity. "Still tagging along, are you? What do you do now, mooch off Agatha's position? Throw little children off cliffs?"

Sophie gathered herself up imperiously.

"Actually, Callis, I'll have you know that I am now Dean of the School for Evil."

Callis's jaw dropped in horror.

"What?"

"But never mind that," said Sophie suspiciously, "Aggie told me you were dead."

"Lucky for us, and possibly unlucky for you, she was misinformed." said Callis, still reeling with dismay. "What on earth are you wearing? You can't possibly be of any use in those..."

"As if you didn't wear the same!" Eris shouted from the open back.

Callis ignored her, but Sophie frowned, as if struggling to imagine how Agatha's gawky, greasy mother could have ever stalked around in similar heels.

"Get Agatha to explain it to you, she's going to have to explain it to the boy like he's five," said Callis impatiently. "Go on– don't you roll your eyes at me, brat–"

Sophie scoffed and swooped off. Callis could still hear Tedros warbling uncertainly from behind them, apparently confused again; I don't get it, how come you didn't know your mother was alive, I don't get what happened, why are we escaping... I didn't know you had a grandma...

Agatha finally managed to shush him into submission, but Callis glanced back, and could see his gaze snapping around warily, if uncomprehendingly. The Everboys were always trained to be uncomfortably soldier-like. Sentinels, constantly on guard. He was going to need absolutely everything elaborately explained before he could relax even a tiny bit.

As people climbed after them into the wagon, Callis took Iphigenia's arm.

"Mother, you explain it to Tedros. You'll be able to lay it out simply enough that he can understand, and unemotionally enough that he might not lose his mind as much as he would if Agatha or Gwenhwyfar told him."

Iphigenia glanced at her, then looked at Tedros, wedged in between Agatha and Sophie on the bench.

"Very well." she turned, went and sat opposite them. People filtered in around them, and Callis sat on the floor with her sisters, both looking as dubious as her.

"I've heard enough about this kid to know this is going to go really badly." said Eris. Callis grunted in the affirmative.

"He's very little, isn't he?" said Ismene thoughtfully.

"He's six foot two and built like an ox, Issy."

"Not like that. He's young. He looks cowed."

"Yes, well." muttered Callis, bracing her feet against the opposite side as the wagon lurched forward. "He is."

As it turned out, Iphigenia hadn't needed to say anything to Tedros, because his wobbly attention span had snapped onto her after she'd sat down.

"You're Agatha's grandmother?" he was asking. "Callis's mother?"

"I am."

Agatha looked a tiny bit pleased to have been claimed so casually. Tedros squinted.

"You're the Grand Duchess Unspeakable."

That one wasn't a question, so Iphigenia didn't answer it. Callis could hear Hester (which he had overheard to the tattooed witch's name) impatiently explaining this all to Sophie in a low hiss. Tedros visibly tried to do some sort of mental equation with this, clearly didn't get very far, and seemed to give up. He clearly thought– correctly– that Agatha's grandmother was going to protect him more than Grand Duchess was going to threaten him.

"...okay..."

He suddenly looked very tired. Callis felt sorry for him, even if she had often wished to inflict brain damage on him herself. She had been right, though; Iphigenia was very good at laying it all out for him.

"Well, you've covered who I am. Everyone else, you either recognise already, or they're Wardwell witches in my clan. Callis is my eldest daughter. She took a teaching position in the School for Evil and used it to attempt to kill The School Master a few decades ago, when we realised which brother he was. She was hunted down by him once we failed, and fled to Woods Beyond, where she raised Agatha. We retreated, forbidden by curse to interfere in his affairs. Callis faked her death at the hands of the Woods Beyond villagers and followed you into the Endless Woods, caught up with Agatha when she fled Camelot, and made us aware of the situation at hand. Typically I would not interfere with Ever affairs favourably, but in the interests of my granddaughter, and the Woods at large, I have made an exception. Do you follow me so far?"

"Yeah, but I don't understand how I–" Tedros gestured helplessly. "Got here...?"

"Agatha tells me you were aware Rhian was in league with the Snake and the Mistral Sisters."

"Yes, I remember... yeah, that. Yeah."

"Together they engaged in a conspiracy to stage a coup against you, yes?"

"Yes."

"The reason for this... collaboration, is that the Snake is Rhian's twin brother, known to him as Japeth."

Tedros's eyes widened in horror. Several other people– Sophie, the witches– muttered dubiously. Iphigenia went on;

"Japeth has a particular set of unpleasant powers."

"The scims?" said Tedros. "Those... snakes? Eels? Thingies?"

"That's correct. One of the things he can do with them, is he can put them into people's heads, in order to control them."

Iphigenia didn't so much as look apprehensive about what she was about to tell him, but everyone else did. Tedros's hand drifted, seemingly unconsciously, to his ear.

"He did that... he did that to me. Didn't he?"

"He did. Do you know what he made you do when you were under his control? Do you remember?"

Tedros shook his head mutely, but it was clear from the look on his face that he knew it was going to be bad.

"Are we sure telling him right at this moment is a good idea?" began Guinevere, but Tedros was already protesting–

"What? I'm fine, Mother, I can– what happened? Grand Duchess, tell me–"

"I'll tell you." said Iphigenia. "Be silent, a moment."

Callis had never seen Tedros take orders from anyone quietly, privileged as he was, but he did now. He was wringing his hands in his lap.

"In order to validate his coup," said Iphigenia. "Japeth placed you under his control, and Rhian wrote you a speech. They forced you to abdicate as King of Camelot and name Rhian your successor, in front of the kingdom, and on Spellcast."

It didn't seem to compute with Tedros, for a long few seconds. Agatha was practically watching him through her fingers...

"He made me abdicate?" he managed hoarsely.

Iphigenia nodded, once.

"No! No, he can't! He– he took the crown? Officially?"

"Yes."

"You're kidding!" Tedros spluttered a desperate, pitchy laugh. "I'd never– I would never say..."

He trailed off, horrified into speechlessness. Iphigenia kept ruthless, relentless eye contact, and his face crumpled.

"He can't! He–" he stopped. Rhian really could. He'd said as much to Agatha– that Rhian would keep him alive until he could use him to validate his claim. And he had.

Tedros looked wildly around, noticing everyone staring grimly at him—

"DON'T LOOK AT ME LIKE THAT!" he shot up, wrenched away from everyone who tried to grab him, fell awkwardly against the wall. "Stop it!"

"Teddy–" began Guinevere. Callis kicked her and she fell silent.

"Tell me what he made me say!" Tedros cried into the agonised sentence. "Someone tell me!"

Ismene's excellent memory served her.

"You called yourself unsound of mind and unfit to rule, but with deep regret you were surrendering the throne to your trusted liege. You apologised to your people and said you were only trying to do what was best for them, and your father's legacy."

Somewhere, Tedros had started crying, and it was still streaked with blood.

"I can't have given up my father's throne! I can't! Rhian can't have taken it! He'll be so angry with me! I can't lose it! It's– but it's my father's throne! He can't take it I'm hi-is only son–"

He was practically hyperventilating, now.

He'll?, thought Callis glumly. Clearly the pressure of Arthur still weighed crushingly heavy. Did it even matter that he was dead? Perhaps it even made it worse.

"I'm not mad!" Tedros sobbed. "I'm not!"

He crumpled into a shaking ball in the corner and put his head in his arms, clutching painfully at his own hair. Awkwardly, Agatha clambered over people's legs to get to him–

"Listen to me, Tedros."

Tedros's eyes snapped up to Iphigenia, who had stayed sitting precisely where she was.

"I will do everything I can to help you regain your throne." she said, persistently, eerily calm. She was terrifying when she was this serene in the middle of chaos.

Tedros sniffed.

"Like that crazy poison rain?"

"I am no sorcerer. I can do relatively little for you in the way of spells. I am a potions maker, a politician, and strategist, and in these ways I can serve your cause. Rhian is a clever showman and convincing orator, but he is a boy."

She let the sentence hang, but the implication was clear. Rhian was a seventeen year old Arbed House graduate. She was...

Well. Rhian simply wasn't her.

"It won't be as easy as you think." warned Guinevere.

"I made no pretension that it would be." said Iphigenia icily. "But it's possible."

Was it? Callis wasn't sure. But if her mother thought so...

There was a terse silence.

"Then... what do we have to do?" asked Agatha.

Iphigenia folded her arms, infamously inscrutable.

"First, I'd prefer to get back home and check that the boy isn't brain damaged."

"What?" said Tedros, who, to be fair, was gaining coherence by the second. "I'm fine–"

Callis couldn't help herself.

"Yeah, Mother, don't worry." she said. "He probably only uses about twenty percent of his brain anyway, he doesn't need the rest."

Tedros, to his credit, managed a weak snort.

No one else laughed, so it was just as well.

-----

Callis had barely gotten through the front door before a hand seized her arm and yanked her back.

"I don't believe it." said Gwenhwyfar Gawr, who looked ridiculously mumsy, these days. She just needed a squalling brat and a pinny, and people would forget she'd ever been a Queen at all. "Callis Wardwell?"

"Believe it, Dull Gwen." snapped Callis, trying to get past her.

"Show me your real appearance." pressed Arthur's old queen. Callis shoved her aside and stalked on, uninterested in pleasantries with an old classmate she had never liked.

"Well, then–"

Guinevere's fingerglow hand seized her jaw from behind, and burned.

De-Uglification. The advanced fourth-year spell Evergirls were taught, designed to burn off witches' illusions– either on themselves, or on the witch. There were so many tales where witches turned themselves into harmless widows or beautiful maidens, or turned princesses into homely serving girls. Good had learned from it.

And Callis had forgotten they even learned it.

Guinevere let go of her abruptly, and Callis hunched over to catch her breath, pulse slamming in her head. She was vaguely able to hear Guinevere above her;

"It is you," said the old queen, voice trembling. "Forgive me, Callis, but you know we never got along, so I have to say this. My son was possessed, has just been forced to abdicate, and is, I am told, temporarily mentally disoriented, and possibly going mad– so why should I trust that your mother is going to help in Camelot affairs? When the entire reason you went to Evil in the first place, was to exploit Arthur's weaknesses, and report back to her? And, actually– why should I trust that your daughter inexplicably being betrothed to Tedros, isn't some sort of elaborate plant from you and your mother–?"

Callis looked up, and saw herself in the mirror.

Her old self.

Callis's eyes snapped to the stairs.
Agatha was standing on the bottom step, and she was clutching her arms, her expression the one Callis had fought so hard to eliminate every time it appeared, when she was a girl. That crushing vulnerability...

The look she got when she felt like she was on her own.

Callis straightened up, and slapped Guinevere so hard that it echoed.

Everyone on the stairs turned, aghast. Hester laughed, and Anadil elbowed her to get her to be quiet.

"Callis! What's wrong with you–" Lancelot was at Guinevere's side in an instant, but Callis was already shouting at her;

"How dare you do that to me! How dare you suggest that about my daughter! You wretched–"

She cut herself off and cast out, furious. Her spell found plants in the vase, inks in one of the papers on the side table. She dragged her hands hard over her hair, dyed it violently back, scraped her nails across her jaw and nose to reshape them, wrenched her skin undertone back to sallow, darkened her eyes. It hurt some, she supposed– you weren't supposed to do it this fast, this aggressively, and it would need redoing with more care almost immediately– but she knew what was hurting her more.

Guinevere had started making for the stairs, but Callis stalked after her, grabbed her arm and wrenched her around to face her.

"I know what you really are, Callis," said Guinevere tremulously. "No matter what you've convinced everyone else of, I knew you at school. I know what you wanted, how you reported back to your mother." She drew herself up, clearly trying to summon some of the dignity she'd had as Queen.

Perhaps if she'd ever been any kind of good Queen, if she'd even tried to be, it might have worked.

Behind her, on the stairs, Agatha was standing quite still– and straight, for once. Her gaze was pinned to her scuffed shoes.

"It doesn't matter what you think of me." snapped Callis. "But you project that onto my daughter and I'll spit and roast you, do you understand me?"

Guinevere glanced at Agatha.

"...I didn't really mean that–"

"But I suppose you're not so good at separating children from their parents, are you?" cooed Callis. "If you were, you might have stood a chance with Tedros after all."

"Callis–" began Lancelot.

"I told you that you're a monumental fool, Lancelot, and I'll remind you of it in harsher terms if you try to argue with me." Callis snapped. "Go and get some ice for your beloved's cheek, won't you? I hear knights are meant to serve. And you don't want to have to explain to Tedros that I clouted his mamma, do you? Because then he'll ask why, and I don't think he'll be too impressed with the answer..."

Lancelot shot her a this isn't over look and took Guinevere's arm, hurrying her up the stairs. Callis watched them go, face hot and painful from her own spell.

She stuck her tongue between her teeth a little, considering. Then she shook her head, cackled, and went up the stairs.

Soon enough, she heard the smack of shoes behind her, and Agatha caught her up, grabbed her arm and trailed after her, head down.

Callis put her hand on the back of her head and guided them the opposite direction to the way Guinevere and Lancelot had gone.

-------

To say Agatha was feeling a tad lost would be an understatement.

Callis had steered her into her old room, sat her down, and gone to 'get Agatha a snack', which Agatha suspected was actually 'argue with Lancelot, and then retrieve a fistful of something with high sugar content from somewhere'.

Agatha had to admit, she'd not been expecting that from Guinevere. Maybe she should have, but until now, she'd never felt the least bit of hostility from Tedros's mother. Still, she was under a lot of strain, so maybe it wasn't fair to feel resentful. But it wasn't as if Agatha had known Callis had once reported back to Iphigenia on Arthur...

Feeling lonely and adrift, Agatha sat uncomfortably on the vanity stool, wondering how Tedros was. Eris and Iphigenia had towed him off, Eris brightly assuring Agatha over her shoulder he'd be just fine, and Iphigenia saying nothing either way, but she really needed to go and find him...

"Agatha!"

The door banged open and Hester, uncharacteristically, practically bounded through, Anadil and Dot trailing her as usual. "Your mother is a proper witch, that was the coolest thing I've ever seen–" she noticed Agatha's face, and pulled up short. "...did you not know?"

"I knew," said Agatha tersely.

"Never seen her real appearance before?" tried Dot.

Agatha shook her head mutely. Hester kissed her teeth.

"...that's hard."

"Really astute, Hester." muttered Anadil.

Hester shrugged, wandering over to look at Callis's posters, apparently feeling she'd done her part on the sympathy front. Dot went to sit on the bed, legs swinging. Anadil stood in the corner–

Any chance at further conversation was interrupted as Callis shoved the door open. At least, Agatha thought it was Callis. She'd looked away so quickly she'd not taken in much of her mother's real appearance, and she'd noticed out of the corner of her eye how her slapdash replacement had been fading, even on the way up the stairs. With a pang, Agatha realised that Callis looked extremely similar to Iphigenia, and her sisters...

And that she was still beautiful.

She'd done a lot to look like Agatha; she'd covered up the majority of her freckles, dyed her magnificent fall of hair and hacked it to pieces, changed the lines of her nose and jaw, widened her eyes and darkened them, pinched her face...

Feeling a bit sick, Agatha looked away, but Callis was already shunting her aside on the stool, so they could both sit there, and tipping a handful of shiny green-wrapped toffees into her lap.

"Where'd you get these?" said Agatha, sifting about in them, finding that seeing bits of her green, warped reflection in the wrapping was preferable to the mirror.

"Eris. She still keeps snacks in her sock drawer, like she did when she was twelve."

"Is everything here green?" said Agatha, eyeing the fire in the grate.

"Lots of things are, yes." said Callis easily.

"I like your mother's idea of a snack," said Dot brightly as Agatha tossed her one. Callis leant around Agatha to look at the Coven.

"...are these Sophie's friends?"

"We're Agatha's friends," said Hester testily. "We'd not have come, otherwise."

"Oh, thank god." muttered Callis. Her gaze fell on Anadil, and her eyes narrowed. "...what's your mother's name?"

Anadil leant against the wall. She'd caught the toffee Agatha had thrown her, but she'd given it to her rats.

"What's it to you?"

The reply seemed to greatly amuse Callis, who laughed, apparently satisfied, and flung a huge pile of plants onto the vanity.

"I shall have to write to Clytemnestra, if Emi hasn't already snitched..."

"You knew Ani's mother?" frowned Hester, rolling a green wrapper into a ball and throwing it at the back of Agatha's head. Agatha threw it back with twice the venom.

"And your father," Callis said, pointing at Dot. "Theodora de Rainhault, are you?"

"Dot." said Dot, jaw glued together by Eris's toffee.

"Much more Never," said Callis approvingly. She turned back to Agatha. "Let's do it together, then."

Agatha stared at her. "Do what?"

"Restore my appearance properly."

Oh.

"Why do you need me?" grumped Agatha. Callis shrugged.

"I've not updated my technique since you were about ten, so I think I could probably resemble your current bone structure better–"

"Why do you want to resemble me at all?" Agatha burst out.

"I thought you knew why," said Callis.

"But– but now we've left Gavaldon and everyone knows– and you're... still beautiful, you don't have to– to look like me..."

Callis patiently waited for the end of the ramble, then looked pointedly at her. Agatha, who knew when her mother was trying to think of a polite way of telling her she was being an idiot, turned grumpily away and started picking at the plants.

"Just saying. Seems like a waste of effort to me."

Callis smacked her hand off the plants.

"I can do whatever I want. And maybe I wanted to be pretty like you."

"Shut up." mumbled Agatha, knowing she was going red.

"Shan't." said Callis, starting to strip leaves off plants. "By the by, how hasn't the boy embarrassed you so badly he's killed you, yet?"

"He nearly has." volunteered Dot.

"Shut up," said Agatha. Then, noticing that Callis was starting to bleed dye into her hair, seized her wrist. "Hang on, hang on–"

Callis raised her eyebrows. Agatha took a deep breath;

"I think you should at least look a bit like your mother and sisters." she said. Callis huffed.

"I promise you, my mother and sisters don't take much stock in family resemblance, dear. And they're quite used to my constantly-changing appearance."

"I know. But I just thought..."

Callis looked contemplative, for a minute. Finally, she said;

"Alright. Direct me, then."

"Um," said Agatha. "I wasn't very good at Beautification, let alone its counterpart–"

"I'll go slowly." said Callis, looking hard in the mirror. "I think you'll find it's easier, when you break it down..."

-----

They'd gotten almost all of the way through before Hester got impatient.

"It's my other eye that's wonky," said Agatha, watching with her chin on her arms.

"No it's not." Callis told her. "You always see it in the mirror."

"Oh, yeah...

"Oh, what the hell."

Hester stood up abruptly. Callis glanced at her in the mirror, slightly wary. She could sense a slightly unhinged Never temperament from a mile away, and this was a glowing example–

But Hester almost looked impressed. She folded her arms, and said;

"Professor Wardwell, that's almost prodigious Uglification."

"I'm not a Professor anymore, dear." said Callis, prodding at the left hand side of her jaw, but Hester ignored her.

"Teach us how to do stuff like that," she practically begged. "Stupid Manley never taught us good spells, and anything interesting out of the books at the back he banned us from doing."

"I didn't even know you could do this stuff," admitted Agatha. "Your Evelyn Sader was almost perfect. I only recognised you because you kept looking at me."

"You took Evelyn Sader's appearance?" demanded Hester. "Her whole appearance?"

"Head and arms and clothing, yes," said Callis. "Didn't bother with my legs. She had horrible legs, mine were always nicer–"

Agatha scoffed, but was cut off as Dot interrupted:

"That's nuts. Manley said it wasn't really possible to steal someone's whole appearance."

"He just didn't want us to try it." said Anadil dismissively. But Hester was pacing, a dangerous light sparked in her eyes...

Somewhat conversely, Callis relaxed, and went back to bothering her eyelids. She could deal with ambitious witches just fine, provided Hester wasn't actually angry.

"There!" she turned on Agatha and spread her arms. "What do you think?"

Agatha blinked slowly.

"Why did you need to cover up your moles in the first place, anyway?"

"Agatha." Callis clamped her hands on her daughter's shoulders. "Stop deflecting."

Agatha pressed her lips unevenly together. She'd forever been ducking and diving to avoid vulnerability, in a hangover from her town pariah status, even since she was very little. Callis had sort of hoped Good might do something about that, but apparently not. Useless place...

"'S fine." mumbled Agatha. "Still think you look more like me, than Iphigenia..."

"My mother has two other daughters to resemble her," said Callis. "I, however, only have one."

Agatha swallowed.

"Right."

"So I think it would be a waste," said Callis firmly, "If I didn't look like her. Don't you?"

Agatha nodded slowly. Callis sighed.

"Come on."
She hugged her tightly, and Agatha dug her fingers into her back and put her sharp chin on her shoulder, as she always had done...

Callis looked over Agatha's shoulder, and noticed Hester, watching them with some fraught little expression.

She caught Callis's eye and instantly wiped it from her face, but Callis had already identified the look. She'd seen it from dozens of Never students, alone at the Visiting Weekend. With parents slain in countless Good victories, they sat alone on the stairs or in classrooms, never took paper to write home with, never got presents or care packages. She'd made it clear they could sit in her classroom during Visiting Weekend if they wished, under the pretence of helping her sort her potions ingredients, but many had been too proud to come– though, after she'd dug out a box of sweets from under her desk, attendance had spiked by the afternoon, and quite frequently after that, she'd found kids hanging around her office at nights. Maggie and Tomas had made particularly frequent appearances.

Now, she said to Hester, as Agatha pulled away from her;

"You'll have to explain to me how that tattoo works, dear." she stood, and wiped her hands on her skirt. "Never seen anything like it."

Hester looked briefly as if she didn't register she was being spoken to– then blinked.

"I was born with it. Mother didn't live–" she coughed. "Long enough to explain it. It grows with me. It's starting to go down my back, and my arm."

"Is it a soul siphon?" said Callis, as the bell rang for dinner. Hester shrugged moodily.

"If it dies, it'll kill me..."

"So, yes," said Callis. "Didn't your Curses and Death Traps teacher tell you about those?"

Three blank faces stared back at her.

"Evil teaching has gone to the dogs." muttered Callis.

"I think it's more that a lot of our education was interrupted by Sophie's attempts at taking over the world?" suggested Dot.

"And they didn't even offer you a remedial year, after all that?" said Callis, cutting out into the hallway with the four girls following.

"Who'd want one of them?" grumbled Hester.

"People who don't have Sophie as Dean, probably." muttered Anadil.

Callis looked hopelessly back at them.

"So that wasn't a joke?"

Four heads shook in unison. Callis scowled and turned back around.

"Well, who the hell allowed that?"

"We're convinced it's a con," said Hester.

"It's not a con!" insisted Agatha.

"How do you know? Did you ask Lesso?"

"You can't ask Lady Lesso, she's dead!"

"Exactly." said Hester, with some feeling. "Which is why it's a con."

-----

Dinner was terse, to say the least.

When they got there, everyone else was already present, including the current big problem– Tedros was lying on his back on the floor, dictating an address in Camelot's odd, oblique language for Lancelot and Guinevere to transcribe ('I got dizzy,' he explained plaintively, but coherently, as Agatha went over to him).

"For the papers," Iphigenia told Callis as they sat down. She made no comment on her slightly altered face, but Callis knew she'd noticed. "We need to get there as fast as possible. Before Rhian, if we can."

"I suppose you have contacts at the Courier, and all the Netherwood papers?" said Callis tiredly.

"I have contacts at most major newspapers."

"Of course you do."

Callis had managed to put some space between herself and Guinevere, since Agatha, the Coven, Tedros, and Sophie were separating them. She was grateful for it; she didn't want another altercation with Dull Gwen today, at least. As for her son, who had been deposited between Agatha and Sophie (so the only way to fall off the bench was backwards)... well, he still looked tired and bloodshot, but he was trying his best to retain some dignity. Unfortunately, to anyone older than about twenty, it was unconvincing, and he just seemed sad and snotty.

"Do you not think it's a bit early to be trying to get him to play politician again?" said Callis, watching Tedros attempt to stab a carrot with his fork and miss.

"Japeth has briefly damaged his depth perception, not his ability to make a statement," said Iphigenia. "Tedros has assured me he's well enough to pursue a solution however he can."

"And you both believed him, and allowed him to?" said Callis. Iphigenia ignored her.

Across the table, Sophie was pontificating about her ascension to Deanship, all the way from receiving Lady Lesso's dress ('iconic, if slightly dated') to her renovations at Evil.

"...I left my students in the competent hands of Clarissa, with strict instructions that they be kept to their curriculum, and a reminder to Manley and Castor to oversee the construction of my Supper Hall. It's almost complete, we just need to finish the stained glass."

"Is that the one where you've depicted yourself with saint's haloes?" said Tedros grumpily.

"No, darling, that's in the Belfry. This is the one where I made one of your eyes look much bigger than the other."

"How could I forget," muttered Tedros. "The one where you sent Agatha a letter saying she looked like a sad little insect in stained glass depictions?"

Sophie blinked.

"Aggie, is this some sort of Camelot vetting system, or do you let Teddy read our correspondence?"

Agatha scratched her armpit.

"Sometimes, yeah. When it's interesting."

"Which is never." Tedros said. "I never saw so many pages about one type of shoe. Usually, I pick it up when you're mean to her."

"Oh, you great boor, Teddy–"

Callis leant across, feeling jagged and irritable.

"Sophie, have you actually done any teaching at Evil, or have you just spent all the school's coffers on cringeworthy vanity projects?"

Sophie swung imperiously to her.

"I see nearly dying did nothing to make you more polite, Callis. We're having a conversation."

"Are you? Don't care." said Callis. "Tell me, did Lady Lesso's gown come with instructions telling you to make a terrible mockery of the School for Evil, in some oblique long game to let everyone's guards down? Because that's the only close to reasonable explanation I can see for the ridiculous farce you seem to be conducting."

Sophie looked at Agatha, apparently waiting for her to defend her. Agatha looked uncertainly between Sophie and her mother, apparently not sure whose side she was meant to take–

Sophie spun to Tedros, and did what she did best; snitched.

"Teddy, Callis slapped your mother."

Apparently the state of the table was annoying Tedros almost as much as it was annoying Callis.

"It's not my problem if Callis and my mother want to get in physical scraps." he muttered, stabbing unsuccessfully around his plate.

"Aren't princes meant to be chivalrous?" demanded Sophie.

"Chivalry doesn't have a subsection titled what to do if your fiancés mother slaps your mother while you have triple vision and no depth perception and weird dreams and just got overthrown," Tedros snapped. "Don't try to pitch me against Callis, you royal pain, for once in my life I don't have time for interpersonal drama."

That wasn't even remotely true, since everything about Tedros's existence had been marinated in interpersonal drama, but Callis couldn't say she didn't understand his urge to try and avoid it.

"If you wanted me to be a royal pain, sweetie, you shouldn't have left me behind at Evil."

"The day I left you behind at Evil was the best day of my life." Tedros snapped.

Agatha was eating faster and faster, apparently trying to ensure that she had an excuse not to intervene at any given moment. The Coven, and most of the Wardwell witches, were watching in glee. Wardwells never got dinner entertainment like this, since they were on the whole not completely stupid, or given to settling personal scores with loud arguments. Lancelot and Guinevere, for their part, were clearly trying to stay out of it.

Sophie opened her mouth–

"Was it triple or double vision?" said Iphigenia, as if the entire previous conversation hadn't just happened. "You told me it was double."

"What?" said Tedros. "Um– I don't know, there was like ten of everything, I thought double vision was an umbrella term."

Iphigenia made a note on the back of her hand and went silently back to her plate.

"Sophie, can I talk to you for a second, since you're not eating anyway?" Callis demanded. Sophie looked prepared to say no–

"Go, or I'll drag you," said Agatha.

Sophie got up. Callis pulled her over to the side of the hall, away from the curious eyes of the rest of the witches.

"Do you think this is some sort of stupid game?" Callis said tightly. Sophie frowned at her, affronted.

"I'm sure I don't know what you–"

"Sophie," said Callis, through gritted teeth. "If you think that your saintly intervention in a fight that was almost over anyway is going to make you the main player again, you're quite mistaken. If you're going to stay here, instead of going back to your gothic vanity palace, you are not going to waste your time messily digging back up personal scores and winding up Tedros. Either be useful, or get out of my mother's house. You're not the supreme witch, here, she is. I commend you for your dispatching of Rafal, but look." She pointed back at the table. "Look at the state of Tedros and Agatha. They should be married and putting Camelot to rights, by now. Instead, they're about to be hurled into a political deathmatch to try and get the throne back at all. Tedros might be mad, Agatha has no authority, and the only solid court member they had, just backstabbed them. I know you think it's going to be easy to overthrow Rhian, but you're dead wrong. You've read the papers?"

Sophie nodded slowly.

"Then you know that Tedros has some serious image rebuilding to do. He has to prove that Rhian stabbed him in the back and set him up. That means convincing everyone he's not mad– or, if he is, that it won't affect how he rules– proving the Snake controlled him, actually overthrowing Rhian, and annulling the abdication. And on top of that, there's still going to be a large sect of people who are convinced that Rhian is the King for them."

"From the snippets I heard, Rhian's speech in the park was tawdry and unimpressive," said Sophie.

"Clearly the people that heard all of it didn't agree," said Callis. "Sophie, this is going to be a mess. For once in your life, prove you actually care about Agatha, hmm? Humble yourself. Help her, instead of dragging her along behind you, as usual. No matter if you don't care about Tedros, but–"

"I care about Tedros." muttered Sophie.

"Then I'm expected to believe you're picking on him because you're worried?"
"Something like that." Sophie said. "...I get it, Callis."

"I hope you do." said Callis. "Because I'll have your guts for garters if you don't."

Sophie sighed.

"For what it's worth, Callis, I am sort of glad you're alive." she paused. "For Agatha's sake, that is."

"I'll take the sort of," said Callis, watching everyone else start to get up from the table. "For Agatha's sake. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a fight to pick with my beloved mamma..."

As she came back over the flagstones, Callis shot a circling Reaper a pointed look, and he followed Agatha and Tedros without argument. Callis cut around everyone else, chasing after the rapidly departing form of her–

"Mother."

Iphigenia, already in the hall, turned to find Callis behind her, with Eris and Ismene flanking her. One of them must have identified the purpose with which Callis had followed Iphigenia, and either they wanted to watch an argument, or they agreed. Probably both.

"Is this an intervention?" said Iphigenia, bored.

Callis didn't always think that Iphigenia and Eris were similar, but when Iphigenia felt like being droll, they were identical.

"We need to talk." she said tightly.

"We do, yes." Iphigenia considered Callis, Eris and Ismene one by one. "Where's Agatha?"

"With Reaper and the boy," said Callis tightly. "Which I know, this time."

Iphigenia put her head on one side.

"You're displeased with me."

Callis scowled. Eris pulled a got there in the end face and went back to snapping loose threads from her sleeves.

"You knew Lancelot and Agatha were going to make a haphazard attempt to retrieve Tedros, and you let them go and put themselves into the direct line of danger. No one gets out of this place without you knowing about it. You don't have to care about Lancelot, but you could have at least warned me about Agatha."

Still, Iphigenia looked between the three of them. Finally, she said;

"Walk with me. All of you."

Eris and Ismene exchanged wary glances, but fell into step too, as Iphigenia started down the hall.

"I know you like to try and play puppet master with everyone, Mother, but I warned you not to start treating the Camelot situation like a case study," Callis snapped, trying to keep pace with her. "This is my daughter, and I'd prefer her to not be forever emotionally destroyed by the whole affair–"

"You've grown cynical, Callis."

"Gavaldon isn't a climate that accommodates optimism, and I can't say I was raised with it in the first place." Callis said tightly.

"Hmm." Iphigenia reached the top of the stairs and held the door to her office open. "If you please..."

If they were going to her office, it meant it was a conversation Iphigenia didn't want to be overheard...

Hoping for an explanation, Callis followed her sisters in, and turfed a cat out of the chair she'd always used to occupy. Iphigenia went to one of her cauldrons and held her hand over the steam, examining some minute difference that Callis couldn't spot. She would never hold a candle to her mother when it came to potions. Eris and Ismene sat down as well, Ismene retrieving the cat Callis had banished.

Presently, Iphigenia said;

"You know that Tedros Pendragon is from one of the Four Great Families."

The colloquialism for the four oldest Woods families; Sader, Pendragon, Mistral, and Wardwell. Great was pushing it, as far as Callis was concerned. More like persistent.

"Provided he's not actually Lancelot's." muttered Callis. Eris groaned.

"Oh, come on, Mother. You can't seriously only care because he's from one of the Four. The Pendragons barely count, anyway."

"Though I suppose unlike the Saders and the Mistrals, their family tree is probably an actual tree, as opposed to a circle..." murmured Ismene.

"Apparently Agatha legitimately checked to see if there was inbreeding in the family trees, after he started losing it." Eris said to her sisters. "Hester told me."

"Was there any?" said Ismene.

"No. Hester seemed disappointed."

Ismene shrugged. "At least she checked before they got married..."

"There aren't any traits in the Pendragon line that they'd want to preserve, anyway." muttered Callis. "They all marry outside the family because they need other people's proficiencies."

But there was enough power-motivated inbreeding in the Saders and Mistrals, the two most magically-inclined families, to make the Bremen royal family look normal. Marrying cousins, usually. Probably why Japeth was the way he was.

Callis made a mental note to check if Tedros and Agatha were the first Pendragon/Wardwell union in the history of the families. If they were, they'd be causing enough turning in graves to whittle several people out of their coffins...

Finally, Iphigenia deigned to continue her thought. She adjusted the burn of the fire with a twist of her fingers and went to look through one of the immense shelves of vials.

"In each of the Four Great Families, there is inherent Seer blood. Mostly dormant, but—"

Eris burst out laughing. Callis groaned.

"Tedros, a Seer? Mother, you've gotten positively demented–"

"He's not a Seer." said Iphigenia. "But he sees things, nonetheless. So do I."

Eris stopped laughing. Callis stopped talking.

"...you?" said Ismene. Iphigenia turned languidly from the cabinet, face a mask.

"You always wondered how I knew who was outside my office," she said. "How I knew which one of you knocked over the vase, how I always found you before you came to tell me you were unwell. How I knew Callis had returned here."

"That's why you got back so fast from Vulture Vale?" said Eris. "You knew?"

"I believe I told you it was one of my suspicions." Iphigenia paced slowly around the side of the table. "I crossed over with Ismene's messenger. Based on timings, I suspect I knew the second that Callis crossed the wards. I had the same suspicion that Lancelot and Agatha were going to retrieve Tedros, and what potion I would need to prevent it ending in total disaster."

"So you could have stopped them?" snapped Callis. Iphigenia shot her a wry look.

"Do you think Agatha would have listened? Once Lancelot had given her a little pep talk, and planted a few panicked ideas?"

Callis hesitated, hating the fact that she knew Iphigenia was right. Agatha wouldn't have listened. Her mother was damnably good at getting a grip on people's characters, almost instantly...

"It was easier to let them go, then follow them, better prepared." said Iphigenia. "Rhian and Japeth were so preoccupied with Agatha and Lancelot that it was much easier to get a confrontation with the Mistral Sisters than I imagined." She leant on the table. "So– how am I always a few steps ahead?"

"Alright, let's not go that far." muttered Callis. Something shifted a little, in Iphigenia's gaze.

"...you know what I mean." she said.

"You always say it's intuition," said Eris.

"It is. But my intuition is too good," said Iphigenia. "So is Tedros's."

"His intuition is about as sharp as a cabbage," said Callis, unimpressed.

"I said his intuition, not his intellect and impulse control."

"So what?" said Eris, but Callis could see her tapping her feet nervously.

"The Seer blood in the Pendragon line has been dormant for years." Iphigenia told them. "Centuries."

Ismene rubbed the divide between her prosthetic and her bicep, frowning.

"Hasn't it been dormant in all the families? Except the Saders?"

Iphigenia blanked the question.

"I'll get that re-enchanted, dear."

"It doesn't need it, Mamma. It just irritates, sometimes."

"It shouldn't."

"I can do it myself now, you know that. I'll have a look at it later."

"Why are you dodging the question?" interrupted Callis. She wondered how much Iphigenia had gotten away with evading these past eighteen years, without Callis to interrogate her.

"Some patience, Callis." said Iphigenia appraisingly.

"If you're holding back some information about the boy I've betrothed my daughter to–"

"I get the impression Agatha would have betrothed herself to him no matter what you said." Eris muttered. Callis ignored her–

"Ismene asked if Seer blood has been dormant in most of the Great families, excepting the Saders," said Iphigenia abruptly. "The answer is, it was... until a previous Grand Duchess had her last daughter."

Callis stared at her.

"...there are no Seers in our family. There never has been."

"No." agreed Iphigenia.

"Then what do you–"

"Which Duchess?" interrupted Eris.

"The twelfth." said Iphigenia. "Deianira."

There was a short pause.

"But... you're Deianira's youngest daughter," said Ismene. Clearly this was new information to the two of them, as well as Callis.

"Please don't tell me you've got a secret Seer sister in a cave in Ooty." said Eris glumly.

Iphigenia nearly smiled.

"As much as I'm sure my mother would have liked a few more daughters to make up for two deaths and one colossal disappointment... I was her youngest, yes."

Eris and Callis exchanged panicked glances. They'd never heard Iphigenia acknowledge her own mother's distaste for her before. But Ismene wasn't looking at them;

"Then it's you. You've got Seer blood."

Callis seized on Ismene's accusation, feeling uncharacteristically slow to process.

"You're a Seer?"

"Is that why you never tell us anything?" grumbled Eris.

"If I was a Seer, you'd have certainly killed me and taken the Duchy, over my total lack of transparency."

Callis and Eris both snorted.

"You're basically already there," said Ismene. "Mamma, how can you be only telling us this now? Callis is forty years old! I have three children!"

"Thank you, Issy..."

"Why'd you exclude me?" demanded Eris. Ismene looked dismissive.

"You're basically exactly the same as you were when you were eighteen, except for when you pushed your short-lived boyfriend into the Glass Mountains Geysers."

"He fell."

"I never saw so much of Mother in you, hating on your boyfriends like you did..." murmured Ismene. Eris, curiously, shot her a warning look. Callis stared at them–

Short-lived boyfriend.

"...Mother, where's Deo?"

Iphigenia looked blankly at her. Eris and Ismene were making no no no stop no expressions at her, as subtly as they could with Iphigenia facing them.

"I don't see how that's relevant to the current conversation." Iphigenia said softly. Callis stared at her, knowing what that impenetrable tone meant. Had he betrayed them? Cheated? Run off? Been murdered? Been kidnapped? Gone missing?

"But–"

"So you're a Seer?" interrupted Eris.

"If you had been listening, rather than being indignant, you may have heard me say I am not a Seer." Iphigenia said pointedly.

"I think I understand why Agatha gets so mad at me when I can't tell her things." murmured Callis, still stuck on the Deo thing.

"Then what are you?" said Eris. Iphigenia shrugged.

"I've told you. The inherent Seer blood manifested itself in me, and made me semi-prescient. It's too diluted to ever produce a proper Seer, but my intuition is beyond exceptional, and my interpretations of my dreams and subconscious can give me immense advantages. I can brew potions without instructions. My instinct is second to none."

Semi-prescient. That explained almost everything. Her incredible instincts for outmanoeuvring people, for puppetting the King of Netherwood and predicting next moves, potential traitors...

"That's some skill," said Callis softly.

"It would be nothing without my efforts to hone it." said Iphigenia. "And it doesn't stop me from encountering... difficulties."

She was looking at Callis almost exclusively. Uncomfortably, Callis thought she had an idea of what the difficulties were. They were Callis-disappearance shaped.

"Why didn't you tell us this before?" demanded Ismene, again.

"I intended to tell you once you'd all passed twenty." said Iphigenia. "I have, technically... just slightly later than anticipated." She paused. "Besides, it's not of any great import. But since it's relevant to the current situation–"

"Of no great import?" boomed Eris. "You're prophetic!"

"Very mildly so. It's nothing that I can't successfully attribute to experience and luck. Besides, I don't wish to make myself a target for assassination more than I already am."

"But Tedros being a target is fine." muttered Callis.

"Tedros has been a target since the day he was born. All princes are." said Iphigenia, in her great and all-encompassing pragmatism. "But yes, let's discuss Tedros."

"Oh, goody." mumbled Callis. Iphigenia ignored her.

"I overheard him complain to his mother–"

"Eavesdropped." said Eris. "You never overhear by chance."

Iphigenia ignored her, too.

"I overheard him complain of strange dreams. I pulled him aside." she folded her arms. "Most people interpreted his ramblings today as hysteria and delirium from the influence of the scim, but I could hear something in it. He told me that when his mother fled, he woke up knowing what happened, and repeated this when Agatha wished for him in Gavaldon. Agatha mistook dreams he appeared in for Nemesis Dreams, when they turned out to be warnings or premonitions. He told her something was wrong and she ignored him, but he was right." She went back to the cabinet to select a few vials of something dubiously green. "He recognised that Agatha was Good and accidentally picked her in every first year challenge. He tells me he knew, subconsciously, exactly who Callis was." Iphigenia turned and pointed the vial at her daughters. "The Seer blood in the Pendragon line has been dormant for years. His supposed madness was not madness. He's a similar age now, to the age I was when I developed an awareness of my gift. Stress and grief have dredged it up, and the immense trauma his mind sustained when Japeth controlled him has made it clear. He is confused between what he's Seeing, and what is actually happening. He has it. It needs to be honed."

"Tedros is prescient." sighed Callis. "We have to train Tedros to be prescient. Of course. Why not..."

"For once, Callis, it's not us, but me. I shan't overburden you with picking the inner workings of the boy-King's brain." said Iphigenia. "If he's going to live long enough to be useful to me, I need to train him. Besides, I'm the only one who can."

"Good luck. He can barely look past his next meal." grumbled Callis.

"I didn't say it would be easy," said Iphigenia tartly. "His particular type of bull-headed bewilderment is going to make it extremely difficult, and it will be years before he's passable at interpreting it. I just need him to be more certain of his... suspicions."

They were silent for a while. Finally, Callis said;

"What did he say in the press release?"

"In short, that he's a victim of a vicious conspiracy and smear campaign, and was forced to make the abdication notice against his will. All that matters is that he has the challenge out there instantly, to increase the doubt surrounding his abdication and the chaos around the bungled rescue we just performed. How Rhian responds will inform us from there."

"I know that he can't just retake it by force," said Eris. "...but can't he just retake the throne by force?"

"The Snake's forces are considerable, unfortunately," said Callis. "Lancelot and I saw them. We only got out because they lacked organisation at that moment, but they made up for it with brutality. And for an Ever kingdom, siege doesn't look good... or Good. Not after Rhian did it almost completely through political backstabbing. He has to beat Rhian at his own game for it to look even close to legitimate."

"And we don't have an army," said Iphigenia. "The witches here are not soldiers. I shan't send a prodigious cohort of mothers, daughters and sisters to be butchered in a teenage succession scuffle. I will win this, in the way I always win these sorts of things."

"...we will, Mother." said Callis, not liking how instantly Iphigenia had taken the helm. Iphigenia waved a hand dismissively, staring into the fire. Callis grimaced at Eris, who shrugged helplessly.

"Backstabbing and political posturing it is, then?" said Eris. "Or are you going to poison someone after all?"

Iphigenia stared into the fire and did not reply.

-----

But for her part, she was very efficient about the whole prescient thing.

She appeared behind Tedros in the sitting room and snatched his empty teacup off him, flipped it upside down briefly, turned it clockwise three times, and squinted at it.

"Why bother?" said Callis, sitting in a heap next to Agatha and cheerfully disturbing what had probably been a lovely moment of reunited relief between her and Tedros. "I know you're certain."

"It pays to check twice." said Iphigenia.

Agatha put her head up from Tedros's chest and frowned.

"What's this?"

"Mother gearing up to make an announcement," said Eris.

"About what?"

"Boy." said Callis, snapping her fingers at Tedros to get his wavering attention back. "Listen to my mother."

"The candle, the horseshoe, three lines... sufficient, to a point," Iphigenia put the teacup down. She turned to Tedros. "You're not mad. You're prescient."

A beat.

Hester and Sophie started laughing.

"Yeah, alright, Grand Duchess, don't make fun of me." said Tedros finally, slumping into a grumpy heap and gathering Agatha back up, ignoring Callis staring at him, and how Agatha put her elbow in his solar plexus while trying to get comfortable. "Am I crazy or not?"

"I've told you."

Tedros shot her an unimpressed look.

"Really. And I suppose–"

Iphigenia stood quite still.

"You're seen Sir Gawain, the Green Chapel, and the towers of Hautdesert." she said, unmoved. "A Camelot-style ceniog, a handful of pennyroyal. A river, somewhere, the bank bloody."

Tedros had stopped sliding– in fact, he'd stopped completely, staring in Iphigenia's direction, but not really at her. More through her. Everyone else had gone quiet.

"Was it pennyroyal? I couldn't identify it..."

"Anything you've seen, I've seen too. Clearer."

Heads swung back and forth.

"I mean, I can believe the Grand Duchess is prescient," said Hester, in something vaguely resembling respect. "But Tedros? Come on..."

"Gwenh– ah, Guinevere?" said Callis tightly. "It's your son. What do you think?"

Guinevere, apparently mostly past the fact that Callis had slapped her earlier, worried the fabric of her skirt in her lap.

"...I think the Grand Duchess might be right. There was a lot of researching, when I was pregnant. Arthur's advisors tracking lines of descent to try and guess as much as possible. There were a lot of Seers in the early Pendragon line. In fact, they were drafting in several Seers at the time, though they weren't related to us... It's how we knew it was a boy, so early.'' She glanced at Iphigenia. "I suppose that's how you always know about Wardwell children? How you knew you'd have daughters?"

Iphigenia's gaze stayed pinned on her for an unsettling extra second, before she said;

"I have certainties about many things. But yes, that's how I know. About children."

Callis might have been currently annoyed at her mother, but she could read into her better than anybody else, save perhaps her sisters. So, as the conversation moved on, to Agatha and Sophie nervously supporting the concept, Tedros staying uncharacteristically quiet, Hester and Anadil making a few swipes...

Callis stayed staring at Guinevere.

Most of the adults had switched to wine by now, but she hadn't. Lancelot had been uncharacteristically shocked at Callis for that slap, even though Callis had scrapped with Gwenhwyfar multiple times at school. And she'd been in... confinement, in Camelot, stuck in a country house with Lancelot...

Slowly, Callis looked over at Reaper, sitting under Eris's chair.

He gave a tiny nod.

"What the hell am I supposed to do with that information anyway?" Tedros demanded, behind her.

"Use it to prove you're not mad?" said Dot.

"What, and slap an even more massive kill the prescient child king target on my back?" boomed Tedros. "I don't want to get assassinated over an advantage I'm not even good at using!"

"There's already a target on your back." said Anadil.

"Oh, silly me, forgot about the coup–"

-----

"Dull Gwen's pregnant, Tedros is prescient, Rhian is King and Sophie is a pain," Callis listed furiously as she and Reaper paced the halls that night. "Someone give me a good punch to the jaw, a ten-hour nap and a gin and tonic..."

"Won't help," said Reaper miserably. "We're stuck in this stupid farce, now."

"Are you sure about Guinevere?" Callis asked him. He snorted.

"Yeah. Can smell it on her, and I'm sure your mother already knows, which was why she said that very pointed thing that no one else picked up on."

"Why would she have a baby during her legitimate son's succession crisis?" hissed Callis, taking the steps down to the kitchens. She was too antsy to go to bed, and Reaper was more or less nocturnal anyway. "And how I wish Sophie had just stayed at Evil..."

"They should change all the locks so she can't get back in," said Reaper.

"She's ruining it!" insisted Callis, storming along the corridor. "Evil needs reform, sure, but not reform in the appearance of twenty statues of a teenage Dean! I don't suppose she's given a single thought to the welfare or education of the students... why would any sensible witch pick her as their successor?"

"Who can say?" said Reaper, slipping through as she opened the door– "Oh. It's you."

"Oh, no–" said a voice from inside.

Callis exploded inside and slammed the door.

"Lancelot! Are you completely off your head?"

Lancelot banged down his bacon sandwich, which apparently was his idea of a midnight snack, and stood, chair screeching.

"How have you worked this out already?"

"I am talking about you towing my daughter off into a death trap," snapped Callis, which was a lie, because she'd sort of meant both.

"Oh. Well, I am sorry for that, I didn't really–"

"Damn it all, Lancelot, of course you didn't think about it–" Callis took a deep breath. "You're lucky I saved most of my ire surrounding that for my mother."

"I don't feel lucky."

"Do it again and I'll cave your skull in, alright?" Callis snapped. "You're lucky it worked out fine."

Lancelot gave her a weak salute.

"And as for the baby, how couldn't I notice? Flapping around Dull Gwen like a useless fusspot! My mother saying that! And Reaper says he can smell it on her, animals always know first–"

"Your mother is a relentless meddler," said Lancelot. "It makes total sense that she's prescient."

"My mother is going to be invaluable to getting your beloved's brat back where he belongs, so you ought to watch your tone," snapped Callis, which made no sense, since she'd been annoyed at Iphigenia as recently as ten minutes ago.

"Oh, yeah, I know that," said Lancelot, going to wash up his pan, which was really the least he could do. "Think this is her idea of a really fun few weeks. I respect your mother, but I don't trust her, and I don't like that she seems to have immediately clocked onto Gwen."

Callis didn't refute most of that, since it was largely true. But what she did say, was;

"I wouldn't worry about your unborn brat getting dragged into some scheme. She's not particularly interested in either of you. She just wants to see what kind of influence you will or won't exert on Tedros."

"Not much, in truth," said Lancelot. "He doesn't listen to me at the best of times, and Guinevere feels too bad to try and make any suggestions to him."

"Because he got overthrown, or because he's going to get usurped in an entirely different way?"

Lancelot scrubbed harder at the pan.

"I was under the impression, a few months ago, that Camelot was in a stable position. Guinevere has always wanted another child, and god knows that she was young enough when she had Tedros to mean that she could. She was sure that Tedros wouldn't mind, or at least he could be talked around to it. There was, at the time, no question of succession..."

"No question of succession?" hissed Callis. "You think turning up at the Camelot court with a new brat after almost twenty years wouldn't have made people wonder about who Tedros's father really was?"

"He's not mine." muttered Lancelot, drying the pan. "Any number of rudimentary spells could tell you that, and I kept well away from Gwen for several months after she married Arthur..."

But Callis kept on;

"And even if Camelot was stable, doesn't mean that Tedros wouldn't have absolutely lost his mind–"

Lancelot flung his hands up, spraying the ceiling with soapy water.

"I know, Callis! I know! I know the whole thing is riddled with a bunch of stupid mistakes! I know you're going to say that Guinevere doesn't know her son well enough anymore, and doesn't understand the extent of what her running off with me did to him! And you're right, she doesn't realise... but I do, because he takes it all out on me! Whereas he goes all silent around Gwen! But I thought... a proper new start..." He sat down heavily at the table, wiping his hands on his knees. "I don't know how to explain to Tedros that we can't come back to the Camelot court permanently. Even if we wanted to, which we don't... we're too symbolic of old scandals. We need to stay in the background. But neither of us have the heart to tell him that we don't want to hang around in Camelot with him forever. I'm not even sure he thinks it's the best idea, but he won't admit it, since he can't stomach the idea of us going off without him, again. We'd keep in contact, come and visit, all that, but..." he saw her staring. "Oh, to put it brutally, it's too fucking late now, Callis!"

Well, she couldn't argue with him on that. But...

"Maybe Guinevere should have learned to value the child she had, before trying to replace him." she said. Lancelot put his head down tiredly.

"I know you think Guinevere doesn't love Tedros, but I think in the end, you'll be proven wrong."

"I look forward to it." said Callis.

"And you should look forward to Tedros finding out," added Reaper, who apparently had decided he'd sat silent for too long. Lancelot shot him a sideways look, annoyed.

If he didn't already have a... suspicion, Callis thought. At least, unlike Iphigenia, he'd probably be fundamentally incapable of keeping them to himself.

"I think Tedros has bigger problems, right now." muttered Lancelot. "As he said to Sophie, he doesn't have time for interpersonal drama."

"He is an interpersonal drama." scoffed Callis. "...but true enough."

Lancelot went back to his sandwich.

"Don't hit Gwen again, alright?"

"I'll hit you instead."

"That's preferable." said Lancelot. "But, for now, I think we also have bigger issues than you being mad at me about this." he paused. "Are you sure you hate Tedros?"

"I have an unfortunate vested interest in the entire Camelot affair," said Callis.

"Cheers to that..."

-----

Rhian, to his regrettable credit, also wasted no time.

"The following is a transcript from a speech made this morning by... King Rhian." read Iphigenia, the next afternoon after lunch. "He did not appear in person to give this, but had it published, probably because he still looks... wounded."

"Polite way of saying Agatha kicked the crap out of him so he looks shit." mumbled Tedros. He and Agatha high-fived in the most glum manner Callis had ever seen.

"Do an impression, won't you?" said Eris. "Spice it up a bit?"

Iphigenia ignored her.

"You need to make all your vowels horrible, and sound really pompous." said Tedros.

"So like you, then?" grumped Hester.

"My vowels are gorgeous."

"Yeah, it's his consonants that are messed up." said Agatha.

Eris prodded her mother in the hip.

"I know you're about to read it all out. Don't read it all out. Skip to the important bit."

Iphigenia shot her a reproachful look, but skimmed down it, and said;

"Rhian mentions Tedros's challenge and his allegation that he was coerced, accepts it, and says that he's happy to go head to head with Tedros in a contest to prove one of them is worthy."

"Oh god," said Lancelot. "Had enough of those for a lifetime."

"You're not doing it, are you?" grumbled Tedros.

"He then details this proposed challenge," said Iphigenia.

"Clever little boy, come up with a game all on his own..." sneered Sophie, picking at the edge of her empty plate.

In retrospect, Callis would later be glad that it was Iphigenia who had read out the challenge. No one else would have been capable of delivering it so apathetically.

Iphigenia cleared her throat, and read out;

"I propose that before one of us lowers our head for the crown– first, we must bow our heads for the axe."

Guinevere made a horrified little gasp and sat up, eyes wide. Panicked murmuring burst out– the axe? The axe? – but Iphienia spoke over it;

"To show humility... mortality... honour! Such things that remind us that before we are Kings, we are men. To subject yourself to the ultimate authority– that of Death, and whatever comes after– is the ultimate act of humanity. I, King Rhian, am willing, like Sir Gawain before me, to go to my knees and await my own execution, to prove my ultimate virtue. I ask only; will Tedros? If he claims he was coerced, then surely this is his chance."

Everyone was talking over Iphigenia, now, and Guinevere had stood up to seize Tedros's shoulders. Agatha looked desperately over at Callis, who pressed her lips together, not sure there was anything reassuring in this.

"Good speaker, isn't he?" said Tedros drolly. "The ultimate authority of Death. Cor..."

"This isn't a joke, Tedros," said Lancelot tightly. Tedros shot him a dirty look.

"Like I just said, it's not you that's going to have to go and do some stupid rerun of Gawain..."

Iphigenia stamped her iron heel on the flagstones several times, and everyone shut up.

"Thank you. Where was I..." she skimmed down the page. "Ah yes. I propose that in two weeks time, the claimants meet on neutral ground and subject ourselves to a Court of Honour, where we will face the fall of the axe, like Sir Gawain before Bertilak de Hautdesert. Whoever goes first will be decided by a simple coin toss, from the hands of a holy man. A classic Arthurian test, from the golden age of chivalry– surely, if heritage matters so very much, his son will pass it easily? If Tedros proves himself as worthy as his cousin once was, I will be perfectly willing to step down. I propose this challenge to him, and wait upon his response. With honourable regards: Rhian, named King of Camelot."

"He wouldn't know an honourable regard if it bit him on the bollocks." said Hester. "I know that type. Smarming gits. The Nevers that know all the Ever tricks, and prefer pulling strings to good old fashioned murder."

She shot Sophie a pointed glance, which mercifully, Sophie didn't seem to notice.

"Mortality and humility are all very well, but he's not subjecting himself to the ultimate will of Death," said Iphigenia. "He's putting the power into his own hands, very literally. After all, he is holding the axe, not Fate, or Death, or Humility, or whoever else. Only he can decide whether to feint or not." She tapped her iron capped heel slowly on the floor. Callis had often wanted to take a look into her mother's mind when she was like this, but now wasn't really the time.

"Mother, you can pick his statement apart later, we need to decide what to do–"

"There's nothing to be done." said Iphigenia, with that heavy, blank look she got when she was plotting. Her heel kept tapping. "Tedros has to accept."

"What?" said Agatha.

Guinevere sat up. "No, there has to be another way–"

"She's right." said Tedros thinly. "Rhian hit on everything that will matter to my people. He made it sound innocent enough to mean it wasn't a threat, he openly said he'd surrender if I won, so he sounds fair. He made sure there was precedent, so that people can't complain about it being too harsh without being reminded that it's happened before. He reminded them that he'd been named King, by me." He paused, then waved a hand dismissively. "Well, by Japeth, through me, but I can't be bothered with technicalities. It looked like I did it, and that's what matters. He implied it would be cowardly to refuse it. He proposed it on neutral ground. He made fun of the idea that his lack of claim means anything. It's the exact type of noble, knightly nonsense that everyone loves..."

"He's gotten quite jaded..." Callis remarked to Agatha.

"Always has been, just stopped suppressing it." Agatha whispered back.

"Unfortunately true," said Lancelot. "Knight culture is so baked into the psyche of Camelot that they're going to see nothing wrong with this until it's a head on the floor."

"Lance." said Guinevere. Lancelot squeezed her hand and grimaced.

"Just saying."

But Tedros was back on it, pulling the papers to him, so he could read it;

"There's only four options. Option 1: Coin toss has me go first, and I kill Rhian. Out of the question, but very tempting."

"You could do it." said Hester.

"No." said Tedros distractedly. "It's a short term solution that causes a bunch of problems in the long term."

Iphigenia gestured in the affirmative.

"At current, public opinion is that Rhian is a noble, competent liege who coaxed the crown from the hands of a teenage madman, whose mind has been fractured by the pressures of the throne. If Tedros kills him, it will reflect poorly; murdering the noble liege who only tried to do what was best for the kingdom, because he dared to challenge his birthright. Not, of course, true– but it doesn't matter what's true. It matters what people believe. If this were a Never kingdom, I would advise you to do it, then play up the mad angle. But it is not something that's feasible in Ever kingdoms. An infamous Mad King is an asset for Nevers, but a liability for Evers. Evers rely on allies and inter-kingdom relations. Either Jaunt Jolie, Maidenvale, or Putsi would have you both assassinated and replaced by someone more palatable by the next solstice. It is important not to underestimate the ruthlessness of Ever leaders when they deem it necessary."

"Really?" said Hester dubiously.

"Don't doubt it, dear," muttered Callis. "Queen Jacinda was in our year at school. A nightmare of a woman. Played holier than thou every chance she got, but everyone knew she ran the gossip column in the school newspaper. Knew everything, and didn't see an issue in telling it. Held grudges like no one's business. Make her think she's threatened and you're finished."

"Right," said Tedros. "Well, option 2: again, coin toss has me go first, and I spare Rhian."

"At the very least, it gives you moral high ground. You may be able to play it up a little." Iphigenia considered this in a deeply unaffected manner. "Play up his betrayal, effuse how you're unable to kill him despite what he did to you, how you were close as brothers, cry a little, and so on and so forth. I'm sure you can manage that, you're quite good at putting up a front."

Tedros looked offended.

"Am I?"

"Yes, all that..." Iphigenia gestured disinterestedly at him. "Prancing about, that you do."

"Prancing?" repeated Agatha gleefully. Sophie unsuccessfully disguised a laugh as a cough. Tedros stared in betrayal at both of them, and was ignored.

If Iphigenia had been making a joke, she was excellent at pretending otherwise, because her face was a mask. Callis had never been entirely sure whether her mother had a sense of humour or not. If she did, she was a master of irony. If she didn't, she was almost wilfully obtuse to how what she said could be perceived.

Iphigenia went on, talking over Agatha and Sophie's giggling;

"The third option begins with the possibility that Rhian wins the coin toss and goes first."

Agatha and Sophie stopped laughing.

"In this third scenario, he is convinced– whether it be by public pressure, his own mind, or something else– to spare your life." Tap, tap, tap went Iphigenia's heel. "I am deeply wary of this scenario. If Rhian chooses to spare you, it is not out of the goodness of his heart. If he feels he can still win without killing you, it is not a good sign. He may feint to scare you, but–"

"Yes, all very well, Mother, but you know what a worse sign is?" said Callis impatiently. "Tedros's head being separate from his body."

Tedros looked surprised she'd called him by his name for once, but there was no point posturing at and underhanding the boy with the death sentence currently looming. She could bully him once he survived to marry Agatha.

"I hate to agree with Callis–" said Guinevere, and ignored the dirty look Callis shot her, "But yes. We can regroup and decide a new scenario, if we get to that point. What matters is that Tedros is alive."

"Just because he doesn't kill him there and then doesn't mean he won't at all." said Iphigenia. "He can shirk responsibility if he's spared him personally, even if Tedros is killed soon after. He can claim it wasn't him, because if he was going to do it, he'd have done it at the parlay."

"Grand Duchess–"

"Doesn't matter anyway." said Tedros, stopping halfway down the summons. "Third scenario's out of the question. Need to alter all of them, in fact. Rhian's referred to it as a Court of Honour."

"That's nonsense Good tournament speak, isn't it?" said Eris. But Lancelot's brows had drawn, and Callis knew the Evers knew something they didn't.

"No," said Tedros. "A Court of Honour tournament has obscure rules, but usually, in Camelot, it's presided over by someone separate to the participants– a group of judges in charge of judging the chivalry of the knights. The participants aren't deciding, it's a separate party. And if you notice, Rhian didn't say anything about holding the axe himself. He kept it impersonal. I bet you anything he's going to both prove his own men's loyalty to him, and absolve himself of any kind of blame, by having one of his men actually make the swing, to his instructions."

Callis saw Agatha's lower lip disappear below her teeth in the nervous habit she'd never been able to kick.

"So..." said Sophie slowly. "If Rhian wins the toss–"

"If Rhian wins the coin toss, I'm dead," said Tedros. "Because you know who he'll choose to make the swing."

A terse, anxious pause.

"No rule against killing Japeth before the parley." pointed out Hester. "We all gave it a good go..."

"Tempting, to take an ace out of his hand, but ultimately a waste of time. He'll just pick someone else similarly ruthless or mindlessly loyal," said Ismene.

Callis glanced at her mother's glass and found, as usual, she had her hand over it.

"I suppose you've already considered Rhian will have had the same idea about you?" she asked Iphigenia.

"I'm sure he has. But he won't act on it." She turned to Tedros. "But who are you going to choose?"

"Can we focus on the Japeth thing?" sighed Eris, but Tedros frowned.

"I can't pick Agatha, presumably."

"I don't want to have to behead Rhian." said Agatha, picking at her plate, still.

"The whole point is you don't. You just have to hold the axe."

"I don't think you'd be allowed," said Guinevere. "As the Queen."

"They're not married, it doesn't count–" began Lancelot.

Iphigenia cut across him.

"Aren't they...?"

A pause. Everyone turned to stare at Iphigenia.

Then Guinevere and Callis turned, instead, to look at Tedros and Agatha. Pointedly.

"Er, don't know what she's talking about." said Agatha, apparently truthfully.

"Alright, Mother, you'd be one to talk about the sanctity of marriage," snapped Tedros, rankling, and successfully sparked a four-way argument as Lancelot leapt in to defend Guinevere, Guinevere tried to get Lancelot to shut up, Tedros started shouting at Lancelot (who really should have kept his mouth shut), and everyone tried to get a vehemently uninvolved Agatha to back them up. Taking the opportunity, Reaper put his paw in Sophie's plate to get leftovers, got shoved into Eris, bit the closest person (Hester), and got elbowed into Ismene's lap for his trouble, disturbing another cat, who was displeased, to say the least.

Amongst shouting and cat yowls, Callis turned back to Iphigenia, deliberately calm.

"Mother," she said through gritted teeth. "What have you done this time? Whatever it was, I suspect you didn't have a right to do it..."

Iphigenia put down her glass.

"Be silent." she said, no louder than she would have normally said it.

Everyone was, in fact, silent. Reaper, who had apparently lost his short battle with the other cat, went stalking back to Agatha for sympathy, since he knew Callis was going to laugh at him and call him old.

"Guinevere is right to point out the issue of Agatha not being officially Queen," said Iphigenia. "Fortunately, that is an easy issue to resolve."

"You can't be suggesting they get married for real." sniffed Callis. "Marrying her off at 17, my word, a child bride..."

"Don't think it counts if the groom is six months younger and also a child, Callis." snorted Eris. "Good try, though."

Callis ignored her.

"They don't need to get married," said Iphigenia. "The issue is only that Agatha will not be viewed as Queen– rather, a witch-reared peasant fiancée, at best. People might feel somewhat sorry for her, but the main associations at current are that she's slightly incompetent at court duties, and that she's a Wardwell."

"Peasant, incompetent... thanks, Grandmamma." grumbled Agatha. The scant sliver of a smile crossed Iphigenia's face, but she went on;

"Two hundred years of Ever fairytales have made people very, very susceptible to rags to riches romanticism. What they have not been made susceptible to, due to a 100% success rate, is the potential of tragedy in such a thing." she leant back. "This morning, I have begun to put about a rumour that Tedros and Agatha have been hastily married in secret, out of fear Tedros will die at the parley."

"You read the summons before us, right after they arrived." realised Callis. "You already–"

Iphigenia talked over her.

"Besides the inherent desperate romantic appeal of such a thing, it will validate Agatha in the eyes of the Tedros-supporting public, even if it's not true. I planted it in the households of several Ever-inclining Netherwood nobles, and have sent it into the gossip mills in Jaunt Jolie and Maidenvale. A certain classmate of yours with an inherent instinct for the currency of gossip has taken it right up."

"Beatrix," said Agatha, Tedros, and Sophie in unison, Sophie sounding least fond. Hester snorted, in something approaching grudging respect.

Callis thought her mother's mercenary perspective on romance was probably to blame for this. No, Iphigenia had no right to spread something like this, just as she had no right to read the summons before Tedros. But these were mercenary times, and it was infuriatingly effective. Something for Ever noblewomen to go and weep to their Rhian-supporting husbands about. Who wanted to see Tedros hacked to death in front of his new wife?

"...huh, that's really clever." said Tedros, brightening a bit. He elbowed Agatha playfully. "Fancy it for real? Hmm? You–" He made eye contact with Callis over Agatha's shoulder and winced. "Kidding, Callis... ha ha ha... funny joke..."

He slid down in his seat and went back to sulking.

"So, what?" said Lancelot. "We just have to hope the coin toss comes out for us?"

"There may be another way," said Iphigenia. "I need to consider it. But for now... yes."

There was a miserable silence.

No one mentioned the fourth option.

"Can't someone rig it?" said Tedros, finally. Eris snorted.

"Keep that type of solution up, and you'll fit right in here."

"Iphigenia," tried Guinevere, clutching her stomach anxiously. Callis, to her surprise, found she couldn't remember the last time someone had addressed her mother by her actual name. Most people called her Grand Duchess; Deo had called her Ginny. "Surely–"

"Surely what, Dowager Queen?" said Iphigenia.

"You ca–" Guinevere's head turned, and she broke off. "Tedros? What's the matter, sweetheart?"

Heads snapped around, but Tedros didn't look imminently distressed. He was sitting unsettlingly still, eyes fixed on his mother.

Shitting hell, thought Callis. Semi-prescient. Had he just realised? Right now? Did he even need to be prescient, to have guessed?

She shot Lancelot a glance, and found he was looking apprehensively back at her.

They both looked at Iphigenia, who was looking at Tedros, in an unsettling triangle of expectation–

Tedros blinked, and his face cleared.

"Hm? Oh– nothing. Just spaced out."

He smiled, as if to imply they ought to think nothing of it.

Callis looked at Agatha and Sophie.

Agatha and Sophie did not look as if they thought nothing of it, and that was all the proof she needed. Callis had never seen him slide on some kind of affable princely mask, since most of her interactions with him had been miserable and doom-laden. But they had.

He knew, then.

Wonderful. Thought Callis. Really great. I love it here.

-----

"I know how to do it."

Sulking in Iphigenia's sunken garden, Agatha and Hester turned around to find Tedros behind them, looking flushed and slightly histrionic. Agatha frowned.

"Do what?"

"Win Rhian's trial."

Agatha exhaled apprehensively.

"Oh. Um, Tedros, if even Grandmother couldn't think of a guaranteed way..."

"That's because she doesn't know how your talent works. She says herself she's a strategist and a politician, not a sorcerer."

"My talent–?"

"Yeah, and you're none of those things." interrupted Hester. Tedros ignored her completely, which was distinctly spooky. Agatha and Hester glanced at each other.

"Have you gone gaga again?" said Hester. When she got no response, she scowled and shook her head. "Whatever. Have fun planning your death. I'm taking these in."

She took the plants off Agatha and stomped off, casting them a last suspicious glance.

"Are you sure you're feeling ok?" checked Agatha. He did look slightly feverish. Tedros nodded unconvincingly, cutting around her and grabbing her hand to pull her further down the path.

"Yeah, yeah– listen. If Rhian goes first, there's no way I can escape it. Even if we assume they don't rig the coin toss, he's bringing Japeth, and Japeth would never consider sparing me. But Rhian loves grandstanding. He'll probably give me some bullshit chance to say something, and if I–"

Agatha cut him off, anticipating what this was.

"You think that if you make a wish, I'll be able to..." Her heart sank. "Tedros, that's such a long shot–"

"But if I word it right– and I'll definitely feel it, since, you know, I'm about to die–"

"Tedros, I can't... I have no idea if I can do something that powerful."

"You bought Sophie back." said Tedros hopefully. He looked so convinced. He was still holding her hand. Agatha bit her lips, terrified at this maddened flight of fancy. There was something he wasn't telling her.

"That wasn't the same. That had nothing to do with my talent."

"You can grant wishes at will, if they're strong enough! You're powerful–"

"I know, Tedros, but I don't know if it extends to that... if it did, fairy godmothers would just stop people dying all the time..."

"You know you're not the same as a fairy godmother." insisted Tedros. "If Dovey could really grant wishes, you'd have not even needed to say anything to her, she'd have just known it and done it in an instant. She's just a sorceress who does things for people 'cause she feels sorry for them. If you wish-granted someone a dress, it wouldn't disappear at midnight–"

"You don't know that. Besides, Dovey was double-crossing me," said Agatha firmly. "I know it says in the tale that Cinderella had to say it to her, and she had to help her–"

"Because she doesn't grant real wishes! You do!"

"Tedros–"

"I know it can work. I know it can.."

Agatha spluttered, unconvinced.

"Tedros, I don't... that's only one possibility–"

"But that means it can work!"

"Tedros–"

"Isn't this a charming plan?"

Agatha's face dropped. She and Tedros fumbled to look past each other–

"Grandmother," said Agatha hopelessly, seeing Iphigenia at the top of the steps, a basket of ominously glowing cuttings on one of her arms. "Fancy seeing you... here..."

"This is my garden."

"Oh, so it... yeah, so it is..."

"You know perfectly well I anticipated Tedros was going to concoct some half-baked plan and followed him," said Iphigenia, unimpressed.

"Did you tell my mom?"

"Not yet."

Agatha grimaced, anticipating a what are you doing, what stupid thing are you planning interrogation when she got back.

"Grand Duchess, you must know it's the only way it will work, if Rhian goes first," insisted Tedros. He was assuming Iphigenia had overheard everything. He was almost definitely right.

"If you've Seen the future where it works, boy, then I assure you, I also have, and I suspect I will have also interpreted it much better than you. But you're dabbling in unexplored areas of magic, areas even witches like myself are unfamiliar with. What will you do if Agatha cannot perform the spell?"

"She can do it." dismissed Tedros, immediately. Agatha swallowed back the sick feeling in her throat.

Iphigenia gazed at them.

"It is, as they say, your funeral."

Agatha winced. Iphigenia started down the steps;

"It all comes down to whoever swings first. And that is entirely luck from the coin toss. If you go first, and personally spare Rhian, the guilt and the pressure of the audience will most likely get the better of him, and he'll be pressured into sparing you. If he goes first..."

"If Japeth does it, he'll kill me," said Tedros.

"He'll probably miss on purpose, too," said Iphigenia. "Get your shoulders, or the back of your head, maul you. It happens." She tilted her head slightly. "For all your many failings, you have a good grasp of showmanship. You just hadn't thought to exploit it like Rhian, and you kept it on a personal level. Your mistake, but you know now that this is the best route in terms of destroying Rhian's credibility. If you spare him, there is nothing that Rhian can do that will make him look equally noble besides stepping down, and then we can pursue a different approach. But in any route where they attempt, or succeed, to kill you, they are ultimately making a damning mistake. They have not considered that even though the Camelot people are resentful and doubtful of you, it is unlikely they want to see their seventeen year old Prince hacked to death with an axe in front of his fiancée, with the feeling that they are somehow complicit in it."

"There has to be another way." interjected Agatha, feeling violently sick. "You must have seen something–"

Tedros talked over her;

"I'll take that chance. Listen; I don't want to take many people. Not my mother or Lancelot." His voice caught, and Agatha looked at him, but he ignored it. "I'll make them stay here. I dragged my mother back out of her happy ending with Lancelot to trail after us through the Woods. She's not happy, she's not useful, and we almost got Lancelot killed in the process. It would be better for her if she wasn't involved in the possibility of my gory execution." Tedros paused. "Plus, if it's permanent, that's one less thing for her to deal with. No father, no me, she's free to go off with Lance like she always wanted to."

Agatha stared worriedly at him, feeling he was finding morbid ways to justify this. Iphigenia stood silently, watching them.

"I don't think your mother wants you to get beheaded so she can go off with Lance, Tedros."

"Well no, but ultimately it would probably be convenient–"

"You're just fatalising everything to try and justify a massive risk–"

"I'm not."

"You are, what's wrong with you–"

"My mother's pregnant again." snapped Tedros.

Agatha stared at him.

"...what?"

"She's having a baby with Lance," said Tedros hoarsely.

"How do you know that? Have you spoken to her–"

"It's true." contributed Iphigenia quietly. Agatha looked at her, then turned back to Tedros, who was staring at the flagstones. A suspicion, then...

"Have you said anything to her?"

"No." said Tedros tightly. "But I'm not letting my mother come to my execution, in case watching me get beheaded makes her miscarry her new baby."

"I–" Agatha floundered for something to say, and found nothing. "Tedros, that's... oh, my god..."

It wasn't particularly surprising, when she considered it. Guinevere was at least a few years younger than Callis, and wasn't too old for another child by any means. And that room in Avalon.... Agatha had never been sure if that was meant for the child Tedros that Guinevere had left behind, or a second child that had, for whatever reason, never made an appearance until now...

Despite Iphigenia generally never being useful in social situations, Agatha looked desperately at her grandmother for help anyway. Unsurprisingly, she did not come up with the perfect thing to say. Or, in fact, anything helpful at all.

"Gets complicated, doesn't it?" said Iphigenia simply. "Prescience."

Agatha sighed.

"This is why you never tell anyone anything, isn't it?" she said wearily. Iphigenia lifted a shoulder.

"It may be. But if this is what Tedros thinks will work..."
"My funeral." Tedros repeated wearily, swinging Agatha's hand in his. "I know."

"Stop saying that." muttered Agatha. Iphigenia shot them both a searching look, then turned back up the stairs.

"Remember what I said. Good evening."

She went off, Agatha wondering which bit of her horrible lectures they were supposed to be remembering. The bit about there being no other way? Your funeral? The bit where she spread rumours they'd been...

Panic married...

Agatha slowly looked down at their interlocked hands.

She turned her head, and saw that Tedros was staring at her.

-----

"No." Callis said, standing a few hours later in her mother's sitting room.

"Awww, Callis, don't be a bitch!" shouted Eris, from the sofa behind them. Callis didn't change her expression, but neither did Agatha, so Callis was forced to give ground. She sighed, and leant on the side of the sofa that her sisters were on.

"...Agatha. Sweetheart." she said, through gritted teeth. "Do you not think that this might be a bit... rushed?"

"Yeah," said Agatha, unmoved. "That's sort of the point."

Callis screwed her mouth up, trying to think of a way to get around that one. She couldn't, so she turned accusingly on her mother.

"This is your fault."

Iphigenia blinked slowly from her tall armchair, cat-like.

"I don't see a problem. It's perfectly manageable."

"Oh, I'm sure you don't." Callis muttered.

"I haven't even spoken to Agatha about it..."

"Don't misunderstand me!" Callis barked. "You planted the idea! You knew they'd grab onto it!"

"Didn't you?"

"Mother."

"Callis, I'm not responsible for whatever they decide to do with my ideas."

"Is that what you tell King Elias's other councillors?"

Iphigenia put her head to the side.

"I suppose it is, more or less."

Eris and Ismene were laughing. Callis growled and turned back on Tedros and Agatha, the former of whom was trying to use the latter as a human shield. Unfortunately for Tedros, he was far too broad in the chest and shoulders for the infamously spindly Agatha to provide any kind of cover.

"You are not getting panic-married because you're scared Tedros is going to get his head taken off by Japeth."

"Why?" demanded Agatha, who was chief negotiator here, given Tedros had done nothing except stand there and look nervous.

"What part of you're seventeen is hard to understand, here?"

"What part of I'm seventeen is relevant, here?" Agatha batted back.

"How is it not relevant?"

Eris turned conversationally to Iphigenia.

"Would you have done this, if any of us had wanted to get married and you were adverse to it?"

"I have my own methods."

"You'd have killed the spouse, got it..."

Meanwhile, Callis whirled on Tedros.

"And how about your mother? Run it past her, why don't you? Dull Gwen! How about a Wardwell wedding for your son?"

Guinevere, suddenly dragged into the fray, worried her lower lip.

"I... well..."

"Oh, don't pretend to care about what he wants now." Callis griped.

"Callis, I think you've got a rather extreme view on this..." reasoned Lancelot. Callis shot him a poisonous look and he gave up.

"I'm on Callis's side," volunteered Hester.

"How are you involved in this in any way?" demanded Tedros.

"Logistically, it is a pain," said Sophie. "But–"

"It's not really," snapped Callis, who had an inbuilt instinct to argue with Sophie. "Not here."

"So we're all to be subjected to some witch clan's idea of nuptials?" scoffed Sophie. "Do spare me, I wouldn't like to get blood on these boots–"

"Yes– well, no, but–" Callis wheeled on Tedros. "Where are you going?"

"To get a drink?" said Tedros weakly, at the door.

"Like hell you are, sit down."

"Get me a snack while you're there," said Agatha. Tedros, experiencing two conflicting orders, decided the best course of action was to stand there and pretend he'd not heard either of them. Not effective, but probably wise.

Callis turned back to Agatha, who was completely unmoved. She didn't often end up at loggerheads with Agatha, and was not enjoying the experience...

She turned her head, and noticed her mother watching her with an odd expression, something slightly sharp that she couldn't quite work out.

Callis took a deep breath.

"...the borrowed dress tradition might be hard." she said. "Since none of my old things are going to fit Agatha properly."

Hester groaned. Agatha beamed, and flung her arms around her.

"Thank you, thank you thank you thank you–"

"Don't thank me yet, you don't know what you have to do." said Callis wryly, prying Agatha's skinny arms from around her neck. Tedros, still by the door, looked apprehensive.

"...what do we have to do?"

Callis smiled wolfishly at him, and did not reply.

-----

"I'm tired."

"Oh, be quiet." huffed Sophie.

"It's early!"

To be fair, it was. The sun hadn't come up yet, nor would it do for another few hours. The look on Agatha's face had been pure murder when Callis had come to wake her up– she had needed to remind her three times what it was for, before Agatha so much as started to scrape out of bed.

"I feel like a milkmaid on May Day." Agatha grouched.

"You've clearly never seen a milkmaid, let alone on May Day."

Agatha grunted. Sophie smacked her arms down to her sides, annoyed.

"You know, you're probably the worst bride I've ever seen."

"What other brides have you seen?" demanded Agatha. "Are you thinking of Honora? Whose wedding I exploded?"

"Let's just hope you don't do it to your own." said Sophie crisply, trying again in vain to get the piece of hair on the left side of Agatha's head to lie flat. It was in vain; it had never had stayed down, ever since Agatha was a little girl, and it never would.

Agatha batted Sophie's hand off, and twisted to look at Callis.

"Why do we have to be up this early?"

"All Wardwell weddings happen before sunrise, dear." said Callis. Agatha huffed, making the flowers in her hair flutter. The Coven and Sophie had warily gathered pennyroyal, honeysuckle and jasmine for her from the edges of the grounds the previous night, firmly avoiding Iphgienia's sunken garden and anything they didn't recognise. They'd tried a garland, but Sophie had complained Agatha's head was too big, and Agatha had said she felt like a five year old in a daisy chain wreath, and they had changed their minds. For Sophie's plethora of failings, she had clever fingers and a good eye, and had managed to weave what they'd collected into Agatha's hair with surprising competence.

Now, though, Sophie sighed, stalking in circles around Agatha with narrowed eyes.

"Well, it's no Camelot affair, certainly not Queenly, but it's passable. Though I still insist that burgundy, with your skin undertone, does make you look–"

"Sophie?" said Callis sweetly.

"What?"

"How would you like me to punch a hole in your chest and rip out your still-beating heart?"

Sophie folded her arms and went quiet.

"What?" demanded Agatha, turning this way and that uncertainly. "How does it make me look?"

"Does it matter?" demanded Hester, unfurling herself suddenly from the corner where the Coven were lurking. "Who's gonna be able to see you out there? Besides, if Tedros cared about whose skin undertone looked better in that colour, he'd be a stylist, not the royal pain we all have to pretend to care about so the world doesn't end."

Agatha blinked.

"...suppose so."

The dress was a loan from– surprisingly– Iphigenia, who had been built very similarly to Agatha when she was a girl, and was almost the only person as tall as her. Callis had never known her to have owned anything that wasn't black, grey or dark green, but apparently she'd had slightly more adventurous tastes as a teenager. Slightly. She also hadn't known Iphigenia had still owned anything from her youth, but apparently her pragmatism didn't go that far...

"You don't suppose so, you know so." Hester told her imperiously.

"And since you've decreed that we have to come to your stupid wedding to stupid Tedros, despite us not being in any way, shape, or form related to you," Anadil added. "I decree that we should hurry up."

Agatha sighed, and jumped down from the fitting stool in her usual haphazard way. Callis exhaled slowly, feeling they had successfully averted a crisis, there.

"I was roommates with your mother," Callis reminded Anadil, hauling herself out of her chair. "So it depends how far you want to stretch being related."

Anadil shrugged, lifting her curious rats so they could sniff Agatha's flowers.

"I don't think Mother is at all sentimental." she said. "I suppose there's the usual school Coven vows, but..."

"I think you'd be surprised," said Callis, thinking of how Clytemnestra had mentioned her own mother. Anadil frowned and kept quiet.

"Daddy is very sentimental," said Dot thoughtfully.

"Volkan has plenty of sentiment– far too much, in fact– but no clue what to do with it," snorted Callis, eyes on Sophie as she cut in front to walk with Agatha. She slipped her arm through Agatha's in what was clearly a silent apology.

"I know you nitpick when you're nervous," Agatha told her. Callis and Reaper exchanged long-suffering glances. Agatha would never stop making excuses for Sophie, they both knew.

Sophie smiled tightly.

"Just worried they're going to make you do something horrible and gothic, like sacrifice something. I'm sure you could manage, but Teddy's awfully faint of heart about things like that..."

They both looked back hopefully at Callis, who had so far merrily refused to tell them what Wardwell wedding customs consisted of. Callis winked and put a finger to her lips. Agatha groaned and turned back around.

"You could kill him at the altar and unlock a level of dark magical power previously unheard of?" suggested Hester.

"That's defeating the entire point of why she's marrying him now." scoffed Dot.

"Tell me where I said I cared?"

"You proved it by coming to the wedding, Hester."

Hester ignored her.

They went down the stairs, through the dark kitchen, and Callis led them out of a side door–

And straight into a group of people already outside.

"Ow!"

"Wait, what?"

"Who's out here already?" demanded Sophie.

"Who's that?"

"Eris?"

"Callis?"

"Ow!"

"Teddy? Ooh, sorry sweetie–"

"That's me." snapped Hester.

"Ah. I never noticed what princely wrists you had until now, darling."

"What the hell is a princely wrist? It's a wrist!"

"Damn it, Sophie," hissed Tedros's voice from somewhere behind Callis. "Why are you wearing heels at three in the morning?!"

"Good fashion transcends time."

"I'd love to see it also transcend all the roots you're going to have to clamber over– Blessed Holy Mother–!"

"It's me." grumped Agatha.

"Oh. Did you have to grab me like a horror novel jumpscare?"

"Yes."

"I bet you're loving this," said Tedros. "Gothic."

"I think it's just dark..."

Someone's hand found Callis's arm, and Callis slapped it off.

"Get off."

"Morning, Callis." sighed Lancelot's voice. "Thank you for helping me keep my balance."

"Can someone light a fingerglow?" demanded Sophie–

"No light, if you please."

The arguing died down, as Iphigenia's voice surfaced for the first time.

"Now your eyes will have adjusted, you can see sufficiently well." said Iphigenia. Callis looked around and realised it was mostly true; Tedros and Agatha were one sort of vague blob to her left, mostly because they were clutching each other. Agatha noticed Callis staring and serenely removed her hand from Tedros's chest.

Iphigenia turned towards the woods.

"If you'd like to follow me?"

It wasn't that far, but it was a longer walk than anyone wanted to do at three in the morning.

"You look pretty." Tedros whispered to Agatha, as they fumbled over roots. Agatha snorted with the exaggerated emphasis of someone nervous and overcompensating for it, hand tight on his arm. Reaper, leading them, flicked his tail irritably. He was the only one who could see properly, and Callis suspected he would have cheerfully let Tedros break his ankle in a badger sett on his own, but since he was leading Agatha too, he intervened;

"Bear right," he told the group at large.

Uncertain, they did. Callis truly had no idea how Iphigenia was so sure where she was going, but she wasn't going to intervene.

"Good try," Agatha said to Tedros. "But it's so dark there's no way you can see me."

"I'm prescient, you know." said Tedros.

"Yes, Tedros, for important things. Not foreseeing what dress I borrowed from someone."

"Is our wedding not important?"

"Stop it, you're making me stress-itchy..."

"Oh, I bet–"

Reaper was visibly getting fed up– and, once they were on a fairly flat stretch, he abandoned Tedros and Agatha, and went back to walk with Callis.

"Kids are annoying as usual," he told her. "Don't kick me, I'm to your left."

"I can see you well enough," Callis grumbled. "Might kick you on purpose, though."

"Kick him."

"I think about doing it daily."

"It's not too late to kill him, and make it look like an accident." offered Reaper.

"It is, we already started making food for later." said Callis.

At the front, Tedros and Agatha started loudly nervous-giggling at something, effectively destroying the mood.

"Won't you two shut up?" sighed Sophie, but it was no use, because Agatha had started snorting and there was no coming back from that–

"Through here," said Iphigenia softly, cutting through a copse, suddenly. Everyone grumbled and stumbled after her–

The group stopped short, surprised.

They'd emerged into a shaded, misty clearing, and found the forest suddenly dimly lit– but the dawn was still at least half an hour away, so what was the source?

Callis looked down, and found the clearing was mostly taken up with a deep, winding pond of glassy, almost black water. The surface was crammed with creeping patches of sleek lily pads and fragrant water lilies, glowing eerily in their different shades. Mist hung on the surface, shifting slightly.

"So this is where you get the Nymph Lilies for potions." said Ismene to Iphigenia. "I thought you bought them from Walleye Spring."

"Expensive buys, dear. Easier to find them yourself."

She went ahead, and Callis looked at her sisters, impressed. Every time there was a wedding in the Clan, they went out to a slightly different location, in the grounds or beyond, but this one was particularly good.

"Mother been saving this one?" murmured Eris, apparently thinking a similar thing.

"Probably for us. Guess we disappointed her by not getting married ourselves." said Callis.

"Hardly, after what happened with Deo," said Ismene. Callis looked sharply at her.

"So you do know what happened to–" she stopped herself. Now really wasn't the time.

"Oh." said Agatha, from the front. "This is... nice, Grandmother."

Callis got the impression Tedros and Agatha had been expecting something grimmer.

Iphigenia inclined her head, went down the short wooden decking at the edge of the pond, then simply stepped into the water. Agatha and Tedros looked at each other, alarmed.

"Get in," said Callis to them.

"What?" said Tedros.

"Why?" said Agatha.

"Witness the noble union of Oblivious and Dubious." muttered Hester.

The Wardwell sisters looked at each other, then looked back and shrugged.

"It's tradition," said Callis. "It's only about waist deep, you're tall kids. Go on."

"Get in, or we'll push you." added Eris.

As Tedros and Agatha flailed and swore and knocked into each other in the water, Callis was sure the last time this had happened, it had been more... dignified. But then again, the last one she'd seen had been Iris and Josephine, who had been thirty, not seventeen, and had no need to rush it in case one of them died. They could have their dignified wedding in Camelot, if Tedros survived to get back there...

Ismene and Eris sat down on the bank, and everyone else copied them, Sophie in bad faith and Lancelot muttering about his knees.

Callis kicked her way to the front and sat with her sisters, watching narrowly as Iphigenia joined Tedros and Agatha's hands, turning them around so they faced the correct way. Agatha was shivering, and Tedros was fidgeting, as usual. Iphigenia drew a length of red twine from her pocket.

"Be still, if you please."

Callis wasn't ever sure she'd seen Tedros not moving at all, but he managed it now. Agatha still looked cold, but she'd managed to still herself completely.

Sophie had said earlier that Agatha didn't look queenly, but looking at her now, Callis didn't think that was true. Not at all. There had always been a cut to Iphigenia's clothes that was harsh and severe, and on Agatha it suddenly looked imposing. The high collars and tight hair made her profile stark, and she'd put her head up, finally, presumably to look Tedros in the eye. Callis could see her profile on a coin, on a standard, in portraits; a face more people than just her, now, would follow and fight for. She wondered if Tedros had ever spotted it, and suspected he had; he was unmoved in his conviction in Agatha, as if he'd seen something everyone else hadn't.

The dark doublet someone had found Tedros was clearly slightly too tight across the shoulders, and it was making him stand very straight. In the light reflecting off the water, he looked unfamiliar and indistinct; as if he was going to crawl out of the pond unrecognisable. There was no resemblance to Arthur, to Guinevere, to anyone; just his hand in Agatha's and the shifting shadows on his face.

Iphigenia wound the twine over their arms, punctuating each knot with a phrase;

"May your fires light easily and burn stoutly, and may the paths you walk side-by-side be clear. May your love persist through your time, and your children's time, and your children's children's, until the ending of the world."

"Until the ending of the world." repeated her daughters and Reaper quietly. Usually, more people would have said it, but the crowd here was mostly outsiders. Callis thought Hester might have picked it up towards the end, though.

She had expected some kind of comment from Agatha or Tedros, some kind of reaction, anything; but there was nothing. They gazed at each other and stayed quiet. Callis glanced at Tedros, and looked away, feeling wretched. Her earlier observations meant nothing; they looked childish once more. Through her eyes, they never looked like adults for long.

"Very well," said Iphigenia, stepping back, and spreading her hands. Agatha sloshed forwards and kissed Tedros, and he flung his free arm around her waist, their tied hands trapped between them. Sophie and Dot cheered, and the dawn exploded through the trees, splitting the mist with burning gold. Iphigenia's sense of timing was always impeccable.

Callis watched them, feeling slightly unwell, but knowing she couldn't afford to show it in front of Agatha. She looked at Reaper, who had his head on the ground, watching unblinkingly.

"I know," he said.

He always did. Sighing, Callis watched as Iphigenia waded back to the decking, serene as usual;

"Untie yourselves," she said over her shoulder, and got out herself, ignoring the several hands she was offered to help her.

Tedros and Agatha looked down at the incredibly complex knots keeping their arms together, then at each other.

"The record is 10 minutes." said Callis, trying to regain herself and getting her darning out.

Tedros's other hand started reaching inside his jacket, and Agatha slapped it off.

"You can't use a knife."

"Why?"

"She said untie it, not cut it–"

"God." Tedros muttered. "Ok, hang on, I do know most of these, half of them are sailor's knots–"

"What would you know about boats?"

"Camelot's coastal, Agatha."

"Oh! Yeah. So it is. Er, so..."

They picked about, for a few minutes, managed to get a few bits untied.

"Think I'm losing circulation." mumbled Agatha. Callis shook her head and went back to sewing. Hester had brought a book, which Anadil and Dot were reading over her shoulders. Someone must have pre-warned her; probably Eris.

At long last, from the pond, there was a plaintive;

"Mo-om, we can't reach this one..."

"Finally." snorted Eris.

"As you seem to have finally realised," said Callis, crouching on the decking to get to their arms as they sloshed up to her, "There's no rule against asking for help. It's not you two, and only you two, against the world, forever. You're a team, but you're not isolated."

"I'm cold," said Tedros, teeth chattering.

"I'm glad you know an important life lesson when you hear it." grumbled Callis, then noticed he did look quite blotchy. "...actually, you are going blue."

She broke the awkward knot they'd been too cold and badly positioned to reach, and Tedros's surprisingly clever hands made quick work of the rest of them.

"Passable." said Callis, hauling herself to her feet.

"Aren't you going to say congratulations?" said Tedros, as Agatha sort of flung herself onto her stomach on the decking and started scrabbling around to get her legs on. He blinked at his new bride. "You know you could like, just push up and get your knees up–"

"Not in this skirt." said Agatha, rolling onto her back as Tedros gracefully demonstrated a much more dignified exit. "Grandmother, how did you get out without looking stupid–"

Callis grabbed Tedros by the collar.

"Congratulations to you, boy, for marrying so far above what you reasonably deserve, as to be ridiculous."

Agatha overheard, from the floor.

"Mom–"

"Let's go, I'm hungry."

-----

It took about half an hour for Tedros and Agatha to resume their habit of bothering each other.

"–you never danced with me at School!"

"Yeah, because Sophie blew up Good Hall, and also because I don't know how."

"It's easy, come on! Please?"

Agatha ignored him. Tedros put his head on the table in an elaborate pantomime of sulking. Callis rolled her eyes and went back to the dessert platter.

"You'll have to learn at some point." Sophie prodded. "Queens need to lead dances, Agatha."

"Yeah, whatever..."

"Maybe it won't be so bad if he loses." grumbled Hester. "No obligatory balls for you."

A shadow crossed Agatha's face, just briefly.

"...don't say that."

Hester shrugged.

"Well, either you get used to all this obsolete nonsense, like dances and wimples and receiving tribute and kissing babies, or Tedros dies, and you don't have to do any of it. So pick your poison."

Agatha opened her mouth–

"I'm not going to die, and you don't have to wear a wimple." intervened Tedros loudly, putting his head up. "Are we dancing or not?"

Agatha took a deep breath.

"...fine."

"What bit are you agreeing to?"

Agatha shot him an unimpressed look and got up.

"Not the other bits Hester tacked on."

Tedros beamed and grabbed her hand.

"I'll phase them out of all the fashion trends for you."

"Dances?"

"Wimples."

"Oh. Yeah. Bet I'll look like a twat in a wimple." said Agatha.

They went off, cackling so hysterically that it was clear it was a substitute for another type of hysteria, but perhaps it didn't matter.

Callis looked sideways at Hester.

"Interesting methodology, there."

"Have to be cruel to be kind," said Hester, kicking her feet up onto Tedros's vacated chair. "She'd be forever mad at herself if she said no and then he gets his head taken off. She'll thank me later."

"You could have done it in a less brutal way," Sophie suggested. Hester snorted and ignored her– then frowned, and swung her feet down. "Fancy it, Ani?"

Anadil looked blankly at her.

"I suppose it would be better than having to watch Tedros and Agatha flail about..."

They got up and went off, hand in hand, with Anadil's rats peering desperately back out of her pockets. Perhaps they were fearing being catapulted out of Anadil's pockets like missiles in a trebuchet.

Dot and Sophie exchanged significant glances, and raised their glasses to each other.

"You two definitely had nothing to do with that." Callis told them. Dot shrugged.

"Between us, we make Hester so mad that she basically flung herself on Ani, since she realised she's the only person who doesn't make her want to brain herself."

"True love," snorted Callis. "Never saw the point in it, myself..."

Dot shrugged and went back to her plate, but something about it must have struck Sophie, because her head turned towards her sharply. Callis glanced over, and she looked at her hands.

She turned;

"Dot, go and save your father from Clytemnestra, else she'll turn him into a mole."

Dot looked over, saw the Sheriff with Anadil's mother, cringed in horror, and bolted. Iphigenia had 'suggested' (commanded) that Anadil and Dot invite their families to the dinner– supposedly out of goodwill, but actually so that prominent Woods figures would be able to vouch for the validity of this entire thing. Callis hadn't had the chance to approach Clytemnestra, and hadn't wanted to approach the dreadful Nottingham trio (since Marian and Robin seemed to go everywhere with the Sheriff, irritatingly), but she knew they'd been staring at her. She'd hoped vaguely that they wouldn't recognise her, but clearly they'd worked it out.

"At least she's realistic about Volkan's chances, if he annoys the woman who's killed five husbands and never liked him, even at school." she muttered, sitting back and crossing her ankles. She turned to Sophie. "What's the matter with you, O Illustrious Dean?"

Sophie shook her head slowly.

"I thought... I thought that might have been how Rafal got to you, too."

Callis stayed silent. Sophie's brow furrowed.

"Merlin told Tedros and Agatha you were pursuing true love, and you thought Rafal could give you that..."

"Agatha has already regaled me with what Merlin saw fit to spin to her about my time at Evil." said Callis thinly. She had concocted a thousand fantasies of dragging Merlin down the stairs by his beard, but she'd have to be patient. "It's mostly fanciful elaborations or outright lies, but the Storian isn't a biographer. It writes stories. If it needs to gloss over details to write a good story, it will."

"So you were there to kill him all along?" said Sophie.

"I was, dear. I had to. Once I knew I was the witch in a fairytale, preceded over by the Evil brother... it was him or me."

It had nearly been both of them.

"Ah." Sophie straightened her skirt. Coughed. "Of course. Knowing how..." she gestured at Iphigenia, standing with Eris and Tisiphone near the wall. "Your family operates. I just thought–"

"You hoped that maybe someone else had been taken in by him, too."

Sophie kept her head down.

"I was a fool." she said bitterly. "I was so jealous, and he was so handsome, and he made me feel..."

"Powerful?"

Sophie looked up at her, eyes shiny. Callis turned her chair to face her.

"Listen to me, Sophie."

For once, she did.

"You know I think you're a vainglorious little brat," said Callis, and was rewarded with a frown. "But you're no man's fool."

"I'm quite sure you–"

"I'm not finished."

Sophie scowled and went quiet.

"I was twenty-two, on a mission to kill him," said Callis, "And even I had moments when I was taken by him. He had his ways. He plotted how to appeal to specific people. He appeared to me in an older guise than he did to you, because he knew I'd have scorned him if he looked like a boy. You were sixteen, and have a perfect plethora of insecurities for him to prey on. So he looked boyish and rakish and made you a Queen, and gave you the power and agency you were always after. And he set you up so you could be a match for Agatha. He was hundreds of years old, Sophie. He'd had time to learn to be the perfect manipulator. And yet you killed him. I couldn't do that."

"Only because you didn't know how."

Callis shrugged.

"Maybe it was never meant to be me at all. Who can say? But after all is said and done, the old bastard is dead, we're still alive, and you still have power over Evil that he didn't give you. More than you think. Rhian sneered about school teachers, but the School turns out the pinnacle of Nevers, the very future of Evil. You just needed to learn that you didn't need Rafal to give you that chance."

"And yet I'm still a dreadful teacher, apparently," scoffed Sophie. "That old bat Dovey says I'm more of a playmate than a professor."

"You're seventeen, and are spending more time erecting numerous statues of yourself, than planning lessons," said Callis drolly. "Clarissa has a point. But you'll get the hang of it. How about those wretched lectures Agatha told me about? Your horrible talent for manipulation and twisting words? You know what it's like to be at the very top, and the very bottom of the Evil ranks. You've hated that place and you've loved it. You have a huge personality and presence. You're positioned perfectly to take this role. You just have to stop worrying about what Agatha's doing over in Camelot, and pursuing vanity projects, and throw yourself into it."

"I always worry about what Aggie's doing," muttered Sophie, but her eyes had lost the anxious gleam, had flinted into something slightly harder. She was looking over at Tedros and Agatha, now.

"So do I." said Callis. "But we both know she's tough. If that boy dies at the parley, we can help her pick up the pieces. If he triumphs– well, lucky Agatha. Queen in the Iris Crown. She'll need our support there, too."

"She truly does dance like a drunken marionette," muttered Sophie fondly, but her gaze was hardening by the second. "We'll see them to that throne room, come hell or high water."

"We will." said Callis. "So that means..."

"We need to get rid of Rafal's sons." said Sophie.

"Especially the Snake," said Callis. She got up, brushed down her skirts. "Remember this conversation, Sophie."

She turned to leave–

"Callis."

Callis looked back.

"It has to be us," said Sophie. "We have to kill him. I don't care one bit what happens to Rhian... but we have to kill the Snake." she sat back, crossed her legs seamlessly. "Which is why I'm taking the axe, as Teddy's champion."

Callis raised her eyebrows.

"I see."

"I'll do what he tells me to, if it comes to taking the swing at Rhian. But if something goes wrong..." she spread her sharp-nailed hands. "Well. I've killed before."

"You've discussed this with him?" said Callis.

"Last night."

"My my," said Callis. "You're suffering to be a liege to Tedros."

"When humility suits my designs, Callis," said Sophie sweetly. "You'll find me quite the saint."

"False idol indeed." snorted Callis. "Put that on your supper hall stained-glass windows."

"I really should..."

Shaking her head, Callis turned from their table and headed across the hall. There really was something chillingly savage about that girl. If Sophie could only realise herself, Callis truly feared for the Evers who would face the villains that a Sophie-led School for Evil could produce. No one else approached Evil with such brutal serenity.

Well.

Perhaps one other.

Callis left Sophie to her vanity project musings, and went to find her mother.

-----

Iphigenia was standing on the edge of the hall, silently half-filling a goblet from one of her flasks. She wasn't looking, though; she was watching the floor, where Tedros and Agatha had stopped what could generously be called dancing (mostly stumbling around and cackling) a while ago. They were more or less just standing there now, clutching each other. People were politely pretending not to notice, but Dot and Hester looked overtly worried.

"She's afraid," said Iphigenia.

"Stunning observation." said Callis sourly, the conversation with Sophie still playing on her mind. "Care to share? I bet you picked a better vintage than you gave the rest of us."

Iphigenia handed her the flask silently. Callis took a swig directly from it, ignoring the side-eye she got, and passed it back.

"Of course, he's terrified too," said Callis. "But he'll play the lionheart like his life depends on it. Which it probably does. Good thing the Everboys are practically trained for it. Child soldiers, the lot of them." She looked at Iphigenia. "...do you really not know how this is going to go?"

"You've heard Tedros's plan?" said Iphigenia.

"It's a shit plan." said Callis. "We don't know how Agatha's talent works, and neither does she. She can't just decide that something is someone's wish and then grant it. He needs to make it– clearly– and mean it. And if he doesn't word it properly, or panics and forgets, she's not going to be able to grant a dead man's wish. And there's always strange loopholes. Perhaps he won't come back the same." she glanced at Iphigenia. "No intuition about it?"

"There's still too many uncertainties," said Iphigenia. "So many people are involved that it's getting hard to tell what I know."

Callis looked over at them.

"...is there any future where he lives?"

"Somewhere, there is." said Iphigenia. "But the path there is unclear."

Callis shook her head.

"How long have you known you can do this?"

"I have always been able to do it, but I only started researching it after my mother died," said Iphigenia. "You were already born. Before that, people were under the impression I was delusional, or maybe just plainly mad. No matter that I was always right."

"You still haven't told many people you're semi-prescient, though."

"And why should I? I'm old enough now to have the respectful label of unsettlingly astute attached, instead of mad. Perhaps I'll reveal it before I cross the line over which people can accuse me of being senile."

Callis scoffed, but it was half hearted.

"Mother, this is impossible."

"As Rhian apparently pointed out, fairytales like the impossible." Iphigenia said. "And there's something in that plan... something I can't quite see."

"A possibility that no one's thought of?"

"Perhaps."

"Has Tedros seen it?"

"Given his sudden seizing onto this plan, it's possible he has. But he doesn't know how to articulate it, and he'll probably label it as intuition. I shall interrogate him, but I doubt it'll lead to much."

Callis rocked on her heels, feeling a headache starting to form behind her left eye. She looked out across the hall–

And saw Hester, sitting with Eris in a corner.

-----

"Didn't know you knew how to read tarot." said Callis, her shadow falling across them.

Eris looked up at her, and shrugged.

"Mother showed me. Mostly, I use it to fleece people out of money at parties, but occasionally..." she shrugged, laying out the cards. "Not prescient like her, but I thought I might be able to read a bit into it."

Callis looked across the cards she'd turned over. Eris scowled and stacked them all up again.

"But it's giving me gibberish. The only constants are that I pull the High Priestess every time. I'd guess there's not a set course, yet..."

"Isn't the High Priestess going to mean all the prescience going on?" grumbled Callis. "Subconscious?"

Eris shrugged.

"Probably. But we already knew that was important." she sighed and tapped them back into a pile. "Some things are for tarot cards, and some things are for Mother's brain. This isn't for tarot cards." She stood up. "I want a drink, since you've apparently gotten hold of Mother's vintage. Want one, Hester?"

"I'll take the punch."

"Brave girl," said Eris approvingly, and trotted off through the crowd.

"Your stomach better be up for it." said Callis. "It's made people go temporarily blind, before."

Hester shrugged.

"I've eaten Evil's food." She tugged a card from the deck, looked at it, snorted, and put it back. "The Hanged Man. Very apt."

Callis sat down next to her, watching the crowd.

She glanced at Hester, and found she was staring across the room, at Anadil and Dot with their families.

"I like it here," said Hester distantly. "Don't have much to compare it to, mind you, except Evil and a half fallen-down gingerbread house, but..."

She saw Callis's look, and scowled defensively.

"What?"

"You can't have lived there on your own for... fifteen, sixteen years?"

Hester sat back.

"Ravenswood Deme Council fed and clothed me as thanks for mother's services to Evil, but that was it. Stayed there 'til I went to school, then the Everwood Architectural Society swept in and made it a tourist attraction. They only hadn't done that before, because I'd been setting bear traps for all the wretched parasites that came to gawk." she paused thoughtfully. "Once, a kid jumped over all of them, ran up to the house. I told him to get out or I'd kill him. He laughed at me, and pulled off a gumdrop to eat. Said there was nothing to be scared of now, because my mother was dead, and everyone said good riddance to bad rubbish."

"...and?" said Callis.

"Killed him." Hester said, like it was obvious. Her demon twitched, seemingly in remembrance. "Council wanted to send me to Arbed House, after that, but they wouldn't take girls."

Callis stared, reminded of...

Frankly, I seem to remember that Mother said if they'd taken girls, she would have sent me.

"School Master said he'd take me," Hester went on. "They were relieved, but I guess word got around, because everyone at Evil was terrified of me the second I got there. Everyone except Ani and Dot, that is. And Sophie, since she didn't know better..."

Hester paused.

"Dot was probably too stupid to think I'd try to off her," she said. "And I guess Ani thought it was best to get on my good side as fast as possible, which is so like her. But I liked having... a Coven."

Coven was always the Nevergirl substitute for friends. Callis was very unsurprised that Hester spoiled for that, rather than anything more fond.

"Forgot they had families, 'til school ended and they went back off to their posh houses." said Hester tightly. "Got stuck at school, with Sophie and her damn statues. Not even Agatha to talk to, since she was busy getting overthrown in Camelot. Wrote to her, but it wasn't the same. It's probably bad to say that I'm enjoying Agatha's miserable month, but it's just like old times. Everyone together, again..."

She put her chin on her hand bad-temperedly and knocked over all of the cards, just for something to do.

"Hope you like 52-card pickup." said Callis, staring at the mess on the floor. "You know–"

But Eris was back with the dubious punch, and Hester grinned, standing up to receive it.

"Here, look, we should play a drinking game–" Eris was saying. "Everyone's getting boring, need something to spice this up a bit..."

"With the tarot cards?" said Hester.

"With the tarot cards!" Eris said. "We'll just adapt it– let's play ring of fire–"

Hester's mouth curled.

"Can always make it literal." A wisp of smoke escaped from the corner of her mouth. Eris grinned.

"Oh, can you really... hah, wait–"

"If you start any real fires, you're putting them out." said Callis, getting up. Eris just laughed, as Hester started retrieving the cards–

Behind Hester's back, Callis put her hands up and clasped them together, then pointed them towards Hester. Eris glanced very briefly at her, then said quietly;

"I was waiting for someone else to say it."

Callis nodded slowly, then backed into the crowd and went back to find her mother.

Usually, they were younger. But not always–

"Callis."

Callis turned, and found herself staring into the bottomless eyes of her other Evil roommate.

"Cly..."

Anadil's mother considered her with her head on one side.

"Charming occasion."

"It's alright," said Callis. "Bit of a gloomy undertone. You look old."

"And you're still a bitch."

"Quite right, too." Callis nodded over at Anadil, arguing with Dot near a pillar. "Your daughter's charming."

"As is yours." Clytemnestra pointed behind them. "Robin, Volkan and Marian want to talk to you."

"Robin, Volkan and Marian are nosey bastards who want to know how I'm not dead."

"We all do..."

Callis huffed, and went arm in arm with Clytemnestra to withstand a barrage of mindless questions from the school peers she'd been markedly less fond of.

-----

"I've made a decision," said Reaper, early in the morning, two days later. Callis, clutching a mug of tea and the newspaper, stared blearily at him.

"Are you going to stop throwing up those odd mouse pellets on my bed?"

"Absolutely not."

"What's it to me, then?"

Reaper squinted at her, apparently weighing it up. Callis put her mug down, frowning.

"Reaper–"

"I'll be your familiar."

Callis opened her mouth, but he was already on what she strongly suspected was a pre-scripted spiel;

"It would make it a lot easier," he said. "Stopping Agatha, when she does stupid things. And I know you never re-offered, but I thought you probably wouldn't. But I had Eris look into it, and it's not really as bad as all that." He paused, and added. "Plus, we've been hanging around together long enough, by now..."

"Just practicality, then..." said Callis.

"Obviously," said Reaper.

"Hmm..." Callis smiled fakely, then put the paper and mug down. "Give me ten minutes, then meet me in that drawing room no one ever uses."

-----

The potion for it was simple, but disgusting.

"Bet your mother loved you poaching her potion ingredients for this." said Reaper, staring dubiously at the purple-ish liquid.

"She was visually thrilled," said Callis. "She beamed. She didn't just watch me judgmentally, or anything..."

She put it down, and they both drank. She took his paw in her hand.

"This is dumb." said Reaper.

"Shush yourself." said Callis. "Put your claws out."

Reaper did it. Callis pricked her finger with his claw. She'd heard other witches had been bitten by their familiars, but Reaper bit her fairly often, and it felt too mundane...

"Your eyes will be mine," she said, "As mine will be yours. And your ears will be mine, as mine will be yours. We will see and hear as one, we will travel as one, even when we are apart. My power will be yours, and your power will be mine. Though we are different, you are my double. I, Callis Wardwell, Witch, offer this bargain to Reaper. Do you agree to this pact, in assistance of malevolence and villainy?"

"I agree to this pact in assistance of malevolence and villainy. We see and hear as one, and we travel as one, even when we are apart. My power is yours, and your power is mine. Callis Wardwell, Witch– I, Reaper, take this bargain and become your familiar. Though we are different, you are my double–"

The next thing Callis knew, she was waking up, hanging half off her chair.

"God." said Reaper, dangling off the table. "I feel like I just got run over."

Callis stared, realising she wasn't just hearing his voice, but feeling it, as if she'd come up with it herself...

"What?" she said, and Reaper said.

"Oh, god, that's weird..." Reaper said, and she said. "I thought it would have more... aplomb." he added, and she added.

Reaper jumped down from the table, and Callis experienced a horrible disjointing of vision, as she kept her field of view, and also gained Reaper's, which meant she could see her own shoes from his perspective.

"Can we turn this off?" groaned Reaper and Callis, pacing uncomfortably in circles. "Can't we just have it when we need it?"

"Um-"

Callis focused, and was relieved to find that the doubling retreated to some kind of background awareness.

"Thank god." said Reaper. "I didn't want you rattling around in my head all the time. I don't like your thoughts. They're big and mean."

"And yours are small and pointy," said Callis. "Also, I don't want to witness you licking your own arse."

"Reasonable." Reaper sat firmly down and scratched his head with his back foot. "You know what, after all this time... I kind of hated having a human perspective back. Not giving any credit to Rafal, may he rest in piss and flames forever. But just saying."

"I think a lot of mogrifs say that."

They sat in silence, for a bit. Callis was thinking of the first day he'd mogrified, in Evil. She got the impression– or maybe she knew– that he was thinking of the same thing.

"Maybe I was wrong." admitted Reaper. Callis gave a mock-gasp, and he shot her a dirty look. "When I said Nevers were meant to be alone, all those years ago. Was just thinking about it..."

"Oh," said Callis, sobering. "Yeah. I think you might have been."

Reaper did his best approximation of a scowl.

"Alright, Callis, it's fine when I say it, but it's kind of righteous when you say it, to be honest–"

"Fine, I see how it is–"

Callis got up emphatically to leave, but Reaper followed her, jumped onto her shoulders from the floor in his favourite bit of athleticism.

"I am glad you're not dead, you know."

"I think I got that, Reaper. Thanks."

"Mm." he paused. "You know, I thought about bringing it back up ages ago. The first kidnapping night."

"The first one?" Callis slowed. "Agatha and Sophie's first one?"

"No," said Reaper. "The very first one. When you sent me out into the Woods saying that if Rafal killed you, I didn't have any obligation beyond bringing Agatha to your mother's."

"...Reaper, that was years ago."

"I know," said Reaper quietly. "Cats are an exceptionally proud animal, you know that. Your mother would be an excellent cat."

"My mother would be an absolutely prodigious cat," muttered Callis. She hesitated. "...what would you have done, if we had both been killed?"

"I thought about it," said Reaper, "And I don't know. I really can't think of a single thing."

They went on their way.

-----

The night before the parlay, Callis and her sisters went to the tavern in the nearby town.

It wasn't on anyone's orders, least of all their mother's; but it was probably something she'd have approved of, anyway. There was no faster way to ascertain general opinion, and Never taverns were especially rowdy and opinionated.

Besides, the atmosphere in the house had been almost funereal, and if Callis had been made to stare at Guinevere's worried, pallid little face for any longer, she might have gone insane. The dark, cramped, stinky little pub had been a teenage haunt, and she'd needed to go somewhere.

She got them all a drink and sat in a corner, testing them with some of her mother's powders. Could never be too sure in Netherwood, or in any Never kingdom.

It was odd to buy Ismene a drink. She hadn't been old enough, last time they'd been here.

Callis sighed and slid them across to her sisters. She'd thought Eris might play darts, or pool, or something, but she didn't. Apparently no one was in the mood for merrymaking.

They didn't really talk; just sat and listened to the crowd around them. Through opinions on Ogreball Games, the failed coup in Frostplains, the nasty accident at a Ginnymill tournament, the prices of potion ingredients...

"Well, I don't like either of them."

Callis's head turned.

Ah. Finally.

Eris blew out a breath and went to running her fingers around the rim of her tankard.

"We have to pick between Arthur's mad whelp, or an Arbed House boy with a nutter brother." one woman was pressing. "Don't want either."

People clamoured;

"Not your choice, you're not an Ever."

"Oh, give over, everyone knows Camelot affects the whole Woods..."

"And we don't know Sir Japeth is the Snake!" someone else added.

"Everyone knows Sir Japeth is the Snake! Can't prove it, but everyone knows it." The woman flung herself back in her chair. "Keeps people in line, doesn't it? Rhian will want it known."

"The Grand Duchess is supporting Tedros," pointed out another woman.

"The Grand Duchess supports anyone if she can get something from it. She's backing him because one of her many granddaughters is engaged to him. Forget Elias; she can finally fleece some more expensive sheep. If Tedros wins, she'll get tired of Elias."

Callis wondered if that was true. She glanced at her sisters, but Ismene shook her head.

"She won't. She likes pulling strings in Netherwood."

"But Elias is so... boring," said Callis. Eris shrugged.

"Clearly mother sees something worth doing, in it all. Don't know what. He doesn't do bloody coups or dramatic court affairs or even very good dinners, but she must have some reason for wanting to play Mangiafuoco and Pinocchio with him..."

"Her and her reasons..." muttered Callis.

"Engaged?" said the woman nearby. "Didn't he just marry the granddaughter?"

"Yeah, just about. By our standards I hear, not really by Ever ones. But it counts, I guess. Worried Pendragon will get his head taken off, aren't they?"

"Stupid desperate Ever brats." said someone, but it didn't have much heat in it.

"I trust the Grand Duchess to do right by herself." another declared. "And what she does right by herself, she usually does right by us..."

It was hard to deny it. Iphigenia's choices tended to benefit Netherwood in some way, if only because she kept the crown stable.

People muttered.

"She's just a woman. She's capable of being wrong."

"Ever heard of her being wrong?"

Yes, thought Callis grimly. But the Nevers shook their heads.

"Well, I don't care," said one. "Probably fucked either way. I'll just see what happens tomorrow."

"I want Tedros to win, I put coin on it. Want a Wardwell girl in the Iris Crown, think it'd be a laugh..."

Dubious mutters.

"Hardly a Wardwell, she's an Ever..."

"Ahh, they've definitely had Evergirls before, even if it wasn't proven."

"Still like Rhian better."

"Well, you would..."

They weren't convinced by either of them. Of course they weren't. These were Nevers, after all.

"You'll watch the Spellcast?"

"Of course. Guaranteed gore, I reckon..."

"Can't believe the Woods' future's based on a coin."

"Ain't everything?"

The Nevers jeered.

"Drink to that..."

"So it is, by hell..."

The conversation ebbed and moved on. Callis turned back to her sisters.

"Nothing we didn't already suspect." said Eris, scratching at a dubious stain on the tabletop. "But good to hear that there's a breadth of opinion..."

"Would prefer it if everyone hated Rhian, but I'll take it." said Callis. "I guess just being Arthur's son can't do it all for Tedros, but I think he already knew that."

"Fathers can't do half as much as the School would have you think," snorted Eris.

Fathers...

Callis sat up and leant across the table.

"Speaking of fathers–"
Eris and Ismene both drew back dubiously. Callis stared at them.

"Oh, come on. She's not here. What happened to Deo? Where is he?"

Ismene was silent. Eris pursed her lips tightly, eyes darting. Anyone else would have perceived Eris to be the weak link, but Callis knew what Ismene's silences meant– or, at least, what they used to mean. A struggle to keep something in, so she said nothing at all...

She turned on her.

"Tell me, Issy. Why is this some big secret? I know you both know–"

"Mamma told us not to tell you." said Ismene tightly, staring at the table. Callis groaned.

"Oh. Of course. In that case–"

"Don't look at me." said Eris thinly. "I know you think Issy is a pushover when it comes to Mother, but I won't tell you either. She said she was going to tell you, so she told us not to." she paused. "I did think she'd have already done it by now, though..."

"Well, we know what she's like." muttered Callis. "Took forty years for the words semi-prescient to pass her lips, even though she found out before you two were even born. She'll probably be on her deathbed saying oh, by the way, Deo fell down a hole in the Murmuring Mountains and got eaten by wolverines, couldn't tell you before because I wanted it to be symbolic–"

"He wishes that's what had happened to him." muttered Eris.

"Was it recent?"

"Nah." said Eris. Callis took a breath, but Ismene cut in;

"Callis, think how rare it is that Mamma actually gives a direct order, in a straightforward manner, rather than just implying and suggesting everything. She directly said to us, do not tell Callis, I will tell her. If she'd just vaguely implied it, we might have ignored her. But she told us."

"You'd never have ignored her." grumbled Callis. Ismene sighed.

"I think distance has somehow made you less generous to Mamma."

Ismene had always been the most forgiving of Iphigenia, and she didn't seem to have changed. But nonetheless, Callis thought guiltily of the stack of unsent letters she'd written to their mother while she was in Woods Beyond. She'd still not told anyone about them, just put them in her desk drawer upon finding them in her cloak. She wasn't sure if she'd ever tell Iphigenia about them. Some things, perhaps, were better left unread...

"Proximity just reminds me of some of her... habits." she muttered.

"Like being manipulative, ruthless, and deeply emotionally impenetrable?" said Eris. "And the fact that when you get mad at her, she just stares at you, like a cat that threw up on the rug and expects you to deal with it? Yep. Maybe we have gone blind to her. But she plaits Tisiphone's hair for her, has read The Exploded Ogre to Odell and Xander about twenty billion times, even after everyone else is sick of it, and she gave Agatha her dress to get married in, so maybe she has her moments."

"Didn't say she was a bad mother, or grandmother," said Callis grumpily. "But she's certainly a type."

They drank to that.

"For a while after you... fake-died, we didn't want to be too hard on her," admitted Eris, after a minute. "The others wanted her to rest off the wound Rafal gave her, but she was always up and–" she broke off at the look on Callis's face. "Don't tell me she didn't tell you."

"What. Wound." Callis bit out.

"When she broke Rafal's glass hounds and horse, she got caught in the side by one of the glass shards." said Ismene. "It wasn't that deep, but it was painful for her to move quickly for a while. He broke her arm, as well, but she fixed that on the ride back with a dubious black magic spell she performed really badly, and the witches had to re-break it to fix it properly when she got back. I suppose she didn't tell you?"

"She hasn't mentioned a thing about her confrontation with Rafal," said Callis. "Or anything to do with that, aside from the fact that she survived to be reticent another day..." She drained her tankard and banged it down, standing up. "Will she tell me if I directly ask her, do you think?"

"Yes." said Ismene.

"Nah." said Eris.

They looked at each other in despair.

-----

"...and Hester?" said Callis finally, as they trudged home.

"Haven't raised it to her, yet," said Eris. "Waiting for this to blow over, one way or another."

"She won't take it badly, will she?" said Callis.

Eris looked thoughtful, then said;

"No. I don't think she will."

"She's very powerful," said Ismene. She paused. "And she needs a home."

They went back through the Woods and up the path to the kitchen door. Callis, slightly tipsy, dug about in her consciousness...

Get out of my head, thought Reaper-Callis.

Where's Agatha? demanded Callis-Reaper.

Burst into tears in the middle of the hallway and had to be talked down for a good forty minutes. Even Iphigenia got involved, which means it was a whole thing. She's asleep on the sofa in your mother's office with the boy. Reaper-Callis told her.

...is Mother there?

Yeah, she's ignoring them and doing some papers.

God damn it all. I was going to pick a fight with her, but can hardly do that now.

Prescience is as prescience does... maybe you can fight Gwen instead.

Where are you?

Reaper sent her the vague impression of the squish of a small animal's entrails and leaf-mulch.

Hunting. Forget I asked.

I won't. Also, you're kind of tipsy, so your mother would totally be able to out-manoeuvre you...

Callis pushed him to the back of her mind again.

"Drat Mother. She's deliberately placed herself around Agatha and Tedros, so I can't go and argue with her tonight. I'm not dragging Agatha into worrying about something else."

Eris snorted.

"It's not funny," snapped Callis, even though it sort of was.

"Reaper tell you that?" said Eris, who clearly still thought it was funny. Callis nodded grumpily.

"That's very spooky," said Ismene thoughtfully. "Never seen a witch with a familiar, before."

"Euthemia had a lizard when me and Callis were young, but they severed it because she hated the lizard always crunching crickets in the back of her consciousness." Eris told her.

"Weak-minded women are ever thus," sniffed Callis. "Besides, I've heard Reaper crunching mice in proximity every day for the last twenty years. He used to do it under my bed in Graves Hill..."

The other two went through the stiff kitchen door, but Callis looked up at the light in her mother's study.

Her interrogation of Iphigenia would have to wait until after the parley.

-----

"You're a lot taller than I was, so we had to let the sleeves and hem out," said Guinevere the next morning, sounding strained. "But it will serve, I suppose."

Agatha, looking uncomfortable in the heavy brocade gown they'd stolen from the Camelot country house, forced an unconvincing smile. Tedros, leaning on the pommel of the saddle nearby, looked similarly uncertain.

"Thank you..."

"No no, it's fine... I wish I could lend you some jewels, but I think we both left all of them in Camelot."

"Didn't have any, anyway." said Agatha. "Apart from the diadem."

"Which you lost." called Tedros.

"I haven't lost it!" exploded Agatha. "I know where it is! I just can't find it in the chest!"

She went off to argue with Tedros, dragging the hem in the grass. Callis glanced at Guinevere.

"That doesn't fit or suit her."

"Oh, it doesn't matter." said Guinevere tiredly. "As long as she visibly looks like a royal bride, and they both survive to get to the seamstresses, she can get something nicer..."

Her voice wobbled. Callis took her arm, none too gently.

"He'll be okay."

"You know it's unlikely." whispered Guinevere, twisting her sleeves in her hands, watching Tedros and Lancelot argue over the horse's saddling. "This is all my fault..."

"Oh, don't." scoffed Callis. How like her, to try and blame herself...

"No..." said Guinevere. "It is, in part. Arthur would still be alive, if Lancelot and I hadn't fled. There would be no ridiculous succession challenge that Tedros has to win." She paused. "How can they say this is what he'd have wanted? Arthur had his anxieties about worthiness and succession, but that was partly why he was so pleased with Tedros. He wasn't a perfect man or a perfect father, and I don't think Tedros is wrong to start to resent him, a little... but I don't believe he'd have ever let his only son be thrown under the axe to prove a point. We were so relieved when Gawain came back. He was only young, too... twenty, maybe? Tedros thought Gawain was the most impressive knight he'd ever seen, even if he didn't really understand exactly what it was that Gawain had or hadn't done. And now..." she gestured helplessly, then turned away.

There was a lot Callis could have said, but, ultimately, she thought Guinevere knew it all.

"We'll bring him back." she said. Guinevere blanked the assurance. Perhaps she didn't know in which sense Callis meant. Callis wasn't sure she knew, either.

"Tedros should let me come with him." she said thickly.

Callis tried to take some of the bite out of her voice.

"In your condition, I think a big shock might not end well. It would be quite brutal to start a day with two children and end with none."

Guinevere shot Callis a startled look. Callis tipped her head.

"You're in a witch clan run by a semi-prescient meddler. You think no one has noticed? Didn't Lancelot tell you I gave him a verbal whipping in the kitchen about it?"

"But does Tedros–"

"Almost certainly. Probably merrily bottling up all his resentment to give Lancelot a black eye later." said Callis. "For now, he'll keep quiet. Congratulations, by the way."

Guinevere looked over at Tedros, stricken, then went hurrying across the grass. Callis looked down at Reaper.

"Way harsh." said Reaper. "She'll feel worse, now."

"Her own stupid fault for getting knocked up during her legitimate son's succession crisis," said Callis. "Guess there's nothing much to do at Camelot country houses, when you're not meant to be in the kingdom at all..."

"Oh, don't."

Callis snorted.

"Are you coming with us?"

"Of course."

"Well then," Callis held out her arm, and let him jump onto her shoulders. "Let's not keep Rhian waiting..."

-----

The contest was held in an old jousting arena not far from Four Point.

Rhian was already waiting, when they got there; sitting at some ridiculous dais with an array of the court officials that had previously been Tedros and Agatha's around him. Japeth was behind him, eerily still. Rhian was wearing fine clothes and jewels, but no crown or sword; Tedros had Excalibur, and the priest standing in the middle of the field had placed the crown on a plinth nearby.

In comparison, they looked like what they were; a straggling group of meddling witches. Iphigenia was as imperious as ever, and Tedros was surprisingly calm, but everyone else looked from anxious to terrified, even Sophie.

"Welcome!" cried Rhian, standing and coming forward as they dismounted. "I knew I could count on you to be punctual..."

Callis's eyes fell to the block in the centre of the field, and she looked away, instead finding the Spellcast orb, floating ominously here and there. They were already broadcasting to the rest of the Woods, then. No surprise there; Rhian wasted no time. Or expense, apparently, since this was the second time he'd used a Spellcast, and those things were incredibly pricey. Tedros wasn't going to be very impressed with the state of the coffers, if he got back...

Callis felt, not for the first time, that Rhian had been ominously in the background, since the rescue from Camelot. Taking his cues from Iphigenia, he had made no direct moves, and they'd communicated only in terse messages and summons. He was depressingly adaptable. This was the only direct action he'd needed to take, and he'd somehow still managed to not do the actual execution himself. A traditional Ever King indeed. Fobbing off all the real work onto other men, living to play puppet master and people's champion, but no more.

Arbed House boys. They really were impressive, in a horrible way...

"I'm not wasting time on pleasantries," said Tedros, taking the lead, meeting Rhian before the block.

"As you wish," said Rhian, disaffected.

Agatha made to follow Tedros, but Hester cut in and shook her head. Reluctantly, Agatha hovered beside Hester and Sophie, digging her nails into her palm.

The priest came forward and tremulously took a ceiniog from his pocket, face unsure. Rhian smiled at Tedros.

"Heads or tails?"

"Heads," said Tedros, face a blank mask.

Rhian spread his hands.

"It is, after all, your head... for now. Heads for you, tails for me. Whoever the coin lands in favour of, will go second. If you will...?"

With old, shaky hands, the priest fumbled the coin onto his fingers. A pause, and then he flipped it into the air with the sound of ringing silver–

He caught it, slapped it onto the back of his hand, and withdrew it.

"Tails," he said.

Callis shut her eyes briefly, and the Wardwell contingent groaned. Hester grabbed Agatha's arm, but Agatha stayed quite still, though her mouth was shaking.

Tedros shrugged, as if it didn't matter to him one bit. His gaze was unsettlingly distant. He unpinned his cloak and came to hand it to Sophie.

Callis glanced at Iphigenia, and saw her mother was wearing the same expression as Tedros.

She knew something. They knew something.

She opened her mouth–

"Let's get it over with." said Tedros.

Agatha finally cracked; darted forward and grabbed him.

"Don't do it, don't–"

Tedros gently pried her hands off him, and kissed her knuckles.

"Go with Callis, it's fine–"

Callis knew a cue when she heard one, and now she cut forward to pull Agatha back. Some part of her, one that was more Iphigenia than Callis, knew what a good show this was. If Tedros didn't die for good in the next few minutes, he was going to be one of the most popular figures in the Woods for decades. Maybe he would be even if he did die. Rhian's guards were all looking in different directions, and the priest had turned away, face agonised. Some of the court ladies were crying. So was Dot, and Hester was looking at her boots. Even Anadil had turned her face away.

Callis took a quick breath, put a hand on Agatha's shoulder, and gently pulled her back.

She only hoped that if he died, Agatha might forgive her for it, one day.

-----

Clamped in between Callis and Hester, Agatha watched Tedros approach the block and Rhian move away from it.

Japeth paced forwards too, the axe hefted over his shoulder. Rhian met him halfway, caught his arm.

"You know my decision." he said.

"I know it well," said Japeth. He looked up, and saw Callis and Sophie watching him. His eyes narrowed, and he looked back at Tedros, who had knelt calmly at the block.

"The ultimate trial," said Rhian, settling back at the dais. "Do you have anything to say?"

Yes! Rhian's love for showmanship. If only Tedros could–

Agatha leant forward eagerly–

"I wish it could have ended differently." said Tedros easily. Rhian snorted.

"For you?"

"For Agatha," said Tedros.

Agatha's heart stumbled in a sickening panic. What? He couldn't say that! That wording was too flawed. There wasn't anything for her to... to use! There was nothing in there, she couldn't–

"That will do, I think," said Japeth softly.

With apparently no argument, Tedros put his head down.

Japeth hefted the axe. Agatha took a breath to intervene, scream, do anything–

The axe made a low swoosh as it fell, and Agatha kept her gaze fixed on it, as–

Suddenly, from behind, Iphigenia's hands clamped over Agatha's eyes just in time.

But she heard the sickening crack of the impact anyway, and how several people screamed, and Dot gasped. Rhian gasped too, and there was the snarl of fabric as he launched to his feet. Something ripped; perhaps he'd stepped on his cloak–?

"JAPETH–!"

And then a second impact. Hester groaned.

Before the axe came down the third time, Agatha was sure he tried to say her name through his mangled throat.

Then it came down the third time, and there was–

No, there was no silence at all. For the horrid grating shriek of a witch erupted from her left, followed by a whoosh, and the awful thud and snap of an impact. Not just any witch– the witch, her witch; the Grand High Witch Ultimate, scorned. Sophie had thrown her axe. At who? Japeth? Rhian? She couldn't see, but if Sophie was that angry, she had to– Tedros–

The wish, she had to... she ought to... she had to do it...

There was nothing. No magic. Agatha put her hand feebly out, but there was nothing.

What was it for? She couldn't do this. She couldn't grant wishes at will. Not at all. Something had gone out.

What had he said? It was...

"I wish it could have ended differently." said Agatha, and she said it out loud, though she heard it from miles away.

"Aggie?" came Sophie's voice nervously. For it wasn't just Agatha's voice; it was Tedros's, too. This was... yes, she'd needed to... she wanted...

"For Agatha," Agatha repeated vaguely. Yes. For her. What did she wish?

That–

Make a–

Didn't princesses get wishes? Fairy godmothers granting them miracle wishes for a happy ending? No one ever granted her anything. She'd had to give herself everything she'd ever wanted. Even Dovey hadn't truly granted her anything; she'd tricked her into realising it for herself. She supposed that Tedros had asked her to the ball. That was something...

Yes, Tedros– he was the proof that she was just as worthy of wishes and godmothers and pumpkin carriages and tiaras as the rest of the sorry lot of them. She'd wanted it, really, in secret; read each of the storybooks under the covers every night, then scorned them in the day. And now Tedros was– he–

She could smell his blood. It was everywhere.

Iphigenia was still holding her, and she couldn't see, but she could smell it–

Agatha's legs gave way, suddenly, and Iphigenia stumbled, let go of her to avoid being pulled down with her. Heaving, Agatha collapsed into the quagmire of blood and sand and gore and screamed into the earth, clawed her nails into the ground, properly wailed, with the hot, thick press of Tedros's blood in her eyes and nose and mouth and–

Something shrieked up from somewhere within her; not her, but a... charge, something preparing itself. There were hands on her back and shoulders, her mother's, she'd know them anywhere, but she couldn't– think– because there was– she wished that–

There was a bang like a cannonblast, and above her people screamed—

And Agatha collapsed into the mud and blacked out.