The Last Ever After. Soman Chainani

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      They followed the rabbit through inky trees as blackness swept over the Woods like a plague, the sun offering no resistance against the night. Soon they could barely see at all, and if it wasn’t for the rabbit’s corpulent pace, they’d have lost him in the dark. Ominous howls and low screams crackled ahead of them and Agatha tried to ignore the skitters and slithers in the underbrush lining the path. Yellow and red eyes peeped overhead like malevolent stars, warning her that danger was coming and coming fast. If only we knew where League Headquarters was, Agatha thought miserably. Her mother had sacrificed her life to make sure they reached the League … and I didn’t bother to ask Uma where it was? Why didn’t I have a backup plan in case something happened? Why can’t I think straight? Now instead of finding the one place where they’d be safe tonight, they were on some wild-goose chase, carrying a petrified teacher and chasing a time-obsessed bunny to who knows where. With Tedros lagging under Uma’s weight, Agatha kept pace with the rabbit for more than an hour, silently punishing herself for their predicament, until she finally glimpsed a wisp of white smoke emanating through pine trees ahead.

      Drawing closer, Agatha began to smell a faint tinge of sandalwood mixed with a familiar scent she couldn’t quite place, and as they moved into a tiny clearing, she saw that the smoke plumes were coming from a hole in the dirt, half-covered with dead fern fronds. The rabbit kicked the ferns aside and disappeared down the burrow, before peeking his face through the gap impatiently.

      Agatha paused, reluctant to follow a stranger into a hole—

      Tedros barreled right by her. “Nothin’ to lose,” he mumbled.

      Before Agatha could argue, her prince lowered Uma into the hole and slid in behind her. Irritated, Agatha lowered herself down after him, landing awkwardly in darkness before Tedros caught her into his chest, soaking her with sweat. He smells good, Agatha noticed, inhaling his minty fresh scent. How could a boy possibly smell like spring fields after everything they’d just been through? She suddenly thought of Sophie, who’d smelled of honeycream even after traipsing up Graves Hill in the worst heat. Maybe that’s why Tedros missed Sophie, Agatha thought bitterly … they could lie around all day sniffing each other, flawless gold-haired idols, while here she was, a “holy bloody mess,” reeking of stress, dirt, and undead witch—

      “Anyone here?” Tedros called.

      Agatha snapped to attention, embarrassed by her thoughts. It was pitch-black in the hole, the rabbit nowhere to be seen.

      “Hello?” Tedros echoed.

      Nothing answered him.

      The prince held out his hand and felt a wall of solid earth in front of him. “Why do we always end up in dirt?”

      Agatha’s stomach rumbled. “Maybe the dove was telling us to eat the rabbit instead of follow him.”

      “Or maybe the rabbit was telling us to leave Uma here, while we go look for League Headquarters.”

      “You want us to dump a petrified teacher in a hole and leave?” said Agatha, flabbergasted.

      “It’s not like she’s going anywhere.”

      “Suppose you’ll dump me in a hole the moment I’m inconvenient too,” Agatha murmured, strangely confessional in the dark.

      “Huh?”

      “Then you can go get your sweet-smelling, beautiful, vibrant Sophie all alone,” Agatha vented, unable to stop herself.

      “You didn’t happen to eat any strange mushrooms on the way, did you?”

      “Go ahead, laugh. You can name your children Blond and Blonder.”

      “Never pegged you as a jealous type,” Tedros marveled.

      “Jealous? Why? Because you almost kissed her as a boy and a girl? Because you can make her feel loved in a way that I can’t? Me? Jealous?” Agatha ranted, thoroughly ashamed of herself now.

      “Isn’t Sophie supposed to be the crazy one?”

      “Bet you wouldn’t leave her in a dark pit—”

      “And we thought Tweedledee and Tweedledum were hopeless,” said a hoary voice.

      Agatha and Tedros choked, recognizing it at once, and twirled to see a torch spark to flame in the grip of a white-bearded gnome wearing a belted green coat with a silver swan over the heart and a pointy orange hat. A gnome Agatha thought had been killed in a fire, but now here he was, alive in a secret den. She burst into a smile, glowing with relief—

      Yuba didn’t smile back. “First you lose a teacher because you fail to protect each other in the face of mortal danger. Then you fight so often and loudly that you’ve alerted the entire Woods as to your whereabouts. Now you’re so busy insulting each other that you forget to use a simple glow spell to illuminate your surroundings in the time that a Cave Troll could have bashed both your heads to smithereens. If it wasn’t for a rabbit rescuing you from yourselves, you two nincompoops would be dead before dawn,” he lashed, fingers twitching on his white staff as if he wanted to beat them with it. “A Bad Group is one thing. But you two Evers might just be the Worst Evers … Ever.”

      Agatha and Tedros looked down, humiliated.

      Yuba sighed. “Lucky for you, the League needs you as much as you need it.”

      Torches roared to flame, lighting up a squad of strangers behind him in a giant cave headquarters the size of a small house.

      “Presenting the honorable League of Thirteen, legendary legion of Good and Enlightenment,” Yuba proclaimed with an imperious smile, clearly expecting the Evers to look impressed, awed, or at least grateful for the glorious platoon that they had come all this way to see.

      Agatha and Tedros blanched in horror instead.

      Because the League of Thirteen that was their only hope to save Sophie, the League of Thirteen that was their only hope to stay alive … were all very, very old.

      

      ou’ve got to be kidding,” Tedros cracked, as he and Agatha goggled at the saggy, ancient crew.

      Agatha counted four men and four women—a geriatric gang of liver spots, turkey necks, hairy ears, foggy eyes, yellowed teeth, beady grins, bony limbs, and heads of sparse, colorless, or poorly dyed hair. Two of the eight were in rickety wheelchairs, three had walking canes, two were hunched and bandy-legged, and one was a morbidly obese woman in a muumuu, slathering on makeup at a mirror.

      All of them had silver swan crests over their hearts, like Uma, Yuba, and the White Rabbit, badges of membership to a League her mother had trusted with her daughter’s life.

      She sent us here for a reason, thought Agatha desperately. Would they rip off masks, revealing invincible warriors? Would they magically СКАЧАТЬ