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

Chapter 17

By sunrise, the royal grounds were filled with Evers and Nevers from all over the Woods, eager to see the dead Snake and the Lion who killed him.

Everyone thought it would be best if Camelot continued believing there was only one Snake, and so Y/n's body had been moved. Agatha didn't know where. She didn't ask.

Agatha looked back into the castle's sitting room across the hall, where Sophie and Rhian were treating Tedros' wounds.

"This is going to hurt," said Rhian, standing over Tedros, who was shirtless and facedown on the couch, his back red-hot from the burns.

Tedros bit into a pillow and his knight spread salve on his skin while Sophie held the king down. Tedros let out a stifled roar, his teeth tearing the pillow to feathers, before his yells muted to groans and he let his two friends wrap him with gauze.

Agatha watched Sophie and Rhian take care of Tedros the way she should be.

"Something must be wrong when Good's greatest helper isn't helping," said a voice.

She turned to see Guinevere next to her, dressed all in white, watching her son with Sophie and Rhian.

"I think I've helped Tedros enough for now," Agatha said.

"You did what you had to do, Agatha. You kept my son alive."

"But Y/n—" Agatha cut herself off, tears flowing.

"Is free," Guinevere said softly. "And she's with her love now. Like you should be with yours."

Agatha shook her head, wiping tears. "Tedros hates me."

"Because the Snake was his to kill," said Guinevere. "Not for his own pride. But for his people. Tedros needed to be the king, no matter the cost, even to the end if need be. You took that from him."

"But I didn't want him to end up like Lancelot," Agatha argued, smearing at her eyes. "I didn't want him to die. Surely you understand that!"

"More than you can ever imagine," said Guinevere starkly. "I didn't want Lancelot to die, Agatha. Of course I didn't. And yet I asked him to go into the Woods with Tedros, knowing he might."

Agatha shook her head. "But you just said I did what I had to do. . . . So which is it? Which is more important? Keeping Tedros alive or letting him be a king when he might die for it?"

Guinevere smiled sadly. "Welcome to being a queen."

She touched Agatha's shoulder and walked inside.

***

A short while later, Agatha returned to the sitting room, bathed and dressed in a black gown, with Professor Dovey's bag on her arm.

Tedros stood in front of the mirror, adjusting his father's old coronation robes while Rhian changed into his blue-and-gold suit.

"God, this thing smells even worse than the first time I wore it," said Tedros, fussing with the collar, clearly trying not to look at his battered face in the reflection.

"It's just for a short while," said Agatha.

The king glanced at his princess in the mirror. "You sound like my mother," he said coolly.

He went back to Rhian. "You're sure you tried to get the Snake's mask off? There's no way to see who he is?"

"The scims are both his armor and part of him somehow," Rhian answered. "He sent the scims on his body to fight us, but the ones that make up his mask can't be dislodged. His face is melded with them. Hard to tell where the magic begins and the human ends."