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Agatha could feel Beatrix's parents staring at her.
Trying her best not to look as hostile as usual, lest Beatrix have even more ammunition than she already did, she stole a quick glance over the top of Winning Your Prince, and found that, lo and behold, they looked away hastily as soon as she looked up.
Unsurprisingly, they were just as blonde and beautiful as their daughter. Agatha suspected they were some sort of nobility or public figures, based off their fine clothes, and the fact people kept scampering over to talk to them (though Agatha would have defined it as grovelling .)
Perhaps it was better that her mother wasn't here. The sight of Callis in her ripped black smocks with lizards crawling out of her pockets might have killed them, or at least done some serious damage to their poor, perfectly Good hearts.
Luckily for Mr and Mrs Beatrix, the school apparently thought it was "awkward" to invite the parents of the Reader children to their annual Visiting Weekend.
Agatha couldn't fathom why.
Sighing, she stood and made for the castle, aware that the rest of the families in the Clearing were staring at her. Fathers past their prime stopped their wrestling matches with their much fitter sons to stare, and more than one elderly grandmother or little sister took several steps back as she passed.
It appears everyone had heard all about her witchy exploits, and not about her miraculous transformation.
Naturally.
Rolling her eyes, Agatha resolved to wander the castle until dinner, then sit as far away from everyone else as possible. She had enough to worry about without her classmate's parents being added to the mix.
As she entered the Entrance Hall, she heard someone's sister shout across the clearing;
"Milly! You told me she had warts !"
Agatha cursed Millicent and made for the candy classrooms.
Agatha only realised the door to Merlin's Menagerie was open on her way back to her room, when she heard someone hiccup.
Confused, she stopped, arms piled high with toffee candlesticks, chocolate curtain rods and fudge windowsill. After her accidental obliteration of the place in her first week, the rooftop garden had been locked during weekends and holidays, and at nights.
It couldn't be a teacher, because they were all downstairs, meeting parents…
Until now, Agatha had thought she was the only Ever student with knowledge of how to pick locks.
She slowly pushed the door further open with her clump, peering around the corner.
There was someone hunched on the edge of one of the statues, sniffling. Agatha squinted, trying to work out who it was--
She caught sight of broad shoulders and golden hair and recoiled, but it was too late.
"Do you make a habit of spying on people?" Croaked Tedros without turning around. Agatha grimaced. He must have heard her coming. She supposed her footfalls were generally more distinctive, given she was the only Ever walking around in clumps as opposed to boots or heels.
"No. Do you make a habit of sneaking into off-limits areas?"
"I didn't sneak ." Said Tedros, with a wobbly attempt at dignity.
"Just picked the lock, yeah."
"How do you know I don't have a key?"
"You don't have a key." Said Agatha, though even as she said it, she was uncertain. This was his father's memorial. It was possible Dovey or someone might have given him permission to come up here--
But Tedros's silence told her she was right.
"I won't tell if you won't." Tedros said finally.
Agatha opened her mouth to ask what he was going to tell, then remembered the pile of classroom in her arms and changed track.
"Fair enough." She said. Then; "Why aren't you down with everyone else? Don't you have some insufferable royal relatives to show off?"
Tedros turned around and shot her a withering look, which was offset by his runny nose and watery eyes.
"Oh." Said Agatha, eyeing the statue of Arthur next to her. "I thought--"
"No aunts, no uncles, no grandparents, no mother and no father . Not even my stupid old tutor." Snapped Tedros. "They're all either dead, never existed, or on the run."
"Right." Muttered Agatha.
"Don't you ?" Pressed Tedros.
"No." Said Agatha. "They think it's rather awkward to invite the parents of the kids they kidnapped."
It was Tedros's turn to look embarrassed.
"Oh." He said. "Yeah. Suppose so."
"Have you been here all day?" Asked Agatha.
Tedros shrugged.
"Yeah."
"Didn't you go to breakfast? Lunch?"
"No. I went to the gym."
"Of course you did." Muttered Agatha.
Tedros didn't reply, staring at the slowly-melting chocolate in Agatha's arms.
Agatha groaned.
"You do have parents, don't you?" Asked Tedros, cramming another piece of fudge into his mouth. "Like... real ones?
Agatha snatched the rest of it out of his hand.
" Yes ."
"You said you were raised by a coven of witches. That's not real parents."
"I was winding you up." Snapped Agatha.
"I knew it!"
"No, you didn't."
Tedros ignored her.
"So, what, you have a mum and a dad?"
Agatha shook her head.
"No father. Killed in a mill accident before I was born, apparently. Mother never talks about him."
"What's your mother do?"
"She's the town doctor." Said Agatha.
Tedros looked suspicious.
"Like… a witch doctor?"
"Like a normal doctor , Tedros."
"You don't like in a cave, do you?"
"We live in the graveyard." Said Agatha shortly, snapping off another piece of toffee--
She looked up to find Tedros staring in horror at her.
"The graveyard ?"
"A house in the graveyard, we're not sleeping in the dirt--"
"Why would you live in the graveyard?" Demanded Tedros.
"Not everyone can live in opulent castles with servants waiting on your every whim!" Snapped Agatha.
Tedros winced.
"Not very opulent at the moment. All the servants took things and ran off, after Dad died. Stuff's falling down. No one really around."
Agatha frowned, confused.
"You don't even have like… a nursemaid, or something?"
"No." Muttered Tedros.
"You've just been living in a massive castle on your own for… what, over five years?"
"Pretty much. Few servants. Cook. 'Bout it."
"Oh. Guess that means you can't cook for yourself."
"I can cook!" Protested Tedros. "Pasta and things."
Agatha thought there should be a sort of in front of cook .
He frowned.
"Can you?"
Agatha decided he wouldn't be able to take the knowledge of Callis's lizard soup, currently, so went for the technicalities. She could physically cook. Whether or not it was actually nice was another matter.
"Yeah. My mother showed me."
Tedros leaned forward slightly.
"Can you do doctor stuff, too? Did she show you?"
"A bit." Said Agatha, wondering why he wanted to know. "When people come to us. But usually, my mother goes to them."
"What's your mother like? What's her name?"
"Callis. She's…um…" An image of Callis collecting slugs in the pouring rain came to her, and she suppressed a snort. "Er, unique?"
Tedros doesn't seem to notice that she's struggling.
"Oh, nice, nice. Does she take you shopping and stuff?"
Agatha squinted.
"Um. No."
"Oh." Tedros frowned. "I remember my mother took me, sometimes."
Suddenly, the weirdly specific questions made a thousand times more sense.
"Oh. That's fun. Um--" Agatha looked frantically around for a distraction, uncomfortably confronted with Tedros's childhood trauma--
And found herself staring up at the statue they were sat under, depicting Arthur and Guinevere at the christening of their son.
"Is that you ?" Agatha stood up to get a better look at the baby.
Tedros went pink.
"Yes."
"What's with the weird robes?"
"I dunno! That's just what they give you." Said Tedros defensively. "Not as if I was choosing what I was wearing."
"You don't look very happy." Noted Agatha.
"No." Tedros frowned. "I cried the whole time, apparently."
"I thought royal babies were meant to be well-behaved."
Tedros sniffed.
"The people found my sulkiness charming, apparently."
"Hah."
"I am naturally very charming!"
Agatha turned an unimpressed gaze on him. Tedros pouted.
"Just because it doesn't work on you doesn't mean it's not there. Everyone else agrees."
Agatha pursed her lips.
"Maybe everyone else just lacks good judgement."
"Or maybe you do."
"Hester would have killed you if I had no good judgement." Snapped Agatha-- then cringed, having blundered right into the topic she'd been trying to avoid.
She saw Tedros's eyes flicker across the bay, to the black spires.
"Don't suppose she's had anyone to spend the day with, either." Murmured Agatha.
"Why do you always worry about Sophie?" Scoffed Tedros. "She's not worth your attention."
Agatha turned to him, opened her mouth--
Below, the bell rang for dinner.
Tedros kicked the last scraps of toffee into one of the decorative ponds, then caught Agatha frowning.
"What? It's my father's memorial."
"So you're allowed to litter the pond?"
"Exactly. Shall we go down?"
Agatha squinted suspiciously at him.
"... we ? Don't you have your little gentleman's club to sit with?"
Tedros scratched awkwardly at his stubble, looking a little downtrodden.
"Lads haven't been happy with me since the Trial. Not talked to me much." He wrinkled his nose. "Besides, I'd rather not have to talk to their families. They'll all be fighting to get in my favour, so they'll be in with a chance of getting good treatment when I'm King."
He brightened a little.
"So I was hoping they might leave me alone, if I sat with you!"
The look on her face must not have been a good one, because he looked dismayed.
"Is that a no?"
Agatha opened her mouth;
A voice floated up from the floor below them.
"--I haven't seen neither hide nor hair of Prince Tedros, where is he?"
Bastain's voice replied, obviously awkward;
"I don't know, father."
Bastain's father tutted.
"Are you sure you're friends with him?"
"Yeah, I--"
His father cut him off, musing to himself;
"Well, he's still number one in the rankings, but his father would have been mortified by that nonsense Never fling, I must ask him, as a friend of Arthur's, how he intends to make it right..."
Their voices trailed off as they moved away.
Slowly, Agatha looked back at Tedros, who looked utterly crushed.
Oh, damn it .
"Give me your bread and half your mushrooms, and we have a deal." .
Tedros smiled shakily.
"Don't like mushrooms, anyway. You can have them all. Can I have your dessert?"
"Absolutely not."
"But--"
Agatha waved him off, heading for the door.
"You don't want any of my food, I'm convinced Beatrix's parents are going to try and poison me."
Tedros grimaced.
"What, killing off every other Evergirl who's potential competition until I have no choice but to marry Beatrix?"
Agatha, who hadn't meant it like that, stopped in the doorway, confused--
"Is that you again, Agatha?"
Agatha swore softly as Dovey came marching down the corridor at precisely the wrong time.
"Merlin's Menagerie is off-limits ! What are you doing, skulking around, I thought by this point you'd know better--"
"Ah, Professor? She was with me."
Dovey looked up, surprised, as Tedros slipped out of the door behind her and shut it smartly.
"I asked Agatha to join me, seeing as she has no visitors either. I wanted some company. I was… um. I wanted to pay my respects. Today."
He sounded suitably wobbly, and was still a little red around the eyes and nose. Dovey's manner changed instantly.
"Oh! Of course. I understand, I suppose someone let you in... Naturally, naturally… very noble of you, Agatha, dear."
She patted them both vaguely on the shoulder and bustled off down the hallway.
Tedros watched her go. Agatha stared at him, gobsmacked.
Had Tedros just lied to get her out of trouble? Her? Agatha?
The second she was out of sight, Tedros exhaled.
"Walking on eggshells the second my father gets brought up." He muttered. "I think they think I'm traumatised, or something."
"Oh." Said Agatha, privately thinking they might be onto something, but also mildly impressed that he'd managed to twist it to his advantage. "Right. Er. Thanks for that."
Tedros shrugged, as if it was no trouble at all, and as if he wouldn't have willingly snitched on her, if this was a month or so prior.
"It's whatever. Shall we go?"
"Yeah. Sure. I guess."
Agatha saw heads swivel the second they hit the staircase, and, immediately, Beatrix's mother peeled herself away from a group of twittering noblewomen and came marching over, a gleam of ambition in her eyes. Tedros was instantly wearing his best rabbit-in-the-headlights look, and Agatha, thinking it might push him over the edge, scrabbled for a distraction--
"Tedros." Said Agatha brightly, and loudly. "Did I ever tell you about my mother's lizard soup?"
"No." Said Tedros, equally pleasantly, but there was no disguising the please tell me you're joking look in his eye. "I don't believe you did."
"Yes, she collects them fresh from the puddles outside our house."
"How resourceful of her." Said Tedros, looking mildly ill. Mrs Beatrix had stopped, looking horrified.
"Well, when you live in a graveyard, you have to be."
This was probably going to come back to bite her, but Mrs Beatrix was retreating rapidly and Tedros looked less like he was about to bolt, so, for now, it was worth it.
"I suppose you're right." Mused Tedros as they headed into the dinner hall, people diving out of the way of Agatha, marching along in her muddy clumps.
Agatha looked around to see Beatrix glaring at her from behind a pillar.
She smiled.
With teeth.
The second they were out of earshot, Tedros turned, incredulous--
"Yes, it's true, and yes, we're even now." Said Agatha before he even had a chance to speak. "I'm still having your bread, though."