They’re . . . back? Sophie gasped, heart swelling. Jealousy and betrayal and pain broke away like a soft eggshell and a warm wave of hope flooded through her before she could keep it down. She caressed her two best friends, looking out of her storybook, and let herself feel what she’d been ashamed of all this time.
I miss you, Aggie.
I miss you, Teddy.
Tears rising, she imagined herself in the empty space on the page between them—
Until the Storian drew Agatha and Tedros’ hands intertwined across the gap, the two Evers following a shadow into the darkness of the Woods.
Sophie studied their clasped fingers, no longer any room for her.
“They’re coming for you,” said a voice behind her.
Sophie turned to Rafal, gorgeously posed against the window like a teen rebel, clad in a lace-up black shirt and black leather pants. His ice-blue stare lingered on the storybook, but carried no surprise, as if he’d been waiting for the prince and princess to return.
“I told you it wasn’t our ending the Storian questioned,” he said. “Turns out your friends aren’t happy without you. They think you need to be rescued from me. That your ending is with them.”
Sophie looked back at the Storian, writing beneath the painting of Agatha and Tedros in fresh ink:
“Love wasn’t enough for them anymore. They needed their best friend.”
Sophie gaped at the storybook. Here she’d been, berating herself for thinking of Aggie and Tedros every spare second . . . when they’d been thinking of her too? She smiled at the thought, touched. Then her smile evaporated.
“How can three people have a happy ending?” Sophie asked.
Rafal watched her carefully. “If one person is happy alone, of course.”
“While two get each other?” Sophie asked, frowning.
“Oh you’d get used to it. Watching them kiss by the fireplace . . . sitting alone during supper while they nuzzle each other . . . trailing behind them on garden strolls like a puppy on a leash . . . settling year by year into your role as the third wheel . . .” Rafal glided towards her, half of his face still in shadow. “Then again, you could always meet a boy in Camelot. Not much of a kingdom anymore, but plenty of peasant boys to choose from. Sunburnt cheeks, yellow teeth, chubby backsides, not a coin in their pockets. But a nice, normal boy and isn’t that what matters?” He drew her into his arms. “A boy who lives with his old, wrinkled mother in her ramshackle house, raising goats and pigs. A boy who will give you an ordinary life, where you fry his meat and bathe old Mummy and raise sunburnt, chubby little sons . . .”
Sophie was tensing so much she couldn’t breathe. “That will never happen,” she whispered and her muscles relaxed in his grip.
“Didn’t think so,” Rafal whispered back. He touched her shoulder, his long, milky fingers tracing up her neck. Sophie’s skin quivered. She’d never had a boy hold her that she hadn’t manipulated. She’d never had a boy touch her that didn’t mind the storms and rages of her heart. She’d never had a boy love her for everything she was, warts and all.
Sophie looked up and saw him in the light—pearly, angelic skin, powder-blue eyes, luscious pink mouth, like a young Jack Frost—so white-hot and handsome that she suddenly felt the uglier of the two. “You might like me now, but what happens when I get old?” she asked. “Will you still want me then?”
Rafal smiled. “My brother and I stayed young as long as we loved each other. When I broke our bond, I was destined to age and die like every other villain who proved they couldn’t love. But your kiss restored my youth, Sophie. Your love will let me live forever, just like my brother’s love once did. Just like my love once kept him alive too. Which means as long as you wear my ring, neither you nor I will ever grow old.”
Sophie turned to him. “I’ll live forever?”
Rafal pulled her in once more. “We will. Together.”
Live forever? Sophie thought in a fog. Old but young . . . young but old . . . just like the beautiful boy holding her. What would it be like to love someone forever? Could love even last that long? She thought of Agatha on the lakeshore, vowing to be her friend forever . . . Tedros on a moonlit bridge, promising to be her prince forever . . . Agatha and Tedros kissing, swearing to each other . . . “Forever . . .”
Only Forever never seemed to last.
Sophie lay against Rafal’s firm chest, studying the gold ring on his finger, matching the one on hers. All this time she’d been so hurt by her two best friends who deserted her, so sure they’d forgotten her and gone on to perfect happiness. Instead they’d come back to redo their Ever After, wanting her, needing her to be happy. Sophie waited to feel the same feeling, to choose her best friends even it meant she ended up alone . . .
But all Sophie could feel were the arms of a boy who’d stayed loyal to her from the beginning, a Forever that finally sounded like the truth.
She spun and kissed Rafal, his mouth cold against hers, holding it long and slow, waiting for something in her heart to stop her. Nothing did. As their lips parted, she saw the Storian conjure a new page, capturing their kiss in brilliant colors, before adding a closing line:
“But friendship wasn’t enough for Sophie anymore. She needed love.”
Sophie looked up at Rafal, her forehead beaded with sweat. He put his hand to it.
“Look at that. Fever’s broken.”
Together, they watched the sun slide out from behind a cloud, Sophie expecting its return to brilliant life . . . only to see the sun still yolky and anemic against a cold blue morning, even weaker than before. Only it wasn’t just weaker, it was leaking small gobs of yellow light into the sky, drip, drip, drip, like an icicle in summer. Sophie stepped closer to the window ledge, eyes wide. There was no question about it.