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Chapter Text

The room is barely lit. Shadows smoulder and shapes merge in the darkened room. Only the faint glow of the moon can stream languidly through the window, gently touching the chaise where Agatha now sits in disquieting silence. In the beds behind her, two girls sleep soundly, unperturbed by the melancholy which plagues their friend.

Agatha has given up on sleeping.

These days her mind won't let her rest - and even if it did, she'd only hear her heart breaking with every breath. There's a kind of cruel irony in that metaphor. A burning sting running crosswise over the left side of her chest alerts her that her thoughts are straying into dangerous territory.

"It's called a Broken Heart curse." Hester had said a day earlier.

They'd examined the curious cross-shaped cut on her clavicle with solemnity and tangible disbelief. The witches' care and caution had raised up the fear lingering quietly at the back of her mind.

"Serious black magic." Anadil had agreed quietly. "The victim is scarred, and every time their soul is pained, the wound bleeds."

No one had said what they were all thinking.

Her true love has done this to her.

Not satisfied with breaking her heart and placing a death warrant on her head, he'd made sure that her suffering would soak through the front of her blouse for all to see.

It's happening now, at the mere thought of him.

With a sigh as soft as a summer wind, she unlaces her shirt and pulls away the makeshift bandage to reveal the angry red 'x' marring her pale skin. A tiny drop of blood pearls and runs down her waiting fingers. As she catches it, Agatha hopes her sadness will drift away out the window and find him across the bay, in that other castle.

It seems strange now to think of how they were before, when the world was ballgowns and beautiful words and she hadn't yet been made to choose between the love of her life and the person who taught her how to love. What would have happened, she wonders, if she had taken his hand, and been his princess, and never seen her home again?

She dreamt once, after she'd returned to Gavaldon, that she was lost in a storm and her voice carried on the wind to find him, and bring them back together.

She dreamt of a love that the world would lie down and be still for, and now here it is, staining her skin.

Red, like a rose clutched in her hands - or revenge, clutched in his.

Just an inch closer, she thinks. An inch higher, and her lips might have reached his. Perhaps then his rage would have been calmed, and it would simply have been enough for him to have her and let go of the past. A ruined world restored. True loves reunited. A friend left behind.

He claimed she'd tortured him. You put me through hell. He felt the loss of her, that much is obvious, but did he ever really suffer for the love of her?

Was he dreaming of her, as she tried desperately not to wish for him?

It cannot be true. He cannot truly love her, as he claimed to, if this curse is his doing. She wonders where he even learnt such a curse. An image comes to mind, of him scouring the shelves of Evil's library, happening upon such dreadful magic, and waiting impatiently to unleash it upon her in retribution for her perceived betrayal. It doesn't seem right, however. It doesn't seem true. King Arthur's son, walking the halls of Evil Castle, looking for black spells to inflict on the girl he once loved? It seems almost... beneath him.

And yet, there it is. They were alone in the tower, and the spell could only have come from him.

Unless...

He had sworn that someone else was there, hidden from sight. It must surely have been his paranoia... but what if it was not? Could someone else have been there? Someone who would stop at nothing to keep Agatha from her true love? Someone jealous, and powerful, and well-acquainted with black magic.

Someone who knows how to be invisible.

The curse mark stings a little more. Slowly, Agatha's gaze moves across the room to find her sleeping friend. She looks so innocent and calm, far from the hysterical witch who had brought their school to its knees a year previous. And yet, no matter how Agatha tries to expunge the memory of the Grand High Witch Ultimate, it remains firmly in her memory. That was why she had gone to him in the first place, wasn't it? Because she believed the witch had returned.

She turns back towards the window. It's not so different, really. It doesn't matter which of them has done this to her. She needed them both and lost them both, at every turn abandoned or let down or tricked. Perhaps neither of them deserves her. Or perhaps she is the problem.

Her heart seems to tell a different story, however. She can choose to believe whatever she likes, but while her heart is still quite literally bleeding for him there will be no peace for her - and no sleep, either. This is the terrible side of love, the side that makes fools of those who cling to it long after hope is gone. If only she could let him go. If only she could believe that he truly despises her - or that, if he had a scar of his own, it wouldn't bleed for her as she does for him. The truth is that her wish for him is still real and alive in her soul, and this is why she must bleed rather than sleep.

She lets her eyes flicker over her friend's sleeping figure once more.

Someone she loves is hurting her.

A red tear trails slowly down her chest. 

Chapter Text

"You snake." Agatha hisses, eyes burning with barely contained rage. "You lying snake."

She advances forward, but Tedros, the fool that he is, stands in her way. He opens his mouth, presumably to say something stupid and noble, but she doesn't have time to entertain his ignorance now. The burning pain has started and soon her dress will be stained scarlet.

"It was all you." Agatha seethes. "You set us against each other. You cursed me. And now, you're trying to send me home?"

Filip steps around Tedros, hands held up in surrender. "It's not true!" He cries. "I never meant for any of it, I just didn't know what to do - I couldn't let you go! Not without trying to win you back!"

Tedros gawps and looks between them, obviously confused. "You know each other?"

Agatha doesn't even register that he's spoken. "So you let me suffer? You let me believe that he did this to me?" Her voice sounds like it's coming from a deeper part of her, a place she'd never known was there.

"I had to show you that your wish was wrong," Filip pleads, "that a best friend means more than a boy!"

Agatha stares in utter disbelief. "For pity's sake, don't you see? The more you try to keep us apart, the stronger my wish for him grows."

The red is seeping through now, blossoming on the front of her bodice. Filip's eyes widen as he takes in the sight. "No, that's not - I didn't do that, I couldn't have..."

Tedros notices the small red stain growing over Agatha's heart. "What's happening?" He asks quietly, his voice suddenly hoarse and strained.

Filip sinks to his knees, his eyes filling with tears. "You mean that's why... because you still want him? Even after I risked my life to save us?"

This is evidently the wrong thing to say.

"Is that what kissing him was? An attempt to save us?" Agatha's fury ignites the curse like a match to gunpowder. The red is taking over her, grabbing desperately at her torso and moving down to seize her waist.

Tedros looks up, alarmed. "You're hurt -"

"I thought you wanted to forget him - I thought you wanted a happy ending with me -" Filip tries desperately.

"Happy?" Agatha screams, her voice cutting through the clearing like a knife. "Because of you, a boy is dead! Because of you, we could all still die!" Seething, she places a hand on her chest and feels the mark of the curse burning bright and strong, fueling her pain and frustration. "Admit it. You'd rather see me suffer than be happy with someone else."

Filip slumps in defeat and says nothing.

"Agatha, what - how - you're bleeding-" Tedros stutters, pulling off his cloak. "Where is the wound? We need to keep pressure on it, you're losing too much blood-"

In his panic, he seems to have forgotten their situation. She laughs in his face. There is no bandage, no medicine that can heal this wound. It cuts much deeper than the skin, right down to her soul. Suddenly, she pities his lack of understanding.
"Never could tell Good from Evil, could you?" She says softly.

Tedros freezes, turning back to look at Filip-

Only Filip isn't there anymore.

There instead, under the icy moonlight, a beautiful blonde girl cowers under a boy's cloak. "D-don't kill me Teddy, please?" She stutters, "It's still me - still the same old Filip..."

Tedros sinks to the ground in defeat or disgust or some awful combination of the two. "Why does everyone lie to me?" He whispers. "Why is everything always a lie?"

"Not everything." Agatha says quietly, ripping off a strip from his cloak to wrap around her chest.

He looks up with tear-filled eyes. "Everything you said is true? You loved me the whole time?"

She nods slowly, refusing to meet his gaze.

"And she - she cursed you? To keep us apart?" He hisses.

Sophie holds up her hands and shakes her head. "No! No, I swear! I never meant to, I just panicked and shot the first spell that came to mind-"

Agatha cuts her off with a withering glare.

"This is my fault." Tedros says, voice cracking and head hanging. "If I'd just trusted you - if I'd kissed you..." His voice trails off as he sees Agatha crying silently, his torn cloak half-tied around her.

Slowly, he moves towards her and wraps the cloth tightly around her torso. "Maybe a world without princes isn't such a bad idea." He says softly.

Agatha can't help but laugh through her tears as she meets his eyes for the first time.

Across the glade, Sophie watches helplessly as the very thing she's fought to prevent occurs before her eyes: Agatha is reunited with her true love, and Sophie is more invisible than she's ever been.

Unfortunately, not quite invisible enough.

"You." Tedros spits, turning back towards her. "How could you? I trusted you. I confided in you. I told you about Agatha, and the whole time you just listened, knowing you were the reason we were separated, and never saying a thing?"

He begins advancing towards Sophie, obviously fuming. "You cursed your own best friend, rather than let her be happy with someone else? How can you be so selfish?" Just as he comes within a sword's reach of Sophie, Agatha reaches a hand out to stop him. Where his anger has ignited, hers seems to have fizzled out.

"Stop." She says quietly. "Just stop. She's not worth it."

Tedros hesitates, clenching his jaw, but acquiesces and returns to Agatha's side, helping her stand.

Sobbing, Sophie reaches for her best friend, desperate to make her believe that she never truly meant for any of this to happen-

A blast of purple light rushes past her like a warning shot.

Lady Lesso storms menacingly out of the trees, glaring at Tedros with her smoking finger raised and ready to fire again. "What are you doing with him?" She hisses, looking to Sophie for answers. But the girl on the forest floor, evidently a mess of sobs and hiccups, doesn't answer her. "Agatha?" The teacher tries again, "What's going on?"

But now Lady Lesso's eyes widen, for Agatha and Tedros are backing away from Sophie, clutching each other tightly.

"I thought that stopping your wish was Good, Aggie... I thought I was doing Good." Sophie breathes.

Lady Lesso shakes her head. "No... it's not possible, surely?" She looks to Agatha and Tedros, but their faces have hardened into steel. "A student killed... countless others wounded... a Trial to the death... all because of you?" She spits, regarding Sophie with incredulous eyes.

"Don't forget lying to and cursing her friends." Tedros interjects. "Come on," He says to Agatha, pulling her away, "let her fend for herself." Agatha looks up at her prince: as pure and devoted as he had been in her dreams. For the first time in weeks, she feels the pain of a broken heart start to subside, washed away in the cool, clear blue of his eyes. "Tedros," She starts to say-

A jet of red fire rockets into the glade, knocking them both over. Above their heads, cacophonous fireworks explode the Trial scoreboards in a rain of red and white sparks.

"What's happening?" Agatha cries, her ears ringing and her chest burning.

"They know I'm here." Lady Lesso breathes, her face ashen. "I broke the terms. The trail is over." She looks Agatha dead in the eyes. "This means war."

Before Agatha can respond, a low rumble shakes the ground beneath them. Suddenly, a swarm of blue butterflies descends, surrounding them as Tedros hacks at the insects uselessly with his sword. Almost effortlessly, the butterflies pull Lady Lesso from the ground.

"Evelyn-" the teacher cries, horrified. "She can hear us-"

Desperately fighting the pain in her chest, Agatha struggles to hold on to her teacher.

"Let me go!" Lady Lesso cries. "Just kiss him, Agatha! Kiss him when the time comes!"

Agatha falls backwards as Lady Lesso is ripped away and flown out of sight.

"Agatha-" Tedros coughs, staggering up from the ground. "Are you alright?" He reaches out his hand for her, but another voice interrupts.

"Aggie?" Sophie's tense voice rings from across the glade as she wills her friend to meet her eyes. "What did Lady Lesso say?"

The dust settles, and Agatha looks between them.

Above their heads, the trees begin swaying and cracking unnervingly. Agatha and Tedros stumble back as the schoolmaster's tower leans, then falls, and then crashes down before them in a heap of rubble, rupturing the ground with a jagged crack. Shaken and weary, they look up in horror at the sight that greets them.

From the desiccated tower came hundreds more butterflies, arranging themselves into a familiar form.

As though taking her final curtain call, the Dean of the School for Girls sweeps elegantly into the clearing, clutching a cherry wood storybook and surveying the scene before her.

"Trial," Evelyn breathes. "Such a delicious word." 

Chapter Text

Agatha draws back the thin, hole-ridden sheet separating the kitchen from her makeshift infirmary.

She'd shifted her ancient bedframe into the main room shortly after she and Tedros had arrived, bloody and frantic, at her mother's house. During the more troubling moments of his fever, when he trembles and frets and calls out to her, she climbs atop the creaking bed and clutches him and prays that she can hold them both together with sheer willpower alone. Now, her love lies quiet and still - so still that she almost panics, until she sees the faint rise and fall of his chest.

He's been incoherent for days, sometimes babbling or crying so loudly that she can hardly stand it, but it's the quiet moments like this one that are the hardest. At least when he screams, she knows he's alive. Her eyes linger on his chest, counting breaths. One. Two. A slight pause, then three. Four. Five. His bandage needs changing. She'll have to launder another set. The last lot she cleaned aren't dry yet. Between his bleeding chest and hers, they've gone through an unsettling amount of linen in the the three short days that they've been here.

At that thought she sighs, then lifts the sheet back up to cross into the kitchen. Perhaps she has some old dresses she could cut up-

"...gatha..."

She freezes at the faint call of her name. Surely she's imagined-

"...Agatha." Again. Stronger.

She turns around, hardly daring to believe it when Tedros' weak but determined gaze meets hers. He's awake.

Agatha lets out a sob she hadn't known she was holding in and fights the urge to grab him by his stupid broad shoulders and squeeze him. He's awake.

He's awake he's awake he's awake-

Tedros strains for a second and holds out a hand for her. It's clearly an effort: he's shaking and struggling to sustain his arm at the same height. Desperately, she takes his hand and crouches by the bed. "Tedros." She breathes, fighting back tears.

"Agatha." He says softly, trying to pull at her hand. "C'mere."

"I'm here, love. It's alright." She whispers, putting a hand to his forehead out of habit. He's not so hot as he was a few hours ago. All the same, perhaps she ought to fetch a cold compress, just to be safe-

"No." He asserts louder. "Come here." He tugs harder, and Agatha realises what he's getting at.

"Oh." She whispers. "Are you sure? I don't want to hurt you."

He nods quickly, and she relents. She's always found it a little difficult to say no to him, even when she knows she really ought to.

Agatha climbs gingerly onto the side of the bed. There isn't much room, so she chooses to perch awkwardly at his side and clutch his hand in both of hers. "Better?" She asks quietly.

In answer, he pulls her down gently to lie atop his chest. She pushes back, scared of putting pressure on his wound, but he raises his other arm and wraps it around her to keep her there. "Doesn't hurt." He says quietly.

She sniffles and nods, manouverring her arms awkwardly to wind around his neck and find a few errant curls. "How do you feel?" She tries.

"Like I got stabbed." He returns mirthlessly.

"Right. Of course." She rolls her eyes. Serves her right for expecting him to be helpful - or, God forbid, eloquent - for once. "Do you want water? I can get you something-"

"No." He says. His voice sounds louder when she can feel it rumble in his chest. "Stay. Please."

She does.

Tedros is silent for a while, until she wonders if he might have fallen asleep.

"I..." His voice is gravelly. Even pressed up against him, she almost doesn't realise that he's spoken. He coughs weakly, then tries again. "I wasn't sure... for a second. Couldn't remember where I was. Thought I might be back in that school. Horrible. Hated it there. I used to dream about you... but when I woke up, you were never there. I thought you were gone again - didn't realise..." He trails off into a coughing fit. She strokes the back of his head, hoping it helps.

"Shh. It's ok. I'm here now. Just try to rest."

He shakes his head, fighting back the urge to cough again. "I was... frightened. Saw you, and thought it was another dream. Didn't want you to go." He trembles, clutching her a little tighter. "Not this time. No-one's taking you from me. Never again."

The scar on her chest stings, and she knows she'll have to get up and press clean linen onto it before she bleeds all over him. She squrims in his grasp, trying to get some leverage.

"No-one is going anywhere. I just need to get some clean bandages, alright? I'll be back in a minute." Agatha tries to push herself off the bed.

"No!" He cries, pulling her back down. Even like this, half delirious with a hole in his chest, his arms are still strong and warm and exactly where she wants to be. "Nobody's gonna hurt you." He grumbles. "I won't let 'em."

This is too bloody like him, worrying over her while he lies here quite possibly dying. It's also too like him to swear that no-one will ever hurt her after he just placed a death warrant on her head-

"Love you." Tedros murmurs softly. "So much."

She wants to cry. This isn't fair. This isn't how it should have been. This moment should have been beautiful - not like this. Not in her hovel of a home in a town full of people who probably want to kill her, days after someone has tried to kill him.

"I love you too." She says.

He doesn't respond.

A quick glance up confirms that he has slipped back into unconsciousness, his fatigue and distress having clearly got the best of him.

Agatha sighs and uses the arm that isn't currently pinned down behind Tedros' head to unlace the ties at the front of her dress. Wincing, she presses a hand against the bleeding wound on her chest, hoping to stem some of the blood loss. Tedros isn't likely to wake up and let her go any time soon, and she doesn't particularly want him to anyway. She has far more care to stay than will to go. For now, at least, she wants to lie here and pretend that neither one of them is hurting or scared or lost. They've had so few moments together to just simply be, and it kills her a little to think of all the things they've missed out on. All the things they've had stolen from them.

Sleep has elected not to be her companion for so long that when Agatha feels its insistant press against her eyelids, it doesn't feel like a welcome visitor or a gentle friend. It feels like another thing stolen rather than kept. It feels like another betrayl in a long, long, list.

There are no dreams waiting for her.

At least, none that she can remember as she stirs in the early hours of the morning to the feeling of someone's gentle fingers combing through her hair.

The veil of slumber not quite removed, she glances up groggily to meet her lover's gaze without surprise or concern.

He gazes at her with all of the uncontainted joy and sorrow of a wronged prince, but all the solemnity of an ordinary boy in love for the first and only time in his life.

The weight of that gaze ought to frighten her, but the sudden, sleepy realisation that he saves these kinds of looks just for her chases away the anxiety that never had a chance to settle.

"Your hair is longer." He says quietly.

She blinks. Tedros has never exactly been the world's most profound poet, but that's a shallow comment even from him. The belated realisation that it's technically the first coherent statement he's made in days has her feeling guilty for mentally berrating him. Let him be a bit simple. He's got a hole in him, after all.

"I didn't notice, before." He continues, "But it is. Way longer."

Agatha clears her throat awkwardly. "Yeah, well. I haven't cut it since before I met you." She mumbles. "Plus, you know. We haven't seen each other for a while."

He doesn't pick up on her very unsubtle attempt to talk about that whole year where they didn't see each other at all, or the months when they did but only through the threat of total annihilation. Or maybe he does pick up on it, but chooses not to engage.

"It's pretty." He says, still carding his hands through her tresses. "You're pretty."

It could be the last traces of sleep fading from her mind, or the slightly out-of-pocket compliment, or the fact that she is now blushing, but in any case Agatha finds herself very suddenly awake and aware that Tedros is also awake and forming (mostly) coherent senetences.

She struggles to sit up, still pinned under the treetrunks that he calls arms. He frowns and lets her crawl out of his grasp, but keeps his hands on her arms and face.

Agatha looks down at his chest, pressing a gentle touch to his bandages. They really do need changing. The set that she laundered last night ought to have dried by now-

Wait. What time is it?

The tiny candle stub she's been eeking out for three days is still burning, nearly completely gone. A faint light is beginning to illuminate the kitchen behind the thin sheet - the fist light of dawn. Agatha strains, trying to listen for the sound of her mother snoring or pottering about. She hears nothing. That isn't unusual in and of itself - Callis has been out a lot since they got here. Once Tedros isn't on death's door anymore, she's going to interrogate her mother about that.

In the meantime, said prince is currently attempting to peel her dress off of her shoulder.

For pity's sake, is he insatiable? This is hardly the time-

It takes a moment before Agatha realises what he's actually doing. The blood has dried sticky and dark on her clavicle, the angry "x" appeased for now. She realises belatedly that some of the blood staining Tedros' bandages probably came from her last night.

He takes in her wound with a very poorly disguised anger, his frown deepening and brow furrowing further with each passing second. "I hate it." He says resolutely.

She laughs mirthlessly. "It's not much fun for me either."

Tedros is not amused. "How could she do that to you?" His tone is suspiciously light. She gets the impression that most of his anger is simmering under the surface, locked away with his guilt and shame. "I should have kissed you in the tower. I could have ended all this."

He's not wrong, but self-loathing isn't going to help him heal. If anything, it's probably more likely to set her off again.

"We both made mistakes." She says quietly, struggling to look at him. "If I'd taken your hand after I kissed her, that would've wrapped things up quite nicely."

"I wish you had." He sighs, dropping his hand from her chest and falling further back onto his pillows. "I don't blame you like I used to. But I wish you had stayed."

"So do I." She whispers. A very faint tingling begins to register on her skin.

She's going to need those bandages sooner rather than later.

Pulling herself away from him, she lifts up the tattered sheet and begins searching the kitchen for usable linens.

By the time she returns to his bedside, Tedros is fast asleep.