Chapter Text
It’s not clear who wins, but at least Tedros is lucid when it’s over.
The blond prince heaves himself off of Aric and sways on his feet.
They, the Evil students, seem to have reached some sort of truce with the older villains, because neither group is motivated to keep fighting, so Arachne and Mona let them drag Aric’s prone form away as Tedros stands there, eyes gleaming and satisfied, but his balance is mediocre at best.
He’s covered in blood and Ravan lunges to catch him with a shoulder under the arm before he can fall.
Though they fared much better than was to be expected with that kind of ratio between their and the enemy’s numbers, Agatha is not happy when she’s revived. The spell to do that proves surprisingly easy and Anadil takes care of it quickly enough.
So when Tedros awakes, they are all instantly called to a meeting. And though Dot knows almost certainly what it’s about, and Agatha’s reaction is what a lot of them are expecting, the magnitude of her anger was underestimated by all of them by multiple leagues.
Agatha stands on the dias, figure cold as a marble statue. Tedros is propped up by his crutches five feet before her. The rest of them stand in two masses on both sides. It feels so much like a trial that Dot is tempted to defend Tedros, speak to Agatha’s more lenient values.
“What were you thinking??” Agatha asks, almost shouting, exasperated. “The barrier is down and you’re half-dead!” Her anger is palpable in the air and the only one who hasn’t shrunken back is Tedros, coincidentally the main object of her rage.
“At least Aric’s half-dead too.”
Tedros is petulant.
“I don’t give a flying fuck about Aric, Tedros. You’re my problem right now. You and your impulsive, stupid decisions.”
“I rescued you,” Tedros retorts, scowling.
“Well you fucked up everything to do it. Congratulations,” Agatha says, flatly. But the anger is still barely concealed in her brown eyes. The rest of the Nevers watch them nervously. Ravan has popcorn.
Silence reigns for a few tense moments. Agatha’s blazing eyes don’t leave Tedros.
“You need me and I come. That’s how this works.”
The anger that Tedros had in his expression before has completely faded. Now it only looks like he’s begging, pleading for Agatha’s forgiveness, her praise.
“I don’t need you,” Agatha replies, tone like ice.
Tedros jerks like she’s stabbed him.
“Get that through your head,” she says, but this time quieter, so only Dot catches it.
The hall is completely silent. Tedros doesn’t respond.
When he makes no move to flee, no move to go, standing there, barely supported by his crutches, Agatha stares at him for a moment and then she leaves instead, expression hard, clumps making hard, staccato sounds in the echoing hall as she exits through the side door that leads to the higher towers. Dot wonders if she’s imagining that the raven-haired villain’s steps are faster than their usual measured pace.
Tedros stares at the floor, gaze empty. “Got it,” he says, just as the door slams behind Agatha, his voice barely above a whisper.
They’re all frozen now. But the prickling, sour shame that’s coming off Tedros’ form in palpable waves, as he weakly holds himself up by his crutches, is so strong that it drives the rest of them out of the hall.
Dot is the last to go, and she glances back at him.
His eyes haven’t lifted from the floor, and Dot wants to say something to him but nothing good enough comes to mind. As the huge doors shut behind her Dot’s thoughts are in turmoil.
Had the Queen and King of Evil just called it quits?
———
Agatha sucks in a shaky breath as soon as she makes it into the small walkway to the spiraling staircase leading up to her rooms. Her knees buckle as soon as the large wooden door slams shut behind her. She slides down the wall next to it, her palms hit the cool stone below her and her head tips back, lungs expanding and contracting in rapid bouts.
She closes her eyes and tries to regulate her breathing.
Soon, —Agatha doesn’t know how much time passed— the sound of shuffling steps and the accompanying sharp tap of crutches on stone makes it to her ears and breaks her tremulous silence.
Her eyes fly open, and against her better instincts, Agatha listens.
She listens to Tedros pulling himself slowly across the great expanse of marble in the hall. The evil part of her wishes that he’d follow her, that he’d walk through that door next to her. She needed to hurt him more. She needed to make it final, unquestionable.
There’s a sudden sliding noise and a clatter, then the sound of a body hitting the floor. Agatha hears the broken moan of pain and it takes everything in her not to run to him. She digs her fingernails into her palms.
He needed to learn that there were consequences to his actions.
She hears a louder, shuddering inhale, but like Tedros is trying to push it down, and then, suddenly, like a thundercrack, like lightning, like fresh blood, a sob.
Agatha scrambles to her feet because she refuses to listen anymore. She is ungainly in her urgency, because she’s running away now. Agatha has to get away because she only had so much self control.
But as she’s ascending the steps, eyes hot, throat closed, she sees him clear as diamonds in her mind’s eye. Lying on the floor, alone, tears streaking down his face like he was made for it, curving away from his beautiful eyes, with only his wounds to keep him company.
Once Agatha reaches her room and shuts the door, coming to a stop in the center of the space, she shuts her eyes once again and steadfastly ignores the tears that slip out the corners.
———
As per the orders that she sends down with Anadil, Tedros’ instructions make it so that they never cross paths in the following weeks. As soon as he’s healed, she stations him at posts that never end up on her routes through the castle.
Agatha hopes she’ll forget him.
Evil love. What had she been thinking? Irrational, impulsive and consuming, her plans couldn’t afford it.
Unfortunately, the image and scent of him stays burned in her memories like raspberry stains on white cloth.
She hears from Mona and Arachne that Tedros is remarkably well-behaved. Meek in fact, head bowed and sword by his side, Tedros follows his orders and promptly retreats to wherever he’s sleeping that night.
She detects a hint of disappointment in their tone and chooses to ignore it.
Torches no brighter than candles line the walls of the stone-laid tunnel as Agatha makes her way down. The steps are shallow and the air is dusty, smelling faintly of mildew.
The barrier had been put back up, but who knew how many of their enemies had made it inside in the stretch of time that it had been down. She’d sent Tedros to take care of the villains at the outskirts of the grounds, alone. The weeks pass and the bodies pile up beside the moat. Other Nevers push them in, Tedros’ handiwork disappearing each time under the dark, tumbling waves. Agatha does not send word of her satisfaction with his work. He didn’t deserve that.
Dot had reported the complete silence Tedros wore during his task. Agatha had watched Dot wait for her reaction but Agatha didn’t give her one. Gone was the wrathful lion, the best evil was silent. And for that, the fire needed to be put out.
Agatha continues on her way to the prison cells where one captured villain resided. One that Tedros had been ordered to leave alive. As she moves deeper into the bowels of the dungeons, the stones of the walls begin to show their age through cracks and fissures filled with hastily applied grout.
She hears him coughing before he comes into view. Agatha stops a foot away from the bars of the cell. Her gaze stops on the hunched form in the corner. She gets straight to the point.
“Is Aric alive?”
“Go to hell.”
Agatha begs Satan for patience.
“Is Aric alive?” she asks again, calmly.
“Did you not hear me the first time?”
“I’m giving you a chance to redeem yourself.”
“Fuck your chance,” the prisoner spits.
Agatha sighs, “Great.” She takes a step closer, to make sure he hears her, of course. “Have you ever heard of a witch named Anadil?”
“No,” he scoffs, eyeing her with a scowl.
“How about Mona? Or Arachne?” Agatha continues, tone turning deceptively sweet.
“You came here to fucking quiz me?” the young prisoner sneers.
“Ah. Too bad. You’ve heard of none of them then.”
Something in her voice seems to make him nervous, because suddenly he’s looking at her with new apprehension in his features. Agatha grins.
Good.
“I don’t know none of them.”
“How about Hester?” She says giving him one last chance.
His eyes go wide. He finally seems to have caught onto her pattern.
“I know her! I know her!” He shouts, scrambling to his knees and he shuffles forward, eyes wide. His dark hair is scruffy and stuck to his scalp from sweat and grime. He could have been handsome. He’s likely only a few years over twenty.
But, poor thing, he’s lying.
“No. You don’t,” she says, a condescending apology laced through her words.
“I do!” he begs.
Agatha lets out a sound of derision. “There is one that I know you know. You’ve already met him in fact.”
“No,” he breathes.
“Yes,” Agatha replies, a poisonous smile stretching wide across her face.
The only negative about sending Tedros to bring in the encroaching villains, was that he (still) had a hard time not being too rough with them, even when he was told explicitly to keep them alive.
Much like a cat playing with a mouse too callously. And this poor mouse had met Agatha’s cat already.
“Please, I’ll tell you whatever you want.”
Agatha almost laughs. “You’re that easy?”
“Aric’s dead,” he says immediately.
So eager.
Agatha’s eyebrows raise. “I find that hard to believe.”
“We thought we could save him, but he’d lost too much blood. His wounds were too severe.”
Agatha tries to stomp down on the swell of pride that rises inside her at the prisoner’s words. Baby’s handiwork.
“Uh huh. What’s to stop you from lying to me?”
“The Prince of Camelot,” the prisoner responds immediately, very real fear alive like trembling water in his eyes.
Hearing his title from another person’s lips doesn’t have the noncommittal reaction in herself that Agatha wanted. Newly longing, aching and tumbling emotions lance through her chest. But for now, she ignores them.
“That’s enough, huh?” Agatha has to force the smile this time. She doesn’t want this two-cent-villain saying anything more about him.
“Please, you have to believe me.”
“Don’t worry,” Agatha says over her shoulder, already leaving.
As she ascends the steps towards the main level of Evil castle, gradually more light illuminating the steps, Agatha rejoices in the easiest extraction of information she’s experienced in a long time. She decides not to think more about the person she has to thank for it.