Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The Evil castle looms before Agatha as the slime from the moat slides off her arms and drips at her feet. She looks the castle up and down like she would a potential threat and after a moment, nods. She’d fit right in. Just like her mother had told her.

She turns to look over at Good castle where Sophie had been unceremoniously dropped. Her best friend had been elated, even falling down from that height, ecstatic that she’d finally been proven right.

Despite being a little stuck-up and a tiny bit selfish, Agatha had never doubted that if the stories were true, Sophie would become a student of Good. The blonde had a good heart, she just had trouble showing it sometimes.

Agatha knew where she belonged, it had been drilled into her since birth. From her mother, with a more positive light, and from the rest of the villagers in the form of hurled insults and screams of terror whenever she came near. They exaggerated on purpose in her opinion.

Even though up till that point, she’d never done anything to warrant that kind of reaction. She supposes it elicited a certain kind of joy to be scared of a common enemy for villagers whose lives revolved more or less around a four-walled cottage.

Agatha sighs in relief. Now she was finally where she belonged. Where everybody looked like her, talked like her and didn’t give a tiny rat’s ass about how they were dressed like her—

Wait.

No.

She narrows her eyes to observe the same figure that every other Evil student in viewing distance is giving the same suspicious look.

"Blondie" sticks out like a sore thumb, despite being covered with brown slime like the rest of them. His posture is straight, shoulders pushed back, arms and back corded through with muscle. His eyes flicker in the half-darkness like sapphires, and the angles and lines of his face betray startling beauty despite mud covering half of it.

Agatha’s first thought, is that he’s a Good student dropped wrongfully onto their side. Her second thought, is that he was a Good student undercover. Her mother told her that stymphs never made mistakes, but Agatha was disinclined to believe that. She’s also heard that the two schools competed in challenges, and that each side was capable of dastardly things in order to secure victory.

This was the first place Agatha didn’t feel like an outsider. She wasn’t going to let any too-pretty boy ruin that.

Besides, if she was really going to go places with her Evil education, she had to secure the most famous prince of Camelot that she’d heard all about from her mother. This twink would not get in her way. So she approaches him with steps that betray no hesitance.

She cuts to the chase when they’re within hearing distance of each other.

“Get out.”

As soon as she speaks, five other Evil students converge and fan out behind her, like a throng of henchmen.

Blondie laughs in disbelief. “No.”

“We know what you are.”

He raises his eyebrows. “Do you?”

His air of disbelief is so strong that Agatha has to take a second look.

She takes a few steps closer and narrows her eyes.

There’s a gleam in his eye that she hadn't seen from a distance, and had certainly never seen with Sophie. Barely suppressed rage flickers in the blue of them. Rage at the world, rage at himself, rage that Agatha saw every time she looked into a reflective window pane.

Agatha made it her business to never look in mirrors.

“Maybe we don’t,” Agatha murmurs. The other Evil Students haven’t seem to have gotten the memo because they still loom threateningly behind her.

“Get lost,” Agatha says without looking over her shoulder, she directs it at the mud-covered villains behind her. They scatter, and Agatha is satisfied. She’d never liked large groups.

“I’m Tedros,” Blondie says, sticking out a hand to shake. Agatha eyes it disdainfully. She looks back up at his face and finds handsome features have slipped into a false veneer of charm. Probably one that would fool any dull-witted student of Good.

“Agatha,” she says, not taking his hand.

“Not one for formalities?”

“Not one for touching people I barely know.”

“It’s just a handshake.”

“I rest my case.”

Tedros tips back his head and laughs, and now every single Evil student is staring at them. Agatha wants to punch him. She’s not a funny person.

But then she has to backtrack.

Because...

She'd almost let that little piece of information slip into the waves of their conversation, never to be discussed again.

“You said your name was…Tedros.”

“Yes,” he grins again and Agatha wants to look away. Joy and and its fake counterpart were the same in her eyes, and she couldn’t tell which one Tedros was showing off.

“As in, ‘King Arthur’s son from Camelot’ Tedros.”

“Yep.”

“You’re supposed to be in Good.”

With those words she seems to have hit a deep-hidden nerve because his face falls in shadow and his smile slips from his face like a poorly discarded mask. He steps forward, invading her space and Agatha is made aware of the slight height advantage he has on her.

“Who’d you hear that from?” comes the question from barely parted lips, words only an icy whisper.

But Agatha would not be intimidated, especially by someone like him. She sneers. “Ever kingdom, Ever heir.”

“Oh, how I wish that were true,” he grins savagely. “Unfortunately, not everything is so simple, Agatha.”

He says her name like an insult and her hatred for him quadruples from the simmering dislike she’d held for him up till this moment to the almost all-consuming loathing that sings in her blood now.

He was just an arrogant prick with condesension and pride dripping from every pore. Agatha wanted to kill people like him on a regular basis.

Her hand is balled up into a fist and she’s beyond ready to punch him when a body collides into Tedros, sending both crashing down into the mud.

The new figure scrambles to his feet, dark hair plastered to his face, “Sorry, too much momentum.” The boy lets out a snorting laugh and sticks out a skinny hand for Tedros to take. Agatha takes a step back because she wants a wide-screen view to the angry, muddy disaster that is now Tedros of Camelot.

And his new buddy, apparently.

Tedros doesn’t take the hand offered and swings to his feet with barely-concealed annoyance boiling under his movements.

“I’m Hort.”

Tedros eyes him skeptically. “Tedros.”

“I know,” Hort beams, pointy teeth making an appearance. “It’s a big deal that you’re on our team.”

“Team?” Agatha says, wrinkling her nose.

“You know, the never-ending battle between Good and Evil,” Hort supplies. “There’s lots of rumors going around, Teddy.”

“Don’t call me that.”

“Sorry,” Hort chuckles. He doesn’t seem nervous around Tedros at all. In fact, it looks like Hort is trying to secure a new best friend.

Tedros seems wary. And Agatha is enjoying the show.

“Rumors that a Good prince isn’t so Good after all, and that he’s coming to our school? That’s so sick,” Hort adds, looking at Tedros with obvious excitement.

The wariness and newfound hostility doesn’t leave Tedros’ form as Hort slings his arm over his shoulder and leads him away, chattering into his ear the whole time.

Tedros tenses at something Hort says and Agatha would love to know what it was so she could use it later as ammunition. Her pettiness might be juvenile, but sue her.

As everybody is bustled into the entrance hall and they’re given their schedules and room assignments, Agatha’s mind is quickly led on to other things, like the three pairs of eyes of a coven of witches that stare her down as she opens her dorm room door.

But the unease doesn’t last long.

Agatha comes out well with her roommates. Dot seems too sweet, literally, to be in Evil, but Hester and Anadil fit right in with the doom and gloom of Evil castle.

“I’d very much like to throw a headless bird over to Good and see how they’d react,” Agatha says after she’s settled in.

Hester looks Agatha up and down and smirks. “I like you.”

Agatha eyes her. “The jury’s still out.”

She didn’t make judgements on people until she’s known them for a while. Tedros might be the new exception to that rule.

Hester doesn’t seem bothered, her smirk remains. “Fine by me.”

“Are you a Reader?” Anadil asks. Agatha turns her attention to the albino witch. She senses a subtle wave of jealousy emanating from crimson eyes.

“Yeah, I think. I don’t come from the same places you do.”

“Bloodbrook, Ravenswood, Nottingham?” Dot suggests.

Agatha shakes her head. “Nope.”

Dot shrugs. “Only Readers come from beyond the Endless Woods.”

“Who’d you come here with?” Hester asks, leaning against the bedpost with her shoulder.

“Sophie. She’s in Good.”

“With a name like that?” Hester cackles. “Of course.”

Dot purses her lips. “I don’t think it’s that bad.”

“We never asked your name,” Anadil raises an almost invisible eyebrow.

“Agatha.”

“That’s almost just as bad.”

“Nah, it’s a little better,” Hester concedes. “Sophie is a princess name, through and through. What must her mother have been thinking?”

“Her mother wanted her to be a princess,” Agatha mutters.

Hester turns to Agatha and can’t keep the disgusted expression off her face. “Really??”

“My mother wanted me to be a witch, and here I am.”

“Wanting to be a princess just shows low ambition. Anybody can prance around in a poofy dress and act snooty.”

“Trust me, those heels that Sophie wears are harder to walk in than you think.”

“And that’s their biggest struggle isn’t it?” Anadil scoffs. “Forgive me for my lack of sympathy.”

Agatha stays silent at that. She could mention that Evers had to find True Love as well, which Agatha would name as the greatest ordeal any human could go through, but she didn’t think her current audience would be quite so receptive to that.

As a Never, Agatha didn’t have to worry about love. All she had to worry about was that Sophie didn’t get herself killed and that she herself would become a successful witch, take over an Ever Kingdom perhaps.

Over in the boy’s dorms, Hort regales Tedros with the story of his childhood and Tedros listens with half an ear, mind elsewhere.

He’d tuned out directly after Hort had begun speculating why the Greatest King of the Endless Woods would have a son as rotten as him. Tedros has already heard every slimy hypothesis surrounding the circumstances of his “less than ideal” character.

Tedros can’t be King Arthur’s son. His mother was a whore anyway, she must have slept with half the Nevers in the Endless Woods.

That theory had been dismissed relatively quickly.

Tedros looked too much like Arthur. Same crystal-blue eyes, same golden hair, same jawline, same cheekbones.

His nose was his mother’s, snubbed and straight. His mouth too.

But then a new hypothesis had arrived from a king that Tedros suspected had always hated him. Not every father likes it when their daughter loses her chastity in the back of a horse stable.

It wasn’t Tedros’ fault. Princess Andromeda was as eager for human contact as Tedros, except with the drive of a tiger and the ambition of a bird in mating season. Plus she looked cute when she blushed.

No, the situation of Tedros’ parentage must be far worse.

Guinevere had used magic to change her son’s appearance and his true appearance had been disguised. He was the son of a monster, and the monster had glamoured its kin to look like Arthur. It was all magic.

But after a few tests, a couple surgeries, potions that he had to swallow down, once again, the theory was disproved. No matter how deep they cut, Tedros still looked the same.

The theories came and went, but none held. Nonetheless, their lack of validity didn't stop the rumors from spreading like wildfire.

Arthur finally figured it out, half a year before his death, but the only person he’d ever told was Tedros.

“It’s so cool that you’re over here with us,” Hort beams, “All the princesses must be so disappointed! And I bet all those stupid Everboys are jealous.“

“Probably not,” Tedros puffs, mouth pulling down at the sides. “They hold the same distaste for me as for any Never.”

Hort pauses, seems to think for a while, and then nods. “Yeah, you’re probably just an animal in their eyes.”

Tedros releases a pained laugh and thinks Hort’s brutal honesty might get him in trouble someday.

“But don’t worry, they look at most of us that way.”

Tedros shoots him a glance. “You think?”

“Oh, yeah. They look at us the same way they look at rats and dog shit.”

Tedros raises an elegant eyebrow. “We’ll have to change that.”

“Could we?”

“I don’t think it’d be that hard.”

“It doesn’t seem possible. That’s two-hundred years of tradition.”

“Tradition of them thinking we’re disgusting animals?”

Hort nods seriously.

“It’s possible.”

Hort still looks skeptical. His mouth opens and closes multiple times before he decides on a stuttered, “—how?”

As Tedros explains his ideas to Hort, the pale villain’s eyes get wider and wider, and he leans more and more forward in the desk chair he’d occupied.

“Alarmingly simple,” Hort says finally, awestruck.

“Alarmingly effective,” Tedros adds, smirking.

“I almost don’t believe it.”

“Just watch and do what you want.”

There’s a pause.

Hort looks hesitant for the first time.

“I’m—I don’t think I can pull this off.”

Tedros shrugs with a smile, eyes glittering, “We’re just playing.”

Another pause. Tedros waits.

Hort chews his lip nervously. “I just, I don’t think I’m, uh, confident enough.”

Tedros stares at the other boy and his expression softens. “Why not?”

Hort swallows, gestures at himself and winces. “Look at me.”

“I’m not seeing what you mean.”

Hort scowls at that. “Don’t lie to me.”

“I’m not. What’s wrong?”

“A girl would never go for someone who looks like me.”

“That’s not true.”

“I look like a rat,” Hort snaps, angry, almost teary now. “If I stand next to you, I look even worse.”

“Hort—”

“Nobody wants me around and nobody ever will. Looks matter and anybody who says different is lying.”

“Hort.”

“What.”

“Do you think I’m confident?”

Hort scowl deepens. “You’re arrogant, it’s not even confidence anymore.”

“You got that from knowing me for two hours?”

“The way you walk. Everything.”

“And you still wanted to be friends?”

Hort sighs, exasperated. “You’re obviously the only one who’d give me the time of day.”

Tedros’ soft expression hasn’t left his face. “It’s not hard to act cocky when you’re not.” Tedros laughs quietly. “In fact, it’s easier when you’re not.”

Hort furrows his brows. “You’re not?”

Tedros snorts. “Nope. Very Ever of me, I know.”

“You’d just admit that to me?”

Tedros sighs. “You don’t have to be confident. Copy people who are. It’s all just a set of mannerisms that you have to bring out every now and then.” Tedros crosses his arms over his chest as he leans back against the wall where he sits on his bed. “Eventually, it becomes second nature.” Tedros eyes Hort up and down and smirks. “You got the looks for it.”

“Don’t patronize me.”

“Come on,” Tedros laughs. “Trust me, you could have girls falling for you left and right. You just need the attitude to back it up.”

Hort flushes red and Tedros grins wider. Hort looks at the floor and mutters, “I can’t decide whether I hate you or love you.”

“That’s the way I like it.”

Chapter Text

Eyes go wide and literal dinner plates are dropped when Tedros decides to cross the clearing over to the Ever’s side. Agatha narrows her eyes from the shadows of one of the trees on their side. They narrow even further as she watches him amble towards Sophie with only bad intentions underlining his every move.

Sophie tucks her damn hair behind her ear and Agatha rolls her eyes to the heavens. As long as this didn’t develop into anything more than insipid flirting, Agatha could ignore it.

Hester brushes up beside her with Anadil at her flank and leans over to whisper in her ear, “Is that Sophie?”

Agatha nods, her eyes never leaving her best friend. Sophie hadn’t had the best track record when it came to boys. Agatha was still annoyed at the blisters she’d gotten digging the grave of that idiot Derek.

He’s flirting with Sophie and the Everboys as a collective seem to be suffering from a group brain aneurysm as their reaction to the things happening in front of them.

Agatha rolls her eyes. Apes.

Although you know what? Agatha’s not in the mood. Tedros would pay for that.

She reaches the end of her rope before the week is over. Her best friend and Tedros seem to spend every second with each other and Tedros might actually be interested in Sophie but Sophie is so gullible Agatha can practically see her putting the Never prince on a pedestal, seeing an angel where there was only a demon.

It’s stupidly easy catching him and tying him up. Agatha even has a little bit of fun doing it. Tying up and torturing boys might just be one of her favorite pastimes.

“What the fuck,” he says first when he regains consciousness.

“Glad to see you’re with us.”

He takes a look at the ropes binding his wrists and ankles and spits in her general direction.

“Let’s remain civil, shall we?”

He bares his teeth. She snickers.

“You’re just a big, angry kitty. Aren’t you?” He snarls at her from his place tied to the wall and she laughs again. “I seem to have overestimated you.”

“Untie me.”

“But it won’t happen again,” she pauses, dark eyes glimmering. “Kitten.”

He rolls his shoulders like he’s getting ready for a fight. But with the ropes binding him to the wall, he doesn’t really have a chance. Although the muscles of his arms flex as if it’s a very real possibility that he could tear through.

Agatha would pay to see that happen. The visual teases her at the edge of her mind before she gives in and moves closer, tracing the lines of his torso with the tip of her dagger.

He doesn’t flinch.

She stares at him.

Silence reigns.

He wants this.

She stops the blade with the tip right above his heart.

Not even a blink. His eyes are trained at her with an openness that feels like he wants to submerge her into the ocean-blue of them. The blatant transparency of his gaze could almost make Agatha shiver. He acts like they've known each other forever.

“You’re either naive or incredibly stupid.”

“I like to think I’m both.”

“How are you still alive?”

“Luck and my good looks. I’m also quite handy with a sword.”

Agatha calms herself and rolls her eyes. “I can’t believe I ever thought you were a threat.”

“Don’t sweat it. You were blinded by my charisma.”

“I hate you.”

A lazy smile spread across his face. “I know.”

Agatha cocks her head. “Is that good?”

“I like it when I see all those emotions on your face. You get so worked up.”

“You’d hate to learn that I don’t give a shit about you, huh?”

There’s shock and then a flicker of hurt in his eyes for a split-second and Agatha knows she has him.

“You want me to care. Because nobody’s ever cared about you before.” Agatha shakes her head in mock sympathy. “That’s pathetic.”

The energy in the room has tipped further in her favour and they both know it.

A muscle ticks in his jaw and Agatha could laugh at how much he reminds her of those angry, wet, abandoned animals you’d find back in Gavaldon. So full of fear and covering it up with a thin facade of slashing claws and sharp teeth.

“I see the way you look at me,” he says, scowling.

“Are you trying to convince me or yourself?”

Agatha is lying through her teeth at this point because it’s not like she doesn’t care at all. There’s definitely something about him that could prove useful to her later on. And she’s not quite ready to lose that potential.

“I don’t need to. Letting me go would prove your apathy.”

Realization hits Agatha like a lightning strike.

“Oh.”

Tedros is trying to keep a straight face but Agatha just shakes her head and laughs.

He huffs. “You saw through that, did you?”

“You couldn’t be more transparent if you tried.”

“Can you blame me?”

Agatha promptly sits down on his lap and he hisses out in surprise. “No,” she replies, dragging the tip of the dagger along his jaw. “But revealing to me how devastatingly vulnerable you are was the wrong move.”

“Alright let’s not get carried away. I’m not–”

“You are though,” Agatha murmurs. “Poor thing. Trying to play the big bad villain and failing so hard.”

“Stop.”

“Stop talking to you like this? Does it hurt your feelings?”

Tedros growls and twists his head to the side, trying to get away from her. But the flush is high on his cheeks.

“You wouldn’t want to admit that you like it.”

“I don’t,” he snaps, meeting her eyes. There’s a shine to them that wasn’t there before.

“I need you to stop pursuing my sister.”

Tedros inhales through his nose and leans back against the wall. “How important is that request for you?”

“Important enough that I haven’t ruled out murder.”

“Incentive?”

“I won’t tie you up again.”

Tedros’s eyes glitter. “That’s incentive to do the opposite.”

“You’re insufferable.”

“Let me bite you.”

“There’s something seriously wrong with you.”

“Tell me something I don’t know.”

Agatha takes a moment to regain her composure before meeting his gaze again and offering the fakest smile. “You come near Sophie again, and I’ll cut off parts of your body I know you’d rather keep.”

“Ah.”

“Do we have a deal?”

Tedros pretends to consider her words and Agatha might strangle him before the school year is over.

“Yeah. Yeah, we do.”

______

True to his word, Tedros doesn’t try anything with Sophie from that point forward. And it seems too easy, so Agatha keeps an eye on him.

The weeks pass and Agatha sees more of him around. She catches him looking at her every now and again. That might be because she checks him from time to time. Only for surveillance purposes, of course.

They get partnered up for a History project and it goes smoother than Agatha expected. He’s a hard worker, if a little arrogant at times. But bearable in total.

He’s more or less a quiet presence in class, preferring to watch and observe, those ridiculously long lashes lowered over uninterested eyes, instead of raising his hand and participating.

She drops her books while walking out of Uglification one day and before she can bend to pick them up he’s holding them out for her, his warm chest right up at her back, leaning over her shoulder to meet her eyes. Golden hair curls over his ears and at the nape of his neck. She takes the books without breaking eye contact.

Agatha doesn’t say thank you and she can tell he doesn’t expect her too.

______

One early morning, he goes out to the small lake next to the Blue Forest and sits down at the edge. Agatha had been up for a long time already and since she had nothing to do, she follows him. When she sees he has no intention of moving anytime soon, she makes to leave, but before she can-

“Care to join me?” he calls over his shoulder.

She stops.

“No.”

“I want you to.”

There’s a pause.

Agatha doesn’t know why she relents. She might be tired from staying up all night. Sleep hasn’t been coming easy lately. She drops down next to him and there’s only silence at first.

Tedros stares out over the lake they’re sitting at. The pale morning late stubbornly pushes the darkness of night back with every minute that passes, the world gaining definition and color. He looks over at Agatha beside him.

She’s still a striking picture in black and white, all pale skin and raven hair.

“I like the quiet,” Agatha says, breaking the silence. “It reminds me of the graveyard.”

“You grew up near one, yeah?”

“In one.”

Tedros hums in response. “I grew up in a castle filled with empty rooms and even emptier people.”

“Sounds delightful.”

“Oh yeah.”

“Nobody to talk to.”

“Nobody to try and convince I was Good.”

“Ah,” Agatha laughs. “That was a problem.”

“You wouldn’t believe the fuss the nobility kicked up when I told them I wanted to make it illegal for my best friend to play with anyone else.”

Agatha snorts out another laugh.

“In my defense, I was nine,” Tedros adds. “But yeah, a tad too possessive for an Ever prince.”

“That can’t have been the worst you did.”

Tedros shakes his head gravely, “I did far worse.” He grins, “But by that time it was quite clear which side of the scales my soul weighed down.”

“Good for you.”

Tedros nods, “And bad for them.” He tips his head in her direction. “How was growing up in a tiny little village?”

Agatha stares at him, unimpressed. “Don’t act all high and mighty. My mother knew I was a Never from the first moment I opened my big, bug-eyes,” Agatha scoffs. “The rest of the villagers knew it too. Made growing up annoying.”

There's that silence again.

“I’m sorry.”

She glances over at him and sees the sincerity in his expression. It’s disconcerting on one hand, and on the other Agatha thinks the softness that came with that honesty seems to have been made for him.

“It’s in the past," she replies.

And that's all they say, quiet falling once more, their shoulders and upper arms barely brushing.

In the early morning dawn the land is periwinkle, Tedros is gold and Agatha is silver. A feeling of tranquility settles like a downy blanket onto their surroundings and Agatha feels both their heartbeats gradually slow, peace like a gift in the chaos, muting everything to a serene hum.

Chapter Text

Agatha discovers Lady Lesso has a psychopath for a son when said psychopath screams at Hester and her, spit flying, as they capture him after he tries to lay siege to Evil castle.

“Aric” seems to only have one goal; murdering his mother and anyone who comes between.

Both schools are thrown into chaos when Aric and his goons appear on the horizon, but Lady Lesso is a competent teacher and Professor Dovey helps the Evers become more than unfit noobs. Sophie even learns a disarming spell. One which Agatha sees her use from afar, because the Never castle has been quarantined off.

Of course Aric unleashed some insane plague-like sickness to weaken their forces.

But after Hester carves the word “CREEP” into his forehead and throws him into the dungeon, Agatha can relax. The rest of his gang are going to be easy to subdue, now that their leader has been captured.

She allows herself a small smile, fond, now thinking of a certain Never Prince.

Tedros has been pouting.

Because they’d grown closer in the past few months, nowadays Agatha almost expects his presence at her side when she leaves her room and is out on the grounds or in the halls. Her previous tolerance of him has grown into the kind of transactional relationship that Nevers would call friendship.

Unfortunately, he’s the only one who can handle Aric. All other guards that Lady Lesso had set to guard him had lost it after half an hour alone with the guy. That, or they had let him out. Hester had been this close to cutting off the arm of the poor Never responsible.

When Anadil had interviewed (lightly tortured) said Never, the pathetic guy didn’t even know why he had done it. Aric was alarmingly good at convincing people to do things that went against their best interests.

Luckily, Tedros did things that went against his best interests on the regular.

But standing guard meant being down in the dungeons almost 24/7. And Tedros was a lot like a greedy sunflower in that way. Always needed to be in the sun, always needed attention and drooped and withered when he didn’t get enough from either.

With the way he’s looking at her right now, blue eyes dark and chewing the inside of his cheek, jaw tight, he definitely needs both.

Agatha lets him start when he’s ready to. An utter child, Agatha thinks as she smiles down at her drawing of Never After.

Tedros crosses his muscular arms across his chest, clearly sullen. “I’m tired of playing guard to that bastard and never seeing you,” he says.

Agatha puts her charcoal pencil and sketchbook aside. “Oh, I’m sorry,” she says. “Did you think this was going to be easy?”

Tedros’ voice seems to die in his throat. He’s angry with himself for complaining about something that she had asked him to do, when of course this is hard, and of course she’s working twice as much as he is.

Agatha’s face softens.

“Come here, Tedros,” she says, and pats the space next to her on the black sofa between her bed and the cabinet.

Maybe she meant for him to sit beside her, but he’s touch-starved.

Tedros drops to his knees on the floor in front of the sofa and presses his face into her, just below her heart. He keeps his hands crossed behind his back because he knows how to behave.

Agatha makes a sound, half-sigh, half-laugh, and puts her hands into his hair.

She runs her fingers through his curls and Tedros almost moans, leaning into the touch like a cat.

He inhales her scent instead, only the thin fabric of a black tunic between his mouth and her skin.

“So needy,” she murmurs.

He huffs. “It’s your fault.”

“Oh?”

“You’re too easy to need,” he mumbles.

God, when did he become this earnest?

“Hmm. I guess it makes sense then. That you’re easy to want.”

Tedros turns his head up towards her and their eyes meet. He’s looking at her like he’s asking her if she means it. But Agatha knows he won’t open his mouth and voice his vulnerability. He’s still a Never after all.

She leans down until there’s only an inch between their mouths.

His lips part slightly, big blue eyes flicking between her gaze and her lips.

Agatha lets her eyelids flutter shut and she inhales, a slow smile spreading across her face.

Then.

Spidery eyelashes open over molten bronze eyes once again and she blinks twice, lazily.

“What do you want?”

“You,” Tedros says, immediately.

Agatha can’t lie and say that that one word from his pretty, pretty mouth doesn’t shoot lightning right to her core.

She kisses him and he kisses her back like that’s all he’s been waiting for his entire life. Agatha can hardly believe they’ve gotten to this point when she remembers the animosity between them at the beginning of the year. All of his emotions are right there at the surface, right under his skin like blush under fragile lace.

He moans and rises up to his knees so their faces are at the same height, hands still behind his back but Agatha taps his wrist and his arms are immediately coming around to wrap around her waist, forearms behind her like a metal brace, hard muscle and heated skin.

He whimpers when her legs wrap more tightly around his hips and she lets out a sound of disapproval.

“Be quiet.”

Tedros pulls back an inch, irises taken over by black. There’s barely an inch between their parted lips.

“Make me.”

It’s so typical but it works.

Agatha gives him a slow up and down, tongue at the edge of her mouth. The singular scoff that escapes her nose once her brown eyes flick back up to Tedros is anything but amused — a predator that had finally found prey with some attitude.

It’s equally detached and possessive and mean, perfectly balanced with that obsessive staring that makes Tedros feel too warm in his shirt.

“You’re just a brat, aren’t you?”

His eyes are blown and there’s only the thinnest ring of ice blue visible.

“Yeah,” he rasps into her ear after he leans forward. His words send her next thoughts spiraling. “Hit me.”

Wait.

Agatha pulls back.

No.

She pulls back farther.

“Come on,” Tedros hisses.

Agatha haltingly shakes her head. She takes his hand, presses it hot against her chest, right above her heart.

It’s beating fast, but steady.

“Come back down, Tedros.”

He jerks in her holds. He lets out a choked noise.

“What—No—, not that—wait—“ he shakes.

Agatha pulls him towards her, tucking his face into her neck and he tries to jerk away, shaking his head.

“—not what I want.”

He shudders in her hold and Agatha feels like she’s been thrown overboard into an icy ocean, the sudden aching emotion seeping out of him sucking the air from her lungs.

“Hit me,” he keeps saying, over and over and over again into her collarbone so she just holds him tighter. “Hit me, hit me, hit me.”

She just continues holding him.

Then… there’s only silence save for his panting breaths.

His skin is hot like he’s had a fever when they finally break apart.

Tedros can’t seem to say anything as he stares at her.

She doesn’t say anything either and they just look at each other. Frozen, both of them clearly broken, yet all their pieces tethered just the same.

Chapter Text

“You just need to let me protect you,” she says one stormy day.

“Oh, you’re gonna protect me?”

“Mm-hmm,” she smiles softly and presses a hand to his cheek. He leans into it, blue eyes meeting hers. “Nobody else could manage it.”

He looks at her. “Your hands are cold.”

“And you’re warm, as always.”

“I run hot.”

“My personal little bonfire,” Agatha’s hand slides from his cheek to his neck, holding with her fingers lined up on his jugular, thumb under his jaw. “I’ve got to keep you in check.”

Tedros levels a low-lidded stare at her, before blinking once slowly, like a cat. “I’d let you.”

Agatha smiles, predatory. “I know.” She smiles again, this time wider. “Known since the first time you looked at me.”

“Yeah?” Tedros breathes.

Agatha tightens her grip. “You looked so needy, so spoiled, so desperate.” She laughs.

Tedros pouts, then opens his mouth, before closing it, seemingly having changed his mind.

“You thought you were subtle? Cute.” Agatha teases.

“You weren’t subtle either,” Tedros purrs from under her hand, suddenly brave. “I saw the way you watched me.”

Agatha leans closer and tilts her head, amused. “Did you?”

“Saw the way you looked when Sophie would talk to me.”

Agatha’s dark eyes flash.

“You’re the jealous type, my love,” he continues.

Agatha tightens her grip on his throat and Tedros’ lips part, shallow breaths, expectant.

“Do I have anyone to be jealous of?”

Tedros shakes his head as much as he can under her hand, gaze hazy.

“No?” she prompts.

“No.”

“Because you’re mine.”

“I’m yours.”

Agatha closes the final few inches and kisses Tedros, slow and deep, before pulling away. Too soon for the prince, for he leans after her.

“And you’re mine,” Tedros insists.

Agatha releases his neck and thumbs at his lower lip, laughing softly. “So needy.”

“Agatha.”

“I’m yours, my love.”

Tedros seems to breathe easier after her words, almost as if he’d been worried up till then. Agatha gazes at him fondly, as if her adoration could ever be doubted.

The next morning, it’s only reluctantly that Tedros drags himself out of their bed. Off to the dungeons with Aric, all that reluctance is crystal-clear in the sullen cut of his gaze towards her as she watches him go.

Agatha makes her way down later. After pulling on a black, draping coat and her regular trousers and vest, she descends the stairs. The others are waiting for her inside the main hall, the only two missing were Hester and Anadil.

“And where are they?”

“Responding to a threat at the barrier. Some older villains were causing an uproar. So they’re setting them straight,” Dot replies.

Agatha nods. They’d had to erect a barrier to limit the reach of the sickness, and to keep older villains from joining Aric’s mission. Somebody at the back of the assembled group in front of Agatha coughs. Agatha pays it no mind. If you were infected, coughing was a good sign. Bleeding from the eyes, now that marked you as a dead man.

“The Evers are still doing fine?”

“Yes, unfortunately,” this time it’s Mona that responds.

“Better that. We don’t want them relying on us.”

Another person coughs, and then following that, another.

Agatha narrows her eyes. “What’s with the coughing?”

Too much coughing was atypical. Agatha’s suspicion begins to rise.

“Um,” Dot is looking around, until her gaze comes to a stop on the grates in the floor beneath them. Smoke seeps from them. “Oh, hell.”

“Oh, hell,” Agatha scowls. She makes for the door but finds her muscles unresponsive. Everybody else in the hall seems to be suffering the same fate. Agatha meets Dot’s wide eyes.

The coughing increases and Agatha pulls her coat over her nose. But with the fog in her head she already knows it’s too late.

“Who managed to–” is what she hears from Mona last. And the world goes dark.

———

The attack had been quick, and the goal for it had become abundantly clear as soon as everyone in the hall had awoken. Dot almost faints and Mona and Arachne’s faces pale.

Agatha was gone.

When they’d awoken, the first step to take was logical.

Nobody had wanted to go down into the bowels of the castle to tell him.

But they had to act quickly if they wanted any chance of retrieving her. Dot was the one they’d voted that he’d be the least likely to harm. Dot had admired their faith in his affection for her, but that didn’t stop her hands from shaking as she made her way down the musty stone steps of the castle to the place where no sunlight reached.

“Tedros?”

The prince appeared around the corner almost before she finishes speaking his name, likely eager for anything else to do.

“Tell me I’m needed elsewhere, please.”

Dot gulps. “You are.”

“Excellent. It’s dreadfully boring down here.”

“Am I that terrible company, darling?” a voice calls from deeper down in the row of cells.

“Shut up,” Tedros shouts back, irritated. He rubs at his face and looks down at Dot. “So?”

“Promise me you’ll stay calm.”

Tedros' expression changes to one of intrigue. “Oh?”

He leads her back up the stairs with a hand on the small of her back, palm hot. Dot worries he’ll set her on fire. “It’s Agatha,” Dot manages when they’re halfway up.

And where there was Tedros beside her, now there’s only air.

Dot picks up the pace and scrambles up after him.

The amiable Tedros that has greeted her is completely gone when Dot emerges in the western atrium, only one set of double doors away from the main hall. Dot hears the muffled sound of stone cracking and glass breaking and runs to the source of the noise.

Tedros stands, panting, in the middle of the central atrium, sword drawn, stained glass broken inside the window next to him. And a huge crack in the floor by his feet.

Somebody must have told him. Thank god at least that was out of the way.

When he sees her, Tedros sheaths his sword. “I’m perfectly calm,” he states. “Tell me what happened.”

Arachne starts talking when everybody else remains silent. “Smoke began to rise from the grates and–”

“We were all knocked out,” Dot finishes. “We still don’t know how they got into the ventilation system.”

“I didn’t even know we had a ventilation system,” Hort mumbles.

“Any idea where they went?”

“They left a pretty obvious trail out of the School, actually. Through the barrier.” Arachne says, raising her eyebrows.

“It’s a trap.”

“Yep,” Arachne huffs.

There’s a moment of silence and Ravan groans when he sees the look on Tedros’ face.

“We’re running into it, aren’t we?”

Tedros nods like there’s no other way to approach the problem.

“Fuck,” Ravan curses. “No debate?”

Tedros just looks at him and Ravan curses again.

“Don’t worry. I’ll keep you safe, sweetheart,” the blond purrs.

“Shut up,” Ravan snaps. “I’m getting my gear.”

And with that Ravan stalks out of the room. Mona and Arachne follow soon after, though not as fed-up. Dot had been hearing from the rest that the two of them have been bored these past few months. And that they were aching for a little bloodlust.

Well, Dot thinks to herself, this would give it to them.

Whereas Dot worried about Tedros’ impulsivity, Arachne and Mona seemed thirsty for it. There’d be spilled blood, of that Dot had no doubt. But that still raised an issue.

“We’ll have to lower the barrier to get out,” she speaks up.

“Do it,” Tedros says, immediately.

“It goes both ways, though. The older villains will be able to come inside.”

“To hell with the old villains. We’ll fight them later.”

Hort shakes his head, “What I don’t understand is how they had managed to get out, but we’re resigned to crashing the barrier?”

Vex scowls, “They’re older and they know more magic. Simple.”

“We should know as much magic as them.”

“That’s a problem for another day,” Tedros says, smiling tightly. “If I don’t get my hands on the bastards that did this, I might just set fire to every set of curtains in this goddamn castle.”

“Why the curtains?” Hort asks hesitantly.

“Silk burns the easiest.”

“Ah.”

———

They get the barrier down easily enough. Putting it back up later would be the hard part. But Tedros says he'll manage it with Agatha after they get her back. And he says it with such unshakeable confidence that Dot readily believes him. There’s a worry in the back of her mind that Agatha would disapprove of their methods to get her back. But there was no arguing with Tedros once he set his mind of something, even less so when it had something to do with Agatha.

A marble pavilion deep inside the forest is surrounded on all sides by dozens of villains, both old and new, but all against the School for Good and Evil. Huge gray columns hold up the circular dome, engraved with snakes and vines, daggers and moons. Their team of Nevers had only had to advance half a mile past the former barrier to find it.

Tedros cuts through them like butter, and Dot is satisfied to see the surprise on their faces. Both at him, and the rest of them. Because they’ve never fought better. Dot is immobilizing and de-weaponizing henchman after henchman, and Arachne and Mona whirl across the field like an evil hurricane, cutting down enemies left and right.

Soon they’ve taken down enough villains that they reach a standstill, the enemies that were left standing in a crescent around a coffin in the middle.

Tedros’ flashing eyes had zeroed in on it the second the pavilion had come into view.

“Give her back, and we’ll leave you your hands,” Tedros says, remarkably calmly.

The leader of the older villains sneers and scoffs. “I’ll do whatever I want to her. Aric gave me the green light on everything,” the other villain sneers.

Ravan purses his lips at his spot next to Tedros. Almost as if saying, ‘You messed up, friend.’

A muscle twitches in the Never prince’s jaw. “Step away from her.”

“I don’t think you’re in a position to tell me to do anything.”

“I’m in a position to do whatever the fuck I want,” Tedros snarls, and on the last word throws a dagger with the speed of a bullet into the column next to the henchman’s head.

The blade rattles in the stone from the impact and the other Never just stares at him, eyes comically wide, whether from shock or fear, Dot doesn’t really know. The column cracks. She doesn’t think it even matters because the man is stepping away from Agatha like she’s on fire.

“Aric will have your head for that,” a voice hisses from the crowd and Tedros grins at that.

“Let him come for my head,” the blond says, “I want to take some other parts of him in exchange. And he’s welcome to the attempt to make it a fair trade.”

Tedros seems to have brought his previous rage down to a low simmer, but when a glass shatters against another column, Dot still jumps. She hadn’t even seen him throw it.

“We didn’t come here to make enemies,” Tedros says, coming to a stop in the middle of the room. “No. We came to make friends.”

Ravan kicks the half-dead body of one of the villains.

Tedros sighs. “But if you aren’t being fucking friendly, then I just have to react, don’t I?”

“It was all Aric’s plan–”

Tedros is across the room before any of the Never’s can blink, has the poor soul up against the wall even faster.

His whisper carries across the room as he grabs the lower-level henchman harder by the neck, pushing his body up the wall with one arm. “I don’t give a flying rat’s ass whose shitty little plan it was,” Tedros hisses. The tendons in his arm ripple with definition as he shoves the henchman further up the wall till the man’s boots are barely brushing the ground. “I’m not the forgiving type.”

Tedros flicks one of his daggers out of his jacket with his free hand and slides it in between the villain’s ribs with the casualty of a prince cutting into his lunch. The man’s eyes go wide, and then quick as a melting snow, the light of life in them fades into blankness.

Tedros lets the body go and Dot flinches when it hits the ground a couple feet away from her. She wasn’t like Arachne and Mona, who watched with a gleam in their eyes.

“See? This is what happens when you act like uncooperative, messy little shits,” Tedros rakes his hand through his hair before approaching where Agatha has been entombed inside the glass coffin. The opposing Nevers part in front of him like a wave, and once again, Dot is in awe of his effect on people. “It was a mistake to take her,” Tedros says, gazing at Agatha, “But killing you all is boring, and I don’t have time for it.” He runs a hand, tenderly, along the glass above Agatha’s face. Dot sees a couple villains breath an audible sigh of relief. “I’d like you to tell–”

“Tell me yourself.”

The Nevers draw their weapons again in a cacophony of sliding steel and glowing fingers.

Tedros stops in his pacing beside Agatha’s coffin, before turning around slowly, and alighting his gaze on the entrance, and the figure standing in it. “Aric.”

“Darling.”

“And your goal with this was…?”

“To aggravate you.”

“So you could escape.”

“Bingo.”

“Smart.”

“I know you well, dear.”

Tedros has been stalking forward like a tiger with every word, flames dancing in his eyes. And Dot sees Aric watching the distance between them like a child watching candy in a store.

“You don’t, though,” Tedros replies, practically vibrating now.

“Oh?”

“You think I’ll throw you back in the dungeons when we’re done here?”

Aric laughs, malicious, “I don’t think you’ll succeed.”

“No, I won’t.”

“I’m glad you know your limitations.”

Now Tedros has gone completely still, the smile only in his eyes, lips barely parted. “I know my limitations very well.”

And Dot feels like an objective observer as she watches the both of them, gold versus raven, bronze versus alabaster. Dot doesn’t think Aric knows what Tedros really means. But Ravan does, a sharp smile tugging one side of his mouth up.

Aric sees Tedros move before Dot does, so the villain has sense and reflexes at least, and he’s reacting to Tedros like a viper.

The dark-haired Never parries, and successfully blocks Tedros’ first blow. But the following attacks come lightning quick, and the two of them are lost in a blur of motion that Dot has no hope of tracking.

Red sprays across the floor and Dot looks over at Ravan to gauge whose blood it had been but the other Never’s face betrays nothing. That, or even he doesn’t know.

More blood splatters across the floor.

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.

Chapter Text

Most of them are already gathered in the hall. All this sociability is making the Nevers nervous, go figure, and Dot has already asked both Anadil and Hester each why they were all summoned. They’d said nothing.

Dot had then asked Ravan if he knew Tedros was coming or not. Ravan had gotten the message from Agatha herself; Tedros was to be present when they gathered.

Ravan glances back at the dais where Agatha paces, for once betraying the importance she placed on their next moves. Agatha’s eyes had always been dark and frighteningly intense. She said it was idiotic to downplay the reality of her plans. Let them see what her intentions were. And let them try and stop her.

Suddenly, she stops her pacing and watches the big double doors at the head of the hall open, cat eyes unblinking.

A lone figure steps through the doors, head bowed, muscular shoulders tense under taut black fabric. Sword glinting at his back, blue eyes flash silver as Tedros raises his gaze to meet Agatha’s unflinching stare.

The return of the punished. Their first contact in weeks raises a chill in the huge space.

But there’s no way anybody misses the way Agatha’s gaze softens, maybe in forgiveness, maybe in familiarity, though in the next second it’s already gone. But if you were paying attention, which Ravan was, there was no way that depth of feeling could be overlooked.

Lightning flashes outside and Ravan finds it oddly poetic that that is when Tedros and Agatha break their eye contact.

Rain starts thundering harder on the window panes and when Tedros takes his place next to Ravan, the other Never practically feels the shame curling off of Tedros’ skin. The most obvious sign of Tedros’ fall from Agatha’s side was his new place during meetings. Not lounging before Agatha’s seat like a half-tamed panther, but to the left side of Ravan, a demotion of the worst order.

Ravan doesn’t bother trying to cheer him up.

“There’s no way to avoid total confrontation. I’m aware most of us would prefer that, however I had planned on spilling as little Evil blood as possible,” Agatha begins. “Due to extenuating circumstances, my original plan won’t be possible.”

Tedros purses his lips from next to Ravan.

“Aric’s goons aren’t our only problem now,” Agatha continues. “There’s a new professor at the School for Good. And I can’t say I’m a fan of her policies.” Their fearless leader sighs. “Her name is Evelyn. And she’s up to nothing good.”

“How do you know?” Hester asks. “I heard she’s whipping those pathetic Evers into shape.”

“I know,” Agatha says, “Because Sophie likes her. And that’s a surefire way of knowing that bitch is up to no good.”

Hester seems to accept that reasoning with a nod of consent. Anadil snickers from beside her.

“How is Sophie by the way?” Dot can’t help but ask.

“This isn’t a gossip circle,” Agatha says sharply. Dot offers a hurried bow of apology. “But she tells me everything is fine. And I’ve chosen to believe her. For now.”

The expression on Agatha’s face says that Sophie told her more than just ‘Everything is fine,’ and Dot decides to confront her later about it.

Dot has risen the ranks of Agatha’s officers and is finally getting recognition from the Evil professors. Professors that seem perfectly content with giving Agatha the reigns. Dot had heard Lady Lesso whisper something about a fairy-tale having already been started. Maybe that had something to do with the professors not intervening.

At this point, there’s nobody Dot trusts more to get things done than Agatha.

“The barrier is still at half the strength it was before,” Agatha says to the room. Tedros’ jaw flexes as various Nevers glance at him. “But luckily, Aric is dead, which takes one problem off our plate.”

Tedros’ expression doesn’t change even though Agatha’s comment was clearly a barely concealed pardon.

“Here’s the deal: We have to push back this last wave of the outbreak or we’ll never get back to our previous numbers. All our future fairytales are ruined if we don’t make it out of this school.” Agatha runs her hands through raven-black hair, and continues with her eyes closed. “The curriculum our Professors set us at the beginning of the year has been all but thrown out the window. So I’m asking you all to pull through and do exactly as I tell you. We’re Nevers and hardship has been our friend all our lives.” Utter silence rules in the Great Hall. “Will you do this for me?”

All at once the masses of Never gathered before Agatha erupts into a deafening roar. Dot screams along with them. Agatha had some magical ability to make even Evil students feel camaraderie. The blood lust was already there.

“Tedros.”

Her voice cuts through the noise like a knife.

Utter silence falls across the room.

“Come with me.”

And without further ado, Agatha leaves, not even a look backwards.

Tedros follows, face carefully impassive, sword strapped to his back.

———

“Why’d you call me up here?” are Tedros’ first words when Agatha’s door closes behind them. His voice is low, restrained. When Agatha glances over her shoulder at him, his whole form is tense. Like a dog kicked too many times.

But it’s also mixed with that sullen, stubborn arrogance that only princes seemed to have. Agatha needed to be able to rely on him. The desire to bury her face in his neck was secondary.

“You’re part of the final step,” Agatha takes a deep breath before continuing. “I need you to be on your best behavior.”

“Am I being forgiven?” Tedros asks, eyes at half-mast, expression inscrutable.

“In a way. Yes.”

“Wonderful,” he says, his sarcasm biting.

Agatha ignores his attitude.

“I mentioned Evelyn in the hall.”

“Yeah. She’s a new professor. So?”

“So…she’s up to no good.”

“The way we are or the way the Older villains are?” Tedros says, his tone slowly relaxing, first hints of a crooked smirk coming alive in his features.

“The latter.”

“What’s the goal then?”

Agatha’s lips thin into a white line. “Evelyn is insane. She has to leave the School for Good. Sooner rather than later.”

“What’s so wrong with Evelyn?”

“She’s starting to turn them into some kind of prejudiced militia. And she’s inherently too obsessed with the School Master.”

“Organizing the Evers is bad? You want chaos on the other side?”

“I don’t want chaos.”

“What do you want?” Tedros asks, genuine interest underlying his words.

Some of the ease of their previous conversations returns to the atmosphere between them at that moment. Agatha relaxes, marginally. She needed to relax around him as well if she wanted her plan carried out correctly.

“Right now? Just Evelyn gone,” Agatha says.

“What’s the hurry?”

“She’s making my life hell. Too much is happening behind the scenes. It’ll only get worse the longer she’s here.”

“What Sophie told you was that bad?”

Agatha levels him with a stare. “Yes.”

But Tedros doesn’t seem to take it seriously, all too casual and reckless like he is with everything. He laughs then, in response. “What’ll it be like when she’s gone?”

“Bliss.”

“So we’re killing her?”

“Ideally, no.”

Tedros laughs again and half-turns on his heel to the window, leaving him a dark silhouette against the moon through the colored panes of glass.

Agatha wants to run her finger down his angles.

“My little sister used to get into fights back home. If she started it, our dad would hit her or starve her or lock her outside. And then me. Because I hadn’t been looking after her well enough. I’d been off getting into other fights” Tedros says, shrugging. “After he died, he couldn’t punish us anymore. I thought to myself then, why should I play by some arbitrary rule when the rest of the world doesn’t?”

Agatha brushes past the first time ever that Tedros has mentioned siblings.

“Because there’s still right and wrong.”

“Then why do you do what you do? Why do we do evil?”

“Because I have to. We have to.”

“Because you want to.”

Agatha’s gaze is flat and cold. “You don’t know my situation anymore. You never knew it at all.”

An expression of hurt flashes across Tedros’ face but disappears just as fast as it came. “I know what it feels like to cross a line you thought you never would,” Tedros leans back against the wall next to the window, arms crossed over his chest, the shadows deepening the ice of his eyes to ocean-deep blue. “So you move that line. And then you move it some more. Soon enough, you don’t know where it’s supposed to be.”

“What’s your point?”

There’s a pause. He looks at her.

“What are you chasing?”

Agatha levels him with a dark stare. “I’m chasing a type of bliss you couldn’t wrap your head around.”

“Oh?”

He seems amused. Agatha finds that extremely arrogant. Idiotic. He was a pompous ass and he was forgetting his place. A place he had only regained a few minutes ago.

“You wouldn’t know what ‘bliss’ was if it sat on your face.”

“I know you well enough,” Tedros’ expression turns predatory, “Enlighten me.”

He was acting like they were close again.

“Is that where your head goes?”

“That’s my idea of bliss.”

How did she let them fall back into their old patterns?

Agatha stalks forward, clumps stomping on the stone floor. “You trust me with my legs wrapped around your head?”

“That’s the only way I trust you,” Tedros replies, voice rumbling, the baritone purring through his words. Their faces are inches apart.

“That’s a vulnerable position,” she says looking up at him, gaze stormy.

“For you or for me?”

They’re now toe to toe. Tedros stands slouched against the wall, posture relaxed but the flex of his muscles under his shirt gives him away.

“Things aren’t the way they were before,” Agatha says.

“Oh, yeah?”

Something has shifted between them. He’s even cockier now, arrogant again. He’s baiting her, and the provocation is clear in the barest tell-tale flush on his cheekbones. Too-thin skin and blood reveals Tedros every time.

“It seems to me like you want something from me.”

“You know what I want,” Tedros says, the beginnings of desire starting to write themselves across his face.

“I know what you need.”

“Same thing.”

Agatha shakes her head. “No, Tedros. Not even close.”

Tedros’ eyes darken even further at that, his gaze going hungry. “Come on, Agatha. Haven’t I proved myself enough?” His smirk turns insolent. “Let me back under your dress.”

Agatha slaps him.

His head snaps to the side but his smirk stays as he touches his fingers to the newly red skin of his jaw. “Jesus.”

Agatha is standing there stiff, shocked at her own reaction.

“You’re right,” Tedros finally says. “It wasn’t what I wanted, but it was definitely what I needed.”

“No—“

“Oh, definitely,” Tedros hums. “You can’t regret it. You shouldn’t.”

“I called you up here because you have a role to play. And you can’t go off-script this time.”

“You said that,” Tedros replies, eyes closing. “And for what it’s worth, I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

His eyes open again and his lashes spread above them, spidery and black. “For going ‘off-script’.”

And then he’s leaving, out the door without a look back. The distance between them has grown into a chasm Agatha doesn’t think they’ll ever bridge again. Though it’s safer this way, the ache she feels as he walks away doesn’t burn in her chest any less.

———

Tedros’ head spins and the room shifts in front of him.

It didn’t make sense.

He grips the banister next to him and Ravan’s face fades in and out of focus.

How could Agatha reap her success if she wasn’t there to see it.

Ravan reaches out to steady him but Tedros wrenches himself out of the way.

He stumbles past his fellow Never and straps his sword to his back on autopilot. The atmosphere around him has solidified but a red haze has overtaken his vision. It’s not rage, because Tedros isn’t angry. Dizzy, unwavering determination drives him out of the School for Evil and into the Blue Forest.

———

The dark blood stains the snow on the bank of the icy river that cuts through the navy boughs of the blue forest. Smears of garish maroon mix with white. The waters rush past, black and blue in their darkness, so deep that it is. The sky is the palest of blue, winter has descended, and if the cold hadn’t already been chilling him to the bone, Tedros would have felt it through the bareness of the trees making their skeletal shapes across the cloudless horizon.

Her words echo in his head. Tedros, I trust you to do as I say.

His thoughts, ones that he hadn’t voiced back then, scream through him now.

Tedros didn’t fucking care if Agatha killed him herself, he’d rescue her, damn the consequences. He didn’t fucking care about her death wish, or her grand plan. Tedros was selfish, and he was tired of pretending he wasn’t.

Do not vary from the plan or it will all be for nothing.

Living without Agatha on the earth with him felt like a fate worse than death. So screw her orders. He wasn’t going to let her sacrifice herself.

He dives into the water.

———

“You came for me,” she says, her voice barely loud enough over the downpour.

“I wouldn’t be able to do anything else,” he replies, looking not guilty in the slightest.

“Even though I told you not to.”

“Even though you told me not to.”

Agatha is still panting heavily, stars filling her vision from the sudden input of oxygen after so long underwater.

“I’ll always put you first,” Tedros continues. “I’m sorry.”

Agatha’s frozen hands are warmed from the heat of his chest from where she’s placed them. Agatha can’t answer, her head swimming.

“Forgive me?”

Looking at him now, Agatha wonders how she could have been so cold, so unfeeling towards this boy who has only ever complimented her, who had only ever loved her with the most devastating want.

"How could I not?” She breathes, the sharpness in her vision is only his sapphire eyes.

His face has a desperate look to it, wet hair falling across his face, blue eyes glimmering behind the wet strands. In another life Agatha might have been an oasis and Tedros the traveler of thousands of leagues of desert.

His thumbs stroke across Agatha’s wet cheeks and he kisses her hard, her face still in his hands. Her own clench into the wet fabric of his unlaced shirt, the rest of it plastered to his slick skin. Rain pours around them but Agatha is drowning only in him. Her arms wrap around his neck just as he pulls her flush against him, even closer than before, like they could become one if he melted against her enough.

He doesn’t have to say he’s missed her. It’s in the way he won’t let her go, it’s in the way his mouth gives against hers, it’s in the way his hands burn on her waist.