Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Tedros never much cared for the supernatural. He believed that it existed, impossible not to in a town as superstitious as his, he just didn't think— whether or not it did— it would ever affect him personally.

But then Agatha had died, and there were rumors all over.

She practiced witchcraft! She was carried away and drowned by spirits! Sbe summoned the Reaper that she always spoke so highly of and he had kissed her on the lips and taken her soul. 

Tedros had shut each down viciously, but he had jotted them all down on his notebook anyways.

The way she died sounded most unlike her. She was careful, she was quick, she didn’t even like birds. She liked animals with four legs. (Tedros had agonized over it, and he didn’t want it to just be that he cannot imagine someone so important to him leaving in such a simple way.) 

After her death, Tedros kept a keen eye on any supernatural alluding activities, and out of some kind of loyalty to Agatha, he looked out for her baby sister. Then, he stayed because he was an only child and it was nice to have someone who he could look after. 

(He made his comparisons, of course. But Tedros soon grew to love Sophie just as strongly, though, in an entirely different way.

That could all be true and he could admit that there were other benefits to having a tie to the Woods family. Such as, he got to keep an eye on Vanessa. 

Tedros never liked her. The way that Agatha adored the woman while the woman consistently disappointed her made Tedros want to shake his friend and say: This? These are the scraps you’re waiting for?

He never did.

But no matter how close an eye he keeps Vanessa, he never catches her doing anything supernatural or suspicious.

Still, Tedros was a very suspicious boy so when observing Vanessa bore no fruit, a year after Agatha’s death, he turned to the Coven.

He hung around the middle school they attended, it was out of town and far away, and held a mass of weirdos. It was called the Lasso’s School For Troubled Ladies, LSTL for short. On his third day of asking around, the Coven finds him.

Tedros had met the Coven on other occasions, when they hung around Agatha, cooing over her and delighting her with horrid stories. They always seemed to expect him to stalk off so he had always made a point of sticking around Agatha, giving them looks whenever he thought they were being too freaky.

The Coven consisted of three girls: Dot, Hester, and Anadil. They had held some sort of fondness for Agatha and negative affection for Tedros. Still, they must have had some sort of fondness for him because they were there.

He hasn’t seen them since Agatha’s funeral, hidden in the shadows, so close together they looked like one blob of darkness rather than three individual middle school girls. It was odd to see them again, only slightly older, all of them looking the same except Dot seemed to have gotten her hands on more chocolate since they last met. They didn’t greet him or make any noises of recognition, but they were in front of him, which was enough compliance.

“I need your help,” Tedros blurts, hands sweaty as he clutches his shirt. “Please.”

“What is it?” Dot asks, raising a brow. “Well? Spit it out.”

“I need your help,” He repeats. Before they could be irritated again, he adds. “It’s about Agatha.”

Hester, who had been scowling, starts, eyes wide. Their only link was Agatha, there is no other reason for him to seek them out, but still. Her being gone is so permanent that talk of her is still a shock to the system.

Hester snaps her fingers in his face, “What do you mean?”

He inhaled deeply, “No one believes me. They tell me I’m in denial or something, but I swear there is something fishy about her death. It’s not like her to just fall off a cliff,” The trio narrow their eyes, and Tedros hurries to amend his statement. “I mean. You know how hard she is to scare. You know how cautious she is. It’s suspicious. And I think that there might be something… supernatural about it.”

They stare at him, faces blank.

He felt like a little boy, in the worst way possible. Small, chided, foolish.

To his great relief, Anadil nods, “You know, I think the kid is onto something.”

Hester makes a noise, considering. “She’s dead. We’re sure of that, right?”

Tedros ducks his head, “I do this she’s dead. It’s the how I’m thinking of.”

Anadil tilted her head, shooting Dot a knowing look, “I mean, if she’s dead and we want to know for sure what happened, what about a seance?”

Dot claps her hands, “We haven’t had one in a while!”

Tedros feels dread creep through him, one thing about theoretically getting help. It was entirely different for him to mess with the dark arts anyways. Hester sees the apprehension on his face and cackles, “What? The prince doesn’t want to get his hands dirty?”

Tedros set his jaw, “I’m doing it.”

“Why would you be a part of this?” Dot grabs Hesters arm, hisses something into her ear, and Hester lets out an aggrieved sigh. “Fine. But you do what we say, got it?”

Tedors nods eagerly. 

Hester scans him, eyes flashing angrily. She jerks her head to the side and steps away, the Coven quickly follows. They bend their heads towards each other, Dot and Hester are exchanging rapid fire words, and Anadil is listening.

Finally, they seem to reach a consensus and return to him, brightly Dot says, “Meet us at her grave, after the sun goes down. We’ll bring the materials.” She hesitates, before adding, “And if you have a physical copy of a picture of her, bring it.”

Before Tedros could think to ask anything, they were already gone. 

They had done everything perfectly. Or at least, Tedros had done his part of bringing a photo of her. Then he had held Dot’s clammy and Anadil’s cold hand, and he had believed. 

So it should have worked.

“You didn’t believe enough,” Hester hisses, eyes so bright they were nearly red. “There is no other explanation–.”

“He came to us, though,” Dot protested, eyes wet with tears. She had burst into tears when the seance failed. “He even came out here at night. His mom is probably worried. He wouldn’t have done all of this if he didn’t think it would work.”

“Then what is it?” Hester snapped. “Is Agatha just not in the spirit world?” Her tone tapered off, eyes glazing as she seemed to start to consider something. Her gaze darts to each of them, “You don’t think…”

“That she’s stuck somewhere between life and death?” Anadil filled in, something solemn flickering through her apathetic face. “Fuck.”

“What do you mean?” Tedros despairs, something claustrophobic coming over him, making it hard to breathe. Dot notices and quickly begins to soothe him, hands him a chocolate. 

“Well, our understanding is that there is a spirit and a body, and they are tied together with life. When a person dies, that connection is severed and their body leaves for the spirit world. Unless, it forms a connection with something else. She could be haunting a building or wandering the streets right now, still on Earth. If that’s so, then there is no way to reach her by seance. Do you get it?”

“So, she’s stuck?” Tedros murmured, voice wavering with tears. “She’s lost? Is she upset then?”

“It’s a theory,” Anadil says, as if uneasy to see him cry.

Hester shrugged, looking profoundly unhappy, “The only explanation we got. Hell, we could be wrong about it all. There’s a first time for everything.”

“I hope you are wrong,” Tedros spits out, hating them for what they had told him. Hating the fact that he now has more questions than answers. Hating that Agatha was still gone, out of reach, and terribly dead. 

Hester sneers at him, but her eyes also have a suspicious mist. “Me too, brat.”

He was nine, they were twelve. They did their best. He had left their failed seance and turned further to the supernatural, skipping right over to the haunting. He offered prayers to Hecate, Dea Tacita, every holy name he thought might know. He scoured books, looking for ways to identify signs of a haunting. So that he could see her if it happened.

Eventually though, he went on with his life, feigning happiness and occasionally even feeling it. He focused less on Agatha’s mystery and more on his grades, his athletics, his social life. He rejected any romantic prospects, claiming that he wanted to prioritize success but he never quite got over the deep-rooted desire to know. He never quite got over Agatha.

And then, it happened.

It was eight years after Agatha’s death, Sophie was seven. Tedros was sixteen. He had been elbow deep in school work and college tours, though he already knew where he wanted to go. 

Camelot University, like his father had. 

As of late, he had a weird ache in his chest. He had known Agatha since birth, their mothers had attended the same hospital and their recuperation times overlapped, and very soon, would come a time where he’s been without her for longer than he’d known her. He was handling it well enough. But still, he figured he should at least do something with that restless energy, so he dropped his studies and football practice, and he headed over to the Woods home.

He didn’t call in advance, a habit he developed when he still heavily suspected Vanessa. He wanted to catch her unawares. Now, it was simply too odd to call in advance. 

Like some kind of sixth sense, Sophie finds him after only minutes of him entering the residence. Immediately, she wraps her skinny arms around him, and fills him in on everything that has been going on in her life since he visited almost a month ago. Tedros doesn’t let himself think about what could have been, if Agatha had been here too. He didn’t think of what a good sister she would be. 

He just follows Sophie in, has tea time with her, follows her to her room where her toys were, and dutifully fills her in on the parts of his life she could know about. 

Soon enough, he sees her fidget and he knows that she’s heard enough. He laughs, and offers her favorite game, pleased when she brightens back up. 

“I’ll be the prince then. Call me Theodore, and you will be my little sister, the princess…” he dragged out the word ‘princess,’ making it clear that she could pick her own princess name. 

“I will be Princess Agatha,” Sophie declares and Tedros nearly forgets how to breathe, he chokes on his next inhale. “And I’m not your sister. I am from another kingdom!”

“Agatha, you say?” he asks breathlessly, “Why Agatha?”

“Why not Agatha? It means good and noble, you know.”

He does. Agatha had told him herself. Agatha had said it exactly ‘good and noble.’ He’s not sure what he was hoping for. He’s not sure what he was expecting. 

"I-I do know...what does your princess look like? Like you? Theodore has blonde hair like me but green eyes like-."

"Agatha has big brown eyes and short black hair," Sophie interrupts.

And damn, Tedros can’t even clearly remember what she looked like. He had like two photos of her and all of them were taken at a distance. He couldn’t see the length of eyelashes or the moles he remembered she had under an eye. Was it the left or right one? He couldn’t see her eyes or her hair, he couldn’t remember the exact color of her eyes or the texture of her hair. He remembered she’d complain about how it was oily so she had to wash it often. Was it soft? It was thick, right? That’s why she kept is so short, right?

No matter, “She sounds beautiful,” and he doesn’t know if he sounds reverent or not. Agatha was so long ago, he can’t even remember her voice. Was he allowed to miss her even now?

“Not really,” Sophie says giddily, eyes shining with knowledge. “Her hair is greasy and her eyes are bulgy.” She thinks it over, and adds, “But she’s nice and annoyingly a goody goody!”

Surely… It could be a coincidence. 

“You… I, wow. You got her all figured out, huh?”

But see, Tedros didn’t believe in coincidence.

“Wanna know a secret?” Sophie asks, and Tedros nodded, torn between premature annoyance at himself for not suspecting Sophie, who was born right after Agatha died , and also elation. “I have a guardian angel,” Sophie confides, “and it’s Agatha.” Tedros has no time to feel any other sort of way before Sophie is dropping more intel on him. “She always scolds me for being rude. And sometimes, she, like, possesses me to say things to people. Once she told my old maid, Callus, something about a reaper–.”

Tedros couldn’t help himself, he saw a glimmer in the air, likely dust in the sunlight but he grasped for it, on his feet. “Is she like a ghost?” He has one hand over his stomach and another looking for her, seeing that if he passes something warm and playful, like she was, then maybe—”Is she right here?”

Sophie shakes her head, amused by him. “Nope!” She holds her silence for a suspenseful moment. “She’s in my head.”

Tedros faced her, sank back onto the bed beside her. “Can she hear me?”

If all this time he had been looking for Agatha and she was right here…

Sophie faces him, looks at him fully, green eyes bright with excitement. “See you too.”

Was Agatha seeing him through Sophie’s eyes?

“W–,” he forces himself to breathe. “What does she think?”

Sophie hesitates for a second, looking him over, before finally saying, “She said you look like a prat.”

And if Tedros had any doubts, which he didn’t because desperate men clung to anything, then they all vanished. This was Agatha.

Tedros choked back a sob, old grief returning sharp and he forced it into a laugh. He digs his elbows into his knees and buried his face in his palms. Trying to gather himself. 

Agatha .

Sophie continued relaying Agatha’s message, “She said that you grew up very handsome and that she is very proud of you. She thinks that you are going to do great in school.”

Tedros forces himself to breathe through his sobs, his hysteria, he was with Sophie. Agatha was watching. He couldn’t lose it now. He was probably freaking Sophie out–

Sophie moves to get off the bed, saying, “Should I stop?”

Without meaning to, he grabbed her wrist, an old desperation roaring in his chest. “No,” he hurried to assure, head still angled away. “Is there anything else?”

Sophie gasps, and Tedros panics that maybe his grip had hurt her, but she assures him otherwise when she protests, “I can’t tell him that!”

He looks towards her, face still buried in one hand, eyes bleary and stinging. “Tell me what?”

“She said that your hair is too long,” Sophie sighs. 

Tedros looks at her, tries to see if hints of Agatha bleed through, and sees none. Still, Agatha was speaking to him through her. Agatha was speaking to him! And she said…And then Tedros was laughing, having forgotten the joy of being mocked by Agatha. 

And then, the madness that had slowly petered out, roared back to indignant life. His mother, Guinevere, who had let out a sigh of relief when he had begun paying school his attention, was not pleased. 

“You don’t understand,” Tedros mutters, highlighting a specific line on one of his books: Spirits are neutral, Spectres have motives and are focused. “Now it’s real. Now, I have proof.”

“You have the delusions of a child.”

“I have the testimony of a sister who was born a short year after her death.” Tedros corrects, snapping the book shut and clutching tightly. “Vanessa would never mention Agatha and Stefan. He wouldn’t be able to talk about her without crying. Besides, they didn’t know about Reaper or Callis… what they had meant to her…. and yet Sophie did? No, I need to do this.”

“For what?” she demands, hugging herself. “For closure? It’s been years , Tedros.”

“For Agatha ,” Tedros hisses, taking the book, and a few others that he remembered paid attention to hauntings and possessions and shoved it into his spare schoolbag. “She could be stuck there. She needs peace. It could be dangerous. For her, or Sophie, or the one responsible for her death... It must have been a murder! I bet it was—”

“Do you hear yourself?” Guinevere begs, eyes wide and scared, her hands fly expansively. “You sound mad!”

Oh.

Tedros swallows. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

Her hands, which were reaching for the sky, curl inwards, towards her chest. “I don’t mean it like—.”

He hurries past her and towards the stairs, shrugging the bag onto his shoulder. “I’ll keep this business to myself, and” the Coven flashes in his mind. He stutters to a stop. Right. Yes, they could help. “And my associates. I have to go now. Bye, mother.”

“Tedros?” she calls after him, and he turns to face her. Her voice is steady when she asks: “Will you be back for dinner?”

“I’ll be back soon,” he promises, meaning it but also not really. She doesn’t understand. She never would. 

It was all going to come together. He was sure of it. 

From there, he gets into his car and begins calling around. Eventually, he finds out that Beatrix has contact with Hester. 

“ Why do you want to know where she is ?” Beatrix presses, sounding annoyed. “Are you stalking her or something?”

“My God, Beatrix,” Tedros groans, flipping his blinkers on. “If I were stalking her wouldn’t I be sneakier about it?”

“Because that's very reassuring ,” she says sarcastically. From the background noise it sounds like she was at the party Chaddick had made him promise to attend.   

Reena, who must have overheard the conversation, pipes up with her own two cents, “ Well, I think it is! If he were truly stalking her then he would have put in more effort to be untraceable. It’s men like him who have more to lose.”

Tedros swallowed back a sigh. Their dynamic was never quite the same after Beatrix’s and Reena’s brief dalliance with a man-hating cult led by some butterfly freak. They now took a rich joy in comparing him to the freaks they witness on true crime shows. 

“Listen, I just need help with something and she is the only one who is already filled in on the situation.”

Beatrix sighs. “ Still weird. But, here: she is in a high school, where girls with not so angelic reputations go. It can be figured out by anyone with half a brain so I don’t even feel bad about telling you this much. ”

“Isn’t it too late to be in high school?” He glances at the clock. It’s nearly 6 PM. “Plus, didn't they graduate a while ago?”

“ She has a freak club, ” Beatrix says. “The school hosts it. It’s whatever. It runs until eight.”

“You sure know a lot about her whereabouts.”

“Say anything about it and I’ll call you a liar to your face.”

“Right, thanks Bea. Reena. Tell Chad that I got caught up with something.”

“ Bye bitch, ” and she hangs up just like that.

And then he might have blacked out because next thing he knows he’s stumbling out of his car and towards the dreary school. He’s running past security who is fast asleep in his chair and he’s just yelling out the names of the Coven alternatively. 

HESTER! ANADIL! DOT! 

Over and over until the girls approach him, each wielding something odd. Hester is holding a knife, Anadil has weird stains on her uniform and is holding something wrapped in dark cloth, and Dot is holding chocolate but also her hair is lightly smoking.

Because the other two are simply too odd he addresses Dot.

“I think your hair's on fire,” Tedros tells her.

“Thank you,” Dot says, pleased.

“I mean, it’s smoking.”

Dot waves her hands, a proud smile on her lips. “Yes, yes. I said thank you.”

Hester groans and smacks a hand over the section of Dot’s head that was giving off the smoke. The glare that she shoots at him is tired at most. (Tedros might have run back to them in the heat of his fixation, giving numerous–now laughable– theories, all of which they took great joy in tearing apart.) “What do you want, Goldilocks? Wait no, let me guess. Is Agatha manifesting in the sky again? Maybe the shape of her eyebrow is drawn on the sky? Or is it her elbow, this time?”

Anadil hums, head falling into an amused tilt. “I don’t know… maybe Agatha possessed his computer again…”

Dot rolls her eyes. “Just spit it out, Tedros. I want to go to bed.”

Tedros throws his shoulders back. “I know what happened to her.”

“Tedros,” Dot says, oddly patient. “This isn’t healthy .”

“I know for sure what happened to her,” he repeats. “This isn’t a theory.”

“Well, then what happened to her,” Hester snaps.

And Tedros tells them.

And they believe him. It makes too much sense. 

Tedros has already read about all the haunting myths and ‘studies’ out there. But now his search was wildly narrowed down and he had a team, sort of. 

This is what he found out from each of them. He took the liberty of recording them.

{START RECORDING.} 

Anadil: ‘Contrary to popular beliefs spirits rarely leave their desired container at will. They can’t just go from house to house or person to person. Being within something requires a lot of compatibility and exactly the right circumstances. The host has to somewhat accept or welcome the intruder, so the child’s ‘guardian angel’ nonsense checks out well. The intruder, the spirit, has to have enough recollection to be able to form attachments to the host but not enough to have a properly formed will of its own. If it has too much of a desire for independence it creates friction that could put either the host or spirit at risk…. Usually the host. So, if Agatha is with her sister— uhm, what’s the name? Sofia? Seraphina? Something obnoxious, it was. Oh yes, Sophie,–  right so if they are together and there is no discomfort or terror, Agatha is likely not a vengeful spirit, or the memories are dormant.’

{END RECORDING}

{START RECORDING.} 

Dot: ‘Ugh. Okay, so. From what I understand of all this– and this really isn’t my expertise, I really like to stick to proper undead. Far less explosive. It’s actually quite soothing… anyways. So. From what I understand, the way to relieve the spirit from it’s, what did Anadil call it? Container? Host? Who cares. In order for the spirit to reach the other side, the container either has to break– like, die. Or the spirit has to get what they want, because it is their desire for closure or revenge that keeps them properly tied to their host or whatever. Problem is, I’m guessing that a vengeful spirit won’t be too keen to have collaboration. They would be too laser focused on one specific outcome and they won’t really care if anyone else gets hurt. Makes it all a bit tricky since we don’t know if Agatha remembers anything, likely not, since she’s so docile, but still, all she is now is a ticking time bomb. She’ll have to be dealt with eventually.’

{END RECORDING}

{START RECORDING.} 

Hester: ‘Don’t rush me, fish lips. I’ll take my goddamn time. For you to understand, you need to know the lore. I’ll end this with a lead. Okay, are you paying attention? Good. In the beginning of time there was Good and Evil. Well, Good, Evil, and Death. Good is good, Evil is evil, and Death is neutral. That’s the big idea. So. In the beginning it was easy to be purely good or purely evil, but as the world evolved so did the concepts. Eventually, people started assigning pleasurable things towards Good and punishments towards Evil. Reasonable enough. It’s functional. The problem began when we began to think of the Grim Reaper as kind or formidable. The problem began where we thought Death was capable of being human. It’s not. It’s all about balance, and balance must be maintained…. So, Death does not take kindly to being evaded unjustly. What? No, not like vaccinations, you nincapoop, I mean, like being fucking trapped in your sisters mind. Hecate, grant me patience. Death does not enjoy being kept waiting so it does what it needs to, to move the process along. It takes Good and Evil and it meddles. It poisons the spirit to make it single-mindedly focused, to make it evict itself. If the spirit was ferocious, Death mellows it out. If the spirit is unobtrusive, Death makes it greedy. It can not be reasoned with. Yes, Tedros. I mean, Agatha is very much a threat to society. Or she will be. In a matter of time. I need you to understand this because I can’t help but suspect you have some gooey nonsense delusion that she will happily hop from Sophie’s brain to yours– no, don’t fucking deny it. All your fucking theories had the same storyline that somehow Agatha was watching over you . Bet you get off to it— FINE! Fine! Fuck, Anadil drop the knife , I’m sorry. I get it. Too far. Point is, this isn’t a damn fairytale. This is dangerous. Agatha is… fuck, she is dangerous, now. Okay? Okay, good…. I… I have a lead. Here, I printed out the article and highlighted some key stuff. It’s an account of a nearly identical case. Written under an alias but I tracked down the writer. Yeah, there's his office and number. Dr. Sader. I think you should really check in on that kid though, see if there have been any developments with Agatha. Alright. Shut up…. Tedros? You’re alright. I’m sorry for all the stuff I said to your face about how incompetent you are. And I’m sorry for all the stuff I said behind your back. And the stuff I said to my international voodoo club, that wasn’t cool– they don’t even know you. Anyways, cherish that because that apology applies to past and future misdeeds. Including this . Oh, don’t whimper like that. I even punched you with my nondominant hand. You're welcome.

{END RECORDING}

The article seemed to be an identical case to what Sophie and Agatha had. Siblings. Bonded by death. The biggest difference was that Sader and his sister ‘Rose’ were twins and by his account, ‘Rose’ had forced herself into his comatose body with the full intention of taking over his body. 

According to Hester’s notes, Rose was actually a woman called ‘Evelyn’. The accounts go into a lot of detail that Tedros frankly had little patience or care for. Though it did confirm much of what the Coven had imparted upon him. There is one specific detail though that Tedros paid special attention to. 

There was someone who assisted in much of the taming of the spectre. A man, generous, know-all, aged and, more incriminatingly, prone to giving out great hot chocolate to distressed individuals. 

He really ought to check on Sophie. Except it was stupidly late and there was no way he would be let in the home. (And even if he was, it would not be without suspicion. And he did not need a single member of that household hiding their cards more than they already have.) So, instead, Tedros goes home.

His mom is waiting up for him, nursing a glass of wine, and her eyes are red-rimmed.

She stands abruptly when he walks through the front door. She sways a bit, and Tedros realizes that maybe he has become a terrible person. He can’t remember the last time he made his mom cry. He crosses the room to her and folds her thin, shaking frame into his embrace. She hugs him back fiercely, and he can’t actually remember the last time he was held. He can’t, and that makes his eyes burn a bit. 

And then he thinks that he really misses his mom. And he misses Agatha , or just having someone who knew him that well. He misses when life used to be so uncomplicated. He misses being young, but in the good way. 

And then he’s crying, and his mom is crying too but he knows that it’s not for the same reason but that's fine for now. Just this, this is enough. 

From then on he decides that he will keep his more… occult practices a secret from his mother. It’s the least he can do. He tells her that he’s staying afterschool to help Chaddick with his college applications– to which Chaddick agrees to play along easily in exchange for a gatorade from the vending machine– when it actuality he’s going to see Sophie. 

Suffocating dread took over when he saw Sophie curled up on the floor, trembling and close to tears. “Sophie?” He rushes into the room, dropping to his knees beside her to see if she is injured anywhere. “What are you doing?”

“Teddy, what do you do when you’re tired?”

Gently he pulls her up from the floor and guides her to her bed, carrying her the way she likes. 

“I sleep,” he soothes, nearing the bed and holding her high above it. “Wanna try it?”

Sophie shakes her head, hair whipping around her with how hard she shakes her head.

“Why not?”

She hesitates, head bowed and resting on his chest when she whispers, “I keep getting nightmares.”

He drops her onto the bed, and when she doesn’t giggle, he feels the dread climb higher.  “About what?”

“Agatha,” she says, and then finally looks up at him. He’s never seen her so pale, so scared, so… haunted .

…all she is now is a ticking time bomb. She’ll have to be dealt with eventually

But not yet. Tedros…. How could he be ready to let go?

Sophie looks up at him though, with teary green eyes, and Tedros knows what he has to do. Who he has to protect. It was never really a choice.

“What about her?”

“She… keeps dying. And she says weird things. It’s not my Agatha. This girl… is always angry. That’s only in my dreams. She… she never talks anymore.”

Nonononono.

“She used to talk a lot?”

“All the time,” Sophie whines, nodding hard. 

A slight laugh passes through him unpermitted. “That sounds like her.”

“But not anymore,” Sophie says, more quietly now. “Yesterday, I pushed Hort down from the rock climbing wall–”

"You shouldn't have done that," Tedros reprimands.

"-And Agatha didn't say anything. She used to yell at me."

Tedros hugged Sophie close to his side wordlessly, and as kids often do when they are upset, she fell asleep. He lay her down on the bed, tucked a light blanket over her, and brushed some of her fair hair out of her face.

He looks out the window of her room, he pointedly doesn’t think of when this used to be Agatha’s room, or how he would play with her on the floor. He doesn’t think of how kind and happy she was. Instead, he hurried and knocked on Stefan’s office.

Tedros doesn’t know what he was expecting. He wasn’t expecting for Stefan to wordlessly slip him a business card and close the door on his face.

He looks down at the card. On simple lettering, the name reads: Dr. Sader.

He should go there immediately. He’s gotten enough indicators for him to know that this man is his biggest leads. Still, there is something that is pulling him elsewhere. 

Tedros has always been known to trust his gut.

So, instead Tedros takes a path he had not taken in a while and finds himself at an old familiar door.

He stares at it for a moment. Feeling young all over, small and ridiculous. The young that came after Agatha when he had to face the cynics. The young where he was lonely and stubborn. He steels himself, inhales sharply, then knocks on the once familiar door, a dark rich wood that seemed as timeless and whimsical as ever. 

It takes a few moments. Barely a minute, but it drags for too long, and when Merlin opens the door, a smile cracking across his face at the sight of him, Tedros is already impatient. 

“Tedros,” Merlin greets jovially. 

“Merlin,” Tedros forces himself to be courteous. “It’s a pleasure.”

“What brings you to my neck of the woods?”

Tedros watches his face carefully when he says, already pushing his way in. “I trust you are familiar with the Woods family?”

Merlin grumbles something, too disgruntled for Tedros to understand, but he doesn’t look shocked. And that is all he needs. 

Merlin is pleased by the intel that Tedros offers in exchange for information, humming and smiling as he flips through his notes. “I see. The, erm, Coven, was it? They have a very romantic understanding of all this, though I can’t say they are wrong on how this applies to Agatha and Sophie. I’ve always been more of a scholar. I like facts and figures and such.”

“So you have nothing,” Tedros says flatly.

“I didn’t say that, did I? I do believe that Agatha is inhabiting Sophie and I do have cause to suspect that things are picking up in severity.”

“So you are involved with the case. How? I don’t really see Vannessa having you over for steak and potatoes.”

“Goodness no,” Merlin chuckles, eyes flashing steel. “No. I am in cahoots with Dr. Sader. He’s a mind healer. He is tracking Sophie’s progress. She is very open about this stuff, thankfully. She must have been dying to tell someone.”

 “I see,” Tedros frowns. “Then what do I do?”

Merlin blinks. “Whatever do you mean?”

“You told me all this. You would have kept me in the dark if you had no use for me. What do I do?”

“You’re a sharp one.”

Tedros narrows his eyes. “Tell me.”

“You used to be so polite…”

“ Merlin .”

Merlin lets out a sharp breath. “I can’t give you the specifics because I don’t know the full scope of the issue–.”

“Jesus, Merlin.”

“But, go to Sader. He’ll have your answers. And he’ll probably give them to you.”

 Tedros moves quickly. 

Driving used to be a pleasure. Now, he wishes that there was a shortcut. Despite this, the drive goes fast and he finds himself at the doors soon enough.  

He knocks.

The door opens.

“Dr. Sader,” he greets. “It's an honor, sir.”

“Young Pendragon,” Dr. Sader smiled, inclining his head in Tedros’ direction. “I don’t believe we have an appointment.”

“I don’t think the matter can wait.” Tedros looked around restlessly, pushed himself in, and shut the door and lowered his voice. “I’m assuming that Merlin caught you up?”

After that, well, they got rather well-acquainted.