Free The Last Ever After by Soman Chainani Page A

Tedros. “That’s what he called it. Every Ever or Never whose name makes it into a storybook is buried here.”
    Under the firefly cloud, he scanned thousands of coffins down one side of the hills, teeming with glittering gem-crusted memorials for pairs of Evers, united in life and now in death. “That’s Ever Embankment, where the greatest heroes are,” he said. “Except Dad, of course.”
    Agatha looked at her prince, waiting for him to go on, but he turned back to her. “We must have come out the other side of Vanessa’s grave. One end is Gavaldon, the other end the Woods. It’s the only explanation. But how would your mother have known the grave was a portal?”
    Agatha thought of the black and white swans on the two graves flanking Sophie’s mother’s. “Even if she did know somehow, why would Sophie’s mother’s grave connect the two worlds?”
    â€œYou’re asking the wrong questions, students.”
    Agatha and Tedros looked up at Princess Uma, studying them intently.
    â€œYou should be asking why her grave is empty .”
    Uma circled her finger at the sky and the firefly cloud swept over their heads, illuminating the slope Agatha and Tedros were standing on. A bank of cracked and moldy headstones glowed in the alien green light, jutting from ragged black mounds.
    â€œNecro Ridge,” said Tedros. “It’s where the worst villains are buried.”
    â€œSophie’s mother was a Never ?” Agatha asked, disoriented.
    â€œNot according to our findings. The League of Thirteen has no evidence of a Vanessa of Woods Beyond attending the School for Good and Evil, being mentioned in a fairy tale, or having her body buried here at all,” said Uma, pocketing gooey gray meerworms off a tomb. “And yet, she has a grave amongst our most famous Nevers.”
    â€œYou keep talking about this League,” Tedros rankled. “I’ve never heard of them—”
    â€œAs you shouldn’t,” said Uma, even more unhelpfully than before. “Listen to me, Agatha. There are no words to ease the pain you’re in right now. But your mother died before she could give the League the answers we needed. Think back. Do you have any idea why Vanessa’s name is carved into a headstone on Necro Ridge? And where her body might be?”
    â€œI don’t see why we should help a League we know nothing about,” Tedros grouched.
    But Agatha’s head was still swimming. Her own mother, Callis, had moved between the two worlds as a witch without anyone in Gavaldon knowing, including her own daughter. And yet, her mother fit all the traits of a Never—unmarried, mysterious, reclusive. . . . If anything, Agatha should have seen the clues. But Sophie’s mother? Sophie had spoken only rapturously of her mother, doting on her wicked, unfaithful husband until her dying day. There was no hint of her being anything other than a radiant, loving caretaker and wife. So how could her name be on a villain’s tomb? Agatha shook her head, at a dead end . . . until her eyes suddenly flared wide.
    â€œThe Crypt Keeper will know!”
    Quickly she scoured the horizon for the blue-skinned, dreadlocked giant she’d learned about at school, responsible for digging and filling graves. “Hort said he buries everybody himself. Never lets anyone interfere. That’s why Hort’s dad’s been waiting for a coffin all these years. So the Crypt Keeper has to know why Sophie’s mother has a headstone here . . .” But the hills were deserted, except for a few hovering vultures nearby. She turned to Uma. “Where is h—”
    Agatha stopped cold, seeing Uma’s expression.
    Slowly Agatha turned back to the vultures.
    Lying on the ground beneath them was a massive, blue-skinned body crumpled in a spray of dirt. His bones were broken and his throat split open, the blood staining