The School for Good and Evil
Soman Chainani
A dark and enchanting fantasy adventure perfect for girls who prefer their fairytales with a twist.Every four years, two girls are kidnapped from the village of Gavaldon. Legend has it these lost children are sent to the School for Good and Evil, the fabled institution where they become fairytale heroes or villains.Sophie, the most beautiful girl in town, has always dreamed of her place at the School for Good while her friend Agatha, with her dark disposition seems destined for the School for Evil. But when the two are kidnapped they find their fortunes reversed…
Copyright (#ulink_5338d5f9-8046-5444-bf04-e87ce08b08e0)
HarperCollins Children’s Books
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Start your education at www.schoolforgoodandevil.com (http://www.schoolforgoodandevil.com)
First published in the USA by HarperCollins Children’s Books, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. in 2013
First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Children’s Books in 2013
The School for Good and Evil
Text copyright © 2013 by Soman Chainani
Illustrations copyright © 2013 by Iacopo Bruno
The author and illustrator assert the moral right to be identified as the author and illustrator of the work.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
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Source ISBN: 9780007492930
Ebook Edition © JUNE 2013 ISBN: 9780007492947
Version: 2017-10-27
IN THE FOREST PRIMEVAL
A SCHOOL FOR GOOD AND EVIL
TWO TOWERS LIKE TWIN HEADS
ONE FOR THE PURE
ONE FOR THE WICKED
TRY TO ESCAPE YOU’LL ALWAYS FAIL
THE ONLY WAY OUT IS
THROUGH A FAIRY TALE
Contents
Title Page (#ue8efa0e7-9d78-56b9-81ad-82452ed42c5b)
Copyright (#ulink_583e8181-d684-5dd9-a942-a0821509c3b6)
Dedication (#u8c44c0a8-4d36-5313-9df5-12211b68204b)
1 - The Princess & The Witch (#ulink_f3f40dab-5480-503a-b2c4-88149acc778e)
2 - The Art of Kidnapping (#ulink_69c72706-1ede-51f1-af5d-c497b3681453)
3 - The Great Mistake (#ulink_01ffef4d-81a7-5b3a-9dc7-5d2b13f8216a)
4 - The Three Witches of Room 66 (#ulink_f90a72ba-f368-5be9-902b-b2e1720bd0d8)
5 - Boys Ruin Everything (#ulink_a6d982cc-6e42-5b3c-82d1-531669d0a247)
6 - Definitely Evil (#ulink_2d129f6d-92db-572c-8b90-ce1f88488d16)
7 - Grand High Witch Ultimate (#litres_trial_promo)
8 - Wish Fish (#litres_trial_promo)
9 - The 100% Talent Show (#litres_trial_promo)
10 - Bad Group (#litres_trial_promo)
11 - The School Master’s Riddle (#litres_trial_promo)
12 - Dead Ends (#litres_trial_promo)
13 - Doom Room (#litres_trial_promo)
14 - The Crypt Keeper’s Solution (#litres_trial_promo)
15 - Choose Your Coffin (#litres_trial_promo)
16 - Cupid Goes Rogue (#litres_trial_promo)
17 - The Empress’s New Clothes (#litres_trial_promo)
18 - The Roach and the Fox (#litres_trial_promo)
19 - I Have a Prince (#litres_trial_promo)
20 - Secrets and Lies (#litres_trial_promo)
21 - Trial by Tale (#litres_trial_promo)
22 - Nemesis Dreams (#litres_trial_promo)
23 - Magic in the Mirror (#litres_trial_promo)
24 - Hope in the Toilet (#litres_trial_promo)
25 - Symptoms (#litres_trial_promo)
26 - The Circus of Talents (#litres_trial_promo)
27 - Promises Unkept (#litres_trial_promo)
28 - The Witch of Woods Beyond (#litres_trial_promo)
29 - Beautiful Evil (#litres_trial_promo)
30 - Never After (#litres_trial_promo)
Keep Reading (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Author (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)
(#ulink_e7e784ef-07df-514d-b9b8-0f7e27cf9db1)
ophie had waited all her life to be kidnapped.
But tonight, all the other children of Gavaldon writhed in their beds. If the School Master took them, they’d never return. Never lead a full life. Never see their family again. Tonight these children dreamt of a red-eyed thief with the body of a beast, come to rip them from their sheets and stifle their screams.
Sophie dreamt of princes instead.
She had arrived at a castle ball thrown in her honor, only to find the hall filled with a hundred suitors and no other girls in sight. Here for the first time were boys who deserved her, she thought as she walked the line. Hair shiny and thick, muscles taut through shirts, skin smooth and tan, beautiful and attentive like princes should be. But just as she came to one who seemed better than the rest, with brilliant blue eyes and ghostly white hair, the one who felt like Happily Ever After . . . a hammer broke through the walls of the room and smashed the princes to shards.
Sophie’s eyes opened to morning. The hammer was real. The princes were not.
“Father, if I don’t sleep nine hours, my eyes look swollen.”
“Everyone’s prattling on that you’re to be taken this year,” her father said, nailing a misshapen bar over her bedroom window, now completely obscured by locks, spikes, and screws. “They tell me to shear your hair, muddy up your face, as if I believe all this fairy-tale hogwash. But no one’s getting in here tonight. That’s for sure.” He pounded a deafening crack as exclamation.
Sophie rubbed her ears and frowned at her once lovely window, now something you’d see in a witch’s den. “Locks. Why didn’t anyone think of that before?”
“I don’t know why they all think it’s you,” he said, silver hair slicked with sweat. “If it’s goodness that School Master fellow wants, he’ll take Gunilda’s daughter.”
Sophie tensed. “Belle?”
“Perfect child that one is,” he said. “Brings her father home-cooked lunches at the mill. Gives the leftovers to the poor hag in the square.”
Sophie heard the edge in her father’s voice. She had never once cooked a full meal for him, even after her mother died. Naturally she had good reason (the oil and smoke would clog her pores) but she knew it was a sore point. This didn’t mean her father had gone hungry. Instead, she offered him her own favorite foods: mashed beets, broccoli stew, boiled asparagus, steamed spinach. He hadn’t ballooned into a blimp like Belle’s father, precisely because she hadn’t brought him home-cooked lamb fricassees and cheese soufflés at the mill. As for the poor hag in the square, that old crone, despite claiming hunger day after day, was fat. And if Belle had anything to do with it, then she wasn’t good at all, but the worst kind of evil.
Sophie smiled back at her father. “Like you said, it’s all hogwash.” She swept out of bed and slammed the bathroom door.
She studied her face in the mirror. The rude awakening had taken its toll. Her waist-long hair, the color of spun gold, didn’t have its usual sheen. Her jade-green eyes looked faded, her luscious red lips a touch dry. Even the glow of her creamy peach skin had dulled. But still a princess, she thought. Her father couldn’t see she was special, but her mother had. “You are too beautiful for this world, Sophie,” she said with her last breaths. Her mother had gone somewhere better and now so would she.
Tonight she would be taken into the woods. Tonight she would begin a new life. Tonight she would live out her fairy tale.
And now she needed to look the part.
To begin, she rubbed fish eggs into her skin, which smelled of dirty feet but warded off spots. Then she massaged in pumpkin puree, rinsed with goat’s milk, and soaked her face in a mask of melon and turtle egg yolk. As she waited for the mask to dry, Sophie flipped through a storybook and sipped on cucumber juice to keep her skin dewy soft. She skipped to her favorite part of the story, where the wicked hag is rolled down a hill in a nail-spiked barrel, until all that remains is her bracelet made of little boys’ bones. Gazing at the gruesome bracelet, Sophie felt her thoughts drift to cucumbers. Suppose there were no cucumbers in the woods? Suppose other princesses had depleted the supply? No cucumbers! She’d shrivel, she’d wither, she’d—
Dried melon flakes fell to the page. She turned to the mirror and saw her brow creased in worry. First ruined sleep and now wrinkles. At this rate she’d be a hag by afternoon. She relaxed her face and banished thoughts of vegetables.
As for the rest of Sophie’s beauty routine, it could fill a dozen storybooks (suffice it to say it included goose feathers, pickled potatoes, horse hooves, cream of cashews, and a vial of cow’s blood). Two hours of rigorous grooming later, she stepped from the house in a breezy pink dress, sparkling glass heels, and hair in an impeccable braid. She had one last day before the School Master’s arrival and planned to use each and every minute to remind him why she, and not Belle or Tabitha or Sabrina or any other impostor, should be kidnapped.
Sophie’s best friend lived in a cemetery. Given her loathing of things grim, gray, and poorly lit, one would expect Sophie to host visits at her cottage or find a new best friend. But instead, she had climbed to the house atop Graves Hill every day this week, careful to maintain a smile on her face, since that was the point of a good deed after all.
To get there, she had to walk nearly a mile from the bright lakeside cottages, with green eaves and sun-drenched turrets, towards the gloomy edges of the forest. Sounds of hammering echoed through cottage lanes as she passed fathers boarding up doors, mothers stuffing scarecrows, boys and girls hunched on porches, noses buried in storybooks. The last sight wasn’t unusual, for children in Gavaldon did little besides read their fairy tales. But today Sophie noticed their eyes, wild, frenzied, scouring each page as if their lives depended on it. Four years ago, she had seen the same desperation to avoid the curse, but it wasn’t her turn then. The School Master took only those past their twelfth year, those who could no longer disguise as children.
Now her turn had come.
As she slogged up Graves Hill, picnic basket in hand, Sophie felt her thighs burn. Had these climbs thickened her legs? All the princesses in storybooks had the same perfect proportions; thick thighs were as unlikely as a hooked nose or big feet. Feeling anxious, Sophie distracted herself by counting her good deeds from the day before. First, she had fed the lake’s geese a blend of lentils and leeks (a natural laxative to offset cheese thrown by oafish children). Then she had donated homemade lemonwood face wash to the town orphanage (for, as she insisted to the befuddled benefactor, “Proper skin care is the greatest deed of all.”). Finally she had put up a mirror in the church toilet, so people could return to the pews looking their best. Was this enough? Did these compete with baking homemade pies and feeding homeless hags? Her thoughts shifted nervously to cucumbers. Perhaps she could sneak a private supply into the woods. She still had plenty of time to pack before nightfall. But weren’t cucumbers heavy? Would the school send footmen? Perhaps she should juice them before she—
“Where you going?”
Sophie turned. Radley smiled at her with buckteeth and anemically red hair. He lived nowhere near Graves Hill but made it a habit to stalk her all hours of the day.
“To see a friend,” said Sophie.
“Why are you friends with the witch?” said Radley.
“She’s not a witch.”
“She has no friends and she’s queer. That makes her a witch.”
Sophie refrained from pointing out this made Radley a witch too. Instead she smiled to remind him she’d already done her good deed by enduring his presence.
“The School Master will take her for Evil School,” he said. “Then you’ll need a new friend.”
“He takes two children,” Sophie said, jaw tightening.
“He’ll take Belle for the other one. No one’s as good as Belle.”
Sophie’s smile evaporated.
“But I’ll be your new friend,” said Radley.
“I’m full on friends at the moment,” Sophie snapped.
Radley turned the color of a raspberry. “Oh, right—I just thought—” He fled like a kicked dog.
Sophie watched his straggly hair recede down the hill. Oh, you’ve really done it now, she thought. Months of good deeds and forced smiles and now she’d ruined it for runty Radley. Why not make his day? Why not simply answer, “I’d be honored to have you as my friend!” and give the idiot a moment he’d relive for years? She knew it was the prudent thing to do, since the School Master must be judging her as closely as St. Nicholas the night before Christmas. But she couldn’t do it. She was beautiful, Radley was ugly. Only a villain would delude him. Surely the School Master would understand that.
Sophie pulled open the rusted cemetery gates and felt weeds scratch at her legs. Across the hilltop, moldy headstones forked haphazardly from dunes of dead leaves. Squeezing between dark tombs and decaying branches, Sophie kept careful count of the rows. She had never looked at her mother’s grave, even at the funeral, and she wouldn’t start today. As she passed the sixth row, she glued her eyes to a weeping birch and reminded herself where she’d be a day from now.
In the middle of the thickest batch of tombs stood 1 Graves Hill. The house wasn’t boarded up or bolted shut like the cottages by the lake, but that didn’t make it any more inviting. The steps leading up to the porch glowed mildew green. Dead birches and vines wormed their way around dark wood, and the sharply angled roof, black and thin, loomed like a witch’s hat.
As she climbed the moaning porch steps, Sophie tried to ignore the smell, a mix of garlic and wet cat, and averted her eyes from the headless birds sprinkled around, no doubt the victims of the latter.
She knocked on the door and prepared for a fight.
“Go away,” came the gruff voice.
“That’s no way to speak to your best friend,” Sophie cooed.
“You’re not my best friend.”
“Who is, then?” Sophie asked, wondering if Belle had somehow made her way to Graves Hill.
“None of your business.”
Sophie took a deep breath. She didn’t want another Radley incident. “We had such a good time yesterday, Agatha. I thought we’d do it again.”
“You dyed my hair orange.”
“But we fixed it, didn’t we?”
“You always test your creams and potions on me just to see how they work.”
“Isn’t that what friends are for?” Sophie said. “To help each other?”
“I’ll never be as pretty as you.”
Sophie tried to find something nice to say. She took too long and heard shoes stomp away.
“That doesn’t mean we can’t be friends!” Sophie called.
A familiar cat, bald and wrinkled, growled at her across the porch. She whipped back to the door. “I brought biscuits!”
Shoesteps stopped. “Real ones or ones you made?”
Sophie shrank from the slinking cat. “Fluffy and buttery, just like you love!”
The cat hissed.
“Agatha, let me in—”
“You’ll say I smell.”
“You don’t smell.”
“Then why’d you say it last time?”
“Because you smelled last time! Agatha, the cat’s spitting—”
“Maybe it smells ulterior motives.”
The cat bared claws.
“Agatha, open the door!”
It pounced at her face. Sophie screamed. A hand stabbed between them and swatted the cat down.
Sophie looked up.
“Reaper ran out of birds,” said Agatha.
Her hideous dome of black hair looked like it was coated in oil. Her hulking black dress, shapeless as a potato sack, couldn’t hide freakishly pale skin and jutting bones. Ladybug eyes bulged from her sunken face.
“I thought we’d go for a walk,” Sophie said.
Agatha leaned against the door. “I’m still trying to figure out why you’re friends with me.”
“Because you’re sweet and funny,” said Sophie.
“My mother says I’m bitter and grumpy,” said Agatha. “So one of you is lying.”
She reached into Sophie’s basket and pulled back the napkin to reveal dry, butterless bran biscuits. Agatha gave Sophie a withering stare and retreated into the house.
“So we can’t take a walk?” Sophie asked.
Agatha started to close the door but then saw her crestfallen face. As if Sophie had looked forward to their walk as much as she had.
“A short one.” Agatha trudged past her. “But if you say anything smug or stuck-up or shallow, I’ll have Reaper follow you home.”
Sophie ran after her. “But then I can’t talk!”
After four years, the dreaded eleventh night of the eleventh month had arrived. In the late-day sun, the square had become a hive of preparation for the School Master’s arrival. The men sharpened swords, set traps, and plotted the night’s guard, while the women lined up the children and went to work. Handsome ones had their hair lopped off, teeth blackened, and clothes shredded to rags; homely ones were scrubbed, swathed in bright colors, and fitted with veils. Mothers begged the best-behaved children to curse or kick their sisters, the worst were bribed to pray in the church, while the rest in line were led in choruses of the village anthem: “Blessed Are the Ordinary.”
Fear swelled into a contagious fog. In a dim alley, the butcher and blacksmith traded storybooks for clues to save their sons. Beneath the crooked clock tower, two sisters listed fairy-tale villain names to hunt for patterns. A group of boys chained their bodies together, a few girls hid on the school roof, and a masked child jumped from bushes to spook his mother, earning a spanking on the spot. Even the homeless hag got into the act, hopping before a meager fire, croaking, “Burn the storybooks! Burn them all!” But no one listened and no books were burned.
Agatha gawped at all this in disbelief. “How can a whole town believe in fairy tales?”
“Because they’re real.”
Agatha stopped walking. “You can’t actually believe the legend is true.”
“Of course I do,” said Sophie.
“That a School Master kidnaps two children, takes them to a school where one learns Good, one learns Evil, and they graduate into fairy tales?”
“Sounds about right.”
“Tell me if you see an oven.”
“Why?”
“I want to put my head in it. And what, pray tell, do they teach at this school exactly?”
“Well, in the School for Good, they teach boys and girls like me how to become heroes and princesses, how to rule kingdoms justly, how to find Happily Ever After,” Sophie said. “In the School for Evil, they teach you how to become wicked witches and humpbacked trolls, how to lay curses and cast evil spells.”
“Evil spells?” Agatha cackled. “Who came up with this? A four-year-old?”
“Agatha, the proof’s in the storybooks! You can see the missing children in the drawings! Jack, Rose, Rapunzel—they all got their own tales—”
“I don’t see anything, because I don’t read dumb storybooks.”
“Then why is there a stack by your bed?” Sophie asked.
Agatha scowled. “Look, who’s to say the books are even real? Maybe it’s the bookseller’s prank. Maybe it’s the Elders’ way to keep children out of the woods. Whatever the explanation, it isn’t a School Master and it isn’t evil spells.”
“So who’s kidnapping the children?”
“No one. Every four years, two idiots sneak into the woods, hoping to scare their parents, only to get lost or eaten by wolves, and there you have it, the legend continues.”
“That’s the stupidest explanation I’ve ever heard.”
“I don’t think I’m the stupid one here,” Agatha said.
There was something about being called stupid that set Sophie’s blood aflame.
“You’re just scared,” she said.
“Right,” Agatha laughed. “And why would I be scared?”
“Because you know you’re coming with me.”
Agatha stopped laughing. Then her gaze moved past Sophie into the square. The villagers were staring at them like the solution to a mystery. Good in pink, Evil in black. The School Master’s perfect pair.
Frozen still, Agatha watched dozens of scared eyes bore into her. Her first thought was that after tomorrow she and Sophie could take their walks in peace. Next to her, Sophie watched children memorize her face in case it appeared in their storybooks one day. Her first thought was whether they looked at Belle the same way.
Then, through the crowd, she saw her.
Head shaved, dress filthy, Belle kneeled in dirt, frantically muddying her own face. Sophie drew a breath. For Belle was just like the others. She wanted a mundane marriage to a man who would grow fat, lazy, and demanding. She wanted monotonous days of cooking, cleaning, sewing. She wanted to shovel dung and milk sheep and slaughter squealing pigs. She wanted to rot in Gavaldon until her skin was liver-spotted and her teeth fell out. The School Master would never take Belle because Belle wasn’t a princess. She was . . . nothing.
Victorious, Sophie beamed back at the pathetic villagers and basked in their stares like shiny mirrors—
“Let’s go,” said Agatha.
Sophie turned. Agatha’s eyes were locked on the mob.
“Where?”
“Away from people.”
As the sun weakened to a red orb, two girls, one beautiful, one ugly, sat side by side on the shore of a lake. Sophie packed cucumbers in a silk pouch, while Agatha flicked lit matches into the water. After the tenth match, Sophie threw her a look.
“It relaxes me,” Agatha said.
Sophie tried to make room for the last cucumber. “Why would someone like Belle want to stay here? Who would choose this over a fairy tale?”
“And who would choose to leave their family forever?” Agatha snorted.
“Except me, you mean,” said Sophie.
They fell silent.
“Do you ever wonder where your father went?” Sophie asked.
“I told you. He left after I was born.”
“But where would he go? We’re surrounded by woods! To suddenly disappear like that . . .” Sophie spun. “Maybe he found a way into the stories! Maybe he found a magic portal! Maybe he’s waiting for you on the other side!”
“Or maybe he went back to his wife, pretended I never happened, and died ten years ago in a mill accident.”
Sophie bit her lip and went back to cucumbers.
“Your mother’s never at home when I visit.”
“She goes into town now,” said Agatha. “Not enough patients at the house. Probably the location.”
“I’m sure that’s it,” Sophie said, knowing no one would trust Agatha’s mother to treat diaper rash, let alone illness. “I don’t think a graveyard makes people all that comfortable.”
“Graveyards have their benefits,” Agatha said. “No nosy neighbors. No drop-in salesmen. No fishy ‘friends’ bearing face masks and diet cookies, telling you you’re going to Evil School in Magic Fairy Land.” She flicked a match with relish.
Sophie put down her cucumber. “So I’m fishy now.”
“Who asked you to show up? I was perfectly fine alone.”
“You always let me in.”
“Because you always seem so lonely,” said Agatha. “And I feel sorry for you.”
“Sorry for me?” Sophie’s eyes flashed. “You’re lucky that someone would come see you when no one else will. You’re lucky that someone like me would be your friend. You’re lucky that someone like me is such a good person.”
“I knew it!” Agatha flared. “I’m your Good Deed! Just a pawn in your stupid fantasy!”
Sophie didn’t say anything for a long time.
“Maybe I became your friend to impress the School Master,” she confessed finally. “But there’s more to it now.”
“Because I found you out,” Agatha grumbled.
“Because I like you.”
Agatha turned to her.
“No one understands me here,” Sophie said, looking at her hands. “But you do. You see who I am. That’s why I kept coming back. You’re not my good deed anymore, Agatha.”
Sophie gazed up at her. “You’re my friend.”
Agatha’s neck flushed red.
“What’s wrong?” Sophie frowned.
Agatha hunched into her dress. “It’s just, um . . . I—I’m, uh . . . not used to friends.”
Sophie smiled and took her hand. “Well, now we’ll be friends at our new school.”
Agatha groaned and pulled away. “Say I sink to your intelligence level and pretend to believe all this. Why am I going to villain school? Why has everyone elected me the Mistress of Evil?”
“No one says you’re evil, Agatha,” Sophie sighed. “You’re just different.”
Agatha narrowed her eyes. “Different how?”
“Well, for starters, you only wear black.”
“Because it doesn’t get dirty.”
“You don’t ever leave your house.”
“People don’t look at me there.”
“For the Create-a-Tale Competition, your story ended with Snow White eaten by vultures and Cinderella drowning herself in a tub.”
“I thought it was a better ending.”
“You gave me a dead frog for my birthday!”
“To remind you we all die and end up rotting underground eaten by maggots so we should enjoy our birthdays while we have them. I found it thoughtful.”
“Agatha, you dressed as a bride for Halloween.”
“Weddings are scary.”
Sophie gaped at her.
“Fine. So I’m a little different,” Agatha glared. “So what?”
Sophie hesitated. “Well, it’s just that in fairy tales, different usually turns out, um . . . evil.”
“You’re saying I’m going to turn out a Grand Witch,” said Agatha, hurt.
“I’m saying whatever happens, you’ll have a choice,” Sophie said gently. “Both of us will choose how our fairy tale ends.”
Agatha said nothing for a while. Then she touched Sophie’s hand. “Why is it you want to leave here so badly? That you’d believe in stories you know aren’t true?”
Sophie met Agatha’s big, sincere eyes. For the first time, she let in the tides of doubt.
“Because I can’t live here,” Sophie said, voice catching. “I can’t live an ordinary life.”
“Funny,” said Agatha. “That’s why I like you.”
Sophie smiled. “Because you can’t either?”
“Because you make me feel ordinary,” Agatha said. “And that’s the only thing I’ve ever wanted.”
The tenor-tolled clock sang darkly in the valley, six or seven, for they had lost track of time. And as the echoes faded into the buzz of the distant square, both Sophie and Agatha made a wish. That one day from now, they’d still be in the company of the other.
Wherever that was.
(#ulink_e11bb120-e1f4-5660-95cd-870916fc77ba)
y the time the sun extinguished, the children were long locked away. Through bedroom shutters, they peeked at torch-armed fathers, sisters, grandmothers lined around the dark forest, daring the School Master to cross their ring of fire.
But while shivering children tightened their window screws, Sophie prepared to undo hers. She wanted this kidnapping to be as convenient as possible. Barricaded in her room, she laid out hairpins, tweezers, nail files and went to work.
The first kidnappings happened two hundred years before. Some years it was two boys taken, some years two girls, sometimes one of each. The ages were just as fickle; one could be sixteen, the other fourteen, or both just turned twelve. But if at first the choices seemed random, soon the pattern became clear. One was always beautiful and good, the child every parent wanted as their own. The other was homely and odd, an outcast from birth. An opposing pair, plucked from youth and spirited away.
Naturally the villagers blamed bears. No one had ever seen a bear in Gavaldon, but this made them more determined to find one. Four years later, when two more children vanished, the villagers admitted they should have been more specific and declared black bears the culprit, bears so black they blended with the night. But when children continued to disappear every four years, the village shifted their attention to burrowing bears, then phantom bears, then bears in disguise . . . until it became clear it wasn’t bears at all.
But while frantic villagers spawned new theories (the Sinkhole Theory, the Flying Cannibal Theory) the children of Gavaldon began to notice something suspicious. As they studied the dozens of Missing posters tacked up in the square, the faces of these lost boys and girls looked oddly familiar. That’s when they opened up their storybooks and found the kidnapped children.
Jack, taken a hundred years before, hadn’t aged a bit. Here he was, painted with the same moppy hair, pinked dimples, and crooked smile that had made him so popular with the girls of Gavaldon. Only now he had a beanstalk in his back garden and a weakness for magic beans. Meanwhile, Angus, the pointy-eared, freckled hooligan who had vanished with Jack that same year, had transformed into a pointy-eared, freckled giant at the top of Jack’s beanstalk. The two boys had found their way into a fairy tale. But when the children presented the Storybook Theory, the adults responded as adults most often do. They patted the children’s heads and returned to sinkholes and cannibals.
But then the children showed them more familiar faces. Taken fifty years before, sweet Anya now sat on moonlit rocks in a painting as the Little Mermaid, while cruel Estra had become the devious sea witch. Philip, the priest’s upright son, had grown into the Cunning Little Tailor, while pompous Gula spooked children as the Witch of the Wood. Scores of children, kidnapped in pairs, had found new lives in a storybook world. One as Good. One as Evil.
The books came from Mr. Deauville’s Storybook Shop, a musty nook between Battersby’s Bakery and the Pickled Pig Pub. The problem, of course, was where old Mr. Deauville got his storybooks.
Once a year, on a morning he could not predict, he would arrive at his shop to find a box of books waiting inside. Four brand-new fairy tales, one copy of each. Mr. Deauville would hang a sign on his shop door: “Closed Until Further Notice.” Then he’d huddle in his back room day after day, diligently copying the new tales by hand until he had enough books for every child in Gavaldon. As for the mysterious originals, they’d appear one morning in his shop window, a sign that Mr. Deauville had finished his exhausting task at last. He’d open his doors to a three-mile line that snaked through the square, down hillslopes, around the lake, jammed with children thirsting for new stories, and parents desperate to see if any of the missing had made it into this year’s tales.
Needless to say, the Council of Elders had plenty of questions for Mr. Deauville. When asked who sent the books, Mr. Deauville said he hadn’t the faintest idea. When asked how long the books had been appearing, Mr. Deauville said he couldn’t remember a time when the books did not appear. When asked whether he’d ever questioned this magical appearance of books, Mr. Deauville replied: “Where else would storybooks come from?”
Then the Elders noticed something else about Mr. Deauville’s storybooks. All the villages in them looked just like Gavaldon. The same lakeshore cottages and colorful eaves. The same purple and green tulips along thin dirt roads. The same crimson carriages, wood-front shops, yellow schoolhouse, and leaning clock tower, only drawn as fantasy in a land far, far away. These storybook villages existed for only one purpose: to begin a fairy tale and to end it. Everything between the beginning and end happened in the dark, endless woods that surrounded the town.
That’s when they noticed that Gavaldon too was surrounded by dark, endless woods.
Back when the children first started to disappear, villagers stormed the forest to find them, only to be repelled by storms, floods, cyclones, and falling trees. When they finally braved their way through, they found a town hiding beyond the trees and vengefully besieged it, only to discover it was their own. Indeed, no matter where the villagers entered the woods, they came out right where they started. The woods, it seemed, had no intention of returning their children. And one day they found out why.
Mr. Deauville had finished unpacking that year’s storybooks when he noticed a large smudge hiding in the box’s fold. He touched his finger to it and discovered the smudge was wet with ink. Looking closer, he saw it was a seal with an elaborate crest of a black swan and a white swan. On the crest were three letters:
S.G.E.
There was no need for him to guess what these letters meant. It said so in the banner beneath the crest. Small black words that told the village where its children had gone:
THE SCHOOL FOR GOOD AND EVIL
The kidnappings continued, but now the thief had a name.
They called him the School Master.
A few minutes after ten, Sophie pried the last lock off the window and cracked open the shutters. She could see to the forest edge, where her father, Stefan, stood with the rest of the perimeter guard. But instead of looking anxious like the others, he was smiling, hand on the widow Honora’s shoulder. Sophie grimaced. What her father saw in that woman, she had no idea. Once upon a time, her mother had been as flawless as a storybook queen. Honora, meanwhile, had a small head, round body, and looked like a turkey.
Her father whispered mischievously into the widow’s ear and Sophie’s cheeks burned. If it were Honora’s two little sons who might be taken, he’d be serious as death. True, Stefan had locked her in at sundown, given her a kiss, dutifully acted the loving father. But Sophie knew the truth. She had seen it in his face every day of her life. Her father didn’t love her. Because she wasn’t a boy. Because she didn’t remind him of himself.
Now he wanted to marry that beast. Five years after her mother’s death, it wouldn’t be seen as improper or callous. A simple exchange of vows and he’d have two sons, a new family, a fresh start. But he needed his daughter’s blessing first for the Elders to allow it. The few times he tried, Sophie changed the subject or loudly chopped cucumbers or smiled the way she did at Radley. Her father hadn’t mentioned Honora again.
Let the coward marry her when I’m gone, she thought, glaring at him through the shutters. Only when she was gone would he appreciate her. Only when she was gone would he know no one could replace her. And only when she was gone would he see he had spawned much more than a son.
He had borne a princess.
On her windowsill, Sophie laid out gingerbread hearts for the School Master with delicate care. For the first time in her life, she’d made them with sugar and butter. These were special, after all. A message to say she’d come willingly.
Sinking into her pillow, she closed her eyes on widows, fathers, and wretched Gavaldon and with a smile counted the seconds to midnight.
As soon as Sophie’s head vanished beneath the window, Agatha shoved the gingerbread hearts in her mouth. Only thing these will invite are rats, she thought, crumbs dribbling on her black clump shoes. She yawned and set on her way as the town clock inched past the quarter hour.
Upon leaving Sophie after their walk, Agatha had started home only to have visions of Sophie darting into the woods to find this School for Fools and Crackpots and ending up gored by a boar. So she returned to Sophie’s garden and waited behind a tree, listening as Sophie undid her window (singing a birdbrained song about princes), packed her bags (now singing about wedding bells), put on makeup and her finest dress (“Everybody Loves a Princess in Pink”?!), and finally (finally!) tucked herself into bed. Agatha mashed the last crumbs with her clump and trudged towards the cemetery. Sophie was safe and would wake up tomorrow feeling like a fool. Agatha wouldn’t rub it in. Sophie would need her even more now and she would be there for her. Here in this safe, secluded world, the two of them would make their own paradise.
As Agatha tramped up the slope, she noticed an arc of darkness in the forest’s torch-lit border. Apparently the guards responsible for the cemetery had decided what lived inside wasn’t worth protecting. For as long as Agatha could remember, she’d had a talent for making people go away. Kids fled from her like a vampire bat. Adults clung to walls as she passed, afraid she might curse them. Even the grave keepers on the hill bolted at the sight of her. With each new year, the whispers in town grew louder—“witch,” “villain,” “Evil School”—until she looked for excuses not to go out. First days, then weeks, until she haunted her graveyard house like a ghost.
There were plenty of ways to entertain herself at first. She wrote poems (“It’s a Miserable Life” and “Heaven Is a Cemetery” were her best), drew portraits of Reaper that frightened mice more than the real cat did, and even tried her hand at a book of fairy tales, Grimly Ever After, about beautiful children who die horrible deaths. But she had no one to show these things to until the day Sophie knocked.
Reaper licked her ankles as she stepped onto her squeaking porch. She heard singing inside—
“In the forest primeval
A School for Good and Evil . . .”
Agatha rolled her eyes and pushed open the door.
Her mother, back turned, sang cheerily as she packed a trunk with black capes, broomsticks, and pointy black witch’s hats.
“Two towers like twin heads
One for the pure,
One for the wicked.
Try to escape you’ll always fail
The only way out is
Through a fairy tale . . .”
“Planning an exotic vacation?” Agatha said. “Last time I checked, there’s no way out of Gavaldon unless you grow wings.”
Callis turned. “Do you think three capes is enough?” she asked, bug eyes bulging, hair a greasy black helmet.
Agatha winced at just how much they looked alike. “They’re exactly the same,” she muttered. “Why do you need three?”
“In case you need to lend one to a friend, dear.”
“These are for me?”
“I put two hats in case one gets squashed, a broomstick in case theirs smells, and a few vials of dog tongues, lizard legs, and frog toes. Who knows how long theirs have been sitting there!”
Agatha knew the answer but asked anyway. “Mother, what do I need capes, hats, and frog toes for?”
“For New Witch Welcoming, of course!” Callis trilled. “You don’t want to get to the School for Evil and look like an amateur.”
Agatha kicked off her clumps. “Let’s put aside the fact the town doctor believes all this. Why is it so hard to accept I’m happy here? I have everything I need. My bed, my cat, and my friend.”
“Well, you should learn from your friend, dear. At least she wants something from life,” Callis said, latching the trunk. “Really, Agatha, what could be a greater destiny than a Fairy Tale Witch? I dreamed of going to the School for Evil! Instead, the School Master took that idiot Sven, who ended up outwitted by a princess in The Useless Ogre and set on fire. I’m not surprised. That boy could barely lace his own boots. I’m sure if the School Master could have done it over, he’d have taken me.”
Agatha slid under her covers. “Well, everyone in this town still thinks you’re a witch, so you got your wish after all.”
Callis whipped around. “My wish is that you get away from here,” she hissed, eyes dark as coal. “This place has made you weak and lazy and afraid. At least I made something of myself here. You just waste and rot until Sophie comes to walk you like a dog.”
Agatha stared at her, stunned.
Callis smiled brightly and resumed packing. “But do take care of your friend, dear. The School for Good might seem like a festoon of roses, but she’s in for a surprise. Now go to bed. The School Master will be here soon and it’s easier for him if you’re asleep.”
Agatha pulled the sheets over her head.
Sophie couldn’t sleep. Five minutes to midnight and no sign of an intruder. She knelt on her bed and peered through the shutters. Around Gavaldon’s edge, the thousand-person guard waved torches to light up the forest. Sophie scowled. How could he get past them?
That’s when she noticed the hearts on her windowsill were gone.
He’s already here!
Three packed pink bags plopped through the window, followed by two glass-slippered feet.
Agatha lurched up in bed, jolted from a nightmare. Callis snored loudly across the room, Reaper at her side. Next to Agatha’s bed sat her locked trunk, marked “Agatha of Gavaldon, 1 Graves Hill Road” in scraggy writing, along with a pouch of honey cakes for the journey.
Chomping cake, Agatha gazed through a cracked window. Down the hill, the torches blazed in a tight circle, but here on Graves Hill, there was just one burly guard left, arms as big as Agatha’s whole body, legs like chicken drumsticks. He kept himself awake by lifting a broken headstone like a barbell.
Agatha bit into the last honey cake and looked out at the dark forest.
Shiny blue eyes looked back at her.
Agatha choked and dove to her bed. She slowly lifted her head. Nothing there. Including the guard.
Then she found him, unconscious over the broken headstone, torch extinguished.
Creeping away from him was a bony, hunchbacked human shadow. No body attached.
The shadow floated across the sea of graves without the slightest sign of hurry. It slid under the cemetery gates and skulked down the hill towards the firelit center of Gavaldon.
Agatha felt horror strangle her heart. He was real. Whoever he was.
And he doesn’t want me.
Relief crashed over her, followed by a fresh wave of panic.
Sophie.
She should wake her mother, she should cry for help, she should— No time.
Feigning sleep, Callis heard Agatha’s urgent footsteps, then the door close. She hugged Reaper tighter to make sure he didn’t wake up.
Sophie crouched behind a tree, waiting for the School Master to snatch her.
She waited. And waited. Then she noticed something in the ground.
Cookie crumbs, mashed into a footprint. The footprint of a clump so odious, so foul it could only belong to one person. Sophie’s fists curled, her blood boiled—
Hands covered her mouth and a foot booted her through her window. Sophie crashed headfirst onto her bed and whirled around to see Agatha. “You pathetic, interfering worm!” she screamed, before glimpsing the fear in her friend’s face. “You saw him!” Sophie gasped—
Agatha put one hand over Sophie’s mouth and pinned her to the mattress with the other. As Sophie writhed in protest, Agatha peeped through the window. The crooked shadow drifted into the Gavaldon square, past the oblivious armed guard, and headed directly for Sophie’s house. Agatha swallowed a scream. Sophie wrenched free and grabbed her shoulders.
“Is he handsome? Like a prince? Or a proper schoolmaster with spectacles and waistcoat and—”
THUMP!
Sophie and Agatha slowly turned to the door.
THUMP! THUMP!
Sophie wrinkled her nose. “He could just knock, couldn’t he?”
Locks cracked. Hinges rattled.
Agatha shrank against the wall, while Sophie folded her hands and fluffed her dress as if expecting a royal visit. “Best give him what he wants without fuss.”
As the door caved, Agatha leapt off the bed and threw herself against it. Sophie rolled her eyes. “Oh, sit down for goodness’ sake.” Agatha pulled at the knob with all her might, lost her grip—the door slammed open with a deafening crack, hurling her across the room.
It was Sophie’s father, white as a sheet. “I saw something!” he panted, waving his torch.
Then Agatha caught the crooked shadow on the wall stepping into his broad silhouette. “There!” she cried. Stefan swiveled but the shadow blew out his torch. Agatha grabbed a match from her pocket and lit it. Stefan lay on the ground unconscious. Sophie was gone.
Screams outside.
Through the window, Agatha watched shouting villagers chase after Sophie as the shadow dragged her towards the woods. And while more and more villagers howled and chased—
Sophie smiled ear to ear.
Agatha lunged through the window and ran after her. But just as the villagers reached Sophie, their torches magically exploded and trapped them in rings of fire. Agatha dodged the gauntlet of firetraps and dashed to save her friend before the shadow pulled her into the forest.
Sophie felt her body leave soft grass and rake against stony dirt. She frowned at the thought of showing up to school in a soiled dress. “I really thought there’d be footmen,” she said to the shadow. “Or a pumpkin carriage, at least.”
Agatha ran ferociously, but Sophie had almost disappeared into the trees. All around, flames spewed higher and higher, poised to devour the entire village.
Seeing the fires leap, Sophie felt relief knowing no one could rescue her now. But where is the second child? Where is the one for Evil? She’d been wrong about Agatha all along. As she felt herself pulled into trees, Sophie looked back at the towering blaze and kissed goodbye to the curse of ordinary life.
“Farewell, Gavaldon! Farewell, low ambition! Farewell, mediocrity—”
Then she saw Agatha charge through the flames.
“Agatha, no!” Sophie cried—
Agatha leapt on top of her and both were dragged into the darkness.
Instantly, the fires around the villagers were extinguished. They dashed for the woods, but the trees magically grew thick and thorny, locking them out.
It was too late.
“WHAT ARE YOU DOING!” roared Sophie, shoving and scratching Agatha as the shadow pulled them into pitch-black forest. Agatha thrashed wildly, trying to wrest the shadow’s grip on Sophie and Sophie’s grip on the shadow. “YOU’RE RUINING EVERYTHING!” Sophie howled. Agatha bit her hand. “EEEEEYIIII!!!!” Sophie brayed and flipped her body so Agatha scraped against dirt. Agatha flipped Sophie back and climbed towards the shadow, her clump squashing Sophie’s face.
“WHEN MY HANDS FIND YOUR NECK—”
They felt themselves leave the ground.
As something spindly and cold wrapped its way around them, Agatha fumbled for a match from her dress, struck it against her bony wrist, and paled. The shadow was gone. They were cocooned in the creepers of an elm, which ferried them up the enormous tree and plopped them on the lowest branch. Both girls glared at each other and tried to catch enough breath to speak. Agatha managed it first.
“We are going home right now.”
The branch wobbled, coiled back like a sling, and shot them up like bullets. Before either could scream, they landed on another branch. Agatha flailed for a new match, but the branch coiled and snapped them up to the next bough, which bounced them up to the next. “HOW TALL IS THIS TREE!” Agatha shrieked. Ping-ponging up branches, the girls’ bodies collided and crashed, dresses tearing on thorns and twigs, faces slamming into ricocheting limbs, until finally they reached the highest bough.
There at the top of the elm tree sat a giant black egg. The girls gaped at it, baffled. The egg tore open, splashing them with dark, yolky goo as a colossal bird emerged, made only of bones. It took one look at the pair and unleashed an angry screech that rattled their eardrums. Then it grabbed them both in its claws and dove off the tree as they screamed, finally agreeing on something. The bony bird lashed through black woods as Agatha frantically lit match after match on the bird’s ribs, giving them catches of glinting red eyes and bristling shadows. All around, gangly trees snatched at the girls as the bird dipped and climbed to avoid them, until thunder exploded ahead and they smashed headfirst into a raging lightning storm. Fire bolts sent trees careening towards them and they shielded their faces from rain, mud, and timber, ducked cobwebs, beehives, and vipers, until the bird plunged into deadly briars and the girls blanched, closing their eyes to the pain—
Then it was quiet.
“Agatha . . .”
Agatha opened her eyes to rays of sun. She looked down and gasped.
“It’s real.”
Far beneath them, two soaring castles sprawled across the forest. One castle glittered in sun mist, with pink and blue glass turrets over a sparkling lake. The other loomed, blackened and jagged, sharp spires ripping through thunderclouds like the teeth of a monster.
The School for Good and Evil.
The bony bird drifted over the Towers of Good and loosened Sophie from its claws. Agatha clutched her friend in horror, but then saw Sophie’s face, glowing with happiness.
“Aggie, I’m a princess.”
But the bird dropped Agatha instead.
Stunned, Sophie watched Agatha plummet into pink cotton-candy mist. “Wait—no—”
The bird swooped savagely towards the Towers of Evil, its jaws reaching up for new prey.
“No! I’m Good! It’s the wrong one!” Sophie screamed—
And without a beat, she was dropped into hellish darkness.
(#ulink_e4002f54-bccc-5255-8cea-a73d6583a6e6)
ophie opened her eyes to find herself floating in a foul-smelling moat, filled to the brim with thick black sludge. A gloomy wall of fog flanked her on all sides. She tried to stand, but her feet couldn’t find bottom and she sank; sludge flooded her nose and burnt her throat. Choking for breath, she found something to grasp, and saw it was the carcass of a half-eaten goat. She gasped and tried to swim away but couldn’t see an inch in front of her face. Screams echoed above and Sophie looked up.
Streaks of motion—then a
dozen bony birds crashed through the fog and dropped shrieking children into the moat. When their screams turned to splashes, another wave of birds came, then another, until every inch of sky was filled with falling children. Sophie glimpsed a bird dive straight for her and she swerved, just in time to get a cannonball splash of slime in her face.
She wiped the glop out of her eye and came face-to-face with a boy. The first thing she noticed was he had no shirt. His chest was puny and pale, without the hope of muscle. From his small head jutted a long nose, spiky teeth, and black hair that drooped over beady eyes. He looked like a sinister little weasel.
“The bird ate my shirt,” he said. “Can I touch your hair?”
Sophie backed up.
“They don’t usually make villains with princess hair,” he said, dog-paddling towards her.
Sophie searched desperately for a weapon—a stick, a stone, a dead goat—
“Maybe we could be bunk mates or best mates or some kind of mates,” he said, inches from her now. It was like Radley had turned into a rodent and developed courage. He reached out his scrawny hand to touch her and Sophie readied a punch to the eye, when a screaming child dropped between them. Sophie took off in the opposite direction and by the time she glanced back, Weasel Boy was gone.
Through the fog, Sophie could see shadows of children treading through floating bags and trunks, hunting for their luggage. Those that managed to find them continued downstream, towards ominous howls in the distance. Sophie followed these floating silhouettes until the fog cleared to reveal the shore, where a pack of wolves, standing on two feet in bloodred soldier jackets and black leather breeches, snapped riding whips to herd students into line.
Sophie grasped the bank to pull herself out but froze when she caught her reflection in the moat. Her dress was buried beneath sludge and yolk, her face shined with stinky black grime, and her hair was home to a family of earthworms. She choked for breath—
“Help! I’m in the wrong sch—”
A wolf yanked her out and kicked her into line. She opened her mouth to protest, but saw Weasel Boy swimming towards her, yelping, “Wait for me!”
Quickly, Sophie joined the line of shadowed children, dragging their trunks through the fog. If any dawdled, a wolf delivered a swift crack, so she kept anxious pace, all the while wiping her dress, picking out worms, and mourning her perfectly packed bags far, far away.
The tower gates were made of iron spikes, crisscrossed with barbed wire. Nearing them, she saw it wasn’t wire at all but a sea of black vipers that darted and hissed in her direction. With a squeak, Sophie scampered through and looked back at rusted words over the gates, held between two carved black swans:
The School for Evil Edification and Propagation of Sin
Ahead the school tower rose like a winged demon. The main tower, built of pockmarked black stone, unfurled through smoky clouds like a hulking torso. From the sides of the main tower jutted two thick, crooked spires, dripping with veiny red creepers like bleeding wings.
The wolves drove the children towards the mouth of the main tower, a long serrated tunnel shaped like a crocodile snout. Sophie felt chills as the tunnel grew narrower and narrower until she could barely see the child in front of her. She squeezed between two jagged stones and found herself in a leaky foyer that smelled of rotten fish. Demonic gargoyles pitched down from stone rafters, lit torches in their jaws. An iron statue of a bald, toothless hag brandishing an apple smoldered in the menacing firelight. Along the wall, a crumbly column had an enormous black letter N painted on it, decorated with wicked-faced imps, trolls, and Harpies climbing up and down it like a tree. There was a bloodred E on the next column, embellished with swinging giants and goblins. Creeping along in the interminable line, Sophie worked out what the columns spelled out—N-E-V-E-R—then suddenly found herself far enough into the room to see the line snake in front of her. For the first time, she had a clear view of the other students and almost fainted.
One girl had a hideous overbite, wispy patches of hair, and one eye instead of two, right in the middle of her forehead. Another boy was like a mound of dough, with his bulging belly, bald head, and swollen limbs. A tall, sneering girl trudged ahead with sickly green skin. The boy in front of her had so much hair all over him he could have been an ape. They all looked about her age, but the similarities ended there. Here was a mass of the miserable, with misshapen bodies, repulsive faces, and the cruelest expressions she’d ever seen, as if looking for something to hate. One by one their eyes fell on Sophie and they found what they were looking for. The petrified princess in glass slippers and golden curls.
The red rose among thorns.
On the other side of the moat, Agatha had nearly killed a fairy.
She had woken under red and yellow lilies that appeared to be having an animated conversation. Agatha was sure she was the subject, for the lilies gestured brusquely at her with their leaves and buds. But then the matter seemed settled and the flowers hunched like fussing grandmothers and wrapped their stems around her wrists. With a tug, they yanked her to her feet and Agatha gazed out at a field of girls, blooming gloriously around a shimmering lake.
She couldn’t believe what she was seeing. The girls grew right from the earth. First heads poked through soft dirt, then necks, then chests, then up and up until they stretched their arms into fluffy blue sky and planted delicate slippers upon the ground. But it wasn’t the sight of sprouting girls that unnerved Agatha most. It was that these girls looked nothing like her.
Their faces, some fair, some dark, were flawless and glowed with health. They had shiny waterfalls of hair, ironed and curled like dolls’, and they wore downy dresses of peach, yellow, and white, like a fresh batch of Easter eggs. Some fell on the shorter side, others were willowy and tall, but all flaunted tiny waists, slim legs, and slight shoulders. As the field flourished with new students, a team of three glitter-winged fairies awaited each one. Chiming and chinkling, they dusted the girls of dirt, poured them cups of honeybush tea, and tended to their trunks, which had sprung from the ground with their owners.
Where exactly these beauties were coming from, Agatha hadn’t the faintest idea. All she wanted was a dour or disheveled one to poke through so she wouldn’t feel so out of place. But it was an endless bloom of Sophies who had everything she didn’t. A familiar shame clawed at her stomach. She needed a hole to climb down, a graveyard to hide in, something to make them all go away—
That’s when the fairy bit her.
“What the—”
Agatha tried to shake the jingling thing off her hand, but it flew and bit her neck, then her bottom. Other fairies tried to subdue the rogue as she yowled, but it bit them too and attacked Agatha again. Incensed, she tried to catch the fairy, but it moved lightning quick, so she hopped around uselessly while it bit her over and over until the fairy mistakenly flew into her mouth and she swallowed it. Agatha sighed in relief and looked up.
Sixty beautiful girls gaped at her. The cat in a nightingale’s nest.
Agatha felt a pinch in her throat and coughed out the fairy. To her surprise, it was a boy.
In the distance, sweet bells rang out from the spectacular pink and blue glass castle across the lake. The teams of fairies all grabbed their girls by the shoulders, hoisted them into the air, and flew them across the lake towards the towers. Agatha saw her chance to escape, but before she could make a run for it, she felt herself lifted into the air by two girl fairies. As she flew away, she glanced back at the third, the fairy boy that had bitten her, who stayed firmly on the ground. He crossed his arms and shook his head, as if to say in no uncertain terms there’d been a terrible mistake.
When the fairies brought the girls down in front of the glass castle, they let go of their shoulders and let them proceed freely. But Agatha’s two fairies held on and dragged her forward like a prisoner. Agatha looked back across the lake. Where’s Sophie?
The crystal water turned to slimy moat halfway across the lake; gray fog obscured whatever lay on the opposite banks. If Agatha was to rescue her friend, she had to find a way to cross that moat. But first she needed to get away from these winged pests. She needed a diversion.
Mirrored words arched over golden gates ahead:
The School for Good Enlightenment and Enchantment
Agatha caught her reflection in the letters and turned away. She hated mirrors and avoided them at all costs. (Pigs and dogs don’t sit around looking at themselves, she thought.) Moving forward, Agatha glanced up at the frosted castle doors, emblazoned with two white swans. But as the doors opened and fairies herded the girls into a tight, mirrored corridor, the line came to a halt and a group of girls circled her like sharks.
They stared at her for a moment, as if expecting her to whip off her mask and reveal a princess underneath. Agatha tried to meet their stares, but instead met her own face reflected in the mirrors a thousand times and instantly glued her eyes to the marble floor. A few fairies buzzed to get the mass moving, but most just perched on the girls’ shoulders and watched. Finally, one of the girls stepped forward, with waist-length gold hair, succulent lips, and topaz eyes. She was so beautiful she didn’t look real.
“Hello, I’m Beatrix,” she said sweetly. “I didn’t catch your name.”
“That’s because I never said it,” said Agatha, eyes pinned to the ground.
“Are you sure you’re in the right place?” Beatrix said, even sweeter now.
Agatha felt a word swim into her mind—a word she needed, but was still too foggy to see.
“Um, I uh—”
“Perhaps you just swam to the wrong school,” smiled Beatrix.
The word lit up in Agatha’s head. Diversion.
Agatha looked up into Beatrix’s dazzling eyes. “This is the School for Good, isn’t it? The legendary school for beautiful and worthy girls destined to be princesses?”
“Oh,” said Beatrix, lips pursed. “So you’re not lost?”
“Or confused?” said another with Arabian skin and jet-black hair.
“Or blind?” said a third with deep ruby curls.
“In that case, I’m sure you have your Flowerground Pass,” Beatrix said.
Agatha blinked. “My what?”
“Your ticket into the Flowerground,” said Beatrix. “You know, the way we all got here. Only officially accepted students have tickets into the Flowerground.”
All the girls held up large golden tickets, flaunting their names in regal calligraphy, stamped with the School Master’s black-and-white swan seal.
“Ohhh, that Flowerground Pass,” Agatha scoffed. She dug her hands in her pockets. “Come close and I’ll show you.”
The girls gathered suspiciously. Meanwhile Agatha’s hands fumbled for a diversion—matches . . . coins . . . dried leaves . . .
“Um, closer.”
Murmuring girls huddled in. “It shouldn’t be this small,” Beatrix huffed.
“Shrunk in the wash,” said Agatha, scraping through more matches, melted chocolate, a headless bird (Reaper hid them in her clothes). “It’s in here somewhere—”
“Perhaps you lost it,” said Beatrix.
Mothballs . . . peanut shells . . . another dead bird . . .
“Or misplaced it,” said Beatrix.
The bird? The match? Light the bird with the match?
“Or lied about having one at all.”
“Oh, I feel it now—”
But all Agatha felt was a nervous rash across her neck—
“You know what happens to intruders, don’t you,” Beatrix said.
“Here it is—” Do something!
Girls crowded her ominously.
Do something now!
She did the first thing she thought of and delivered a swift, loud fart.
An effective diversion creates both chaos and panic. Agatha delivered on both counts. Vile fumes ripped through the tight corridor as squealing girls stampeded for cover and fairies swooned at first smell, leaving her a clear path to the door. Only Beatrix stood in her way, too shocked to move. Agatha took a step towards her and leaned in like a wolf.
“Boo.”
Beatrix fled for her life.
As Agatha sprinted for the door, she looked back with pride as girls collided into walls and trampled each other to escape. Fixed on rescuing Sophie, she lunged through the frosted doors, ran for the lake, but just as she got to it, the waters rose up in a giant wave and with a tidal crash, slammed her back through the doors, through screeching girls, until she landed on her stomach in a puddle.
She staggered to her feet and froze.
“Welcome, New Princess,” said a floating, seven-foot nymph. It moved aside to reveal a foyer so magnificent Agatha lost her breath. “Welcome to the School for Good.”
Sophie couldn’t get over the smell of the place. As she lurched along with the line, she gagged on the mix of unwashed bodies, mildewed stone, and stinking wolf. Sophie stood on her tiptoes to see where the line was headed, but all she could see was an endless parade of freaks. The other students threw her dirty looks but she responded with her kindest smile, in case this was all a test. It had to be a test or glitch or joke or something.
She turned to a gray wolf. “Not that I question your authority, but might I see the School Master? I think he—” The wolf roared, soaking her with spit. Sophie didn’t press the point.
She slumped with the line into a sunken anteroom, where three black crooked staircases twisted up in a perfect row. One carved with monsters said MALICE along the banister, the second, etched with spiders, said MISCHIEF, and the third with snakes read VICE. Around the three staircases, Sophie noticed the walls covered with different-colored frames. In each frame there was a portrait of a child, next to a storybook painting of what the student became upon graduation. A gold frame had a portrait of an elfish little girl, and beside it, a magnificent drawing of her as a revolting witch, standing over a comatose maiden. A gold plaque stretched under the two illustrations:
In the next gold frame there was a portrait of a smirking boy with a thick unibrow, alongside a painting of him all grown up, brandishing a knife to a woman’s throat:
Beneath Drogan there was a silver frame of a skinny boy with shock blond hair, turned into one of a dozen ogres savaging a village:
Then Sophie noticed a decayed bronze frame near the bottom with a tiny, bald boy, eyes scared wide. A boy she knew. Bane was his name. He used to bite all the pretty girls in Gavaldon until he was kidnapped four years before. But there was no drawing next to Bane. Just a rusted plaque that read:
Sophie looked at Bane’s terrified face and felt her stomach churn. What happened to him? She gazed up at thousands of gold, silver, and bronze frames cramming every inch of the hall: witches slaying princes, giants devouring men, demons igniting children, heinous ogres, grotesque gorgons, headless horsemen, merciless sea monsters. Once awkward adolescents. Now portraits of absolute evil. Even the villains that had died gruesome deaths—Rumpelstiltskin, the Beanstalk Giant, the Wolf from Red Riding Hood—were drawn in their greatest moments, as if they had emerged triumphant from their tales. Sophie’s gut took another twist when she noticed the other children gazing up at the portraits in awed worship. It hit her with sick clarity. She was in line with future murderers and monsters.
Her face broke out in a cold sweat. She needed to find a faculty member. Someone who could search the list of enrolled students and see she was in the wrong school. But so far, all she could find were wolves that couldn’t speak, let alone read a list.
Turning the corner into a wider corridor, Sophie saw a red-skinned, horned dwarf ahead on a towering stepladder, hammering more portraits into a bare wall. Her teeth clenched with hope as she inched towards him in line. As she plotted to get his attention, Sophie suddenly noticed the frames on this wall held familiar faces. There was the hoggish dough boy she had seen earlier, labeled BRONE OF ROCH BRIAR. Next to him was a painting of the one-eyed, wispy-haired girl: ARACHNE OF FOXWOOD. Sophie scanned the portraits of her classmates, awaiting their villainous transformations. Her eyes stopped on Weasel Boy’s. HORT OF BLOODBROOK. Hort. Sounds like a disease. She moved ahead in line, ready to cry to the dwarf—
Then she saw the frame under his hammer.
Her own face smiled back at her.
With a shriek, Sophie bolted out of line, fumbled up the ladder, and snatched the portrait from the stunned dwarf’s fingers. “No! I’m in Good!” she shouted, but the dwarf snatched it back and the two tussled over the portrait, kicking and clawing until Sophie had enough and gave him a slap. The dwarf screamed like a little girl and swung at her with his hammer. Sophie dodged it but lost her balance, and the stepladder teetered and crashed between the walls. Splayed out on rungs in midair, she looked down at snarling wolves and goggling students—“I need the School Master!”—then lost her grip, slid across the ladder, and landed in a heap at the front of the line.
A dark-skinned hag with a massive boil on her cheek thrust a sheet of parchment into her hands.
Sophie looked up, dumbstruck. “See you in class, Witch of Woods Beyond,” the hag croaked. Before Sophie could respond, an ogre dumped a ribbon-tied stack of books in her hands.
Best Villainous Monologues, 2nd ed.
Spells for Suffering, Year 1
The Novice’s Guide to Kidnapping & Murder
Embracing Ugliness Inside & Out
How to Cook Children (with New Recipes!)
The books were bad enough, but then Sophie saw the ribbon tying them was a live eel. She screamed and dropped the books, before a spotted satyr foisted musty black fabric at her. Unfurling it, Sophie shrank from a dumpy, tattered tunic that sagged like shredded curtains.
She gaped at the other girls, gleefully putting on the putrid uniform, combing through their books, comparing schedules. Sophie slowly looked down at her own foul black robes. Then at her eel-slimed books and schedule. Then at her smiling, sweet portrait, back on the wall.
She ran for her life.
Agatha knew she was in the wrong place because even the faculty gave her confused looks. Together they lined the four spiral staircases of the cavernous glass foyer, two of them pink, two blue, showering confetti upon the new students. The female professors wore different-colored versions of the same slim, high-necked dress, with a glittering silver swan crest over the heart. Each had added a personal touch to the dress, whether inlaid crystals, beaded flowers, or even a tulle bow. The male professors, meanwhile, all wore bright slim suits in a rainbow of hues, paired with matching vests, narrow ties, and colorful kerchiefs tucked into pockets embroidered with the same silver swan.
Agatha noticed immediately they were all more attractive than any adults she had ever seen. Even the older faculty was elegant to the point of intimidation. Agatha had always tried to convince herself beauty was pointless because it was temporary. Here was proof it lasted forever.
The teachers tried to disguise their nudges and whispers upon seeing the dripping-wet, misplaced student, but Agatha was used to catching these things. Then she noticed one who wasn’t like the rest. Haloed against a stained glass window with a shamrock green suit, silver hair, and shiny hazel eyes, he beamed down at her as if she completely belonged. Agatha reddened. Anyone who thought she belonged here was a loon. Turning away, she took comfort in the glowering girls around her, who clearly hadn’t forgiven her for the incident in the hall.
“Where are the boys?” Agatha heard one ask another, as the girls filed in in front of three enormous, floating nymphs with neon hair and lips, who handed out their schedules, books, and robes.
As Agatha followed the line behind them, she had a better look at the majestic stair room. The wall opposite her had an enormous pink-painted E, with lovingly drawn angels and sylphs fluttering around its edges. The other three walls had painted letters too, spelling out the word E-V-E-R in pink and blue. The four spiral staircases were arranged symmetrically at the corners of each wall, lit by high stained glass windows. One of the two blue flights had HONOR tattooed upon its baluster, along with glass etchings of knights and kings, while the other read VALOR, decorated with blue reliefs of hunters and archers. The two pink glass staircases had PURITY and CHARITY emblazoned in gold, along with delicate friezes of sculpted maidens, princesses, and kindly animals.
In the center of the room, alumni portraits blanketed a soaring crystal obelisk that reached from milky marble floor to domed sunroof. Higher up on the obelisk were gold-framed portraits of students who became princes and queens after graduation. In the middle were silver frames, for those who found lesser fates as jaunty sidekicks, dutiful housewives, and fairy godmothers. And near the bottom of the pillar, flecked with dust, were bronze-framed underachievers who had ended up footmen and servants. But regardless of whether they became a Snow Queen or a chimney sweep, Agatha saw the students shared the same beautiful faces, kind smiles, and soulful eyes. Here in a glass palace in the middle of the woods, the best of life had gathered in service of Good. And here she was, Miss Miserable, in service of graveyards and farts.
Agatha waited with bated breath, until she finally reached a pink-haired nymph. “There’s been a mix-up!” she panted, dripping water and sweat. “It’s my friend Sophie who’s supposed to be here.”
The nymph smiled.
“I tried to stop her from coming,” Agatha said, voice quickening with hope, “but I confused the bird and now I’m here and she’s in the other tower but she’s pretty and likes pink and I’m . . . well, look at me. I know you need students but Sophie’s my best friend and if she stays then I have to stay and we can’t stay, so please help me find her so we can go home.”
The nymph handed her a piece of parchment.
Agatha stared at it, stupefied. “But—”
A green-haired nymph thrust her a basket of books, some peeking out:
The Privilege of Beauty
Winning Your Prince
The Recipe Book for Good Looks
Princess with a Purpose
Animal Speech 1: Barks, Neighs, & Chirps
Then a blue-haired nymph held up her uniform: an appallingly short pink pinafore, sleeves poofed with carnations, worn over a white lace blouse that seemed to be missing three buttons.
Stunned, Agatha looked at future princesses around her, tightening their pink dresses. She looked at books that told her beauty was a privilege, that she could win a chiseled prince, that she could talk to birds. She looked at a schedule meant for someone beautiful, graceful, and kind. Then she looked up at a handsome teacher, still smiling at her, as if expecting the greatest things from Agatha of Gavaldon.
Agatha did the only thing she knew how to do when faced with expectations.
Up the blue Honor staircase, through sea-green halls, she ran, fairies jangling furiously behind. Hurtling through halls, scrambling up stairs, she had no time to take in what she was seeing—floors made of jade, classrooms made of candy, a library made of gold—until she reached the last staircase and surged through a frosted glass door onto the tower roof. In front of her, the sun lit up a breathtaking open-air topiary of sculptured hedges. Before Agatha could even see what the sculptures were of, fairies smashed through the door, shooting sticky golden webs from their mouths to catch her. She dove to elude them, crawling like a bug through the colossal hedges. Finding her feet, she sprinted and leapt onto the tallest sculpture of a muscular prince raising a sword high above a pond. She scaled the leafy sword to its prickling tip, kicking away swarming fairies. But soon there were too many and just as they spat their glittering nets, Agatha lost her grip and crashed into the water.
When she opened her eyes, she was completely dry.
The pond must have been a portal, because she was outside now in a crystal blue archway. Agatha looked up and froze. She was at the end of a narrow stone bridge that stretched through thick fog into the rotted tower across the lake. A bridge between the two schools.
Tears stung her eyes. Sophie! She could save Sophie!
“Agatha!”
Agatha squinted and saw Sophie running out of the fog. “Sophie!”
Arms outstretched, the two girls dashed across the bridge, crying each other’s name—
They slammed into an invisible barrier and ricocheted to the ground.
Dazed by pain, Agatha watched in horror as wolves dragged Sophie by the hair back to Evil.
“You don’t understand,” Sophie screamed, watching fairies snare Agatha. “It’s all a mistake!”
“There are no mistakes,” a wolf growled.
They could speak after all.
(#ulink_966b3fb4-cfd9-5993-aafe-a5bb50b6e8fe)
ophie wasn’t sure why six wolves needed to punish her instead of one, but she assumed it was to make a point. They bound her to a spit, stuffed an apple in her mouth, and paraded her like a banquet pig through the six floors of Malice Hall. Lining the walls, new students pointed and laughed, but laughs turned to frowns when they realized this freak in pink would be one of their bunk mates. The wolves towed whimpering Sophie past Rooms 63, 64, 65, then kicked open Room 66 and flung her in. Sophie skidded until her face smacked into a warted foot.
“I told you we’d get her,” said a sour voice.
Still tied to the spit, Sophie looked up at a tall girl with greasy black hair streaked red, black lipstick, a ring in her nose, and a terrifying tattoo of a buck-horned, red-skulled demon around her neck. The girl glared at Sophie, black eyes flinting.
“She even smells like an Ever.”
“The fairies will retrieve it soon enough,” said a voice across the room.
Sophie swung her head to an albino girl with deathly white hair, white skin, and hooded red eyes, feeding stew from a cauldron to three black rats. “Pity. We could slit its throat and hang it as a hall ornament.”
“How rude,” said a third. Sophie turned to a smiley brown-haired girl on the bed, round as a hot air balloon, chocolate ice pop in each stumpy fist. “Besides, it’s against the rules to kill other students.”
“How about we just maim her a bit?” said the albino.
“I think she’s refreshing,” said the plump one, biting into the ice pop. “Not every villain has to smell and look depressed.”
“She’s not a villain,” the albino and the tattooed girl snapped in unison.
As she wriggled from her ropes, Sophie craned her neck up and had her first full view of the room. Once upon a time it might have been a nice, cozy suite before someone set it on fire. The brick walls were burnt to cinders. Black and brown scorch marks ripped across the ceiling, and the floor was buried beneath an inch of ash. Even the furniture looked toasted. But as her eyes searched, Sophie realized there was an even bigger problem with the room.
“Where’s the mirror?” she gasped.
“Let me guess,” the tattooed girl snorted. “It’s Bella or Ariel or Anastasia.”
“It looks more like a Buttercup or Sugarplum,” said the albino.
“Or a Clarabelle or Rose Red or Willow-by-the-Sea.”
“Sophie.” Sophie stood in a cloud of soot. “My name is Sophie. I’m not a ‘villain,’ I’m not an ‘it,’ and yes, I clearly don’t belong here, so—”
The albino and the tattooed girl were doubled over laughing. “Sophie!” the second cackled. “It’s worse than anyone could have imagined!”
“Anything named Sophie doesn’t belong here,” the albino wheezed. “It belongs in a cage.”
“I belong in the other tower,” said Sophie, trying to stay above their cattiness, “which is why I need to see the School Master.”
“‘I need to see the School Master,’” the albino mimicked. “How about you jump out the window and see if he catches you?”
“You all have no manners,” snarfled the round girl, mouth full. “I’m Dot. This is Hester,” she said, pointing at the tattooed girl. “And this ray of sunshine,” she said, pointing at the albino, “is Anadil.” Anadil spat on the floor.
“Welcome to Room 66,” said Dot, and with a swish of her hand swept the ashes off the unclaimed bed.
Sophie winced at moth-eaten sheets with ominous stains. “Appreciate the welcome, but I really should be going,” she said, backing against the door. “Might you direct me to the School Master’s office?”
“Princes must be so confused when they see you,” said Dot. “Most villains don’t look like princesses.”
“She’s not a villain,” Anadil and Hester groaned.
“Do I have to make an appointment to see him?” pressed Sophie. “Or do I send him a note or—”
“You could fly, I suppose,” Dot said, pulling two chocolate eggs from her pocket. “But the stymphs might eat you.”
“Stymphs?” asked Sophie.
“Those birds that dropped us off, love,” garbled Dot as she chewed. “You’d have to get past them. And you know how they hate villains.”
“For the last time,” shot Sophie, “I’m not a vill—”
Sounds rang in the stairwell. Sugary jingling, so dainty, so delicate it could only be—
Fairies. They were coming for her!
Sophie suppressed a scream. She dared not tell the girls her rescue was imminent (who knows how serious they were about making her a hall decoration). She backed against the door and listened to the jingles grow louder.
“I don’t know why people think princesses are pretty,” Hester said, picking a wart on her toe. “Their noses are so small. Like little buttons you want to pop off.”
Fairies on our floor! Sophie wanted to hop up and down. As soon as she got to the Good castle, she would take the longest bath of her life!
“And their hair is always so long,” Anadil said, dangling a dead mouse for the rats’ dessert. “Makes me want to pull it all out.”
Just a few rooms away now . . .
“And those phony smiles,” Hester said.
“And that obsession with pink,” said Anadil.
Fairies next door!
“Can’t wait to kill my first one,” said Hester.
“Today’s as good a day as any,” Anadil said.
They’re here! Sophie swelled with joy—new school, new friends, new life!
But the fairies flew past her room.
Sophie’s heart imploded. What happened! How could they miss her! She lunged past Anadil for the door, threw it open to a flash of wolf fur. Sophie jolted back in shock and Hester slammed the door.
“You’ll get all of us punished,” Hester growled.
“But they were here! They were looking for me!” Sophie cried.
“Are you sure we can’t kill her?” said Anadil, watching her rats devour the mouse.
“So where in the woods do you come from, love?” Dot asked Sophie, inhaling a chocolate frog.
“I don’t come from the woods,” Sophie said impatiently, and peeped through the eyehole. The wolves had no doubt scared the fairies away. She needed to get back to the bridge and find them. But right now, there were three wolves guarding the hall, eating a meal of roasted turnips from cast-iron plates.
Wolves eat turnips? With forks?
But there was something else odd on the wolves’ plates.
Fairies, scavenging food from the beasts.
Sophie’s eye widened in shock.
A cute boy fairy glanced up at her. He sees me! Clasping her hands, Sophie mouthed “Help!” through the glass. The fairy boy smiled with understanding, and whispered in a wolf’s ear. The wolf looked up at Sophie, and shattered her eyehole with a savage kick. Sophie stumbled back, hearing a chorus of airy giggles and growling laughs.
The fairies had no intention of rescuing her.
Sophie’s whole body shook, about to explode into sobs. Then she heard a throat clear and turned.
Three girls gaped with identically confused expressions.
“What do you mean you ‘don’t come from the woods’?” said Hester.
Sophie was in no state to answer dumb questions, but now these goons were her only hope to find the School Master.
“I come from Gavaldon,” she said, stifling tears. “You three seem to know a lot about this place, so I’d be thankful if you could tell me wher—”
“Is that near the Murmuring Mountains?” asked Dot.
“Only Nevers live in the Murmuring Mountains, you fool,” Hester groused.
“Near Rainbow Gale, I bet,” said Anadil. “That’s where the most annoying Evers come from.”
“Sorry, I’m lost already,” Sophie frowned. “Evers? Nevers?”
“A sheltered Rapunzel locked-in-a-tower type,” Anadil said. “Explains everything.”
“Evers are what we call Good-doers, love,” Dot said to Sophie. “You know, all their nonsense about finding Happily Ever After.”
“So that makes you ‘Nevers’?” said Sophie, remembering the lettered columns in the stair room.
“Short for ‘Nevermore,’” Hester reveled. “Paradise for Evildoers. We’ll have infinite power in Nevermore.”
“Control time and space,” said Anadil.
“Take new forms,” said Hester.
“Splinter our souls.”
“Conquer death.”
“Only the wickedest villains get in,” said Anadil.
“And the best part,” said Hester. “No other people. Each villain gets their own private kingdom.”
“Eternal solitude,” said Anadil.
“Sounds like misery,” said Sophie.
“Other people are misery,” said Hester.
“Agatha would love it here,” Sophie murmured.
“Gavaldon . . . is that by Pifflepaff Hills?” Dot said airily.
“Oh, for goodness’ sakes, it’s not near anything,” Sophie moaned. She held up her schedule, “SOPHIE OF WOODS BEYOND” at its top. “Gavaldon’s beyond the woods. Surrounded by it on all sides.”
“Woods Beyond?” said Hester.
“Who’s your king?” asked Dot.
“We don’t have a king,” Sophie said.
“Who’s your mother?” asked Anadil.
“She’s dead,” Sophie said.
“And your father?” asked Dot.
“He’s a mill worker. These questions are quite personal—”
“And what fairy-tale family is he from?” Anadil asked.
“And now they’re just plain odd. No one’s family is a fairy tale. He’s from a normal family with normal faults. Like every one of your fathers.”
“I knew it,” Hester said to Anadil.
“Knew what?” said Sophie.
“Readers are the only ones this stupid,” Anadil said to Hester.
Sophie’s skin burned. “I’m sorry, but I’m not the stupid one if I’m the only person here who can read, so why don’t you look in the mirror, that is if you could actually find one—”
Reader.
Why didn’t anyone here seem homesick? Why did they all swim towards the wolves in the moat instead of fleeing for their lives? Why didn’t they cry for their mothers or try to escape the snakes at the gate? Why did they all know so much about this school?
“What fairy-tale family is he from?”
Sophie’s eyes found Hester’s nightstand. Next to a vase of dead flowers, a claw-shaped candle, and a stack of books—Outsmarting Orphans, Why Villains Fail, Frequent Witch Mistakes—was a knurled wooden picture frame. Inside was a child’s clumsy painting of a grotesque witch in front of a house.
A house made of gingerbread and candy.
“Mother was naive,” said Hester, picking up the frame. Her face struggled with the memory. “An oven? Please. Stick them on a grill. Avoids complications.” Her jaw hardened. “I’ll do better.”
Sophie’s eyes shifted to Anadil and her stomach plummeted. Her favorite storybook ended with a witch rolled in a barrel of nails until all that remained was her bracelet made of little boys’ bones. Now that bracelet was clasped on her roommate’s wrist.
“Does know her witches, doesn’t she,” Anadil leered. “Granny would be flattered.”
Sophie whirled to a poster above Dot’s bed. A handsome man in green screaming as an executioner’s axe sliced into his head.
WANTED:
ROBIN HOOD
Dead or Alive (Preferably Dead)
By Order of Sheriff of Nottingham
“Daddy promised to let me have first swing,” Dot said.
Sophie looked at her three bunk mates in horror.
They didn’t need to read the fairy tales. They came from them.
They were born to kill.
“A princess and a Reader,” Hester said. “The two worst things a human can be.”
“Even the Evers don’t want her,” said Anadil. “Or the fairies would have come by now.”
“But they have to come!” Sophie cried. “I’m Good!”
“Well, you’re stuck here, dearie,” Hester said, plumping Sophie’s pillow with a kick. “So if you want to stay alive, best try to fit in.”
Fit in with witches! Fit in with cannibals!
“No! Listen to me!” Sophie begged. “I’m Good!”
“You keep saying that.” In a flash, Hester seized her by the throat and pinned her over the open window. “And yet there’s no proof.”
“I donate corsets to homeless hags! I go to church every Sunday!” Sophie howled above the fatal drop.
“Mmm, no sign of fairy godmother,” Hester said. “Try again.”
“I smile at children! I sing to birds!” Sophie choked. “I can’t breathe!”
“No sign of Prince Charming either,” said Anadil, grabbing her legs. “Last chance.”
“I made friends with a witch! That’s how Good I am!”
“And still no fairies,” Anadil said to Hester as they lifted her up.
“She belongs here, not me!” Sophie wailed—
“No one knows why the School Master brings you worthless freaks into our world,” hissed Hester. “But there can only be one reason. He’s a fool.”
“Ask Agatha! She’ll tell you! She’s the villain!”
“You know, Anadil, no one’s told us the rules yet,” Hester said.
“So they can’t punish us for breaking them,” Anadil grinned.
They lifted Sophie over the edge. “One,” said Hester.
“No!” Sophie shrieked.
“Two . . .”
“You want proof! I’ll give you proof!” Sophie screamed—
“Three.”
“LOOK AT ME AND LOOK AT YOU!”
Hester and Anadil dropped her. Stunned, they stared at each other, then at Sophie, hunched on the bed, gulping tearful breaths.
“Told you she was a villain,” Dot chirped and bit into fudge.
A commotion clamored outside the room, and the girls’ heads swiveled to the door. It flew open with a crack and three wolves thundered in, grabbed them by the collars, and hurled them into a stampede of black-robed students. Students rammed and elbowed each other; some fell beneath the herd and couldn’t get back up. Sophie clung to the wall for her life.
“Where are we going!” she yelled to Dot.
“The School for Good!” Dot said. “For the Welcomin—” An ogreish boy kicked her forward.
The School for Good! Flooding with hope, Sophie followed the hideous herd down the stairs, primping her pink dress for her first meeting with her true classmates. Someone seized her arm and threw her against the banister. Dazed, she looked up at a vicious white wolf, who held up a black uniform, reeking of death. He bared his teeth in a shiny grin.
“No—” Sophie gasped—
So the wolf took care of matters himself.
Though the princesses of Purity were all bunked in threes, Agatha ended up with her own room.
A pink glass staircase connected all five floors of Purity Tower, spiraling in a carved replica of Rapunzel’s endless hair. The door to Agatha’s fifth-floor room had a glittery sign covered in hearts: “WELCOME REENA, MILLICENT, AGATHA!” But Reena and Millicent didn’t stay long. Reena, blessed with luscious Arabian skin and brilliant gray eyes, labored to move her enormous trunk into the room, only to find Agatha and move it right back out. “She just looks so evil,” Agatha heard her sob. “I don’t want to die!” (“Move in with me,” she heard Beatrix say. “The fairies will understand.”) And indeed, the fairies did understand. And they understood when red-haired Millicent, with an upturned nose and thin eyebrows, feigned a fear of heights and demanded a room on a lower floor. And so Agatha was alone, which made her feel right at home.
The room, however, made her feel anxious. Massive, jeweled mirrors glared back from pink walls. Elaborate murals flaunted beautiful princesses kissing dashing princes. Arching over each bed was a white silk canopy, shaped like a royal carriage, and a glorious fresco of clouds blanketed the ceiling tiles, with smiling cupids shooting love arrows from puffy perches. Agatha moved as far as she could from all of it and crouched in the window nook, black dress bunched against pink wall.
Through the window, she could see the sparkling lake around the Good Towers turn into sludgy moat midway across to protect the Evil ones. “Halfway Bay,” the girls had called it. Deep in the fog, the thin stone bridge reached across the waters to connect the two schools. But this was all in front of the two castles. What was behind them?
Curious, Agatha climbed onto the window ledge, clinging to a glass beam. She glanced down at the Charity Tower below, reaching up with its sharp pink spire—one wrong move and she’d be skewered like lamb meat. Agatha tiptoed to the side of the ledge, craned her head around the corner, and almost fell from surprise. Behind the School for Good and Evil was a massive blue forest. Trees, bushes, flowers bloomed in every shade of blue, from iceberg to indigo. The lush blue grove unfolded for quite a distance, connecting the yards of both schools, before it was fenced on all sides by tall gold gates. Beyond the gates, the forest returned to green and stretched into dark oblivion.
As Agatha slid back, she saw something in front of the school, rising from Halfway Bay. It was right at the midpoint, where waters balanced between sludge and sparkle. She could barely see it through the fog . . . a tall, thin tower of glinting silver brick. Fairies buzzed around the spire in droves, while wolves with crossbows stood watch on wooden planks that jutted from the base of the tower into the water.
What were they guarding?
Agatha squinted at the top of the sky-high tower, but all she could see was a single window shrouded by clouds.
Then light caught the window and she saw it. Silhouetted in sun.
The crooked shadow that kidnapped them.
Her shoe slipped and her body pitched forward over deadly Charity. Flailing, she grabbed the window beam just in time and crashed back into the room. Agatha clutched her bruised tailbone, whipped around—but the shadow was gone.
Agatha’s heart thumped faster. Whoever brought them here was in that tower. Whoever was in that tower could fix the mistake and send them home.
But first she needed to rescue her best friend.
A few minutes later, Agatha shrank from a mirror. The sleeveless pink uniform showed off parts of her white, scrawny body that had never seen light. The lace collar gave away the rash that spread across her neck whenever she felt anxious, the carnations lining the sleeves made her sneeze, and the matching pink high heels teetered like stilts. But the foul outfit was her only chance to escape. Her room was on the opposite end from the stairwell. To get back to the bridge, she needed to glide through the hall without being noticed and slip down the stairs.
Agatha set her jaw.
You have to blend.
She took a deep breath and cracked open the door.
Fifty beautiful girls in pink pinafores packed the hallway, giggling, gossiping, trading dresses, shoes, bags, bangles, creams, and anything else they had brought in their gigantic trunks, while fairies buzzed between, trying in vain to round them up for the Welcoming. Through the hubbub, Agatha glimpsed stairs at the other end. A confident stroll and she’d be gone before they saw her. But she couldn’t move.
It had taken her whole life to make a single friend. And here these girls had become best friends in minutes as if making friends was the simplest thing in the world. Agatha prickled with shame. In this School for Good, where everyone was supposed to be kind and loving, she had still ended up alone and despised. She was a villain, no matter where she went.
She slammed the door, ripped petals from her sleeve, tore off her pink heels and hurled them through the window. She slumped against the wall and closed her eyes.
Get me out of here.
She opened her eyes and glimpsed her ugly face in the jeweled mirror. Before she could turn away, her eyes caught something else in her reflection. A ceiling tile with a smiling cupid, slightly dislodged.
Agatha slipped her feet back into her hard black clumps. She climbed up the bed canopy and pulled the tile away, revealing a dark vent above the room. She gripped the edges of the hole and swung one leg up into the vent, then the other, until she found herself perched on a narrow platform inside the chute.
She crawled through darkness, hands and knees blindly shuffling along cold metal—until metal suddenly turned to air. This time, she couldn’t save herself.
Falling too fast to scream, Agatha whizzed through chutes, ping-ponged through pipes, and slid down vents until she somersaulted through a grate and landed on a beanstalk.
She hugged the thick green trunk, thankful she was still in one piece. But as she looked around, Agatha saw she wasn’t in a garden or forest or anywhere else a beanstalk is supposed to be. She was in a dark room with high ceilings, filled with paintings, sculptures, and glass cases. Her eyes found the frosted doors in the corner, gilded words etched in glass:
THE GALLERY OF GOOD
Agatha inched down the beanstalk until her clumps touched marble floor.
A mural blanketed the long wall with a panoramic view of a soaring gold castle and a dashing prince and beautiful princess wedded beneath its gleaming arch, as thousands of spectators jingled bells and danced in celebration. Blessed by a brilliant sun, the virtuous couple kissed, while baby angels hovered above, showering them with red and white roses. High above the scene, shiny gold block letters peeked out from behind clouds, stretching from one end of the mural to the other:
EVERAFTER
Agatha grimaced. She had always mocked Sophie for believing in Happily Ever After. (“Who wants to be happy all the time?”) But looking at the mural, she had to admit this school did a spookily good job of selling the idea.
She peered into a glass case, holding a thin booklet of flowery handwriting with a plaque next to it: SNOW WHITE, ANIMAL FLUENCY EXAM (LETITIA OF MAIDENVALE). In the next cases, she found the blue cape of a boy who became Cinderella’s prince, Red Riding Hood’s dorm pillow, the Little Match Girl’s diary, Pinocchio’s pajamas, and other remnants of star students who presumably went on to weddings and castles. On the walls, she scanned more drawings of Ever After by former students, a School History exhibit, banners celebrating iconic victories, and a wall labeled “Class Captain,” stacked with portraits of students from each class. The museum got darker as it went on, so Agatha used one of her matches to light a lamp. That’s when she saw the dead animals.
Dozens of taxidermied creatures loomed over her, stuffed and mounted on rosy pink walls. She dusted off their plaques to find the booted Master Cat, Cinderella’s favorite rat, Jack’s sold-off cow, stamped with the names of children who weren’t good enough to become heroes or sidekicks or servants. No Happily Ever After for this lot. Just hooks in a museum. Agatha felt their eerie, glass-eyed stares and turned away. Only then did she see the plaque gleaming on the beanstalk. HOLDEN OF RAINBOW GALE. That wretched plant had once been a boy.
Agatha’s blood ran cold. All these stories she had never believed in. But they were painfully real now. In two hundred years, no kidnapped child had ever made it back to Gavaldon. What made her think she and Sophie would be the first? What made her think they wouldn’t end up a raven or a rosebush?
Then she remembered what made them different from all the rest.
We have each other.
They had to work together to break this curse. Or they’d both end up fossils of a fairy tale.
Agatha found her attention drawn to a corner nook, with a row of paintings by the same artist, depicting the same scenes: children reading storybooks, in hazy, impressionistic colors. As she neared the paintings, her eyes grew wider. Because she recognized where all these children were.
They were in Gavaldon.
She moved from first painting to last, with reading children set against the familiar hills and lake, crooked clock tower and rickety church, even the shadow of a house on Graves Hill. Agatha felt stabs of homesickness. She had mocked the children as batty and delusional. But in the end, they had known what she didn’t—that the line between stories and real life is very thin indeed.
Then she came to the last painting, which wasn’t like the others at all. In this one, raging children heaved their storybooks into a bonfire in the square and watched them burn. All around them, the dark forest went up in flames, filling the sky with violent red and black smoke. Staring at it, Agatha felt a chill up her spine.
Voices. She dove behind a giant pumpkin carriage, hitting her head on a plaque. HEINRICH OF NETHERWOOD. Agatha gagged.
Two teachers entered the museum, an older woman in a chartreuse high-necked dress, speckled with iridescent green beetle wings, and a younger woman in a pointy-shouldered purple gown that slunk behind her. The woman in chartreuse had a grandmotherly beehive of white hair, but luminous skin and calm brown eyes. The woman in purple had black hair yanked in a long braid, amethyst eyes, and bloodless skin stretched over bones like a drum.
“He’s tampering with the tales, Clarissa,” the one in purple said.
“The School Master can’t control the Storian, Lady Lesso,” Clarissa returned.
“He’s on your side and you know it,” Lady Lesso seethed.
“He’s not on anyone’s side—” Clarissa stopped short. So did Lady Lesso.
Agatha saw what they were looking at. The last painting.
“I see you’ve welcomed another of Professor Sader’s delusions,” Lady Lesso said.
“It is his gallery,” Clarissa sighed.
Lady Lesso’s eyes flashed. Magically, the painting tore off the wall and landed behind a glass case, inches from Agatha’s head.
“This is why they’re not in your school’s gallery,” said Clarissa.
“Anyone who believes the Reader Prophecy is a fool,” hissed Lady Lesso. “Including the School Master.”
“A School Master must protect the balance,” Clarissa said gently. “He sees Readers as part of that balance. Even if you and I cannot understand.”
“Balance!” scoffed Lady Lesso. “Then why hasn’t Evil won a tale since he took over? Why hasn’t Evil defeated Good in two hundred years?”
“Perhaps my students are just better educated,” said Clarissa.
Lady Lesso glowered and walked away. Swishing her finger, Clarissa moved the painting back into place and scurried to keep up.
“Maybe your new Reader will prove you wrong,” she said.
Lady Lesso snorted. “I hear she wears pink.”
Agatha listened to their footsteps go quiet.
She looked up at the dented painting. The children, the bonfire, Gavaldon burning to the ground. What did it all mean?
Twinkly flutters echoed through the air. Before she could move, glowing fairies burst in, searching every crevice like flashlights. Far across the museum, Agatha saw the doors through which the two teachers had left. Just when the fairies reached the pumpkin, she sprinted for it. The fairies squealed in surprise as she slid between three stuffed bears, threw open the doors—
Pink-dressed classmates streamed through the foyer in two perfect lines. As they held hands and giggled, the best of friends, Agatha felt familiar shame rise. Everything in her body told her to shut the door again and hide. But this time instead of thinking of all the friends she didn’t have, Agatha thought about the one she did.
The fairies swooped in a second later, but all they found were princesses on their way to a Welcoming. As they hovered furiously above, hunting for signs of guilt, Agatha slipped into the pink parade, put on a smile . . . and tried to blend.
(#ulink_b859de2d-e9e1-5367-b879-e18d80ff3c11)
ach school had its own entrance to the Theater of Tales, which was split into two halves. The west doors opened into the side for the Good students, decorated with pink and blue pews, crystal friezes, and glittering bouquets of glass flowers. The east doors opened into the side for Evil students, with warped wooden benches, carvings of murder and torture, and deadly stalactites dangling from the burnt ceiling. As students herded into their halves for the Welcoming, fairies and wolves guarded the silver marble aisle between them.
Despite her ghastly new uniform, Sophie had no intention of sitting with Evil. One look at the Good girls’ glossy hair, dazzling smiles, chic pink dresses, and she knew she had found her sisters. If the fairies wouldn’t rescue her, surely her fellow princesses would. With villains shoving her along, she tried to get the Good girls’ attention, but they were ignoring her side of the theater. Finally Sophie battled her way to the aisle, waved her arms, and opened her mouth to yell, when a hand yanked her under a rotted bench.
Agatha tackled her in a hug. “I found the School Master’s tower! It’s in the moat and there’s guards, but if we can just get up there then we can—”
“Hi! Nice to see you! Give me your clothes,” said Sophie, staring at Agatha’s pink dress.
“Huh?”
“Quick! It will solve everything.”
“You can’t be serious! Sophie, we can’t stay here!”
“Exactly,” Sophie smiled. “I need to be in your school and you need to be in mine. Just like we talked about, remember?”
“But your father, my mother, my cat!” Agatha sputtered. “You don’t know what they’re like here! They’ll turn us into snakes or squirrels or shrubbery! Sophie, we have to get back home!”
“Why? What do I have in Gavaldon to go back to?” Sophie said.
Agatha blushed with hurt. “You have . . . um, you have . . .”
“Right. Nothing. Now, my dress, please.”
Agatha folded her arms.
“Then I’ll take it myself,” Sophie scowled. But right as she grabbed Agatha by her flowered sleeve, something made her stop cold. Sophie listened, ears piqued, and took off like a panther. She slid under warped benches, dodged villains’ feet, ducked behind the last pew, and peeked around it.
Agatha followed, exasperated. “I don’t know what’s gotten into yo—”
Sophie covered Agatha’s mouth and listened to the sounds grow louder. Sounds that made every Good girl bolt upright. Sounds they had waited their whole lives to hear. From the hall, the stomp of boots, the clash of steel—
The west doors flew open to sixty gorgeous boys in swordfight.
Sun-kissed skin peeked through light blue sleeves and stiff collars; tall navy boots matched high-cut waistcoats and knotted slim ties, each embroidered with a single gold initial. As the boys playfully crossed blades, their shirts came untucked from tight beige breeches, revealing slender waists and flashes of muscle. Sweat glistened on glowing faces as they thrust down the aisle, boots cracking on marble, until swiftly the swordfight climaxed, boys pinning boys against pews. In a last chorus of movement, they drew roses from their shirts and with a shout of “Milady!” threw them to the girls who most caught their eye. (Beatrix found herself with enough roses to plant a garden.)
Agatha watched all this, seasick. But then she saw Sophie, heart in throat, longing for her own rose.
In the decayed pews, the villains booed the princes, brandishing banners with “NEVERS RULE!” and “EVERS STINK!” (Except for weasel-faced Hort, who crossed his arms sulkily and mumbled, “Why do they get their own entrance?”) With a bow, the princes blew kisses to villains and prepared to take their seats when the west doors suddenly slammed open again—
And one more walked in.
Hair a halo of celestial gold, eyes blue as a cloudless sky, skin the color of hot desert sand, he glistened with a noble sheen, as if his blood ran purer than the rest. The stranger took one look at the frowning, sword-armed boys, pulled his own sword . . . and grinned.
Forty boys came at him at once, but he disarmed each with lightning speed. The swords of his classmates piled up beneath his feet as he flicked them away without inflicting a scratch. Sophie gaped, bewitched. Agatha hoped he’d impale himself. But no such luck, for the boy dismissed each new challenge as quickly as it came, the embroidered T on his blue tie glinting with each dance of his blade. And when the last had been left swordless and dumbstruck, he sheathed his own sword and shrugged, as if to say he meant nothing by it at all. But the boys of Good knew what it meant. The princes now had a king. (Even the villains couldn’t find reason to boo.)
Meanwhile, the Good girls had long learned that every true princess finds a prince, so no need to fight each other. But they forgot all this when the golden boy pulled a rose from his shirt. All of them jumped up, waving kerchiefs, jostling like geese at a feeding. The boy smiled and lofted his rose high in the air—
Agatha saw Sophie move too late. She ran after her but Sophie dashed into the aisle, leapt over the pink pews, lunged for the rose—and caught a wolf instead.
As it dragged Sophie back to her side, she locked eyes with the boy, who took in her fair face, then her horrid black robes and cocked his head, baffled. Then he saw Agatha agog in pink, his rose plopped in her open palm, and recoiled in shock. As the wolf dumped Sophie with Evil and fairies shoved Agatha with Good, the boy gawked wide-eyed, trying to make sense of it all. Then a hand pulled him into a seat.
“Hi. I’m Beatrix,” she said, and made sure he saw all of her roses.
From the Evil seats, Sophie tried to get his attention.
“Turn yourself into a mirror. Then you’ll have a chance.”
Sophie turned to Hester, sitting next to her.
“His name is Tedros,” her roommate said. “And he’s just as stuck-up as his father.”
Sophie was about to ask who his father was, but then glimpsed his sword, dazzling silver, with a hilt of diamonds. A sword with a lion crest she knew from storybooks. A sword named Excalibur.
“He’s King Arthur’s son?” Sophie breathed. She studied Tedros’ high cheekbones, silky blond hair, and thick, tender lips. His broad shoulders and strong arms filled out his blue shirt, tie loosened and collar undone. He looked so serene and assured, as if he knew destiny was on his side.
Gazing at him, Sophie felt her own destiny lock into place.
He’s mine.
Suddenly she felt a hot glare across the aisle.
“We’re going home,” Agatha mouthed clearly.
“Welcome to the School for Good and Evil,” said the nicer of the two heads.
From their seats on opposite sides of the aisle, Sophie and Agatha tracked the massive dog with two heads attached to a single body, pacing across a silver stone stage, cracked down the middle. One head was rabid, drooling, and male, with a grizzly mane. The other head was cuddly and cute, with a weak jaw, scanty fur, and singsong voice. No one was sure if the cuter head was male or female, but whatever it was, it seemed to be in charge.
“I’m Pollux, Welcoming Leader,” said the nice head.
“AND I’M CASTOR, WELCOMING LEADER ASSISTANT AND EXECUTIVE EXECUTIONER OF PUNISHMENT FOR ANYONE WHO BREAKS RULES OR ACTS LIKE A DONKEY,” the rabid one boomed.
All the children looked scared of Castor. Even the villains.
“Thank you, Castor,” said Pollux. “So let me first remind you why it is you’re here. All children are born with souls that are either Good or Evil. Some souls are purer than others—”
“AND SOME SOULS ARE CRAP!” Castor barked.
“As I was saying,” said Pollux, “some souls are purer than others, but all souls are fundamentally Good or Evil. Those who are Evil cannot make their souls Good, and those who are Good cannot make their souls Evil—”
“SO JUST ’CAUSE GOOD IS WINNING EVERYTHING DOESN’T MEAN YOU CAN SWITCH SIDES,” snarled Castor.
The Good students cheered, “EVERS! EVERS!”; Evil students retorted, “NEVERS! NEVERS!” before wolves doused Evers with water buckets, fairies cast rainbows over the Nevers, and both sides shut up.
“Once again,” said Pollux tightly, “those who are Evil cannot be good and those who are Good cannot be Evil, no matter how much you’re persuaded or punished. Now sometimes you may feel the stirrings of both but this just means your family tree has branches where Good and Evil have toxically mixed. But here at the School for Good and Evil, we will rid you of stirrings, we will rid you of confusion, we will try to make you as pure as possible—”
“AND IF YOU FAIL, THEN SOMETHING SO BAD WILL HAPPEN TO YOU THAT I CAN’T SAY, BUT IT INVOLVES YOU NEVER BEING SEEN AGAIN!”
“One more and it’s the muzzle!” Pollux yelled. Castor stared at his toes.
“None of these brilliant students will fail, I’m sure,” Pollux smiled at the relieved children.
“You say that every time and then someone fails,” Castor mumbled.
Sophie remembered Bane’s scared face on the wall and shuddered. She had to get to Good soon.
“Every child in the Endless Woods dreams of being picked to attend our school. But the School Master chose you,” said Pollux, scanning both sides. “For he looked into your hearts and saw something very rare. Pure Good and Pure Evil.”
“If we’re so pure, then what’s that?”
An impish blond boy with spiky ears stood from Evil and pointed to Sophie.
A burly boy from Good pointed to Agatha. “We have one too!”
“Ours smells like flowers!” yelled a villain.
“Ours ate a fairy!”
“Ours smiles too much!”
“Ours farted in our face!”
Sophie turned to Agatha, aghast.
“Every class, we bring two Readers here from the Woods Beyond,” Pollux declared. “They may know our world from pictures and books, but they know our rules just as well as you. They have the same talents and goals, the same potential for glory. And they too have been some of our finest students.”
“Like two hundred years ago,” Castor snorted.
“They are no different than the rest of you,” Pollux said defensively.
“They look different than the rest of us,” cracked an oily, brown-skinned villain.
Students from both schools murmured in agreement. Sophie stared down Agatha, as if to say this could all be solved with a simple costume change.
“Do not question the School Master’s selections,” said Pollux. “All of you will respect each other, whether you’re Good or Evil, whether you’re from a famous tale family or a failed one, whether you’re a sired prince or a Reader. All of you are chosen to protect the balance between Good and Evil. For once that balance is compromised . . .” His face darkened. “Our world will perish.”
A hush fell over the hall. Agatha grimaced. The last thing she needed was this world perishing while they were still in it.
Castor raised his paw. “What,” Pollux groaned.
“Why doesn’t Evil win anymore?”
Pollux looked like he was about to bite his head off, but it was too late. The villains were rumbling.
“Yeah, if we’re so balanced,” yelled Hort, “why do we always die?”
“We never get good weapons!” shouted the impish boy.
“Our henchmen betray us!”
“Our Nemesis always has an army!”
Hester stood. “Evil hasn’t won in two hundred years!”
Castor tried to control himself, but his red face swelled like a balloon. “GOOD IS CHEATING!”
Nevers leapt up in mutiny, hurling food, shoes, and anything else at hand at horrified Evers—
Sophie slunk down in her seat. Tedros couldn’t possibly think she was one of these ugly hooligans, could he? She peeked over the bench and caught him staring right at her. Sophie pinked and ducked back down.
Wolves and fairies pounced on the angry horde around her, but this time rainbows and water couldn’t stop them.
“The School Master’s on their side!” Hester screamed.
“We don’t even have a chance!” howled Hort.
The Nevers fought past fairies and wolves, and charged the Evers’ pews—
“It’s because you’re idiotic apes!”
The villains looked up dumbly.
“Now sit down before I give all of you a slap!” shrieked Pollux.
They sat without argument. (Except Anadil’s rats, who peeked from her pocket and hissed.)
Pollux scowled down at the villains. “Maybe if you stopped complaining, you’d produce someone of consequence! But all we hear is excuse after excuse. Have you produced one decent villain since the Great War? One villain capable of defeating their Nemesis? No wonder Readers come here confused! No wonder they want to be Good!”
Sophie saw kids on both sides of the aisle sneak her sympathetic glances.
“Students, all of you have only one concern here,” Pollux said, softening. “Do the best work you can. The finest of you will become princes and warlocks, knights and witches, queens and sorcerers—”
“OR A TROLL OR PIG IF YOU STINK!” Castor spat.
Students glanced at each other across the aisle, sensing the high stakes.
“So if there are no further interruptions,” Pollux said, glowering at his brother, “let’s review the rules.”
“Rule thirteen. Halfway Bridge and tower roofs are forbidden to students,” Pollux lectured onstage. “The gargoyles have orders to kill intruders on sight and have yet to grasp the difference between students and intruders—”
Sophie found all of this dull, so she tuned out and stared at Tedros instead. She had never seen a boy so clean. Boys in Gavaldon smelled like hogs and slopped around with chapped lips, yellow teeth, and black nails. But Tedros had heavenly tan skin, dabbed with light stubble, and no hint (no chance!) of a blemish. Even after the vigorous swordfight, every last gold hair fell in place. When he licked his lips, white teeth gleamed through in perfect rows. Sophie watched a trickle of sweat crisscross his neck and vanish beneath his shirt. What does he smell like? She closed her eyes. Like fresh wood and—
She opened her eyes and saw Beatrix subtly sniffing Tedros’ hair.
This girl needed to be dealt with immediately.
A headless bird landed in Sophie’s dress. She jumped on her seat, screaming and shaking her tunic until the dead canary plopped to the floor. She recognized the bird with a frown—then noticed the entire hall gaping at her. She gave her best princess curtsy and sat back down.
“As I was saying,” Pollux said testily.
Sophie whipped to Agatha. “What!” she mouthed.
“We need to meet,” Agatha mouthed back.
“My clothes,” Sophie mouthed, and turned back to the stage.
Hester and Anadil looked at the decapitated bird, then at Agatha.
“Her we like,” Anadil quipped, rats squeaking in agreement.
“Your first year will consist of required courses to prepare you for three major tests: the Trial by Tale, the Circus of Talents, and the Snow Ball,” Castor growled. “After the first year, you will be divided into three tracks: one for villain and hero Leaders, one for henchmen and helper Followers, and one for Mogrifs, or those that will undergo transformation.”
“For the next two years, Leaders will train to fight their future Nemeses,” Pollux said. “Followers will develop skills to defend their future Leaders. Mogrifs will learn to adapt to their new forms and survive in the treacherous Woods. Finally, after the third year, Leaders will be paired with Followers and Mogrifs and you will all move into the Endless Woods to begin your journeys . . .”
Sophie tried to pay attention but couldn’t with Beatrix practically in Tedros’ lap. Fuming, Sophie picked at the glittering silver swan crest stitched on her smelly smock. It was the only tolerable thing about it.
“Now as to how we determine your future tracks, we do not give ‘marks’ here at the School for Good and Evil,” said Pollux. “Instead, for every test or challenge, you will be ranked within your classes so you know exactly where you stand. There are 120 students in each school and we have divided you into six groups of 20 for your classes. After each challenge, you will be ranked from 1 to 20. If you are ranked in the top five in your group consistently, you will end up on the Leader track. If you score in the midrange repeatedly, you’ll end up a Follower. And if you’re consistently below a 13, then your talents will be best served as a Mogrif, either animal or plant.”
Students on both aisles murmured, already placing bets on who would end up a tumbo tree.
“I must add that anyone who receives three 20s in a row will immediately be failed,” said Pollux gravely. “As I said, given the exceptional incompetence required to earn three straight last-place ranks, I am confident this rule will not apply to any of you.”
The Nevers in her row threw Sophie a look.
“When they put me where I belong, you’ll all feel foolish, won’t you?” Sophie shot back.
“Your swan crest will be visible on your heart at all times,” Pollux continued. “Any attempt to conceal or remove it will likely result in injury or embarrassment, so please refrain.”
Confused, Sophie watched students on both sides trying to cover the glittering silver swans on their uniforms. Mimicking them, she folded the droopy collar of her tunic to obscure her own swan—instantly the crest vanished off the robe and appeared on her chest. Stunned, she ran her finger over the swan, but it was embedded in her skin like a tattoo. She released the fold and the swan vanished off her skin and reappeared on the robe. Sophie frowned. Perhaps not so tolerable after all.
“Furthermore, as the Theater of Tales is in Good this year, Nevers will be escorted here for all joint school functions,” said Pollux. “Otherwise, you must remain in your schools at all times.”
“Why is the Theater in Good?” Dot hollered through a mouthful of fudge.
Pollux raised his nose. “Whoever wins the Circus of Talents gets the Theater in their school.”
“And Good hasn’t lost a Circus or Trial by Tale or, now that I think about it, any competition at this school for the last two hundred years,” Castor harrumphed. Villains started rumbling again.
“But Good is so far from Evil!” Dot huffed.
“Heaven forbid she has to walk,” Sophie mumbled. Dot heard and glowered at her. Sophie cursed herself. The only person who was civil to her and she had to ruin it.
Pollux ignored the Nevers’ grumbles and droned on about curfew times, lulling half the room to sleep. Reena raised her hand. “Are Groom Rooms open yet?”
All of a sudden the Evers looked awake.
“Well, I was planning to discuss Groom Rooms next assembly,” Pollux said—
“Is it true that only certain kids can use them?” asked Millicent.
Pollux sighed. “Groom Rooms in the Good Towers are only available to Evers ranked in the top half of their class on any given day. Rankings will be posted on the Groom Room doors and throughout the castle. Please do not abuse Albemarle if he’s behind on posting them. Now as to curfew rules—”
“What are Groom Rooms?” Sophie whispered to Hester.
“Where Evers primp, preen, and get their hair done,” Hester shuddered.
Sophie sprang up. “Do we have Groom Rooms?”
Pollux pursed his lips. “Nevers have Doom Rooms, dear.”
“Where we get our hair done?” Sophie beamed.
“Where you’re beaten and tortured,” Pollux said.
Sophie sat down.
“Now curfew will occur at precisely—”
“How do you become Class Captain?” Hester asked. The question and the presumptuous tone behind it instantly made her unpopular on both sides of the aisle.
“If you all flunk curfew inspections, don’t blame me!” Pollux groaned. “All right. After the Trial by Tale, the top-ranked students in each school will be named Class Captain. These two students will have special privileges, including private study with select faculty, field trips into the Endless Woods, and the chance to train with renowned heroes and villains. As you know, our Captains have gone on to be some of the greatest legends in the Endless Woods.”
While both sides buzzed, Sophie gritted her teeth. She knew if she could just get to the right school, she’d not only be Good’s Captain, she’d end up more famous than Snow White.
“This year you will have six required classes in your individual schools,” Pollux went on. “The seventh class, Surviving Fairy Tales, will include both Good and Evil and takes place in the Blue Forest behind the schools. Also please note, both Beautification and Etiquette are for Good girls only, while Good boys will have Grooming and Chivalry instead.”
Agatha woke from her stupor. If she didn’t have enough reasons to escape, the thought of a Beautification class was the last straw. They had to get out of here tonight. She turned to an adorable girl next to her, with narrow brown eyes and short black hair, fixing her lipstick in a pocket mirror.
“Mind if I borrow your lipstick?” Agatha asked.
The girl took one look at Agatha’s ashy, cracked lips and thrust it at her. “Keep it.”
“Breakfast and supper will take place in your school supper halls, but you’ll all eat lunch together in the Clearing,” Castor grunted. “That is, if you’re mature enough to handle the privilege.”
Sophie felt her heart race. If the schools ate their lunches together, tomorrow would be her first chance to talk to Tedros. What would she say to him? And how would she get rid of that beastly Beatrix?
“The Endless Woods beyond the school gates are barred to first-year students,” said Pollux. “And though that rule may fall on deaf ears for the most adventurous of you, let me remind you of the most important rule of all. One that will cost you your lives if you fail to obey.”
Sophie snapped to attention.
“Never go into the Woods after dark,” said Pollux.
His cuddly smile returned. “You may return to your schools! Supper is at seven o’clock sharp!”
As Sophie rose with the Nevers, mentally rehearsing her lunch meeting with Tedros, a voice ripped through the chatter—
“How do we see the School Master?”
The hall went dead silent. Students turned, shell-shocked.
Agatha stood alone in the aisle, glaring up at Castor and Pollux.
The twin-headed dog jumped off the stage and landed a foot from her, splashing her with drool. Both heads glared into Agatha’s eyes, wearing the same ferocious expression. It wasn’t clear who was who.
“You don’t,” they growled.
As fairies whisked flailing Agatha to the east door, she passed Sophie for an instant, just long enough to thrust out a rose petal marred by a lipstick message: “BRIDGE, 9 PM.”
But Sophie never saw it. Her eyes were locked on Tedros, a hunter stalking its prey, until she was shoved from the hall by villains.
Right then and there, the problem smashed Agatha in the face. The one that had plagued them all along. For as the two girls were pulled to their opposing towers, their opposing desires couldn’t have been clearer. Agatha wanted her only friend back. But a friend wasn’t enough for Sophie. Sophie had always wanted more.
Sophie wanted a prince.
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he next morning, fifty princesses dashed about the fifth floor as if it was their wedding day. On the first day of class, they all wanted to make their best impressions on teachers, boys, and anyone else who might lead them to Ever After. Swans twinkling on nightgowns, they flurried into each other’s rooms, glossing lips, poofing hair, buffing nails, and trailing so much perfume that fairies passed out and littered the hall like dead flies. Still no one seemed any closer to being dressed, and indeed, when the clock tolled 8:00 a.m., signaling the start of breakfast, not a single girl had put on her clothes.
“Breakfast makes you fat anyway,” Beatrix reassured.
Reena poked her head into the hall. “Has anyone seen my panties!”
Agatha certainly hadn’t. She was free-falling through a dark chute, trying to remember how she found Halfway Bridge the first time. Honor Tower to Hansel’s Haven to Merlin’s Menagerie . . .
After landing on the beanstalk, she crept through the dim Gallery of Good, until she found the doors behind the stuffed bears. Or was it Honor Tower to Cinderella Commons . . . Still mulling the correct route, she threw open the doors to the stair room and ducked. The palatial glass lobby was packed with faculty in their colorful dresses and suits, mingling before class. Neon-haired nymphs in pink gowns, white veils, and blue lace gloves floated about the foyer, refilling teacups, frosting biscuits, and flicking fairies off sugar cubes. From behind the doors, Agatha peeked at the stairs marked HONOR, lit by high stained glass windows, far across the crowd. How could she get past them all?
She felt something scrape her leg and turned to find a mouse gnawing her petticoat. Agatha kicked the mouse away, which tumbled into the paws of a stuffed cat. The mouse screeched, then saw the cat was dead. It gave Agatha its dirtiest look and marched back into its hole in the wall.
Even the vermin here hate me, she sighed as she tried to salvage her petticoat. Her fingers stopped as they ran over the torn white lace. Perhaps she shouldn’t have been so hard on that mouse. . . .
A few moments later, an undersized nymph in a ragged lace veil scurried through the room for the Honor stairs. Unfortunately the veil left Agatha blind and she tripped into a nymph, who crashed into a teacher—“Heavens Saint Mary!” Clarissa moaned, dripping with prune tea. As alarmed professors dabbed at her dress, Agatha slid behind the Charity steps.
“Those nymphs really are too tall,” Clarissa scolded. “Next thing you know they’ll knock down a tower!”
By then, Agatha had already disappeared into Honor Tower and found her way up to Hansel’s Haven, the wing of first-floor classrooms made completely out of candy. There was a room of sparkled blue swizzles and rock sugar, glittering like a salt mine. There was a marshmallow room with white fudge chairs and gingerbread desks. There was even a room made of lollipops, blanketing the walls in rainbow colors. Agatha wondered how in the world these rooms stayed intact and then saw an inscription sweeping the corridor wall in cherry gumdrops:
Temptation Is the Path to Evil
Agatha ate half of it before she hustled by two passing teachers, who gave her veil a curious look but didn’t stop her.
“Must be spots,” she heard one whisper as she raced up the back stairs (but not before stealing a caramel doorknob and butterscotch welcome mat to complete her heavenly breakfast).
When she ran from the fairies the day before, Agatha had stumbled into the rooftop topiary by accident. Today, she could appreciate Merlin’s Menagerie, as the school map named it, filled with magnificently sculpted hedges that told the legend of King Arthur in sequence. Each hedge celebrated a scene from the king’s life: Arthur pulling the sword from the stone, Arthur with his knights at the Round Table, Arthur at the wedding altar with Guinevere. . . .
Agatha thought of that pompous boy from the Theater, the one everyone said was King Arthur’s son. How could he see this and not feel suffocated? How could he survive the comparisons, the expectations? At least he had beauty on his side. Imagine if he looked like me, she snorted. They’d have dumped the baby in the woods.
The final sculpture in the sequence was the one with the pond, a towering statue of Arthur receiving Excalibur from the Lady of the Lake. This time Agatha jumped into its water on purpose and fell through the secret portal, completely dry, onto Halfway Bridge.
She hurried towards the midpoint, where the fog began, palms extended in case the barrier came earlier than she remembered. But as she entered the mist, her hands couldn’t find it. She moved deeper into fog. It’s gone! Agatha broke into a run, wind whipping the veil off her face—
BAM! She stumbled back, exploding with pain. Apparently the barrier moved where it wanted.
Avoiding her reflection in its sheen, she touched the invisible wall and felt its cold, hard surface. Suddenly she noticed movement through the fog and saw two people step through Evil’s archway onto Halfway Bridge. Agatha froze. She had no time to get back to Good, nowhere on the Bridge to hide. . . .
Two teachers, the handsome Good professor who had smiled at her and an Evil one with boils on both cheeks, walked across the Bridge and through the barrier without the slightest hesitation. Dangling from the stone rail high over the moat, Agatha listened to them pass, then peeked over the rail edge. The two teachers were about to disappear into Good when the handsome man looked back and smiled. Agatha ducked.
“What is it, August?” she heard the Evil teacher ask.
“My eyes playing tricks on me,” he chuckled as they entered the towers.
Definitely a crackpot, Agatha thought.
Moments later, she was in front of the invisible wall once more. How had they passed? She searched for an edge but couldn’t find one. She tried kicking it, but it was hard as steel. Peering up into the School for Evil, Agatha could see wolves herding students down stairs. She would be in plain sight if the fog thinned even slightly. Giving the wall a last kick, she retreated to Good.
“And don’t come back!”
Agatha spun around to see who had spoken, but all she found was her reflection in the barrier, arms folded. She averted her eyes. Now I’m hearing things. Lovely.
She turned towards the tower and noticed her own arms hanging by her sides. She whirled to face her reflection. “Did you just speak?”
Her reflection cleared its throat.
“Good with Good,
Evil with Evil,
Back to your tower before there’s upheaval.”
“Um, I need to get through,” Agatha said, eyes glued to the ground.
“Good with Good,
Evil with Evil,
Back to your tower before there’s serious upheaval, meaning cleaning plates after supper or losing your Groom Room privileges or both if I have anything to say about it.”
“I need to see a friend,” Agatha pressed.
“Good has no friends on the other side,” her reflection said.
Agatha heard sugary ringing and turned to see the glow of fairies at the end of the Bridge. How could she outwit herself? How could she find the chink in her own armor?
Good with Good . . . Evil with Evil . . .
In a flash, she knew the answer.
“How about you?” Agatha said, still looking away. “Do you have any friends?”
Her reflection tensed. “I don’t know. Do I?”
Agatha gritted her teeth and met her own eyes. “You’re too ugly to have friends.”
Her reflection turned sad. “Definitely Evil,” it said, and vanished.
Agatha reached out her hand to touch the barrier. This time it went straight through.
By the time the fairy patrol made it onto the Bridge, the fog had erased her tracks.
The moment Agatha stepped foot into Evil, she had the feeling this was where she belonged. Crouched behind the statue of a bald, bony witch in the leaky foyer, she scanned across cracked ceilings, singed walls, serpentine staircases, shadow-masked halls. . . . She couldn’t have designed it better herself.
With the coast clear of wolves, Agatha snuck through the main corridor, soaking in the portraits of villainous alumni. She had always found villains more exciting than heroes. They had ambition, passion. They made the stories happen. Villains didn’t fear death. No, they wrapped themselves in death like suits of armor! As she inhaled the school’s graveyard smell, Agatha felt her blood rush. For like all villains, death didn’t scare her. It made her feel alive.
She suddenly heard chatter and shrank behind a wall. A wolf came into view, leading a group of Nevergirls down the Vice staircase. Agatha heard them twitter about their first classes, catching the words “Henchmen,” “Curses,” “Uglification.” How could these kids be any uglier? Agatha felt the blush of shame. Looking at this parade of sallow bodies and repugnant faces, she knew she fit right in. Even their frumpy black smocks were just like the one she wore every day back home. But there was a difference between her and these villains. Their mouths twisted with bitterness, their eyes flickered with hate, their fists curled with pent-up rage. They were wicked, no doubt, and Agatha didn’t feel wicked at all. But then she remembered Sophie’s words.
Different usually turns out Evil.
Panic gripped her throat. That’s why the shadow didn’t kidnap a second child.
I was meant to be here all along.
Tears stung her eyes. She didn’t want to be like these children! She didn’t want to be a villain! She wanted to find her friend and go home!
With no clue where to even look, Agatha hurtled up a staircase marked MISCHIEF to the landing, which split in two scraggy stone paths. She heard voices from the left, so she dashed right, down a short hall to a dead end of sooty walls. Agatha backed against one, petrified by voices growing louder, then felt something creak behind her. It wasn’t a wall but a door blanketed in ash. Her dress had wiped enough clean to reveal red letters:
THE EXHIBITION OF EVIL
It was pitch-dark inside. Coughing on dust and cobwebs, Agatha lit a match. Where Good’s gallery was pristine and vast, Evil’s sparse broom closet reflected their two-hundred-year losing streak. Agatha examined the faded uniform of a boy who became Rumpelstiltskin, a broken-framed essay on “Morality of Murder” by a future witch, a few stuffed crows hanging off crumbled walls, and a rotted vine of thorns that blinded a famous prince, labeled VERA OF WOODS BEYOND. Agatha had seen her face on Missing posters in Gavaldon.
Shuddering, she noticed flecks of color on the wall and held her match to it. It was a panel in a mural, like the one of Ever After in the Good Towers. Each of the eight panels showed a black-robed villain reveling in an inferno of infinite power—flying through fire, transmuting in body, fracturing in soul, manipulating space and time. At the top of the mural, stretching from the first panel to last, were giant letters set aflame:
NEVERMORE
Where Evers dreamt of love and happiness, the Nevers sought a world of solitude and power. As the sinister visions sent thrills through her heart, Agatha felt the shock of truth.
I’m a Never.
Her best friend was an Ever. If they didn’t get home soon, Sophie would see the truth. Here they couldn’t be friends.
She saw a snouted shadow move into her match light. Two shadows. Three. Just as the wolves pounced, Agatha wheeled and whipped Vera’s thorns across their faces. The wolves roared in surprise and stumbled back, giving her just enough time to scramble to the door. Breathless, she dashed down the hall, up the stairs, until she found herself on Malice Hall’s second floor, hunting for Sophie’s name on the dormitory doors—Vex & Brone, Hort & Ravan, Flynt & Titan—Boys’ floor!
Just as she heard a door open, she sprinted up the back stairs to a dead-end attic filled with murky vials of frog’s toes, lizard legs, dog tongues. (Her mother was right. Who knew how long these had been sitting here.) She heard a wolf slobbering up the steps—
Agatha climbed out the attic window onto the soaring roof and clung to the rain gutter. Thunder detonated from black clouds, while across the lake, the Good Towers twinkled in perfect sunshine. As the storm drenched her pink dress, her eyes followed the long, twisted gutter, shooting water through the mouths of three stone gargoyles that held up its brass beams. It was her only hope. She climbed into the gutter, hands struggling to keep grip on the slippery rails, and craned back to the window, knowing the white wolf was coming—
But he wasn’t. He stared at her through the window, hairy arms folded over red jacket.
“There are worse things than wolves, you know.”
He walked away, leaving her agape.
What? What could possibly be worse than—
Something moved in the rain.
Agatha shielded her eyes and peered through the sparkling blur to see the first stone gargoyle yawn and spread his dragon wings. Then the second gargoyle, with a snake’s head and lion’s trunk, stretched his with a gunshot crack. Then the third, twice as big as the others, with a horned demon head, man’s torso, and studded tail, thrust out jagged wings wider than the tower.
Agatha blanched. Gargoyles! What did the dog say about gargoyles!
Their eyes turned to her, viciously red, and she remembered.
Orders to kill.
With a collective shriek, they leapt off their perches. Without their support, the gutter collapsed and she plunged into its water with a scream. The tidal wave of rain slammed her through harrowing turns and drops as the loose beam lurched wildly in the rain. Agatha saw two gargoyles swoop for her and she swerved in the gutter slide just in time. The third, the horned demon, rose up high and blasted fire from its nose. Agatha grabbed onto the rails and the fireball hit in front of her, searing a giant hole in the beam—she skidded short just before she plummeted through. A crushing force tackled her from behind and the dragon-winged gargoyle grabbed her leg in his sharp talons and hoisted her into the air.
“I’m a student!” Agatha screamed.
The gargoyle dropped her, startled.
“See!” Agatha cried, pointing at her face. “I’m a Never!”
Sweeping down, the gargoyle studied her face to see if this was true.
It grabbed her by the throat to say it wasn’t.
Agatha screamed and stabbed her foot into the burnt hole, deflecting rushing water into the monster’s eye. It stumbled blindly, claws flailing for her, only to fall through the hole and shatter its wing on the balcony below. Agatha held onto the rails for life, fighting terrible pain in her leg. But through the water, she saw another one coming. With an ear-piercing screech, the snake-headed gargoyle tore through the flood and snatched her into the air. Just as its massive jaws yawned to devour her, Agatha thrust her foot between its teeth, which smashed down on her hard black clump and snapped like matchsticks. Dazed, the monster dropped her. Agatha crash-landed in the flooding gutter and gripped the rail.
“Help!” she screamed. If she held on, someone would hear and rescue her. “Helll—”
Her hands slipped. She careened down eaves, jerking and heaving towards the last spout, where the biggest gargoyle waited, horned like the devil, jaws wide over the spout like an infernal tunnel. Clawing, gurgling, Agatha tried to stop herself, but the rain bashed her along in gushing bursts. She looked down and saw the gargoyle blast fire from its nose, which rocketed across the pipe. Agatha ducked underwater to avoid instant cremation and bobbed back up, clinging to the rail’s edge above the final drop. The next rush of rain would send her right into the gargoyle’s open mouth.
Then she remembered the gargoyles when she first saw them: guarding the gutter, spewing rain from their mouths.
What goes out must come in.
She heard the next wave coming behind her. With a silent prayer, Agatha let go and fell into the demon’s smoking jaws. Just as fire and teeth skewered her, rain smashed through the spout behind her, shooting her through the hole in the gargoyle’s throat and out into the gray sky. She glanced back at the choking gargoyle and let out a scream of relief, which turned to terror as she free-fell. Through the fog, Agatha glimpsed a spiked wall about to impale her, and an open window beneath it. She curled into a desperate ball, just missed the lethal blades, and crashed on her stomach, dripping wet, and coughing up water on the sixth floor of Malice Hall.
“I—thought—gargoyles—were—decoration,” she wheezed.
Clutching her leg, Agatha limped down the dorm hall, hunting for signs of Sophie.
Just as she was about to start pounding on doors, she caught sight of one at the end of the hall, grafittied with a caricature of a blond princess, splashed with painted slurs: LOSER, READER, EVER LOVER.
Agatha knocked hard. “Sophie! It’s me!”
Doors started opening at the other end of the hall.
Agatha pounded harder. “Sophie!”
Black-robed girls started emerging from their rooms. Agatha jiggled Sophie’s door handle and shoved against the frame, but it wouldn’t budge. Just as the Nevergirls turned, poised to discover the intruder in pink, Agatha took a running start, threw herself against the defaced door of Room 66, which swung open and slammed shut behind her.
“YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHAT I WENT THROUGH TO GET HE—” She stopped.
Sophie was crouched over a puddle of water on the floor, singing as she applied blush in her reflection.
“I’m a pretty princess, sweet as a pea,
Waiting for my prince to marry me. . . .”
Three bunk mates and three rats watched from across the room, mouths open in shock.
Hester looked up at Agatha. “She flooded our floor.”
“To do her makeup,” said Anadil.
“Whoever heard of anything so evil?” Dot grimaced. “Song included.”
“Is my face even?” Sophie said, squinting into the puddle. “I can’t go to class looking like a clown.” Her eyes shifted. “Agatha, darling! About time you came to your senses. Your Uglification class starts in two minutes and you don’t want to make a poor first impression.”
Agatha stared at her.
“Of course,” Sophie said, standing up. “We have to switch clothes first. Come, off they go.”
“You’re not going to class, darling,” Agatha said, turning red. “We’re going to the School Master’s tower right now before we’re stuck here forever!”
“Don’t be a boob,” said Sophie, tugging at Agatha’s dress. “We can’t just break into some tower in broad daylight. And if you’re going home anyway, you should give me your clothes now so I don’t miss any assignments.”
Agatha wrenched away. “Okay, that’s it! Now listen to—”
“You’ll blend right in here,” Sophie smiled, studying Agatha next to her roommates.
Agatha lost her fire. “Because I’m . . . ugly?”
“Oh, for goodness’ sakes, Aggie, look at this place,” Sophie said. “You like gloom and doom. You like suffering and unhappiness and, um . . . burnt things. You’ll be happy here.”
“We agree,” said a voice behind Agatha, and she turned in surprise.
“You come live here,” Hester said to her—
“And she drowns in the lake,” Dot scowled at Sophie, still wounded by her jibe at the Welcoming.
“We liked you the moment we saw you,” Anadil cooed, rats licking Agatha’s feet.
“You belong here with us,” Hester said, as she, Anadil, and Dot crowded around Agatha, whose head swung nervously between this villainous threesome. Did they really want to be her friend? Was Sophie right? Could being a villain make her . . . happy?
Agatha’s stomach churned. She didn’t want to be Evil! Not when Sophie was Good! They had to get out of this place before it tore them apart!
“I’m not leaving you!” she cried to Sophie, breaking away.
“No one’s asking you to leave me, Agatha,” Sophie said tightly. “We’re just asking you to leave your clothes.”
“No!” Agatha shouted. “We’re not switching clothes. We’re not switching rooms. We’re not switching schools!”
Sophie and Hester exchanged furtive glances.
“We’re going home!” Agatha said, voice catching. “We can be friends there—on the same side—no Good, no Evil—we’ll be happy forev—”
Sophie and Hester tackled her. Dot and Anadil pulled the pink dress off Agatha’s body, and the four of them shoved Sophie’s black robes on in its place. Shimmying into her new pink dress, Sophie threw open the door. “Goodbye, Evil! Hello, Love!”
Agatha stumbled to her feet and looked down at a putrid black sack that fit just how she liked.
“And all is right in the world,” Hester sighed. “Really, I don’t know how you were ever friends with that tram—”
“Get back here!” Agatha yelled, pursuing Sophie in pink through the hall’s hordes of black. Shocked by an Ever in their midst, Nevers swarmed around Sophie and started to beat her about the head with books, bags, and shoes—
“No! She’s one of us!”
All the Nevers turned to Hort, in the stairwell, including dumbstruck Sophie. Hort pointed at Agatha in black.
“That’s the Ever!”
The Nevers unleashed a new war cry and mobbed Agatha as Sophie shoved Hort away and escaped down the stairs. Agatha scraped through the gauntlet with a few well-placed kicks and slid down the banister to cut Sophie off. With Sophie in sight, she tracked her through a tight corridor, reached out her hand to grab her by the pink collar, but Sophie turned a corner, ran up snaking steps, and veered off the first floor. Agatha swerved into a dead end, saw Sophie magically jump through a wall, blood-splattered “NO STUDENTS!” and with a flying leap, Agatha jumped through the portal right after her—
And landed on the Evil end of Halfway Bridge.
But this was where the chase ceased, for Sophie was too far to Good to catch. Through the fog, Agatha could see her glowing with joy.
“Agatha, he’s King Arthur’s son,” Sophie gushed. “A real-life prince! But what do I say to him? How do I show him I’m the one?”
Agatha tried to hide her hurt. “You’d leave me here . . . alone?”
Sophie’s face softened.
“Please don’t worry, Aggie. Everything is perfect now,” she said gently. “We’ll still be best friends. Just in different schools, like we planned. No one can stop us from being friends, can they?”
Agatha gazed at Sophie’s beautiful smile and believed her.
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