Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Sophie 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 it’ll be you or Agatha 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. Scowling at the noise and mention of her sister even being on her level, “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 sister, and only friend, lived in the cemetery with the town doctor. 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 my sister,” said Sophie.

“Your sisters a Witch?” said Radley, startled.

“She’s not a witch.”

“She has no friends and she’s queer. That makes her a witch.”

Sophie almost refrained from pointing out this made Radley a witch too, But she ended up calling him one anyway.

“The School Master will take one you for the Evil School,” he said. “Then you’ll need a new friend.”

“I cant, sorry. I’ll be going to the School for Good,” Sophie said, jaw tightening.

“He’ll take Belle for the that 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 (Agatha came every weekend to honour her late mother, regardless of whether her mother truly loved her or not), 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 it was just as inviting. The steps leading up to the porch glowed with a golden stained wood. Greed flowing birches and vines wormed their way around light wood, and the sharply angled roof, made of yellow-ish tiles, looked regal like a king’s crown.

As she climbed the porch steps, Sophie tried to ignore the smell, a strong scent of lavender and thyme, and adverted her eyes from the glowering doves that seemed to watch her closely.

She knocked on the door.

“Go away” came a velvety voice.

“That’s no way to speak to your best friend,” Sophie cooed.

“That doesn't change anything.”

“Of course it does darling! Who made you upset?” Sophie asked, wondering if Radley had somehow made her sister upset.

“None of your business.”

Sophie took a deep breath. She didn’t want another rude incident like with Radley. “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 sisters are for?” Sophie said. “To help each other?”

“To support each other, Sophie. It goes both ways.”

Sophie tried to find something nice to say. She took too long and heard sandals tap 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!”

The tapping stopped. “Ones you made? Or did you buy them?”

Sophie shrank from the slinking cat. “Fluffy and buttery, just like you love!”

The cat hissed.

“Agatha, let me in—”

“You’ll say I’m ugly.”

“You’re not ugly.”

“Then why’d you say it last time?”

“Because you were wearing a hideous dress last time! Agatha, the cat’s spitting—”

“Maybe he smells ulterior motives.”

The cat bared its claws.

“Agatha, open the door!”

It pounced at her face. Sophie screamed. A hand stabbed between them and scooped the cat up.

Sophie looked up.

“Reaper ran out of toys,” said Agatha.

Her glossy dome of black hair shone in the midday sun. Her silky blue dress, with a boned bodice, did a wonderful job of showing off her snowy pale skin and petite figure. Large brown eyes seemed to peek out from under her hair adorably.

“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 not hanging out with Belle.”

“Because you’re way cuter than Belle,” said Sophie.

“My mother says hanging out with someone just for their looks is shallow Sophie, we are sisters, isn't that enough reason?” said Agatha. Sophie flinched at agatha referring to Callis, the town's doctor, mother. The twins mother had only been dead for 5 years, but Vanessa had disregarded Agatha way before then. Callis had babysat the girls from when they were five and as time went on, Vanessa started dropping agatha off at callis’ door alone and more often. Starting about a year before Vanessa died (the girls were six), Agatha started just living with Callis after Vanessa made it clear that she didn't want her daughter anymore. 

She reached into Sophie’s basket and pulled back the napkin to reveal dry, butterless bran biscuits. Agatha gave Sophie a sad look and retreated into the house. Commenting on her weight again? Sophie new she had caused the eating disorder that ruined Agatha the year before but still insists that she ‘ could be thinner ’

“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. Agatha had always been too quick to forgive

“A short one.” Agatha glided past her. “But if you say anything shallow or stuck up, 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 gasped at the villagers. “How can a whole town believe that your looks will change your soul?”

“Because they do.”

Agatha stopped walking. “You can’t actually believe that is true.”

“Of course I do,” said Sophie.

“That something as simple as dirt on your face or how nice your hair is can change the direction of your fate or how good or evil the soul you're born with is?”

“Sounds about right.”

“Tell me if you see an oven.”

“Why?”

“I want to put my head in it. And how, pray tell, does this affect how good or evil your soul is?”

“Well, in every fairytale I have ever read, the princesses always look the same. Long luscious hair, thin waists, small hips and skinny thighs,” Sophie said. “And the people who go to evil are always ugly so obviously how you look affects it.”

“Long luscious hair?” Agatha giggled. “Who came up with this? A four-year-old?, Snow white had short hair”

“Agatha, the proof’s in the storybooks! You can see the children who were taken for good in the drawings! Jack, Rose, Rapunzel—they were all beautiful—”

“I don’t see anything, because I choose to focus on their character and the story rather than what their face looks like.”

“Sure Agatha, You would definitely know” Sophie asked.

Agatha grimaced. “Look, its not about the looks ok? You make it a mission to do ten good deeds per day dont you? If it was all about looks then you wouldnt be doing all that stuff just to make sure the school master thinks your good, would you?”

“Its just to help my profile along.”

“You shouldn't have to ‘Help your profile along’. good deeds come from the soul of a good person and if that good person is blessed with looks then so be it. You are a great person Sophie, and you have been so blessed to be as beautiful as you are, and your soul is pure, no matter what you look like.”

“That’s the stupidest explanation I’ve ever heard.”

“That was mean Sophie,” Agatha said.

There was something about being called mean 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 going to go to the Evil School, looking like you do.” Sophie looked Agatha up and down. Comments about Agatha’s weight floated to the forefront of Sophie’s mind. 

Agatha stopped laughing. Then her gaze moved past Sophie into the square. The villagers were staring at them in confusion. One beautiful girl in pink, the traditional princess, One fair skinned girl in a pale blue, beautifully graceful. Who would the School Master pick?

Frozen still, Agatha watched dozens of scared eyes bore into her. Her first thought was that the villagers thought she was fat and ugly, her anxiety and ED floating to the surface of her feelings. 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, she looked pale and sick.

“Where?”

“Away from people.”

As the sun weakened to a red orb, two girls, Both beautiful, 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, glancing at the food Sophie was packing into the pouch. Looking away, Agatha felt undeniably sick at the thought of food.

Agatha looked up startled. She couldn't be relapsing could she? Callis worked so hard on helping her! But Agatha still couldn't look at the vegetables.

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. She shivered at the mere thought of leaving Callis alone, but was contented by knowing that Callis was a witch and if she did end up at the school for good and evil, then Callis could always visit her.

“Except me, you mean,” said Sophie.

“And me Sophie, I’m going if you are”

Sophie bit her lip and went back to cucumbers.

“Callis is never at home when I visit anymore.”

“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 Callis did not hold her in high favour after the ‘Illness’ Agatha suffered. Sophie scoffed internally, its not an illness if it makes you skinny, then it's a diet. “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 cheeky ‘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 cheeky now.”

“Who asked you to give me a ‘diet’? I was perfectly fine the way i was.”

“You always listen.”

“Because you always seem happy when i do,” said Agatha. “And I want to make you happy.”

“Make me happy?” Sophie’s eyes flashed. “You’re lucky that i tried to help you when you were as big as you were, it was only the nice thing to do, and no one else seemed to be helping you. You’re lucky that someone like me would be your friend. You’re lucky that I am such a good person.”

“I knew it!” Agatha cried. “I’m your Good Deed! Just a pawn for you to impress the School Master! I said you would go if your soul is pure, and I thought it was!!”

Sophie didn’t say anything for a long time.

“Maybe I started to visit you to impress the School Master,” she confessed finally. “But there’s more to it now.”

“Because I found you out,” Agatha wept.

“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, can we be sisters too?.”

Sophie smiled and took her hand. “Well, now we’ll be friends at our new school.”

Agatha groaned and pulled away. “Ill be in the evil school if we both go. How will we be friends in different schools? Is it even possible? Why do i have to go to evil, i dont want to hurt people!”

“No one says you’re evil, Agatha,” Sophie sighed. “You’re just different.”

Agatha narrowed her eyes. “Different how?”

“Well, for starters, you rarely dress up or have dinner parties”

“Because i have no need to dress up and callis doesn't like having people over.”

“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 breaking up with her prince for kissing her while she was asleep.”

“He never asked. He should have asked.” Agatha shivered at the thought of someone touching her without asking.

“Instead of jewellery, you gave me a flower crown for my birthday!”

“I spent hours finding all of your favourite flowers and plants and weaving them, the thorns cut up my hands but i didn't stop. 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?”

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.

Chapter Text

By 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. Sophie wondered whether Agatha would look like Honora in the next few years.
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 both daughter’s blessings first for the Elders to allow it (Agatha gave her blessing the same day he asked). 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(and a witch, Sophie thought off-handedly).
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 watched as Radley ate the gingerbread and ran away. Agatha just wanted to be sure she could say goodbye to her sister before Sophie was eventually taken to the School of Good to be a princess. 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 being dragged away by the school master before agatha had a chance to say goodbye and that she loved her. So she returned to Sophie’s garden and waited behind a tree, listening as Sophie undid her window (singing a shallow 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 tucked herself into bed. Sophie was safe and Agatha had her chance to wish her sister good luck in her fairytale, even if she wasn't awake to hear it. Sophie wouldn't need her while she was becoming a princess, Agatha believed she was much too fat and ugly to be a princess (she is wrong and Sophie is a bitch for causing an eating disorder). Here in this safe, secluded world, Agatha would learn to live without her sister, or die without her,.
As Agatha glided 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 pale skin, worried she was sick. Adults whispered as she passed, assuming magic was used to make a child so beautiful (Agatha was unaware of this fact). Even the grave keepers on the hill whispered at the sight of her. With each new year, the whispers in town grew louder—“magic,” “fake,” “School Master”—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 (“His Blond Hair” about a boy she has had dreams about and “Heaven Is a Crystal Garden” were her best), drew portraits of Reaper that actually drew mice in (fortunately for Reaer, Unfortunate for the mice), and even tried her hand at a book of fairy tales, Castle Ever After, about beautiful children who ran away from bad parents and got to live in wonderful castles. But she had no one to show these things to until the day Sophie knocked.
Reaper licked her ankles as she stepped onto her shining porch. She heard singing inside—
“In the forest primeval
A School for Good and Evil . . .”
Agatha grinned and pushed open the door.
Her mother, back turned, sang cheerily as she packed a trunk with her nice dresses, shoes, and books.
“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 dresses is enough?” she asked, almond eyes shimering, hair a floating in hazel ringlets.
Agatha winced at just how beautiful Callis is. “They’re exactly the same,just a different colour,” she muttered. “Why do i you three?”
“In case you need to lend one to a friend, dear.”
“These are for me?”
“I put two shoes in case one gets squashed, a perfume in case theirs smells, and a few vials of lavender, rose petals, and clove pods. Who knows how long theirs have been sitting there!”
Agatha knew the answer but asked anyway. “Mother, what do I need dresses, shoes, and herbs for?”
“For Princesses Welcoming, of course!” Callis sung. “You don’t want to get to the School for Good and look like an villager.”
Agatha kicked off her heels. “ Why is it so hard to accept I’m happy here? I have everything I need. My bed, my cat, and my sister.”
“Well, you should learn from your Sister, 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 Princess? You know i taught at the school for evil agatha, i saw and pretty much raised 240 future princesses, princes, witches and villains. I know what a future princess when i see one, i know you deserve to go”
Agatha slid under her covers. “Well, everyone in this town thinks im a witch so you must be wrong mother im sorry. But its the whole town against you, even sophie thinks im going to be in evil.”
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. How dare that wicked girl say your evil child, im the reason she exists and she threatens my childs emotional and physical health.”
Agatha stared at her, stunned.
Callis smiled brightly and resumed packing. “But do take care of your friend, dear. The School for Evil might seem like a group of kids playing with potions, 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.
Callis looked into the woods and made eye contact with the school master.’Protect my daughter, please.’ she mouthed. Callis saw the figure nod, she smiled. “You still care…”
___________________
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.
Chucking the cake, Agatha gazed through a 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 binned the bit of 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.
And he doesn’t want me.
Relief crashed over her (and a underling feeling of disappointment), 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 boot 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! You let radley eat my cookies!” 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 infront of sophie, in an attempt to protect her sister. Sophie rolled her eyes. “Oh, sit down for goodness’ sake.” Agatha shook in place, but her face was determined --the door slammed open with a deafening crack, hurling wood across the room.
It was the girls 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 gasped as the school master scooped agatha into his arms. Agatha felt him grab something.
Screams surrounded the girls.
Agatha watched shouting villagers chase after them as the shadow carried her and dragged Sophie towards the woods. And while more and more villagers howled and chased—
Sophie smiled ear to ear, and so did agatha, for a moment, before remembering that even though they will in the woods together, they will be on opposing sides.
Stefan lunged through the window and ran after them. But just as the villagers reached the girls, their torches magically exploded and trapped them in rings of fire. Stefan dodged the gauntlet of firetraps and dashed to save his daughters before the shadow pulled them 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.”
Stefan ran ferociously, but Sophie and Agatha 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. She’d been right about Agatha all along. But why was he carrying agatha? And not her? She was the princess! 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 Stefan charge through the flames.
“Father, no!” Sophie cried—
Stefan 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 Stefan as the shadow pulled them into pitch-black forest. Agatha thrashed wildly, trying to wrestle Sophies grip on Stefan and Stefan’s grip on Sophie. “YOU’RE RUINING EVERYTHING!” Sophie howled. Sophie bit her hand. “EEEEEYIIII!!!!” Sophie brayed and flipped her body so Stefan scraped against dirt. Stefan flipped Sophie back and climbed towards the shadow, his boot squashing Sophie’s face.
“WHEN MY HANDS FIND YOUR NECK—”
They felt themselves leave the ground.
“AAHHHHHHHH *thud**groan*” the sisters heard as their father was shaken off them.
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.
“Are you ok sophie?.”
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, Sophie’s body collided and crashed, dress tearing on thorns and twigs, face slamming into ricocheting limbs (some other power leaving Agatha completely untouched), 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 fear, 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.

Chapter Text

Sophie 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 the 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 smouldered 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 made a friend.
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 surprised Agatha most. It was that these girls looked just 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 to do was hide, ‘all these girls were so skinny! I wish i was as small as them’. 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 grab the jingling boy off her hand, but it flew and bit her neck, then her bottom. Other fairies tried to subdue the rogue as she cried, but it bit them too and attacked Agatha again. Incensed, she tried to calm the fairy, but it moved lightning quick, so she turned around uselessly while it bit her over and over until the fairy mistakenly flew into her hand and she hit it. Agatha looked worried and checked on the fairy.
Sixty beautiful girls gaped at her. The diamond among the rubies.
Agatha felt a twist in her stomach, Why were these girls staring at her? Do they think she is fat like sophie does? Agatha looked at her stomach and thighs, ‘maybe i should eat less…’
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 apologise to the fairy, but before she could, she felt herself being 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. Agatha mouthed an apology to the fairy and smiled, the fairy smiled back. The fairy boy nodded as if to say he was sorry too and she was forgiven.
When the fairies brought the girls down in front of the glass castle, they let go of their shoulders and let them proceed freely. 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 sister, she had to find a way to cross that moat. But first she needed to get away from the other girls. 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, they forced her to see what sophie saw in her. 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 do something. 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.”
“I havdnt said it yet, Its Agatha” said Agatha, eyes pinned to the ground.
“Do you need help Agatha?” 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 school Master carried me here himself, and my sister sophie is supposed to be here too. Have you seen her?”
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 children with the purest souls are destined to be princesses and heroes?”
“Oh,” said Beatrix, lips pursed. “So you’re not lost?”
“Why would i be lost?”
“Or confused?” said another with Arabian skin and jet-black hair.
“No?”
“Or blind?” said a third with deep ruby curls.
“”Im sure im not blind.”
“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, no sorry,” Agatha giggled. “I came from Gavaldon in the reader world.”
Murmuring girls huddled in. “Are you sure Agatha? No one has seen the scool master in 200 years, not just anyone gets to meet him,” Beatrix huffed.
“He has been taking people from my village for 200 years, maybe you are just the ones who havent seen him” said Agatha, “he is a tall shadow with icy blue eyes—”
“Perhaps you lied about meeting him?,” said Beatrix.
“Or about him taking you from your village,” said Beatrix.
“Or lied about being admitted to this school at all.”
“But i am—”
Agatha felt was a nervous rash across her neck—
“You know what happens to intruders, don’t you,” Beatrix said.
“Im not a—” Do something!
Girls crowded her ominously.
Do something now!
She did the first thing she thought of and grabbed the nearest girl to hide behind.
The girls Watched as the frail girl shook behind kiko, obviously terrified. Kiko glanced back at Agatha, “Are you ok?” Agatha shook her head no. Kiko recognised the anxiety racking the small girl and looked towards the other students. ‘She is terrified’ Kiko mouthed to the other girls, ‘Lets just let her go inside and we can talk later’. The girls Watched as Agatha took this moment to run.
As Agatha sprinted for the door, she looked back with fear as 59 girls watched her flee. 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 stunned 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 was a princess..
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:
CATHERINE OF FOXWOOD
Little Snow White (Villain)
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:
DROGAN OF MURMURING MOUNTAINS
Bluebeard (Villain)
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:
KEIR OF NETHERWOOD
Tom Thumb (Henchman)
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:
FAILED
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 right place because even the faculty gave her adoring 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 temporary and that there was no point spending hours per day on your looks. Here was proof it lasted forever.
The teachers tried to disguise their nudges and whispers upon seeing the dripping-wet, Beautiful girl, but Agatha was used to catching these things (Though she didnt understand that they thought she was lovely, not fat and hideous). 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 beautiful soul. Turning away, she took comfort in the staring girls around her, who were completely confused by the incident in the hall.
“Where are the boys?” Agatha asked the girl who helped her, named Kiko, as the girls filed 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, Lovely Agatha, Queen of anxiety with an Eating Disorder.
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 sister Sophie who’s supposed to be here.”
The nymph smiled.
“I didnt mean to steal her place here,” 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.” Agatha looked at her stomach. “I know you need students but Sophie’s my best friend and if she stays then Imust be evil and horrible for stealing her place at the school for good and ruining her future as a princess.”
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, & and Chirps
Then a blue-haired nymph held up her uniform: an adorable, 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 the books that Callis taught her about and they did everything Callis said they would. They 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, skinny, 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 people staring.
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 mouse 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, hiding away from 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 names—
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! Im the princess! Agatha is a witch!”
“There are no mistakes,” a wolf growled.
They could speak after all.

Chapter Text

Sophie 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 realised 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 eyes 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 hate it here,” Sophie murmured. How would she convince Agatha to switch?
“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. “I have a sister here at the school, though, she is at the school for good, she is supposed to be here, not me.”
“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.”
“ My sister is a witch and im still friends with her! 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, KIKO, AGATHA!” But Reena and Millicent didn’t stay long. Reena, blessed with luscious Arabian skin and brilliant gray eyes, entered the room with a frown, only to find Agatha and walk right back out. “She seems nice, But she looks so weird,” Agatha heard her exclaim. “She is so pale and i can see her hip bones!” (“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, explained a fear of heights and asked for a room on a lower floor. And so Agatha was alone, which made her feel really self concious.
But she felt a little bit better when the nice girl from the foyer walked in, Kiko, her name was.
“Your Agatha Right?” Kiko asked politely
“Yes, its nice to meet you Kiko”
“I dont mean to intrude agatha but why werent you at lunch just now?”
“Its not rude kiko. I just dont have a super healthy relationship with food. Not to mention beatrix made me uncomfortable and i lost my appetite. My sister says i could probably loose a few kilos anyway so not much to be missed”
“That is so cruel! How could your sister say that?”
“Its not her fault Kiko, she is only trying to help.”
“At least your away from her now right?”
“Oh no, She is over at the school for evil cause i confused the bird. I just want to go over there and rescu her. shes is the princess, not me”
“When if she is the reason you look so unhealthaly skinny agatha, she is no princess of good at all…”
“Your mistaken kiko, you just dont know her like i do”
The girls fell into silence on their different beds, kiko unacking and agatha looking around her room. The girls and the past conversation didnt bother her.
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, blue dress bunched against the pink wall. The amount of things going on in the room was overwhelming
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 brought them here.
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 back to the other schools.
But first she needed to rescue her sister.
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 were cute, and the matching pink high heels were nice too (agatha would prefer blue, pink was sophies thing). But the outfit was her only chance to fit in. 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-nine 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 fat and ugly, no matter where she went.
She slammed the door, picked at the petals on her sleeve, slipped off her pink heels and set them against her bed. She slumped against the wall and closed her eyes.
Agatha wished for Callis.
She opened her eyes and glimpsed her face in the jeweled mirror.
‘Im going to be late to the welcoming’ Agatha thought. Just as she was about to get up there was a knock on the door.
“*knock knock* Agatha? Can i come in?” Kiko requested quietly.
“Its your room too kiko, you dont have to ask”
Kiko held up a few items, “You look uncomfortable in pink so i borrowed some blue dye for your heels and dress from tabitha, i have some blush and lip gloss from angelica, and some jewellery from annie.”
“What is all this for?”
Kiko grinned. “Lets get you ready to meet some princes.”

Chapter Text

Each 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 (As well as a blue one?), 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 theatre. 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 blue dress.

“Huh?”

“Quick! It will solve everything.”

“You can’t be serious Sophie! I cant take it off here, and i like the school for good!”

“No Dearest Aggie,” Sophie smiled. “I need to be in your school and you need to be in mine. Just like we talked about, remember?”

“But i already made a friend!” Agatha sputtered. “Why dont we go to the school masters tower and beg him to transfer you? Or even go home? Better than being separated”

“Why? What do I have in Gavaldon to go back to?” Sophie said.

Agatha blushed with hurt. “You have Dad, and Honora. They arent that bad you know”

“Right. Nothing. Now, my dress, please.”Agatha frowned at her sister. Didnt she love their Father? Sophie had to have had someone but agatha to lean on after their mother passed, Right?

“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, Confused. “I don’t know what your so exited abo—”

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. Agatha fled to the good pews before she could be attacked by these strange boys.

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, nervously, with her own fair share of roses. But then she saw Sophie, heart in throat, longing for her own rose. Agatha leaned over and slipped one of her many roses into sophies hand before handing the rest out to the girls around her who didnt get any. The boys looked on disappointed.

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 wouldnt hurt himself. But luckily, 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. Agatha sat in her seat quietly, a boy as beautiful as him would never talk to her. The boy smiled and lofted his rose high in the air—

Agatha saw Sophie move too late. She ran after her, worried the wolves would punish the blond girl for disrupting, 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 pretty in blue, his rose plopped in her open palm, and smiled. As the wolf dumped Sophie with Evil and fairies guided Agatha to Good, the boy gawked wide-eyed, trying to make sense of it all. Why would this raven haired beauty try to save a Never? 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 warm feeling prickle her neck from across the aisle.

“Do you want the rose?” Agatha mouthed clearly. Tedros frowned glancing between the girls. Leaving Beatrix, he moved into the empty pew next to Agatha. Taking the rose, Tedros swept Agathas baby hairs away from her face and pinned them behind her ear with the rose.

“Its a gift of Courtship. Will you keep it please?” Tedros whispered in Agathas ear. Blushing, the frail girl nodded.

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.

“Welcome to the School for Good and Evil,” said the nicer of the two heads.

“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 slight girl from Good pointed to Agatha. “We have one too!”

“Ours smells like flowers!” yelled a villain.

“Ours is garishly pale and skinny!”

“Ours smiles too much!”

“Ours lied to us!” Sophie turned to Agatha, aghast. Agatha looks back and mouthed ‘Misunderstanding’.

“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. Agathas face fell. 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 Agatha. Sophie flushed with betrayal and glared at her sister.

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 staring at Agatha with disgust before flashing a look so full of hatred and pity it gave Sophie whiplash.

This girl needed to be dealt with immediately.

A wooden carving of a hairless cat landed in her lap, scaring the absolute life out of Sophie. She jumped on her seat, screaming and shaking her tunic until the odd sculpture plopped to the floor. She recognized the work 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 talk,” Agatha mouthed back.

“My clothes,” Sophie mouthed, and turned back to the stage.

Hester and Anadil looked at the carving, then at Agatha.

“Its good quality, and she seems to piss you off” Hester nods approvingly at the figure, “I didnt know evers could have hobbies other than makeup.”

“Agatha is the witch, not me. Im skinny, kind and everyone likes me. Aggie is fat and likes wierd things like making ‘Potions’ with her mum and performing ‘spells’. Like what even is a ‘lights out’ jinx?” Sophie groaned, Hester froze at the mention of her aunts favourite, very real, jinx.

“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 Agatha sitting so close to him (The idea of one seat for each student was completely lost on sophie). 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 Theatre in Good?” Dot hollered through a mouthful of fudge.

Pollux raised his nose. “Whoever wins the Circus of Talents gets the Theatre 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 feel like an outsider, the thought of a Beautification class was the last straw. Agatha didnt know how to beautify! She only used the most basic of creams to cleanse her face. She had to get studying that book on good looks tonight. She turned to Kiko next to her, fixing her lipstick in a pocket mirror.

“Mind if I borrow your lipstick?” Agatha asked.

Kiko critically analysed agathas complexion before handing her the pale pinky-nude lipstick. “Keep it. It will look great with your pallor”

“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 Agatha for long enough?

“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 switch schools?”

The hall went dead silent. Students turned, shell-shocked.

Agatha stood alone in the aisle, glancing up at Castor and Pollux.

The twin-headed dog jumped off the stage and landed a few feet from her, careful not to splash her with drool. Both heads looked sadly into Agatha’s eyes, wearing the same careful expression. It wasn’t clear who was who.

“Why child?” they asked carefully. Tedros froze, was it something he said? Did he spook her enough with the rose to make her want to switch?

“Im the witch. Sophie,” Agatha said, pointing at the blond Never, “Is the princess. We were accidentally switched cause i confused the stymph. Can you fix it?”

The two headed dog smiled sadly, “If the stymph dropped you here, then you are right where you are meant to be dear. Stymphs don't get confused.”

Tedros grasped her hand and started to pull her past the dog, and down the aisle to the west doors leading to good.

Sophie glowered in betrayal. Her eyes were locked on Tedros and agathas hands, intertwined. She glared at the boy like 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 sister to be her best friend. But a friend wasn’t enough for Sophie. Sophie had always wanted more.

Sophie wanted a prince. And Agatha wasn't going to stand in her way.

Chapter Text

The 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. Agatha flinched as a sick feeling settled in her stomach. Maybe she didnt need breakfast…

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 Callis told her to get to Halfway Bridge. Honor Tower to Hansel’s Haven to Merlin’s Menagerie . . .
After landing on a 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 picked up the mouse and turned it around so it could run away, only to run 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 should of been more aware of where she set the 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 felt guilty as she slid behind the Charity steps. That dress was probably really expensive.

“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 fet sick at the idea of having to sit and learn in rooms just like these ones. Agatha glimpsed a line of writing on the wall made completely out of raspberry gumdrops:

TEMPTATION IS THE PATH TO EVIL

Agathas stomach dropped, no temptation here, agatha muttered as 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 stopping to purge in the bin of one of the classrooms, puking up what would have been her breakfast if she had eaten any, or dinner…).

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 gorgeous boy from the Theatre, 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 sported a sad smile. They’d have dumped the baby in the woods. like Vanessa wanted to do with me, was a sad thought that followed agatha through the story like a stormcloud.

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 confused, 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?

“How do you know im a princess? Im fat and ugly, i belong in evil.” Agatha said sadly to her refection

“Want to know how i know? Tedros is a prince, and he didnt think we were ugly or fat, not at all.”

Agatha reached out her hand to touch the now clear barrier. Her hand pressed against what felt like steel. Agatha sighed in defeat, before trudging back into the glass towers of Good.

By the time the fairy patrol made it onto the Bridge, the fog had erased her tracks.

Chapter Text

“Why do we need to uglify?”

Sophie peeked through her fingers at Professor Manley’s bald, pimpled head and squash-colored skin, trying not to gag. Around her, Nevers sat at charred desks with rusty mirrors, cheerily bashing tadpoles to death in iron bowls. If she didn’t know better, she’d think they were making a Sunday cake. Callis would be fuming at the uncleaned bowls.

Why am I still here? she fumed through furious tears.

“Why do we need to be revolting and repugnant?” Manley jowled. “Hester!”
“Because it makes us fearsome,” Hester said, and swigged her tadpole juice, instantly springing a rash of red pox.
“Wrong!” roared Manley. “Anadil!”
“Because it makes little boys cry,” Anadil said, sprouting her own red blisters.
“Wrong! Dot!”
“Because it’s easier to get ready in the morning?” Dot asked, mixing her juice with chocolate.
“Wrong and stupid!” Manley scorned. “Only once you give up the surface can you dig beneath it! Only once you relinquish vanity can you be yourself!”
Sophie crawled behind desks, lunged for the door—the knob burnt her hand and she yelped.
“Only once you destroy who you think you are can you embrace who you truly are!” Manley said, glaring right at her.
Whimpering, Sophie crawled back to her desk, past villains exploding in shingles. Smoky-green ranks popped out of thin air around her—“1” over Hester, “2” over Anadil, “3” over oily, brown-skinned Ravan, “4” over blond, pointy-eared Vex. Hort drank his draught excitedly, only to see a wee zit spurt from his chin. He smacked away a stinky “19,” but the rank smacked him right back.
“Ugliness means you rely on intelligence,” Manley leered, slinking towards Sophie. “Ugliness means you trust your soul. Ugliness means freedom.”
He flung a bowl onto her desk.
Sophie looked down into black tadpole juice. Some of it was still moving.
“Actually, Professor, I believe my Beautification teacher will object to my participation in this assign—”
“Three failing marks and you’ll end up something uglier than me,” Manley spat.
Sophie looked up. “I really don’t think that’s possible.”
Manley turned to the class. “Who would like to help our dear Sophie taste freedom?”
“Me!”
Sophie whipped around.
“Don’t worry,” Hort whispered, “you’ll look better this way.”
Before Sophie could scream, he plunged her head into the bowl.

Lying in her bed in her room in the purity tower, Agatha replayed the scene from the bridge. Her reflection in the invisible barrier and the freaky footsteps behind her. Whatever happened, it was a close call. Because if Sophie made it to Good, she’d never leave, and Agatha would be sent to the School for Evil. Agatha’s breath shallowed. She had to make sure the faculty didn’t discover the mix-up! She had to make sure they weren’t switched to the right schools! She couldnt survive in evil! But how could she save Sophie from the school for evil? They both had to go home or sophie would break.
Go to class, her heart whispered.
Pollux said the schools kept an even number of students to preserve the balance. So for the mistake to be corrected, they both would have to be switched. As long as Agatha held her place in the School for Good, then Sophie was stuck in the School for Evil. And if there was one thing she knew for sure, it was that Sophie couldn’t possibly last as a villain. A few more days there and she’d beg for Gavaldon.
Go to class. Of course!
She would find a way to last at this sexist school and wear Sophie down. For the first time since they were kidnapped, Agatha opened her heart to love.
Love dwindled ten minutes later.
Professor Emma Anemone, whistling in a blinding yellow dress and long fox-fur gloves, walked into her pink taffy classroom, took one look at Agatha, and stopped whistling. But then she murmured “Rapunzel’s body took some work too,” and launched into her first lesson on “Making Smiles Kinder.”
“Now the key is to communicate with your eyes,” she chirped, and demonstrated the perfect princess smile. With her bulging eyes and wild yellow hair matching her dress, Agatha thought she looked like a scared canary. But Agatha knew her chances of getting home rested in her hands, so she mimicked her toothy beam with the others.
Professor Anemone walked around surveying the girls. “Not so much squinting . . . A little less nose, dear . . . Oh my, absolutely beautiful!” She was talking about Beatrix, who lit up the room with her dazzling smile. “That, my Evers, is a smile that can win the heart of the steeliest prince. A smile that can broker peace in the greatest of wars. A smile that can lead a kingdom to hope and prosperity!”
Then she saw Agatha. “You there! Not so much teeth!”
With her teacher looming, Agatha tried to concentrate and duplicate Beatrix’s perfect smile. For a second she thought she had it.
“Goodness! Now it’s a gummy grin! A smile, child! Just your normal, everyday smile!”
Happy. Think of something happy.
But all she could think of was Sophie on the Bridge, leaving her for a boy she didn’t even know.
“Now it’s positively beautiful” Professor Anemone cooed.
Agatha turned and saw the whole class scowling, as if expecting her to be the class captain in no time. (“Do you think she eats cake?” said Beatrix. “I’m so glad I moved out,” Reena sighed.)
Agatha glowed. It couldn’t have been that good.
Then she saw Professor Anemone’s face.
“If you ever need a man to trust you, if you ever need a man to save you, if you ever need a man to love you, whatever you do, child . . . smile at him.”
Princess Etiquette, taught by Pollux, was worse. He arrived in a bad mood, hobbling with his massive canine head attached to a skinny goat’s carcass and muttering that Castor “has the body this week.” He looked up and saw girls staring at him.
“And here I thought I was teaching princesses. All I see are twenty ill-mannered girls gaping like toads. Are you toads? Do you like to catch flies with your little pink tongues?”
The girls stopped staring after that.
The first lesson was “Princess Posture,” which involved the girls descending the four tower staircases with nests of nightingale eggs on their heads. Though most of the girls succeeded without breaking any eggs, Agatha had an easier time. There were a number of reasons for this: a lifetime of slouching, Beatrix and Reena intently watching her with their new Kinder Smiles, her mind chattering that Sophie would win this with her eyes closed, and the absurdity of a dog barking about posture while teetering on goat legs. In the end, she left no eggs bleeding yolk on marble.
“Twenty beautiful nightingales who will not have life . . . because of you,” said Pollux. Glaring at Kiko.
As class ranks appeared over each girl in ethereal gold clouds—Beatrix 1st, of course—Agatha spun to see a plated “3” over her head. “20” hover over Kiko, then crash into her head.
Two classes, two top-place ranks. One more and she would learn what happened to children who won fairytales. With her plan to get Sophie home crumbling by the minute, Agatha hurried to her next class, desperate to prove to herself that gavaldon would be better than the school for Good.

Shingles wouldn’t keep Cinderella from the Ball. Shingles wouldn’t keep Sleeping Beauty from her kiss.
Staring at her pustuled reflection in her desk mirror, Sophie forced her kindest smile. She had solved every problem in life with beauty and charm and she would solve this one the same way.
Henchmen Training took place in the Belfry, a dreary open-air cloister atop Malice tower that required a thirty-flight ascent up a staircase so narrow the students were squeezed into single file.
“So . . . nauseous,” Dot panted like an overheated camel.
“If she pukes near me, I’m throwing her off the tower,” Hester crabbed.
As she climbed, Sophie tried not to think about pustules, puke, or putrid Hort, who was trying to cram beside her. “I know you hate me,” he pressed. She lurched to the right to block him. Hort tried the left. “But it was the challenge and I didn’t want you to fail and—”
Sophie thwarted him with her elbow and raced up the last few steps, desperate to prove to her new teacher she was in the wrong place. Agtha belongs here, she is fat, I'm beautiful. Unfortunately that teacher was Castor.
“’COURSE I GET THE READER IN MY GROUP.”
Even worse, his assistant, Beezle, was the red-skinned dwarf that Sophie had slapped on the ladder the day before. Upon seeing her blistered face, he giggled like a hyena. “Ugly witch!”
Head off center on his massive dog’s body, Castor wasn’t as amused. “You’re all revolting enough as is,” he groused, and sent Beezle to fetch honeysuckle, which promptly restored the villains’ faces. While they groaned in disappointment, Sophie heaved with relief.
“Whether you win or lose your battles depends on the competence and loyalty of your henchmen!” Castor said. “Of course some of you will end up henchmen yourselves, with your own lives depending on the strength of your Leader. Better pay attention then, if you want to stay alive!”
Sophie gritted her teeth. Agatha was probably singing to doves somewhere and here she was about to wrangle bloodthirsty goons.
“And now for your first challenge. How to train . . .” Castor stepped aside. “A Golden Goose.”
Sophie gaped at an elegant gold-feathered bird behind him, sleeping serenely in its nest.
“But Golden Geese hate villains,” Anadil frowned.
“Which means if you can train one, then taming a mountain troll will be easy,” Castor said.
The Goose opened its pearly blue eyes, took in its villainous audience, and smiled.
“Why is it smiling?” Dot said.
“Because it knows we’re wasting our time,” Hester said. “Golden Geese only listen to Evers.”
“Excuses, excuses,” Castor yawned. “Your job is to make that pathetic creature lay one of its prized eggs. The bigger the egg, the higher your rank.”
Sophie’s heart raced. If the bird only listened to the Good, she could prove here and now she didn’t belong with these monsters! All she had to do was make the Goose lay the biggest egg!
On the Belfry wall, Castor carved five strategies for training henchmen:

1. Command
2. Taunt
3. Trick
4. Bribe
5. Bully

“Now don’t go bullying the blasted bird unless you’ve gone through the other four,” Castor warned. “Ain’t nothin’ stopping a henchman from bullying back.”
Sophie made sure she was last in line and watched the first five kids have zero luck, including Vex, who went as far as grabbing its throat, only to see the Golden Goose smile in return.
Miraculously, Hort was the first to succeed. He had tried barking “Lay egg,” calling it a “prat,” and tempting it with worms, before giving up and kicking its nest. Wrong thing to kick. In a flash, the Goose yanked his tunic over his head and Hort yelped about blindly, banging into walls. (Sophie vowed if she had to see this boy one more time without clothes, she’d gouge out her eyes.) But the Goose seemed delighted. It flapped its wings and sniggered and squawked so raucously that it lost control and excreted a golden egg the size of a coin.
Hort held it up in stunned triumph. “I won!”
“Right, because in the heat of battle, you’ll have time to run around naked and make your Goose crap,” Castor snarled.
Still, the dog had said whoever made the biggest egg won, so the other Nevers mimicked Hort’s tactic. Dot made faces, Ravan made shadow puppets, Anadil tickled it with a feather, and bald, doughy Brone sat on Beezle, much to the bird’s delight. (“Smelly witch!” the dwarf howled.)
Scowling at all this, Hester walked up and punched the Goose in the stomach. It dropped an egg the size of a fist. “Amateurs,” she sneered.
Then it was Sophie’s turn.
She approached the Golden Goose, which seemed exhausted from laughing and laying. But when the Goose met Sophie’s gaze, it stopped blinking and sat still as a statue, studying every inch of her. For a moment, Sophie felt an eerie chill float through her body, as if she’d let a stranger into her soul. But then she looked into the bird’s warm, wise eyes and swelled with hope. Surely it saw she was different from the rest.
Yes, you certainly are different.
Sophie backed up. She peeked around to see if anyone else had heard the bird’s thoughts. But the rest of the Nevers just glowered impatiently, since she had to finish before they got their ranks.
Sophie turned to the Goose. You can hear my thoughts?
They’re quite loud, replied the Goose.
What about the others?
No. Just you.
Because I’m Good? Sophie smiled.
I can give you what you want, said the Goose. I can make them see you’re a princess. One perfect egg and they’ll put you with your prince.
Sophie dropped to her knees. Please! I’ll do anything you want. Just help me.
The bird smiled. Close your eyes and make a wish.
Overcome with relief, Sophie closed her eyes. In that shining moment, she wished for Tedros, her beautiful, perfect prince who could make her happy . . .
She suddenly wondered if Agatha told him they were friends. She hoped not.
Gasps flew around her. Sophie opened her eyes and saw the Goose’s gold feathers finish turning gray. Its eyes darkened from blue to black. Its warm smile went dead.
And there was definitely no egg.
“What happened!” Sophie twirled. “What’s it mean?”
Castor looked petrified. “It means she’d rather give up her power than help you.”
A “1” exploded in red flames over Sophie’s head like a diabolical crown.
“It’s the most evil thing I’ve ever seen,” Castor said softly.
Stunned, Sophie watched her classmates huddle like scared minnows—all except Hester, eyes blazing, as if she’d just found her competition. Behind her, Beezle shivered deep in a dark corner.
“Grand Witch!” he squeaked.
“No no no!” Sophie cried. “Not Grand Witch!”
But Beezle nodded with certainty. “Grand High Witch Ultimate!”
Sophie whipped back to the Goose. What did I do!
But the Goose, gray as fog, looked at her as if it had never seen her in its life and let out the most ordinary of squawks.

From the Belfry the squawk echoed across the moat, into the soaring silver tower that split the two sides of the bay. A silhouette appeared at the window and gazed down at his domain.
Dozens of smoky rank numbers—brightly colored ones from Good, dark and gloomy ones from Evil—drifted from the two schools over the waters and wafted up to his window like balloons in the wind. As each one passed, his fingers ran through the smoke, which gave him the power to see whose rank it was and how they had earned it. He sifted through dozens of numbers until he came to the one he sought: a red-flame “1” that revealed its history in a flood of images.
A Golden Goose throwing away its power for a student? Only one could have such talent. Only one could be so pure.
The one who would tip the balance.
With a chill, the School Master went back into his tower and awaited her arrival.

Curses & Death Traps took place in a bone-numbing frost chamber, with the walls, desks, and chairs made completely of ice. Sophie thought she could see bodies buried deep beneath the frozen floor.
“Itttt’s colllddd,” Hort chattered.
“It’s warmer in the Doom Room,” Lady Lesso replied.
Howls of pain echoed from the dungeon beneath their feet.
“I-I-I feeeel warm-m-er noww,” Hort stuttered, face blue.
“Cold will harden your veins,” said Lady Lesso. “Which need hardening if a Reader is placing first in challenges.” She slunk between rows of shivering students, black braid snapping against her sharp-shouldered purple gown, dagger steel heels cracking on ice.
“This is not a school for unwarranted cruelty. Hurt without reason and you are a beast, not a villain. No, our mission requires focus and care. In this class, you will learn to find the Ever who stands in the way of your goal. The one who will grow stronger as you grow weaker. They’re out there, my Nevers, somewhere in the Woods . . . your Nemesis. When the time is right, you will find and destroy them. That is your path to freedom.”
A scream echoed from the Doom Room and Lady Lesso smiled. “Your other classes may be pageants of ineptitude, but not here. There will be no challenges until I see you are worthy.”
Sophie hadn’t heard any of this. All she could hear was the Goose’s squawk banging around in her head. Convulsing with cold, she fought back tears. She had tried everything to get to Good: fleeing, fighting, pleading, switching, wishing . . . What else was left? She pictured Agatha, sitting in her classes, her seat, her school, and flushed hot red. And she thought they were friends!
“A Nemesis is your archenemy,” said Lady Lesso, purple eyes flashing. “Your other half. Your soul’s inverse. Your Achilles’ heel.”
Sophie forced herself to pay attention. After all here was a chance to learn enemy secrets. It might save her once she made it to Good.
“You will come to know your Nemesis through dreams,” Lady Lesso went on, veins pulsing under tight skin. “A Nemesis will haunt your sleep, night after night until you see nothing but his or her face. Nemesis Dreams will chill your heart and boil your blood. They will make you gnash your teeth and rip out your hair. For they are the sum of your hate. The sum of your fears.”
Lady Lesso dragged her long red nails across Hort’s desk. “Only when your Nemesis is dead will you feel quenched. Only when your Nemesis is dead will you feel free. Kill your Nemesis and Nevermore will welcome you to eternal glory!”
The class tittered with excitement.
“Of course, given our school’s history, those gates won’t open anytime soon,” she muttered.
“How do we find our Nemesis?” asked Dot.
“Who chooses them?” asked Hester.
“Will they be from our class?” Ravan asked.
“These questions are premature. Only exceptional villains are blessed with Nemesis Dreams,” Lady Lesso said. “No, first you should be asking why stuck-up, stupid, insipid Good wins every competition in this school—and how you’re going to change that.” She leered at Sophie, as if to say, whether she liked it or not, the pink-loving Reader might be their best hope.
As soon as the wolves’ howls signaled class was over, Sophie darted from the ice room, up twisting stairs, until she found a small balcony off a hall. In the privacy of fog, she leaned against the damp walls of the Evil tower and finally let herself cry. She didn’t care if it ruined her makeup or if anyone saw. She had never felt so alone or scared. She hated this horrible place and couldn’t take any more.
Sophie gazed at the School for Good, glass towers glinting across the bay. For the first time, it seemed out of reach.
Lunch!
Tedros would be there! Her shining prince, her last hope! Isn’t that what princes were for after all? To rescue princesses when all seemed lost?
Heart swelling, she wiped her tears. Just make it to lunch.
As she sprinted to Evil Hall for History of Villainy, Sophie noticed scores of buzzing Nevers crowded outside. Dot saw her and grabbed her arm. “They canceled classes! No one’s saying why.”
“Lunch will be sent to your rooms!” boomed the white wolf, as fellow wolves cracked whips and drove students to their towers.
Sophie’s heart deflated. “But what happ—”
She suddenly smelled smoke, creeping into the hall from every direction. Sophie slid between the shoving mob to a stone window, where a group of students stared in stunned silence. She followed their eyes across the bay.
A Good tower was on fire.
Dot gasped. “Who could have possibly done something so . . .”
“Brilliant,” Hester said, awestruck.
Well, Agatha had the answer to that.

Chapter Text

An hour before, Tedros had decided on a swim.

By now, the ranks for the first two classes were up on the Groom Room doors, with the prince and Beatrix tied for first and Agatha’s name just below the blond Evergirls. Inside, the girls’ Groom Room resembled a medieval spa, with three aromatic bath pools (“Hot,” “Cold,” and “Just Right”), a Little Match Girl sauna, three Rose Red makeup stations, a Cinderella-themed pedicure corner, and a waterfall shower built into a Little Mermaid lagoon. The boys’ Groom Rooms focused more on fitness, with a Midas Gold sweat lodge, a peasant-themed tanning room, and a gymnasium with Norse hammers, mud wrestling pit, saltwater lap pool, and full array of Turkish baths.

After Chivalry and Grooming, Tedros took advantage of the break before Swordplay to test out the pool. But just as he swam his last lap, he noticed Beatrix—and the seven girls who now followed her incessantly—peering wide-eyed through cracks in the wooden door.

Tedros was used to girls watching him. But when would he find one who saw more than his looks? Who saw more than King Arthur’s son? Who cared about his thoughts, his hopes, his fears? And yet here he was, pivoted purposely as he toweled so the girls could have a perfect view. His mother was right. He could pretend all he wanted, but he was just like his father, for better and worse.

With a sigh, he threw open the door to greet his fan club, breeches dripping, swan glittering on bare chest. But they were gone, victims of the fairy patrol. Tedros felt a twinge of disappointment as he turned the corner, only to smash into something, knocking it flat to the ground.

“I’m wet. Again.” Agatha frowned and looked up. “Please watch where you’re—”

It was the boy who had warped Sophie’s mind, and caused that tingling in her chest. The boy who had hijacked Sophie’s heart. The boy who had stolen her only friend.

“I’m Tedros,” he said, and held out his hand.

Agatha took it. She was hopelessly lost and needed directions, but this Tedros was the enemy, however nice he was. She pulled herself up, gave him a sad frown, and moved past his chest. That’s when she noticed, in addition to everything else she liked about this boy, he didnt smell like one either. Tedros smelt of fresh mint and something sweeter, Agatha just couldn't put her finger on, it could just be the soap he uses, but Agatha knows it's not. Something about this boy draws her heart to him, it scared her. She glided to the end of the hall, clumps tapping softly on glass, and with a last nervous glance, pulled at the door.

It was locked.

“It’s this way.” Tedros pointed to the stairwell behind him.

Agatha ducked past him, holding her head lower. He is too nice for me, better suited to someone skinny, like Sophie….. Maybe I should skip dinner too…

“Nice to meet you!” the prince called.

He heard her squeak in fear before she ran down the steps, casting shadows all the way.

Tedros grimaced. Girls loved him. They always loved him. But this beautiful girl looked at him like he was something to be feared. For a moment, he felt his confidence crack, then remembered what his father once said.

The best princesses see you. not your chin or your crown.

Tedros thought he could face down any monster, any witch, any force Evil could conjure. But this girl was different. This girl was scary. She made him feel vunerable, she could see him, and he couldnt tell if he liked it or not.

Butterflies flutter his stomach

Definitely a princess. Tedros smiled softly.

So why is she friends with that witch?

Animal Communication, taught by Princess Uma, took place on the lakeside banks of Halfway Bay. For the third time that day, Agatha arrived to find a class was Girls Only. Surely the School for Evil didn’t see the need to decide what was a “Boy” skill or “Girl” skill. But here in the Good Towers, the boys went off to fight with swords while girls had to learn dog barks and owl hoots. No wonder princesses were so scared in fairy tales, she thought. If all they could do was smile, stand straight, and speak to squirrels, then what choice did they have but to wait for a boy to rescue them?

Princess Uma looked far too young to be a teacher. Nestled in prim grass, backlit by lake shimmer, she sat very still, hands folded in her pink dress, with black hair to her waist, olive skin, almond-shaped eyes, and crimson lips pursed in a tight O. When she did speak, it was in a giggly whisper, but she couldn’t make it through a full sentence. Every few words, she’d stop to listen to a distant fox or dove and respond with her own giddy howl or chirp. When she realized she had a whole class staring at her, she cupped her hands over her face.

“Oops!” she tee-heed. “I have too many friends!”

Agatha couldn’t tell if she was nervous or just new to teaching.

“Evil has many weapons on its side,” said Princess Uma, finally settling down. “Poisons, plagues, curses, hexes, henchmen, and black, black magic. But you have animals!”

Agatha giggled. When faced with an axe-wielding henchman, she would be sure to bring a butterfly. Judging by the others’ faces, she wasn’t the only one unconvinced. Princess Uma noticed. The teacher unleashed a piercing whistle and a barrage of barks, bays, neighs, and roars blasted from the Woods beyond the schools. The girls plugged their ears in shock.

“See!” Uma chuckled. “Every animal can talk to you if you know how to talk to them. Some even remember when they were human!” With a chill, Agatha thought of the stuffed animals in the gallery. All former students, just like them.

“I know everyone wants to be a princess,” said Uma, “but those of you with low ranks won’t make good princesses. You’d end up shot or stabbed or eaten and that’s not very useful. But as a sidekick fox or spying sparrow or friendly pig, you might find a much happier ending!”

She squeaked through her teeth, and on cue, an otter bobbed to shore from the lake, balancing a jeweled storybook on its nose. “You might keep a captive maiden company or lead her to safety,” Uma said, holding out her hands. The nervous otter bumped the book on his nose to find the right page—

“Or you might help make a ball gown,” Uma said, eyeing the bumbling creature. “Or you might deliver an urgent message or—ahem!” With a yip, the otter found the page, slid the book into her hands, and collapsed from stress.

“You might even save a life,” said Uma, holding up a brilliant painting of a princess cowering as a stag speared a warlock. The princess looked just like her.

“Once upon a time, an animal saved mine and in return, it received the happiest ending of all.” From narrowed suspicion, Agatha saw all the girls’ eyes widen to worship. This wasn’t just a teacher. This was a living, breathing princess.

“So if you want to be like me, you need to do well in today’s challenge!” chirped their new idol, summoning the girls to the lake. Agatha felt herself shiver, despite the balmy fall sun. If she placed first this time, she’d never see Sophie or home again, this school is heaven, and only goodness kept her from staying. As she followed the girls to the bank, sick to her stomach, Agatha noticed Uma’s storybook, open in the grass.

“Animals love to help princesses for so many reasons!” said Princess Uma, stopping at the water’s edge. “Because we sing pretty songs, because we give them shelter in the scary Woods, because they only wish they could be as beautiful and beloved as—”

“Wait.”

Uma and the girls turned. Agatha held up the storybook’s last page—a painting of the stag ripped to pieces by monsters as the princess escaped.

“How is that a happy ending?”

“If you aren’t good enough to be a princess, then you’re honored to die for one, of course,” Uma smiled, as if she would learn this lesson soon enough.

Agatha looked to the others in disbelief, but they were all nodding like sheep. It didn’t matter if only a third of them would graduate as princesses. Each was completely convinced she’d be one. No, those stuffed, mounted creatures in the museum weren’t once girls like them. They were just animals. Slaves to the Greater Good.

“But if animals are going to help us, first we have to tell them what we want!” Uma said, kneeling before the gleaming blue lake. “So today’s challenge is . . .” She swirled her finger in the water and a thousand tiny fish surfaced, white as snow.

“Wish Fish!” Uma beamed. “They dig inside your soul and find your greatest wish! (Very helpful if you’ve lost your tongue or voice and need to tell a prince to kiss you.) Now all you do is put your finger in the water and the fish will read your soul. The girl with the strongest, clearest wish wins!”

Agatha wondered what these girls’ souls would wish for. Depth, perhaps.

Millicent went first. She put her finger in the water, closed her eyes . . . When she opened them, the fish had all turned different colors and were gaping at her, confused.

“What happened?” said Millicent.

“Foggy mind,” Uma sighed.

Then Kiko, the adorable girl who had gifted Agatha lipstick, put her finger in the water. The fish turned red, orange, and peach and started assembling into some kind of picture.

What do Good souls wish for? Agatha wondered, watching the fish jumble into place. Peace for their kingdoms? Health for their families? Destruction of Evil?

The fish drew a boy instead.

“Tristan!” Kiko chimed, recognizing his ginger hair. “I caught his rose at the Welcoming.”

Agatha frowned. She should have known.

Then Reena dipped her finger and the fish changed colors, gliding into a mosaic of a burly, gray-eyed boy pulling an arrow into his bow.

“Chaddick,” blushed Reena. “Honor Tower, Room ten.”

Giselle’s fish drew dark-skinned Nicholas, Flavia wished for Oliver, Sahara’s painted Oliver’s bunk mate Bastian. . . . At first Agatha found it dumb, but now it was scary. This was what Good souls craved? Boys they didn’t even know? Based on what!

“Love at first sight,” Uma gushed. “It’s the most beautiful thing in the world!”

Agatha sighed. What boy could ever love her? A fat, ugly girl with no friends and not even a father to love her. She thought of Tedros and her skin burned. One-sided love at first sight. That might actually be believable.

With the fish pooped from drawing so many chiseled jaws, Beatrix provided the grand climax, sending her Wish Fish into a spectacular rainbow vision of her fairy-tale wedding to Tedros, complete with castle, crowns, and fireworks. Agatha looked on sadly, Beatrix loved Tedros for all the wrong reasons, she had overheard the girls talking about his fortune and how chisled his abs are. Tedros deserved a girl who would him for who he is, as a person.All around girls’ eyes welled with tears, either because the scene was so beautiful or because they knew they could never compete.

“Now you must hunt him, Beatrix!” Uma said. “You must make this Tedros your mission! Your obsession! Because when a true princess wants something enough . . .” She swirled her fingers in the lake—

“Your friends unite for you . . .” The fish turned bright pink—

“Fight for you . . .” The fish clustered tight—

“And make your wish come true . . .” Uma reached her arm into the water and pulled it right out. The fish transformed into her soul’s greatest desire.

“What is it?” Reena asked, confused.

“A suitcase,” whispered Princess Uma, and hugged it to her chest.

She looked up at twenty befuddled girls. “Oh. Should I give you your ranks?”

“But she didn’t go yet,” said Beatrix, pointing at Agatha. Agatha would have thanked her, but there was menace in Beatrix’s voice. This girl wasn’t troubled that a lakeful of fish had just been turned into luggage. Instead, she seemed worried Agatha didn’t have her turn. Perhaps she wasn’t so bad after all.

“So Reena can have her room when she fails,” Beatrix smiled.

Agatha took it back.

“Oh dear. One left?” said Uma, staring at Agatha. She gazed at the lake, empty of Wish Fish, then at her precious pink suitcase. “It happens every time,” she mourned. With a sigh, she dropped it back into the lake, and watched it sink and bob up as a thousand white fish.

Agatha leaned over the water to see the fish glaring up at her with droopy eyes. For a moment, they had found heaven in a suitcase. But here they were again, genies stolen from the safety of the lamp. They didn’t care that her wish might change her life. They just wanted to be left alone. Agatha sympathized.

Mine’s easy, she thought. I wish not to fail. That’s it. Don’t fail.

She stuck her finger in the water.

The fish started trembling like tulips in the wind. Agatha could hear wishes wrestle in her head—

Don’t stay—Home in bed—Don’t stay—Sophie safe—Don’t stay—Tedros looking at her—

The fish turned blue, then yellow, then red. Wishes swept into a cyclone—

New face—Same face—Blond hair—I hate blond hair!—More friends—No friends—

“Not just foggy,” murmured Princess Uma. “Completely confused!” Beatrix glared as the fish seemed do form a boy with blond hair and cerulean eyes, before dissolving again.

The fish, red as blood, started to quake, as if about to explode. Alarmed, Agatha tried to pull out her finger, but the water clamped it like a fist.

“What the—”

The fish turned black as night and flew to Agatha like magnets to metal, pooling her hand in a shivering mass. Girls fled the shore in horror; Uma stood anchored in shock. Frantic, Agatha tried to wrench her hand but her head exploded with pain—

Home School Mom Dad Good Bad Boys Girls Ever Never—

Gripping Agatha’s hand, the fish shook harder and harder, faster and faster, until she couldn’t tell one from the other. Eyes popped off like buttons, beating fins shattered to bits, bellies engorged with veins and vessels until the fish let out a thousand tortured screams. Agatha felt her head split in two—

FailWinTruthLiesLostFoundStrongWeakFriendFoe

The fish swelled into a ballooning black mass, creeping up her hand. Agatha thrashed to free her finger until she heard her bone break and yowled in agony as the screaming fish sucked her whole arm into their ebony cocoon.

“Help! Somebody help me!”

The cocoon billowed into her face, suffocating her cries. With a high, sickening shriek, the deathly womb swallowed her. Agatha flailed for breath, tried to kick herself out, but pain seared through her head and forced her into a fetal crouch.

HateLovePunishRewardHunterHuntedLiveDieKillKissTake

Screaming with vengeance, the black cocoon sucked her deeper like a gelatinous grave, stifling her last breaths, leeching her every last drop of life until there was nothing left to—

Give.

The screaming stopped. The cocoon sloughed away.

Agatha fell back in shock.

In her arms was a girl. No more than twelve or thirteen, with toffee skin and a tangle of dark curls. She stirred, opened her eyes, and smiled at Agatha as if she were an old friend.

“A hundred years, and you were the first who wished to free me.” Gasping softly, like a fish on land, she pressed her hand to Agatha’s cheek.

“Thank you.”

She closed her eyes and her body went limp in Agatha’s arms. Inch by inch, the girl started to glow the color of hot gold, and with a burst of white light, she splintered to sunbeams and disappeared.

Agatha gawked at the lake, empty of fish, and listened to her fraying heartbeat. It felt like her insides had been beaten and wrung out. She held up her finger, healed like new. “Um, was all that . . .” She took a deep breath and turned.

“NORMAL?”

The entire class was dispersed behind trees, including Princess Uma, whose expression answered her question.

Loud squawks pealed from above. Agatha looked up at the friendly dove her teacher had greeted earlier. Only the dove’s calls weren’t friendly anymore, but wild, frantic. From the Endless Woods came a fox’s growl, guttural and disturbed. Then more howls and wails from all around, nothing like the earlier welcome. The animals were in a frenzy now. They screamed louder, louder, building with fever—

“What’s happening!” Agatha cried, hands over ears.

As soon as she saw Princess Uma’s face, she knew.

They want it too.

Before Agatha could move, the stampede came from every direction. Squirrels, rats, dogs, moles, deer, birds, cats, rabbits, the bumbling otter—every animal on the school grounds, every animal that could squeeze through the gates charged towards their savior. . . .

Make us human! they demanded.

Agatha blanched. Since when could she understand animals?

Save us, Princess! they cried. Since when could she understand blind animals?

“What do I do!” Agatha called.

Uma took one glance at these animals, her faithful puppets, her bosom friends . . .

“RUN!”

For the first time, someone at this school gave Agatha advice she could use. She dashed for the towers as magpies pecked her hands, mice clung to her clumps, frogs hopped up her dress. Batting at the mob, she stumbled up the hill, shielding her head, hurdling hogs, hawks, hares. But just as she had the white swan doors in sight, a moose charged out of the trees and sprang—she ducked and the moose crashed, skewering the swans. Agatha sprinted through the glass stair room, past Pollux on goat legs, who glimpsed the onslaught behind her.

“What in the devil’s—”

“A little help!” she whimpered—

“DON’T MOVE!” Pollux shrieked—

But Agatha was already running up the Honor stairs. When she looked back, she saw Pollux deflecting animals right and left, before a thousand butterflies crashed through the sunroof and knocked his head off his goat legs, leaving the herd to chase her up the steps.

“NOT INTO THE TOWERS!” Pollux’s head screeched as it rolled out the door—

But Agatha blew through the corridors into the full classrooms of Hansel’s Haven. As boys and teachers tackled porcupines (ill-advised) and screaming girls hopped desks in high heels (extremely ill-advised), she tried to escape the three-ring hubbub, but animals just snatched mouthfuls of candy and kept chase. Still, she managed just enough of a lead to sprint up the stairs, slide through the frosted door, and kick it shut before the first weasel popped through.

Agatha doubled over, shadowed by towering hedges of King Arthur. The glacial rooftop breeze bit into her bare arms. She wouldn’t last long up here. As she squinted through the clouded door for a teacher or nymph to rescue her, she noticed something reflected in it.

Agatha turned to a muscled silhouette hulking through sun mist. She wilted with relief. Oh how she was grateful for boys right now and ran towards who she hoped was Tedris—

She flinched back. The horned gargoyle ripped through mist and blasted the door aflame. Agatha dove to avoid a second firebomb that ignited the hedge of Arthur marrying Guinevere. She tried to crawl to the next hedge, but the gargoyle just burnt them one by one until the king’s story was a storm of ash. Stranded in flames, Agatha looked up at the smoldering demon as he pinned her chest to the ground with his cold stone foot. There was no escape from him this time. She went limp and closed her eyes.

Nothing came.

She opened her eyes and found the gargoyle kneeling before her, so close she could see the reflections in his glowing red eyes. Reflections of a scared little boy.

“You want my help?” she breathed. The gargoyle blinked back hopeful tears.

“But—but—I don’t know how I did it,” she stuttered. “It was . . . an accident.” The gargoyle gazed into her eyes and saw she was telling the truth. It slumped to the ground, scattering ash around them.

Looking down at the monster, just another lost child, Agatha thought of all the creatures in this world. They didn’t follow orders because they were loyal. They didn’t help princesses because they were loving. They did it because someday, maybe loyalty and love would be repaid with a second chance at being human. Only through a fairy tale could they find their way back. To their imperfect selves. To their storyless lives. She too was one of these animals now, searching for the way out. But did she really want to leave? She was glad thinking the gargoyle was Tedros…

Agatha bent down and took the gargoyle’s hand in hers.

“I wish I could help you,” she said. “I wish I could help us all go home.”

The gargoyle lay its head in her lap. As the burning menagerie closed in, a monster and child wept in each other’s arms.

Agatha felt its stone touch soften.

The gargoyle lurched back in shock. As it stumbled to its feet, its rock shell cracked . . . its claws smoothed to hands . . . its eyes lightened with innocence. Stunned, Agatha ran to it, dodging ricocheting flames, just as the monster’s face began to melt into a little boy’s. With a gasp of joy, she reached for him—

A sword was about to impale his heart. The gargoyle jolted away as Agatha pushed past him and took a sword to the shoulder.

Agatha spun in pain.

Tedros leapt through a wall of fire into view, noticing Excalibur embedded in Agatha's shoulder.

“Stop!” she shouted—

But the prince was staring at Agatha's shoulder, covered in blood. “What have I done!” he choked—

“I'm ok Tedros!”

Tedros slammed down his knees in front of Agatha as the gargoyle turned into a boy before disappearing into golden dust.

“It hurts Tedos! Take the sword out please!” Agatha screamed. “Oh god the blood!” Agatha's eyes rolled back as she slipped forward and fainted

Tedros caught her in his arms. “Now I know you’re a princess.” he grinned

Agtaha startled awake after a few moments. She looked up at him deliriously before kissing him, slowly. Tedros had never felt more at peace, like a part of his soul he didn't even know was missing had clicked into place.They pulled apart and a look of realisation flashed behind both their eyes. Before she could kiss him again, fairies, wolves, and teachers of both schools burst into the menagerie, just in time to see a furious wave crash over the burning roof, lashing the loves apart.

Chapter Text

Sophie was sure Agatha had set the fire to get Tedros’ attention. The traitorous bitch. No doubt he rescued her from the blazing tower, kissed her as Good burned, and had already set their wedding date. Sophie came up with this theory because this was what she had planned to do at lunch. Instead, classes were canceled the next day too, leaving her marooned in a room with three murderers.

She stared at the iron plate on her bed gobbed with soggy gruel and pig’s feet. After three days of starvation, she knew she had to eat whatever ghastly lunch the school sent up, but this was worse than ghastly. This was peasant food. She flung her plate out the window.

“You don’t know where I might find cucumbers in this place?” Sophie said, turning.

Hester scowled across the room. “The Goose. How’d you do it?”

“For the last time, Hester, I don’t know,” Sophie said, stomach rumbling. “It promised to help me switch schools, but it lied. Maybe it went batty after laying so many eggs. Do you know of a garden nearby with some alfalfa or wheatgrass or—”

“You talked to it?” Hester blurted, mouth full of oozing pig’s foot.

“Well, not exactly,” Sophie said, nauseous. “But I could hear its thoughts. Unlike you, princesses can talk to animals.”

“But not hear their thoughts,” said Dot, slurping gruel that looked chocolate flavored. “For that, your soul has to be a hundred percent pure.”

“There! Proof I’m 100% Good,” said Sophie, relieved.

“Or 100% Evil,” Hester retorted. “Depends on if we believe you or if we believe the stymphs, the robes, the Goose, and that wave monster.”

Sophie goggled at her and burst into sniggers. “100% Evil? Me? That’s preposterous! That’s lunacy! That’s—”

“Impressive,” Anadil mused. “Even Hester’s spared a rat or two.”

“And here we all thought you were incompetent,” Hester sneered at Sophie. “When you were just a snake in sheep’s clothing.”

Sophie tried to stop giggling but couldn’t.

“Bet she has a Special Talent that blows ours away,” said Dot, munching what looked to be a tiny chocolate foot.

“I don’t understand,” Sophie snickered. “Where does all the chocolate come from?”

“What is it?” Anadil hissed. “What’s your talent? Night vision? Invisibility? Telepathy? Fangs filled with poison?”

“I don’t care what it is,” Hester snarled. “She can’t beat my talent. No matter how villainous she is.”

Sophie laughed so hard now she was weeping.

“You listen to me,” Hester seethed, fist curling around her plate. “This is my school.”

“Keep your crummy school!” Sophie hooted.

“I’m Class Captain!” Hester roared.

“I don’t doubt it!”

“And no Reader is going to get in my way!”

“Are all villains this funny!”

Hester let out a mad cackle and flung her plate at Sophie, who dove just in time to see it tomahawk into the Wanted poster on the wall and slice off Robin’s head. Sophie stopped laughing. She peeked over the scorched bed at Hester, silhouetted against the open door, black as Death. For a second Sophie thought her tattoo moved.

“Watch out, witch,” Hester spat, and slammed the door.

Sophie looked down at her shaking fingers.

“And here we thought she’d fail!” Dot chimed behind her.

Agatha knew it had to be bad if they let a wolf take her.

After the fire, she was locked in her room for two days, allowed out only to use the toilet and accept meals of raw vegetables and prune juice from scowling fairies. Finally after lunch on the third day, the white wolf came and took her away. Digging claws into her singed pink sleeves, he pulled her past the stair room murals, past glowering Evers and teachers who couldn’t even meet her eyes.

Agatha fought back tears. She had two top ranks. How would they punish her?. Inciting an animal stampede and setting the school on fire had earned her a last. All she’d had to do was try to be Good for a few days, but she couldn’t even manage that, She was evil! No one good would let Tedros’s parents menagerie burn!. How did she think she could ever last here? Beautiful. Pure. Skinny. If that was Good, then she was 100% Evil. Now she would suffer the punishment. And Agatha knew enough about fairy-tale punishments—dismemberings, disembowelings, boilings in oil, skinnings alive—to know her ending would involve both blood and pain.

The wolf dragged her through the Charity Tower, past a bespectacled woodpecker jabbing in new rankings on the Groom Room door.

“Are we going to the School Master?” Agatha rasped.

The wolf snorted. He dragged her to the room at the end of the hall and knocked once.

“Come in,” said the quiet voice inside.

Agatha looked into the wolf’s eyes. “I don’t want to die.”

For the first time, his sneer softened.

“I didn’t either.”

He opened the door and pushed her through.

Apparently the fire had finally been brought under control, because classes resumed after lunch on the third day and Sophie found herself in a damp, moldy classroom for Special Talents. But she could barely focus with her stomach rumbling, Hester throwing her murderous looks, and Dot whispering to other Nevers about their “100% Evil” bunk mate. It had all gone wrong. She had started the week trying to prove she was a princess. Now everyone was convinced she’d be Evil’s Captain. Agatha belongs here, not me.

Special Talents was taught by Professor Sheeba Sheeks, the rotund woman with boils on both ebony cheeks. “Every villain has a talent!” she bellowed in her thick singsong voice, pacing the room in a busty red-velvet, pointy-shouldered gown. “But we must turn your bush into a tree!”

For the day’s challenge, each Never had to show off a unique talent to the class. The more potent the talent, the higher the student’s rank. But the first five kids failed to produce anything, with Vex whining he didn’t even know his talent.

“Is that what you’ll tell the School Master at the Circus?” Professor Sheeks thundered. “‘I don’t know my talent’ or ‘don’t have a talent’ or ‘don’t like my talent’ or ‘want to trade talents with the Ooty Queen!’”

“She had me till the last bit,” said Dot.

“Every year, Evil loses the Circus of Talents!” Sheeba yelled. “Good sings a song or waves a sword or wipes their bottom and you have nothing better? Don’t you have pride! Don’t you have shame! Enough! I don’t care whether you turn men to stone or turn men to dung! You listen to Sheeba and you’ll be number one!”

Twenty pairs of eyes stared at her. “Which monkey is next?” she boomed.

The woeful displays continued. Green-skinned Mona made her lips glow red. (“Because every prince is scared of a Christmas tree,” Sheeba moaned.) Anadil made her rats grow an inch, Hort sprung a hair from his chest, Arachne popped her one eye, Ravan burped smoke, and just when their teacher looked completely fed up, Dot touched her desk and turned it to chocolate.

“Mystery solved,” Sophie marveled.

“I’ve never seen such a parade of uselessness in my life,” Sheeba gasped.

But Hester was next. Leering at Sophie, she gripped the desk with both fists, clenching tighter, tighter, until every vein bulged against her reddening skin.

“Turns into a watermelon,” yawned Sophie. “Special indeed.”

Then something moved on Hester’s neck and the class froze. Her tattoo lurched again, like a painting coming to life. The red-skulled demon unfurled one wing, then the other, swung its buck-horned head to Sophie and opened slitting, bloodshot eyes. Sophie’s heart stopped.

“I told you to watch out,” Hester grinned.

The demon exploded off her skin in full-bodied life and tore towards Sophie, shooting red fire bolts at her head. Stunned, she fell backward to dodge them, knocking a bookcase to the ground. The shoe-sized beast swooped, launched a bolt that ignited her robes, and Sophie rolled over to stamp out the flames. “HELLLPP!”

“Use your talent, incompetent blond girl!” Sheeba barked, wagging her hips.

“She should sing,” Dot quipped. “Would kill everyone in the room.”

Hester circled her demon for a second attack, only to see it snare in the cobwebbed, spiked chandelier. Sophie crawled under the last row, glimpsed a fallen book, Encyclopedia of Villains, and ripped through pages. Banshee, Beanighe, Berserker . . .

“Sophie, hurry!” Hort screamed.

Sophie wheeled to see the winged beast slash through the cobwebs as Hester’s eyes flared across the room. She flipped desperately. Crypt Bat, Cyclops . . . Demon!

Ten pages of small print. Demons are supernatural beings that come in an astonishing variety of forms, all with different strengths and weaknesses—

Sophie swiveled. The demon was five feet away—

“Your talent!” roared Sheeba.

Sophie threw the book at the demon and missed. With a lethal smile, it held up a bolt like a dagger. Sheeba lunged to intervene and Anadil tripped her. Screeching, the demon aimed at Sophie’s face. But as he slung his bolt, Sophie
suddenly remembered the one talent all good girls had—

Friends.

She spun to the window and let out a gorgeous whistle for a kind, noble animal to save her life—

Black wasps smashed through the window and swarmed the demon on cue.

Hester jolted back, as if she’d been stabbed.

Sophie’s eyes bulged in horror. She whistled again—but now bats stormed in, sinking teeth into the demon as the wasps continued to sting. The demon crumpled to the floor like a burnt moth. In her seat, Hester’s skin went white and clammy, sucked of blood.

Alarmed, Sophie whistled louder, higher, but then came a cloud of bees, hornets, and locusts, besieging the foaming creature as Hester violently convulsed.

In the corner, Sophie stood paralyzed as screaming villains batted them away from the demon with books and chairs, but the swarm had no mercy, savaging it until Hester heaved her last breaths.

Sophie threw herself over the demon, thrust her hands at the swarm—

“STOP!”

The swarm went dead still. Like scolded children, they whimpered obediently and fled out the window in a dark cloud.

Wheezing, the wounded demon clawed to Hester and collapsed back into her neck. Hester choked and coughed up phlegm, brought back from the edge. She gaped at Sophie, flooding with fear.

Sophie dove to help her. “I didn’t mean—I wanted a bird or a—” Hester recoiled from her touch.

“Princesses call animals!” Sophie cried into silence. “I’m Good! 100% Good!”

“Thank you, Beelzebub!”

Sophie whirled.

“Looks like a princess! Acts like a princess! But a witch,” Sheeba whooped, wobbling to her feet. “Mark my words, my useless ones! This one will win the Circus Crown!”

For the second time in two challenges, Sophie looked up at the top rank, spewing red smoke above her head.

Panicked, she whipped to her schoolmates to appeal, but they were no longer looking at her with contempt or ridicule. They were looking at her with something else.

Respect.

Her place as #1 Villain was getting surer by the minute.

Up close, Professor Clarissa Dovey, with her silver bun and rosy face, looked even more comforting and grandmotherly. Agatha couldn’t have wished for a better executioner.

“I’d prefer the School Master handle these things,” Professor Dovey said, flipping papers under a crystal pumpkin paperweight. “But we all know how he is about his privacy.”

Finally she peered up at Agatha. She didn’t look comforting anymore.

“I have a school full of terrified students, two days of classes to make up, five hundred animals whose memories must be erased, a classroom wing that’s been eaten, a treasured menagerie reduced to ash, and a gargoyle that need to be replaced. Do you know why this is?”

Agatha couldn’t get words out of her throat.

“Because you disobeyed Pollux’s simple order,” Professor Dovey said. “And nearly cost lives in the process.” She shamed Agatha with a look and went back to her scrolls.

Agatha glanced through the window at the lakeshore, where Evers were finishing lunches of roast chicken dolloped with mustard, spinach and Gruyère crepes, and flutes of apple cider. She could see Tedros leaning against a tree, smiling up at her in Dovey’s window, Chaddick approached and followed Tedros’s eyes. Agatha flushed and turned back to Dovey.

“Can I say bye to Tedos and my sister at least?” Agatha said, eyes welling. She turned to Professor Dovey. “Before you . . . kill me?”

“That won’t be necessary.”

“But I have to see them!”

Professor Dovey looked up. “Agatha, you received a first rank for your performance in Animal Communication and rightfully so. Only a rare talent can make a wish come to life. And though there is a accounts of what happened on the roof fit for a fairytaale ending, I would add that any pupil of this school who would risk their life to help a gargoyle . . .” Her eyes glistened and for a moment so did the silver swan on her dress. “Well, that suggests Goodness beyond any measure.”

Agatha stared at her, tongue-tied.

“But if you disobey another teacher’s direct order, Agatha, I guarantee you will fail. Understood?”

Agatha nodded in relief.

She heard laughter outside and turned to see Tedros’ mates kicking around a pillow dummy with twig legs, emerald button eyes, and dead grass for hair. An arrow suddenly speared its head, spitting feathers everywhere. A second arrow ripped open its heart.

The boys stopped laughing and turned. Across the lawn, Tedros threw down his bow and walked away.

“As for your friend, she’s doing just fine where she is,” Professor Dovey said, thumbing through more scrolls. “But you can ask her yourself. She’s and Tedros are in your next class.”

Agatha wasn’t listening. Her eyes were still on the dead-eyed doll, bleeding feathers into the wind.

The doll that looked just like Sophie.

Chapter Text

“Who else is in our group?” Agatha asked Sophie, breaking the tension.

Sophie didn’t answer. In fact, she acted as if Agatha wasn’t there at all.

The last class of the day, Surviving Fairy Tales, was the only one that mixed students from Good and Evil. After Professor Dovey ordered Everboys to the Armory to turn in their personal weapons—the only way to appease the Dean, furious over a fight between two Everboys—both schools reported to the Blue Forest gates, where fairies sorted them into Forest Groups, eight Evers and eight Nevers in each. As other children found their leaders (an ogre for Group 2, a centaur for Group 8, a lily nymph for 12) Agatha and Sophie were the first to arrive under the flag stamped with a bloodred “3.”
Agatha had so much to tell Sophie about smiles and fish and fires and most of all about that beautiful son of Arthur, but Sophie wouldn’t even look at her.

“Can’t we just go talk?” Agatha begged.

“Why don’t you go home before you fail or end up a mole rat?” Sophie fumed. “You’re in my school.”

“Then why won’t it let us switch?”

Sophie spun. “Because you . . . Because we—”

“I belong here, with you in Good” Agatha frowned.

Sophie smiled her kindest smile. “Sooner or later, you’ll see i’m right.”

“I’d say later,” a voice resounded.

They turned to Tedros, shirt scorched, eyes a warm blue.

“Hi Tedros,” Agatha smiled. “How was swordplay?”

“‘Great thank you, Who is this?” Tedros eyed Sophie suspiciously. “I heard of a Never calling you names, this her?.”

“Yes, this is my sister Sophie, and don't believe everything you hear, Tedros!” Agatha chided. “She is lovely and the most important person in my life.

“I heard her call you fat at the welcoming!” Tedros roared.

Sophie gaped at them. “You two know each other?”

Agatha turned to her. “You think he’s your prince? He’s really lovely Sophie. Arent you in Evil though? If you want to date Tedros then you have to wait for us to get you transferred to Good or the teachers will have a fit.”

“What are you even on about Agatha, Maybe I want you,” Tedros yawned, scratching his chest. He scowled at Sophie. “So you think I’m your prince?”

Sophie blushed delicately the way she had practiced before class.

“It wasnt a mistake at the Welcoming,” the prince said, studying her with dancing blue eyes. “A witch like you shouldn’t be anywhere near Agatha.” He turned to Agatha with a smile. “And a girl as nice as you shouldn’t be anywhere near someone like her.”

Agatha stepped towards him. “First of all, that ‘witch’ happens to be my sister. And second, why don’t you go talk to Chaddick before I make the silly decision of repeating what happened on the roof.”

Tedros laughed so hard, he had to grip the gate. “A princess friends with a witch! Now there’s a fairy tale.”

Agatha frowned at Sophie, waiting for her to jump in. Sophie swallowed and turned to Tedros.

“Well i dont know where you got confused, but im clearly a princess and Agatha is the witch. Im pretty and skinny and do good deeds, and well, look at Agatha. All pale and fat with that odious haircut not to ment—”

Now Agatha and Tedros were frowning at her.

“And so, um—what I’m trying to say is—”

Sophie looked between Tedros and Agatha, Agatha and Tedros . . .

She swept in front of Agatha and took Tedros’ hand.

“My name’s Sophie, and I like your hair.”

Agatha crossed her arms.

“Um, no,” Tedros said, dropping Sophie’s hand like it burned her. “Why would i think about you when i have a princess right here? All i've heard from you is you
insulting your sister”

“Because I need you to rescue me,” Sophie breathed.

Agatha coughed to remind Sophie that she was still there.

“You’ve got to be kidding,” said a girl’s voice behind them.

They turned to see Beatrix, under the bloody “3,” along with Dot, Hort, Ravan, Millicent, and the rest of their Forest Group. To chart all the dirty looks thrown in that moment, one would end up with something resembling a bowl of spaghetti.

“Mmmm,” said a voice below.

They looked down to find a four-foot gnome with wrinkly brown skin, a belted green coat, and a pointy orange hat frowning from a hole in the ground.

“Bad group,” he murmured.

Grumbling loudly, Yuba the Gnome crawled out of his burrow, pulled the gate open with his stubby white staff, and led his students into the Blue Forest.

For a moment, everyone forgot their rancor and marveled at the blue wonderland around them. Every tree, every flower, every blade of grass sparkled a different hue. Slender beams of sun slipped through cerulean canopies, lighting up turquoise trunks and navy blooms. Deer grazed on azure lilacs, crows and hummingbirds jabbered in sapphire nettles, squirrels and rabbits jaunted through cobalt briars to join storks sipping from an ultramarine pond. No animals seemed skittish or the slightest bit bothered by the crisscrossing student tours. Where Sophie and Agatha had always associated forests with danger and darkness, this one beckoned with beauty and life. At least until they saw a flock of bony stymph birds, sleeping in their blue nest.

“They let those around students?” Sophie said.

“Sleep during the day. Perfectly harmless,” Dot whispered back. “Unless a villain wakes them up.”

As his students followed, Yuba rattled off the history of the Blue Forest in his clipped, hoary voice. Once upon a time, there had been no joint classes for School for Good and School for Evil students. Instead, children had graduated straight from their school’s training into the Endless Woods. But before they could ever engage in battle, Good and Evil inevitably fell prey to hungry boars, scavenging imps, cranky spiders, and the occasional man-eating tulip.

“We had forsaken the obvious,” said Yuba. “You cannot survive your fairy tale if you cannot survive the Woods.”

So the school created the Blue Forest as a training ground. The signature blue foliage arose from protective enchantments that kept intruders out, while reminding students it was just an imitation of more treacherous Woods.

As to just how treacherous the real thing was, the students sensed firsthand as Yuba led them past the North Gates. Though there was still sunlight left in the autumn evening, the dark, dense Woods repelled it like a shield. It was a forest of eternal night, with every inch of green blackened by shadow. As their eyes adjusted to the sooty darkness, the students could see a puny dirt path lilting through trees, like the withering lifeline on an old man’s palm. To both sides of the path, vines strangled trees into armored clumps, so there was barely an undergrowth between them. What was left of the forest floor had been buried beneath mangled thorns, stabbing twigs, and a gauntlet of cobwebs. But none of this scared the students as much as the sounds that came from the darkness beyond the path. Moans and growls echoed from the forest bowels, while low rasps and snarls added ghoulish harmony.

Then the children began to see what was making the sounds. Pairs of eyes watched them through the onyx depths—devilish red and yellow, flickering, vanishing, then reappearing closer than before. The terrible noises grew louder, the fiendish eyes multiplied, the undergrowth crackled with life, and just when the students saw skulking outlines rise from the mist—

“This way,” Yuba called back.

The students scampered from the gates and followed the gnome into a blue clearing without looking back.

Surviving Fairy Tales was just like any other class, Yuba explained from a turquoise tree stump, with students ranked from 1 to 16 for each challenge. Only now there was something more at stake: twice a year, each of the fifteen groups would send its best Ever and best Never to compete in the school’s Trial by Tale. Yuba didn’t say any more about this mysterious competition, except that the winners received five extra first-place ranks. The students in his group glanced at each other, thinking the same thing. Whoever won the Trial by Tale would surely be Class Captain.

“Now there are five rules that separate Good from Evil,” the gnome said, and wrote them in air with his smoking staff.

1. The Evil attack. The Good defend.

2. The Evil punish. The Good forgive.

3. The Evil hurt. The Good help.

4. The Evil take. The Good give.

5. The Evil hate. The Good love.

“As long as you obey the rules for your side, you have the best possible chance of surviving your fairy tale,” Yuba said to the group gathered in navy grass. “These rules should come with ease, of course. You have been chosen for your schools precisely because you show them at the highest level!”

Sophie wanted to scream. Help? Give? Love? That was her life! That was her soul!

“But first you must learn to recognize Good and Evil,” said Yuba. “In the Woods, appearances are often deceiving. Snow White nearly perished because she thought an old woman kind. Red Riding Hood found herself in a wolf’s stomach because she couldn’t tell the difference between family and fiend. Even Beauty struggled to distinguish between hideous beast and noble prince. All unnecessary suffering. For no matter how much Good and Evil are disguised, they can always be told apart.
You must look closely. And you must remember the rules.”

For the class challenge, Yuba announced, each student had to distinguish between a disguised Ever and Never by observing their behavior. Whoever correctly identified the Good student and the Evil student in the fastest time would receive first rank.

“I’ve never done any of those Evil rules,” Sophie mourned, standing beside Tedros. “If only they knew all my Good Deeds!”

Beatrix turned. “Nevers shouldn’t talk to Evers.”

“Evers shouldn’t call Evers Nevers,” Sophie snapped.

Beatrix looked confused, while Tedros stepped closer to Agatha.

“I don't want you anywhere near me, your soul makes me queasy,” he whispered to Sophie once Beatrix turned back. “Just leave me and Agatha alone. I wont keep my princess from you but an Evil aura wraps around you like a blanket, and i don't trust it..”

“You can . . . feel that from me?” Sophie said, eyes wide.

Tedros gestured to her black tunic. “It falls off you like cheap perfume?”

Sophie would have buried herself right there if she could.

Hort volunteered to go first. As soon as he tied the ragged blindfold over his eyes, Yuba stabbed his staff at Millicent and Ravan, who magically shriveled in their pink and black clothes, smaller, smaller, until they slithered out of them, identical cobras.

Hort whipped off the blindfold.

“Well?” Yuba said.

“Look the bloody same to me,” Hort said.

“Test them!” Yuba scolded. “Use the rules!”

“I don’t even remember the rules,” Hort said.

“Next,” the gnome grouched.

For Dot’s turn, he changed Beatrix and Hort into unicorns. But then one unicorn started copying the other and vice versa, until they both pranced about like mimicking mimes. Dot scratched her head.

“Rule one! The Evil attack! The Good defend!” barked Yuba. “Which one started it, Dot?”

“Oh! Can we start again?”

“Not just bad,” Yuba grumped. “Worst!”

He squinted at his scroll of names. “Who would like to be disguised for Tedros?”

All the Evergirls raised their hands.

“You haven’t gone yet,” Yuba said, pointing at Sophie. “You either,” he said to Agatha.

“My grandmother could get this one right,” mumbled Tedros, tightening his blindfold.

Agatha glided in front of the class and stood next to Sophie, who was blushing like a bride.

“Aggie, he doesn’t care what school I’m in or the color of my robes,” Sophie wined. “He said he could feel my soul, and that i was evil!.”

“He doesn't even know you Sophie… but i kind of like him, can i maybe , i dont know, persue him?” Agatha asked nervously

Sophie flushed. “You want to . . . take him from me? Don’t you want me happy?”

“You know nothing about him” Agatha frowned back. “All you see is his looks! I want to get to know him, and i can because we are in the same school”

“For the first time in my life, I feel like someone deserves me,” Sophie sighed.

Hurt squeezed Agatha’s throat. “But what about—I mean, you said—”

Sophie met her eyes. “You’ve been such a good friend, Aggie. But we’ll be in different schools after they put me in Good, won’t we?”

Agatha turned away.

“Ready, Tedros! Go!” Yuba jabbed his staff, and both girls exploded from their clothes into slimy, stinky hobgoblins.

Tedros took off the blindfold and jumped back, hand to nose. Sophie clasped her green claws and batted her wormy lashes at him. With Sophie’s words throbbing in
her head, Agatha slumped sullenly and gave up.

“It seems too obvious,” Tedros said, eyeing the sad hobgoblin.
Sophie stopped batting her lashes, confused.

“And that which probably said something rude, and she is a embarrassing flirt,” Tedros said, glancing between the two goblins.

Agatha’s eyes flashed. This boy was smarter than he looked.

“Feel with the heart, not the mind!” Yuba shouted at the prince.

Grimacing, Tedros closed his eyes. For a moment the prince hesitated. But then surely, powerfully, he felt himself pulled towards one of the hobgoblins.

Sophie gasped. It wasn’t her.

Tedros reached out and touched Agatha’s wet, warty cheek. “This one’s Agatha.” He opened his eyes. “This one’s the princess.”

Agatha gawped at Tedros, dumbstruck.

“Wait. I’m right,” Tedros said. “Right?”

For a moment, everything was quiet.

Sophie tackled Agatha. “YOU RUINED EVERYTHING!”

To everyone else, this sounded like “GOBBO OOMIE HOOWAH!” but Agatha understood it just fine.

“He picked me Sophie! It's just a challenge and he got it right, it's not personal. I don't want to fight about this!” Agatha yelled.

“You tricked him!” Sophie shrieked. “Just like you tricked the bird and the teachers and the—”

Tedros punched her in the eye.

“Leave Agatha alone!” he shouted.

Sophie gaped at him. Her prince had just punched her. Her prince had just confused her with Agatha. How could she prove who she was?

“Stand still so I can turn you back! Or use the damn rules!” Yuba bellowed atop a log.

Suddenly understanding, Sophie lurched up so her spotted, humped body towered over Tedros, and she caressed his chest with her greasy green hand. “My dear

Tedros. I forgive you for not knowing any better and won’t defend myself even though you attacked me. I only want to help you, my prince, and give us a story that will take us hand in hand to love, happiness, and Ever After.”
But all Tedros heard was a torrent of goblin growls, so he stomped on Sophie’s foot and ran towards Agatha’s goblin, arms outstretched. “I can’t believe you were ever friends with—”

Agatha pushed him away.

“Now I’m confused,” Tedros puffed and stepped back. Sophie kicked him in the balls.

Groaning in pain, he craned up to see Sophie shove Agatha into a blueberry bush, Agatha dodge Sophie behind a winding oak, and the two green goblins go back and forth, Sophie bashing Agatha like the girl killed her dog.

“I’ll never go home with you!” screamed Sophie.

“Really? You're going to abandon me to get married to a boy you don't know” hissed Agatha.

“At least I will get married! Your to fat for a boy to love you!”

The fight escalated to a ludicrous climax, with Sophie beating Agatha with a blue squash, Agatha hiding behind Dot’s head, and the class gleefully making bets as to who was who—

“Go rot in Gavaldon alone!” Sophie screamed.

“Better alone than with a girl who calls me fat!” Agatha shouted.

“Get out of my life!”

“We cant! Were twins you pea-brained twit!”

Sophie reached forwards and slashed a deep mark on Agatha's arm.

Hobbling, Tedros leapt between them—

“Enough!”

It was the wrong moment. Sophie turned on the prince with a slime-drenching, earsplitting roar and kicked him so hard he sailed over Groups 2, 6, and 10 and landed in a rhymeberry bush.

The girls’ green hides shrank, their scales softened to skin, their bodies melted into their human clothes. . . . Slowly Sophie and Agatha turned to find the entire group goggling at them.

“Good ending,” said Hort.

“Hold your verdict,” Yuba said. “For when Good acts Pathetic and Evil acts incompetent, and rules are broken right and left until even I can’t figure out what’s what . . . well, there’s only one ending indeed.”

A pair of iron shoes magically grew on the Sophie’s feet.

“Yeek. These are hideous,” Sophie frowned.

Then the shoes grew hot, blazing hot.

“Fire! Feet on fire!” yelped the blond girl, hopping up and down.

“Make it stop!” Sophie cried, dancing with pain.

In the distance, the wolves howled the end of class.

“Class dismissed,” Yuba said, and waddled off.

“What about Sophie!” screamed Agatha, clutching her ripped arm—

“Unfortunately fairy-tale punishments have a mind of their own,” the gnome called back. “It'll end when the lesson has been learned.”

The class followed him back towards the school gates, leaving Sophie to dance in the cursed shoes while agatha held her arm, crying against a nearby tree. Tedros limped past the punished girl, covered in berry juice. He saw Agatha's arm and rushed over to help.

“I can't see why you two are friends, all Sophie does is hurt you,” Tedros said, examining Agatha’s wound. “Do you need me to take you to the infirmary? It doesn't look too bad but i don't want to leave you with her…”

“I'll be fine Tedros, I'll see you in good deeds tomorrow. I have to talk with my sister alone” Agatha replied as Tedros ripped the sleeve off his Everboy uniform to wrap her arm. Agatha watched him leave after giving her a peck on the cheek.

As the prince trudged into blue thicket, the girls glimpsed Beatrix sidle up to him. “I knew they were both Evil,” she said as they vanished behind the oaks. Agatha saw

Tedros shove her off

“This—is—your—fault!” Sophie wheezed to Agatha, dancing in agony.

But the shoes showed no mercy. Minute by minute, they grew hotter and hotter, until Sophie couldn’t even scream. Even the animals couldn’t watch such suffering and stayed away. But Agatha stayed, ferrying water from the blue brook to splash on her sister.

Afternoon turned to evening and then to night, and still Sophie danced like a madwoman, whirling and sweating in pain and despair. Burn ripped through her bones, fire became her blood, and soon she wished that this suffering would end, at any cost. Death knew when he was called. Agatha watched her sister in painful disappear. But just as Sophie surrendered to his cruel hands, sabers of sunlight shattered the darkness, speared their feet—and the shoes went cold.

Sophie collapsed in a tormented heap.

“Ready to go home?” Agatha cried.

Sophie looked up, ghost white.

“Thought you’d never ask.”

Chapter Text

As the two schools slept, two heads surfaced outside in the black moat. Sophie and Agatha peeped out at the thin silver tower that divided lake from sludge. Too far to swim. Too high to climb. A cyclone of fairies guarded its spire, while an army of wolves with crossbows manned wooden planks at its base.

“And you’re sure he’s up there?” Sophie said.
“I saw him.”
“He has to help us! I can’t go back to that place!”
“Look, we just beg him to put you in Good, or send us home.”
“Because that’ll work,” Sophie snorted. “Leave him to me.”
For the last hour, the two girls had mulled every possible way to escape. Agatha thought they should sneak into the Woods and find their way back to Gavaldon. But Sophie pointed out that even if they did get past the gate snakes and any other booby traps, they’d just end up lost. (“They’re called the Endless Woods for a reason.”) Instead, she proposed they hunt for enchanted broomsticks or magic carpets or something else in the school closets that might fly them over the forest.
“What direction would we fly in Sophie?” Agatha asked.
The two girls discarded other options—leaving a trail of bread crumbs (that never worked); seeking a kindly hunter or dwarf (Agatha was scared of strangers); wishing for a fairy godmother (Sophie didn’t trust fat women)—until there was only one left.
But now, peering up at the School Master’s fortress, they lost all hope.
“We’ll never get up there,” Sophie sighed.
Agatha heard a squawk in the distance.
“Give me two seconds.”
A short while later, they were back in the Blue Forest, caked in sludge, eyeing a nest of big black eggs from behind a periwinkle bush. In front of the nest, five skeletal stymphs slept on indigo grass, littered with the blood and limbs of a half-eaten goat.
Sophie scowled. “I’m back where I started, covered in smelly ooze and who knows how many flesh-eating maggots and—what are you doing!”
“As soon as they wake, we jump on.”
“As soon as they wake we do what?”
But Agatha was already tiptoeing to the eggs.
“The perfume cooked your brain!” Sophie hissed.
As Agatha inched towards the nest, she caught a closer look at the sleeping stymphs’ jagged teeth, gnarled talons, and spiked tails that shred flesh from bone. Suddenly doubting her plan, Agatha backed up, only to trip on a branch and fall on a goat leg with a loud crack. The stymphs opened their eyes. Her heart stopped.
Unless a villain wakes them up. Sophie could see through her actions, she new Agatha to be a Fat, ugly witch.
The pink dress wouldn’t fool them.
Agatha whimpered at the waking fiends. She couldn’t give up now! Not when she had Sophie willing to go home! She lunged for the nest, snatched an egg, sprang up for the blitz—
“Can’t watch, can’t watch—” Sophie mewled, squinting through fingers for spewing limbs and blood.
But the vicious birds were nuzzling Agatha, like puppies seeking milk.
“Ooh, that tickles!” she squealed. Sophie folded her arms.
Stepping back, Agatha handed the egg to her. “Your turn.”
“Oh, please, if they like you, they’ll try to mate with me. Animals worship princesses,” said Sophie, sashaying towards the birds—
The stymphs unleashed a war cry and charged.
“Helllllp!” Sophie threw the egg to Agatha, but the stymphs still chased Sophie, who ran in circles like a lunatic, five stymphs high stepping behind her in a moronic maypole parade until everyone forgot who was after who and the birds knocked into each other dizzily.
“See? I outsmarted them,” Sophie beamed.
A stymph bit her bottom. “Ayyyiiieee!” Sophie ran for the nearest tree. Only she couldn’t climb trees, so she hurled mashed gooseberries at the bird’s eye, but the bird had no eye, so the berries went right through bony socket and plopped to the ground.
Agatha watched shocked. Why didnt the Stymphs attack me, but they attacked Sophie?
“Aggie, it’s coming!” Agatha flinched out of her stupour.
The stymph charged for Sophie, only to stop short and find Agatha perched on its back.
“Get on Sister!” she shouted at Sophie.
“Without a saddle?” Sophie scoffed. “It’ll leave chafe marks.”
The stymph lunged for her—Agatha stroked its head and slung Sophie by the waist onto the bird’s spine.
“Hang on tight!” Agatha yelled as the bird thrashed up to flight, somersaulting over the bay to get the girls off its back. Four more stymphs exploded from blue trees in murderous pursuit; Agatha kicked at the bird’s thighbones, Sophie holding on to her for dear life—“This is the worst plan evveerrr!” Hearing squawks and screams, the fairy and wolf guards squinted into the sky, only to see the intruders vanish into fog.
“There’s the tower!” Agatha cried, spotting the silver spire through the mist. A wolf’s arrow whizzed between the stymph’s ribs, almost slicing Sophie in half. Fairies stormed out of the fog, shooting golden webs from their mouths, and the stymph dove to avoid them, spinning to elude a new hail of wolf arrows. This time neither girl could hold on and tumbled off its back.
“Noooo!” screamed Agatha—
Sophie caught the last bone of the stymph’s tail. Agatha caught the last bit of Sophie’s glass shoe—“We’re going to die!” Sophie howled.
“Just hold on!” criedAgatha.
“My hands are sweaty!”
“We’re going to die!”
The stymph zoomed for the tower wall. But just as it whipped its tail to smash them, Agatha saw a window glint through fog.
“Now!” screamed Agatha. This time Sophie listened.
Golden nets shot from every direction and the stymph let out a helpless screech. But as fairies watched it plunge to its death, they looked at each other curiously.
There were no riders on its back.
The crash landing through the window left Sophie’s entire right side bruised and Agatha’s wrist gashed. But pain meant they were still alive. Pain meant they still had hope for getting home. With a chorus of groans, they staggered to their feet. Then Sophie saw the worst of the damage.
“My shoe!” She held up her glass heel, snapped to a serrated stump. “They were one of a kind,” she mourned. Agatha ignored her and limped ahead into the murky gray chamber, barely lit by the window’s dawn glow.
“Hello?” Agatha called. Echoes died unanswered.
The girls inched farther into the shadowy room. Stone bookcases cloaked gray brick walls, packed top to bottom with colorful bindings. Sophie dusted off a shelf and read the elegant silver letters on the wooden spines: Rapunzel, The Singing Bone, Thumbelina, The Frog King, Cap O’Rushes, The Six Swans . . . All the stories the children of Gavaldon used to drink up. She looked over at Agatha, who had made the same discovery across the room. They were standing in a library of every fairy tale ever told.
Agatha opened up Beauty and the Beast to find it written in the same elegant script as the spine, illustrated with vivid paintings like the ones in the foyers of both schools. Then she opened up The Red Shoes, Donkeyskin, and The Snow Queen and found that they too were written in the same regal hand.
“Aggie?”
Agatha followed Sophie’s gaze to the darkest part of the room. Through the shadows, she could make out a white stone table pressed against the wall. There was something looming over it: a long, thin dagger dangling magically in midair.
Agatha ran her fingers along the cold, smooth surface of the table and thought of all the blank headstones behind her house, waiting for bodies. Sophie’s eyes fixed on the hovering knife, eerily still a few feet above the white slab.
That’s when she saw it wasn’t a knife at all.
“It’s a pen,” she said softly.
It was made of pure steel and shaped like a knitting needle, lethally sharp at both ends. One side of the pen was engraved with a deep, flowing script that ran unbroken from tip to tip.

Suddenly the pen caught a sliver of sunlight and scattered blinding gold rays in every direction. Agatha turned from the glare. When she turned back, Sophie was climbing onto the table.
“Sophie, no!”
Sophie walked towards the pen, eyes wide, body rigid. The world dissipated in a blur of gray around her. All that remained was the shimmering, spindle-sharp pen, strange words reflecting in her glazed eyes. Somewhere inside, she knew what they meant. She reached for the tip.
“Don’t!” Agatha cried.
Sophie’s skin kissed ice-cold steel, blood about to pierce through—
Agatha tackled her and both girls crashed to the table. Sophie broke from her trance and peered at Agatha suspiciously.
“I’m on a table. With you.”
“You were about to touch it!” Agatha said.
“Huh? Why would I touch a—”
Her eyes drifted up to the pen, which was no longer still. It dangled an inch from their faces, pointing between them with its deadly sharp tip as if weighing who to kill first.
“Don’t move,” Agatha whispered between clenched teeth.
The pen seared hot red.
“Move!” she cried.
The pen plunged and both girls rolled off the table, only to see the razor-sharp nib lurch to a stop just before it hit stone. A puff of black smoke and a book suddenly appeared on the table beneath it, bound with cherry-red wood. The pen flipped the cover open to the first blank page and began to write:
“Once upon a time, there were two girls.”
The same elegant script as all the others. A brand-new fairy tale.
Sophie and Agatha gaped from the floor, terrified.
“Now that’s odd,” said a gentle voice.
The girls whipped around again. No one there.
“Students at my school train and toil for four years, venture into the Woods, seek their Nemeses, fight vicious battles . . . all just for the hope the Storian might tell their story.”
The girls spun around. No one in the room at all. But then they saw their shadows merge on the wall, into the crooked shadow that kidnapped them. The girls turned slowly.
“And here it starts one for two first-year, unskilled, untrained, clumsy intruders,” said the School Master.
He wore silver robes that billowed over his hunched, slender frame, hiding his hands and feet. A rusted crown sat off center on his head of thick, ghostly white hair. A gleaming silver mask covered every last shred of his face, revealing only twinkling blue eyes and wide, full lips, curled in a mischievous smile.
“It must suspect a good ending.”
The Storian dove to the page:
“Both were Beautiful and fair, but only one was Good of Soul.”
“I like our story,” Sophie said.
“It hasn’t gotten to the part where this school all but tortures you,” said Agatha.
“Homeward ho,” Sophie sulked.
They looked up and saw the School Master studying them.
“Readers are unpredictable, of course. Some have been our greatest students. Most have been embarrassing failures.” He gazed at the distant towers, turning his back to the girls. “But this just shows how confused Readers have become.”
Agatha’s heart pounded. This was their chance! She poked Sophie. “Go!”
“I can’t!” Sophie whispered.
“You said leave him to you!”
“He’s too old!”
Agatha poked Sophie again, Sophie elbowed her back—
“Many of the faculty say I kidnap you, steal you, take you against your will,” the School Master said.
Agatha nudged Sophie forward.
“But the truth is I free you.”
Sophie swallowed and took off her broken shoe.
“You deserve to live extraordinary lives.”
Sophie crept towards the School Master, raising her jagged heel.
“You deserve the chance to know who you are.”
The School Master turned to Sophie, shoe poised over his heart.
“Sophie! Please School Master! Put Sophie in Good where she belongs, even if you have to send me to Evil…” Agatha muttered.
Silence.
Sophie dropped to her knees. “Oh, please, sir, we beg for mercy!”
Agatha sighed.
“You took me for Good,” sobbed Sophie, “but they put me in Evil and now my dress is black and my hair’s dirty and my prince hates me and my roommates are murderers and there’s no Groom Rooms for Nevers so now”—she let out a soprano wail—“I smell.” She bawled into her hands.
“So you’d like to switch schools?” the School Master asked.
“If we cant, we would like to go home,” said Agatha.
Sophie looked up brightly. “Can we switch schools?”
The School Master smiled. “No.”
“Then we’d like to go home,” Sophie said.
“Lost in a strange land, the sisters wanted to go home,” the Storian noted.
“We have sent students home before,” the School Master said, silver mask flaring. “Illness, mental incapacity, the petition of an influential family . . .”
“So you can send us home!” Agatha gasped.
“Indeed I could,” said the School Master, “if you weren’t in the midst of a fairy tale.” He eyed the pen across the room. “You see, once the Storian begins your story, then I’m afraid we must follow it wherever it takes you. Now the question is, ‘Will your story take you home?’”
The Storian plunged to the page: “Stupid girls! They were trapped for eternity!”
“I suspected as much,” said the School Master.
“So there’s no way home?” Agatha asked, eyes welling.
“Not unless it’s your ending,” the School Master said. “And going home together is a rather far-fetched ending for two girls fighting for opposing sides, don’t you think?”
“But we don’t want to fight!” Sophie said.
“We’re on the same side!” said Agatha.
“We’re friends!” Sophie said, clasping Agatha’s hand. “We’re sisters!” Agatha said, glancing at Sophie sadly.
“Friends! Sisters!” the School Master marveled.
Agatha looked just as surprised, feeling Sophie’s grip.
“Well, that certainly changes things.” The School Master paced like a doddering duck. “You see, a princess and a witch can never be friends in our world, let alone siblings. It’s unnatural. It’s unthinkable. It’s impossible. Which means if you are indeed friends . . . Agatha must not be a princess and Sophie must not be a witch.”
“Exactly!” said Sophie. “Because I’m the princess and she’s the wi—” Agatha flinched.
“And if Agatha is not a princess and Sophie is not a witch, then clearly I’ve got it wrong and you don’t belong in our world at all,” he said, pace slowing. “Maybe what everyone says about me is true after all.”
“That you’re Good?” Sophie said.
“That I’m old,” the School Master sighed out the window.
Agatha couldn’t contain her excitement. “So we can go home now?”
“Well, there is the thorny matter of proving all this.”
“But I’ve tried!” Sophie said. “I’ve tried proving I’m not a villain!”
“And I’ve tried proving she’s a Princess too!” said Agatha.
“Ah, but there’s only one way in this world to prove who you are.”
The Storian stopped its busy writing, sensing a pivotal moment. Slowly the School Master turned. For the first time, his blue eyes had a glint of danger.
“What’s the one thing Evil can never have . . . and the one thing Good can never do without?”
The girls looked at each other.
“So we solve your riddle and you . . . send us home?” Agatha asked hopefully.
The School Master turned away. “I trust I won’t see either of you again. Unless you want a rather depressing end to your story.”
Suddenly, the room started disappearing in a sweep of white, as if the scene was being erased before their eyes.
“Wait!” Agatha cried. “What are you doing!”
First the bookshelves vanished, then the walls—
“No! We want to go home now!” Agatha pleaded.
Then the ceiling, the table, the floor around them—the two girls lunged to a corner to avoid being erased—
“How do we find you! How do we answe—” Agatha ducked to avoid a streak of white. “We need more infomation!”
Across the room, Sophie saw the Storian furiously writing to keep up with their fairy tale. The pen sensed her gaze, for the words in its steel suddenly seared red and Sophie’s heart burned again with secret understanding. Scared, she clung to Agatha—
“You thief! You bully! You masked-face old creep!” Sophie screamed. “We’re fine without you! Readers are fine without you! Stay in your tower with your masks and pens and stay out of our lives! You hear me! Steal children from other villages and leave us alone!”
The last thing they saw was the School Master turn from the window, smiling in a sea of white.
“What other villages?”
The ground vanished beneath the two girls’ feet and they free-fell into emptiness, the School Master’s last words echoing, blending into the wolves’ call to morning class—
They woke, blinded by sunlight, swimming in puddles of sweat. Agatha looked for Sophie. Sophie looked for Agatha. But all they found were their own beds, in towers far apart.

Chapter Text

The morning started miserably for both girls. Not only had they gotten zero sleep, but now they were back in their schools for another day of classes (Agatha really couldn't find it in herself to be that upset about class) . Even worse, neither of them knew the answer to the School Master’s riddle, nor could they ponder it together until lunch. And if all this wasn’t bad enough, their Hobgoblin Debacle had become the talk of both schools.
In Uglification, Sophie tried to ignore all the snickers and focus on Manley’s lecture about the proper use of capes. This took valiant concentration, given Hester’s vengeful glares and the fact that capes could be used for protection, invisibility, disguise, or flight, depending on their fabric and grain, with each type requiring different incantations. Manley blindfolded the students for the class challenge, where students raced to identify their given cape’s fabric and successfully put it to use.
“I didn’t know magic was so complicated,” Hort murmured, massaging his cape to see if it was silk or satin.
“And this is just capes,” Dot said, smelling hers. “Wait until we do spells!”
But if there was one thing Sophie knew, it was clothes. She recognized snakeskin under her fingers, mentally said the incantation, and went invisible under her slinky black cape. The feat earned her another top rank and a look from Hester so lethal Sophie thought she might burst into flames.
Across the moat, Agatha couldn’t turn a corner without seeing Beatrix and her minions mimicking hobgoblin lurches, howling gibberish, and cashing each other with sticks. Wherever she went, Beatrix and company followed, braying and grunting at the top of their lungs, until she finally snatched a squash and jabbed her in the chest with it.
“Don't be a cow Beatrix. You can't just be mean because Tedros chose Me! Not you you cruel blond girl!”
Beatrix gaped dumbly as she ran off crying.
“Thats why we are doing this?” asked Millicent, flabbergasted.
Tedros turned to find boys staring. “No, I—she tricked—I didn’t—” He pulled his sword. “Who wants to fight?”
With Hansel’s Haven still in ruins, classes were moved to the tower common rooms. Agatha followed a herd of Evers through the Breezeways linking all the Good towers in a zigzag of colorful glass passages high over the lake. While crossing a purple breezeway to Charity, she tuned out gossiping girls and pondered the School Master’s riddle over and over, until she looked up and saw she was all alone. After fumbling through the bubble-filled Laundry, where nymphs scoured dresses, dodging enchanted pots in the Supper Hall making lunch, and trapping herself in a faculty toilet, Agatha finally tracked down the Charity Commons. The pink chaise couches were already full and none of the girls made room for her. Just as she sat on the floor—
“Sit here!”
Kiko scooted aside. As the others tittered, Agatha squeezed in beside her. “Beatrix convinced them that you are best friends with a witch,” she mumbled. Agatha frowned, “She is my best friend, and my twin sister. Sophie isn't a witch.” Kiko shrugged, as if it was of no concern to her who Agatha's family are.
“I don’t understand how they can think themselves Good and be so rude,” Kiko whispered.
“Maybe because I almost burned down the school.”
“They’re just jealous. You can make wishes come true. None of us can do that yet.”
“It was a fluke. If I could make wishes come true, I’d be home with my friend and my cat.” The thought of Reaper made Agatha grasp for another subject. “Um, how’s that boy you wished for?”
“Tristan?” Kiko’s face fell. “He likes Beatrix. Every boy likes Beatrix.” Not Tedros. Agatha flushed at the thought.
“But he gave you his rose,” Agatha said, remembering her wish at the lake.
“By accident. I jumped in front of Beatrix to catch it.” Kiko gave Beatrix a dirty look. “Do you think he’ll take me to the Ball? Not every boy can take that she-wolf.”
Agatha smiled. Then frowned. “What ball?”
“The Evers Snow Ball! It’s right before Christmas and every one of us has to find a boy to take us or we’re failed! We get ranked as couples based on our presentation, demeanor, and dancing. Why do you think we all wished for different boys at the lake? Girls are practical like that. Boys just all want the prettiest one.” Kiko grinned. “Who do you have your eye on?”
Before Agatha could panict, the doors flew open and a busty woman flounced in wearing a bejeweled red turban and scarf that matched her dress, caked caramel makeup, swarthy kohl around her eyes, Gypsy hoop earrings, and jangling tambourine bracelets.
“Umm . . . Professor Anemone?” Kiko gawked.
“I am Scherezade,” Professor Anemone boomed in a ridiculous accent. “Queen of Persia. Sultaness of the Seven Seas. Behold my dusky desert beauty.”
She whipped off her scarf and did a terrible belly dance. “See how I seduce you with my hips!” She veiled her face and blinked like an owl. “See how I tempt you with my eyes!” She shook her bosom and beat her bangles noisily. “See how I become Midnight’s Temptress!”
“More like smoked kebab,” Reena murmured. Millicent giggled.
Professor Anemone’s smile vanished, as did the accent. “Here I thought I’d teach you to survive 1001 Arabian Nights—dune-ready makeup, hegira fashions, even a proper Dance of the Seven Veils—but perhaps I should start with something less amusing.” She tightened her turban.
“Fairies have alerted me that candy has been vanishing from Hansel’s Haven even while it is under repair. As you know, our school’s classrooms are made of candy as a reminder of all the temptations that you will face beyond our gates.” Her eyes narrowed. “But we know what happens to girls who eat candy. Once they start, they can’t stop. They stray from the path. They fall prey to witches. They gorge themselves on self-pleasure until they die obese, unmarried, and riddled with warts.”
The girls were aghast someone would vandalize the tower, let alone ruin their figure with candy. Agatha looked sick at the thought of food, pushing away the basket of snacks Beatrix gave her after breakfast. That's when the marshmallows fell out of the basket, followed by a blue lollipop, a hunk of gingerbread, and two bricks of fudge. Twenty gasps came at once.
“Beatrix gave me the basket, I swear!” Agatha insisted. “I don't eat, Ask kiko! She is in my room ”
“Its true professor, I haven't seen Agatha at the dinner hall at all…” Kiko replied quietly, Anemone frowned at Agatha before flashing a glare at Beatrix.
“You’ll be cleaning plates after supper for the next two weeks, Beatrix, That is nothing but Evil,” said her professor. “A useful reminder of the one thing princesses have that villains do not.”
Agatha bolted up. The answer!
“A proper diet,” Professor Anemone huffed.
As the turbaned teacher divulged more Arabian Beauty Secrets, Agatha slumped into the couch. One class and her problems had already multiplied. Between the panic of a mandatory Ball, Beatrix’s sabotage, and a decidedly lonely future, she had the crashing realization of just how fast she needed to solve the School Master’s riddle.

“How about poison in her food?” Hester spat.
“She doesn’t eat,” said Anadil, tramping with her through Malice Hall.
“How about poisoned lipstick?”
“They’ll lock us in the Doom Room for weeks!” fretted Dot, lumbering to keep up.
“I don’t care how we do it or how much trouble we get in,” Hester hissed. “I want that snake gone.”
She threw open the door to Room 66 to find Sophie sobbing on her bed.
“Um, snake’s crying,” Anadil said.
“Are you okay, love?” Dot asked, suddenly sorry for the girl she was supposed to kill.
Blubbering, Sophie poured out everything that happened in the School Master’s tower.
“. . . But now there’s a riddle and I don’t know the answer and Tedros thinks I’m a witch because I keep winning challenges and no one understands the reason I keep winning is that I’m good at everything!”
Hester was ready to strangle her right there. Then her face changed.
“This riddle. If you answer it . . . you go home?”
Sophie nodded.
“And we never have to see you again?” said Anadil.
Sophie nodded.
“We’ll solve it,” her roommates pounced.
“You will?” Sophie blinked.
“You know how badly you want to go home?” said Hester.
“We want you to go home more,” said Anadil.
“Well, at least you believe me,” Sophie frowned, wiping tears.
“Guilty until proven innocent,” Hester said. “It’s the Never way.”
“I wouldn’t tell any of this to an Ever, though. They’ll think you’re mad as a hatter,” said Anadil.
“That’s what I thought, but who lies about breaking so many rules?” Dot said, failing to turn her swan crest to chocolate. “Really, this bird is incorrigible.”
“What’s the School Master like?” Hester asked Sophie.
“He’s old. Very, very old.”
“And you actually saw the Storian?” Anadil asked.
“That strange pen? It wrote about us the whole time.”
“It what?” said the three girls at once.
“But you’re in school!” Hester said.
“What can happen in school that’s worthy of a fairy tale?” said Anadil.
“I’m sure it’s just a mistake, like everything else,” Sophie sniffled. “I just need to solve the riddle, tell the School Master, and poof, I’m out of this cursed place. Simple.”
She saw the girls exchange looks. “Isn’t it?”
“There’s two puzzles here,” Anadil said, eyeing Hester. “The School Master’s riddle.”
Hester turned to Sophie. “And why he wants you to solve it.”
If there was one word Agatha dreaded more than “ball,” it was “dancing.”
“Every Good girl must dance at the Ball,” Pollux said, wobbling on mule legs in the Valor Commons.
Agatha tried not to breathe. The room reeked of leather and cologne with its musky brown couches, bear-head carpet, hide-bound books about hunting and riding, and a moose-head plaque flaunting obscenely large antlers. She missed her home and its graveyard stench.
Pollux led the girls through the dances for the Evers Ball, none of which Agatha could follow, since he kept falling and mumbling it would “make sense once he got his body back.” After tripping a hoof on the rug, impaling himself on the antlers, and landing buttocks first in the fireplace, Pollux barked they “got the point” and wheeled to a group of fairies wielding willow violins. “Play a volta!”
And so they did, lightning quick, with Agatha flung from partner to partner, waist to waist, spinning faster, faster into a wild blur. Her feet caught fire. Every girl in the room was Sophie. Sophie’s Punishment! It was back for her! “Sophie! I’m coming!” she yelled—
Next thing she knew, she was on the floor.
“There are appropriate times for fainting,” Pollux scowled. “This is not one.”
“I tripped,” Agatha mumbled.
“Suppose you faint during the Ball! Chaos! Carnage!”
“Please Pollux!”
“Forget a ball! It would be a Midnight Massacre!”
Agatha stared him down. “POLLUX!”

When the girls reported to the banks of Halfway Bay for Animal Communication, Professor Dovey was waiting. “Princess Uma has taken ill.”
Girls gave Agatha sour looks, since her Wish Fish debacle was surely responsible. With no one to supervise on such short notice, Professor Dovey gave them the session off. “Top-half students may use the Groom Room. Bottom-half students should use the time to reflect upon their mediocrity!”
While Beatrix and her seven minions sashayed to the Groom Room for manicures, the bottom-half girls scurried to peek in on Swordplay, since the boys sparred shirtless. Meanwhile, Agatha hastened to the Gallery of Good, hoping it would inspire an answer to the riddle.
As her eyes drifted across its sculptures, cases, and stuffed creatures lit by pink-flamed torches, she remembered the School Master’s decree that a witch and princess could never be friends. But why? Something had to come between them. Surely this was the mysterious thing a princess could have and a villain could not. She thought about what it could be until her neck prickled red. But still no answer.
She found herself pulled once more to the corner nook, home to the gauzy paintings of Gavaldon’s Readers. Agatha remembered Professor Dovey speaking to that tight-jawed woman. “Professor Sader,” they called the artist. The same Sader who taught History of Heroism? Wasn’t that class next?
This time, Agatha moved through the paintings slowly. As she did, she noticed the landscape evolved from frame to frame: more stores sprang up in the square, the church changed colors from white to red, two windmills rose behind the lake—until the village began to look just like the one she had left. Even more confused now, she drifted along the paintings until one made her stop.
As children read storybooks on the church steps, the sun spotlit a girl in a purple peacoat and yellow hat with sunflowers. Agatha put her nose to the girl. Alice? It had to be. The baker’s daughter had worn the same ridiculous coat and hat every day of her life until she was kidnapped eight years before. Across the painting, an errant ray of sun spotlit a gaunt boy in black beating a cat with a stick. Rune. Agatha remembered him trying to gouge out Reaper’s eye before her mother thrashed him away with a broomstick. Rune too had been taken that year.
Quickly she shifted to the next painting, where scores of children lined up in front of Mr. Deauville’s, but the sun illuminated only two: bald Bane, biting the girl in front of him, and quiet, handsome Garrick. The two boys taken four years before.
Sweating, Agatha slowly turned to the next painting. As children read high on an emerald hill, two sat below, sunlit on a lake bank. A girl in black flicking matches into the water. A girl in pink packing pouches with cucumbers.
Breathless, Agatha dashed back through the row. In every one, light chose two children: one bright and fair, the other strange and grim. Agatha retreated from the nook and climbed on a stuffed cow’s rump so she could see all the paintings at once, paintings that told her three things about this Professor Sader—
He could move between the real and fairy-tale worlds. He knew why children were brought here from Gavaldon.
And he could help them get home.
As fairies chimed the start of the next class, Agatha barged into the Theater of Tales and squeezed beside Kiko, while Tedros and his boys played handball against the phoenix carved into the front of the stone stage.
“Tristan didn’t even say hi,” Kiko griped. “Maybe he thinks I have a thing for girls now im so close to yo—”
“Where’s Professor Sader?” Agatha said.
“I’m Professor Sader,” said a voice.
She looked up and saw a handsome silver-haired teacher give her a cryptic smile as he ascended the stage in his shamrock-green suit. The man who smiled at her in the foyer and on the Bridge.
The cloudy eyed professor.
Agatha exhaled. Surely he’d help if he liked her so much.
“As you know, I teach fourth session both here and in Evil and unfortunately cannot be in two places at once. Thus I’ll be alternating weeks between schools,” he said, clasping the lectern. “On weeks where I’m not here, you’ll have former students come to recount their adventures in the Endless Woods. They’ll be responsible for your weekly challenges, so please afford them the same respect you’d give me. Finally, given I am responsible for a vast amount of students and a vast amount of history, I do not hold office hours nor will I answer your questions inside or outside of class.”
Agatha coughed. How could she get answers if he didn’t allow questions?
“If you do have questions,” said Sader, hazel eyes unblinking, “you’ll surely find the answers in your text, A Student’s History of the Woods, or in my other authored books, available in the Library of Virtue. Now to roll call. Beatrix?”
“Yes.”
“One more time, Beatrix.”
“Right here,” Beatrix snapped.
“Thank you, Beatrix. Kiko!”
“Present!”
“Again, Kiko.”
“I’m here, Professor Sader!”
“Excellent. Reena!”
“Yes.”
“Again?”
Agatha sighed. At this rate, they’d be here until new moon.
“Tedros!”
“Here.”
“Louder, Tedros.”
“Oh my lord, is he deaf?” Agatha exclaimed.
“No, silly,” said Kiko. “He’s blind.”
Agatha giggled. “Don’t be sill—”
The glassy eyes. The matching names to voices. The way he gripped the lectern.
“But his paintings!” Agatha cried. “He’s seen Gavaldon! He’s seen us!”
That’s when Professor Sader met her eyes and smiled, as if to remind her he’d never seen anything at all.

“So let me get this straight,” Sophie said. “There were two School Masters first. And they were brothers.”
“Twins,” said Hester.
“One Good, one Evil,” said Anadil.
Sophie moved along a series of chipped marble murals built into Evil Hall. Covered in emerald algae and blue rust, torch-lit with sea-green flames, the hall looked like a cathedral that had spent most of its life underwater.
She stopped at one, depicting two young men in a castle chamber, keeping watch over the enchanted pen she had seen in the School Master’s tower. One brother wore long black robes, the other white. In the cracked mosaic, she could make out their identical handsome faces, ghostly pale hair, and deep blue eyes. But where the white-robed brother’s face was warm, gentle, the black-robed one’s was icy and hard. Still, something about both of their faces seemed familiar.
“And these brothers ruled both schools and protected the magic pen,” Sophie said.
“The Storian,” Hester corrected.
“And Good won half the time and Evil won half the time?”
“More or less,” said Anadil, feeding a snail to her pocketed rats. “My mother used to say that if Good went on a streak, Evil would find new tricks, forcing Good to improve its defense and beat them back.”
“Nature’s balance,” said Dot, munching on a schoolbook she’d turned to chocolate.
Sophie moved to the next mural, where the Evil brother had gone from ruling peacefully alongside his brother to attacking him with a barrage of spells. “But the Evil one thought he could control the pen—um, Storian—and make Evil invincible. So he gathers an army to destroy his brother and starts war.”
“The Great War,” said Hester. “Where everyone took a side between Good brother and Evil brother.”
“And in the final battle between them, someone won,” said Sophie, eyeing the last mural—a sea of Evers and Nevers bowed before a masked School Master in silver robes, the glowing Storian floating above his hands. “But no one knows who.”
“Quick-study,” Anadil grinned.
“But then surely people must know if he’s the Good brother or Evil brother?” Sophie asked.
“Everyone pretends it’s a mystery,” said Hester, “but since the Great War, Evil hasn’t won a single story.”
“But doesn’t the pen just write what happens in the Woods?” Sophie said, studying the strange symbols in the Storian’s steel. “Don’t we control the stories?”
“And it just happens one day all villains die?” Hester growled. “That pen is forcing our fates. That pen is killing all the villains. That pen is controlled by Good.”
“Storian, love,” Dot chomped. “Not a pen.”
Hester smacked the book out of her mouth.
“But if you’re going to die every time, why bother teaching villains?” said Sophie. “Why have the School for Evil at all?”
“Try asking a teacher that question,” piped Dot, digging in her bag for a bigger book.
“Fine, so you villains can’t win anymore,” Sophie yawned, filing her nails with a marble shard. “What’s this to do with me?”
“The Storian started your fairy tale,” Hester frowned.
“So?”
“And given your current school, the Storian thinks you’re the villain in that fairy tale.”
“And I should care about the opinion of a pen?” Sophie said, whittling nails on her other hand.
“I take back the quick-study bit,” said Anadil.
“If you’re the villain, you die, you imbecile!” Hester barked.
Sophie broke a nail. “But the School Master said I could go home!”
“Or maybe his riddle’s a trap.”
“He’s Good! You said it yourself!”
“And you’re in Evil,” said Hester. “He’s not on your side.”
Sophie looked at her. Anadil and Dot had the same grim expression.
“I’m going to die here?” Sophie squeaked, eyes welling. “There has to be something I can do!”
“Solve the riddle,” Hester said, shrugging. “It’s the only way you’ll know what he’s up to. Plus your ending needs to happen soon. If you win one more challenge, I’ll kill you myself.”
“Then tell me the answer!” Sophie yelled.
“What does a villain never have that a princess can’t do without?” Hester mulled, itching her tattoo.
“Animals, maybe?” said Dot.
“Villains can have animal henchmen. Just takes deeper corruption,” said Anadil. “What about honor?”
“Evil has its own version of honor, valor, and everything else Good thinks they invented,” Hester said. “We just have better names for them.”
“I have it!”
They turned to Sophie.
“A birthday party!” she said. “Who would want to go to a Villain Party?”
Anadil and Hester stared at her.
“It’s because she doesn’t eat,” said Dot. “Brains need food.”
“Then you must be the smartest girl alive!” Sophie roared.
Dot glared back at her. “Remember the cruelest villains die the cruelest deaths.”
Sophie turned to Hester nervously. “Would Lady Lesso tell me the answer?”
“If she thinks it’ll help Evil win.”
“You’d have to be clever,” said Anadil.
“And subtle,” said Hester.
“Cleverness? Subtlety? That’s what I do, darling,” Sophie said, relieved. “This riddle is good as solved.”
“Or not, given we’re fifteen minutes late,” said Dot.
Indeed, the only thing chillier than Lady Lesso’s frozen classroom was the looks she gave the four girls as they slipped through the door to their seats.
“I would send you for punishment, but they’re occupied with students from my last class.”
Boys’ screams echoed from beneath their feet. The whole class trembled at the thought of what was happening in the Doom Room.
“Let’s see if our latecomers can redeem themselves,” said Lady Lesso, heels clacking ominously.
“What are we doing?” Sophie whispered to Hort.
“She’s testing us on famous Nemeses,” Hort whispered. “If you get a question right, you get one of these.” He flaunted a massive stick-on wart glued to his cheek.
Sophie recoiled. “That’s a reward?”
“Hester, can you name a villain who destroyed her Nemesis with a Nightmare Curse?”
“Finola the Fairy Eater. Finola the Witch haunted the fairies’ dreams and convinced them to cut off their own wings. With the fairies no longer able to fly, Finola caught and ate them one by one.”
Sophie swallowed whatever came up. But she had never heard of Finola the Fairy Eater, so Hester had surely gotten it wrong.
“Correct! Finola the Fairy Eater! One of the most famous stories of all!” Lady Lesso said, and stuck a giant wart on Hester’s hand.
Famous? Sophie wrinkled her nose. Famous where?
“Anadil, name a villain who killed their Nemesis using disguise!” Lady Lesso said.
“Rabid Bear Rex. Dressed himself in a bear skin because Princess Anatole loved bears. When she tried to pet him, he cut her throat.”
“A great role model for us all, Rabid Bear Rex!” said Lady Lesso, and planted a wart on Anadil’s neck. “If he was alive, he’d wipe that grin off every one of Clarissa’s gloating cockerels!”
Sophie bit her lip. Were they making this all up?
“Dot. Name a villain who murdered their Nemesis with transformation!”
“The Frost Queen! Turned the princess into ice and put her in the morning sun!”
“My favorite tale of all!” Lady Lesso thundered. “A story that will live forever in the hearts of—”
Sophie snorted.
“Is something funny?” said Lady Lesso.
“Never heard of any of these,” Sophie said.
Hester and Anadil sank in their seats.
“Never heard of them?” Lady Lesso sneered. “These are Evil’s greatest triumphs! The glory that inspires future villains! Four Girls in a Well! Twelve Drowned Princesses! Ursula the Usurper, The Witch of—”
“Never heard of those either,” Sophie sighed, combing back her hair. “Where I come from, no one would read a story where Evil wins. Everyone wants Good to win because Good has better looks, nicer clothes, and more friends.”
Lady Lesso was speechless.
Sophie turned to her classmates. “I’m sorry that no one likes you and you never win and that you have to go to school for no reason, but it’s the truth.”
Hester pulled her robes over her face.
Dot leaned forward and whispered into Sophie’s ear. “The riddle, love.”
“Oh, yes,” said Sophie, all business. “While I have the floor, here’s a bit of a brainteaser. It’s quite important that I solve it, so any help would be deeply appreciated. What does a villain never have that a princess can’t do without? Any ideas? Feel free to shout them out. Merci, darlings.”
“I have an idea,” said Lady Lesso.
“I knew you would.” Sophie smiled. “What is it? What do I have that you don’t?”
Lady Lesso thrust her face in hers. “Nothing. Which is what we’ll be hearing from you the rest of class.”
Sophie had an appeal, but it never made it out of her mouth. Her lips were sealed shut.
“Much better,” Lady Lesso said, and blessed Sophie with a wart between the eyes.
As Sophie pried at her lips, Lady Lesso stood calmly and smoothed her purple gown, ignoring the petrified students around her.
“Now, Hort, tell me a villain who employed a Raven Death Trap.”
Wheezing through her nose, Sophie wrenched at her mouth with a pen, hair clip, and icicle, which pierced her lips. Gasp, wail, scream, she tried it all, but all she found was silence, panic, blood—
And Hester glowering from the front row.
“Good as solved, eh?”

Chapter Text

Agatha had no idea why lunch was a joint-school activity, because Evers sat with Evers, Nevers sat with Nevers, and both groups pretended the other wasn’t there.

Lunch took place in the Clearing, an intimate picnic field outside the Blue Forest gates. To get to the Clearing, students had to journey through twisty tunnels of trees that grew narrower and narrower, until one by one the children spat through a hollowed trunk onto emerald grass. As soon as Agatha came through the Good tunnel, she followed the line of Evers receiving picnic baskets from nymphs in red hoods, while Nevers from the Evil tunnel took rusty pails from red-suited wolves.

Agatha found a shady patch of grass and reached into her willow basket to find a lunch of smoked trout sandwiches, rampion salad, strawberry soufflé, and a vial of sparkling lemon water. She let thoughts of riddles and dead ends fall away as she opened her watering mouth to the sandwich—

Sophie swiped it. “You don’t know what I’ve been through,” she sobbed, scarfing it whole. “Here’s yours.” She plunked down a pail of gruel. Agatha looked aghast as the pail before turning to her sister.

Agatha stared at her.

“Look, I asked,” Sophie garbled between bites. “Apparently Nevers need to learn deprivation. Part of your training. This is lovely, by the way.” Agatha frowned

“I'm not a witch Sophie”

“Of course you are Darling, because i'm the princess!”

Agatha was still staring.

“What?” Sophie said. “Do I have blood on my teeth? Because I thought I got it al—”

Over Agatha’s shoulder, she saw Tedros and his friends pointing and snickering.

“Oh no,” Sophie groaned. “What’d you do now?” Agatha blushed in Tedros’ direction. Before turning to stare at Sophie again.

“If you’re going to be a brat about it, you can have the soufflé.” Sophie frowned. “Why is that strange imp waving at me?”

Agatha turned and saw Kiko across the Clearing, waving and flaunting newly red hair. It was the exact same color as Tristan’s. Agatha’s face went white.

“Um, you know her?” Sophie said, watching Kiko giddily approach Tristan.

“We’re friends,” Agatha said, waving Kiko away from him.

“You have a friend?” Sophie said.

Agatha turned to her.

“Why do you keep looking at me like that!” Sophie yelled.

“You haven’t been eating candy, have you?”

“Huh?” Sophie shrieked, realizing—her hand flew up and ripped Lesso’s wart off her face—“Why didn’t you tell me!” she cried, as Tedros and boys exploded into whoops.

“Ohhh, it can’t get any worse,” Sophie moaned.

Hort picked up her discarded wart and ran away with it.

Sophie looked at Agatha. Agatha cracked a smile.

“It’s not funny!” Sophie wailed.

But Agatha was laughing and so was Sophie.

“What do you think he’ll do with it?” Agatha sniggered.

Sophie stopped laughing. “We need to get home. Now.”

Agatha told Sophie about all her frustrations solving the riddle, including her dead end with Professor Sader. Before she could even try to ask about his paintings, Sader had taken off to meet his Evil students, leaving three geriatric pigs to lecture about the importance of fortifying one’s houses.

“He’s the only one who can help us,” said Agatha.

“Better hurry. My days are numbered,” Sophie said glumly and recounted everything that had happened with her roommates, including their prediction of Sophie’s doom.

“You die? That doesn’t make any sense. You can’t be the villain in our story if we’re friends.”

“That’s why the School Master said we can’t be friends,” Sophie replied. “Something has to come between us. Something that answers the riddle.”

“What could possibly come between us?” Agatha said, still at a loss. “Maybe it’s all connected. This thing that Good has and Evil doesn’t. Do you think it’s why Good always wins?”

“Evil used to win, according to Lady Lesso. But now Good has something that beats them all.”

“But the School Master forbade us to return to his tower. So the answer to the riddle isn’t a word or a thing or an idea—”

“We have to do something!”

“Now we’re getting somewhere. First, it’s something that can turn us against each other. Second, it’s something that beats Evil every time. And third, it’s something we can physically do—”

The girls spun to each other. “I got it,” said Agatha—“Me too,” said Sophie—

“It’s so obvious.”

“So obvious.”

“It’s—it’s—”

“Yes, it’s—”

“No idea,” Agatha said.

“Me either,” sighed Sophie.

Across the field Everboys slowly trespassed into Evergirl territory. Girls waited like flowers to be picked, only to see Beatrix attract the lion’s share. As Beatrix flirted with her suitors, Tedros fidgeted on a tree stump. Finally he stood up, shoved in front of the other boys, and asked Agatha to take a walk.

“He was supposed to rescue me,” Sophie glared at Agatha, watching Agatha request a raincheck.

“Sophie, we have the chance to save our village from a two-hundred-year-old curse, to rescue children from beatings and failings, to escape wolves, waves, gargoyles, and everything else in this awful school, and to end a story that will kill you. And you’re thinking about a boy?”

“I wanted my happy ending, Aggie,” Sophie said, tears sparkling.

“Getting home alive is our happy ending, Sophie.”

Sophie nodded, but her eyes never left Tedros.

“Welcome to Good Deeds,” said Professor Dovey to students gathered in the Purity Common Room. “Now we’re behind your other subjects, so we’ll dispense with the usual pleasantries. Let me begin by saying that over the years, I’ve seen a disturbing decrease in esteem for this class.”

“Because it’s after lunch,” Tedros whispered into Agatha’s ear.

“Sure, Tedros. Full bellies make kids evil” Agatha giggles

“Seriously, what witchy spell did Sophie put on you to make you friends with her.”

Agatha didn’t turn.

“She did something,” Tedros pressured. “Tell me.”

“She is my sister, do I need a reason?” Agatha said, gazing ahead.

“Not good enough!” Tedros saw Professor Dovey glaring and flashed her a cocksure smile. She rolled her eyes and went on. He leaned over again to Agatha. “Tell me, and my boys will leave her alone.”

“Will you approve of my Sister? She loves you, you know.” Tedros didn't meet her eyes

“So do you, you just won't admit it.”

Agatha exhaled. “I can't be with you Tedros, Sophie loves you and she will never forgive me if I get with you. You will learn to love her, I'm not pretty enough for you.”

“You can't force love, Agatha.”

“Well,” said Agatha, turning to him, “You may not be able to force love Tedros, but, you cant make me love my sister any less”

“She is awful towards you! She is trying to convince you your evil!” Tedros hissed.

“You cant love me Tedros, not matter how much i wish you did. Your thoughtful, kind and make me laugh so hard my cheeks hurt, but, your beautiful, and im not. Sophie doesnt have to convince me in evil, i already know it. Its the good thing to do to let you and sophie fall in love, but my heart flutters when your near me. That makes me the worst kind of evil Tedros, the kind of evil to put my feeling before other peoples.”

Tedros went red. “What about my feelings?”

“You will come to forget me in time,” Agatha said sadly, and turned back around.

While Tedros mumbled about girls, heartbreak, and the other ways his heart punished him for loving, Agatha listened to Professor Dovey justify the importance of Good Deeds.

“Every time you do a Good Deed with true intention, your soul grows purer. Though lately, my Good students have been doing them as if they were chores, preferring to cultivate their egos, arrogance, and waist size! Let me assure you, our winning streak can end at any time!”

“Not if the School Master controls the Storian,” said Agatha.

“Agatha, the School Master has absolutely no role in how the stories play out,” Professor Dovey said impatiently. “He cannot control the Storian.”

“He seemed pretty good at magic to me,” Agatha replied.

“Excuse me?”

“He can split into shadows. He can make a room disappear. He can make it all seem like a dream, so surely he can control a pen—”

“And how might you know all this?” Professor Dovey sighed.

Agatha saw Tedros frowning, confused.

“Because he showed me,” she said.

Tedros’ face fell further. Professor Dovey looked like a kettle about to steam. Students glanced nervously between her and Agatha.

Their teacher smiled tightly. “Oh, Agatha, what an imagination you have. It will serve you well when you’re waiting for someone to rescue you from a ravenous dragon. Let’s hope he arrives in time. Now, the three keys to Good Deeds are creativity, feasibility, and spontaneity—”

Agatha opened her mouth, but Professor Dovey silenced her with a glare. Knowing she was on shaky ground, Agatha pulled out parchment and took notes with the rest.

Before Surviving Fairy Tales, the students of both schools found themselves summoned to an assembly in the Clearing.

As soon as Agatha popped through the tree tunnel, Kiko grabbed her—“Tristan changed his hair!”

Agatha glanced over at Tristan, leaning against a tree. His hair was blond now, drooping over one eye. He reminded her of someone.

“He said he did it for Beatrix!” Kiko wailed, hair still hideously red.

Agatha followed Tristan’s eyes to Beatrix, who was jabbering to Tedros. Tedros couldn’t have been less enthused and puffed at the blond bangs drooping over his—

Agatha coughed. She looked back at Tristan, puffing at his droopy blond bangs. Then at Tedros, who had two shirt buttons undone and his tie loosened with its golden T. Then at Tristan, who had undone two buttons and loosened his tie with its golden T.

“What if I’m blond like Beatrix?” Kiko hounded. “Then will Tristan like me?”

Agatha turned. “You need to find a new crush immediately.”

“ATTENTION.”

She looked up to find the entire faculty fanned between the two tunnels, including Castor and Pollux, whose heads had been reunited on their canine body.

Professor Dovey stepped forward. “There’s been some—”

“MOVE YOUR HIDES, YOU LAZY COWS!” Castor barked.

The last Nevers hurried from their tunnel, with Sophie stumbling out last. She gave Agatha a confused look across the Clearing. Agatha shrugged back.

Professor Dovey opened her mouth to resume—

“PRESENTING CLARISSA DOVEY, DEAN OF THE SCHOOL FOR GOOD AND PROFESSOR EMERITUS OF GOOD DEEDS,” said Castor.

“Thank you, Castor,” said Professor Dovey—

“ANY INTERRUPTIONS OR MISBEHAVIOR WILL BE SWIFTLY PUNISHED—”

“THANK YOU, CASTOR!” Professor Dovey shrieked.

Castor stared at his feet.

Professor Dovey cleared her throat. “Students, we have called you here because there have been some unfortunate rumors—”

“Lies, as I call them,” said Lady Lesso. Agatha recognized her as the teacher who had ripped down Sader’s painting in the Gallery of Good.

“So let us be clear,” Professor Dovey continued. “First, there is no curse on Evil. Evil still has the power to defeat Good.”

“Provided Evil does their homework!” Professor Manley growled.

Nevers muttered, as if they didn’t believe this for a second.

“Second, the School Master is on no one’s side,” said Professor Dovey.

“How do you know?” Ravan shouted.

“Why should we believe you?” Hester yelled as Nevers catcalled—

“Because we have proof.” Professor Sader stepped forward.

Nevers went quiet. Agatha’s eyes widened. Proof?What proof?

Then she noticed Lady Lesso looked especially sour, confirming this proof did in fact exist. Was the proof the answer to the riddle?

“Last but not least,” said Professor Dovey, “the School Master’s primary responsibility is to protect the Storian. For that reason, he remains in his well-fortressed tower. Thus, regardless of the tales you may hear, let me assure you: no student has ever seen the School Master and no student ever will.”

Eyes fell on Agatha.

“Ah, is this the storyteller?” Lady Lesso leered.

“It’s not a story!” Agatha said back, her voice shaking. She saw Sophie shake her head to say this was an ill-advised battle.

Lady Lesso smiled. “I’ll give you one more chance to redeem yourself. Did you meet the School Master?”

Agatha looked at the Evil teacher, purple eyes bulging like marbles. Then at Professor Sader, smiling at her curiously. Then at Sophie across the Clearing, miming wart gluing, mouth zipping . . .

“Yes.”

“You lie to a teacher!” Lady Lesso lashed.

“It’s not a lie!” a voice shouted.

Everyone turned to Sophie. “We were both there! We were in his tower!”

“And I bet you saw the Storian too?” Beatrix sneered.

“Matter of fact, we did!” Sophie retorted to laughter.

“And did it start your fairy tale too?”

“It did! It did start our fairy tale!”

“All hail the Queen of Fools!” Beatrix proclaimed to roars.

“Then you must be the Grand Empress.” Sophie snapped

Beatrix turned to Agatha, arms akimbo.

“Ugh. The fat girl” Beatrix groaned. “Good has never been so wrong.”

“You wouldn’t know Good if it crawled up your dress!” Agatha yelled, tears running down her face. For some reason, it didn't hurt as bad as when Sophie says it, despite the added layer of humiliation. Why does it hurt more when someone she loves says it?

Beatrix gasped so loudly Tedros cracked a grin. Looking back at agatha he immediately runs to her at the sight of her tears, he grabs her face and rubs her cheeks, wiping away tear streaks.

“Are you ok, Love?” Tedros asks softly. Agatha goes to nod before she spots a sneer pointed at her and Tedros. Pushing Tedros behind her, Agatha got ready for a fight.

“Don’t talk to Beatrix that way!” a voice said—

Agatha looked into the eyes of blond-haired Tristan—

“Beatrix?” Agatha giggles. “You sure you don’t want Tedros? You keep dressing up like him” Tedros grins before his princesses words register. Tedros takes another look at Tristen.

He stopped smiling. Dumbstruck, he glanced between Agatha, Tristan, Beatrix . . . He lost patience and punched Tristan in the mouth. Tristan drew his dulled training sword, Tedros whipped out his, and they clashed in public duel. But Tristan had been studying Tedros in Swordplay, so they both used the exact same ripostes, the same retreats, even the same fight calls, until no one knew who was who—

Rather than intervene, Swordplay professor Espada twirled his long mustache. “We’ll dissect this thoroughly in class tomorrow.”

The Nevers had a more immediate response.

“FIIIIGGGHHHHHT!” Ravan roared.

Nevers rushed Evers, steamrolled stunned wolves, and dive-bombed into the dueling swordsmen. Whooping Everboys charged in, inciting an epic playground brawl that splattered Evergirls with mud. Agatha couldn’t help but giggle at the absurdity of girls being brought to their knees by dirt, until filthy Beatrix pointed at her.

“She started it!”

Screaming Evergirls charged after Agatha, who climbed a tree. Nearby, Tedros managed to reach his head from under boys and saw Sophie spring past. “Help!” he yelled, putting faith in the one his princess held so dear—

Sophie stepped on his head as she ran to help Agatha, who was being pelted with pebbles by Beatrix. Then she caught Hort out of the corner of her eye.

“You! Give me back my wart!”

Hort scooted around the brawling mass, Sophie in pursuit, until she got close enough to pick up a fallen branch and hurl it at his head—Hort ducked and it hit Lady Lesso in the face.

Students froze.

Lady Lesso touched her cold, gashed cheek. Staring at the blood on her hand, she grew eerily calm.

Her long red nail rose and pointed at Agatha and Beatrix.

“Lock them in their towers!”

A swarm of fairies seized Agatha and Beatrix and dragged them past a worried Tedros towards the Evers’ tunnel He reached for Agatha’s hand—

“No, it’s my fault!” Sophie cried—

“And this one.” Lady Lesso stabbed her bloodstained finger at Sophie. “To the Doom Room.”

Before Sophie could scream, a claw covered her mouth and pulled her past petrified classmates into the darkness of trees.

Sophie couldn’t live through torture! Sophie couldn’t survive true Evil!

As fairies flew her upstairs, Agatha welled panicked tears and glanced down to see teachers surging into the foyer.

“Professor Sader!” she cried, clinging to a banister. “You have to believe us! The Storian thinks Sophie’s a villain! It’s going to kill her!”

Sader and twenty teachers looked up, alarmed—

“How do you see our village?” Agatha yelled as fairies wrested her away. “How do we get home? What does a S ophie have that a I don’t!”

Sader smiled. “Questions. Always in threes.”

Teachers chuckled and dispersed. (“Seen the Storian?” Espada mused. “She’s the one who doesn't eat,” Professor Anemone explained sadly. “I swear that blonde sister of hers implanted a spell in her mind or something, its been 2 weeks, she has to eat eventually.” Anemone frowned, looking down, the other teachers looked alarmed at the beautification professor's admission.)

“No! You have to save her!” Agatha begged, but the fairies dragged her to her room and locked her in.

Frantic, she ran back to the door and beat on it till her hands dripped crimson on the floor. She had to save Sophie! That's all that matters!

Blood drained from Agatha’s cheeks. Sader was her only hope and he refused to answer questions. Now her only friend would die in that dungeon, all because a magic pen had mistaken a princess for a witch.

Then something flashed in her head. Something Sader said in class.

If you do have questions . . .

Breathless, Agatha emptied her basket of schoolbooks.

A gray wolf, stoic and efficient, tugged Sophie by a long chain fixed to a tight iron collar around her neck. Skirting the dank sewer walls, she couldn’t fight her leash; one wrong step and she’d slip off the narrow path into roaring sludge. Across the rotted black river, she saw two wolves drag moaning Vex from the direction in which she was headed. His eyes met hers, red-rimmed, hateful. Whatever happened to him in the Doom Room had left him more a villain than when he entered.

Agatha, Sophie told herself. Agatha will get us home.

She bit back tears. Stay alive for Agatha.

As she approached the sewer’s halfway point, where sludge turned to clear lake water, she felt the wall’s solid stone become rusty grating. The wolf kicked the door open and shoved her in.

Sophie lifted her head to a dark dungeon, lit by a single torch. Everywhere she looked were tools of punishment: breaking wheel, rack, stocks, nooses, hooks, garrote, iron maiden, thumbscrews, and a terrifying collection of spears, clubs, rods, whips, and knives. Her heart stopped. She turned away—

Two red eyes glowed from the corner.

Slowly a big black wolf rose from shadows, twice the size of all the other wolves. But this one had a human’s body with a thick, hairy chest, sinewy arms, bulging calves, and massive feet. The Beast cracked open a scroll of parchment and read in a deep growl.

“You, Sophie of Woods Beyond, have hereby been summoned to the Doom Room for the following sins: Conspiracy to Commit Untruth, Disruption of Assembly, Attempted Murder of a Faculty Member—”

“Murder!” Sophie gasped—

“Incitement of Public Riots, Crossing of Boundary Lines During Assembly, Destruction of School Property, Harassment of Fellow Students, and Crimes Against Humanity.”

“I plead not guilty to all charges,” Sophie scowled. “Especially the last.”

The Beast seized her face in his claws. “Guilty until proven innocent!”

“Let go!” Sophie screamed.

He sniffed her neck. “Aren’t you a luscious peach.”

“You’ll leave marks!”

To her surprise the Beast released her. “It usually takes beating to find the weak spot.”

Sophie looked at the Beast, confused. He licked his lips and grinned.

With a cry, she lunged for the door—he slammed her to the wall and cuffed her arms to hooks above her head.

“Let me go!”

The Beast slunk along the wall, hunting for just the right punishment.

“Please, whatever I did, I’m sorry!” Sophie wailed.

“Villains don’t learn from apologies,” the Beast said. He considered a cudgel for a moment, then moved on. “Villains learn from pain.”

“Please! Someone help me!”

“Pain makes you stronger,” said the Beast.

He caressed the tip of a rusty spear, then hung it back up.

“Help!” Sophie shrieked.

“Pain makes you grow.”

The Beast picked out an axe. Sophie’s face went ghost white.

He walked up to her, axe handle in his meaty claw.

“Pain makes you Evil.”

He took her hair in his hands.

“No!” Sophie choked.

The Beast raised the axe—

“Please!”

The blade slashed through her hair.

Sophie stared at her long, beautiful gold locks on the black dungeon floor, mouth frozen open in silence. Slowly she raised her terrorized face to meet the big black Beast’s. Then her lips quivered, her body hung from its chains, and the tears came. She buried her shorn, jagged head in her chest and cried. She cried until her nose stuffed up and she couldn’t breathe, spit caking her black tunic, wrists bleeding against her cuffs—

A lock snapped. Sophie lifted her raw, red eyes to see the Beast unhook her from the wall.

“Get out,” he growled, and hung the axe up.

When he turned, Sophie was gone.

The Beast lumbered out of the cell and knelt at the midpoint between roiling muck and clean water. As he dipped the bloody chains in, currents smashed from both directions, rinsing them clean. Scrubbing the last spots of blood away, he caught his reflection in the sludge—

Only it wasn’t his.

The Beast spun—

Sophie shoved him in.

The Beast thrashed in water and slime, grunting and flailing for the wall. The tides were too strong. She watched him gurgle his last breaths and sink like a stone.

Sophie smoothed her hair and walked towards the light, swallowing the sickness in her throat.

The Good forgive, said the rules.

But the rules were wrong. They had to be.

Because she hadn’t forgiven.

She hadn’t forgiven at all.

Chapter Text

The cover was silver silk, painted with the glowing Storian clutched between black and white swans.

A Student’s History of the Woods

AUGUST A. SADER

Agatha opened to the first page.

“This book reflects the views of its author ONLY. Professor Sader’s interpretation of history is his alone and the faculty does not share it. Sincerely, Clarissa Dovey & Lady Lesso, Deans of the School for Good and Evil.”

Agatha felt encouraged the faculty disapproved of the book in her hands. It gave her more hope that somewhere in these pages was the answer to the riddle. The difference between a princess and a witch . . . the proof Good and Evil were balanced. . . . Could they be the same?

She flipped the page to start, but it didn’t have words. Splashed across it were patterns of embossed dots in a rainbow of colors, small as pinheads. Agatha turned the page. More dots. She flipped through fistfuls of pages. No words at all. She tapped the book to her forehead in frustration. Sader’s voice boomed:

“Chapter Fourteen: The Great War.”

Agatha lurched up. Before her eyes, a ghostly three-dimensional scene melted into view atop the book page—a living diorama, colors gauzy like Sader’s paintings in the gallery. She crouched to watch a silent vision unfold of three wizened old men, beards to the floor, standing in the School Master’s tower with hands united. As the old men opened their hands, the gleaming Storian levitated out of them and over a familiar white stone table. Sader’s disembodied voice continued:

“Now remember from Chapter One, the Storian was placed at the School for Good and Evil by the Three Seers of the Endless Woods, who believed it the only place it could be protected from corruption . . .”

Agatha gawked in disbelief. Sightless Sader couldn’t write history. But he could see it and wanted the same for his students. Every time she turned a page and touched the dots, living history came alive to his narration. Most of Chapter 14 recounted what Sophie had told her at lunch: that the School had been ruled by two sorcerer brothers, one Good, one Evil, whose love for each other overcame their loyalties to either side. But in time, the Evil brother found love give way to temptation, until he saw only one obstacle between him and the pen’s infinite power . . . his own blood.

Agatha’s hands swept over dots, scanning exhaustive scenes of Great War battles, alliances, betrayals to see how it all ended. Her fingers stopped as she watched a familiar figure in silver robes and mask rise out of the burning carnage of battle, Storian in hand:

“From the final fight between Evil brother and Good brother, a victor emerged beholden to neither side. In the Great Truce, the triumphant School Master vowed to rise above Good and Evil and protect the balance for as long as he could keep himself alive. Neither side trusted the victor, of course. But they didn’t need to.”

The scene flashed to the dying brother, burning to ashes as he desperately stabbed his hand into the sky, unleashing a burst of silver light—

“For the dying brother used his final embers of magic to create a last spell against his twin: a way to prove Good and Evil still equal. As long as this proof stayed intact, then the Storian remained uncorrupted and the Woods in perfect balance. And as to what this proof is . . .”

Agatha’s heart leapt—

“It remains in the School for Good and Evil to this very day.”

The scene went dark.

She turned the page urgently, touched the dots. Sader’s voice boomed—

“Chapter Fifteen: The Woodswide Roach Plague.”

Agatha flung the book against the wall, then the others, leaving cracks in painted couples’ faces. When there were no more to throw, she buried her face in the bed and cried.

Please. Help us.

Then in the silence between prayers and tears, something came. Not even a thought. An impulse.

Agatha lifted her head.

The answer to the riddle looked back at her.

It’s just a haircut, Sophie told herself as she climbed through a cornflower thicket. No one will even notice. She slid between two periwinkle trees into the West Clearing, approaching her group from behind.

Just find Agatha and—

The group turned all at once. No one laughed. Not Dot. Not Tedros. Not even Beatrix. They gaped with such horror Sophie couldn’t breathe.

“Excuse me—something in my eye—” She ducked behind a blue rosebush and gulped for air. She couldn’t bear any more humiliation.

“Least you look like a Never now,” Tedros said, bobbing behind the bush. “So no one makes the same mistake Agatha made by trusting you.”

Sophie turned beet red.

“Well, this is what happens when you’re friends with a Princess,” the prince frowned.

Now, Sophie was a pomegranate.

“Look, it’s not that bad. It could be worse, at least. Ask Agatha, she’ll help you fix it”

“Excuse me,” said Sophie, eggplant purple. “Something in my other eye—”

She darted out and grabbed Dot like a life raft—“Where’s Agatha!”

But Dot was still staring at her hair. Sophie cleared her throat.

“Oh, um, they haven’t let her out of her room,” Dot said. “Too bad she’ll miss the Flowerground. If Yuba can call the conductor, that is.” She nodded at the gnome, grumpily jabbing at a blue pumpkin patch. Dot’s eyes drifted back to Sophie’s hair.

“It’s . . . nice.”

“Please don’t,” Sophie said softly.

Dot’s eyes misted. “You were so pretty.”

“It’ll grow back,” Sophie said, trying not to cry.

“Don’t worry,” Dot sniffled. “One day, someone Evil enough will kill that monster.”

Sophie stiffened.

“All aboard!” Yuba called.

She turned to see Tedros open the top of an ordinary blue pumpkin like a teapot and vanish inside.

Sophie squinted. “What in the—”

Something poked her hip and she looked down. Yuba thrust a Flowerground pass at her and opened the pumpkin lid, revealing a thin caterpillar in a violet velvet tuxedo and matching top hat, floating in a swirl of pastel colors.

“No spitting, sneezing, singing, sniffling, swinging, swearing, slapping, sleeping, or urinating in the Flowerground,” he said in the crabbiest voice imaginable. “Violations will result in removal of your clothes. All aboard!”

Sophie whipped to Yuba. “Wait! I need to find my frien—”

A vine shot up and yanked her in.

Too stunned to scream, she plunged through dazzling pinks, blues, yellows, as more tendrils lashed and fastened around her like safety belts. Sophie heard a hiss and wheeled to see a giant green flytrap swallow her. She found her scream before vines jerked her out of its mouth into a tunnel of hot, blinding mist and hooked her onto something that kept her moving while her feet and arms dangled freely in the ivy harness. Then the mist cleared and Sophie saw the most magical thing she’d ever seen.

It was an underground transport system, big as a whole village, made entirely of luminescent plants. Dangling passengers hung on to vine straps attached to glowing, different-colored tree trunks covered in matching flowers. These color-coded trunks wove together in a colossal maze of tracks. Some trunks ran parallel, some perpendicular, some forked in different directions, but all took riders to their precise destinations in the Endless Woods. Sophie stared in shock at a row of unsmiling dwarves, pickaxes in belts, clinging to straps off a fluorescent red trunk labeled ROSALINDA LINE. Running in the opposite direction was the glittery green ARBOREA LINE, with a family of bears in crisp suits and dresses among the riders hanging off shamrock vines. Flabbergasted, Sophie peered down her HIBISCUS LINE to see the rest of her group swinging from an electric-blue trunk. But only the Nevers were strapped into harnesses.

“Flowerground’s only for Evers,” Dot called out. “They have to let us on ’cause we’re with the school. But they still don’t trust us.”

Sophie didn’t care. She would ride the Flowerground for the rest of her life if she could. Besides its strong, soothing pace and delicious scents, there was an orchestra of lizards for each line: the TANGERINE LINE lizards strummed bouncy banjo guitars, the VIOLET LINE ones played sultry sitars, and the lizards on Sophie’s line piped up-tempo jingles on piccolos, accompanied by caroling blue frogs. Lest riders grow hungry, each line had its own snacks, with bluebirds fluttering along the HIBISCUS LINE, offering blue-corn muffins and blueberry punch. For once, Sophie had all she needed. Muscles unclenching, she forgot about boys and beasts as vines pulled her up, up, into a churning wind wheel of blue light. Her body felt wind, then air, then earth, and arms unfurling into the sky, Sophie bloomed out of the ground like a heavenly hyacinth—

And found herself in a graveyard.

Headstones the color of the bleak sky swept over barren hills. Shivering classmates spouted from a hole in the ground next to her.

“Wherrre arrre wweee?” she stammered through chattering teeth.

“Garden—of—Good and Evil,” Dot shivered, nibbling a chocolate lizard.

“Doesn’ttt look likke a garrrden to meee,” Sophie chattered back.

Warmth thawed her skin as Yuba sparked a few small fires around the group with his magical staff. Sophie and her classmates exhaled.

“In a few weeks you will each be unlocked to perform spells,” said the gnome to excited titters. “But spells are no substitute for survival skills. Meerworms live near graves and can keep you alive when food is scarce. Today you’ll be finding and eating them!”

Sophie clutched her stomach.

“Off you go! Teams of two!” the gnome said. “Whichever team eats the most meerworms wins the challenge!” His eyes flicked to Sophie. “Perhaps our black sheep can find redemption.”

“Black sheep can’t find anything without her girlfriend,” Tedros murmured.

Sophie moped miserably as he paired up with Beatrix.

“Come on,” Dot said, pulling Sophie to the ground. “We can beat them.”

Suddenly motivated, Sophie started searching the ground with Dot, careful to stay close to the fire. “What do meerworms look like?”

“Like worms,” said Dot.

Sophie was deliberating a retort when she noticed a figure in the distance, silhouetted atop a hill. It was a massive giant, with a long black beard, thick dreadlocks, and midnight-blue skin. He wore only a small brown loincloth as he dug a row of graves.

“Does it all himself, the Crypt Keeper,” Dot said to Sophie. “That’s why there’s such a backlog.”

Sophie followed her eyes to a two-mile line of bodies and coffins behind the Crypt Keeper, waiting for burial. Immediately she could see the difference between the Nevers’ dark stone coffins and the Evers’ coffins made of glass and gold. But there were also some bodies without caskets, just lying untended on the hillslope beneath circling vultures.

“Why doesn’t he have help?” she said, nauseous.

“’Cause no one can interfere with the Crypt Keeper’s system,” Hort said softly. “Two years my dad’s waited.” His voice cracked. “Killed by Peter Pan himself, my dad. Deserves a proper grave.”

Now the whole group was watching the Crypt Keeper dig his graves, before pulling a big book from his mass of hair and studying one of its pages. Then the giant picked up a gold coffin with a handsome prince inside and heaved it into the empty plot. He moved down the line of waiting bodies, picked up a crystal coffin with a beautiful princess, and laid it beside the prince’s coffin in the same grave.

“Anastasia and Jacob. Died of starvation while on honeymoon. Avoidable deaths had they paid attention in class,” Yuba snapped.

Grumbling, the students went back to meerworm hunting, but Sophie kept her eye on the Crypt Keeper, who studied his book again before picking up a coffinless ogre and plunking him in the next plot. Back to the book, and then he rested a resplendent queen’s silver tomb beside a matching king’s.

Sophie’s eyes drifted around the graveyard and saw the same pattern on every hill and valley. Evers buried together with twin headstones—boy and girl, man and wife, prince and princess, together in life and in death. Nevers buried all alone.

Ever After. Paradise together.

Nevermore. Paradise alone.

Sophie froze. She knew the answer to the School Master’s riddle.

“Perhaps we should search Necro Ridge,” Yuba sighed. “Come, students—”

“Cover for me,” Sophie whispered to Dot.

Dot swiveled. “Where are you—wait! We’re a—”

But Sophie was scampering through distant gravestones towards the Flowerground entrance.

“Team,” Dot sulked.

A short while later, in the Blue Forest, five stymphs looked up from their billy goat to see Sophie brandishing an egg.

“Let’s try this again, shall we?”

It was there all along, Agatha thought as she gazed at the walls. The weapon that made Good invincible against Evil. The thing a villain could never have but a princess couldn’t do without. The task that would send her and Sophie home.

If Sophie is alive.

Agatha felt another wave of powerless dread. She couldn’t just sit here while Sophie was being tortured—

Screams pealed outside. She spun to see Sophie hurled through her window by a bucking stymph.

“Love,” Sophie panted.

“You’re alive! Your hair,” Agatha gasped—

“Love is what a villain can never have but a heroine can’t live without.”

“But what did they—are you—”

“Am I right or not?”

Agatha saw Sophie had no intention of talking about the Doom Room.

“Almost.” She pointed to the paintings on the wall with visions of heroes and heroines, lips pressed in climactic embrace.

“True love’s kiss,” Sophie breathed.

“If your true love kisses you, then you can’t be a villain,” Agatha said.

“And if you can’t find love, then you can’t be a princess,” said Sophie.

“And we go home.” Agatha swallowed. She looked down sollemly “Your half is taken care of. Mine isn’t so simple.”

“Oh, please. Agatha, your the fat one, “ Sophie jestured to the rolls on agathas stomach that appeared when the pale girl hunched “Now my part, How can i get Tedros to kiss me? Maybe a dress—”

“Tedros doesent love you Sophie, he told me himself.” Agatha said, physically cowering from her sister. “You’re the one in the evil school, im in good. And, Tedros said he kind of liked me?.”

Sophie met her eyes. She stepped towards the frail form of her sister.

“Tedros. Loves. Me. You, Agatha, are not good enough for a guy like him”

Agatha nodded sickly. Sometimes she wished Tedros would come save her from her sister. No Agatha, thats evil! Agatha critisized herself in the corner of her room while Sophie pased

“Tedros has to . . . kiss me?” Sophie said, staring into space.

“A-and he can’t be t-tricked, f-forced, or duped into it. He h-has to mean it.” Agatha replied to the mumbling, voice shaking in fear

“But how? He thinks I’m a villain! He hates me! Aggie, he’s a king’s son. He’s beautiful, he’s perfect and look at me—” She grabbed her shorn hair and flaccid robes. “I’m—I’m—”

“Still a princess.”

Sophie looked at her. “And the only way we’ll get home,” said Agatha, forcing a smile. “So we have to make this kiss happen.”

“We?” said Sophie.

“We,” rasped Agatha.

Sophie hugged her tight. Agatha stiffened in her grasp

“We’re going home, Aggie.”

But in her arms, Agatha sensed something else. Something that told her the Doom Room had taken more from her friend than just her hair. Agatha squelched her doubts and clasped Sophie tighter.

“One kiss and it will all be over,” she whispered. Can i have ihs kiss? Agatha wished mournfully.

As they embraced in one tower, in another the School Master watched the Storian finish a magnificent painting of the two girls in each other’s arms. The pen added a last flourish of words beneath it, closing the chapter.

“But no kiss comes without its price.”

Chapter Text

Whenever Tedros was stressed, he worked out. So to see him sweating at 6:00 a.m. in the Groom Room, throwing hammers, pumping dumbbells, and swimming laps, meant he had a lot on his mind. It was understandable. The Snow Ball invitations had been slipped under doors during the night.

As he scaled climbing ropes made of braided blond hair, he cursed the fact he would spend Christmas at a Ball. Why did everything with Evers revolve around oppressive formal dances? The problem with Balls was that boys had to do all the work. Girls could flirt and scheme and wish all they wanted, but in the end, it’s the boy who had to make his choice and hope she said yes. Tedros wasn’t all that worried about any girl saying yes. He was worried that the only girl he wanted to ask, didn't want him in the slightest.

He couldn’t remember the last time he actually liked a girl ( Agatha had to be an exception ). And yet, he always had one following him (Agatha never did) , claiming to be his girlfriend ( He wished) . It happened every time. He vowed to forget girls ( She is unforgettable ), then noticed one getting attention, set out to prove he could get her, got her, and discovered she was a fatuous prince hunter who had had her eye on him all along ( Why wouldn't Agatha look at him? ). The Beatrix Curse. No. There was a better name for it.

The Guinevere Curse.

Tedros was only nine when his mother, Guinevere, made off with the knight Lancelot, leaving him and his father alone. He heard the whispers that followed. “She found love.” But what about all those times she said “I love you” to his father? All the times she said it to him? Which love was real?

Night after night, Tedros watched his father slip further into heartbreak and drunkenness. Death came within the year. With his last breaths, King Arthur gripped his son’s hands.

“The people will need a queen, Tedros. Don’t make my mistakes. Look for the girl who is truly Good.”

Tedros climbed higher and higher on the golden braids, veins straining against muscle.

Don’t make my mistakes.

His hand slipped and he fell off the rope, crashing to a soft mat. Cheeks red, he glowered at the taunting waterfalls of hair.

All the girls here were mistakes. Guineveres who confused love with kisses. But, there was one who wanted to wait. Someone who would deny kisses for the chance of love, it could be Agatha, or someone else. Tedros could only hope.

Daylight flecked across Agatha’s pillow. She stirred and saw Sophie hunched on Reena’s old bed. Agatha flinched when Sophie looked up at her.

“Why are you still here!” Agatha glanced around nervously, “If the wolves catch you, Or Kiko, it’s the Doom Room again! Besides, you should be home writing that anonymous love poem to Tedr—”

“You didn’t tell me there’s a Ball.”

Sophie hissed, holding up a glittering snowflake invitation, Agatha’s name in pearls.

“I can't attend the Ball Sophie, I have to help you get Tedros’ kiss remember?” Agatha sighed. She could find any manner of dresses to suit her pale complexion, a pale blue, one as fair as Tedros’ undershirt… Agatha shook her head dismissively. “We’ll be long gone. Now please make sure that poem talks about who he is as a person. His honor, his valor, his cour—”

Sophie was smelling the invitation now. Agatha rose and pulled the invitation from her sisters hands. Sophie’s head snapped up as she glared at Agatha. Agatha recoiled like she’d been hit.

“Sophie! Please listen to me! The closer we get to the Ball, the more Tedros looks for a date! The more he looks for a date, the more he falls in love with someone else! The more he falls in love with someone else, the more he leaves us here to die! Got it?” Agatha whisper-yelled, looking at the invitation. Before he gets the bright idea to ask me to the snow ball.

Sophie could only think of one conniving bitch Tedros was interested in. She shoved the wicked thought down and plastered a look of despair on her own face

“But I want to be his date.”

“YOU WEREN'T INVITED! YOU’RE A NEVER!” Agatha cried before whipping up to see Sophie's reaction to her outburst. Her sister had put on a mask of cold fury. The blonde girl stood and calmly approached Agatha. Sophie grabbed Agatha by her ebony fringe and slammed the younger twin's head into the poster of her bed. 

Light danced behind Agatha's eyes as she felt the trickle of blood run down her brow. Agatha slid forward off the edge of her bed, grasping at her scalp as the pain suddenly smashed into her. Sophie crouched in front of her sister and grasped her chin, lifting her head so their eyes met.

“Never. Speak to me like that again. Do you understand?” 

Sophie’s deadly calm sent icy trills through agatha's bloodstream. Agatha went to nod but throbbing wracked her skull at the movement.

“Yes, Sophie. I’m sorry.” Agatha mumbled.

“Oh I know Aggie! Dont let it bother you to much ok?” Sophie airily asked down to the girl still hunched on the cold glass floor, “Now, back to the Ball!”

“How will you get in without an invitation?”

“Honestly, do they even check invitations at a Ball?”

Agatha stared the invitation with her name on it. “Sorry Sophie, it's risky, the teachers would recognise you!”

“But I can’t miss the Ball!”

Agatha glanced towards the door. Can I convince her to leave? “Use the Tunnel of Trees—”

“Marble hall, glittering gowns, waltzing under stars . . .”

“If a wolf catches you, just say you’re lost—”

“A Ball, Aggie! A real Ball!”

Agatha glanced at her door again. Sophie leveled a sharp look in her direction

“Fine i'll leave. My roommates will help me. They’re true friends.”

She slammed the door on Agatha’s shocked expression.

Ten minutes later, Hester stamped her foot, nearly killing Anadil’s rat.

“HELP! YOU WANT ME TO HELP A NEVER KISS AN EVER! I’D RATHER STICK MY HEAD UP A HORSE’S—”

“Sophie, no villain ever finds love,” Anadil said, hoping reason might save her rats. “To even look for it is to betray your own soul—”

“You want me to go home?” Sophie snapped, picking away tunnel leaves. “Then put a hex on Tedros so he asks me to the Ball.”

“THE BALL!” Hester screeched. “HOW DO YOU EVEN KNOW ABOUT THE BALL?”

“A villain at a Ball?” said Dot.

“A villain waltzing!” said Anadil.

“A villain curtsying!” said Hester, and all three collapsed into howls.

“I’m going to that Ball,” Sophie fumed.

“Presenting the Witch of Woods Beyond!” Hester cackled through tears.

By lunch, she wasn’t laughing.

First, Sophie was twenty minutes late to class after trying to find a solution to her jagged hair. She disguised it with berets, bows, combs before settling on a daisy wreath.

“Not hideous,” she sighed before she walked into Uglification and saw students’ hair turned gray from bat wing potions. A “1” suddenly exploded over her head.

“Hideous!” Professor Manley beamed, ogling her hair. “Your greatest beauty. Gone.”

Sophie sobbed as she left class, but then heard Hester scream. In the hall, Albemarle, a studious, spectacled woodpecker, was chipping Sophie’s name just below hers on the Evil rankings board.

“One little love spell, Hester,” Sophie reminded sweetly. “And then I’m gone forever.”

Hester stomped away, reminding herself that Nevers kissing Evers couldn’t be encouraged no matter how extreme the circumstances.

At the start of Curses, Lady Lesso swept into the ice chamber, jaw tighter than usual.

“Impossible to find good torturers these days,” she muttered.

“What is she talking about?” Sophie whispered to Dot.

“Beast went missing!” Dot whispered back.

Behind her, Sophie looked nauseous.

Testing the class on Nemesis Dreams, Lady Lesso seethed and sniped at every wrong answer.

“But I thought a Nemesis Dream meant you’ll be a Lead Villain,” Hester said—

“No, you imbecile! Only if you have symptoms! A Nemesis Dream is nothing without symptoms!” Lady Lesso retorted. “Dot, what do you taste in your mouth during your first Nemesis Dream?”

“What you ate before bed?”

“Blood, you idiot!” Lady Lesso dragged nails across the ice wall. “Oh, what I’d give to see a real villain in this school. A real villain who could make Good weep instead of these dung fleas.”

When it came to her turn, Sophie expected the worst abuse, only to have Lady Lesso give her a wart for a surely incorrect answer and caress her shorn hair as she passed.

“Why is she being nice to you?” Hester hissed behind her.

Sophie had the same question, but turned around with a smile. “Because I’m future Class Captain. As long as I stay here, that is.”

Hester looked like she might break Sophie’s neck. “Love spells are junk villainy. They don’t work.”

“I’m sure you’ll find one that does,” Sophie said.

“I’m warning you, Sophie. This will end badly.”

“Hmm . . . What about petunias in every room?” Sophie mused. “I think it’ll be my first proposal as Class Captain.”

That night Hester wrote to her relatives for love spells.

“It seems like fun,” Agatha sighed longingly as Evergirls bounded around the Clearing showing each other their invitations, each snowflake a different shape. Nearby Tedros shot marbles and ignored them entirely, though he did occasionally glance at agatha and the gash on her head, she always looked away. “Every challenge had to do with Ball beauty, Ball etiquette, Ball entrances, Ball history—”

Sophie wasn’t listening. Pail of pig’s feet in hand, she gazed hungrily at the Evergirls.

“No, I can't go and neither can you,” Agatha said.

“But what if he asks me?” But what is he asks me ? He seems persistent…

“Sophie, he needs to kiss you now! Not take you to a ball where the doors would even let you in!”

“Oh, Agatha, don’t you know your fairy tales? If he takes me to the Ball, then he’ll kiss me! Like Cinderella at midnight! Kisses always happen at the Ball! And by then my hair will have grown and I’ll have fixed my shoes and—oh no, the gown! Can you steal some charmeuse from one of the girls? Some crepe de chine too. And tulle! Mountains of tulle! Preferably in pink, but I can always dye it, though tulle never looks quite right dyed. Perhaps we should go with chiffon, then. Much more manageable.”

Agatha blinked, speechless.

“You’re right, I should ask him first,” Sophie said, leaping up. “No frowns, darling. It’ll be easy as pie. You’ll see! Princess Sophie at a Ball!”

“What are you—YOU’LL RUIN EVERYTHI—” Agatha almost cried. But, hes mine. Agatha quietly mourned her future while watching her sister.

Sophie had already flounced to the Evers’ side, plopped next to Tedros, and held out her pail.

“Hello, handsome. Want some of my . . . feet?”

Tedros misfired his marble into Chaddick’s eye. The entire Clearing went silent.

He turned to her. “My girlfriend’s calling.”

Sophie followed his eyes to Agatha, waving lightly to Tedros.

“She’s not your girlfriend,” Sophie snapped. “You deserve better. And you were right, Tedros. She and I are too close. That’s why I left in the middle of class yesterday. To tell her it’s time I make Good friends now.”

“More like Agatha should find new friends…” Tedros mumbled.

“Pardon Tedros?”

“Nevermind, Dot said you left because you were sick.”

Sophie coughed. “Oh, well, I had a bit of a cold—”

“She said it was diarrhea.”

“Diarr—” Sophie swallowed. “You know Dot. Always making things up.”

“She doesn’t seem like a liar to me.”

“Oh, she’s always lying. Just to get attention. Since she’s, you know . . .”

Tedros raised his eyebrows. “Since she’s . . .”

“Fat. Like Agatha, You know?”

“I see.” Tedros lined up his marble. “Funny, isn’t it? She crawled into empty graves to eat enough worms for the two of you, just so you wouldn’t fail. Said you’re her best friend.”

“Did she?” Sophie saw Dot waving at her. “How depressing.” She turned to Tedros, who was preparing to shoot. “Do you remember when we first met, Tedros? It was in the Blue Forest. Nothing that happened after matters, not you punching me or calling me a Never or you choosing Agatha. What matters is what you felt at first sight. You wanted to rescue me, Tedros. And here I am.”

She folded her hands. “Whenever you’re ready, then.”

Tedros glared up at her. “What?”

“To ask me to the Ball,” Sophie said, smiling.

The prince’s face didn’t change.

“I know it’s a bit early, but a girl does have to plan,” Sophie pressed.

Beatrix shoved in. “No room for Nevers.”

“What? There’s plenty of room,” Sophie huffed—

But Reena jostled her, then six other girls, and Sophie was pushed out of the circle entirely. She whirled to Tedros to defend her.

“Can you go away?” he said, eyes on his marble. “You’re blocking my view.”

Agatha frowned as Sophie stomped towards her.

“Please don't be upset Sophie, it can't have been that bad?”

Sophie blew past her—

“Was it really?!” Agatha shouted.

“It’s the hair!” Sophie sobbed.

“It’s not the hair!” Agatha said as they glided through the Blue Forest gates. “You need to make him like you first! Otherwise we’ll never get home!”

“It’s supposed to be love at first sight. That’s how fairy tales work!”

“Time for Plan B.”

“Then again, he didn’t say no,” Sophie said hopefully. “Perhaps it didn’t go so badly.”

Dot rushed up. “Everyone’s saying you called Tedros a liar, threw poo in his face, and licked his feet!”

Sophie turned to Agatha. “What’s Plan B?”

They arrived with the rest of their Forest Group to find eight glass coffins nestled in turquoise grass.

“Each week, we’ll repeat the challenge to discern Good from Evil, since it is the most crucial skill you will take into the Woods,” Yuba announced. “Today we’ll test the Evers. Given the fascination with yesterday’s burials, I thought we’d give you a taste of your own.”

With that, he made Evergirls and Nevergirls climb into the open coffins and with a swish of his staff, turned all eight into identical dark-haired princesses with big hips, round backsides, and trouty lips.

“I’m obese,” Sophie gasped. She glanced at Agatha, “Oh look Aggie! You‘ve lost weight!” 

“Look, this is your chance,” Agatha said, ignoring the hurtful comment. Have I really gained weight again? Agatha glanced down at herself, as if she could see her body under the fake one. Whatever! Back on task Agatha! What were Uma’s words again? “If Tedros is your greatest wish, he’ll be pulled towards you! He’ll know you’re his true love!”

“But Beatrix will wish for him too!”

“You have to wish harder! Focus on what you love about him! Focus on what makes him yours!”

Yuba slammed the glass lids on both girls and jumbled the eight coffins. “Now study the maidens carefully and search for signs of Good,” he said to the boys. “Once you’re sure you’ve found an Ever, kiss her hand and her true nature will be revealed!”

The Everboys warily ventured towards the coffins—

“We want to play too.”

Yuba turned to Hort and the Neverboys, chomping at the bit.

“Mmm, I suppose it’ll give our girls incentive to behave,” said the gnome.

Inside the coffins, eight plump princesses stiffened as both Good and Evil boys wandered around them. Hort snuck to a blue mint bush, stepped over a snacking skunk, and tore off a few leaves. He saw Ravan staring.

“What? I like being fresh,” said Hort, munching mint.

“Hurry up and make your choices!” Yuba barked.

In her coffin, Agatha wished Tedros would look deep into Sophie’s heart and see who she truly was, maybe even look at herself?. . . .

In her coffin, Sophie closed her eyes and thought of everything she loved about her prince. . . .

Tedros, meanwhile, didn’t want any of these girls. But just as he was about to bag the challenge, he felt his eyes drawn to the third coffin. Something pulled him towards its maiden, even though she looked just like all the rest. A warmth, a glow, a spark of energy pulsing between them. Yes, something was there. Something he hadn’t noticed before. One of these girls was more than what she seemed. . . .

“Time’s up!” Yuba said.

Agatha heard a bloodcurdling shriek and spun to Sophie, back in her body, lips scrunched against Hort’s.

Hort released her. “Oh, the hand. Oops.” He popped another mint leaf. “Should we start again?”

“You APE!” Sophie kicked him and he crashed into the mint bush, onto the snacking skunk, which raised its tail and sprayed him in the eyes. Hort staggered around, ramming into coffins—“I’m blind! I’m blind!”—until he smashed into Sophie’s again, which slammed shut, sealing his skunked body in with hers. Aghast, Sophie rammed the glass, but it wouldn’t budge.

“Rule #5. Nevers don’t trifle with love,” Yuba crabbed. “Fitting punishment. Now come, boys, let’s see who you’ve picked.”

Agatha heard her own coffin open. She turned and saw Tedros lift her thick hand towards his tender lips. Stunned, Agatha saw Raven lob a rock at the prince. Tedros fell back, bashed his head on the coffin top, and slumped to the ground. Everboys crowded around him, and princess clones jumped from their coffins to help, while Yuba conjured a block of ice for the prince’s skull. In the chaos, Agatha took her checking on the prince, being closest to him and giving him some ice Yuba conjured for his nose.

Tedros staggered up, with no intention of letting his princess go.

Yuba grimaced. “Perhaps you should sit do—”

“I want to finish.”

With a sigh, Yuba nodded at the clones, who climbed back into the coffins and closed their eyes. Agatha saw another princess heading to her coffin before magically bouncing back.

“No cheating, it's a Never quality.” Yuba grumbled. Agatha slipped into her crystal coffin.

Tedros remembered it was the third coffin. He lifted the jeweled glass over its maiden and kissed her hand with confidence. The princess melted into Agatha, smiling shyly—Tedros held her hand softly and kissed it again. In the coffin, Agatha sighed with relief, he chose me .

The wolves howled in the distance. As the class followed Yuba back to school, Agatha thought about staying behind with Sophie.

“Come, Agatha,” Yuba called. “This is Sophie’s lesson to learn.”

Tedros grasped her hand and ghosted his hands over the scabbed over gash on her pale forehead. Agatha leaned into him

“She did this to you,” Agatha did not deny him, it wasn't a question. “This is barely a punishment bad enough to fit her crimes.”

“I fell down the stairs, and Sophie helped me see things clearer, you will learn to love her.”

Agatha glanced back to see Sophie sealed in with Hort, holding her nose as she screamed and kicked the glass. Maybe the gnome was right. Tomorrow her friend would be ready to listen.

“She’ll survive,” she muttered, following the others. “It’s only Hort.”

But Hort wasn’t the problem.

The problem was that Sophie had seen Agatha squeeze Tedros’ hand back as they walked away.

Chapter Text

Shielding herself from a morning storm, Agatha accosted Hester in the Nevers’ lunch line.

“Where’s Sophie?”

“Won’t come out of the room. Missed all our classes,” Hester said as a wolf dumped mystery meat into her pail. “Apparently sharing a coffin with Hort robs you of your will to live.”

When Agatha made it to puddled Halfway Bridge, her reflection was waiting for her, skinnier and gloomier than the last time.

“I need to see Sophie,” Agatha said, avoiding eye contact with herself.

“That’s the first time he’s looked at you that way.”

“Huh? Looked at me how?”

“Tedros sees the world in you”

“Well, Sophie won’t listen to me. Tedros has to love her”

“Well, maybe Sophie isn’t Tedros’ true love, then.”

“She has to be,” Agatha said, suddenly defensive. “It can’t be someone else. That’s how we’re getting back home! Who else could it be? Beatrix? Reena? Milli—”

“You.”

Agatha looked up. Her reflection smiled sadly.

Agatha’s eyes veered back to her wet shoes. “That is the silliest thing I’ve ever heard. First off, love is something princesses find, not girls like me. Second, I cant love Tedros. Third, he thinks I’m a princess, which given my recent behavior, probably isn't true. Now let me through.”

Her reflection stopped smiling. “You think we’re a witch?”

Agatha glowered at herself. “We’re making our friend win her true love just so we can take her away from him.”

Her reflection instantly turned uglier. “Definitely Evil,” it said, and vanished.

The door to Room 66 was unlocked. Agatha found Sophie curled under her scorched, tattered covers.

“I saw it!” Sophie hissed. “I saw him pick you! Here I’m worried about Beatrix, when you’re the double-crossing, backstabbing fink!”

“Look, I don’t know why Tedros keeps choosing me,” Agatha said, squeezing rain from her hair.

Sophie’s eyes drilled into her.

“I want him to choose you, you fool!” Agatha yelled. “I want us to go home!”

Agatha's spine ached in pain as Sophie grabbed her ankle and pulled Agatha off her feet.

“What did i say about talking to me like that” Sophie hissed, Agatha cowered on the floor and apologised.Sophie searched her face for a long moment. With a sigh, she turned to the window.

“You don’t know what it was like. I still smell him everywhere. He’s in my nose, Agatha. They’ve given him his own room until the stench goes away. But who’s to say where skunk ends and Hort begins?”

Shuddering, Sophie turned back. “I did everything you said, Aggie. I focused on all the things I love about Tedros—his skin, his eyes, his cheekbones—”

“Sophie, that’s his looks! Tedros won’t feel a connection if you just like him because he’s handsome. How is that different from every other girl?” He deserves someone better. Agatha mourned Tedros.

Sophie frowned. “I didn’t want to think about his crown or his fortune. That’s shallow.”

“Think about who he is please Sophie! His personality! His values! What he’s like deep down!”

“Excuse me, I know how to make a boy love me,” Sophie huffed, shooing her out. “Just stop ruining things and let me do things my way.”

Apparently Sophie’s way was to humiliate herself as much as possible.

During lunch the next day, she sidled up to Tedros in the Evers’ line, only to have his boys crowd her, chomping blue mint leaves. Then she tried to get the prince alone in Surviving Fairy Tales, but Beatrix stuck to him like glue, taking every opportunity to remind him how good they look next to each other. Like siblings, Sophie withered at the sight of Beatrix grabbing his arm.

“Tedros, can I talk to you?” Sophie blurted finally.

“Why would he talk to you?” Beatrix said.

“Because we’re friends, you buzzing gnat!”

“Friends!” Tedros flared. “I’ve seen how you treat your friends. Use them. Betray them. Call them fat. Call them liars. Appreciate the offer. I’ll pass.”

“Attacking. Betraying. Lying. Sounds like one of our Nevers is using her rules!” Yuba beamed.

Sophie was so despondent she even ate a piece of Dot’s chocolate.

“We’ll find you a love spell somehow,” said Dot.

“Thanks, Dot,” Sophie sobbed, mouth full. “This is amazing.”

“Rat droppings. Makes the best fudge.”

Sophie gagged.

“Who’d you call fat, by the way?” Dot asked.

Things got worse. For a weeklong challenge in Henchmen Training and Animal Communication, students of both schools had to tote assigned creature sidekicks everywhere they went. At first, both schools exploded into chaos, with trolls tossing Nevers out windows, stampeding satyrs stealing lunch baskets, baby dragons setting desks on fire, and animals christening the Good halls with mountains of dung.

“It’s a tradition. An attempt at school unity,” Professor Dovey said to her Evers, clothespin on her nose. “However misguided and poorly organized.”

Castor scowled at Nevers flitting about the Belfry, under siege by their henchmen. “ONCE YOU GET YOUR HEADS OUT OF YOUR BEHINDS, YOU’LL REALIZE WHO’S MASTER!”

And indeed, after three days, Hester had her baby ogre potty trained and spitballing Evers at lunch, Tedros had his wolfhound swaggering behind him, Anadil’s python befriended her rats, and Beatrix’s fluffy white bunny inspired such love she named it Teddy. (Tedros kicked it every time he saw it.) Even Agatha managed to teach her tiny deer how to dump her lunch in a bush when no one was looking (Tedros frowned).

Sophie, however, found herself with a chubby cupid named Grimm, with bushy black hair, pug nose, pink wings, and eyes that changed colors depending on his moods. She knew his name was Grimm because he wrote it all over Room 66 in her favorite lipstick the first day. On Day 2, he saw Agatha for the first time at lunch and his eyes went from green to red as he dumped poison in Agatha’s grenadine (Benne dumped it before the Ever could drink it). Then on Day 3, while Yuba taught “Uses of Wells,” he started shooting arrows at Agatha, who leapt behind the Forest well after taking an arrow to the forearm.

“CALL THAT THING OFF!” Tedros yelled as he deflected Grimm’s arrows into the well with his training sword. Chaddick crouched behind him checking the pale girls arm.

“Grimm! She’s my friend!” Sophie shouted.

Grimm guiltily put his arrows away.

On Day 4, he spent all of Sophie’s classes grinding his teeth in the corner and clawing at the walls.

Lady Lesso gave him a curious stare. “You know, by looking at him you’d think . . .” She gazed at Sophie, then brushed the thought away. “Never mind. Just give him a little milk and he’ll be more amenable.”

The milk worked on Day 5. On Day 6, Grimm started shooting at Agatha again, knives this time. Sophie tried everything she could to pacify him: she sang lullabies, gave him Dot’s best fudge, even let him have her bed while she took the floor, but this time nothing would stop him.

“What do I do?” Sophie cried to Lady Lesso after class.

“Some henchmen go rogue,” Lady Lesso sighed. “It’s a hazard of villainy. But usually it’s because . . .”

“Because what?”

“Oh, I’m sure he’ll calm down. They always do.”

But by Day 7, Grimm started flying after Agatha during lunch, evading the grasps of students and wolves, until Hester’s demon finally subdued him. Agatha glanced nervously at Sophie from behind a tree.

“Maybe you remind him of someone?” Sophie whimpered.

But even Hester’s demon couldn’t control Grimm for long, and the next day his daggers came tipped with fire. After one of these singed her ear, and burned a hole through her pants and thigh, Agatha finally had enough. Remembering Yuba’s last lesson, she lured the rogue cupid into the Blue Forest during lunch and hid in the deep stone well. When Grimm giddily dove down the dark shaft to find her, she clubbed him with her clump and knocked him out cold.

“I thought he’d kill you,” Sophie wept after they sealed the well with a boulder.

“I can take care of myself,” Agatha said. “Look, the Ball is less than two months away and things with Tedros are getting worse. We have to try a new—”

“He’s my prince,” Sophie stiffened. “And I’ll handle him myself.”

Agatha didn’t bother arguing. When Sophie was ready, she’d listen.

While both schools went off with Castor and Uma to free their henchmen back to the Blue Forest, Sophie stole away to the Library of Vice.

It took all of her will not to run out the moment she came in. Perched atop Vice’s top floor, the Library of Vice was like a normal library, only after a flood, fire, and tornado had swept through. Its rusty iron bookshelves were skewed at odd angles, with thousands of fallen books all over the floor. The walls were furry green with mold, the brown carpet was moist and sticky, and the room smelled like a mix of smoke and sour milk.

Behind a desk in the corner was a gelatinous toad, puffing a cigar and stamping books one after one before tossing them on the floor.

“Subject of interest,” he burped.

“Love spells,” Sophie said, trying not to breathe.

The toad nodded to a dank shelf in the corner. There were only three books left on it:

Thorns, Not Roses: Why Love Is a Curse by Baron Dracul

A Never’s Guide to Ending True Love by Dr. Walter Bartoli

Foolproof Love Spells & Potions by Glinda Gooch

Sophie threw open the third, ran down its list of spells until she found “Spell 53: The True Love Heart Hex.”

She ripped out the page and fled before she fainted from the stench.

Dot, Hester, and Anadil hunched over it during lunch. “‘Once a boy is under this spell, he will instantly fall in love with you and do whatever you ask,’” Anadil read. “‘Works particularly well with eliciting proposals of marriage and invitations to Balls.’”

“All you have to do is mix the prescribed potion into a bullet and shoot it at your true love’s heart!” Sophie read excitedly.

“It won’t work,” Hester crabbed.

“You’re just mad because I found it.”

Hester snatched a heap of letters from her bag. “‘Dear Hester, I don’t know of any love spells that work’—‘Dear Hester, love spells are notoriously dodgy’—‘Dear Hester, love spells are dangerous. Use a bad spell and you can warp someone permanently’—”

“It’s ‘foolproof’!” Dot said.

“Says who? Glinda GOOCH?”

“I say it’s worth a try if it means we don’t have to talk about Balls and kisses anymore,” Anadil said, red eyes studying the recipe. “Bat heart, lodestones, cat bone . . . These are all standard ingredients. Oh. We need a drop of Tedros’ ‘scent.’”

“How are we going to get that?” Dot said. “If a Never even gets near an Ever, the wolves are on us. We need an Ever to do it.”

Agatha plopped down in a heap of blue. “What’d I miss?”

Sophie only got five words out.

“No! No spells. No hexes. No tricks!” Agatha scolded. “It has to be true love!”

“But look!” Sophie held up the page and its painting of a prince and princess kissing at a Ball. The caption: “ONLY AUTHENTIC SUBSTITUTE FOR TRUE LOVE!”

Agatha crumpled the page and dumped it in Sophie’s pail. “I don’t want to hear about it again.”

Sophie spent the rest of lunch picking at her loaf of cheese.

Two days later, Hester felt a jab in the middle of the night. She stirred to see Sophie standing over her bed, sniffing a blue tie with a gold T.

“Smells like heaven. I’m sure there’s enough here.”

For a moment, Hester looked confused. Then her cheeks swelled, ready to detonate—

“What about a Villain’s Choir?” Sophie said. “I think that’ll be my second proposal as Captain.”

Hester stayed up all night mixing the ingredients. Using her mother’s old crockery, she blended them into a frothy pink potion, distilled the love potion into shimmering gas, and poured the gas into a heart-shaped bullet over the fireplace.

“Just hope he doesn’t die,” Hester growled, handing it over.

Sophie practiced her aim for two days before she knew she was ready. She waited until Surviving Fairy Tales, when Yuba and the group were climbing trees to study “Forest Flora.” When Tedros reached for a blue hornbeam branch, she saw her chance and drew the bullet into her slingshot—

“You’re mine,” Sophie whispered.

The pink heart shot off the sling and flew straight for the silver swan on Tedros’ heart, only to turn crimson, ricochet off him like rubber, and smash back into her with a violent, alien scream. The whole group spun in shock.

Sophie’s black robes were splashed with a giant, bloody letter F.

“For Failing to abide by the rules.” Yuba glowered from a tree. “No spells until after the Unlocking.”

Beatrix picked the broken heart bullet off the ground. “A love spell? You tried a love spell on Tedros?”

The class burst into howls. Sophie turned to Tedros, who couldn’t have looked more enraged. Next to him, Agatha had the same expression. Sophie covered her face and fled, sobs echoing through the forest.

“Every year, a rascal tries something. But even the sorriest rascal knows there’s no shortcuts to love,” Yuba said. “We’ll start with proper spells next week, I assure you. But for now, on to ferns! How can we tell if a fern is actually a Never in disguise—”

Agatha didn’t follow the group to the Fernfield.

“Are you ok, love?” Tedros asked calmly, checking her up and down for hidden injuries. Noticing her weight, Tedros meet her eyes, concerned. “You’ve been looking rather skinny recently, kinda sickly almost, have you been eating enough?” Agatha stopped listening after he called her skinny, riding the high the comment gave and ignoring everything else.

“Im fine Tedros, im not your love. Im a never and this is Sophies school, ill be moved soon enough, and you will fall in love with her '' Agatha turned away. Tedros sighed and turned towards the class in the fernfield. Neiter Tedros or Agatha noticed the love draft blown through the gates by a woman in a red dress with embroidered butterflies.

Tedros inhaled and felt something inside him shift, but ignored it. Agatha slouched against an oak, she gazed at the heart-shaped pieces in the grass, just as shattered as her dreams of home.

Hester came back from supper to find Sophie sprawled on her bed, a puddle of tears.

Sophie looked up, the red F on her robes even brighter now. “It won’t come off. I tried everything.”

Hester dumped her schoolbag on the floor. “We’re practicing our talents in the common room. Feel free to join.” She opened the door and paused.

“I warned you.”

Sophie jumped at the slam.

All night she couldn’t sleep, dreading the thought of wearing the F to lunch the next day. Finally she managed to doze off and woke to find the sun up and all her roommates gone to breakfast.

Agatha was sitting on the edge of her bed, picking dead leaves out of her ebony hair.

“A wolf saw me this time. But I lost him in the tunnel.” She glanced up at a gilded mirror on a wall. “Looks nice in here.”

“Thank you for bringing it,” Sophie rasped.

“My room’s happier without it.”

Tense silence.

“I’m sorry, Agatha.”

“Sophie, I’m on your side. We have to work together if we want to get out of here alive.”

“The spell was our only hope,” Sophie said softly.

“Sophie, we can’t give up! We have to get home!”

Sophie stared into the mirror, eyes welling. “What happened to me, Agatha?”

“You want the Ball without winning your prince. You want your kiss without doing the work. Look, I had to clean plates after supper all week, so I read while doing it.” Agatha pulled a book from her dress—Winning Your Prince by Emma Anemone—and started flipping to dog-eared pages.

“According to this, winning true love is the ultimate challenge. In every fairy tale, it might seem like love at first sight, but there’s always skill behind it.”

“But I already—”

“Shut up and listen. It comes down to three things. Three things a girl has to do to win her fairy-tale prince. First, you need to ‘flaunt your strengths.’ Second, you need to ‘speak through actions, not words.’ And third, you need to ‘parade competing suitors.’ If you just do these three things and do them well, we stand a—”

Sophie raised her hand.

“What.”

“I can’t flaunt anything in this potato sack, can’t act with that she-devil in my face, and have no competing suitors except a boy who looks and smells like a rat! Look at me, Agatha! I have an F on my chest, my hair looks like a boy’s, I have bags under my eyes, my lips are dry, and yesterday I found a blackhead on my nose!”

“And how are you going to change that?” Agatha snapped.

Sophie bowed her head. The ugly letter cast shadows on her hands. “Tell me what to do, Aggie. I’m listening.”

“Show him who you are,” Agatha said, softening.

She gazed deep into her friend’s eyes.

“Show him the real Sophie.”

Sophie saw the faith burning bright in Agatha’s smile. Then, turning to the mirror, she managed a sly smile of her own . . . a smile that matched one of a grim little cupid, trapped deep in darkness, waiting patiently to be let out.

Chapter Text

News of Sophie’s failed love spell swept across both schools, and by midmorning everyone waited with bated breath to get a glimpse of her scarlet F. But when Sophie skipped all her morning classes, it was clear she was too ashamed to show her face.

“You should have heard the things Tedros called her,” Beatrix said to Evergirls at lunch.

Sitting in a heap of autumn leaves, Agatha tuned her out and looked over at Tedros and the Everboys playing rugby, silver swans glimmering on blue knit sweaters. Across the Clearing, Nevers shunned group activities and sat mostly by themselves. Hester glanced up from Spells for Suffering and read Agatha’s eyes with a shrug, as if Sophie’s whereabouts were the least of her concerns.

“Now, Teddykins, it’s not her fault,” Beatrix blathered loudly. “The poor girl thinks she’s one of us. We should feel sorry for someone so pathe—”

Her eyes bulged. Agatha saw why.

Sophie sashayed into the Clearing, dumpy black sack refashioned into a strapless bodice dress, F shimmering over her chest with devil-red sequins. She’d cut her blond hair even shorter and slicked it down in a shiny bob. Her face was painted geisha white, her eyelids pink, her lips vermilion, and her glass shoes had not only been repaired but heeled even taller, which together with the extremely short dress, showed off long, creamy legs. From the shadows she swanned into sun, and light exploded off her glitter-dusted skin, bathing her in heavenly glow. Sophie strutted past Hester, who dropped her book, past Everboys, who dropped their ball, and glided right up to Hort.

“Let’s do lunch,” she said, sweeping him away like a hostage.

Across the field, Tedros’ sword fell out of its sheath.

He saw Agatha frowning and put it back.

During Surviving Fairy Tales, Sophie ignored Yuba’s lecture on “Leaving Useful Trails” and spent the entire class cozying up to Hort and filling her Never pail with roots and herbs from the Blue Forest.

“What are you doing!” whispered Agatha.

“Can you believe it, Aggie darling? They have beetroot, willow bark, lemonwood and everything else I need to make my old potions and creams! Soon I’ll be back to my real self!”

“This wasn’t the ‘real Sophie’ I had in mind.”

“Excuse me? I’m just following your rules. Flaunt my assets, which are many, as you can see. Speak through actions—have I said a word to Tedros? No. Haven’t. And lest we forget, parade competing suitors. Do you know what it takes to survive lunch with Hort? To nuzzle that rodent every time I see Tedros looking? Eucalyptus, Agatha. I numb my nose with eucalyptus. But in the end, you were right.”

“Listen, you misun— I was?”

“You reminded me what’s important.” Sophie nodded to Tedros and Everboys ogling her across the thicket. “It doesn’t matter if you’re a Never, Ever, or whatever. In the end, the fairest of them all wins.” She glossed her lips and gave them a smack. “You’ll see. He’ll ask me to the Ball before the week’s up and you’ll get your precious kiss. So no more negativity, darling, it gives me a headache. Now, where’s that worthless Hort? I told him to stay by me at all times!” She swept away, leaving Agatha speechless.

In the School for Evil, Nevers sulked through supper, knowing they had a full night of studying ahead. With spell casting set to begin, the teachers’ tests were based less on talent now and more in tedious recall. For the next day alone, they had to memorize eighty murder schemes for Lady Lesso’s first challenge, Giant commands for Henchmen, and the Flowerground Map for Sader’s geography exam.

“How will he correct them?” Hester groused. “He can’t even see!”

At curfew, Hester, Dot, and Anadil trudged back from the common room, piled high with books, only to find their room turned into a laboratory. Dozens of brilliant-colored potions bubbled over open flames, vials of creams, soaps, and dyes littered the shelves, a mess of dried leaves, herbs, flowers blanketed the three beds . . . and in the center of it all sat Sophie, buried under sequins, ribbons, and fabric, testing new concoctions on patches of skin.

“My God, she is a witch,” Anadil gasped.

Sophie held up The Recipe Book for Good Looks. “I stole it from an Ever at lunch.”

“Shouldn’t you be studying for challenges?” Dot asked.

“Beauty is a full-time job,” sighed Sophie, lathering herself in a bright green balm.

“And you wonder why Evers are slow,” Hester said.

“Sophie is back, darlings. And she’s just getting started,” Sophie mooned. “Love is my challenge now.”

And indeed, though Sophie placed near the bottom in all three challenges the next day, she placed first in Attention, arriving to lunch with her black uniform remolded into a dazzling slit-back toga dress, sashed with blue orchids. Her heels were a full inch taller, her face shimmering bronze, her eye shadow provocative periwinkle, her lips delicious crimson, and the glittering F on the front of her dress was now complemented by sequins on the back that read: “. . . is for Fabulous.”

“That can’t be allowed,” Beatrix whined to drooling boys.

But she was wearing her uniform, Sophie insisted to teachers, while usually fierce wolves looked just as awed as the boys. Dot swore one even winked at Sophie when it filled her lunch pail.

“She’s making a mockery of villainy!” Hester fumed, black eyes flaying Sophie across the Clearing. “They should lock her in the Doom Room permanently.”

“Beast’s still missing,” Anadil yawned. “Whatever spooked him must have been pretty bad.”

The next day, Sophie flunked all her challenges again and yet somehow avoided failing out of school. Though she was clearly the worst, each time she saw a “19” pop up instead of a “20.” (“I’m just too lovable to fail,” she preened to mystified classmates.)

During Forest Groups, Sophie ignored Yuba’s lecture on “Scarecrow Survival” and scribbled busily in her notebook, while Agatha stared at her black baby doll dress, pink lollipop, and sequins spelling “F . . . is for Fun.”

“Name something else that starts with F,” Sophie whispered.

“I’m trying to listen and so should you, since we’ll be here forever.”

“F is for ‘Forever.’ Mmm, a bit heady. How about ‘Flirty’? Or ‘Fetching’?”

“Or ‘Futile’! He hasn’t even talked to you yet” Please don’t take him from me Sophie

“F is for ‘Faith,’” Sophie said. “Which I thought you had in me.”

Agatha sulked to herself the rest of class.

But Sophie almost made her a believer when she arrived the next day in a belly-baring black halter, poofed miniskirt, spiky pixie hairdo, and heels dyed hot pink. The Everboys spent lunch goggling at her between slobbery bites of beef. And yet, even though Sophie could see Tedros sneak peeks at her legs, grit his teeth each time she passed, and sweat when she got too close . . . he still didn’t talk to her.

“It’s not enough,” Agatha said, accosting her after Yuba’s class. Why isnt Tedros interested in me anymore? “You need better assets.”

Sophie looked down at herself. “I think my assets are quite sufficient.”

“Deeper assets, you idiot! Something inside! Like compassion or charity or kindness!”

Sophie blinked. “Sometimes you make wonderful sense, Aggie. He needs to see how Good I truly am.”

“She sees reason,” Agatha exhaled. “Now hurry. If he asks someone else to the Ball, we’ll never get home!”

Agatha approached the school library, the magic turtle not looking up from his lunch. Walking up to his desk, Agatha started to hear scratching coming from a quill floating beside the turtle.

For the one who wants love, answers. For the snow dove, a silver trancer. 

Agatha glazed at the sprawling font, before the quill pointed to the mirror at the back of the room. 

“The mirror? Why?” all the quill did was point again. Huffing, the raven haired girl turned to inspect the mirror.

Truths, are dangerous. What are you willing to sacrifice for the truth?

“ You can Talk?” Agatha gasped, of course the mirror talks! “Are you the ‘silver trancer’ the quill spoke of? The one who can give me answers?”

I know your questions. “Does he love me?” “Does she love me?” “Is going home really worth leaving this behind?” “Am i really the princess he sees in me?”. Those questions are heavy, what would you consider sacrificing for the answers?

“What is the price for those answers?” Agatha asked suspiciously.

Knowing the answers will give you light on your future. You have 2 paths to decide your fate, you dont know which leads where. These answers will be like showing you the ends of those paths, right here, right now. The price is; giving you the choice on deciding your future, and my mirror says you chose wrong , you wont pick your future for you, but for others.

“I want the a-answers.” Agatha says as solidly as she can. She can sacrifice her future for Sophie! Of course she can…

HE loves you, The him he is right now does not.

SHE is incapable of loving.

SHE is NOT worth sacrificing your future with HIM

The FAIREST. As pure as a springs water. As strong as a dragon. As loving as the mother that CHOSE you. As opposed to HER as you could be. You shall rule the brightest kingdoms, fight the greatest villains, and still love when the battle is done and won.

SHE is a poison staining your soul. Find the cure before it kills you.

I have given you truths worth more than your life, use them well. Now LEAVE.

Agatha winced as the mirrors screech echoed through her skull. He loves me. But what does the first mean? He loves me, but the him he is right now does not? An image flashed behind her eyes, an image of a red clad woman blowing a draft at Tedros, a red draft…..

Agatha’s head shot up and looked at the mirror, it only reflected her shocked face. She sprinted out of the library and up the stairs to merlins menagerie. A love potion, the way he looked at Sophie today. We still have hope.

Agatha proposed that Sophie sneak Tedros love limericks filled with clever rhymes or leave him secret presents that revealed depth and thought, tried-and-true strategies both outlined in Winning Your Prince. Sophie listened, nodding to all of this, so when Agatha arrived at lunch the next day, she expected to read a first draft of a verse or inspect a handmade gift. Instead, she arrived to find a group of 20 Nevergirls crowded in a corner of the Clearing.

“What’s going on over there?” Agatha asked Hester and Anadil, both studying in tree shade.

“She said it was your idea,” Hester sneered, eyes on her book.

“Bad idea,” Anadil said. “So bad we don’t want to talk to you.”

Confused, Agatha turned to the gathering. A familiar voice rang from its center—

“Fabulous, darlings! But just a little less cream!”

Agatha’s chest tightened. She forced her way through the swarm of Nevers until she stumbled into the center and almost died from shock.

Sophie sat on a tree stump, a painted wooden sign hanging from a branch above her:

Lunchtimes with Sophie

‘Where Beauty Meets Charity’

Todays Topic:

Beetroot for Blemish Banishment

All around her, Nevergirls were squeezing sticky red beetroot cream onto their pimples and warts.

“Now remember, girls. Just because you’re ugly doesn’t mean you can’t be presentable,” Sophie preached.

“I’m bringing my roommates tomorrow,” Arachne whispered to green-skinned Mona.

Agatha gaped, flabbergasted. Then she saw someone sneaking away. “Dot?”

Dot turned meekly, smothered in red cream. “Oh! Hello! I was just, you know, I thought I should check up on—you know, to see if, in case—” She looked at her feet. “Don’t tell Hester.”

Agatha had no idea what any of this had to do with winning Tedros’ love. But when she tried to corner Sophie after, three Nevergirls shoved in front of her to ask Sophie about picking the best beets. Agatha didn’t get a chance in Forest Groups either, because Yuba separated the Evers and Nevers.

“You must get used to seeing each other as the enemy! The first Trial by Tale is in three weeks!” the gnome said. “Now for the Trial, you’ll need a few basic spells. There is no one way to do magic, of course. Some spells require visualization, some incantations, others hand flicks, foot taps, magic wands, numeric codes, or even partners! Yet there is one rule common to all spells.”

From his pocket, he pulled a shiny silver key, the bit shaped like a swan.

“Evers, right hands, please.”

Baffled Evers looked at each other, and held out their hands.

“Mmm. You first.”

Agatha frowned as he grabbed her hand, then her second finger. “Wait—what are you going to—”

Yuba magically plunged his swan key into Agatha’s fingertip—the skin went see-through and the swan sank past tissue, veins, blood, and attached to her bone. The gnome turned the bow and her bone painlessly rotated a full circle. Her fingertip glowed bright orange for just a moment, then dulled as Yuba withdrew the key. Bewildered, Agatha stared at her finger as Yuba unlocked the rest of the Evers, then the Nevers, including Sophie, who barely glanced up from scribbling in her notebook.

“Magic follows feeling. That is our only rule,” said the gnome when he was finished. “When your finger glows, it means you have summoned enough emotion, enough purpose to perform a spell. You can only do magic when you have deep need and want!”

Students squinted at their fingers, feeling, coaxing with all their might, and soon fingertips started to flicker, each person’s a unique color.

“But like a magic wand, fingerglow is just a training wheel!” Yuba warned. “In the Woods, you will look like a nincompoop if you light up every time you cast a spell. We will relock your glow once you show control.” He grimaced at Hort, uselessly thrusting his finger at rocks, trying to make something happen. “If ever.”

The gnome turned back to the group.

“In the first year, you’ll learn only three types of spells: Water Control, Weather Manipulation, and Mogrification, both plant and animal. Today we’ll begin with the last,” he said to excited twitters. “A simple visualization spell but highly effective for escaping enemies. Now, since your clothes won’t fit after you Mogrify, it’s easier if you’re not wearing any.”

The students stopped tittering.

“But I suppose we’ll do,” Yuba said. “Who wants to go first?”

Everyone raised their hand except two. Agatha, who was praying now more than ever that Sophie had a plan to get home. And Sophie, who was too busy writing her next lecture (“‘Bath’ Is Not a Four-Letter Word”) to care about any of this.

By the third day on her stump, Sophie had 30 freshly bathed Nevergirls attend “Just Say No to Drab.”

“Now Professor Manley says a Never must be ugly. That ugly means uniqueness, power, freedom! So here’s my question to Professor Manley. How do you expect us to feel unique, empowered, or free . . . in this?” she roared, waving the dumpy black robes like an enemy flag. The cheer was so loud that across the Clearing, Beatrix’s pen slipped and ruined her ball gown sketch.

“It’s that mentally ill Sophie,” Beatrix snapped.

“Still looking for a Ball date, is she,” murmured Tedros, aiming his next horseshoe throw.

“Worse. Now she’s trying to convince the Nevers they’re not losers.”

Tedros missed his shot in surprise.

Agatha didn’t even try to see Sophie after lunch, with Nevergirls mobbing her for style advice. She didn’t try the next day, either, when an impromptu shoe burning erupted after Sophie’s lecture on “Abandon All Ye Clumps!” and wolves ran around whipping students back to the tower. And she certainly didn’t try the next, when every Nevergirl showed up for Sophie’s talk on “Fitness for the Unfit,” except Hester and Anadil, who cornered Agatha after lunch.

“This idea keeps getting more rotten,” Anadil said. “So rotten we’re not your friends anymore.”

“Boys, balls, kisses—all your problem now,” Hester snarled, demon twitching on her neck. “As long as it doesn’t mess with me winning Captain, I could give a hog’s behind what you two do. Got it?”

The next day, Agatha hid in the Tunnel of Trees, waited for the sound of high heels on dead leaves, and tackled Sophie in a flying leap. “What is it today? Cuticle creams! Teeth whiteners! More abdominal exercises!”

“If you want to talk to me, you can wait in line with everyone else!” Sophie yelled.

“‘Malevolent Makeovers,’ ‘Black Is the New Black,’ ‘Yoga for Villains’! Do you want to die here?”

“You said show him something deeper. Isn’t this compassion? Isn’t this kindness and wisdom? I’m helping those who can’t help themselves!”

“Excuse me, Saint Teresa, but the goal here is Tedros! How is this accomplishing anything!”

“Accomplishment. Such a vague word. But I’d consider that an accomplishment, wouldn’t you?”

Agatha followed Sophie’s look out the tunnel. The crowd in front of her stump was a hundred Nevers deep. Only there was one hovering in back who didn’t look like the rest.

A golden-haired boy in a blue rugby sweater.

Agatha released Sophie in shock.

“You should come,” Sophie called as she flounced out of the tunnel. “Today’s about dry, damaged hair.”

In front of the stump, Arachne’s one eye glowered at Tedros. “Why is Prince Prettyface here?”

“Yeah, back to your side, Everboy,” Mona sniped, pelting him with tree mold.

More Nevergirls started to heckle him and Tedros shrank back anxiously. He wasn’t used to being unpopular. But just as he was booed away—

“We welcome everyone,” Sophie admonished as she swept to her stump.

Tedros came back every day that week. He told his mates he just wanted to see what Sophie was wearing, but there was more to it. With each new day, he watched her teach misshapen villains how to straighten their hunches, hold eye contact, and enunciate their words. He watched Neverboys skeptically skulk on the fringes at first, only to soon badger Sophie for advice on sleeping better, masking body odor, and managing their tempers. At first the wolves yawned through these assemblies, but Tedros could see them listening as more and more Nevers showed up for Sophie’s lectures. Soon the villains began to debate her prescriptions at supper and over dreggy tea in common rooms. They started to sit together at lunch, defend each other in class, and stopped making jokes about their losing streak. For the first time in two hundred years, Evil had hope. All because of one girl.

By the end of the week, Tedros had a seat in the front row.

“It’s working! I can’t believe it!” Agatha gushed as she walked Sophie to the Tunnel of Trees. “He might say he loves you! He might kiss you this week! We’re going home! What’s tomorrow’s topic?”

“‘Eating Your Words,’” Sophie said, swishing ahead.

At lunch the next day, Agatha stood in line for a basket of artichoke and olive tartines, dreaming about the heroes’ welcome she and Sophie would get when they returned home. Gavaldon would erect statues of them in the square, fete them in sermons, stage a musical about their lives, and teach schoolchildren about the two girls who saved them from the curse. Her mother would have a thousand new patients, Reaper fresh trout every day, and she would have her pictures in the town scroll and anyone who had ever dared to mock her would now grovel at her—

“What a joke.”

Agatha turned to Beatrix, who was watching Nevers throng around Sophie in a revealing black sari and sharp-heeled fur booties for her lecture on “How to Be the Best at Everything (Like Me!).”

“As if she’s the best,” Beatrix snorted.

“I think she’s the best Never I’ve ever seen,” a voice said behind her.

Beatrix whirled to Tedros. “Is she now, Teddy? And I think it’s all a big fairy tale.”

Tedros followed her eyes to the ranking boards, smoldering in soft sunlight on the Blue Forest gates. On the Nevers board, Sophie’s name hung off the bottom, pecked to holes by robins. Number 120 out of 120.

“The Empress’s New Clothes, to be precise,” Beatrix said, and strutted away.

Tedros didn’t go to see Sophie that day. Word spread that he found it sad to watch Nevers pin their hopes on the “worst girl in school.”

The next day, Sophie showed up to a deserted stump. The wooden sign had been defaced.

Lunchtime with Sophie

Where beauty meets Charity Stupidity

Todays topic:

Beetroot for Blemish Banishment

“I told you to pay attention!” Agatha worried as they waited in pouring rain after Yuba’s class for wolves to open the gates.

“Between sewing new outfits, brewing new makeup, preparing new lectures, I can’t worry about class!” Sophie sobbed under a black parasol. “I have my fans to think about!”

“Of which you now have none!” Agatha yelled. She could see Hester smirking at her from the Group 6 huddle. “Three bottom ranks and you fail, Sophie! I don’t know how you’ve survived this long!”

“They don’t let me fail! No matter how bad I am! Why do you think I stopped studying!”

Agatha tried to make sense of this, but couldn’t focus with her fingertip burning. Ever since Yuba unlocked it, it glowed whenever she was scared or sad, as if raring to do a spell.

“But how did you get all those high ranks before?” she said, hiding her hand in her pocket.

“That was before they made us read. I mean, do I look like I care how to poison a comb, how to pluck toad eyes, or how to say ‘May I cross your bridge’ in Troll? Here I am trying to improve these villains and you want me to memorize the recipe for Children Noodle Soup? Agatha, did you know that to boil a child you have to wrap them in parchment first? Otherwise they won’t be properly cooked and might wake up in your pot. Is that what you want me to learn? How to hurt and kill? How to be a witch?”

“Listen, you need to win back respect—”

“Through intentional Evil? No. Shan’t.”

“Then we’re doomed,” Agatha snapped. Sophie exhaled angrily and slapped her.

“Watch your tongue with me” she said before turning away.

Suddenly her expression changed. “What in the—”

She gawked at the Evers ranking board, tacked to the gates.

1. TEDROS OF CAMELOT             ----- 71 POINTS

2. BEATRIX OF JAUNT JOLIE        ----- 84 POINTS

3. REENA OF PASHA DUNES        ----- 88 POINTS 

4. AGATHA OF WOODS BEYOND ----- 96 POINTS

“But—but—you’re . . . you!” Sophie cried.

“And I do my homework” Agatha murmured. “I don’t want to learn dove calls or practice fainting or sew handkerchiefs, but I’ll do whatever it takes to get us home.”

But Sophie wasn’t listening. A naughty grin spread across her face.

Agatha crossed her arms. “No way. First of all, teachers will catch us. Im not evil”

“You’ll love my Curses homework, it’s all about tricking people—and you hate people!”

“Second, your roommates will tell on you, and i dont hate people—”

“And you’ll love my Uglification homework! We’re learning to scare children—and you hate children!”

“I love children! If Tedros finds out, we’re dead—”

“And look at your finger! It glows when you’re upset! I can’t do that!”

“It’s a fluke!”

“Look, it’s even brighter now! You’re born to be a vill—”

Agatha stomped. “WE’RE NOT CHEATING!”

Sophie fell silent. Wolves unlocked the Blue Forest gates and students surged into the tunnels.

Neither Sophie nor Agatha moved.

“My roommates say I’m 100% Evil,” Sophie said softly. “But you know the truth. I don’t know how to be Evil. Not even 1%. So please don’t ask me to go against my own soul, Agatha. I can’t.” Her voice caught. “I just can’t.”

She left Agatha under the umbrella. As Sophie joined the herd, the storm rinsed the sheen out of her hair, the glitter off her skin until Agatha couldn’t tell her from the other villains. Guilt flushed through her, burning her finger bright as the sun. She hadn’t told Sophie the truth. She new Tedros was spelled, and would never truely love Sophie. Not as long as his soul loved Agatha.

But he had to love Sophie fully. All 100% of his heart. True love or spell.

That night, Sophie had nightmares. Tedros kissing goblins, Agatha crawling from a well with cupid wings, Hester’s demon chasing her through sewers, until the Beast rose out of dark water, bloody hands snatching, and Sophie lunged past him and locked herself in the Doom Room. Only there was a new torturer waiting. Her father in a wolf mask.

Sophie jolted awake.

Her roommates were fast asleep. She sighed, nestled into her pillow—and bolted back up.

There was a ladybug on her nose.

She started to scream—

“It’s me!” the bug whispered.

Sophie closed her eyes. Wake up, wake up, wake up.

She opened them. It was still there.

“What’s my favorite muffin?” she wheezed.

“Flourless blueberry bran,” the bug grouched. “Any more stupid questions?”

Sophie picked the ladybug off her nose. It had the same bulging eyes and sunken cheeks.

“How in the world—”

“Mogrification. We’ve been learning it for two weeks. Meet me in the common room.”

Agatha the ladybug glanced back as she skittered for the door.

“And bring your books.”

Chapter Text

Hi guys, Im not dead and im so very sorry for not updating! Merry Chistmas and a Happy New Year to everyone! I work two jobs and I've been absolutely smashed with assessment tasks and exams all year and if I knew I was going to be so flat out I would have spaced my chapters out to 1 every 3 or so weeks rather than more than 1 a week so they would have lasted you guys longer, I promise I haven't forgotten about this fic (it is my only one), ill have to go back and re-read the whole thing up to this point so I can remind myself what my train of thought was going at but I can guarantee after I do that I will try to give you a chapter (Hopefully) by the end of the month but definitely by the end of January. there was someone who commented about sophies parts being quite similar to the book and I apologise about that and will try and make her more unique from now on, in not the best writer (my teachers words, I'm TERRIBLE at essays🙄) so I use the actual books chapters as a structure, I read the chapter then write a synopsis of what happens to write the chapter myself but I struggle to do that sometimes so I sometimes use almost the same paragraphs from the book if I get really stuck and I apologise for that and will try and limit it further.

what I'm really trying to say is that I will try my very hardest to give you another chapter soon!

P.S. comment your opinions on the movie if you have seen it cause all my friends think it is super cool but none of them have read the books and I don't think they did do the book justice and I feel as though they have permanently closed the door on a sequel whether it was intentional or not.

Lots of love
Your very sad and EXTREMELY sorry author

Mika <3

Chapter Text

“Suppose mine glows green or brown or something?” Sophie yawned, scratching her legs. Everything in the Malice Common Room was made of burlap—the floors, the furniture, the curtains—like some barbarous itch chamber. “I’m not doing it if it clashes with my clothes.”

“Just focus on an emotion!” barked the ladybug on her shoulder. “Like joy!. Try joy.”

Sophie closed her eyes. “Is it glowing?”

“No. What are you thinking about?”

“Tedros’ Hair.”

“Real Joy, Sophief! Magic comes from real feelings!”

Sophie’s face scrunched with effort.

“Deeper! Nothing’s happening!”

Sophie’s face darkened and her fingertip flickered hot pink.

“That’s it! You’re doing it!” Agatha hopped excitedly. “What are you thinking about!”

“How infuriating your voice is,” Sophie said, opening her eyes. “Should I think about you every time?”

For the next week, the Malice Common Room turned into a ladybugs’s night school. The Mogrify spell only lasted three hours, so Agatha worked Sophie like a slave, driving her to make her fingerglow stronger, to fog a room and flood a floor, to tell a Sleeping Willow from a Weeping Willow, and to even say a few words of Giant. Sophie’s ranks immediately improved, but by the fourth day, the long nights had taken their toll.

“My skin looks gray,” Sophie croaked.

“And you’re still ranked 68, so pay attention!” berated the bug on her book, swan crest glistening on abdomen. “The Woodswide Plague began when Rumpelstiltskin stamped so hard the ground cracked—”

“What made you change your mind? About helping me?”

“And from the ground, a million poisonous bugs crawled out and infested the Woods, sickening scores of Nevers and Evers,” Agatha said, ignoring her. “They even had to close this school, since the bugs were highly contagious—”

Sophie flopped back on the couch. “How do you know all this?”

“Because while you stare in mirrors, I read Poisons and Plagues!”

Sophie sighed. “So they closed the school for bugs. Then what happ—”

“This is where you’ve been sneaking to?”

Sophie swiveled to Hester at the door in black pajamas, flanked by Anadil and Dot.

“Homework,” Sophie yawned, holding up her book. “Need light.”

“Since when do you care about homework?” said Hester, looking greasier than ever.

“Thought beauty was a ‘full-time job,’” mimicked Anadil.

“Rooming with you is such inspiration,” Sophie said, smiling. “Makes me want to be the best villain I can be.”

Hester eyed her for a long moment. With a growl, she turned and led the others out.

Sophie exhaled, blowing Agatha off the couch.

“She’s up to something,” they heard Hester snarl.

“Or she’s changed!” piped Dot, waddling behind. “Bug on her book and she didn’t even notice!”

By the sixth night of schooling, Sophie had risen to #55. But each new day, she looked more like a zombie, skin sickly white, eyes glassy and bruised. Instead of a fancy new frock or hat, now she loped around with dirty hair and a wrinkled dress, trailing study notes all over the tower like bread crumbs.

“Maybe you should get some sleep,” Tedros mumbled to her during Yuba’s lesson on “Insect Cuisine.”

“Too busy trying not to be the ‘worst girl in school,’” Sophie said as she took notes.

“Insects are often available when meerworms are not,” Yuba said, holding up a live cockroach.

“Look, you can’t expect anyone to listen to you when you’re ranked lower than Hort,” Tedros whispered.

“When I’m #1, you’ll ask me to forgive you.”

“You get to #1 and I’ll ask you anything you want,” he snorted.

Sophie turned to him. “I’ll hold you to that.”

“If you’re still awake.”

“First remove the inedible bits,” Yuba said, and tore off the roach’s head.

Agatha shuddered and hid behind a pine shrub the rest of the lesson. But that night, she almost jumped from her body when Sophie told her what happened with Tedros.

“Everboys always keep their promises!” she said, bouncing on knobby bug legs. “It’s the Prince Code of Chivalry. Now you just have to get to #1 and he’ll ask you to the Ball!” Agatha jumped with joy and transformed back to a girl and popped on a nightgown.

“We wont even go to the ball! I bet if you can convince him he would kiss you before the ball and we can go home!” agatha didnt see sophie come up behind her until it was too late. Sophie kicked the back of her knees before bashing her over the head with a book

“You do not tell me when to kiss my prince, am i understood?” she asks in a cold, threatening tone

“Of course, im sorry Sophie” agatha replied and transformed back to continue reading to sophie, about half an hour later agatha looked up from the book “Can you summarise that for me?”

Sophie answered with a snore.

By the tenth day of ladybug College, Sophie was only at #40 and the circles under her eyes were so black she looked like a raccoon. By the next, she’d slipped back to #65 when she napped during Lesso’s test on Nemesis Dreams, fell asleep during Henchmen, knocking Beezle off the Belfry, and lost her voice in Special Talents for another low rank.

“Your talent is progressing,” Sheeba said to Anadil, who managed to make her rats grow a full five inches bigger. Then she turned to Sophie. “Here I thought you were our Great Witch Hope.”

By the end of the week, Sophie was the worst villain in school again.

“I’m sick,” Agatha said, coughing into her hand.

Professor Dovey didn’t look up from her parchment-strewn desk. “Ginger tea and two slices of grapefruit. Repeat every two hours.”

“I tried that,” Agatha said, increasing the volume of her coughs.

“Now is not the time to miss class, Agatha,” Professor Dovey said, stacking papers under sparkling pumpkin weights. “Less than a month before the Ball and I want to make sure our fourth-ranked student is prepared for the most important night of her young life! Do you have an Everboy in mind?”

Agatha exploded in a paroxysm of hacks. Professor Dovey looked up, alarmed.

“Feels like . . . plague,” Agatha wheezed.

Professor Dovey went white.

Quarantined in her room, Agatha the Roach now accompanied Sophie to all her classes. Tucked behind Sophie’s ear, she whispered the first sign of a Nemesis Dream (answer: tasting blood), steered Frost Giant negotiations during Henchmen, and told Sophie which scarecrows were Good or Evil in Yuba’s Forest challenge. On the second day, she helped Sophie lose a tooth in Uglification, match monsters during Sader’s exam (Lalkies: sweet-talkers; Harpies: child eaters), and determine which of Yuba’s beanstalks was poisonous, which was edible, and which was Dot in disguise. There were hairy moments, of course. She almost ended up on the bottom of Hester’s clump, barely survived a hovering bat, and nearly turned back into herself in Special Talents before finding a broom closet just in time.

By the third day, Agatha hardly glanced at her Good homework and spent all her free time learning Evil spells. Where her classmates struggled to make fingers flicker, she could keep hers glowing by thinking about things that made her happy: Mum, Kiko, Tedros. . . . Then it was a matter of following a spell’s precise recipe, and just like that, she could do magic. Simple stuff, nothing more than playing with water and weather, but still—real magic!, nothing she handnt done with Callis before.

She would have been paralyzed by the incredibility, the impossibility, except that it came so naturally. Where the others couldn’t summon a drizzle, Agatha conjured thunderclouds in her room and splashed the odious murals off her wall with a squall of lightning and rain. Between sessions, she stole into bathrooms to try out new Spells for Suffering—the Lights-Out Jinx to briefly darken the sky (Very familiar), the Sea Swell Curse to summon a giant wave. . . . Time evaporated when she studied Evil, so rife with power and possibility, she could never get bored.

While waiting for Pollux to deliver her Good homework one night, Agatha whistled while she doodled—

“What pray tell is that?”

She turned to Pollux in her doorway, head on a hare’s body, staring at the drawing.

“Oh, um, me at my wedding. See, there’s my prince.” She crumpled the page and coughed embarrassed. “Any homework?”

After chastising her for slipping in the Ever ranks, explaining every assignment thrice, and berating her to cover her mouth when she coughed, Pollux finally left in a circus of hops and falls. Agatha exhaled. Then her eye caught the crumpled doodle of herself standing at the altar with Tedros and she saw what she’d been drawing.

Ever After. Her Future.

“We have to get home,” she mumbled.

By the end of the week, Agatha had led Sophie on a magnificent winning streak in all her classes, including Yuba’s Trial Tune-Ups. In these one-on-one duels to prepare for the upcoming Trial by Tale, Sophie beat every person in her group using approved spells, whether stunning Ravan with a lightning bolt, icing Beatrix’s lips before she could call for animal help, or liquefying Chadick’s training sword.

“Someone’s been doing their homework,” Tedros said, agog. Hidden under Sophie’s collar, Agatha blushed with pride.

“Before it was dumb luck. This is different,” Hester griped to Anadil as they bit into a lunch of charred cow tongues. “How is she doing it?”

“Good old-fashioned hard work,” Sophie said, swishing by in shimmering makeup, ruby-red hair, and a black kimono, sparkling with gems that spelled “F is for Focused.”

Hester and Anadil choked on their tongues.

By the end of the third week, Sophie was up to #5 and her Lunchtime Lectures had resumed due to popular demand. So had her black-robed fashions, bolder and more extravagant than before, in a grand pageant of scalloped plumage, fishnet bodices, faux monkey fur, sequined burkas, leather pantsuits, powdered wigs, and even a chain-mail bustier.

“She’s cheating,” Beatrix hissed to anyone who would listen. “Some rogue fairy godmother or time-turning spell. No one has time to do all this!”

But Sophie had time to design a satin jumper with matching nun’s wimple, a sparkled clamshell dress, and matching shoes for every new look. She had time to beat Hester in the “Uglify a Ballroom” challenge, write a report on “Wolves vs. Man-Wolves,” and prepare Lunchtime Lectures on “Wicked Success,” “Ugly Is the New Beautiful,” “Building Your Body for Sin.” She had time to be one-girl fashion show, rabble-rouser, rebel priestess—and still wrestle her way past Anadil to #2 in the rankings.

This time Beatrix couldn’t stop Tedros from falling for Sophie. But Tedros tried valiantly to stop himself.

She’s a Never! So what if she’s beautiful? Or smart? Or creative and kind and generous and—

Tedros took a deep breath. Where was this coming from? He loved agatha, but his mind seemed to be drawn to sophie in a red haze.

Evers can’t like Nevers. You’re just confused.

He felt relieved when Yuba hosted another “Good or Evil” challenge. This time the gnome turned all the girls into blue pumpkins and hid them in the forest’s voluminous patch.

Just find an Ever, Tedros scolded himself. Find an Ever and forget all about her.

“This one’s Good!” Hort yelled, and flicked a blue shell. Nothing happened. The other boys couldn’t tell the difference between pumpkins either and started debating the merits of each.

“This is not a group assignment!” Yuba bellowed.

Clinging to Sophie’s blue vine, Agatha’s ladybug watched as the boys split up. Tedros headed west towards the Turquoise Thicket and stopped. Slowly he turned to Sophie’s pumpkin.

“He’s coming,” Agatha said.

“How do you know?” Sophie whispered.

“Because that’s the way he looked at me.”

Tedros walked up to a pumpkin. “This one. This one’s an Ever.”

Yuba frowned. “Look closely first—”

Tedros ignored him, clasped its blue skin, and in a burst of glitterdust the pumpkin turned into Sophie. A “16” puffed in slimy green smoke over the prince’s head and a “1” in black over Sophie’s.

“Only the best Evil can disguise as Good,” Yuba commended, and with a wave of his staff, erased the red F off Sophie’s dress once and for all.

“And as for you, son of Arthur, I suggest you study your rules. Let’s hope you don’t make such a terrible mistake when it counts.”

Tedros wanted to be ashamed but that red fog had a hold on him

“We can’t find any!” a voice called.

Yuba turned to see all the boys with low ranks smoking over their heads. “Should have marked them,” he sighed and waddled into the patch, jabbing pumpkins to see if they yelped.

With the gnome gone, Tedros let himself smile. How could he tell a teacher he didn’t care about rules? Rules that had led him to that lovely Agatha twice…. no, For the first time, he had found a girl who had everything he wanted. A girl who wasn’t a mistake.

“I’d say you owe me a question, son of Arthur.”

Tedros turned to find Sophie wearing the same smile. He followed her eyes to the Nevers scoreboard above the Forest, where Albemarle had pecked her name at the very top.

The next day, she found a note in her lunch pail.

Wolves don’t like foxes. Blue Brook at midnight. T.

“What does it mean?” she whispered to the ladybug in her palm.

“It means we go home tonight!” Agatha gushed, antennae beating so fast that Sophie dropped her.

The roach paced the mildewed burlap of the Malice Common Room floor, eyeing the clock as it ticked towards midnight. At last she heard the door open and Sophie entered in a seductive black sheath dress, accented with long black gloves, beehived hair, a necklace of delicate pearls, and black-tinted spectacles. Agatha nearly burst her carapace.

“First, I told you to be on time. Second, I said don’t dress up—”

“Look at these glasses. Aren’t they chic? Saves your eyes from the sun. You know, these Evergirls sneak me all sorts of things like this now, pearls, jewels, makeup to add to my ensembles. At first I thought they were Good Deeds, and then I realized, no, they just like seeing their things on someone more glamorous and charismatic. Only it’s all so cheap. Gives me a rash.”

Agatha’s antennae curled. “Just—just lock the door!”

Sophie bolted the latch. She heard a crash and spun to see Agatha red-faced, pale body wrapped in a burlap curtain.

“Um—must have mistimed it—” Agatha spluttered—

Sophie looked her up and down. “I prefer you as a bug. I can see your fat now”

“Let me grab my clothes,” Agatha muttered, dressing herself. Then she saw Sophie fondling Tedros’ note. “Now listen, don’t do anything stupid when you meet him tonight. Just get the kiss and—”

“My prince came for me,” Sophie mooned, sniffing the parchment. “And now he’s mine forever. All thanks to you, Agatha.” She gazed up lovingly and saw her friend’s expression.

“What?”

“You said ‘forever.’”

“I meant tonight. He’s mine tonight.”

They were both silent.

“We’ll be heroes when we get back to Gavaldon, Sophie,” Agatha said softly. “You’ll have fame and riches and any boy you want. We’ll read about Tedros in storybooks for the rest of our lives. You’ll have the memories that he was once yours.”

Sophie nodded with a pained smile.

“And I’ll have my Mother and cat,” Agatha smiled.

“You can try and find love, Agatha.”

Agatha shook her head. “You heard what the School Master said, Sophie. A villain like me can’t ever find love.”

“He also said we couldn’t be friends.”

Agatha met Sophie’s lucid, beautiful eyes.

Then she saw the clock and jolted to her feet. “Take off your clothes!”

“Take off my what?”

“Hurry! We’ll miss him!”

“Excuse me but I’m sewn into this dre—”

“NOW!”

A few minutes later, Agatha sat next to Sophie’s clothes, head in hands.

“You have to do it with conviction!”

“I’m naked behind an ugly couch. I can’t do anything with conviction, let alone make my finger glow and turn into a mouse. Can’t we pick a more appealing animal?”

“You’re five minutes from losing your kiss! Just picture yourself in its body!”

“How about a lovebird instead? It’s more me.”

Agatha grabbed Sophie’s spectacles, “Ill break the glasses”

THUMP.

“Did that work?” Sophie’s voice said.

“I don’t see you—” Agatha said, whipping around. “For all we know you turned yourself into a newt!”

“I’m right here.”

Agatha turned and lost her breath. “But—but—you’re—”

“More me,” Sophie breathed, a ravishing plush pink fox with sparkly fur, bewitching green eyes, succulent red lips, and a bouncy magenta tail. She clasped the pearl necklace around her neck and admired herself in a shard of broken glass. “Will he kiss me, darling?”

Agatha stared, mesmerized.

Sophie watched her in the mirror. “You’re making me nervous.”

“The wolves won’t bother you,” Agatha babbled as she unlocked the door. “They think foxes carry disease, plus they’re color-blind. Just keep your chest to the ground so they don’t see the swan—”

“Agatha.”

“What? You’ll miss hi—”

“Will you come with me?”

Agatha turned.

Gently, Sophie curled her tail around her friend’s hand. “We’re a team,” she said.

Agatha had to remind herself she didn’t have time to cry.

Sophie the Fox pattered quietly through the Blue Forest, past willow trees shimmering with sleeping fairies and wolf guards who shrank from her as if she were a snake. She skirted sapphire ferns and twisty oaks of the Turquoise Thicket before slinking to the top of the bridge overlooking a moonlit brook.

“I don’t see him,” Sophie whispered to the ladybug snuggled into her neck’s pink fur.

“His note said he’d be here!”

“Suppose Hester and Anadil played a trick—”

“Who are you talking to?”

Two blue eyes glowed in darkness across the bridge.

Sophie froze.

“Say something!” Agatha hissed in her ear.

Sophie couldn’t.

“I talk to myself when I’m nervous,” Agatha whispered.

“I talk to myself when I’m nervous,” Sophie said quickly.

A navy blue fox stepped out of the shadows, swan twinkling on its puffed chest.

“I thought only princesses get nervous. Not the best villain in school.”

Sophie gaped at the fox. It had Tedros’ tight muscles and half-cocked grin.

“Only the best Good can disguise as Evil,” Agatha intervened. “Especially when it has love to fight for.”

“Only the best Good can disguise as Evil,” Sophie said. “Especially when it has love to fight for.”

“So it really was a mistake all along?” Tedros said, circling her slowly.

Sophie flailed for words—

“I had to play both sides in order to survive,” Agatha rescued.

“I had to play both sides in order to survive,” echoed Sophie.

She heard Tedros’ steps stop. “Now, according to the Prince Code, I have a promise to fulfill.” His fur brushed against hers. “What would you like me to ask you?”

Sophie’s heart choked her throat.

“Do you see who I am now?” Agatha said.

“Do you see who I am now?” Sophie breathed.

Tedros was quiet.

He lifted her chin with his warm paw. “You do know this will throw both schools into upheaval?”

Sophie gazed into his eyes, hypnotized.

“I do,” whispered the roach.

“I do,” said the fox.

“You do know no one will accept you as my princess?” said Tedros.

“I do.”

“I do.”

“You do know you will spend the rest of your life trying to prove you’re Good?”

“I do,” said Agatha.

“I do,” said Sophie.

Tedros moved closer and their chests touched.

“And you do know I’m going to kiss you now?”

Both girls gasped at the same time.

As iridescent brook water lit up the foxes’ blue and pink faces, Agatha closed her eyes and said goodbye to this world, and her prince. Sophie closed her eyes too and felt Tedros’ warm, sweet breath as his tender mouth grazed her lips—

“But we should wait,” Sophie said, pulling away.

Agatha’s bug eyes flashed open.

“Sure. Course. Obviously,” Tedros stammered. “I’ll, um, walk you to your tunnel.”

As they walked back in silence, Sophie’s pink tail curled around his. Tedros looked at her and surrendered a smile. Agatha watched all this, swelling red. And when the prince finally vanished into his tunnel, she vaulted onto Sophie’s nose.

“What are you doing!”

Sophie didn’t answer.

“Why didn’t you kiss him!”

Sophie said nothing.

Agatha dug her pincers into Sophie’s nose. “You need to run after him! Go now! We can’t get home unless you kiss—”

Sophie brushed Agatha off her face and disappeared into the dark tunnel.

Writhing in dead leaves, Agatha finally understood.

There was no kiss because there would never be a kiss.

Sophie had no intention of them going home.

Ever.

Chapter Text

The faculty of the School for Good and Evil had seen many things over the years.

They had seen students pathetic in the first year end richer than kings. They had seen Class Captains flame out by the third year and end as pigeons or wasps. They had seen pranks, protests, and raids, kisses, vows, and impromptu love songs.

But they had never ever seen an Ever and a Never hold hands in the lunch line.

“Are you sure I won’t get in trouble?” said Sophie, noticing them glaring from balconies.

“If you’re good enough for me, you’re good enough for a basket,” said Tedros, pulling her forward.

“I suppose they should get used to it,” Sophie sighed. “I don’t want any trouble at the Ball.”

Tedros’ hand stiffened on hers. Sophie turned bright red.

“Oh . . . After last night, I just assumed . . .”

“The Everboys took an oath we wouldn’t propose before the Circus of Talents,” Tedros said, tugging at his collar. “Espada said it’s tradition to wait until the Circus Crowning, the night before the Ball.”

“The night before!” Sophie choked. “But how do we match colors and plan our entrance and—”

“This is why we make the oath.” Tedros took his wicker basket of lamb sandwiches, saffron couscous, and almond mousse from a green-haired nymph. “And one for the lady as well.”

The nymph ignored Sophie and held out a basket to the next Ever. Tedros seized the handle.

“I said one for the lady.”

The nymph tightened its grip on the basket.

“Lamb is hard to digest anyway,” Sophie fretted—

But the prince held on until the nymph surrendered the basket with a grunt. Tedros handed it to Sophie. “Like you said, they better get used to it.”

Her eyes widened. “You’ll . . . take me?”

“You’re so beautiful when you want something.”

Sophie touched him. “Promise me,” she said, breathless. “Promise me you’ll take me to the Ball.”

Tedros looked down at her soft hands, holding the laces of his shirt.

“All right,” he exhaled finally. “I promise. But tell anyone and I’ll put a snake in your corsage.”

With a squeal, Sophie threw herself into his arms. She could plan her gown after all.

With that, the #1 Ever and #1 Never, storybook enemies in body and soul, sat hand in hand under a towering oak. Tedros suddenly noticed all the Evers glaring at him, stunned by his disloyalty. Sophie saw Nevers, who she had preached to for weeks about Villain Pride, glower at her, betrayed.

Tensing, she and Tedros bit into sandwiches at the same time.

“Is the Agatha still contagious?” Tedros said quickly. “It’s her first day back in class.” Tedros said looking over at Agatha sitting in the shade with Kiko. Sophie rolled her eyes and pulled his attention back to herself. Sophie watched over Tedros’ shoulder as Agatha stood up and seemed to take a step towards them. The whole clearing focusing in on the drama, watched as agathas face grew pale and her eyes rolled back. Silence covering the clearing as Agatha collapsed.

“AGATHA!” Kiko screamed and rushed to her friend, Sophie and Tedros following behind Dovey and Lesso to check on the girl. Lesso waved her hand and a purple wave spread through the field.

“Just incase its a curse” Lesso muttered, but Agatha didnt move. As the wave passed over him, Tedros felt himself snap into a moment of Clarity, he looked down at Sophie and yanked his hand away from her in disgust Before seeing Agatha and dropping to his knees infront of her next to Dovey. He looked at the dean and Dovey startles from the look of unbridled fear on his face.

“Agatha…” he stroked her cheek and looked at Lesso “Was it a curse professor?” before Lesso could reply, Dovey layed a hand on his shoulder and her other around Agatha’s wrist 

“She isn’t well dear, Agatha dosent eat nearly as much as she should so this is just exhaustion and weakness” Dovey soothed “She will be fine” Tedros sighed with relief but stiffened when a slim hand landed on his head.

“Teddy?” sophies voice was soft but Tedros ripped her hand away

“Someone cursed me! I do not love you!” Tedros yelled, then leaned down and pressed a light kiss apon Agathas forehead “How could i when my true love lays before me?” the whole clearing watched as sophie ranaway in tears, then, trial by tale prep begun.

“To win a Trial by Tale is one of the greatest honors at the School for Good and Evil,” Pollux declared, head back next to Castor’s on their massive dog’s body. With the fifteen Forest Group leaders behind him, Pollux peered down at the students, gathered after breakfast in the Theater of Tales.

“Once a year, we send our best Evers or Nevers into the Blue Forest for a night to see who lasts until morning. To win, a student must survive both the School Master’s death traps and the other side’s attacks. The last Ever or Never standing at dawn is declared the winner and given five additional first-place ranks.” Pollux raised his nose snootily. “As you know, Good has won the past two hundred Trials—”

Good burst into a chant of “EVERS RULE! EVERS RULE! EVERS—”

“ARE STUPID, ARROGANT FOOLS!” Castor boomed, and the Evers shut up.

“Now a week from today, each Forest Group will send its top Ever and Never into the Trial,” Pollux sniffed. “But before we announce the competitors, let us briefly review the rules.”

“You feeling ok? Beatrix took first in good deeds yesterday?” chaddick asked

“You try mending a dove wing with my strength,” Tedros retorted. Then his face softened. “Do the boys really hate me?”

“Not anymore mate, now that your out from that witch spell and back with Agatha” Chaddick said, gray eyes stern. “Even if she is the fairest, smartest, most talented girl in that wretched school, a witch is a witch and will resort to witch tactics.”

Tedros’ chest tightened. He caught Agatha beaming at him from the pew beside his. How was he blessed with a girl as fantastic as her after everything he has done? He slid her a Ham sandwich, her favourite “Dovey says you need to eat more to get strength back, so please, eat it”

“According to the rules, there can be more than one winner of a Trial by Tale,” said Pollux. “However, those who last until dawn must split the first-place ranks. Thus, it is in your interest to eliminate your competition. Naturally the School Master prefers a single winner and will conjure as many obstacles as he can to ensure it.

“For the rest of the week, all classes will be dedicated to preparing these 15 Evers and 15 Nevers for their night in the Blue Forest,” the dog continued, as students twittered over who these would be. “In-class challenges will be restricted to these competitors only. Those with the worst scores for the week will enter the Trial first, while those with the best will enter significantly later. This is, of course, a tremendous advantage. The less time you spend in a Trial by Tale, the more chance you come out alive.”

Students stopped talking.

Pollux realized what he said and forced a laugh.

“It’s a figure of speech. No student dies in a Trial. How ludicrous.”

Castor coughed. “But what about—”

“The competition is completely safe,” Pollux said, smiling down at the children. “You will each have a flag of surrender. If you find yourself in mortal danger, drop it to the ground and you will be rescued unharmed from the Blue Forest. You will learn more about the rules in your various classes, but now I cede the floor to the Forest Group leaders, who will announce this season’s Trial competitors.”

A tiny lily nymph in a dress of emerald vines stepped forward. “From Group 9, Reena will represent Good and Vex will represent Evil!”

Reena curtsied to Ever cheers while Nevers grumbled that Vex and his pointy ears were lucky to be in a weak group.

An ogre announced Tristan and one-eyed Arachne from Group 7, followed by more leaders who named dark-skinned Nicholas and Anadil from 4, Kiko and green-hued Mona from 12, Giselle and Hester from 6 . . .

Sophie goggled at Tedros through it all, daydreaming of life as his queen. (Would Camelot have enough closets? Mirrors? Cucumbers?) Then Yuba stepped forward. Sophie looked over at Tedros and Beatrix, both hanging on the gnome’s next words. Please let him beat that sour cream puff, she prayed—

“From Group 3, Tedros will represent Good,” Yuba said.

She exhaled in relief.

“And Sophie will represent Evil.”

Sophie massaged her ears. She’d heard wrong surely. Then she saw the smirks.

“Suppose that’s the problem with having a villain as an Ex,” Chaddick said. “It’s all love and kisses until you have to kill them.”

Tedros smiled. “You say that like i would hate it, after everything” Agatha frowned but it would take a few days to get over sophie's recent betrayal, so she didnt jump to defend her twin.

As Evers left through the west doors, Nevers through the east to trek back to Evil, Sophie remained shell-shocked on a blackened pew. A shadow moved into hers.

“All I asked is that you stay out of my way . . .”

Hester’s breath chilled the back of her neck.

“And here you are, #1 Villain, making fools of us all. Well, you forgot a villain’s story doesn’t end happily, dear. So let me remind you how it ends. First you. Then your prince. Dead.”

Cold lips grazed Sophie’s ear. “And that’s no figure of speech.”

Sophie whipped around. No one there.

Tedros grabbed Agathas hand and kissed her knuckles “I promise to win for you, my love” he leaned in to kiss her properly, smiling widely when she didnt pull away “Now i must train, i will see you at dinner” he kissed her forehead, glared at sophie, then left

Agatha sat in the pink pews, all alone.

“I told you I belong here, darling,” Sophie sighed. “Why wont they listen.”

Agatha said nothing.

“Maybe the School Master will let you go home alone,” Sophie said.

Agatha didn’t flinch.

“You need to make new friends, Agatha.” Sophie smiled gently. “I will have a prince soon.”

Agatha looked at her twin “I have then Prince, Sophie, The true love, so i think that makes me the princess” agatha says quietly but sophie hears her anyway and grabs Agathas head and slamming her knee into the smaller girls eye before leaving.

She slammed the door behind her.

In Uglification, Manley asked the competing 15 Nevers to conjure a disguise that would scare off an Ever “at first sight.” Hester’s potion made her whole body explode with spikes. Anadil’s turned her skin so thin all her blood vessels shined through. Meanwhile, Sophie bashed tadpoles to give herself shingles again, but somehow gave herself a spiral horn and glittered horsetail instead.

“Because what’s scarier to a princess than a unicorn?” snarled Manley.

In Henchmen, the Trial Nevers had to tame a Fire Giant, a nine-foot hunk of hot orange skin and flaming hair. Sophie tried to read his thoughts, but all his thoughts were in Giant. Luckily, she remembered some of the Giant words Agatha had taught her.

FIRE GIANT: And why shouldn’t I kill you?

SOPHIE: I know this horse.

FIRE GIANT: I see no horse!

SOPHIE: It is as vast as your undergarments.

Castor intervened before the Giant ate her.

Then Lady Lesso asked the Trial Nevers to name a “spell that can only be undone by the one who casts it.”

“Answers?”

Shivering, the Nevers held up carved ice tablets:

HESTER: Petrification

ANADIL: Petrification

ARACHNE: Petrification

SOPHIE: Special Spell

“If only love was the answer to everything,” said Lady Lesso, handing Sophie another “15” out of 15.

Sophie say hester Glaring at her across the clearing at lunch and wondered what her problem was, she got her answer when she got back to her room.

Her bed had disappeared. The mirror had been shattered.

And over her head hung all her old outfits, noosed and mutilated, like headless corpses.

On her bed, Anadil looked up from Killing Pretty Girls. Hester looked up from Killing Even Prettier Girls.

Sophie barreled into the top-floor office. “My roommates want to kill me!”

Lady Lesso smiled back from her desk. “That’s the spirit.”

The door closed magically in Sophie’s face.

Sophie cowered in the dark hall. Last week, she had been the most popular girl in school! And now she couldn’t even go back to her room?

She wiped her eyes. It didn’t matter, did it? Soon she’d be switching schools and all of this would be behind her. She had the boy every girl wanted. She had her prince! Two stupid witches were no match for true love!

Voices echoed above. She ducked into shadows—

“Hester said whoever kills Sophie during the Trial will be her Hench Captain next year,” Arachne said as she descended the stairs. “But it needs to look accidental or we’ll get expelled.”

“We have to beat Anadil to it!” Mona said, green skin flushing. “Suppose she kills her before the Trial!”

“Hester said during the Trial. Even Vex and Brone know that. Did you hear their plan to kill her? They searched the Good lake to find those leftover eggs. That girl is so dead.”

“Can’t believe we listened to that traitor’s lectures,” Mona seethed. “Next thing you know, she’d have had us wearing pink and kissing Evers!”

“She humiliated us all and now she’ll pay,” Arachne said, narrowing her eye. “Fourteen of us. One of her. Odds aren’t in her favor.”

Their cackles pealed through the damp stairwell.

Sophie didn’t move from the dark. It wasn’t just her roommates. The whole school wanted her dead. There was nowhere safe now.

Nowhere except . . .

At the end of a dark, stale hall, the door to Room 34 cracked open after the third knock. Two beady black pupils peered out.

“Hello, handsome,” Sophie cooed.

“Don’t even try it—you’re a prince lover, you’re a two-timer, you’re a—”

Sophie held her nose, breezed by Hort, and locked him out of her new room.

Hort pounded and wailed outside for twenty minutes before Sophie finally let him back in.

“You can help me study until curfew,” she said, spritzing the room with lavandula. “But no sleeping here.”

“This is my room!” Hort sulked, plopping to the floor in black pajamas dotted with frowning green frogs.

“Well, I’m here, aren’t I? And boys and girls can’t be roommates, so it certainly can’t be your room,” said Sophie, tucking into his bed.

“But where am I supposed to stay!”

“I hear the Malice Common Room is quite comfortable.”

Ignoring Hort’s whimpers, Sophie sank into pillows and held a candle to his class notes. She had to win all her challenges tomorrow. Her only hope to survive the Trial was to go in with Tedros and hide behind his shield the whole time.

“To humiliate an enemy, turn him into a chicken: Banta pareo dirosti?” She squinted. “Is that right?”

“Sophie, how do you know you aren’t a villain?” Hort yawned, hunched on the burned floor.

“I look in the mirror. Hort, your penmanship is foul.”

“When I look in the mirror, I look like a villain.”

“Probably means you’re a villain.”

“Dad told me villains can’t love, no matter what. That it’s unnatural and disgusting.”

Sophie made out scratchy words. “To freeze an Ever in ice, make your soul cold . . .”

“So I definitely can’t love,” Hort said.

“Colder than you thought possible . . . Then say these words . . .”

“But if I could love, I’d love you.”

Sophie turned. Hort was snoring softly on the floor, button-flap lit up with angry green frogs.

“Hort, you can’t sleep here,” she said.

Hort curled up tighter.

Sophie threw off her covers, stamped up to him—

“Take that, Pan,” he babbled softly.

Sophie watched him, shivering and sweating in his little ball.

She slid back under the musty covers. Candle to notes, she tried to study, but his snuffles lulled her into a trance, and before she knew it was morning.

The second day went as well as the first, with Sophie earning three more last places, the third of which came in Henchmen when she couldn’t make her finger glow in time to disarm a stink-troll.

“Where’s her fairy godmother now?” Sophie heard Beatrix crow.

Across the field Agatha did homework with Kiko and Tedros, back turned completely, the couple laughing with their friend and sharing Tedros’ lunch (slowly, very slowly, easing agatha into eating regularly) 

The next day, the challengers spent their first two sessions being fitted for their Trial uniforms: dark blue tunics of silky iron mesh, and matching hooded wool cloaks lined with red brocade. With thirty students in the same cloaks, it would be impossible to tell Evers from Nevers, even if one could see blue cloaks in a Blue Forest. When it came to clothes, Sophie was normally at full attention. But today, she had her head buried in Hort’s notes. Lady Lesso’s class was next and she needed first place.

“A villain kills for one purpose: to destroy his Nemesis. The one who grows stronger as you grow weaker. Only when your Nemesis is dead will you feel quenched,” said the tight-skinned teacher, clacking through the aisle. “Of course, since only the best Nevers will have Nemesis Dreams, most of you will venture your whole life without taking another’s life. Consider yourself lucky. Killing requires the purest Evil. None of you are pure enough to kill yet.”

Sophie heard grumbles in her direction.

“But since the Trial by Tale is a harmless exercise”—Lady Lesso smiled at her—“why not prepare with my favorite challenge . . .”

She conjured a phantom princess with brown curls, blushing dimples, and a smile sweeter than a baby’s.

“Murder Practice. Whoever kills her the cruelest way wins.”

“Finally, something useful,” Hester said, eyeing Sophie.

Though the chamber was colder than ever, Sophie shined with sweat.

With the princess locked behind a door and suspicious of strangers, the Trial Nevers had to be creative to kill her. Mona uglified herself into a peddler and gifted the princess poisoned lipstick. After Lady Lesso conjured a new maiden, Anadil knocked on her door and left a carnivorous bouquet outside it. Hester shrank into a cute squirrel and offered her victim a glittery balloon.

“Why, thank you!” the princess beamed as the balloon pulled her up, up, up into the razor-sharp icicles on the ceiling.

Sophie closed her eyes through most of this.

“Who’s next?” Lady Lesso said, sealing a new princess behind the door. “Oh, yes. You.” She drummed long red nails on Sophie’s desk. Tsk, tsk, tsk.

Sophie felt sick. Murder? Even if it was a phantom, she couldn’t mur—

The Beast’s dying face flashed and she blanched. That was different! He was Evil! Any prince would have done the same!

“Another fail, it seems,” Lady Lesso leered.

Meeting her eyes, Sophie thought of Tedros losing faith in her. She thought of fourteen villains convinced they were pure enough to kill. She thought of her happy ending slipping away . . .

The Sophie I love doesn’t try.

Jaw set, she stormed to the door, past her surprised teacher, finger glowing pink—

To freeze an Ever in ice . . .

She pounded on the door.

Make your soul cold . . .

The door opened and Sophie’s fingerglow dimmed.

It was her own face staring back at her, only with the long blond locks she had before the Beast. To win this challenge, she had to kill . . . herself.

Sophie saw Lady Lesso smirking in the corner.

“May I help you?” asked Princess Sophie.

Just a ghost.Sophie gritted her teeth and felt her finger burn once more.

“You look like a stranger,” said the princess, blushing.

Colder than you thought possible . . .

Sophie pointed her glowing finger at her.

“Mother said never talk to strangers,” said the princess anxiously.

Say it!

Sophie’s fingertip flickered—she couldn’t find the words—

“I should go. Mother’s calling.”

Kill her! Kill her now!

“Goodbye,” said the princess, closing her door—

“BANTA PAREO DIROSTI!”

Poof! The princess turned into a chicken. Sophie grabbed it in her arms, hurled a chair, shattering the iced window, and flung the bird into open sky—

“Fly, Sophie! You’re free!”

The chicken tried to fly, then realized it couldn’t, and plummeted to its death.

“For the first time, I feel sorry for an animal,” Lady Lesso said.

Another “15” spat in Sophie’s face.

Perhaps the only thing Sophie liked about the School for Evil was that there were plenty of places to cry. She tucked behind a crumbling arch and sobbed. How would she ever face Tedros?

“We insist you remove Sophie from the Trial.”

Sophie recognized the gruff voice as Professor Manley’s. She crept out of the archway and peeked through the keyhole into his putrid classroom. But where the rusted seats normally were filled with villains, now they were occupied by the faculty of both schools. Professor Dovey presided at the dragon-skull lectern, which she’d brightened with a pumpkin paperweight.

“The Nevers plan to kill her, Clarissa,” finished bald, pimpled Manley.

“Bilious, we have secure measures in place to prevent a student’s death.”

“Let’s hope they’re more secure than four years ago,” he shot back.

“I think we are all in agreement that Garrick’s death was an accident!” Professor Dovey flared.

The room was ominously silent. In the hall, Sophie could hear her own shallow breaths.

Garrick of Gavaldon. Taken with Bane.

Bane had failed. Garrick had died.

Her heart rattled against her ribs.

Getting home alive is our happy ending.

Agatha was right all along.

“Clarissa, this is an easy decision,” said Lady Lesso.

“But there’s no precedent for removing a qualified student from a Trial!” Professor Dovey protested.

“Qualified! She flunked every challenge this week!” said Manley. “The boy had convinced her she’s Good!”

“Perhaps she’s just feeling the pressure of the Trial,” offered Princess Uma, feeding a quail on her shoulder—

“Or she duped us all into thinking she was Evil’s great hope!” Professor Sheeks said. “She should have failed before the Trial!”

“Then why didn’t she?” Professor Anemone asked.

“Every time we tried to fail her, another student got last place instead,” Manley said. “Someone stopped her from failing!”

Evil teachers clamored in furious agreement.

“Makes perfect sense,” Professor Dovey said over them. “Some mysterious busybody, who no one has ever seen, flits through your tower, meddling with your ranks.”

“You describe the School Master quite well, Clarissa,” said Lady Lesso.

“Don’t be ridiculous, Lady Lesso. Why would the School Master interfere with a student’s ranks?”

“Because he’d love nothing better than to see Evil’s ‘best’ student win behind Good’s shield,” Lady Lesso hissed, violet eyes strobing. “A student who even I foolishly thought had hope. But if Sophie wins with that pathetic prince, I will not stand by, Clarissa. I will not allow the School Master, nor you and your arrogant beasts, to destroy my life’s work. Hear me now. Let Sophie compete in that Trial and you are risking more than just her life. You are risking war.”

The room went dead silent.

Professor Dovey cleared her throat. “Perhaps she can compete next year—”

Sophie slumped in relief.

“You cave to Evil!” Professor Espada cried.

“Only to protect the girl—” Dovey said weakly—

“But she will still love the everboy!” Anemone warned.

“A week in the Doom Room will fix that,” said Lady Lesso.

“Still can’t find the Beast,” said Sheeba—

“Then get a new one!” Lady Lesso snarled.

“How about a vote?” chirped Uma.

“VOTES ARE FOR SISSIES!” Castor roared, and teachers burst into a rumpus. Uma’s quail poop-bombed the Evil teachers, Castor tried to eat the bird, and Pollux managed to lose his head again, before someone whistled with loud authority. Everyone turned to the man standing in the corner of the burned room.

“This school has one mission and one mission only,” said Professor Sader. “To protect the balance between Good and Evil. If Sophie’s participation in the Trial disturbs this balance, then she must be disqualified immediately. Luckily for us, the proof of this balance is in front of your eyes.”

Everyone’s gaze shifted. Sophie tried to see what they were looking at, then realized they were all looking in different directions.

“Are we in agreement the balance is intact?” said Professor Sader.

No one argued.

“Then Sophie will compete in the Trial by Tale and we have nothing more to discuss.”

Sophie swallowed a scream.

“Always so sensible, August,” said Lady Lesso, standing up. “Thankfully, the girl’s failures have ensured she will spend most of the Trial without the boy protecting her. Let us hope that she dies so brutally no one would dare repeat her mistakes. Only then will her story have the ending it deserves. Perhaps one even fit for a painting.”

She swept from the room and the Evil teachers followed her.

As the Good faculty filed out, muttering to each other in pairs, Professor Dovey and Professor Sader emerged last. They walked in silence, her high-necked chartreuse gown rustling against his shamrock-green suit.

“What if she dies, August?” Clarissa asked.

“What if she lives?” said Sader.

Clarissa stopped. “You still believe it’s true?”

“I do. As do I believe it true the Storian started her fairy tale.”

“But it’s impossible—it’s lunacy—it’s—” Clarissa flushed with horror. “This is why you intervened?”

“On the contrary, I haven’t intervened,” Sader said. “Our duty is to let the story take its course—”

“No! What have you—” Professor Dovey’s hand flew to her mouth—“This is why you send a girl to risk her life? Because you believe your spurious prophecy?”

“There is far more at stake here than one girl’s life, Clarissa.”

“She’s just a girl! An innocent girl!” Professor Dovey gasped, welling furious tears. “Her blood is on your hands!”

As she fled, sniffles echoing down the stairs, Professor Sader’s hazel eyes clouded with doubt.

He couldn’t see Sophie crouched next to him, trying to stop herself from shivering.

Awash in the Clearing’s crinkly leaves, Kiko wrapped her shawl tighter and licked her spiced corn cob.

“So I asked every girl if they’d say yes to Tristan and they all said no! So that means he has to ask me! He could go alone, of course, but if a boy goes alone to the Ball, he only gets half ranks and Tristan likes using the Groom Room so he’ll definitely ask me. Well, Tristan could ask you, but you told him to marry Tedros, so I don’t think he likes you, and your going with him anyway. I can’t believe you said that. As if princes could marry each other. Then what would we do?”

Agatha nibbled on her salad to make Tedros happy by eating. Across the Clearing, she saw sophie run up to tedros and try to kiss him but he shoved her away

“Are you listening to me?”

Agatha turned. “Wait. So if a girl doesn’t get asked to the Ball, then she fails and suffers a punishment worse than death. But if a boy doesn’t go to the Ball, he gets half ranks? How is that fair!”

“Because it’s the truth,” Kiko said. “A boy can choose to be alone if he wants. But if a girl ends up alone . . . she might as well be dead.”

Agatha swallowed. “That’s ridiculous—”

Something dropped in her basket.

Agatha glanced up to see Sophie meet her eyes as Dot dragged her to study curses.

As Kiko jabbered on, Agatha pulled a luscious pink rose bloom from her basket, then saw it was made of parchment. With the deftest care, she undid the flower in the lap of her dress.

The note only had three words.

I need you.

Chapter Text

Hello All! It's your lovely author here, Mika!

I'm really sorry i haven't updated in forever. i was just starting grade 11 when i started writing this and had no idea how full-on it would be. im was in my last year of school this year, and I finished school in a month, and my final exams by the end of October. Not a fanfic author trope or anything but i actually had a scare were i might have brain cancer, spooky looking MRI but turns out im fine :).

i really want to take another crack at this now that i have had some lessons on writing from my teacher so from here on out im going to be doing a rewrite! im going to keep the originals up, but ill start posting the new chapters after this one. i will be adding a new chapter to the beginning to let anyone new know that the first story is kinda discontinued and im going to rewrite it anew.

i wanted to change some things about the original, i want to make it so you get some idea of the girls lives growing up, agatha will be semi-magical from birth(love potions and all that jazz), i really wont do many sophie chapters cause i find her hard to write and i generally hate her as a character and i love making her worse than the books.

i really hope you guys enjoy the rewrite, and i wont be posting consistently till probaby november, but i will try to add some chapters here and there to keep you all interested! see you all in the first chapter! your lovely Author Mika!

Chapter Text

In a small town, a woman named Vanessa walked up to the house on top of the town graveyard. The once rickety and dark building was now approachable, the steps rebuilt, the windows replaced, and the walls repainted a soft butter yellow. Vanessa knocked on the door, and once it was open, Vanessa could see the woman she had met 6 months earlier.

"Callis, may I come in? I think we need to discuss a few things." Vanessa asked the woman in the doorway. Callis nodded and let Vanessa in and showed her to the sitting room. Vanessa watched as Callis prepped them some tea. She was beautiful, willowy tall with golden skin, freckles, and almond brown hair. Vanessa was her opposite, Pale with coal black hair and a permanent scowl on her face. Even if she was beautiful on the outside, there was just a darkness inside the woman that frightened the people around her.

Sitting down on the other chair, Callis offered Vanessa a cup of chamomile tea before pouring her own.

"I do love what you have done with the Cottage Callis, it is a warm as you are now. How is the clinic in town going?" Vanessa asked, wondering how the healer's clinic is faring with the woman coming from the woods. the same woods that stole away their children every 4 years. Callis smiled sweetly.

"My clinic is doing fantastically, Vanessa, and it would not have been possible without your help when I first came here." Callis thanked her sincerely, "How are you doing? I know you have a crush on Stephan. Has he noticed you yet?" 

_____

The women first met in a graveyard; Vanessa, who had been wishing for help finding love, and Callis, who had unceremoniously burst through a grave in front of Vanessa. Without Vanessa, Callis would have been burned at the stake as a witch. Women don't just appear out of nowhere. Vanessa promised to back Callis and help her be accepted by the town and the elders, as long as Callis promised her a favour in the future.

_____

"No, and that is why I'm here to see you, Callis. I wish to call in my favour," Vanessa started coldly, "I wish for 2 spells from you, Callis, one to make Stephan love me, and another to make pregnancy guaranteed."

Callis froze at the other woman's request. It was a terrible plan, using these spells to do something so evil. Callis came to Gavaldon so she didn't have to be evil anymore.

"Vanessa, you need to know that to force a child out of magic and not love, has drastic repercussions," Callis started, "For when i child is made from love, it combines their parents, but to force it with magic will not combine the souls as love does, but split them apart. magic makes twins, but the children shall be opposed, not the same as twins should be." Callis explained, but it was clear Vanessa didn't care, for she would do anything for Stephan.

Callis watched Vanessa walk back down Graves Hill, a small basket holding two clear vials in her hand. Callis saw the crude smile on the woman's face and sent a prayer up to the gods for them to forgive her for the great tragedy she had just caused.

2 weeks later, Vanessa went to the elders, Stephan's hand in hers, demanding they be wed as she was with child.

The whole village attended the wedding between a pregnant Vanessa and Stephan. Only Callis, sitting in the back row of the pews, could truly see the despair in Stephan's eyes.

Callis and Stephan were there when Vanessa gave birth, and just as Callis had warned, there were two babies. Callis used her magic to check the children and found that while they both were healthy, they emanated an immense amount of magic power. The first baby, a lovely girl with cream skin, green eyes as sharp as emeralds, and small tuffs of golden hair, was beautiful. Vanessa cradled the baby to her chest while Callis cleaned the other.

"Sophie, my beautiful Sophie." Vanessa cooed to the baby before handing her to Stephan, "She looks just like you!" Vanessa smiled, watching as Stephan held the small baby. She looked so much like him, but he could tell, this baby was like Vanessa at heart, and that made him nervous.

Callis smiled as she washed the other baby. Her magic told her this baby was an Ever; the good magic radiating off the girl was the strongest Callis had ever felt. She was the smaller of the two, with snow white skin and a full head of glossy black hair, so similar but so different than her mothers. This child had the most wonderful eyes, mere minutes old, yet this child held Callis' gaze with large, chocolate brown eyes. The baby's eyes and right pointer finger flickered gold, then suddenly, the bath water turned pink.

Both Vanessa and Stephan looked to Callis at her gasp.

"Is our baby ok!" Vanessa asked worriedly. Callis assured her it was fine, and she had just dropped the soap.

The older witch looked between the baby and the water nervously. Callis' finger glowed a light green as she magically sealed the baby's fingerglow till she was old enough to explain. The oh so intelligent baby looked at her finger, then at the water. Her large eyes flashed gold, and the water was restored to its natural clear.

"Thank you, sweetheart," Callis muttered and kissed the baby's head before wrapping her in a baby blanket and bringing her to her mother.

Neither Stephan nor Callis were prepared for Vanessa's cold reaction to the baby.

"That baby is hideous! Take it away!" Vanessa yelled before snatching baby Sophie from Stephan. Stephan was stunned by his new wife's reaction to their child, and held out his arms for Callis to hand him his daughter. He smiled at the baby, who returned a gummy grin. There was just something that drew him to this child; he couldn't explain it. He looked to Callis.

"I'm terrible with names, Callis. Do you have any ideas?" 

"Agatha, it means Doul of Good," Callis said assuredly. "Believe me when I say it fits her fantastically."

"Agatha" Stephan whispered at the baby and she giggled.

Callis had Stephan take the girls to their bassinets in the other room while she spoke to Vanessa.

"There was a drawback to using the spells that i did not consider." Callis began, "The children appear to be magical, and if i had to guess, they will be their years candidates for the School for Good and Evil." Callis expected horror, but Vanessa smiled.

"My Sophie will be a princess," Vanessa glowed. Callis didn't correct her.

The girls were six the first time Vanessa left Agatha with Callis, choosing to spend the day with her favoured daughter instead. Callis saw Agatha was just as beautiful as the day she was born, if a bit thin. Callis also noticed that Vanessa had used all kinds of creams and dyes to make herself look like Sophie; now, Agatha didn't look like either of her parents.

Agatha started to call Callis Auntie when she turned 7, Sophie didn't. Sophie may have met Callis, but she didn't spend almost every day with the other woman like Agatha had. Callis noticed how Agatha was often bruised and had a few scrapes. Vanessa said she was a clumsy child, but Callis had never seen the graceful girl trip. It was around this time that Callis began to teach Agatha about the School for Good, and how to control her own magic.

Callis was stunned to come home one day to find Agatha lying on the floor beside her cat Reaper, chuffing and mewing at the cat. it was clear Agatha was a natural at animal communication, so Callis tutored her in this too.

As she grew, Callis only saw Agatha get thinner and thinner, while she was worried, she trusted Agatha to come to her if she ever needed anything.

Agatha and Sophie were 10 now, and Agatha hated her family. Vamessa was always glaring at her and refused to talk to her or say I love you like she did to Sophie.

Sophie liked her; she would talk to her, show her a beauty routine, and kindly let Agatha know that she was fat and should stop eating. Agatha was ok with that, until Sophie threatened to stop hanging out with her. Agatha started skipping breakfast first, then dinner. Only eating the lunches Callis gave her. But her life was ok, she had Stephan when he wasn't working, Callis to teach her magic and how to talk to animals, Sophie to go on walks with, even if she was mean, and Vanessa would read her stories too if Sophie wanted to hear one.

Everything was great.

Then Vanessa died.

Sophie was sad at first. She and Vanessa were as close as Agatha was to her Auntie Cally. Vanessa's last words were to Sophie, "You are too beautiful for this world, Sophie." That was when Sophie decided she belonged at the School for Good. But despite what she wanted to admit, Agatha was as lovely as a rose on a spring day, with snow white skin and long raven hair, always in a simple pastel dress with flowers in her hair. Sophie was angry; she wouldn't let another girl get in her way, even her own twin.

Later that week, Agatha came stumbling into Callis' house, half her face cracked and covered in blood.

"Mama! it hurts!" Agatha sobbed as Callis used her magic to clean the wound. But magic wouldn't save the poor girl from scaring. Nor would it save her right eye. Sophie carefully walked to the pond and threw the blood-covered stone into the water, washing away the evidence of her sins with it.

Agatha couldn't stand the cloudy colour of her right eye. The only time it was clear was when it lit up the same brilliant gold as her finger. Callis fashioned her almost daughter an eyepatch covered in embroidered gold and yellow flowers, but reminded Agatha that all of her was beautiful.

Agatha wore it every day without fail. Sophie hated it, but believed the school master would never take a broken girl for good.

Chapter Text

Agatha spent her days going on walks with her sister, volunteering at the primary school, and helping Callis at the clinic. Life in a village like this was a quiet one. Her father worked at the mill most days of the week, Sophie bringing him steamed asparagus and a kale smoothie, while Agatha returned later to bring him sandwiches and a small slice of cake. Then, she would go on her walks with Sophie.

It was the first of November, and all of Gavaldon were boarding up their windows in preparation for the kidnapping. Come the 9th of November, the school master would sweep in and steal 2 children from their families to attend the School for Good and Evil, one Good child, and one Evil. Agatha knew the School for Good and Evil was real. Callis spent many weekends teaching her basic spells with her fingerglow, memorizing bird calls (talking to animals always came easy to her), and recipes for beautification. Callis used to be a teacher at the School for Evil, so after Christmas dinner with Stephan and Sophie, Agatha would run to Callis' Cottage at 1 Graves Hill Road, and celebrate with The Dean of Good, Clarissa Dovey, and her secret wife, The Dean for Evil, Lady Lesso.

Magic classes with Callis were fun, giggling about all the things that made her angry enough to make her finger glow a brilliant gold.

Walks with her twin were different.

On the first day of November, Sophie and Agatha went on their daily walk to the lake to feed the geese. It began nicely, a quiet walk talking about chores and how much Sophie missed her mother and hated that their father had asked them if he could wed Honora on their 15th birthday, 3 weeks prior. Agatha gave her blessing in a heartbeat; her father deserved a second chance at love, even if he neglected their needs emotionally.

Once they arrived at the lake, the girls sat down. Sophie threw lentils to the ducks (to offset the cheese oaffish children brought), while Agatha ate her lunch, throwing pieces of the crust to the geese. Sophie, quick as a whip, snatched the sandwich off Agatha and threw it to the ducks.

"I can't believe you, Agatha! You know what I said about eating bread! We don't need you even fatter!" Sophie all but squawked. Agatha frowned, her wrist bones are sharp enough she uses them to light matches for candles, and her vertebrae visibly poke through her dress when she bends over, but maybe she could lose some more weight, to make Sophie happy 

"Of course, Sophie, I forgot"

"What will you ever do without me? Later this week, I'll be at the school for good, so you will have to manage your weight on your own." Sometimes, Agatha felt bad keeping her magic a secret from Sophie. Callis assured her that Sophie was magical as well, her magic just took different kinds of emotions to bring forth. Agatha felt guilt well up inside her and looked away from Sophie, using her magic to place a cut on her lower back and arms, beside many others, old and new. The pain cleared her mind and helped her feel punished for betraying her sister. Sophie would do the same to her if she ever found out Agatha was going to good, and she would live in Gavaldon forever.

Agatha let Sophie know she would sleep at Callis' house tonight, bid her sister sweet dreams, and began her trek to the butter-yellow cottage. She placed a kiss on her mothers grave as she walked past as always. She walked in to find Callis packing a trunk with dresses, perfume, pretty ballet flats, and an assortment of different coloured floral eyepatches to match her dresses.

"Callie? What is going on?" Agatha asked as Callis herded her into the living room and jumped onto the couch beside her.

"Well, sweetheart, as you know, I used to teach at the school for evil, so I know the school master. And as of this morning, Reaper returned from The Woods with a letter from him!" Callis exclaimed gleefully as she handed it to Agatha. She opened it up and began to read the letter inside.

Dearest Callis of Netherwood,

How are you? I know you fled me and went to live in the reader world, but it has come to my attention while reading the attendance for this year that my reader for the school for good is named Agatha of Netherwood, but she lives in the reader world. I looked into it, and it seems you have adopted a child! I am most happy for you and glad to hear you have found someone to commit your life to. In honour of our history, I shall not kidnap your child as I do with readers; instead, I wish to offer most lovely Agatha a flowerground pass so she may arrive at school the same way as her new peers. 

I am happy to hear of your joyful life, and wish young Agatha a good year at the School for Good.

Yours, School Master

Agatha looks at Callis with tears in her eyes,

"You adopted me?" Agatha blubbered. And Callis swept her daughter into a crushing hug.

"I cannot replace your Vanessa, I know she was cruel, but she was still your Mother, either way, you were always my daughter," Callis told her.

Later that week, on the 9th of November, Agatha convinced her father to let her sleep at Callis' house, despite it being the night of the kidnapping, and the sisters hugged each other tightly, both believing they would never see each other again.

Hanging out with Callis while they waited to go to the woods was fun; they played card games, drank hot chocolate, and ended the night, or early morning at this point, with Callis reading her daughter fairytales by the roaring fireplace.

"The witch from Hansel and Gretel is my sister, you know," Callis said to Agatha's shocked expression, "Her daughter, my niece by blood, her name is Hester, and she is definitely getting into Evil, you should introduce yourself." Callis smiled.

"I would love to meet some of my new family," Agatha yawned quietly. Callis poured them both some coffee to wake them up before bringing Agatha out to the graveyard. She handed Reaper to her daughter so they had someone to ferry messages between Agatha and Callis, and so Agatha had someone to talk to on the trip.

Agatha found that crawling through a grave to get to the Woods was a little unnerving, but became even more confused when Callis stood in front of a pumpkin and kicked it three times.

Agatha jumped when the top of the pumpkin opened and a caterpillar with a top hat popped out. He looked at Callis.

"You are no longer a teacher at the School for Evil, Lady Callis, therefore, your privileges as a teacher are revoked, and the rules forbid any nevers aside from teachers or students attending the School for good and evil, unfortunately, apply to you." He said solemnly

"That is ok, Conductor, I have no intention of catching the flowerground today, I was simply showing my daughter the way," Callis replied, handing Conductor the Evers flowerground pass. Conductor looked at it, then smiled at Agatha and her luggage.

"I didn't think you looked much like a Never girl," he smiled. Agatha turned to hug Callis one last time, Grabbed Reaper in her arms, and laughed as the flowerground vines pulled her in.

Inside the flowerground, Agatha's vines dropped her onto the Dahlia line next to another girl with luggage.

"Are you going to the School for Good too?" the other girl asked Agatha, and she nodded.

"Do you think you could show me how to get off at our stop? I have never been on the flowerground before," Agatha asked shyly. The girl giggled

"How have you never been on the flowerground before?" Agatha flushed and explained she was a reader, but her mother was from the woods so she got a flowerground pass. The girl found the idea of a Reader with a fairytale family fascinating.

"I'm so sorry! I never got your name! I'm Kiki of Neverland," the girl smiled

"I'm Agatha, of Woods Beyond and Netherwood." Kiko's smile dropped

"You're a Never!" Kiko shrieked

"No, by birth parents are from woods beyond, but the woman who adopted me is from Netherwood," Agatha replied soothingly. Kiko calmed and they spoke together till the stop at the School to Good

Agatha found the feeling of busting out of the ground to be strange and mildly uncomfortable, but the lovely fairies she met absolutely made her day. Agatha put Reaper on the ground and hissed at him to not eat any fairies or birds, he decided his time was better spent on Agatha's shoulder. Walking into the school for good was surreal until she saw the mirrors. Agatha never used to have a problem with mirrors, until she got her scar 5 years earlier; now, it made her sick and sad to see the ruined flesh covering the right side of her face.

Sure, Callis' eyepatches made it better, but nothing would ever fix it. As Agatha got about halfway down the hallway, a blond girl stood in her path.

"I'm Beatrix of Maidenvale. Are you sure you are meant to be here? Evers don't usually have ugly scars or eyepatches," the girl, Beatrix, asked in a sickly sweet tone.

Agatha stiffened, then saw teachers listening at the end of the hallway, and one familiar grandmotherly one that she recognised from her mother's crystal ball.

Agatha waited till they were in the foyer with all the teachers and Evergirls before replying to Beatrix.

"I am Agatha of Netherwood and Woods Beyond, and I am an Ever!" she said confidently. Every person in the room gasped, surprised by the Never village. The teachers all jumped when Dean Dovey ran now the stairs and scooped Agatha into her arms.

"I thought I recognised you, Aggie Sweetheart!" Dovey cooed and hugged her tighter. The Evergirls looked around, confused. Professor Anemone called down to Dovey for an explanation.

"Remember how i told you Callis' daughter was being enrolled this year? Well, this is her!" she giggled and asked Agatha to catch her up on everything in her life since they spoke on Christmas.

"But Callis was a teacher over in Evil?" Professor Anemone asked.

"Ever heard of adoption, Emma?" " Dovey snarked back.

Promising to catch her up on life, Dovey left Agatha to collect her books and meet her roommates

Agatha walked up to Charity 51 and saw her name on the door surrounded in hearts, with the names Millicent and Reena as well. Agatha knocked on the door to announce her entry before walking in. She saw the two other girls already setting themselves up on their beds, so Agatha went to the final bed beside the window, and gazed amazed up at the carriage-shaped canopy. She set her stuff down, then looked to the other girls.

"It's Millicent and Reena, right?" Looking up to see both girls nod, she continued, "We have an hour till the welcoming, do you mind if we get to know each other?" Agatha suggested, and both the girls smiled and hopped onto her bed. The one with a tanned olive complexion said she was Reena of Pasha dunes, princess of Shazabah, while the other girl was named Millicent of Maidenvale, and she had coppery orange curls. Agatha politely held up a hand.

"Before we get to know each other properly, do you think i could take my eyepatch off? I know the scarring is unsightly, but it's nice to relieve some of the pressure on the tissue around my eye," Agatha requested kindly, and both girls rushed to agree. Millicent asked where she had gotten such a beautiful eyepatch, and Agatha explained that Callis made it for her.

"That is interesting, you said your mother was a Never? How does that work?" Reena asked cautiously.

"That's my adoptive mother, she mostly raised me, and honestly never quite acted like a Never." 

"What's your birth family like then?" Millicent asked curiously instead.

"They are readers from the Woods Beyond. My Father is a mill worker, and my mother passed when I was 10, but she always favoured my twin sister Sophie."

"Twins? Is she not here with you? Usually, when twins are born, their souls are identical and get admitted together?" Reena asked, confused.

"Sophie is beautiful, the fairest in our whole village, but she can be prone to fits of rage," Agatha gestured to her scarred and blinded right side of her face, "She did this to me shortly after our mother died." the girls gasped, "And Callis, my adoptive mother, said there was something weird with magic and our birth, so i have been magically inclined my whole life" Agatha said, using her finger glow to raise the three girls uniforms, and with a swish of her finger, she reapaired and dyed them to fit the girls. A pale grey for Reena, Yellow for Millicent, and Blue for Agatha.

"Wow! That's so cool! None of us can do that yet!" Reena gasped and rushed over to put on the new uniform. Millicent looked at Reaper on Agatha's shoulder.

"Does the cat have to do with magic as well?" she asked. Both girls grew silent as Agatha hissed and chuffed at Reaper, only for the cat to jump from her bed, get her a blue eyepatch from her luggage, and hand it to Agatha.

"I could speak to Reaper before I could talk; feel free to ask for study help in animal communications class." Agatha smiled. She then put her eyepatch on, slipped into her ballet flats, she was quite tall for the girls here at 5'7", and felt no need to wear heels like Sophie always did. The ushered herself and her roommates out to go to the Theatre of Tales for the welcoming.

Chapter Text

Walking through the Good hallways with Millicent and Reena was a nice change of pace. Agatha never had many female friends, only Sophie, and they mostly talked about her, not how Agatha was doing or what she did with Callis over the weekend. It was nice to talk about girl stuff, make-up, clothes, and, of course, boys. Agatha smiled as she listened to Reena talk about her older brother and what life was like as a princess as they walked to Purity Tower, a shortcut to the Theatre of Tales that Callis told her about.

"What was life like as a Reader, Agatha?" Reena asked after she finished her tale. Agatha went to respond, but a squel broke through the hall of purity tower. All three girls froze before Agatha was tackled by a curly girl. She smiled.

"Hello, Kiko," She said and straightened Kiko up and turned to introduce her to the others. "Reena, Millicent, meet Kiko. We were next to each other on the flower ground." Agatha smiled. The girls of Charity 51, with the addition of Kiko, began walking down the stairs. After being asked, Agatha explained their dresses to Kiko and showed off the magic by turning Kiko's uniform to a sage green colour. While they walked down the Purity stairs, Reena reminded Agattha of her question.

"Oh, I don't know if I am the best example. I grew up with my twin sister, her name is Sophie," Agatha clarified for Kiko. " We had our father, a mill worker, and our mother, but she passed when we were 10. Mother never favoured me much, Sophie is far more beautiful than me and Mother adored her for it."

The other three looked suspiciously at Agatha. How could anyone be more beautiful than this Raven-haired godsend?

"But I had Callis. She was from the Woods, and actually introduced my parents. She noticed I was magic shortly after my birth and took it upon herself to show me how to control it so I wouldn't accidentally hurt anybody." Agatha smiled at the memory of Callis.

Millicent looked between Agatha and Kiko.

"You said you met in the Flower Ground? I thought the School Master collected Readers from the Woods Beyond and dragged them through storms to get to school?" Millicent questioned.

"Callis used to teach Uglification at the School for Evil, and when I was accepted, Reaper here," Agatha pet the cat on her shoulder, "Collected a letter from the School Master to Callis containing my Flower Ground pass." Agatha scratched his chin, and he started purring.

The three girls cooed at the cat as they walked, talking animatedly as they walked into the Theatre of Tales, almost half filled with Good Evergirls.

"AGATHA WARDWELL" Agatha froze beside her new friends as Dovey's voice boomed from the stage beside a two-headed dog.

"Yes, Dean Dovey?" Agatha asked nervously.

"What colour is the standard uniform?"

"Pink, Ma'am." 

"And what colour are you and your friend's uniforms?"

"Not Pink"

"Am I correct in assuming you were the one to cause the batch of easter eggs you call uniforms?" Agatha nodded silently before Dovey sighed exasperatedly, "Aggie, dearest, if you use your fingerglow for frivolous reasons before your classmates have theirs unlocked, I will relock it." Agatha nodded quickly before scrambling her and her friends to seats in the pews. Agatha left a seat beside her empty; she didn't know why, but felt it was something she had to do. She spoke with her friends before the welcoming would start when the west doors of the theatre swung open and the students for Evil walked in.

Agatha stood up and walked into the aisle, looking over heads before seeing a pale girl with a red demon tattoo.

"Hester!" Agatha called over the talking students as the Nevergirl came over to talk to her.

"You must be Agatha. Aunt Callis sent me a letter and said she wanted us to meet." She looked at Agatha's dress, "Not a fan of pink?" Heser smirked at her new cousin, "Glad to know you're not a creampuff cousin."

Agatha smiled back.

"I love your tattoo! Callis said you brought your kit with you! Want to give me one at lunch? I want something to remember Callis by. And pink is totally not my colour, my twin sister Sophie wears it like a second skin." Agatha smiled at the idea of getting a tattoo to remind her of Callis, but that smile fell when she saw Hester's face. It had gotten infinitely more pale. Hearing the other Evergirls start squealing, Agatha turned to face the East theatre doors as they began to open.

"Wait, your sister is-" Hester started. 

"YOU THEIVING WRETCH," A voice yelled before Agatha was tackled to the ground. Agatha only had a moment to catch a glimpse of blonde hair and pink fabric before someone grabbed her fringe and slammed her skull into the marble floor.

Instantly, pain bloomed in Agatha's head, and she gasped, the throb making her head spin.

Tedros was marching down the hallway to the Theatre of Tales with the other Everboys when he began to feel a soft tugging at the centre of his chest, like something, or someone, where drawing him to them.

As the Everboys entered the Theatre of Tales, they froze as they watched a Nevergirl- in pink? -Leap onto a raven-haired Evergirl in blue, before grabbing the girl's hair and slamming her head into the floor. Tedros reacted instantaneously, running past his fellow boys and leaping over pews to get to the girl. By the time he arrived at her side, two other Nevergirls grabbed the blonde one and held her back. Tedros carefully lifted the girl's head and laid it on his lap while the deranged Nevergirl screamed about stealing. He could admit, the blonde girl was gorgeous, for a never, but the snow white in his lap, well, nothing compared to her beauty.

The girl in his lap muttered another girl's name. Did she know the blonde Never? Tedros cradled her head carefully as she came back to.

"Can I trust you to look after my cousin, Princeling? Anadil and I will keep an eye on this one." A black haired witch asked while her and another albino witch held the blonde one back. Cousins? With a witch? Tedros looked to the Evergirl in his lap curiously before nodding to the witch.

She felt the weight get lifted off her while something cradled her head. Agatha felt sick at the thick, warm liquid she could feel running down her neck. She slowly opened her eyes and saw a blurry figure in pink being held back by Hester and a girl with white hair.

"Sophie?..." Agatha murmured, vision clearing, "What are you doing here?" She could see the same cold rage on her sister's face that was there after Vanessa's funeral.

"What am I doing here? What are you doing here!" Sophie screamed, "That is my school! How dare you steal it from me!" She thrashed against Hester and the white haired girl. Hester glanced just over her to look at the person who must be cradling her head. Hester's glare turned worried and distrustful.

"Can I trust you to look after my cousin, Princeling? Anadil and I will keep an eye on this one." Hester finished with a glare at Sophie, waited for the person holding her to respond. They must have nodded, because Agatha didn't hear a reply. Hester glanced at Agatha one last time before wrestling Sophie away with who must be Anadil. Agatha swished her finger to conjure some ice.

"I'm sorry, I don't know your name, but could you please help me sit up?" Agatha asked sweetly. Once they helped her sit upright, Agatha got a good look at her savior. He was the most beautiful boy she had ever seen, with golden blonde hair and the clearest blue eyes. The navy button-up he wore complemented his bronze skin tone wonderfully, and his body was amazingly sculpted from what she assumed was swordplay. But what most caught her attention was a magical tug in her chest that seemed to draw them together. Smiling across at him, Agatha picked up the ice and held it to her head, but flinched at the pain.

"Here, let me help," the Boy said before ripping a sleeve off his shirt and gently reaching around her to dab the wound. He pulled his shirt back and frowned at the dark stain on the cloth. He looked back at Agatha worriedly but stopped when he saw her pull a vile out of her pocket and reach for the shirt sleeve. Curiously, he handed her the cloth. Agatha poured the bottle onto the cloth before pressing it to the wound on the back of her head. The boy's eyes widened as he saw her finger glow as Agatha magically attached the cloth to the wound.

"My apologies, I needed to apply some healing salve. My name is Agatha. What is yours?" Agatha asked as she held out her hand with a smile. The boy took it and pressed his lips to her knuckles.

"My name is Tedros, My Lady. Do you honestly not know who I am?" the boy, Tedros, asked. Agatha went to shake her head, but thought better of it.

"I was raised in Woods Beyond by a Reader family and a Witch from Netherwood. Agatha of Netherwood and Woods Beyond at your service." Agatha smiled at him

"A Never raised you? I guess that explains the witch calling you cousin. What's the deal with the blonde witch who attacked you, though?" Tedros asked curiously.

"Yes, that witch is Hester, don't mind her, she is the niece of the woman who raised me." Agatha smiled at the thought of her new family, "That blonde girl is my twin sister Sophie. I don't understand why she is here." Agatha mostly said to herself. Tedros scoffed.

"I can clearly see why she is here; she attacked you!" 

"She didn't attack me!" Agatha replied, affronted, "She is just prone to fits, has been since our mother died 5 years ago." Agatha responded, noticing Tedros stiffen, and decided to change the subject. She pointed over to where Millicent, Reena, and Kiko stood, looking at her worriedly with their hands held over their mouths.

"Would you like to come sit with me and my friends?" Agatha offered. Tedros agreed but requested to bring his best friend Chaddick with him. Agatha smiled at the girls as she brought Tedros and grey-eyed Chaddick over to their pews.

"Girls, these lovely gentlemen are Tedros and Chaddick; they are going to sit with us." Agatha smiled as she gestured to the boys standing behind her. A confused look crossed Agatha's face as the three girls curtsied and greeted Tedros.

"Well met, Your Majesty." Agatha turned to Tedros.

"Your royalty?" She asked, dropping into her own curtsy, wobbling. Tedros grabbed her elbows to steady her.

"Crown Prince Tedros Pendragon of Camelot at your service, Lady Agatha," he kissed her knuckles again, before looking at the group, "Please, all of you, just Tedros is ok, and more than preferred." His smile was dashing and made Agatha's head spin for an entirely new reason. She wobbled again.

"OOokay ~" Tedros laughed, "Let's get you sat down." he smiled and lowered her to the pew before sitting next to her, Chaddick sitting next to him with Reena on Chaddick's other side. Millicent poked Agatha in the shoulder when everyone had sat down.

"I'm assuming that's the twin sister we have heard about?" Millicent asked. Tedros looked mildly confused before Reena got his attention. She gestured to Evil, then to the right side of Agatha's face where her scarring and eye patch were, before zipping her lips. Tedros' face darkened before he took a deep breath. And turned back to Agatha.

"I think it would be a great idea to get to know each other," he said, caressing his heart where he felt the tugging sensation earlier. "There is just something about you that draws me in." Agatha blushed.

"I would really like that," She replied softly. They stared into each other's eyes before a voice boomed from the stage.

"NEVERS!!! IF YOU DON'T GET YOUR UGLY BEHINDS IN THOSE PEWS IN THE NEXT TWO SECONDS SO WE CAN START THIS DAMN CEREMONY, I'M GOING TO SEND EVERY LAST ONE OF YOU TO THE DOOM ROOM!" 

"CASTOR!" A softer voice yelled in response, and the group turned to face the stage.

Chapter Text

Agatha looked around at the other students, trying to guess which fairy tales her classmates were from. Tedros' face was so familiar, it felt like his history was scratching the inside of her skull, trying to get out. Pollux, one head of a two-headed dog, was droning on about curfews and supper and uniforms. Suddenly, the sickly sweet, beautiful Beatrix from the foyer stood up.

"When do the Groom Rooms open?" She asked in a snobbish tone. Agatha saw Tedros perk up beside her. Agatha's eyebrow raised, and he flushed.

"That's where all the exercise equipment is." He whispered to Agatha. She smiled and listened as Pollux explained that Groom Rooms are open to the top half students on any given day.

"Your magic is also locked, and will continue to be locked until your Surviving Fairytales group leaders decide you are responsible enough for the power." The students both start cheering at the idea of using actual magic.

"WHICH WILL BE NEVER AT THIS RATE" Castor booms and silences both Evers and Nevers. Everyone watched as the two-headed dog stepped back and Dean Dovey took their place.

"Welcome, students! I am Clarissa Dovey, the Dean for Good. And that-" Dovey gestures to a woman with a black braid, tight pale skin, and wearing a purple gown with pointed shoulders, "Is Lady Lesso, the Dean for Evil." Lady Lesso glared till everyone looked away.

" Anyway, as your Deans, we felt the need to explain something-" she looked at Agatha, "-as it's already been shown off. Could this year's Readers please stand for me?" Agatha stood calmly, then looked at Sophie, who was still sitting and looking confused. Hester kicked Sophie in the back so hard that she had to stand. Dovey smiled at them both.

"Our Readers here, due to them being raised in the Woods Beyond, never had their fingerglows locked to begin with, and as such, can perform magic already." Some of the students glanced at them and started twittering, but Agatha was looking at Sophie when she started speaking.

"But I can't do magic?" Sophie said, confused. Dovey sighed, looking at her with pity.

"You just don't know how to, dear. I was mostly talking about your sister, who has already taken it upon herself to change the uniform colours of her peers." Dovey smiled. "Please leave the rest of the uniforms as is, if you could please Agatha."

"Of course, Professor." Sophie was gaping at her now.

"Since when could you do magic!" Sophie sqwarked.

"Since about 2 minutes after I was born. Callis taught me." Sophie glared at her, betrayed.

"Anyway, all of that to say, Evers, please don't ask Agatha to do any magic for you, she knows not to. And Nevers? As you have just heard, Sophie has no knowledge of magic, so don't try and beat her into doing any," the Nevers grumbled.

As the welcoming came to an end, 40 excruciatingly long minutes later, Sophie came bounding over to Agatha's new group of friends. Tedros pulled Agatha behind him, and the rest of the Nevers formed a half circle around the pair.

"Hello! I'm Aggie's twin sister Sophie! It's so lovely to meet you!" Sophie beamed at the Evers. Reena and Chaddick put on simpering smiles, Kiko and Millicent waves slightly, while Tedros glared openly at her. The rest of the students were looking curiously at Sophie and Agatha, the twins somehow in different schools. 

"We know who you are; all of us were here when you smashed Agatha's head into the flagstones." Tedros spat icily. Sophie waved her hand dismissively.

"Oh, that, that was nothing, just some sibling bantering. Well, I have to go back to that odious school to get my stuff. We will switch schools at lunch. By Aggie! Love you!" Sophie said, not giving any of the Evers time to but in. She skipped back to the school for Evil, convinced she would be in the school for Good by lunch. Hester looked at her weirdly as her, Anadil, and another witch walked over. The Evers around her tensed, and Agatha raised her hand.

"It's ok, they are family." Agatha smiled at her cousin. "Is this your coven, Hester?"

"Hester, Anadil, Dot," Hester said, pointing to the respective witches for the Evers' knowledge. "We are also all in that nutcases dorm. Can we talk at lunch?" Hester said, more a demand than a question. Agatha glanced at the others, seeing their nods, she replies.

"Of course, Hester. You and your coven are more than welcome to sit with us at lunch." Agatha replied. The lead witch nodded, and the three of them sulked away.

Agatha steps out from behind Tedros and looks at her group.

"Who wants to go chat over breakfast. I'm sure you have questions." Agatha smiles and gestures to the large East doors leading to the good halls. The group exchanges looks and follows Agatha, with Tedros taking pace beside her, Chaddick and Reena flanking them, with Kiko and Millicent in the rear. 

The Good Castle was made out of different shades of pink and blue frosted glass. Agatha's ballet flats made almost no sound compared to the girls' heels or the boys' swordplay boots. Agatha subtly smiled at the thought of Sophie walking these halls

and the absolutely earsplitting noise her sister's glass heels would make on the glass floors.

Opening the main double doors, Agatha was stunned at how massive the Good hall is, with its tall vaulted ceilings and high arched windows. Rows and rows of six-seater tables fill the room, with tall nymphs in an assortment of different colours serving breakfast to the 120 students. Finding a free table, the group sat down, three along each side of the table.

Unlike the rest of her eating companions, Agatha looks absolutely lost at the assortment of different knives, forks, and spoons. Who needs four different forks anyway? Breakfast was pan-seared chicken breast with couscous and a beetroot puree. Tedros, who sat across from Agatha, pointed to forks and knives, then to the dish.

"That's the Salad knife, use that for the couscous, that's the meat knife and fork, use those for the chicken, and I think we have a frozen yogurt dish for after, so use the dessert spoon for that. We start etiquette classes today, so you will pick it all up soon." Agatha could kiss him.

"Thank you, I honestly don't get why I need three forks and four knives, but thank you." Agatha smiles before letting out a piercing hiss. Everyone at her table freezes, as do a few people from the surrounding tables. They hear the pitter-patter of tiny feet before Reaper jumps onto her lap. Chaddick gazes at him.

"I know boys don't get taught animal communication, but I could teach you guys the basics?" Agatha offers, while the other girls at their table nod. Chaddick blushes a bit but nods as well.

"As long as the both of you come to my late afternoon swordplay tutoring with Professor Espada, I really don't want to be alone." Everyone looks stunned before Chaddick claps Tedros on the back and gives him a look.

"Good luck, Mate," He laughs. Tedros blushes. Agatha opens herself up to questions while pushing her food around on her plate, glances around to make sure everyone is caught up in conversations, before subtly pushing food off her plate and into her lap, where Reaper, the dumpster he is, eats it.

All these girls are so beautiful and so skinny. Sophie is right, I won't be beautiful until I can strike a match on my ribs, make stairs from my spine, or cut paper with my wrist bones.

"So," Chaddick begins, "What's up with the magic? Why can you use it, but not your-" he looks to Reena and gets a nod, "-sister?" The rest of the table nods as if wanting the answer as well.

"It has something to do with how we were conceived." Agatha gets a faraway look on her face, "I asked Callis about it a few years ago, and she said there was magic around my parents at the time, and so Sophie and I absorbed it in the womb."

"Does that have anything to do with why you are in different schools? Usually, twins are identical and have the same soul, but you and Sophie look nothing alike, and she is in Evil?" Kiko clarified.

"I think so? Sophie and I's parents weren't in love. Callis let it slip that she gave Vanessa, my birth mother, a love potion to give to Stephan, my father." There were Gasps all around the table. "She later explained that love combines the parents to make a child, combines their appearances and personalities and souls. But when someone uses magic in place of love, it splits souls apart. I look exactly how Vanessa used to, without the cruel smirk and cold eyes. Sophie looks just like our father, with a fair complexion and blond hair. But sometimes, I see the same cold hate and distance in Sophie's eyes. Vanessa soon used herbs and creams to look exactly like Sophie, making me the ugly duckling of the family." Agatha Shuddered

"Sophie's eyes, however, that acidy jade green, is pure magic somehow. Vanessa had brown eyes while Stephan has blue. Mine flashes gold when I light my fingerglow for whatever reason, scared the daylight out of Callis, first time it happened. But Sophie's have been that same vibrant green from the minute she was born. Babes eyes are usually cloudy for weeks after birth. Not Sophie, though; her eyes glow the same colour as Callis' magic. Side effect of Callis being the one to make the potion, I'm sure." Agatha finished and finally looked around at the people at her table.

They all looked at her with wide, surprised eyes.

"Too much?" Agatha asked, but smiled as the whole table burst into laughter.

Callis was right, she might just like it here.