The School for Good and Evil #2: A World without Princes (36 page)

Or with Sophie.

An alarm roared in her brain and Agatha was already running.

She dashed down the fogged path, forgetting her pain, trying to remember where Yuba's den was. Branches and thorns ripped at her clothes as she crouched to the dirt, scanning the glen between the Fernfield and Thicket—until she saw wisps of black smoke rising from a hole in the ground ahead. She fell to her stomach and plunged her head through the tiny opening—

But it was too late.

Yuba's home had been incinerated, every inch burned to a crisp, except for a few hydrangea petals, scattered over cinders . . . the gnome nowhere in sight.

Stomach sinking, Agatha stood back up in the Blue Forest and watched the fog magically recede, as if its work was done. The mist thinned into a trail and slurped back towards the School for Girls, vanishing into its highest office.

Agatha looked up at Evelyn Sader in the window, circled by returning butterflies, her gap-toothed smile glowing through darkness like a Cheshire cat's.

A smile that said Evelyn knew exactly where Sophie was right now . . .

Because she'd been one step ahead all along.

Slowly Agatha turned to see the fog evaporate around the School for Boys, leaving it bare and clear in the night.

No green glow in any of its windows.

No sign from her friend at all.

“Shouldn't you be looking for the Storian?” Tedros asked in the dark hall, trying to track Filip's fluffy blond hair past the teacher dormitories. “Past midnight now—”

“Want to show you something first,” Filip said, sliding through two narrow rock columns.

“Where are we going?” Tedros moaned, stomach still bloated from his dungeon feast. “All I want to do is take a bath and go to be—” He fell quiet.

They were standing on the teachers' balcony, perched over the Blue Forest, giving them a panoramic view of the terrain. A strange, icy haze broke apart in the air, as if a thick fog had just passed.

As the air grew clearer over the Forest, Tedros saw the leaves and grass fluorescing magically with an arctic blue sheen. Wind raked across fronds and flowers in harplike waves, sounding steady, oceanic breaths. Close to the north gates, the electric blue Fernfield, dotted with silver spores, fanned over the thin west path; over the east path, the willows lost more of their sapphire leaves with every sweeping gust, while the Cyan Caves to the south cast a bubbled shadow over the blue pumpkin patch.

Tedros had seen so much beauty traveling with his parents when he was little—the paradise grottos in the Murmuring Mountains, the siren lakes in Avonlea, the Wish Fish oases in the Shazabah Deserts. . . . But from high above, the prince looked at this small, gated Forest, innocent to the dangers of the world, and knew what heaven could be. Two nights from now, he'd be the one who turned it to hell.

He suddenly noticed movement near the gates . . . a human shadow slipping out of the Forest. . . .

Tedros squinted closer—

“You going to join me?” Filip said behind him.

Tedros turned to see him sitting on the wide, flat marble ledge, kicking legs over the Forest.

“Or do you still want that bath?” his cell mate said archly.

Tedros climbed up onto the ledge and sat closer to Filip than he would under ordinary circumstances. He wasn't especially fond of heights.

“How's your arm?” Tedros said, inspecting his cell mate's gash, still raw and bloody. “I don't want it to get infected—”

Filip pulled it away, staring out at the Forest. “How can you sleep knowing you're sentencing two girls to death out there? Two girls who each loved you?”

Tedros said nothing for a moment. “There's always three in a fairy tale, Filip. The true loves and the villain. In the end, someone has to die. The moment Agatha hid Sophie in my tower, the moment Agatha attacked me, she made
me
the villain.” He glared at Filip. “And I have no problem playing the part if it means saving my life.”

Tedros saw his cell mate gaping at him, cheeks going redder, redder. . . . All of a sudden Filip started laughing so convulsively he started tearing up.

“What in God's name is wrong with you?” Tedros frowned.

“Everyone just wanted to find love, and now everyone wants to kill each other,” Filip giggled, wiping his eyes. “No one knows the truth anymore.”

“With all due respect, Filip, what the hell do you know?”

Filip laughed and cried louder, burying his face in his hands.

“You're worse than a girl,” Tedros mumbled.

Now Filip was practically howling, but seeing Tedros' stony face, his laughs turned to pants and then to silence.

Somewhere below, crickets thrummed off rhythm. Tedros peered down at a stork wading through the Blue Brook, while two squirrels chased each other over the bridge's banister. Tomorrow Manley and the girls' Dean would lace the Forest with traps, and the animals would go into hiding until the Trial was over and its dangers passed.

“So what's your castle like, Filip?”

His cell mate blinked. “Castle?”

“You're a prince, aren't you? You don't live in a tiki hut, I presume.”

“Oh, yes—it's a, um, small . . . castle. Shaped like a . . . cottage.”

“Sounds cozy. Never liked living in a big castle. Spend most of the day trying to find people. Does your whole family live with you?”

“Just my father,” said Filip sourly.

“Least you have a dad,” sighed Tedros. “I have nothing to go home to when school's done. Just an empty castle, thieving servants, and a failing kingdom.”

“Think you'll ever see your mother again?”

Tedros shook his head. “Don't want to, either. Dad put a death warrant out for her. Once I turn 16, I become king. I'd have to honor Dad's warrant if I found her.”

Filip swiveled to him in shock, but Tedros quickly squinted up at the sky. “You should look for the Storian, Filip. It'll be light soon—”

“How could you ever hurt your mother?” Filip asked, astonished. “I'd do anything to see mine again. Anything. That would be my real Ever After.” He sighed and hunched over. “But I'm not like Agatha. No one hears my wishes.”

“Tell me what she was like, your mother.”

“Her name was Vanessa. Means ‘butterfly.' I still remember her face when they used to fly through the lane every spring, in big blue swarms. . . . She used to say that one day I'd fly away just like them—find a life bigger than hers, somewhere where all my dreams came true. ‘Don't let anyone stop you from your happy ending,' she used to say. ‘Don't let anyone stop you from being loved,'” Filip said, voice cracking. “‘Caterpillars can't know a butterfly.'”

Tedros touched his shoulder. Filip leaned against him and finally let himself cry.

“Her only friend took the only boy she ever loved, Tedros,” Filip said. “I don't want to end up like her. All alone.”

Silence thickened between the two boys.

“Never met a boy who wanted to be a butterfly,” said Tedros softly.

Filip looked up. The two boys gazed into each other's eyes, legs touching on the ledge.

Tedros swallowed and jumped onto the balcony. “Heading back. Go find that pen.”

“Tedros, wait for me—”

But she watched as the prince sprinted away, stumbling between columns, before he faded into shadow.

Sophie's hand slowly drifted to the place on the ledge where he'd been.

She told herself to hurry to the silver tower, to find the pen in the hours she had left and get her best friend home—to get up
now
—

But instead she just stayed there, alone over the Forest, until morning light shattered the dark.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

..................................................................

B
y now, the three witches considered Agatha a good friend, despite their generally poor abilities to make good friends. Thus one might expect Hester, Anadil, and Dot to grin, wave, or, at the very least, make room for Agatha as she entered Good Hall for History on the last day before the Trial. But as Agatha squeezed next to them in her school uniform, eyes red and sleepless, the witches acted as if seeing their new friend was the worst possible thing in the world.

Art to come

“What are you
doing
here?” Hester hissed. “And why can we
see
you—”

“She
knows
,” Agatha hissed back.

The witches spun to her. “Knows?” Dot blurted.

“How much?” breathed Hester.

The double doors flung open behind them and the Dean breezed in, revised textbook in hand, and gave Agatha a puckish smile as she ascended the stage.

“Pleasure to see our Captain has returned from her training. I'm sure it's been time well spent,” she said smoothly. “I hear Sophie isn't
feeling herself
?”

Agatha withstood the sting and glared back at her. “She's
looking
for something as we speak.”

All the girls in the hall swiveled to the Dean, befuddled by this exchange.

“Oh, dear. Time is of the essence, with both your lives at stake tomorrow,” replied Evelyn innocently. “Suppose it's something she
can't find
?”

“She'll find it,” Agatha spat as girls whiplashed back to her. “You don't know Sophie.”

“And you know her, of course,” said the Dean, eyes twinkling. “
Warts
and all.”

Agatha bleached white as confused girls in the hall gibbered around her.

“Everything,” Hester gasped. “She knows . . .
everything.
”

“Tonight at supper, we'll have our Trial eve festivities, featuring our play pageant, announcement of the Trial team, and a proper feast to wish our combatants luck against the boys,” the Dean declared from her brother's old wooden lectern. “But this morning, we still have one history lesson left to prepare us for the Trial—”

“She couldn't possibly know Sophie's a boy,” Dot whispered to Agatha and the witches. She saw two butterflies over Anadil's shoulder and turned them to brussels sprouts. “For one thing, how could she know we used Merlin's spell—”

“She
taught
us about Merlin's spell, didn't she?” Agatha said, remembering the Dean's cryptic smile that day. “She practically dared us to find it.”

“Maybe it was part of her plan all along,” echoed Anadil. “Get Sophie and Agatha apart, then hide the Storian so they have to go in the Trial.”

“She could have just locked them up somewhere,” Hester said, shaking her head. “Why go through all this trouble to get Sophie into the boys' castle?” Her black eyes narrowed, clouding over. “Unless . . .”

“Did you talk to Beatrix?” Agatha pressured Anadil, seeing more butterflies fly off the Dean's dress towards them. “She has to tell us where the pen is!”

“Don't think she's the one who hid it,” Dot piped up. “I pretended to be studying for Tryouts with a few Evergirls and asked her the properties of snakeskin. She hadn't the faintest clue it makes you invisible. None of the Evers did. Whoever used that cape in your room had to be a Never!”

Hester looked up at her as if suddenly interested in what she had to say, but Agatha waved Dot off. “Beatrix is lying,” Agatha insisted. “It
has
to be her!”

“Well, Baldy's not telling us anything, and tonight's your and Sophie's last chance to escape,” Anadil snapped.

“And you're 100%
sure
it's Evelyn who was responsible for Sophie's symptoms?” said Hester, frowning at Agatha.

“If you saw Sophie's face when she grew hairy legs and an Adam's apple, you'd stop questioning whether she's Good,” Agatha retorted.

Hester scratched her demon, grumbling.

“Look, we're arguing for nothing,” Agatha exhaled. “Sophie was
in
the School Master's tower, remember? She flashed her lantern there two nights ago! She's probably close to finding the Storian as we speak.”

“Then why didn't she light her lantern there
last
night?” Hester prodded. “Why didn't she light her lantern at
all
?”

Agatha ignored her as she watched the Dean open her book for the day's lesson. She'd barely slept a wink, asking herself the very same question.

“You're almost Trial team leader!” Hort beamed, hurrying Filip to their first class. “So remember. I help you and you help me. Deal?”

Sophie didn't answer, legs heavy, breath dodgy, and keenly aware of a pimple on her forehead. At sunrise, she'd wandered back to the dungeons, managing only an hour of sweaty sleep before Tedros woke her up, freshly bathed in a cut-off shirt and holding a hunk of buttered bread.

“Thought Aric would have my head for showing up at breakfast, but no one said a thing. Think they're all afraid of Filip the Barbarian after last night,” the prince said, grinning at his cellmate. “Come on, butterfly boy, eat up.”

Eyes coated with sleep, Sophie squinted at the bread's oily coat of butter. Her cavernous stomach was rumbling as usual, demanding anything edible, but even as a boy, she had her limits. She moaned and pulled the sheets back over her shorn, fluffy hair.

“Well don't whine later,” Tedros said, biting into the loaf himself. “Better get moving if you want a bath, Fil. Only ten minutes before class.”

Sophie groaned like a wounded ape.

“I know I was a bit of an ass when we first met, but I'm glad we're mates now,” she heard Tedros say across the room. “And glad you won't be bunking my challenges anymore. Need to win today so I can get in that tower tonight. If I find the Storian myself, maybe Manley will give me a spot on the Trial team.”

Beneath the covers, Sophie felt nauseous. “So you can kill Sophie.”