The School for Good and Evil (36 page)

“I can’t leave you,” the prince croaked.

Agatha looked into his sad, beastly eyes.

“This time you have to trust me.”

Tedros shook his head, too ashamed to fight—

“Retreat!” he choked to his school. “Retreat now!”

With an anguished cry, he led the monstrous Evers for the doors. The doors slammed in their faces.

“All of you should really learn your rules,” Sophie sighed.

Tedros and his army turned, trembling.

“The Evil
attack
, the Good
defend
,” Sophie said. “You
attacked
 . . .” She smiled. “Now we
defend
.”

She sang three high notes. Agatha suddenly heard grunting outside, louder, louder, until her eyes bulged with recognition.

“
RUN!
” she screamed—

The doors burst open and three colossal rats smashed into Tedros’ paralyzed army, Grimm at their reins. The snarling, shrieking rats, big as horses, bucked fleeing Evers into walls, knocked them down stairs, hurled them through the glass window into the moat below. Before Valor boys could draw their swords, the rats trampled them like toy soldiers.

“And here I thought my talents would go unnoticed,” Anadil said to Dot, gobsmacked. A thorn dart whizzed between them. The girls turned to see Tedros and ugly Evers frantically grab weapons.

“Fire!” Tedros howled.

Dot dove from a hail of arrows as beautiful Nevers fought back with curses and the two schools clashed in weapon-to-spell combat. As darts flew, swords deflected lightning, and fingers on both sides lit up with colors, the rats ripped free from Grimm’s reins, flinging Ava into a chandelier, gashing a bite into Nicholas’ back. Grimm swiftly took flight and hunted Agatha through the hall with flame-tipped arrows. She sprang behind a pillar, pointed her glowing finger just as he let one fly. The arrow turned to a flytrap and snapped on yowling Grimm’s hand. Agatha swiveled to see hideous Beatrix, Reena, and Millicent quailing next to her.

“If you can turn arrows to flowers,” Beatrix said tearfully, “can you turn us pretty again too?”

Agatha ignored her and peeked from behind the pillar into the roaring carnage. Colored spells rocketed between the two sides, littering the floors with stunned bodies. Against the window, two rats cornered gaunt Tedros and his shivering mates, flashing razor-sharp teeth.

Agatha whipped to the girls. “We have to help them!”

“There’s no point,” Millicent mewled.

“Look at us,” said Reena.

“We have nothing to fight for,” Beatrix sniffled.

“You have Good to fight for!” Agatha cried as rats devoured the boys’ weapons. “It doesn’t matter how you
look
!”

“Easy for you to say,” said Beatrix. “You’re still pretty.”

“Our towers aren’t Fair and Lovely!” Agatha lambasted. “They’re Valor and Honor!
That’s
what Good is, you stupid cowards!”

They gaped dumbly as Agatha surged into battle, dashing to save the boys from the rats. Something slammed into her and flung her into a wall.

Dazed, Agatha looked up to see Sophie astride the biggest rat of all, charging for her again. Agatha tried to find a spell too late—

Beatrix jumped in front of the rat and thrust out her hand. Magical rain burst from the ceiling, soaking the floor. The rat slipped, careened into attacking Nevers, and Sophie crashed to the floor.

“Another thing about Good.” Beatrix smiled at Agatha, with Reena, and Millicent by her sides. “We need each other.”

Sophie looked up to see the Evers finding their courage to beat back the toppled Nevers. Chaddick used his body’s spikes to ram a rat through the heart, Tedros scaled another’s tail to stab its neck, while the Evers bound the cowing Nevers with their black tunics and belts—

Suddenly her own hands and feet were bound magically with vines.

“You forget we’re in a fairy tale,” a voice said behind her.

Struggling, Sophie turned to Agatha standing over her, finger glowing.

“In the end, Good always
wins
,” Agatha said.

Sophie slackened against her binds.

“And so it does,” she said, gazing back at Agatha.

Then Agatha saw Sophie wasn’t looking at her at all. She was staring past her at the hall’s last mural: painted masses kneeled before the Storian, glowing in the School Master’s hands like a star.

A wicked smile crept across Sophie’s face. “Unless I write the ending
myself
.”

She stabbed her glowing finger and the rain puddles on the floor instantly deepened, knocking Agatha and both armies off their feet. The students treaded water, trying to keep their heads above it, but the water rose higher, higher in a ceiling-high sea, until they were all about to drown. Cheeks puffed, turning blue, they spun to Sophie, blocking the shattered window with her bound body. She smirked impishly, and then let herself fall through.

The flood blasted through the window and two hundred students cascaded out of the tower, into freezing midnight air, and splashed to the moat below.

Instantly the war resumed in the putrid sludge, but with faces and clothes covered in it, the students couldn’t see each other in the weak dawn light. Hester shoved Anadil’s face in slime thinking her an Ever, Beatrix punched Reena in the jaw thinking her a Never, Chaddick suffocated the closest thing to him—Tedros, it turned out, who responded by sinking his rotted teeth into his best mate’s neck. With rules broken so rampantly, the students began to change from pink to black, black to blue, ugly to beautiful, beautiful to ugly, back and forth, faster, faster, until no one had the faintest idea who was Good and who was Evil.

None of the foes noticed that far into the bay, a girl in pink climbed the School Master’s tower, brick by brick, pulling herself up by Grimm’s arrows. And that far beneath, a prince climbed after her, silhouetted in moonlight. Upon closer look, a prince of raven hair, iron will, dodging a cupid’s arrows in a billowing blue—

Gown.

Upon closer look, not a prince at all.

30

Never After

C
lawing through the silver brick window, Sophie gritted her teeth.

Good always wins.

Her Nemesis was right. As long as the School Master lived, as long as the Storian was in his hands, then she would never achieve vengeance. There was only one way to ruin Agatha’s happy ending.

Destroy both pen and its protector.

With a snarl, Sophie pulled herself into the School Master’s tower, flung out her glowing finger—

It dimmed.

The empty stone chamber was aglow with hundreds of red-flamed candles lining the edges of the bookcases and shelves. Red rose petals swathed the stone floor under her feet. Strums of a phantom harp softly swelled into a tender song.

Sophie scowled. She had come for a war and found a wedding. Good was even more pathetic than she thought.

Then she saw the Storian.

Across the room, it hovered unguarded over her and Agatha’s fairy-tale book on the shadowed stone table.

Through falling petals and flickering candles, Sophie skulked towards the deadly sharp pen. As she neared, the pen’s script smoldered against steel. Eyes blazing, breath shallow, she reached to seize it, but the pen lurched and lanced her finger. Sophie withdrew in shock.

A single drop of her blood dripped down the Storian, filling the grooves in the deep script before trickling to its lethal nib. Alive to its new ink, the pen burned hot red and plunged to the book, furiously flipping pages. Her whole fairy tale unfolded before her eyes in dazzling paintings and flashes of words: sighting Tedros at the Welcoming, cowering from her prince at the Trial, witnessing him propose to Agatha, luring Good’s army to war, even climbing by arrows to this very tower—until the Storian found a fresh page and spilled blood outlines in a single sweep. Rich color magically filled them in and Sophie watched a brilliant painting of herself take shape, there in this tower as she was now. Ravishing in a pink ball gown, her painted self gazed into the eyes of a handsome stranger, tall, lean, in prime of youth and beauty.

Sophie touched his face on the page . . . twinkling blue eyes, skin like marble, ghostly white hair . . .

He wasn’t a stranger.

She had dreamt of him her last night in Gavaldon. The prince she picked from a hundred at a castle ball. The one who felt like Ever After.

“All these years I waited,” said a warm voice.

She turned to see the masked School Master glide towards her from across the room, rusted crown crooked on his head of thick white hair. Slowly, his body unsnarled from its hunch, until it stood tall and erect. Then he took off his mask, revealing alabaster skin, chiseled cheeks, and dancing blue eyes.

Sophie buckled.

He was the prince from the painting.

“You’re
y—y-young
—”

“This was all a test, Sophie,” the School Master said. “A test to find my true love.”

“Your true—
me
?” Sophie stammered. “But you’re Good and I’m Evil!”

The School Master smiled. “Perhaps we should start there.”

Hanging high above the midpoint between moat and lake, Agatha climbed arrows stabbed in silver brick, dodging new blows as Grimm flew around the School Master’s spire. As the cupid pulled another arrow into his bow, she lunged for the next shaft but it broke and tumbled off the tower. Her head swiveled. Grimm flashed yellowed shark teeth, aimed his arrow at her face—

He stiffened like a stunned bird and fell from the sky into dark waters below.

Agatha spun and saw Hester’s red fingerglow dim in her direction, her body bound by chains in deep sludge. In moonlight, she could see Hester’s face, filled with regret for spurning the chance to end this war. Around her, Evers had wrenched control of the battle. Villains struggled against their binds, restored to ugliness, while four Everboys pinned down Hort’s howling man-wolf with punches and kicks.

Agatha felt the last arrow splinter under her hand.

“Help—” she puffed, legs kicking. The arrow broke—

And froze to hard ice catching her grip.

Agatha turned and saw Anadil’s distant green fingerglow pointed at the frozen arrow.

Then, above her head, the next silver brick turned dark brown. Agatha smelled rich, sugary sweetness and her hand stretched up and dug right into taut chocolate. Pulling herself up by fudge, she glanced back across the bay.

Dot’s blue light glowed proudly.

As the next brick above turned chocolate, Agatha reached up with a smile.

It seemed the witches had changed sides.

“I was there all along,” the School Master said, cold, beautiful face smoldering in first rays of sun. “Leading Agatha to you on the night I kidnapped you. Ensuring you didn’t fail in your first days at school. Opening the doors at the Circus. Giving you a riddle whose answer would bring you to me . . . I interfered in your fairy tale because I knew how it must end.”

“But that means you’re—” Sophie fumbled. “You’re Evil?”

“I cared for my brother very much,” the School Master said tensely, peering at the schools’ raging war. “We were entrusted the Storian for eternity because our bond overrode our warring souls. As long as we protected each other, we would stay immortal and beautiful, Good and Evil in perfect balance. Each as worthy and powerful as the other.”

He turned. “But Evil cannot be but alone.”

“So you
killed
your own brother?” Sophie said.

“Much as you tried to kill your dearest friend and beloved prince,” the School Master smiled. “But no matter how much I tried to control the Storian . . .
Good
now emerged triumphant in every new tale.”

He caressed the symbols on the pen’s skin. “Because there is something greater than the purest Evil, Sophie. Something you and I cannot have.”

At last Sophie understood. Her fire cooled to grief.

“Love,” she said softly.

“It is why Good wins every story,” the School Master said. “They fight for each other. We can only fight for ourselves.

“My only hope was to find something stronger, something that would give us a chance. I hunted every seer in the Woods until one gave me my answer. One who told me that what I needed would come from
beyond
our world. And so I searched all these years, careful to keep the balance, as my body and hope weakened . . . until at last you’ve come. The one that can tip the balance forever. The one more powerful than Good’s Love.”

He touched her cheek.

“
Evil’s
love
.
”

Sophie couldn’t breathe, feeling his frigid fingers on her skin.

The School Master’s lips curled into a smile. “Sader knew you would come. A heart as dark as mine. An Evil whose beauty could restore my own.” His hands moved to her waist. “If we unite with each other to seal the bond of Evil. If we marry for the purpose of hurting, destroying, punishing . . . then you and I finally have something to fight for.”

The School Master’s breath glazed her ear. “
Never
After.”

Looking up at him, Sophie finally understood. He had her same maleficent coldness, the same pain raging in his eyes. Long before Tedros, her soul had known its true match. Not a shining knight, fighting for Good. Not someone Good at all.

All these years she had tried to be someone else. She had made so many mistakes along the way. But at last, she had come home.

“A kiss,” the School Master whispered. “A kiss for Never After.”

Tears trickled down Sophie’s cheeks. After all this, she would have her happy ending.

She gave herself to the School Master’s grip and he pulled her into his arms. As he clasped her neck, leaning in for her fairy-tale kiss, Sophie gazed up tenderly at the prince of her dreams.

But now his face cracked at the edges.

Charred flesh wormed through his luminous skin. Behind him falling roses turned to maggots and red candles lit up hellish shadows. Outside, the dawn sky fogged infernal green and the Good castle blackened to stone. As the School Master’s decaying lips touched hers, Sophie felt her vision blur red, her veins burn acid, her body rot to match his. Skin blistering, she held her prince’s eyes, begging to feel love, the love that storybooks promised her, the love that would last an eternity . . .

But all she found was hate.

Devoured by a kiss, she saw at last she would never find love in this life or the next. She was Evil, always Evil, and there would never be happiness or peace. As her heart shattered with sadness, she yielded to darkness without a fight, only to hear a dying echo, somewhere deeper than soul.

It’s not what we are, Sophie.

It’s what we do.

Sophie tore herself from the School Master’s grip and he spilled back into the stone table, sending the Storian and storybook smashing into the wall. In the fallen Storian, she glimpsed her half-rotted face, split cleanly from forehead to chin. Breathless, she fled for the window, but there was no way down the tower.

Through eerie green fog, she saw the far shore. Gone were the weapons, the spells, the two sides. The sludge pits overflowed with blackened bodies, children punching anyone in sight, slamming faces into muck, tearing at skin and hair, writhing and clawing for mercy. Sophie stared at this war she had started, Good and Evil fighting now for nothing at all.

“What have I done?” she breathed.

She turned to see the School Master stir on the floor.

“Please,” Sophie begged. “I want to be Good!”

The School Master raised red-rimmed eyes, skin shriveling around his thin smile.

“You can
never
be Good, Sophie. That’s why you’re
mine
.”

Slowly he slithered towards her. Terrified, Sophie shrank against the window as he reached rotting hands to grab her—

From behind, soft, warm arms suddenly wrapped her like an angel’s and pulled her into the night sky.

“Hold your breath!” Agatha cried as they fell—

In tight embrace, the two girls smashed face-first into crushing cold water. The glacial lake robbed their lungs, numbed every inch of skin, but still they didn’t let go. Their entwined bodies plunged to arctic depths, and kicked towards sunlight. But just as their hands stabbed for air, Agatha saw the black shadow ripping straight for them. With a silent scream, she thrust out her glowing finger and a giant wave rose, swelling them away from the School Master and crashing them to Evil’s barren shore.

Agatha willed herself onto her knees in the moat and heard the screams of war around her, rabid, slime-drenched children without faces or names, pummeling each other like beasts.

Then in the distance, a body rose from the sludge.

“Sophie?” she croaked.

The ooze sloughed away and Agatha dove for the bank in horror.

She glanced back to see the old, decayed School Master calmly wade towards her, Storian in hand. Gurgling, she scraped over wrestling torsos for the shore, oily black hands clawing at her face, sludge sinking her like quicksand. Agatha turned to see the School Master gliding through it, unnoticed by his warring students. Gagging on muck, she pulled herself over the black mob into dead grass, lurched to her feet to run—

The School Master stood in front of her, flesh crumbling off naked skull.

“I expected more from a Reader, Agatha,” he said. “Surely you know what happens to those who thwart
love
.”

Agatha flushed with fight. “You’ll never have her. Not as long as I’m alive.”

The School Master’s blue eyes filled with blood.

“And so it is written.”

He raised the Storian like a dagger and hurled it at Agatha with a deafening scream.

Trapped, Agatha closed her eyes—

A body collided with hers and took her to the ground.

Agatha’s eyes opened.

Sophie lay beside her, Storian speared through her heart.

The School Master let out a cry of shock.

The war around them ceased.

Bloodied students turned in stunned silence to see their rotted, malevolent leader, frozen over the body of the witch who saved a princess’s life. The body of one of their own.

Sunken in sludge, Evers’ and Nevers’ faces melted to terror and shame. They had betrayed each other and lost to the real enemy. In foolish vengeance, they had surrendered the balance they were entrusted to protect. But as eyes found the School Master, their young faces hardened with purpose. Then all at once, the silver swan crests on both Good’s and Evil’s uniforms turned blinding white and came alive, shrieking, flapping.

Instantly the tiny birds ripped free, blasted into the twilit sky, and coalesced into a glittering silhouette. The School Master’s face drained of blood as he looked up at a luminous ghost, a familiar face of snowy hair, ivory cheeks, and warm blue eyes. . . .

“You are a spirit, brother,” the School Master scowled. “You have no power without a body.”

“Yet,” said a voice.

He turned to see Professor Sader limp from the Woods through the school gates, bloodied by thorns. Trembling, Sader gazed up at the ghost in the sky.