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’s contagious,” Agatha moaned as Evergirls bounded around the Clearing showing each other their invitations, each snowflake a different shape. Nearby Tedros shot marbles and ignored them entirely. “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 longingly at the Evergirls.
“No,” Agatha said.
“But what if he asks me?”
“Sophie, he needs to kiss you now! Not take you to some stupid Ball!”
“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—”
But 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. “Your girlfriend’s calling.”
Sophie followed his eyes to Agatha, waving her off.
“She’s just upset,” Sophie sighed. “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.”
“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.”
“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 landing in poo. 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 looked 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 smirked as Sophie stomped towards her.
“Easy as pie, hmm?”
Sophie blew past her—
“Humble pie!” Agatha shouted.
“It’s the hair!” Sophie sobbed.
“It’s not the hair!” Agatha said as they trudged 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.
“Look, this is your chance,” Agatha said, remembering Princess Uma’s words. “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. . . .
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 th
e 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 kneed him in the chest. 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 slipped out of her coffin and into the one next to it.
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.
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 Beatrix, smiling imperiously—Tedros dropped her hand like a hot stone. In the next coffin, Agatha sighed with relief.
The wolves howled in the distance. As the class followed Yuba back to school, Agatha stayed behind with Sophie.
“Come, Agatha,” Yuba called. “This is Sophie’s lesson to learn.”
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 switch coffins.
16
Cupid Goes Rogue
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, more glum and gaunt than the last time.
“I need to see Sophie,” Agatha said, avoiding eye contact with herself.
“That’s the second time he’s looked at you that way.”
“Huh? Second time who looked at me?”
“Tedros.”
“Well, Sophie won’t listen to me.”
“Well, maybe Sophie isn’t Tedros’ true love, then.”
“She has to be,” Agatha said, suddenly worried. “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 hideously.
Agatha’s eyes veered back to her wet clumps. “That is the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard. First off, love is something storybooks invented to keep girls busy. Second, I hate Tedros. Third, he thinks I’m an evil witch, which given my recent behavior, might be 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!”
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?”
Sophie frowned. “I didn’t want to think about his crown or his fortune. That’s shallow.”
“Think about who he is! 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 he picked her coffin.
“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 plucky ostrich how to steal candy without teachers noticing.
Sophie, however, found herself wit
h 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. Then on Day 3, while Yuba taught “Uses of Wells,” he started shooting arrows at Agatha, who leapt behind the Forest well just in time.
“CALL THAT THING OFF!” Tedros yelled as he deflected Grimm’s arrows into the well with his training sword.
“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. 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 glared 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 arrows came tipped with fire. After one of these singed her ear, 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.