Her shoe slipped and her body pitched forward over deadly Charity. Flailing, she grabbed the window beam just in time and crashed back into the room. Agatha clutched her bruised tailbone, whipped around—but the shadow was gone.
Agatha’s heart thumped faster. Whoever brought them here was in that tower. Whoever was in that tower could fix the mistake and send them home.
But first she needed to rescue her best friend.
A few minutes later, Agatha shrank from a mirror. The sleeveless pink uniform showed off parts of her white, scrawny body that had never seen light. The lace collar gave away the rash that spread across her neck whenever she felt anxious, the carnations lining the sleeves made her sneeze, and the matching pink high heels teetered like stilts. But the foul outfit was her only chance to escape. Her room was on the opposite end from the stairwell. To get back to the bridge, she needed to glide through the hall without being noticed and slip down the stairs.
Agatha set her jaw.
You have to blend.
She took a deep breath and cracked open the door.
Fifty beautiful girls in pink pinafores packed the hallway, giggling, gossiping, trading dresses, shoes, bags, bangles, creams, and anything else they had brought in their gigantic trunks, while fairies buzzed between, trying in vain to round them up for the Welcoming. Through the hubbub, Agatha glimpsed stairs at the other end. A confident stroll and she’d be gone before they saw her. But she couldn’t move.
It had taken her whole life to make a single friend. And here these girls had become best friends in minutes as if making friends was the simplest thing in the world. Agatha prickled with shame. In this School for Good, where everyone was supposed to be kind and loving, she had still ended up alone and despised. She was a villain, no matter where she went.
She slammed the door, ripped petals from her sleeve, tore off her pink heels and hurled them through the window. She slumped against the wall and closed her eyes.
Get me out of here.
She opened her eyes and glimpsed her ugly face in the jeweled mirror. Before she could turn away, her eyes caught something else in her reflection. A ceiling tile with a smiling cupid, slightly dislodged.
Agatha slipped her feet back into her hard black clumps. She climbed up the bed canopy and pulled the tile away, revealing a dark vent above the room. She gripped the edges of the hole and swung one leg up into the vent, then the other, until she found herself perched on a narrow platform inside the chute.
She crawled through darkness, hands and knees blindly shuffling along cold metal—until metal suddenly turned to air. This time, she couldn’t save herself.
Falling too fast to scream, Agatha whizzed through chutes, ping-ponged through pipes, and slid down vents until she somersaulted through a grate and landed on a beanstalk.
She hugged the thick green trunk, thankful she was still in one piece. But as she looked around, Agatha saw she wasn’t in a garden or forest or anywhere else a beanstalk is supposed to be. She was in a dark room with high ceilings, filled with paintings, sculptures, and glass cases. Her eyes found the frosted doors in the corner, gilded words etched in glass:
THE GALLERY OF GOOD
Agatha inched down the beanstalk until her clumps touched marble floor.
A mural blanketed the long wall with a panoramic view of a soaring gold castle and a dashing prince and beautiful princess wedded beneath its gleaming arch, as thousands of spectators jingled bells and danced in celebration. Blessed by a brilliant sun, the virtuous couple kissed, while baby angels hovered above, showering them with red and white roses. High above the scene, shiny gold block letters peeked out from behind clouds, stretching from one end of the mural to the other:
E V E R A F T E R
Agatha grimaced. She had always mocked Sophie for believing in Happily Ever After. (“Who wants to be happy all the time?”) But looking at the mural, she had to admit this school did a spookily good job of selling the idea.
She peered into a glass case, holding a thin booklet of flowery handwriting with a plaque next to it: SNOW WHITE, ANIMAL FLUENCY EXAM (LETITIA OF MAIDENVALE). In the next cases, she found the blue cape of a boy who became Cinderella’s prince, Red Riding Hood’s dorm pillow, the Little Match Girl’s diary, Pinocchio’s pajamas, and other remnants of star students who presumably went on to weddings and castles. On the walls, she scanned more drawings of Ever After by former students, a School History exhibit, banners celebrating iconic victories, and a wall labeled “Class Captain,” stacked with portraits of students from each class. The museum got darker as it went on, so Agatha used one of her matches to light a lamp. That’s when she saw the dead animals.
Dozens of taxidermied creatures loomed over her, stuffed and mounted on rosy pink walls. She dusted off their plaques to find the booted Master Cat, Cinderella’s favorite rat, Jack’s sold-off cow, stamped with the names of children who weren’t good enough to become heroes or sidekicks or servants. No Happily Ever After for this lot. Just hooks in a museum. Agatha felt their eerie, glass-eyed stares and turned away. Only then did she see the plaque gleaming on the beanstalk. HOLDEN OF RAINBOW GALE. That wretched plant had once been a boy.
Agatha’s blood ran cold. All these stories she had never believed in. But they were painfully real now. In two hundred years, no kidnapped child had ever made it back to Gavaldon. What made her think she and Sophie would be the first? What made her think they wouldn’t end up a raven or a rosebush?
Then she remembered what made them different from all the rest.
We have each other.
They had to work together to break this curse. Or they’d both end up fossils of a fairy tale.
Agatha found her attention drawn to a corner nook, with a row of paintings by the same artist, depicting the same scenes: children reading storybooks, in hazy, impressionistic colors. As she neared the paintings, her eyes grew wider. Because she recognized where all these children were.
They were in Gavaldon.
She moved from first painting to last, with reading children set against the familiar hills and lake, crooked clock tower and rickety church, even the shadow of a house on Graves Hill. Agatha felt stabs of homesickness. She had mocked the children as batty and delusional. But in the end, they had known what she didn’t—that the line between stories and real life is very thin indeed.
Then she came to the last painting, which wasn’t like the others at all. In this one, raging children heaved their storybooks into a bonfire in the square and watched them burn. All around them, the dark forest went up in flames, filling the sky with violent red and black smoke. Staring at it, Agatha felt a chill up her spine.
Voices. She dove behind a giant pumpkin carriage, hitting her head on a plaque. HEINRICH OF NETHERWOOD. Agatha gagged.
Two teachers entered the museum, an older woman in a chartreuse high-necked dress, speckled with iridescent green beetle wings, and a younger woman in a pointy-shouldered purple gown that slunk behind her. The woman in chartreuse had a grandmotherly beehive of white hair, but luminous skin and calm brown eyes. The woman in purple had black hair yanked in a long braid, amethyst eyes, and bloodless skin stretched over bones like a drum.
“He’s tampering with the tales, Clarissa,” the one in purple said.
“The School Master can’t control the Storian, Lady Lesso,” Clarissa returned.
“He’s on your side and you know it,” Lady Lesso seethed.
“He’s not on anyone’s side—” Clarissa stopped short. So did Lady Lesso.
Agatha saw what they were looking at. The last painting.
“I see you’ve welcomed another of Professor Sader’s delusions,” Lady Lesso said.
“It is his gallery,” Clarissa sighed.
Lady Lesso’s eyes flashed. Magically, the painting tore off the wall and landed behind a glass case, inches from Agatha’s head.
“This is why they’re not in your school’s gallery,” said Clarissa.
“Anyone who believes the
Reader Prophecy is a fool,” hissed Lady Lesso. “Including the School Master.”
“A School Master must protect the balance,” Clarissa said gently. “He sees Readers as part of that balance. Even if you and I cannot understand.”
“Balance!” scoffed Lady Lesso. “Then why hasn’t Evil won a tale since he took over? Why hasn’t Evil defeated Good in two hundred years?”
“Perhaps my students are just better educated,” said Clarissa.
Lady Lesso glowered and walked away. Swishing her finger, Clarissa moved the painting back into place and scurried to keep up.
“Maybe your new Reader will prove you wrong,” she said.
Lady Lesso snorted. “I hear she wears pink.”
Agatha listened to their footsteps go quiet.
She looked up at the dented painting. The children, the bonfire, Gavaldon burning to the ground. What did it all mean?
Twinkly flutters echoed through the air. Before she could move, glowing fairies burst in, searching every crevice like flashlights. Far across the museum, Agatha saw the doors through which the two teachers had left. Just when the fairies reached the pumpkin, she sprinted for it. The fairies squealed in surprise as she slid between three stuffed bears, threw open the doors—
Pink-dressed classmates streamed through the foyer in two perfect lines. As they held hands and giggled, the best of friends, Agatha felt familiar shame rise. Everything in her body told her to shut the door again and hide. But this time instead of thinking of all the friends she didn’t have, Agatha thought about the one she did.
The fairies swooped in a second later, but all they found were princesses on their way to a Welcoming. As they hovered furiously above, hunting for signs of guilt, Agatha slipped into the pink parade, put on a smile . . . and tried to blend.
5
Boys Ruin Everything
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, and she knew she had found her sisters. If the fairies wouldn’t rescue her, surely her fellow princesses would. With villains shoving her along, she tried to get the Good girls’ attention, but they were ignoring her side of the theater. Finally Sophie battled her way to the aisle, waved her arms, and opened her mouth to yell, when a hand yanked her under a rotted bench.
Agatha tackled her in a hug. “I found the School Master’s tower! It’s in the moat and there’s guards, but if we can just get up there then we can—”
“Hi! Nice to see you! Give me your clothes,” said Sophie, staring at Agatha’s pink dress.
“Huh?”
“Quick! It will solve everything.”
“You can’t be serious! Sophie, we can’t stay here!”
“Exactly,” Sophie smiled. “I need to be in your school and you need to be in mine. Just like we talked about, remember?”
“But your father, my mother, my cat!” Agatha sputtered. “You don’t know what they’re like here! They’ll turn us into snakes or squirrels or shrubbery! Sophie, we have to get back home!”
“Why? What do I have in Gavaldon to go back to?” Sophie said.
Agatha blushed with hurt. “You have . . . um, you have . . .”
“Right. Nothing. Now, my dress, please.”
Agatha folded her arms.
“Then I’ll take it myself,” Sophie scowled. But right as she grabbed Agatha by her flowered sleeve, something made her stop cold. Sophie listened, ears piqued, and took off like a panther. She slid under warped benches, dodged villains’ feet, ducked behind the last pew, and peeked around it.
Agatha followed, exasperated. “I don’t know what’s gotten into yo—”
Sophie covered Agatha’s mouth and listened to the sounds grow louder. Sounds that made every Good girl bolt upright. Sounds they had waited their whole lives to hear. From the hall, the stomp of boots, the clash of steel—
The west doors flew open to sixty gorgeous boys in swordfight.
Sun-kissed skin peeked through light blue sleeves and stiff collars; tall navy boots matched high-cut waistcoats and knotted slim ties, each embroidered with a single gold initial. As the boys playfully crossed blades, their shirts came untucked from tight beige breeches, revealing slender waists and flashes of muscle. Sweat glistened on glowing faces as they thrust down the aisle, boots cracking on marble, until swiftly the swordfight climaxed, boys pinning boys against pews. In a last chorus of movement, they drew roses from their shirts and with a shout of “Milady!” threw them to the girls who most caught their eye. (Beatrix found herself with enough roses to plant a garden.)
Agatha watched all this, seasick. But then she saw Sophie, heart in throat, longing for her own rose.
In the decayed pews, the villains booed the princes, brandishing banners with “NEVERS RULE!” and “EVERS STINK!” (Except for weasel-faced Hort, who crossed his arms sulkily and mumbled, “Why do they get their own entrance?”) With a bow, the princes blew kisses to villains and prepared to take their seats when the west doors suddenly slammed open again—
And one more walked in.
Hair a halo of celestial gold, eyes blue as a cloudless sky, skin the color of hot desert sand, he glistened with a noble sheen, as if his blood ran purer than the rest. The stranger took one look at the frowning, sword-armed boys, pulled his own sword . . . and grinned.
Forty boys came at him at once, but he disarmed each with lightning speed. The swords of his classmates piled up beneath his feet as he flicked them away without inflicting a scratch. Sophie gaped, bewitched. Agatha hoped he’d impale himself. But no such luck, for the boy dismissed each new challenge as quickly as it came, the embroidered T on his blue tie glinting with each dance of his blade. And when the last had been left swordless and dumbstruck, he sheathed his own sword and shrugged, as if to say he meant nothing by it at all. But the boys of Good knew what it meant. The princes now had a king. (Even the villains couldn’t find reason to boo.)
Meanwhile, the Good girls had long learned that every true princess finds a prince, so no need to fight each other. But they forgot all this when the golden boy pulled a rose from his shirt. All of them jumped up, waving kerchiefs, jostling like geese at a feeding. The boy smiled and lofted his rose high in the air—
Agatha saw Sophie move too late. She ran after her but Sophie dashed into the aisle, leapt over the pink pews, lunged for the rose—and caught a wolf instead.
As it dragged Sophie back to her side, she locked eyes with the boy, who took in her fair face, then her horrid black robes and cocked his head, baffled. Then he saw Agatha agog in pink, his rose plopped in her open palm, and recoiled in shock. As the wolf dumped Sophie with Evil and fairies shoved Agatha with Good, the boy gawked wide-eyed, trying to make sense of it all. Then a hand pulled him into a seat.
“Hi. I’m Beatrix,” she said, and made sure he saw all of her roses.
From the Evil seats, Sophie tried to get his attention.
“Turn yourself into a mirror. Then you’ll have a chance.”
Sophie turned to Hester, sitting next to her.
“His name is Tedros,” her roommate said. “And he’s just as stuck-up as his father.”
Sophie was about to ask who his father was, but then glimpsed his sword, dazzling silver, with a hilt of diamonds. A sword with a lion crest she knew from storybooks. A sword named Excalibur.
“He’s King Arthur’s son?” Sophie breathed. She studied Tedros’ high cheekbones, silky blond hair, and thick, t
ender lips. His broad shoulders and strong arms filled out his blue shirt, tie loosened and collar undone. He looked so serene and assured, as if he knew destiny was on his side.
Gazing at him, Sophie felt her own destiny lock into place.
He’s mine.
Suddenly she felt a hot glare across the aisle.
“We’re going home,” Agatha mouthed clearly.
“Welcome to the School for Good and Evil,” said the nicer of the two heads.
From their seats on opposite sides of the aisle, Sophie and Agatha tracked the massive dog with two heads attached to a single body, pacing across a silver stone stage, cracked down the middle. One head was rabid, drooling, and male, with a grizzly mane. The other head was cuddly and cute, with a weak jaw, scanty fur, and singsong voice. No one was sure if the cuter head was male or female, but whatever it was, it seemed to be in charge.
“I’m Pollux, Welcoming Leader,” said the nice head.
“AND I’M CASTOR, WELCOMING LEADER ASSISTANT AND EXECUTIVE EXECUTIONER OF PUNISHMENT FOR ANYONE WHO BREAKS RULES OR ACTS LIKE A DONKEY,” the rabid one boomed.
All the children looked scared of Castor. Even the villains.
“Thank you, Castor,” said Pollux. “So let me first remind you why it is you’re here. All children are born with souls that are either Good or Evil. Some souls are purer than others—”
“AND SOME SOULS ARE CRAP!” Castor barked.
“As I was saying,” said Pollux, “some souls are purer than others, but all souls are fundamentally Good or Evil. Those who are Evil cannot make their souls Good, and those who are Good cannot make their souls Evil—”
“SO JUST ’CAUSE GOOD IS WINNING EVERYTHING DOESN’T MEAN YOU CAN SWITCH SIDES,” snarled Castor.
The Good students cheered, “EVERS! EVERS!”; Evil students retorted, “NEVERS! NEVERS!” before wolves doused Evers with water buckets, fairies cast rainbows over the Nevers, and both sides shut up.
“Once again,” said Pollux tightly, “those who are Evil cannot be good and those who are Good cannot be Evil, no matter how much you’re persuaded or punished. Now sometimes you may feel the stirrings of both but this just means your family tree has branches where Good and Evil have toxically mixed. But here at the School for Good and Evil, we will rid you of stirrings, we will rid you of confusion, we will try to make you as pure as possible—”