A World Without Princes

  “The School Master wanted to marry her for a reason,” Dot warned.

  Agatha remembered his parting vow . . . his red-rimmed eyes claiming Sophie as his bride . . .

  “You’ll always be Evil, Sophie. That’s why you’re mine.”

  Now, as Agatha thought of her best friend returning to a witch, she wondered anxiously: Was the School Master right? And why couldn’t the Dean see it?

  “I mean, how can anyone even believe the Dean’s hogwash,” Agatha crabbed, trying to distract herself. “Kingdoms of women can’t last without men. How would they, um . . . grow?”

  “That’s what we like about it.” Dot grinned. “Slaves.”

  The only other memorable moment of class came when Yara, the dancing girl from the Welcoming, sashayed in halfway through, with her gangly walk and rippling muscles, acting as if it was perfectly routine to skip class all morning and flounce in at will.

  “Care to present your lineage, Yara?” Pollux asked thinly.

  Yara twirled with a squawk and sat down.

  “Gypsies, no doubt,” Pollux murmured.

  As Agatha stared at Yara’s beakish face, ginger hair, and strawberry freckles, she felt like she’d never encountered a girl so alien . . . and yet oddly familiar.

  “Wanders in and out like the school pet,” Dot whispered. “It’s ’cause she can’t speak. Dean feels sorry for her.”

  Agatha skipped lunch in the Supper Hall to meet Hester and Anadil atop the drizzly Honor Tower rooftop. (Dot declined to join them, citing a myriad of social obligations.) Where the open-air roof had once housed a topiary garden dedicated to scenes from King Arthur’s story, the sculpted hedges had been remade in tribute to Queen Guinevere—Arthur’s wife and Tedros’ mother, who had abandoned them both and never been seen again.

  “No wonder Tedros wants to attack us,” Hester said, slurping homemade gruel as she eyed scenes of the sculpted, slim queen.

  “How can the Dean think she’s a hero?” Agatha said. “She deserted her son!”

  “On the contrary, the Dean says Guinevere liberated herself from male oppression,” Anadil quipped, watching her rats stab each other with stone shards, remnants of a gargoyle Tedros once killed. “She conveniently ignores that she left to shack up with a scrawny knight.”

  Agatha stared at the menagerie hedges, making Guinevere out to be a saint. “You don’t expect me to tell the story as it happened, do you?” Sophie had teased back home. Every fairy tale could be twisted to serve a purpose. Good could turn into Evil, Evil into Good, back and forth, back and forth, just like it had in the war between the schools a year ago. Even now, Sophie was vowing she was Good, while everything in their story was telling Agatha she was Evil.

  “There’s no shield between the two schools, only around the perimeter gates,” Hester was saying to Anadil. “But even so, she can’t swim to Tedros, with those crogs in the moat—”

  “Crogs?” Agatha asked, turning to them.

  “Those spiny white crocodiles. They only attack girls,” Anadil said impatiently.

  Agatha thought back to the cesspool in the Woods—the female deer dragged under by the crogs, while the male stag swam untouched. She felt doubly relieved she hadn’t tried to cross.

  “And she can’t use the sewers since they’re blocked,” Hester was saying. “She can’t even use the west Forest gate—”

  “Is the Bridge portal still up here?’” Agatha said, scanning the roof.

  Hester frowned. “I told you, Tedros couldn’t have said ‘bridge’—”

  The door opened behind them and butterflies flapped in, just in time to hear the girls ramble cheerfully about how much they enjoyed rooftop picnics, while rain soaked their clothes and ruined their food.

  With the glass castle falling into shadows, Agatha headed to Female Talents, increasingly edgy for the night. But unlike the rest of the faculty, Professor Sheeba Sheeks didn’t even bother trying to teach. Once a fearsome teacher of villain talents, now she stood at the fore of a rainbow lollipop room in her busty red velvet gown, boils on both dark-skinned cheeks, clutching a letter on sparkled, butterfly-themed stationary.

  “The Dean has put me in charge of the s-s-school—” She choked. “Play.” She collapsed against the wall. “Auditions begin on the 15th evening in the Supper Hall.”

  “What’s the show?” Beatrix asked.

  But Professor Sheeks was too shaken to answer. Blinking pallidly, she took in the bright swirl of lollipops, the Nevers sitting with Evers, the sparkly edict to direct an all-female play. . . . “Devil’s School!” she gasped, and made the girls read from The Art of Feminine Wiles for the rest of class.

  As the other girls flipped pages, Agatha gazed out at the fortress of fog over Halfway Bay, so thick she could barely see the splashes of lightning behind it. A few more hours and she’d have her chance to rewrite her fairy tale once and for all. But could she actually go through with it? Even with Sophie turning deadly, could she kiss Tedros knowing it was forever?

  Agatha suddenly noticed a scrap of parchment caught under Arachne’s chair. Two girls had exchanged notes in the previous session. Agatha slid it over with her clump and scooped it into her hands. She recognized both scripts.

  SOPHIE: Is there a way for a girl to get to the Boys’ school?

  BEATRIX: No, course not. Why?

  SOPHIE: Just making sure.

  Agatha’s hands crumpled it. Sophie was on to her.

  As she hustled to the Blue Forest for her last class, Agatha could feel her head throbbing, at a loss how to both get to a school with no route and ensure Sophie didn’t see her. Scurrying past the Gallery of Good, she noticed two silhouettes through the cracked-open door. Agatha caught a flash of ginger hair and strawberry freckles—

  “I’ve given you two weeks,” the Dean’s voice snapped.

  “But I’ve tried!” said a low voice.

  “If you want to stay here, you have to find a wa—”

  The Dean paused suddenly and spun. The doorway was empty.

  Strange, Agatha thought, stealing out of the hall. For she was quite sure the voice talking to the Dean belonged to the same girl no one thought could speak.

  Once a lively gathering place for lunch between Good and Evil, the Clearing had overgrown to dead, crackling weeds. As Agatha came through Good’s tunnel of trees, she saw a squirrel corpse rotting in the empty field and a faded pink bow near it, matching the one Princess Uma used to wear in her hair. The Evil tunnel, now the passage to the Boys’ school, had been sealed with rocks—whether by the boys or girls, Agatha didn’t know. Still, the teachers felt scared enough to confine the girls inside for meals, which made Agatha uneasy about crossing into the Blue Forest, sprawling directly beneath the boys’ jagged towers.

  A year before, the Blue Forest was a quiet, gated paradise, with every leaf, flower, and blade of grass a different hue of blue, meant to remind the students it was only a simulation of the more dangerous Woods. But now, as Agatha hurried through the gates, a winter breeze swirling, she could hear the chants of warmongering princes from those Woods: “Death to Girls! Death to Girls!”

  In the cobalt Fernfield, girls sorted into their Forest Groups for Surviving Fairy Tales. Kiko and Beatrix followed Group 9’s tree nymph to the Blue Brook, Anadil and Hester trailed Group 4’s water siren to the Turquoise Thicket, while Agatha tried to glimpse Group 3’s flag through the tall ferns. Sensing the girls’ arrivals, the princes’ chants from the Woods turned cruel and obscene, prompting Mona, Arachne, and the rest of Group 12 to lob blue pumpkins over the gates at them. The savage princes shot arrows back, only to find them consumed by the enchanted shield over the perimeter gates.

  Under dark clouds, Agatha felt war about to break. Kissing Tedros wouldn’t just save the girls from Sophie’s witch. It would save them from a massacre if the princes found a way through the shield.

  How could she leave Dot on her own to guard blood-hungry princes? And yet, abandoning her post tonight was the only wa
y to meet Tedros without Sophie knowing—

  “Guess what?”

  Agatha turned to see Sophie bounding towards her, wrapped in a thick blue cape. “I can watch you on guard!”

  Agatha staggered back. There were no other girls nearby. “W-w-what?”

  “Couldn’t wear that ghastly shawl anymore. All those puppies—thought it’d start barking any moment,” Sophie sighed. “Beatrix graciously lent me her cape from the room, and I happened to glance out our window and see where you’ll be guarding! Speaking of which, did you know Beatrix’s great-grandfather made Snow White’s wedding gown? That girl might be mental, but her fabrics are exquisi—” She saw Agatha’s face and cleared her throat. “In any case, now I can make sure you’re safe from princes all night.” Sophie nudged her. “A witch wouldn’t do that, would she?”

  “But—but—” Agatha stared at the cape that covered almost all of Sophie’s skin, and knew the real reason she’d traded the shawl for it. “W-w-what about—beauty sleep—”

  “You would watch me on guard, Aggie.” Sophie squeezed her shoulder. “What’s a friend for?”

  Agatha chilled to Sophie’s touch. Somewhere a pigeon squawked.

  “Uh—sorry—friend calling—” Agatha gasped, sprinting away from her.

  Thankfully, Sophie wasn’t in her Forest Group, so when Agatha found Kiko, Dot, and the rest of Group 3 at the Fernfield’s edge, she grabbed Dot. “Warts—cape—turning—” Agatha stuttered, gulping breaths. “You were right! She knows!”

  “I thought I told you to stay away from her!” Dot hissed—

  “She’s watching us tonight! From our room!”

  “What!”

  “We have to block her view somehow—”

  “And here I thought you failed by accident,” a voice lashed.

  Agatha turned to see Sophie staring at her with shock.

  Agatha fumbled for words, but Sophie’s stare turned ice-cold as she backed into the ferns and ran away.

  “You’re so dead,” Dot croaked.

  Agatha’s gut twisted, watching Sophie disappear. “But she—she seems so hurt—”

  “How many times will you make the same mistake, Agatha? She’s a good actress.”

  Agatha’s stomach wrenched deeper, knowing Dot was right.

  “Ahem.”

  Both girls turned to see a frowning old gnome with long white hair and tanned, wrinkly skin in a hideous dress, pointy lavender hat, and wobbly heeled shoes. Agatha coughed. It was as if Yuba, her once crotchety, male gnome teacher, had turned into a frumpy housewife.

  “I see our Reader has decided this is Surviving Chitchat,” the gnome snapped in a hoary voice that sounded just like Yuba’s, only higher. “My name is Professor Helga, and I’m afraid we’ll have to do proper introductions later. Can’t be holding back the whole group for a new arrival. Now as for today’s lesson—”

  Agatha frowned and nudged Kiko. “Um, isn’t that . . .”

  “We thought that too,” Kiko whispered back. “But any male would have been evicted, so it can’t be Yuba! Plus the girls dared me to double-check—”

  “Double-check?”

  “Don’t ask. But trust me when I say she’s a woman,” Kiko said.

  “Come, girls,” said Helga, guiding the students into the Forest with her long white staff. “Last year you learned to tell an ordinary plant from a Mogrified human! Today we’ll be learning how to tell if it’s a boy Mogrif or a girl Mogrif! Extremely useful in these times . . .”

  Agatha followed, knowing there was only one thing useful to boys or girls right now.

  How many warts Sophie was hiding beneath that cape.

  Eight hours later, at the stroke of ten, Agatha was back in the Blue Forest with Dot, being fitted with steel guard armor by Lady Lesso and Professor Dovey. Agatha tried repeatedly to whisper to them, but both shushed her, eyeing the blue butterflies circling overhead like drones, lit up by the torches over the north entrance gates. Still, the girls could feel their teachers’ frustration, for they brusquely slapped on their breastplates and pauldrons as if harnessing horses.

  “I don’t know how boys wear this,” Dot grumped as Lady Lesso shoved a helmet on her. “It’s heavy, itchy, and it smells.”

  Agatha couldn’t bear it anymore. “Professors, Sophie knows I’m seeing Tedr—”

  Lady Lesso stomped on her foot and Agatha clammed up. Dot couldn’t possibly be right about this woman having a family. If Lady Lesso ever had a child, it would have murdered her in her sleep.

  Agatha’s jaw clenched tighter as Professor Dovey fastened her musty helmet. What good was a fairy godmother if you couldn’t talk to her? Irritated, her thoughts drifted back to what happened after classes. When the girls returned from Forest Groups, she’d laid down in Hester’s room. It’d been almost two days since she’d closed her eyes . . . weeks since she felt safe, if even for a moment. She couldn’t remember falling asleep, only blurring thoughts of capes and warts . . . the sensation of a boiling red rain . . . the prickle of thorns . . . a taste of blood. . . .

  Agatha’s body seized. Wake up!

  Pain screamed through her stomach, dragging her back under, and something inside her was born. A pure white seed, then a blurry, milky face, bigger, bigger, until she saw a boy’s blue eyes cut right through her—

  “NO!” She thrashed awake into Hester’s arms.

  “Shhhh . . . just a dream . . . ,” Hester soothed. Anadil looked worried beside her.

  “B-b-ut—it was a Nemesis Dream—” Agatha stammered. “It was Tedros—his face—”

  “Evers can’t have Nemesis Dreams, Agatha,” Hester sighed, putting a tray of braised beef and potatoes in front of her.

  “But I tasted blood—and I saw him—”

  “Only villains dream of their one true enemy.” Anadil poured her a mug of ginger beer, which one of her rats promptly jumped in. “Princesses like you dream of your true love, remember? That’s why you saw his face.”

  “But—suppose it’s a trap—” Agatha said manically. “Suppose Tedros isn’t my happy ending—”

  “The only other ending is we all die!” Hester roared, demon tattoo twitching. “Sophie’s about to be a witch again, Agatha! You said it yourself! She’s probably covered in warts by now!”

  Frightened, Agatha refocused as Hester and Anadil explained the plan to break into the School for Boys.

  “There’s no guarantee it will get you to Tedros,” Hester warned at the end, “but it’s our best hope. So remember, first wait until—”

  “Are you sure I shouldn’t use the Bridge?” Agatha prodded.

  Hester’s demon exploded off her neck at her and Anadil had to strike it down.

  Now, as her teachers snapped on the last of her and Dot’s armor, Agatha tried to remember every step of her friends’ plan.

  Professor Dovey watched the hovering butterflies. “The night is long,” she said to Agatha vaguely. “Be careful.”

  “Cast your glow into the sky if the enchanted shield breaks,” Lady Lesso ordered Dot as she strapped on her sword. “Don’t dare take on the princes yourself.”

  “Why would she be by herself?” the Dean’s voice cooed as she sauntered up behind them. “Agatha will be by her side all night.”

  “Of course she will,” Lady Lesso stiffened quickly, not looking at the Dean. “But Dot has a reputation for rash decisions and idiotic behavior.”

  “I do,” Dot chimed, munching a codpiece turned to cabbage.

  The Dean smiled. “Shall we move to your posts?”

  Agatha saw Lady Lesso and Professor Dovey give her the same scared but hopeful nods, as if sending her on a quest from which she might not return.

  “Bet boys pee in this. That’s why it smells,” Dot grumbled through her helmet as she and Agatha waddled in full armor behind the Dean, towards the south gates, leaving the teachers behind. Agatha could hear the buzz of the princes get louder, drowned out by her thumping heart.

  “Dean Sader?”

/>   “Yes, Agatha?”

  “What if Sophie’s turning into a witch again?”

  “I see no reason to worry,” the Dean answered without turning.

  “But suppose you can’t see it?” Agatha pressed her. “Suppose we can see what you can’t?”

  “Well, dear.” The Dean glanced back. “Sometimes we see what we want to see.”

  She smiled and swept ahead towards the princes’ chants.

  Agatha froze cold in the thicket, her last hope for help gone.

  Only she could stop the witch now.

  “Agatha, look!”

  Agatha spun to Dot, stopped behind her. Slowly Agatha followed her gaze up to the moonlit towers shimmering over the Forest, windows all dark, except for one.

  Sophie’s emerald eyes glared down at her through its shadows, glowing like tainted stars.

  Agatha smiled back, holding in tears.

  One day Sophie would understand why she’d done it.

  There, in a Blue Forest, far away from home, Agatha silently said good-bye to her best friend.

  Then she turned her back and moved on.

  Her prince was waiting.

  UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

  HarperCollins Publishers

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

  11

  Double Crossings

  “You two are very codependent,” Beatrix yawned from bed, squinting at Sophie perched on the blue-glass windowsill.

  “Just want to make sure she’s safe.” Sophie peered down at the two armored knights, one short, one tall, standing in the blue pumpkin patch near the Woods Gate.

  “You sound . . . like . . . a . . . prince . . . ,” Beatrix babbled before her breaths turned heavy, untroubled by the angry chants echoing outside.

  Sophie could barely see the source of these chants over the spiked gates, just snatches of the princes’ shadowed, distorted faces and shredded clothes. Nothing in this world was ever certain. Princes could become as frightening as ogres. Princesses could become villains. Best friends could become enemies.