She stabbed out her foot, jamming it just in time.
Professor Manley came by the Doom Room twice before supper, promising to feed Tedros if he told him where the Storian was. Tedros begged and pleaded for mercy . . . but he had no new answers. Manley left the prince hungry once more.
Light used to come through the sewers at sunset, when the sinking sun’s reflection over the bay fractured to slivers, spilling red-orange glow from the Good tunnels into Evil’s. Now the prince sat on his metal bed frame in perpetual darkness, listening to the churning moat slap against the rocks that blocked the two sides from each other. It’d been six days since he’d eaten. His heartbeat puttered sluggishly, like a dying piston. His empty stomach hurt so much he couldn’t stand. His teeth had started to chatter, even in the sweltering tunnels.
He wouldn’t survive punishment tonight.
The cell door unlocked and creaked open, but the prince didn’t look up. Not until he smelled the meat.
Filip slid a pail of braised lamb chops and mashed potatoes in front of him and stepped back.
“Told Manley it was for Castor,” he said, in his strange, affectedly low voice. “Told Castor it was for Manley.”
Tedros peered at the elfin prince, so strong and yet delicate, like a boy who wasn’t sure how to be one. He smiled too much, stood too close to the other boys, played with his hair excessively, ate in oddly small bites, kept touching his face like he was checking for pimples. . . . And yet strangest of all were those eyes—Filip’s big emerald eyes, sometimes ice-cold, sometimes deep and vulnerable, as if flickering between Good and Evil. Once upon a time, Tedros had been taken by eyes just like them.
He’d learned his lesson.
Tedros snatched the pail and flung the food against the stone wall, splattering Filip with grease. He dumped the pail to the floor with an ugly clang and sat back down on his bed, panting.
Filip said nothing and slouched down on the edge of his own bed.
The two cell mates hunched next to each other in dead silence . . . until the door creaked open once more and a dark shadow floated over them.
“No—” Filip gasped, looking up at Aric, a coiled whip on his belt. “You’ll kill him!”
“Late for Storian duty, aren’t you?” Aric sneered.
“Look at him!” Filip pressed, voice straining. “He can’t survive—”
But Aric’s violet eyes had drifted down to the empty pail near Tedros’ bed. He leered at the prince, fingering his whip. “Perhaps we’ll start with extra punishment tonight.”
“No!” Filip cried. “It’s my fault! Tedros, tell him!”
Tedros silenced him with a glare and turned away coldly.
Tedros heard Filip’s frantic breaths slow behind him, realizing he wasn’t wanted. Filip’s shadow hovered on the wall a moment longer, then finally slumped out of the cell.
“Hands on the bricks,” Aric ordered the prince.
Tedros turned and put his hands high on the rotted wall.
He heard the soft snap as Aric unhooked the whip from his belt and the panicked thumping of his own heart, telling him that one of these lashes would kill him. He didn’t want to die—not like this. Not worse than his father. Tears rising, limbs shaking, he looked up at Aric’s shadow on the wall, uncoiling the whip.
The shadowed hand rose with the handle and then swung full force, the first lash hissing towards his back—
Aric’s shadow lurched on the wall, and the whip cracked sickly against someone else’s skin.
Tedros spun around—
Filip had Aric by the throat against the bricks, the whip coiled around Filip’s bleeding forearm.
“Tell the teachers that if anyone tries to hurt him again, they’ll have to get through me,” Filip snarled.
Tedros blinked hard, unsure if he was alive or dead.
Under Filip’s tightening grip, Aric looked nervous—before he managed a cruel smile and wrenched away. “Just what we need in the Trial. Someone who puts loyalty first,” he said, leaving quickly. “I’ll talk to the teachers about finding you a more suitable room.”
“Fine right here!” Filip barked after him.
Tedros’ eyes were the size of marbles now. Slowly he turned to Filip, who bared his teeth, cheeks blushed furious red.
“Either you eat now, or I kill you myself,” his roommate lashed.
This time Tedros didn’t argue.
Agatha gazed up at the grandmother clock in the corner of the study.
Ten minutes before the next class break.
She peered around at the Dean’s office, which was strangely barren. Where Professor Dovey’s desk had once teemed with broken quills, ranking ledgers, and scrolls under pumpkin paperweights, Evelyn Sader’s desk was clean, empty mahogany, with only a tall, thin candle in its corner, the color of parchment.
Agatha hunched in the sturdy wooden chair behind the bare desk, each minute ticking by. She stared distractedly at the candlewick.
The Dean had arrived the day the School for Good and Evil became the School for Boys and Girls. Which meant her and Sophie’s fairy tale had killed the School Master—and then let an Evil teacher he’d banished back in.
But why?
Agatha thought back to what Dovey and Lesso had said. Sophie’s symptoms had come either from Evelyn or Sophie herself. There were no other suspects. Evelyn had been convicted of crimes against students before. Evelyn had been in the room for all of Sophie’s symptoms—the Beast . . . the wart . . . the corrupted Mogrif. . . . Why am I thinking about this? . . . Of course it had to be Evelyn. . . . It was Evelyn. . . .
And yet . . . if it wasn’t Evelyn . . .
Agatha closed her eyes, letting a dream back in. . . . He’d looked so calm, so happy, his golden hair haloed in snow. . . . She could see his crooked smile, his shirt laces undone, as they were when he once asked her to a ball in this very same school . . . as if everything since had been a wrong turn in their story . . . as if all of this was a big mistake. . . . She tasted his lips again as he held her, her heart fluttering against his, fluttering more than ever before—
Agatha’s eyes flashed open to the cold, empty office.
This time it was more than a dream.
Her heart was still wishing for Tedros.
Wishing even stronger.
Agatha scorched red. She was still wishing for her prince over her friend? Her loyal friend, who was risking her life to save them from the very same boy she was wishing for? Agatha pushed up angrily from the desk, hating the weak, foolish princess inside her, the princess she couldn’t silence—
Then slowly Agatha sat back down.
There was an odd, jagged wrinkle in the candle’s texture. She reached out and touched it, expecting to feel wax—only to feel paper instead. She pulled the candle closer and saw a camouflaged scroll bound tightly around it, tied with a small white string. Agatha tried to settle her emotions, knowing the Dean would be back any moment. She carefully untied the scroll, lifted it off the candle, and spread its parchment across the desk.
There were three pages.
The first was a map of the Blue Forest, the same map the students received every year in Forest Groups, with all the notable areas labeled: the Fernfield, Turquoise Thicket, Blue Brook . . .
Agatha noticed one of these areas circled in red pen, the lone marking on the page, strangely conspicuous. She stared at the circled label.
The Cyan Caves.
The teachers never mentioned the caves nor took students up there, presumably because there was no way up the jagged cliff face, nor any reason to explore empty caves. Why had the Dean marked them?
Agatha moved to the next sheet: a letter with a broken seal of a scarlet wax snake. It was dated today.
Dear Evelyn,
So that there is no room for ambiguity, here are the rules of the Trial.
Tomorrow at noon, I will meet you at the Blue Forest gates. As the acting Deans of our schools, each of us will have thirty minutes to lace traps i
nto the arena. The Cyan Caves are off-limits, as you request.
Given the high stakes involved, the traditional pre-Trial scout of the Forest will be canceled for both sides.
Ten competitors will participate from each school, and each may have one weapon of their choice. No others may enter and the Forest will be veiled from spectator view. All magical spells and talents are allowed.
If both boys and girls are still in the Forest when the sun rises, the Trial will continue until only boys or girls are left.
Regardless of outcome, Tedros’ original terms will be obeyed. If the girls win, the boys will surrender to your school as slaves. If the boys win, the Readers will be turned over to us for execution and the schools returned to Good and Evil.
Any violation of these rules will void the terms of the Trial and precipitate war.
Best of luck.
Professor Bilious Manley
Acting Dean, School for Boys
Agatha frowned, questions churning. Why had Evelyn wanted the Trial scout canceled? And why had she circled the caves if they were off-limits? She flipped to the third page, still silently fuming for even thinking of Tedros, let alone wishing for—
Her heart stopped.
In her hands was a long, tinily scrawled list of potion ingredients, followed by an even longer series of precise directions for brewing them, filling up every inch of an old, tattered page.
A page Yuba said he’d lost in a classroom weeks ago.
Now as Agatha stared at it here in the Dean’s office, a question burnt into her skull, searing away everything else.
Only the question wasn’t how Evelyn Sader had found the gnome’s recipe for Merlin’s lost spell.
The question was what she had done with it.
UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
HarperCollins Publishers
..................................................................
20
One Step Ahead
On his knees, Tedros snatched another lamb chop off the floor and ripped into it like a lion, shredding off the meat and flinging the bone onto the heap of others. After devouring six more, he clutched his stomach, slightly green, trying to hold it all down.
* * *
Art to come
* * *
The cell door squeaked open, and he looked up at Filip slicked with sweat, forearm streaked with dried blood, carrying two steaming mugs.
“Knew you’d overeat,” Filip said, and put down a mug of frothy liquid in front of him. “Bit of rice stewed in hot water calms the stomach. Wish we had some peppermint or fresh ginger—brew a nice digestif—”
Sophie saw Tedros staring and she cleared her throat with a macho grunt. “Drink up.”
Tedros stuck his tongue in the tea and put it down, frowning. “Late for Storian duty, aren’t you, Filip?”
“Told Manley I should interrogate you first,” Sophie said sternly as she sat facing him.
That’s why I saved his life, she scolded herself, resting her bulky shoulders against the wall. Because Tedros would tell her where the Storian was. That’s why. Not because she cared the slightest bit about him. She glared at him, muscles clenched, refocusing on the goal.
“Tell me where it is, Tedros.”
“For the last time, Tristan and I buried it to keep it away from Sophie and Agatha,” he snapped. “We hid it under a loose brick. I don’t know how it could have moved.” He saw Filip studying him and hung his head. “Look, I wouldn’t lie to you, Filip. Not after what you’ve done for me.”
“But who took it, then?” Sophie said, stomach turning. “Did they question Tristan—”
“Pfffft, he’d be the first one to hand it over to a teacher,” Tedros groused, kicking off his boots. “Besides, no one’s seen that mouse for weeks. Probably left before classes started. Never liked the other boys.”
“But Castor said we’re all doomed if we don’t find—”
“Because the pen reflects the soul of its master,” Tedros mumbled, slumping deeper. “If it gets into Dean Sader’s hands, you can bet there’ll be a lot of boys dying at the end of stories. Starting with mine.”
Mine. The word hit Sophie harder than the prospect of Woods-wide death. She had always thought of it as her story, with Tedros the villain in her way. But now she realized: Tedros thought it was his fairy tale—and that he deserved a happy ending just as much as she did.
“Agatha’s wish for you,” Sophie said quietly. “How did you hear it?”
Tedros paused, jaw clenching. “I was nine when my mother left. It was the middle of the night, and I was asleep in the opposite wing. I remember bolting up in a pool of sweat and stumbling to the window without knowing why, my heart feeling like it was ripped open. The last thing I saw was my mother on my favorite horse, galloping into the Woods.” He traced the space between bricks with his finger. “I woke up the same way when I felt Agatha’s wish. She wanted me to hear it, Filip.” His eyes watered. “And I believed it was true.”
Sophie fidgeted with her grubby nails. “Maybe it was true,” she said, almost to herself. “Maybe something just . . . got in the way.”
Tedros rubbed his eyes and sat up straighter. “You’re a good friend, Filip. You didn’t have to help me.”
Sophie shook her head. “I couldn’t let you die,” she breathed, unable to look at him. “I couldn’t.”
“Sophie said the same thing last year. Vowed to protect me in the Trial—then left me to die alone,” Tedros said, picking at a hole in his dirty black socks. “Suppose that’s the difference between a girl and a boy.”
Sophie finally looked up, blinking wide.
Tedros nodded. “Trust me, I know, Filip. She was every bit as Evil as the storybook says.”
Sophie swallowed. “Can you . . . tell me about her?”
“She was the most beautiful girl I’d ever seen—blond hair just like yours . . . and now that I think about it, green eyes a lot like yours too,” Tedros said, peering at Filip. His cell mate glanced away, uncomfortable, and Tedros quickly looked down. “But there was nothing beneath it. Every time I gave her a new chance, I saw more and more deceit. It was like she wanted a prince only to have one, caring nothing about who I actually was. I never knew what Agatha saw in her worth saving.”
“Perhaps you don’t know Agatha the way Sophie knows her.”
“I know Agatha used to be a Good soul who deserved happiness with a prince,” Tedros retorted. “Now she gave up true love for something masking as it. Sophie did that to her. Sophie ruined her.”
“Only because you made your princess choose,” Sophie shot back, elfish face flushing. “You’re responsible for your own fate, Tedros. Not Agatha. And not Sophie.”
Tedros grimaced and said nothing.
“Why can’t a girl have both?” Sophie asked softly. She looked at her boy’s face reflected in the bed frame. “Why can’t she have the love of her prince and the love of her best friend?”
“Because we grow up, Filip,” Tedros exhaled. “When you’re young, you think your best friend is everything. But once you find real love . . . it changes. Your friendship can never be the same after that. Because no matter how much you try to keep both, your loyalty can only lie with one.” He smiled sadly at his cellmate. “That’s Agatha’s greatest mistake. She can’t see that she and Sophie were doomed the moment she let herself love me.”
Sophie felt the wall of muscle encasing her new body slacken, as if Tedros had put words to the truth she’d been shutting out. That night, Agatha was supposed to kiss Tedros and live out her Ever After. That night, she herself was supposed to go home all alone, her only friend moved on to a boy.
But she’d rewritten their story. She’d held her best friend back.
At what cost?
“It’s too late,” Tedros breathed, resting his forehead on his clasped arms. “I won’t love someone again.”
“Maybe Sophie needs Agatha more than you need her,” his cell mate pressed, tears in
his eyes. “Maybe Agatha is the closest to love that Sophie will ever get. Maybe Sophie did the Good thing after all!”
Tedros raised his head, glowering.
“Don’t you see, Tedros? You’ll find someone else,” Filip said, voice shaky. “Sophie won’t.”
“You’re as bad as a Reader, Filip,” said Tedros darkly. “There’s only one true love. Only one.”
The boys gazed hard at each other before they turned away and sat in silence, two silhouettes beneath a dying torch.
Filip lurched up for the door. “Come on.”
“What?” Tedros blurted. “I’m not allowed to leave—”
“Difference between you and me.” Filip glared down at him. “You’re a prince who plays by rules. And I’m not.”
Tedros stared at his new friend waiting impatiently.
“Takes quite the boy to boss me around,” Tedros muttered, pulling himself up.
Filip held the door open. “You have no idea.”
On the rehearsal stage in the Supper Hall, Pollux barked at his cast of five baffled-looking Nevergirls heaped with white clown makeup and poorly fitted cheongsams. “For the last time, you are a living metaphor for the Trial . . . an embodiment of eons of female submission and objectification . . . a monument to a deadly Trial that may cost us lives—”
“This play looks more deadly than a Trial,” Dot murmured, readying the burkas and swan headdresses for the next act. She eyed Hester and Anadil, whispering while they painted one of the sets, an odd gap between them that Dot surmised must be Agatha. “If I’d known this was what Book Club would turn into, I’d have tried out for chorus,” she sighed, turning a swan feather to arugula before traipsing over to join their conversation.
“What could the Dean possibly be doing with Merlin’s spell?” Anadil was saying.
“Could she have used it herself?” Agatha said, slipping back her cape’s hood so they could just see her big brown eyes.
“First of all, we would have noticed if the Dean had turned herself into a man,” Hester returned. “Second, either be invisible or not. Your eyes are too big and sentimental to be taken seriously.”