“Bring back a l-l-life?” Sophie stammered in shock.
Behind her, Agatha screamed until her voice broke—
“Just as once upon a time, you were brought back to life by your friend’s kiss. A kiss of love,” Sophie’s mother said. “But that ending didn’t last, did it? Now it’s your turn to find your real true love.”
“But no one loves me,” Sophie grieved. “Not even Agatha.”
“I love you, Sophie. But you don’t have to end like me,” consoled her mother. “For there is someone who loves you more than Agatha ever did. Someone who loves you for who you really are.”
Agatha frantically chewed her willow-bark gag—
“Is it you? Are you my true love?” Sophie asked her mother, eyes wide.
Her mother smiled. “You’ll just have to trust me.”
“I do trust you,” said Sophie, tears running. “You’re the only one who knows who I am.”
“Then kiss me, Sophie, and do not break it,” Sophie’s mother warned. “Break the kiss, and you will lose your last chance at love.”
Agatha bit harder on the gagging branch, trying to snap it—
Sophie stepped towards her mother’s ghost, heart hammering.
Agatha felt the willow splinter—
“Kiss me now, Sophie,” said her mother. “Before it’s too late.”
Agatha spit out the gag. “SOPHIE, DON’T!” she screamed—
But in the waning moonlight, Sophie pressed her lips to her mother’s, her face softening, glowing with faith that happiness was coming . . . that this, her very first kiss, would at last bring her the end she deserved. . . .
But then the kiss turned colder, harder, and Sophie saw her mother’s phantom face shriveling and rotting as if turning a thousand years old, its skin flaking off a maggoty, pockmarked skull. Stunned, Sophie wanted to break away but, remembering her mother’s warning, held her lips to the icy chill, praying for love that would never leave her, love deeper than a prince’s or a friend’s. Slowly, the skin started to firm over like white marble, as the face lost its phantom glow, smoothing younger, younger—until Sophie gasped with recognition, and stumbled back, a boy’s real lips parting from hers.
Bare, ivory-fleshed feet stepped onto the ground, dark blue grass prickling between the toes. The School Master raised his head, unmasked in his billowing blue robes, his young chiseled face flawless and ghostly pale, his hair a shock of thick white hair.
Agatha and Tedros both quailed breathless against the tree, finding each other’s hands beneath their binds.
Sophie looked up at the School Master, restored to life, more beautiful than any boy she’d ever known. “You—you did all this . . .”
“For you,” the School Master whispered. He touched her cheek with long, glacial fingers. “I told you, Sophie. You’ll always be mine.”
“You don’t want him!” Agatha screamed out from the tree. “Take it back, Sophie! He’s Evil, Sophie! Pure Evil! You can still take it back! It isn’t The End yet!”
Sophie finally looked at her, tears falling. As she met Agatha’s scared eyes, reflecting a venomous villain, the moment was suddenly real. Sophie shook her head, heart breaking. Agatha was right—she had to stop this, she had to disavow this Evil, she had to take all of this back—
But then Sophie saw her friend’s small hand in the strong, warm palm of a prince.
And she knew there was no Agatha anymore.
As the School Master pulled her closer into his hard, icy grip, Sophie didn’t move.
Agatha blanched in shock.
“What about me?” a voice said.
The School Master turned to Evelyn, blushing anxiously. “Brought your true love back,” she preened. “Just like you asked, Master.”
“Indeed. No doubt your brother foresaw you’d be useful for this purpose.” The School Master grinned, frost-blue eyes meeting hers. “Ensuring my love returned safe and sound.”
Evelyn smiled back at him proudly. But then her face began to change . . . as the School Master’s eyes inflamed red, burning deeper into hers. Evelyn seized at her heart as if it’d stopped beating, choking a last, empty breath.
“And now that purpose is fulfilled,” said the School Master, clutching Sophie tighter.
Evelyn fell to the ground, shattering to a thousand dead red butterflies. The swarm trapping the Storian shriveled and plummeted too, dropping the Storian into the School Master’s ready hands.
He looked up at Agatha and Tedros bound together to a tree.
“Now where were we?”
He released the Storian from his grip, watching the pen somersault to the suspended storybook and erase the aborted last words below Agatha and Tedros’ kiss. Instantly it conjured a new page, sweeping a brilliant painting of Sophie and the School Master’s kiss across it, recarving once bold, erased words beneath—
THE EN—
“Sophie, no!” Agatha roared—
The Storian carved the final, unmistakable letter, and the storybook closed, falling softly into the grass with barely a sound.
Agatha slowly raised her eyes to see the School Master leering at her, his arm around Sophie.
“One . . .” he smiled.
The two schools above the Forest suddenly rotted vulturous black, neither one distinguishable from the other, both darker, scarier than the Evil of old—
“Two . . .”
The gap in Halfway Bridge instantly healed, and boys and girls charged at each other, weapons drawn, accelerating towards war—
The School Master grinned at Agatha. “Three.”
Agatha instantly started to shimmer, about to disappear.
“Wait!” Tedros screamed into his gag—
“It’s sending me home!” Agatha shrieked to her prince, her body fading faster. “Sophie’s kiss! It’s sending me back home—” She whirled to Sophie, hearing a town clock toll. “Sophie, help me stay! Take my hand and help me stay!”
But Sophie stayed by the School Master’s side, her eyes welling.
“He chose me, Agatha,” she said softly. “And you didn’t.”
Agatha cried out in horror, her body almost translucent now—
“I do believe I owe your friend a favor,” School Master smiled, prying off Sophie. “After all, Agatha did try to take my true love.”
The School Master pulled Tedros’ sword off the ground. Terrified, Tedros thrashed under his binds.
Agatha gasped in shock—
“Fitting,” the School Master mused, inspecting Excalibur. “Dying on your father’s sword.” He raised it high over the prince and stabbed, eyes flashing red—
“NO!” Agatha screamed, splintering to light—
As the blade split open Tedros’ shirt, Agatha seized her prince’s hand, and the sword slashed through thin air, Tedros shimmering safe in Agatha’s arms.
Vanishing home with her prince, Agatha watched the School Master sneer at her and clasp Sophie in his cold, stone grip as they floated off the ground, receding towards his tower in the sky. Sophie and Agatha locked eyes one last time, but neither screamed for the other.
Once true loves, two girls now pulled apart like strangers, each in the arms of a boy, Good with Good, Evil with Evil . . .
Both of their wishes granted.
UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
HarperCollins Publishers
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About the Author
SOMAN CHAINANI’s first novel, The School for Good and Evil, debuted on the New York Times bestseller list, has been translated into languages across six continents, and will soon be a major motion picture from Universal Pictures. As a graduate of Harvard University and Columbia University’s MFA Film Program, Soman has made films that have played at over 150 festivals around the world, and his writing awards include an honor from the Sun Valley Writers’ Conference. He lives in New York City. You can visit Soman at www.somanchainani.net.
UNCORRE
CTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
HarperCollins Publishers
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Also by Soman Chainani
IN THE FOREST PRIMEVAL
A SCHOOL FOR GOOD AND EVIL
TWO TOWERS LIKE TWIN HEADS
ONE FOR THE PURE
ONE FOR THE WICKED
TRY TO ESCAPE YOU’LL ALWAYS FAIL
THE ONLY WAY OUT IS
THROUGH A FAIRY TALE
UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
HarperCollins Publishers
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Copyright
THE SCHOOL FOR GOOD AND EVIL #2: A WORLD WITHOUT PRINCES. Text copyright © 2014 by Soman Chainani. Illustrations copyright © 2014 by Iacopo Bruno. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
www.harpercollinschildrens.com
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.
ISBN 978-0-06-210492-2 (trade bdg.) – ISBN 978-0-06-233135-9 (international ed.)
ISBN 978-0-06-234072-6 (B&N ed.)
EPub Edition January 2014 ISBN 9780062302021
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FIRST EDITION
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Soman Chainani, A World Without Princes
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