فصل 14

Chapter 14

Merlin’s Lost Spell

With Christmastime coming, the butterflies used the night to pull tinsel and starry lights around the tallest pine tree in the Blue Forest, as if a deadly Trial shouldn’t deter from festive traditions.

By dawn, the boys had urinated on it from their windows and set it aflame.

As Lady Lesso awarded ranks, Sophie passed notes with Anadil and Hester about paths into the boys’ school. In the next aisle, Agatha leaned her frozen chair back, squinting at the faint marks on Sophie’s wrist.

It was only noon, but Trial Tryouts were in full swing. Each of the class challenges involved slaying phantom princes that the teachers conjured to be as vile as possible, lunging at the girls with zombified faces and sickening screams. Indeed, the teachers seemed to have lost all reluctance, with even Professor Anemone sanctioning the most vicious deaths. Lives were at stake now, and the teachers fully invested in finding the best possible team.

Sophie and Agatha resolved to act enthused through all of it so the Dean wouldn’t suspect their impending plans to escape. And indeed, Sophie played her part well, dispatching boy phantoms with alarming vengeance, cheering on her fellow classmates, and remaining immune from the frightening witch symptoms that had plagued her days before. Even more, Agatha noticed Sophie back to her jaunty old self now, chummily grabbing her arm between classes, romanticizing their coming return to Gavaldon, and acting as if Agatha’s visit to Tedros had simply never happened.

“Elders won’t hurt us if there’re no more attacks . . . and I’ll just spend time at your house instead of mine . . . ,” Sophie considered as they’d walked to Lesso’s. “Maybe I’ll even get my own show after all!” “As long as you don’t put me in it,” Agatha grouched before Sophie’s grin made her crack up.

Agatha wanted to be suspicious of it, to ask how Sophie could forgive her so easily—but Sophie just seemed so relieved and happy to have her best friend again.

Given all she’d caused with her wish, Agatha had even more motivation than Sophie to get out of this school. She racked her brain for ways into Tedros’ tower but always came up empty. Her frustration leaked into Tryouts, where she lashed out at boys like the witch-girl of old, stabbing phantoms through, setting them on fire, watching coldly as they shattered to dust. By the third challenge, all the reasons she’d once hated Tedros came roaring back—his arrogance, his recklessness, his hotheaded immaturity— And yet . . . why did Dot’s question still nag at her?

There was no missing piece, Agatha assured herself. Tedros had attacked her. Tedros ruined their fairy tale.

Her soul’s wish for him had been wrong.

And yet . . . Agatha found herself tilting farther in her chair, Sophie’s hand still too far away to see. She reclined even more, teetering on one chair leg, until Hester’s iced desktop was in front of Sophie’s wrist, magnifying it like a lens. Agatha’s eyes widened, recognizing the faint wounds in her friend’s creamy skin, patterned with deep needle pricks.

Spirick cuts.

Where had Sophie encountered spiricks?

In the Woods, of course, Agatha reminded herself. That’s where they’d attacked her, hadn’t they? And yet, Sophie’s wounds still looked fresh . . .

Sophie turned to her, and Agatha’s chair nearly toppled. “Come to the library with me?” Sophie smiled, helping her up. “Ten minutes before fourth session. We can look at spying spells!” Agatha smiled back and grabbed her bag, shoving spiricks from her mind.

No more doubts. No more distrust, she thought, following her best friend upstairs.

She’d learned her lesson with the wart.

Melting black candles lined the walls of Evil Hall, with yellow-green flames the color of snake eyes.

In the center of the room, twelve white coffin beds lay in a row, each with the body of a male teacher from Good or Evil. Tanned, mustached Professor Espada, who taught Swordplay to Everboys; pimpled, bald Professor Manley, who taught Uglification to Neverboys; wizened, doddering Professor Lukas, who taught Chivalry; Castor, who led Henchmen Training, his brother Pollux’s head missing from their two-headed dog body; Beezle, Evil’s red-skinned dwarf, next to a pack of Forest Group leaders—an ogre, a centaur, and a sprite among them; even Albemarle, the spectacled woodpecker who’d once tallied Good’s rankings . . . all breathing in sync, their sleeping faces peaceful.

On the floor in front of them, Tristan slouched, surrounded by open spellbooks from the Library of Vice. “We’ve been up all night,” he yawned, pawing his red hair. “The Dean’s magic is too strong.” “Well, we’ll all be slaves unless we break it,” Tedros mumbled, rifling pages of Sleep No More. “You don’t know what they’re like together, those two girls. They’ll make mincemeat of us if the boys don’t get behind this Trial and start Tryouts now.” He grabbed another book. “But we need our teachers back if we’re to have any chance of winning.” “How about I go and check on the Storian?” Tristan said quickly. “Just to make sure—” “Look, it’s a sleeping curse. It has to have a cure.”

“Not unless you have a man-wolf handy,” Tristan snorted, tossing aside Spells for Sleeping Beauties.

Tedros closed his last book a moment later. He saw the dark circles under Tristan’s eyes, obscuring his freckles. “All right,” the prince caved, standing up. “Let’s go back—” He suddenly noticed the book Tristan had tossed, open to a cobwebbed page. Tedros slid it closer with his foot.

Chapter 14

Sleep Spell Counter-Curses

*Author’s Note: The sleep curse remedies in this and most books are applicable exclusively to slumbering maidens, since they are the most likely victims. Males, of course, can be roused only by a man-wolf’s scream. (In absence of a live man-wolf, you may puree the lungs of a dead one and pour the draft into the sleeping man’s ear.) The Waking Princess Elixir

Ingredients

2 cat claws

1 bushel of fresh mint

“Hate to tell you,” said Tristan impatiently, “but Sader told us last year. Man-wolves only live in Bloodbrook—” “Funny.” Tedros looked up, eyes twinkling. “Isn’t that where Hort’s from?” Sophie flung The Sneak and Spy Handbook onto a heap of discarded books and squinted up at the Library of Virtue’s two-floor gold coliseum, dominated by a sundial clock. “It will take us months to go through all these!” “They’re all the same spells,” Agatha frowned, sitting at her table and paging through Snoop Spells, Volume 2. “Invisibility, disguise, advanced Mogrifications—nothing they wouldn’t expect. We need to be in the boys’ school long enough to break into Tedros’ tower. Could take us days.” “Days? With those dirty princes? We’ll die of fumes,” Sophie moaned. She squinted at the leathery tortoise behind the reception desk, asleep on a massive library log. “Is that thing ever awake?” She turned and saw Agatha frowning at a few butterflies that had fluttered in. “Don’t fret,” Sophie whispered. “We’re the perfect team, remember? Think of how you sneaked into the Trial last year.” “This is different, Sophie. We need help,” Agatha said quickly. “And as long as the Dean’s listening, we can’t get it.” With their schedules separating, Sophie headed to Female Talents with Hester and Anadil, while Agatha caught up with Dot in History of Heroines.

“Still nothing?” Dot said, seeing Agatha’s face as she settled next to her in Good Hall’s calcified pews. “Daddy would know what to do, but he’s on the run from Maid Marian. She’s enslaving all the men in Sherwood Forest after she found out Robin has a wandering eye.” Dot sighed. “Coulda told her that myself.” Kiko’s head poked beside Agatha’s from the pew behind. “Eeee! You finally get to see the best class! Wish you were here the first week. We went inside Cinderella’s story—did you know she just married her prince until he signed his kingdom over to her? Then she had him thrown in the dungeons and ruled herself, pretending their marriage was happy. Turns out boys have been covering up the truth about fairy tales for ages, just to make girls seem weak and stupid. Then we went inside Goldilocks’ story and watched her tame the three bears and turn them into fur coats, and then we went inside Snow White’s, when she poisoned those sexist dwarfs with apples—” “Huh?” Agatha said, confounded. “First off, nothing you just said sounds anything like the ‘truth.’ Second of all, how do you go inside stories?” Kiko smiled mischievously. “You’ll see.”

The Dean clacked in through the double doors, heels echoing on stone. “In addition to attacking our team, the boys will no doubt lace the Blue Forest with deadly traps—as will we,” she said, hips swishing up the aisle to the wooden lectern. “But a boy’s mind is perhaps the deadliest trap, girls. When their dignity is on the line, they will resort to desperate tactics, perverse and unimaginable. You must be prepared.” From inside the lectern, she pulled a massively thick text—A Student’s Revised History of the Woods, by August Sader—and opened to a page in the middle. The Dean’s disembodied voice boomed over the hall, as if coming out of the book: “’Chapter 26: The Rise and Fall of King Arthur.’”

In a tiny cloud of mist, a ghostly three-dimensional scene melted into view atop the book page . . . a silent living diorama of King Arthur in his gold crown and night robe, stalking through the halls of Camelot.

Agatha could hardly see it from the back of the pews. “It’s so small—” “Wait,” Kiko said behind her.

The Dean raised up the book and, with a gap-toothed grin, blew on the phantom scene. With a fizzling whoosh, the scene shattered into a million glittered shards and crashed over the students like a glass sandstorm. Agatha shielded her eyes and felt her body floating through space, until her feet touched ground. She slowly peeked through her fingers. . . .

Good Hall had disappeared, along with the pews and the rest of the girls. She was standing in a dark-wood chamber hall, the air thick and hazy around her, giving the room a vaporous feel, as if it wasn’t quite real. She squinted and saw a bearded, powerfully built gray-haired man in a wolf-fur night robe and gold crown tiptoeing towards her. . . .

Agatha gasped. Kiko was right. She was inside the book’s scene.

Her hand reached through the smoky air towards a wall painted with paisley bronze patterns, and her fingers went straight through like a ghost’s. King Arthur slipped past her, flickering and distorting slightly like a phantom, bare feet pattering across the rose-colored carpet towards the end of the hall. Agatha recognized him from the square jaw and crystal-blue eyes he’d passed on, as well as the gold-hilted sword tucked into his robe. The same sword she’d taken from his son’s hands two nights before.

“Arthur met Guinevere at the School for Good and Evil before he became king,” the Dean’s voice narrated. “From the day they met, he knew she despised him. Still he forced her into marriage, for boys are brutal, ruthless creatures—and none more than Arthur.” Agatha squinted hard at the phantom king. Was any of this the truth? Or just another of the Dean’s twisted tales?

She watched Arthur approach the last door in the hall, the king careful not to make a sound. . . .

“Guinevere had one condition, however: that each night, she and the king sleep in separate chambers,” the Dean continued. “Arthur could not deny the request, for Guinevere behaved the perfect wife and birthed him the wretched son he’d always wanted. Yet still the king couldn’t sleep. Night after night, Arthur tried to see inside his queen’s room, but her door was always locked. Until one night . . .” Now Agatha saw what the king had. Tonight, the queen’s door was cracked open. Following behind Arthur, Agatha leaned over him and peeked through it. . . .

Just in time to see Guinevere sneak out her window, slide down its curtain, and disappear into the night.

“The next morning, the queen was at breakfast, smiling and agreeable as always,” the Dean’s voice said. “Arthur said nothing of what he’d seen.” The scene vanished around Agatha, instantly replaced by a dusty cave, littered with burbling laboratory vessels, shelves of murky vials and jars, and dozens of half-filled notebooks. Now Arthur was arguing with an ancient, scrawny man, a stark white beard down to his stomach.

“Arthur tried invisibility, trail tracking, Mogrification—everything he’d learned at the School for Good—but still couldn’t find where Guinevere disappeared to each night. His lifelong adviser, Merlin, refused to help, insisting matters of the heart were beyond magic. . . .” Merlin stormed out of his cave. Arthur pursued him but stopped suddenly. He peered closer at one of Merlin’s open notebooks and took it into his hands. . . .

“Then Arthur saw something Merlin had been brewing down in his lair. . . .” Arthur’s eyes flared wider . . .

“Something so daring, so dangerous he knew it was his only chance. . . .” Hands trembling, Arthur ripped out the page.

The scene flashed to a hooded figure in a forest, galloping past Agatha on a black horse, camouflaged by the night.

“That evening, Arthur had guards seal Guinevere’s windows. Cloaked in a hood, he climbed out from the adjacent room to find a horse waiting. . . .” The horse came to a stop in a pitch-dark clearing. Agatha watched a thin, shadowed man creep out from behind a far tree and slowly approach the horse’s rider. But shrouded completely in his cloak and hood, King Arthur didn’t dismount. He just waited as the shadowy man grew closer . . . closer . . . each unable to see the other . . . until Agatha finally saw moonlight spill on the shadowed man’s light-brown skin, hooked nose, and knight’s uniform.

“It was Lancelot. The friend Arthur loved so much he called him a brother. The man Guinevere had come to every night.” Lancelot drew nearer to the horse, the hooded cloak still drawn over the rider’s face. Lancelot hesitated, sensing something wrong . . . but then saw delicate white slippered feet peeking from beneath the rider’s cloak. Agatha stared at these girlish feet, confused, as Lancelot smiled lovingly and moved closer to the horse. Agatha watched as Lancelot reached up . . . gently pulled back the rider’s hood . . . revealing King Arthur’s crystal-blue eyes. . . .

Agatha choked.

His eyes weren’t a man’s anymore.

In a flash, Arthur drew a blade, stabbing Lancelot’s stomach. The horse sprinted away, returning the king back to the castle.

The scene melted to vapors and Agatha was back in Good Hall with the silent, stunned class.

“The spell made King Arthur a girl?” Beatrix cried, aghast. “A boy—became—a girl?” “Just long enough for the king to see his queen had made a fool of him,” the Dean said. “But by the time Arthur reverted from the spell and returned to Camelot, Guinevere was gone. He sent his men to finish off Lancelot, but the knight too had vanished. Neither he nor the queen was ever seen again.” Agatha couldn’t breathe, still questioning everything she’d just seen. And yet she needed this story to be true—she needed it to save her and Sophie’s life—she needed— “The spell!” she blurted, lurching to her feet. “Where’s Merlin’s spell!” “Lost, like all of his spells, of course,” the Dean replied, closing the book. “But the spell is hardly the point, dear.” She looked up at Agatha with a daring smile. “It’s that a boy was clever and disciplined enough to find it.” As Agatha sank down, girls buzzed feverishly around her, dissecting every moment of their trip through time.

“Told you it was a good class,” Kiko whispered behind her.

But Agatha slumped deeper, for all it’d given her was more dead ends. Her and Sophie’s only hope was that the baboonish boys she’d seen across the bay, lacking in cleverness or discipline, had hit a dead end of their own.

“I want to be on the Trial team,” said Hort, still in underpants, voice resounding in Evil Hall. “That’s my condition.” “Sorry, Hort, but we need the strongest boys,” said Tedros, after he’d sent Tristan away for this negotiation. “That’s why we brought in the princes. Only Aric and I don’t have to try out—” “You need a man-wolf scream? You need my villain talent? Then give me a spot on the team,” Hort snapped. He looked down at his underpants. “And a new uniform.” “Look, it’s just one scream—”

“No, you look! My dad said villains can’t love, and I tried to love,” Hort said, beady eyes gluing to the floor. “Chasing after Sophie like I was an Ever when I’m just . . . well, look at me.” He rubbed at his whiskery cheeks. “Made a fool of myself . . . and my dad. Least I can do is win the treasure and bury him. You understand that, don’t you?” He looked up at Tedros. “Trying to make him proud, even if he’s dead?” Tedros’ jaw softened. He could see the flush across Hort’s chest, his bottom lip trembling. The boy had been born with none of his good fortune, and yet they were so much the same.

“No one will fight like me,” Hort pleaded, looking like a shivering squirrel. “No one.” The prince folded his arms, trying valiantly to ignore him. “Hort, these girls want me dead. This isn’t like last year. This is a real Trial, with all our lives at stake, and I’m the leader of this school and responsible for the boys’ safety and they’re already revolting over the fact they might end up slaves—” Hort was whimpering like a homeless puppy. Tedros gritted his teeth.

“So what would it look like if I just—if I—if—if—”

The prince slumped, exhaling. “Aric will shoot me.”

Hort beamed sharp yellow teeth. He whirled to the sleeping teachers, unleashing a scream so primal his body jerked into contortions and so loud that Tedros quailed against the wall, covering his ears. By the time the prince looked up, Hort wasn’t human anymore. He was swathed in a man-wolf’s dark fur over bulging muscles, erect on two legs, roaring and roaring until he finally ran out of breath.

“Told you I last longer,” Hort growled as he listened proudly to boys’ terrified shouts upstairs, torn from their sleep.

They weren’t the only ones woken.

Slowly the teachers stirred in their coffins, one by one. Manley was the first to rise, jowly, pockmarked face flickering in torchlight.

Tedros grinned and extended his hand. “Professor, welcome back to the School for Boy—” “Fine mess you’ve gotten yourself into. A castle full of filthy strangers. A Trial with ludicrous terms. Terms you trapped us into once the girls agreed,” Manley sneered, tramping for the door. “Slaves to girls? Imagine what the stories would look like with the Storian in Dean Sader’s hands. Men dying at the end of every tale. Men on a losing streak worse than Evil’s.” “And yet a silver lining if we win,” Professor Espada said, glowering at the two boys as his pointy black boots hit the ground. “Win this Trial, and those two cursed Readers die. Their fairy tale instantly undone . . . our schools back to Good and Evil, like they always were.” “Ten days to right this ship, then,” Albemarle the woodpecker said, trailing after them with the rest of the Forest Group leaders. “I’ll prepare the schedules.” “I’ll ready the classrooms,” said Chivalry’s Professor Lukas.

“AND I’LL WAKE THE SORRY LOSERS UP,” Castor roared, shaking out his fur.

Beezle burped with glee and ran after him.

“But—but what about me?” Tedros called behind them—

“You can compete for the Trial team like everyone else,” Manley spat back.

“Compete?” Tedros blurted.

“How about me!” Hort spluttered, shrinking to human. “He s-s-s-said—” “He ain’t in charge anymore.” Manley’s voice echoed as he vanished down the hall’s stairs.

Hort glowered at Tedros, betrayed. The prince went red, straining for voice. “But how—how did they know—” Castor swiveled from the door, rabid and bloodshot.

“JUST ‘CAUSE WE’RE ASLEEP DON’T MEAN WE CAN’T HEAR.”

For five nights, Sophie, Agatha, and the witches met in the Supper Hall for Book Club, debating possible schemes to get the Storian and wish themselves home. And yet none seemed without serious risk. With each passing day, Agatha grew more and more doubtful of every new spell, Sophie more and more sharp with her, and both more and more convinced the Trial would happen as planned. Together they decided that come the 6th night, they’d pick a plan, for their time was running short.

At half past eight, Agatha and Dot swept down to the Supper Hall, frantically comparing spells, only to find Sophie, Hester, and Anadil standing outside the door.

“We have a problem.” Hester stepped aside, revealing the sign pasted over their book club’s.

PLAY AUDITIONS TONIGHT

A Pageant History of

Female Accomplishment

Note: If no one shows, there will be no play.

*Challenge exemptions for all those who do not show.

Professor Sheeks, Play Director

*Challenge exemptions are prohibited, per the Dean.

Pollux, Play Director’s Supervisor and Creative Consultant

“Can’t we move somewhere else?” Dot asked.

“It’s the only place butterflies don’t come,” worried Sophie. “We’ve already lost a week. We need a plan tonight.” The girls fell quiet.

“Guess we’re all auditioning for A Pageant History of Female Accomplishment,” Agatha crabbed. Then she caught Sophie’s excited look and frowned. “You’re not getting a part.” Ten minutes later, Sophie was cavorting in front of the curtain on a makeshift stage in the Supper Hall, delivering an inexplicable monologue in an inexplicable accent. “Hear me, Prrrrrince Humperdink! Do naht be fooled bah mah beauhty and charrrm. I ahm a simple woman. Simple in mahnd, simple in hearrrt—but do naht take thaht for simple in spirrrit.” She looked down at Professor Sheeks and Pollux’s head, perched on the table, both blinking at her.

“I thought it was quite good,” Pollux wisped.

A hand yanked her behind the curtain.

“Was it too subtle?” Sophie said, eyeing the paltry line of girls waiting their turns.

“The only thing subtle is your chance to live,” Hester seethed. “We’re deciding on a plan and we’re deciding on a plan now. Everyone give their best idea.” “I found a Spyder Sling Spell that sticks you to ceilings,” Anadil offered, leaning against the window. “You could hide in the vents for days.” “And where do I bathe?” said Sophie. “Where do I eat?”

“You eat?” Anadil said, gaping.

“We could send my demon to steal the pen,” Hester mulled. “Surely he’ll get past the shield.” “And if he gets caught? Your demon dies and so do you,” Sophie returned. “And now that I think about it, it’s a lovely idea.” “What if I turn you into vegetables?” Dot offered. “Boys don’t eat vegetables.” Everyone stared at her.

“Aggie?” Sophie said. “Surely you found something?”

Agatha had been quietly shifting in her clumps during all this, for she had been counting on the witches to find something foolproof. But now she had to face what she’d suspected all along.

“There isn’t anything safe, no matter what we choose,” she said. She looked up at Sophie, tearing. “This is my fault—we’re going to end up in that Trial, and it’s my fault—” “But—but—we can’t die, Aggie,” Sophie rasped. “Not when we’re finally friends again.” Agatha shook her head. “They’ll find us, Sophie. Any of these spells—they’ll find us. . . .” She stopped, because her eyes had caught something out the window.

“Aggie?” Sophie asked.

Agatha put her hands on the window as the witches crowded around her.

“Oh, it’s just Helga,” Sophie huffed, watching the frumpy, lavender-dressed gnome scurrying through the Blue Forest to her burrow by the brook. “Strange, though. She looks skinnier. . . . I didn’t know gnomes go on diets. And her hair is different too! Looks like . . . like a . . .” Now all the girls pressed their noses to the glass in shock.

“It can’t be,” Hester gasped.

For as the gnome slid back into Helga’s burrow in Helga’s dress and Helga’s hat, a face that wasn’t Helga’s peeked up through the hole to make sure no one saw it.

“It was a girl during class—it’s been a girl every day,” Dot said. “It’s impossible!” But it wasn’t, Agatha thought, mirroring a Dean’s daring smile. For she’d seen the spell that had made it possible, lost and now found.

The spell that had hidden Yuba in the enemy’s castle all this time.

And the spell that would now help her and Sophie do the same.