فصل 19

Chapter19

Two Days Left

The boys in line for breakfast gave Filip a wide berth when he shoved by, covered in dust and ash, eyes bloodshot and bruised, smelling like a barn in summer.

As the enchanted pots in Evil’s Supper Hall slopped scrambled eggs and a mountain of bacon into her rusty pail, Sophie blinked back tears, reminding herself that boys don’t cry. She should be home by now—back in her own skin, Agatha at her side, The End written and sealed. And yet here she was, with her elephant shoulders, hairy legs, and hormonal rages, letting pots heap greasy bacon that the boy hijacking her body couldn’t wait to eat.

Last night, Manley had been waiting for her when she climbed in for Storian duty. “Already searched a thousand times,” he scoffed. “Castor thinks we need young eyes.” Sophie grimaced at the plundered mess once he left, a heap of broken bricks, fallen fairy tales, dust and soot—but still had hope she’d succeed where they failed. She spent the entire night scouring the School Master’s chamber, tearing up loose bricks, muscling behind bookshelves, shaking out fairy tale after fairy tale, while her and Agatha’s storybook seemed to leer at her from atop the stone table. In the end, when Castor appeared at first light, she faced him empty-handed, like the rest.

“A useless prince. What a surprise,” the dog snapped, kicking at a few loose silver bricks with his paw. “Pen has to be in this room, or the tower wouldn’t still be here.” He looked out the window at the glass castle across the bay. “Pollux would have loved a good game of hide-and-seek. Two heads better than one for this kind of thing.” His big black eyes seemed to mist up. . . .

“Let me keep looking,” said Sophie quickly, shaking out The Ugly Duckling— “You had your chance, Filip,” Castor growled, shoving her towards the window.

Sophie nodded and slumped onto the blond-haired rope, knowing she’d failed her mission.

“Tell Tedros he better pray we find it,” Castor said behind her. “Storian falls into the Dean’s hands and all of us are doomed.” Sophie slid quietly down the sunlit hair.

Now she dumped herself at a small round iron table, sore from crouching and digging, and wolfed down fistfuls of bacon and eggs, no longer in control of either her hands or manners. Had Tedros lied to Manley and hidden the pen to keep it from her and Agatha? Or was he telling the truth—that someone else had found and hidden it? In which case, who? And where?

“Storian ain’t your problem, mate,” Chaddick said, plopping down at the table, his eggs doused in chili sauce. “Teachers tried for a week. Just using boys as slave labor now.” “Why’d you think the new princes helped you cheat too?” chimed Nicholas, chomping crispy bacon as he sat down. “No one wants Storian duty.” “Worth it though to see Aric’s scowl when you won first day,” Ravan smirked, squeezing in with Vex and Brone. “Lucky he’ll be on your team. Already planning on murdering the girls in the Trial instead of making them surrender.” Sophie stiffened, seeing Aric at the head table with his henchmen, all eating triple portions. Two days until she and Agatha went into the Trial against those brutes. She had to find that pen tonight.

“Bet Tedros didn’t expect a tag team yesterday,” Vex said to her, pointy ears wagging. “All of us makin’ sure you beat the stuffin’ out of him.” “How about an encore today?” Sophie simpered anxiously—

Chaddick snorted. “First off, an encore? Never heard that out of a boy’s mouth who wasn’t an apple tart. Second, think it’s about time you handled your own self. Don’t want you in the Trial if you don’t deserve to be there . . . slavery on the line and all.” Sophie reddened. How could she get back on Storian duty if she didn’t have help? She shoveled eggs into her mouth, trying to avoid any further blunders— “Hi Filip!”

She looked up to see Hort try to sit next to her.

“No room,” said Chaddick, scooting over and blocking him.

Drowning in his oversized uniform, his pouty lip quivering, Hort looked like a child spurned from his own birthday party. He gave a weaselly whimper and trudged away.

Sophie’s eyes flared. “Hort! Sit here!”

Hort turned, beaming, and plunked next to her, ignoring all the other boys’ grumbles. “Do you want my bacon?” he yakked, sliding his pail to Filip. “Can’t touch the stuff. Dad gave me a pet pig once and said I’d have to kill it someday—it’s what most Evil parents do, make their kids eat their pets—” “Tedros might beat me today, Hort,” Sophie whispered, trying to sound guileless. “What do I do?” “That’s what best friends are for, Filip,” Hort whispered back mischievously. “Um, and to tell you that you cross your legs like a girl—” “You’ll help me?” Sophie brightened, breathing relief.

“Just like you’ll help me when the time comes,” said Hort, suddenly looking very serious.

Sophie smiled tightly and dug into his bacon, praying she and her real best friend would be long gone before she ever found out what this weenie expected in return.

I must have missed a corner last night, Sophie thought, hastening through the sewers as she bit into an apple. The Storian was so thin and sharp it could be stashed in the cracks between silver bricks or even in the cloth of a book spine. And yet, wouldn’t she have heard it thrashing and struggling somewhere?

Temples throbbing, Sophie turned the corner past the churning red moat. Tonight she’d look harder. She pulled open the door to the Doom Room, desperate for a few minutes of sleep before class— Tedros looked up from his bed, stopping her in her tracks.

His eyes were puffy and red, dark bags beneath them. His skin had gone from tan to ghostly pale, the veins showing through, and Sophie could see his shivering, starved muscles taut over jutting bones. There were no bruises on him. No wounds or welts. And yet, everything in his eyes said he’d been tortured beyond what a boy could handle.

“What did Aric do to you?” she said softly.

Tedros bent over, face in his hands.

Sophie walked up to him and held out her half-eaten fruit. “Please—” Tedros smacked it out of her palm, and the apple skidded to a filthy corner. “Get away from me,” he whispered.

“You have to eat someth—”

“GET AWAY FROM ME!” he screamed into her face, his cheeks red as blood.

Sophie fled the cell as fast as she could, his echoes chasing her all the way.

“I can’t do it. I can’t cheat,” Sophie said to Hort as they headed into Evil Hall for Weapons Training. “Not if it means he’s tortured again.” “Well, do you want Aric to torture you?” Hort snapped.

Sophie fell quiet, looking back at Tedros clutching his own arms, barely able to walk. Guilt rose into her throat— What’s wrong with me! she scolded, turning around. Why was she caring about Tedros? Why was she worrying about a boy who wanted her dead?

“Fine, stick with the plan,” she gritted to Hort.

“There’s my best friend,” Hort beamed chummily. “We’ll make a great pair in the Trial, won’t we?” Sophie frowned. “Hort, you’re not even close to making the Trial tea—” But the weasel was already whistling and motoring ahead.

For the first three Tryouts, Hort’s deftness at cheating and Sophie’s skills as an actress helped her win first rank each time, without any of the teachers or boys noticing. Hort magically moved her arrow to the phantom princess’s heart in the Archery tryout, charaded answers during a Do You Know Your Monsters? oral quiz, and tasted her plant leaves during a Poisoned Or Palatable? survival challenge so she’d emerge unscathed. By lunch, Sophie caught all the boys eyeing Filip of Mount Honora with newfound respect, as if he surely deserved a spot on the Trial team. Even Aric’s glares looked less baleful, as if a teammate like Filip was the reason he’d brought the new princes through the shield in the first place.

But Tedros knew Filip was still cheating. He didn’t say a word to the boys or to the teachers, but Sophie saw him glowering darker at her after every new tryout, as if he’d never seen anyone so Evil. By the third Tryout, he wasn’t even trying. And by the last, when Mohsin, the hairy giant leading Forest Groups, threw Tedros and Filip into a ring for a Magical Sparring Tryout, a one-on-one bare-knuckled brawl with no rules . . . Tedros simply dropped to his knees and conceded before they began, cutting into Filip with a withering glare.

The boys cheered raucously, anointing the new boy the winner for a second day. But as Sophie looked into Tedros’ cold eyes, seeing right through her, she felt not even a shred of victory.

Why isn’t Sophie back yet? Agatha thought, scuttling through the purple breezeway to Charity under her invisible cape. Last night, Sophie’s lantern had glowed safely from the School Master’s window—and yet she hadn’t returned with the pen. Which could only mean one thing . . .

She couldn’t find it.

Agatha’s breath shallowed. Every second brought her and Sophie closer to the Trial. If Sophie couldn’t find that pen . . . Agatha’s gut twisted, remembering the tortoise’s warning.

She had to find out what the Dean was planning.

She’d spent the morning hiding under her cape and waiting for Evelyn outside Good Hall, hoping to follow her between her History sessions. As each new class began, Agatha peeked through the doors to watch her take a group of girls inside Bluebeard—a gruesome tale of a husband who murdered all eight of his wives, which left the girls looking nauseous.

“I show you this story not to frighten you,” the Dean said to close class each time, “but to remind you how vicious the boys will be during the Trial. Do not expect them to wait for you to drop your kerchief or to settle for your surrender.” She smiled thinly. “Nor should you give them the same courtesies.” As the Dean sashayed out of the ballroom between sessions, Agatha tried to follow her, but maneuvering invisibly through crowded hallways required agility and grace, neither of which was a strength. After losing the Dean four times, Agatha slackened against the wall, discouraged.

“Really, Pollux, I’m fully capable of getting lunch by myself,” huffed Professor Dovey’s voice behind her— Agatha looked up to see Pollux’s furry head attached to a rickety old owl’s body, flapping after the green-gowned professor.

“Strange business of late,” Pollux panted. “Voices in sewers, butterflies eaten by rats, ghosts bumping girls in the halls . . . Dean’s advised me to keep a close eye on both you and Lesso until the Trial.” “Perhaps if Evelyn hadn’t taken my office, it would be easier to find me,” Professor Dovey fired, and hurried down the steps, Pollux’s owl sputtering behind her.

Agatha’s eyes bulged wide.

With thirty minutes left in class, she scurried up Charity’s spiral glass steps to Professor Dovey’s old office, the lone white-marble door on the sixth floor, once inlaid with a single emerald beetle, now a blue butterfly. Agatha peered down the stair gap and made sure no one was coming up.

She tried the silver door handle, but it was bolted shut. She shot a shock spell at the keyhole with her glowing finger, then an even more useless melt spell, then a desperate freeze spell . . .

The lock caught.

Agog at her luck, Agatha grabbed the handle, only to see it opening from the inside. Panicked, she ducked against the stairway banister as the door flung wide.

A girl poked her long-nosed freckled face through, eyes darting right and left before she hurried out the closing door and nimbly slid down the banister to the floor below.

Crouched on the ground, Agatha gaped at the girl’s red hair flowing out of sight.

What was Yara doing in the Dean’s office?

Suddenly Agatha heard a creak behind her and whirled to see the door closing, about to bolt shut— 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. “Stealing food, I see.” 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 stop breathing 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 teeth at him, cheeks blushed furious red.

“Either you eat now, or I kill you myself,” Filip 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.

Why had Yara been in here? Agatha wondered. She was sure she’d heard Yara speak to the Dean that day in the Gallery. Something about letting Yara stay . . . Agatha brushed the thought away. She should be focused on the Dean, not some crackpot girl who might or might not speak.

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 remembered 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 . . .

Then Agatha noticed one of these areas circled in red ink, 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 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.

1. Tomorrow at noon, I will meet you at the Blue Forest gate. As the acting Deans of our schools, each of us will have thirty minutes to lace traps into the arena. The Cyan Caves are off-limits, as you request.

2. Given the high stakes involved, the traditional pre-Trial scout of the Forest will be canceled for both sides.

3. 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.

4. 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.

5. Regardless of the 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.