فصل 11

11

Appointment with the Deans

As midnight came and went, Sophie sat calmly in the School Master’s window, her hair wet, her ebony dress bunched at the knees as she pressed bare toes against the wall. She looked out at the fluorescent green bay, reflecting the shadows of two black castles, both dark and quiet.

Just this morning, she’d been reeling with doubts: from a school that turned Evers into Nevers . . . from Agatha’s voice, impelling her to destroy Rafal’s ring . . . from a schedule that called her a teacher of Evil when she still didn’t feel Evil at all.

She turned to the Storian over her storybook, painting a scene of Agatha and Tedros following a white rabbit through the Woods. With every minute, her friends were getting closer to school, closer to seeing her again, closer to convincing her to leave Evil behind forever . . .

Sophie smiled, feeling the gold ring lock tight on her finger.

Or so they think.

How quickly things changed in a fairy tale.

Twelve hours earlier, Sophie had been chasing after the School Master, as he crossed a green breezeway tunnel into the old Valor tower.

“Teach Evil? Teach Curses and Death Traps?” Sophie yelped, gripping her schedule as she floundered after him in her black nightgown and glass heels. “Have you lost your mind!” “It was the Dean’s suggestion. Wish I’d come up with it myself, if only to prevent her the satisfaction of a good idea,” Rafal groused, ascending the staircase carved HENCHMEN. “Now that I’m young, she’s been treating me like I’m incapable of running my own school. Even had the gall to tell me that my flights over the bay are disruptive since students keep peeking out the window during challenges. I am the School Master, thank you. If I want to go for a spin, I’m perfectly welcome to—” “Rafal.”

Sophie’s voice was so sharp that he stopped and stared down at her through the gap in the black staircase.

“I wish we had time for adolescent rants, but whoever this Dean is, she expects me to be a teacher at this school, when a) all the students are my age, b) none of them like me, and c) I don’t know the first thing about teaching!” “Really?” He resumed his ascent. “I distinctly remember you hosting Lunchtime Lectures for the entire school.” “Teaching kids how to cure dandruff is different than teaching them how to be Evil!” Sophie said, chasing him towards the top floor. “Let me get this straight. Agatha and Tedros are coming to kill you and here I am in a nightgown, expected to give homework and grade papers—” But Rafal was already at the lone black-marble door atop the staircase.

“Professor Dovey’s office?” Sophie asked, accosting him. “She’s who wanted me to be a teacher? She’s Dean of Evil?” But then Sophie saw that the door once inlaid with a glittering green beetle was now inlaid with two violet, intertwined snakes. Beneath the snakes, letters cut from amethysts spelled out a single word: DEANS

“Deans?” Sophie wrinkled her nose. “There’s more than one? But who are—”

The door swung open magically, revealing a thin, tight-jawed woman with a long black braid and a sharp-shouldered purple gown, studying a scrap of parchment at Professor Dovey’s old desk.

“Lady Lesso?” Sophie rasped. “But where’s Professor Dovey?”

Then Sophie saw the second desk near the window, identical to the first, which had never been in the office before. No one was sitting at it.

“Let me guess, Rafal. Took her for a joyride over the bay?” said Lady Lesso, not looking up from the parchment. “Supposed to have her here twenty minutes ago. Would be nice to prepare our new teacher before she assumes my old class, don’t you think? Never mind. I’ll take it from here.” Rafal scowled. “I believe I give the orders at this school, Lady Lesso. And I believe you forgot a ‘Master,’ along with your respect. Something your fellow Dean seems to have in spades.” Lady Lesso’s slitted violet eyes slowly raised to the teenage boy in front of her, dressed like a dark prince. “Apologies, Master,” she said, her tone snide and cold. “Shall I take it from here?” Rafal gave her a filthy look and pulled Sophie into his flank. “See you at lunch, my love,” he whispered, kissing her tenderly on the cheek. He shot Lady Lesso a last glare and slammed the door behind him, rattling the two desks.

“Lady Lesso, how can I teach your old class!” Sophie blurted. “None of this makes any sense—” “Sit down,” said the Dean, eyeing the gold ring on Sophie’s finger.

Sophie dropped into the chair facing her. Lady Lesso stared at her carefully, framed by the usual plum basket and crystal pumpkin paperweights on Professor Dovey’s desk. Why wasn’t Lady Lesso sitting at her own desk? Sophie thought, glancing at the desk across the room.

“Our first year, we got off to a rather poor start. But with time, I’ve grown fond of you, Sophie.” Lady Lesso leaned back in her chair. “You and I share quite a bit in common.” “Other than our love of high heels and good bone structure, I have to disagree,” Sophie replied.

“Look closer. Both of us are naturally gifted at Evil, both of us have a vanity that is uncharacteristic of Nevers, and both of us make sensational witches when provoked,” the Dean explained. “And yet, each of us is afraid of being alone. Each of us has tried to hold on to love at some point in our lives . . . only to see that same love turn against us one day. You with your best friend and me with my own child.” “You have a child?” Sophie said, stunned.

“Nevers have children, just like Evers. But as I’ve said in class, the difference is that our families cannot last, for there is no real love at their core. Villain families are like dandelions—fleeting and toxic. Try to hold on to them and you are battling against the wind.” Lady Lesso fingered a pumpkin paperweight. “I should have abandoned my child forever when I came to the School for Evil as its Dean fifteen years ago. Just like you should have abandoned your friend when she was placed in the School for Good. Thankfully both of us learned our lesson before we could make any more mistakes.” Her clenched jaw eased. “But what’s remarkable is that for all our errors, we’re both still alive. And not just alive—we’re finally on the winning team! Once upon a time, Evil had majestic victories too: Finola the Fairy Eater, Children Noodle Soup, Rabid Bear Rex, and others, long forgotten. All anyone remembers now is two hundred years of Good victories, over and over, robbing balance from our world, until Evil became a death sentence, pitied and maligned, until Good became nothing but Balls, kisses, and arrogance. But you’ve changed all that, Sophie. For the first time, Evil has love on its side because of how hard you and Rafal have fought for each other. Don’t you see? Your fairy tale can reverse the slaughter I’ve fought against my whole life. All you have to do is prove you love Rafal as much as Agatha loves Tedros . . . that you’ll sacrifice for your love as much as Agatha would for her prince . . .” Lady Lesso glowered darkly at her. “Which means you must kill Agatha and Tedros when they come for you.” “K-k-kill— Me?” Sophie squeaked like a squirrel, bursting into shivers. “My b-b-best friends? No, no, no, no, no—I said I’d fight with Rafal—that I’d defend him if they came—” “Defend? No, no, my dear. Evil attacks and Good defends. And when Evil attacks, it kills. I warned you our very first day of class, Sophie. When you are Evil, there is no escaping your Nemesis. The moment you began having Nemesis dreams of Agatha’s face your first year, your fate as enemies was sealed forever . . . much as I tried to believe both of you an exception.” Sophie was still shaking her head, emitting yips and croaks instead of words.

“Listen to me, Sophie.” Lady Lesso’s tone cut sharper. “I told you the story of my child for a reason. As long as Agatha is alive, you will never have a happy ending. Either you kill Agatha and her true love . . . or they will kill yours. Those are the only two ways your fairy tale ends.” “I c-c-can’t—I just want to be happy! Why do I have to kill anyone—”

“Because this is your storybook. You and Agatha’s,” said Lady Lesso. “That is why the Storian has yet to close it. It is waiting for you to make your choice between who lives at The End: your best friend or your true love. Good or Evil.” Sophie clutched her ring with shaking fingers. “But what if Agatha doesn’t feel like my Nemesis anymore? What if I don’t even feel Evil at all!” Lady Lesso gripped Sophie’s hand across the desk. “Sophie. You wear the ring of Evil’s darkest soul. You brought Evil back from the dead and unleashed hell on Good, just so that you can have a boy to love. Can you think of anything more Evil?” Sophie rankled. “That isn’t fair! I didn’t know any of this would happen!”

“Ask yourself, then. If you could save Good, would you sacrifice Rafal? After finally finding someone who loves you for your true self, would you choose to be alone? Just so Agatha and Tedros can be happy?” Sophie followed her eyes out the window to Rafal soaring over the Blue Forest, back to his tower in the sky. Everyone else in the world had betrayed her when she needed them most—family, friends, princes. But not him. She could still feel herself flying in his arms, safe and protected. She could still feel his passionate warning, cold at her core . . . “No one will ever love you but me” . . .

“Could you give him up, Sophie?” Lady Lesso pressed.

A single, scared tear fell down Sophie’s cheek. “No,” she whispered.

“Then you aren’t just Evil,” said Lady Lesso, letting go of her. “You are its deserved queen.” Sophie shook her head. “But you know who I really am! Last year you and I fought for Good with Agatha and Professor Dovey. All of us were a team!” “And you and I have paid our price for that disloyalty. Your price is that you must now destroy the friends you should have disowned long ago. And my price is . . .” Lady Lesso’s lips quivered, her gaze drifting to the empty desk across the room. She swallowed subtly and straightened in her chair. “Look, I’m here to help you, Sophie. Because like you, I too have a second chance to prove my loyalty to Evil. And this time, we can’t fail. Even if our leader now has the maturity of a pubescent boy.” She grimaced sourly. “Now pay attention to what I’m about to say.” Lady Lesso flattened both hands on the desk and crouched forward like a panther. “Agatha and Tedros will soon try to break into this school to see you. The fate of Good rests on them earning back your loyalty and killing Rafal before the sun extinguishes completely. Do not doubt their resolve or wiles. They do not care about your happy ending, only theirs. And if they take away Rafal, what will you have left?” Sophie looked away, an old darkness rearing into her heart. “Just like my mother.” Lady Lesso arched her brows, intrigued.

“My mother was the third wheel, watching my father and her best friend fall in love,” Sophie said, eyes pinned to the floor. “And my father and Honora didn’t care.” “Because they knew your mother didn’t have the courage to fight them.”

Sophie nodded. “It’s why she died so young. She couldn’t face the rest of her life alone. She just . . . gave up.” “Then it looks like your best friends are betting an old story can be made new,” said the Dean.

Sophie slowly lifted red eyes.

“Like mother, like daughter,” said Lady Lesso. “Is that what you want?”

Sophie’s body hardened to steel.

“My job as Dean is to ensure you do not end up alone, Sophie,” Lady Lesso soothed. “My job is to ensure you and Rafal win your Happy Never After. But I made you a teacher because I need you to find out how Agatha and Tedros plan to break in.” Sophie frowned. “How would I know how they plan to—”

“Because there is a spy working for your friends inside this school,” said Lady Lesso harshly. She shoved forward the crumpled scrap she’d been studying. “The fairies snatched this from a white mouse near the school gates, before it escaped.” “It’s a map of your movements,” said the Dean. “Why the notes about the fog, I haven’t the faintest clue. But someone in this school is telling Good how to find you.” Sophie looked up, the last of her fear draining away. Good was spying on her? That’s how desperate they were to destroy her happy ending? Suddenly, any remaining desire to see her best friends scorched to wrath.

“I haven’t told Rafal, of course. He’s so drugged up on teenage testosterone that he’d exterminate every last student in this school,” griped Lady Lesso. “I need you to find out who the spy is, Sophie. A white mouse messenger suggests it’s an Ever, but you know Agatha and Tedros’ friends better than I. As a teacher, you can keep your eye on any suspects and help us uncover how exactly your friends plan to invade our castle.” Sophie bridled. “But I don’t have the foggiest idea how to teach a class!”

“Pollux has been teaching your class the past few weeks and will stay on to help you settle in, especially with double the number of students to manage. That said, I’m quite sure they’ll prefer you to that twit even if you pick your nose the whole time. Focus on finding the spy, Sophie. We don’t have much time. Agatha and her prince will be here in days. And if you don’t end your fairy tale now, the sun will soon end it for all of us.” Sophie nodded, adrenaline coursing through her . . .

Then she saw the empty Dean’s desk in the corner. Guilt dampened the storm inside of her. “But surely Professor Dovey knows a way to close our storybook without me hurting anyone—” “Professor Dovey is no longer a Dean,” Lady Lesso said stiffly.

“Where is she?” Sophie asked, startled.

“She and the other Good teachers have been imprisoned in a secure location, where they will remain until the School Master deems otherwise.” Sophie gawked at her. “But she was your friend! You two always helped each other!” “Like you once helped Agatha.” Lady Lesso’s purple eyes cast down as she caressed the basket of plums. “But a witch can’t be friends with a princess no matter how hard she tries, Sophie. Haven’t we learned that lesson well enough?” Sophie’s mouth dried out, her voice trapped in her throat. “But then . . . then who is the other Dean?” The door flung opened behind her and a tall, menacingly handsome boy in a sleeveless black leather shirt swaggered through with spiked black hair, deathly pale cheeks, and lethal, violet eyes.

“Morning, Mother. Brought you fresh coffee,” he said in a deep, strapping voice.

He put a mug of blackish liquid on Lady Lesso’s desk, then leered at Sophie. “Well, well, I see you’re getting our new teacher settled in.” He leaned against the sunlit window, a coiled black whip gleaming on his belt. “Funny, we’ve never quite met have we, Sophie of Woods Beyond? You’ve seen me, of course, in your invisible cape and in your elfish boy’s body, sneaking through the School for Boys . . . Filip of Mount Honora, was it? Threw me against a wall one night to stop me from torturing your precious Tedros. Oh yes, now I see Filip in there . . . those same pretty eyes and succulent lips. But of course you aren’t Filip anymore, are you? So perhaps I should forgive your impertinence . . .” His purple eyes slashed into her. “I wouldn’t want to hurt that delicious little face.” The boy licked his lips and slid his hands into tight pockets, blue veins flexing through his biceps. “Wish I could stay, ladies, but I have to administer punishment to a few Everboys in the Doom Room. Caught them writing letters to their parents, asking to be rescued. As if anyone could get in or out now that the School Master’s returned.” He headed for the doors, then looked at Sophie. “You do remember my name, I hope?” Sophie cowered into her nightgown, unable to speak.

“Aric. Best remember it this time, since I am your Dean,” he purred, backing through the door. “See you at lunch, impertinent little Sophie. Faculty gets its own private spot on the balcony. Now that we’re friends, I look forward to getting to know you more . . . intimately.” He winked at her like a devil and then he was gone.

Sophie slowly turned to Lady Lesso, eyes big as marbles.

Lady Lesso sniffed the coffee and poured it into the plum basket. The plums liquefied with a smoking, poisonous reek.

“School Master forbade him to kill me but he still tries,” she said grimly, pitching the mug out the window. “Yesterday, he put an asp in my toilet.” “Aric is your . . . your son?” Sophie gasped. “He’s a monster—a murderer—he killed Tristan!” “Nearly managed to kill me too in the brief chaos after the Trial, before the School Master took control,” the Dean said much softer now. “I don’t blame him, of course. When I accepted the position of Dean of Evil fifteen years ago, it was my duty to sever all attachments—children included. But instead, I hid Aric in a cave near school, stealing in to see him at night, year after year, pretending like he had a mother who would always love and protect him.” Her voice quavered and she fiddled with the plum basket. “The School Master found out and sealed me inside the gates. Never even had the chance to say goodbye to my son. Aric will never forgive me for it . . . leaving him there, six years old in the Woods, all alone. And he shouldn’t.” She looked at Sophie. “Like I said, you and I must both pay the price of our mistakes—and mine is having my own son vengefully plot my death, while he shares my power as Dean.” She glanced out the window with a wistful grin. “Suppose it’s just like the School Master wants. Mother and son as Deans . . . a former student teaching my class . . . a timeless Master and his young queen . . . Old and New working together for Evil.” Sophie followed her eyes to what used to be the School for Evil across the bay, now the crumbling, pockmarked School for Old. There were shadowy figures on the roofs now: hulking, misshapen, and clearly not human, with bows and arrows slung on their backs, like a monstrous castle guard. Then beneath them, through a tower window, Sophie noticed another shadow—this one human. Stepping closer, she glimpsed a man’s silhouette with a boat-shaped hat, like a pirate’s . . . and where his hand should be, a sharp flash of metal instead . . .

A tuft of fog floated in front of him and when it cleared, the man was no longer there.

Sophie bit her lip. Rafal had refused to tell her anything about the Old castle. But she was queen, wasn’t she? She had a right to know what he was hiding in the other school.

“Lady Lesso, please tell me what’s in the School for Old,” she said firmly.

“Students of the old fairy tales, of course, just like we teach a new fairy tale here. But the School for Old is the School Master’s domain—not yours,” the Dean snipped, before a cacophonous crackle broke through the castle, like an army of demented crickets. “That’s the fairies signaling end of session.” She stood up and clacked towards the door in her steel stilettos. “Shall we? Students won’t respect a Curses teacher who’s late. Especially a teacher who’s supposed to be the new me.” Sophie rooted deeper in her chair, arms crossed over her nightgown. “First of all, if I’m going to stand in front of a class full of teenage boys, I at least need something to wear. Besides, even if you do get me into that classroom, I don’t know any of the new fairy tales!” “I said a new tale. Not tales.”

“Well, whatever fairy tale this is, I can’t possibly teach it—”

“Of course you can, since it’s the only fairy tale we teach at the School for New.” Lady Lesso glowered at her, holding open the door.

“Yours.”