فصل 16

16

Edgar and Essa

“Tedros?” said the honey-edged voice.

“Tedros,” Sophie repeated sleepily, coddled in silky black blankets like a cocoon.

“What about him?”

“Who?” Sophie breathed, still deep in a dream.

“Tedros. You’ve been saying his name again and again.”

Sophie launched awake. Rafal was sitting in the window, peering out at the dull morning, looking younger than ever in a black sleeveless shirt and short leather breeches that showed off his pale, sculpted legs.

“Seems strange you’d whisper the name of the boy you’re supposed to kill,” he said.

Suddenly remembering, Sophie looked down in a panic and saw TEDROS carved into the skin beneath her ring. She smushed her hand under her thigh and sat up on her elbows. “Oh, um, just thinking . . . no matter where I go, he seems to follow me like a rash . . .” Rafal pushed onto his feet. “Then you’ll have to erase him once and for all, won’t you? Along with his fair princess.” Sophie gritted a smile, her wary eyes following him as he sauntered towards her storybook on the altar table. The Storian was paused abruptly over a painting of Agatha and Tedros, surveying the School for Evil from a clifftop. Sophie noticed the two Evers weren’t holding hands anymore and that Tedros’ body was leaning away from Agatha’s. Had something happened between them? Her heart flipped at the thought— She quashed it. Are you insane? a) Tedros already had a girl: her best friend, b) she already had a boy: Tedros’ mortal enemy, and c) Tedros was on his way to kill that boy!

“Before you woke, the Storian drew Tedros and his princess only a few miles away and hasn’t moved since,” Rafal mulled, black boots clacking on stone as he circled the table. “It’s like there’s a glitch in the story, preventing the pen from telling us where they’ve gone.” “Maybe they gave up and went back to Gavaldon,” gushed Sophie hopefully. “Maybe we’ve won this story after all! Maybe I’ll never have to see them, and if I don’t have to see them, then I don’t have to kill them—” “Then why is the book still open? Why hasn’t the sun restored?” Rafal narrowed his eyes at the storybook, his mouth a tight line. “No, Tedros and his love are somewhere close. . . . The Storian just can’t find them yet. . . .” He glanced back, unruffled. “But it doesn’t matter, my love. As long as my name is the one written in your heart, their days are numbered.” Sophie hacked a cough. “Right . . . course . . . sorry, allergies,” she wheezed, shunting her hand further beneath her leg.

She couldn’t dare let him see Tedros’ name under her ring! He’d know what it meant! And if Rafal knew he might not be her true love after all, he’d . . . he’d . . .

Kill me.

Sophie could feel her palm sticking to her thigh with sweat. How is this happening? All she’d ever wanted was love, and she’d finally found it in the snow-faced boy in front of her. But instead of reciprocating, instead of being faithful, now her heart was insisting her true love was Tedros? Tedros who’d rejected her twice for her best friend?

Rafal is my true love! she begged herself.

Please. Change it to Rafal.

Rafal.

Rafal.

Rafal.

She peeked down at her hand.

TEDROS.

Sophie gulped. Whatever happened from here, she couldn’t be anywhere near the prince again, let alone in the same room with him.

Ever.

She peered out at the iron-spiked school gates . . . the monstrous shadows guarding the School for Old . . . the pestilent green bay . . . all barriers to Tedros and Agatha finding her. And yet, there was still a spy amidst the students, planning to break them in somehow. She needed to catch the mole before her friends breached the castle.

But who is it? Sophie pictured her crowded classroom of Evers and Nevers, trying to recall if there were any clues . . .

“Sophie?”

She looked up at Rafal, who was staring at her. “Is there a reason you’re hiding your hand?” he asked.

Sophie gaped like a toad. “Mmm?”

“You keep adjusting your position so that your hand stays covered.” Sophie cleared her throat and straightened against the bedpost. “Honestly darling, I know you come from the Bluebeard school of love, but I haven’t the faintest clue what you’re talking about. While I have your attention, though, perhaps now’s a good time to discuss campus business? Last year I found the choice of school play deeply underwhelming, to say the least. Given my light teaching load, I’m happy to take up the burden myself: namely, a grand one-woman show, with performances each night at 7:30 in the Supper Hall and an additional matinee on Sundays, followed by coffee and canapés. La Reine Sophie, we’ll call it, an appropriate name, don’t you think, for a sumptuous, 3-hour pageant of—” “Let me see your hand,” Rafal said, glowering.

“W-w-what?” Sophie croaked.

The young School Master slunk towards the bed. “You heard me.” “Excuse me. You might be Master of this school, but you are not Master of my limbs,” Sophie puffed lamely, left hand sandwiched under her buttocks.

But Rafal was six feet away, suspicion glowing in his eyes.

Sophie’s heart throttled against her sternum. “Really, darling, you’re being utterly ridiculous—” He was two feet away now.

“Rafal, please!”

He seized her arm, yanking it out from under her. In a flash, Sophie lanced her thumbnail hard into her ring finger, gashing the skin— Rafal held up her hand and blood streamed down it, obscuring Tedros’ name. His eyes flared. “You’re hurt!” “This is precisely why I hid it. Knew you’d overreact like you always do,” Sophie pooh-poohed, shoving her bloodied hand in her pocket and rushing past him. “Just a lingering blister that keeps reopening . . . a stupid little accident in the menagerie. Now about that show, darling. It begins with a saucy little number called ‘Thunder Down Tundra,’ so I’ll need glaciers, nubile danseurs, and a male lion, preferably tamed—” “Wait. You touched Agatha and Tedros’ kiss?” Rafal stalked towards her. “Manley made that scene poisonous, specifically to catch anyone still loyal to Good. No Never would get within ten feet of an Evers’ kiss. Why would you touch it—” “Oh heavens to Betsy, look at the time! Can you fly me down to my classroom, dear?” Sophie snatched her teacher’s dress off a hook and bustled towards the window, back turned. “You know how Lady Lesso is about tardiness. Wouldn’t want her to think you’re more irresponsible than she already does.” This time Sophie felt very different in Rafal’s arms as he flew her over the bay.

Instead of safe, she felt scared; instead of loved, she felt caged. With her right hand glued inside her pocket and the left clinging to him for dear life, she ground her teeth and clamped every muscle, as if riding a wild beast she’d tried to tame and lost control over. And yet, despite the roller coaster in her stomach, she realized Rafal was flying glacially slow, zigzagging off path. She glanced back and saw his leery blue gaze locked on her instead of the sky, clearly thinking about her behavior in the tower.

“Eyes on the road, darling,” Sophie chided, faking a smile.

The air was chillier than usual for a cloudless March day, the dappled sun streaking empty blue with copper and gold. She noticed a rawboned raven flapping and panting behind her; with the Woods decaying and its body weak, it was no doubt hunting in vain for a new home. Loud shouts echoed below and Sophie spotted a Woods Training class in the rotting Blue Forest, with Evers and Nevers, boys and girls, each spearing a stuffed effigy of Agatha, as Aric barked out a succession of swordplay moves.

Sophie took in this dying forest filled with Agathas, feeling like she’d wandered into a surreal dream.

All this time, she’d been obsessing about Tedros, Tedros, Tedros and blocking out the one person that mattered more to her than Tedros ever could. Even thinking of Agatha’s name kicked up a storm of opposites—love hate friend foe lost found truth lies live die—until words and labels slipped away and Sophie felt a hole at the center of herself, as if she was incomplete without Agatha and Agatha incomplete without her.

And suddenly, as she looked at forty stuffings of her bug-eyed, flat-browed, pasty-white best friend, Sophie found herself snickering, because she knew Agatha would snicker at them too. Sophie would needle Agatha about the time she’d tried to add “tweezers” and “suntan” to her vocabulary, only to see the poor girl erase an eyebrow and give herself second-degree burns, while Agatha would remind Sophie how she’d chased her down Graves Hill, one-browed, hair bleached orange, a turtle-egg-yolk mask dripping off her face as she walloped her with a broomstick . . . and before they knew it, they’d be rolling on the floor together, giggling at how terrible and wonderful they were to each other . . .

Sophie’s smile shriveled. Just yesterday she’d felt like a witch again in Lady Lesso’s office, ready to slay Agatha and her prince for Rafal, ready to do whatever it took to keep the young School Master as her true love and not be alone. And now today, she had Tedros’ name tattooed on her skin, was reminiscing about makeovers with Agatha, and couldn’t wait to get out of Rafal’s cold arms.

What’s happening to me?

Her feet skidded into stone and Sophie braced to see a black balcony off the old Honor Tower and students stampeding by to get to their next sessions on time. Quickly Sophie scrunched her hand deeper into her pocket and broke away from Rafal without looking back— “Find me at lunch, darling!”

“Sophie.”

Sophie slowly turned to Rafal, shadowed by the sun’s glare against the railing.

“You will kill them. Tedros and Agatha.” His voice was a hot, teenage snarl. “Or I’ll know whose side you’re really on.” His eyes flayed her for what seemed like an eternity, before he rocketed straight up into the sky and she lost him in ashes of sun.

Alone in the hallway, Sophie felt her hand sweating through her pocket.

Rafal was onto her.

If he saw Tedros’ name carved into her . . . she was good as dead.

If she didn’t kill Agatha and Tedros . . . she was even deader.

Which meant only one thing, Sophie thought.

It was her friends’ lives or her own.

Sifting into the crowd of students, Sophie veered towards the lollipop room, determined to catch the spy for Good. If she caught the spy, then the spy couldn’t break Agatha and Tedros into school. And if Agatha and Tedros couldn’t break into school, then she’d never have to see them again, and if she never had to see them again, then she’d never have to kill them— Sophie froze still.

A white mouse was motoring past her shoe tip, a wooden stick in its mouth.

It couldn’t be the traitorous mouse Lady Lesso had warned her about, for it wasn’t carrying a note or a key or anything useful to a spy. And yet, there was still something odd about the rodent, frantically weaving and skidding between boots, as if racing against a clock—and something even odder about the stick between its teeth, knobby, aged, and tapering to the top, as if it wasn’t a stick at all, but some kind of wand . . . a wand Sophie was quite sure she’d seen in this very school . . . But where? Wands were never used in classes or challenges and most teachers mocked them as archaic training wheels or remnants of fusty godmothers. So who at the School for Evil could possibly have use for a— Sophie yelped.

Like a runaway bull, she barreled headfirst into the crush of bodies, chasing after the mouse. Wherever this little vermin was headed, toting Professor Clarissa Dovey’s wand, it was surely leading her right to the spy. Did Dovey’s wand have special powers? Is that how the spy planned to help Agatha and Tedros in? Was Professor Dovey the spy herself? But how, given Dovey was locked up somewhere with the Good teachers? Sophie didn’t have time to think— Bucking and flinging kids aside, she tracked the mouse down dark spiral stairs, almost losing sight of it, before her clacking heels woke a few sleeping fairies on the banister, who glowed angry green and lit up the mouse as it skittered into the foyer. Hoisting her dress, Sophie sprinted after it through the Supper Hall kitchen, where enchanted pots stewed sardines and cold cabbage; past the Laundry, where Beezle, the red-skinned dwarf, was singlehandedly trying to wash 240 uniforms (“Mama!” he screeched, drowning in bubbles); and into the enormous Gallery of Good, refurbished black and green, which instead of reflecting all of Good’s great victories, now depicted something else . . .

Sophie slowed her pace, taking in the museum cases around her. The glass boxes, once filled with hero’s triumphant weapons and proof of dead villains flaunted new exhibits: Rapunzel’s severed hair, Tom Thumb’s clothes, Snow White’s crown, and seven dwarf-sized pairs of shoes . . . all splattered with blood.

These weren’t trophies of obscure Evil victories from hundreds of years ago.

These weren’t Finola the Fairy Eater, Children Noodle Soup, and Rabid Bear Rex.

These were stories every Reader knew, only with the villains winning instead of the heroes.

Sophie rolled her eyes at these clearly faked relics. First the murals in the hall and now the Gallery too? Rafal obviously couldn’t accept the real endings— Then she remembered something he’d said.

“Endings can change, my queen. And change, they must.”

Sophie shuddered, thinking of the way he’d grinned out at the School for Old . . . the strange roar from inside . . . the dark shadows on the rooftop . . .

Had Rafal found a way to change the old fairy-tale endings?

And was that way hidden in the other school?

Sophie’s stomach dropped like a stone.

She’d lost the mouse.

Panicked, she ransacked every corner of the Gallery. No sign of it. She groaned, furious with herself. Her one chance to catch the spy and she’d botched it like a fool. She took a quick peek at her left hand, still tattooed with Tedros’ name. Shoulders slumping, cursing under her breath, she tromped out of the museum, late to her own class, spy still unfound, fully convinced her true love was going to kill her— Something caught her eye down the hall.

A flit of white scampering towards the castle doors.

Got you.

Hurtling after the rodent like a castaway after a boat, Sophie blasted out of the Gallery, through the black-marble foyer, into the mirrored entrance hall (every mirror now cracked), and out the swan-frosted doors onto the Great Lawn, quite sure she was the first pretty girl in history to run towards a mouse rather than away from it— A wall of green smoke blinded her.

Sophie shielded her eyes, but wind was blowing more green mist towards her, off the surface of the steaming, corrosive bay. Determined not to lose the mouse again, she hobbled down the hill, her suede stiletto boots snagging in dead, muddy grass as she scanned the ground, hoping the mouse had snagged somewhere too. But every time she thought she found it, it turned out to be a stray crog bone, which she punted in anger, until she skirted the shore of the lethal moat, looking left, then right, at a loss which way to go— A human shadow skulked towards her out of the fog.

Sophie stumbled back.

Aggie?

Only it wasn’t one shadow.

It was two.

Aggie and . . . Teddy?

“S-s-stay where you are!” she called out.

The pair of shadows advanced faster.

Sophie’s fingertip burned pink with terror. “Stop! Stop right there!” But the shadows were coming even faster now and Sophie held out her glow like a dagger, ready to stun them both as they broke through the mist— “Oh.” Sophie dropped her right hand, glow evaporating. “It’s you.” “Had to fetch the new students,” Hester puffed, looking winded.

“School Master sent us to welcome them,” said Dot, panting beside her.

“Since we’re the only ones that seem to like this school,” Anadil groused, coming out of the mist, trailed by two black rats, the third one flagging, looking wan and half-dead.

“You might need another rat,” Sophie cracked, relieved her friends were acknowledging her again. She pressed her tattooed hand deeper into her pocket. “Listen, can we reconvene Book Club after lunch? I really need to talk to—wait a second. Did you say new students?” Over Hester’s shoulder, Sophie saw two more shadows breaking through the fog: a teenage boy and girl she’d never seen before, both wearing Evil’s black uniforms and equally black scowls.

The boy resembled a malevolent penguin, with sickly pale skin, dark bulging eyes, sunken cheeks, and a hideous dome of black hair. He had scrawny thighs and calves, no muscle tone in his sticklike arms, and walked stiffly as if afraid something might fall out of his pants.

The girl was broad-shouldered and golden tan, with glimmering blue eyes, a small button nose, and long black hair that was so harshly black it didn’t look her natural hue—as if it’d been dyed in a hurry by someone who didn’t understand the careful calculations of proper coloring, most certainly a man. Still Sophie found her pretty overall and for a moment felt threatened, until she noticed the girl’s thuggish, swaggery walk, like a troll in search of something to club.

The new boy and new girl spotted Sophie and stopped short. Sophie saw their legs go shaky, their foreheads sweaty, and their mouths hold back huge smiles as if they wanted to hug her, touch her, or at least get an autograph.

“Uh . . . they’re big fans of your storybook,” Hester mumbled, glaring at the gaping strangers.

Good grief, that explains everything, Sophie sighed, suspicions melting away. She’d forgotten how famous her fairy tale was in the Woods. She must have adoring fans like these everywhere. For all she knew, thousands of obsessed admirers had tried to get into the school to be close to her and these were the first who succeeded.

“Well, the School Master said nothing of this to me,” Sophie sniffed, at once flattered and in no mood to interact with common groupies when there was a spy to catch. “Surely he’d have at least mentioned their names—” “I’m Essa of Bloodbrook, Coldhearted Ever Killer, Sworn to Protect Evil,” the girl interjected, her voice high and thin, layered with the snootiest accent Sophie had ever heard. She clutched the boy’s hand. “And this is Edgar.” “I can introduce myself thank you,” the boy growled at her in a low tone and turned to Sophie. “I’m Edgar of Bloodbrook, Coldhearted Ever Killer, Also Sworn to Protect Evil.” Sophie peered at their joined hands. “Two Coldhearted Ever Killers . . . in love?” The boy and girl looked at each other, as if prepared for every question but this one.

“Cousins. They’re cousins,” snapped Hester. “Part of Captain Hook’s family tree.” Edgar instantly let go of Essa’s hand. “We don’t like to talk about it.” “Private people,” Essa clipped.

“Doesn’t make any sense,” Sophie said. “Since when does the School for Evil take new students?” “Weren’t old enough to be picked as Nevers the first go-round,” Anadil broke in.

“Must be quite the Ever Killers if the School Master’s willing to bring them in now,” chimed Dot, snacking on a crog bone turned to fudge.

Sophie noticed the cousins studying Rafal’s ring on her finger, seeming less like Ever Killers and more like jewel appraisers. She hid her hand. “Well, like I said, the School Master didn’t mention anything to me about new students, so I really should check with—” “Course he didn’t mention it to you,” scoffed Hester, marching past Sophie towards the castle. “Bringing in outside assassins . . . doesn’t want you to think he’s doubting your ability to kill Agatha and Tedros, does he?” “Since he’s your true love,” said Anadil, following Hester.

“And it’s your job to kill them,” said Dot, following Anadil.

Sophie bristled nervously and looked at the two strangers.

“Death to Agatha!” Edgar blurted, raising a fist.

“Death to Tedros!” squeaked Essa, fist up too.

They hurried after the witches.

As the two Ever Killers ran up the hill, Sophie felt her heart curdle with dread. From the day he put his ring on her, Rafal had never trusted her loyalty to Evil. Now he’d brought in two trained murderers to force her hand. Would Rafal make them kill her best friends if she wouldn’t? Would Rafal kill her? And how long could she possibly keep Tedros’ name hidden from him?

Watching Edgar and Essa approach the castle, Sophie made a desperate wish to keep Agatha and Tedros away from this school . . . to stop them from trying to rescue her . . . to never see them again and save all of their lives . . .

But as with most of Sophie’s wishes, this one had gone wrong, for without realizing it, she was watching Agatha and Tedros right now, darting into the castle.

She hadn’t kept her friends out.

She’d let them in.