فصل 3

3

SOPHIE

Flah-sé-dah

“So is he king or isn’t he?” Dean Sophie asked, nose buried in the Royal Rot. “According to the Camelot Courier, he is, but according to the Rot, he isn’t. What both agree on, however, is that once Tedros finds a way to pull Excalibur out of that balcony, then it’s settled and he’s king once and for all. But if someone else were to pull Excalibur out before Teddy . . . well, it wouldn’t matter, would it, since only the blood of Arthur can sit upon the throne . . . which means Tedros is king, now and forever, though it sounds like he’s only a ‘half-king’ without respect or support . . . or a sword.” Draped in a plushy black bathrobe, Sophie leaned back, picking at the curlers in her blond hair as she scanned more articles: EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW WITH CORONATION MONKEYS!

AGATHA: LOYAL PRINCESS . . . OR WITCH WHO CURSED THE CORONATION?

HORRO-NATION FALLOUT: IS LANCELOT PLOTTING TO STEAL THE CROWN?

“Six months later and it’s all anyone still talks about,” Sophie sighed, folding the newspaper and fingering a vial of gold liquid hanging from her necklace. “Poor, poor Teddy.” “If Teddy’s so poor, why are you smiling,” grunted Hort.

Sophie looked out at her shirtless, raven-haired friend and two first-year Neverboys in sleek black uniforms lugging a marble statue of her across newly refurbished Evil Hall. “Are you implying that I’m happy about my two best friends being the laughingstock of Camelot? Are you implying that I take secret delight in whatever strains this humiliation has put upon their relationship?” “You stalked Tedros for three years, tried to marry a murderous sorcerer to make him jealous, then held the whole Woods hostage when Tedros wouldn’t kiss you,” Hort said, rippled muscles shining as he slid Sophie’s statue through the red-and-gold ballroom. Above him, a few Nevergirls teetered on ladders to hang a chandelier, each crystal shaped like an S. “Plus, you’ve been writing Agatha for months trying to hijack the wedding planning and she won’t write you back and now you secretly want the wedding to bomb,” he added. “So yeah, not really implying. More just saying it.” Sophie stared at him. “I want to be helpful to Aggie, Hort. She’s far away in a whole new kingdom, preparing for the biggest day of her life, and I want to be there for her. Am I hurt she hasn’t responded? A little, perhaps. But I’m not mad.” “When you’re hurt, you get mad,” said Hort. “You get so mad that you turn witchy and start wars and people die. Check the history textbook.” “Oh sweetie, that’s the past,” Sophie groaned, reclining against her glass throne, shaped like a five-pointed crown. “It’s a new year now and I’ve moved on, just like our former classmates who are off in the Woods, pursuing their fairy-tale quests. Look . . .” She slipped the lid off the vial attached to her necklace and turned the vial upside down, emptying the gold liquid. But instead of falling to the floor, the liquid suspended midair, creating the outline of a large square before it magically filled in with a magnificent three-dimensional map of the Endless Woods. Scattered across kingdoms near and far were dozens of brightly colored figurines, like an army of toy soldiers, each resembling a fourth-year student from the School for Good and Evil and labeled with their name.

“And from the Quest Map, it looks like our friends are doing quite well,” said Sophie. “See, here’s Beatrix in Jaunt Jolie, fighting with Reena and Millicent as her sidekicks. . . . Here’s Ravan in Akgul, plundering the Iron Village with Drax as his henchman and Arachne as his mogrified newt. . . . Here’s Hester, Dot, and Anadil in Kyrgios on some ‘important’ mission they won’t tell me about, though it can’t be that important if they’re never in the same kingdom for more than a day. . . . And here’s Chaddick, off on Avalon Island by himself—mmm, strange; I thought he’d gone to Camelot to be Tedros’ knight. Why would he be in Avalon? Nothing but snow and tundra. No one even lives there. Well, except the Lady of the Lake, but she seals her castle’s gates to everyone except Merlin and Camelot’s king. . . . But it looks like Chaddick’s figure is inside her gates, doesn’t it? Maybe he’s flying over the island on a stymph or something. . . .” “Blue means they’re winning their quest?” Hort asked.

“And red means they’re losing. That’s why my name is in blue,” preened Sophie, pointing to her figurine by the miniature school towers on the map. “My quest as Dean was to bring Evil into a new age, and clearly I’ve succeeded.” “Well, my name’s in blue too,” said Hort, spotting his figure obscured by Sophie’s. “My students love me, I work out every night, and I’ve even started getting fan mail. Just the other day I got a note in a girl’s handwriting saying I was her favorite character from your story and that they didn’t make boys like me in Woods Beyond. Must be a Reader from your old town—” “Or Castor playing a prank,” Sophie sniffed.

The puff went out of Hort’s chest. “Hey, wait a second. Isn’t it weird that every single name on this map is blue? Shouldn’t someone be losing their quest?” “Ever since Clarissa gave me this map, we’ve been nothing but winners,” Sophie crowed. “So either I’m good luck or we’re a very talented group.” “Or your map is broken, which would explain why it says Chaddick is inside the Lady of the Lake’s gates when that’s impossible,” said Hort. “Look, even Tedros and Agatha are in blue, which means, according to the Quest Map, they’re doing just fine.” Sophie peered at him, then at Agatha’s and Tedros’ names in Camelot, just as blue as the others.

“That can’t be right,” she murmured. “How can Tedros be winning? I read Camelot’s papers every day. He’s the town fool! He’s a disgrace!” She saw Hort smirking at her.

“Poor Teddy,” he said.

Sophie rose from her throne and sashayed past Hort. “Oh please, for all we know, Clarissa hexed his name to make him look good. Fairy godmothers love to cheat.” She swept her hand through the map, dispersing it to liquid and back into the vial on her neck. “And honestly, I can’t worry about a failed king and a princess who isn’t even queen and yet is somehow too busy to write her best friend. I have my school to run: 125 new Nevers who think Tedros and Agatha are old news and have their eyes on me. Plus, I have these pesky Readers we’ve accepted, who don’t have a clue. Why, on the very first day, a girl from Gavaldon caved in an entire classroom. So my hands are quite full, thank you. And even if I could spare a thought for Tedros—or any boy, for that matter—it would be a wasted one. I’m completely happy on my own, unattached and untroubled by the vagaries of love. Flah-sé-dah, that’s my new mantra: a blissful mélange of ‘laissez-faire’ and ‘la-di-da.’ Who needs the stress of love when there’s important work to do? I prefer a modest life now, dedicated to my students.” “Um, throwing a Dean’s Dance the second week of school with the theme ‘Night of a Thousand Sophies’ where people have to dress up in outfits inspired by your fairy tale doesn’t seem modest to me,” said Hort, his Neverboy helpers murmuring assent as they polished the statue of Sophie in hooded robes, a crown of flowers upon her head. “Nor does taking half the Evil students out of class to decorate for it serve anyone but you,” Hort added, surveying the ballroom filled with Nevergirls in chic leather dresses and high black boots and Neverboys in stylish leather coats and skinny black pants, all hard at work: hanging tapestries of Sophie’s best moments as a student, polishing stained glass windows of Sophie’s face, and scrubbing the marble floor branded with a red S circled by olive leaves and topped with a gold crown.

“And yet here you are, helping them,” Sophie said, simpering at Hort.

“Yeah, so you’ll take me to the dance.”

“A Dean doesn’t need a date to her own dance,” Sophie bristled.

“But maybe she wants one,” said Hort, sweat dripping.

“What I want is for you to put on a shirt,” said Sophie, eyeing his sculpted torso.

“I seem to have lost it,” said Hort.

Sophie arched a brow. “Indeed.”

“Um, Professor?” a voice peeped.

Hort and Sophie turned.

Fifty first years blinked at them. “Someone’s knocking on the door,” a vampiric-looking girl wisped.

A barrage of loud raps echoed through the Hall.

Sophie waited until the knocking stopped. “Really? I don’t hear a thing.” “By the way, I liked the castle better how it was before, when it was crumbly and dirty,” Hort said, rubbing out a stain on Sophie’s statue with his hand. “Everything’s too clean now. Like we’re trying to hide something.” “Hogwash. How could anyone possibly prefer the old Evil,” Sophie pooh-poohed, glancing out the window at the renovated towers of Malice, Mischief, and Vice, lit up with red-and-gold paper lanterns. “Evil was so dark before. So morose and unattractive. No wonder we were always the losers. We acted like losers!” “So Evil’s been around since the dawn of time, waiting for you to save it?” said Hort, stonefaced.

“Darling, if it wasn’t for me, Evil would have kept playing second fiddle to Good, dying in every story for no other reason than it made a tidier ending for the sweet, pretty Ever to win. But now look at us: new uniforms, new classes, new castle. . . . A new brand of Evil. Which is why I’ve invited the students from Good to join our dance tonight. I want them to see Evil is no longer the ugly stepsister. Evil is young and glamorous and en vogue. Tonight isn’t just a celebration; it’s a flag in the sand. A flag that says: it’s Evil’s time now. And if we happen to bring a few Evers into our ranks along the way . . . well, then, flah-sé-dah.” She snapped her fingers—a scrawny, brown, rat-faced boy ran in from the wings and handed her a glass of green juice.

“Isn’t that right, Bogden?” Sophie smiled, sipping her juice.

“Flah-sé-dah,” he squeaked, fanning her with a palm frond.

Hort glared at the rat boy. “Why is he here?”

More loud knocks assaulted the Hall.

“Bogden of Woods Beyond?” said Sophie innocently, ignoring the knocks. “Didn’t you have him in class, Professor Hort? You are our school’s teacher of Evil history, are you not? Or do you make it a habit of not paying attention to the students you teach?” Hort clenched his teeth. “First of all, I’m here to teach history as a last-minute favor to you since no one wanted a job where everybody who takes it ends up dead. Second, I shouldn’t even be here since Lady Lesso assigned me a normal quest like everyone else, which means my little soldier on your magic map should be in Maidenvale, fighting dragons and elves and maybe even getting my own fairy tale. But instead I left my quest to help you—” “As Dean, I have the right to modify your quest as I see fit,” said Sophie.

“—and third, I know perfectly well who Bogden is,” Hort plowed on, “because he flunked my challenges and every other teacher’s the first week, which means he should have been expelled, since by your new rules, anyone who fails three challenges in a row is sent packing.” “I know my rules, thank you. I just couldn’t bring myself to fail a fellow Reader,” Sophie sighed. “I too came from humble beginnings. I too craved a life better than Gavaldon’s, where I would have to churn butter and wash clothes and marry an obese man who expected me to obey him and you know . . . cook. It’s why I started accepting applications from Readers. They deserve to live out their fairy tales.” “Then why have you been complaining about Readers the past two weeks?” Hort asked.

“Just that one Gavaldon Girl who destroyed a classroom and gives me the Evil eye every time she sees me. And not in a Good way. Bogden, on the other hand, treats me like a goddess,” Sophie said, beaming at the rat-faced boy. “So after his poor first week, I gave him the choice between being sent home or being my personal steward for the year. Looks a bit like the old you, doesn’t he, Hort? Before you started lifting weights to look like Tedros, I mean.” Harder knocking now.

“If this is what you’re like as Dean, I can’t imagine what you’d have been like as Camelot’s queen,” said Hort.

“Psshh, no way,” Sophie said, lounging against her throne. “Presiding at court while people present their problems . . . that’s not me.” KNOCK! KNOCK! KNOCK!

“Oh, let them in, for heaven’s sake!” Sophie moaned.

Instantly Bogden snatched a rolled-up red carpet from behind Sophie’s throne and unfurled it across Evil Hall, shunting Nevers out of the way with catlike hisses before he flung open the doors with a courtier’s bow— A gaggle of adults flurried down the carpet, waving wild arms and shouting so loudly that Sophie peeked around for a window to jump out of.

“You can’t yank students out of class willy-nilly!” Professor Bilious Manley yelled, pimply head flushing red.

“You can’t invite Evers into Evil castle without School Master approval!” scolded Professor Sheeba Sheeks, shaking her fists.

“You can’t turn the School Master’s tower into your own private residence!” said Yuba the Gnome, white beard twitching.

“YOU THINK THAT’S BAD? SHE MADE BATHS MANDATORY!” Castor the Dog bellowed. “FOR TEACHERS TOO.” The others gasped.

Sophie cinched her bathrobe tighter, curlers bouncing like Christmas ornaments. “First of all, I can do whatever I want with our students since I’m Dean. Second, seeing there is no School Master, I could invite Evers to a tarheeled hootenanny if I felt like it and no one could stop me! Third, even if we have a fleet of new fairies watching the Storian, I felt more secure living beside it, given that the protection of the enchanted pen is our school’s top priority—” “And this protection includes renovating the tower to be a five-star hotel?” Manley barked, pointing out the window at scaffolding encasing the School Master’s spire. “The stymphs’ construction on the tower has been going on for months and nearly suffocated us all with dust! We’ve had enough!” Sophie glared. “You expected me to live in that old stone cell like Rafal once did? Without silk carpeting or a proper bathtub or 360-degree lighting?” The teachers were speechless.

Wolf howls echoed in the hallway.

“I believe that’s your cue to get back to teaching and mine to get ready for a Dean’s Dance,” said Sophie, rising from her throne— Evil Hall’s doors flung open once more and Clarissa Dovey marched in, silver hair fraying from her high bun, beetle wings flapping on her green teacher’s gown.

“If it is, in fact, a Dean’s Dance, then one would assume I’m invited, since I am a Dean,” she said, gliding down the red carpet, a gold vial identical to Sophie’s dangling around her neck. “Only I received no such invitation.” “Tonight is a celebration of glamour, charisma, and hope. Despite the rather maleficent entrance, I’m afraid you’d feel quite out of place,” said Sophie coolly.

“And yet you invited my students,” said Dovey.

“Who have RSVPed in remarkable numbers,” said Sophie. “I can assure you that none of my first years would attend a dance in your castle. And if they did, the fusty old smell would surely drive them away.” Dean Dovey’s eyes flashed. “Oh, how the School Master will cook your goose.” “Too bad there is no School Master,” Sophie purred.

Clarissa leaned in, eye to eye. “That will soon change.”

Sophie turned dead white.

The Dean of Good swept out of the Hall, Evil’s teachers following her, until the doors slammed behind them, shaking the chandelier. A clump of S crystals fell and shattered against Sophie’s glass throne.

She hardly noticed as Bogden picked shards out of her hair, her big, spooked pupils fixed on the door.

“New School M-M-Master?” she croaked.

She saw Hort, barechested against her statue, grinning like a weasel.

“Flah-sé-dah,” he sang.