In a flash, Sophie ripped out the cork and chugged the potion in one gulp. A bitter, acid taste exploded through her and she grabbed her throat in shock, hearing the vial shatter against the floor. She could hear Agatha scream for her and Yuba holding her back, before their voices slowed to syllabic growls, drowned in her choking gasps. The skin over her face stretched tight, like warm putty, remolding itself over her bones as her hair turned coarser, slurping back into her head.
As the rancid potion flooded her chest, Sophie felt her whole body inflate like a cement-packed balloon, shoulders straining against her girls’ uniform, shredding its seams. Her forearms bulged with tight blue veins; her feet swelled and arched, tiny hairs sprouting on her toes; her calves tightened like melons and she careened off-balance, onto her knees. Then came heat, hellish heat, scorching and smoking through every pore, incinerating softness to burn. Every time she thought it was over, the pain spread further, every part of her demolished and reconstructed until Sophie curled up into a ball on the floor, praying this was all a dream, a dream she’d wake up from in an empty grave as her mother held her and wiped her tears, whispering it was all a mistake.
“Sophie?”
No answer came.
Agatha broke free of Yuba’s grip. “Sophie, are you okay?”
When no reply came, Agatha gave the gnome a worried look and hustled for the curtain—
Something stirred behind it and Agatha froze.
Slowly a figure stepped out, hooded in Sophie’s navy girls’ cloak.
The cloak didn’t fit anymore.
Agatha’s eyes drifted down strong knees, muscular calves, hairy ankles . . . to two big, unsteady feet.
She inched towards the figure, holding her breath. She felt Yuba clinging to the tail of her shirt, peeking behind her. Standing on tiptoes, Agatha slowly reached for the hood and pulled it back. She toppled with a gasp, taking the gnome with her. By the time she looked up, Sophie had already grabbed the glass vase off the table and collapsed against the wall, whimpering in fright at her reflection.
She’d morphed into a powerful, square-jawed version of herself, with short, fluffy blond hair, high cheekbones, straight brows, and deep-set emerald eyes. Long limbed but taut with muscle, she looked like an elfin prince, with big, pulled-back ears, a sharp, regal nose, and a dimpled chin. Her hands gripping the undersized cloak were hardy and big knuckled, her shoulders broad, narrowing down to a trim waist, and her golden, stubbled cheeks streaked with fiery blush.
Sophie wheezed like a punctured balloon. “I’m—I’m a boy—”
Only her voice didn’t sound like a boy’s at all.
“The spell’s one shortcoming. Still have your old sound,” Yuba sighed. “Breathe from your belly and speak in low tones, and it’ll sound about right.” He chewed his lip, studying her. “But strong face . . . solid trunk . . . jolly good work, I’d say. None of those lads will suspect a thing.”
But Sophie’s eyes stayed on her reflection, doubting the gnome. For as she touched her face and form beneath her cloak, she felt the boy on the outside, hard and toughened, like a rock shell. But inside . . . inside she was the soft, scared girl who didn’t want to leave her friend. Look close, and the boys would find her. Look close, and she’d be dead before dawn.
She gazed up at Agatha, who stared wordlessly at the sculpted, sharp-jawed face in the vase’s reflection.
“Even better looking as a boy, I have to say,” Agatha marveled finally.
Sophie flung the flowers out of the vase at her and Agatha ducked. Sophie turned away, shaking.
“I don’t know how to be a boy,” Sophie said, voice high, tears streaking her stubbled cheeks. “I don’t know how to walk or act or—”
“You won the challenge for a reason, Sophie,” Agatha said behind her. “I know you can do this.”
“Not without you there,” Sophie rasped.
Agatha touched her friend’s back, feeling unfamiliar muscle beneath her fingers. “I need you to be a boy now,” she said, her voice calm. “Just be a boy and get us home.”
Sophie nodded in her alien body and tried to stop shivering. Agatha’s faith slowly seeped into her, steadying her heart. They’d been through so much, trying to hold on to each other—but now only she could get them to The End. Her friend was right. She was a boy now, and she had to act like one.
With a deep breath, she braced herself and turned into the light.
“I need clothes,” she said, voice sharp and low.
Agatha stared at the elfin boy’s hardened face and, for the first time, saw a stranger.
Agatha smiled her old, crooked smile. “What you need is a name.”
Hort hugged his pillow, still in underpants, tossing and turning in his smelly bed while a hulking prince snored like a gorilla across the room.
The last week had been miserable. With the Trial approaching, the teachers had taken over, determined that the boys win and restore the School for Good and Evil. Not that Hort cared about any of it anymore. Tomorrow was the first day of official Trial Tryouts, and he didn’t have the faintest chance of making the team. He still hadn’t gotten a new uniform, the new princes called him Wart, the big ones kept stealing his lunch pail, and without Dot here, he didn’t have anyone to talk to.
Why was he at this horrible place? What had the School Master possibly seen in him? He was a bad villain and an even worse son.
Hort rubbed his eyes, thinking of his dad’s body, lying in the Garden of Good and Evil, with a mile-long line of corpses awaiting burial. Hort couldn’t even afford a coffin, so his father lay to waste beneath circling vultures, the Crypt Keeper years away from reaching him.
Hort grated his teeth. If he won the Trial, he’d have the treasure to give his father the most beautiful coffin in the Woods. If he won the Trial, he’d have revenge on the girl who’d broken his heart. No one would ever question him being soft again—
A hacking snore snapped his trance and Hort shoved his pillow over his head, tempted to suffocate himself and die. There’d be no treasure. There’d be no revenge. Because that hairy, big-chested prince in the other bed was going to make the Trial team and his scrawny waste of a self wasn’t.
If I could just have one friend here, Hort prayed. One friend who could make him feel like more than a loser. Sniffling, he balled his knees and huddled near the window, pulling the covers over his head—
Hort bolted back up, gaping through the window.
There was a body on the boy’s shore, the tattered, wet clothes streaked with blood. Moonlight seeped from behind a cloud, trickling onto the boy’s pale forearm, and for a second Hort saw his fingers twitch.
Gasping, he flung off his covers and raced out of bed.
Surely the best way to make a new friend was to start by saving his life.
“What’s your name?” a familiar voice snarled.
Sophie’s eyes flickered open to her hard stomach against the floor, her thick hands cuffed. Her abundance of new muscles ached, and a bleary haze clouded her vision. She remembered little of how she’d arrived—only fleeting images of her refashioning Yuba’s ragged tablecloth into a tunic big enough to cover her bulky new frame (“I have shoulders like an elephant,” she crabbed), lumbering awkwardly behind Agatha and the gnome onto the girls’ shore (“Why is everything so stiff!”), and managing a histrionic good-bye (“Farewell, dignity! Farewell, femininity!”) before Yuba knocked her out with a stun spell.
She’d pretended not to have heard the plan when he and Agatha had gone over it earlier—the plan where the gnome and her best friend would float her body through the girls’ lake towards the crog-filled red moat, knowing the currents would drag her to the boy’s shore. The gnome promised Agatha the crogs wouldn’t do more than nip a boy, but both parties thought it wiser if Sophie wasn’t awake for the experience—and Sophie certainly saw no reason to argue. She glanced down at the serrated toothmarks and drips of blood across her tunic and was thankful the first few hours of her life as a b
oy had been mostly spent unconscious.
“What’s your name?”
Sophie slowly lifted her eyes to Castor, standing in front of the male faculty, all clad in black-and-red robes, glowering down at the new boy in front of them.
Sophie lurched to her knees, heart hammering. The return of the teachers wasn’t her only surprise.
The school around them had been completely cleaned up. Gone was the ape regime, with boys swinging from rafters, graffitied doors, and a putrid stench. Evil’s foyer had been repainted blood crimson, the walls decorated with scarlet snake crests. The three staircases in the anteroom had been given fresh coats of black paint, the twisting banisters painted red, like red-bellied snakes. High on the stairs, more than two hundred boys leered down at the new arrival—dozens of familiar Ever and Neverboys, together with handsome new princes, all showered, scrubbed, and dressed in clean black-and-red leather uniforms.
Sophie’s mouth parched. She’d always wished that one day she’d be in a castle full of gorgeous, virile men.
She should have been more specific.
“YOUR NAME, BOY,” Castor roared, grabbing her throat with his paw.
Agatha thought it was a terrible idea. To give herself the name of the boy her father had always wanted. The unborn boy her father had loved more than he ever loved her.
But Sophie refused any others.
“Filip,” she rasped in his grip.
Saying the name out loud stirred something inside her. She looked up at Castor, hardened.
“Filip of Mount Honora,” she repeated, voice deep and strong. “Lost my kingdom to a hideous witch. I come for a chance at the treasure.”
Murmurs rippled through the boys eyeing the elfish prince.
“Is that an Ever kingdom?” she heard Manley whisper to Espada.
“An enclave of Maidenvale, I believe,” Espada said, mustache twitching.
“And how did you get here, Filip of Mount Honora?” Castor barked, releasing his grip on the boy.
“Through a crack in the shield,” said Sophie.
“Impossible,” said a voice high above.
Sophie peered up at Aric and his red-hooded henchmen on Malice’s banister, looming over all the other boys. They had coiled whips at their belt, red soldier jackets over their shirts, and the rest of the boys looked even more scared of them than before. Clearly the teachers had found their replacement for last year’s wolves.
“I’m the only one who can break through Lady Lesso’s shield,” Aric leered, glaring down at the prisoner. “The hole was sealed tight after I let the princes in.”
Sophie met his violet eyes. “Perhaps you should have done a better job.”
The staircase audience stiffened. Aric and his henchmen looked daggers at this new boy, shorter, skinnier, daring to challenge them in front of the whole school.
But Castor was smirking at the stranger, amused. “Welcome to the School for Boys, Filip.”
Sophie exhaled relief. She saw Aric’s glare burning colder.
“In three nights’ time, we face a buffoonish Trial against girls that threatens to leave us all slaves,” the dog declared, looking up at the boys on the staircases. “Win, and we rid ourselves of two Readers who’ve corrupted Good and Evil. Win, and the schools return to tradition.”
Boys burst into bellowing cheers. Sophie swallowed, trying to look enthused at the prospect of her own execution.
“For the next three days, Trial Tryouts will determine who will fight against the girls,” the dog continued. “Top nine boys after Tryouts will make the team. The tenth member of the team will be chosen by the first-place leader. Let this encourage you to make friends with the new princes around you and forge Ever-Never alliances.”
Boys old and new scanned each other warily, sizing up the competition.
“As a further incentive,” Castor said, “the highest-ranked student at the end of each day has the prestigious honor of guarding the School Master’s tower for the night.”
Boys grumbled on the stairs, as if this didn’t sound like much of an honor at all. But Sophie was too busy gasping with joy to notice. The dog had just unwittingly saved her and Agatha’s lives. Win enough challenges today and she could steal the Storian tonight! She’d be home with Agatha by dawn!
“No bunks available for Filip, Castor,” said Albemarle, the spectacled woodpecker, studying his ledger. “Castle’s at full occupancy.”
Castor peered down at the new boy. “Put him in with the runt. Whoever’s ranked lowest between them at the end of each day gets punished.”
Sophie’s smile vanished. The boys on the stairs chortled as Albemarle dutifully pecked into parchment. Aric was grinning at her now.
The runt? Sophie thought, tensing. Who’s the runt?
Castor unlocked her cuffs. “Go get yourself settled before class, boy. Anyone want to show young Filip here his room—”
Fumbling bootsteps thundered down the stairs, and Sophie squinted up at Hort, crashing through boys like a loon in a new uniform two sizes too big. “That’s me! That’s me, Filip!” He snatched the schedule from Albemarle’s beak and yanked the new boy to his feet—
“I’m Hort and I saved you so now we can be best friends even though you’re an Ever,” he gushed, shoving him his schedule. “I’ll explain classes, rules, and you can sit with me at lunch and—”
But Sophie wasn’t listening. All she could see was the top of the parchment page, freshly pecked in stiff, unmistakable letters.
FILIP OF MOUNT HONORA
BOY, 2ND YEAR
ROOMMATE: TEDROS
* * *
It answered her question about the runt.
UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
HarperCollins Publishers
..................................................................
17
Two Schools, Two Missions
Agatha?”
Agatha stirred, snowflakes melting on her eyelids.
“Agatha, wake up.”
Agatha opened her eyes to see Tedros, clean-shaven in his blue Everboys’ uniform, kneeling in front of her bed, hair dusted with snow. He gently brushed back her hair. “Come with me, Agatha,” he whispered. “Before it’s too late.”
She looked into his eyes as he leaned over her, his soft and innocent eyes, just like they once were . . . his lips coming for hers. . . . She felt his warm breath, then his mouth’s sweet taste—
Agatha bolted awake, burning with sweat and clutching her pillow.
For a moment, she wondered why Reaper wasn’t curled next to her like he usually was. Then it all came flooding back. Agatha sprang up to the sight of morning snow blowing through the window on a wind, swirling across two empty, canopied beds before settling on hers. Agatha couldn’t breathe, staring at Sophie’s perfectly made sheets dotted with snow. Her best friend was in the enemy’s castle, risking her life for them as a boy, and she’d just dreamed of . . . of . . .
Agatha gasped and scrambled out of bed, quashing the thought. It was nothing. Just a leftover, a residue, a phantom of a wish that would soon be corrected. What mattered now was Sophie.
She swiveled frantically to the clock as the hands ticked past 7:30. Fifteen hours before she’d know if Sophie had survived; 54,000 seconds. They’d arranged to each hang a lantern in their window at sunset to communicate with the other: green flamed if they were safe, red flamed if they weren’t. Until then, all Agatha had was the image of her best friend, once an aspiring princess, now a hard-edged prince, dragged unconscious into the boys’ castle by Hort.
Agatha flung around the room, pulling on pieces of her uniform, still a bit flustered by her dream. Getting rid of Beatrix last night had been easy enough—a few coughs at curfew check, splotches of beetroot on her face, and a reminder of Yuba’s contagiousness sent her roommate dragging all her trunks into Reena’s quarters. Still, someone would come checking on her and Sophie before long.
Agatha fumbled towards the door, jiggling he
r feet into her clumps. She had to find Professor Dovey and confess everything. Dovey was a famous fairy godmother, after all—she’d made her name solving people’s problems! But where could they possibly meet without being overheard? The Dean’s spies followed her teacher incessantly, and all the best spots had proved vulnerable—bathrooms, Supper Hall, Sader’s office. If only there was a place where even if the butterflies did find her, they still wouldn’t hear . . . Agatha waited for her mind to give her a solution, to propel her out the door. . . .
She slumped back down on Beatrix’s bed, answerless. Agatha kicked her clump hard against the bedpost in frustration—
The back of her heel struck something wet.
She looked down and saw a tiny puddle under the bedskirt, where the melting snow had pooled behind something. She slid onto her stomach and extended her arm under the mattress, until it touched a thick, rubbery mass. Slowly Agatha pulled out a ball of clothes, which unraveled in her hands, revealing a black-and-red leather uniform, scrunched in with a thin snakeskin cape.
Agatha held up the uniform, speckled with blood and dirt. Why was Beatrix hiding a boys’ uniform? Had she found one somewhere in the Blue Forest? Why hadn’t she mentioned it? Agatha’s fingers drifted to the cape’s shimmering, black-hued scales. Last year, she’d learned that snakeskin capes were invariably used for one purpose: invisibility. But why would Beatrix need to be invisible in her own castle?
A strong whiff of lavender came off the cape and Agatha sneezed. Beatrix may have given up her princess hair, but she’d certainly been borrowing Sophie’s perfume.
Agatha shoved the clothes back under the bed, quite sure that Beatrix’s oddities had nothing to do with her dilemma. What she and Sophie needed was a teacher’s help—
A soft sound scratched behind her. Agatha turned to see an envelope peeking under the door. Taking it into her hands, she tore open Professor Dovey’s pumpkin-sealed stationery and pulled out a small parchment card.
Sewers. Now.
The one place they couldn’t be overheard.