“You don’t seem surprised to see us,” Agatha whispered, but her fairy godmother didn’t respond as she rushed them into Good’s deserted foyer, magically bolting doors behind them.
Only months ago, Sophie had eviscerated the hall in her witch’s revenge on Agatha and Tedros, blasting its stained glass windows, spiral staircases, and marble floors to shards. But now the two friends drew breaths at its redone facade. Where there used to be two pink staircases and two blue, all four stairwells were now the same royal blue as the castle. Lit by high stained glass windows, the staircases spiraled up to the dormitory towers, names tattooed on richly decorated balusters: HONOR, VALOR, PURITY, and CHARITY. Agatha had loathed the prissy princess pink of the PURITY and CHARITY towers, but seeing them turned the same color as the prince towers gave her an unsettled feeling.
Sophie nudged her, and Agatha turned to see her peering curiously at the Legends Obelisk in the center of the foyer, a soaring crystal column blanketed with portrait frames. Inside each of the frames was a painting of a past student, next to a storybook illustration of what the child became upon graduation. But looking up at the gold-framed Evers on top who became princesses and queens, the silver-framed ones in the middle who became helpers and sidekicks, and the bottomrung lot who became cinder sweeps and servants, the two girls noticed something peculiar. . . .
“Where are the boys?” Sophie said, for all their portraits had been removed.
Agatha swung her head to the Honor staircase: the frieze of knights and kings had been replaced with sword-brandishing, chain-mailed princesses. Sophie swiveled to the Valor staircase, once decorated with burly hunters and their trusty hounds—now huntresses in houndskins and decidedly female dogs. Both girls twirled to the lettered murals across the walls that once spelled E-V-E-R . . . and now spelled G-I-R-L.
“It is a School for Girls!” said Agatha, thunderstruck. “What happened to Good?”
“We can’t fight the School Master without boys!” cried Sophie.
“Shhhh!” Professor Dovey hissed, rushing them up the Valor staircase. “No one must know you’re here!”
As the girls chased her elegant silver-haired bun through Valor’s princely blue arches and murals, they gawked at the once virile visions of princes destroying demons and saving helpless princesses, now flaunting different endings: Snow White smashing out of her glass coffin with her fists, Red Riding Hood slitting the wolf’s throat, Sleeping Beauty setting her spindle on fire. . . . The red-blooded princes, hunters, men who rescued them, who saved their lives . . . gone.
“It’s like Everboys never existed!” whispered Agatha.
“Maybe the School Master killed them all!” whispered Sophie.
She suddenly heard soft tinkling and twirled to see three glowing blue butterflies peeking from behind a wall. They caught her looking and with a high-pitched meep! ducked and disappeared.
“What is it?” Agatha said, glancing back—
“Hurry!” Professor Dovey scolded, and the two girls scampered to follow, stooping past the Laundry, where two seven-foot, floating nymphs scrubbed sudsy blue bodices, through the Supper Hall, where enchanted pots stewed saffron rice and lentil soup, and past the Valor Common Room to the rear stairwell. Exhausted and aching from their torments in the Woods, Sophie and Agatha tried to keep up, but Professor Dovey was sprier than she looked.
“Where are we going?” Agatha panted.
“To the only other person who can keep you alive,” her fairy godmother shot back, bustling up the stairs.
Sophie and Agatha instantly ran faster, up five long flights to the lone white door on the sixth floor—
“Professor Sader’s office?” Agatha puffed. “But he’s dead—”
Professor Dovey ran her fingers over the raised blue dots on the former History teacher’s door. It swung open without a sound, and Sophie and Agatha scrambled in behind her.
A thin woman stood at the window, long black braid dangling over the back of her pointy-shouldered purple gown. “Did anyone see you?”
“No,” said Professor Dovey.
Lady Lesso spun to Sophie and Agatha, violet eyes flashing.
“Then it’s time they learned what they’ve done.”
“We did this?” Agatha blurted.
“But we weren’t even here!” said Sophie, turning between the Dean of Evil at the window and the Dean of Good at Professor Sader’s old desk, overflowing with open books.
Lady Lesso glowered at their dirt-smudged faces. “In this world, actions have consequences. Endings have consequences.”
“But our fairy tale ended happily!” Sophie said.
Professor Dovey let out a groan.
“Why don’t you tell us how it ended?” Lady Lesso sneered, blue veins throbbing.
“We killed the School Master and solved his riddle!” Sophie said.
“That’s how Sophie and I went home!” said Agatha.
“Clarissa, show them how it really ends,” Lady Lesso growled.
Professor Dovey flung a book across the desk. It was heavy and thick, bound with brown sheepskin and spattered with mud. Agatha opened to the first soggy page. Black calligraphy, slightly smeared, spilled across fresh parchment.
The Tale of Sophie & Agatha
Sophie turned the page to a richly colored painting of her and Agatha, standing before the School Master.
Once upon a time, the script below read, there were two girls.
Agatha remembered the line. The Storian had written it to start their fairy tale when they broke into the School Master’s tower. Flipping the book’s pages, Agatha saw her and Sophie’s story unfold in a brilliant sweep of paintings: Sophie trying to win Tedros’ kiss . . . Agatha saving Tedros’ life in a brutal attack . . . Agatha and Tedros falling in love . . . Sophie transforming into a vengeful witch . . . the School Master stabbing Sophie . . . Agatha reviving her with love’s kiss . . . and then the very last page . . . a dazzling vision of Tedros desperately reaching for Agatha as she and Sophie disappeared, three words beneath to close their story. . . .
They were gone.
Agatha felt tears rise, soaking in all the pain and love she and Sophie had shared to get home.
“It’s the perfect fairy tale,” Sophie said, meeting Agatha’s eyes with a choked-up smile.
They turned to the teachers, who looked deathly grim. “It’s not over,” said Lady Lesso.
The girls peered down at the book, confused. Their grimy hands lifted the last page, and they saw there was something on the other side.
A painting of Tedros, back turned, walking into dark fog, all alone.
And Sophie and Agatha lived happy ever after, for girls don’t need princes for love to call. . . .
No, they don’t need princes in their fairy tales at all.
“This one’s from Maidenvale. But you can find it anywhere, really. They’re even telling it in Netherwood.”
Sophie and Agatha raised their heads to Professor Dovey, frowning over the messy desk.
“It’s the only story anyone wants to hear.”
Now the girls saw that all the open books weren’t there by accident. Each book on the desk was spread to its last page. Some were in oil paints, some in watercolor, some in charcoal and ink; some were in a language the girls knew, others in scripts they didn’t. But all ended their version of The Tale of Sophie and Agatha the same way: Tedros alone and unneeded, slumping into darkness.
“Goodness, all this gloom because we’re popular?” Sophie said. “You can’t be surprised. Snow White and Cinderella are sweet and all. But who wants them when they can have me?”
She turned to Agatha for support, but her friend was staring out the window. “Aggie?”
Agatha didn’t answer. Slowly she approached the window, and Lady Lesso stepped aside without a word. At Sader’s desk, Professor Dovey held her breath.
From the steep window, Agatha looked down at the Blue Forest, the enchanted training ground for Good and Evil, sprawled in an array
of hues behind the school. It was as it always was, quiet and thriving despite the autumn chill, neatly fenced in by spiked golden gates.
The sounds were coming from beyond the gates.
At first she thought they were dead leaves, swathing the Endless Forest in rusted brown and orange beneath stripped, crooked trees. Then she looked closer and saw they were men.
Thousands of them were crammed against the Blue Forest gates in a filthy homeless camp, hunched around fires like gaunt, miserable peasants. She couldn’t see faces, but she glimpsed scraggly beards and blackened cheeks, mottled breeches and bony legs, ripped coats and sashes with gleaming . . .
Crests.
These weren’t peasants. They were—
“Princes,” Sophie gasped, looking out beside her.
“It’s her!” a voice screamed from the crowd. Heads swung to the tower window.
“It’s the witch!”
All at once, a savage mob rushed the Forest gates—
“Death to Sophie!”
“Kill her!”
“Kill the witch!”
The men fired arrows and catapulted stones at the tower, but the weapons instantly vanished into an enchanted shield, bubbly and violet tinged, that appeared over the school gates. As the crowd roared and swung pickets, mounted with the same WANTED signs the girls had seen in the woods, an intrepid prince leapt onto the spiked gates. The gold metal magically sizzled and he let go in shock, impaling on spikes below. Sophie spun in horror—
“How can those be princes?” she cried.
“How can those be princes?” Lady Lesso mimicked. “Those princes are there because of you.”
Agatha and Sophie gaped at each other. “We don’t understand—” Agatha spluttered.
Professor Dovey ground her teeth. The only time Agatha had seen her fairy godmother this furious was when she had disobeyed a teacher her first year and almost burned down the castle.
“Think, Agatha. Once upon a time, you believed yourself an ugly witch. But instead, your destiny was to become a princess. To find Ever After with the most coveted prince in our land! It would have been Good’s greatest victory! A restoration of all the values we’d lost! Kill the School Master, send your Evil friend home safe—and stay here with Tedros, as his queen. All you had to do was take his hand before you disappeared. That would have been the correct fairy tale. But instead . . .”
She looked daggers at Sophie. “You chose her.”
“And rightly so,” Sophie riposted. “If you knew Agatha at all, you’d know she could never give me up for a boy.” She whirled to her friend, knowing this time Agatha would defend her. But again, Agatha didn’t. She just gulped hard and stared at her muddy clumps.
“What happened after we left?” Agatha said.
“The Eviction.”
The girls turned to Lady Lesso, who shuddered at the memory.
“After your kiss, students tried to return to their schools, but the Evil towers ejected the Nevergirls. Sixty girls flung through windows into the bay—from stairs, classrooms, beds, toilets, common rooms . . . They tried to go back, but the Evil gates barred their entry. All the Nevergirls fled to Good for sanctuary, and the Evergirls welcomed them, inspired by your happy ending.”
“As soon as they arrived, the Good towers evicted the Everboys just as rudely,” Professor Dovey went on. “The moment the boys were all gone, the castle magically changed to what it is now—their portraits removed, murals repainted, friezes recarved, as if mirroring your tale. The School for Good had become the School for Girls.”
And indeed, the glittering crests over her and Lady Lesso’s hearts, once silver swans, were now sparkling blue butterflies. Agatha shook her head, confused.
“But those aren’t Everboys from school!” She pointed out the window. “Those are real princes!”
“What happened here happened everywhere in the Endless Woods,” Professor Dovey said gravely. “As your story spread like a plague and princesses imagined a world without princes, the men were magically ejected from their castles and left homeless. They appealed to witches to break the curse, but they too had heard The Tale of Sophie and Agatha. Stirred by the power of your bond, witches joined forces with princesses and took control of the kingdoms.”
“Witches and princesses are friends?” Sophie said in disbelief.
“No one thought it possible until your fairy tale,” said Professor Dovey. “And now it is men and women who are enemies.”
Agatha thought back to the Flowerground—the twittering women in groups, some pretty and cheerful, some homely and queer . . . the few scraggly, lonely males. . . .
“But we don’t want the princes homeless!” Agatha cried. “We don’t want them to be enemies!”
“We certainly don’t want them to smell,” murmured Sophie.
“You made princes irrelevant,” Lady Lesso retorted. “You made them impotent. You made them obsolete. And now you’ve made them turn to a new leader for revenge.”
The girls followed her eyes to the sea of WANTED signs hoisted outside the gates, demanding Sophie’s head at the orders of this leader.
“The School Master—” Sophie stammered. “We saw him—”
“Did you now?” Lady Lesso sneered.
“He’s in the Evil castle! We have to kill him!” Sophie swiveled to Agatha. “Tell her!”
Agatha ignored the fluttering in her stomach. “But he couldn’t have lived,” she said, almost to herself. She looked up. “You were there too, professors. All of us saw him die.”
“Indeed,” said Professor Dovey. “But that doesn’t mean he isn’t replaced.”
“Replaced?” the girls blurted.
“Naturally Lady Lesso and I believed ourselves the best candidates,” Professor Dovey said, smoothing her gown’s beetle wings. “Homeless and hated, the princes needed leaders they could trust. We assured them The Tale of Sophie and Agatha was closed forever. Under our protection, the Storian would restore men and women to balance, as it does Good and Evil. But just as we tried to bridge peace between boys and girls . . .” Her face dimmed. “Something odd happened.”
She thrust out the last page of their fairy tale and waited for the girls to say something.
“They drew Tedros taller than he is,” Sophie offered.
“Isn’t something missing?” the Dean moaned.
Agatha remembered the storybook under her bed . . . the wedded princess and prince . . .
“‘The End,’” she said. “Why doesn’t it say ‘The End’?”
Professor Dovey glared at her and slowly lifted the book to the light. Beneath the last line of their fairy tale, the two girls could see faded ink spelling those very two words . . .
Before they had been erased.
“What happened?” Sophie breathed.
“It seems your book has reopened,” Professor Dovey said, guiding their eyes to all the other versions of their story splayed across the desk. ‘The End’ had disappeared off each of them too.
Sophie rifled through the pile. “But how can we lose a happy ending!”
“Because one of you wished for a different one,” Lady Lesso lashed, not looking at her. “One of you wanted a new Ever After. And now, one of you has put our school on the brink of war.”
“That’s ludicrous,” Sophie huffed. “I know I wanted to be a princess—but I can’t, can I? I saw what this place did to me and have no desire to spend more time in it, even if Gavaldon smells like horse bottom and has no endurable men. So if I didn’t make the wish, then surely it’s a mista—”
But now she saw who Lady Lesso was staring at, and her cheeks lost all blood.
Sophie slowly turned to her friend, shadowed in the corner. “Aggie, at the hollow, you said . . . you said you made a . . . That’s not what you meant, right?”
Agatha couldn’t look at her.
Sophie’s hands were trembling. “Aggie, tell me it’s not what you meant.”
Agatha tried to find words—something to rede
em herself—
“All of this . . . ,” Sophie gasped. “Everything that happened . . . is because of you?”
Agatha burned scarlet. She spun to Lady Lesso. “How do I fix it? How do I get Sophie home safe?”
The Evil teacher let the question dangle while she inspected her sharp red nails.
“It’s simple,” she said finally, lifting her eyes. “You must wish to end with each other at the same time. Wish for each other and only each other, and the Storian will write ‘The End’ once more.”
“And we’ll leave the Woods?” Agatha pressed.
“Never to be hunted again—as long as your wish is true.”
Agatha let out a rush of air. “We can fix it.” She turned to Sophie. “We can get our ending back! The village won’t hurt us—”
Sophie backed away. “What ending did you want?”
“Don’t do this,” Agatha said.
“What else could you possibly want?” Sophie demanded.
“It was a mistake, Sophie—”
“Answer me.”
“Sophie, please—”
Sophie locked her gaze. “What did you wish for?”
“We can fix this now,” Agatha begged.
“I’m afraid you can’t.”
Both girls turned.
“The Storian must write ‘The End’ to seal your wish,’” said Professor Dovey. “And at the moment, it is unable.”
“What do you mean?” Agatha flushed angrily. “Where is it?”
“Where it always is,” said Lady Lesso, scowling back. “With the School Master.”
“Huh?” Agatha said. “But you said he was replace—”
The flutter in her heart.
The face she couldn’t see.
Agatha slowly looked up.
“Who doesn’t want your ending sealed?” Lady Lesso purred. “Who wants a new ending to your fairy tale?”
She held up their story’s last page . . . a boy walking into fog all alone . . .
“Who heard his princess’s wish?”
Agatha whirled to the window. Lightning exploded over the School Master’s tower across the bay with a whip crack of thunder, and she saw the silver-masked shadow in its flash—