“You must get used to seeing each other as the enemy! The first Trial by Tale is in three weeks!” the gnome said. “Now for the Trial, you’ll need a few basic spells. There is no one way to do magic, of course. Some spells require visualization, some incantations, others hand flicks, foot taps, magic wands, numeric codes, or even partners! Yet there is one rule common to all spells.”
From his pocket, he pulled a shiny silver key, the bit shaped like a swan.
“Evers, right hands, please.”
Baffled Evers looked at each other, and held out their hands.
“Mmm. You first.”
Agatha frowned as he grabbed her hand, then her second finger. “Wait—what are you going to—”
Yuba magically plunged his swan key into Agatha’s fingertip—the skin went see-through and the swan sank past tissue, veins, blood, and attached to her bone. The gnome turned the bow and her bone painlessly rotated a full circle. Her fingertip glowed bright orange for just a moment, then dulled as Yuba withdrew the key. Bewildered, Agatha stared at her finger as Yuba unlocked the rest of the Evers, then the Nevers, including Sophie, who barely glanced up from scribbling in her notebook.
“Magic follows feeling. That is our only rule,” said the gnome when he was finished. “When your finger glows, it means you have summoned enough emotion, enough purpose to perform a spell. You can only do magic when you have deep need and want!”
Students squinted at their fingers, feeling, coaxing with all their might, and soon fingertips started to flicker, each person’s a unique color.
“But like a magic wand, fingerglow is just a training wheel!” Yuba warned. “In the Woods, you will look like a nincompoop if you light up every time you cast a spell. We will relock your glow once you show control.” He grimaced at Hort, uselessly thrusting his finger at rocks, trying to make something happen. “If ever.”
The gnome turned back to the group.
“In the first year, you’ll learn only three types of spells: Water Control, Weather Manipulation, and Mogrification, both plant and animal. Today we’ll begin with the last,” he said to excited twitters. “A simple visualization spell but highly effective for escaping enemies. Now, since your clothes won’t fit after you Mogrify, it’s easier if you’re not wearing any.”
The students stopped tittering.
“But I suppose we’ll do,” Yuba said. “Who wants to go first?”
Everyone raised their hand except two. Agatha, who was praying now more than ever that Sophie had a plan to get home. And Sophie, who was too busy writing her next lecture (“‘Bath’ Is Not a Four-Letter Word”) to care about any of this.
By the third day on her stump, Sophie had 30 freshly bathed Nevergirls attend “Just Say No to Drab.”
“Now Professor Manley says a Never must be ugly. That ugly means uniqueness, power, freedom! So here’s my question to Professor Manley. How do you expect us to feel unique, empowered, or free . . . in this?” she roared, waving the dumpy black robes like an enemy flag. The cheer was so loud that across the Clearing, Beatrix’s pen slipped and ruined her ball gown sketch.
“It’s that mentally ill Sophie,” Beatrix snapped.
“Still looking for a Ball date, is she,” murmured Tedros, aiming his next horseshoe throw.
“Worse. Now she’s trying to convince the Nevers they’re not losers.”
Tedros missed his shot in surprise.
Agatha didn’t even try to see Sophie after lunch, with Nevergirls mobbing her for style advice. She didn’t try the next day, either, when an impromptu shoe burning erupted after Sophie’s lecture on “Abandon All Ye Clumps!” and wolves ran around whipping students back to the tower. And she certainly didn’t try the next, when every Nevergirl showed up for Sophie’s talk on “Fitness for the Unfit,” except Hester and Anadil, who cornered Agatha after lunch.
“This idea keeps getting more rotten,” Anadil said. “So rotten we’re not your friends anymore.”
“Boys, balls, kisses—all your problem now,” Hester snarled, demon twitching on her neck. “As long as it doesn’t mess with me winning Captain, I could give a hog’s behind what you two do. Got it?”
The next day, Agatha hid in the Tunnel of Trees, waited for the sound of high heels on dead leaves, and tackled Sophie in a flying leap. “What is it today? Cuticle creams! Teeth whiteners! More abdominal exercises!”
“If you want to talk to me, you can wait in line with everyone else!” Sophie yelled.
“‘Malevolent Makeovers,’ ‘Black Is the New Black,’ ‘Yoga for Villains’! Do you want to die here?”
“You said show him something deeper. Isn’t this compassion? Isn’t this kindness and wisdom? I’m helping those who can’t help themselves!”
“Excuse me, Saint Teresa, but the goal here is Tedros! How is this accomplishing anything!”
“Accomplishment. Such a vague word. But I’d consider that an accomplishment, wouldn’t you?”
Agatha followed Sophie’s look out the tunnel. The crowd in front of her stump was a hundred Nevers deep. Only there was one hovering in back who didn’t look like the rest.
A golden-haired boy in a blue rugby sweater.
Agatha released Sophie in shock.
“You should come,” Sophie called as she flounced out of the tunnel. “Today’s about dry, damaged hair.”
In front of the stump, Arachne’s one eye glowered at Tedros. “Why is Prince Prettyface here?”
“Yeah, back to your side, Everboy,” Mona sniped, pelting him with tree mold.
More Nevergirls started to heckle him and Tedros shrank back anxiously. He wasn’t used to being unpopular. But just as he was booed away—
“We welcome everyone,” Sophie admonished as she swept to her stump.
Tedros came back every day that week. He told his mates he just wanted to see what Sophie was wearing, but there was more to it. With each new day, he watched her teach misshapen villains how to straighten their hunches, hold eye contact, and enunciate their words. He watched Neverboys skeptically skulk on the fringes at first, only to soon badger Sophie for advice on sleeping better, masking body odor, and managing their tempers. At first the wolves yawned through these assemblies, but Tedros could see them listening as more and more Nevers showed up for Sophie’s lectures. Soon the villains began to debate her prescriptions at supper and over dreggy tea in common rooms. They started to sit together at lunch, defend each other in class, and stopped making jokes about their losing streak. For the first time in two hundred years, Evil had hope. All because of one girl.
By the end of the week, Tedros had a seat in the front row.
“It’s working! I can’t believe it!” Agatha gushed as she walked Sophie to the Tunnel of Trees. “He might say he loves you! He might kiss you this week! We’re going home! What’s tomorrow’s topic?”
“‘Eating Your Words,’” Sophie said, swishing ahead.
At lunch the next day, Agatha stood in line for a basket of artichoke and olive tartines, dreaming about the heroes’ welcome she and Sophie would get when they returned home. Gavaldon would erect statues of them in the square, fete them in sermons, stage a musical about their lives, and teach schoolchildren about the two girls who saved them from the curse. Her mother would have a thousand new patients, Reaper fresh trout every day, and she would have her pictures in the town scroll and anyone who had ever dared to mock her would now grovel at her—
“What a joke.”
Agatha turned to Beatrix, who was watching Nevers throng around Sophie in a revealing black sari and sharp-heeled fur booties for her lecture on “How to Be the Best at Everything (Like Me!).”
“As if she’s the best,” Beatrix snorted.
“I think she’s the best Never I’ve ever seen,” a voice said behind her.
Beatrix whirled to Tedros. “Is she now, Teddy? And I think it’s all a big fairy tale.”
Tedros followed her eyes to the ranking boards, smoldering in soft sunlight on the Blue Forest ga
tes. On the Nevers board, Sophie’s name hung off the bottom, pecked to holes by robins. Number 120 out of 120.
“The Empress’s New Clothes, to be precise,” Beatrix said, and strutted away.
Tedros didn’t go to see Sophie that day. Word spread that he found it sad to watch Nevers pin their hopes on the “worst girl in school.”
The next day, Sophie showed up to a deserted stump. The wooden sign had been defaced.
“I told you to pay attention!” Agatha shouted as they waited in pouring rain after Yuba’s class for wolves to open the gates.
“Between sewing new outfits, brewing new makeup, preparing new lectures, I can’t worry about class!” Sophie sobbed under a black parasol. “I have my fans to think about!”
“Of which you now have none!” Agatha yelled. She could see Hester smirking at her from the Group 6 huddle. “Three bottom ranks and you fail, Sophie! I don’t know how you’ve survived this long!”
“They don’t let me fail! No matter how bad I am! Why do you think I stopped studying!”
Agatha tried to make sense of this, but couldn’t focus with her fingertip burning. Ever since Yuba unlocked it, it glowed whenever she was angry, as if raring to do a spell.
“But how did you get all those high ranks before?” she said, hiding her hand in her pocket.
“That was before they made us read. I mean, do I look like I care how to poison a comb, how to pluck toad eyes, or how to say ‘May I cross your bridge’ in Troll? Here I am trying to improve these villains and you want me to memorize the recipe for Children Noodle Soup? Agatha, did you know that to boil a child you have to wrap them in parchment first? Otherwise they won’t be properly cooked and might wake up in your pot. Is that what you want me to learn? How to hurt and kill? How to be a witch?”
“Listen, you need to win back respect—”
“Through intentional Evil? No. Shan’t.”
“Then we’re doomed,” Agatha snapped. Sophie exhaled angrily and turned away.
Suddenly her expression changed. “What in the—”
She gawked at the Evers ranking board, tacked to the gates.
1. TEDROS OF CAMELOT
2. BEATRIX OF JAUNT JOLIE
3. REENA OF PASHA DUNES
4. AGATHA OF WOODS BEYOND
71 POINTS
84 POINTS
88 POINTS
96 POINTS
“But—but—you’re . . . you!” Sophie cried.
“And I do my homework!” Agatha barked. “I don’t want to learn dove calls or practice fainting or sew handkerchiefs, but I’ll do whatever it takes to get us home!”
But Sophie wasn’t listening. A naughty grin spread across her face.
Agatha crossed her arms. “No way. First of all, teachers will catch us.”
“You’ll love my Curses homework, it’s all about tricking princes—and you hate boys!”
“Second, your roommates will tell on you—”
“And you’ll love my Uglification homework! We’re learning to scare children—and you hate children!”
“If Tedros finds out, we’re dead—”
“And look at your finger! It glows when you’re upset! I can’t do that!”
“It’s a fluke!”
“Look, it’s even brighter now! You’re born to be a vill—”
Agatha stomped. “WE’RE NOT CHEATING!”
Sophie fell silent. Wolves unlocked the Blue Forest gates and students surged into the tunnels.
Neither Sophie nor Agatha moved.
“My roommates say I’m 100% Evil,” Sophie said softly. “But you know the truth. I don’t know how to be Evil. Not even 1%. So please don’t ask me to go against my own soul, Agatha. I can’t.” Her voice caught. “I just can’t.”
She left Agatha under the umbrella. As Sophie joined the herd, the storm rinsed the sheen out of her hair, the glitter off her skin until Agatha couldn’t tell her from the other villains. Guilt flushed through her, burning her finger bright as the sun. She hadn’t told Sophie the truth. She had the same idea to do Sophie’s Evil work and squashed it. Not because she was afraid she’d get caught.
She was afraid she might like it. All 100%.
That night, Sophie had nightmares. Tedros kissing goblins, Agatha crawling from a well with cupid wings, Hester’s demon chasing her through sewers, until the Beast rose out of dark water, bloody hands snatching, and Sophie lunged past him and locked herself in the Doom Room. Only there was a new torturer waiting. Her father in a wolf mask.
Sophie jolted awake.
Her roommates were fast asleep. She sighed, nestled into her pillow—and bolted back up.
There was a cockroach on her nose.
She started to scream—
“It’s me!” the roach hissed.
Sophie closed her eyes. Wake up, wake up, wake up.
She opened them. It was still there.
“What’s my favorite muffin?” she wheezed.
“Flourless blueberry bran,” the roach spat. “Any more stupid questions?”
Sophie picked the bug off her nose. It had the same bulging eyes and sunken cheeks.
“How in the world—”
“Mogrification. We’ve been learning it for two weeks. Meet me in the common room.”
Agatha the Cockroach glared back as she skittered for the door.
“And bring your books.”
18
The Roach and the Fox
“Suppose mine glows green or brown or something?” Sophie yawned, scratching her legs. Everything in the Malice Common Room was made of burlap—the floors, the furniture, the curtains—like some barbarous itch chamber. “I’m not doing it if it clashes with my clothes.”
“Just focus on an emotion!” barked the roach on her shoulder. “Like anger. Try anger.”
Sophie closed her eyes. “Is it glowing?”
“No. What are you thinking about?”
“The food here.”
“Real anger, you oaf! Magic comes from real feelings!”
Sophie’s face scrunched with effort.
“Deeper! Nothing’s happening!”
Sophie’s face darkened and her fingertip flickered hot pink.
“That’s it! You’re doing it!” Agatha hopped excitedly. “What are you thinking about!”
“How infuriating your voice is,” Sophie said, opening her eyes. “Should I think about you every time?”
For the next week, the Malice Common Room turned into a cockroach’s night school. The Mogrify spell only lasted three hours, so Agatha worked Sophie like a slave, driving her to make her fingerglow stronger, to fog a room and flood a floor, to tell a Sleeping Willow from a Weeping Willow, and to even say a few words of Giant. Sophie’s ranks immediately improved, but by the fourth day, the long nights had taken their toll.
“My skin looks gray,” Sophie croaked.
“And you’re still ranked 68, so pay attention!” berated the roach on her book, swan crest glistening on abdomen. “The Woodswide Plague began when Rumpelstiltskin stamped so hard the ground cracked—”
“What made you change your mind? About helping me?”
“And from the ground, a million poisonous bugs crawled out and infested the Woods, sickening scores of Nevers and Evers,” Agatha said, ignoring her. “They even had to close this school, since the bugs were highly contagious—”
Sophie flopped back on the couch. “How do you know all this?”
“Because while you stare in mirrors, I read Poisons and Plagues!”
Sophie sighed. “So they closed the school for bugs. Then what happ—”
“This is where you’ve been sneaking to?”
Sophie swiveled to Hester at the door in black pajamas, flanked by Anadil and Dot.
“Homework,” Sophie yawned, holding up her book. “Need light.”
“Since when do you care about homework?” said Hester, looking greasier than ever.
“Thought beauty was a ‘full-time job,’” mimicked Anadil.<
br />
“Rooming with you is such inspiration,” Sophie said, smiling. “Makes me want to be the best villain I can be.”
Hester eyed her for a long moment. With a growl, she turned and led the others out.
Sophie exhaled, blowing Agatha off the couch.
“She’s up to something,” they heard Hester snarl.
“Or she’s changed!” piped Dot, waddling behind. “Roach on her book and she didn’t even notice!”
By the sixth night of schooling, Sophie had risen to #55. But each new day, she looked more like a zombie, skin sickly white, eyes glassy and bruised. Instead of a fancy new frock or hat, now she loped around with dirty hair and a wrinkled dress, trailing study notes all over the tower like bread crumbs.
“Maybe you should get some sleep,” Tedros mumbled to her during Yuba’s lesson on “Insect Cuisine.”
“Too busy trying not to be the ‘worst girl in school,’” Sophie said as she took notes.
“Insects are often available when meerworms are not,” Yuba said, holding up a live cockroach.
“Look, you can’t expect anyone to listen to you when you’re ranked lower than Hort,” Tedros whispered.
“When I’m #1, you’ll ask me to forgive you.”
“You get to #1 and I’ll ask you anything you want,” he snorted.
Sophie turned to him. “I’ll hold you to that.”
“If you’re still awake.”
“First remove the inedible bits,” Yuba said, and tore off the roach’s head.
Agatha shuddered and hid behind a pine shrub the rest of the lesson. But that night, she almost jumped from her thorax when Sophie told her what happened with Tedros.
“Everboys always keep their promises!” she said, bouncing on knobby roach legs. “It’s the Prince Code of Chivalry. Now you just have to get to #1 and he’ll ask you to the . . . Sophie?”
Sophie answered with a snore.
By the tenth day of Cockroach College, Sophie was only at #40 and the circles under her eyes were so black she looked like a raccoon. By the next, she’d slipped back to #65 when she napped during Lesso’s test on Nemesis Dreams, fell asleep during Henchmen, knocking Beezle off the Belfry, and lost her voice in Special Talents for another low rank.