The Honor toilets looked less like a bathroom and more like a mausoleum, with marble floors, friezes of mermen battling sea serpents, urinals flushing royal blue water, and massive ivory stalls each with a sapphire toilet and tub. Where the Evergirls’ toilets reeked of perfume, here she inhaled the smell of clean skin with a hint of sweat. Following the chocolate trail along the stalls and wet blue tubs, she found herself wondering which one Tedros had just used. . . . She burned beet red. Since when do you think about boys! Since when do you think about bathtubs! You’ve completely lost your—
A sniffle. From the last stall.
“Hello?” she called.
No response.
She knocked on its door.
“Excuse me,” a deep voice returned, obviously fake.
“Dot, open the door.”
After a long silence, the door unlatched. Dot’s clothes, hair, stall were peppered with chocolate shreds, as if she had attempted to turn toilet paper into a sustainable diet and succeeded only in making a mess.
“I thought Sophie was my friend!” she blubbered. “But then she took my room and my friends and now I have nowhere to go!”
“So you’re living in a boys’ toilet?”
“I can’t tell Nevers they kicked me out!” Dot wailed, blowing snot in her sleeve. “They’d torment me more than they already do!”
“But there has to be somewhere else—”
“I tried to sneak into your Supper Hall, but a fairy bit me before I escaped!”
Agatha grimaced, knowing exactly which fairy it was.
“Dot, if anyone finds you here, they’ll fail you!”
“Better failed than a homeless, friendless villain,” Dot sobbed into her hands. “How would Sophie like it if someone did it to her? How would she like it if you took her prince? No one could ever be that Evil!”
Agatha swallowed. “I just need to talk to her,” she said anxiously. “I’ll help her get Tedros back, okay? I’ll fix everything, Dot. I promise.”
Dot’s sobs softened to sniffles.
“True friends can make things right, no matter how bad they seem,” Agatha insisted.
“Even witches like Hester and Anadil?” Dot whimpered.
Agatha touched her shoulder. “Even witches.”
Slowly Dot peeked up from her hands. “I know Sophie says you’re a witch, but you wouldn’t fit in our school at all.”
Agatha felt ill again. “I mean, how did you even get here?” she frowned, picking chocolate crumbs out of Dot’s hair. “There’s no way to cross between the two schools anymore.”
“Of course there is. How do you think Sophie attacked all those nights?”
Agatha yanked Dot’s hair in surprise.
25
Symptoms
The roaring sewer river stretched through the long tunnel from Good to Evil, interrupted only by the Doom Room at the halfway point between the two schools. The Beast had long guarded the halfway point, where clear water from the lake turned to roiling sludge from the moat. But for the last two weeks, Sophie had trespassed unchecked and would no doubt return tonight as promised. Agatha’s only hope was to stop her before she crossed back into Good.
As Agatha hugged the tunnel walls, approaching the Doom Room, her chest tightened. Sophie had never spoken of her punishment there. Had the Beast left invisible scars? Had he hurt her in ways no one could know?
“Wait until they’re about to kill him.”
Agatha’s head whipped down the tunnel.
“Tedros has to think you saved him from death,” echoed Anadil’s voice.
Sweating through her dress, Agatha nudged along the sewer wall, until she saw three shadows crouched in front of the dungeon’s rusted grating.
“All the Evers will think it’s Anadil’s attack, not yours,” Hester said, voice resounding above the river’s roar. “Tedros will think you saved him. He’ll think you risked your life.”
“And then he’ll love me?” asked the third shadow.
Agatha stumbled back in surprise.
Hester spun. “Who’s there?”
Agatha inched out from the shadows—Hester and Anadil jumped to their feet. Slowly the third shadow turned.
In the dim light, Sophie looked bloodless, sunken, and a good deal thinner. “My dear, dear Agatha.”
Agatha’s mouth went dry. “What’s happening?” she rasped.
“We’re helping a prince keep his promise.”
“By staging an attack?”
“By showing how much I love him,” Sophie answered.
From the Doom Room came a clamor of loud grunts and squeals. Agatha reeled back. “What was that?”
Sophie smiled. “Anadil’s been working on her Circus Talent.”
Agatha sprang forward to see what was in the cell, but Hester held her back. Over her shoulder, Agatha glimpsed three giant black snouts jutting from the grates, baring razor-sharp teeth. They were sniffing something just out of reach.
An Everboy’s necktie with an embroidered T.
“Can’t see very well, poor things,” Sophie sighed. “Target by scent.”
Agatha bleached white. “But that’s—that’s Tedros’—”
“I’ll stop them before they do any harm, of course. Just give him a good scare.”
“But—but—suppose they attack other people!”
“Isn’t this what you said you wanted? For me to find love?” Sophie said, unblinking. “Unfortunately, this really is the safest way after all that’s happened.”
Agatha couldn’t speak.
“I’ve missed you, Aggie,” Sophie said softly. “I really have.”
Her head cocked. “Still, it’s strange. The Agatha I know would love a hall of dead princes.”
Another violent grunt from the dungeon. Agatha ran for a door, but Anadil caught her and shoved her to the wall—
“Sophie, you can’t do this!” Agatha pleaded, fighting her grip. “You have to ask him to forgive you! It’s the only way to make everything right again!”
Sophie’s eyes widened in surprise. They slowly narrowed. “Come closer, Agatha.”
Agatha wrenched free from Anadil and stepped into torchlight leaking from the Doom Room.
“Sophie, please listen to me—”
“You look . . . different.”
“Ever supper is almost over, Sophie,” Anadil pressed, prompting impatient grunts in the cell.
“Sophie, you can apologize to Tedros at the Circus,” Agatha said, raising her voice over them. “When it’s your turn onstage! Then everyone will see you’re Good!”
“I think I prefer the old Agatha,” Sophie said, searching her face.
“Sophie, I won’t let you attack my school—”
“Your school!” Sophie shrieked so loudly Agatha cringed. “So now it’s your school, is it?” She pointed to sludge past the halfway point. “Are you saying that school is mine?”
“No—of course not—” Agatha stuttered. “Tedros will see through this, Sophie! He wants someone he can trust!”
“And now you know what my prince wants?”
“I want you to get him back!”
“You know, I don’t think this look suits you, Agatha,” Sophie said, stepping towards her.
Agatha retreated. “Sophie, I’m on your side—”
“No, I’m afraid it doesn’t suit you at all.”
Agatha slipped and fell, landing an inch from the roaring river. She crawled forward and froze with horror. So did Anadil and Hester.
The Beast stared back at them, hulking black body snared in muck against the river wall, dead eyes flecked with blood.
Agatha slowly raised her head to see Sophie gazing at him.
“Good never wants to hurt, Agatha. But sometimes love means punishing villains that stand in our way.”
Howls echoed from above. “Supper’s over,” Anadil gasped.
Hester tore her eyes from the Beast—“Now, Ani! Free them now!”
Panicked, Anadil thrust out a glowing finger to
blast open the cell door.
“I have to warn him,” Agatha spluttered, scrambling to her feet, but a force tackled her down.
She looked up, dazed. Hester pinned her chest over the river’s halfway point. “Don’t you get it?” she hissed in her ear. “Tedros is her Nemesis! If Sophie’s symptoms start, she’ll stop at nothing to kill him! We’re saving his life!”
“No—it’s Evil—” Agatha wheezed. “This is Evil!”
Sophie approached and peered down at her hanging over the edge between sludge and lake.
“Be gentle, Hester. Just help her back to her real school. . . .”
Agatha heard the lock catch, saw the shadows of mammoth creatures squealing at the grates—
“Please, Sophie—don’t do it—”
Sophie met her eyes, softening.
“Don’t worry, Agatha. This time I’ll have my happy ending.”
Her face went ice-cold.
“Because you won’t be there to ruin it.”
Hester pushed Agatha into spewing slime. Dragged towards Evil, she gurgled and spat, tried in vain to open her stinging eyes. But just as the moat grabbed her in its rip current, she lunged her hands out blindly, found cold skin—and pulled Sophie in.
The two girls sank deep into churning darkness. Terrified, Agatha shoved Sophie away and kicked towards the halfway point and clear water ahead. She glanced back to see a distant silhouette thrashing and sinking in sludge. Sophie couldn’t swim. Losing air, Agatha swiveled between clear water and Sophie, towing under. With her last ounce of breath, she dove, seized Sophie’s waist, and lugged her to the surface. Their heads bobbed above slime far down the Evil sewer—
“Help—” Sophie burbled—
“Hold on to me,” Agatha shouted, pulling her against the gushing muck. Choking, heaving, she flailed for the wall, but with Sophie’s weight, she couldn’t reach it. Either she let go of her or took a chance against the current.
“Don’t let me die,” Sophie begged.
Agatha clasped her tighter and lunged for the wall. Her fingers missed and slime crashed into them, ripping their bodies apart. Submerged, she grasped for Sophie but caught only her glass heel, and she watched her friend pulled drowning into darkness.
In a flash, silvery hooks snared them both—
Stunned, the two girls looked back to see the shimmering wave propel them out of sludge into clear blue water. In the wave’s swell, they realized they could breathe and surrendered the last gasps in their puffed cheeks. As their pupils locked, Agatha saw Sophie’s face grow sad, scared, as if woken from a terrible dream. But just as the enchanted wave pulled them to separate crests, about to hurl them back to their schools, Agatha’s eyes flared open.
A familiar shadow was tearing towards them, black and crooked. Before Agatha could scream, it bashed into the wave, dislodging the girls from its grasp. The shadow seized them in its spindly fingers and dragged them away from the castles towards the lake’s outer banks. Agatha saw Sophie writhing against the shadow and joined her in the fight. Beaten back, the shadow lost its grip, but just as Sophie lurched for Agatha, it grabbed Sophie by the hips and threw her out of the water with shocking strength. Choking in horror, Agatha tried to swim away, but the shadow pounced and pulled her ahead, smashing underwater towards a reef of sharp rock. She closed her eyes, prayed for instant death, just in time to feel the School Master dig his grip into her flesh and fling her from the lake into cold night air.
Agatha hit the ground so hard she was sure she’d black out.
Somehow she held on, long enough to open her eyes and see massive trees, ringed with violet thorns. She must be somewhere on the Good grounds. Agatha tried to sit up, but her body exploded with pain and collapsed back to soggy dirt. Why had the School Master attacked the wave? How could he hurl her here with no explanation? Her head throbbed with anger and confusion. She’d tell Professor Dovey what happened—she’d demand answers—
But first she had to get back to school.
Agatha craned her head up. All she could see were the same enormous trees, garlanded with purple briars. She must be near that flower field where she and the Evergirls arrived that first day. But where was the lake? She glanced behind her and caught a reflective gleam through branches. Flooding with relief, she crawled forward, wincing every inch, until it was close enough to see.
Her mouth fell open.
It wasn’t the lake. It was spiked, golden gates with a sign: “TRESPASSERS WILL BE KILLED.” The School for Good glowed high behind them, spires lit up blue and pink.
Agatha wasn’t on school grounds.
She was in the Woods.
“Agatha!” Sophie cried nearby.
Agatha paled.
The School Master had set them free.
She felt a crush of relief, then stabs of fear. All she had ever wanted was to go home with Sophie. But what had happened in the sewers left her terrified.
“Agatha! Where are you!”
Agatha didn’t make a sound. Should she find her? Or should she escape home alone?
Her heart beat faster. But how could she leave now? When she finally felt she belonged?
“Agatha! It’s me!”
The pain in Sophie’s voice snapped her out of her trance. What’s happened to me?
Sophie was right. She had started to believe this was her school, her fairy tale. She had even started to hope that the face she kept seeing might belong to . . .
No one could ever be that Evil, Dot said.
Agatha flushed with guilt.
“Sophie, I’m coming!” she yelled.
Sophie didn’t answer. Suddenly anxious, Agatha scraped forward in the direction of her last call, swan crest twinkling in the dark. Something tickled her leg.
She glanced down to see a vine of violet thorns creep towards her hip. She kicked it away, only to see it snag her other leg. She lunged back, but two cuffed her arms, two took her feet, briars multiplying until they snared every inch of her flesh. Agatha jerked to escape, but the thorns pinned her to the ground like a lamb to slaughter. Then a thick one came, dark and engorged, snaking maleficently up her chest. It stopped an inch from her face and eyed her with its purple lance. With calm ease, it coiled back and stabbed for her swan.
Steel slashed the thorn open. Warm, bronzed arms pulled Agatha up—
“Hold on to me!” Tedros yelled, hacking briars with his training sword.
Dazed, Agatha clung to his chest as he withstood thorn lashes with moans of pain. Soon he had the upper hand and pulled Agatha from the Woods towards the spiked gates, which glowed in recognition and pulled apart, cleaving a narrow path for the two Evers. As the gates speared shut behind them, Agatha looked up at limping Tedros, crisscrossed with bloody scratches, blue shirt shredded away.
“Had a feeling Sophie was getting in through the Woods,” he panted, hauling her up into slashed arms before she could protest. “So Professor Dovey gave me permission to take some fairies and stake out the outer gates. Should have known you’d be here trying to catch her yourself.”
Agatha gaped at him dumbly.
“Stupid idea for a princess to take on witches alone,” Tedros said, dripping sweat on her pink dress.
“Where is she?” Agatha croaked. “Is she safe?”
“Not a good idea for princesses to worry about witches either,” Tedros said, hands gripping her waist. Her stomach exploded with butterflies.
“Put me down,” she sputtered—
“More bad ideas from the princess.”
“Put me down!”
Tedros obeyed and Agatha pulled away.
“I’m not a princess!” she snapped, fixing her collar.
“If you say so,” the prince said, eyes drifting downward.
Agatha followed them to her gashed legs, waterfalls of brilliant blood. She saw blood blurring—
Tedros smiled. “One . . . two . . . three . . .”
She fainted in his arms.
“Definitely a princess,” h
e said.
Tedros carried her towards six distant fairies playing in the lake, and stopped cold. In dead grass, Sophie looked up from her knees, black robes bloodied.
“Agatha?”
“You!” Tedros hissed.
Sophie blocked his path, holding out her arms. “Give her to me. I’ll take her.”
“This is your fault!” Tedros lashed, clasping Agatha tighter.
“She saved my life,” Sophie breathed. “She’s my friend.”
“A princess can’t be friends with a witch!”
Sophie flared and her finger glowed pink. Tedros saw it and his finger instantly glowed gold, raised to defend—
Slowly, Sophie’s face weakened. Her finger dimmed.
“I don’t know what’s happened to me,” she whispered, tears welling.
“Don’t even try it,” Tedros snarled.
“It’s that school,” she sobbed. “It’s changed me.”
“Move out of my way!”
“Please—give me a chance!”
“Move!”
“Let me show you I’m Good!”
“I warned you,” he said, storming for her—
“Tedros, I’m sorry!” Sophie cried, but he just shoved her aside and forged ahead.
“The Good forgive,” a voice whispered.
Tedros stopped. He looked down at Agatha, weak against his chest.
“You promised her, Tedros,” Agatha said quietly.
He stared at her, stunned. “What? What are you say—”
“Take her back to the castle,” said Agatha. “Show everyone she’s your princess for the Ball.”
“But she’s—she’s—”
“My friend,” said Agatha, meeting Sophie’s shocked eyes.
Tedros’ head whipped between them.
“No! Agatha, listen to me—”
“Keep your word, Tedros,” Agatha said. “You have to.”
“I can’t—” he pleaded—
“Forgive her.” Agatha looked deep into his eyes. “For me.”
Tedros’ voice caught and he lost his fire.
“Go,” said Agatha, wresting from his grip. “I’ll come back with the fairies.”
Miserable, Tedros stripped off the remains of his blue shirt and draped them around her shivering pink shoulders. He opened his mouth to fight—