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.
“Let’s say a new Dean steps out of bounds—” started Hester.
“And becomes a menace to her own school,” added Anadil.
“And throws parties in honor of herself and forces everyone to take baths and makes kids eat boiled asparagus and wheatgrass,” said Dot.
“What would you do if you were School Master?” Hester finished.
The three witches each held a notebook open, feathered pen at the ready.
Seated in his rickety hut at the top of a very tall pea-tree, the Grand Vizier of Kingdom Kyrgios scratched his long, curly black beard, speckled with gold flakes like the strands of his flowing black hair. “I’m assuming this new Dean is … young?”
“And blond,” said Dot.
“I see,” mulled the Vizier in a deep baritone. “I would encourage this Dean to think closely about what is going on in her personal life that is affecting her professional one. Sometimes a Dean thinks a life of service is enough to bring fulfillment. And when it isn’t, they begin to push boundaries as a cry for help. A School Master can look that Dean in the eye and ask: ‘What is it you really need?’ Sometimes it’s as simple as a vacation to the salt baths in Shazabah. But sometimes it’s more than that. Much more. And it takes someone wise—deeply wise—to draw that out.”
Hester saw Anadil’s eyes flick to her before finding the Vizier’s once more. “But why would a Dean of Evil listen to you if you were School Master?” the albino girl asked. “You’re from an Ever kingdom, and no offense, even if you pledge to be ‘impartial,’ most Nevers think Evers are half-brained, milk-livered airtraps.” (Three black rats poked out of her pocket and hissed agreement.)
“Well, having two School Masters, one Good and one Evil, didn’t work out, did it?” the Vizier answered, glancing at the wooden clock on his mantel. “I suggest this time you focus on quality over quantity. Also, as I’d hope you’d have learned in your history classes, Kingdom Kyrgios was once a Never kingdom. Which means given my long life span, I’ve served both Ever and Never kings with equal success.”
Dot scribbled a few notes, her stomach burbling loudly. “Speaking of life spans, from our research, it seems you’ve been able to stay alive this long by using a variety of life-extending magic. Excuse my bluntness, but we don’t want a School Master who will drop dead his second week on the job. How much longer do you expect to live?”
“Are the crisps stale? None of you have touched them,” the Vizier said.
Hester followed his eyes to the green-colored chips stacked on a plate. Like everything else in Kyrgios, they smelled of peas, since peas were the lifeblood of the kingdom. The Kyrgians even slept inside the pea pods that hung off trees like the one they were in now. Luckily, the witches weren’t staying the night since they had another interview scheduled in Pasha Dunes the next morning.
“Not hungry. Had a big breakfast,” Hester snipped, though Dot’s stomach was rumbling like a kettledrum now. “Now if you don’t mind answering Dot’s question …”
“I’m confused. When is Dean Dovey joining us?” the Vizier asked, frowning. “I need to get back to work. We’ve had strange attacks of late: a rogue carriage deliberately running over people, along with reports of pirates lurking near the Four Point, which is sacred land. I made the time to come here, assuming your Dean would be present.”
“And we thank you for making that time. But as we informed you in our letter, Dean Dovey entrusted us with the task of researching, locating, and interviewing possible School Master candidates as our fourth-year quest,” Hester spouted, as if she’d had to say this many times before. “Though we check in with Dean Dovey regularly, she will only be meeting with our final nominees.”
The Vizier smiled blandly. “So Dovey remains in her glass towers fussing over lunch menus and school dances while she leaves the crucial work of choosing a School Master, protecting the Storian, and defending the balance of our world to … children.”
“Children who have spent the last six months meeting with some of the most illustrious heroes and villains in the Woods,” said Anadil.
“Children who have sought out candidates in floating mountains, cloud forests, piranha lakes, active volcanoes, ice castles, mermaid lagoons, elephant graveyards, and the belly of a very large whale,” said Dot.
“Children who will do whatever it takes to find the right person for the job, because this is our fairy-tale quest,” said Hester, demon tattoo twitching on her neck.
“Wouldn’t you rather be fighting a giant or elf-prince so you can get your name in a storybook?” the Vizier said, becoming serious. “This all feels like a leader sending their henchmen to get the job done. And that never turns out well.”
“Unless the leader knows we are the only people who can get the job done,” said Hester. “Because this is a quest that will shape Good and Evil for a long time to come and our coven cares more about that than having our names in a storybook, which is precisely why Professor Dovey picked us in the first place. And if she—the Dean of our enemy school—is willing to put the fate of the Woods in our hands rather than her own or anyone else’s, then I suggest you stop worrying about our ages and start worrying about how to best respect the students you so wisely expect to lead.”
The Vizier gaped at her.
“That’s all,” chimed Dot, turning a pea-crisp to chocolate and flouncing with her friends out of his hut.
A moment later
