“Aren’t you excited? The Dean put you both with me!”
Neither Sophie nor Agatha had time to process this cataclysm, because they were goggling at something more alarming— “Your hair!” Sophie cried.
“No boys means no need to look like stupid princesses,” Beatrix said, rubbing her shaved head proudly. “Think about how much time I wasted last year on Tedros and Balls and beautifying all day. And for what? Now I read, I study, I learned to speak Elf … I finally know what’s going on in our world!”
“But what about Beautification?” Sophie fretted.
“That’s long gone. There is no beauty or ugliness at the School for Girls!” said Reena, who, Sophie saw with horror, wasn’t wearing a shred of makeup. “We wear pants, we don’t do our nails … we even eat cheese!”
Sophie gagged and looked for the Dean, but butterflies were trailing her out of the gallery. “But surely some lipstick is allowed—”
“You can do whatever you want!” Arachne said, showing off a smatter of hideous blush on both cheeks. “Nevers can groom, Evers don’t have to. It’s all your choice!”
Millicent leaned in with a grin. “I haven’t washed my hair for a month.”
Sophie and Agatha both recoiled, only for the latter to be tackled by a yelping heap—
“Eeeeeeyiiiiiiii! You’re here! My best friend in the whole world!” Kiko gave Sophie a phony smile. “And you too.” Then Kiko hugged Agatha again, her brown, almond-shaped eyes tearing up. “You don’t know how much I prayed for you to come back! It’s like heaven here! Wait until you take History—the Dean teaches it and we go into the stories—and there’s dance lessons and a school newspaper and a book club and we put on a play instead of a Ball and we can sleep in each other’s rooms and—”
Kiko couldn’t finish because there were flocks of girls besieging Sophie and Agatha now, each girl acting as if she was their best friend too.
Agatha tried to fend off her horde and lunged to Sophie across the masses. “We have to get out of here right no—” She tripped and landed face-first. “Will you sign my storybook?” Giselle asked, black hair sheared into a blue mohawk. Agatha crawled back like a crab into more clamoring fans.
As girls thrust books, cards, body parts for Sophie to sign, Beatrix forced the girls into a receiving line and let them pay tribute one by one. Sophie could hardly tell who was from Good and who from Evil anymore, since more of the Evergirls had hacked their hair and let their figures go, while a large number of Nevergirls were experimenting with makeup and diets.
Meanwhile, Agatha finally extricated herself from her gaggle. But just as she grabbed Sophie’s arm to end this idiocy, she froze still.
The dancing girl shuffled towards them in her sky-blue veil. Gangly as an egret, she didn’t so much walk as tiptoe, the heels of her white slippers never touching the ground. She pattered down the aisle, past gaping girls, until she stopped sharply in front of the two Readers. The girl raised her head of flowing, red hair and lifted the veil from her face.
Sophie and Agatha were both very confused.
She didn’t look like any girl they’d ever seen, and yet she seemed almost familiar. She had a long, pointy nose, a strong jaw, and close-set blue eyes. Her neck was strangely long, and her cropped blouse revealed perfect stomach muscles that rippled beneath her pale, freckled skin. The girl smiled ethereally, looked into their eyes, and unleashed a low squawk that made Sophie and Agatha jump. Then she blew them a kiss, replaced her veil, and shuffled out of the hall.
All the girls watched her in dumb silence until the mob started pushing towards Sophie and Agatha again and Beatrix blew her whistle.
“What was that?” Agatha said to Kiko as she crankily signed an autograph.
“Her name is Yara,” Kiko whispered. “No one knows how she got in! Doesn’t speak, doesn’t eat, far as we can tell, and disappears all the time. Probably has nowhere to live, poor thing. But the Dean lets her stay out of the goodness of her heart. Some people think she’s half stymph.”
Agatha frowned, thinking of the bony, carnivorous birds that hated Nevers. “How can someone be half stym—”
She lost her train of thought, because Sophie had culled the girls all to herself, smiling imperiously, signing autographs, and kissing cheeks, as if she’d finally found her way home.
“Can I help you fight boys?” Arachne hollered.
“Can I be your Vice Captain?” yelled Giselle.
“Can I be your Vice-Vice Captain?” echoed Flavia.
“Sit with my group for lunch!” Millicent called.
“No, sit with us!” Mona countered—
“How glorious it is to have fans again,” Sophie said, ignoring Agatha’s horrified look and dotting an autograph with hearts. “Here I am trying to get home where no one wants me, and instead stumble upon paradise, where everyone does.”
“If you’re miserable with Beatrix, don’t worry,” Kiko said, noticing Agatha’s glum face. “You can always stay with me.”
Agatha turned to her, and Kiko suddenly understood. “You aren’t staying, are you?” Kiko rasped.
The crowd went silent around her.
“Now tell me about this school play,” Sophie said loudly to Reena. “Have you cast the lead par—”
She stopped, for all the students had followed Agatha’s gaze out the window. Across the bay, fog brewed thicker around the grisly red castle.
“If we stay, we’re starting war,” Agatha said to the girls. “All of you would be in danger.”
She turned to Sophie. “You heard the professors. We can fix what I’ve done without anyone dying. Not you. Not Tedros. Not anyone here. We wish for each other, and we can forget this school ever happened.” She touched her friend’s shoulder. “It’s Evil if we stay, Sophie. And you’re not Evil.”
Sophie slowly gazed up at a sea of blameless girls, who would no doubt die at the hands of Tedros and his red hoods. Only Agatha had forgotten the Dean’s warning. They could go home as long as both of them meant their wish. But Sophie knew Agatha couldn’t mean a wish for her friend. Agatha couldn’t forget this school.
Because a friend wasn’t enough for Agatha anymore.
Agatha wanted a prince.
“We’ll hide in the Blue Forest and come up with a plan,” Agatha said to her quietly, anxious to escape before the Dean returned. “Maybe we can mogrify into the Boys’ school.”
Crestfallen, Sophie said nothing—
Until she met her own eyes in the painting on the wall.
Atop the castle in her crystal crown, she looked just like someone she knew, with the same goldspun blond hair, emerald eyes, and ivory skin. Someone who too had lost her happy ending to a boy. Someone who had died
