Sophie plastered against the wall, looking for somewhere to hide, but it was too late. Bane ripped towards her with a violent hiss, his knife-edged teeth gleaming—
The School Master shot him with white sparks, sending Bane sputtering out of the foyer like a popped balloon.
Cowering with relief, Sophie looked up at Rafal. “Dead f-f-fairies … undead?”
“Once upon a time, Nevers who failed at being Evil were turned into slaves for Good. Now they have a second chance to prove their love of Evil and their loyalty to me.” His eyes seared into hers. “Just like you.” He walked away, humming a soft tune. “Come, my love. There’s more to see.”
Sophie didn’t follow, her breath stoppered.
Don’t go, whispered a soft voice inside her.
Agatha’s voice.
This isn’t you, Sophie.
This isn’t real love.
Sophie felt her back sweating, the gold ring on her finger suddenly scalding hot.
He’s using you.
Light flooded through her and Sophie couldn’t breathe. She closed her eyes, the ring boiling on her skin as if about to eat through her—as if she had to destroy it right now—
“Sophie.”
Her lids opened.
“No one loves you but me,” said Rafal, his voice like a dagger. “No one will ever love you but me.”
Sophie stared into his pupils and saw her own reflection. The ring went cold on her finger. Agatha’s voice quieted inside of her.
Rafal took her by the waist and this time, Sophie didn’t resist. As he guided her ahead towards the Leaders staircase, she heard his voice echoing inside her … No one but me … echoing deeper, echoing deeper, like a pebble down a well until it settled at the bottom, an undeniable truth. Looking up at Rafal, she nestled tighter into his side, afraid to let him go—
She stopped cold.
A raven-haired boy was standing ahead, at the edge of the foyer. Tight chest and stomach muscles pressed against his black uniform shirt, and his breeches revealed smooth, chiseled calves. His dark bangs draped over his forehead and his long nose was the only feature out of proportion on his small, heart-shaped face. Sophie drew a breath, taken by his cool, erect stance, and for a moment she thought him the strange man from her dream. But he was too young, clearly a student. Only she didn’t recognize him from either school—
But then Sophie saw his eyes.
Scorching her with hate.
His beady, weaselly eyes.
“Shouldn’t you be somewhere, Hort?” the School Master said, glowering at him.
Hort’s glare slashed deeper into Sophie, honing in on her hand in Rafal’s, before he finally glanced up. “I was throwing hammers in the gym, Master,” he said, flat and hard. “Earned extra time.”
“Right. You’ve been racking up the first ranks, I hear,” said the School Master, pulling Sophie tighter and making sure Hort saw it. “Keep up the good work, Captain.”
Hort gave Sophie a last deadly look before he walked into the wings.
Sophie didn’t move, her heart thundering. First ranks? … gym? … Captain? Hort?
“Shall we?”
She looked up at Rafal, who was staring blackly at where Hort had just been.
“I don’t want you to miss your first class,” he said, slipping a small scroll of paper into her hand, before he glided up the stairs in front of her.
Sophie lagged behind, still dazed by Hort’s reappearance and the weird looks between him and Rafal—
Then her eyes bulged wide.
“My first what?”
“Class?” Sophie fluttered after the School Master, frantically scanning the parchment. “Advanced Uglification … Advanced Henchmen Training—this is a schedule! You said I was a queen! A queen doesn’t go to class—”
“A queen has responsibilities,” said Rafal, calmly stepping off the first-floor landing.
“Oh I’m sorry, did Cinderella go to class for her happy ending? Did Snow White find true love and then go do homework?” Sophie squawked. “A queen’s life should be a cornucopia of servant briefings, bodice fittings, court meetings, caviar tastings, attaché dinners, ball planning, and sea-salt massages by scantily clad boys. Not a return to plebeian students and insipid class—”
Sophie stopped short, noticing her surroundings. The entrance hallway to sea-themed Honor Tower, whose walls and ceiling once mimicked a princely blue tidal wave, now had its surging waters painted the same slime green as the fog tipping the two castles. For a moment, she was confused by the change, until she looked out a porthole window and saw Halfway Bay in the melted sunlight. For the first time in two years, there was no dividing line between the waters, no halves to the bay at all. Its entire body was the same slime green as the painted tides on the walls around her.
“One dip and it’ll rip the flesh right off your bones,” said Rafal, posed against a column. “Good deterrent against anyone who might try to swim into the school or swim … out.”
Sophie heard the warning in his voice, for she’d tried to escape through the bay each of the past two years. Clearly Rafal was still testing her new allegiance to him. Where had the crogs gone? she distracted herself, searching for the stymph-eating white crocodiles that once protected the moat. Then she glimpsed a flesh-eaten, disembodied snout floating along the bright green surface. The crogs had lasted about as long as the stymphs.
Sophie followed Rafal across the seashell floor, now artistically smattered with bloody splashes, while an old statue of a smiling, barechested merman, trident on his lap, had been rechiseled with a gnashed scowl, curled fists, and a trident poised to kill. Turning the corner, Sophie took in epic murals along the walls, once visions of Good’s most honorable victories, now flaunting different endings: a wolf biting into Red Riding Hood’s neck … a giant atop a beanstalk snapping Jack like a twig … Snow White and her dwarves facedown in blood … Captain Hook plunging his hook into Peter Pan’s heart …
Sophie knew she should be sickened by what she was seeing, but instead felt a mutinous thrill at the sight of Evil winning so defiantly, so matter-of-factly, as if Good was never supposed to win at all. How could she not take secret pleasure in the thought? Her whole life she’d tried to be Good. She’d tried to join their school where she thought she belonged. Only Good had rejected her, again and again until here she was, Queen of Evil … queen of the same school she once thought a mistake. Soaking in the last mural—Sleeping Beauty and her prince, lashed to a spinning wheel, set aflame by a black-caped witch—Sophie started to feel disoriented, as if she couldn’t remember the real endings anymore.
What if I’d learned these stories as a child? Would I have ever wanted to be Good?
Doesn’t
