to her feet, her back angled to the door—
“Agatha!” Tedros’ voice yelled outside.
The witch dropped the book to the floor. Before Agatha could move, she spun and met her eyes with a lethal stare.
Agatha shrank into the hall’s corner, flattening against the wall.
The witch drew a thin, jewel-handled dagger from her cloak, caked with dried blood.
Agatha whirled towards the staircase. Too far to run. She spun back to see the witch prowl towards her, trapping her in the corner. Agatha’s finger glowed gold with terror, the witch ten feet away, but she couldn’t remember a single spell from class. Agatha opened her mouth to scream for her prince. The witch was too fast. She hurled the knife for Agatha’s throat like a bullet—
With a cry, Agatha shot a ray of gold light from her finger and the knife turned into a peach-petaled daisy, floating to the floor.
Gulping breaths, Agatha stared at the flower, thankful Sophie had used the hex against her first year. It was the only spell she’d never forget.
“Agatha!” Tedros shouted again.
Agatha looked up urgently, but it was too late. The witch slammed her against the wall, appallingly powerful, reeking of decay, and held her up by the throat with her liver-spotted hand. Breath choked, Agatha glimpsed the charred scars across the witch’s ankles and legs. “Ordered to dance … until she fell dead …,” Agatha remembered, struggling to stay conscious as the witch squeezed her neck harder. She and Sophie once danced in red-hot shoes too … a first-year punishment from Yuba … Or was it second year? … Agatha could feel her mind fading, the witch’s thumb crushing her windpipe. She tried to think of Sophie’s face as they danced … her helpless face, those suffering eyes … Darkness strangled her, pulling her under. No … please … not yet … Sophie—I’ll save—you—
A bolt of will flashed through her and she sank her teeth into the witch’s bony arm and bit as hard as she could. The old crone shrieked and let go. Agatha doubled over, gagging and wheezing, the witch still gaping at her, as if biting wasn’t part of a Good girl’s playbook, as if this greasy-haired, bug-eyed punk might be one of Evil’s after all—
Agatha kneed her in the gut and dove for the stairs, about to reach the first step, only to feel the witch’s boot crush the back of her leg. Agatha buckled to the floor, slamming her nose into the wood. She felt the hot blood seeping out of it and staunched it with her hand as she twirled around to defend against the witch—
But the hallway was empty, the witch gone.
Agatha hobbled to the edge of the stairs. The den was as quiet as when she came in, the slatted window over the bookshelf wide open and blowing in the breeze.
Tedros burst through the front door, his face cherry red. “Agatha, where are—” He saw her on the staircase and flushed two shades redder. “DO YOU WANT ME TO HAVE A HEART ATTACK! I’M SCREAMING LIKE A FOOL, NOT KNOWING IF YOU’RE ALIVE OR DEAD, AND HERE YOU ARE PLAYING HIDE-AND-SEEK LIKE A CHILD ON A PLAYGROUND, LOOKING A HOLY BLOODY MESS AND—”
Tedros’ face changed.
“Agatha,” he whispered, looking very scared. “Why are you bleeding?”
Agatha shook her head, tears welling, hyperventilating too fast to talk—
A cry came from outside.
Agatha and Tedros went rigid with twin gasps. “Uma.”
Instantly, the prince dashed out the door, Agatha racing behind him—
Princess Uma sat against a tree, near the dwarves’ corpses, her eyes spooked wide and legs out straight like a porcelain doll’s.
Tedros skidded to his knees in front of her, jostling her by the shoulders. Uma didn’t move. “What’s wrong with her!” he cried.
Agatha landed next to him and touched Uma’s face. Her fingers made a hollow sound on her teacher’s ashen skin. “Petrification,” she said, remembering the curse once used against the teachers.
“What’s the counterspell?” her prince pushed.
Agatha paled. “Only the one who casts the spell can reverse it.” She looked at Tedros. “That witch … that witch did it—”
“What witch?” Tedros pressed, but Agatha was frantically scouring the deserted glen … She slumped. They’d never find that old hag. Princess Uma was as good as dead.
Not her too. Not our only hope. Agatha tuned out a bird’s loud chirps and sank her face in her hands. How do we get to Sophie now?
“Agatha …”
“Not now,” she whispered, head throbbing with fear, grief, and strident birdcalls.
“Agatha, look …”
Agatha spun. “I said not no—”
She frowned.
The dove from the well was in the prince’s lap tweeting angrily at both of them.
“What’s it saying?” Tedros asked her.
“How should I know?”
“You’re the one who took Animal Communication!”
“And burned down the school in the process—”
Agatha stopped because the dove was drawing in the dirt with its wing. “Why is he drawing an elephant?”
The dove let out a torrent of chirps, furiously modifying his picture.
“It’s a weasel,” Tedros guessed. “Look at the ears.”
“No, it’s a moose—”
“Or a raccoon.”
The dove was apoplectic now, slashing more lines.
“Oh. A rabbit,” said Agatha.
“Definitely a rabbit,” Tedros agreed.
He looked at Agatha. “Why’s he drawing a rabbit?”
The dove rolled his eyes and stabbed his wing ahead.
Tedros and Agatha turned and saw a fat, balding white rabbit glaring at them from behind a tree, wearing a dirty blue waistcoat with a silver swan crest over the heart, a hideous white cravat, and crooked spectacles low on his nose. The rabbit yanked a pocketwatch out of his coat, pointed crabbily at it, and scampered down a dirt path out of the glen.
“Um. I think he wants us to follow him,” said Agatha.
“Well, what are we waiting for?” said Tedros, slinging Uma over his shoulder and lumbering ahead. “Stay any longer and we might end up as dead as those dwarves.”
“But shouldn’t we know where he’s taking us?” Agatha called out. “We can’t just follow a strange animal in a scarf—”
“Sooner
