in an inferno of infinite power—flying through fire, transmuting in body, fracturing in soul, manipulating space and time. At the top of the mural, stretching from the first panel to last, were giant letters set aflame:
NEVERMORE
Where Evers dreamt of love and happiness, the Nevers sought a world of solitude and power. As the sinister visions sent thrills through her heart, Agatha felt the shock of truth.
I’m a Never.
Her best friend was an Ever. If they didn’t get home soon, Sophie would see the truth. Here they couldn’t be friends.
She saw a snouted shadow move into her match light. Two shadows. Three. Just as the wolves pounced, Agatha wheeled and whipped Vera’s thorns across their faces. The wolves roared in surprise and stumbled back, giving her just enough time to scramble to the door. Breathless, she dashed down the hall, up the stairs, until she found herself on Malice Hall’s second floor, hunting for Sophie’s name on the dormitory doors—Vex & Brone, Hort & Ravan, Flynt & Titan—Boys’ floor!
Just as she heard a door open, she sprinted up the back stairs to a dead-end attic filled with murky vials of frog’s toes, lizard legs, dog tongues. (Her mother was right. Who knew how long these had been sitting here.) She heard a wolf slobbering up the steps—
Agatha climbed out the attic window onto the soaring roof and clung to the rain gutter. Thunder detonated from black clouds, while across the lake, the Good Towers twinkled in perfect sunshine. As the storm drenched her pink dress, her eyes followed the long, twisted gutter, shooting water through the mouths of three stone gargoyles that held up its brass beams. It was her only hope. She climbed into the gutter, hands struggling to keep grip on the slippery rails, and craned back to the window, knowing the white wolf was coming—
But he wasn’t. He stared at her through the window, hairy arms folded over red jacket.
“There are worse things than wolves, you know.”
He walked away, leaving her agape.
What? What could possibly be worse than—
Something moved in the rain.
Agatha shielded her eyes and peered through the sparkling blur to see the first stone gargoyle yawn and spread his dragon wings. Then the second gargoyle, with a snake’s head and lion’s trunk, stretched his with a gunshot crack. Then the third, twice as big as the others, with a horned demon head, man’s torso, and studded tail, thrust out jagged wings wider than the tower.
Agatha blanched. Gargoyles! What did the dog say about gargoyles!
Their eyes turned to her, viciously red, and she remembered.
Orders to kill.
With a collective shriek, they leapt off their perches. Without their support, the gutter collapsed and she plunged into its water with a scream. The tidal wave of rain slammed her through harrowing turns and drops as the loose beam lurched wildly in the rain. Agatha saw two gargoyles swoop for her and she swerved in the gutter slide just in time. The third, the horned demon, rose up high and blasted fire from its nose. Agatha grabbed onto the rails and the fireball hit in front of her, searing a giant hole in the beam—she skidded short just before she plummeted through. A crushing force tackled her from behind and the dragon-winged gargoyle grabbed her leg in his sharp talons and hoisted her into the air.
“I’m a student!” Agatha screamed.
The gargoyle dropped her, startled.
“See!” Agatha cried, pointing at her face. “I’m a Never!”
Sweeping down, the gargoyle studied her face to see if this was true.
It grabbed her by the throat to say it wasn’t.
Agatha screamed and stabbed her foot into the burnt hole, deflecting rushing water into the monster’s eye. It stumbled blindly, claws flailing for her, only to fall through the hole and shatter its wing on the balcony below. Agatha held onto the rails for life, fighting terrible pain in her leg. But through the water, she saw another one coming. With an ear-piercing screech, the snake-headed gargoyle tore through the flood and snatched her into the air. Just as its massive jaws yawned to devour her, Agatha thrust her foot between its teeth, which smashed down on her hard black clump and snapped like matchsticks. Dazed, the monster dropped her. Agatha crash-landed in the flooding gutter and gripped the rail.
“Help!” she screamed. If she held on, someone would hear and rescue her. “Helll—”
Her hands slipped. She careened down eaves, jerking and heaving towards the last spout, where the biggest gargoyle waited, horned like the devil, jaws wide over the spout like an infernal tunnel. Clawing, gurgling, Agatha tried to stop herself, but the rain bashed her along in gushing bursts. She looked down and saw the gargoyle blast fire from its nose, which rocketed across the pipe. Agatha ducked underwater to avoid instant cremation and bobbed back up, clinging to the rail’s edge above the final drop. The next rush of rain would send her right into the gargoyle’s open mouth.
Then she remembered the gargoyles when she first saw them: guarding the gutter, spewing rain from their mouths.
What goes out must come in.
She heard the next wave coming behind her. With a silent prayer, Agatha let go and fell into the demon’s smoking jaws. Just as fire and teeth skewered her, rain smashed through the spout behind her, shooting her through the hole in the gargoyle’s throat and out into the gray sky. She glanced back at the choking gargoyle and let out a scream of relief, which turned to terror as she free-fell. Through the fog, Agatha glimpsed a spiked wall about to impale her, and an open window beneath it. She curled into a desperate ball, just missed the lethal blades, and crashed on her stomach, dripping wet, and coughing up water on the sixth floor of Malice Hall.
“I—thought—gargoyles—were—decoration,” she wheezed.
Clutching her leg, Agatha limped down the dorm hall, hunting for signs of Sophie.
Just as she was about to start pounding on doors, she caught sight of one at the end of the hall, grafittied with a caricature of a blond princess, splashed with painted slurs: LOSER, READER, EVER LOVER.
Agatha knocked hard. “Sophie! It’s me!”
Doors started opening at the other end of the hall.
Agatha pounded harder. “Sophie!”
Black-robed girls started emerging from their rooms. Agatha jiggled Sophie’s door handle and shoved against the frame, but it wouldn’t budge. Just as the Nevergirls turned, poised to discover the intruder in pink, Agatha took a running start, threw herself against the defaced door of Room 66, which swung open and slammed shut behind her.
“YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHAT I WENT THROUGH TO GET HE—” She stopped.
Sophie was crouched over a puddle of water on the floor, singing as she applied blush in her reflection.
“I’m a pretty princess, sweet as a pea,
Waiting for my prince to marry me. …”
Three bunk mates and three rats watched from across the room, mouths open in shock.
Hester
