The School for Good and Evil #2: A World without Princes (20 page)

“Turnin' to a man-wolf for three seconds at a time?” said Aric, and his henchmen chuckled.

“That's not true!” Hort howled, chasing them towards the tunnel. “I can last long now! You'll see—”

Watching them go, Sophie sighed with relief.

Aric whirled, sword thrust out. Sophie stiffened like a corpse as he stared at the spot where she lay naked, his violet eyes narrowed.

“What is it, captain?” his henchman asked.

Aric listened to the silence.

“Come on,” he grunted at last, and led his troops into the boys' castle, Hort runting at the rear.

None of them saw the flash of pink glow in the bog behind, turning invisible skins into an invisible cape.

Halfway Bridge had been blown up.

From the towers, all Agatha had seen was the swirling fog cloaking its midpoint. But now, standing in the cold, thick haze, she gazed down at the splintered rock around a gaping hole. The bridge had been shattered with such force that the stone on either side drooped limply towards the rusted red moat below. Jagged slivers shed off both ends into the white crogs' thrashing snouts, sensing a girl above.

How stupid she was to ignore the witches, Agatha gritted, dashing blindly back into fog towards the portal. She glanced up at the lightening sky—an hour at most to find another route that wasn't the sewers, moat, or—

A butterfly exploded towards her out of fog and squawked with discovery. Agatha gasped and shot it with her lit-up finger but missed, and it surged yelping through the portal, back to the Dean.

Agatha froze in terror. If she was caught here, Tedros' and her story would be over before it began. Sophie's witch would kill them both.

Hands shaking, she slowly looked back at the boys' castle across the broken bridge.

“Cross the Bridge,”
Tedros had ordered.

There's no way
, Agatha thought, panicked—

Cross the Bridge.

Cross
it.

Agatha stared down at the blown-up hole. Last year, against all odds, she'd done what no one else had been able to do: move between Good and Evil. Tedros had faith she could do it again.

Cross the Bridge.

Heart rattling, Agatha charged towards the broken gap. As her bare feet curled over the stone's cliff edge, she thrust out her hand, praying she was right—

Nothing but cold, empty breeze.

Jaw clenching, Agatha reached her fingertips farther, right foot leaving stone only to feel more air skim uselessly through fingers. Sweat streamed down her ribs. Reach any more, and she'd fall into the moat. The spiny crogs snapped and splashed in red waves below, jostling for first feed.

Agatha welled frantic tears, knowing the Dean would be here any moment. She only had one choice left. . . .

Trust Tedros with her life.

Agatha exhaled slowly. Her left foot skated over the edge as she tilted forward on her right, surrendering to faith. Her right toes slid farther across the pockmarked stone, then her arch, then her heel, hands grasping at nothing . . . nothing. . . . Her foot lost the edge, and with a cry she toppled towards the moat, hands blindly flailing—

Something.

Agatha's palms smashed into a hard, invisible barrier and she ricocheted back, falling to the girls' side of the bridge.

In the hidden barrier, a reflection fogged into place. Her own face glared down at her, crystal clear.

Agatha paled with surprise. Why was everything in this school so much worse than before?

“Told you last year, didn't I? Good with Good, Evil with Evil,” her reflection grinned. “But you thought you were better than the rules. Now look what you've gotten yourself into.”

“Let me pass,” Agatha demanded, glancing back anxiously for the Dean.

“We'll be happier on this side,” said her reflection. “Boys ruin
everything
.”

“And a witch will ruin even more,” Agatha retorted. “I'm saving both schools—”

“So this is all about
Good
now, is it?” her face smirked. “Not about a Girl who wants a
Boy
.”

“I said let me
pass
—”

“Try all you want. You won't trick me again,” her reflection said. “You're
obviously
a Girl.”

“And what makes a Girl?” Agatha asked.

“All the things a Boy is not.”

Agatha frowned. “And what makes a Boy?”

“All the things a Girl is not.”

“But you still haven't told me what a Boy or Girl
is
—”

“I know someone who wishes for a Boy must be a Girl,” her reflection said confidently.

“And why's that?”

“Because Girls wish for Boys and Boys wish for Girls and you
wished
for a Boy so that makes you a Girl. Now back to your castle or—”

“And what would that make someone who kissed a Girl?”

“
Kissed
a Girl?” her reflection said, suddenly wary.

“Kissed a girl to life like all the best princes,” Agatha glowered.

Her reflection glowered back. “
Definitely
a Boy.”

Agatha's lips curled up. “Exactly.”

Her image gasped, deceived once again—and vanished into thin air.

Agatha glanced down at the red moat churning through the deadly high gap. Trembling, she reached her pale, naked foot over thin air and this time, felt it land on an invisible step.

Agatha looked down at herself, floating magically over the crogs below gnashing in fury. In disbelief, she took another step forward over the gap, then another, until she crossed back onto the other side of the stone bridge, Tedros' call answered.

Sophie would never catch them now.

Fear leeched out of Agatha's chest, giving way to hope. Tedros had saved her from the witch, and now she would save him.

Stomach filling with butterflies of a meeting to come, Agatha sprinted towards the boys' castle, armed with the deepest faith in her prince.

Far behind, in the shadows of the Girls' blue archway, Dean Sader's hazel eyes pierced the fog. But watching her student vanish into the rotted towers, she made no move.

Sophie chasing Agatha. Agatha chasing her prince.

Two friends once unbreakable and now torn apart.

The Dean turned and sauntered back to her castle.

Be careful what you wish for, girls.

Her gap-toothed grin gleamed through darkness.

Be careful what you wish for, indeed.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

..................................................................

“
W
ait!” Hort yelped, chasing Aric and his men through the serrated tunnel shaped like a crocodile snout. “Shouldn't we search the shore?”

He scrambled to keep up as the tunnel grew narrower and narrower—

“Mogrif shield wouldn't activate for nothing! Spiricks must have caught somethi—”

But Aric and the boys had already vanished into the foyer. Hort peered back down the dark tunnel, tempted to go searching himself, but his hair was itchy with lice and his stomach rumbly. “Bet the girls have decent meals,” he moped, turning for the castle—

A pink blast of light sizzled his skull and he crashed to the floor, head slamming on stone.

When Hort's eyes fluttered open, he found himself splayed in his underpants and nothing else. Given he tended to lose his clothes quite often, Hort didn't think much of this until he looked up. “What in the…”

His black-and-red uniform magically floated away from him, towards the swarthy torchlight of the boys' castle, before it swallowed into thin air and disappeared.

As she entered the boys' rotted foyer, Sophie made sure the invisible cape covered every sliver of Hort's suffocatingly snug uniform. (For a moment, she panicked that she'd swelled in size—then remembered Hort's meager chest and flat bottom.) Under the cape, she'd stay undetected, provided she didn't puke from the castle's stench.

Worse than Evil's
, she thought—like sweaty socks doused in vinegar. She knew it must be the unwashed Neverboys, for the Everboys of Good were almost fussier about hygiene than the girls. Even after double Swordplay sessions last year, they'd come to lunch, hair wet, smelling minty clean, as if they'd collectively made a trip to the bath post-class. How were they possibly surviving in this rathole?

Besides an extra coat of grime and a few more leaks, the Evil foyer looked much the same. Through the sunken anteroom, she saw the three black, crooked staircases twist up to the three towers, carved MALICE, MISCHIEF, VICE. Demonic gargoyles glared down from the rafters, torches flaring in their mouths. But as Sophie stepped into the light, she saw the boys had left their mark.

Crumbly columns decorated with swinging trolls and imps that once spelled N-E-V-E-R now spelled B-O-Y-S, while the iron statue of a bald, toothless witch had been decapitated. At the rear of the stair room, the door to the Theater of Tales had been sealed with a neurotic number of bars and locks, preventing any access to the Tunnel of Trees behind the theater. Sophie's eyes drifted up the scorched walls, where thousands of crammed alumni portraits flaunted only boys' faces, both Evers and Nevers. A year ago, her portrait had stood out among the villains on this very wall. Now Tedros' took its place, with its halo of gold hair and cocksure smile. Sophie's heart twinged at their resemblance.
We'd have looked so perfect together.

Faint shouts echoed high above, with the sounds of tramping boots. Sophie tore eyes from Tedros, remembering everything he'd taken from her—her dreams, her innocence, her dignity. He wouldn't take Agatha too.

Pulling her vanishing cape tight, Sophie followed the echoes up the Malice staircase—but not before shooting a spell behind her, setting the prince's face aflame.

Agatha expected Tedros to be waiting for her once she slogged up the thirty-flight decaying staircase from the bridge to the open-air belfry. After all, she'd crossed the bridge as ordered and come to him at risk to her life and others'. But the belfry's round cloister was deserted, shadowed by the School Master's sky-high tower rising above it.
What's he waiting for?
Agatha thought, glaring up at its distant window.

With less than an hour before Sophie woke up, Agatha didn't have time for a prince's poor planning. If Tedros wasn't going to come to her, she knew who would take her to him.

A castle full of boys can end one of two ways. Either its inhabitants channel aggression into order, discipline, and productivity. Or they degenerate into hormonal apes. As Sophie stepped onto the fifth floor of Malice Hall, she saw Tedros' school had gone the latter.

Hooting, half-naked boys in black breeches hung from the rafters and crammed into every inch of the sweltering hall, as if spending time in each other's sweat was preferable to being in their rooms. The scorched stone floor was smeared with rotted banana, breadcrumbs, egg yolks, ham bones, chicken feathers, and milky stains, while the gray brick walls were graffitied with infantile warmongering against girls—W
HO
N
EEDS
G
IRLS
, I H
ATE
G
IRLS
, and caricatures of Ever and Nevergirls being eaten by wolves, pitched from towers, and cast off a ship plank. Hidden against the wall, Sophie inched closer, expecting nothing less from smelly, villainous Neverboys—until she saw it wasn't the Neverboys at all.

Hairy, burly Chaddick swung from the ceiling, whooping and kicking open rooms, while handsome, dark-skinned Nicholas fired stun spells at a cornered mouse. Regal-nosed Tarquin and muscled Oliver took turns punching each other's flat stomachs; baby-faced Hiro led a burping contest: and quiet Bastian beat bongos, all pausing to join Chaddick's fist-raising chant of “We Are Men, Mighty and Free.”

Sophie blinked, aghast. What happened to beautiful, chivalrous Everboys? What happened to princes-to-be?

“Bonded by strength and fraternity,” the boys bellowed, “Gods beyond authority—”

A door slammed open. “If we're not back to Good and Evil soon, I'm going to kill all of you,” Ravan hissed in his pajamas, matted black hair and brown skin oilier than ever. “It's enough we're out of food, we've lost our teachers, and we're down to the only floor in this stinking castle with bathrooms that ain't flooded. All you have to do is slay one witch—
one measly witch
—and you're too busy havin' a house party!”

Pointy-eared Vex blearily poked out next to him. “Isn't killing witches Good's
job
?” he yawned.

“There is no Good as long as there's Girls!” Chaddick barked back. “We're men first!”