“A school—” Agatha choked, chasing her down the Honor stairs. “We need to go home!”
“You see, the former deans and I have a difference of opinion,” said Dean Sader as butterflies flew in from every direction and vanished into her dress. “They think you must leave our world to find your happy ending together. And I think you must stay.”
“But the boys are going to kill me!” Sophie said, bumping Agatha hard as she passed.
“Mmmm, let’s say you do break into a castle full of bloodthirsty males,” the Dean said, sweeping her buxom behind through the foyer. “Let’s say you free the Storian against all odds.” She stopped outside the frosted doors of the Gallery of Good. “The wish won’t work unless you mean it.”
She gazed at Sophie. “How can you wish for Agatha if you know she wants her prince?”
The Dean turned to Agatha. “How can you wish for Sophie if you fear the witch inside?”
She leaned in so close the girls could smell her flawless honeycream skin.
“How can you wish for someone you do not trust?”
Sophie’s and Agatha’s eyes met dartingly, hoping the other would argue. Neither did.
“Your friendship must be fixed before you can go home. And here you will fix what is broken,” Dean Sader said, a last butterfly fluttering into her dress. “Fairy tales have trained us to believe a beautiful bond like yours cannot last. Why? Because a boy must come between you. A boy so threatened by your story that he’s willing to kill to destroy it. But at my school, we teach you the truth.” She opened the door to pitch darkness.
“That a girl without a boy is the greatest happy ending of all.”
Her finger magically lit a torch, and the flame roared red to a burst of drums. Agatha and Sophie leapt back—
Twenty rows of girls stood frozen, heads bowed, each wearing a white veil, royal-blue harem pants, and a light blue bodice stitched with a butterfly crest over the heart. There were more than 100 of them, stretching through the exhibits of the museum, past its open rear doors, and into the vast ballroom of Good Hall. Faces obscured, they stood eerily still, arms raised with hands to opposite elbows as if summoning genies. Hovering above them, just beneath the ceiling, two more veiled girls on magic carpets beat snare drums faster and faster.
At the front of this parade was a lone girl without anyone else in her row. Her veil was blue instead of white, her hair ginger red, and the pallid skin on her thin arms dotted with strawberry freckles. Slowly she raised her arms …
The drums stopped.
With an untamed screech, the girl blew a blast of fire that singed the magic carpets and sent Agatha and Sophie quailing from flames. As the drums beat once more, the girl whipped into a whirling belly dance, punctuating each move with a wild whistle or trill.
“One look at her, and Tedros will forget all about his wish maker,” said Sophie coldly.
“Sophie, I’m sorry.” Agatha shifted closer to her friend. “I really am.”
Sophie shifted away.
“I’d never lose you for a boy,” Agatha prodded. But eyeing the dancing girl, she suddenly felt a twinge of jealousy … Had Tedros seen her?
She crushed the thought. Tedros wanted to kill her best friend and she was still thinking
Stefan’s face haunted her, begging her to return Sophie home safe. Where was the Agatha who’d do anything to protect her best friend? The one who had control over her feelings? The one who was Good?
By now, the rows behind started to echo the leader’s dance, flowing with crisp hand movements. Then, with a sudden flourish, the girls all turned to each other and danced in pairs. Hands brushed and clasped as they touched backs before lifting arms and switching places, never losing the touch of their palms. In their glinting blue harem pants and white veils, they looked like swaying sea anemones. Despite the storm in her heart, Sophie managed a smile. She had never seen something so beautiful. Then again, she’d never seen girls dance without boys.
Agatha didn’t like Sophie’s expression. “Sophie, I need to talk to Tedros.”
“No.”
“I said I’m sorry. You have to let me fix it—”
“No.”
“The fool thinks I want you killed!” Agatha said, smacking away a blue butterfly on her shoulder. “I’m the only one who can make him see reason.”
“A prince who thinks he’s School Master, bet half his fortune on my head, and you think he’ll see reason,” Sophie said, letting the butterfly perch on her. “I’m surprised Good ever wins if it’s this naive.”
Agatha glanced at the Dean’s back to them. She couldn’t possibly eavesdrop with the drums pounding and the dancing girl hooting like a hyena, but Agatha had the strange feeling she could hear everything.
“Sophie, I lost myself for a moment,” she whispered. “It was a mistake.”
Sophie watched the lead girl spew another jet of fire. “Maybe the Dean is right,” she said, not whispering at all. “Maybe I should stay here.”
“What? We don’t even know where she came from, let alone how she’s Dean! You saw the look on Professor Dovey’s face. You can’t trust her—”
“Right now, I trust her more than I trust you.”
Agatha could have sworn she saw the Dean grin. “You’re not safe here, Sophie! Tedros will come for you!”
“Let him. That’s what you want, isn’t it?”
“I want you home alive!” Agatha begged. “I want us to forget ever coming to the School for Good and Evil! I don’t want Tedros!”
Sophie whirled, snarling. “Then why did you wish for him?”
Agatha froze.
“Let the gifts begin!” the Dean decreed.
“Gifts!” Sophie spun from Agatha, beaming. “At last, some good news.” She sidled up to the Dean as the veiled girls fanned to the walls like a clamshell opening, leaving a wide aisle down the middle.
Agatha followed warily, remembering what this world had once done to her and her best friend. The longer they stayed here, the longer they were in danger. She had to get Sophie home now.
Moving into the sunlight of a small window, she noticed the museum exhibits had changed. Evidence of boys’ achievements had all been stripped and replaced with relics from her and Sophie’s fairy tale: Agatha’s Evergirl uniform, Sophie’s Lunchtime Lectures sign, Agatha’s note to Sophie during the Trial by Tale, the slashed lock of hair from Sophie’s Doom Room punishment, and dozens of others, each enshrined in a blue-tinted glass case. On the main wall, the Ever After mural, which once celebrated the marriage of prince and princess, was now covered with a navy canvas, embroidered with butterflies. Indeed, the only holdover was Professor Sader’s old nook of paintings off the far corner. As a seer who could glimpse the future, the former History teacher had once drawn paintings of every Reader who had come from Gavaldon to the School for Good and Evil. Whenever Agatha needed answers, she always drifted back to these paintings, finding new clues. All she wanted was to study them again now, but there were two veiled girls marching towards her down the aisle, carrying an enormous purple vase.
“From Maidenvale,” said Dean Sader, honeyed voice now deep and commanding. “An urn from Princess Riselda, who like hundreds of others