Agatha’s whole body went rigid. “That’s—” She swallowed. “That’s stupid.”
“The School Master was right,” Sophie said, still not looking at her. “A princess can’t be friends with a witch.”
“But we are friends,” Agatha sputtered. “You’re the only friend I’ve ever had!”
“You know why a princess can’t be friends with a witch, Agatha?” Slowly Sophie turned to face her. “Because a witch never has her own fairy tale. A witch has to ruin one to be happy.”
Agatha fought back tears. “But I’m not—I’m not a witch—”
“THEN GET YOUR OWN LIFE!” Sophie screamed.
She watched the dove flee through the rip in the black window, then crawled back under her sheets until all the light was gone.
That night, Sophie had her second dream. She was running through woods, hungrier than she’d ever been—until she found a deer with a human face, the same milky, blurred face she glimpsed the night before. She looked closer to see whose it was, but the deer’s face was now a mirror and in it, she could see her reflection. But it wasn’t hers.
It was the Beast’s.
Sophie woke in icy sweat, blood burning through her veins.
Outside Room 34, Hort huddled in his underpants, reading The Gift of Loneliness by candlelight.
The door cracked open behind him. “What is everyone saying about me?”
Hort stiffened as if he’d heard a ghost. He turned, eyes wide.
“I want to know,” said Sophie.
She followed him into the dark hall, joints cracking. She couldn’t remember the last time she stood up.
“I don’t see anything,” she said, searching for the glint of his chest’s swan crest. “Where are you?”
“Over here.”
A torch ignited, swathing Hort in firelight. She staggered back.
Every inch of the black wall behind him was covered in posters, banners, graffiti—CONGRATULATIONS, CAPTAIN! TRIAL TRIUMPHANT! READER TO THE RESCUE!—accompanied by depraved cartoons of Evers suffering miserable deaths. Beneath the wall, carnivorous green bouquets littered the floor, carrying handwritten messages between the blooms’ sharp teeth:
Sophie looked dazed. “I don’t understand—”
“Tedros said you used him to win the Trial!” Hort said. “Lady Lesso named it the ‘Sophie Trap’—said you even fooled her! Teachers are saying you’re the best Captain Evil has ever had. Look!”
Sophie followed his eyes to a row of eel-green boxes amid the bouquets, wrapped with red ribbons.
She opened the first to find a parchment card:
HOPE YOU REMEMBER HOW TO USE IT. PROFESSOR MANLEY
Beneath it was a black snakeskin cape.
In the boxes that followed, Castor gifted her a dead quail, Lady Lesso left an ice-carved flower, and Sader enclosed her Trial cloak, asking if she might kindly donate it to the Exhibition of Evil.
“What a genius trick,” Hort fawned, trying on the cape. “Hide as a plant, wait until Tedros and Hester are left, then charge in and take out Hester while Tedros is wounded. But why didn’t you finish Tedros off? Everyone’s asking, but he won’t say anything. I said it’s ’cause the sun came up.”
Hort saw Sophie’s expression and his smile vanished.
“It was a trick, wasn’t it?”
Sophie’s eyes filled with tears. She started to shake her head—
But there was something else on the wall in front of her.
A black rose, note speared through thorns, dripping with ink.
Sophie took it into her hands.
Cheater. Liar. Snake.
You’re right where you belong.
All hail the witch.
“Sophie? Who’s it from?”
Heart throbbing, Sophie smelled the bitter black thorns laced with a scent she knew so well.
So this was her reward for Love.
She crushed the rose, spitting Tedros’ words with blood.
“This will make you feel better.”
In Room 66, Anadil scooped murky yellow broth from her cauldron into a bowl, dripping on the floor. Immediately her rats converged, eight inches bigger now, biting, clawing each other to get first licks.
“Your talent’s coming along,” Hester croaked.
Anadil sat on the edge of Hester’s bed with the bowl. “Just a few sips.”
Hester managed only one, then fell back.
“I shouldn’t have tried it,” she wheezed. “She’s too good. She’s twice the witch I am—”
“Shhhh, don’t strain.”
“But she loves him,” said Dot, curled in her bed.
“She thinks she does,” Hester said. “Just like we all once did.”
Dot’s eyes bulged.
“Please, Dot. You think she’s the only Never who dabbled in love?”
“Hester, enough,” Anadil pressed.
“No, let’s have the truth,” Hester said, struggling to sit up. “All of us have felt shameful stirrings. All of us have felt weakness.”
“But those feelings are wrong,” said Anadil. “No matter how strong they are.”
“That’s why this one’s special,” Hester said wryly. “She almost convinced us they were right.”
The room lapsed to silence.
“So what happens to her now?” asked Dot.
Hester sighed. “The same thing that happened to all of us.”
This time their silence was broken by distant clacks in slow, menacing rhythm. The three girls craned to the door as the clacks swelled towards them, cruel and clean like whip cracks. They grew louder, sharper, impaling the hall, then ebbed past their room to silence.
Dot farted in relief.
The door slammed open and the girls screamed—Dot bellyflopped off the bed—
A draft blew the hanging dresses past the torch over the door, casting flints of light on a shadow’s face.
The hair gleamed, spiked and slicked, black as smeared eye sockets and lips. Ghost-white skin glowed against black nail polish, black cape, and black leather.
Sophie stepped into the room, high black boots stabbing the floor.
Hester grinned back at her.
“Welcome home.”
From the floor, Dot peeped nervously between them. “But where will we find a new bed?”
Three pairs of eyes found hers.
She didn’t even get time to collect her snacks. In the dark, dank hall, Dot pounded on the iron door in banishing silence. But it was no use.
Three witches made a coven and she had been replaced.
The Evers didn’t celebrate