Agatha woke from her stupor. If she didn’t have enough reasons to escape, the thought of a Beautification class was the last straw. They had to get out of here tonight. She turned to an adorable girl next to her, with narrow brown eyes and short black hair, fixing her lipstick in a pocket mirror.
“Mind if I borrow your lipstick?” Agatha asked.
The girl took one look at Agatha’s ashy, cracked lips and thrust it at her. “Keep it.”
“Breakfast and supper will take place in your school supper halls, but you’ll all eat lunch together in the Clearing,” Castor grunted. “That is, if you’re mature enough to handle the privilege.”
Sophie felt her heart race. If the schools ate their lunches together, tomorrow would be her first chance to talk to Tedros. What would she say to him? And how would she get rid of that beastly Beatrix?
“The Endless Woods beyond the school gates are barred to first-year students,” said Pollux. “And though that rule may fall on deaf ears for the most adventurous of you, let me remind you of the most important rule of all. One that will cost you your lives if you fail to obey.”
Sophie snapped to attention.
“Never go into the Woods after dark,” said Pollux.
His cuddly smile returned. “You may return to your schools! Supper is at seven o’clock sharp!”
As Sophie rose with the Nevers, mentally rehearsing her lunch meeting with Tedros, a voice ripped through the chatter—
“How do we see the School Master?”
The hall went dead silent. Students turned, shell-shocked.
Agatha stood alone in the aisle, glaring up at Castor and Pollux.
The twin-headed dog jumped off the stage and landed a foot from her, splashing her with drool. Both heads glared into Agatha’s eyes, wearing the same ferocious expression. It wasn’t clear who was who.
“You don’t,” they growled.
As fairies whisked flailing Agatha to the east door, she passed Sophie for an instant, just long enough to thrust out a rose petal marred by a lipstick message: “BRIDGE, 9 PM.”
But Sophie never saw it. Her eyes were locked on Tedros, a hunter stalking its prey, until she was shoved from the hall by villains.
Right then and there, the problem smashed Agatha in the face. The one that had plagued them all along. For as the two girls were pulled to their opposing towers, their opposing desires couldn’t have been clearer. Agatha wanted her only friend back. But a friend wasn’t enough for Sophie. Sophie had always wanted more.
Sophie wanted a prince.
“Breakfast makes you fat anyway,” Beatrix reassured.
Reena poked her head into the hall. “Has anyone seen my panties!”
Agatha certainly hadn’t. She was free-falling through a dark chute, trying to remember how she found Halfway Bridge the first time. Honor Tower to Hansel’s Haven to Merlin’s Menagerie …
After landing on the beanstalk, she crept through the dim Gallery of Good, until she found the doors behind the stuffed bears. Or was it Honor Tower to Cinderella Commons … Still mulling the correct route, she threw open the doors to the stair room and ducked. The palatial glass lobby was packed with faculty in their colorful dresses and suits, mingling before class. Neon-haired nymphs in pink gowns, white veils, and blue lace gloves floated about the foyer, refilling teacups, frosting biscuits, and flicking fairies off sugar cubes. From behind the doors, Agatha peeked at the stairs marked HONOR, lit by high stained glass windows, far across the crowd. How could she get past them all?
She felt something scrape her leg and turned to find a mouse gnawing her petticoat. Agatha kicked the mouse away, which tumbled into the paws of a stuffed cat. The mouse screeched, then saw the cat was dead. It gave Agatha its dirtiest look and marched back into its hole in the wall.
Even the vermin here hate me, she sighed as she tried to salvage her petticoat. Her fingers stopped as they ran over the torn white lace. Perhaps she shouldn’t have been so hard on that mouse. …
A few moments later, an undersized nymph in a ragged lace veil scurried through the room for the Honor stairs. Unfortunately the veil left Agatha blind and she tripped into a nymph, who crashed into a teacher—“Heavens Saint Mary!” Clarissa moaned, dripping with prune tea. As alarmed professors dabbed at her dress, Agatha slid behind the Charity steps.
“Those nymphs really are too tall,” Clarissa scolded. “Next thing you know they’ll knock down a tower!”
By then, Agatha had already disappeared into Honor Tower and found her way up to Hansel’s Haven, the wing of first-floor classrooms made completely out of candy. There was a room of sparkled blue swizzles and rock sugar, glittering like a salt mine. There was a marshmallow room with white fudge chairs and gingerbread desks. There was even a room made of lollipops, blanketing the walls in rainbow colors. Agatha wondered how in the world these rooms stayed intact and then saw an inscription sweeping the corridor wall in cherry gumdrops:
Temptation Is the Path to Evil
Agatha ate half of it before she hustled by two passing teachers, who gave her veil a curious look but didn’t stop her.
“Must be spots,” she heard one whisper as she raced up the back stairs (but not before stealing a caramel doorknob and butterscotch welcome mat to complete her heavenly breakfast).
When she ran from the fairies the day before, Agatha had stumbled into the rooftop topiary by accident. Today, she could appreciate Merlin’s Menagerie, as the school map named it, filled with magnificently sculpted hedges that told the legend of King Arthur in sequence. Each hedge celebrated a scene from the king’s life: Arthur pulling the sword from the stone, Arthur with his knights at the Round Table, Arthur at the wedding altar with Guinevere. …
Agatha thought of that pompous boy from the Theater, the one everyone said was King Arthur’s son. How could he see this and not feel suffocated? How could he survive the comparisons, the expectations? At least he had beauty on his side. Imagine if he looked like me, she snorted. They’d have dumped the baby in the woods.
The final sculpture in the sequence was the one with the pond, a towering statue of Arthur receiving Excalibur from the Lady of the Lake. This time Agatha jumped into its water on purpose and fell through the secret portal, completely dry, onto Halfway Bridge.
She hurried towards the midpoint, where the fog began, palms extended in case the barrier came earlier than she remembered. But as she entered the mist, her hands couldn’t find it. She moved