“Yes.”
“One more time, Beatrix.”
“Right here,” Beatrix snapped.
“Thank you, Beatrix. Kiko!”
“Present!”
“Again, Kiko.”
“I’m here, Professor Sader!”
“Excellent. Reena!”
“Yes.”
“Again?”
Agatha groaned. At this rate, they’d be here until new moon.
“Tedros!”
“Here.”
“Louder, Tedros.”
“Good grief, is he deaf?” Agatha grouched.
“No, silly,” said Kiko. “He’s blind.”
Agatha snorted. “Don’t be ridi—”
The glassy eyes. The matching names to voices. The way he gripped the lectern.
“But his paintings!” Agatha cried. “He’s seen Gavaldon! He’s seen us!”
That’s when Professor Sader met her eyes and smiled, as if to remind her he’d never seen anything at all.
“So let me get this straight,” Sophie said. “There were two School Masters first. And they were brothers.”
“Twins,” said Hester.
“One Good, one Evil,” said Anadil.
Sophie moved along a series of chipped marble murals built into Evil Hall. Covered in emerald algae and blue rust, torch-lit with sea-green flames, the hall looked like a cathedral that had spent most of its life underwater.
She stopped at one, depicting two young men in a castle chamber, keeping watch over the enchanted pen she had seen in the School Master’s tower. One brother wore long black robes, the other white. In the cracked mosaic, she could make out their identical handsome faces, ghostly pale hair, and deep blue eyes. But where the white-robed brother’s face was warm, gentle, the black-robed one’s was icy and hard. Still, something about both of their faces seemed familiar.
“And these brothers ruled both schools and protected the magic pen,” Sophie said.
“The Storian,” Hester corrected.
“And Good won half the time and Evil won half the time?”
“More or less,” said Anadil, feeding a snail to her pocketed rats. “My mother used to say that if Good went on a streak, Evil would find new tricks, forcing Good to improve its defense and beat them back.”
“Nature’s balance,” said Dot, munching on a schoolbook she’d turned to chocolate.
Sophie moved to the next mural, where the Evil brother had gone from ruling peacefully alongside his brother to attacking him with a barrage of spells. “But the Evil one thought he could control the pen—um, Storian—and make Evil invincible. So he gathers an army to destroy his brother and starts war.”
“The Great War,” said Hester. “Where everyone took a side between Good brother and Evil brother.”
“And in the final battle between them, someone won,” said Sophie, eyeing the last mural—a sea of Evers and Nevers bowed before a masked School Master in silver robes, the glowing Storian floating above his hands. “But no one knows who.”
“Quick-study,” Anadil grinned.
“But then surely people must know if he’s the Good brother or Evil brother?” Sophie asked.
“Everyone pretends it’s a mystery,” said Hester, “but since the Great War, Evil hasn’t won a single story.”
“But doesn’t the pen just write what happens in the Woods?” Sophie said, studying the strange symbols in the Storian’s steel. “Don’t we control the stories?”
“And it just happens one day all villains die?” Hester growled. “That pen is forcing our fates. That pen is killing all the villains. That pen is controlled by Good.”
“Storian, love,” Dot chomped. “Not a pen.”
Hester smacked the book out of her mouth.
“But if you’re going to die every time, why bother teaching villains?” said Sophie. “Why have the School for Evil at all?”
“Try asking a teacher that question,” piped Dot, digging in her bag for a bigger book.
“Fine, so you villains can’t win anymore,” Sophie yawned, filing her nails with a marble shard. “What’s this to do with me?”
“The Storian started your fairy tale,” Hester frowned.
“So?”
“And given your current school, the Storian thinks you’re the villain in that fairy tale.”
“And I should care about the opinion of a pen?” Sophie said, whittling nails on her other hand.
“I take back the quick-study bit,” said Anadil.
“If you’re the villain, you die, you imbecile!” Hester barked.
Sophie broke a nail. “But the School Master said I could go home!”
“Or maybe his riddle’s a trap.”
“He’s Good! You said it yourself!”
“And you’re in Evil,” said Hester. “He’s not on your side.”
Sophie looked at her. Anadil and Dot had the same grim expression.
“I’m going to die here?” Sophie squeaked, eyes welling. “There has to be something I can do!”
“Solve the riddle,” Hester said, shrugging. “It’s the only way you’ll know what he’s up to. Plus your ending needs to happen soon. If you win one more challenge, I’ll kill you myself.”
“Then tell me the answer!” Sophie yelled.
“What does a villain never have that a princess can’t do without?” Hester mulled, itching her tattoo.
“Animals, maybe?” said Dot.
“Villains can have animal henchmen. Just takes deeper corruption,” said Anadil. “What about honor?”
“Evil has its own version of honor, valor, and everything else Good thinks they invented,” Hester said. “We just have better names for them.”
“I have it!”
They turned to Sophie.
“A birthday party!” she said. “Who would want to go to a Villain Party?”
Anadil and Hester stared at her.
“It’s because she doesn’t eat,” said Dot. “Brains need food.”
“Then you must be the smartest girl alive!” Sophie roared.
Dot glared back at her. “Remember the cruelest villains die the cruelest deaths.”
Sophie turned to Hester nervously. “Would Lady Lesso tell me the answer?”
“If she thinks it’ll help Evil win.”
“You’d have to be clever,” said Anadil.
“And subtle,” said Hester.
“Cleverness? Subtlety? That’s what I do, darling,” Sophie said, relieved. “This riddle is good as solved.”
“Or not, given we’re fifteen minutes late,” said Dot.
Indeed,