Agatha’s hands swept over dots, scanning exhaustive scenes of Great War battles, alliances, betrayals to see how it all ended. Her fingers stopped as she watched a familiar figure in silver robes and mask rise out of the burning carnage of battle, Storian in hand:
“From the final fight between Evil brother and Good brother, a victor emerged beholden to neither side. In the Great Truce, the triumphant School Master vowed to rise above Good and Evil and protect the balance for as long as he could keep himself alive. Neither side trusted the victor, of course. But they didn’t need to.”
The scene flashed to the dying brother, burning to ashes as he desperately stabbed his hand into the sky, unleashing a burst of silver light—
“For the dying brother used his final embers of magic to create a last spell against his twin: a way to prove Good and Evil still equal. As long as this proof stayed intact, then the Storian remained uncorrupted and the Woods in perfect balance. And as to what this proof is …”
Agatha’s heart leapt—
“It remains in the School for Good and Evil to this very day.”
The scene went dark.
She turned the page urgently, touched the dots. Sader’s voice boomed—
“Chapter Fifteen: The Woodswide Roach Plague.”
Agatha flung the book against the wall, then the others, leaving cracks in painted couples’ faces. When there were no more to throw, she buried her face in the bed.
Please. Help us.
Then in the silence between prayers and tears, something came. Not even a thought. An impulse.
Agatha lifted her head.
The answer to the riddle looked back at her.
It’s just a haircut, Sophie told herself as she climbed through a cornflower thicket. No one will even notice. She slid between two periwinkle trees into the West Clearing, approaching her group from behind.
Just find Agatha and—
The group turned all at once. No one laughed. Not Dot. Not Tedros. Not even Beatrix. They gaped with such horror Sophie couldn’t breathe.
“Excuse me—something in my eye—” She ducked behind a blue rosebush and gulped for air. She couldn’t bear any more humiliation.
“Least you look like a Never now,” Tedros said, bobbing behind the bush. “So no one makes my mistake.”
Sophie turned beet red.
“Well, this is what happens when you’re friends with a witch,” the prince frowned.
Now, Sophie was a pomegranate.
“Look, it’s not that bad. Not as bad your friend, at least.”
“Excuse me,” said Sophie, eggplant purple. “Something in my other eye—”
She darted out and grabbed Dot like a life raft—“Where’s Agatha!”
But Dot was still staring at her hair. Sophie cleared her throat.
“Oh, um, they haven’t let her out of her room,” Dot said. “Too bad she’ll miss the Flowerground. If Yuba can call the conductor, that is.” She nodded at the gnome, grumpily jabbing at a blue pumpkin patch. Dot’s eyes drifted back to Sophie’s hair.
“It’s … nice.”
“Please don’t,” Sophie said softly.
Dot’s eyes misted. “You were so pretty.”
“It’ll grow back,” Sophie said, trying not to cry.
“Don’t worry,” Dot sniffled. “One day, someone Evil enough will kill that monster.”
Sophie stiffened.
“All aboard!” Yuba called.
She turned to see Tedros open the top of an ordinary blue pumpkin like a teapot and vanish inside.
Sophie squinted. “What in the—”
Something poked her hip and she looked down. Yuba thrust a Flowerground pass at her and opened the pumpkin lid, revealing a thin caterpillar in a violet velvet tuxedo and matching top hat, floating in a swirl of pastel colors.
“No spitting, sneezing, singing, sniffling, swinging, swearing, slapping, sleeping, or urinating in the Flowerground,” he said in the crabbiest voice imaginable. “Violations will result in removal of your clothes. All aboard!”
Sophie whipped to Yuba. “Wait! I need to find my frien—”
A vine shot up and yanked her in.
Too stunned to scream, she plunged through dazzling pinks, blues, yellows, as more tendrils lashed and fastened around her like safety belts. Sophie heard a hiss and wheeled to see a giant green flytrap swallow her. She found her scream before vines jerked her out of its mouth into a tunnel of hot, blinding mist and hooked her onto something that kept her moving while her feet and arms dangled freely in the ivy harness. Then the mist cleared and Sophie saw the most magical thing she’d ever seen.
It was an underground transport system, big as a whole village, made entirely of luminescent plants. Dangling passengers hung on to vine straps attached to glowing, different-colored tree trunks covered in matching flowers. These color-coded trunks wove together in a colossal maze of tracks. Some trunks ran parallel, some perpendicular, some forked in different directions, but all took riders to their precise destinations in the Endless Woods. Sophie stared in shock at a row of unsmiling dwarves, pickaxes in belts, clinging to straps off a fluorescent red trunk labeled ROSALINDA LINE. Running in the opposite direction was the glittery green ARBOREA LINE, with a family of bears in crisp suits and dresses among the riders hanging off shamrock vines. Flabbergasted, Sophie peered down her HIBISCUS LINE to see the rest of her group swinging from an electric-blue trunk. But only the Nevers were strapped into harnesses.
“Flowerground’s only for Evers,” Dot called out. “They have to let us on ’cause we’re with the school. But they still don’t trust us.”
Sophie didn’t care. She would ride the Flowerground for the rest of her life if she could. Besides its strong, soothing pace and delicious scents, there was an orchestra of lizards for each line: the TANGERINE LINE lizards strummed bouncy banjo guitars, the VIOLET LINE ones played sultry sitars, and the lizards on Sophie’s line piped up-tempo jingles on piccolos, accompanied by caroling blue frogs. Lest riders grow hungry, each line had its own snacks, with bluebirds fluttering along the HIBISCUS LINE, offering blue-corn muffins and blueberry punch. For once, Sophie had all she needed. Muscles unclenching, she forgot about boys and beasts as vines pulled her up, up, into a churning wind wheel of blue light. Her body felt wind, then air, then earth, and arms unfurling into the sky, Sophie bloomed out of the ground like a heavenly hyacinth—
And found herself in a graveyard.
Headstones the color of the bleak sky swept over barren hills. Shivering classmates spouted from a hole in the ground next to her.
“Wherrre arrre wweee?” she stammered through chattering teeth.
“Garden—of—Good and Evil,” Dot shivered, nibbling a chocolate lizard.
“Doesn’ttt look likke a garrrden to meee,” Sophie chattered back.
Warmth thawed her skin as Yuba sparked a few small fires around the group with his magical staff. Sophie and her classmates exhaled.
“In a few weeks you will each be unlocked to