The School for Good and Evil #2: A World without Princes (29 page)

“Not without you there,” Sophie rasped.

Agatha touched her friend's back, feeling unfamiliar muscle beneath her fingers. “I need you to be a boy now,” she said, her voice calm. “Just be a boy and get us home.”

Sophie nodded in her alien body and tried to stop shivering. Agatha's faith slowly seeped into her, steadying her heart. They'd been through so much, trying to hold on to each other—but now only she could get them to The End. Her friend was right. She was a boy now, and she had to act like one.

With a deep breath, she braced herself and turned into the light.

“I need clothes,” she said, voice sharp and low.

Agatha stared at the elfin boy's hardened face and, for the first time, saw a stranger.

Agatha smiled her old, crooked smile. “What you need is a name.”

Hort hugged his pillow, still in underpants, tossing and turning in his smelly bed while a hulking prince snored like a gorilla across the room.

The last week had been miserable. With the Trial approaching, the teachers had taken over, determined that the boys win and restore the School for Good and Evil. Not that Hort cared about any of it anymore. Tomorrow was the first day of official Trial Tryouts, and he didn't have the faintest chance of making the team. He still hadn't gotten a new uniform, the new princes called him Wart, the big ones kept stealing his lunch pail, and without Dot here, he didn't have anyone to talk to.

Why was he at this horrible place? What had the School Master possibly seen in him? He was a bad villain and an even worse son.

Hort rubbed his eyes, thinking of his dad's body, lying in the Garden of Good and Evil, with a mile-long line of corpses awaiting burial. Hort couldn't even afford a coffin, so his father lay to waste beneath circling vultures, the Crypt Keeper years away from reaching him.

Hort grated his teeth. If he won the Trial, he'd have the treasure to give his father the most beautiful coffin in the Woods. If he won the Trial, he'd have revenge on the girl who'd broken his heart. No one would ever question him being soft again—

A hacking snore snapped his trance and Hort shoved his pillow over his head, tempted to suffocate himself and die. There'd be no treasure. There'd be no revenge. Because that hairy, big-chested prince in the other bed was going to make the Trial team and his scrawny waste of a self wasn't.

If I could just have one friend here
, Hort prayed. One friend who could make him feel like more than a loser. Sniffling, he balled his knees and huddled near the window, pulling the covers over his head—

Hort bolted back up, gaping through the window.

There was a body on the boy's shore, the tattered, wet clothes streaked with blood. Moonlight seeped from behind a cloud, trickling onto the boy's pale forearm, and for a second Hort saw his fingers twitch.

Gasping, he flung off his covers and raced out of bed.

Surely the best way to make a new friend was to start by saving his life.

“What's your name?” a familiar voice snarled.

Sophie's eyes flickered open to her hard stomach against the floor, her thick hands cuffed. Her abundance of new muscles ached, and a bleary haze clouded her vision. She remembered little of how she'd arrived—only fleeting images of her refashioning Yuba's ragged tablecloth into a tunic big enough to cover her bulky new frame (“I have shoulders like an elephant,” she crabbed), lumbering awkwardly behind Agatha and the gnome onto the girls' shore (“Why is everything so stiff!”), and managing a histrionic good-bye (“Farewell, dignity! Farewell, femininity!”) before Yuba knocked her out with a stun spell.

She'd pretended not to have heard the plan when he and Agatha had gone over it earlier—the plan where the gnome and her best friend would float her body through the girls' lake towards the crog-filled red moat, knowing the currents would drag her to the boy's shore. The gnome promised Agatha the crogs wouldn't do more than nip a boy, but both parties thought it wiser if Sophie wasn't awake for the experience—and Sophie certainly saw no reason to argue. She glanced down at the serrated toothmarks and drips of blood across her tunic and was thankful the first few hours of her life as a boy had been mostly spent unconscious.

“What's your
name
?”

Sophie slowly lifted her eyes to Castor, standing in front of the male faculty, all clad in black-and-red robes, glowering down at the new boy in front of them.

Sophie lurched to her knees, heart hammering. The return of the teachers wasn't her only surprise.

The school around them had been completely cleaned up. Gone was the ape regime, with boys swinging from rafters, graffitied doors, and a putrid stench. Evil's foyer had been repainted blood crimson, the walls decorated with scarlet snake crests. The three staircases in the anteroom had been given fresh coats of black paint, the twisting banisters painted red, like red-bellied snakes. High on the stairs, more than two hundred boys leered down at the new arrival—dozens of familiar Ever and Neverboys, together with handsome new princes, all showered, scrubbed, and dressed in clean black-and-red leather uniforms.

Sophie's mouth parched. She'd always wished that one day she'd be in a castle full of gorgeous, virile men.

She should have been more specific.

“YOUR NAME, BOY,” Castor roared, grabbing her throat with his paw.

Agatha thought it was a terrible idea. To give herself the name of the boy her father had always wanted. The unborn boy her father had loved more than he ever loved her.

But Sophie refused any others.

“Filip,” she rasped in his grip.

Saying the name out loud stirred something inside her. She looked up at Castor, hardened.

“Filip of Mount Honora,” she repeated, voice deep and strong. “Lost my kingdom to a hideous witch. I come for a chance at the treasure.”

Murmurs rippled through the boys eyeing the elfish prince.

“Is that an Ever kingdom?” she heard Manley whisper to Espada.

“An enclave of Maidenvale, I believe,” Espada said, mustache twitching.

“And how did you get here, Filip of Mount Honora?” Castor barked, releasing his grip on the boy.

“Through a crack in the shield,” said Sophie.

“Impossible,” said a voice high above.

Sophie peered up at Aric and his red-hooded henchmen on Malice's banister, looming over all the other boys. They had coiled whips at their belt, red soldier jackets over their shirts, and the rest of the boys looked even more scared of them than before. Clearly the teachers had found their replacement for last year's wolves.

“I'm the only one who can break through Lady Lesso's shield,” Aric leered, glaring down at the prisoner. “The hole was sealed
tight
after I let the princes in.”

Sophie met his violet eyes. “Perhaps you should have done a better job.”

The staircase audience stiffened. Aric and his henchmen looked daggers at this new boy, shorter, skinnier, daring to challenge them in front of the whole school.

But Castor was smirking at the stranger, amused. “Welcome to the School for Boys, Filip.”

Sophie exhaled relief. She saw Aric's glare burning colder.

“In three nights' time, we face a buffoonish Trial against girls that threatens to leave us all
slaves
,” the dog declared, looking up at the boys on the staircases. “Win, and we rid ourselves of two Readers who've corrupted Good and Evil. Win, and the schools return to
tradition
.”

Boys burst into bellowing cheers. Sophie swallowed, trying to look enthused at the prospect of her own execution.

“For the next three days, Trial Tryouts will determine who will fight against the girls,” the dog continued. “Top nine boys after Tryouts will make the team. The tenth member of the team will be
chosen
by the first-place leader. Let this encourage you to make friends with the new princes around you and forge Ever-Never alliances.”

Boys old and new scanned each other warily, sizing up the competition.

“As a further incentive,” Castor said, “the highest-ranked student at the end of each day has the prestigious
honor
of guarding the School Master's tower for the night.”

Boys grumbled on the stairs, as if this didn't sound like much of an honor at all. But Sophie was too busy gasping with joy to notice. The dog had just unwittingly saved her and Agatha's lives. Win enough challenges today and she could steal the Storian tonight! She'd be home with Agatha by dawn!

“No bunks available for Filip, Castor,” said Albemarle, the spectacled woodpecker, studying his ledger. “Castle's at full occupancy.”

Castor peered down at the new boy. “Put him in with the runt. Whoever's ranked lowest between them at the end of each day gets punished.”

Sophie's smile vanished. The boys on the stairs chortled as Albemarle dutifully pecked into parchment. Aric was grinning at her now.

The runt?
Sophie thought, tensing.
Who's the runt?

Castor unlocked her cuffs. “Go get yourself settled before class, boy. Anyone want to show young Filip here his room—”

Fumbling bootsteps thundered down the stairs, and Sophie squinted up at Hort, crashing through boys like a loon in a new uniform two sizes too big. “That's me! That's me, Filip!” He snatched the schedule from Albemarle's beak and yanked the new boy to his feet—

“I'm Hort and I saved you so now we can be best friends even though you're an Ever,” he gushed, shoving him his schedule. “I'll explain classes, rules, and you can sit with me at lunch and—”

But Sophie wasn't listening. All she could see was the top of the parchment page, freshly pecked in stiff, unmistakable letters.

FILIP OF MOUNT HONORA

B
OY
, 2
ND
Y
EAR

R
OOMMATE
: T
EDROS

It answered her question about the runt.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

..................................................................

A
gatha?”

Agatha stirred, snowflakes melting on her eyelids.

“Agatha, wake up.”

Agatha opened her eyes to see Tedros, clean-shaven in his blue Everboys' uniform, kneeling in front of her bed, hair dusted with snow. He gently brushed back her hair. “Come with me, Agatha,” he whispered. “Before it's too late.”

She looked into his eyes as he leaned over her, his soft and innocent eyes, just like they once were . . . his lips coming for hers. . . . She felt his warm breath, then his mouth's sweet taste—

Agatha bolted awake, burning with sweat and clutching her pillow.

For a moment, she wondered why Reaper wasn't curled next to her like he usually was. Then it all came flooding back. Agatha sprang up to the sight of morning snow blowing through the window on a wind, swirling across two empty, canopied beds before settling on hers. Agatha couldn't breathe, staring at Sophie's perfectly made sheets dotted with snow. Her best friend was in the enemy's castle, risking her life for them as a
boy
, and she'd just dreamed of . . . of . . .

Agatha gasped and scrambled out of bed, quashing the thought. It was nothing. Just a leftover, a residue, a phantom of a wish that would soon be corrected. What mattered now was Sophie.

She swiveled frantically to the clock as the hands ticked past 7:30. Fifteen hours before she'd know if Sophie had survived; 54,000 seconds. They'd arranged to each hang a lantern in their window at sunset to communicate with the other: green flamed if they were safe, red flamed if they weren't. Until then, all Agatha had was the image of her best friend, once an aspiring princess, now a hard-edged prince, dragged unconscious into the boys' castle by Hort.

Agatha flung around the room, pulling on pieces of her uniform, still a bit flustered by her dream. Getting rid of Beatrix last night had been easy enough—a few coughs at curfew check, splotches of beetroot on her face, and a reminder of Yuba's contagiousness sent her roommate dragging all her trunks into Reena's quarters. Still, someone would come checking on her and Sophie before long.

Agatha fumbled towards the door, jiggling her feet into her clumps. She had to find Professor Dovey and confess everything. Dovey was a famous fairy godmother, after all—she'd made her name solving people's problems! But where could they possibly meet without being overheard? The Dean's spies followed her teacher incessantly, and all the best spots had proved vulnerable—bathrooms, Supper Hall, Sader's office. If only there was a place where even if the butterflies did find her, they
still
wouldn't hear . . . Agatha waited for her mind to give her a solution, to propel her out the door. . . .

She slumped back down on Beatrix's bed, answerless. Agatha kicked her clump hard against the bedpost in frustration—