Never After (School for Good and Evil x Reader)

Chapter 9

"There's two puzzles here," Anadil said, eyeing Hester. "The School Master's riddle."

Hester turned to Sophie. "And why he wants you to solve it."

***

"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 and I 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.

I stopped at one, depicting two young men in a castle chamber, keeping watch over the enchanted pen I had seen in the School Master's tower. One brother wore long black robes, the other white. In the cracked mosaic, I 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 and I 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," I said, 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?" I 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 us?"

"The Storian started your fairy tale," Hester frowned.

"So?"

"And given your current school, the Storian thinks either you or Y/n is the villain in that fairy tale."