Never After (School for Good and Evil x Reader)

Chapter 31

While Evergirls usually mentioned both parents, the Nevers proferred only one or none at all, whether Arachne's father, a robber of queens; Mona's green-skinned mother, who had famously terrorized Oz; or Dot's father, Nottingham's sheriff who never caught his Nemesis, Robin Hood.

"Why don't Nevers mention both parents?" Agatha asked after Dot sat down.

"'Cause villains aren't born out of love," Dot said, watching Reena rhapsodize about how her royal parents met. "We're made for all the wrong reasons, none of which keep a family together. Lady Lesso used to say villain families are like dandelions—'fleeting and toxic.' Sounded like it came from personal experience."

"But how can anyone even believe the Dean's hogwash," Agatha crabbed, changing topics. "Kingdoms of women can't last without men. How would they, um . . . grow?"

"That's what we like about it." Dot grinned. "Slaves."

The only other memorable moment of class came when Yara, the dancing girl from the Welcoming, sashayed in halfway through, with her gangly walk and rippling muscles, acting as if it was perfectly routine to skip class all morning and flounce in at will.

"Care to present your lineage, Yara?" Pollux asked thinly.

Yara twirled with a squawk and sat down.

"Gypsies, no doubt," Pollux murmured.

As Agatha stared at Yara's beakish face, ginger hair, and strawberry freckles, she felt like she'd never encountered a girl so alien . . . and yet faintly familiar.

"Wanders in and out like the school pet," Dot whispered. "It's 'cause she can't speak. Dean feels sorry for her."

Agatha skipped lunch in the Supper Hall to meet Hester and Anadil atop the drizzly Honor Tower rooftop. (Dot declined to join them, citing a myriad of social obligations.) Where the open-air roof had once housed a topiary garden dedicated to scenes from King Arthur's story, the sculpted hedges had been remade in tribute to Queen Guinevere—Arthur's wife and Tedros' mother, who had abandoned them both and never been seen again.

"No wonder Tedros wants to attack us," Hester said, slurping homemade gruel as she eyed scenes of the sculpted, slim queen.

"How can the Dean think she's a hero?" Agatha said. "She deserted her son!"

"On the contrary, the Dean says Guinevere liberated herself from male oppression," Anadil quipped, watching her rats stab each other with stone shards, remnants of a gargoyle Tedros once killed. "She conveniently ignores that she left to shack up with a scrawny knight."

Agatha stared at the menagerie hedges making Guinevere out to be a saint.

Every fairy tale could be twisted to serve a purpose. Good could turn into Evil, Evil into Good, back and forth, back and forth, just like it had in the war between the schools a year ago.

"There's no shield between the two schools, only around the perimeter gates," Hester was saying to Anadil. "But even so, she can't swim to Tedros, with those crogs in the moat—"

"Crogs?" Agatha asked, turning to them.

"Those spiny white crocodiles. They only attack girls," Anadil said impatiently.

Agatha thought back to the cesspool in the Woods—the female deer dragged under by the crogs, while the male stag swam untouched. She felt doubly relieved she hadn't tried to cross.

"And she can't use the sewers since they're blocked," Hester was saying. "She can't even use the west Forest gate—"

"Is the Bridge portal still up here?'" Agatha said, scanning the roof.