Never After (School for Good and Evil x Reader)

Chapter 32

I was splayed bare in dirt, outside the School for Boys.

How could I be so stupid! Of course they enchanted the school against Mogrifs! Tedros wouldn't just leave his tower unprotected!

I need to get out of here before the princes come.

I looked up determinedly to the boggy field and froze.

On the ground under my face was a crinkly blackish sheath of scales . . . like a snake's shed skin, only twice as long and thick. My eyes slowly moved to another shed sheath a few feet in front of me. Then two more . . .

I raised my head. I was surrounded by snakeskins. More than I could count.

Through darkness, I saw their makers rise from the mulch. Acid-green eyes glowed under misshapen, flattened black heads, their thick, eel-like trunks speared with needles through every scale. I scrambled back, only to see more rising behind me. They curled higher, in a perfect circle, trapping me right and left, front and rear, high and low. With identical grins, they silently flicked tongues and glared down, waiting for me to move.

There was only one to make.

I flung out my glowing finger—the snakes lunged instantly and pinned my body to the ground, spread-eagled to sacrifice. Needles slashed into my wrists and ankles as the snakes unleashed ugly, screeching hisses, drowning out my gasps. I heard boys' voices echo through the entrance tunnel, following the alarm, and knew I was doomed.

"Why can't I kill her!" a weaselly voice said.

"Get back to your guard," retorted a harsh deeper voice.

"But I heard the spiricks first!" the weaselly voice mewled. "Suppose it's her—"

"Shut up!" barked the deep voice. "Boys, weapons ready!"

My nails clawed at dirt. I couldn't die now. . . not like this. . .But now I could see the glint of swords and hooded shadows down the tunnel. They were seconds away.

Then suddenly out of pain, a memory came back like a song. . . .

Snakeskin under my hands as Professor Manley spoke of its magical properties in an Uglification class . . .

"But I want to kill Y/n!" the weaselly voice said, eliciting a chorus of snickers.

"As if you could kill a toad," said the deep-voiced boy. "Or a girl you're soft for."

"I'm not soft for anyone!"

My fingerglow flickered as snake needles stabbed into my palm. I gasped in agony, trying to visualize the spell.

"Shhh! I hear her!"

Snakeskins shivered on the ground around me—

"Ready . . . set . . ."

Hundreds of skins rose into air over the snakes—

"Charge!"

Four enormous boys in red hoods and black uniforms dashed from the tunnel, swords aimed—

"Holy hell," growled their strapping, deep-voiced leader, a gold badge over his snake crest. In the dirt pit, confused snakes hissed at each other—nothing pinned beneath. The leader shot a spell at them and the snakes fled, shrieking. He ripped off his hood, revealing spiked black hair, ghostly pale cheekbones, throbbing blue veins, and lethal, violet eyes. "Stupid spiricks."

Needle cuts burning, I endured the pain, invisible under the mound of sheathed skins.

A last scrawny hood bumbled from the tunnel. "You think I'm soft?" the weaselly boy cried, tearing off his mask. "Wait until I win the treasure! Just wait!"

I held in a gasp. Hort had grown in our time away, now sporting whiskers on his chin, wilder black hair, and beady brown eyes that no longer looked like a little boy's. "I'll buy Dad a gold coffin. Two years he's waited for a grave. Killed by Peter Pan himself, my dad." He glowered at the empty pit. "You'll see, Aric! I'll be the one to kill Y/n. You don't know my villain talent!"

"Turnin' to a man-wolf for three seconds at a time?" said Aric, and his henchmen chuckled.

"That's not true!" Hort howled, chasing them towards the tunnel. "I can last long now! You'll see!"

Watching them go, I sighed with relief—

Aric whirled, sword thrust out.

I stiffened like a corpse as he stared at the spot where I lay naked, his violet eyes narrowed.

"What is it, captain?" his henchman asked.

Aric listened to the silence.

"Come on," he grunted at last, and led his troops into the boys' castle, Hort runting at the rear.

None of them saw the flash of green glow in the bog behind, turning invisible skins into an invisible cape.