I was surprised to see Agatha cross the Clearing to the Never's lunch line, where she came to Hester and I.
"Where's Sophie?"
"Won't come out of the room. Missed all our classes," I said as a wolf dumped mystery meat into my pail.
"Apparently sharing a coffin with Hort robs you of your will to live," Hester said, holding out her own pail.
After a quick lunch, Agatha and I trekked up to Room 66. Inside, Sophie was curled under her scorched, tattered covers.
"I saw it!" Sophie hissed. "I saw him pick you! Here I'm worried about Beatrix, when you're the double-crossing, backstabbing fink!"
"Look, I don't know why Tedros keeps choosing me," Agatha said, squeezing rain from her hair.
Sophie's eyes drilled into her.
"I want him to choose you, you fool!" Agatha yelled. "I want us to go home!"
Sophie searched her face for a long moment. With a sigh, she turned to the window. "You don't know what it was like. I still smell him everywhere. He's in my nose, Agatha. They've given him his own room until the stench goes away. But who's to say where skunk ends and Hort begins?"
Shuddering, Sophie turned back. "I did everything you said, Aggie. I focused on all the things I love about Tedros—his skin, his eyes, his cheekbones—"
"Sophie, that's his looks! Tedros won't feel a connection if you just like him because he's handsome. How is that different from every other girl?"
Sophie frowned. "I didn't want to think about his crown or his fortune. That's shallow."
"Think about who he is! His personality! His values! What he's like deep down!"
"Excuse me, I know how to make a boy love me," Sophie huffed, shooing her out. "Just stop ruining things and let me do things my way."
***
Apparently Sophie's way was to humiliate herself as much as possible.
During lunch the next day, she sidled up to Tedros in the Evers' line, only to have his boys crowd her, chomping blue mint leaves. Then she tried to get the prince alone in Surviving Fairy Tales, but Beatrix stuck to him like glue, taking every opportunity to remind him he picked her coffin.
"Tedros, can I talk to you?" Sophie blurted finally.
"Why would he talk to you?" Beatrix said.
"Because we're friends, you buzzing gnat!"
"Friends!" Tedros flared. "I've seen how you treat your friends. Use them. Betray them. Call them fat. Call them liars. Appreciate the offer. I'll pass."
"Attacking. Betraying. Lying. Sounds like one of our Nevers is using her rules!" Yuba beamed.
Sophie was so despondent she even ate a piece of Dot's chocolate.
"We'll find you a love spell somehow," said Dot.
"Thanks, Dot," Sophie sobbed, mouth full. "This is amazing."
"Rat droppings. Makes the best fudge."
Sophie gagged.
"Who'd you call fat, by the way?" Dot asked.
Things got worse. For a weeklong challenge in Henchmen Training and Animal Communication, students of both schools had to tote assigned creature sidekicks everywhere they went. At first, both schools exploded into chaos, with trolls tossing Nevers out windows, stampeding satyrs stealing lunch baskets, baby dragons setting desks on fire, and animals christening the Good halls with mountains of dung.
"It's a tradition. An attempt at school unity," Professor Dovey said to her Evers, clothespin on her nose. "However misguided and poorly organized."
Castor scowled at Nevers flitting about the Belfry, under siege by their henchmen. "ONCE YOU GET YOUR HEADS OUT OF YOUR BEHINDS, YOU'LL REALIZE WHO'S MASTER!"
And indeed, after three days, Hester had her baby ogre potty trained and spitballing Evers at lunch, Tedros had his wolfhound swaggering behind him, Anadil's python befriended her rats, and Beatrix's fluffy white bunny inspired such love she named it Teddy. (Tedros kicked it every time he saw it.) Even Agatha managed to teach her plucky ostrich how to steal candy without teachers noticing.
I had been given a baby dragon, with midnight scales and vibrant green eyes. After day three, Jett would comfortably rest on my shoulder in class.
Sophie, however, found herself with a chubby cupid named Grimm, with bushy black hair, pug nose, pink wings, and eyes that changed colors depending on his moods. She knew his name was Grimm because he wrote it all over Room 66 in her favorite lipstick the first day. On Day 2, he saw Agatha for the first time at lunch and his eyes went from green to red. Then on Day 3, while Yuba taught "Uses of Wells," he started shooting arrows at Agatha, who leapt behind the Forest well just in time.
"CALL THAT THING OFF!" Tedros yelled as he deflected Grimm's arrows into the well with his training sword.
"Grimm! She's my friend!" Sophie shouted.
Grimm guiltily put his arrows away.
On Day 4, he spent all of Sophie's classes grinding his teeth in the corner and clawing at the walls.
Lady Lesso gave him a curious stare. "You know, by looking at him you'd think . . ." She gazed at Sophie, then brushed the thought away. "Never mind. Just give him a little milk and he'll be more amenable."
The milk worked on Day 5. On Day 6, Grimm started shooting at Agatha again. Sophie tried everything she could to pacify him: she sang lullabies, gave him Dot's best fudge, even let him have her bed while she took the floor, but this time nothing would stop him.
"What do I do?" Sophie cried to Lady Lesso after class.
"Some henchmen go rogue," Lady Lesso sighed. "I'm sure he'll calm down. They always do."
But by Day 7, Grimm started flying after Agatha during lunch, evading the grasps of students and wolves, until Hester's demon finally subdued him. Agatha glared at Sophie from behind a tree.
"Maybe you remind him of someone?" Sophie whimpered.
But even Hester's demon or Jett's white-hot flames couldn't control Grimm for long, and the next day his arrows came tipped with fire. After one of these singed her ear, Agatha finally had enough. Remembering Yuba's last lesson, she lured the rogue cupid into the Blue Forest during lunch and hid in the deep stone well. When Grimm giddily dove down the dark shaft to find her, she clubbed him with her clump and knocked him out cold.
"I thought he'd kill you," Sophie wept after they sealed the well with a boulder.
"I can take care of myself," Agatha said. "Look, the Ball is less than two months away and things with Tedros are getting worse. We have to try a new—"
"He's my prince," Sophie stiffened. "And I'll handle him myself."
Agatha and I didn't bother arguing. When Sophie was ready, she'd listen.
***
While both schools went off with Castor and Uma to free their henchmen back to the Blue Forest, Sophie and I stole away to the Library of Vice.
Perched atop Vice's top floor, the Library of Vice was like a normal library, only after a flood, fire, and tornado had swept through. Its rusty iron bookshelves were skewed at odd angles, with thousands of fallen books all over the floor. The walls were furry green with mold, the brown carpet was moist and sticky, and the room smelled like a mix of smoke and sour milk.
Behind a desk in the corner was a gelatinous toad, puffing a cigar and stamping books one after one before tossing them on the floor.
"Subject of interest," he burped.
"Love spells," Sophie said, trying not to breathe.
The toad nodded to a dank shelf in the corner. There were only three books left on it:
Thorns, Not Roses: Why Love Is a Curse by Baron Dracul
A Never's Guide to Ending True Love by Dr. Walter Bartoli
Foolproof Love Spells & Potions by Glinda Gooch
Sophie and I threw open the third and ran down its list of spells until we found "Spell 53: The True Love Heart Hex."
Sophie ripped out the page and we fled.
Sophie and I, plus our roommates, hunched over it during lunch.
"'Once a boy is under this spell, he will instantly fall in love with you and do whatever you ask,'" Anadil read. "'Works particularly well with eliciting proposals of marriage and invitations to Balls.'"
"All you have to do is mix the prescribed potion into a bullet and shoot it at your true love's heart!" Sophie read excitedly.
"It won't work," Hester crabbed.
"You're just mad because I found it."
Hester snatched a heap of letters from her bag. "'Dear Hester, I don't know of any love spells that work'—'Dear Hester, love spells are notoriously dodgy'—'Dear Hester, love spells are dangerous. Use a bad spell and you can warp someone permanently'—"
"It's 'foolproof'!" Dot said.
"Says who? Glinda GOOCH?"
"I say it's worth a try if it means we don't have to talk about Balls and kisses anymore," Anadil said, red eyes studying the recipe. "Bat heart, lodestones, cat bone . . . These are all standard ingredients. Oh. We need a drop of Tedros' 'scent.'"
"How are we going to get that?" Dot said. "If a Never even gets near an Ever, the wolves are on us. We need an Ever to do it."
Agatha plopped down in a heap of pink. "What'd I miss?"
Sophie only got five words out.
"No! No spells. No hexes. No tricks!" Agatha scolded. "It has to be true love!"
"But look!" Sophie held up the page and its painting of a prince and princess kissing at a Ball. The caption: "ONLY AUTHENTIC SUBSTITUTE FOR TRUE LOVE!"
Agatha crumpled the page and dumped it in Sophie's pail. "I don't want to hear about it again."
Sophie spent the rest of lunch picking at her loaf of cheese.
Two days later, Hester felt a jab in the middle of the night. She stirred to see Sophie standing over her bed, sniffing a blue tie with a gold T.
"Smells like heaven. I'm sure there's enough here."
Hester stayed up all night mixing the ingredients. Using her mother's old crockery, she blended them into a frothy pink potion, distilled the love potion into shimmering gas, and poured the gas into a heart-shaped bullet over the fireplace.
"Just hope he doesn't die," Hester growled, handing it over.
Sophie practiced her aim for two days before she knew she was ready. She waited until Surviving Fairy Tales, when Yuba and the group were climbing trees to study "Forest Flora."
When Tedros reached for a blue hornbeam branch, she saw her chance and drew the bullet into her slingshot—
"You're mine," Sophie whispered.
The pink heart shot off the sling and flew straight for the silver swan on Tedros' heart, only to turn crimson, ricochet off him like rubber, and smash back into her with a violent, alien scream.
The whole group spun in shock.
Sophie's black robes were splashed with a giant, bloody letter F.
"For Failing to abide by the rules." Yuba glowered from a tree. "No spells until after the Unlocking."
Beatrix picked the broken heart bullet off the ground. "A love spell? You tried a love spell on Tedros?"
The class burst into howls.
Sophie turned to Tedros, who couldn't have looked more enraged. Next to him, Agatha had the same expression.
Sophie covered her face and fled, sobs echoing through the forest.
"Every year, a rascal tries something. But even the sorriest rascal knows there's no shortcuts to love," Yuba said. "We'll start with proper spells next week, I assure you. But for now, on to ferns! How can we tell if a fern is actually a Never in disguise—"
Agatha didn't follow the group to the Fernfield. Slouched against an oak, she gazed at the heart-shaped pieces in the grass, just as shattered as her dreams of home.
"Why didn't you stop her?" Agatha asked.
"It's Sophie," I replied.
***
Hester and I came back from supper to find Sophie sprawled on her bed, a puddle of tears.
Sophie looked up, the red F on her robes even brighter now. "It won't come off. I tried everything."
Hester dumped her schoolbag on the floor. "We're practicing our talents in the common room. Feel free to join."
She opened the door and paused. "I warned you."
Sophie jumped at the slam.
I massaged my temples, trying to get rid of my headache.
The next morning, Agatha had snuck into our room. She was sitting at the edge of Sophie's bed, picking dead leaves out of her pink dress.
"A wolf saw me this time. But I lost him in the tunnel." She glanced up at a gilded mirror on a wall. "Looks nice in here."
"Thank you for bringing it," Sophie rasped.
"My room's happier without it."
Tense silence. "I'm sorry, Agatha. Y/n."
"Sophie, we're on your side. We have to work together if we want to get out of here alive."
"The spell was our only hope," Sophie said softly.
"Sophie, we can't give up! We have to get home!" I exclaimed.
Sophie stared into the mirror, eyes welling. "What happened to me, Agatha?"
"You want the Ball without winning your prince. You want your kiss without doing the work. Look, I had to clean plates after supper all week, so I read while doing it."
Agatha pulled a book from her dress—Winning Your Prince by Emma Anemone—and started flipping to dog-eared pages. "According to this, winning true love is the ultimate challenge. In every fairy tale, it might seem like love at first sight, but there's always skill behind it."
"But I already—"
"Shut up and listen. It comes down to three things. Three things a girl has to do to win her fairy-tale prince. First, you need to 'flaunt your strengths.' Second, you need to 'speak through actions, not words.' And third, you need to 'parade competing suitors.' If you just do these three things and do them well, we stand a—"
Sophie raised her hand.
"What."
"I can't flaunt anything in this potato sack, can't act with that she-devil in my face, and have no competing suitors except a boy who looks and smells like a rat! Look at me, Agatha! I have an F on my chest, my hair looks like a boy's, I have bags under my eyes, my lips are dry, and yesterday I found a blackhead on my nose!"
"And how are you going to change that?" Agatha snapped.
Sophie bowed her head. The ugly letter cast shadows on her hands. "Tell me what to do, Aggie. I'm listening."
"Show him who you are," Agatha said, softening. She gazed deep into her friend's eyes.
"Show him the real Sophie."