The old lollipop room in Hansel's Haven was still made of lollipops, but they'd been blown up into thousands of rainbow-colored shards and pieced into new murals across the walls.
As students flurried in from the crowded hall, I sat on Professor Sheeks' old lollipop desk that had been slashed, scarred, beaten into lumps, and riddled with holes.
My outfit of choice was black on black on black—leather pants, midnight shirt, ebony coat with a popped collar that billowed out behind me when I walked in my leather combat boots. The finishing touch was a crown of spiky black thorns, set atop my head like a dark halo. It was an ensemble meant to inspire fear. Intimidation.
I studied the murals of myself, which showed me at my most powerful—slicing Beast's throat, choking Hester's demon, slashing through Harpies during the trial, and much more.
In every single one my eyes were green.
I inhaled, trying to collect my thoughts. I had two missions.
Weed out the spy.
Prepare these kids for the oncoming war.
I intended to see them both through.
I looked down at a class of almost forty Evers and Nevers in black-and-green uniforms crammed into seats—Beatrix, Reena, Chaddick, Nicholas, Mona, Arachne, Ravan, Vex, Millicent, Brone among them—all wearing the same putrid scowls.
"I see the Uglification lessons are being applied in other classes," I commented.
The glares grew icier.
Internally, I was panicking. I had no idea how to lead a group as large as this. I had no idea how to get them ready for an all-out war while trying to find whoever exactly was Good's mole.
But externally, I crossed my legs and leaned back on my hands. "Before we begin, I'd like to know what's been happening in my absence."
All the kids turned toward the window. I followed their eyes to the colossal scoreboard over the Blue Forest, listing the students in order of their scores. Glowing red lines divided the board into three sections: a top group, a middle group, and a bottom group. I couldn't read any of the names through the hazy green air, except for Hort's, firmly atop the rankings.
"This year is tracking year," growled Ravan, picking miserably at his shorn black hair. "Starting next week, we're split into dorms as Leaders, Henchmen, or Mogrifs, based on our rankings."
"Which means Evers like me have to excel at Evil or we'll end up poisonous toads!" Millicent carped. "This is entirely your fault!"
"And it's no better for Nevers either," Mona added. "We have twice as many people to compete against now that the whole school is Evil!"
"And even if you do end up a Leader, they get double the homework as everyone else," said Vex.
"And Henchmen have to follow their Leaders and do everything they say," fretted Reena.
"And Mogrifs have to go to class as animals!" said Beatrix. "And god forbid you fail three challenges in a row. Then you end up a plant!"
"What are you upset about? You're on track to be a Leader!" Kiko said, whirling to her. "I'm third to last in the whole school! Suppose I get turned into a tulip?" She burst into tears.
"I don't want to be a leader of Evil, you dimwit!" Beatrix hissed. "Once upon a time, I was almost Class Captain in the School for Good. And now I have to uglify and curse people and have henchmen?"
"Sounds like a typical day for you," I said.
Beatrix gasped.
"And Aric sends us to the Doom Room to be tortured for rules he's completely made up," Chaddick added. "He's punished every boy in school like ten times already."
"He got me for an untucked shirt yesterday," Nicholas said. "That kid is Evil."
"And not in a Good way," muttered Vex quietly.
I waited for them to elaborate, but all the boys glanced at each other in tortured brotherhood, before swiveling back to me.
"Everything was fine for the last two hundred years, until you came along and messed up Good and Evil," barked Ravan.
"I hope Agatha and Tedros break in and kill the School Master!" seethed Arachne. "I hope they bring Good back!"
"Bring Good Back!" Beatrix shouted, and all the students stomped their feet in solidarity, cheering along: "Bring Good Back! Bring Good Back!"
I let it go on for a few moments, regarding the chanting animals in front of me.
"Silence," I said, dangerously soft. My eyes flashed.
Forty mouths snapped shut, sealed by my will. The quiet fell over the room like a curtain, with Evers and Nevers alike struggling, trying to pry their lips open.
I stood. "If there is any more disrespect to Evil in my classroom, I will personally recommend punishment ideas to Aric when I send offenders to the Doom Room." My eyes glazed over the room. "Nod if you understand."
Forty pairs of eyes stared back at me, wide-eyed and terrified.
"Nod if you understand," I repeated harshly.
They obeyed, heads shaking up and down rapidly.
"Good," I said, and unsealed their mouths. There was a collective sigh of relief.
"That's your job, you ninny—" a sharp nasty voice echoed outside.
The door flew open and three students pattered in, tittering loudly.
"—to follow me around and do whatever I say," grouched a pasty girl with dirty hair streaked black and red and a fearsome buck-horned demon tattooed around her neck.
"Hope I get tracked as a Leader and you as my Henchman," retorted an albino girl with a throaty rasp and three black rats sticking out of her pockets. "I'll make sure you spend the rest of your life kissing my—"
"Daddy said he'd buy me a new horse if I made Leader," chirped a girl behind them, round as a balloon, snacking on a bundle of chocolate daisies. "Killed my last one by accident."
"Sat on it?" scoffed the albino.
"Fed it too much fudge," said the round girl.
Suddenly all three girls stopped in their tracks and craned their heads to me. They broke into toothy smiles and dropped into their seats in unison, hands folded over their bags.
"Sorry we're late," said tattooed Hester.
"Castor made us clean up after a dragon in Henchmen," said albino Anadil.
"Dragons poo a lot," said paunchy Dot, mouth full.
Hester started opening her book bag—then noticed the furious faces around her.
"Oh here we go," she moaned. "For the last time, you're all in the School for Evil now and that means you're fighting for Evil. You want to stay alive? You want the sun to stop melting? Then do what the teachers say and help Y/n kill Agatha and Tedros."
"I thought Agatha was your friend," Ravan sniped.
"Excuse me? These are my friends," Hester said, pointing to Anadil and Dot with a glowing red fingertip. "The coven everyone fears and yet wants to be in. The clique that doesn't give a damn what you think. The sinful, sinistral, all-around-original Three Witches of Room 66."
"Sure, Agatha was likable in a handicapped-dog kind of way," Hester went on, "but I learned my lesson when she left. All I ever wanted was for Evil to have a normal school again, where we learn Evil things and learn to be better villains than my incompetent mother was. And now because of Y/n, we don't just have one Evil school, we have two."
"Plus for the first time, villains can have a Never After!" Dot reveled. "You know what that means, don't you?" She gave Ravan a wink. "Evil Valentine's Day!"
Ravan gagged.
"And if we don't want love, that's fine too," said Anadil, with a repulsed look. "Once Y/n's storybook closes, Evil will prove it can win, with villains no longer cursed to die."
"Here's to free Evil!" hollered Hester.
"Here's to free will!" hooted Dot.
"Here's to Queen Y/n!" Anadil proclaimed, banging fists loudly on her desk, as Hester and Dot chanted and three black rats squeaked: "Here's to Queen Y/n! Here's to QueenY/n!"
No one else joined them.
"Did the 'Bring Good Back' cheer already, didn't they?" Dot sighed.
The door flew open behind her and an obese pink flamingo stumbled in—or rather most of an obese pink flamingo, since a dog head was attached to its body, trying and failing to navigate it.
"Apologies for the late arrival," he smarmed, resting awkwardly against a wall. "Castor was feeling ill, so I took over his Henchmen class and led the students in a rousing anthem I've composed for Lord Aric, our illustrious Dean. Would you like to hear it? It's best performed by a 52-piece symphony and soprano choir, but I'm sure I can replicate the effect—"
He saw me standing in front of the teacher's desk. "Oh. Hello . . . former student," the dog sniffed.
I glowered at Pollux, one half of a two-headed Cerberus who routinely lost the battle to use their body to his rabid brother Castor.
"Would you like to take a seat amongst your kind?" Pollux jabbed. "I assumed you'd leave the class to me since it has been mine the past few weeks."
"I'm quite fine where I am," I snapped. I turned to the class. "What have been your main areas of focus so far in this course?"
"The Tale of Three Girls, inside and out," said Hort, rolling into the room without books or a bag, his hand slid up his shirt, showing off his rippled stomach. "You know, trying to spot Agatha's and Tedros' weaknesses, so we can kill 'em and finally stop being losers." He dropped into a seat, blew his dark bangs out of his glittering black eyes, and stretched his chest with a yawn.
This new Hort was. . .intriguing, to say the least.
"As Hort points out, the first week we did a unit on Tedros' shortcomings as a prince," the dog said. He waved a wing and the lollipop colors on the walls rearranged to scenes of Tedros' worst moments from The Tale of Three Girls. "And what did we learn class? Yes, Hester!"
"He has serious daddy issues," Hester said, leering at a painting of Tedros killing a gargoyle in Merlin's menagerie.
"Excellent! Yes, Anadil?"
"He doesn't trust girls since his mother left him," said the albino, pointing at a painting of Tedros shooting an arrow at Agatha in Evil's Grand Hall.
"Spot on! Yes, Dot?"
"He's obsessed with swords," chimed Dot, nodding at a scene of Tedros in the faux battle that occurred between the Everboys at the Welcoming Assembly from first year.
Pollux nodded. "Moving on to our challenge . . .
"Today's class challenge is to delve even deeper into Tedros' mind. In a moment, all of you will be concealed under magical Tedros masks. Y/n will be responsible for judging who most acts like the real prince. Whoever she deems the most Tedros-like wins first rank. Shall we?" A few minutes later, I stood, blindfolded with a smelly black rag, as I listened to students rearrange seats.
"Everyone find a new place? We don't want Y/n remembering where you were," Pollux's voice called, before I heard the last backside plunk down. "All right. The cloaking spell will cover your face in a phantom mask. Don't touch or it might glue to your face permanently. You hear me? Don't touch."
"This school is so unsafe," Reena's voice crabbed.
"Ready?" Pollux said. "One . . . two . . . three—"
I heard a loud, windy crack, and then dead quiet.
"The masks are hot," Ravan's voice grumped.
"And blond," Hester's voice groaned.
"Shhhhh!" hissed Pollux. "Y/n, on your mark . . . get set . . . go!"
I flung off the blindfold.
There were forty Tedroses seated in front of me, reflecting back his blue and blondness. Yet, there was a strange haziness to the faces, rubbery thick and oddly luminous at the edges, so I couldn't discern the necks and clothes beneath the masks. Some of the Tedroses were smiling, some sneering, some frosty and blank-eyed.
"Well?" Pollux huffed.
I waded into the sea of princes. One by one, I analyzed them, but it only took seconds to see the fraudulence each time. The smile was too snarky or dopey, his posture too rigid or slouched or there was a flicker of self-doubt—a hang of the head, a bob of the throat —that the real Tedros never had. One Tedros nearly fooled me in the second row, but he flinched as I made eye contact, and the real Tedros would have held his stare, strong and unyielding. Soon I was in the final row, no closer to finding a winner. . . until the last Tedros stopped me.
I locked into his steady blue eyes, sparkling with mischief. He bit his juicy lower lip and cocked a brow, almost more Tedros than Tedros himself.
I leaned in teasingly, daring the student at his or her own game. The student leaned in back. They even went as far as gripping my chin in their fingers.
Only one person would try something so bold.
I leaned back, the fingers falling away. "Nice work, Hort."
Rubber instantly melted to skin and Hort glared back at me.
A "1" rank exploded over Hort's head in a crown of green smoke, as rankings popped up over everyone else, their masks melting away over their usual faces.
Then I slammed his hand down on the desk, gripping his wrist with enough power to break it.
"And don't ever touch me again," I said lowly.
Hort only gave an icy glare. I retracted, holding his gaze, before he broke eye contact and faced Pollux.
"Well done, Hort!" Pollux said. "You'll no doubt help our queen kill the real Tedros."
"No doubt," said Hort, still staring daggers at me.
"I'm so going to end up a pea shoot," Kiko mewled behind him, a black-cloud "20" raining on her head.
The fairies then clamored and the students rushed out the door into the crowded hall.
***
Normally teachers at the School for Good and Evil taught multiple sessions, but Lady Lesso had given me only one, which the Dean had filled with students who knew Agatha and Tedros best. As the next class began, I wandered through Hansel's Haven, no closer to finding out who the spy was or how the two Evers planned to get in.
I roamed past classrooms, peeking through doors at teachers preparing students to ambush Agatha and Tedros. In Uglification, Professor Manley led students in a Camouflage Challenge that magically blended them into school furnishings in order to surprise the enemy; in History, Rafal lectured the students on ways intruders had once tried to break into the School for Good and Evil; in Special Talents, Professor Sheeks hosted an open-sparring tournament where students deployed their special talents against each other; and out in the Blue Forest, Aric forced students through a boot-camp obstacle course, while fairies stung anyone who lagged behind.
Standing on the third-floor balcony, I watched Aric, hulking and sweat-soaked in his sleeveless shirt, barking orders at his students. His sickly good looks only made him more dangerous as a murderous, cretinous thug.
Aric suddenly looked up at me and gave a knife-edged smile.
A hand touched my shoulder and I spun, eyes flashing—
Before I relaxed.
"Glad to know I'm still scary," Rafal smirked.
I sighed. "Sorry . . .just thinking."
Rafal glanced down and saw Aric in my sightline. The young School Master stopped smiling. "How did class go?"
"It was fine," I said. "Though Pollux did most of the lesson. I need to have a chat with him about respecting me in my own classroom, too."
The School Master frowned. "Look, I have to go in, but I'll see you at lunch. We have a private spot on the balcony—"
But now I was staring at Reena and Ravan as they walked by, both wearing white swan pins that said "Bring Good Back!" with Tedros' face painted on them.
Rafal spun and the two kids' pins instantly reverted to black swans with Rafal's young face and the words "Evil Rules!"
"Have things like that always occurred?" I asked, staring at the two ex-Evers looking down at their pins in disgust.
"You get used to it," he said.
I narrowed my eyes. "It seems this school needs a bit of fixing." I sighed, then kissed Rafal on the cheek. "I'll see you at lunch, okay?"
Rafal softened. "Don't be late. I'll be waiting for you." He touched his cold fingers to my lips.
I watched him head into his classroom, making sure to give him a wave as he went inside.
The moment his door closed, I glided out of Hansel's Haven, in need of a place to think.
***
I shut the frosted door behind me and stood in cold, gray sunshine on the roof of the old Honor Tower. Slouching against black glass, I looked out at the Endless Woods beyond the slimy green bay, hidden beneath weakly lit skies that made morning look like dusk. With a deep breath, I pulled myself up and headed towards Merlin's Menagerie.
My eyes widened.
The hedges of the menagerie no longer reflected King Arthur's story— but his son's instead. I moved through the garden, taking in scenes of barechested Tedros meeting Agatha for the first time, Tedros asking Agatha to the Evers Snow Ball, Tedros rescuing thorn-gashed Agatha from the Endless Woods . . .
Why would the School for Evil celebrate a Good love story?
Ten minutes later, I was still drifting through hedges and poring over every inch of Tedros and Agatha's romantic memorial, unable to tear myself away, before she arrived at the final sculpture of the prince and princess, wrapped in their first kiss beneath a willow.
It was strange to think Tedros and Agatha were the enemy now. They had been my closest friends at one point. Sometimes, in the tower, I would dream of them. Of Sophie.
I brushed my gold-ringed finger against one of the murals in thought—
My fingertip burst into a violent, blistering rash.
"Shit," I muttered, glancing at the cursed painting.
The bloodred pox chased up my hand, my arm, my shoulder like a carnivorous animal, sizzling so hot I couldn't breathe . . .
Seconds later, I barreled through the old Valor breezeway, crashing through students leaving fourth session, who plastered against walls at the sight of me.
It didn't matter the closest Groom Room was the Boys'. I needed to treat this, fast.
By the time I had made it there, the rash had devoured my entire face, with my skin and eyelids so inflamed I could barely see. Thankfully the boys' spa looked deserted. Peering through tearing slits, I scanned the Midas Gold sweat lodge, peasant- themed tanning room, gymnasium with Norse hammers, saltwater lap pool, and steaming Turkish baths, smelling of sulfur and sweat. My left eye suddenly ballooned thicker, sealing up tight, and I stumbled like a cyclops towards the steamiest bath, stripped down to my undergarments, and slipped in.
Instantly the red pustules began to recede.
I dunked my head. Bubbles flowed over my numb, swollen face, restoring my skin little by little until I felt water jets blast my clear cheeks and Rafal's ring loosen on my finger. I surfaced again and wiped my eyes.
Hort glowered at me through steam.
"If it isn't Little Miss Liar."
Against my will, my cheeks flushed red, due to the fact that I was only in my underwear. Luckily the jets covered me enough, but the lacy straps of my bra could still be seen against my shoulders.
The pox were still healing, clustered red on my shoulders.
"Couple more minutes and they'll clear up," Hort said, raising an eyebrow challengingly.
I glared at him through the mist, his pale, toned chest flushed pink from the heat.
I leaned back against the tub. "Aren't you supposed to be in class?"
"Perks of being top-ranked. Can work out whenever I want and the teachers don't say much," said Hort. "Now I see why Tedros was obsessed with this place. Narcissists must love it here. Lucky they had that woodpecker keeping track of time or Prince Pretty Face would never have left. Bird's probably locked up with the other Good teachers by now, of course. Nymphs too. You should see who's stuck working the Laundry."
"Why is there still a Groom Room in an Evil castle?"
"Ask your new boyfriend," Hort spat. "Uses it more than anyone. Clearly trying to look good for you."
"Rafal uses the Groom Room?"
"Oh, that's his name now? Suppose he needs a new name to go with the new face so you're not reminded of the old one. Nice try, but I'll stick with 'School Master.'"
"It's not like you have another choice," I said. "He needs to be addressed by everyone with respect."
Hort didn't seem to hear me. "Can't speak too poorly about the man though. Gave my father a proper tomb when I begged him to. But he should have been buried in Necro Ridge, with the best villains."
He fixed me with an icy glare. "It's where your dad is buried, you know."
I leaned forward, water swirling around me. "Listen, I understand that our parents had history. But that doesn't give you a right to treat me like this!"
"No?" He slid forward, bubbles frothing. "Your father was a blood-sucking leech. He forced my father to watch him drain his men, one by one, until all his best friends were dead. And when he was done, he killed my father using his own hook. You take after him perfectly, what with you betraying the promise you made me last year." He slammed his hands on the edge of the pool beside my head, caging me in. "So don't tell me that I don't have a right to hate you, because I do."
I felt more exposed than I'd ever been, but I glared up at him nonetheless. "I still don't know why Tedros' name came out of my mouth instead of yours. I'm sorry, okay? I don't know what else to say to get that through your head."
"As if I'd believe anything you said anyway," Hort snorted. "I've already killed you and kissed you more times in my head than you deserve."
I narrowed my eyes. Placing my hands on his chest, I pushed him away. Water sloshed up onto the side of the pool.
"I am your queen," I said venomously. Then I stood, without shame. "I won't be so generous the next time I have to remind you."
Hort tracked every one of my movements as I stepped out of the pool, water running down my legs, and slipped on my clothes from before. With a quick spell, I was dry.
Then I left, not looking back once.
Only when I heard the shriek of fairies rip through the castle did I realize then that I hadn't just missed the start of lunch.
I'd missed it completely.