When Alma Dominguez woke up from having been passed out drunk, she thought she'd ended up in Hell—not just because of a pounding headache and a roiling stomach, but also because where she found herself was the last place she wanted to be: the School for Good and Evil.
Specifically, and surprisingly, the Good school.
Everything was obnoxiously bright and disorienting, from the giant glass castle with pink and blue turrets to the colorful field of flowers, the latter of which were speaking in animated, grandmotherly voices around Alma. The sights and sounds were too much for her, and she doubled over and threw up.
The talking flowers shrieked, along with the distinct screech of a little winged person—a fairy.
It slapped Alma across the face.
Alma blacked out before the pain could register.
Between bouts of consciousness, Alma vaguely gathered that she was being carried in mid-air to the castle doors. The pair opened automatically, and she was taken through a narrow hall and into a domed and cavernous, populated foyer of stained glass with a crystal obelisk in the center. She descended gently to the marble floor, and a fairy crossed into her wavering vision and threw glittering dust at her. Instantly, Alma's headache and nausea subsided, and her senses returned in full.
A hierarchy of gold, silver, and bronze portraits of graduates from famous fairy tales decorated the obelisk from top to bottom. Beyond it, four spiraling staircases, two pink and two blue, were each emblazoned in gold with the following: HONOR, VALOR, PURITY, and CHARITY. Standing before them was what appeared to be the faculty, wearing bright, ostentatious outfits. They reminded Alma of a circus, especially the woman with big, yellow hair. Dozens of princesses who looked at least eighteen years old were staring at the nineteen-year-old in her denim jacket, crop top, and skinny jeans, as if there'd been a terrible mistake and she wasn't supposed to be here.
She definitely wasn't supposed to be here.
Alma got to her feet.
"Okay, can anyone tell me what the hell I'm doing here?" she asked. "There's been a mistake, right? I'm going to be sent home?"
Nobody answered her.
Someone tapped her shoulder, and Alma turned around. Three tall, human-like creatures with long, flowing fluorescent hair each handed her the following: a basket of tied books with a pair of pink flats and glass heels, a frilly, pink pinafore that glittered with a silver swan crest, and a schedule. Alma skimmed the information on the sheet of parchment. She had an assigned dorm. She would be learning etiquette and good deeds and how to communicate with animals and win over a prince. She would be learning how to be a princess in the fairy tales that she'd never wanted to be in.
She looked up at the creatures. "You're kidding, right?"
But they only smiled and floated away as others entered the foyer, carrying more of the same school necessities to give to the other princesses.
Alma stood there, completely lost. She was at the School for Good and Evil, a place that once could've only been found in Crescenta as a theme park, Fantasialand. As far as she knew, she was no longer in the city, but somehow beyond it. She didn't understand. Nobody could leave, as venturing outside the city's boundaries, whether through woods or by sea, would eventually circle them back inside, as if Crescenta were all there was. It was all recorded history had ever known, as if Crescenta and its first humans had been placed there by curious aliens, or a God with a serious hyperfixation, and nobody could remember the truth.
Now, she was finally outside of Crescenta, in a world that she'd believed had been nothing more than a famous man-child's fictional obsession.
Sixty years ago in Crescenta, fairy tales from the School for Good and Evil had mysteriously found their way to Elias Fantasia's doorstep—according to him. At the time, as if by magic, the books had swept the city and become sensational enough to have warranted an entire theme park, which now occupied almost half of the land.
Alma had never understood what was so appealing about the storybooks. Other than their beautiful hardcover bindings and illustrations, the stories were all the same: the prince saved the princess from a witch, an ogre, or some other wicked creature and they lived happily ever after. Boring good triumphed over cartoonish evil. Yet, for many families, the park was a fantastical escape that was still thriving and looking to expand.
Like her, Alma's parents had never been enamored with the storybooks. Her mother was a regenerative medicine researcher and her father was a literature professor. Mom was especially bitter about how Fantasia was indirectly responsible for the Regenerative Medicine Institute's decreased funding. More people were interested in Fantasialand and teaching the next generation old, Fantasia-esque values that eschewed anything threatening radical change to society. Gay and transgender rights had only recently been achieved, a progressive point in Crescenta's history that had arguably been delayed due to Fantasia's influence.
Never had Alma had any desire to visit the park, let alone the real thing. She wanted to scream. She wanted to fight until the school had no choice but to send her back home. But she just stood there, still registering the impossible reality of her situation. Friends and family had to have been looking for her. She'd been at a party last night, and after a drinking game with her best friend, Marco, she'd stumbled into the woods and lost consciousness.
A trio of princesses sashayed over to Alma. One was tall with bronze skin and gray eyes and one was hazel-eyed and lightly freckled with ruby-red curls, both flanking their leader who stood at Alma's above-average height, long, shiny blonde hair reaching her waist. Her eyes were a mesmerizing topaz, but they had a gleam that Alma didn't trust.
"Hello, I'm Beatrix," the princess said, smiling sweetly. "Who are you?"
"Alma."
"Pleasure to meet you, Alma," Beatrix said. "Where did you say you were from, again?"
"Uh... Crescenta?"
"Hmm," she said, and smiled again with feigned sweetness. "You don't look like a princess. Are you sure you're in the right school?"
Alma faked a sweet smile of her own. "We don't dress like princesses where I'm from. We live in the twenty-first century."
Beatrix and her friends apparently didn't know what that meant. Alma took this opportunity to leave them ignorant and wondering, maneuvering around them to the clownish faculty. A white-haired man in an emerald-green suit smiled at her, seeming willing to help.
"Alma of Crescenta," he said, as if he knew all about her. "I am Professor Sader, your History of Heroism teacher."
"Um, hi," Alma said. "Can you tell me why I'm here, and how I can get back home?"
He kept smiling, his hazel eyes strangely glassy. "You've been selected from Woods Beyond to attend the most prestigious school there is."
"What?" Alma said. "Woods Beyond?"
"All questions you have can be answered in the Library of Virtue," Professor Sader said. "There's a map on the back of your schedule."
Alma peered down at the sheet in her hand and turned it over. She found that the Library of Virtue was located on the fourth floor of Honor Tower.
"Okay, there's been a mistake," she said. "I don't want to be a princess, or be in a fairy tale at all. I want to go home."
Professor Sader gave her a sympathetic smile. "I'm afraid there is no way back home, Alma."
Alma looked to the other faculty members, but their expressions echoed Professor Sader.
"Fine," Alma said. "I'll leave and find my way back on my own."
She put down her school supplies, turned around, and headed for the doors.
"Alma," Professor Sader called, stopping her. "The woods that surround this school are endless and teeming with danger. You are free to leave, but you are guaranteed to be harmed. You are only safe here."
Everyone was quiet and staring again. Alma caught the princess trio smirking in her peripheral vision. Anger bubbled up inside her, but it thickened to tears that stung her eyes. She battled rage and resistance, bottling them up, and she collected her things, stormed past the teacher, and climbed the Purity staircase.
She barely crossed the first floor when emotions gushed out of her.
Alma collapsed against a wall and sobbed. She so desperately wanted this to be nothing more than a bad dream. She was far from religious, but she prayed to whatever god might've been listening, begging to be rescued. She regretted ever having wished to leave Crescenta. She regretted having thought that if a supernatural love from outside ever swept her off her feet, she would abandon everything, including her family and friends.
Was that why she had been chosen? Because she was being punished? Because this glittery nightmare was hellbent on teaching her a lesson?
"Meep, meep!"
Alma looked up to see a fairy waving a tissue at her, insisting she take it.
Alma did, and she wiped her face.
The fairy bared its sharp teeth in a smile, and it twirled in the air and sprinkled shimmering dust on her uniform and basket, both of which then floated off the floor, sparkling, under the fairy's spell. The little winged creature beckoned Alma to follow it, and she pushed herself to her feet.
All five floors of Purity Tower were connected by a spiraling, pink glass staircase with banisters carved to resemble braided hair. Alma had been assigned to the top floor. There were no elevators, but Alma wouldn't have minded the exercise had she not been kidnapped to the School for Patriarchy. Upon reaching her dorm, room fifty-one, a sign glittered above the doors, welcoming her—along with Beatrix, Reena, and Millicent.
There was no way she would be rooming with any of them.
The dorm was massive and pink. Ornate wardrobes and large, bejeweled mirrors with organized vanities of makeup and creams and brushes lined one side of the room, whereas the other side was lined with beds shaped like royal carriages adorned with silk canopies. The ceiling was painted with an elaborate mural of princesses kissing princes and cupids hiding in clouds.
Alma wanted to cry again.
The fairy left her with a gesture at its face and stomach, signaling her to remove her nose and belly button piercings.
With the fairy gone, Alma gravitated toward the bed nearest to the balcony, and once she plopped down on the thick duvet, the tears came crashing back.
She thought of her mom and dad. She thought of her friends, especially Marco and how devastated he must've been about her unexplained absence, like her parents. She thought of Crescenta and how she'd always wanted to escape the city, and now her wish had been granted and she'd do anything to have it un-granted.
A twinkling sound made Alma look up.
From the heart-shaped speaker above, a pleasant elderly woman's voice came:
"Attention, all students. The Welcoming will begin in fifteen minutes. Please report to the foyer in your uniforms."
Alma wanted to stay in the dorm and miss the Welcoming. She wanted to be as defiant as possible so the school would be forced to send her home.
But Professor Sader had told her there was no way home, and the woods were dangerous.
If she were disobedient enough, the school might've had the right to throw her out there to fend for herself.
Did that mean the only way through this patriarchal nightmare was graduation?
Alma had no choice but to play along with this hellish princess school.
She removed her piercings, and she undressed and put on her uniform and flats. At the vanity, she cleaned her face with tissues and re-applied her makeup. Good looks likely increased her chances of survival here.
The Welcoming was held in the Theater of Tales, Good's auditorium that connected both schools aside from the bridge over the lake. Good and Evil students were seated on opposite sides. Alma sat in the back on the end of the crystalline, pink and blue pews, forced to listen to princesses giggle and gossip with each other like best friends in middle school. Alma almost wished she could be seated with the Evil students across from them, no matter how uncomfortable their warped benches looked. Some Evil students were rambunctious, but others were glaring at the obnoxiously prim-and-proper Good students, a sentiment that Alma shared. Unfortunately, they were also glaring at her, as if her very existence had slighted them. She averted their menacing gazes, but she noticed one who stood out in the black-dressed and ghastly crowd, a sweet-faced, blonde princess whose eyes read: Help me.
At that moment, stomping boots and clashes of steel rumbled in the west corridor. Princesses gasped and hushed each other as the noise amplified, and the doors flew open.
Alma could barely endure the display of princes brandishing their masculinity and princesses squealing over them. The Evil students booed them, expressing her feelings, and the show ended with the young men throwing roses to their fair ladies. Luckily, no rose reached Alma's lap. She probably would've ripped it apart in front of everyone.
In single file, the princes exited through the west doors, and a contrasting pair of older women entered and introduced themselves. Professor Dovey, dean of Good, had a bun of white hair and wore a high-necked, chartreuse dress that shimmered with iridescent-green beetle wings. She reminded Alma of a fairy godmother. Lady Lesso, dean of Evil, was also dressed the part with her black-and-purple, pointed-shoulder gown, long and tight black braid, and piercing violet eyes.
The deans welcomed everyone to the School for Good and Evil, where fairy tales were made, and they took turns addressing "Evers" and "Nevers." They explained that souls were either Good or Evil, and how there was no way to change the nature of a soul, none of which sat right with Alma. They mentioned the Storian, an apparently magical, ancient pen that was overseen by the School Master and kept their world alive, one story at a time.
So, no aliens, or a God, Alma thought, especially disappointed that the truth hadn't involved aliens. Fairy tales. Fucking fairy tales.
The Evil school sounded worse than the Good school. Groom Rooms were luxurious bathhouses reserved for top-ranking Ever students, whereas the Doom Room was a torture chamber for misbehaved Nevers. Disobedient or failing students, Ever or Never, risked being turned into mogrifs—animals or plants—forever. Trying to escape would result in injury or death, and trying to visit an opposite school risked murder by gargoyles. Were these people serious?
The deans discussed the two competitions that awaited first-year students—Trial by Tale and Circus of Talents, both of which Alma knew she would fail—and they moved on to answering questions. Alma wanted to raise her hand, but she didn't want to draw attention to herself.
The blonde princess in Evil raised her hand instead.
"What if we were put in the wrong school?" she asked.
But the deans reassured everyone that they were exactly where they were supposed to be—the School Master made no mistakes.
And there was no way to see him.
Some Nevers demanded to know why Evil hadn't won a tale in over two hundred years, but neither Dean could give a real answer until they almost rioted, forcing the Good dean to put them in their place with magic and harsh criticism about their unruly, oafish behavior that had been dooming them.
When the students were dismissed, Alma hurried down the pews to catch Professor Dovey.
"Hi, Professor?" Alma said, and the dean stopped and turned to her. "Who do I speak to about switching dorms?"
"That would be me, dear," she said. "Why do you want to switch?"
Alma happened to glance at Beatrix and her friends, who were sashaying by with dignified looks that lingered on her.
Alma looked Professor Dovey in the eye. "Because I was just kidnapped and I'm on the brink of a nervous breakdown."
The dean blinked in wide-eyed surprise.
"Please," Alma begged. "I need to be alone."
"Dear," the dean said with a warm smile and grandmotherly tone, "only villains are alone. Evers such as yourself do not flourish alone. We need each other."
"But my roommates don't like me."
"What makes you believe that?"
"Well, the way they look at me and talk to me, like I'm not an Ever."
"What did they say to you?"
"It's not what they said, it's how they're acting."
"Are you a Reader?"
"A what?"
The dean smiled. "That answers that question. Readers are those from Woods Beyond. Readers read about the adventures that originate here. Gavaldon is the only land that is neither purely Good nor purely Evil, but nobody within its bounds knows we exist. Yet, like the Storian that maintains our world, so do the people of Gavaldon. The other girls likely just need time to adjust to your presence. Some students from the Woods are still wary of Readers, even though it's been two hundred years since Gavaldon's discovery."
Alma blinked. "I'm not from Gavaldon."
Professor Dovey looked at her strangely. "Pardon?"
"I'm from Crescenta."
"Crescenta?" Dean Dovey repeated, as if she'd misheard.
"Yeah," Alma said. "It's a city."
The dean paused. "Well, this is quite the news. Only Gavaldon was Woods Beyond. I suppose the School Master has made a recent discovery, and a significant one, at that. Anywho, I'm certain your roommates' behavior toward you is nothing personal, but if you continue to feel mistreated, come to my office, and I will be sure to remind the girls that you are an Ever just like them and deserve to be treated as such. First floor, Charity Tower."
"Please, Professor," Alma said, "I really don't want to room with them, or anyone, honestly."
"I'm sorry, but I can't let you have an empty dorm all to yourself," the dean said. "You need support. You need friends of this world because you are now a part of it. Like I said, give it time. The Evers will come around, and if they don't, let me know and I will deal with them."
But Alma didn't have to wait—Beatrix, Reena, and Millicent were leaving the dorm, fairies magically moving their bags and trunks. They told Alma they didn't want to room with a witch who could curse or corrupt them, and they would tell Dovey if she asked, confident that she would understand.
Alma was too relieved to care. She almost thanked them.
After they left, Alma noticed the clothes, shoes, and piercings that she'd worn when she'd first arrived had vanished, but that was the least of her problems. She wanted nothing more than to get out of here and return home in one piece.
But how? She wasn't going to trek through the Endless Woods, only to wind up lost and injured, or eaten. She had no means of flight—unless she could find a spell, or a magic carpet?
She remembered what Professor Sader had said about answers and the Library of Virtue.
Alma grabbed her schedule and ventured out into the halls. She descended the five flights of Purity Tower and climbed the stairs to Honor Tower's first floor. Along the corridor was a message in cherry gumdrops that spelled out:
TEMPTATION IS THE PATH TO EVIL.
Is this a school, or a church? Alma thought.
Then she saw the classrooms that were made entirely of candy. They were lined with gingerbread desks and fudge chairs, walls covered with rainbows of lollipops and floors glittering with pure sugar. Alma didn't need to worry about temptation. The sheer sight of sweetness overload was making her feel diabetic and nauseated.
The fourth floor was dominated by the library, a gold palace of grand ceilings, fretwork, spiraling staircases, and bookshelves that were filled to the top. Alma had no idea where to start. There were no computers that could match her with the right books and tell her which sections they were in. She had to find a librarian.
Luckily, she didn't have to wander around to find one—if what she was seeing was the librarian. At a log-carved desk was a giant tortoise, hunched over and holding a feathered pen that was barely touching a blank sheet of parchment, sleeping. Alma was hesitant to disturb the creature, but she needed answers.
"Hello?" she said.
The tortoise didn't move, snoring away.
"Hey, excuse me," Alma said, drawing closer to the desk, "I really need to find some books on magic."
The feathered pen flew out of the tortoise's loose grip and scrawled angrily across the parchment:
Magic on Good school grounds is strictly forbidden until your fingerglow has been unlocked!
"Fingerglow?" Alma said. "What the hell is that?"
The words vanished, and the pen wrote down the answer:
A fingerglow allows you to cast spells. It can only be unlocked by your forest group leader for Surviving Fairy Tales.
And watch your language, princess!
Alma snorted. "So, I could learn to cast a flying spell?"
The words disappeared once more, and the pen scrawled with fervor again:
Absolutely not! Flight is blood magic, which is off-limits to Evers. The spells that you, an Ever, are allowed to learn and cast are blessings, protection, and healing.
Alma's hopes sank into the abyss—until she remembered other means of magical escape.
"Okay," Alma said. "Can you direct me to any books about magic carpets, or maybe even magic portals?"
The sentient pen didn't argue with her, instead directing her to the relevant section, and soon after she found what she thought she'd needed, she understood why: the books told her everything about magic carpets and portals, except for how to acquire or summon them.
She was trapped.