“Darling, if it wasn’t for me, Evil would have kept playing second fiddle to Good, dying in every story for no other reason than it made a tidier ending for the sweet, pretty Ever to win. But now look at us: new uniforms, new classes, new castle. . . . A new brand of Evil. Which is why I’ve invited the students from Good to join our dance tonight. I want them to see Evil is no longer the ugly stepsister. Evil is young and glamorous and en vogue. Tonight isn’t just a celebration; it’s a flag in the sand. A flag that says: it’s Evil’s time now. And if we happen to bring a few Evers into our ranks along the way . . . well, then, flah-sé-dah.”
She snapped her fingers—a scrawny, brown, rat-faced boy ran in from the wings and handed her a glass of green juice.
“Isn’t that right, Bogden?” Sophie smiled, sipping her juice.
“Flah-sé-dah,” he squeaked, fanning her with a palm frond.
Hort glared at the rat boy. “Why is he here?”
More loud knocks assaulted the Hall.
“Bogden of Woods Beyond?” said Sophie innocently, ignoring the knocks. “Didn’t you have him in class, Professor Hort? You are our school’s teacher of Evil history, are you not? Or do you make it a habit of not paying attention to the students you teach?”
Hort clenched his teeth. “First of all, I’m here to teach history as a last-minute favor to you since no one wanted a job where everybody who takes it ends up dead. Second, I shouldn’t even be here since Lady Lesso assigned me a normal quest like everyone else, which means my little soldier on your magic map should be in Maidenvale, fighting dragons and elves and maybe even getting my own fairy tale. But instead I left my quest to help you—”
“As Dean, I have the right to modify your quest as I see fit,” said Sophie.
“—and third, I know perfectly well who Bogden is,” Hort plowed on, “because he flunked my challenges and every other teacher’s the first week, which means he should have been expelled, since by your new rules, anyone who fails three challenges in a row is sent packing.”
“I know my rules, thank you. I just couldn’t bring myself to fail a fellow Reader,” Sophie sighed. “I too came from humble beginnings. I too craved a life better than Gavaldon’s, where I would have to churn butter and wash clothes and marry an obese man who expected me to obey him and you know . . . cook. It’s why I started accepting applications from Readers. They deserve to live out their fairy tales.”
“Then why have you been complaining about Readers the past two weeks?” Hort asked.
“Just that one Gavaldon Girl who destroyed a classroom and gives me the Evil eye every time she sees me. And not in a Good way. Bogden, on the other hand, treats me like a goddess,” Sophie said, beaming at the rat-faced boy. “So after his poor first week, I gave him the choice between being sent home or being my personal steward for the year. Looks a bit like the old you, doesn’t he, Hort? Before you started lifting weights to look like Tedros, I mean.”
Harder knocking now.
“If this is what you’re like as Dean, I can’t imagine what you’d have been like as Camelot’s queen,” said Hort.
“Psshh, no way,” Sophie said, lounging against her throne. “Presiding at court while people present their problems . . . that’s not me.”
KNOCK! KNOCK! KNOCK!
“Oh, let them in, for heaven’s sake!” Sophie moaned.
Instantly Bogden snatched a rolled-up red carpet from behind Sophie’s throne and unfurled it across Evil Hall, shunting Nevers out of the way with catlike hisses before he flung open the doors with a courtier’s bow—
A gaggle of adults flurried down the carpet, waving wild arms and shouting so loudly that Sophie peeked around for a window to jump out of.
“You can’t yank students out of class willy-nilly!” Professor Bilious Manley yelled, pimply head flushing red.
“You can’t invite Evers into Evil castle without School Master approval!” scolded Professor Sheeba Sheeks, shaking her fists.
“You can’t turn the School Master’s tower into your own private residence!” said Yuba the Gnome, white beard twitching.
“YOU THINK THAT’S BAD? SHE MADE BATHS MANDATORY!” Castor the Dog bellowed. “FOR TEACHERS TOO.”
The others gasped.
Sophie cinched her bathrobe tighter, curlers bouncing like Christmas ornaments. “First of all, I can do whatever I want with our students since I’m Dean. Second, seeing there is no School Master, I could invite Evers to a tarheeled hootenanny if I felt like it and no one could stop me! Third, even if we have a fleet of new fairies watching the Storian, I felt more secure living beside it, given that the protection of the enchanted pen is our school’s top priority—”
“And this protection includes renovating the tower to be a five-star hotel?” Manley barked, pointing out the window at scaffolding encasing the School Master’s spire. “The stymphs’ construction on the tower has been going on for months and nearly suffocated us all with dust! We’ve had enough!”
Sophie glared. “You expected me to live in that old stone cell like Rafal once did? Without silk carpeting or a proper bathtub or 360-degree lighting?”
The teachers were speechless.
Wolf howls echoed in the hallway.
“I believe that’s your cue to get back to teaching and mine to get ready for a Dean’s Dance,” said Sophie, rising from her throne—
Evil Hall’s doors flung open once more and Clarissa Dovey marched in, silver hair fraying from her high bun, beetle wings flapping on her green teacher’s gown.
“If it is, in fact, a Dean’s Dance, then one would assume I’m invited, since I am a Dean,” she said, gliding down the red carpet, a gold vial identical to Sophie’s dangling around her neck. “Only I received no such invitation.”
“Tonight is a celebration of glamour, charisma, and hope. Despite the rather maleficent entrance, I’m afraid you’d feel quite out of place,” said Sophie coolly.
“And yet you invited my students,” said Dovey.
“Who have RSVPed in remarkable numbers,” said Sophie. “I can assure you that none of my first years would attend a dance in your castle. And if they did, the fusty old smell would surely drive them away.”
Dean Dovey’s eyes flashed. “Oh, how the School Master will cook your goose.”
“Too bad there is no School Master,” Sophie purred.
Clarissa leaned in, eye to eye. “That will soon change.”
Sophie turned dead white.
The Dean of Good swept out of the Hall, Evil’s teachers following her, until the doors slammed behind them, shaking the chandelier. A clump of S crystals fell and shattered against Sophie’s glass throne.
She hardly noticed as Bogden picked shards out of her hair, her big, spooked pupils fixed on the door.
“New School M-M-Master?” she croaked.
She saw Hort, barechested against her statue, grinning like a weasel.
“Flah-sé-dah,” he sang.
4
THE COVEN
Mission Diverted
“Let’s say a new Dean steps out of bounds—” started Hester.
“And becomes a menace to her own school,” added Anadil.
“And throws parties in honor of herself and forces everyone to take baths and makes kids eat boiled asparagus and wheatgrass,” said Dot.
“What would you do if you were School Master?” Hester finished.
The three witches each held a notebook open, feathered pen at the ready.
Seated in his rickety hut at the top of a very tall pea-tree, the Grand Vizier of Kingdom Kyrgios scratched his long, curly black beard, speckled with gold flakes like the strands of his flowing black hair. “I’m assuming this new Dean is . . . young?”