The Last Ever After (49 page)

“Even my son doesn't know my first name and I prefer to keep it that way,” said Lady Lesso. “Though if I had a name as bloodless as
Emma
, that would be reason enough.”

Even Professor Dovey chortled.

The wild-haired Beautification professor sat up in a soggy heap and pulled out a pocket mirror, blinking wide eyes at her streaked makeup and sallow complexion. “Is this what it's all come to? Mighty Good reduced to a shadow of its former self?”

“A shadow we will
fight
for, Emma,” Clarissa declared, dragging her up towards the east doors, across the theater from where Agatha was watching. “Now hurry! We have to get to the Stymph Forest and help Merlin. The sun is almost set—”

“Wait,” said Lady Lesso.

She paused at the edge of the glowing Brig, glaring down at her son, tied up on the snow-covered floor of the dungeon. “Clarissa, are you sure no one can open the Brig except Evil's Deans?”

“Evil's Deans and their superiors, and only then from the outside. Neither me nor my Good colleagues could open it,” said Dovey, looking at Aric sadly. “Nor can we once you seal it. Even if we wanted to.”

Aric spat out his gag. “Please! I won't hurt you, Mother!” he sobbed, pulling at his binds. “Please don't leave me alone
again! I'll be nice from now on. . . . I'll be a good son . . .”

Lady Lesso's glare wavered, taking in his terrified face.

“Are you sure, Lady Lesso?” Professor Dovey asked. “Surely he can change. Surely a mother's love . . .”

“That's the difference between Good and Evil, Clarissa,” the Evil Dean said softly. “We know that love isn't always enough for a happy ending.”

She looked at her son, jaw clenching.

Aric read her face. “Mother,
no
!”

Lady Lesso thrust out her finger and the ceiling of the Brig started closing as Aric screamed in horror, with a desperate childlike wail that filled the theater.

For a moment, Lady Lesso started shaking, her eyes glistening with tears. Then she felt Clarissa's hand take hers, so tight and warm. The Evil Dean steadied herself, wiping her cheek.

“Come on, girls,” she said sternly, turning away from Aric's cries. “Merlin needs us—”

Pink light ripped past her and crashed into the Brig, magically stalling its walls. The impact tore a chunk of ice off Professor Anemone's old tomb, which fell and bashed Aric in the head, knocking him out.

Shell-shocked, Lady Lesso, Professor Dovey, and Professor Anemone slowly turned to see Sophie standing at the east doors, her fingertip glowing pink.

“You're not going anywhere, Lady Lesso,” she said, dead cold.

Agatha choked outside the west doors.

She could see the ring gleaming on her friend's finger . . . the ring she had to destroy to save her prince's life. . . . Thinking of Tedros, Agatha hobbled up for the door handle, wanting to throw herself inside—

But what if she startled the teachers? What if Sophie used the moment to attack them?

She wouldn't have the strength to fight or help them if things went wrong. Despairing, Agatha held herself back.

“Take Emma and go to the Stymph Forest, Clarissa,” said Lady Lesso.

“Lady Lesso—” Professor Dovey started.

“Now,”
Lady Lesso commanded.

Clarissa didn't argue. She grabbed Professor Anemone's hand and hurried out of the theater through the east doors.

Alone in the Theater of Tales, Sophie and Lady Lesso faced off in the green torchlight.

“You said you wanted me to be a legendary queen,” Sophie boiled, shaking with rage. “You said you wanted me to make Evil great again. You said you wanted me to be
happy
.”

“And I do,” said Lady Lesso.

“Then how could you betray me and the one boy who
makes
me happy?” Sophie snarled, prowling towards her.

“Because in all of your years at my school, Sophie, I've only seen you happy in the company of one person,” said Lady Lesso calmly, holding her ground. “And it isn't Rafal.”

“Well, in case you weren't paying attention, Tedros and I aren't exactly getting alon—”

“It isn't Tedros either.”

Sophie stopped her advance.

“With Agatha, your soul is complete, Sophie,” said Lady Lesso. “Without her, you'll never be at peace.”

Agatha's eyes widened through the door, matching Sophie's expression.

“But you said she's my Nemesis,” Sophie scoffed. “You told me to kill her if I could—”

“Because I knew you couldn't,” said Lady Lesso. “Agatha
is
your Nemesis. But only because you've always believed she has the happy ending
you
deserved. Everything you've done in your fairy tale has been to try and take that happy ending, whether trying to get Tedros for yourself or trying to replace him with Rafal. But what if you had that fairy tale all wrong, Sophie? What if a boy was never your happy ending? What if your happy ending was inside you all this time?”

The Dean gazed at her. “Then Agatha isn't your Nemesis at all, is she? For a Nemesis is someone who gets stronger as you get weaker, while you and Agatha make each other stronger. Each of you has taught the other about real love. Without you, Agatha could never have opened herself to Tedros. And without Agatha, you could never find the true ending to your fairy tale—which is to let her go to Camelot with Tedros and know that her happiness is
yours
too. Don't you see, Sophie? Your only Nemesis in your story is
yourself
. Because to find true love with another soul, like Agatha has, first you have to find it within. To find a happy ending with someone else, first you have to find it alone. Just as Agatha once did before she met you.”

Sophie shook her head, rage building. “Alone? You think my happy ending is
alone
? I thought you and me were alike. I thought you were
Evil
.”

“And I am. Certainly more Evil than you,” said Lady Lesso. “Except the difference between me and you is that I know what Evil means.”

Sophie smirked bitterly. “Being a spy for Good?”

“Accepting Good as our equal,” said Lady Lesso.

Sophie's smirk erased.

“That's what Evil's love really is, Sophie,”
said the Dean. “Knowing that Good has the right to thrive and fight for happiness, just as much as we do. Because in the end, Good and Evil are two sides of the same story: every Good comes from Evil and every Evil from Good. Just as your mother's death made you want to find real happiness. Just as Agatha's Ever After with a prince will help you find yours on your own. That is the
balance
that sustains our world. The balance that let the School Master stay young all those years, loving his Good brother as his equal, even if he was his enemy . . . before he forgot the power of that love. Just like you have forgotten too.”

“What would you ever know about love? Look what you did to your own son!” Sophie mocked, blotching red. “All because you were scared he'd kill you—”

“Not me,” Lady Lesso said, smiling sadly. “I was
never
scared he'd kill me. I was scared he'd kill the one real love I have in this world.”

Sophie stared at her, disarmed.

“Why do you think I was Merlin's spy in the first place?” said the Dean. “Because it meant when the time came, I'd get to set Clarissa Dovey free. My best friend.
My
Agatha.”

Sophie ashened. “You . . . you betrayed Evil for a
friend
?”

“Like you must, when the time comes,” said Lady Lesso. “Because that friend's happy ending will be your own, if you can let yourself find peace in being alone. That's how this storybook will close. That's your real ending, Sophie. And
that's
a Never After worth fighting for.”

Sophie's face froze, her lashes blinking faster.

At the west doors, Agatha watched them, her head lightening, her muscles unlocking, as if Lady Lesso's words had taken away her pain. She could see Sophie's big emerald eyes, gazing at the Dean, and for a moment, she caught a glimpse of her old friend inside of them.

But then Sophie's pupils hardened, the yellow fire returning, and she sneered back at Lady Lesso. “I don't
have
a friend anymore,” she hissed. “I have love. I have real love that will last forever. I'll
never
be alone.”

“If only you could see yourself as you are now, Sophie,” said Lady Lesso, her voice tender and maternal. “Because you've never been
more
alone.”

Sophie bared her teeth and fired a blast of pink glow at the Dean's head, but Lady Lesso deflected it easily, ricocheting the spell into Sophie, who stumbled towards the edge of the pit. Losing balance, she held out her hand towards Lady Lesso, as she teetered backwards—

Lady Lesso didn't take it.

Sophie plunged into the dungeon mist, landing on her ribs
in the cold sweep of snow.

Balled up on her side, all Sophie could hear were here own frigid breaths and the echo of Lady Lesso's footsteps clacking away through the east doors.

She rose gingerly, back aching and looked up at the walls of ice tombs, fogged over by the warm air seeping in from the theater. Still shaken by her run-in with the Dean, she squinted down long rows of glowing blue graves, extending right and left beneath the stage into dark oblivion. Clawing her hands into the shards of Professor Anemone's old tomb, she stood on tiptoes, looking for a way out of the Brig, but the walls were at least eight feet high.

“Help . . . ,” a voice whispered. “Help me . . .”

Sophie turned to see Aric, hands and feet bound, stirring in a dark corner of the Brig. His temple was streaked with blood where the ice had bludgeoned him.

“Please . . . ,” he croaked. “I'll get us out of here. . . . Just cut me loose . . .”

Sophie had no fondness for the boy, but she didn't have much choice.

Without hesitating, she bent down and burnt away his binds with her glowing fingertip. Aric stretched his legs, growling with pain.

“Give me a boost off that broken tomb, so I can get to the stage,” he said. “I'll pull you over once I'm up there.”

“No, you give
me
a boost. I'm going first,” Sophie retorted.

“There's no way you can pull me up over that stage,” Aric shot back.

“Aric—”

“We don't have
time
for this, Sophie.”

Sophie exhaled angrily. She dug her shoe tip into the edge of Professor Anemone's old tomb. “Use my leg. Hurry.”

Aric placed his heel on her thigh, gripped on to a broken spear of ice, and propelled himself up the ice wall. Sophie gnashed her teeth in pain, sustaining his weight on her thigh for a split second, before he muscled his way over the edge of the ice and crawled onto the stone platform above.

“Pull me up!” Sophie barked.
“Hurry!”

Aric bent towards her. Then he stabbed out his glowing finger at the dungeon ceiling, which instantly started closing again, faster than before—

“What are you doing!” Sophie cried.

Aric's violet eyes flashed through the mist. “If it wasn't for you, I would have led training. And the war would already be
won
.”

He bounded off and out of sight, the sound of the east doors slamming behind him.

As the Brig hemmed in on her, Sophie felt her finger burn with fear. She shot a blast of light at the dungeon ceiling to keep it open, but the sides were closing too fast. She tried again, but she couldn't focus her emotion like last time. Lady Lesso had left her unsteady—panic and doubt were making her fingerglow flicker—

You've never been more alone.

She couldn't get the words out of her head.

“Help! Someone help me!”

But the stage was seconds from sealing over. She'd be trapped in the tombs. No one would know where to find her, even Rafal, even . . .

“
HELP
! SOMEONE HELP! PLEASE—”

A shadow suddenly fell over her.

Sophie looked up at a blue-lit silhouette, extending her arm into the pit.

“Grab on to me!” the familiar voice yelled.

Sophie gaped at Agatha, stunned.

“Hurry, Sophie! Before it closes!”

Instantly Sophie seized her hand, as her best friend started pulling her up to safety . . .

Sophie's grip slipped and she crashed back down. Petrified, she lunged up, clasping Agatha's hand again—

Too late. The crack was almost sealed. Agatha would never get Sophie out in time. Either Agatha let go of her or Sophie would be crushed by the sides of the stage—

“Don't leave me here!” Sophie rasped, holding on to her. “Please!”

Desperate, Agatha looked down at Sophie's hand in hers . . . the School Master's ring shining gold on her finger, like the last glow of sun over her prince fighting for his life . . .

Don't fail me and I won't fail you
, Lancelot echoed.

Agatha wouldn't.

On a breath, she squeezed Sophie's hand tight and leapt over the edge into glowing blue mist, pulling her friend back down into the frozen dungeon before it sealed shut above them with a resounding crack.

33
An Unexpected History Lesson

W
ith the ceiling closed and no warmth seeping in from the theater, the dungeon turned lethally cold.

The two girls stumbled to their feet and recoiled against opposite walls, lit by the frosty blue light of the tombs. Each held out her glowing fingertip, trying to catch her breath as they glared into the other's eyes.

“What are you going to do? Kill me?” Agatha panted, shivering in her black cloak. “Still won't get you out of this place alive.”

“And
you
can?” Sophie scowled, fingertip smoking through the frigid air. “You who will do anything to make me destroy my
ring? Chase me, bully me, hurt me . . . bet you have a wand in that pocket, ready to hold to my head. Go on. Threaten me, Aggie. Threaten me with life or death. I'll die rather than destroy this ring for you.”

Agatha went quiet, weak from the stun spell and the cold. She looked past Sophie at the long rows of graves leading into the darkness. She couldn't help but snort at the irony of it all.

Sophie simmered. “You think this is funny?”

“It's just . . . this is how Tedros and I started when we came back to rescue you,” said Agatha. “Trapped in a grave.”

“And now you're here with me, trying to find a way to rescue him,” Sophie snarked. “Always rescuing, Aggie. Always so Good. How could I ever match up?”

“Friendship isn't a competition.”

“Says the friend who made it one,” Sophie retorted, pointing her fingerglow at Agatha's heart. “You and your old minions want me to destroy my true love, so you can keep yours. What if I destroy
you
instead?”

“He's not your true love,” Agatha said, struggling to stay calm. “He's using you to get his ending.”

“Just like you're trying to use me to get yours,” said Sophie, finger glowing hotter. “Even if I end up alone.”

Agatha matched her gaze. “My ending has you in it, Sophie. Even if I'm with Tedros. I'll never leave you behind, no matter how Evil you are, how many boys come in our way, or how old we get. We're stronger than Good and Evil, Boys and Girls, and Old and Young. We're best friends.”

The fury drained out of Sophie's face. “And yet, we can't find a happy ending together, no matter how hard we try,” she said, softer now. “Every path leaves us trapped.”

Agatha clung to Cinderella's words. “Don't give up on us, Sophie.”

“Do you know what you're asking me, Aggie?” Sophie's fingerglow dimmed, her eyes shimmering like cut emeralds. “You're asking me to throw away my Ever After for yours, and still be happy. You're asking me to end just like my mother, only worse, because you want me to come
live
with you two. It would be like Cinderella's stepsisters shacking up with her and the prince at the palace like one big, blissful family, Happily Ever After. You know why we never saw that in a storybook? Because it
could never happen
.”

Agatha stared at her, her own fingerglow dimming too.

Sophie's face hardened again. “But it would also be foolish to kill you right now,” she said, ice-cold. “Help me find a way out of here and maybe you'll see your precious prince again.”

She tightened the ring on her finger and headed further into the Brig.

Agatha's heart withered, watching Sophie's black-leathered silhouette recede into the mist.

Where was Tedros right now?
Is he even alive?

The sun must be on its last drips, no more than an hour left . . .

No. I can't think like that.

A hero always finds a way out.

Tedros would find a way out.

Agatha took a shallow breath and forced herself after Sophie.

“There must be a secret door somewhere,” Sophie's voice echoed.

Agatha couldn't keep up, her legs still throbbing, her teeth starting to chatter. Limping behind, she scanned the coffins sunken into opposing walls, filled with those who'd betrayed their duties to Evil. Professor Espada, the Swordplay teacher . . . Professor Lukas, the boys' Chivalry teacher . . . Albemarle, the spectacled woodpecker in charge of the Groom Room . . . each freshly entombed when they'd refused to serve the young School Master's new school. Lesso and Dovey hadn't had the time to rescue them, but all three were still alive and healthy, their wide eyes blinking through the ice like trapped puppets. Guilty that she didn't have time to free them either, Agatha slunk further into the Brig, promising herself she'd come back if she could. At least they were still alive, she thought, because now she could see older coffins ahead, murky and cobwebbed, with dead bodies decaying inside of them. Each was labeled on the outside with a small steel placard, blank and awaiting inscription.

Yet as Agatha moved past the grave of a rotting teenaged boy with curly black hair, she suddenly noticed the placards weren't blank at all. There were carvings embedded in the steel . . .

A series of raised dots, small as pinheads, arranged in neat rows.

Her heart drummed faster. Blind Professor August Sader
couldn't write history in words like a normal historian. But he had
seen
history in a way no one else could and found a way to help his students see it too, using magic dots like the ones Agatha was looking at right now. Breathless, she couldn't resist brushing her fingertips across them—

A swoosh of silver air rocketed off the placard, contorting into a floating human silhouette, three-dimensional and the size of a fairy. Professor Sader grinned back at Agatha as he hovered in midair, wearing his customary shamrock suit, his wavy silver hair neat and clean, his hazel eyes twinkling with life. For a moment, Agatha beamed in surprise, thinking he was looking at her, before Sader's focal point scanned past her, addressing a larger audience.

“The next betrayer on our tour is Fawaz of Shazabah, a henchman ordered by an Evil sultan to hide a magic lamp where no one could find it, before Fawaz secretly tried to keep it for himself. The sultan caught him and had him killed, before he was brought here to the Brig for permanent display. You won't need to know
which
sultan he betrayed for your second-year exam, but keep your eye on Fawaz, who plays a crucial role in how Aladdin came to find his magic lamp . . .”

Of course he didn't see me
, Agatha sighed, quickly moving on. One, Sader was blind; two, he was dead; and three, he was nothing but a phantom now, on a recorded loop. No doubt he'd left these placards behind for future History classes after he foresaw his own death, just as he'd once amended the class textbooks to include his obituary.

Agatha couldn't see Sophie anymore through the mist.

What would Sader have told me to do?

Sun setting . . . shield falling . . . Tedros struggling . . . a ring on her best friend's finger the only way out . . .

A happy ending is right under your nose.

That's what he'd say.

Tears sprung to her eyes. He'd always felt like a father to her. Sometimes in her dreams, she'd see him, with his silvery hair and light eyes, looking down at her, with the gentlest of smiles. But when she woke up, she knew he wasn't real, just as he wasn't real now. Just as there was nothing under her nose except darkness and snow.

As she hurried past more tombs, she ran her fingers over the placards, so she could see his face pop up again and again, the voices overlapping as Sader's phantom explained each one, until the entire dungeon chorused with Professor Sader's deep, measured tones. It didn't matter if he wasn't real, Agatha thought. There was something soothing about hearing him, as if she was safe and protected as long as Sader was talking . . .

Only she could see Sophie's shadow again now, looming in front of one of the graves ahead. Agatha's gut tightened.

“Did you find a way out?” she pressed. “Is that a secret doo—”

Sophie didn't answer.

She was staring at a beautiful woman in a silky white dress, her eyes closed inside her coffin, her face serene, like a princess waiting to be kissed. Unlike the other decaying corpses, she had flawless, vanilla skin, luscious lips, and the most beautiful long, blond hair, like hand-spun gold. From the pallor of her
mouth and the waxy complexion of her skin, it was clear she was dead and embalmed long before she was ever placed into her frozen grave.

“Who's that?” Agatha said.

Sophie didn't answer.

Behind them, Sader's recorded voices had all gone quiet.

Agatha frowned. “Sophie, we don't have time to sit here and ogle random dead women who happen to look like you—”

Her heart dropped.
No
.

“That's . . . that's
her
?” Agatha blurted. “That's—”

“My mother,” said Sophie, her voice flat and numb. “Her body was here in the Woods all along. The grave on Necro Ridge wasn't a mistake. Someone must have moved her here.”

“But that's impossible!” said Agatha, before she looked up at Vanessa again and saw just how much she resembled Sophie. “Isn't it?”

“Only one way to find out,” Sophie rasped.

Agatha followed her gaze to the placard on Vanessa's tomb and the silver dots carved into the steel.

“Her story is inside those dots,” said Sophie shakily. “The answer to why she has a headstone on Necro Ridge. To why she's here in Evil's dungeon.”

Sophie looked at her friend. “And maybe to why the both of us are in this fairy tale together.”

Agatha held her breath, watching Sophie reach out a quivering hand and brush her fingers across the dots.

A cloud of silver leapt off the placard, melting into Sader's miniature silhouette once more. Only this time he was no
longer smiling or at ease. His shoulders were stiff, his jaw tight, and his glassy hazel gaze locked on them.

“We don't have much time, girls. If you're seeing this, then my visions held true and you are nearing the end of your story.”

Agatha reddened. “But Professor Sader, what happens at—”

“Dead seers still can't answer questions, Agatha, though I knew you would ask one
because
I am a seer and foresaw it. But from now until this recording runs out, neither of you will interrupt me again. There is no time for interruptions.”

Agatha and Sophie glanced at each other.

This means everything turns out happily
, Agatha thought, hope swelling.
Sader sees the future . . . he knows we come out alive—

“I do not know how your fairy tale ends,” Sader said starkly.

Agatha snapped back to him.

“My visions stop after you and Sophie appear in front of me, listening to this very message. From here, I do not know whether you live or die, end as friends or enemies, or whether either of you will find a happy ending at all.”

Agatha felt hope shrivel away.

“What I do know, however, is that you cannot find the ending to your fairy tale unless you know how it began,” said Sader. “And it began long before you two ever came to the School for Good and Evil. Every old story sets off a chain of events that leads to a new story. Every new story has its roots in the old.
Your
story most of all.”