The Last Ever After (9 page)

The sun was melting.

She whirled to the School Master. “But you said if the Storian wrote—”

“A
new
story. And ours still needs an end,” said Rafal soberly. “Our storybook can't close now that your friends have come back. Not as long as they have a new ending in mind. An ending where Good wins and Evil dies . . .”

He paused, locking into her emerald eyes.

“They're coming to kill me, Sophie.”

Sophie held his stare, stunned, and looked down at Agatha and Tedros, on their way through the Woods to rescue her. In their version of the story, they would save her from an Evil School Master. But to Sophie, her Good friends were about to slay the only boy who'd ever loved her, so she could be a sidekick to someone else's Ever After.

Sidekick.
That's the ending they thought she deserved.

Sophie burned, glaring at her gold ring. She was a
queen
.

“I won't let them hurt you,” she seethed.

“You'd do that for me?” The School Master's boyish face contorted with emotion. “You'd fight your own friends?”

Sophie tensed. “F-f-fight Agatha and Ted—? But I thought—”

“That they'll leave us in peace and go on their way if you tell them to?” Rafal asked sweetly.

“But I can't fight
her
. Surely there's another way—” Sophie pressed.

His eyes hardened. “
War
is the only way.”

Sophie bristled at the change in his tone. But she knew he was right. After the young School Master nearly killed Tedros
with Tedros' own sword, the prince was coming for his blood, and Agatha would be behind him. War was on the horizon and Sophie had to take a side.

Sophie thought of all the times Agatha had allied with Tedros against her: during the Circus of Talents and Evil Ball, then in her secret plan to kiss Tedros and banish her home during the Boy-Girl War. Sophie's blood simmered to a boil. Agatha had even believed she was turning into a witch in the Blue Forest, believing
Tedros
over her, when it was Dean Sader's magic all along.
“I'm not this!”
she'd cried, begging her friend to see the truth. But Agatha had stayed firmly by her prince's side.

Sophie too had a side to take—even if it meant fighting her best friend. Just like Agatha would protect her prince, she would protect her one true love.

“This is it, isn't it?” she whispered, watching the melting sun. “Either they die . . . or we do. Good versus Evil. That's the way all fairy tales end.”

She saw Rafal's chest rise on a breath, as if at last they were on the same page. “Your friends think they can stop our book from closing, my love,” he said, sweet once again. “They think they can stop the future. But they're too late.”

He watched the fading sun, as if studying an hourglass. “The war against Good has already begun.”

Sophie saw him look back at her with a snakelike grin and she began to sense there was more to his return than kisses and rings. “But Good always wins in the end—” she started, only to see the School Master grinning wider.

“You've forgotten the one thing I have on my side that they no longer do.” Rafal moved towards her, slowly, smoothly . . .

“
You.
”

Sophie met his gaze, breathless.

“Come my queen,” he said, fingers slipping into hers. “Your kingdom awaits.”

Sophie's heart pumped faster.
Kingdom. . . .
Once upon a time, there was a beautiful little girl in a pink princess dress, waiting by her window to be kidnapped, convinced that one day she'd be the ruler of a faraway land . . .

She looked up at Rafal, the old glint back in her eye. “So much for Camelot.”

Sophie smiled, her ring brushing his, and she followed her love hand in hand to fight for their happy ending—just like a prince and princess on the page she'd left behind.

“Shouldn't I change first? I can't go gadding about in
this
,” Sophie huffed, trying to pin down her nightdress, battered by the wind.

Her glass slippers wobbled on the window ledge, sending silver pebbles cascading into the abyss of green fog. She wrenched back against the tower wall, clutching Rafal's bicep. They were so high in the sky she couldn't see the ground. “Surely there are stairs we can take. Only a half-wit would build a tower without stairs or a rope or a suitable fire escape—”

“Do you trust me?”

Sophie looked into Rafal's eyes, hot with adrenaline, not a trace of fear in them.

“Yes,” Sophie whispered.

“Then don't let go.” He seized her by the waist and dove off the tower.

Green mist gobbled them as they plunged at bullet speed into arctic cold. Any instinct for Sophie to scream vanished because of how tightly Rafal held her, muscles sealing her to his chest. Safe in his arms, she let herself go, gasping as Rafal slip-turned like a hawk with dangerous speed, their entwined limbs spinning towards earth. With a full somersault, he rocketed back up and Sophie howled with abandon, closing her eyes and holding out her arms against him like wings. They soared in and out of shadows, amber sunrays flickering on her eyelids, the taste of clouds in her mouth. If only Agatha could see her now, she thought—happy, in love, and recklessly alive, like a princess riding a dragon instead of fighting it. Rafal shot across the bay like a fireball and she pressed her cheek into his neck, electrified by his skin on hers, his steaming breaths faster and faster, his hands tighter and tighter . . . until his feet gently touched down without a sound and Sophie felt herself suspended in space like the Storian over her book.

She nestled into him, scarlet and hot.

“Do it again,” she whispered.

Rafal chuckled, touching her face, and slowly Sophie opened her eyes to the world.

The first thing she noticed is that the Blue Forest was no longer blue.

She pulled away from Rafal, windswept and dizzy, and
staggered forward from the tower, anchored in the middle of the forest.

The Blue Willows had rotted to black husks. The once-weatherproof blue grass was now urine yellow, cracking and breaking under her feet. Bracing from the wintry breeze, Sophie crawled through diseased, fallen trunks in the Turquoise Thicket, her nightgown catching on cancerous fungus and mold. Worst of all was the stench: an acrid, acid reek that made her eyes water and grew stronger the deeper she went into the Forest. By the time she reached the Tulip Garden, a stinking ashpit of amber and brown, she'd covered her face with both hands, barely able to stand straight. She looked back for Rafal, but couldn't see him.

Sophie gasped a shallow breath and plowed forward. She had to get out of here.

She shambled into the Fernfield, desperate to find the North Gates and stopped short. The ferns, once thigh-high with lush, cobalt fronds, was a wasteland of dead animals, swarming with roaches and flies. Under the jaundiced sun, carcasses of emaciated rabbits, storks, squirrels, and deer littered the dirt in front of the sealed gates, as if they'd all tried to flee and failed.

Then she heard a familiar hissing.

She raised her eyes to dozens of black spiricks, coiled around the gates, flicking red tongues. Sophie shrank from the flat-headed snakes with deadly barbs through every scale, that once prevented anything from getting into the School for Boys, and now prevented all the animals from getting out. Sophie
slowly looked up at the School Master's tower in the distance, looming over the Blue Forest like a landmark in a demented park.

Sophie's heart sagged. The Blue Forest had once been the school's kitschy backyard, a safeguarded replica of the deadly Woods. She smiled, reliving her liveliest moments here: running circles around a rabid stymph in the Blueberry Fields while Agatha berated her; seducing Tedros in the Thicket with couture Evil uniforms; her heart pattering as the prince leaned in to kiss her over the Blue Brook. . . . Then her smile slowly dissipated as other moments from the Forest came back too. Tedros rejecting her in the Shrubs when she didn't save him in a Trial; Tedros in the Blue Willows, looking so betrayed as she reverted from Filip's body; Agatha and Tedros recoiling from her in the Pine Glen, before they'd tried to send her home. . . . Soon the bad memories overwhelmed the good and as Sophie looked up at the Forest, it turned a shade blacker and bleaker before her eyes.

“It likes you,” Rafal drolled, coming up behind her.

Sophie spun. “What?
I
did that?”

“You did all of this,” he said, scanning the whole dead Forest. “You and me together.”

“I-I-I don't understand,” Sophie stammered. “I don't want the Forest like this—”

“It doesn't matter what you
think
you want. It only matters what's truly inside you,” said Rafal. “The Schools mirror back their Masters' souls, as does the Storian they both protect. When my brother ruled with me, the castles reflected the
balance between us: one light for Good, one dark for Evil. Last year, with Evelyn Sader and Tedros at war, the castles reflected the balance between Boys and Girls.” He caressed Sophie's ring. “But now with you by my side, there's a
new
balance . . . beyond Good and Evil . . . beyond Boys and Girls . . .”

Sophie tracked his gaze up to the two black castles lording over the Forest, tipped with alien-green fog. At first glance, both castles appeared indistinguishable . . . but then Sophie peered closer. The old Evil castle had turned to jagged stone, resembling the jaws of a monster, while the once bloodred creepers coiling its three towers were the same eerie green as the fog. The old Good castle was black too, circled with the same green mist, but its four towers had sharpened turrets and smooth, shiny walls that looked wet, as if the entire school was made out of polished obsidian. Linked by the foggy bridge in the distance, the two schools seemed like a Before and After: one castle a fiendish, saw-toothed crumble; one castle a cold, sleek fortress.

Confused, Sophie inched closer towards the Forest gates, trying to get a better view of the schools . . . when the spiricks' eyes all darted to her. Sophie stumbled back, expecting them to spit their noxious poison—instead, they all bowed their heads like slaves and the golden gates parted, offering a clear path into the Clearing.

Spooked, Sophie scampered out of the Forest. Thankfully there were no surprises in the Clearing. Just as before, there were two Tunnels of Trees diverging out of the field, one into each castle. During the war between Boys and Girls, the
tunnels had been sealed with giant rocks, but now they were wide open like they were first year. Only as Sophie drew closer, she saw that both tunnels were labeled with wooden boards, nailed over the entrances. Crooked black letters slashed across each one.

The tunnel leading into the jagged, pockmarked castle said:

OLD

The tunnel leading into the smooth, shiny castle said:

NEW

A hand took hers and Sophie jumped. She looked up at Rafal, grinning sharp teeth.

“A time-tested Master. A fresh, young queen,” he said. “And a School for Evil
reborn
.”

Sophie smiled weakly, shoving down the sinking feeling in her stomach.

He led her into the tunnel marked NEW and Sophie hurried to catch up, reminding herself that she'd finally found love,
real
love, and it was worth anything she had to do to keep it.

7
Evil Is the New Good

T
he Tunnel of Trees led straight to the Good castle doors, lit by candles usually visible by now through the branches. But the deeper Sophie went, the darker the tunnel became, a sharp clacking sound amplifying ahead, like an aggressive clock. Uneasy, she took Rafal's hand.

“I didn't expect Dean Sader to make a holy mess of things,” he sighed. “I thought that by putting a piece of my soul into Evelyn, I'd have some control over her in the event of my death—”

Sophie could hear the sounds growing louder.
Click clack. Click clack. Click clack.

“From within Evelyn's body, I had enough control to ensure she brought you back to school . . . and, one
day, to me,” he continued. “And yet, I couldn't control
all
of her. That crude business of slaveboys and worlds without princes, and girls good, boys bad . . . She was always resentful of her brother's gifts and I'm afraid my students had to suffer for it.”

Sophie could hardly hear him over the clacking, as she glimpsed frosted doors ahead, black instead of the old white, the once blue torch flames above it now green.

“She left behind an ugly war, with Boys and Girls hell-bent on destroying each other,” he was saying, “but in the end, it wasn't hard to make them lay down their arms. After all, no matter how divided they'd become, now they have something even stronger uniting them . . .”

He stopped at the doors with a dashing grin.
“Me.”

Sophie stared at him. Confused, she flung open the doors—

A crush of bodies nearly flattened her and she hugged a wall for dear life.

“Welcome to the School for
New
Evil,” said Rafal.

In a black-marble foyer, boys and girls in crisp black uniforms and black berets marched by in perfect lines. Chins up, chests out, they stomped with steely stares,
right-left, right-left
, past the four glass staircases, now hued green. The boys were in belted leather breeches, half-sleeved black shirts with starched collars, narrow green ties, and thick-heeled boots, while the girls wore skin-hugging black pinafores over plunging green blouses, knee-high socks, and flat black slippers. Two of the girls marched in front of Sophie: green-skinned Mona and one-eyed, bald Arachne, tight lipped and eyes fixed ahead. Ravan was right behind them, his oily face scrubbed
clean, his once long, matted hair clipped short and neat. Impish Vex tramped next to him, head shaved, spine straight, subtly picking at breeches wedged up his bottom.

Sophie stiffened in shock. Nevers chic . . . clean . . . in straight lines? She'd once despised the villains for their poor appearance, but now it was Sophie who felt embarrassed by her own unwashed cheeks and dumpy black nightgown. She tried to catch more Nevers' faces beneath their berets, but the foyer was dark, holding them in shadow. The only lights seemed to come from fleeting flashes of green glow, dispersed over the army in sync with the march, as if there was an invisible swarm of fireflies keeping time.

Then Sophie noticed another haze of green light over the Legends Obelisk, centered between the four staircases, crammed with student portraits. Looking for the source, she scanned up the high stained glass windows (once haloed visions of a white swan, now replaced with a glaring black swan) to the domed sunroof, sealed over with deadly stalactites, glowing snake-green like a malevolent chandelier. As Sophie's gaze roamed to the buffed staircases, shiny onyx arches, and ruthless marchers, she saw that Good's home and all that came with it—elegance, discipline, style—had been usurped entirely by Evil.

And yet, watching this parade, Sophie felt her stomach relax, for there wasn't anything the least bit sinister about Evil wanting to be “New” or adding a dash of color or showing off a bit of thigh. Indeed, she'd held lunchtime rallies her first year, pleading for all three—

Suddenly, beneath the stalactites, she caught sight of another face in the Never army: a scared-looking boy with a big chest and hairy arms. Chaddick's gray eyes met Sophie's, just as shocked to see her as she was to see him. Out of the corner of his lips he mouthed the word “Help”—before a burst of green firefly lights detonated near him, and he whipped his gaze forward, wincing with pain.

Flummoxed, Sophie slid along the wall, trying to catch a last look as he vanished into the wings. Chaddick? Good's most loyal sidekick? Why was he with
Nevers
?

But from her new vantage point, Sophie saw more Evers in black uniforms spliced into the march: luscious, caramel-skinned Reena . . . tall, willowy Giselle . . . sleek dark-skinned Nicholas . . . redheaded, freckled Millicent . . . baby-faced Hiro . . . all trembly and tense as fireflies popped off around them like warning shots.

Dread rising, Sophie turned back to the Legends Obelisk. The Evers' portraits, once smiling and kind, were painted with baleful scowls and sneers, matching the Nevers' frames, now jammed onto the same column.

“Evers learning . . .
Evil
?” Sophie breathed, looking up at Rafal.

“Evers and Nevers both,” the young School Master corrected. “After two years of war, a unified school, protecting the future of Evil.” He surveyed his troops. “The students had to adjust to all being in the same castle, of course. More of them per room, more competition in classes . . . but if anyone has any complaints,
I
haven't heard them.”

Sophie squinted out the window, remembering the other tree tunnel. “But what's in the ‘Old' school?”

Rafal eyed the rotted towers across Halfway Bridge. “If the School for New will write Evil's future, then the School for Old rewrites its past
. . .
” His pupils shot to Sophie lizard quick. “But you are not to step foot in the School for Old. It is
forbidden
to all students and to you. Understand?” He stared her down, looking like a headmaster despite his youth.

Sophie nodded, startled.

“Your responsibilities are here and only here,” he commanded, “ensuring your young colleagues adjust to their new school. With the volatility of the past two years, all students will be held to—how should I put it—a
higher
standard than before.”

“But you told us all souls are born Good
or
Evil,” Sophie prodded, “that they can't be changed—”

“And yet, a wise girl taught me it isn't who you are that matters, it's what you
do
. And now all of them will
do
Evil.” His gaze slid past her. “Just like their new queen.”

Sophie followed his sightline to the foyer's wall murals, all featuring her and the young School Master kissing against celestial night skies. They were both in black leather, wearing jagged metal crowns, as fiery stars cast halos over their heads. In each mural, a single green letter was superimposed on their embracing bodies. Once spelling out G-O-O-D, the wall paintings now spelled . . . E-V-I-L.

As students kept filing past, Sophie turned full circle,
soaking in her painted image on every wall: her golden hair fanned beneath a spiked queen's crown; her lips pressed against her true love's, a boy so smoldering, so intense, so
unnerving
that he'd have made Snow White, Cinderella, and Sleeping Beauty dump their princes at first sight. All her life, she'd devoured storybooks, desperate to have her own face big enough someday for the world to worship . . . to have an Ever After that would make girls writhe with jealousy. . . . And now Sophie realized she'd won. She was the face of a school. The face of a generation. The face of the
future
. Sophie couldn't stop an imperious grin, feeling more and more like her old self.

“For hundreds of years, Readers like you wanted to be Good because Good always wins. But our story will change all that,” said Rafal, pulling her into him. “Evil is the new Good.”

Sophie felt so safe in his arms that his words washed over her. “Evil is the new Good,” she burbled, cuddling into him . . . until she saw sweet, cherubic Kiko in line, sniffling back tears, an elaborate black veil over her face, as if on her way to a funeral. “But suppose they can't be Evil?” Sophie said guiltily, pulling away.

“Every student has a choice: join Evil or
die
,” he snarled, simmering with hot-blooded youth. “And it is not enough to join Evil. They must excel at it.”

He was looking at the green glass staircases at the corners of the room, the banisters no longer carved with the four values of Good. Instead each staircase had a new inscription:

 

 

“Third year is tracking year,” Rafal said. “We'll house students by rankings, as they prepare to enter their new lives beyond graduation. And if that isn't enough incentive to perform . . . let's just say I do better than
butterflies.
”

With a swish of his finger, he brightened the glow of the chandelier and now Sophie saw the fireflies weren't fireflies at all. Floating over the students was a cloud of black-winged fairies, armed with whippy green stingers and jaws of black shark teeth. If any Ever or Never lagged in line or glanced in Sophie's direction, the fairies stung them with a blast of angry light, jabbing and biting them on until the last of the terrified students disappeared into the wings. As the fairies whizzed after them, Sophie caught a glimpse of their faces—hideously peeling skin, serrated stitches, and eyes cloud-white like zombies. Sophie recoiled in surprise, only to see one fairy in the group stop and peer straight at her: a boy fairy she knew with sunken cheeks and short, wispy wings.

Bane
. The Good fairy she'd killed first year.

Except now Bane was right here in front of her, zombified and Evil, glowering back at his killer.

Sophie plastered against the wall, looking for somewhere to hide, but it was too late. Bane ripped towards her with a violent hiss, his knife-edged teeth gleaming—

The School Master shot him with white sparks, sending
Bane sputtering out of the foyer like a popped balloon.

Cowering with relief, Sophie looked up at Rafal. “Dead f-f-fairies . . .
undead
?”

“Once upon a time, Nevers who failed at being Evil were turned into slaves for Good. Now they have a second chance to prove their love of Evil and their loyalty to me.” His eyes seared into hers. “Just like you.” He walked away, humming a soft tune. “Come, my love. There's more to see.”

Sophie didn't follow, her breath stoppered.

Don't go,
whispered a soft voice inside her.

Agatha's voice.

This isn't you, Sophie.

This isn't real love.

Sophie felt her back sweating, the gold ring on her finger suddenly scalding hot.

He's using you.

Light flooded through her and Sophie couldn't breathe. She closed her eyes, the ring boiling on her skin as if about to eat through her—as if she had to destroy it right
now
—