Never After (School for Good and Evil x Reader)

Chapter 8

As the two schools slept, three heads surfaced outside in the black moat. Sophie, Agatha, and I peeped out at the thin silver tower that divided lake from sludge. Too far to swim. Too high to climb. A cyclone of fairies guarded its spire, while an army of wolves with crossbows manned wooden planks at its base.

"And you're sure he's up there?" Sophie said.

"I saw him," Agatha replied.

"He has to help us! I can't go back to that place!"

"Look, we just beg him for mercy until he sends us home."

"Because that'll work," Sophie snorted.

For the last hour, we had mulled every possible way to escape. Agatha thought we should sneak into the Woods and find our way back to Gavaldon. But Sophie pointed out that even if we did get past the gate snakes and any other booby traps, we'd just end up lost. ("They're called the Endless Woods for a reason.") Instead, she proposed we hunt for enchanted broomsticks or magic carpets or something else in the school closets that might fly them over the forest.

"And what direction would we fly in?" Agatha asked.

We discarded other options—leaving a trail of bread crumbs (that never worked); seeking a kindly hunter or dwarf (Agatha didn't trust strangers); wishing for a fairy godmother (Sophie didn't trust fat women)—until there was only one left.

But now, peering up at the School Master's fortress, we lost all hope.

"We'll never get up there," I sighed.

There was a squawk in the distance.

"Hold that thought," Agatha said.

A short while later, we were back in the Blue Forest, caked in sludge, eyeing a nest of big black eggs from behind a periwinkle bush. In front of the nest, five skeletal stymphs slept on indigo grass, littered with the blood and limbs of a half-eaten goat.

Sophie scowled. "I'm back where I started, covered in smelly ooze and who knows how many flesh-eating maggots and—what are you doing!"

"As soon as they attack, we jump on."

"As soon as they what?"

But Agatha was already tiptoeing to the eggs.

"Agatha," I warned.

As Agatha inched towards the nest, she caught a closer look at the sleeping stymphs' jagged teeth, gnarled talons, and spiked tails that shred flesh from bone. Suddenly doubting her plan, Agatha backed up, only to trip on a branch and fall on a goat leg with a loud crack. The stymphs opened their eyes.

My heart stopped.

Agatha lunged for the nest, snatched an egg, sprang up for the blitz—

"Can't watch, can't watch—" Sophie mewled, squinting through fingers for spewing limbs and blood.

But the vicious birds were nuzzling Agatha, like puppies seeking milk.

"Ooh, that tickles!" she squealed. Sophie folded her arms.

Clumping back, Agatha handed the egg to her. "Your turn."

"Oh, please, if they like you, they'll try to mate with me. Animals worship princesses," said Sophie, sashaying towards the birds—

The stymphs unleashed a war cry and charged.

"Helllllp!" Sophie threw the egg to Agatha, but the stymphs still chased Sophie, who ran in circles like a lunatic, five stymphs high stepping behind her in a moronic maypole parade until everyone forgot who was after who and the birds knocked into each other dizzily.