Never After (School for Good and Evil x Reader)

Chapter 9

The morning started miserably. Not only had I gotten zero sleep and a series of veiled threats from the School Master, but now I was back in school for another day of despicable classes. Even worse, neither Sophie or I knew the answer to the School Master's riddle, nor could we ponder it together with Agatha until lunch.

In Uglification, I tried to focus on Manley's lecture about the proper use of capes. This took valiant concentration, given Hester's vengeful glares and the fact that capes could be used for protection, invisibility, disguise, or flight, depending on their fabric and grain, with each type requiring different incantations. Manley blindfolded the students for the class challenge, where students raced to identify their given cape's fabric and successfully put it to use.

"I didn't know magic was so complicated," Hort murmured, massaging his cape to see if it was silk or satin.

"And this is just capes," Dot said, smelling hers. "Wait until we do spells!"

***

I sat with Sophie on her bed as she cried. We still weren't any closer to finding the answer to the riddle, and Sophie seemed to have given up.

I hadn't told her what happened after the two girls were sent away. It sent shivers up my spine, and not in a good way.

The door to Room 66 flew open, revealing our three other roommates.

"Are you okay, love?" Dot asked.

Blubbering, Sophie poured out everything that happened in the School Master's tower.

". . . But now there's a riddle and I don't know the answer and Tedros thinks I'm friends with a witch because Y/n keeps winning challenges!"

Hester looked ready to strangle me, but then her face changed.

"This riddle. If you answer it . . . you go home?"

Sophie nodded.

"And we never have to see you again?" said Anadil.

Sophie nodded.

"We'll solve it," her roommates pounced.

"You will?" Sophie blinked.

"You know how badly you want to go home?" said Hester.

"We want you to go home more," said Anadil.

"Well, at least you believe us," Sophie frowned, wiping tears.

"Guilty until proven innocent," Hester said. "It's the Never way."

"I wouldn't tell any of this to an Ever, though. They'll think you're mad as a hatter," said Anadil.

"That's what I thought, but who lies about breaking so many rules?" Dot said, failing to turn her swan crest to chocolate. "Really, this bird is incorrigible."

"What's the School Master like?" Hester asked.

"He's. . .strange," I said. "Surprising, to say the least."

"And you actually saw the Storian?" Anadil asked.

"That strange pen? It wrote about us the whole time," said Sophie.

"It what?" said the three girls at once.

"But you're in school!" Hester said.

"What can happen in school that's worthy of a fairy tale?" said Anadil.

"I'm sure it's just a mistake, like everything else," Sophie sniffled. "I just need to solve the riddle, tell the School Master, and poof, we're out of this cursed place. Simple."