Never After (School for Good and Evil x Reader)

Chapter 18

The next day, the Evers arrived at lunch to find all the trees on their side cut down. All except the one Sophie and Tedros used to sit beneath, carved again and again with one unmistakable word.

LIAR.

Stunned, the wolves and nymphs howled for the teachers and immediately formed a boundary between the two halves of the Clearing. Tedros stormed up to the border between two wolves.

"Stop it. Now."

Everyone followed his eyes to Sophie, sitting serenely against a snowy tree on the Nevers' side.

"Or what?" she simpered. "You'll catch me?"

"Now you really sound like a villain," Tedros sneered.

"Careful, Teddy. What will they say when we dance at the Ball?"

"All right, now you've lost it—"

"Here I thought you were a prince," Sophie said, walking towards him. "Because you promised to take me to the Ball right in this very spot. And a prince never breaks his promise."

Gasps rose from both sides of the Clearing. Tedros looked like he'd been kicked in the gut.

"After all, a prince who breaks his promise"—Sophie faced him between two wolves—"is a villain."

Tedros couldn't speak, cheeks splotched red.

"But you're not a villain and neither am I," Sophie said, eyes guilty. "So all you have to do is keep your promise and we can be ourselves again. Tedros and Sophie. Prince and princess."

With a tentative smile, she held out her hand across the wolves to him. "Good for Ever After."

The Clearing was dead silent.

"I'll never take you to the Ball," Tedros spat. "Never."

Sophie withdrew her hand.

"Well, then," she said softly. "Now everyone knows who's responsible for the attacks."

Tedros felt Evers' blameful stares burning through him.

Ashamed, he trudged out of the Clearing.

***

"But why didn't it work!"

"I don't know," Agatha groaned from beneath the covers of her bed. "You did everything right."

"So then why aren't we home right now?" I mumbled into my pillow.

"You did kiss him, right? He didn't miss?"

"No!" I sat up in bed. "We went stargazing, he said he loved me, then we kissed! And it didn't work!"

Agatha looked over at me. "But you didn't say 'I love you' back."

It wasn't a question.

"No," I whispered. "I didn't."

Agatha sighed. "True love's kiss goes two ways, Y/n."

"I know, but I don't love him! I can't! Believe me, I've tried, but now whenever I'm with him all I feel is guilt."

"Well either try harder, or find us another way home," Agatha grouched, pulling her blanket over her head.

I grumbled and flung myself out of bed. "Fine, then!"

The door slammed shut behind me.

***

It wasn't hard to find Tedros' dormitory.

All I had to do was ask Chaddick and deliver a veiled threat when he wouldn't tell me.