Never After (School for Good and Evil x Reader)

Chapter 37

I pulled my cloak tighter as Agatha and I raced into the snow-sprinkled Clearing, dimly lit by two torches on the Blue Forest gate.

Yuba had picked 9 o'clock carefully, for most of the girls were bathing, at club meetings, or busy studying for the next Trial Tryouts, while the butterflies tended to settle on rafters or banisters in the foyer, dormant to everything but the most egregious noise. With Beatrix at Elf fluency lessons and the Dean in her office, we'd have enough time to go through with the plan.

We noticed Yuba's white staff poking out of a hole in the distance, wagging impatiently.

"Listen, try to get on tower guard—that's how you'll get to the pen—" Agatha jabbered as she gripped my hand and pulled me into the Forest. "And watch out for a strange spell—that's what Tedros used against me—"

But I couldn't hear Agatha's voice anymore, only the frantic thumps of my own heart, knowing the time had come.

"Remember the spell only lasts three days—" Agatha pestered as we entered Yuba's home.

"Which gives Y/n only until the Trial begins," the gnome said. "Y/n must retrieve the pen and storybook before then." He stoked the fire with his staff, and his den swathed in hot glow. "Remember, the School Master's tower will chase her once she takes the Storian, and the boys will know they've been tricked. Agatha, you must be waiting the instant she returns, ready to make your wish. The pen will write 'The End' in your book, and you'll be gone before the boys attack."

Agatha's throat bobbed. "And Y/n can revert to a girl as soon as she escapes?"

"The same way she'd un-mogrify—without any residual effects."

I nodded, taking a deep breath. "Okay. Let's do this."

A few moments later, I stood behind the bamboo curtain, clutching the vial.

"Drink it in sips," Yuba's voice said on the other side. "It will ease the process."

With a deep breath, I yanked the glass cork from the tear-shaped bottle. A blast of sandalwood, musk, and sweat blinded me, and I recorked it, hacking and wheezing. I held the vial far away from myself and stared at the violet potion smoking dangerously.

Silence festered in the gnome's lair.

"I'll go if you can't," Agatha's voice said gently. "Just say the word."

I thought of all the torments she had endured last year—, surviving for weeks as a cockroach, risking her life in a sewer, facing the murderous School Master. . . .

"I need more than a friend," Agatha had told her prince.

I pictured Agatha wrapped in his arms in that tower, so madly in love, while I was exiled home to an ordinary life in Gavaldon . . .

I banished the thought, panicked.

Doing this would show Agatha just how much she needed me. Doing this would make Agatha never doubt me again.

In a flash, I ripped out the cork and chugged the potion in one gulp.

***

"Y/n?"

No answer came.

Agatha broke free of Yuba's grip.

"Y/n, are you okay?"

When no reply came, Agatha gave the gnome a worried look and hustled for the curtain—

Something stirred behind it and Agatha froze.

Slowly a figure stepped out, hooded in Y/n's navy girls' cloak.

The cloak didn't fit anymore.

Agatha's eyes drifted down strong knees, muscular calves, hairy ankles . . . to two big, unsteady feet.