Never After (School for Good and Evil x Reader)

Chapter 49

As midnight came and went, I sat calmly in the School Master's window. I looked out at the fluorescent green bay, reflecting the shadows of two black castles, both dark and quiet.

How quickly things changed in a fairy tale.

Rafal hadn't been too upset, thank goodness—he'd barely been at lunch himself, he said, and told me he had important business in the School for Old that would keep him there until the morning. With a kiss, he left me on my own and off the hook (except for a stern visit from Lady Lesso, who'd chastised me for being no closer to finding the spy).

I curled my knees to my chest and glanced at the Storian, paused over a blank page. It hadn't drawn a new scene since early in the evening, when it painted Agatha and Tedros disappearing into a rabbit hole and Tedros fainting at the sight of a bearded old man. I'd tried to flip back in the storybook to see who this old man was and where Agatha and her prince were in the Woods, but the Storian had stabbed me when she'd tried to turn pages, nearly impaling my hand. Once a story was unfolding, it seemed you couldn't go back.

Somewhere out there my best friends were writing their own side of the story. Somewhere out there they were coming to rescue me from a school I would have once done anything to be rescued from . . . coming to convince me to leave Evil and its Master behind forever . . .

Or so they think.

Because now I felt at home here in Evil. Sure, there were a few pitfalls my first day, but I was still a teacher and queen, superior to all the other students. More importantly, I was about to win Evil's first fairy tale in two hundred years. I was about to be a legend for all time, more famous than Snow White, Cinderella, and every other old, blank-eyed, pink princess who never had a mind of her own . . .

And to think, I used to be like those fools.

But now I was ready to fight for Evil.

Kill, even.

Because unlike all Evil that came before me, I had someone to fight for.

A scratching noise drew me from my thoughts.

The Storian was writing a new page.

I crossed the bedroom to the pedestal, watching as ink spilled over the page. First it drew Agatha, wrapped in Tedros' arms. They were looking down at something. . .

Sophie.

In a glass casket.

I gasped and put my hand to my mouth in shock.

Sophie. . . was dead?

My eyes flicked back to my sister and her prince.

Those murderers. They killed Sophie. Most likely in cold blood, because they knew I'd see it. They wanted me to know that it was a message from them. A way of discouraging me.

Little did they know it had the opposite effect.

Now I wanted to slit their throats even more.

***

When I dreamt that night, it was of Sophie.

The details were hazy, but I distinctly remember me finding her casket in a cave, only she was awake inside. Pounding on the glass, crying for me to help her, until her body began to freeze from the inside out—her lashes frosting, lips turning blue, veins crackling with ice—

I jolted awake. I couldn't breathe. My throat was closing up, cutting off oxygen. I tried to gasp—

Then Rafal was there, cupping my face. "I'm here. Breathe, Y/n."