The School for Good and Evil Prequel The Never Prince (fanfic)

Chapter 1

In the forest primeval

A school for good and evil

Two towers like twin heads

One for the pure

One for the wicked

Try to escape you'll always fail

The only way out is

Through a fairy tale

Lilac twirled around the room. A new morning. A new day. The other four girls in the room were still fast asleep as the sun rose on Gavaldon. As silent as a mouse, Lilac opened her secret dresser, filled with dresses she had made herself. Mrs. Morgan, the owner of the orphanage, had believed she had halted her creation of the glowing gowns, but she had only forced Lilac to continue in secret.

She picked out a hot pink dress with a sash over the left shoulder and pulled out her tall black boots. She whipped out a dark purple cloak with a hood and silently walked across the creaky boards to the mirror. Lilac smiled at the freckled girl with bright green eyes in the glass.

"Today will be a good day," she whispered to herself as she brushed her long dark curls. She got changed and was ready to leave when she remembered what she had forgotten. Lilac walked across the room, the cloak dragging across the floor. She opened the drawer and pulled out a black leather satchel with a dragon scale strap. She slung it over her shoulder underneath the cloak.

"Lilac?" She froze. Slowly, Lilac turned to see who she had awakened. A drowsy-eyed red head was sitting up in her bed. "That you?" eight-year-old Victoria yawned. Lilac sighed and walked over to the bed.

"Go back to sleep, little angel," she whispered as she gently sat on the edge of the bed. The little girl laid against her pillow, trying to keep her eyes open.

"Are you leaving me?" she asked sleepily. Lilac stroked the little girl's forehead.

"I'd be breaking my promise if I did that. And you know how I feel about promises." Years ago, Victoria's older sister had been taken by the School Master to the School for Good and Evil, where there was no return. Her sister was the only family she had at the time, so she was brought to the orphanage to deal with the troubles of being the youngest. Lilac had promised her that she would never leave her. Little Victoria smiled.

"Then you're going to see him," she replied teasingly before falling asleep. Lilac smiled as she kissed Victoria's temple.

She tip-toed out of the room and down the stairs. The brunette glanced through the crack in the door of the boys' room. Each bed had a snoring or snorting boy tucked away in it. She moved down to Mrs. Morgan's room. Fast asleep. Lilac raced to the door and opened it. A slight creak echoed through the building. She looked around. The only sound was snoring boys. She stepped outside into the crisp morning air and closed the door.

With a smile, Lilac ran through the village, headed to a single spot. She passed Mr. Deauville's Storybook Shop, filled with fairy tales that told the story of hundreds of kidnapped children twelve or older. It took the town long enough to figure out that the disappearance of two children every four years was the cause of the School Master. And some of the time, those children were in the storybooks the children of Gavaldon read everyday. One kidnapped child played the hero, the other became the villain.