Ever Never After | The School for Good and Evil Fanfiction

Chapter 5: The School Master

An invisible barrier in the middle of Halfway Bridge prevented students from sneaking into each other's schools. Nevers couldn't follow through with their threats, but Alma's fellow Evers had their own ways of pettiness. Witch, queer, and even harlot were whispered behind her back. Some Evergirls didn't feel safe sitting near her in class, whereas others, such as Beatrix, were offended that she had dared call the Good school Evil. Everboys eyed Alma as she passed them in the halls. She overheard Tedros say that his father had warned him about Readers, and Beatrix mumbled in agreement, but this Reader was focused on more important matters, starting with the Library of Virtue.

"If you're looking for spell books," Beatrix said, "you won't find them in Good's library."

"Not what I'm looking for," Alma said. "You don't see it, but something is very wrong with this school."

"I'll say. The Good school took in a Never."

Alma groaned. "You really don't get it." She stopped and turned to Beatrix, who jolted back, as if the rumored witch were about to curse her. "Look, we both know I'm not supposed to be in this world, period. My world doesn't have real princesses or evil witches. We have phones and laptops—technology—and most women wear pants instead of dresses! So, tell me, Beatrix: what am I doing here, in a place that is so unlike my home, a place that I never wanted to be in?"

Beatrix searched Alma's face, horror-struck. "I don't know."

"Exactly," Alma said. "You don't know. I don't know. But the School Master knows. The Storian knows. And it can't be good."

Alma proceeded down the hall, and Beatrix caught up with her.

"And what, pray tell, could you possibly be looking for in the Library of Virtue?" Beatrix asked.

Alma slowed down, walking alongside Beatrix.

"More information about the Storian, for starters," she said. "I need to know everything there is to know about it."

Beatrix huffed, but didn't argue with her.

The librarian, the giant tortoise, was sleeping at the log-carved desk again, pen in hand.

"What books do you have about the Storian?" Alma asked, keeping her voice down. "Like, its history—who invented it and such."

The pen flew out of the tortoise's hand and attacked the blank sheet of parchment:

Truly a Reader question! Nobody "invented" the Storian. The Storian has existed since the dawn of time. Its origins are forever a mystery. I can only direct you to books about the many wars that have been fought over it.

Figures, Alma thought.

"What about the Three Seers who last protected it?" she asked, remembering them. "Or anything about seers?"

The writing vanished and the pen wrote again:

There is one book of interest available.

The book was slimmer than expected. Alma brought it to the dorm with her and read it in one sitting, absorbing all there apparently was to know about seers and the laws surrounding them, both natural and manmade. In the Woods, disclosing other people's futures was illegal, and a seer would age ten years for every truth told, an unavoidable consequence and legal giveaway. Seers also lived twice as long as non-seers, and they could resurrect the dead, but only in exchange for their own lives.

The origins of the seers' ability to see the future was more-or-less mysterious than the Storian's origins. Some people believed that seers were incarnations of fallen stars. Others believed that their abilities were gifted by the stars. The seers themselves had claimed nothing, but they probably knew the truth. In the back of the book was a short list of alphabetically sorted biographies for well-known seers, and one of the surnames was Sader.