The_School_for_Good_and_Evil_1_The_School_for_Good_and_Evil_-_Soman_Chainani

skin and hair, writhing and clawing for mercy. Sophie stared at this war she
had started, Good and Evil fighting now for nothing at all.

“What have I done?” she breathed.
She turned to see the School Master stir on the floor.
“Please,” Sophie begged. “I want to be Good!”
The School Master raised red-rimmed eyes, skin shriveling around his
thin smile.
“You can never be Good, Sophie. That’s why you’re mine.”
Slowly he slithered towards her. Terrified, Sophie shrank against the
window as he reached rotting hands to grab her—
From behind, soft, warm arms suddenly wrapped her like an angel’s and
pulled her into the night sky.
“Hold your breath!” Agatha cried as they fell—
In tight embrace, the two girls smashed face-first into crushing cold
water. The glacial lake robbed their lungs, numbed every inch of skin, but
still they didn’t let go. Their entwined bodies plunged to arctic depths, and
kicked towards sunlight. But just as their hands stabbed for air, Agatha saw
the black shadow ripping straight for them. With a silent scream, she thrust
out her glowing finger and a giant wave rose, swelling them away from the
School Master and crashing them to Evil’s barren shore.
Agatha willed herself onto her knees in the moat and heard the screams of
war around her, rabid, slime-drenched children without faces or names,
pummeling each other like beasts.
Then in the distance, a body rose from the sludge.
“Sophie?” she croaked.
The ooze sloughed away and Agatha dove for the bank in horror.
She glanced back to see the old, decayed School Master calmly wade
towards her, Storian in hand. Gurgling, she scraped over wrestling torsos
for the shore, oily black hands clawing at her face, sludge sinking her like
quicksand. Agatha turned to see the School Master gliding through it,
unnoticed by his warring students. Gagging on muck, she pulled herself
over the black mob into dead grass, lurched to her feet to run—
The School Master stood in front of her, flesh crumbling off naked skull.
“I expected more from a Reader, Agatha,” he said. “Surely you know
what happens to those who thwart love.”

Agatha flushed with fight. “You’ll never have her. Not as long as I’m
alive.”

The School Master’s blue eyes filled with blood.
“And so it is written.”
He raised the Storian like a dagger and hurled it at Agatha with a
deafening scream.
Trapped, Agatha closed her eyes—
A body collided with hers and took her to the ground.
Agatha’s eyes opened.
Sophie lay beside her, Storian speared through her heart.
The School Master let out a cry of shock.
The war around them ceased.
Bloodied students turned in stunned silence to see their rotted, malevolent
leader, frozen over the body of the witch who saved a princess’s life. The
body of one of their own.
Sunken in sludge, Evers’ and Nevers’ faces melted to terror and shame.
They had betrayed each other and lost to the real enemy. In foolish
vengeance, they had surrendered the balance they were entrusted to protect.
But as eyes found the School Master, their young faces hardened with
purpose. Then all at once, the silver swan crests on both Good’s and Evil’s
uniforms turned blinding white and came alive, shrieking, flapping.
Instantly the tiny birds ripped free, blasted into the twilit sky, and
coalesced into a glittering silhouette. The School Master’s face drained of
blood as he looked up at a luminous ghost, a familiar face of snowy hair,
ivory cheeks, and warm blue eyes. . . .
“You are a spirit, brother,” the School Master scowled. “You have no
power without a body.”
“Yet,” said a voice.
He turned to see Professor Sader limp from the Woods through the school
gates, bloodied by thorns. Trembling, Sader gazed up at the ghost in the sky.
“Please.”
From the sky, the Good brother dove and smashed into Sader’s willing
body.
Sader shivered, hazel eyes wide, then slumped to his knees, eyes closed.
Slowly his eyes opened, sparkling blue.

The School Master backed up in surprise. The skin of Sader’s arms
softened to white feathers, shredding his green suit away. Terrified, the
School Master turned into a shadow, fled across dead grass towards the
lake, but Sader flew into the air after him, human arms now giant white
swan wings, and swerved down and snatched the shadow in his beak. With
a searing bird’s screech, he tore it apart, raining black feathers over the
battleground below.

From the sky, Sader looked down at Sophie in Agatha’s arms, tears
welling in big hazel eyes at the first and last thing he would ever see. Then,
his sacrifice done, he dissipated to gold dust and was gone.

Faculty stormed from the castles, freed from the School Master’s curse.
Professor Dovey stopped short first, then the others behind her. Lady
Lesso’s jaw quivered as Clarissa gripped her hand. Professor Anemone,
Professor Sheeks, Professor Manley, Princess Uma all had the same scared,
powerless faces. Even Castor and Pollux couldn’t be told apart. All bowed
their heads in mourning, knowing that they were too late for even the mercy
of magic.

In front of them, the children gathered around Sophie, dying in Agatha’s
arms. Agatha tried in vain to staunch the wound, a mess of tears.

Tedros dove beside them. “Let me help,” he said, taking Sophie in his
arms.

“No—” Sophie wheezed—“Agatha.”
Speechless, Tedros left her to his princess’s arms.
Agatha pressed Sophie to her chest, hands soaked with her blood.
“You’re safe now,” Agatha said softly.
“I don’t—want to—be Evil,” Sophie panted through sobs.
“You’re not Evil, Sophie,” Agatha whispered, touching her decayed
cheek. “You’re human.”
Sophie smiled weakly. “Only if I have you.”
Her eyes flickered with life.
“No—not yet—” Sophie struggled—
“Sophie! Sophie, please!” Agatha choked.
“Agatha—” Sophie exhaled her last breath. “I love you.”
“Wait!” Agatha screamed.
Icy wind snuffed the last of the torches and the blackened Good castle
vanished behind dark fog.

Sobbing, shaking, Agatha kissed Sophie’s cold lips.
Black feathers shivered on the dead ground between the children’s feet.
As they stared in horror, Agatha lay her head on Sophie’s silent heart and
wept into terrible silence. Beside their two bodies the cold, bloody Storian
dulled to gray, its work finally done.
As the teachers took children into their arms, Agatha stayed holding the
body, knowing she had to let go. But she couldn’t. Cheek wet with Sophie’s
blood, she listened to the sobs rise around her, the wind rake through
wartorn sludge, her shallow breaths wither against a corpse.
And the beat of a heart.
Color returned to Sophie’s lips.
Glow warmed her skin.
Blood faded from her chest.
Her skin restored to its beautiful whole and with a shocked breath, her
eyes opened, emerald clear.
“Sophie?” Agatha whispered.
Sophie touched her face and smiled.
“Who needs princes in our fairy tale?”
Sun exploded through fog, coating the two castles in gold. As the grass
around it greened, the Storian blazed with new life and soared back to its
tower in the sky. Across the shores, children’s robes, black, pink, blue,
melted to the same silver, dissolving their division once and for all.
But as jubilant students and teachers descended on the girls, they
suddenly retreated. Sophie and Agatha had started to shimmer, and within
seconds, their bodies turned translucent. They spun to each other, for in the
wind, the two heard what the others couldn’t, tenor tolls of a town clock,
closer, closer . . .
Sophie’s eyes twinkled. “A princess and witch . . .”
“Friends,” Agatha gasped.
She whirled to Tedros. With a cry, her prince seized for her—“Wait!”
Light slipped through his fingers.
They were gone.

The School for Good and Evil: A World Without
Princes

The adventure continues in The School for Good
and Evil: A World Without Princes, out on 8th May

2014.

Copyright

Start your education at www.schoolforgoodandevil.com
 

First published in hardback in the USA by HarperCollins Children’s Books,
an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. in 2013

First published in paperback in Great Britain by HarperCollins Children’s
Books in 2013

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Ltd,

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The School for Good and Evil
Text copyright © 2013 by Soman Chainani
Illustrations copyright © 2013 by Iacopo Bruno

 
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ISBN: 9780007492930
Ebook Edition © JUNE 2013 ISBN: 9780007492947

Version: 2013-12-18
 

The author and illustrator assert the moral right to be identified as the
author and illustrator of the work.

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