The School Years Complete Collection. Soman Chainani

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СКАЧАТЬ a scream.

      “Always so sensible, August,” said Lady Lesso, standing up. “Thankfully, the girl’s failures have ensured she will spend most of the Trial without the boy protecting her. Let us hope that she dies so brutally no one would dare repeat her mistakes. Only then will her story have the ending it deserves. Perhaps one even fit for a painting.”

      She swept from the room and the Evil teachers followed her.

      As the Good faculty filed out, muttering to each other in pairs, Professor Dovey and Professor Sader emerged last. They walked in silence, her high-necked chartreuse gown rustling against his shamrock-green suit.

      “What if she dies, August?” Clarissa asked.

      “What if she lives?” said Sader.

      Clarissa stopped. “You still believe it’s true?”

      “I do. As do I believe it true the Storian started her fairy tale.”

      “But it’s impossible—it’s lunacy—it’s—” Clarissa flushed with horror. “This is why you intervened?”

      “On the contrary, I haven’t intervened,” Sader said. “Our duty is to let the story take its course—”

      “No! What have you—” Professor Dovey’s hand flew to her mouth—“This is why you send a girl to risk her life? Because you believe your spurious prophecy?”

      “There is far more at stake here than one girl’s life, Clarissa.”

      “She’s just a girl! An innocent girl!” Professor Dovey gasped, welling furious tears. “Her blood is on your hands!”

      As she fled, sniffles echoing down the stairs, Professor Sader’s hazel eyes clouded with doubt.

      He couldn’t see Sophie crouched next to him, trying to stop herself from shivering.

      Awash in the Clearing’s crinkly leaves, Kiko wrapped her shawl tighter and licked her spiced corn cob.

      “So I asked every girl if they’d say yes to Tristan and they all said no! So that means he has to ask me! He could go alone, of course, but if a boy goes alone to the Ball, he only gets half ranks and Tristan likes using the Groom Room so he’ll definitely ask me. Well, Tristan could ask you, but you told him to marry Tedros, so I don’t think he likes you. I can’t believe you said that. As if princes could marry each other. Then what would we do?”

      Agatha chomped on her cob to drown her out. Across the Clearing, she saw Sophie and Tedros arguing ferociously in the mouth of the tree tunnel. It looked like Sophie was trying to apologize and embrace him—kiss him, even—but Tedros shoved her away.

      “Are you listening to me?”

      Agatha turned. “Wait. So if a girl doesn’t get asked to the Ball, then she fails and suffers a punishment worse than death. But if a boy doesn’t go to the Ball, he gets half ranks? How is that fair!”

      “Because it’s the truth,” Kiko said. “A boy can choose to be alone if he wants. But if a girl ends up alone … she might as well be dead.”

      Agatha swallowed. “That’s ridiculous—”

      Something dropped in her basket.

      Agatha glanced up to see Sophie meet her eyes as Tedros dragged her into the Evers line.

      As Kiko jabbered on, Agatha pulled a luscious pink rose bloom from her basket, then saw it was made of parchment. With the deftest care, she undid the flower in the lap of her dress.

      The note only had three words.

      I need you.

      he cockroach darted under the door of Room 66 and nearly jumped from its shell. It gawped at shattered glass, noosed dresses, three sleeping witches—and skittered out before any of them saw her.

      But one of them did see the roach.

      And the swan on its stomach.

      Antennae whisking right and left, Agatha tracked Sophie’s perfume down crooked stairs and dank halls (nearly succumbing to a shifty male roach along the way), until she found its source in the common room. The first thing she saw inside was shirtless Hort, face clenched red like a toddler on the toilet. With a last grunt of effort, he peered down at his chest and two brand-new hairs sticking out of it.

      “Yeah! Whose talent can beat that!”

      On the next couch, Sophie buried her nose deeper in Spellcasting for Idiots.

      She heard two insect clicks and looked up urgently. Hort puffed his chest and winked. She turned in horror, then saw lipstick scrawled on the floor behind her couch.

      “BATHROOM. BRING CLOTHES.”

      Sophie despised the Evil bathrooms, but at least they were a safe place to meet. Nevers seemed to have a phobia of toilets and avoided them entirely. (She had no idea what prompted this fear or where they relieved themselves, but she preferred not to think about it.) The door moaned as she slipped into the dim iron cell. Two torches flickered on the rusted wall, elongating the shadows of stalls. As she crept towards the last one, slivers of pale skin peeked through iron slits.

      “Clothes?”

      Sophie slid them under the stall.

      The door opened and Agatha tramped out in Hort’s frog pajamas, arms crossed.

      “I don’t have anything else!” Sophie whimpered. “My roommates hanged all mine!”

      “No one likes you these days,” Agatha shot back, hiding her glowing finger. “I wonder why.”

      “Look, I’m sorry! I couldn’t just go home! Not when I finally got my prince!”

      “You? You got your prince?”

      “Well, it was mostly me …”

      “You said you wanted to go home. You said we’re a team! That’s why I helped you!”

      “We are a team, Agatha! Every princess needs a sidekick!”

      “Sidekick! Sidekick!” Agatha shouted. “Well, let’s see how our heroine manages all by herself!”

      She broke away. Sophie grabbed her arm. “I tried to kiss him! But he doubts me now!”

      “Let go—”

      “I need your help—”

      “And I won’t give it,” Agatha spat, elbowing past her. “You’re a liar, a СКАЧАТЬ