A World Without Princes

Sophie turned the page to a richly colored painting of her and Agatha, standing before the School Master.

Once upon a time, the script below read, there were two girls.

Agatha remembered the line. The Storian had written it to start their fairy tale when they broke into the School Master’s tower. Flipping the book’s pages, Agatha saw her and Sophie’s story unfold in a brilliant sweep of paintings: Sophie trying to win Tedros’ kiss … Agatha saving Tedros’ life in a brutal attack … Agatha and Tedros falling in love … Sophie transforming into a vengeful witch … the School Master stabbing Sophie … Agatha reviving her with love’s kiss … and then the very last page … a dazzling vision of Tedros desperately reaching for Agatha as she and Sophie disappeared, three words beneath to close their story …

They were gone.

Agatha felt tears rise, soaking in all the pain and love she and Sophie had shared to get home.

“It’s the perfect fairy tale,” Sophie said, meeting Agatha’s eyes with a choked-up smile.

They turned to the teachers, who looked deathly grim. “It’s not over,” said Lady Lesso.

The girls peered down at the book, confused. Their grimy hands lifted the last page, and they saw there was something on the other side.

A painting of Tedros, back turned, walking into dark fog, all alone.

And Sophie and Agatha lived happy ever after, for girls don’t need princes for love to call …

No, they don’t need princes in their fairy tales at all.

“This one’s from Maidenvale. But you can find it anywhere, really. They’re even telling it in Netherwood.”

Sophie and Agatha raised their heads to Professor Dovey, frowning over the messy desk.

“It’s the only story anyone wants to hear.”

Now the girls saw that all the open books weren’t there by accident. Each book on the desk was spread to its last page. Some were in oil paints, some in watercolor, some in charcoal and ink; some were in a language the girls knew, others in scripts they didn’t. But all ended their version of The Tale of Sophie and Agatha the same way: Tedros alone and unneeded, slumping into darkness.

“Goodness, all this gloom because we’re popular?” Sophie said. “You can’t be surprised. Snow White and Cinderella are sweet and all. But who wants them when they can have me?”

She turned to Agatha for support, but her friend was staring out the window. “Aggie?”

Agatha didn’t answer. Slowly she approached the window, and Lady Lesso stepped aside without a word. At Sader’s desk, Professor Dovey held her breath.

From the steep window, Agatha looked down at the Blue Forest, the enchanted training ground for Good and Evil, sprawled in an array of hues behind the school. It was as it always was, quiet and thriving despite the autumn chill, neatly fenced in by spiked golden gates.

The sounds were coming from beyond the gates.

At first she thought they were dead leaves, swathing the Endless Forest in tawny brown and orange beneath stripped, crooked trees. Then she looked closer and saw they were men.

Thousands of them were crammed against the Blue Forest gates in a filthy homeless camp, hunched around fires like miserable peasants. She couldn’t see faces, but she glimpsed scraggly beards and blackened cheeks, mottled breeches and bony legs, ripped coats and sashes with gleaming …

Crests.

These weren’t peasants. They were—

“Princes,” Sophie gasped, looking out beside her.

“It’s her!” a voice screamed from the crowd. Heads swung to the tower window.

“It’s the witch!”

All at once, a savage mob rushed the Forest gates—

“Death to Sophie!”

“Kill her!”

“Kill the witch!”

The men fired arrows and catapulted stones at the tower, but the weapons instantly vanished into an enchanted shield, bubbly and violet tinged, that appeared over the school gates. As the crowd roared and swung pickets, mounted with the same WANTED signs the girls had seen in the woods, an intrepid prince leapt onto the spiked gates. The gold metal magically sizzled and he let go in shock, impaling on spikes below. Sophie spun in horror—

“How can those be princes?” she cried.

“How can those be princes?” Lady Lesso mimicked. “Those princes are there because of you.”

Agatha and Sophie gaped at each other. “We don’t understand—” Agatha spluttered.

Professor Dovey ground her teeth. The only time Agatha had seen her fairy godmother this furious was when she had disobeyed a teacher her first year and almost burned down the castle.

“Think, Agatha. Once upon a time, you believed yourself an ugly witch. But instead, your destiny was to become a princess. To find Ever After with the most coveted prince in our land. It would have been Good’s greatest victory! A restoration of all the values we’d lost! Kill the School Master, send your Evil friend home safe—and stay here with Tedros forever, as his future queen. All you had to do was take his hand before you disappeared. That would have been the correct fairy tale. But instead …”

She looked daggers at Sophie. “You chose her.”

“And rightly so,” Sophie riposted. “If you knew Agatha at all, you’d know she could never give me up for a boy.” She whirled to her friend, knowing this time Agatha would defend her. But again, Agatha didn’t. She just gulped hard and stared at her muddy clumps.

“What happened after we left?” Agatha said.

“The Eviction.”

The girls turned to Lady Lesso, who shuddered at the memory.

“After your kiss, students tried to return to their schools, but the Evil towers ejected the Nevergirls. Sixty girls flung through windows into the bay—from stairs, classrooms, beds, toilets, common rooms … They tried to go back, but the Evil gates barred their entry. All the Nevergirls fled to Good for sanctuary, and the Evergirls welcomed them, inspired by your happy ending.”

“As soon as they arrived, the Good towers evicted the Everboys just as rudely,” Professor Dovey went on. “The moment the boys were all gone, the castle magically changed to what it is now—their portraits removed, murals repainted, friezes recarved, as if mirroring your tale. The School for Good had become the School for Girls.”

And indeed, the glittering crests over her and Lady Lesso’s hearts, once silver swans, were now sparkling blue butterflies. Agatha shook her head, confused.

“But those aren’t Everboys from school!” She pointed out the window. “Those are real princes!”

“What happened here happened everywhere in the Endless Woods,” Professor Dovey said gravely. “As your story spread like a plague and princesses imagined a world without princes, the men were magically ejected from their castles and left homeless. They appealed to witches to break the curse, but they too had heard The Tale of Sophie and Agatha. Stirred by the power of your bond, witches joined forces with princesses and took control of the kingdoms.”

“Witches and princesses are friends?” Sophie said in disbelief.

“No one thought it possible until your fairy tale,” said Professor Dovey. “And now it is men and women who are enemies.”

Agatha thought back to the Flowerground—the twittering women in groups, some pretty and cheerful, some homely and queer … the few scraggly, lonely males …

“But we don’t want the princes homeless!” Agatha cried. “We don’t want them to be enemies!”

“We certainly don’t want them to smell,” murmured Sophie.

“You made princes irrelevant,” Lady Lesso retorted. “You made them impotent. You made them obsolete. And now you’ve made them turn to a new leader for revenge.”

The girls followed her eyes to the sea of WANTED signs hoisted outside the gates, demanding Sophie’s head at the orders of this leader.

“The School Master!” Sophie broke in. “We saw him—”

“Did you now?” Lady Lesso sneered.

“He’s in the Evil castle! We have to kill him!” Sophie swiveled to Agatha. “Tell her!”

Agatha ignored the fluttering in her stomach. “But he couldn’t have lived,” she said, almost to herself. She looked up. “You were there too, professors. All of us saw him die.”

“Indeed,” said Professor Dovey. “But that doesn’t mean he isn’t replaced.”

“Replaced?” the girls blurted.

“Naturally Lady Lesso and I believed ourselves the best candidates,” Professor Dovey said, smoothing her gown’s beetle wings. “Homeless and hated, the princes needed leaders they could trust. We assured them The Tale of Sophie and Agatha was closed forever. Under our protection, the Storian would restore boys and girls to balance, as it does Good and Evil. But just as we tried to bridge this peace between boys and girls …” Her face dimmed. “Something odd happened.”

She thrust out the last page of their fairy tale and waited for the girls to say something.

“They drew Tedros taller than he is,” Sophie suggested.

“Isn’t something missing?” the Dean moaned.

Agatha remembered the storybook under her bed … the wedded princess and prince …

“‘The End,’” she said. “Why doesn’t it say ‘The End’?”

Professor Dovey glared at her and slowly lifted the book to the light. Beneath the last line of their fairy tale, the two girls could see faded ink spelling those very two words …

Before they had been erased.

“What happened?” Sophie breathed.

“It seems your book has reopened,” Professor Dovey said, guiding their eyes to all the other versions of their story splayed across the desk. ‘The End’ had disappeared off each of them too.

Sophie rifled through the pile. “But how can we lose a happy ending!”

“Because one of you wished for a different one,” Lady Lesso lashed, not looking at her. “One of you wanted a new Ever After. And now, one of you has put our school on the brink of war.”

“That’s ludicrous,” Sophie huffed. “I know I wanted to be a princess—but I can’t, can I? I saw what this place did to me and have no desire to spend more time in it, even if Gavaldon smells like horse bottom and has no endurable men. So if I didn’t make the wish, then surely it’s a mista—”

But now she saw who Lady Lesso was staring at, and her cheeks lost all blood.

Sophie slowly turned to her friend, shadowed in the corner. “Aggie, at the hollow, you said … you said you made a … That’s not what you meant, right?”

Agatha couldn’t look at her.

Sophie’s hands were trembling. “Aggie, tell me it’s not what you meant.”

Agatha tried to find words—something to redeem herself—

“All of this …,” Sophie gasped. “Everything that happened … is because of you?”

Agatha burned scarlet. She spun to Lady Lesso. “How do I fix it? How do I get Sophie home safe?”

The Evil teacher let the question dangle while she inspected her sharp red nails.

“It’s simple,” she said finally, lifting her eyes. “You must wish to end with each other, at the same time. Wish for each other and only each other, and the Storian will write ‘The End’ once more.”

“And we’ll leave the Woods?” Agatha pressed.

“Never to be hunted again—as long as your wish is true.”

Agatha let out a rush of air. “We can fix it.” She turned to Sophie. “We can get our ending back! The village won’t hurt us!”

Sophie backed away. “What ending did you want?”

“Don’t do this,” Agatha said.

“What else could you possibly want?” Sophie demanded.

“It was a mistake, Sophie—”

“Answer me.”

“Sophie, please—”

Sophie locked her gaze. “What did you wish for?”

“We can fix this now,” Agatha begged.

“I’m afraid you can’t.”

Both girls turned.

“The Storian must write ‘The End’ to seal your wish,” said Professor Dovey. “And at the moment, it is unable.”

“What do you mean?” Agatha flushed angrily. “Where is it?”

“Where it always is,” said Lady Lesso, scowling back. “With the School Master.”

“Huh?” Agatha said. “But you said he was replace—”

The flutter in her heart.

The face she couldn’t see.

Agatha slowly looked up.

“Who doesn’t want your ending sealed?” Lady Lesso purred. “Who wants a new ending to your fairy tale?”

She held up their story’s last page … a boy walking into fog all alone …

“Who heard his princess’s wish?”

Agatha whirled to the window. Lightning exploded over the School Master’s tower across the bay with a whip crack of thunder, and she saw the silver-masked shadow in its flash—

Golden hair, a body of muscle, a glinting sword sheathed …

The sky went dark, and he was gone.

Agatha felt faint. All the attacks … all the destruction …

“Him,” Sophie whispered, crumpling against the wall. “You wished for … him.”

Agatha searched for something to say, but one look at Sophie, curled up in a grubby pink heap, and she knew. There was nothing to say.

“How?” Agatha whispered. “How could he hear it?”

“Because you wanted him to,” Lady Lesso slashed, prowling towards Agatha. “From the day you left, Tedros believed one day you’d call for him. From the day you left, he and his boys hunted your village, trying to cross into Woods Beyond—until your wish finally opened the gates.”

Agatha paled, watching Lady Lesso circle her. “But your prince has to make sure his princess chooses him this time. He needs insurance you won’t repeat your mistakes. So Tedros stole the Storian from under our noses, knowing the School Master’s tower follows the pen wherever it goes. Now he’ll stop the Storian from writing ‘The End’ to your tale—until he has his new ending.”

Agatha’s stomach went cold. “What’s the new ending?” she rasped.

Lady Lesso stared through her. “Killing Sophie.”

Sophie slowly lifted her eyes, red and raw.

“Tedros believes killing Sophie will fix your fairy tale as it should have been,” said Professor Dovey. “The witch dies. The princess free to her prince. Your ending rewritten, just like Agatha wished.”

Agatha couldn’t breathe under Sophie’s scorching stare.

“Why don’t you save Tedros the trouble?” Sophie hissed. “Kill this witch yourself.”

“That would solve everything,” sighed Professor Dovey.

Both girls turned.

“Oh dear,” said their teacher. “Did I say that out loud?”

“She’ll die soon enough,” Lady Lesso snarled. “Tedros counted on Sophie coming here for protection. Now he and his army will come to kill her.”

“Army?” Agatha blanched. “He has an army?”

“You’ve forgotten about his school,” said Lady Lesso.

Agatha swung her head to the window. Through the sheets of rain, she could see the red hoods skulking around Evil’s towers, in black leather uniforms crested with scarlet snakes and shiny black boots. Slowly she lowered her eyes to the gate on the castle shores, rusted iron words arched over it:

THE SCHOOL FOR BOY VENGEANCE AND RESTITUTION

“One wish has so many consequences, doesn’t it?” Lady Lesso said, leering at Agatha. “Tedros has promised whoever kills Sophie half his father’s treasure as a reward. Needless to say, both the Ever- and Neverboys took up the challenge.”

“As did all those princes outside,” Professor Dovey said, watching the filthy masses swarming the gates. “Tedros knows he can’t attack us with just his school. Our teachers wouldn’t give up Sophie without a fight.”

“So he’s using the princes to force our hand,” Lady Lesso groused. “I cast a shield around the perimeter of both schools to keep them out. But if the princes get through, Tedros will have enough men to storm our castle and kill Sophie.”

Agatha stared out at the red fortress, still numb. “The Storian’s in a boys’ school?”

“Either free it and get Sophie home alive … or kiss Tedros before he kills her.” Professor Dovey met Agatha’s shocked eyes. “Kiss your prince and mean it, and you’ll stay here with him Ever After. Sophie will be gone from your story forever … and vanish home alone.”

“Home alone?” Sophie gasped as if she’d been shot. “Gavaldon alone? While she gets … him?”

“These are the only two endings that can prevent war,” Professor Dovey said.

The only sound in the room was the echo of murderous princes.

Sophie gave Agatha a horrible look and curled back into her ball.

Tedros, Agatha gritted. How could she wish for a boy who’d take love this far? How could she wish for a boy who’d kill her best friend? Her old witchy self would never have let this happen.

“Third option,” she said, storming to the door. “Tell Tedros he’s a delusional ass.”

“No.”

Agatha turned.

“You wished for him,” Sophie spat, blotched with rage. “And you want me to trust you two alone?”

Agatha cowered. Sophie looked even more a witch than she did in the graveyard.

“I won’t intervene in your lovers’ quarrel, but I suggest Agatha make her choice soon,” Lady Lesso snapped. “Once Tedros breaks the princes through my shield, all our lives will be in danger.”

“We’ll hide you and Sophie in the Blue Forest until you have a plan,” Professor Dovey said to Agatha, pulling out a ring of keys. “None of the girls can know you’ve come.”

Agatha looked up, dazed. “Why not?”

“Because unlike your two teachers, they think this is the best thing that’s ever happened,” said a honey-smooth voice.

The two professors and two girls turned to see a tall, ravishing woman push through the door, milky smooth and full-bosomed in a teacher’s electric-blue dress decorated with a pattern of butterflies. She had a waterfall of chestnut hair to her midback, forest-green eyes under thick dark brows, a luscious pink mouth, and a gap between her two shiny front teeth.

“My brother’s office?” she said, biting her bee-stung lips. “I wasn’t aware it was where we held secret meetings.”

“It’s the only place we can’t be overheard,” Lady Lesso returned, her voice oddly tentative.

“Well I do believe I should have been alerted to our honored guests,” the woman said breathily, turning to Sophie and Agatha. “After all, they are the reason this magnificent school exists.”

The two girls gawped at her.

“We’ve been meticulously preparing for your arrival,” said the stranger, knitting her arched brows. “And we nearly may have missed it.” She flashed a glare at the two teachers.

Agatha shook her head. “But how did you know we were com—”

“Goodness, you two look frightful,” the woman said, magically restoring their faces and dresses with her finger. Only Sophie’s dress magically lost its pink color too and drained blank white.

Sophie grabbed her hem. “What happened to my—”

“Come, girls.” The woman sashayed for the door. “We’ve put your books and schedules in your room.”

“Schedules!” Professor Dovey launched to her feet. “You’re not thinking of them going to class, Evelyn!”

The woman twirled. “As long as they are at my school, they will attend class and abide by the rules. Which includes staying in their school at all times. Surely you don’t object to the rules?”

Sophie and Agatha waited for the professors to indeed object, but Dovey and Lesso were curiously quiet, eyes on a pair of blue butterflies that had settled on the tips of their noses.

“I see our former deans neglected to inform you about the most important change at your new school,” the stranger said, smiling at the two girls. “Evelyn Sader. Dean of the School for Girls. Sorry for the hurry. I don’t want to keep everyone waiting. Follow me, please.”

As she turned and swept through the door, Sophie saw the two butterflies land on her matching dress and vanish magically into its pattern. She let out a breath of surprise. “Keep who waiting?”

As more butterflies fell into her dress, the beautiful woman didn’t look back.

“Your army,” she said, as if she’d just listened to their entire conversation.

“An army dedicated to producing stories just like yours,” said Dean Sader, clacking through the sun-washed breezeway from Valor to Honor in her blue-glass heels. “Your tale was just a taste of what princesses and witches can do together. Here you will lead an entire school!”

“A school—” Agatha choked, chasing her down the Honor stairs. “We need to go home!”

“You see, the former deans and I have a difference of opinion,” said Dean Sader as butterflies flew in from every direction and vanished into her dress. “They think you must leave our world to find your happy ending together. And I think you must stay.”

“But the boys are going to kill me!” Sophie said, bumping Agatha hard as she passed.

“Mmmm, let’s say you do break into a castle full of bloodthirsty males,” the Dean said, sweeping her buxom behind through the foyer. “Let’s say you free the Storian against all odds.” She stopped outside the frosted doors of the Gallery of Good. “The wish won’t work unless you mean it.”

She gazed at Sophie. “How can you wish for Agatha if you know she wants her prince?”

The Dean turned to Agatha. “How can you wish for Sophie if you fear the witch inside?”

She leaned in so close the girls could smell her flawless honeycream skin.

“How can you wish for someone you do not trust?”

Sophie’s and Agatha’s eyes met dartingly, hoping the other would argue. Neither did.

“Your friendship must be fixed before you can go home. And here you will fix what is broken,” Dean Sader said, a last butterfly fluttering into her dress. “Fairy tales have trained us to believe a beautiful bond like yours cannot last. Why? Because a boy must come between you. A boy so threatened by your story that he’s willing to kill to destroy it. But at my school, we teach you the truth.” She opened the door to pitch darkness.

“That a girl without a boy is the greatest happy ending of all.”

Her finger magically lit a torch, and the flame roared red to a burst of drums. Agatha and Sophie leapt back—

Twenty rows of girls stood frozen, heads bowed, each wearing a white veil, royal-blue harem pants, and a light blue bodice stitched with a butterfly crest over the heart. There were more than 100 of them, stretching through the exhibits of the museum, past its open rear doors, and into the vast ballroom of Good Hall. Faces obscured, they stood eerily still, arms raised with hands to opposite elbows as if summoning genies. Hovering above them, just beneath the ceiling, two more veiled girls on magic carpets beat snare drums faster and faster.

At the front of this parade was a lone girl without anyone else in her row. Her veil was blue instead of white, her hair ginger red, and the pallid skin on her thin arms dotted with strawberry freckles. Slowly she raised her arms …

The drums stopped.

With an untamed screech, the girl blew a blast of fire that singed the magic carpets and sent Agatha and Sophie quailing from flames. As the drums beat once more, the girl whipped into a whirling belly dance, punctuating each move with a wild whistle or trill.

“One look at her, and Tedros will forget all about his wish maker,” said Sophie coldly.