But the Lady of the Lake wasn’t looking at him now. She was looking past him.
Slowly Chaddick turned to see his assailant coming off the stairs, dressed in black, his face covered by a scaly green mask. He was holding Chaddick’s sword, coated with Chaddick’s blood.
Chaddick dropped to his knees and clasped his hands towards the nymph. “Don’t you see? He’s going to kill me! Help! Please!”
But she didn’t.
Instead she did something that made Chaddick sick.
She looked back into the eyes of his green-masked killer . . .
And smiled.
8
SOPHIE
One Quest to Save Them All
“Where is the cake, Bogden? Where are the gift bags? Where is the bouquet?” Sophie berated, barreling towards Evil Hall in her white taffeta gown, crystal tiara, and spiked silver heels.
“Um, you need those things for a school dance?” Bogden asked, holding her train and stumbling behind.
“All Tedros had to do to seal his reign was host a coronation and now look where he is. You know why kingdoms fall, Bogden? Because of bad parties,” Sophie flared. “How long until the doors open?”
“Five minutes. The Welcome Committee is almost done decorating—”
“Why don’t I hear music, then? Why don’t I smell cucumber-and-dill-butter canapés?
Bogden gaped at her.
“Were you taking notes when we went over this?” Sophie squawked, trundling towards the ballroom. “No wonder you failed all your classes!”
“Dean Sophie, I’ve been knocking on your bathroom door for five hours to ask questions—”
“As if anyone has time for questions! First Gavaldon Girl caves in a classroom and now you with your questions! Why did I bring Readers into this school at all?” Sophie moaned. “This is the first time a Dean has ever thrown an Evil party, the first time the Evers will see our castle, and the first time Clarissa Dovey will realize there’s no need for a new School Master when the students already follow me. I’ve even invited the Royal Rot in case they want to write a story about Tedros’ former flame, moved on to a life of staggering success and fawning fans, unlike her once-prince and now maligned king.” She flung open the doors to Evil Hall with dramatic flourish—
The ballroom was lit dungeon-brown by two dying torches. The six first-year Nevers of the Welcome Committee beamed proudly at her as they hung wispy tinsel and laid out a cloudy punch bowl on a crooked wooden table along with a hunk of misshapen cheese. In the center of the room, under a dented mirror-ball, two bats perched on top of Sophie’s statue, swiping and eating circling moths attracted by the weak, pulsing lights. A banner drooped between two walls—“DEAN SOPHIE WELCOMES U”—with the U looking more like a V since the painters had started their letters too big and run out of space. A wolf slumped on the floor beneath the banner, burping loudly and playing a dirge on a broken violin.
Sophie clutched her throat. “It’s like one of Honora’s garden parties!” She whirled to Bogden. “Where’s Hort?”
“Um, Professor Hort said if he can’t be your date, he’s not coming.”
Sophie curled her fists. “That whiny, mangy rodent . . .”
Through the windows, she saw the lights of fairies leading the Evers through Good’s glass castle towards Halfway Bridge.
“Oh, I try to empower you fools like I’m supposed to and make you feel supported and involved and appreciated,” Sophie seethed, shaking her fists. “But if you want something done right, you have to do it yourself.”
In a flash, she whirled into action, pointing fingers at the Welcome Committee. “Fatima, fetch an enchanted pot from the kitchen! Barnaby, get a pouch of lizard tongues and a vial of cat tears from Professor Manley—if he won’t give them to you, steal them! Vladimir, remember that putrid band you formed?”
“The one you sent us to the Doom Room for because you said we ruined your beauty sleep?” he peeped, blinking beneath his unibrow.
“It’s legal for one night only,” Sophie commanded. “Rex, open up the windows! Bharthi, borrow Professor Sheeks’ spellbook (the password to her office is ‘Ooty Queen’), and someone tell Professor Hort if he doesn’t get here in the next ten seconds, I’ll tell the whole school their history teacher sleeps with a stuffed turtle!”
Her finger glowed pink and she thrust it at the mirror-ball, which blinded all of them in an explosion of red.
Five minutes later, Sophie sat on the shoulders of Hort’s giant man-wolf, cheerily greeting awed Evers and Nevers as they came through the doors. Towering seven feet tall, Hort made sure to roar for each one and beat his hairy chest while the first years moved into Evil Hall, glittering with magical red and gold fireworks that ripped across the ceiling, spelling “NIGHT OF A THOUSAND SOPHIES.” On the walls, scarlet shadows played scenes from Sophie’s fairy tale, occasionally reaching out to spook passing kids. In the corner, Evers and Nevers filled their cups with sparkly soda from a fountain made out of two hundred crystal goblets; the glittering liquid changed colors and flavors every minute: green apple, golden honey, red raspberry, blue winter mint. . . . Nearby, a horde of kids raided a table with trays that magically replenished with wasabi shrimp, herbed biscuits, persimmon bruschetta, dill-stuffed cucumbers, pork-wrapped mushrooms, baked potato bites, salmon pinwheels, olive crostini, and vanilla-sage canapés. But most of the revelers were jam-packed in the center around Sophie’s statue, headbanging to Vladimir’s band (“VLADIMIR AND THE PLAGUE,” the drums said), while Good’s fairies sprinkled fairy dust on band members, levitating them over the crowd. (A few intrepid Nevers scooped fallen fairy dust off the floor and gobbed it under their tongues, sending them shooting across the dance floor like comets, earning raucous cheers.)
“And they’ve all dressed for the theme!” Sophie marveled, high atop Hort’s shoulders, as both Evergirls and Nevergirls thronged in, flaunting Sophie’s most famous looks from The Tale of Sophie and Agatha. There was a Kimono Sophie, with shimmering makeup and ruby-red hair; a Babydoll Sophie, in a black lacy dress and licking a pink lollipop; a No-Ball Sophie, complete with pink gown, bald cap, and stick-on warts; an Evil Queen Sophie in full-black leather and snakeskin cape; a Rebel Sophie, in a dazzling slit-back black dress, with red sequins that spelled “F is for Fabulous.”. . . There were even a few Filips.
Not to be left out, several boys had dressed like Tedros, with some in his creamy white breeches and royal-blue lace-up shirt from the first-year Evers Ball, a few in his loose ivory shirt and black pants from his night with Sophie in an Avalon cave, and two tall Neverboys who’d worn the tightest of shorts and forgone shirts entirely.
“Hort, darling, there’s even one of you!” Sophie said, pointing to a bone-thin, rabbit-faced boy in handmade frog pajamas, who’d just spilled his drink on a girl.