Читать книгу Quests for Glory - Soman Chainani, Soman Chainani - Страница 16

“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.

“Got the pajamas wrong,” Hort’s man-wolf grumped.

“Oh, don’t be a louse. You know, they’re all having so much fun I can’t tell the Evers from the Nevers anymore,” said Sophie, watching more of Good’s students flood in with giddy smiles, as if they’d secretly been waiting their whole lives for an Evil party. “Even the teachers have stopped searching for a reason to shut it down.”

Professor Manley and Professor Sheeks were snickering as they stealthily shot flames across the soda fountain every time an Ever reached for a glass. Nearby, Castor and Professor Anemone shook their rumps on the dance floor while students of both schools hooted them on.

“Listen, I can’t last much longer like this. I’m hot, hairy, and hungry,” Hort grouched, drool dripping from his snout. “Any second, I’m going to shrink back to human without any clothes on.”

“You can’t go now. The Room 46 boys are almost here!” Sophie said, squinting at a pack of Everboys crossing the bridge. “I knew Bodhi, Laithan, and the rest of their delicious little clan would come, even if they didn’t RSVP. Handsome boys never RSVP. They just grace you with their presence like a balmy day in winter.”

“What? Who’s Bodhi? Who’s Laithan?” Hort growled. “How do you know Everboys’ names—”

“Don’t be ridiculous. Everybody knows the boys of Honor Tower, Room 46. Besides, I’m sure you can last as a man-wolf for as long as you want. Think of first year when you could only do it for five seconds. Now you can go all night if you put your mind to it.”

“I’m not lasting all night for a bunch of Everboys,” Hort snapped.

“Don’t be irrelevant, darling,” Sophie wisped. “For six months, I’ve been obsessing over Agatha and Tedros, wondering how they were doing in Camelot. I know I said I hadn’t given them the slightest thought, but we both know that’s a lie, so I might as well be honest. I couldn’t bear the idea that they could be happy without me, even after that hellfire of a coronation. But tonight’s the first night I haven’t thought of them at all. Which goes to show: if Agatha doesn’t want me to help her plan her wedding, then I’ll happily throw a party for myself. And I assure you, mine will be far better.”

She smiled as the fireworks over the dance floor arranged into a vision of her own face and students from both schools hollered their approval. Nearby, kids dug into a red velvet cake shaped as a giant S and flanked by piles of oat-ginger cookies frosted with sayings like “S is for Sublime,” “S is for Succulent,” “S is for Sophie.” A pimply, sharp-toothed Neverboy climbed her statue and kissed it triumphantly, eliciting whistles and cheers, but Sophie didn’t mind it in the least, soaking in the Ever-Never chants from the dance floor: “SOPHIE! SOPHIE! SOPHIE!”

“If you think about it, Aggie and I don’t even have much in common anymore,” Sophie added, waving back at the adoring crowd. “She has her life with Tedros, the two of them about to marry and become each other’s family. And I have my own life: wedding-less, family-less, date-less, but so filled with possibilities. …”

“I thought I was your date,” Hort said.

“Look at my little peaches. Aren’t they scrumptious?” Sophie gushed, nodding at a few awkward Nevergirls in hip-hugging black leather talking to a shrimpy Everboy. “Spent all week teaching them how to fake self-esteem. What do you think? They’re all your age. Any of them catch your fancy?”

“My what? Are you insane!” Hort retorted. “Not only are they first years, but I’m their teach—”

“Put me down!” Sophie gasped.

“What?”

“Down, Hort! Down!”

Hort quickly swung her to the floor and Sophie lunged in front of him—

“Bodhi, darling, welcome to my school,” Sophie purred, holding out her hand to a tall, reedy boy in a royal-blue coat with dark-caramel skin and big black eyes, who gently took it and kissed it like a prince.

“And hello, Laithan, you’re looking exceptionally handsome tonight,” she said to his short, muscular friend with chestnut hair and freckles. Laithan smiled flirtily and kissed her on the cheek.

“Well, if that’s how you’re going to say hello, I’ll say hello to all of you,” Sophie cooed, presenting her cheek to the rest of their Everboy gang: swimmery, silver-haired Akiro; dark, wavy-haired Valentin; bald-headed, ghostly Devan. … “Save a dance for me,” she whispered to each one.

“A dance!” Hort hissed in her ear, apoplectic. “You’re a Dean, not a hostess at the Pig and Pepper! You can’t dance with students!”

“I’ve combed The Ever Never Handbook thoroughly and see no rules against it. And besides, some of these boys look far older than I do,” Sophie said, turning to greet the next boy—

Only it wasn’t a boy at all.

It was a Dean.

And she wasn’t alone.

Dean Dovey clacked past Sophie into Evil Hall, green gown sweeping behind her, as if this was her school and Sophie the intruder. The silver-haired professor was flanked by three witches, each of who glared at Sophie one by one.

“Everboys in our castle,” said the tattooed witch.

“Everboys in our school,” said the albino witch.

“Told you, told you, told you,” huffed the jolly witch, turning Sophie’s tiara into chocolate and gobbling it down in one bite.

“You lied to me?” Sophie mewled, gaping at Clarissa’s Quest Map, floating over the sand on Evil’s side of Halfway Bay. All her classmates’ names were colored red beneath their moving figurines instead of blue like they were on her map. “But I’m supposed to know everything! I’m a Dean! I’m your equal! Instead, you give me a false map … you make me think all our quests are going well … you keep me in the dark on the fact my friends are failing miserably—”

“‘Friends’ is a loose term,” Hester murmured.

“And you being ‘equal’ to Dovey is like Dot being ‘equal’ to me,” said Anadil.

“We’ll see who’s equal when I turn your rats to fudge,” said Dot.

“Oh be quiet, girls,” Professor Dovey said, sitting gingerly in one of Evil’s cabanas that Sophie had added when she turned the once-barren shores of Halfway Bay into a beach. Music and laughter from the party carried down the hill. With the August nights sultry and fresh, the elder Dean had recommended they speak outside, where students wouldn’t overhear. But now Dovey was peering around at the torchlit huts decorated with glamorous portraits of Sophie … the golden sand speckled with S-shaped conchs … the once-sludgy black moat of Evil turned royal blue with a statue of Sophie astride a dragon spraying water from its mouth. …

“I honestly don’t know where I am,” she murmured.

Sophie cleared her throat harshly.

“I know you’re upset, Sophie, and you have every right to be,” Professor Dovey sighed, massaging her knees. “Fairy godmothers don’t make it a habit of using magic to deceive. But fairy godmothers also have a duty to protect the greater Good. If you’d known what was happening, it was only a matter of time before word of the older students’ struggles leaked through the school and distracted the first years. I know you’ll say you can keep a secret, but frankly, you seem incapable of setting boundaries with your new charges at the moment.”

Sophie put her hands on her hips. “What in heavens makes you say that?”

Dovey turned towards the castle’s open windows. Inside Evil Hall, two Neverboys danced saucily on Sophie’s statue, while an Everboy spotted Sophie watching and yelled: “DEAN SOPHIE, WILL YOU MARRY ME?”

Sophie stabbed out her glowing pink finger, shutting the windows and drawing the curtains. “Well, if you were so scared of telling me about these failing quests, why are you telling me now?”

Professor Dovey turned to her. “Because I need you to lead a quest into the Woods and save your fellow classmates before any more of them die.”

Every trace of defiance melted out of Sophie’s face. She saw the three witches staring at Good’s Dean the same way.

“Die?” Sophie rasped.

Professor Dovey looked away, mouth quivering.

Sophie could hardly get the word out. … “Who?”

The elder Dean watched the waters of the bay roll between Good and Evil, thin to thick, water to slime.

“The map,” Dovey whispered.

Slowly Sophie and the witches raised their eyes to the Dean’s Quest Map, its names in red-alarm red, so different from the cool, serene blues Sophie had seen across her doctored one.

But one name was different.

Its ink was darker red than the others and dripping off its label, as if seeping blood.

A thin black line ran through the name, scratching it out.

The name was CHADDICK.

Sophie’s breath caught. In a single mark, a soul lost.

For a long while, no one spoke, the silence broken only by the festive buzz behind them and the snores of sleeping stymphs overhead, perched on the scaffolding shrouding the School Master’s tower. Dot wiped her eyes while Anadil focused on the ground. Even Hester looked unsteady.

Gazing across the lake at Good’s glass castle, Sophie thought of the burly, gray-eyed Everboy who’d once swaggered down those halls and been Tedros’ most faithful liege, just like Agatha had been her own. But Agatha was still alive, of course, even if she was somewhere far away. …

Tedros’ best friend was dead.

“H-h-how?” Sophie stammered.

“We don’t know,” said Professor Dovey emptily. “His body must be in Avalon. Otherwise his figure would have moved on the map.”

Avalon, Sophie remembered. On her Quest Map, she’d seen Chaddick’s figurine there when he should have been off seeking new knights for Tedros’ kingdom. What was Chaddick doing alone in Avalon, which was perpetually cold and uninhabited? It’s not like he could get into the Lady of the Lake’s castle—only Merlin or the King of Camelot could do that. And yet, she distinctly remembered seeing Chaddick’s figurine inside the castle gates. … Still, even if he did get in somehow, wouldn’t the Lady of the Lake have protected him? Chaddick was Camelot’s knight—

Dovey’s voice severed her thoughts: “He sent me a note by crow a couple weeks ago. He’d been hearing reports of attacks in the Woods and wanted to find out who was behind them. I ordered him not to make a move. To stay on his original mission. Clearly he disobeyed.”

Sophie looked at her.

“Whatever he found must have gotten him killed,” the Dean said quietly.

“And now you want me to go and get killed too?” Sophie asked.

“Unlike Chaddick, you will have friends at your side,” the Dean replied, eyeing the three witches.

“There’s that word ‘friends’ again,” Hester murmured.

Dovey ignored her. “I’d been looking into the news of attacks long before Chaddick wrote. The moment students’ names started turning red on my map, I’d asked Merlin to investigate. It’s common for students’ quests to go badly at first—we’ve certainly dispatched rescue teams before—but for all to be failing was unprecedented. At the same time, we’d been hearing reports of unrest in the Woods, prompted by seemingly random crimes against Evers and Nevers alike. And then there was the matter of Tedros’ sword, stuck in that stone. I thought Merlin could get to the bottom of all this. … Well, a few days ago, he finally returned to my chambers. He asked only one question: what fairy tale had the Storian been writing.”

“Nothing of substance. I’ve told you that,” Sophie said, glancing up at the School Master’s tower, now her private quarters, which was connected to Evil’s castle by a catwalk. She saw the Storian through the window, hovering over a stone table littered with crumpled paper. “Ever since it finished mine and Agatha’s fairy tale, it’s been starting and discarding tales of our classmates’ quests.”

“And whose story is it working on now?” said Dovey.

“It stopped writing completely last week, which after all that frantic scribbling and crumpling the past few months, is actually letting me sleep,” Sophie puffed. “But you said that the Storian often suspects a fairy tale will be a good one, only to scrap it midstory … that it’s perfectly normal—”

“To a point,” Professor Dovey replied. “The Storian only writes tales that we need: stories that will redress a balance between Good and Evil that is constantly in flux. But six months is a long time for the Storian not to put a new tale into the Woods. Perhaps it sees no story in your classmates’ failing quests worth telling. Merlin, however, believes all these failures are connected and that there is a bigger quest waiting to be undertaken. That this is the fairy tale the Storian needs to tell.”

“Yet you have no proof of this bigger quest or fairy tale?” said Sophie.

“And yet we still have to go with her?” Hester said, leering at Sophie.

“A student is dead, girls. I’d think at the very least you’d want to bury his body, let alone find out what killed him,” said Professor Dovey frostily. “I do.”

Sophie and the witches fell silent.

“There is also the fact that according to the map, you are all failing your quests too,” Professor Dovey said.

Sophie and the coven gawked at her before swiveling to the map.

They’d been so focused on their classmates that they hadn’t noticed their own names were in red.

“How can I be failing?” Sophie protested. “My quest is to be Dean of Evil. That’s the quest Lady Lesso gave me—”

“And how could we be failing?” said Hester, looking at her witch friends. “We didn’t do anything wrong on our quest—”

“Unless, of course, your quests no longer apply,” said Professor Dovey.

Sophie and the witches exchanged confused looks.

“You see, your names only turned red on my map yesterday. Within minutes of Chaddick’s death,” said Professor Dovey. “I highly doubt it’s a coincidence. The Storian creates a Quest Map every three years once the new class goes into the Woods. The fact the pen has stopped writing combined with your names turning red only strengthened Merlin’s and my conclusion: that a new, more important quest awaits each of you. Only then will the Storian begin its next tale.”

She paused, expecting questions, but Sophie and the witches still looked dazed.

“If it was up to me, Merlin and I would go into the Woods ourselves,” Dovey went on. “But teachers cannot directly interfere in a student’s quest just as we cannot interfere in a fairy tale. Which means you will represent the Nevers on this new quest, and Merlin will be sending an Ever contingent tonight to join your team. Given Chaddick’s demise, all of this was too sensitive to be transmitted in any way other than in person, so that’s why I brought you back to school. You must leave as soon as possible to prevent more casualties. But you’re not just a rescue team. You’re a detective team. Something out there is hurting our students and your new quest is to find it. … One quest to save them all.”

Sophie couldn’t focus, a single thought haunting her. “Has anyone told Tedros about …”

“No,” Professor Dovey answered, rising from her seat. “Telling Tedros will surely lead to him doing something rash, especially since we’ve yet to learn how his friend died. The island of Avalon, then, should be the first stop on your new quest. Even if you can’t get through the castle’s gates, you might find clues as to what Chaddick was doing there.”

Sophie’s mind went gauzy, as if she was trying to wake from a dream. Dead friends … bodies to be buried … a mysterious threat …

How quickly things change in a fairy tale.

A few minutes ago she was the host of a rollicking party that finally helped her turn the page and begin a new chapter. But now she was facing a new quest far away from school, where her life would be as much at risk as the friends’ lives she had to save.

Only she wasn’t ready to leave this place. After three years, she’d found her way out of a fairy tale and wouldn’t let herself be dragged back into one. And the best part about being Evil was that she could admit this without guilt. The new and improved Sophie could accept the selfish shades of her soul as much as the generous ones. Which meant that no matter how terrible she felt for Chaddick and the rest of her old friends out there in the dark Endless Woods … Sophie wouldn’t be the one to help them.

“I’m afraid I’m Dean of a school just like you, Professor Dovey, entrusted with more than a hundred students. I can’t just abandon them,” Sophie decided. “I don’t care what your map says. Hester, Anadil, and Dot will do just fine on their own.”

The three witches blinked at each other, as if they’d telepathically made a wish and had it granted.

Professor Dovey tightened her silvery bun. “Sophie, you might be a Dean, but you are also a fourth-year student, which means I can change your quest just like you changed Hort’s. And once a Dean assigns your quest, you must accept it or be sent to the Brig of Betrayers—”

“Don’t you threaten me, Clarissa,” Sophie retorted, watching Dovey wince at her first name. “You can’t tell me what to do. I know you want to get rid of me, given how fond of Evil your ‘Good’ students are, and this gives you the perfect excuse.”

“You think this is about you. I should have known. Every time it seems you’ve changed, I’m reminded how selfish you can be,” said Professor Dovey. “Your first three years you trampled on students of both schools to further your own arrogant, often cowardly, goals. You punished them, tormented them, betrayed them … and yet they forgave you and even obeyed you as their Dean in the remaining months of their third year. They showed you the loyalty you never once showed them. Now these same classmates are in peril and need your help. Which means the story isn’t about you anymore, Sophie. It’s about them. But if you would like to make it about you, then think of it this way. This is no longer a tale about whether you will find fame or fortune or your perfect little happy ending. This is a tale about whether you are capable of growing from the snake of your own story into the hero of someone else’s. That is your new quest. That is the tale the Storian is waiting to write.”

Sophie went quiet, her emerald eyes fixed on the elder Dean. A dark crimson spread into her cheeks and for a moment, she looked less like Evil’s leader and more like a chastened child.

“She’s coming, isn’t she,” Hester mumbled, her demon making faces.

“Please tell me you can turn a person to chocolate,” Anadil asked Dot.

“I have enough trouble with lentil cakes, thank you,” Dot nipped.

Sophie wasn’t listening, her focus drifting to the party uphill. “But who will take over as Evil’s Dean?” she asked weakly.

“Professor Manley,” said the elder Dean, adding before Sophie could object, “and I suspect his unpopularity will only increase your status once you return.”

“If I return, you mean,” Sophie corrected.

She expected Professor Dovey to reassure her, but the Dean said nothing.

“And what about the new School Master?” asked Hester. “We spent the last six months combing the Woods for someone who would best serve the school—”

“New School Master? That was your quest? To find a School Master?” Sophie asked, whirling to Professor Dovey. “You left the choosing of the one person who has control over you and me to them?”

“And I still would,” Professor Dovey said. “But that’s not to say that part of their assignment is over. You may very well come across the right candidate on your new quest, girls. And if you do, I expect a full report so I can interview them myself.”