The School For Good and Evil

For three days, Sophie lies in Hort’s room waiting for her prince. In this fog, she dreams of a blurry face. Agatha wakes her one night, and Sophie accuses her of wanting Tedros for herself, so they can’t be friends. Agatha leaves, and Sophie has a second dream about the Beast. Sophie wakes, and Hort leads her to a wall, congratulating Sophie for her Evil victory. Tedros claims Sophie used him to win the Trial, so Lesso names Sophie the best Evil Captain ever. Anadil nurses Hester back to health in their room. Sophie slams open the door, and Hester welcomes her home. They banish Dot from the room.

The next day, at lunch, Tedros shoots the tree he and Sophie used to sit under. He hasn’t told anyone about Agatha because he’s confused about why she saved him and realizes he picked Agatha in every challenge, not Sophie. Sophie comes up to Tedros and tries to get him to apologize, but he denies he owes her anything. For the next few days, Good is pranked endlessly. Everyone knows it’s Sophie, but no one can stop her. Hester and Anadil tell Sophie they want to stop, but Sophie threatens to turn them in. Tedros starts a nighttime guard squad but doesn’t catch anyone. Professor Dovey demands that Lady Lesso bring Sophie to justice. She refuses but confronts Sophie, asking if she’s having nemesis dreams. Sophie panics, but Lady Lesso tells her there’s nothing to worry about until there are symptoms. When she has symptoms, Sophie will be able to clearly see her nemesis’s face in her dreams. Then the nemesis must be destroyed for Sophie to live. Lady Lesso thinks Tedros is her nemesis, but Sophie protests that she loves him.

After the conversation, Sophie decides to let Tedros go and not attack the Evers. Another dream enrages her, so she wakes Anadil and Hester in the middle of the night. The next day, all the trees on the Evers’ side of the lunch clearing are cut down except the tree that Tedros and Sophie used to sit under, which is now carved with “LIAR” multiple times. Tedros demands that Sophie stop, but she taunts him for breaking his promise to take her to the ball. Everyone is shocked, but Tedros swears he will never take her. Hester and Anadil are angry about Sophie’s reason for pranking Good, and they leave her alone. Sophie vows if Tedros doesn’t love her back, then she will destroy him.

Six Nevers lurk outside Sophie’s door wondering why she stopped attacking the Evers. They put their ears to the door and hear Anadil nursing Sophie. Sophie murmurs about nemesis dreams and balls. Hester and Anadil whisper that they need to get Sophie and Tedros together before there is a war between Good and Evil. They hear a sound in the hallway but find nothing.

Agatha buries herself in her room and blames herself for the attacks. When the attacks stop, a note is slipped under Agatha’s door from Professor Dovey assuring everyone that the ball will not be canceled. Agatha goes back to sleep. She wakes ready to go to class and find a date for the event. Professor Anemone tells the girls to close their eyes and visualize their date for the ball. If they see a boy’s face clearly in their head, then they know that boy wants them. Agatha tries to imagine her prince and starts to see a figure bent on one knee. Professor Anemone jolts her from her vision by asking if she’s okay, because she is smiling, and it’s beautiful. Then, Professor Anemone adds, “If only the rest was too” (366); Agatha’s spirits fall. While the 12 dancing princesses attempt to teach Professor Sader’s class, Agatha tries to picture her prince again. He becomes clearer, but the vision is interrupted by the princesses’ fighting on stage. Agatha sits down to eat lunch; Tedros shoots her weird looks. Kiko assures Agatha the rumors of a pact that two boys will attend the ball together instead of taking Agatha can’t be true. Agatha stares at her and Kiko flees, realizing Agatha didn’t know about the pact.

Professor Dovey gives a test on how to handle moral predicaments at a ball. Agatha writes degrading notes about herself in each answer. After class, Professor Dovey pulls her aside, and Agatha says never had a chance at the School for Good because of her looks. Professor Dovey points out that Goodness is deeper than beauty. When Agatha reveals she doesn’t look in the mirror, Professor Dovey wants Agatha to look at herself, but Agatha says she’s ugly. She tells Agatha everything she needs is inside her and tells her to make a wish. Agatha wishes to be beautiful, and Professor Dovey calls fairies who descend on Agatha.

Agatha wakes up alone with grooming tools all around her and blonde hair on the floor. She looks for a mirror but can’t find one. She touches her face, and everything feels daintier. Agatha walks through the school looking for a mirror, beaming at everyone; all are shocked by her beauty. When Tedros sees her, he stammers; Agatha is pleased until he starts to compliment her. She gets a strange feeling that scares her, so she flees and stops under a portrait. When she realizes it’s a mirror and finds her appearance unchanged, she realizes that it is happiness that makes her beautiful. She starts crying because she realizes she was beautiful all along. While Agatha cries, Sophie wakes from her worst dream yet and screams.

Everyone is surprised by the change in Agatha. She smiles all the time, washes her face, brushes her hair, and gets caught up in ball dancing. Soon, she has trouble remembering her home. Professor Anemone again tells the girls to think about their proposal and their prince’s face. Agatha tries to envision her prince for the rest of the afternoon but can’t. After Princess Uma’s class, Agatha finds a defaced angel on the wall. Tedros says Sophie is going to attack them again, but he will catch her. When he implies that he likes Agatha, she panics and runs to the boys’ bathroom. Agatha decides she needs to stop Sophie so Tedros will take Sophie back; that way, Agatha won’t fall for him. She sprints to the portal in the lake and emerges on the Halfway Bridge. When Agatha tells the reflection she is Evil because she is having thoughts about Sophie’s prince, it calls her Good and leaves the barrier intact.

After dinner, Agatha wanders through the Gallery of Good looking for answers. She sees the painting that shows her and Sophie by the lake while Gavaldon burns. Professor Sader walks into the gallery with a suitcase. Agatha asks if the painting is the way her and Sophie’s fairy tale ends. He tells her seers can’t answer questions and reminds her that all heroes trusted their enemies at some point; a hero’s happy ending is usually right under their nose. He leaves, and Agatha runs after him, but he disappeared. She looks under her nose and sees a trail of chocolate crumbs going up the Honor stairs. Agatha follows them to the toilets, where she finds Dot, who tells her that Sophie took her room and her friends, so she lives in the boys’ toilet now. Agatha asks how she got here when there is “no way to cross between the two schools anymore” (393). Dot tells her there is another way, and Sophie used it for her attacks.

The sewer river stretches through the tunnel from Good to Evil; the Doom Room marks the halfway point. Previously, it was guarded by the Beast, but now Sophie trespasses unchecked between the schools. Agatha hears voices and sees the shadows of Hester, Anadil, and Sophie. They plan to have Anadil’s creatures attack Tedros so Sophie can save his life and make him love her. Agatha emerges from the shadows and pleads with Sophie to stop. She says she won’t let Sophie attack her school, which makes Sophie angry. Sophie gets closer, and Agatha falls an inch from the sewer, where she sees the dead Beast ensnared in muck against the wall. Hester tells Anadil to free her pets. Agatha tries to warn Tedros, but Hester pins her over the river’s halfway point. Hester explains that Tedros is Sophie’s nemesis. Hester pushes Agatha into the moat, but Agatha lunges and pulls Sophie in, too. They thrash in the Evil moat, and Agatha realizes Sophie can’t swim. She holds onto Sophie and tries to get them to the wall, but their bodies are ripped apart. Silver hooks snare and propel them into the Good moat, where they can breathe. An enchanted wave hurls them apart, and Agatha sees the School Master’s shadow. He drags them back to the lake’s bank. Sophie reaches for Agatha, but he throws Sophie out of the water and holds Agatha underwater before flinging her out, too.

Agatha hits the ground and spots the golden gates of Good; she’s in the woods. She hears Sophie calling to her but is trapped by thorns. Tedros rescues her by picking her up and hacking through the thorns. He pulls Agatha from the woods and through the gates. Agatha demands he put her down because she’s not a princess. When she sees the blood on her legs, she faints in his arms. Tedros carries her toward fairies in the lake, and he sees Sophie, who begs his forgiveness. Agatha wakes up and begs Tedros to forgive Sophie for her. He starts to forgive her, but when he sees the lake reflect him standing next to an ugly old hag, he pulls away and grabs Agatha. Sophie watches the fairies fly Tedros and Agatha away and realizes they were each in the right school all along. Furious, she feels a sharp stabbing in her chin. A wave rises from the lake and shoves her through her window. Hester and Anadil see the black wart on her chin, her first nemesis symptom. Sophie dons an invisible cloak and wanders through the Blue Forest to the well where she and Agatha imprisoned Grimm. The walls of the well are covered in thousands of drawings of her nemesis, and it isn’t Tedros.