The School for Good and Evil #2: A World without Princes Read Free Page A

wanted.”
    â€œYou can’t stop him,” Agatha said, touching her.
    Sophie recoiled. “And let him get away with it?”
    â€œWhat choice do you have?”
    â€œYou think that wedding will happen?” Sophie spat. “Watch.”
    â€œSophie . . .”
    â€œ He should be the one dead!” Sophie flushed with blood. “Him and his little princes! Then I’d be happy in this prison!”
    Her face was so horrible that Agatha froze. For the first time since they returned, she glimpsed the deadly witch inside her friend, yearning to unleash.
    Sophie saw the fear in Agatha’s eyes. “I’m s-s-s-sorry—” she stammered, turning away. “I—I don’t know what happened—” Her face melted to shame. The witch was gone.
    â€œI miss her, Aggie,” Sophie whispered, trembling. “I know we have our happy ending. But I still miss my mother.”
    Agatha hesitated, then touched her friend’s shoulder. Sophie gave in to her, and Agatha held her as she sobbed. “I wish I could see her again,” Sophie wept. “I’d do anything. Anything.”
    The crooked tower clock tolled ten times down the hill, but loud, doleful creaks thickened between each one. In each other’s arms, the two girls watched the hunched silhouette of old Mr. Deauville as he wheeled a cart past the clock with the last of his closed-down shop. Every few paces he stopped, laboring under the weight of his forgotten storybooks, until his shadow disappeared around the corner and the creaks faded away.
    â€œI just don’t want to end like her, alone and . . . forgotten,” Sophie breathed.
    She turned to Agatha, trying to smile. “But my mother didn’t have a friend like you, did she? You gave up a prince, just for us to be together. To think I could make someone happy like that . . .” Her eyes misted. “I don’t deserve you, Agatha. I really don’t. After all I’ve done.”
    Agatha was still quiet.
    â€œSomeone Good would let this marriage happen,wouldn’t they?” Sophie pressed her softly. “Someone as Good as you.”
    â€œIt’s late,” Agatha said, standing up. She held out her hand.
    Sophie took it limply. “And I still have to find a dress for the wedding.”
    Agatha managed a smile. “See? Good after all.”
    â€œLeast I can do is look better than the bride,” Sophie said, swishing ahead.
    Agatha snorted and grabbed the torches off the gate. “Wait. I’ll walk you home.”
    â€œHow lovely,” Sophie said, not stopping. “I can smell more of that onion soup you had for dinner.”
    â€œLizard and onion soup, actually.”
    â€œI really don’t know how we’re friends.”
    Through the groaning gate, the two slipped side by side, torches lighting up their long shadows across overgrown weeds. As they waded down the emerald hill and out of sight, a gust flew back through the cemetery, igniting a flame on a candle dripping onto its mud-stained saucer. The flame grew over a blue butterfly settled curiously on a grave, then stoked brighter, long enough to illuminate the carvings on the two unmarked graves beside it. A swan on each. One white.
    The other black.
    With a roar, the wind lashed between them and blew the candle out.

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    HarperCollins Publishers
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2
Agatha Makes a Wish Too
    B lood. It smelled blood.
    Eat.
    Smashing through trees, the Beast hunted their scent, grunting and slobbering on all fours. Claws and feet pounded the dirt, faster, faster, shredding vines and branches, bounding over rocks, until at last it could hear their breaths and see the trail of red. One of them was hurt.
    Eat.
    Through a long, dark hollow trunk it slunk, licking up the blood, smelling their terror. The Beast took its time, for they had