“Ever Killers?” Rafal said, sniffing at a pile of dirty shirts, looking for one clean enough to wear.

Sophie made a mental note to do his laundry in the morning. He was becoming more of a teenage boy by the minute. “You know, the new students you brought in,” she yawned, noticing the new flesh on her ring finger starting to wear thin. She’d have to apply more potion tomorrow. “Edgar and Essa, I think it was. You didn’t think I’d find out, did you?”

“I’m sorry. Who?”

“Those cousins, Rafal.” Sophie plopped stomach-down on the bed. “Captain Hook’s family . . . strange pair, really. Clearly obsessive fans of mine but couldn’t bring themselves to ask for an autograph. Spent the whole time sizing up my ring. Don’t blame them, of course. It is rather lovely. Said you’d brought them here to kill Agatha and—”

But now she saw Rafal staring at her.

“Hook murdered his whole family,” he said. “By the age of ten.”

Sophie bolted up, confused. “What? But then . . . then who . . .”

Slowly Rafal’s gaze moved to the Storian, still frozen inexplicably over the storybook. A light dawned in his pupils, red patches growing on his cheeks and bare chest.

“You didn’t bring any new students in, did you?” Sophie said quietly.

The School Master fixed his eyes on her and Sophie saw there would be no date tonight.

“If anyone—anyone—dares to enter this tower, kill them,” he hissed.

Then he leapt out the window and was gone.

“You want us to break into the School Master’s tower?” Tedros shouted through blustering green mist, as he stood on a window ledge high over the bay.

“Not us. You,” Anadil said, flattening next to his girl body against a black stone wall. “And stop using your boy voice. You’ll be alone with Sophie in a matter of seconds!”

“Seconds?! The tower’s half a mile away!” Tedros barked in his boy’s voice again, pointing at the School Master’s spire, far into the Blue Forest. “How am I possibly supposed to get from here to there—”

“Stop waving your hands, you ninny! Someone might see you,” Dot said, peering through binoculars from inside the window. “Ani, the School Master just left, so this is our chance. Sophie’s in there alone until he comes back. Plus, fog’s at its peak.”

Indeed, Tedros could hardly see the School Master’s tower now, cloaked in green mist blowing off the bay. “First of all, what does fog have to do with getting me into that tower? Second, there’s no such thing as ‘flying’ spells. Third, I can’t mogrify into a bird without reverting to a boy once I land. And fourth, I don’t see either of you carrying fairy dust, so please tell me what I’m doing in a girl’s body ten miles above ground in the middle of the night!”

Anadil and Dot looked amused. “You didn’t think Merlin was going to leave the details to you, did you?” said Anadil.