Sophie backed into a corner. “Teddy?”

A familiar scratching sound filled the chamber and Sophie looked down to see the Storian spill a new scene on the blank page: a bow-legged, helmet-haired girl hurtling across Halfway Bridge into the School for Old.

“Aggie?” Sophie squeaked.

She looked up at Tedros, legs shaking, breath shallowing.

“Don’t panic,” the prince soothed, as he inched across the bed. “Just don’t panic, sweet pea . . .” He reached for her, breaking into a winning smile. “A prince is here to rescue you, okay? Everything is just fi—”

Sophie panicked. She lurched for the window, finger glowing, and shot a hot pink flare into the night—

A blast of gold light obliterated it and Sophie spun to see Tedros’ glowing finger pointed at her.

“Listen. I’m a boy now. So either we do this the easy way or the hard way,” he warned, waiting for Sophie to stop hyperventilating and come to her senses.

Instead, she ran for the window, trying to fire off another flare.

“Hard way it is,” sighed Tedros.

Two minutes later, Sophie was cuffed to the bedpost with red velvet sheets, shouting every possible curse word into her gag.

Tedros glared back from the altar table, shirt ripped and covered in scratch marks.

“Now, for once in our lives, Sophie, the two of us are going to have a normal conversation.”

The Storian knows where I am, Agatha thought, as she stole through a dark corridor, back in her girl body. It was only a matter of time before the School Master came hunting her.

A clock clanged high in the castle. Eleven o’clock. One hour left.

Her clump steps quickened, muffled by loud drips from the moldy ceiling. She had to find Tedros’ sword now. Excalibur was their only hope to destroy the School Master’s ring—and thus the School Master himself.

But where was it?

Even with a head start, she had no idea what was inside the School for Old, let alone who was lurking within its castle or where to look for a single sword blade that could be hidden anywhere: in a secret cabinet, behind a fireplace, under a doormat, through an invisible door, beneath the stones she was treading on. . . . Who was she kidding! This was a fool’s mission!

Agatha buckled against a wall, trying not to throw up. I can’t do this. I’ll never find it.

An old voice answered inside of her.

“Do not fail.”

Merlin’s last words.

The same as her mother’s.

The wizard had put Good’s fate in her and Tedros’ hands for a reason.

Maybe she doubted herself. But she didn’t doubt Merlin.

Do not fail.

This time the voice was hers.

On a deep breath, Agatha turned into the foyer.

The entrance chamber was quiet, empty, and insufferably humid. Any trace of the military-themed, refurbished School for Boys had been rubbed out, with the black stone foyer back the way it was first year: leaky, lumpy and dimly lit by gargoyles wielding torches in their mouths. With no sign of guards, Agatha scampered into the sunken anteroom adjoining the foyer, where three twisting staircases ascended to the dormitories. The portraits of the new Nevers were gone, no doubt moved across the bay. But the rest of the walls were still jam-packed with old Evil students, each frame carrying a portrait next to a scene of what they became after graduation.