26

In Darkness Comes a Queen

When Sophie woke up in the School Master’s tower, there was a dress waiting for her on the bed, spotlit by the dawn.

Now she stood at the window in the strapless black velvet, tight to her skin, with a long, flowing train that made her look like a sinister bride.

Across the bay, green fog snaked over the quiet black castles of Old and New, hazy beneath a morning sun no bigger than a yellow marble. So peaceful, she thought. All these years, she’d clawed and strained and agonized to be Good, trying to bully her way to Ever After. But as she looked out at her Evil kingdom, Sophie realized she never should have tried at all. Two years ago, the School Master had put her in the school where she belonged—the school she was meant to one day rule. And if she’d just embraced that fact instead of denied it, if she’d just loved herself the way she was, she would have saved herself a world of pain.

She glanced down at her arms. “No warts or wrinkles yet. When will I, um, turn into a . . . you know . . .”

Rafal came up beside her, wearing a black velvet coat with a mandarin collar that matched his velvet trousers. “Professor Manley begins his first day of Uglification class by explaining why villains must be ugly to succeed. Ugliness releases you from the surface—from the prison of vanity and your own looks—and sets you free to embrace the soul within. The first time you turned into a witch, your soul needed you to be ugly so you could see beyond your beauty and access your own Evil. But you’re a different witch now, Sophie. You accept yourself as you are, inside and out. Ugliness would serve you no purpose. Just as it serves no purpose to me.”

She expected to feel relief at keeping her beauty, but instead felt a strange hollowness, as if what she looked like no longer mattered after all she’d been through. Her eyes moved to the ring on her finger. “It’s black-swan gold, isn’t it? You knew it would lead me to Tedros.”

His mouth tightened, as if deliberating whether to find out how she’d learned this or to let go of anything that might have happened during the time she had strayed. “Let’s put it this way,” he said at last. “As long as you didn’t destroy it, I knew it would lead you back to me.”

“And what if I had destroyed it?” she asked, turning to him. “What if Tedros loved me?”

“A kiss of true love has to go both ways, remember? I’m quite sure the prince felt as little from your kiss as you felt from his.” His face softened. “Besides . . . I’d rather you’d have killed me than deserted me forever.”