“He’s not your true love,” Agatha said, struggling to stay calm. “He’s using you to get his ending.”

“Just like you’re trying to use me to get yours,” said Sophie, finger glowing hotter. “Even if I end up alone.”

Agatha matched her gaze. “My ending has you in it, Sophie. Even if I’m with Tedros. I’ll never leave you behind, no matter how Evil you are, how many boys come in our way, or how old we get. We’re stronger than Good and Evil, Boys and Girls, and Old and Young. We’re best friends.”

The fury drained out of Sophie’s face. “And yet, we can’t find a happy ending together, no matter how hard we try,” she said, softer now. “Every path leaves us trapped.”

Agatha clung to Cinderella’s words. “Don’t give up on us, Sophie.”

“Do you know what you’re asking me, Aggie?” Sophie’s fingerglow dimmed, her eyes shimmering like cut emeralds. “You’re asking me to throw away my Ever After for yours, and still be happy. You’re asking me to end just like my mother, only worse, because you want me to come live with you two. It would be like Cinderella’s stepsisters shacking up with her and the prince at the palace like one big, blissful family, Happily Ever After. You know why we never saw that in a storybook? Because it could never happen.”

Agatha stared at her, her own fingerglow dimming too.

Sophie’s face hardened again. “But it would also be foolish to kill you right now,” she said, ice-cold. “Help me find a way out of here and maybe you’ll see your precious prince again.”

She tightened the ring on her finger and headed further into the Brig.

Agatha’s heart withered, watching Sophie’s black-leathered silhouette recede into the mist.

Where was Tedros right now? Is he even alive?

The sun must be on its last drips, no more than an hour left . . .

No. I can’t think like that.

A hero always finds a way out.

Tedros would find a way out.

Agatha took a shallow breath and forced herself after Sophie.

“There must be a secret door somewhere,” Sophie’s voice echoed.

Agatha couldn’t keep up, her legs still throbbing, her teeth starting to chatter. Limping behind, she scanned the coffins sunken into opposing walls, filled with those who’d betrayed their duties to Evil. Professor Espada, the Swordplay teacher . . . Professor Lukas, the boys’ Chivalry teacher . . . Albemarle, the spectacled woodpecker in charge of the Groom Room . . . each freshly entombed when they’d refused to serve the young School Master’s new school. Lesso and Dovey hadn’t had the time to rescue them, but all three were still alive and healthy, their wide eyes blinking through the ice like trapped puppets. Guilty that she didn’t have time to free them either, Agatha slunk further into the Brig, promising herself she’d come back if she could. At least they were still alive, she thought, because now she could see older coffins ahead, murky and cobwebbed, with dead bodies decaying inside of them. Each was labeled on the outside with a small steel placard, blank and awaiting inscription.