For now, as she looked closer at the ring, she could see the inky, black streaks swirling beneath its gold, like a poison waiting to latch on to its wearer.

“Until she realized what the School Master really was.”

The scene flashed to Callis fleeing through the dark Woods in the rain, a bald, wrinkled kitten wrapped in her arms.

“She held him off for a night, but the next evening after classes, she made her escape. She had to warn Merlin that he’d been right about the School Master being Evil and using her as a weapon against Good. All Callis had ever wanted was real love, and instead she’d found a villain trying to use that love to start war. She cursed herself for not accepting Merlin’s help when he’d tried to see her at school. There was no time to find the wizard now. Once the School Master realized she’d escaped, he’d surely find and kill her, since she’d discovered the secret behind his mask. Except there was nowhere to hide that he wouldn’t find her. Nowhere that he didn’t have power over . . .”

Callis suddenly stalled, hearing a chorus of low, urgent whispers floating in the wind.

I wish.

I wish.

I wish.

“Like all witches, Callis could hear the pleas of those truly desperate enough to pay a price. Yet this wish wasn’t coming from the Woods, but beyond it, where the School Master had no power. Callis wouldn’t ask a price for choosing to answer this wish, she told herself—only a chance to turn the page and live a life free of Evil. Answering this wish would be her very first Good deed. And so a witch who dreamed of her one true love followed the wish . . .”

Callis tracked the whispers to Necro Ridge and an unmarked, open grave at the top of the hill. She dug through the bottom of the empty grave, Reaper helping her, deeper, deeper, deeper . . .

“. . . all the way to a girl in the Reader World, dreaming of her one true love.”

As Callis came out the other side of the grave, she found herself in Gavaldon’s graveyard, standing in front of a dark-haired girl kneeling in the weeds. Slowly Vanessa looked up at Callis and smiled, knowing her wish had been granted at last.

All at once, Sophie and Agatha were back in the School Master’s tower, as the masked sorcerer studied the open storybook on the altar table, the Storian frozen above it.

“During this time, the Storian had been writing Callis’ fairy tale, but when she vanished, the pen went still, as if it’d lost the connection to her. Suspecting he’d been betrayed, the School Master commanded his stymphs to find Callis and bring her back to him alive. But when they didn’t retrieve her and there was no sign of her going to Merlin’s side, the School Master assumed Callis was dead. His suspicions were confirmed when the Storian abandoned her fairy tale and moved on to another. To the School Master, Callis’ story was over and forgotten.”