“It was the Dean’s suggestion. Wish I’d come up with it myself, if only to prevent her the satisfaction of a good idea,” Rafal groused, ascending the staircase carved HENCHMEN. “Now that I’m young, she’s been treating me like I’m incapable of running my own school. Even had the gall to tell me that my flights over the bay are disruptive since students keep peeking out the window during challenges. I am the School Master, thank you. If I want to go for a spin, I’m perfectly welcome to—”

“Rafal.”

Sophie’s voice was so sharp that he stopped and stared down at her through the gap in the black staircase.

“I wish we had time for adolescent rants, but whoever this Dean is, she expects me to be a teacher at this school, when a) all the students are my age, b) none of them like me, and c) I don’t know the first thing about teaching!”

“Really?” He resumed his ascent. “I distinctly remember you hosting Lunchtime Lectures for the entire school.”

“Teaching kids how to cure dandruff is different than teaching them how to be Evil!” Sophie said, chasing him towards the top floor. “Let me get this straight. Agatha and Tedros are coming to kill you and here I am in a nightgown, expected to give homework and grade papers—”

But Rafal was already at the lone black-marble door atop the staircase.

“Professor Dovey’s office?” Sophie asked, accosting him. “She’s who wanted me to be a teacher? She’s Dean of Evil?”

But then Sophie saw that the door once inlaid with a glittering green beetle was now inlaid with two violet, intertwined snakes. Beneath the snakes, letters cut from amethysts spelled out a single word:

DEANS

“Deans?” Sophie wrinkled her nose. “There’s more than one? But who are—”

The door swung open magically, revealing a thin, tight-jawed woman with a long black braid and a sharp-shouldered purple gown, studying a scrap of parchment at Professor Dovey’s old desk.

“Lady Lesso?” Sophie rasped. “But where’s Professor Dovey?”

Then Sophie saw the second desk near the window, identical to the first, which had never been in the office before. No one was sitting at it.

“Let me guess, Rafal. Took her for a joyride over the bay?” said Lady Lesso, not looking up from the parchment. “Supposed to have her here twenty minutes ago. Would be nice to prepare our new teacher before she assumes my old class, don’t you think? Never mind. I’ll take it from here.”

Rafal scowled. “I believe I give the orders at this school, Lady Lesso. And I believe you forgot a ‘Master,’ along with your respect. Something your fellow Dean seems to have in spades.”

Lady Lesso’s slitted violet eyes slowly raised to the teenage boy in front of her, dressed like a dark prince. “Apologies, Master,” she said, her tone snide and cold. “Shall I take it from here?”

Rafal gave her a filthy look and pulled Sophie into his flank. “See you at lunch, my love,” he whispered, kissing her tenderly on the cheek. He shot Lady Lesso a last glare and slammed the door behind him, rattling the two desks.