LITMIR.BIZ

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fell through the secret portal, completely dry, onto Halfway Bridge.

      She hurried towards the midpoint, where the fog began, palms extended in case the barrier came earlier than she remembered. But as she entered the mist, her hands couldn’t find it. She moved deeper into fog. It’s gone! Agatha broke into a run, wind whipping the veil off her face—

      BAM! She stumbled back, exploding with pain. Apparently the barrier moved where it wanted.

      Avoiding her reflection in its sheen, she touched the invisible wall and felt its cold, hard surface. Suddenly she noticed movement through the fog and saw two people step through Evil’s archway onto Halfway Bridge. Agatha froze. She had no time to get back to Good, nowhere on the Bridge to hide. …

      Two teachers, the handsome Good professor who had smiled at her and an Evil one with boils on both cheeks, walked across the Bridge and through the barrier without the slightest hesitation. Dangling from the stone rail high over the moat, Agatha listened to them pass, then peeked over the rail edge. The two teachers were about to disappear into Good when the handsome man looked back and smiled. Agatha ducked.

      “What is it, August?” she heard the Evil teacher ask.

      “My eyes playing tricks on me,” he chuckled as they entered the towers.

      Definitely a crackpot, Agatha thought.

      Moments later, she was in front of the invisible wall once more. How had they passed? She searched for an edge but couldn’t find one. She tried kicking it, but it was hard as steel. Peering up into the School for Evil, Agatha could see wolves herding students down stairs. She would be in plain sight if the fog thinned even slightly. Giving the wall a last kick, she retreated to Good.

      “And don’t come back!”

      Agatha spun around to see who had spoken, but all she found was her reflection in the barrier, arms folded. She averted her eyes. Now I’m hearing things. Lovely.

      She turned towards the tower and noticed her own arms hanging by her sides. She whirled to face her reflection. “Did you just speak?”

      Her reflection cleared its throat.

      “Good with Good,

      Evil with Evil,

      Back to your tower before there’s upheaval.”

      “Um, I need to get through,” Agatha said, eyes glued to the ground.

      “Good with Good,

      Evil with Evil,

      Back to your tower before there’s serious upheaval, meaning cleaning plates after supper or losing your Groom Room privileges or both if I have anything to say about it.”

      “I need to see a friend,” Agatha pressed.

      “Good has no friends on the other side,” her reflection said.

      Agatha heard sugary ringing and turned to see the glow of fairies at the end of the Bridge. How could she outwit herself? How could she find the chink in her own armor?

      Good with Good … Evil with Evil …

      In a flash, she knew the answer.

      “How about you?” Agatha said, still looking away. “Do you have any friends?”

      Her reflection tensed. “I don’t know. Do I?”

      Agatha gritted her teeth and met her own eyes. “You’re too ugly to have friends.”

      Her reflection turned sad. “Definitely Evil,” it said, and vanished.

      Agatha reached out her hand to touch the barrier. This time it went straight through.

      By the time the fairy patrol made it onto the Bridge, the fog had erased her tracks.

      The moment Agatha stepped foot into Evil, she had the feeling this was where she belonged. Crouched behind the statue of a bald, bony witch in the leaky foyer, she scanned across cracked ceilings, singed walls, serpentine staircases, shadow-masked halls. … She couldn’t have designed it better herself.

      With the coast clear of wolves, Agatha snuck through the main corridor, soaking in the portraits of villainous alumni. She had always found villains more exciting than heroes. They had ambition, passion. They made the stories happen. Villains didn’t fear death. No, they wrapped themselves in death like suits of armor! As she inhaled the school’s graveyard smell, Agatha felt her blood rush. For like all villains, death didn’t scare her. It made her feel alive.

      She suddenly heard chatter and shrank behind a wall. A wolf came into view, leading a group of Nevergirls down the Vice staircase. Agatha heard them twitter about their first classes, catching the words “Henchmen,” “Curses,” “Uglification.” How could these kids be any uglier? Agatha felt the blush of shame. Looking at this parade of sallow bodies and repugnant faces, she knew she fit right in. Even their frumpy black smocks were just like the one she wore every day back home. But there was a difference between her and these villains. Their mouths twisted with bitterness, their eyes flickered with hate, their fists curled with pent-up rage. They were wicked, no doubt, and Agatha didn’t feel wicked at all. But then she remembered Sophie’s words.

      Different usually turns out Evil.

      Panic gripped her throat. That’s why the shadow didn’t kidnap a second child.

      I was meant to be here all along.

      Tears stung her eyes. She didn’t want to be like these children! She didn’t want to be a villain! She wanted to find her friend and go home!

      With no clue where to even look, Agatha hurtled up a staircase marked MISCHIEF to the landing, which split in two scraggy stone paths. She heard voices from the left, so she dashed right, down a short hall to a dead end of sooty walls. Agatha backed against one, petrified by voices growing louder, then felt something creak behind her. It wasn’t a wall but a door blanketed in ash. Her dress had wiped enough clean to reveal red letters:

      THE EXHIBITION OF EVIL

      It was pitch-dark inside. Coughing on must and cobwebs, Agatha lit a match. Where Good’s gallery was pristine and vast, Evil’s sparse broom closet reflected their two-hundred-year losing streak. Agatha examined the faded uniform of a boy who became Rumpelstiltskin, a broken-framed essay on “Morality of Murder” by a future witch, a few stuffed crows hanging off crumbled walls, and a rotted vine of thorns that blinded a famous prince, labeled VERA OF WOODS BEYOND. Agatha had seen her face on Missing posters in Gavaldon.

      Shuddering, she noticed flecks of color on the wall and held her match to it. It was a panel in a mural, like the one of Ever After in the Good Towers. Each of the eight panels showed a black-robed villain reveling in an inferno of infinite power—flying through fire, transmuting in body, fracturing in soul, manipulating space and time. At the top of the mural, stretching from the first panel to last, were giant letters set aflame:

      NEVERMORE

      Where Evers dreamt of love and happiness, the Nevers sought a world of solitude and power. As the sinister visions sent thrills through her heart, Agatha felt the shock of truth.

      I’m a Never.

      Her best friend was an Ever. If they didn’t get home soon, Sophie would see the truth. Here they couldn’t be friends.

      She saw a snouted shadow move into her match light. Two shadows. Three. Just as the wolves pounced, Agatha wheeled and whipped Vera’s thorns across their faces. The wolves roared in surprise and stumbled back, giving her just enough time to scramble to the door. Breathless, she dashed down the hall, up the stairs, until she found herself on Malice Hall’s second floor, hunting for Sophie’s name on the dormitory doors—Vex & Brone, Hort & Ravan, Flynt & Titan—Boys’ floor!

      Just as she heard a door open, she sprinted up the back stairs to a dead-end attic filled with murky vials of frog’s toes, lizard legs, dog tongues. (Her mother was right. Who knew how long these had

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