The Last Ever After (50 page)

He conjured a storybook twice as big as his fairy-sized
body and let it float towards the girls. It had a red cherrywood cover, just like
The Tale of Sophie and Agatha
that the Storian was writing in the School Master's tower right now. Only as Agatha looked closer, she realized this wasn't her and Sophie's fairy tale. The title of this one was:

The Table of Callis & Vanessa

Agatha saw Sophie's whole body seize up.

“She
was
in a fairy tale,” Sophie gasped.

Sader spread open the storybook to its first page. A puff of mist erupted over it, along with a ghostly scene of an ordinary cottage. “And now it's time for you to go inside,” he said.

Agatha and Sophie stared at his tiny image, confused.

“I was never fond of my sister Evelyn's spells, but there was one that I quite liked,” Professor Sader explained, with a growing grin. “Because say what you will of her, when Evelyn Sader told you a story . . . she made you feel like you were
there
.”

He raised the open storybook and blew on the phantom scene. With a fizzling swish, the scene shattered into a million glittered shards and crashed over the two girls like a glass sandstorm. Agatha shielded her eyes, her body drifting through space, until her feet touched ground next to Sophie's. Slowly they both looked up.

They were standing inside the cottage they'd seen on the page, the air thick and hazy around them, giving the room a vaporous feel, as if it wasn't quite real. Agatha recognized the effect at once, for this was how Evelyn Sader had brought them
into her adulterated fairy tales a year ago. Now August Sader had brought them into one they never knew existed.

Agatha scanned the intimate kitchen and white, round dining table . . .

“Wait a second—” she started.

“This is
my
house,” said Sophie, realizing it too.

Agatha furrowed. “But if it's your house, then who's
that
?”

Sophie followed her eyes to a skinny black-haired girl in the corner, scowling out a window. She had a sharp nose, big brown eyes, and thin pink lips. She couldn't have been older than sixteen.

“It's . . .
you
. . . ,” said Sophie, studying her. “Only not you.”

Definitely not me
, thought Agatha, because this girl had a cruel mouth and a vicious gleam in her eye. There was something dark and venomous about her that made Agatha afraid of her, even if she was just a phantom. She'd never seen the girl in her life. She had no idea who she was and why she was in Sophie's house. But one thing was for sure. Whatever the girl was looking at through the window had her unwavering focus and utmost contempt.

“Once upon a time, in a land beyond the Woods, there lived a girl named Vanessa,” said Professor Sader.

Sophie and Agatha froze dead still, eyes wide, breath misting.

Neither looked at the other. Neither spoke.

They gaped at the dark-haired girl, who looked starkly different than the blond-haired woman they'd just seen in the frozen tomb.

Because if
this
was Vanessa, then they had this story all wrong.

“Vanessa was a foul, miserable soul, who thought herself far better than the town she lived in,” said Sader. “Perhaps she would have made a fair student at the School for Evil, except for one ray of light amidst the darkness of her heart . . .”

The scene magically zoomed in, so now Sophie and Agatha could see what the girl was looking at through the window . . .

A young and strapping teenager strutted by, with thick, wavy, golden blond hair, a tall, sturdy frame, blue-green eyes and a devil-may-care smile.

Stefan
, thought Agatha, struck once more by his resemblance to August Sader, even as a young boy.

But it wasn't Stefan who Vanessa was glowering at, as he passed by her house. It was the plump, scraggly-haired, sweet-faced girl walking with Stefan, hand in hand.

“Honora,”
Sophie whispered.

Sader continued: “Since the day she laid eyes on him, Vanessa had been in love with young Stefan. Not that they knew each other. Vanessa fantasized about him from afar, waiting for him to rescue her from her dreary life. Day after day, he was her only source of happiness. This despite the fact their souls were mirror images. Where Vanessa was calculating, controlling, and disdainful of her fellow villagers, Stefan was jovial, gregarious, and a favorite of the Elders. Not that he didn't have his faults: Stefan was rakish and carefree in a way that made mothers keep their daughters away from him. But if Vanessa thought this cleared the way for Stefan to choose her,
that would soon change. For Stefan had fallen in love with a girl named Honora, who despite her plain looks, had his same blithe and playful spirit. Stefan had eyes for no one else.”

Vanessa glared harder at Honora, who was ruffling Stefan's hair, until Honora noticed Vanessa through the window. Vanessa quickly pretended to be doing dishes.

“Needless to say, Vanessa saw no such Goodness in Honora, and thought of her only as an Evil witch. Vanessa spent most of her days plotting how to tear the witch and Stefan apart, before she hatched the perfect plan. For what better way was there to get closer to her true love than to make
friends
with the witch?”

The cottage vanished around them, instantly replaced by the town square, where Vanessa and Honora walked hand in hand through the lanes, as Stefan traipsed beside them.

“And Honora, who was just as affable as Stefan, was more than receptive to a new best friend. Meanwhile, Vanessa finally had her chance at the boy of her dreams . . .”

Vanessa scooted closer to Stefan on the path and smiled up at him . . . He shifted away, ignoring her.

“Only there was one flaw in Vanessa's plan: Stefan didn't like her. And there was nothing Vanessa could do to change that,” Professor Sader declared.

The town square melted away and now Vanessa was kneeling in the graveyard at night, near the Forest's edge, praying into the darkness with clasped hands.

“So young Vanessa did the one thing storybooks taught her to do when you love someone who is out of reach. She wished
into the Woods for a magic spell that could help her win her one true love.”

The scene started to evaporate around the two girls.

“Yet Vanessa's isn't the only love story that matters in this fairy tale . . . ,” Sader's voice echoed.

Phantom colors melted in around them and now they were in the School Master's tower, as the masked sorcerer flew in through his window, carrying a young, attractive woman in his arms, with short brown hair, big, beautiful eyes, and tanned, gangly limbs.

“Because while Vanessa prayed for Stefan's heart, the School Master was trying to win Callis'.”

Agatha choked on her own tongue.
“Callis?”
She ogled the woman's elegant posture, olive-brown locks, and bright, freckly skin. “But that can't be Callis. It doesn't look anything like—”

Something hopped out of the woman's black dress onto the floor.

A tiny, bald, wrinkled kitten.

Reaper
.

Agatha blanched.

Merlin had told her part of this story—that the School Master sought her mother's love—but the woman in his arms didn't look anything like her mother . . .

Or did she?

For as Agatha looked closer at her wide, lucid eyes and long nose, she started to see bits and pieces of her mother, like a sculpture that had been deliberately altered.

Something floated back to her that Merlin had said her first
time in the Celestium with him . . . something about Callis being quite pretty, before Tedros snorted incredulously . . .

Agatha watched the School Master bring the woman deeper into his chamber, Reaper pattering beside her.

It
was
her mother.

But then why didn't it look like her?

She broke out of her trance, for Sader had already moved on.

“The School Master was curious about a new teacher, Callis of Netherwood, who the Storian had chosen for its latest tale shortly after she took a position teaching Uglification at school. According to the Storian, Callis had long dreamed of finding her one true love, even though she taught at the School for Evil. In truth, Callis was having doubts as to whether she was Evil at all. So when the School Master took a shine to her—a School Master everyone thought was Good at the time—Callis saw her way out. A chance to switch sides to Good and find her true love at last.”

The masked School Master pulled a golden ring from his pocket and took one knee before her. Slowly she reached for the ring . . . and stopped cold.

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.”

The scene disappeared and the girls were in pitch-darkness, Sader's small figure levitating over them.

“But unlike the School Master I had the power of sight, which meant I could see what happened after the Storian stopped writing. For unbeknownst to the School Master, Callis wasn't dead and her story
wasn't
over. Not in the least.”

Sophie and Agatha glanced at each other, shaken.

“After leaving school, Callis wanted nothing to do with Evil or witchcraft ever again. But she hadn't given up on her dreams of true love. Seeing how safe and quaint Gavaldon
was, she harbored fantasies of starting over and finding a new start as a Reader,” Sader went on. “Yet, she still owed Vanessa a wish, since choosing to answer that wish had given her safe haven from the School Master. Callis promised herself it would be her very last deed of magic before she settled into ordinary life. And so she made the love potion that Vanessa had desperately wished for. But Callis warned her: it would only last one night, for matters of love were too delicate for magic, and use of a love spell for any long-term goals would only lead to the unhappiest of endings. Magic always had its price.”

A new scene melted in and Sophie and Agatha were in a crowded pub, as Stefan caroused with his friends.

“Vanessa paid no heed,” Sader said.

Stefan put his drink down on a table and a hooded shadow slipped by and poured a vial of smoky red liquid into it, just before Stefan picked it back up.

“She tricked Stefan into drinking the spell and he instantly fell in love with her. And even though the spell soon wore off, as Callis had warned, the potion had a far more enduring effect. For it wasn't long before Vanessa knocked on Stefan's door and told him she was bearing his child. Which meant by Council Law that he had to marry her.”

The scene changed to Honora and Stefan arguing heatedly on Honora's porch.

“Furious, Honora broke ties with Stefan. How could he betray her trust? And with her best
friend
, no less? Stefan swore it was black magic. He had no love for Vanessa, and when he'd returned to her house to confront her, he'd noticed
a strange houseguest huddling in her room. It was
she
who did it, he told Honora. The stranger. He could see the guilt in her eyes. That witch had cast a spell over him—he was sure of it! How could Vanessa do such a heartless thing? Trap him into marriage with a child? An innocent child? He feared the spell would backfire somehow. . . . But Honora wouldn't listen. Stefan begged her not to give up on him, but it was no use. No matter what he said, Honora didn't believe his story and wanted nothing further to do with him. So Stefan took his story to the Elders instead.”