The School For Good and Evil

The knock comes two more times before the doors magically open. A figure in a black hood walks to the stage. Sophie takes off her hood to reveal herself as an ugly witch. Tedros declares the Circus is over because a winner was crowned. Sophie points to the crown and taunts him while the Nevers cheer. Just when it looks like Tedros is going to attack, he drops to his knees, lays down his sword, and asks Agatha to the ball. She says yes. The Everboys follow suit until only Kiko is left unasked. She’s crying when Tristan kneels before her, asking for her hand. She yells a yes, and the rest of the Evergirls join in.

Sophie watches Tedros take Agatha in his arms and feels hatred. She raises her hands and sings at a full scream. The black stalactites on the ceiling turn into ravens, smash through the ceiling, and attack everything in sight. Students cover their ears and run for cover. Fairies fly for Sophie, but the ravens swallow all of them, except one who slips through a crack in the walls. The wolves cover their ears, and the birds slit their throats. Sophie stops singing, and they disappear. The Circus Crown lands on Sophie’s head. The Theater of Tales expels both schools into the Good stair room, with Evers and Nevers on two different staircases. Lightning and wind shatter the glass windows, and the Nevers flee up the steps. Hester slips and falls off the side. Dangling by one hand, she asks Dot for help. Dot reminds Hester of all the bad things she did to her but grabs her hand right before she slips. Hester, Anadil, and Dot run through the halls and look for the teachers. They turn a corner to find the professors frozen, ambushed by a spell. Out the window, they see the Evil professors frozen on the bridge as well. They are on their own.

The Evers try to crawl up the stairs, but Sophie sings a searing note, and the glass staircases explode. She goes one note higher, and the foyer cracks like ice and splits open in a hundred places. The Evers dangle over the edges, barely holding on. Tedros screams for Agatha while pulling Evers up. He finally spots two pale hands across the room clinging onto a shattered window over a cliff. Tedros crosses the treacherous room and climbs up the broken stairs to find Sophie. He pleads with her, but she sings, and he crumples to his knees in pain. She is getting ready to sing the death note when Agatha tackles her against the open window. Tedros tries to help, but Agatha tells him to help the others. He jumps off the cliff, and Agatha leans over to check on him. Sophie uses this distraction to smash Agatha face-first into the windowsill. Sophie calls Agatha her nemesis. Agatha says they don’t have to be enemies, but Sophie says Agatha took everything from her and made her Evil. She shoves Agatha out the window, and Tedros screams. A fairy flings himself under Agatha and catches her. He lays her down safely, thanks her for all the Good she does, and dies in her palm. Sophie makes eye contact with Agatha, screams, sweeps into her cape of snakes, and vanishes into the night.

Hester and Dot run through Evil towers for everyone to get in their rooms. Anadil binds and gags Grimm, who waits for Sophie in her room. In the School for Good, Tedros and Chaddick stand guard while Agatha waits for Sophie’s next move. Sophie’s roommates dive under their beds. When Sophie comes in calling for Grimm, Hester, Anadil, and Dot tackle her, tie her to her bed, and leave. Grimm chews through his gag and then through Sophie’s bonds. Sophie starts sewing while Anadil, Hester, and Dot barricade the door.

The next evening, Kiko suggests they still have the ball. The other Evers start to get ready, but Agatha yells at them. Tedros agrees that they can’t have the ball because they need to kill Sophie. Agatha and Tedros argue about attacking her until Agatha asks him if he trusts her. Tedros orders everyone to rest. Beatrix tries to comfort him, but he brushes her off, so she sends her bunny to spy.

Hester wakes outside Sophie’s room to find the door still barricaded but sees shadows at the end of the hall. She finds Nevers congregated with invitations that say, “Now Good comes to kill us all / Because we’ve ruined their beautiful Ball / But, dear Nevers, we’ll have our revenge / Arrive at 8 p.m. in Evil Hall” (449). Hester wakes Anadil and Dot up, and they scramble downstairs to Evil Hall. They are shocked by what they see there. Beatrix’s bunny takes the card that Hester drops back to Beatrix.

Agatha is falling asleep in Tedros’s arms when Beatrix bursts in yelling that the Nevers are coming to kill them. Tedros reads the invitation and announces an attack on the School for Evil. Agatha tells them not to attack, but Beatrix trips her, and she blacks out. Agatha finds everyone getting ready for war when she wakes up. Tedros asks for Agatha’s help, but she refuses, knowing that Sophie wants them to attack. Agatha throws herself in his way, and he asks if she trusts him. With her yes, he slams and barricades the door. He leads his army away chanting, “Kill the witch!” (446). Agatha decides she has to sacrifice herself to Sophie so no one else dies. She can’t get out the door, so she crawls on the window ledge, where arrows are shot to form a ladder down the tower wall. Agatha crosses into the villain’s lair while Sophie congratulates Grimm on his archery skills. Agatha finds Nevers dancing in Evil Hall, which is transformed into a ballroom. Hester welcomes Agatha and apologizes for her past behavior. Agatha tries to warn her about the army when they hear the Evers chanting. She begs them not to fight, but Hester gets angry and decides to free Sophie. The Nevers attack Agatha and then remove the barricade from Sophie’s door; they find a hideous hag in a gorgeous pink ball gown waiting for them.

Agatha awakes frozen in an ice coffin. Sophie comes with an axe and smashes through the ice. They hear the Evers at the doors, and Sophie gets on her knees. She asks Agatha to dance with her to show they are friends and stop the war. Tedros and his army burst in to find Sophie and Agatha dancing, and Tedros drops his sword. Sophie says it was Agatha’s plan all along to trick him into falling in love with her. Tedros reaches for his sword, but Agatha gets it first and puts it to his throat. She drops it, but it’s too late. Tedros grabs Chaddick’s bow, points it at Agatha’s heart, and yells “Fire!” (472). The Evers unleash their arrows, but Sophie turns them into daisies. Agatha sobs, and Tedros realizes his mistake. Sophie says because Tedros tried to kill his princess and she stopped it, evil has become good. She transforms from a hag back into her beautiful self, and the rest of the Nevers magically become beautiful, too. Sophie says Good attacked and became Evil, so all the Evers turn ugly; only Agatha is immune from the punishment. Agatha grabs Tedros’s sword and points it at Sophie. When the Evers start to flee, the doors close. Sophie sings, and three huge rats smash through the doors into Tedros’s army. They return the attack, and the Nevers join the fray.

Grimm hunts Agatha with flaming arrows, so she turns his bow into a flytrap. She ducks behind a pillar to find Beatrix, Reena, and Millicent wailing about not being beautiful. Agatha tells them to fight for Good, which is inside qualities, not beauty. She surges into battle again but is knocked over by Sophie, who is on a rat. Agatha tries to defend herself as Sophie charges again, but Beatrix jumps in front of her and summons magical rain, which makes the rat slip. Sophie falls to the floor and sees Evers turning the tide against the Nevers as her hands are bound with vines. Agatha reminds her that Good always wins, and Sophie notices the mural on the wall with the Storian and the School Master. Sophie decides to write her own ending and turns the rain into a flood that reaches the ceiling. She bursts through a window, and all the students follow her into the moat. The war resumes. Evers attack Evers, Nevers attack Nevers, and everyone turns back and forth from beautiful to ugly until no one knows who is Good and who is Evil. Above them, a girl in pink climbs the School Master’s tower using Grimm’s arrows, with a girl in blue trailing after her.

Sophie climbs through the School Master’s window knowing that she needs to destroy the Storian and the School Master to get her happy ending. She spots the Storian hovering unguarded over her and Agatha’s fairy tale. When she reaches for it, the Storian lances her finger and starts writing furiously, showing Sophie’s fairy tale from the moment she sees Tedros to her standing in the tower with a handsome stranger beside her. Sophie recognizes the stranger from her last dream in Gavaldon; he’s the prince she picked over all the rest at a castle ball. She turns around to see the School Master take off his mask and change from a shriveled shadow to the tall, handsome young man in the book. He says this was all a test to find his true love.

While Sophie is discovering her new fate, Agatha continues to climb and dodge Grimm’s arrows. She reaches for the next arrow, but it breaks, and she stumbles. Grimm points an arrow at her face before falling from the sky. Agatha sees Hester’s fingertip glowing and points at Grimm; she feels the arrow splinter and break, but before it falls, it is frozen to ice. Below, Agatha sees Anadil’s green fingertip pointed at the arrow. Above the arrow, the next brick turns chocolate, and Agatha sees Dot’s fingertip glowing. Agatha climbs the rest of the tower with their help.

The School Master explains to Sophie that he was there all along, leading Agatha to Sophie the night he kidnapped them, making sure Sophie didn’t fail, opening the doors of the Circus to her, and giving Sophie the riddle that would lead her to him. Sophie realizes he’s the Evil brother. The School Master didn’t realize that killing his brother would disrupt the balance between Good and Evil. Although he tried to control the Storian, Good always won because of love, so he set out to find Evil’s love. He sought out the seer Sader, who knew Sophie had a heart as dark as his. The School Master promises Sophie if they unite, then they will seal the bond of Evil and have something to fight for, Never After. Sophie kisses him but realizes that with Evil, there will never be happiness or peace. She hears the echoes of Lady Lesso’s words, “It’s not what we are, Sophie. It’s what we do” (482), in her head and breaks free from him. He falls onto the table and sends the Storian and the storybook smashing into the wall. Sophie flees for the window, but there is no way down.

Sophie sees the war she started and begs to be Good. The School Master says she can’t be Good and reaches for her again. Agatha pulls Sophie into the sky, and they fall into the lake. Agatha sees the black shadow reaching for them and causes a giant wave to rise and push them away from the School Master onto Evil’s shore. Agatha looks for Sophie but sees the School Master coming toward her instead. He hurls the Storian at Agatha, but Sophie tackles her to the ground, and the Storian spears through Sophie’s heart. The war ceases as the students notice Sophie’s sacrifice. The swan crests on their uniforms come alive and coalesce into a silhouette—the School Master’s brother’s spirit. Professor Sader limps through the woods, and the Good brother’s spirit dives into Sader’s body. The School Master turns into a shadow, but the Good brother flies after him with white swan wings and tears him apart. The Good Brother looks at Sophie and Agatha and dissipates to gold dust.

Agatha tries to staunch Sophie’s wound with Tedros’s help, but Sophie asks for Agatha. With her last breath, Sophie tells Agatha she loves her. Agatha kisses Sophie’s cold lips and weeps. The Storian lies beside them, gray and still, its work done. Agatha holds Sophie’s body and feels her start to breathe. Sophie opens her eyes, and the sun explodes through the fog. The Storian blazes with new life and soars back to the tower. The children’s robes melt into silver, and their divisions dissolve. Agatha and Sophie’s bodies turn translucent, and they are excited to go home. Agatha turns to Tedros, who reaches for her, but light slips through his fingers, and they are gone.