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The Last Ever After
Soman Chainani
Can Agatha and Sophie find the perfect ending to their story in this epic third instalment to this bestselling series.Once best friends, Agatha and Sophie were pulled apart like strangers, each in the arms of a boy, Good with Good, Evil with Evil… is their friendship lost forever after…But as they settle into their new lives, their story begs to be re-written, and this time, theirs isn’t the only one. With the girls apart, Evil has taken over and the villains of the past have come back to change their tales and turn the world of Good and Evil upside down.With Evers being murdered and Nevers reigning supreme, the girls need to restore the balance, find the end to their story, and—hopefully—become friends again
Copyright (#ulink_8a2c36ce-2ff2-5b3d-a239-16d7f9a1f6a6)
START YOUR EDUCATION AT WWW.SCHOOLFORGOODANDEVIL.COM (http://www.schoolforgoodandevil.com)
HarperCollins Children’s Books
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd.
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk)
First published in hardback in the USA by HarperCollins Children’s Books, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. in 2015
First published in paperback in Great Britain by HarperCollins Children’s Books in 2015
This electronic edition published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Children’s Books in 2015
The School for Good and Evil: The Last Ever After
Text copyright © 2015 by Soman Chainani
Illustrations copyright © 2015 by Iacopo Bruno
Cover Design © HarperCollins Publishers 2015
Cover Illustrations © Iacopo Bruno 2015
Soman Chainani and Iacopo Bruno assert the moral right to be identified as the author and illustrator of this work
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins ebooks
HarperCollinsPublishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication
Source ISBN: 9780007502868
Ebook Edition © JULY 2015 ISBN: 9780007502851
Version: 2016-12-08
Now, in their love, which was stronger, there were the seeds of hatred and fear and confusion growing at the same time: for love can exist with hatred, each preying on the other, and this is what gives it its greatest fury.
T. H. White, The Once and Future King
Contents
Cover (#u0699c26b-4d6a-5be1-860d-6b030b6ce536)
Title Page (#u6c1300a0-2b62-5b72-848d-e055d06ade50)
Copyright (#ueec1efb9-9113-5e67-996f-e01a93942b53)
Epigraph (#ue670b138-8c1e-578f-a4fb-14663f9f1a70)
Part I (#u73255fb6-5314-5f2f-b521-13efdde0ca1c)
Chapter 1: The Master and the Queen (#uc73eebf0-f5d0-5aad-99fc-ddcedaed3092)
Chapter 2: After Ever After (#u18724056-b903-5fc7-a6c6-59b5c81c82e6)
Chapter 3: The New or the Old (#uf8c56c0e-8379-590d-ba1b-281ebd2f41a8)
Chapter 4: Death at an Execution (#ua40be4aa-a949-588f-8146-00add9666fa4)
Chapter 5: A Princess Returns (#u1032aa08-4060-5ad7-ae7f-8275f499c813)
Chapter 6: A Forest No Longer Blue (#ubd4c0454-b900-51ee-8612-c76258efac8f)
Chapter 7: Evil Is the New Good (#u20126b94-69c7-56d0-a7d5-0a27971501f2)
Chapter 8: When Good Rescues Go Bad (#u43eb271d-bd61-5038-a0b9-cf8c819525ff)
Chapter 9: The Worst Evers Ever (#u377ab680-18c6-50a8-9e3e-2915469fb1d9)
Chapter 10: The Missing Thirteenth (#u70a46e6a-9c10-5a87-ad6b-a6b59c2c7236)
Chapter 11: Appointment with the Deans (#u47d9c0c8-6066-5ca6-af22-d8745ea3296b)
Chapter 12: Find the Spy (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 13: Too Many Boys (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 14: Where Wizards Go to Think (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 15: The Magician’s Plan (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 16: Edgar and Essa (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 17: Missions Impossible (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 18: Tedros in the Sky with Chocolate (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 19: Old School Reunions (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 20: Last Stop on the Fairy Dust Express (#litres_trial_promo)
Part II (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 21: Peer Pressure (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 22: Everything Old Is New Again (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 23: Two Queens (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 24: Who Do You Belong With? (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 25: The Scorpion and the Frog (#litres_trial_promo)
Part III (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 26: In Darkness Comes a Queen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 27: Rebel Hearts (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 28: Who’s Helping Who (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 29: Failed Assignments (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 30: Apologies and Confessions (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 31: Spies in the Stymph Forest (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 32: The Meaning of Evil (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 33: An Unexpected History Lesson (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 34: The War of All Things (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 35: Never Ever After (#litres_trial_promo)
Read more School for Good and Evil (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Author (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)
IN THE FOREST PRIMEVAL
A SCHOOL FOR GOOD AND EVIL
TWO TOWERS LIKE TWIN HEADS
ONE FOR THE PURE
ONE FOR THE WICKED
TRY TO ESCAPE YOU’LL ALWAYS FAIL
THE ONLY WAY OUT IS
THROUGH A FAIRY TALE
(#ulink_eb87b408-e16b-5fa0-bdaa-37f5f61aa756)
(#ulink_5b7d373d-0927-505d-b3c0-1b9590474e00)
t is natural to doubt your true love when you do not know if he is young or old.
He certainly looks young, Sophie thought, peering at the lean, shirtless boy as he gazed out the tower window, bathed in faded sunlight. Sophie studied his hairless white skin and snug black breeches, his thick spiked hair the color of snow, his tight-veined arms, his glacier-blue eyes … He didn’t look a day more than sixteen. And yet somewhere within this beautiful stranger was a soul older than sixteen—much, much older than sixteen. For the last three weeks, then, Sophie had refused his ring. How could she bond herself to a boy with the School Master inside of him?
And yet the more Sophie looked at him, the more she couldn’t see the School Master. All Sophie could see was a fresh, ethereal youth asking for her hand, with sharp cheekbones and full lips—more handsome than a prince, more powerful than a prince, and unlike Prince You-Know-Who, this boy was hers.
Sophie reddened, remembering she was all alone in this world. Everyone else had abandoned her. Every desperate effort to be Good had been punished with betrayal. She had no family, no friends, no future. And now, this ravishing boy in front of her was her last hope for love. Panic burned through her muscles and dried out her throat. There was no choice anymore. Sophie swallowed and slowly stepped towards him.
Look at him. He’s no older than you, she soothed herself. The boy of your dreams. She reached shaking fingers for his bare shoulder … until she suddenly froze in her tracks. It was only magic that had brought this boy to life, she thought, pulling her hand back into her sleeve. But how long does magic last?
“You’re asking yourself the wrong questions,” came the smooth voice. “Magic thinks nothing of time.”
Sophie lifted her eyes. The boy didn’t look at her, his focus on the sallow sun, barely a force through the morning fog.
“Since when can you hear my thoughts?” Sophie said, unnerved.
“I don’t need to hear thoughts to know how a Reader’s mind thinks,” he replied.
Sophie took her place beside him in her black cloak, feeling the chill off his marble-colored skin. She thought of Tedros’ skin, always sweaty and tan, with the warmth of a bear’s. A hot flash bolted through her body—rage or regret or something in between. She forced herself closer to the boy, her arm brushing his pale chest.
He still didn’t look at her.
“What is it?” Sophie asked.
“The sun,” he said, watching it flicker through the mist. “Every day it rises weaker than the one before.”
“If only you had power to make the sun shine too,” Sophie murmured. “Every day could be a tea party.”
The boy shot her a sour glare. Sophie stiffened, reminded that unlike her once Good best friend, her new suitor was neither Good nor friendly. She quickly looked back out the window, shivering at an icy breeze. “Oh for heaven’s sake, suns weaken in the winter. Don’t need a sorcerer to know that.”
“Perhaps it takes a Reader to explain this too,” he replied, sweeping to the white stone table in the corner, where a long, knife-sharp pen, shaped like a knitting needle, hovered over an open storybook. Sophie turned to the book, glimpsing the colors of the last page: her painted self kissing the School Master back to youth as her best friend vanished home with a prince.
“Three weeks since the Storian wrote our Never After,” said the boy. “Within days, it should have begun a new story with love on Evil’s side now. Love that will destroy Good, one fairy tale at a time. Love that turns the pen into Evil’s weapon instead of its curse.” His eyes narrowed to slits. “Instead it reopens the book it just closed and stays there, hanging over The End like a play whose curtain won’t shut.”
Sophie couldn’t look away from Agatha and Tedros on the page, embracing lovingly as they disappeared. Sophie’s gut twisted, her face searing hot— “Here,” she croaked, slamming the cover down on them, and shoving the cherry-red storybook next to The Frog Prince, Cinderella, Rapunzel, and the rest of the Storian’s finished tales. Her heartbeat calmed. “Curtain shut.”
