For more than two centuries, the village of Gavaldon knew one thing to be true: every four years, two children disappeared.
Not runaways. Not lost.
Taken.
They were always twelve. One boy. One girl. Gone without a trace. And no matter how hard the villagers tried to hide them — in attics, cellars, or even across the river — the shadows always found them.
They were taken to the School for Good and Evil.
Some called it myth. Others feared it as truth. But everyone knew the stories.
Children who vanished would reappear in fairy tales — sometimes years later — as handsome princes or wicked witches, courageous queens or monstrous trolls.
And in the center of these quiet, fearful tales was a girl named Sophie.
She was perfect.
Golden hair. Emerald eyes. Porcelain skin. Every step she took was like a page from a storybook. Sophie believed, beyond doubt, that she would be chosen for the School for Good — where she would be trained to become a princess.
She even did charity work. Left food for the poor. Helped the elderly. Applied face cream nightly and slept on her back to avoid wrinkles.
Meanwhile, in the darkest corner of the graveyard, lived Agatha.
She wore black. Her hair was a tangled nest. She scowled at children and hissed at people who spoke to her. She lived with her mother — a witchlike woman who brewed herbs and kept cats. Everyone in Gavaldon whispered:
"She's the one who'll go to the School for Evil."
Sophie agreed.
The only strange thing? They were friends.
Sophie visited Agatha every week. She believed that Agatha could be her "ugly sidekick" — like the toad-footed helpers in fairytales. And though Agatha rolled her eyes at everything Sophie said, she still walked beside her every time.
One summer morning, with the next taking rumored to be days away, Sophie dragged Agatha into the sunlit hills and declared:
"This is my last week as a commoner. Soon, I'll be a princess in the School for Good."
Agatha sighed. "What if you're taken to the wrong school?"
Sophie laughed like it was the silliest thing she'd ever heard.
"Please. Just look at me."
Agatha stared. She did look like a princess. But something — maybe instinct — crawled under her skin.
That night, Sophie brushed her hair one hundred times. Applied rose oil. And placed cookies by the window.
Somewhere in the dark, something moved.
And far across the graveyard, Agatha's cat hissed at a shadow slipping between the trees.
The time had come.