hen my friends and I arrived at breakfast, I was met by two things: all-you-can-eat oatmeal and a bouquet of two-dozen red roses.

The latter is what gave me a stomachache.

It was not so much the flowers that inspired the nausea, but their sender. Chance Darling—the most handsome and persistent prince at Lord Channing’s—had been attempting to win my affections for far too long. Last semester he’d declared that I was his “heart’s desire” and had focused his attention on me like a hunter stalking a deer.

I was as fond of him as I was of going to the dentist. Actually, less so. At least when you visited the dentist you got a prize at the end, like a sticker or a colorful eraser. The only prize that came with Chance was his colorful sense of self-importance.

Ugh. If only I could erase that.

Naturally, because of my strong dislike for the boy, I shot him down at every possible opportunity. But he just would not give up. I’d sort of hoped that when I returned to school after our adventures he might’ve moved on to someone else. Alas, it was the opposite. He’d kicked it up a notch.

I had been bombarded with gifts at school every day since coming back. Being Monday, today’s token was a grandiose flower arrangement on my breakfast table in the banquet hall. Had it been Tuesday, I would have received chocolates. On Thursdays, the prince (who was the grandson of King Midas) typically sent me something subtle like a five-pound gold necklace.

I rolled my eyes at the floral arrangement and got up to get more food from the buffet with SJ. There were three lowerclassmen ahead of us in line. Despite the fact that they were keeping their gossip to whispers, it was obvious that they were talking about me.

“Did you see the flowers Prince Darling sent Crisanta Knight this morning?” the blonde, perky one said.

“I know, right?” commented a tiny redhead. “I bet it’s her on-point style that’s bewitching him. Have you seen her rebellious new hair cut? And the way she dresses—half princess, half hero? I wrote to my parents in Middlebrook to send me combat boots as soon as possible so I could start dressing like her.”

“Me too,” agreed a second blonde. “And I’m going to start using my free period to go down to the practice fields for weapons’ study. Crisanta Knight goes there every day and has become just as good in combat as she has in ballroom dancing.”

The first blonde sighed. “I don’t know how she does it. I mean, how does a girl go from being last in her class at this school to being the most heroic, coolest princess in the whole—”

SJ cleared her throat. Evidently, she’d had enough.

The three girls glanced back in surprise to see me standing behind them. Their faces turned red and they scuttled out of the banquet hall as fast as possible, too embarrassed to even look me in the eye.

“This stupid hero-princess worship has gone on for weeks now,” I groaned. “How much longer do you think it’s going to last?” I pushed my breakfast tray down the buffet line and finally got hold of the strawberry croissant I’d been after. Oatmeal may have been the special of the day, but I much preferred the baked treats from our school’s kitchen.

After I secured the croissant, I reached for a handful of bacon. I glanced left and right to make sure no one was watching and then put the bacon in a small plastic baggie in my pocket.

“I do not know,” SJ responded, a hint of irritation in her tone. “Hopefully it will be over soon.” She turned to fill her bowl of oatmeal with a scoop of fresh berries before motioning toward our table with a wistful smile. “Shall we? Before those girls get the nerve to come back and ask you for an autograph?”

I huffed in amusement as we headed back to the table.

The girls at Lady Agnue’s used to regard me like an undesirable outlier. Ever since we’d returned from our Author quest though, they’d been treating me differently, even if the truth about our adventures remained a secret due to a deal we’d made with our headmistress.

In the eyes of my peers I’d led a team of protagonists (including two boys) on a secret mission. The most handsome prince at our neighboring school was deeply infatuated with me. Alongside Blue, I was the key inspiration that led to our female classmates being allowed to try out for Twenty-Three Skidd teams. I’d brought a pet dragon back to school (though he currently resided at Lord Channing’s). And word had spread of my newly improved combative skill.

Thanks to so many near-death experiences last semester, I was now a better fighter than all the common protagonists in school, aside from Blue. This fact had been noticed over winter break when I volunteered to spar with the girls who’d remained on campus.

It seemed I had inadvertently become a character that mystified and fascinated my classmates. It was strange to say the least. While I appreciated the newfound respect, I hadn’t been trying to impress anyone. I was just doing what needed to be done. That and some twists of fate had transformed me into a minor celebrity.

I really didn’t think I was worthy of my classmates’ idolization. Blue and SJ had done just as much cool stuff, and their individual skills made them way more impressive than I was. But I guess the other girls had focused on me because I was unusual. Blue had always naturally fit in with the feisty common protagonists at school and SJ had always naturally fit in with the elegant princesses. I had never fit in anywhere. So maybe defying the stereotypes and settling into a hybrid archetype of my own is what got their attention.

I don’t know. I suppose I preferred being looked up to versus being looked down upon, but in general I really just preferred being left alone. Which was pretty hard to accomplish when younger students kept whispering about me and following me around.

SJ and I sat at our table again as Princess Marie Sinclaire (daughter of the princess from The Princess & the Pea) came over and joined us. She brushed aside her white-blonde hair then checked her seat like she always did before sitting.

“My, what beautiful flowers,” she commented, beholding the bouquet Chance had sent.

I pushed them across the table. “Here, you can have them. In fact, if you want more, feel free to stop by our room sometime and help yourself. Chance has sent me so many arrangements, it’s like a dang florist lives there.”

Marie gazed at the flowers longingly. “Must be nice,” she said dreamily, “having a prince be so interested in you and being thought of so highly by the other girls.”

“Yeah, nice.” I sighed to myself. “Not the adjective I would have chosen.”

“I can’t do this,” I said as I looked up from my Damsels in Distress textbook.

Madame Lisbon—our robust and rosy-cheeked D.I.D. professor—was having us “popcorn read” the chapter about the history of the Damsels of Camelot. I was finding the task rather difficult.

“Miss Knight,” said Madame Lisbon, agitation filling her normally sparkling blue eyes. “Simply read the text as written.”

I glanced down at the words, shook my head, and looked at my teacher defiantly. “Nope. Not happening.”

“Miss Knight,” the professor’s voice rose sharply. “The passages in this text are from one of the oldest transcriptions of ‘The Legend of King Arthur’ known to any of our realms. And this excerpt, ‘The Knight of Two Swords,’ is a core piece of that story. So whether you agree with Sir Malory’s portrayal of the situation or not, you will read it as written.”

“No.”

Madame Lisbon’s shoulders tensed up to her ears. “Crisanta . . .”

SJ suddenly cleared her throat and began to read from the book at her own desk.

“The young noblewoman stood before Arthur and drew aside her gown—revealing a handsome sword and scabbard, hung from her girdle. ‘My Lady,’ said Arthur, ‘a sword is hardly becoming to one of your sex. Please tell me why you wear something so ill-suited . . .’”

SJ looked up from her text and met Madame Lisbon’s surprised stare. “There,” she said innocently. “Passage read. May we move on, please?”

Madame Lisbon opened her mouth to respond when the bell rang through the room, freeing us. I swept my textbook off my desk and into my new book bag before making a break for the door. My professor shot me a glare on my way out, but I shrugged off her disapproval the second I stepped into the hall.

“Thanks for the save,” I said to SJ as she and Blue followed me out. “I think Madame Lisbon was about to blow a gasket.”

“You are welcome,” SJ replied. “But, Crisa, do you really have to provoke all of our professors? I mean, I realize that King Arthur’s words do not portray him as someone we would readily get along with—”

“He sounds like a total jerk,” I interjected. “And for the record, I do not enjoy provoking anyone. It just sort of happens.”

Blue and SJ both gave me a skeptical look.

“Okay, okay, I enjoy provoking some people,” I admitted. “But that was an accident.”

“You do realize Madame Lisbon is probably going to assign you extra homework tomorrow for openly defying her in front of the whole class, right?” Blue asked.

I shrugged. “No regrets. A girl’s gotta have principles.”

“Speaking of principals . . .” Blue tilted her chin slightly, directing my attention to Ms. Mammers, the assistant to our headmistress, who was charging down the corridor toward our group. I could spot her blue knit suit from fifty feet away.

Oh, this can’t be good.

Ms. Mammers automatically straightened her jacket when she reached us and brushed a wisp of her short, bronze hair out of her face. She’d gotten it cut since I’d last seen her and it was hugging her head like a helmet. It did not look good.

“Miss Knight,” the assistant said. “Lady Agnue requests your presence in her office immediately.”

“Request denied,” I replied bluntly.

Ms. Mammers blinked hard like a circuit had gotten fried in her brain. “You cannot deny this request, Crisanta Knight.”

“Then don’t dress it up like a request,” I responded. “Call it what it really is. Lady Agnue is ordering me to her office for another one of her ‘keep me in line’ threat sessions.”

Ms. Mammers gestured for me to follow. “Just come along. If you know the drill so well, then you know not to keep the headmistress waiting.”

The flustered assistant began her journey back up the hall, her feathers adequately ruffled. Before following, I leaned back to my friends. “See, her I enjoy provoking.”

Ms. Mammers was already halfway down the hall by that point so I sped after her. It always surprised me how a woman with such stumpy legs could move with the speed of an alley cat. I practically had to use my battle reflexes to bob and weave around the students to keep up with her.

I wished we could have walked slowly, or even in slow motion. I was not looking forward to another chat with Lady Agnue.

On our return to school, my friends and I had been fully intent on telling everyone what we’d learned about the Author. We also wanted to reveal the antagonists’ plot to overtake the realm and destroy all main characters, and divulge the dirty secret of our realm’s ambassadors—that they were forging protagonist books for royals who didn’t have them and destroying the books of other, common protagonists when there were too many.

Regrettably, the headmistress made it clear that we were not to share any of this information, leveraging my Pure Magic to force us into silence.

The thing about Pure Magic Disease is that carriers were feared. As mentioned, aside from Liza (who no one knew about), every person who’d ever been a victim of the sickness had succumbed to its power and gone all magic crazy. As such, all carriers of Pure Magic—no matter what stage of the disease they were in—were sentenced to Alderon immediately upon being discovered. Our realm’s higher-ups figured it was best to separate them from the general, vulnerable public as soon as possible because it was only a matter of time before their hearts turned dark.

I hadn’t even heard of Pure Magic Disease before all this, but some of the off-limits books in the school library confirmed that sentencing Pure Magic carriers to Alderon wasn’t just a practice, it was a law put into place by the realm’s leaders long ago.

That decision may have seemed like a good idea to the government at the time, but when you were an unlucky duck infected with the disease like me, the relocation was not ideal. Especially since Arian, Nadia, and every other antagonist in Alderon wanted me dead.

For the meantime, thankfully, I was safe from being shipped off.

While the Godmother Supreme, Lena Lenore, had discovered my magical abilities and suspected their pure nature, she was currently missing the evidence to prove it. Pure Magic could be identified by two tells—it could not be removed from its host and it gave its host dreams of the future. Last month Lenore had attained the first bit of evidence when she failed to take my magic away with a magic-sucking creature called a Stiltdegarth. But until she knew for a fact that I could dream of the future, she couldn’t convince the rest of the realm’s higher-ups that I had Pure Magic. That’s where Lady Agnue came into play.

My headmistress told me that she had proof that I dreamed of the future. She threatened to share this evidence with Lenore if my friends and I breathed a word about all the things we’d learned on our Author quest.

We hated going along with the threat, but we agreed that my getting sent to—and promptly executed in—Alderon was definitely not a favorable next move. So, for the last several weeks we’d played along with Lady Agnue’s terms while secretly working on our own plans for how to proceed on our mission to find Paige Tomkins before the antagonists.

Ms. Mammers and I came upon the final hallway leading up to Lady Agnue’s office. I was not a fan of this particular corridor. The walls were lined with oil paintings of all my headmistress’s predecessors—the former Lady Agnues. Running this school was a family business, passed from one daughter to the next. It gave me a chill to see all those sharp-chinned brunettes looking down on me.

My escort held the door open. It was between a pair of paintings of the school and beneath a gold-gilded sign that read “Headmistress.”

There was a velvety, forest-green couch in the waiting area that Ms. Mammers gestured for me to sit on. I obliged as Ms. Mammers placed herself behind the desk across from me. The desk was so tidy it made me wonder if the woman actually did any work when she was not running around fulfilling the headmistress’s errands.

She pretended to ignore me as she stared at the calendar on her desk and circled things with a bronze quill, which matched her choppy, boyish haircut. Suddenly there was a knock on the door we’d just come through. Ms. Mammers glanced up as the door opened. It was one of the school guards.

“I need to speak to you about the security measures you want placed on those dangerous potion supplies Madame Alexanders ordered,” he said.

“Can it wait?” Ms. Mammers asked.

“No.”

Ms. Mammers’ round face scrunched with annoyance. “Fine.” She strode across the room and glowered at me like I was a pet learning to be housebroken. “Behave.”

I was left alone in the waiting area. I stared at the closed door that connected to Lady Agnue’s office. The headmistress had been calling me into her office every week to remind me to keep in line and keep my mouth shut. However, we’d already spoken a few days ago, so I was a bit surprised that she was ready for another round so soon. Did she spend all weekend lying in wait, thinking of fresh ways to tear me a new one?

Lady Agnue’s door opened abruptly. My headmistress—dressed in warm shades of gold—stood in the doorway. Beside her was Lena Lenore. My blood froze at the sight of her.

“Lovely to see you again, Crisanta,” Lenore said.

My fingers clenched the velvet cushions on the couch. Lenore’s voice was so simultaneously saccharine and wicked that it put me on edge.

Nearly six feet tall with dark flowing hair, hazel eyes, and surprisingly toned arms, she was a beautiful and regal woman who emanated power. Standing close to her felt like standing next to a steel skyscraper while looking up. It put you off balance and made you feel small.

Today, the Godmother Supreme wore a pastel pink pantsuit with light pink pumps. The sparkly silver straps of her shoes perfectly matched the contour shades of her eye makeup. I recalled the outfit. I’d dreamed of this moment before.

I flicked my eyes to Lenore, then Lady Agnue, then back to Lenore. Why was she here? Had Lady Agnue gone back on our deal? Did Lenore know about my Pure Magic? Was I about to get sent to Alderon? And exactly how many glitzy suits did Lenore own?

Lady Agnue gestured for me to enter her office. I got up slowly and made my way over. As the door closed behind me, I felt my pulse start to quicken.

Make no mistake; I was not afraid of Lady Agnue. And I didn’t think I was afraid of Lenore either. She may have been Godmother Supreme, a pillar in our realm’s upper-government, and the wielder of some pretty powerful magic, but I knew she could not hurt me outright. It was one of the restrictions of her Fairy Godmother magic. She couldn’t use it to seriously harm another human being, let alone take a life.

Even so, I still treated her with caution. I understood that Lenore wouldn’t hesitate to get rid of me if given the right opportunity. Any misstep or misspoken word on my part might give it to her.

Lady Agnue directed me to a vanilla-colored chair facing her desk, but I declined. I much preferred to stand during face-offs; they were not to be taken sitting down (both literally and figuratively).

“I have it on good authority that you’ve been talking with my sister,” Lenore began.

“I don’t know what you mean,” I responded.

“Oh, come now, there’s no need to deny it,” Lenore said. “I know all about your visit to the Indexlands last month. It was impressive. But I saw no need to warn you of the consequences of sharing the discoveries you made there with anyone else. Cornwallace here told me that she secured your silence.”

My eyes widened and I turned to my headmistress. “Your first name is Cornwallace?” I asked in disbelief. “Your name is Cornwallace Agnue?”

Lady Agnue glared at me fiercely; her copper eyes filled with dislike and condemnation. “Do you have something to comment on the matter, Miss Knight?”

It took every ounce of self-control I had not to make one of the thousand comments on the tip of my tongue.

I bit my lip to suppress a smile. “Nope. Nothing at all.” I looked back at Lenore. “You were saying?”

“You and I have our own standing arrangement in regards to your discretion, Crisanta. So with Cornwallace’s assurance, I saw no need to further highlight the terms of our agreement after your visit with Liza.”

“By terms, do you mean forcing me to keep my mouth shut so that you won’t use your magic or influence to destroy my friends and family?”

Lenore couldn’t use her Fairy Godmother magic to physically harm or kill others. But if any of us revealed what we knew about the Godmothers’ secrets, like their conspiracy with the ambassadors to forge and destroy protagonist books, Lenore had promised to find a way to hurt us. She’d said as much the last time we’d met. I remembered her exact words: “While I may not employ the most conventional method for keeping people silent, if you get in my way I will find other, more creative ways to fill your friends’ and family’s lives with misery.”

Comforting stuff, right?

Lenore waved her hand as if I was an annoying fly. “The reason I am here,” she continued, “is not because you found the Author. I came to campus because it has come to my attention that you have kept in contact with Liza since your return.

“As I’m sure you’re aware, Mark Two magic compact mirrors will be hitting the market soon. However, what you may not know is that each of these mirrors gives off a slight, magical communication signal that a department within my agency is responsible for monitoring. With the compacts set to be released realm-wide in a few months, imagine my surprise when our sensors started picking up a series of pings on our magic signal tower. Then imagine my even greater surprise when we were able to trace the signal to regular communications between the Indexlands and this school. Needless to say, I knew there could only be one protagonist responsible.”

“Lenore, you flatter me.”

“It was unintentional,” Lenore replied. “Tell me, Crisanta, what have you and my sister been chatting about so regularly? Could it have anything to do with, say . . . your Pure Magic?”

I had gotten quite good at a putting on a front; my poker face was practically a force of nature. Statues could take tips from me.

“Sorry to disappoint, Lenore, but no. Truth is, we just hit it off and she hooked me up with a Mark Two so we could keep in touch.” I shrugged. “We have a lot in common, you know—hobbies, favorite foods, enemies . . .”

My normally composed headmistress appeared a bit unsettled as Lenore and I glowered at each other. After a moment, Lady Agnue cleared her throat. “Lena, I believe there was something you wanted to ask Crisanta. About her magic?”

“What about it?” I asked sharply.

Lenore straightened her blazer and meandered over to the window. “Be a dear and show us what you can do, will you?” Lenore said.

“Excuse me?”

“Your magic,” Lenore clarified. “While I am without proof that you wield Pure Magic, we know perfectly well that you possess magical abilities. I have heard that your power allows you to bring things to life. Your headmistress has similar suspicions.”

“One of your classmates nearly had a heart attack this morning when she was on her way to the practice fields,” Lady Agnue explained. “She noticed that the vines growing around Detention Tower Three were moving of their own volition. As that is the tower I sentenced you and your friends to, it is not a great leap to assume you had something to do with it.”

I tensed. My powers could give life to things, but until recently I hadn’t put much thought into what happened to them after I was done. So far it seemed that they just stayed alive and did whatever they wanted.

“We told the student who made the discovery that the vines had been affected by residue magic from the In and Out Spell,” Lady Agnue went on. “I called the Godmother Supreme here to see if she could remedy the situation, but she was unable to reverse the vines’ magic. They had to be torn down from the tower about an hour ago.”

“Hence my interest in the magic behind the problem,” Lenore said. “Come now, Crisanta. Be a good little princess and give us a demonstration of your abilities.”

“Forget it,” I huffed.

“Miss Knight,” Lady Agnue interceded, her shoulders tensed tighter than the bun in her brown hair. “If you want this meeting to be over, show Lena your powers. She just wants to see them for herself. I assure you, this is not a trap.”

Said the cat to the mouse, I thought.

“Fine,” I groaned after a moment. If it’ll get Lenore out of here, then I might as well. The woman already knows. What harm could it do?

My gaze fell upon a copy of the school newsletter laying open on Lady Agnue’s desk. The sunlight from the window coated it in a radiant gleam. The window was open a touch, allowing fresh air to breeze through. I walked over to the desk and placed my hand on the newsletter, taking a deep breath to gather my focus.

Wake up, I commanded the thing. Then fly out of here and be free of this office like I wish I could be.

My hand became consumed by golden light, which transferred into the newsletter. The thing shook for a second then jerked itself off the desk. Using its open pages like wings, it fluttered into the air then flew out Lady Agnue’s open window.

I took another deep breath to re-center myself, causing the glow around my hand to subside as the periodical vanished from view.

Lady Agnue’s mouth hung agape. “That was . . .”

I could honestly say I had never seen my headmistress so stunned. Lenore, too, seemed amazed.

“Extraordinary,” she said, finishing my headmistress’s comment. “I haven’t seen magic of this variety in some time.”

“How do you mean?” I asked, assuming that she was once again trying to imply that I had Pure Magic.

“I mean that bringing things to life is a very special ability,” Lenore explained. “Even the most powerful magical beings, like Fairy Godmothers and genies—before they disappeared—do not possess that gift. Just as we cannot use our magic to take life, we cannot use it to give life either. It is a restriction that our powers cannot bypass no matter how strong they are. Seeing someone, anyone, with that ability is . . . something to take note of.”

“Um, all right,” I replied awkwardly. I was genuinely unsure of what to say in response to that.

“On that note I shall be off,” Lenore announced, checking her watch. “I have a staff meeting at noon and a disciplinary hearing to oversee before then.” Lenore turned to Lady Agnue. “Always a pleasure to see you, Cornwallace. Do let me know if you acquire that information I asked for.” She and Lady Agnue exchanged air kisses.

The Godmother Supreme pulled a ring with a ruby spiral from her finger. It transformed into a sleek, iridescent magic wand that shone as she waved it. Her body was enveloped within a ring of shimmering red sparks. They encircled her feet then rose up like the geyser of a fountain. The effect was almost to her chin when she gave me a final glance and smiled coldly. “I’ll see you again soon, Crisanta. Do be careful. And watch out for that Malice Line.”

I frowned. “What’s a Malice Line?”

My question came too late. Lenore evaporated into a giant ball of glittering energy, which shot out the window and into the sky. She easily phased through the In and Out Spell (which she could do since she’d been one of the Godmothers who’d cast it) and disappeared out of sight.

“You should have at least tried to show some restraint, Miss Knight,” Lady Agnue said. “I realize that you have a fondness for acting like an impertinent child in the presence of superiors, but it would be wise to resist the urge as much as possible when it comes to those who are more powerful than you.”

“Didn’t you hear?” I asked sarcastically. “Lenore seems to think I’m pretty powerful.”

“And modest too,” Lady Agnue countered. “Do not misunderstand, Miss Knight. I would love to have Lena find out about your Pure Magic and give you the sentence you deserve. However, the problem remains that if she did, I would have no leverage to secure your friends’ silence on matters that would affect my student body. Thus, I am doing my part by not telling her what I know about your ability to see the future. But you, young lady, must do your part too. In addition to holding up your end of our bargain, you also need to hold that sharp tongue of yours when it comes to provoking the Godmother Supreme. It is clear you are not fond of her, but you must not give her any more reasons to want to destroy you. Knowing how you generally come across to people, I imagine she already has quite a few.”

“And the flattery never ends.” I rolled my eyes. “Can I go now? Or do you want another piece of me?”

“Go.” Lady Agnue waved her hand. “After talking with you and being visited by Lena Lenore, I need a few minutes to myself. Between the two of you, it has been a rather stressful morning.”

I looked at my headmistress with curiosity. “I thought Lenore was your friend.”

“She is,” Lady Agnue replied, “and a very dear one at that. We have been through a lot together. But trust and reluctance are not mutually exclusive, Miss Knight. People can still be wary of those closest to them. In fact, it is a duality of feeling that someone in my position has had to get used to.”

“Yeah,” I replied with a huff as I headed for the door. “Join the club.”