All overlords demand proof of loyalty, whether it’s Elvira Cutter’s Seven Labors, or Tankotto’s weekly Tribute Day, or Irma Trackno’s nightly pledge of fidelity.

—PROFESSOR GALBRAITH, IN KNOW YOUR OVERLORD CLASS

Weekend over, the next morning I reported to my first class, which was helping Mistress Moira in her tower. Since I was a junior henchman trainee, she was my mentor. She was also the school seamstress and chocolatier, and maybe the Fourth Fate from mythology. Nobody could confirm that last part, but she did look somewhat goddess-like, wearing a gold-trimmed white robe.

I climbed the steps to the top of the tall tower, my legs burning because there were so many of them. As I climbed, I thought about my to-do list:

1. Redeem myself for losing the TSBM.

2. Save Sara and her family.

3. Find out where I’m from.

4. Find out who cursed me.

5. Beg him/her to lift the curse.

I needed to put something easy on there, like climb the steps of the tall tower, just so I could cross something off as done.

At last I reached Mistress Moira’s quarters. Her door was open, and I heard voices inside.

“Moira, they have to be done a week from Saturday.” It was Dr. Critchlore. I stepped away from the door because I didn’t want to face his anger again.

“Derek, it’s unreasonable,” Mistress Moira said. “Twenty dresses in two weeks?”

“Not just twenty dresses. They have to be the height of fashion. No! Higher than the height of fashion. They have to be the clouds of fashion, the sky of fashion. The outer universe of fashion. Way, way up there in the fashion sense.”

“I’ll do my best. That’s all I can do.”

“Moira, we’re talking about the Siren Syndicate here.” He shivered. “They control all river trade. It’s the only decent trade route. Roads are sabotaged regularly. Dragon shipping is fantastically expensive. Not to mention unreliable. If a dragon spots a sheep or something shiny on the ground, he forgets all about his delivery and you have to send a search party out for him.

“If the Siren Syndicate is dissatisfied, I’ll never get another shipment of anything. That means no minion supply business, no training equipment, no anything. This school will fail and my ridiculous family will vote me out at the next meeting. Moira, please,” he said, his voice low and urgent. “It’s important.”

“I shall do everything in my power to complete the dresses.”

“Thank you.”

He turned to leave and I froze where I stood, my chest exploding with thumps of panic.

“You,” he said, stopping in front of me. “Higgins.” He shook his head like he was disgusted, then brushed past me, nudging me on the shoulder. I fell backward a little bit, and a huge lump expanded in my throat as I realized that Dr. Critchlore hated me. I saw it in his eyes.

Mistress Moira noticed me standing there. “Good morning, Runt,” she said, smiling brightly.

“Good morning,” I said, my voice cracking a little. I blinked away the tears that were forming. “That was . . . an interesting conversation.”

“That man.” She waved a hand. “He wants the impossible. Dresses for the girls, in two weeks.”

I sat down next to her on the couch, startling a squirrel, who ran to the tree in the corner. With her wide windows and all the foliage, including a grass carpet, Mistress Moira’s room felt like a meadow in the sky. “I guess this would be a bad time to ask you to make me a crush-proof jacket.”

“A what?”

“A jacket I could wear so that when a giant grabs me, he doesn’t break my ribs.”

She laughed her booming, infectious laugh. “Oh, Higgins, you slay me. A crush-proof jacket.”

She reached for a piece of paper on the side table, wrote a quick list, and handed it to me. “This is a list of supplies I’ll need from the dungeon,” she said. “I’ve got to get to work, so I’ll need these as soon as possible.”

I looked at the list. It would take me twenty to thirty trips to get all that stuff. I would collapse after one trip.

“Frankie could do this a hundred times faster than me,” I thought out loud.

“That’s a splendid idea,” Mistress Moira said. “Why don’t you get him to help?”

“Okay. I’ll do one trip now, before second period, and then I’ll tell Frankie to check in with you during free period.”

I was exhausted after that, but I managed to make it to my History of Henchmen class on time. I’d been desperate to get into the Junior Henchman Training Program, thinking that being a henchman was the best chance I had of finding my werewolf family. Now that I knew I wasn’t a werewolf, being a henchman was even more vital to my quest to find my family. I would need every advantage I could get, since I was nothing but a scrawny human.

There were only five kids in the class now, so it was much easier to find a seat. Frieda the ogre took up two seats in the back row. Janet Desmarais, the most perfect person ever created, came in holding hands with Rufus Spaniel. They took the two seats behind me, next to Jud, another werewolf.

A part of me was hoping that Rufus and I would become friends, now that I’d proved myself worthy of being a junior henchman trainee. Maybe our relationship would move beyond insults.

“Hey, Runt,” Rufus said. He scooched his chair forward and leaned toward me. “How many werewolves does it take to bring down a dragon?”

“I don’t know.” I smiled at him, waiting for the punch line.

“Of course you don’t. You’re not a werewolf.” He laughed hysterically at his joke.

Professor Murphy, our stumpy teacher, entered the room, followed by a slim, dark-eyed, dark-haired kid I’d never seen before. Professor Murphy dropped his briefcase on his desk. The new kid took a seat next to me, keeping his gaze forward.

“This is much better, eh?” Professor Murphy said. The class had gone from twenty-seven students to five. It would probably go down further before graduation. Typically, there were only one or two junior henchman graduates each year.

Professor Murphy nodded at the new kid. “We have a new addition to our class. Please welcome Meztli . . .” He paused and looked at his paper, then mumbled something that sounded like “Shocoyosin.” We all said hi. Meztli turned and waved at us.

“Meztli is a were-jaguar. He’s an exchange student from a country called Galarza, which is located in the southern continent of Orgal, just below the isthmus of Skelterdam. He’s working on mastering our language and tells me that he understands more than he speaks. I’m told he possesses the qualities necessary for this special track, and he’s up to speed on his homework.”

“Sí,” Meztli said.

Were-jaguar! Man, that sounded cool.

“Okay, to work. You five—er—now six were selected after we evaluated your performance on a series of tests. As you know, a henchman needs to possess certain skills—strength, the ability to perform under pressure, and bravery. You all”—he looked at each of us, stopping at me—“well, most of you, proved that you possess these qualities. In this term we will expand on those attributes and learn about problem-solving for your EO, getting a diverse team of minions to work together, and taking on your EO’s enemies. These are must-have skills. No Evil Overlord will hire a henchman who isn’t able to perform these basic, although difficult, tasks. Now, then, you’ve all read the first case study in your History of Henchmen textbook, right?”

A chorus of mumbles answered him. If the others were like me, they hadn’t. I mean, why do the homework if you didn’t think you were going to be selected for the class? Being picked had been a complete surprise to me. Still, I should have written “Do my homework” on my to-do list.

“Let’s have a quick quiz.” Professor Murphy leaned against the edge of the desk facing us.

Oh, cryptids, I’m doomed.

“Thirty-five years ago, a revolution in the realm of Riggen overthrew EO Egmont Luticus,” Professor Murphy said. “An evil overlord can only oppress his people so much before they revolt. In this case, the revolution was triggered by what famous event . . . Meztli?”

Meztli looked up from his notes. He tapped his forehead like he was thinking. He tapped it again and again, and then said something in his own language. He nodded when he was done.

“Um . . . okay,” Professor Murphy said. “I assume you’re referring to the Great Headache Uprising. That’s correct.” Then he addressed the class. “As you all know, aspirin and other drugs were manufactured and sold by the Elixir Syndicate, which controlled the supply of medicine. That’s what a syndicate does. Instead of competing against one another, companies band together to control prices and supply. The Elixir Syndicate kept raising the price of aspirin, and Luticus didn’t like it. He threatened them with attacks from his undead army if they didn’t lower their prices.

“The Elixir Syndicate responded by cutting off all aspirin to Riggen. Without aspirin, the people grew very angry, because if there’s one thing that will give a person a headache, it’s living under an overlord as cruel as Egmont Luticus.

“The revolution began. Luticus went to the EO Council to ask for help from the other overlords. This is standard procedure; the EOs tend to protect one another. But in this case, he was turned down. By whom . . . Janet?”

“Oh, I know this,” she said, crinkling her brow in a really cute way. “It was one of the big ones?”

Professor Murphy hadn’t stopped smiling at her. “That’s correct. It was Wexmir Smarvy, Luticus’s northern neighbor. Unfortunately for Luticus, Smarvy wanted him to fall. He had his eye on the port city of Balti, where he wanted to build a vacation palace.

“Without support, Luticus was overthrown by rebels led by a chicken farmer. That chicken farmer is now . . . Rufus?”

“Fraze Coldheart,” Rufus said.

Rufus always got the easy questions.

“That’s right. And his first act as overlord was . . . Frieda?”

Frieda had been watching a bug crawl across her desk. She smashed it with her fist, then looked up at Professor Murphy.

“Correct,” Professor Murphy said. “He got the overlords together to squash the Elixir Syndicate, which had clearly grown too powerful. The overlords installed their own thug, Fat Pharmo, to take over medicine production. Fat Pharmo split the company into smaller pieces, and the EOs left them alone after that. Jud, can you name another organization that has power equal to the EOs?”

“The Pravus Academy,” Jud said. “Pravus has those EOs eating out of his hand, they’re so desperate to get his giant gorillas.”

“That’s true, but the Minion School Directives keep minion schools from gaining too much power. Nothing frightens the EOs more than the thought of a minion school syndicate. Imagine, one person controlling the supply of minions! The EOs would destroy Stull before letting that happen.

“No, I was thinking of a group even more powerful than Dr. Pravus—the Siren Syndicate. Runt, tell us how the Siren Syndicate has avoided the fate that befell the Elixir Syndicate.”

“Um, bribes?” I said, because that answer worked most of the time for questions about EOs.

Professor Murphy shook his head. “You didn’t do the assigned reading, did you?”

“Well . . . no.” But neither had the others, I was sure. They’d just gotten away with lame answers.

“That’s one strike, Mr. Higgins. Three strikes and you’re out.” He picked up his notebook and made a vicious check mark in it. I felt like I’d been stabbed in the chest.

He addressed us all. “I take great pride in the henchmen who graduate from my program. They are a reflection of my teaching skills. If you do not measure up to my standards, I won’t allow you to continue in this class, headmaster interference or not.” He glared at me again before turning to the board.

As he wrote the names of the major evil overlords and the kingdoms they ruled, he answered the question I couldn’t. “The Siren Syndicate has a cozier relationship with the EOs than the Elixir Syndicate had. They ask permission before raising rates on shipping, and they’ve allowed the EOs to have a say in who is elected Grand Sirenness.”

He finished his list and turned to us. “Tomorrow we’re going on a field trip to the capital to watch a session of the Evil Overlord Council. The trip will take all day, so please notify your other teachers that you’ll be gone.”

He looked at me, then added, “Let’s see if we can get through the day without anyone being demoted back to regular minion status.”