by Marissa Burt
“I’m not surprised,” Peter said. “Elton can’t be the only one who noticed something odd.”
Una tossed her apple core into a trash bin. Elton and Red had agreed to leave her alone for now, but who knew what the Talekeepers would do when they found a WI in their midst?
“Just try and keep a low profile,” Peter said as they fell into step behind a trickle of students heading across a narrow bridge toward a stone building. “Especially during this next class. Our Villainy professor is pretty sharp.” Una’s bootlace had come undone, so she knelt to tie it.
“So does a Villain teach Villainy?” Una called after Peter as she knotted the lace.
“That depends on whom you ask,” a smooth voice said from behind her shoulder. Una jumped up and whirled around. The owner of the voice had long silver hair that flowed out from under a pointed black hat. A shimmering cloak covered her slender form, and bright green eyes looked out of a flawless face.
“I am the Villainy professor,” the woman said. “Welcome to Perrault, Ms. Fairchild.”
How does she know my name? Una felt the hairs on the back of her neck rise as she wondered what was considered polite conversation with a Villain. How very creepy you are looking today, Professor. Your voice makes my insides feel like ice water. And where exactly does one find such a sinister-looking cloak?
Instead, she took a deep breath and said, “It’s nice to meet you, Professor.” Which, of course, was a lie. “I’ve just transferred here, and I’m so excited to study Villains.”
The professor studied Una with her piercing green eyes. “We won’t exactly be studying Villains, Ms. Fairchild. But why don’t you tell me about your classes at—where was it you said you transferred from?”
“Oh, that’s not very interesting at all,” Una said with what she hoped sounded like a laugh. “I’d much rather hear what I’ve missed in your class this year.”
Professor Thornhill’s lips thinned, but she began to talk about the previous weeks’ lessons. Una caught a few words here and there, something about villainous motivation and understanding bitterness, but she was much too preoccupied with catching up with Peter to pay careful attention.
Peter had almost reached the classroom by the time Una and the professor crossed the bridge. Una’s boots made little clicking sounds, but Professor Thornhill slipped over with whispering footfalls. The trail ran through a gnarled hedge whose thorns made little snags in Una’s woolen dress. Professor Thornhill went through unscathed. The path opened onto a desolate plain, where Una’s cloak swirled around her in the autumn wind. Professor Thornhill’s clothing barely moved at all.
By the time they reached the Villainy classroom, Una felt as shaky as the building itself. The stone tower rose at least two stories high but was so tilted that it looked like it would topple at any moment. Professor Thornhill held the battered wooden door open for her.
“Thanks for filling me in on the class, Professor,” Una said, darting past the woman and hurrying over to where Peter was sitting.
“You look as white as a sheet,” Peter said around a mouthful of the candy bar he was holding.
Una slid onto the bench. “That could have to do with the fact that I was escorted all the way here by a Villain.” She glanced toward Professor Thornhill, who now stood at the front of the room. “She was right behind us on the path, and she was asking me questions about where I transferred from.”
Peter leaned in. “Right behind us? Do you think she overheard us?”
Una paused. What were we talking about? Classes and something about the examiners being suspicious. Anything about being Written In?
“I wish I knew. Is she a Talekeeper?”
Peter shook his head. “Professors aren’t usually Talekeepers. Too many other responsibilities.”
The classroom was warm enough, but Una’s whole body felt chilled. She shrank down into her cloak and looked around with interest. Long wooden benches ran alongside the three large tables that were in the center of the room. Above these, low-hung chandeliers cast everything into the yellowed light of many candles. Una felt like she was in a medieval castle. The only windows were tiny slits cut high up into the walls. Curtained-off cabinets and shelves interspersed with shadowed doorways ringed the room. Except for witchy Professor Thornhill, Villainy didn’t seem so bad. Then the sound of a girl’s laughter floated in through one of the curtains.
Una groaned. Villainy was about to get a whole lot worse.
Snow poked her head into the classroom and slid into the seat on the other side of Una. “Hi, Peter,” she said, and reached over Una to wipe a tiny smudge of chocolate off of his chin.
Peter rubbed his sleeve across his mouth. “Hey, thanks, Snow.”
Una glared at Peter. They didn’t need to encourage Snow. Living with her was bad enough. The last thing she needed was Snow sitting with them in class and following them around.
“Oh, hi, roomie,” Snow said, and glanced cattily at a group of girls at the next table. “I didn’t see you there. I mean, your dress just kind of blends in.” The girls snickered.
Una crossed her arms. “I wonder when the jokes about my clothes will get old. Oh, wait! They already are.”
“You’re so touchy,” Snow said, and snapped her fingers. A tiny squirrel popped out of the curtained room, dragged Snow’s satchel over, and deposited it at her feet. “I’m going to sit here today,” Snow announced. “It’s so nice to be next to my . . . roomie.”
Una gave Snow a withering look, but Snow was busy making the squirrel retie her hair ribbon and didn’t even notice. Una received much better results when she made a face at Peter. It was quite satisfying to see him nearly choke on his last bite of chocolate. Maybe he’ll throw up, and then Snow can help him wipe the puke off.
A solemn bell tolled, and the chatter of student voices was instantly stilled by Thornhill’s echoing command, “The class will come to order.”
Una looked around. The class was already in order. Even Snow’s squirrel sat bolt upright on the floor.
“Today will be the evaluation of your Villain’s laugh,” the professor was saying. “As you know, this is standard Villainy curriculum. So even those of you who are recently joining us should be prepared.” She paused, and her gaze lit on Una. Una gulped. Surely a teacher, even a Villainy professor, couldn’t really be villainous. Elton, horrid as he was, had only given Peter detention. And Una had never even met Professor Thornhill before today, so she must be imagining that accusatory look in Thornhill’s eyes. But what if Thornhill had overheard their conversation on the way to class? Did she already hate Una for being a WI?
“I want you to evaluate each other’s laughs.” While Thornhill proceeded to give the class instructions, Una braved a peek. Thornhill wasn’t watching Una anymore. “All right, then. Please stand up and find a partner,” she said.
Before Una could get to Peter, Snow grabbed her elbow firmly. “Let’s partner up, Una.” Peter turned to face the boy sitting behind him, whose laugh sounded like he was choking.
Soon menacing giggles and nerve-racking screeches filled the room. “Well done, Mr. Oddsbody,” Thornhill’s low voice sounded behind Una. “Now for you, Ms. Fairchild,” she said.
Una’s throat went dry. She could feel Thornhill’s eyes watching her. You can do this. Just think of the Wicked Witch of the West.
Una closed her eyes and opened her mouth. Out came a maniacal cackle. Her eyes popped open. It doesn’t even sound like me. She saw Snow’s rosebud mouth gape. The classroom went quiet around her.
“Very good,” Thornhill said with a smile that didn’t reach her eyes. “And very villainous.” She turned to the next pair. “Carry on, class.”
Una nodded meekly. Snow’s evil laugh was coming out like a nasal chuckle. After Thornhill was out of earshot, Una felt Peter’s bony elbow in her ribs.
“Nice going, Una. Now Thornhill’s taken special notice of you.”
“I couldn’t help it,” she hissed. “It doesn’t ma
tter, anyway. She’s been watching me the whole time. I think she suspects.” She eyed Thornhill’s back. “What’s wrong with her, anyway?”
Peter’s face went all funny, and he looked over at Snow. Una went on. “I mean, don’t you think she’s kind of creepy? Our whole walk here I felt like she was going to put a spell on me or something.” Una waited for a smile of camaraderie, a chuckle—anything.
“Una—” Peter began, and then bit it off with a smile for Snow. “Oh, Snow, did I mention you looked nice today?”
Snow ignored him. “Why’s that?” she asked Una. “Why do you think Professor Thornhill’s creepy?”
Peter was slinking back to his seat. Una looked from his back to Snow’s unreadable face. “I guess it’s because she’s so . . . well . . . villainous-looking, and her eyes are too green, and . . .” She shivered, remembering the walk over. “Something’s not natural about her.”
The laugh evaluation was over now, and students were returning to their seats. Snow lifted one perfectly arched eyebrow. “Let me get this straight. You think something’s not right about her?” She gave Una a little chuckle that sounded remarkably close to her villainous laugh and stalked over to join a different table.
Una rolled her eyes at Snow’s back and sat down next to Peter, whose attention was fixed on the front of the room, where Professor Thornhill had written motive on the blackboard.
“Every Villain has a motive,” she was saying. “Often a Villain is purely evil, but he or she has to want something. Let’s imagine we are evil Villains, intent on squashing anyone who gets in our way. What are some motives?”
There was a slight pause, and then someone said, “Wealth.”
Una expended a great deal of effort trying to copy the words onto her slate. Slates were required for all her character classes, and writing on them was a lot harder than Una had once imagined. Her childish letters looked like something a first grader would write. She saw Peter’s neat lettering on his slate and moved her hand to cover her own scrawl.
“What else?” Thornhill asked.
“Power” came from another corner of the room. Students were answering quickly now: “Revenge.” “Youth.” “Beauty.”
“Knowledge,” said a boy wearing jeans and a sweatshirt. Una thought he was the same boy she had seen the night before in the Woodland Room.
Professor Thornhill paused at that. “Why knowledge, Mr. Truepenny?”
“Because knowledge is power,” he said. His dark hair fell over one eye. “An evil Villain controls knowledge, both what is spread about and what is withheld. That is how he can gain power.”
“Very good, Mr. Truepenny,” the professor said quietly. She was looking at Una now. “Truth is one of the most powerful weapons against evil. And wisdom, which enables us to discern how to apply the truth. Without truth and wisdom, how would we be able to tell the difference between the evil and the good?”
Una shifted in her seat. There was no way Thornhill could know about all the half-truths that Una and Peter had already told. Una scanned the room. Was anyone else sweating? She fixed her gaze on the Truepenny boy. He had something small tucked into his lap and kept glancing down at it. Under the pretense of scratching her ankle, Una dipped down to get a better peek. It was a book. What was he doing with one of the old Tales?
Una jabbed an elbow into Peter’s side, but, when they looked over, the book was gone. The Truepenny boy was writing on his slate, and Peter rubbed his side accusingly. Una watched the boy, but he didn’t move for the rest of class. He sat with perfect posture, deep-set eyes fixed directly on Professor Thornhill. It wasn’t until he stood that Una realized she had been staring. Class was over, and the other students were packing their slates and scooting the benches back from the tables.
Una shoved her slate into her satchel and hurried to catch up with Peter, who was waiting for her by the door.
Before she could, however, Snow grabbed her arm. “This way, roomie,” she said roughly, almost dragging Una to the front. Snow’s squirrel chattered ahead of them, glancing back with frightened eyes, until Snow booted it out of her way.
They waited behind a boy who was complaining about the mark he had received for his laugh. “But I did put the extra cackle in, ma’am,” he said. Una couldn’t imagine what Snow was doing. Was she going to tell Thornhill that Una thought she was creepy?
Thornhill addressed the boy, but she was looking at Snow and Una. “Mr. Boniface, we will discuss this later. You are dismissed.” She flicked a finger at the boy, who, with a great sigh, headed toward the door.
Una’s heart was pounding. Maybe she could just lie again and say that what she meant was that Thornhill was charming and played the part of the Villain so perfectly and—
Then Snow was speaking. But instead of tattling on Una, she was introducing her. “Una is my new roommate, Professor.” She shot Una a challenging look. “Una, meet my mother.”
Chapter 10
I can’t believe Thornhill is Snow’s mom,” Una said for the third time. Dinner was over, and they were sitting in a corner booth of the Woodland Room.
Peter was slicing an apple pie. “I tried to warn you, Una.”
Sam licked his chops and watched Peter cut the pie into quarters.
“Making funny faces at Snow is not a warning,” Una said. “My roommate’s mother is a Villain, and to make matters worse, she suspects I’m lying about something.” She accepted the plate Peter handed her. “Maybe she wants Snow to spy on me.”
Peter slid a cup of hot cocoa across the table. “I don’t think Snow and her mother get along all that well,” he said. “The rumor is that her mother left her when Snow was just a baby. Thornhill only came to teach at Perrault this term. Snow lives with her cousin’s family.”
Sam was mostly interested in the pie’s whipped cream topping, but Peter wolfed his entire piece down in three bites.
“Ow. Hot,” he said, between mouthfuls.
Una blew on a forkful of pie. “What’s the big rush, anyway?”
Peter took a long drink of cocoa from the tankard on the table and stole glances around the room.
“What is it, Peter? You look like Sam does right before he’s going to swipe my food,” Una said, and swatted at Sam’s grasping paw. “You finished yours already, you greedy cat.” Sam sat back on his haunches and studied a spot on the table. Then he stood in a very dignified manner and left without a word, his tail arched in a perfect curve.
“Elton left during my detention this afternoon.” Peter pulled out a yellowed roll of paper. “His private study was locked, but I snooped around the files in the outer office and found this.”
“Oooh, what is it?” Una said. Together, they unknotted a fraying ribbon, carefully unrolled the faded parchment, and weighted the corners down with their dishes.
“It’s pretty old,” Peter said.
“I can tell.” Una squeezed into his side of the table. “Move over.” Small bits of paper had flaked off, and some of the lettering was illegible. On one side, tiny spots of mold converged to cover the writing.
It looked like the front page of a newspaper. There were three columns of print under the illuminated title: The Character Times. Una scanned the page. There was an opinion piece on the reliability of any character who had ever met the Muses and an editorial criticizing an old couple for wanting to keep their family’s Tales, but Una went straight to the article in the center of the page.
“Look at this one.”
In the picture, a group of serious-looking men wearing long coats and top hats stood in front of a towering black building. Below the image was the heading MUSE INK TAINTED.
“The Muses’ Ink,” Peter said. “Maybe there’s something in here about the other WIs.”
“Sh! I think so too. Let’s read it.” She bent closer to the page and began to read.
This morning, an emergency council set to oversee the security of Story addressed the characters of Story. The leader of the movement, Hero Archimago More
s, gave a stirring speech, reprinted here for the edification of all:
Dear characters of Story, it is with a heavy heart that I come before you this morning. Many of us have lost loved ones and friends, and none have remained untouched by the recent violence. We stand united in the aftermath of this great evil. I come foremost to grieve with you as a fellow character, as one who has been deeply wronged by the treachery of our Muses. They called themselves the stewards of Story, but I call them nothing but destroyers of Story! Once upon a time they promised to do no harm, to rule benevolently until the return of the King.
“The King? Who’s the King?” Una asked.
“Who knows?” Peter said. “I’ve never heard of a King of Story. Let’s keep reading.”
And who of us now will believe their words? All that they have told us is lies. I tell you truly—I heard it from the Muses’ own lips before I vanquished them—there is no King. There is only ourselves. And so much the better! Together we have overcome our enemies. The Muses, those vile Oathbreakers, have been destroyed and will no longer threaten our fair lands. The Tales they wrote have been secured, and I promise you this: no longer will anyone in Story wield such power. Better to have no new stories at all than to submit to such tyranny as we have seen these many weeks. Better to bask in the memory of the old Tales than to risk writing with the Muses’ tainted magic.
“Magic?” Una reread the line. “Their ink was magic?”
“I don’t know anything about their ink,” Peter said. He was frowning down at the page.
The days of the Muses are over. May those who were lost to their evil be at peace, and may their sufferings here be as a dream. May those of us who remain rest securely in a new era. We have lived through dark days. But now we emerge stronger, more independent, better equipped. Look to your right and to your left. See the strength of Story. It isn’t in the magic of a Muse’s pen or in the legend of a King. It is here. In me. In you. No longer do we need someone else to write our Tales for us. We can script them ourselves. Now is the day of our salvation. Now is the time for us to take control of our own destinies.