Soman Chainani - Quests for Glory

Dovey’s voice severed her thoughts: “He sent me a note by crow a couple weeks ago. He’d been hearing reports of attacks in the Woods and wanted to find out who was behind them. I ordered him not to make a move. To stay on his original mission. Clearly he disobeyed.”

Sophie looked at her.

“Whatever he found must have gotten him killed,” the Dean said quietly.

“And now you want me to go and get killed too?” Sophie asked.

“Unlike Chaddick, you will have friends at your side,” the Dean replied, eyeing the three witches.

“There’s that word ‘friends’ again,” Hester murmured.

Dovey ignored her. “I’d been looking into the news of attacks long before Chaddick wrote. The moment students’ names started turning red on my map, I’d asked Merlin to investigate. It’s common for students’ quests to go badly at first—we’ve certainly dispatched rescue teams before—but for all to be failing was unprecedented. At the same time, we’d been hearing reports of unrest in the Woods, prompted by seemingly random crimes against Evers and Nevers alike. And then there was the matter of Tedros’ sword, stuck in that stone. I thought Merlin could get to the bottom of all this. … Well, a few days ago, he finally returned to my chambers. He asked only one question: what fairy tale had the Storian been writing.”

“Nothing of substance. I’ve told you that,” Sophie said, glancing up at the School Master’s tower, now her private quarters, which was connected to Evil’s castle by a catwalk. She saw the Storian through the window, hovering over a stone table littered with crumpled paper. “Ever since it finished mine and Agatha’s fairy tale, it’s been starting and discarding tales of our classmates’ quests.”

“And whose story is it working on now?” said Dovey.

“It stopped writing completely last week, which after all that frantic scribbling and crumpling the past few months, is actually letting me sleep,” Sophie puffed. “But you said that the Storian often suspects a fairy tale will be a good one, only to scrap it midstory … that it’s perfectly normal—”

“To a point,” Professor Dovey replied. “The Storian only writes tales that we need : stories that will redress a balance between Good and Evil that is constantly in flux. But six months is a long time for the Storian not to put a new tale into the Woods. Perhaps it sees no story in your classmates’ failing quests worth telling. Merlin, however, believes all these failures are connected and that there is a bigger quest waiting to be undertaken. That this is the fairy tale the Storian needs to tell.”

“Yet you have no proof of this bigger quest or fairy tale?” said Sophie.

“And yet we still have to go with her ?” Hester said, leering at Sophie.

“A student is dead, girls. I’d think at the very least you’d want to bury his body, let alone find out what killed him,” said Professor Dovey frostily. “I do.”

Sophie and the witches fell silent.

“There is also the fact that according to the map, you are all failing your quests too,” Professor Dovey said.

Sophie and the coven gawked at her before swiveling to the map.

They’d been so focused on their classmates that they hadn’t noticed their own names were in red.

“How can I be failing?” Sophie protested. “My quest is to be Dean of Evil. That’s the quest Lady Lesso gave me—”

“And how could we be failing?” said Hester, looking at her witch friends. “We didn’t do anything wrong on our quest—”

“Unless, of course, your quests no longer apply,” said Professor Dovey.

Sophie and the witches exchanged confused looks.

“You see, your names only turned red on my map yesterday . Within minutes of Chaddick’s death,” said Professor Dovey. “I highly doubt it’s a coincidence. The Storian creates a Quest Map every three years once the new class goes into the Woods. The fact the pen has stopped writing combined with your names turning red only strengthened Merlin’s and my conclusion: that a new, more important quest awaits each of you. Only then will the Storian begin its next tale.”

She paused, expecting questions, but Sophie and the witches still looked dazed.

“If it was up to me, Merlin and I would go into the Woods ourselves,” Dovey went on. “But teachers cannot directly interfere in a student’s quest just as we cannot interfere in a fairy tale. Which means you will represent the Nevers on this new quest, and Merlin will be sending an Ever contingent tonight to join your team. Given Chaddick’s demise, all of this was too sensitive to be transmitted in any way other than in person, so that’s why I brought you back to school. You must leave as soon as possible to prevent more casualties. But you’re not just a rescue team. You’re a detective team. Something out there is hurting our students and your new quest is to find it. … One quest to save them all.”

Sophie couldn’t focus, a single thought haunting her. “Has anyone told Tedros about …”

“No,” Professor Dovey answered, rising from her seat. “Telling Tedros will surely lead to him doing something rash, especially since we’ve yet to learn how his friend died. The island of Avalon, then, should be the first stop on your new quest. Even if you can’t get through the castle’s gates, you might find clues as to what Chaddick was doing there.”

Sophie’s mind went gauzy, as if she was trying to wake from a dream. Dead friends … bodies to be buried … a mysterious threat …

How quickly things change in a fairy tale .

A few minutes ago she was the host of a rollicking party that finally helped her turn the page and begin a new chapter. But now she was facing a new quest far away from school, where her life would be as much at risk as the friends’ lives she had to save.

Only she wasn’t ready to leave this place. After three years, she’d found her way out of a fairy tale and wouldn’t let herself be dragged back into one. And the best part about being Evil was that she could admit this without guilt. The new and improved Sophie could accept the selfish shades of her soul as much as the generous ones. Which meant that no matter how terrible she felt for Chaddick and the rest of her old friends out there in the dark Endless Woods … Sophie wouldn’t be the one to help them.

“I’m afraid I’m Dean of a school just like you, Professor Dovey, entrusted with more than a hundred students. I can’t just abandon them,” Sophie decided. “I don’t care what your map says. Hester, Anadil, and Dot will do just fine on their own.”

The three witches blinked at each other, as if they’d telepathically made a wish and had it granted.

Professor Dovey tightened her silvery bun. “Sophie, you might be a Dean, but you are also a fourth-year student, which means I can change your quest just like you changed Hort’s. And once a Dean assigns your quest, you must accept it or be sent to the Brig of Betrayers—”

“Don’t you threaten me, Clarissa,” Sophie retorted, watching Dovey wince at her first name. “You can’t tell me what to do. I know you want to get rid of me, given how fond of Evil your ‘Good’ students are, and this gives you the perfect excuse.”

“You think this is about you. I should have known. Every time it seems you’ve changed, I’m reminded how selfish you can be,” said Professor Dovey. “Your first three years you trampled on students of both schools to further your own arrogant, often cowardly, goals. You punished them, tormented them, betrayed them … and yet they forgave you and even obeyed you as their Dean in the remaining months of their third year. They showed you the loyalty you never once showed them. Now these same classmates are in peril and need your help. Which means the story isn’t about you anymore, Sophie. It’s about them . But if you would like to make it about you, then think of it this way. This is no longer a tale about whether you will find fame or fortune or your perfect little happy ending. This is a tale about whether you are capable of growing from the snake of your own story into the hero of someone else’s. That is your new quest. That is the tale the Storian is waiting to write.”