The Lady's Secret (School for Good and Evil)

Coward

Agatha fell hard onto the dirt outside the spider-gate of the blue forest. Her head spun as she pulled herself up to her knees.

Then all the memories came rushing back; the scims, the handkerchief, the screams.

Agatha stood up, whipping her head around.

"Hey-" Tedros stuck his tongue out, getting Agatha's hair out of his mouth.

"Oh, sorry," Then Agatha's face hardened. "Where is he?"

Tedros pointed. "Somewhere above the crowd, look." Bolts of black lightning were piercing through the frantic crowd from somewhere in the clouds.

On a stage near the entrance to the blue forest, the wolf king of Bloodbrook stood with a Never student, using the first year's finger glow as a microphone. "Everyone, calm, please. If you would just follow-" he started, before Sophie jumped up onto the stage and started shouting with her own pink finger glow enhancing her words. She shoved the first year off the stage, but he stumbled to his feet and safely into the crowd.

"Rafal!" she shouted. "Don't be a coward. Come fight us face to face!" she screamed. Agatha could tell by her expression that she was just about ready to release her deathly witch scream on him.

The black lightning stopped. Suddenly, a rumbling shook the ground and a figure cloaked in black velvet robes started descending from the sky.

After a moment, Rafal stood on the stage just inches away from Sophie. "What did you call me?"

Sophie looked up, staring him dead in the eye. "Coward." she spat.

With a war-like cry, Rafal let loose a stream of black magic that lit a circle of fire around the two. Then another flood of magic left his finger, aimed right at Sophie. She met it with pink.

The stage started to split down the middle, pulling Sophie to one side and Rafal to the other, fire engulfing the wood.

"Sophie!" Agatha cried and before Tedros could stop her, she went running straight into the fire.

Tedros took a deep breath, debating whether the decision he was about make was heroic or stupid; heroic won and Tedros went bounding after her.

Agatha could practically feel the flames licking at her skin and she got a sense of deja vu from when the Snake had first revealed himself and Hester's demon had lit the stage on fire.

"Agatha!" Tedros called from behind her and Agatha whirled around, hair flying into his face once again.

"Okay, that's gotta stop-" he grimaced, trying to get her hair out of his face. Once he was composed-

"Rafal's over there. He's got Sophie cornered."

Sophie was trapped; fire behind her and Rafal in front of her, stepping closer and closer so she had nowhere to go; that is until Tedros sliced him across the neck with Excalibur.

Rafal fell to the ground, body barely evading the flames. Sophie's eyes widened, Agatha's mouth gaped open, and Tedros stared at the completely bloodless sword in his hand. Rafal stood, rubbing his hand to his neck.

"You thought I could be killed? Laughable," Rafal smirked, a hint of a smile on his face.

Next to her, Agatha could feel Sophie's breathing quicken, coming in deep gasps. Agatha grabbed her hand and Sophie calmed, eyes narrowing in on the School Master.

Rafal- as Agatha had spotted before- was wearing black velvet robes, but on those robes were intricate patterns of rings with illegible script; the Storian's rings.