“So let me get this straight,” Hester glared, straddling a gilded sink next to Anadil, both in their saggy black Nevers’ tunics. Phoenix stood nearby in the new blue uniform. “Tedros wants to kill Sophie. Sophie wants to kill Tedros. And unless you find an ending with one of them now, everyone in this school dies.”
Agatha nodded weakly, leaning against one of Honour tower’s ivory bathroom stalls, fitted with a sapphire toilet and tub. She never thought she’d be so happy to see two witches and fire princess in her life. Unlike the rest of the girls, none of them had changed. Hester’s red-and-black streaked hair was greasier than ever, and the buck-horned red demon tattoo around her neck back to full colour after a failed spell had weakened it the year before. Anadil, meanwhile, looked even paler than she did before, if that was possible for an albino with ghostly white skin and hair. Straddling the sink next to Hester, she dangled a live lizard to her three black rats that looked just like the ones slain in last year’s Good-Evil war. Though Phoenix wore the new uniform and satin slippers, her hair was as long and soft as ever, with her fire headband-crown blazing blue flames.
“A prince and a witch, willing to kill each other for you,” Anadil rasped in her scratchy voice. “It if it was me, I’d feel flattered.” She watched the rodents disembowel the lizard and lifted her hooded red eyes. “Thankfully I don’t have feelings.”
“Questionable. Who replaces dead pets with ones exactly alike?” Hester murmured.
“Look, I’m hungry, dirty, haven’t slept, and an army of boys is trying to kill my best friend,” Agatha said, voice cracking with stress. “I just want us to go home alive.”
“And yet you wished for Tedros,” Hester said in her usual sharp snarl. “Which seems to suggest you don’t want to go home at all.”
Agatha didn’t say anything for a moment. “Look, just tell me what to do so no one gets hurt.”
“As if we’re fairy godmothers, Ani, Nixie,” Hester snorted, blowing smoke rings off her glowing red fingertip.
Anadil graffitied a skull in the sink with her glowing green finger. “Only not as ancient or menial.”
“Please,” Agatha begged. “You’re witches. And a powerful princess. You have to know another way to take back a wish—”
“So earnest!” Hester whirled and carved a box around Agatha’s face in the mirror with her lit finger. “Just look at that helpless, lost little soul. Still wearing black and searching for the old Agatha. . . . The Agatha who threw headless birds, farted in Evergirls’ faces, and loved her precious Sophie more than life.” Hester met Agatha’s reflected eyes and grinned. “But she’s gone, princess.”
“That’s not true,” Agatha retorted.
“To think we once wanted you in our coven,” Anadil said. “And now here you are, afraid of hurting your best friend over a boy.”
“Nice to see you two haven’t changed,” Agatha muttered, trundling for the door. “Reminds me why we weren’t friends.”
“In the end, only one can make you happy,” Phoenix said reasonably behind her. “The question is, who?”
Agatha turned to see the witches and princess slide off their sinks and circle her like sharks.
YOU ARE READING
Fire Princess
FanfictionYears ago, once her fairytale had ended, Rapunzel married a prince who's entire family possessed the powers of phoenixes. That same power was passed onto her children. This is the story of her daughter, Phoenix of Firebirch, who attends the School f...
