I Didn't Sign up for This War.

Chapter 8

"So, how did it go?" Belle comes up behind me in the sea of satin pink and starts walking on my left.

"Hi!" Pascal greets her excitedly from my other side. She doesn't acknowledge him."How did what go?" I look at her in confusion.

Cassandra pushes Pascal out of the way. ("Hey! What was that for?") and falls into step on my other side. "Your talk with Eugene, of course." She says his name with an overly pompous air.

Pascal grumbles to himself and starts walking on the other side of Belle who doesn't shove him like Cassandra did.

I smile at him apologetically and he returns it, shaking his head and sighing.

"Well..." I try to come up with a good lie but am distracted for a moment by the carefully crafted stained glass windows on either side of the hallway. Each of them is in the same style and has a smiling Prince and Princess with extravagant gowns and castles behind them and I long to read the engraved plaques.

Mother wouldn't let them anywhere near our house. 'This is the problem with Good. They always waste time on unnecessary extravagance.'

She doesn't even put up her Evil tapestries.

"It's okay if you backed out," Cassandra says. "He's so rude, your little crush isn't even worth talking to him anyway."

"Yeah, I backed out." It's basically true anyway.

"Don't worry Rapunzel," Belle says, giving me a smile meant to be encouraging. "The School for Good has plenty of cute Princes. Surely someone else will catch your eye."

"Someone we all approve of." Cassandra adds.

I murmur an agreement.

When we finally enter the auditorium, my breath catches in my throat and I can temporarily forget the weight lodged in my stomach.

The walls are marble white with golden accents. Grand windows let in natural light from a forest with blue trees. A stage takes up a third of the room with around a hundred chairs facing it.

Students dressed in plain black already sit in the chairs on one half of the room. They hiss when we enter and a few stand up to jeer and boo.

A couple Evers boo right back and there is a moment of chaos among the students in pink as friends are found and seats are chosen.

When I take my seat in between Cassandra and Pascal, I allow myself to look at the shadow of Nevers.

Besides Mother Gothel, I've never really met anyone Evil before. They seem nice enough. A few remind me of her with their heavily lidded eyes and dark curls. They're not ugly exactly, but they have this air of indifference that I've never seen in anybody before.

Definetly not these Evers with their ten step skin care routine and makeup covering their belmishes.