Wizard's Wish - (Kinda) Yandere SGE x reader

Chapter 43: The Uninvited Guest

(Longest chapter yet I think. Now MC will have her reunion with  Tedros.)

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"Wait!" Hort yelped, chasing Aric and his men through the Serrated tunnel shaped like a crocodile snout. "Shouldn't we search the shore?" He scrambled to keep up as the tunnel grew narrower and narrower. "Mogrif shield wouldn't activate for nothing! Spiricks must have caught somethi–"

But Aric and the boys had already vanished into the foyer. Hort peered back down the dark tunnel, tempted to go searching himself, but his hair was itchy with lice and his stomach rumbly.
"Bet the girls have decent meals," he moped , turning for the castle–

A pink blast of light sizzled his skull and he crashed to the floor, head slamming on stone. When Hort's eyes fluttered open, he found himself splayed in his underpants and nothing else. Given he tended to lose his clothes quite often, Hort didn't think much of this until he looked up.
"What in the..." His black-and-red uniform magically floated away from him, towards the swarthy torchlight of the boy's castle, before it swallowed into thin air and disappeared.

As she entered the boy's rotted foyer, Sophie made sure the invisible cape covered every sliver of Hort's suffocatingly snug uniform. (For a moment, she panicked that she'd swelled in size– then remembered Hort's meager chest and flat bottom.) Under the cape, she'd stay undetected, provided she didn't puke from the castle's stench.

Worse than Evils, she thought, like sweaty socks doused in vinegar. She knew it must be unwashed Neverboys, for the Everboys of Good were almost fussier about hygiene than the girls. Even after double Swordplay sessions last year, they'd come to lunch, hair wet, smelling minty clean, as if they'd collectively made a trip to the bath post-class. How were they possibly surviving in this rathole?

Besides an extra coat of grime and a few more leaks, the Evil foyer looked much the same. Through the sunken anteroom, she saw the three black, crooked staircases twist up the three towers, carved MALICE, MISCHIEF, and VICE. Demonic gargoyles glared down from the rafters, torches flaring in their mouths. But as Sophie stepped into the light, she saw the boys had left their mark.

Crumbly columns decorated with swinging trolls and imps that once spelled N-E-V-E-R now spelled B-O-Y-S, while the iron statue of a bald, toothless witch had been decapitated. At the rear of the stair room, the door to the Theater of Tales had been sealed with a neurotic number of bars and locks, preventing any access to the Tunnel of Trees behind the theater.

Sophie's eyes drifted up the scorched walls, where thousands of crammed alumni portraits flaunted only boy's faces, both Evers and Nevers. A year ago, her portrait had stood out among the villains on this very wall. Now Tedros' took its place, with its halo of gold hair and cocksure smile. Sophie's heart burned at their resemblance. Hating the fact she looked so similar to someone like him. Still, she still heard the voice of her old self, talking through her. We would have looked so perfect together.

Faint shouts echoed high above, with the sounds or tramping boots. Sophie tore eyes from Tedros, remembering everything he'd taken from her... her dreams, her innocence, her dignity. He wouldn't take Y/n too.
Pulling her vanishing cape tight, Sophie followed the echoes up the Malice staircase– but not before shooting a spell behind her, setting the prince's face aflame.

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Y/n almost hoped Tedros would be waiting for her once she slogged up the decaying thirty-flight staircase from the Bridge to the open-air belfry. After all, she'd crossed the Bridge as ordered and come to him at the risk of her life and others'. But the belfry's round cloister was deserted, shadowed by the School Master's sky-high tower rising above it. She felt a pang of disappointment, but she understood it. She had said it herself, he wouldn't be just waiting for her like an idiot if he wasn't sure she was coming.