The Third Reader - The School for Good and Evil

8) Foxes

As Evelynn marvelled at the deep night sky from her window, she wondered where her roommate was.

Agatha had been disappearing every night to do who knows what, and avoiding questions whenever Evelynn quizzed her about it.

However her mind was mainly on Tedros. She hadn't spoken to the prince since she'd been with him outside the pool, and was now worried that he had suddenly stopped liking her. Strangely they hadn't spoken since Sophie's makeover, which caused a crawling paranoia that ate away at Evelynn everyday Tedros avoided her.

What did I do wrong?

She thought Tedros had forgiven her for pushing him away so many times, but that no longer seemed to be the case. Evelynn thought about how quickly the weeks had already gone, the snow ball inching closer and closer.

If she went alone she would fail, and every other boy hated her, it would be so much easier to go home and live out a humble villager life in Gavaldon. But deep down Evelynn knew she didn't want that anymore, this new world was packed full of magic and new experiences, and now she knew what it was like, Gavaldon would never be enough for her.

A white piece of paper fluttered outside in the wind, heading towards the girl on the windowsill, she reached out and plucked it from the air, sliding back into the room and bringing it to the light.

The wolves don't like foxes

Her brow furrowed in confusion, who was it from? Was it meant to tell her how to sneak out of the school at night?

She flipped the paper to see if there was anything else but the page was blank. Evelynn glanced back to the window, and saw nothing but the deep, endless sky.

She sighed, placing the piece of paper on her desk, then became a fox.

In recent lessons the students had been taught how to mogrify, the act of turning into an animal of choice. This wasn't much use to Evelynn, and the others would lose their clothes when turning back, she didn't when shapeshifting, so really it was easier for her to do that. Another advantage of shapeshifting instead of mogrifying, was that she could remove the swan everyone at the school had on their chests.

But the point was that the note could've been for anyone, not just her.

Evelynn's purple paws pattered in the hallways as she suspiciously escaped the castle. She made it outside and was met with a crisp breeze and wet grass, her fluffy tail swaying gently as she nipped silently across the grounds. She spotted wolves on duty, but they barely gave her a second glance, so she continued. Evelynn didn't know what she was doing, where she was going or why she was doing it but suspected it had something to do with Agatha's disappearances. She thought they'd got over the secrets and betrayal, but Agatha was showing acts against that and Evelynn wanted to get to the bottom of it.

She had now entered the blue forest, her only light that of the moon's. As she brushed past leaves they bristled against her violet fur, Evelynn liked being a fox.

Her ears perked up at a noise that seemed unnatural to one of a forest and she headed towards it slowly, trying to stay as quiet as she could.

Upon getting closer she spotted two more foxes, one hot pink, one royal blue. Evelynn's eyes widened in shock, they were like the foxes from her dream, she was lilac, they were pink and blue. Did she see the future in a dream?

Evelynn was distracted by a flash of silver on the pink fox's chest, a swan. They were the students that owned the note. She kept her eyes trained on the two as she crept closer, trying to hear what they were saying. The pink fox leant closer to the blue one (who had its back turned) their lips were millimetres from touching, their breath mingling. But suddenly, Evelynn stumbled on a small rock, and crashed into a bush.