The Last Ever After (the School for Good and Evil, #3)

This is the third installment in the School for Good and Evil series. In the previous books, best friends Sophie and Agatha were kidnapped from their village of Gavaldon to attend the School for Good and Evil, a magical institution in the Endless Woods where future heroes and villains are trained. After adventures that tested their friendship, Sophie kissed the ancient School Master back to youth while Agatha escaped with Prince Tedros of Camelot, leaving Sophie behind.

Three weeks later, Sophie remains trapped in the tower of the young School Master, now known as Rafal. The Storian, an enchanted pen that writes fairy tales and keeps the Endless Woods alive through a continuous cycle of new stories, has refused to begin a new tale, causing the sun to weaken daily. Rafal argues that he and Sophie share a "darker love" and that he is "the mirror of your soul." Sophie accepts his gold ring, yet the Storian does not close their book, suggesting it doubts someone else's ending: Agatha and Tedros'.

Meanwhile, Agatha and Tedros hide in Gavaldon, where Agatha's mother, Callis, has stitched up Tedros' near-fatal wound and sheltered them from the town Elders, who have declared Agatha a witch and built a pyre. Trapped together for weeks, they bicker constantly and feel more like strangers than lovers. Both grow guilty about abandoning Sophie and resolve to return to the Woods.

Sophie's father Stefan, serving as an Elderguard in the Elders' armed guard, discovers them and drags them to the pyre. Callis reveals herself as a witch, casting a fire spell to shield the captives. She instructs Agatha to find a specific grave, then allows the guards to kill her, sacrificing herself so her daughter can escape. A pale hand pulls Agatha and Tedros through Sophie's mother Vanessa's grave, a portal between Gavaldon and the Endless Woods.

On the other side, every villain's tomb on Necro Ridge, the graveyard for old fairy-tale villains, has been emptied. Princess Uma, their former teacher, explains that Sophie's ring keeps Rafal immortal and that only Sophie can destroy it. The old fairy-tale villains have risen under Rafal's command, hunting their former heroic enemies to rewrite famous stories with Evil endings. Uma leads Agatha and Tedros to the League of Thirteen, a group of old heroes including Peter Pan, Cinderella, and Red Riding Hood. The thirteenth member is Merlin, King Arthur's wizard, who abandoned Tedros as a child.

Merlin reveals that Callis was once a professor of Uglification, the art of altering appearance, at the School for Evil. The Storian had begun writing Callis' fairy tale, attracting the School Master's interest; Merlin suspected the School Master wanted to weaponize Callis' capacity for love against Good, but Callis vanished before any confrontation occurred. Merlin devises an infiltration plan: using a sex-switching potion, Agatha becomes "Edgar" and Tedros becomes "Essa," rendering them unrecognizable to the Storian. Three witches who have been spying for Merlin inside the school, Hester, Anadil, and Dot, help break them through the gates.

Inside, Rafal has transformed the school into a fortress. Both Evers (students of Good) and Nevers (students of Evil) are forced to train as villains. Sophie teaches but is tormented by doubt: her ring has tattooed "TEDROS" on her finger instead of "RAFAL." While Tedros infiltrates the tower, Agatha crosses into the School for Old, the sealed former Evil castle now housing undead villains. She finds Excalibur hidden inside a prophetic painting and retrieves it. The School Master reveals that Gavaldon is protected by a shield sustained by Readers' faith in Good; each rewritten fairy tale weakens that shield, bringing him closer to invading the ordinary human world.

In the tower, Tedros' disguise fails. Sophie proposes a deal: she will destroy the ring if Tedros gives her a genuine chance to be his princess. Rafal returns with Agatha captive, but the three friends attack together and escape on fairy dust conjured by Merlin. Hort, Sophie's former admirer, leaps into the escape.

Sophie refuses to destroy the ring until Tedros kisses her and confirms their connection, arguing that Agatha cannot be the queen Camelot needs. Agatha, wrestling with genuine doubts, agrees without telling Tedros. Merlin leads them to Avalon, where Tedros discovers his mother Guinevere living with Lancelot, the knight she left Arthur for. Lancelot privately warns Sophie that her ring is made of corrupted black-swan gold that steers its wearer toward Evil and carves false answers about true love.

Tedros eventually kisses Sophie, but both feel nothing. The tattoo vanishes. Alone, Sophie realizes the ring deliberately drove her toward Tedros knowing the kiss would fail, pushing her back to Rafal. She puts the ring on and vanishes. That night, Agatha finds Tedros, and they reunite, finally certain of their love.

Guinevere presents Agatha with the queen's diadem. Merlin returns with the League, and each young hero is paired with an old mentor for combat training. Back at school, Sophie embraces Evil, growing ruthless. Lady Lesso, the Dean of Evil, has secretly been Merlin's true spy, training the young students in defensive magic while the old villains sleep.

Good's forces march to the Stymph Forest for the final battle. Merlin reveals his secret weapon: the school's students arrive on stymphs, bony attack birds, raining flaming arrows on Rafal's army of zombie villains. Tedros battles Rafal while Agatha chases Sophie.

Agatha pursues Sophie into the Brig of Betrayers, an underground dungeon. Trapped together, they trigger a recorded message from their late professor, August Sader, who reveals the truth about their mothers. Vanessa was originally Evil and used a love potion brewed by Callis to trap Stefan into marriage. Their union produced twin girls: blond Sophie and dark-haired Agatha. Vanessa kept the beautiful child and ordered the other abandoned; Callis raised the rejected baby as her own. Sophie and Agatha are half-sisters, their souls mirror images. They escape through a portal hidden in a painting of Gavaldon.

The shield protecting Gavaldon collapses, and Rafal enters the village. He forces Stefan to his knees, revealing his endgame: Sophie must kill her father as a blood sacrifice to prove Evil can love, reversing the curse his own fratricide placed on Evil. He lays an axe across Agatha and Tedros' necks while Sophie holds Excalibur to Stefan's throat.

As the countdown reaches three, Agatha tells Sophie she will always be Sophie's Good Deed, the one genuine act of goodness Sophie has ever performed. They lock eyes, seeing reflections of each other. Sophie diverts Excalibur, sweeps the ring off her finger, and smashes it with the sword. Rafal ages and crumbles to ash, along with his Dark Army.

Lady Lesso dies from a wound inflicted by her son Aric, revealing her first name, Leonora, to Professor Dovey, the Dean of Good and Lesso's closest friend. Lesso's dying gift to Sophie is her purple gown. Sophie accepts the role of Dean of Evil, partnering with Dovey to run the school. Agatha and Tedros depart for Camelot, while Sophie sees them off at the gates, at peace for the first time. Her Ever After is not a prince or a crown but herself.