Page 50 of The Underachiever’s Guide to Love and Saving the World

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Judging by his expression, Amy did not care that we’d technically saved him.

Clearly, he was just remembering the part where our sidekick poisoned him and considered us co-conspirators.

His ratting us out to the king would put a big wrench in our efforts to save everyone, so I decided to do what I always did: run now and deal with it later.

“We’re really sorry,” I said, feeling for Courtney’s hand behind my back, “and so glad you’re not dead. We don’t have time to explain now, but we’ll talk later.”

Courtney grabbed the potion book, then I pulled her down the nearest aisle, Amy’s cries fading behind us.

Outside the library, the castle was in chaos. Ducking our faces, we pressed ourselves against the wall, hoping the shadows would conceal us while we came up with a plan.

“What are we going to do?” I asked, gasping for breath.

“I have an idea,” came a tiny voice.

We looked down. There, leaning against the wall beside us like he was part of our crew, was Greg the mouse.

“Your ideas, historically, have sucked,” Courtney snapped.

“This one is harmless,” Greg insisted. “Amy is in there, is he not?” He pointed a tiny finger at the closed library door. “Simply ensure he stays in there.”

I hesitated. “Lock him in?”

Greg nodded.

“Amy will be fine in there,” Courtney said, like she sensed my hesitation. “We can blame a classic medieval door malfunction. Those have to be common enough. Once we handle the skeletons and the dragon, maybe he’ll be more willing to believe we didn’t mean to nearly murder him.”

“How do we lock him in?” I asked. “There’s no lock on the outside.”

Greg sighed. For the first time ever, his endless adoration waned, and he almost sounded fed up with us. “The two of you forget you have magic with astonishing frequency.”

On the other side of the door, footsteps tapped closer. Amy was coming. Panic rose in my throat—

Courtney pushed me against the wall and kissed me. Her lips glided over mine, and—she felt nice. So nice. So freaking nice.

Maybe too nice. Too easy. Too good.

All I wanted to do was drag Courtney back up to her room so we could be alone a little longer. But she’d suggested that potion, and a gnawing feeling of doubt made me worry that, despite vowing not to miscommunicate, there was something she wasn’t telling me.

My mind started to spin like those cheap carnival rides everyone despises.

No. I refused to ride the damn ride—the overthinking ride that would end in nothing but feeling like garbage.

I wrapped my arms around her back, drawing her into me. Heat exploded in my veins. Her fingers closed over mine. As she guided my hand, I groaned against her mouth, imagining all the places she might lead it.

My imagination was pretty good, but I had to admit, I did not expect her to guide my hand to a doorknob. Which was what she did.

“Wha…?” I opened my eyes to find blue magic pouring off me. The visual evidence of how much Courtney cared settled my racing thoughts. I would not ruin this for myself.

The doorknob heated under my palm, and it finally registered why Courtney had kissed me. I focused, directing the magic down my arm, forcing even more of it out into the door. The metal burned. I held on until I couldn’t, hand flying off the doorknob.

Courtney and I stepped back. The doorknob glowed red, smoke rising around the door. It jiggled, like Amy on the other side was trying to open it, but it held.

“You there,” I said, stopping a servant who was passing by. “Watch this door. Find us if Amy comes out.”

“Hurry, this way,” Greg urged, and we ran after him. “I have something else to show you. To correct the mistake I made.”

“Which one?” Courtney grumbled under her breath. “First you advise me to tame a dragon, then you nearly murder our mentor.”

We went down several flights of stairs and many long halls, avoiding the frantic castle inhabitants, who ran in a great hurry to nowhere in particular.

The walls turned to stone, and the air grew chillier the farther down we went.

At last, Greg gestured for us to follow before squeezing under a door.

Squeezing under a door. Something about that prickled at my memory.

I tried to open the door to follow, but the wood was swollen and stuck to its frame. I gave it a good shove with my shoulder, and it popped free. Stumbling inside, I barely had time to look around before I was backpedaling, nearly bowling over Courtney.

There, standing in the middle of the gloomy room, was a figure in purple robes. Their hood was up, concealing their face.

“Amy?” Courtney asked. “How’d you get out?”

The figure flipped back its hood, revealing a pale skull and ghastly grin. A strangled curse tumbled from my mouth.

Courtney gasped. “Did we somehow accidentally melt Amy’s face off?”

“Why does your mind always go to melting ?” I asked. “You think we accidentally melted a guy instead of assuming it’s one of the undead we accidentally raised because the dragon we accidentally freed made me accidentally—okay, I see how you got there.”

The skeleton cocked its head.

Greg let out a long-suffering sigh. “She’s one of the undead—their queen.”

Courtney set her jaw. “You! You hit me with a battle-ax! I have a bone to pick with you.”

That was Courtney, the joke at a funeral, and despite the situation, I snickered. “Nice.”

Greg gave us a withering look. “We can use her as a stand-in for the old man. If you keep her hood up, nobody will know the difference. It will buy us time. If people notice his absence, they’ll start asking questions.”

A seed of doubt took root in my brain. For the first time, I began to wonder if the mouse was the undyingly loyal animal sidekick I first pegged him as.

I took in the room. Shelves lined the perimeter, countless glass jars containing a sludgy green liquid packed across every surface.

A large black cauldron steamed in a corner.

And the skeleton standing in the middle, for some reason, was not murdering us all.

“Wait a minute.” I took a step forward, then thought better of it and took two steps back. “You want Courtney and me to let one of the evil skeletons follow us around all day? One of the evil skeletons whose pals are outside right now laying siege to the city ?”

“She’s quite harmless,” said Greg. “She longs for a new, less violent life, and so agreed to help.”

“The queen of the skeletons happens to do whatever you say?” Courtney’s eyes narrowed.

I caught on to what she was thinking, finally putting two and two together. The skeletons wouldn’t even listen to Courtney, and she’d assumed she was the villain, their overlord. But they listened to a mouse?

“She’s agreed to help on the condition you’ll take her back through the portal with you,” Greg said. “She wants to go to medical school.”

The skeleton wanted to go to med school ? When it came down to it, I didn’t know what was a more absurd idea: signing a skeleton up for med school or having any hope of her paying off her student loans. Not to mention housing and—

“Why should we trust anything you say?” Courtney asked, bringing me back to the present before I could spiral into the logistics of becoming the primary guardian of a century-old undead skeleton. She turned to me. “Last time we saw Greg, he tried to kill Peepaw.”

I squinted. “Did you just refer to our wizard mentor as Peepaw ? Never mind—not important. Greg definitely poisoned Amy. He probably planned to do it from the moment he stole your peanut butter and was just waiting for an opportunity to make it look like an accident.” My mind raced as pieces started clicking together.

“Wait a second. Greg stole all of your groceries except for the pizza rolls, which he gave us to eat at the burial ground with instructions to make sure I cooked them well, probably hoping I’d drop them in the fire. ”

Courtney’s eyes widened. “And then, when you didn’t drop them, the dragon made sure you did—the dragon Greg told me about. He said it was part of the prophecy that the Chosen One can tame dragons. I bet that was never in the prophecy at all, and he made it up so we’d free it.”

I gasped. “He probably only gave us back our condoms to keep us distracted so we wouldn’t piece it all together.”

Suddenly, a muffled yell sounded from somewhere deeper in the room. Courtney and I exchanged a glance, then dashed toward the sound. Greg yelled at us to wait, but we ignored him. We found another door behind a shelf, and Courtney threw it open.

Two people occupied the tiny space, which might have been a closet at one point but now resembled a prison cell. There was a tall woman wearing armor, leaning threateningly over a middle-aged man who was tied up in a chair.

“Is that General Thimblepop?” Courtney exclaimed. “She’s working for you? Who’s this other guy? Let me guess. The king’s hand, Marty?”

“Yes, but listen,” Greg began, and I whirled to face him.

“Does this mean General Thimblepop was never actually kidnapped?” I asked.

“Or maybe Greg kidnapped her and somehow turned her into his evil minion,” said Courtney.

“And now he’s trying to do the same to Marty.

” She glared at Greg. “I bet you even ordered your skeleton to knock us out so we wouldn’t be around to stop you from taking Marty.

What about Winston? Did he escape before you could turn him to the dark side? ”

As Greg watched our exchange, his entire countenance transformed. Where before he stood hunched, often with twitching whiskers and wringing hands, now he straightened. Crossed his arms. Hardened his face. Behind him, the skeleton mimicked his posture.

“You were the one who summoned us and created the portal,” Courtney said, smiling radiantly. “I’m not the villain!” She lowered an accusatory finger of doom at the mouse. “We unknowingly worked as your minions the entire time. That means you’re —”

“The Wicked One,” I said grimly.

“Evil One,” Courtney corrected under her breath.

“The Evil One,” I said grimly.

Greg let out a long-suffering sigh. “No, you bozos. You have it completely backward.”

“Seize him,” I yelled but didn’t move. There was, after all, a skeleton standing in our path.

Courtney and I exchanged a look.

She sighed. “Fine.”

Courtney charged, diving for the mouse, but he sidestepped. She went crashing into a shelf, glass jars tumbling and shattering around her. She staggered to her feet, green slime coating her body. “He’s getting away!”

Greg darted for a tiny hole in a wall. Fighting the fear clenching my stomach, I ran forward.

A bony arm intercepted me, clotheslining me in a way that gave me flashbacks to Red Rover on the middle school playground.

I hit the ground flat on my back, the air knocked from my lungs.

My vision darkened as I struggled to draw in a breath.

The shadowy form of the skeleton appeared over me. Her bony hands reached for my neck.

A blur to my right.

Courtney.

She swung the giant potion book like a baseball bat. WHACK. The skeleton went flying. Courtney bent, grabbed my arms, and hauled me up.

“Wait!” shouted General Thimblepop, but we ignored her.

We ran.

We were always running.