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[Transcript]

        BAM, BAM, BAM! Barrister’s gavel slammed down on his pulpit. Behind the double doors at the heart of the Detention Fortress, a different sort of battle had concluded: a legal battle.

        “GUILTY! GUILTY!” screeched the Number One Black Saint. “WOE betide the guilty, for the wick of life in prison burns too slow, and dread perdition’s flames for but a single swift eternity!” Barrister sighed. “Were I the maker, death’s black gates would not hold back the heat below, and all who sinned would pay the price BEFORE they leave this plane—the same as any customer who plans to exeunt a drugstore with a candy bar!”

        “Okay this is for sure a mistrial situation,” said the defendant, a student who’d been called to face the music in his courtroom.

        “I am UNBIASED in my pursuit of justice, Miss Archer. NOTHING could have swayed my opinion in this case—not even EVIDENCE and TESTIMONY,” Barrister patiently reassured her. No one had any faith in the legal system these days! It was truly sad, and just as mystifying. Barrister banged his judge’s gavel again, because he could, and because the room’s acoustics were immaculate. “AIMEE ARCHER! You stand accused of creating and recklessly firing a projectile known as a paper wasp. The charges are illicit bioengineering of a non-native insect species, supplying weapons to a TERRORIST (yourself), and assaulting the potential future President of the United States!”

        “I shot it at a trash can!” she protested.

        “YOU NEVER KNOW!” Barrister snapped back. “Also that’s a CONFESSION! Defense, how do you plead??”

        “She’s super guilty, your honor,” said Aimee’s lawyer, a tween in greyscale tweed and black sunglasses.

        “H-HEY! Aren’t you supposed to be on MY side?!”

        “She is on your side. Of the courtroom. And I said you’d be assigned a Student Councilor, not a student counselor. She’s public defending the public from YOU, criminal scum! You waived your right to a loyal attorney when you failed to notice our duplicitous maneuvering! TEN THOUSAND YEARS INFINITY DETENTION!!” His gavel slammed down one last time. Barrister sighed with satisfaction and fluffed his wig back to regulation volume. “Bailiff! Take her away!”

        “TH-THAT’S NOT FAIR!”

        “The Vice Principal will see you now,” said Barrister. “You may appeal the sentence and/or plead for mercy upstairs in her shadow lair.” Every good democracy had one or two of those behind closed doors. A snooty sneer unfurled across Barrister’s face. “I would suggest you make a deal... but I have no doubt that you will.” The Black Saint’s Number One judge steepled his fingers and sank back in his throne, the lofty pouch of the Student Council’s kangaroo court. “I look forward to seeing a badge and uniform formalize what should have already been clear: that I am your superior! Oh-ho ho ho HO!”

        “I beat you at Mr. Starchman’s Chin-Scratching Trivia Quizzler ONCE, Barry!”

        “MY BUZZER WAS BROKEN FOR THAT SPECIFIC QUESTION!!” a red-faced Barrister snapped back in a spittle-spewing huff. Would that he could censor settled issues ere they left the forkèd tongues of his cruel haters!

        Up the strangling coil of a narrow spiral staircase, past unlit sconces rimed with dust and slits for launching arrows down at students, Vice Principal DuNacht awaited her next potential candidate with glee.

        “...Are you happy now?”

        Devilora looked up from the monitors that let her watch the courtroom drama playing out downstairs. She was seated at a crooked desk that looked as though its carpenter had gotten bored of only making coffins. The Sphinx of Truth was curled up on a stack of yellowed files, purring as DuNacht pet her with long, flesh-rending fingers. The lighting was atrocious, and the whole oppressive attic of an office smelled like dust and stagnant air. Devilora turned to Cody, who’d been scowling at her from a cobwebbed corner since he’d followed her inside.

        “I’d say this is one of several happy places I’ve been blessed to infest, so... yes!” The Vice Principal grinned at her president—the grin of a cat who’d just been asked if she had seen your missing goldfish. “Don’t I look happy?”

        “That’s not what I meant,” Cody hissed through gritted teeth, his eyes intense beneath his presidential mask. “I gave your speech. I ratified your rules. I brought you half the school in handcuffs. Haven’t I done enough? Isn’t it time you held up your end of the bargain?”

        Devilora cocked her head at him, which made such a nasty cracking noise that Cody briefly hoped she had expired.

        “I don’t recall us setting terms like that,” she chuckled. “Virtue is its OWN reward, and the Student Council is a teeming horde of frothing volunteers. Does Sauron pay his orcs? The Wicked Witch her flying monkeys?” Devilora licked her withered lips, and her horn-rimmed glasses shimmered in the darkness. “Do you mean to tell me that you aren’t helping your favorite old lady out of the goodness of your heart, Mr. President? I’m shocked!”

        Cody felt rage flood the empty hollow of his chest. Fauxbia was toying with him. None of the tasks she had forced on him fulfilled their pact, his promise to help her escape his father unharmed. Until he could guarantee Jeff’s safety, though, he had no choice but to suffer through her torment.

        “Sooner or later, you really WILL need my help with my father,” Cody threatened her. The words felt impotent leaving his mouth. Cody’s mind was running wild with loopholes that the Witch could still conceivably snare him with. Couldn’t she just give herself a paper cut while fleeing Davy’s wrath? Couldn’t she leave Jeff unscathed but keep him kidnapped, safely trapped within her web, once the terms of their bargain had tied her nasty puppetmaster hands? None of this would end while she still had Jeff as a hostage. “Don’t expect the rules to change in your favor the next time they’re rewritten,” he said, feeling small and foolish.

        “Your father and I go way back, Mr. President,” Devilora smirked. “Further back than you might guess... even if you’ve already accounted for his enviable longevity. We share many venerable values, goals, and ENEMIES—and of course a deep affection for YOU, young man. Nyeh heh-HEH! That’s how we and other strange bedfellows have been able to work together for so long, despite our past and present... disagreements.” The Vice Principal’s pockmarked hands were busily kneading the sphinx that Cody couldn’t see into all sorts of shapes—shapes that one might think a cat would loathe—but all he heard from the empty space it occupied was more enthusiastic purring. “I can handle your father and his QUIBBLES, have no doubt. We’ve pulled each other’s strings for many, MANY years, Mr. President... though I dare not drift into detail in polite company.”

        “Were you and my dad a COUPLE??” Cody wretched in disbelief.

        “What? No. Ew,” said Devilora.

        “Speaking of polite company,” a pale and dizzy-looking Principal Pleezdoo politely interjected, “might I perhaps come down now?”

        Devilora had placed Principal Pleezdoo atop an elegant marble pillar that she’d set up as a centerpiece beside her crooked desk. Its placard kindly labeled her “The Biddlest Principal, Miss Posy Pleezdoo” and less-than-kindly kept her at a likely lethal height above the floor.

        “Don’t be SILLY,” Devilora squawked. “You belong upon a pedestal, sweet Posy! It’s the perfect place for chiseled little figureheads, lovely busts, and finely aged antiques to sit and be admired!”

        “...I suppose it is nice to reverse our height difference for a change,” sighed Principal Pleezdoo.

        “Are you two a couple?” a mystified Cody asked.

        Both women laughed like NPCs from Dark Souls. A knock upon the door deprived the world of further answers.