: Beautiful, vain, and draped in pink, Sophie has spent her life grooming herself to be a princess. She views the kidnapping not as a threat, but as her rightful ticket to a "Happily Ever After".

The story begins in the isolated village of Gavaldon, where every four years, two children are kidnapped by a mysterious School Master to populate the fabled Schools for Good and Evil.

: Gruff, "ugly," and living in a graveyard with her cat, Agatha is the village's natural candidate for a witch. Her only goal is to protect her best friend, Sophie, from being taken.