A Crystal of Time (The School for Good and Evil The Camelot Years #2) - Soman Chainani Page 0,141

second and you and Sophie are . . .” He took in the scene. His cheeks went scarlet. “Have you lost your mind! You went into the crystal withou—”

“Evelyn Sader,” Agatha gasped. “Evelyn Sader is Rhian and Japeth’s mother. She hexed your father. She had his child. Rhian is the son of King Arthur and Evelyn Sader. Rhian is your father’s eldest child. His rightful heir. Tedros . . . Rhian is king.”

Her prince looked at her. For a second, he smiled stupidly, as if he thought this was all a joke, a ruse to distract him from being angry with her.

But then he saw it in her eyes. In the way she was shivering despite the steam.

She was telling the truth.

Tedros shook his head. “You’re talking nonsense. My father didn’t even know Evelyn S-S-Sad . . .” He backed against the wall. “You didn’t see it right. . . . Whatever it was, you misunderstood. . . .”

“I wish I did. I wish it was a lie,” Agatha said, anguished. “I saw everything, Tedros.” She lifted out of the bath to touch him, to hold him—

“Wait,” Agatha said, stopping stiff. A new panic ripped through her. “Sophie,” she breathed, searching the room. “Did she make it back . . .”

Her voice trailed off.

Small, wet footprints led out of the bathroom into the hall.

Agatha raised her eyes to Tedros. “Did you see her?”

Tedros was still shell-shocked. “You’re wrong. You have to be wrong. She has nothing to do with my father! E-E-Evelyn? The Dean?”

But now he caught the fear in Agatha’s eyes.

The fear about something else entirely.

“Sophie,” Agatha rasped. “Did you see her?”

Tedros gazed at her blankly.

Then his face went cold.

He was already running. Agatha chased him, water flying off her as she and her prince hurtled down the hall, checking each chamber, following the trail of footprints until they ended in the last room, the one sprayed with white pillows across the floor, where she and Sophie had slept—

Sophie wasn’t there.

The window was open, two wet footprints gleaming on the windowsill.

Agatha’s scream reverberated through the palace.

Because it wasn’t just Sophie who was missing.

Her white dress was gone too.

22

SOPHIE

Script of a Murder

Evelyn Sader, Sophie thought, steering the rickshaw up the spiral track.

A name from the past. Now a curse in the present.

Evelyn Sader: imperious and milky-smooth, with that wicked dress made out of butterflies. Evelyn Sader, Dean of the School for Girls, who’d brought the School Master back from the dead to show her love for him. But Rafal never loved Evelyn. He’d loved Sophie. He wanted Sophie as his bride. So he’d killed Evelyn Sader to get her out of the way. That was supposed to be the end of Evelyn’s story. Her dark, devious schemes of love had borne no fruit.

But somewhere earlier in Evelyn’s story, those dark schemes had borne fruit.

Because Evelyn had hexed King Arthur to have his sons. That much was clear. (Unless the scene was a fake . . . Not possible, thought Sophie. It had come from Rhian’s blood, not his mind.)

But there were still so many questions. How had Evelyn Sader met Lady Gremlaine? Did Gremlaine know Evelyn had used the spansel she herself had disavowed? Did Gremlaine know Evelyn had borne Arthur’s sons? Was that Lady Gremlaine’s terrible “secret”? And had the School Master, Evelyn’s true love, learned of it?

Sophie was so distracted, she was driving the rickshaw straight towards the side of the track—

She corrected course, holding down her panic.

She’d stolen the rickshaw from that noisy page boy (Snubby? Smarmy? Sauron?), who had parked his cart outside the window of the bedroom where she’d slept. She’d tiptoed past his snoring body, slumped against a tree, and found the snakeskin in the rickshaw’s front seat. Wheels screeched against stone, and the gnome bolted awake to see his cart scuttling away, no driver in sight. “Bhoot!” he brayed. “Bhoooot! There’s a ghost in my cart! Bhooooot!” Sophie guessed that bhoot meant ghost in Gnome, so she did her best to play the part, swerving menacingly as the page boy chased. Soon his rickshaw was long gone, cruising upwards into the bright lights of the city.

She pedaled harder now, past Teapea’s Temple and the Musée de Gnome, stress wrenching at her ribs. Tedros would hate her for leaving. He’d think Evelyn Sader being revealed as Rhian’s mother and Arthur as his father had sent Sophie running back into the king’s arms. Because now Sophie knew that Rhian was the true heir. Rhian was