A Crystal of Time (The School for Good and Evil The Camelot Years #2) - Soman Chainani Page 0,174

didn’t attack.

He just gazed at her. Not with anger or threat . . . but with something softer. Sadness. Mourning.

The captain kneeled down and laid a rose on top of the Snake’s grave.

Then he glanced back at Agatha and Tedros one last time, before he hustled to join his men. Agatha watched the horses quietly pull the royal carriage back into the night, stars moving against the horizon as if to make way for it.

Tedros, meanwhile, was already scrambling downhill. He flung himself to the Snake’s grave and started scraping away dirt with both hands.

“What is he doing?” Guinevere asked Agatha, as Hort and Nicola rose from the ground with them. But now, Agatha was running too, Dovey’s bag pounding her flank. By the time she got to the Snake’s grave, Tedros had lurched back in surprise—

Rhian’s tan face lay uncovered. Blood coated the king’s hairline. Deep, needle-like wounds flecked with black scales dotted the sides of his neck.

Agatha’s heart plunged.

“He’s d-d-dead,” Tedros stammered. “Rhian . . . how can he be dead . . .”

“And looks like he’s been dead awhile. At least a day,” said Agatha, studying the corpse. She drew back, her body stiff. “Tedros . . . on his neck . . . those are scim wounds.” She looked at her prince. “Japeth killed him. His brother killed him.”

“None of this makes sense. Sophie’s marrying Rhian . . . that’s what Lionsmane says. . . .” Tedros insisted, checking the announcement in the sky, still beaming bright. “If he’s been dead for a day, that means the message went up around the same time. Which means Sophie’s marrying—”

“Japeth,” said Agatha. “She’s marrying Japeth. Sophie’s marrying the Snake. That’s the only reason they would be burying Rhian in this grave, secretly, in the middle of the night. Japeth’s going to pretend to be his brother. He’s going to wear his crown.”

“The Snake?” Tedros said, a choked whisper. “The Snake’s . . . king?”

His throat bobbed, his eyes fixed on the king’s lifeless face. Rhian had been his mortal nemesis. Tedros had wished nothing more than to see him dead. But that’s the problem with wishes: they need to be specific. Now Tedros was faced with an enemy far more deadly and deranged. A Snake masquerading as a Lion. A Snake on his father’s throne.

Agatha clasped his arm. “Whatever Sophie went back to Camelot to do . . . it’s gone wrong. She’s in trouble, Tedros.”

“And Kei wanted us to know,” Tedros realized. “That’s why he didn’t attack us. He was Rhian’s best friend. Kei was telling us to check the grave. He wanted us to know the Snake is king.”

A gust blew the rose off Rhian’s grave. Agatha carefully put it back where Kei had left it. As the petals rippled in the wind, Agatha remembered this—laying a rose on the Snake’s grave—as if it had already happened in the past. . . .

A crystal.

She’d seen it in a crystal.

At the time, she’d thought it a lie. But like all the other crystals she’d taken for lies, this one had come true too. Nothing in her fairy tale was as it appeared to be: good or evil, truth or lies, past or present. She always had the story wrong. Even the stars seemed to be mocking her, free-falling in her direction, as if her world was turning upside down.

Hort, Guinevere, and Nicola caught up and jolted at the sight of Rhian in the Snake’s grave.

“Um, this can’t be good,” said Hort.

“We need to get to Avalon,” Tedros commanded, starting to move. “Before the wedding. Everything depends on it.”

“We won’t get there in time,” said his mother, standing still. “Took us more than a day to get here from Avalon. By camel.”

“She’s right,” said Nicola. “On foot, we don’t stand a chance. Sophie and Japeth are getting married at sunset. There’s no way—”

Agatha wasn’t listening.

Her eyes were on the falling stars, plummeting even quicker now, hundreds of them, thousands, aiming straight at her and her friends.

“That’s the thing about Good . . . ,” Agatha marveled. “It always finds a way.”

Tedros and the others looked up at the army of fairies ripping through the night sky, swooping towards them. And leading the light brigade: a pear-shaped fairy with poofy gray hair, a green dress far too small, and ragged gold wings.

Flashing a mischievous smile, Tinkerbell flung a cloud of sooty dust—

Before Agatha could brace herself, she and her friends were off their feet and flying high into the