A Crystal of Time (The School for Good and Evil The Camelot Years #2) - Soman Chainani Page 0,106

his bruised back and he looked up as Agatha pulled him into her warmth. Then Sophie flanked Tedros from the other side, cozying him into her dress.

Tedros didn’t resist, as if what he’d heard of their travails had humbled him.

Little by little, his body stopped shivering as the two girls sheltered him the rest of the way.

“The Storian has to survive. The Woods have to survive,” Tedros said finally. “And the only way it’ll survive is if I take back my throne. Rhian won’t rest until every last ring is destroyed. I have to stop him myself. I have to defeat him once and for all.”

“Tedros, you can barely walk,” said Agatha. “You have no sword, no support in the Woods, and no way to get near Rhian without his brother or his men killing you first. You don’t even have a shirt. Right now, we need a place to hide—”

“And here we are,” said Sophie, stopping suddenly.

She stood over a tree stump swarming with fireflies, blinking orange in the dark.

“This is it,” she said, relieved. “Only place in the Woods we’ll be safe.”

Agatha peered at the stump. “Um.”

Horses thundered somewhere nearby, this time layered with voices.

“You’re joking, I hope,” said Tedros. “This was the old Gnomeland station for the Flowerground, when gnomes still had their home in Camelot. They disappeared after my father banished magic from the kingdom. Trains don’t even run here anymore—”

He scrunched up his nose.

Agatha smelled it too: a familiar smoky scent, like the earthiest tea. Before she could place it, something peeped out of the stump, lit by the fireflies, staring right at her.

A turnip.

Or rather an upside-down turnip, with two blinking eyes and a mouth shaped like an O.

“Did you say gnomes?” asked the turnip. “No gnomes here. That would be illegal. No gnomes allowed in Camelot. But vegetables? Vegetables are definitely allowed. So kindly go on your way and—”

“Teapea,” said Sophie.

The turnip’s eyes darted to her. “Excuse me?”

“Teapea,” she repeated.

“Well, then,” said the turnip, clearing his throat.

He ducked out of sight and the top of the stump opened like a lid, revealing a wide hole.

The sound of horses grew louder.

“Follow me,” said Sophie.

She put one foot on the edge of the stump and leapt inside.

Agatha looked back through the trees: a sea of torches rushed towards her atop sprinting stallions. Tedros was already lunging for the stump, pulling his princess in behind him—

Agatha careened headfirst through darkness and the top of the stump snapped shut above her. Clinging to her prince’s hand, she plummeted until she couldn’t hold him any longer and they ripped apart, twisting in free fall like sands through an hourglass. Then Agatha’s foot snagged onto something and her pace slowed, her body floating like she’d lost gravity.

Tedros’ gold glow illuminated, lighting up his own floating form. Agatha sparked her glow and cast it around them.

A lush green vine was caught around Tedros’ waist like a lasso, another around Agatha’s foot, drifting the prince and princess down through an abandoned Flowerground station, the carcasses of dead trains piled against the walls. Flowercars, once brilliant with the color of their respective lines, had rotted brown, molting petals and leaves into the hollow. A decayed stench stung Agatha’s nostrils, cobwebs stringing onto her ears and legs. The vines around her and Tedros seemed like the only things still alive. An old, faded sign lay broken in the wreckage:

The vines towing Agatha and Tedros lit up with luminous glow, their green surfaces crackling with electric current, before they tightened around the prince and princess like safety belts. . . .

And started dropping them faster.

Agatha squinted down for Sophie, but all she saw was the bottom of the pit rising. The vines unraveled like anchors, spinning the prince and princess towards hard, dark soil. Before Agatha or Tedros could react, the vines let go entirely.

“Tedros!” Agatha screamed.

“Ahhhhhh!” Tedros yelled.

They crashed into the earth, straight through to the other side, where they landed in the back of a rickshaw cart, Agatha in Tedros’ lap, Sophie scrunched beside them.

“Now you know why I smell like dirt,” Sophie said.

“This the rest of ’em?” piped a sprightly voice.

Agatha and Tedros looked up at a young gnome perched on a bicycle attached to the bright orange rickshaw, his eyes on Sophie. He had dark, ruddy skin, a sparkly, cone-shaped blue hat, and a spiffy matching suit.

“Thought ya said there’d be three more comin’,” said the gnome.

Sophie swallowed. “No. This is it.”

“Good. Can’t keep the king waiting!” the gnome said,