A Crystal of Time (The School for Good and Evil The Camelot Years #2) - Soman Chainani Page 0,108

dwelling and edifice flashed the same sign—NON-GNOMES WILL BE KILLED—along with an icon painted in the corner, the official emblem of Gnomeland:

This same pawprint dominated the marquee of the Musée de Gnome, hosting the exhibition “The Golden Age of Teapea” with a long line of gnomes hanging off its vine, waiting to get in. Meanwhile, at the Temple of Teapea, pious gnomes raised their hands as a priestess gnome stamped their foreheads with a gold-dust paw. Signs pointed off vines to “Teapea Way,” “Teapea Court,” “Teapea Drive,” “Teapea Park,” and everywhere Agatha looked, gnomes greeted each other with smiles, raising their hands like paws, chiming “Blessed Be Teapea!”

Sophie whispered: “Whoever this Teapea is, he’s a dictator.”

“Says the girl who redecorated the School for Evil with murals of herself,” Agatha replied.

Sophie pretended not to hear.

Down below, the king’s palace came into view, shimmering bright blue against its vines like a fluorescent fortress, flanked at each corner by candlelit minarets. Gnome guards with sparkly blue hats like Subby’s were perched on floating lily pads outside the royal gates, wielding scimitars bigger than their own heads.

But now the rickshaw was passing more wonders: a schoolhouse filled with itty-bitty gnomes learning the ancient history of Gnomeland . . . an open-air theater playing a matinee of If I’d Only Gnome! . . . a putt-putt course extending vertically down a vine, with golfing gnomes in gravity boots anchored to the greens . . . and the headquarters of the Small Print News, printing their latest edition: “FATIMA WINS GNOMELAND SPELLING BEE! WINNING WORD: ‘BOUILLABAISE’!”

Agatha was so entranced that she’d forgotten everything they’d left behind.

“Totally in their own world,” Tedros murmured. “Like they have no clue what’s happening above ground.”

“We don’t,” Subby chipped in. “After Arthur banished us, King Teapea said it was a blessing and made us build an underground colony. Some uppity gnomes stayed behind on land—hear one’s even a teacher at that famous school—but the rest of us stuck with Teapea and cut ourselves off from all that happens up there. Not to be rude, but you humans think the Woods revolves around you. You divide up your land, create false borders, only to start fights, and before ya know it, you’re declaring war on your own friends and brothers. Joke’s on you, though. Not a single gnome has been bothered to use the Human World Observatory in the Musée de Gnome and see what’s goin’ on up in your Woods. Had to close the exhibit ’cause we couldn’t care less. Imagine that. Gnomes who used to be your best allies, no longer the slightest bit interested in whether you live or die. And now that you know the secret of where we moved, not sure Teapea will let ya leave alive.” Subby giggled. “Ah, here we are. . . .”

The royal gnome guards glared at Subby, scimitars gleaming, their eyes roving across Agatha and her friends, clearly seeing them beneath the snakeskin. They waved in the rickshaw and Subby pedaled onto a gold-paved track, approaching the blue-lit palace, the only structure in Gnomeland big enough to fit a full-sized human.

Nerves fluttered through Agatha’s stomach, a reminder that she wasn’t here as a tourist. Above ground, the whole Woods was hunting her and her friends. Now she was depending on a strange king’s mercy to keep them safe. A king who despised her entire kind.

Two guards held open the palace doors as Subby wheeled inside. “You can take off your snakeskin,” he said, coming to a stop.

Sophie was already fumbling from under the covering and ogling the opulent foyer, lined with blue-stone arches. Agatha climbed out of the rickshaw and inspected the stone closer, as thin drips of molten lava crisscrossed its surface, the lava switching directions at will, occasionally erupting in detonations of red smoke. Beneath her feet, blue stone sparkled with red glitterdust, rippling in paw patterns across the floor like constellations in a night sky.

Three lily pads floated from around a corner, topped with tall glasses of golden-rose milk and coconut cookies, which Agatha, Tedros, and Sophie devoured, the tangy drink mixing in their mouths with sweet coconut crumbles, before the milk and cookies magically replenished. Three more lily pads arrived with hot, peppermint-scented towels, which they used to wipe the dirt off their faces, along with a last lily pad toting a fresh shirt for Tedros.

“If this is our hideout, I don’t see the need to go back above ground,” Sophie quipped.

“Happy to leave you while this ‘rot’