A Crystal of Time (The School for Good and Evil The Camelot Years #2) - Soman Chainani Page 0,131

full rehabilitation

Hort moved to the next page, the writing more scratchy and frantic.

Spending too much time with RJ

Then—

Attempts to separate them failing

There were no more pages in the file.

“Who’s RJ?” Hort asked. “I thought you said Aric was friends with Japeth.”

“Japeth is RJ’s middle name,” said Nicola.

“How do you know?” said Hort.

Nicola held up a faded envelope.

R. JAPETH OF FOXWOOD

62 STROPSHIRE ROAD

It had already been opened. They read the letter inside.

DEAR JAPETH,

TRIED TO WRITE YOU AT SCHOOL. THAT WITCH DEAN PROBABLY KEPT MY LETTERS FROM YOU. BECAUSE I ATTACKED YOUR BROTHER. EVEN THOUGH I HAD FULL RIGHT. YOU KNOW I HAD FULL RIGHT. NOW I’M EXPELLED FROM THE ONLY HOME I HAD. AND THE ONLY FRIEND.

DEAN TRIED TO GET THAT FAMILY I LIVED WITH TO COME GET ME BUT THEY’D SOONER KILL THEMSELVES. SO THE SCHOOL DUMPED ME IN THE WOODS LIKE AN ANIMAL. LIKE MY MOTHER DID. WHAT’D I TELL YOU. PAST IS PRESENT AND PRESENT IS PAST.

I’M AT THE SCHOOL FOR BOYS NOW. THE OLD SCHOOL FOR EVIL.

IT’S NOT THE SAME WITHOUT YOU.

I’M NOT THE SAME.

COME FIND ME.

PLEASE.

PLEASE.

ARIC

Hort’s palms dampened the parchment. He didn’t know why Aric’s letter bothered him. Maybe it was a sadistic monster sounding like he had feelings. Or maybe it was that line—“I attacked your brother”—and its suggestion that Rhian’s and Japeth’s history was about more than the two twins; that there’d been a boy between them, a boy who was now a ghost. Hort glanced edgily at his girlfriend.

“Told you they were friends,” said Nicola.

“This sounds a whole lot closer than friends,” said Hort.

Voices echoed outside. The sounds of boys laughing, singing.

Hort sprung up. From the Dean’s window, he could see them walking across the grass towards the cottage: eight boys, led by Dean Brunhilde.

All of them wearing Lion pins.

The Dean sang—“First we go to hoe our garden!”—and the boys chanted back: “Ya, ya, ya!” “Next we carry jugs of water!” “Ya, ya, ya!”

Hort and Nicola gaped at each other, then at the mess they’d made on the floor. No time to clean it up. And no way to get out of this house without being caught.

“Come on!” Nicola said, pulling Hort out of the room and into the hall.

“Then we pound the yellow corn!” “Ya, ya, ya!”

The door opened downstairs and the song cut off, Emilio’s and Arjun’s voices overlapping. . . .

A third voice boomed, matching the one from the nut: “IN MY OFFICE?”

Footsteps slammed up the stairs.

Nicola shoved Hort into a dark bathroom, the two of them barreling for the window as boots surged onto their floor. Hort counted to three with his fingers: on cue, both his and Nicola’s fingertips glowed, so brightly it spilled into the hall. Dean Brunhilde swung into the bathroom, steak knife raised—

The last thing she saw was a black sparrow and a blond-headed squirrel leap out of the window, two pairs of colorful clothes floating down behind them.

THE HOUSE WAS easy enough to find, once Nicola’s sparrow swiped a map of Foxwood from a market stall on the Rue du Palais, while Hort’s squirrel bounded along the street beneath.

“62 Stropshire Road. That’s the same address Rhian gave Dovey when she asked where he lived,” Hort called to the sparrow after they’d made it to a quiet street. “Remember? Dovey questioned him when we were on the Igraine. He told us his parents’ names too. Levya and Rosalie.”

“Rosamund,” said Nicola.

“Even as a bird, you’re a know-it-all,” Hort sighed.

Stropshire Road was on the outer bands of the Foxwood Vales, so peaceful and still that Hort could hear Nicola’s wings flutter as she drifted down to meet him in front of Rhian and Japeth’s old home. There was nothing special about the one-level cottage, perched in between other cottages that looked exactly the same. Shadows moved across the closed curtains, suggesting someone was inside. But first there was the matter of clothes, a problem that was solved by the squirrel and sparrow probing houses on an adjacent road until they found an unlocked window, snuck inside, and raided the closets. A few minutes later, dressed like average Foxwood folk, Hort and Nicola knocked on the door of House 62, and flashed polite smiles when it opened.

A sweet-looking lady peeked out with gold-rimmed glasses. She had a Lion coin on a necklace around her neck. “Can I help you?”

“You must be Rosamund?” said Nicola.

“Y-y-yes,” the lady answered, surprised.

“Lovely to meet you,” said Nicola. “We’re from the Foxwood Forum.”

“Doing a story on King Rhian’s childhood,” said Hort.

“Since you’re his