A Crystal of Time (The School for Good and Evil The Camelot Years #2) - Soman Chainani Page 0,146

and the Sheriff, still warring on the ground.

Sophie thrashed against the tree, the snakeskin shrouding her. Why couldn’t she get the dress off like she could before? Japeth didn’t even know she was here. How could a dress have a mind of its own? How could it come alive now? She should have known not to trust it: from the way Japeth insisted she wear it . . . to the way it itched when he’d been close . . . to the way it’d reappeared after she’d burned it to ash. . . .

It was his beloved mother’s dress.

Evelyn Sader’s dress.

And like the butterfly dress Evelyn once wore and her son’s suit of eels, this was alive too.

Down on the ground, Japeth was strangling the Sheriff so hard that the Sheriff’s face had gone cherry-red, the veins of his throat shearing at his skin.

The Sheriff raised a big, trembling palm—

And slapped Japeth in the face with all his strength.

Japeth let loose a startled shout, drowned out by a primal war cry, the Sheriff bounding off the ground and snaring the Snake like a lion. A blade-sharp scim shot off Japeth’s suit but the Sheriff caught it midair and stabbed Japeth in the rib. The eels on Japeth’s body shrieked in terrible chorus, before they all launched from the Snake’s suit like a thousand black knives and impaled the Sheriff’s wrists and ankles, crucifying him into dirt. The Sheriff grunted in shock, then stared upwards, his black eyes big, his lips wheezing panicked breaths.

Bolted to the tree, Sophie floundered to make her finger glow, but was thwarted by the dress. She’d never felt so beaten, so scared. This was Dot’s father. A villain who’d redeemed himself. A man of Evil who’d sided with Good when it mattered. He didn’t deserve to die. Not now. And yet, she couldn’t help him. She couldn’t do anything.

Japeth stood up, face bludgeoned to an ugly shade of purple, rivers of blood flowing down his naked form.

He picked up a heavy stick off the ground and broke it over his knee, the end of it sharp as a stake.

The Snake approached the Sheriff and straddled his helpless body, his eyes empty and cold.

“You’ll . . . never . . . win. . . . ,” the Sheriff rasped.

“Isn’t that what you said before this started?” Japeth replied.

Sophie let out a silent cry—

The stake ripped through the Sheriff’s heart.

Sophie turned away, tears spilling onto her hands, leaves and branches scratching at her cheeks. She could hear Japeth ransacking the Sheriff’s body for the ring. The Snake’s breaths grew louder, his movements more frantic. He couldn’t find it. . . .

Then it went quiet.

Sophie looked down at Japeth kneeled over the Sheriff’s body.

He was frozen still.

Thinking.

“Bet my boots . . . ,” Japeth murmured.

His eyes floated to the Sheriff’s shoe.

He pulled off the dirty leather boot.

Then the other.

The silver ring glinted around a blackened toe, almost as bright as the Snake’s smile.

Japeth sauntered into the Endless Woods, whistling a tune, his bare snow-white skin glowing through the darkness, before he glanced back at his minions. The eels released the Sheriff’s body to the dirt and chased after their master.

Up in the tree, Sophie’s dress melted back to white lace, gently unlocking her from the bark as if the dress was suddenly her friend. In a flash, she was sliding down branches, diving onto the ground, falling onto the Sheriff’s body—

His eyes were still open, blood foaming from his mouth.

“Tell . . . Dot . . .”

“Shhh! I’ll get the gnomes! I’ll get help!” Sophie said, spinning for the stump—

The Sheriff seized her hand. “Tell Dot . . . me and her mother . . .” He choked out blood. “It was . . . love.”

His heart stopped.

Slowly his eyes closed.

His hand let go of Sophie’s, the skin ice-cold.

“No . . . ,” Sophie whispered. She sobbed over the Sheriff, soaked with his blood. She would have saved him. She would have stopped this. She was the Witch of Woods Beyond. She would have torn out Japeth’s heart and fed it to his eels. She’d have given her life to protect that ring, to protect the Woods and her friends. If only she’d been given the chance.

Enraged, she ripped at the white dress, shredding its layers and flinging them into the wind, but the dress instantly repaired and erased the Sheriff’s blood, its magic sealing her in tighter, like a suit of armor.

Sophie hunched there, wet with sweat