A Crystal of Time (The School for Good and Evil The Camelot Years #2) - Soman Chainani Page 0,151

She treated me snidely and I chastised her for it in front of her staff. If I had known she was in love with Arthur, I would have handled it better, but the damage was done. She went to stay with her sister in Foxwood and refused to return, ignoring Arthur’s pleas. That is, until Arthur met a friend of Gremlaine’s prowling around the castle: a woman named Elle Sader. He invited Elle to dine with us as a way of letting Gremlaine return with an ally at her side. He thought it would help her save face and come home.”

“What happened at dinner?” Hort asked.

Guinevere choked up. “I’m sorry. It’s just . . . the whole idea of it!” she cried, face in her hands. “That Arthur’s steward conspired with a witch to make him have children he didn’t want . . . and then for the witch to take them for herself . . .” She shook her head. “Did Arthur know about this? Did he know a stranger had his heirs? Could he really have kept such a secret from me? From everyone?”

Agatha looked down. “I don’t know. I only know what I saw.”

Guinevere’s eyes suddenly widened. “It must have happened after that night. There were signs at the dinner. Between Gremlaine and that snake—”

“What signs?” said Tedros’ voice.

The prince came back into the room, his eyes stained red, his shirt wet with snot. He sat beside Guinevere and took her hand. All the defiance had melted out of his face, replaced with vulnerability and fear, as if in accepting that he might not be a king, he’d found permission to be a son.

Tedros’ touch settled the old queen. “What signs?” he repeated.

His mother took a deep breath. “The way they whispered and snickered anytime Arthur spoke about our impending wedding. As if they knew something we didn’t. And when Arthur mentioned that he wanted a seer to one day paint his child’s coronation portrait, Elle’s mood darkened. She said her brother August was a seer, but that his powers paled beside hers. That he might see the future, but she could hear the present—people’s desires, fears, darkest secrets—and that the present had far more force to change lives than the future or past. I suggested that she use her powers to be a fairy godmother. She cackled like a witch. That’s what her brother had told her. Use your powers to help people, he’d insisted. As if she would spend her life flitting around the Woods, making dresses for homely girls and reforming selfish princes, Elle mocked. Meanwhile, her brother grew more and more famous amongst kings and wizards, even coming to the attention of the School Master himself. A woman didn’t have the same opportunities a man had, Elle said bitterly. A woman had to rely on her wiles. But that’s what made her befriend women like Grisella, Elle added, grinning at Lady Gremlaine. To help other women use their wiles to their advantage . . . For a price, of course.”

Guinevere wrung her hands. “She’d cackled again as she said this, and Arthur took it as a joke, laughing with her. He found Elle harmless. He liked that Lady Gremlaine had made a new friend. But I’d found Elle strange and unsettling. I remember feeling great relief when dinner was over and she’d left the castle. Later, that night, I found a blue butterfly in my room as I drew a bath.” She looked into Agatha’s eyes. “I killed it on the spot.”

Guinevere sobbed into her son’s shoulder. Tedros held her and caressed her ash-white hair. His eyes met Agatha’s, any residue from their fights erased, the two resolved to battle through this somehow, to not let this be the end of the story.

“Evil may have won in the Past, but it will not win in the Present,” the prince simmered, the veins in his neck pulsing. “Rhian might be my father’s heir by birth. But that doesn’t make him King of Camelot. Camelot is the great defender of Good. The leader of these Woods. And Evil will not sit upon its throne. Not while I’m alive. I’ll protect my father’s legacy. Whether I’m king or not, I’m still his son. I’ll protect his right to rest in peace.”

“Whatever we do, it has to be soon,” Hort warned. “When Reaper let us in, a message arrived for him from Yuba, coded in Gnome. The first years and teachers are safe. But there’s only three