A Crystal of Time (The School for Good and Evil The Camelot Years #2) - Soman Chainani Page 0,152

swans left in the Storian’s carving. Or was it four. My Gnome is awful. Just a few rings that haven’t been burned, then. And Japeth has the Sheriff’s . . .”

Agatha was lost in her head, Tedros’ words replaying.

“I’ll protect his right to rest in peace.”

Rest in peace.

Rest in peace.

Agatha jolted, as if a butterfly had taken wing in her chest.

“Tedros?”

Her prince looked at her.

“You mentioned something earlier,” she said. “When Reaper gave us our mission. Something about a riddle from the Lady of the Lake. A riddle about ‘unburying’ your father. What did you mean?”

Guinevere raised her head, suddenly alert.

“After she lost her powers, the Lady of the Lake let Merlin ask her a question,” Tedros replied, feeling the weight of his princess’s stare. “One question and then he could never return to Avalon again.”

Agatha remembered what the Lady told her about the wizard: “We made a deal.” The same deal she’d made with Agatha. One question and one question only. Except in the stress of the moment, Agatha hadn’t thought to ask her what Merlin’s question was.

“Merlin wanted to know if my father’s sword had a message for me. The Lady wrote the answer to Merlin’s question on a slip of parchment,” the prince went on. “‘Unbury Me.’ That’s all it said. Except I recognized those words. They were the same ones my father said to me in my dreams. It’s his message.” He looked at his mother. “But I don’t understand it. It can’t mean to literally unbury him—”

“Of course not,” Guinevere agreed. “But it has to mean something!”

Tedros shifted anxiously. “Maybe it meant Dad has secrets. Secrets we’ve now found. Dad wanted me to know the truth about his real heir.”

“And so la-di-da The End? Leave a pig on the throne?” Hort scorned. “If your dad gave you that message, it wasn’t to stop you from fighting! It was to make you fight back!”

“But how?” Tedros asked. “What am I supposed to unbury?”

“Maybe he hid something in Excalibur’s hilt?” said his mother.

“Or in his statue in King’s Cove?” said Tedros.

“Or maybe the message means exactly what it says,” said his princess.

They all turned to her.

Agatha raised her gaze from the floor.

“What if he did mean it literally?” she said. “What if ‘Unbury Me’ means unbury King Arthur from his grave?”

The throne room was so quiet, Agatha could hear the thumps of Tedros’ heart.

“Dig up my father?” he breathed.

“But Arthur’s been dead for years,” said Guinevere, her voice cold. “There’s nothing left but bones and dust.”

“No. Merlin enchanted his tomb,” Tedros countered tentatively. “He’s preserved exactly as he was.”

His mother tensed, her years absent from Tedros’ and Arthur’s lives suddenly obvious.

“Even so, disturbing his grave is out of the question,” the prince assailed, stronger now. “I’m not dragging my father’s body out of the ground.”

“Even if it’s what your father would have wanted?” Agatha asked. “Even if it was his command?”

Hort cleared his throat. “Look, not that I’m afraid to dig up a grave, since Nevers do that kinda thing on Friday nights, but having waited my whole life for my dad to get a proper grave, shoveling up Tedros’ doesn’t seem right to me. Plus, there’s no way we can get to Avalon to unbury him. Whole Woods is hunting us and the Snake is on the loose. Nic and I barely escaped Foxwood alive.”

“And, even if we did get to Avalon, we can’t reach Arthur’s grave,” Guinevere added quickly. “The Lady of the Lake has to give us permission to enter her waters and from what you’ve told me, we’re not welcome anymore.”

“On top of all that, my father’s coffin is guarded by Merlin’s spell to prevent people like us from desecrating it. Only Merlin can unlock it,” said Tedros, relieved by all these obstacles. His mother and Hort murmured their agreement.

Agatha didn’t have the heart to argue. They were right: the risks were too steep. And more than that, she was asking her prince to raid his own father’s grave. Would she do the same to her mother’s? With no assurance of the outcome?

A shadow flew across the waterfall veiling the entrance to the throne room, and a body leapt through, hands aflutter.

“Come quick!” Nicola gasped at Agatha. “It’s Reaper!”

“What happened!” Hort asked, but his girlfriend was already diving back through the waterfall. Hort chased after her, and Agatha and Tedros followed close behind with Guinevere, all of them bounding through the magical curtain, into the foyer, where Subby and his banged-up rickshaw awaited,