A Crystal of Time (The School for Good and Evil The Camelot Years #2) - Soman Chainani Page 0,53

by believing in them, by passing them on, by claiming them as their own.

That’s why people needed the Storian to guide them. Because fairy tales were powerful things. Sophie knew this from experience. Try too hard to write your own instead of letting the pen write it . . . and bad things happen. That was the truth.

But it’s easy to stop believing the truth.

It’s as easy as deciding to believe in a Man over a Pen.

Thunder tremored outside and Sophie peeked through the window as thin black clouds unfurled like tentacles over the message in the sky about Agatha’s capture. For a brief moment, she perked up, wondering if the clouds were due to more than just the weather. . . . But then the carriage veered sharply and now the people came into view.

The streets were crammed, five bodies deep, manic and unruly. A beautiful nymph with mint-green skin patterned with silver stars waved a sign: “ASK ME MY STORY, KING RHIAN!” while a hideous, furry creature held his own: “ME MUM’S A CAT, ME DAD’S A TROLL . . . WANT ME TALE? COME DOWN ME HOLE!” There was even a gnome with a fake moustache and hulking coat, clearly trying to disguise himself—

Everywhere Sophie looked, ordinary citizens clamored for Lionsmane to tell their tales, as if the Storian no longer mattered, replaced by a pen that finally cared about them.

Rhian’s promise had come true: a new pen had become the Woods’ guiding light.

No longer could Sophie tell who was Good and who was Evil like she’d used to. Before now, the tribes had stayed apart, identifiable not just by dress and decorum but also by their loathing for one another. That’s why the two sides had worshipped the Storian. A pen that only told the tales of an elite few, but also made the rest of the Woods invested in the outcome. Because it kept score of who was winning and who was losing. Because it kept the two sides battling for glory.

That is, until Rhian had united them with a new pen.

A pen that didn’t care if you went to a famous school.

A pen that gave everyone a chance at a fairy tale.

Now Evers and Nevers wore the same Lion masks and hats and shirts and waved cheap replicas of Lionsmane. Others flashed signs with the names of Tsarina and Hristo, newly minted stars in the Woods. A gang of teenagers, Good and Evil, hooted as they lit stacks of the Camelot Courier on fire: the one touting Agatha and her “Army.” Nearby, a delegation from Budhava sang a “Hymn to the Lion,” tossing roses at Rhian’s window. Guards in Camelot uniforms patrolled the road, keeping the mob from the carriage, and a fleet of maids in white dresses and bonnets handed out books of The Tale of Sophie and Agatha, while the crowd flapped them at Sophie, trying to get her attention. These storybooks seemed to glow under the black storm clouds, with the lettering outlined in rubies and gold—

Sophie’s eyes bulged.

Bewildered, she slid down her window and snatched one out of someone’s hands, quickly pushing the window back up. She gaped at the cover.

THE TALE OF SOPHIE & AGATHA

As Told by Lionsmane

Sophie flipped through and saw the entire fairy tale had been retold from Rhian’s perspective, with beautifully drawn illustrations in blue and gold that resembled the rug in the Throne Room. The short storybook was scant in details, but offered the broad tale of a humble boy, growing up in a small house in Foxwood with his brother Japeth, the two of them watching from afar as the legend of Agatha and Sophie spread. Despite his allegiances to Good, Rhian always found himself rooting for Sophie, a girl he found bold and beautiful and clever, and against Agatha, a self-righteous know-it-all who’d betrayed her best friend and taken her prince. But in the end, it was Agatha who had the happy ending, claiming the throne of Camelot with Sophie’s prince, while Sophie resigned herself to a future alone.

That is where everyone thought the story ended, including Rhian . . .

. . . until three shadowy women came to his house in the night and told Rhian the truth: that he was the real heir to Arthur and the One True King, destined to rule the Woods forever. And not only that, he’d been right about Sophie, the women revealed: it was she who deserved to be queen of Camelot, not Agatha. It