A Crystal of Time (The School for Good and Evil The Camelot Years #2) - Soman Chainani Page 0,74

attacking it . . . ,” Agatha called back, the bag with Dovey’s crystal ball pounding against her shoulder. “But how? Rhian’s thugs can’t do magic!”

“Maybe they learned a spell!”

“Only students who went to the school can do spells! And those pirates didn’t go to the school!”

“I can’t run and talk at the same time!” Dot wheezed.

Agatha glanced back at Dot and the twenty first years herding behind her through Good’s glass tunnel towards Honor Tower. Against the darkening sky, the new students shuffled like spooked sheep, whispering anxiously, their eyes wide, their feet pattering high over the Great Lawn.

Out of the corner of her eye, Agatha saw movement through the other colorful glass breezeways that connected the towers of the School for Good: Hester and Professor Anemone leading a group of first years through the blue breezeway to Valor Tower, Hort and Anadil guiding their first years along the yellow tunnel to Purity, and Yuba and Beatrix’s group using the peach passage to Charity. Meanwhile, on the roof over the crisscrossing breezeways, Agatha glimpsed Castor booting first years along. . . .

Agatha knew Rhian’s men were searching for her. To throw them off, she and the teachers had divided up the students into Forest Groups, with each group taking a different route to the same place. The one and only place in the school they would all be safe. If they could get there alive, that is.

“Who are those men?” she heard Priyanka ask.

“Camelot guards,” said a hairy, three-eyed Never tagged BOSSAM.

“They don’t look like Camelot guards,” said Priyanka.

Agatha tracked their stares through the pink glass to the dirt-caked, dead-eyed pirates in silver chainmail as they came into view, stepping over slaughtered wolf bodies and creeping towards the castle behind their captain, wielding swords and bows and clubs. If the pirates looked straight up, they’d see Agatha and her charges in the tunnel. They needed to get out of this breezeway now—

“Wait!” Dot yipped, pulling to a halt.

“We don’t have time to wait!” said Agatha.

“No, look,” Dot said, hands against the glass. “It’s Kei.”

Agatha glanced down at Tedros’ former guard leading the pirates, sword in hand as he skulked up the hill towards Good’s castle doors, a second man at his side. Neither Kei nor his lieutenant seemed in a rush, nor did any of the thugs fanned out behind them, as if they didn’t need to chase Agatha at all. As if they were waiting for her to come to them. Their movements unsettled her. Agatha peered closer.

“Kei was the one who took me on a date to Beauty and the Feast,” Dot said softly. “He was my first kiss. . . .”

“That guy kissed you?” said Bossam. Priyanka kicked him.

“Only so he could put something in my drink and steal my keys,” Dot sniffled. “That’s how the Snake got out of Daddy’s jail. He better hope we don’t come face-to-face or I’ll—” She saw Agatha gazing downwards. “I know. Soooo handsome, right?”

But Agatha wasn’t looking at Kei.

She was looking at his lieutenant. A short, big-bellied man in a brown robe, with a red beard and even redder face, who appeared less like a pirate and more like Santa Claus’ surly brother. A sleek glass orb floated over his open palm and he and Kei were studying it like a compass as they walked. Purple light filled the glass orb . . . the same purple light that Agatha had seen attacking Manley’s shield. . . .

“That’s a crystal ball,” said Dot. “Smaller than Dovey’s. Means it’s newer.” She glanced at the bag on Agatha’s arm. “Old ones are like cinder blocks.”

Agatha had the bruises to prove it.

“Thought only fairy godmothers can use crystal balls,” Priyanka said.

“Fairy godfathers too,” Bossam corrected, blinking his third eye. “Must be a strong one if he got through Professor Manley’s shield.”

“But what’s the captain of Camelot’s guard doing with a crystal ball?” Priyanka asked.

“Can’t see the inside from here,” said Agatha, squinting hard.

“We can if I mirrorspell it,” Dot said quickly. “I watched Hester do it in the dungeons—”

Her fingertip glowed and she pressed it against the glass, before closing her eyes to summon the right emotion. “Reflecta asimova!”

From her finger spewed a puff of purple fog that formed a two-dimensional projection, floating in the breezeway above the group’s heads.

“This is a close-up of what they’re seeing inside the ball,” said Dot.

Agatha watched as the purple mist swirled in the projection, half-heartedly forming various scenes: a castle . . . a bridge