. . . a forest . . . before it finally seemed to settle on one: a tunnel . . . with bodies packed inside . . .
The image sharpened, revealing a group of boys and girls in crisp uniforms, swan emblems on their chests . . . led by a tall, pale girl with big bug eyes and helmet-cut hair. . . .
A girl who was gazing up at a projection of the very same scene.
Agatha’s heart stopped.
“They’re seeing . . . us,” she breathed.
Rhian’s men hadn’t gone looking for her because they didn’t need to. The crystal ball told them exactly where she was.
Slowly Agatha and the group looked down through the glass.
Down on the ground, Kei and his companion slowly looked up.
Arrows launched from the pirates’ bows, spinning towards Agatha and the students. They came too fast. No time to run. She thrust out her arms and uselessly shielded her group as the arrows hit—
They rebounded off the glass, clinking and chiming with different tones like a strummed harp. The arrows halted midair, suddenly glowing the same pink as the breezeway glass, the castle’s defenses activated. Then they magically turned around and whizzed back down, impaling several of the pirates, while Kei and the others ducked for cover.
Two of the arrows stayed back, however, hovering over the field, as if calculating their target. . . .
Crouched on the ground, the fairy godfather swished his palm over his crystal, kindling a purple bonfire inside it. The orb shuddered above his hand, the storm inside burning hotter, hotter. Then it shot like a cannonball at Agatha’s breezeway, poised to obliterate it like a bomb.
The last two arrows waited a beat as if to make no mistake. . . .
Then they flew with a vengeance, one ripping through the fairy godfather’s heart, the other through the lit crystal ball, shattering it into a thousand pieces.
The robed man’s eyes bulged with shock. Then he fell forward, his corpse landing hard in the glowing wreckage of glass.
First years blinked through the breezeway.
“Didn’t see that in his ball, did he?” Dot puffed.
“Come on!” Agatha gasped, pushing the group forward—
She spotted Kei rising from the ground, jaw clenched, as he swiped a bloodstained bow from beneath a dead pirate . . . then a fragment of glass from the broken crystal ball, alive with purple glow. . . .
He aimed it right at Agatha.
Kei unleashed the glass shard, which speared through the breezeway like a bullet, grazing Agatha’s ear and blasting out the other glass wall.
For a moment, everything went quiet.
Then a slow cracking sound filled the tunnel.
Agatha looked up at the breezeway walls, splintering like a frozen pond hit by the sun.
“Run!” she screamed.
The breezeway imploded around her as students dashed for their lives, hurdling over the breaking glass and diving for the Honor Tower landing. Agatha and Dot chased behind the first years, but they were a step too late. The floor exploded beneath their feet and they went plunging off the tower, along with Priyanka and Bossam. Agatha felt the cool night wind as she fell past the other breezeways, Dovey’s bag on her arm dropping her like an anchor. Her hands flailed for Dot and the others as if she could somehow save them—
Then a big, hairy paw slapped Agatha hard, knocking her backwards.
For a moment, she thought she must be hallucinating, but now she was batted into wide, open jaws, and she landed on a wet tongue alongside Dot, who looked just as dazed. Agatha poked her head between sharp teeth and peeked up at Castor’s long snout and bloodshot eyes as he balanced atop the blue breezeway, with Priyanka and Bossam squired in his paw. A gob of drool splashed on Agatha’s cheek.
Down below, pirates began stringing their bows, while Kei raced into the School for Good, Agatha tracking him through the castle’s glass. Kei bounded up the spiral staircase, his boots skipping steps.
“Castor, he’s coming!” Agatha cried.
Instantly, the dog was on the move, leaping between breezeways towards the roof, clamping Agatha and Dot in his hot, rancid mouth—
An arrow struck Castor in the buttock and he roared in pain, nearly spewing Agatha and Dot out into the air, but the two girls held on by the tips of his teeth as Castor dove off the last breezeway, his claw catching onto the rooftop. Agatha saw Castor’s legs dangling over the edge and she thrust out her arms, pulling him up, before an arrow almost decapitated her and