A Crystal of Time (The School for Good and Evil The Camelot Years #2) - Soman Chainani Page 0,77

murals of Sophie looking windswept and ravishing, each labeled with a different motto.

THE FUTURE IS EVIL

LOOK GOOD . . . BE BAD

EVERS WANT TO BE HEROES; NEVERS WANT TO BE LEGENDS

INSIDE EVERY WITCH . . . IS A QUEEN

“Not sure this is what Lady Lesso had in mind when she made Sophie Dean,” Dot quipped.

“Where is everyone?” Bossam asked, surveying the empty halls.

“At the meeting point,” said Agatha.

“Or dead,” Castor muttered.

Priyanka and Bossam paled.

Agatha knew Castor was in pain, that he was just being sour, but his words hung in the air as he limped towards the spiral staircases, leading up to Evil’s dormitory towers. For a while, the only sounds in the whole castle were the dog’s lagging footsteps, Bossam’s and Priyanka’s whispering, and Dot’s chomping on chocolate carcasses of whatever insect or rodent crossed her path.

Agatha thought of those left behind at Camelot: Tedros . . . Nicola . . . Professor Dovey . . . Sophie . . . What would happen to them? Were they still alive? She stifled the panic just as it began. Don’t think about it. Not when an entire class of first years was counting on her to keep them safe. She had to trust that Sophie would protect her friends at Camelot the way she was protecting Sophie’s students at school.

Castor climbed the Malice staircase, laboring harder and harder.

“Look, my old room!” said Dot as they passed Malice Room 66.

“Everyone wanted that room since your coven lived there,” Bossam pointed out. “It’s famous.”

“Really?” said Dot, agog. “Wish Daddy knew that.”

“As soon as we get outside, keep your heads down and be quiet,” Castor commanded, approaching the end of the hall. “Pirates see any of us and we’re all dead.”

Dot frowned. “But won’t they see us when we jump into the—”

“Quiet starts now,” Castor snarled.

He pulled open a door and they slipped onto a catwalk high over Evil’s sludgy moat. Castor’s body stayed flat to the ground as he prowled forward, the stone rails concealing him from the pirates down below. Agatha could see the red-and-gold lights of a sign, SOPHIE’S WAY, blinking over the walk that connected the School for Evil to the School Master’s tower. As they proceeded, the sign shined a red spotlight on each of their faces, before blinking green and moving to the next, magically vetting them. Ahead, the silver spire loomed in shadow as Castor inched closer.

Pirates’ shouts echoed below—

“No one inna Good towers!”

“Imma tear up the Evil school, then!”

“Bet they’re cowerin’ inna Blue Forest like mole rats!”

Castor slid across the catwalk floor on his stomach, approaching the School Master’s window, ten feet over their heads. From this angle, Agatha couldn’t see anyone inside the tower.

Castor paused beneath the window, breathing hard.

“It’s a big jump, Castor. And you’re hurt,” Agatha whispered. “Can you make it? Without them seeing us?”

Castor gritted his teeth. “We’ll find out.”

Holding his breath, he sprung onto his paws and vaulted off the catwalk. His wounded leg buckled, pulling his jump short. His head grazed the wall and his stomach scraped hard across the windowsill, forcing a bellow of pain that nearly blew the girls off the dog’s tongue, before Castor lunged up and dragged his legs over the edge into the tower, landing face-first on a plush white carpet.

“Yeh hear ’at?” a pirate yelled below.

“Hear what?”

“The dog, yeh fool! Heard ’im o’er there!”

Castor’s fist opened, dropping Priyanka and Bossam. His mouth slackened, letting Agatha and Dot slide out in a spurt of drool. Then he gurgled a last moan of pain—“Tell my brother he can have the body”—and he passed out cold.

“Still breathing,” Agatha heard Yuba say.

Flat on her back, she smeared drool out of her eyes and saw the entire first-year class crammed inside the School Master’s tower, now Dean Sophie’s lavish chamber, where they safely crouched beneath the window line so they wouldn’t be spotted by the pirates below. Everywhere she looked there were students: jammed into Sophie’s closet between shoe racks, peeking out from the mirrored bathroom, blinking owlishly from under the bed. In the corner, the Storian painted in its open book, its silver tip glancing back at Agatha before scribbling again, as if trying to keep up with the story.

Meanwhile, the teachers huddled around Castor.

“Arrow wound in the muscle,” Yuba said to the others.

“Is he okay?” Agatha asked urgently, tossing Dovey’s bag aside.

“Lost a lot of blood to get you here,” said Princess Uma, tying her shawl around Castor’s back leg to staunch the wound. “But he’ll