A Crystal of Time (The School for Good and Evil The Camelot Years #2) - Soman Chainani Page 0,79

numbers on our side.”

“So did the wolves,” Hort retorted. “I’m not a coward, but I know pirates and they fight dirty. Everything about them is dirty. And Rhian has my girlfriend and Sophie and Dovey and Tedros. I know we need to save them. But we also can’t rush out of here and die a stupid death. Because then they’re really doomed.”

The tower went quiet.

Agatha could see the mix of fear and courage in her schoolmates’ eyes, all of them locked on her as their leader.

She instinctively looked at Hester.

“This is your decision, Agatha,” the witch said. “You’re Queen of the Castle, here or Camelot or anywhere else. We trust you.”

“All of us do,” said Anadil.

Kiko and Reena nodded. “Me too,” said Beatrix.

Hort crossed his arms.

They glowered at him.

“Okay, fine. I’ll do what she says,” Hort grumped, “as long as she doesn’t kiss my new girlfriend like she kissed Sophie.”

“Priorities,” Dot wisped.

Agatha was lost in thought, gazing at her quest crew, depending on her as their leader . . . at her injured classmates, itching to go into battle . . . at the teachers, who were looking at her for directions the way she once looked at them . . . at the first years who would risk their lives on her command. . . .

She’d always been a fighter.

That’s who she was.

But Good isn’t about who you are. Her best friend had taught her that lesson once upon a time. Good is about what you do.

She took a deep breath and looked at her army.

“We wait,” she said.

Everyone heaved a sigh of relief.

As they went back to whispering amongst themselves, Agatha suddenly heard scratching from the corner. . . .

The Storian was drawing again, amending its painting of the tower.

Strange, she thought. Nothing in the scene had changed.

She crawled over to the Storian’s table and slid up the wall, out of view from the window, so she could see what the pen was drawing.

The painting was the same as it was before: Agatha, the teachers, her friends, and the students hiding in the tower, while down below the pirates searched the shore. But the Storian was adding something else now. . . .

A blast of gold in the sky.

The beginnings of a new message from Lionsmane.

High over the Endless Woods.

Even stranger, Agatha thought, peeking out the window at the clear sky with no message from Rhian’s pen in sight. Why would the Storian draw something that isn’t there?

Agatha gazed at the night’s blank canvas, listening to the pen behind her, presumably filling in the fictional message. It didn’t make sense. The Storian recorded history. It didn’t invent things. She felt herself tighten, doubting the pen for the very first time—

Then a flash of gold lit up the sky.

A message from Lionsmane.

Just like the Storian promised.

Sometimes the story leads you, the gnome had said.

As the light settled over the Woods, Agatha read Rhian’s new tale in the sky, praying it was still by Sophie’s hand, praying she’d snuck another code into it—

She stumbled back in shock.

She read the message again.

“Agatha?” a voice said. “What is it?”

She turned to see her whole army quietly staring at her.

Agatha bared her teeth like a lion.

“We need to get to Camelot,” she said. “Now.”

14

SOPHIE

He Lies, She Lies

Sophie stood at the edge of a black pond, swathed in white furs, a babushka wrapped over her hair, as she sprinkled sunflower seeds to a family of ducks.

In the dusty water, the dark sky reflected as if it was a scene in a crystal ball, the three-quarter moon tinged with red like a severed head. The crack of a hammer made her shudder and she looked up at the workers building a stage on the Gold Tower hill, directly over the imploded hole exposing the dungeons. Aran paced the stage, a dagger on his belt, his coal-black eyes fixed on Sophie through his helmet. Two maids flooded the stage with buckets of soapy water and scrubbed the wooden planks, siphoning the dirt into the grass, where it ran downhill, collecting in the pool at Sophie’s feet.

Overhead, a new message from Lionsmane gleamed in the sky.

Due to the attack on the Blessing by Tedros’ allies, Tedros’ execution has been moved up.

The similarity of this attack to the Snake’s suggests Tedros and his allies were in league with the Snake all along, sabotaging your realms to make himself stronger. The sooner he is dead, the safer our Woods will be.

The Kingdom Council will witness the execution at dawn