A Crystal of Time (The School for Good and Evil The Camelot Years #2) - Soman Chainani Page 0,85

conjuring a magical fire before burning their rings at the same time. Crackle! Whish! Pop!

“Sophie!” the Queen of Jaunt Jolie called, hurrying towards her.

Sophie dove under a table, crawling through a maze of legs and chairs, past jeweled boots and regal hems, hearing the sounds of voices and crackling fires and dozens more rings burning and popping, until she slid under the very last table and came out the other end, precisely where the hooded man had been sitting—

Only he wasn’t there anymore.

All that was left of him was his royal placard, his name blinking and swirling on the front.

Sophie crumbled into his chair, her heart shrinking. Had she imagined him? Had she lied to the rulers for no reason? And lost her chance to save herself and her friends? Had she just ensured Tedros’ death? She took the placard into her shaking palms.

That’s when she saw it.

On the back of the card.

In tiny magical letters that evaporated as she read them.

Sophie looked up. Rhian was striding towards her, pirates flanking him.

Stealthily, she turned the card over, seeing the name of the man who had left the message in a forest-green script.

The King of Merriman

The last word morphed as it disappeared, winking like a changeling fairy. . . .

Merriman.

Merri man.

Merry men.

15

AGATHA

One True King

“Tedros will die unless we stop the execution,” said Agatha, standing in the shadows of the School Master’s window, Lionsmane’s message glowing in the sky behind her. “And if he dies, the Woods belongs to Rhian. The Woods belongs to a madman. Two madmen. Our world is at stake. We can’t let them win. Not without giving Tedros a chance to fight for his throne.”

She took a deep breath. “But first we need to get out of this tower without Rhian’s men seeing us.”

Her army stared back at her, packed like sardines into Dean Sophie’s chamber.

“If Rhian plans to execute Tedros at dawn, then the other captives are in danger too, Clarissa included,” Professor Manley said, eyeing his fellow teachers. “Agatha’s right. We have to make a move.”

Professor Anemone swallowed. “How many men are still down there?”

Agatha inched to the side of the window, between crouching first years, and peeked through. Some of Rhian’s men roamed the grounds in front of the schools, hacking through lily beds with their swords, while the red and yellow flowers snared and strangled them. Through the glass of Good’s castle, Agatha saw others prowling Hansel’s Haven, smashing the candied halls, which belched sticky sugar in defense, gluing them to walls like flies in a web. There were more pirates skulking around the School for Evil, lighting smoke bombs in the corridors to snuff out their prey, only to have the bombs rebound and blast them off balconies. Alarms screeched from both castles as more magical safeguards activated, thwarting the guards’ advance.

But for every man foiled by the school’s defenses, there were ten more sliding through the hole in the shield over the North Gate, armed with weapons and brandishing lit torches against the dark.

“Agatha?” Professor Anemone pushed.

Agatha turned to her troops. “They’re everywhere.” She shoved down her panic. “We need to think. There has to be a way into the Woods without them seeing us.”

“What would Clarissa do?” Princess Uma asked the teachers.

“She’d use every spell in her book to blast these goons,” Manley spat. “Come on, Sheeba, Emma, all of you. We’ll fight them ourselves.” He made a move to stand up, but blue firebolts shot across the chamber, electrifying him and knocking him to the ground.

Agatha froze. “What in the—”

Then she saw where the firebolts had come from.

The Storian, pulsing with spidery blue static, over its open storybook.

“Teachers can’t interfere in a fairy tale, Bilious,” said Professor Sheeks, helping her trembling colleague sit up. “We can shield the school. We can fight alongside our students. But we can’t do the job for them. Clarissa made that mistake and look where she is.”

Wiping sweat from his face, Manley still looked shaken. But not as shaken as the first years, who now realized they were on their own.

The fourth years, meanwhile, were undaunted.

“What if me and Vex sneak out?” Ravan postured, a book in one bandaged hand, while his pointy-eared friend, leg in a cast, kept sniffing Sophie’s scented candles. “We can mogrify and escape before they notice a thing.”

“You’re injured, first of all,” said Hester. “And if they catch you leaving, that means the rest of us are dead meat. Otherwise Ani and I would have gone a long time ago.”

“Me