A Crystal of Time Read online

  “Do they know what’s happened?” Agatha asked, watching her teacher’s lemon-yellow hair dance in the wind. “The new students, I mean.”

  “The Storian began its retelling of The Lion and the Snake before you and Sophie left on your quest. That’s how we’ve stayed up-to-date on everything that’s happened since Rhian took the throne.”

  “But can’t we show the Storian’s tale to the rest of the kingdoms?” Agatha asked, adjusting Dovey’s bag on her arm, feeling Tedros’ jacket that she’d taken from Robin’s house cushioned around the crystal ball inside. “If we can make their rulers see that Rhian and the Snake are working together—”

  “The Storian’s tales reach other kingdoms only after The End is written, including your bookshops in Woods Beyond,” said her teacher. “And even if we could bring the Kingdom Council to the School Master’s tower, the Storian won’t allow anyone to look backwards in a fairy tale while it is writing one. Nor should we involve the Kingdom Council until we have clearer proof of Rhian’s plot, since their allegiance is to the new king. That said, Professor Manley has been monitoring the pen’s movements and our first years have been briefed on the story thus far.”

  “And they’re trained to fight?” Agatha pressed.

  “Fight? Goodness, no.”

  “But you said they’re my army!”

  “Agatha, they’ve been at school for less than a month. The Evergirls can barely produce passable smiles, the Nevers are hopeless with their Special Talents, and they’ve just had their fingerglows unlocked two days ago. There hasn’t even been a Trial by Tale. They’re certainly no army yet. But you’ll whip them into shape.”

  “Me? You want me to train them?” Agatha blurted. “But I’m not a teacher! Sophie can bluff being a Dean because, well, she can bluff anything, but not me—”

  “You’ll love the new Everboys. Charming little foxes.” Professor Anemone glanced back, her makeup dried out and cracking. “Especially the boys of Honor 52.”

  “Professor, I don’t even know these students!”

  “You know Camelot. You know the castle, you know its defenses, and most importantly, you know the false king who sits upon the throne,” said Professor Anemone. “You are far better equipped than any of the teachers to lead our students in this fight. Besides, until you complete your quest, you’re still an official student, and given the Storian is writing your tale, the teachers cannot interfere in it. Clarissa made that mistake and clearly paid the price.”

  Agatha shook her head. “But can the students even do basic spells? Will the Evers and Nevers work together? Have you told them what’s at stake—”

  “My dear, take advantage of the peace and quiet while you can,” said her teacher, steadying the stymph at a cruising altitude. “There won’t be much of either once we get to school.”

  Agatha exhaled through her nose. How could she relax until her friends were free? And how was she supposed to lead a school? A school full of students she’d never met? If she wasn’t so overwhelmed, she’d appreciate the irony: Sophie had been thrust at the head of Camelot, where Agatha was supposed to be queen, and now Agatha was expected to command the School for Good and Evil, where Sophie was supposed to be Dean. Agatha’s heart revved up, then sputtered, drained of adrenaline after her all-night visit to Sherwood Forest. She could feel her eyelids drooping . . . But with Dovey’s crystal ball slung on her shoulder, weighing her down, she didn’t dare fall asleep, for fear it would yank her overboard and drop her like a stone.

  Clutching Dovey’s bag tighter, Agatha scanned the landscape and spotted a golden castle ahead, thin spires clustered like organ pipes.

  Foxwood, she remembered. The oldest Ever kingdom.

  In front of the castle, the thick forest receded, giving way to Foxwood’s outer vales, with rows of cottages surrounding a tree-lined square. The pavilion was mostly deserted this early in the morning, except for a baker setting up his cart in front of a stone fountain. Wrapped around the fountain, Agatha could make out colorful banners hand-drawn by the kingdom’s children.

  So Long, So Long, the Snake is Gone!

  HAIL KING RHIAN, THE SNAKE SLAYER!

  Long Live Queen Sophie!

  As the stymph soared over increasingly lavish houses, closer to Foxwood castle, Agatha glimpsed three young kids in gold-foil Lion masks jousting with wooden swords as their father raked the yard of leaves. She’d seen the same thing in Gillikin: children idolizing the new King of Camelot as their hero. Disturbed, Agatha looked back up.

  The stymph was about to smash right into the side of the king’s castle.

  “Professor!” Agatha shrieked—

  Professor Anemone snored awake and in a single move shot a spray of sparks at her stymph, which jolted from its own slumber with a squawk, skimming the golden tower just in time.

  The stymph reared in midair, panting hard, as Professor Anemone stroked its neck, trying to calm it down. “Seems we both fell asleep,” she croaked as the stymph peeped sheepishly at his riders through eyeless sockets. “And no wonder, given the rumpus at school. Thankfully we’ll be there soon enough.”

  “Rumpus” didn’t sound good, Agatha thought, but right now she was worried they’d woken the Foxwood guard. If anyone spotted her, they’d surely alert Rhian. She peeked back towards the castle, about to urge Professor Anemone to get moving. Then her eyes widened—

  “What’s that?”

  She’d been so busy looking down that she’d missed the giant message in gold, embedded in the lightening sky overhead.

  “Lionsmane’s first fairy tale,” said Professor Anemone, still caressing the stymph. “You must have been deep in Sherwood Forest to miss it. Been up there nearly a full day now. Visible from any kingdom in the Woods.”

  “Lionsmane . . . You mean ‘Rhian’s pen’? The one he’s pit against the Storian?” Agatha said, remembering the newspaper in Gillikin. She quickly read the message in the sky about a woman named Tsarina, blessed with a child after several stillbirths. “‘Only the Lion can save you’? That’s the moral of the story?”

  Her teacher sighed. “The Storian spends weeks, months, often years crafting a tale for the purposes of bettering our world. And now a new pen arrives that replaces storytelling with a king’s propaganda.”

  “A fake king and a fake pen,” Agatha bristled. “Are people actually believing this? Is anyone fighting for the Stori . . .”

  Her voice trailed off, because Rhian’s fairy tale suddenly faded. Agatha and Professor Anemone exchanged anxious looks, as if their presence here was somehow responsible. But then a blast of light shot from the west, branding a new message in the sky, replacing the first one.

  Citizens of the Woods! Revel in the tale of Hristo of Camelot, only 8 years old, who ran away from home and came to my castle, hoping to be my knight. Young Hristo’s mother found and whipped the poor boy. Stay strong, Hristo! The day you turn 16, you have a place as my knight! A child who loves his king is a blessed child. Let that be a lesson to all.

  “Now he’s going after the youth,” Professor Anemone realized, grim-faced. “Same thing Rafal tried when he took over both schools. Own the youth and you own the future.”

  Down below, Agatha could still see the kids’ tiny figures swordplaying in their Lion masks. Only they’d stopped now and were gazing up at the Lion’s second tale, along with their father. After a moment, the father’s eyes swept towards Agatha and her teacher, perched atop their stymph.

  “Let’s go,” said Agatha quickly.

  The stymph propelled towards the rising sun.

  Agatha looked back one last time at the Lion’s new tale, her stomach screwing tighter. It wasn’t just the Lion’s message, smoothly glorifying himself as king . . . but it was how familiar the message was, its lies sounding like truths . . .

  Ah. Now she remembered.

  The Snake’s pen.

  The one he’d shown her and Sophie the first time they’d met.

  His fake Storian that took real
stories and contorted them into something darker and untrue.

  His pen peeled off his own murderous body and now presented to the people as their guiding light.

  His slimy, scaly strip of lies.

  That was Lionsmane.

  THE SCHOOL HAD taken no chances once Merlin and Professor Dovey had been captured. As the stymph descended, Agatha saw the two castles had been shielded in a protective, murky-green fog. A dove happened to get too close and the mist inhaled it like a living creature, then spewed it back out like a cannonball, pitching the shrieking bird fifty miles away. The stymph, meanwhile, passed through unscathed, though Agatha had to hold her nose to endure the fog, which smelled like rancid meat.

  “One of Professor Manley’s spells,” Professor Anemone called back. “Not as secure as Lady Lesso’s old shields, but it’s kept out Rhian’s men thus far. A few were caught snooping the past couple days. They must suspect you’re on your way.”

  More than just suspicion, Agatha thought. If Rhian was the Snake’s brother, then that meant Rhian had the Snake’s Quest Map. He could trace Agatha’s every move.

  In the meantime, all she could do was hope Manley’s shield would hold.

  Breaking through the fog, the first thing Agatha saw was the School Master’s tower, perched in the middle of Halfway Bay between the clear lake bordering the School for Good and the thick blue moat around the School for Evil. A gang of stymphs was in the process of undoing the last scaffolding around the silver spire, revealing a dazzling statue of Sophie atop like a weathervane, along with ornate friezes in the tower’s length depicting Sophie’s most iconic moments. There were multiple floors within the tower, flaunting refurbished windows (through which Agatha could see walk-in closets, a dining room, a steam room and whirlpool), and a catwalk to the School for Evil, lit up with lights and a sign reading “SOPHIE’S WAY.”

  Professor Bilious Manley poked his pimpled, pear-shaped head out a window in Sophie’s Tower and shot blasts of green light at the friezes and statue, trying to obliterate them—but every spell he did rebounded straight at him while a high-pitched alarm blared from Sophie’s statue, sounding like a raven’s shriek—

  “You have attempted an unauthorized redecoration of Dean Sophie’s Tower,” Sophie’s voice boomed as a rebounding spell zapped Manley in the rump. “Only an officially appointed School Master has authority here and you are not a School Master. Kindly vacate my premises.”

  Fuming, Manley stormed back into the tower, where Agatha glimpsed three wolves demolishing Sophie’s interiors. But seconds after tearing down paintings and fixtures and lamps, they all floated straight back up.

  “He’s been battling that tower ever since he took over as Dean,” Professor Anemone chortled as more repelling spells scalded Manley and his wolves. “I’ve learned never to underestimate that girl.”

  From inside the tower, Manley let out a primal scream.

  It only made Agatha miss Sophie more.

  The stymph landed on the south side of Halfway Bay in front of Good’s castle. As Agatha dismounted, fairies swarmed her, smelling her hair and neck. Unlike the fairies that used to run the School for Good when she was a first year, this new fleet were of different shapes, sizes, colors, as if from a variety of lands, but they all seemed to know who she was.

  As she followed Professor Anemone uphill, Agatha noticed the unusual quiet. She could hear her own clump-steps crackling on the Great Lawn’s crisp grass, the spasm of fairy wings around her, the burps of water from the lake. Agatha peered across the bay and saw the same scene on Evil’s shores as smooth blue slime lapped up and stained the sand. A lone guard wolf in a red soldier’s jacket and a whip on his belt had fallen asleep on one of Sophie’s new cabanas.

  Professor Anemone opened the doors to Good’s castle and Agatha silently trailed her through a long hall of mirrors. Agatha caught her reflection in the glass, grubby, windblown, and sleepless, her black gown ragged with holes. She looked worse than she did on her first day of school, when Evergirls had cornered her in this hall, thinking she was a witch, and she’d farted in their faces to escape. Smirking at the memory, Agatha followed her teacher, turning into the foyer—

  “WELCOME HOME!”

  A cheer exploded like a bomb, sending Agatha staggering backwards.

  More than a hundred first years in the foyer whistled and hooted, while waving enchanted signs, with words popping off banners: “I STAND WITH AGATHA!”; “NEVER RHIAN!”; “JUSTICE FOR TEDROS!”

  Agatha gawked at this new class of Evers, so fresh-faced and clean, with the girls in restyled pink pinafores and the boys in navy waistcoats, skinny ties, and tight beige breeches. Silver swan crests glittered over their hearts, branding them as first years, along with magical name tags that moved around their bodies to help Agatha see them from any sightline—“LAITHAN,” “VALENTINA,” “SACHIN,” “ASTRID,” “PRIYANKA,” and more. Many looked close to her in age, especially the boys, so tall and princely with training swords on their waists . . . and yet, despite this, all of them seemed so young. As if they still held faith in the laws of Good and Evil. As if they’d yet to learn that the bubble of school could be so easily punctured. I was like them once, Agatha thought.

  “QUEEN AGATHA! QUEEN AGATHA!” chanted the first years as they surrounded her like lemmings, crowding her between the foyer’s four staircases: Valor and Honor to the boys’ towers, Purity and Charity to the girls’. Agatha looked up to see the teachers gathered on the Valor staircase—Princess Uma, who’d taught her Animal Communication; Professor Espada, who taught Swordplay; Yuba the Gnome, who’d led her Forest Group . . . It was the same scene that greeted Agatha on her own Welcoming day, only this time, there were two professors missing. Seven-foot nymphs with neon hair floated beneath the domed ceiling, sprinkling rose petals that caught in Agatha’s dress and made her sneeze. Agatha tried to smile at the young Evers, singing her name and waving their signs and swords, but all she could think about was Professor Dovey and Professor August Sader, both absent from the top of the stairs. Without them, the school no longer felt warm or safe. It felt alien, vulnerable.

  “GOOD IDLES AND EVIL WORKS,” a voice boomed. “SOUNDS ABOUT RIGHT.”

  Agatha and the Evers swiveled to see the double doors at the rear of the foyer fly open. Castor the Dog stood inside the Theater of Tales, its two sides turned into a massive war room. More than a hundred Nevers in sleek black-leather uniforms toiled at various stations, littered with papers and notebooks and maps, while Evil teachers supervised.

  “NICE TO SEE YOU’RE ALIVE,” said Castor, glancing at Agatha, before baring sharp teeth at the Evers. “BUT WE AIN’T WON NOTHIN’ YET.”

  THE FIRST YEARS were split into workstations based on their respective Forest Groups, with five Evers and five Nevers at each station. At the first station, Group #1 hovered over a pew that had been flipped over and turned into a long table, heaped with dozens of maps. Agatha shuffled over, feeling unsure how to take the lead, but luckily she didn’t need to, because the students took the lead on their own.

  “Couldn’t find any current maps of Camelot Castle inside the Library of Virtue, but we did find this,” said a beautiful, dark-skinned Everboy tagged BODHI, pointing to a crusty diagram inside a very old edition of A Student’s History of the Woods. “According to this, the dungeon’s at the base of Gold Tower, way underground. But since the castle is built on a hill, it looks like the dungeon might be against the side of that hill. If this map is still correct, that is.” Bodhi looked up at Agatha. “That’s where you can help us. Are the dungeons still there?”

  Agatha tightened. “Um . . . not sure. I never saw them.”

  The whole team stared at her.

  “But you were at Camelot for months,” said an Everboy tagged LAITHAN, short and muscular, with chestnut hair and freckled skin.

  “You were the princess,” said Bodhi.

  Agatha’s neck rashed red. “Look, the dungeons are probably where they’ve always been, so le
t’s assume this map is right—”

  “That’s what I say and these Good boys tell me I’m stupid,” piped VALENTINA from the other end of the table. She had a high, black ponytail, pencil-thin eyebrows, and a breathy accent. “But I say jail must still be there and if jail is on side of hill, then we go to hill with shovels and pew! pew! pew! Tedrosito and your friends free.”

  Bodhi snorted with Laithan. “Valentina, first of all, this textbook is like a thousand years old and landmasses move over time.”

  “Excuse me, my family lives under a guanabana tree for a thousand years and guanabana tree is still there,” said Valentina.

  Laithan groaned. “Look, even if the dungeon is on the hill, there’s no way to pew! pew! pew! because there’s guards.”

  “Do you remember that fairy-tale famoso where the boy doesn’t save his friends because he’s afraid of guards?” Valentina asked.

  “No,” said Laithan, confused.

  “Exactly,” said Valentina.

  “V, I know Nevers are supposed to defend each other in front of Evers, but we can’t even find this hill,” said a waifish Neverboy with dyed flame-red hair and the name AJA floating over his head. “I tried to locate the dungeons with heat vision and didn’t see a thing.”

  “Heat vision?” Agatha asked.

  “My villain talent,” Aja clarified. “You know how Sophie’s special talent was summoning Evil? Like when she summoned those ravens at the Circus of Talents? She wore that amazing snakeskin cape that she stitched herself . . . the one that turned her invisible . . . It’s in the Exhibition of Evil now. I wish I could try it on, just to feel like her . . . Sorry, huuuge Sophie fan. Kept it low-key when she was Dean so she wouldn’t think I’m a freak, but I know every word of her fairy tale and I dressed as her for Halloween with furs and boots and seriously, she’ll be the best Queen of Camelot ever . . . like completely iconic . . .” Aja saw Agatha’s frown. “Um. No offense.”