A Crystal of Time Page 16

  “Intruders,” said Rhian, clasping her wrist tighter. “They’re at the castle too. . . . Japeth. He might still be there! He’s alone . . . We have to help him—”

  He yanked Sophie through the door, but it was mayhem outside, with dignitaries still fleeing the church now mixing with the hordes of citizens in the streets, who’d smelled the stink bombs and heard Camelot’s alarms and joined the stampede like harrowed geese. At the same time, a heap of these spectators from far-flung kingdoms saw Rhian and Sophie emerge and flooded towards them, desperate to meet the new king and queen. Cornered, Rhian pulled Sophie back to the door, but that only got them caught deeper in the crush, like buoys in a storm.

  But now Sophie saw someone streaking through the mob on horseback, smashing people aside. . . .

  Japeth.

  “The dungeons,” he panted at his brother, his gold-and-blue suit sprayed with white rubble. “They’ve been breached—”

  A cry tore through the sky overhead.

  It wasn’t human.

  Rhian, Japeth, and Sophie raised their eyes.

  A flock of stymphs ripped out of the fog, carrying Sophie’s friends on their spines—Kiko, Reena, Beatrix, Dot, with fingerglows lit, leaning forward and firing spells at the king and his liege. Three stun spells hit Rhian in the chest, launching him through the open church doors, while another bludgeoned Japeth off his horse. Dot turned the ground beneath Japeth’s feet to hot mocha, sending him plunging headfirst into the deep, steaming moat. Doves tweeted as Japeth flailed in boiling chocolate: “Agatha’s been caught!” “She’s no match for the Lion!” “She’s no match for his liege!” “Praise to King Rhian! Praise to Japet—”

  A red-skinned demon ate the doves.

  Sophie wheeled and saw Hester and Anadil on a stymph, swooping towards her.

  “Grab my hand!” Anadil ordered.

  The pale witch reached out her palm as Hester steered their bird downwards, with Anadil’s and Sophie’s fingers about to touch—

  A pirate dagger pierced Anadil’s arm, hurled by Wesley as he surged out of the church. The witch lunged back in pain and her stymph bucked, throwing Anadil off its back.

  “Ani!” Hester screamed. Her demon raced to save her friend, but Anadil was falling too fast, her arm outstretched and about to hit the ground first, the dagger in it sure to sever through—

  A new stymph scooped under her and Bodhi and Laithan seized Anadil into their arms, swinging her up on their bird. The two boys were still in their choir uniforms, their faces and shirts spattered with black eel goo. More stymphs appeared in the fog behind them, carrying Sophie’s friends. Two . . . then four . . . then five . . .

  “Help me!” Sophie yelped, hope swelling. But these stymphs were too far into the fog for her to see the riders yet. She jumped and waved at them. “Please! Someone! Anyone!”

  But now arrows were streaking towards these stymphs as pirates galloped down from the castle on horseback, bows raised. Spooked, the stymphs veered away from Sophie, retreating into the fog. Beeba and Thiago rose upright onto their horses, balancing feet on the saddles, taking shots at Hester’s and Kiko’s and Anadil’s heads, as Sophie’s friends ducked and swerved, arrows soaring through the gaps in the stymphs’ ribs.

  “Help! Save me!” Sophie screeched at them, leaping uselessly at the stymphs as her friends tried to maneuver towards her.

  More and more arrows flew as pirate guards poured out of the church, firing at the stymphs in the sky. Beatrix, Hester, Bodhi all tried to dodge and make one last dive for Sophie. But the onslaught was too much. Looking stricken, they had no choice but to flee en masse, away from the church, away from Camelot, and away from Sophie.

  Sophie’s heart plunged. She swiveled back to the castle, but the silvery fog was dissipating, with no more stymphs to reveal. Tears flooded her eyes. She’d been left behind. Just like she’d left Bert and Beckett, who were surely dead by now. She didn’t know why she was crying. She deserved her fate. She deserved to be punished for her selfishness . . . punished for the bad deeds she couldn’t help doing . . . punished for being herself. . . . That’s why her story could never change, no matter what pen wrote it—

  “Sophie!” a voice blared from above.

  She raised her head to see a stymph throttling out of the fog through a hail of arrows, a shirtless boy reaching out his hand to grab her, his face veiled in mist, his hair white as snow. . . .

  Rafal?

  He ripped through the fog—

  No.

  Not Rafal.

  Time seemed to slow, her heart pumping hot blood, as if it was the first time she’d ever seen this boy, even though she’d seen him a thousand times before. Only she’d seen him differently all those times . . . not like she was now . . . as a prince who’d patiently saved her again and again and again, until she finally had the sense to notice.

  She thrust her hand into the sunlight as he flew down, his hair coated with white rubble, his face and pallid chest streaked in scim wounds, his fingers stretching out to clasp hers—

  “Got you!” Hort said, starting to tow her onto his stymph.

  Holding him tight, Sophie climbed towards him. . . .

  But then she froze cold.

  So did Hort, following her eyes.

  So did the pirates, who lowered their bows in shock.

  High over Camelot’s castle, the dissipating fog had congealed into a giant bubble with a girl’s face trapped inside of it, levitating like a ghost. The dark-haired girl was magnified as if reflected by curved glass. Behind her stood an army of students and teachers in the uniforms of Good and Evil, framed by a school crest on the wall. The girl gazed down at Sophie with big, glistening eyes.

  “Agatha?” Sophie choked.

  But her friend was already vanishing into the sky. “I couldn’t free them all,” Agatha rasped, pressing her hands against the fading bubble. “There’s some left, Sophie. I don’t know who. I tried to save them—I tried—”

  “Agatha!” Sophie cried.

  It was too late. Her best friend had disappeared.

  Yet Agatha’s voice seemed to linger, echoing in Sophie’s head. . . .

  There’s some left.

  There’s some left.

  There’s some left.

  She felt Hort shake off his daze and clutch her tighter. “Hurry! Get on!” he yelled, yanking her towards his stymph—

  Only Sophie’s face had changed, her body already pulling away from him. Hort’s eyes widened, seeing what was about to happen, but Sophie moved too fast, wrenching her hand out of his.

  “What are you doing!” Hort shrieked.

  “I can’t,” Sophie breathed. “You heard Agatha. There’s some left at the castle . . . they’ll die if I leave them behind. . . .”

  “We’ll come back for them!” Hort retorted, seeing the pirates who’d been watching Agatha suddenly aim arrows at him once more. In front of the castle, Japeth was muscling out of Dot’s chocolate swamp. “You have to come with me!” Hort thundered, nosing his stymph towards her. “Now!”

  Sophie recoiled. “They’re our friends, Hort. My friends.”

  “Don’t be stupid! Get on!” Hort pleaded—

  Sophie lit her fingerglow and shot his stymph in the tailbone with a pink flare, sending the bird rocketing forward, just as arrows slashed for Hort’s skull. Hort tried to veer back towards Sophie, but his bird ignored him and soared after the other stymphs, as if it knew its duty was to keep its rider safe. With an anguished cry, Hort looked back at Sophie, tears welling, while his stymph whisked him into the horizon without her. Pirates strung their bows one last time, but their arrows fell short, snapping against the church tower brick and showering wooden shards over the crowd.

  Everything went quiet.

  Sophie stood alone, rock still.

  She’d given up a chance to be free.

  To be with Agatha again.

  To be safe at school.

  So she could help people.

  Her
. Evil’s once-queen.

  She didn’t even know who she was saving.

  Or how many.

  The real Sophie would be halfway to freedom by now.

  The real Sophie would have saved herself.

  A prickling dread snaked down her spine. Not just because she felt like a stranger in her own body.

  But because someone was watching her.

  She raised her head and saw Rhian in the church doorway, battered and bruised, his bluish eyes dead cold.

  And then she knew.

  He’d seen Agatha in the sky.

  He’d seen her army.

  He’d seen everything.

  But he wasn’t the only one.

  Thousands of people from other kingdoms, including their leaders, stood downhill, their eyes pinned upwards on the clear air as the last flecks of Agatha and her army disappeared.

  All at once, their eyes moved to the king, watching Rhian the way he was watching Sophie, as birds circled overhead, tweeting brightly into silence—

  “Agatha’s caught!” “She has no army!” “Did you hear?” “Praise the Lion! Praise the King!”

  11

  AGATHA

  Friendship Lessons

  As Agatha paced Merlin’s Menagerie on the roof of the School for Good, she kept her eye on the sunset, waiting for the first sign of her friends.

  She glanced back and saw the Good and Evil faculty silently fanned out behind her and the spying eyes of first years peeping through the frosted glass doors from inside the castle.

  Agatha paced faster between the hedge sculptures from King Arthur’s tale. She looked up again.

  Still no stymphs.

  What’s taking them so long? she thought, shuffling past a leafy scene of Guinevere with baby Tedros.

  She needed to know who’d escaped from the dungeons.

  More importantly, she needed to know who hadn’t—

  She paced right into a hedge of Arthur pulling the sword from the stone, the rough shrubs slapping against her face.

  Agatha sighed, remembering the moment when Tedros tried to pull a sword from the stone at his coronation. The moment that had precipitated everything that followed. And she still had no answer for why he’d failed and Rhian had succeeded.

  She looked into the sky once more.

  Nothing.

  This time, however, she could see purple detonations of light over the school’s North Gate, challenging the bubble of green fog around the school.

  Rhian’s men must be attacking Professor Manley’s shield again.

  She peered closer at the purple light. Magic, she thought. But Rhian’s pirates couldn’t do magic. So who was helping them?

  On the shores of Halfway Bay, Professor Manley cast rays of green mist to reinforce the shield, while the school’s wolf guards herded around the moat towards the North Gate, ready to fight Rhian’s men if they got through.

  It’s only a matter of time, Agatha thought. How long until the shield gave way? A week? A few days? Rhian’s men would show them no mercy. She needed to get the students and teachers out before the shield fell. Which meant they needed a new safe house . . . somewhere she and her army could hide. . . .

  But first, Agatha needed her prince back.

  She knew that she shouldn’t be hoping for Tedros to have escaped over the others. That it wasn’t Good in the slightest to root for someone else to have been left behind. But in times like these, even the purest of souls can’t always be Good.

  She leaned against the prickly green blade of Arthur’s sword, out of sight of the teachers and first years.

  This wasn’t how it was supposed to go.

  She was supposed to have all of her friends back, safe and sound. Sophie included.

  But nothing ever went as it was supposed to.

  At least not in her fairy tale.

  A FEW HOURS earlier, Agatha stood at the window in Professor Sader’s old office—now Hort’s office—watching the stymphs fly off to Camelot, the students of Groups #1 and #6 on their backs. Little by little, the birds receded into the gold glare of Rhian’s tale about Young Hristo, branded against the blue sky.

  Agatha glanced down at the remaining first years, cramming in a quick lunch of turkey stew in the Clearing, their eyes pinned to the horizon, anxiously watching their classmates soar towards Rhian’s kingdom.

  “Nevers and Evers sitting together at lunch? Things have changed,” Agatha marveled.

  “Or maybe they’ve bonded over you sending their friends to die,” Professor Manley’s voice growled behind her.

  Agatha turned to see the Good and Evil faculty standing around Hort’s hopelessly messy desk, their faces tense with concern. Amidst the soggy books, ink-spattered scrolls, food crumbs, and strewn underpants lay Professor Dovey’s gray bag, the outline of a sphere visible beneath the worn fabric.

  “I agree with Bilious,” said Princess Uma, arms folded over her pink gown. “You pull two groups of students into a corner, whisper with them like a pack of squirrels, and off they go into battle, with a plan you’ve yet to explain to anyone else.”

  “EVEN THOUGH WE’RE THE TEACHERS,” Castor blistered.

  “And even though one of the groups is mine,” snapped Yuba the Gnome, thumping his white staff into the dirty floor.

  “Look, the groups will reach Camelot soon. We don’t have time to argue,” said Agatha forcefully. “They wanted to go. They’re not at this school to play it safe or be coddled. They’re here to do what is right. And that means getting our friends out of Camelot. You asked me to lead them and I did. You asked me to come up with a plan and I did. And now, for this plan to work, I need your help.”

  “A PLAN NEEDS PLANNING,” Castor savaged.

  “A plan needs consultation,” Yuba hectored.

  “A plan needs time,” Professor Anemone resounded.

  “There was no time,” Agatha bit back. “The Blessing is our chance to rescue our friends and I had to take it.”

  “So you send first years to die?” said Professor Sheeks angrily. “Your fourth-year classmates in the clinic could have gone—you could have gone—”

  “No, I couldn’t. And neither could any other fourth year,” Agatha retorted. “Rhian’s brother has a map that tracks us. Just like Dovey’s Quest Map. Rhian would see us coming. He can’t see the first years.”

  Professor Sheeks went quiet.

  “You think I wanted to send them into harm’s way?” said Agatha. “I wish they could all be in class right now, with nothing to worry about except Snow Balls and ranking points. I wish they could be practicing their animal calls and weather spells and be immune to anything beyond the school gates. I wish I could be the one flying to Camelot. But wishes won’t save my friends. For my plan to work, I needed them. And now I need you.” She paused. “Well, it isn’t really my plan. It’s Sophie’s.”

  The teachers stared at her.

  “I found it in Lionsmane’s message,” Agatha explained, looking out the window at the gold words in the sky.

  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.

  “When we were in the theater, I read a news clip that claimed it wasn’t Rhian writing Lionsmane’s tales, but Sophie,” said Agatha. “It seemed absurd at first, and yet something told me it was true. Because the more I read the message, the more it felt off . . . as if whoever had written it had picked their language very carefully. . . . Which meant if it was Sophie who’d written it, she’d chosen her words for a reason.” Agatha smiled. “And then I saw it.”

  With her fingerglow, she drew circles in the air, marking up the message.

  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 c
astle, 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.

  “First letter of each sentence,” said Agatha. “C-R-Y-S-T-A-L. Sophie knows I have Professor Dovey’s crystal ball. And she wants me to use it.”

  The faculty peered at her, unconvinced . . . except for Professor Manley, whose usually viperous expression had turned curious.

  “Go on,” he said.

  “When Professor Dovey came to Camelot, she brought her crystal ball,” Agatha explained. “It was making her ill, so Sophie and I kept it away from her, even though Merlin said I should return it. But I wasn’t going to give Dovey back a ball that was hurting her. That’s why I have it now.” She glanced at the Dean’s bag on the table. “Sophie knows the risks of using it, but she also knows it’s the only way to save our friends. Because whatever its side effects, the ball works. When we were on our quest, Professor Dovey used it to communicate with us. I know that for a fact because I talked to her from Avalon. The crystal let her find students anywhere in the Woods. Which means we can use the crystal ball to find whoever is in Camelot’s dungeons.”

  “No, we can’t,” said Yuba testily, waving his staff, “because anyone with sense knows you can’t use magic in the dungeons—”

  “The crystal ball can’t get in the dungeons, but it can get our friends out,” Agatha countered. “According to maps of Camelot, the dungeons are against the side of the hill. Meaning the crystal ball can find that exact spot on the hill, which is where our rescue team will break in.”

  “Where is this spot, then?” Professor Sheeks challenged, pointing a stubby finger at the ball. “Show it to us.”

  “I can’t. At least not yet,” said Agatha, her confident facade faltering for the first time. “Dovey told us the ball is broken; it can only be used for a short time each day before it cuts off the connection. We need to save that time for when our students make it to Camelot and send us the signal.”

  “And you know how to use the crystal?” Professor Anemone prodded skeptically.