A Crystal of Time Read online

  She glared into the ball. “Show me Bo—”

  A handsome face thrust into the crystal’s frame, spattered with black goo, a shimmery cape held over his head like a shield.

  “Sorry,” Bodhi panted, his breath shaking the bubble. “Couldn’t see your bubble in the sunlight. Plus, Sophie’s old snakeskin cape is a nightmare to handle. Thin, slippery, and just the worst. To stay invisible, we had to shuffle under it like one of those dragon puppets. And Laithan has a big behind.”

  “I take that as a compliment,” whispered goo-covered Laithan, squeezing in under the cape. “In fairness to my behind, we planned for two of us, not three, so that made things worse.”

  “Three?” Agatha said, mystified.

  “Hiya,” said a new goo-splotched face, crowding under the cape.

  “Hort?” Agatha blurted.

  “So I’m sitting in the carriage with Willam and Bogden fending off one of the Snake’s eels,” said the weasel, “and then what do you know, here come two of my former students, raiding the royal carriage like wild men and stunning the driver with a pretty mediocre spell but giving me just enough time to beat that scim to a puddle, and bang on, we’re off and rolling to Camelot. Boys said they’re supposed to invade the dungeons alone—that Sophie’s old cape wouldn’t fit three of us—but no way was I gonna let two first years go without me. I’m a professor. Oh, and Bogden and Willam wanted to come, but those boys are better as lookouts, if you know what I mean.”

  “Bogden and Willam?” said Agatha, even more baffled now.

  “They stashed the carriage in the Woods near the castle and are waiting there, in case we can’t use the stymphs to escape,” said Bodhi. “No clouds today, so stymphs can’t hide overhead or the guards on the towers would see them. Have no idea where they’ve flown to. We’ll try signaling them once we free the prisoners, but no guarantee they’ll pick us up.”

  “A real crystal ball? Sooo cool,” said Laithan, poking at the bubble and distorting it. He searched the frame. “Is Priyanka watching? Tell her I say hi.”

  “Professor Anemone is watching, and you should be focusing on your vital mission instead of peacocking for girls!” the Beautification teacher scorched.

  Laithan cleared his throat. “Um, the dungeons are . . . here?”

  “Right where you’re standing,” Agatha confirmed.

  Bunched under the snakeskin, the three boys barraged the ground with their lit fingerglows, burning holes in the grass. Hort’s magic burrowed far faster than the first years’, searing through dirt like the sun melting ice, until he hit a solid gray wall. He gave it a kick, hearing a hollow sound and saw specks crumble, as if the wall was exceptionally old or not very sturdy. Then he silently cued the boys and they renewed their glows’ assault.

  Suddenly a gust of wind swept in, blowing the snakeskin off them. The boys’ outlines brightened in Agatha’s frame. They weren’t invisible anymore. Agatha saw a guard on the tower turn—

  Hort snatched the cape back down, shielding them once more. “Holy frogballs. Did they see us?”

  “I don’t know,” said Agatha. “Just hurry.”

  The boys shot their lit fingers harder at the dungeon wall, but this time, Bodhi and Laithan’s glow just spurted weak sparks.

  “New boys never last long,” Princess Uma lamented.

  “Easily drained,” Professor Sheeks concurred.

  Hort glowered at Bodhi and Laithan as he redoubled his glow strength. “And you wanted to do this alone?”

  There was another problem now too.

  “Hort?” Agatha rasped.

  “What.”

  “My connection’s weakening.”

  Hort looked up into the frame and saw what she was seeing: the image in the bubble turning translucent.

  “Oh, for Hook’s sake,” Hort growled.

  He redirected his glow onto himself and, with a choked scream, exploded out of his clothes, morphing into a giant man-wolf, nearly evicting the two boys out from under the cape with his girth, before hugging them back under his furred torso like a lion protecting his cubs. Then with the snakeskin hung tight around them, Hort raised two hairy fists and slammed the wall, once, twice, three times, the last with a roar—

  The wall caved in.

  Two boys and a man-wolf tumbled down in an implosion of brick, dirt, and grass as Agatha watched, bug-eyed, hearing the confused shouts of distant guards through the crystal and then the clatter of alarm bells. Black dust swirled inside the crystal ball like a storm, obscuring everything behind it; Agatha pressed her nose to the glass, while teachers and students crowded in behind her, desperate to see if the boys survived.

  Little by little, the dust cleared, revealing three walls of a dark prison cell, a ray of sunlight piercing through like a saber. Hort, Bodhi, and Laithan lay facedown in the rubble, groaning as they stirred.

  But that’s not who Agatha was looking at.

  Agatha was watching a sallow, glassy-eyed boy, covered in blood and bruises, slowly rise from a crouch into the sunlight, like he was lost in a dream.

  “Agatha?”

  Tears came to his princess’s eyes. “Tedros, listen to me. Everything I said that night before the battle . . . everything I said to Sophie . . . I was lost in a moment. I was scared and frustrated. It’s not how I feel about you—”

  “You came for me. That’s all that matters,” Tedros said, choked up with emotion. “I didn’t think there was a way. But you found one. Of course you found one. You’re you. And now you’re here . . .” He cocked his head. “Along with a lot of other people. Um, I see Yuba . . . and Castor and . . . are you at school?”

  “For now,” said Agatha quickly. “And soon you will be too. You’re hurt and the teachers can heal you.”

  “Do I look as bad as I feel?” Tedros asked.

  “Still handsomer than Rhian,” said Agatha.

  “Good answer. And Sophie?”

  “A group of first years is distracting Rhian long enough to free her. There’ll be plenty of time for us to talk once you’re here at school. You need to get out now, Tedros. You and Dovey and all the others.”

  But Tedros just gazed at her like they had all the time in the world. Agatha, too, felt herself falling into Tedros’ eyes, as if there was no barrier between them at all.

  “Um . . . guys?”

  Tedros turned to the man-wolf, head raised on the floor.

  Hort pointed with his paw. “They’re coming.”

  All of a sudden, Agatha saw shadows rushing in from every side of the crystal, converging on the dungeons.

  “Free the rest!” Tedros cried at Hort, who bounded with the prince down the hall towards the other cells. Bodhi and Laithan lumbered up from the floor, limping after them, but Hort flung them backwards—“Call the stymphs, you fool!”

  Bodhi spun around, firing navy flares through the sinkhole into the sky, past pirate guards who were starting to leap down from the hill into the dungeons. More dirt and rubble clouded Agatha’s ball, obscuring her view. She could see Laithan repelling guards with stun spells, but his glow wasn’t strong enough to stop them. A pirate charged forward and tackled him, wrestling the muscly first year into a headlock, blocking Agatha’s sightline completely.

  Meanwhile, the bubble inside her crystal had faded two shades lighter. She could hardly see anything anymore, her connection about to break.

  Hort’s roars echoed down the hall, along with the sound of crashing metal. Disconnected voices rose in the chaos—

  “This way!” Tedros yelled.

  “Nicola, look behind you!” shouted Professor Dovey.

  “Get off me, you brute!” Kiko screamed.

  The cry of shrieking stymphs drowned them out.

  More debris exploded through the dungeons, flooding Agatha’s crystal. The crystal glitched again and the dust morphed to silver shimmer, slowly re-forming the phantom mask. . . .

  “I can’t see them anymore,” Agatha gasped.

  “The stymphs came too l
ate,” Princess Uma said, ashen. “They won’t get everyone out.”

  “They have to,” Agatha panicked. “If we leave anyone behind, Rhian will kill them!”

  “WE NEED TO GO NOW!” Castor blasted, lurching for the doors. “WE HAVE TO HELP THEM—”

  “You’ll never get there in time,” Yuba said.

  Castor stopped in his tracks.

  The library went quiet, students and teachers alike.

  Agatha took a deep breath and looked up at her army.

  “Maybe we won’t get to them,” she said. “But I know someone who will.”

  Professor Anemone read her face. “You’re overestimating her goodness, Agatha. She’ll save herself, no matter what it costs. It doesn’t matter who’s still left. She’ll be on the first stymph to school.”

  Agatha didn’t listen. She’d learned her lesson too many times: friendship can’t be explained. Not a friendship like hers. Some bonds are too deep for others to ever understand.

  She looked back at the crystal as the silver phantom inside prowled towards her, fading quickly, with just enough power for one last wish. . . .

  “Show me Sophie,” Agatha commanded.

  BACK ON THE rooftop, Agatha leaned against the leafy sculpture of King Arthur, still thinking about his son.

  He wouldn’t be one of those left behind.

  He’d find a way back to her.

  Like she always found a way back to him.

  Someone’s voice ripped her from her trance: “They’re here!”

  Agatha leapt out from behind the hedge, her eyes on the sky.

  Stymphs soared towards the school from the Woods, smoothly penetrating Manley’s green fog, as their young riders began to come into view against the red-hot sunset.

  First years burst through the roof door behind Agatha, cheering their return, the teachers joining in. “THEY’RE SAVED!” “WE WON!” “LONG LIVE TEDROS!” “LONG LIVE THE SCHOOL!”

  Agatha was too busy counting the stymphs’ riders—

  Hester . . . Anadil . . . Dot . . .

  Beatrix . . . Reena . . . Kiko . . .

  Bodhi . . . Laithan . . . Devan . . .

  More bony birds tore through the fog, more riders on their backs.

  Ten . . . eleven . . . twelve, Agatha counted, as her army’s cheers amplified.

  Two more stymphs, two riders on each.

  Fifteen . . .

  Sixteen . . .

  The birds stopped coming.

  Agatha waited, as the first wave of stymphs landed on the Great Lawn below, Hester and Dot dismounting, helping Anadil, who was soaked in blood.

  Instantly, teachers and students rushed back into the castle and down onto the lawn to help her, along with others landing nearby: Bert . . . Beckett . . . Laralisa . . .

  Agatha stayed on the roof, searching the fog for more stymphs.

  The sky stayed clear.

  Seven short.

  They were seven people short.

  Seven who only Sophie could save now.

  Agatha welled with tears, realizing who’d been left behind—

  CRACK!

  The sound ricocheted across the school grounds like a stone through glass.

  Agatha looked out and saw Professor Manley screaming violently at her from the School Master’s window . . . students and teachers fleeing into the castle from the lawn . . . wolves covered in blood at the North Gate. . . .

  Agatha raised her eyes to a hole in the green shield . . . to the steel and boots coming through. . . .

  She backed up and started running.

  No time to mourn the missing.

  Not now.

  Because while she was breaking into Rhian’s castle . . .

  Rhian’s men had broken into hers.

  12

  TEDROS

  Lucky Seven

  Beneath the cold, murky water, Tedros finally felt clean.

  He let his arms and legs splay out, floating like seaweed beneath the algae-green surface. The biting chill numbed his sore muscles and froze out his thoughts. As long as he stayed underwater, he didn’t have to face what was above it.

  But he could only hold his breath for so long.

  Each time he came up, long enough to inhale, he heard a snippet of conversation.

  “If I’d been picked to wear Sophie’s cape instead of those boys, we would have escaped—”

  Tedros went back under.

  “The tarot cards said a flying ghost would be at the church and Agatha’s bubble looked just like a flying ghost—”

  Back under.

  “If we’d only made a run for it when I told us to—”

  Back under.

  Tedros’ skin screamed with cold, his heart pumping madly. His breaths grew shallower and shallower . . . his brain shut down like a closing door. . . . He could see King Arthur’s statue above the mold-colored surface, refracted and hazy, a stone Excalibur clasped in his folded hands. But now Arthur was bending towards the water, leering through empty sockets, which crawled with maggots and worms. Tedros dog-paddled backwards, but his father chased him, the statue coming alive, as if the king had at last learned who had carved out his eyes . . . as if he’d discovered his son’s cowardly betrayal. . . . Flailing backwards, Tedros slammed against a wall, out of breath, flattened like a starfish as his father came swimming, his sword pointed at Tedros’ heart—

  “Unbury Me,” the king commanded.

  Tedros crashed through the surface of the pool, spraying water and heaving for breath.

  Valentina and Aja lounged against the marble wall of King’s Cove, drenched by Tedros’ splash. Behind them, King Arthur’s statue stood eyeless and still.

  “Why is he swimming in a dirty piscina?” said Valentina.

  “Boys are a mystery,” said Aja, wringing out his devil-red hair.

  “You are a boy,” said Valentina.

  “Then why didn’t Agatha pick me to wear Sophie’s cape?” Aja puffed. “She knew I loved that cape and instead she let Bodhi and Laithan wear it—”

  “Oh, give up on that damn cape, will you!” a new voice said.

  Tedros turned to see Willam and Bogden against the opposite wall, both in muddy, grass-stained shirts.

  “We’ve been here for hours with no food or water or anything and all you can talk about is a cape!” said Bogden. “You should be worrying about getting out of here before we die!”

  “Then stop all this jabbering and help us find a way out,” said Professor Dovey’s voice.

  Tedros swiveled to see the Dean and Nicola at the stone door to King’s Cove; Nicola was picking the lock with her hairpin while Dovey tried shooting spells repeatedly across the molding of the door, only to see the spells extinguish midair.

  “There is no way out,” Tedros groused, climbing out of the pool and letting the cove’s muggy air thaw his torso as he slumped against the wall near Valentina. “Dad put a shield against magic in this room to get rid of the fairies after Merlin left. Plus, why do you think they moved us here now that the dungeons are smashed in? It’s called King’s Cove for a reason: Dad built it as a safe room, in case the castle got invaded. Nothing can penetrate it. We’re as trapped here as we were there.”

  “At least it’s the only room in the castle Rhian hasn’t remade into a tribute to himself,” said Willam.

  Tedros looked at him.

  “We saw when they took us upstairs,” Bogden explained. “It’s all gold Lions and Rhian busts and shirtless statues of him looking buff.”

  “Not that I’m complaining,” said Willam airily. “Been around Camelot my whole life and the castle looks so much better than it did before”—he saw Tedros glowering—“in a gaudy, low-class sort of way.”

  Tedros raked a hand through his salt-coated hair. “Probably left this room alone since no one will see it. Everything that pig does is for show.”

  He rubbed at the bruises on his muscled stomach and chest . . . then noticed Aja, Valentina, Willam, and Bogden watching him intently.


  “What?” Tedros said.

  “Nothing,” all four chorused, looking away.

  Tedros put his shirt back on.

  Meanwhile, Dovey and Nicola had resumed their assault on the door. Dovey’s green gown shed beetle wings while she stood on tiptoes and shot sparks out of her fingertip, trying to find a weakness in the magic shield. Beneath her, Nicola’s tongue stuck out in concentration as she crouched in a squat, picking deeper in the lock.

  “I lived in this castle. Don’t you think I’d know if there was a way out?” Tedros hounded.

  “Weren’t you also the one who said Good never gives up? That Good always wins?” Nicola bit back.

  “When did I say that?” Tedros scoffed.

  “Right before you and Sophie went into the Trial by Tale your first year,” she said. “Check your fairy tale.”

  Tedros frowned.

  “Should have seen her in class,” Dovey murmured.

  But now Tedros was thinking about that moment when he and Sophie went into the Trial together. At the time, he’d thought that the Trial was the biggest test he’d ever face . . . that Sophie was his true love . . . that Good would always win. . . .

  Maybe I do need to check my fairy tale, he thought. Because while living it, he could never see it clearly.

  The Trial was hardly a test at all, compared to what he faced now.

  Nor did Sophie turn out to be his true love.

  And Good didn’t always win.

  In fact, it might never win again.

  Panic rippled in his chest, as if the numb chill had worn off, his feelings rushing back. Agatha had come to save him. She’d given him a chance to fight for his crown. And somehow in the chaos, he’d gotten caught. Again.

  Forget being king, Tedros thought. You can’t even get rescued right.

  He should be at school. He should be at her side, plotting his revenge on Rhian. He should be leading the war to take back the throne.

  Bogden sniffled. “We were so close. Willam and I had the royal carriage. We took the horses into the Woods, but we didn’t know how to get to school. Then I remembered Princess Uma taught my Forest Group to speak Horse, so I told the horses to take us to school. . . .” He cried harder. “They took us back to Rhian instead.”