A Crystal of Time Read online

  “No!” Anadil screamed.

  The Snake stabbed the rat in the heart and dropped it to the floor.

  “My guards are searching for the two you sent to find Merlin and Agatha,” he said in a crisp, deep voice as he walked away. “Next one I find, I’ll kill one of you too.”

  He didn’t look back. The iron door thudded behind him.

  Anadil scrambled forward, reaching through the cell bars and scraping her rat into her hands . . . but it was too late.

  She sobbed, clutching it against her chest as she curled into a corner.

  Hort, Nicola, and Dot tried to comfort her, but she was crying so hard she started to shiver.

  Only when Hester touched her did Anadil’s wails slowly soften.

  “She was so scared,” Anadil sniffled, shearing off a patch of her dress and wrapping her rat’s body in it. “She looked right at me, knowing she was going to die.”

  “She was a faithful henchman to the end,” Hester soothed.

  Anadil buried her head in her friend’s shoulder.

  “How did the Snake know the other rats were searching for Merlin and Agatha?” Hort blurted as if there was no more time to mourn.

  “Forget that,” said Nicola. “How is the Snake alive?”

  Hester’s stomach plunged.

  “That thing I saw through the hole . . . I didn’t think it could be . . . ,” she said, watching her demon still hammering at the stone crack, undeterred by the Snake. She turned to the group. “It was a scim.”

  “So he was listening the whole time?” Beatrix said.

  “That means he knows about everything!” said Hort, pointing at the hole. “No way can we send a message to Sophie. Scim’s probably still out there, listening to us right now!”

  Spooked, they turned to Professor Dovey, who was peering down the hall towards the staircase.

  “What is it?” asked Hester.

  “His voice,” said Dovey. “It’s the first time I’ve heard it. But it sounded . . . familiar.”

  The crew looked at each other blankly.

  Then they tuned in to the king still booming from beyond: “I grew up with nothing and now I’m your king. Sophie grew up a Reader and will now be your queen. We are just like you—”

  “Actually, he sounded a bit like Rhian,” said Hester.

  “A lot like Rhian,” said Willam and Bogden at once.

  “Exactly like Rhian,” Professor Dovey concluded.

  A crackling noise came from the wall.

  Hester’s demon had wedged loose another pebble-sized stone above the hole, opening it up further, before he’d exhausted all strength and collapsed back into his master’s neck.

  “I can see the stage now,” said Nicola, putting her eye to the hole. “Just barely . . .”

  “Good, we can mirrorspell it here. I can’t do it from my cell, but Hester can,” said Professor Dovey. “Hester, it’s the charm I taught you after Sophie moved into the School Master’s tower. The one that let you and me spy on her to make sure she wasn’t voodoo hexing me or summoning the ghost of Rafal.”

  “Professor, how many times do we have to tell you, magic doesn’t work inside the dungeons,” Hester growled.

  “Inside the dungeons,” the Dean repeated.

  Hester’s eyes flared. This was why Dovey was a Dean and she was still a student. She should never have doubted her. Quickly, Hester hewed to the wall, slipped her fingertip through the tiny hole and into the summer heat. She felt her fingerglow activate and sizzle bright red. The first rule of magic is that it follows emotion and when it came to her hatred of Rhian, she had enough to light up all of Camelot.

  “Should we really be doing this?” Kiko asked. “If the scim’s out there—”

  “How about I kill you, so you don’t have to worry,” Hester fired back.

  Kiko pursed her lips.

  She’s right, though, Hester thought sourly. The scim could be outside the hole, listening . . . but they had to take the chance. A closer look at the stage would let them see Sophie with Rhian. It would let them see whose side Sophie was really on.

  Quickly Hester lined up her eye to the hole, so she had a view of the stage, which looked like a matchbox from this far away. Even worse, just as Nicola said, she couldn’t see the front of the stage—only a view from the side, with Rhian and Sophie’s backs to her, high over the crowd.

  Still, it would have to do.

  Hester aimed her fingerglow directly at Rhian and Sophie. With half her mind, she focused on the stage angle she wanted to spy on; with the other half, she focused on the dank, dirty cell in front of her. . . .

  “Reflecta asimova,” she whispered.

  At once, a two-dimensional projection appeared inside the prison cell, floating in the air like a screen. With colors muted, like a faded painting, the projection offered them a magnified view of what was happening on the Blue Tower balcony in real time. In this view, they could observe Rhian and Sophie close up, though only in profile.

  “So a mirrorspell can let you see anything bigger from far away?” Hort said, wide-eyed. “Why didn’t anyone show me this spell at school?”

  “Because we all know how you would have used it,” Professor Dovey scorched.

  “Why aren’t we watching them from the front?” Beatrix complained, studying Rhian and Sophie. “I can’t see their faces—”

  “The spell magnifies the angle I can see through the hole,” said Hester testily. “And from here, I can only see the stage from the side.”

  In the projection, Rhian was still speaking to the guests, his tall, lean frame and blue-and-gold suit in shadow, while he held Sophie with one arm.

  “Why doesn’t she run?” said Nicola.

  “Or shoot him with a spell?” said Willam.

  “Or kick him in the marbles?” said Dot.

  “Told you we couldn’t trust her,” Reena harped.

  “No. That’s not it,” Hester countered. “Look closer.”

  The crew followed her gaze. Though they couldn’t see Rhian’s or Sophie’s faces, they honed in on Sophie from behind, shuddering under Rhian’s grip in her pink gown . . . Rhian’s knuckles turning white as they dug into her . . . Excalibur clenched in his other hand, pressed against her spine . . .

  “That dirty creep,” Beatrix realized, turning to Dovey. “You said Rhian wants to keep Sophie loyal. How is sticking a sword in her going to do that?”

  “Many a man has made his wife loyal at the point of a sword,” the Dean said gravely.

  Dot sighed. “Sophie really does have the worst taste in boys.”

  Indeed, only twenty minutes before, Sophie had leapt into Rhian’s arms and kissed him, believing she was engaged to Tedros’ new knight. Now that knight was Tedros’ enemy and threatening to kill Sophie unless she played along with his charade.

  But that wasn’t all they could see from this vantage point.

  There was someone else on the stage watching the coronation too.

  Someone concealed inside the balcony, out of view of the crowd.

  The Snake.

  He stood there in his ripped, bloody suit of scims, watching the king speak.

  “First, we need our princess to become a queen,” Rhian proclaimed to the people, his voice amplified in the cell by the projection. “And as the future queen, it is Sophie’s honor to plan the wedding. Not some pretentious royal spectacle of the past. But a wedding that brings us closer to you. A wedding for the people!”

  “Sophie! Sophie! Sophie!” the crowd brayed.

  Sophie squirmed in his grip, but Rhian shoved the sword harder against her.

  “Sophie has a full week of parties and feasts and parades in store,” he continued. “Followed by the wedding and crowning of your new queen!”

  “Queen Sophie! Queen Sophie!” the masses anointed her.

  Sophie’s posture straightened, listening to the adoring crowd.

  In a flash, she yanked away from Rhian, daring him to do something to her.

&nbs
p; Rhian froze, still gripping her hard. Though his face was in shadow, Hester could see him watching Sophie.

  Silence fell over the crowd. They sensed the tension.

  Slowly, King Rhian looked back at the people. “It seems our Sophie has a request,” he said, even and serene. “A request she’s been pressing upon me day and night and that I’ve been hesitant to grant, because I hoped the wedding would be our moment. But if there’s one thing I know about being king: what my queen wants, my queen must get.”

  Rhian looked at his bride-to-be, a cold smile on his face.

  “So the night of the wedding ceremony, at Princess Sophie’s insistence . . . we will begin with the execution of the impostor king.”

  Sophie lurched back in shock, nearly slicing herself on Excalibur’s blade.

  “Which means a week from today . . . Tedros dies,” Rhian finished, glaring straight at her.

  Shrieks rang out from Camelot’s people, who rushed forward in defense of Arthur’s son, but they were stymied by citizens from dozens of other kingdoms, kingdoms once ignored by Tedros and now firmly behind the new king.

  “TRAITOR!” one Camelot man screamed at Sophie.

  “TEDROS TRUSTED YOU!” a Camelot woman shouted.

  “YOU’RE A WITCH!” her child yelled at Sophie.

  Sophie stared at them, speechless.

  “Go now, my love,” Rhian cooed, giving her a kiss on the cheek before guiding her into the hands of his armored guards. “You have a wedding to plan. And our people expect nothing less than perfection.”

  The last Hester saw of Sophie was her terrified face, locking eyes with her future husband, before the pirates pulled her into the castle.

  As the crowd chanted Sophie’s name and Rhian presided calmly at the balcony, everyone inside the dungeon cell was stunned silent.

  “Was he telling the truth?” a voice echoed down the hall.

  Tedros’ voice.

  “About Sophie wanting me dead?” the prince called out. “Was that the truth?”

  No one answered him, because something else was happening onstage that the crew could see in the projection.

  The Snake’s body was changing.

  Or rather . . . his clothes were.

  Magically, the remaining scims rearranged into a slim-fitted suit, which turned gold-and-blue all at once: a perfect inverse of the suit that Rhian was wearing.

  As soon as the Snake had conjured his new clothing, Rhian seemed to sense it, for the king glanced back at the masked boy, acknowledging his presence for the first time. The quest team now saw Rhian’s tan, sharp-jawed face in full view, his hair glinting like a bronze helmet, his sea-green eyes running briefly over the Snake, who was still out of sight of the people. Rhian showed no surprise that his once mortal nemesis was alive or had magically changed his clothes or was wearing a suit that resembled his own.

  Instead, Rhian offered the Snake the slightest hint of a smile.

  The king turned back to the crowd. “The Storian never helps you. The real people. It helps the elite. It helps those who go to that school. How can it be the voice of the Woods, then? When it divides Good from Evil, rich from poor, educated from ordinary? That’s what’s made our Woods vulnerable to attack. That’s what let a Snake slither into your kingdoms. That’s what nearly killed you all. The pen. The rot starts with that pen.”

  The people murmured assent.

  Rhian’s eyes roamed the crowd. “You there, Ananya of Netherwood, daughter of Sisika of Netherwood.” He pointed down at a thin, unkempt woman, stunned that the king knew her name. “For thirty years, you’ve slaved at your kingdom’s stables, waking before dawn to groom horses for Netherwood’s witch-queen. Horses you’ve loved and raised to ride in battle. Yet no pen tells your story. No one knows about what you’ve sacrificed, who you’ve loved, or what lessons you might offer—lessons more worthy than any puffed-up princess the Storian might choose.”

  Ananya blushed red as those around her gave her admiring looks.

  “And you there, what about you?” said Rhian, pointing at a muscular man, flanked by three teenage boys with shaved heads. “Dimitrov of Maidenvale, whose three sons applied to the School for Good and were each denied, and yet all now serve as footmen for the young princes of Maidenvale. Day after day, you work to the bone, even though deep in your hearts you know these princes are no better than you. Even though you know that you deserved an equal chance at glory. Must you too die without your stories told? Must all of you die so ignored and forgotten?”

  Dimitrov’s eyes welled with tears while his sons put their arms around their father.

  Hester could hear the murmurs building in the crowd, awed that someone with such great power was honoring people like them. That he was even seeing them at all.

  “But what if there was a pen that told your stories?” Rhian offered. “A pen that wasn’t controlled by mysterious magic, but by a man you trust. A pen that lived in plain sight instead of locked behind school gates. A pen made for a Lion.”

  He leaned forward. “The Storian doesn’t care about you. I do. The Storian didn’t save you from the Snake. I did. The Storian won’t answer to the people. I will. Because I want to glorify all of you. And so will my pen.”

  “Yes! Yes!” cried the people.

  “My pen will give voice to the voiceless. My pen will tell the truth. Your truth,” the king announced.

  “Please! Please!”

  “The reign of the Storian is over!” Rhian bellowed. “A new pen rises. A new era begins!”

  On cue, Hester and the crew watched as a sliver of the Snake’s gold suit peeled off and floated over the balcony wall, out of view of the crowd. The golden strip reverted to a scaly black scim as it drifted higher into the air, still unseen. Then it descended over the mob and into sunlight towards King Rhian, magically morphing into a long, gold pen, knife-sharp at both ends.

  The people gazed at it, enthralled.

  “At last. A Pen for the People,” Rhian called out, as the pen hovered over his outstretched hand. “Behold . . . Lionsmane!”

  The masses exploded in their most passionate cheers yet. “Lionsmane! Lionsmane!”

  Rhian pointed his finger and the pen soared into the sky over Camelot’s castle and wrote in gold against the pure blue canvas like it was a blank page—

  THE SNAKE IS DEAD.

  A LION HAS RISEN.

  THE ONE TRUE KING.

  Dazzled, all citizens of the Woods, Good and Evil, kneeled before King Rhian. Dissenters from Camelot were forced to a knee by those around them.

  The king raised his arms. “No more ‘once upon a time.’ The time is now. I want to hear your stories. And my men and I will seek them out, so that each day, my pen can write the real news of the Woods. Not tales of arrogant princes and witches fighting for power . . . but stories that spotlight you. Follow my pen and the Storian will no longer have a place in our world. Follow my pen and all of you will have a chance at glory!”

  The whole of the Woods roared as Lionsmane ascended into the sky over Camelot, sparkling like a beacon.

  “But Lionsmane alone is not enough to overcome the Storian and its legacy of lies,” Rhian continued. “The Lion in the tale of The Lion and the Snake had an Eagle by his side to ensure that no Snake could ever find its way into his realm again. A Lion needs an Eagle to succeed: a liege to the king who can serve as his closest advisor. And today, I bring you this liege who will help me fight for a greater Woods. Someone you can trust as much as you trust me.”

  The crowd hushed in expectation.

  From inside the balcony, the Snake started to move towards the stage, his green mask still in place, his back to Hester and the crew.

  But just before he moved past an obscuring wall and into the view of the mob, the scims that made up the Snake’s mask dispersed into the air, flying out of sight.

  “I present to you . . . my Eagle . . . and the liege to your king . . . ,” Rhian proclaimed. “Sir Japeth!”

  Into th
e light walked the Snake, revealing his face to the throng, the gold of his suit kindling to shimmers in the sun.

  Gasps came from the crowd.

  “In that old, obsolete school, two just like us ruled over a pen. Two of the same blood who were at war with each other, Good and Evil,” the king heralded, holding Japeth close beneath Lionsmane. “Now two of the same blood rule over a new pen. Not for Good. Not for Evil. But for the people.”

  The crowd erupted, singing the new liege’s name: “Japeth! Japeth! Japeth!”

  That’s when the Snake turned and looked right into Hester’s projection, revealing his face to the imprisoned crew, as if he knew they were watching him.

  Taking in the Snake’s beautiful, high-boned face for the first time, Hester’s whole body went slack.

  “What was that about staying one step ahead?” she breathed to Professor Dovey.

  Good’s Dean said nothing as Sir Japeth grinned back at all of them.

  Then he turned and waved to the people alongside his identical twin brother, King Rhian . . .

  The Lion and the Snake now lording over the Woods as one.

  3

  SOPHIE

  Bonds of Blood

  While the guards held her offstage, Sophie saw all of it.

  The Snake becoming the Lion’s liege.

  Rhian’s brother unmasked.

  Lionsmane declaring war on the Storian.

  The people of the Woods cheering on two frauds.

  But Sophie’s mind wasn’t on King Rhian or his snake-eyed twin. Her mind was on someone else . . . the only person who mattered to her right now . . .

  Agatha.

  Even with Tedros set to die, at least she knew where he was. In the dungeons. Still alive. And as long as he was alive, there was hope.

  But the last she’d seen of Agatha was her best friend being hunted by guards through the crowd.

  Did she escape?

  Was she even alive?

  Tears sprung to Sophie’s eyes as she looked down at the diamond on her finger.

  Once upon a time, she’d worn another ring . . . the ring of an Evil man who’d isolated her from her only real friend, just as she was now.