“Agatha? Attacking Gillikin? Attacking Foxwood? Two Ever kingdoms?” said the Ooty Queen, as if reading Sophie’s thoughts.
“Except Agatha was spotted causing chaos in my kingdom just days ago,” the Fairy Queen of Gillikin countered. “If fairy nests were burned tonight, it could very well be her doing.”
“And I saw young boys in black masks at the church,” added the Ice Giant of Frostplains. “The ones that set off the bombs. They could have been students from the school.”
“Princess Agatha protects kingdoms; she doesn’t hurt them,” the Princess of Altazarra pooh-poohed. “All of us know her fairy tale!”
“The Storian’s version,” the King of Foxwood piped in.
“The only version! The true version!” the Duke of Hamelin spouted.
“Sophie is Agatha’s best friend,” the Sultan of Shazabah cut in. “We need to hear from Camelot’s future queen!”
“Hear! Hear!” piped the other leaders at his table.
This is my chance, Sophie thought, about to throttle in and expose Rhian—to scream the truth and save herself and her friends—
But then the King of Foxwood stood up. “My castle is being attacked! And all of you are worried about hearing from a Reader instead of trusting the king who saved your kingdoms!” He turned to Rhian. “You need to stop these terrorists at once!”
“Like you did the Snake!” the Fairy Queen pleaded.
“The rebels are moving east, my hawk tells me,” said the Ice Giant of Frostplains, the bird perched on his shoulder. “They’ll attack the Four Point kingdoms next. Then . . . who knows?”
The room went quiet.
No one was defending Agatha anymore.
Like a school of fish, Sophie thought. How quickly they turned.
“I’ll commit my royal guard,” the Queen of Mahadeva announced. “They’ll find these rebels.”
“My men will join yours,” said the Minister of the Murmuring Mountains.
“I don’t trust Never guards in my kingdom,” said the King of Foxwood.
“Or mine,” said the Fairy Queen of Gillikin. “And by the time you send word to your guards, the rebels will have sacked a dozen more realms. They know we’re all here for the wedding. Our kingdoms are vulnerable and they’re moving too fast for us to send alerts or mount a defense. We need King Rhian and his men to ride out at once.”
Ripples of assent swept across the room, until all eyes were on the king.
“You want me to stop Agatha’s attacks?” he said, reclining in his throne. “You want me to risk my life and my knights? Well, then, I expect you to show me loyalty in return.”
His fingertip glowed and a small blue fire appeared in front of each leader’s face, flickering in midair.
Rhian’s eyes smoldered with the reflection of a hundred flames. “Burn your rings,” he commanded. “Burn your rings and pledge your faith to me over Agatha and her school. To me over the Storian. Then I’ll help you.”
The leaders froze, their eyes wide.
Rhian’s gaze deepened. “All those who want my protection . . . burn them now.”
Sophie’s heart stopped.
The rulers scanned the room.
For a moment, none of them moved.
Then the King of Foxwood slipped off his silver ring and put it into the blue flame.
The ring melted—crackle! whish! pop!—and burst into a puff of white-silver smoke.
The Fairy Queen of Gillikin and the Frostplains King both glanced at each other. Neither took off their ring.
But the Queen of Jaunt Jolie did.
She slipped it into her fire.
Crackle! Whish! Pop!
Then a plume of white.
No one else followed.
The flames cooled and vanished.
“Two rings,” Rhian said, toying with each word.
He turned to his guards. “Send men to protect Foxwood and Jaunt Jolie from further attacks,” he said, before looking back at the Council. “The rest of you are on your own.”
Relieved, Sophie leaned against the door, thankful most of the rulers had resisted the king . . . only to see Rhian staring right at her, as if he’d known she was there all along. He swished his lit finger and the doors swept open before she could move back. She tumbled forward and crashed into the ballroom, landing hard on the marble floor.
Slowly she raised her eyes to the entirety of the Kingdom Council peering down at her.
“My love,” Rhian cooed.
Sophie rose to her feet, the white dress burning at her skin more than ever.
“The Council has a few questions for you before today’s execution,” said the king. “Perhaps you can help them come to their senses.”
Two guards subtly moved in behind Sophie. Beeba and Thiago. She could see their hands on their swords. A threat.
Sophie turned to the leaders, cool and composed.
“At your service,” she said.
The Fairy Queen of Gillikin stood up. “Is Agatha our enemy?”
“Is the school behind these attacks?” asked the Ice Giant of Frostplains, rising too.
“Must Tedros die?” asked the Ooty Queen, standing on her cushions.
Sophie could see the fear in their faces. In all the leaders’ faces. The tension in the room was so thick it squeezed at her throat, sealing her voice in.
All she had to say was one word.
No.
The pirates would kill her, but it would be too late. The Woods would know the monster that was on the throne. Tedros and her friends would be saved. Rhian would be thrown to the wolves.
Sophie took in the dead green glass of the king’s eyes, the sneer of his lips. It was the same way Japeth had looked at her when he told her his brother would no longer play nice. Not after she’d used Lionsmane’s messages to reach Agatha. But even so, Rhian still needed her. Her reassurance would make the rest of these leaders dance to his tune. Bringing her here was a risk, of course. But Rhian was betting on the fact that Sophie always did what was best for herself. That she’d stand behind him to stay alive. That her own life was more valuable to her than telling the truth.
Sophie glared back at him.
He’d miscalculated.
Rhian realized what she was about to do.
He launched to his feet, his face turning the color of Japeth’s. Sophie opened her mouth to answer the Council—
Then she saw something.
At a table in the back, near the window. A man, dressed in a brown coat and hood, his face in shadow. He was playing with the silver ring on his hand, reflecting the moonlight, so it would catch Sophie’s attention.
She saw the name on his placard.
Sophie’s heart blasted like a cannon shot.
The hooded man gave her a sharp move of his head, telling her in no uncertain terms how to answer the leaders’ questions.
Sophie searched the whites of his eyes, gleaming through the darkness under his hood.
She turned back to her questioners.
“Yes,” she said. “Agatha is your enemy. The school is behind these attacks. Tedros must die.”
The crowd thrummed like a shaken beehive.
Rhian gaped at Sophie from the throne.
Suddenly Aran accosted him, clutching a large scroll of parchment—
Sophie didn’t wait to see what it was about. With Rhian distracted, she rushed into the room, heading straight for where she’d glimpsed the hooded man. But she couldn’t see him anymore with the leaders crowded around tables, frantically conversing and pointing at their rings, their voices rising. Behind her, Rhian and Aran argued over a map—the Snake’s Quest Map—except from this angle, it looked like all the figurines on it were . . . gone?
I must be seeing it wrong, Sophie thought.
But then she caught Rhian looking up, searching for her—
Sophie ducked along the rims of the tables in a squat, scooting towards the back of the room. She could see leaders streaming out the doors, asking m
aids to call their transports, while others remained in heated debate. She spotted the Ice Giant of Frostplains and the Queen of Gillikin together in the corner, 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 too, obviously,” Dot pipped.
“And even if Hester and I could go, Rhian would see us coming on his map,” said Anadil.
“Not if we switch swan emblems,” said Bossam, pointing at the glittering silver crest on his black uniform. “If you guys wear these, the Map will think you’re us and won’t track you.”
“Our emblems don’t come off, you three-eyed monkey. Castor told us at the Welcoming. Look,” Bodhi snapped, unbuttoning his shirt and disrobing, only to see the swan crest magically move and tattoo on his tan chest. “It’s on our bodies at all times. That’s the point of it. Right, Priyanka?” He flexed his muscles and Priyanka blushed.
“I could get it off if I tried,” Bossam puled, giving Priyanka a wounded look.
“Just like you said you could find Priyanka during the Glass Coffin challenge, when Yuba turned all the girls into identical princesses?” Bodhi jeered. “Guess who found her instead.”
“Lucky guess,” Bossam sniffed. “And I’m not a monkey.”
“No one’s switching emblems and no one’s leaving on their own,” said Princess Uma firmly. “We have to stick together. The way lions do when they’re attacked. No one left behind. That’s our only chance to beat the pirates and save Tedros.”
“There’s more than two hundred of us,” Hort pointed out helplessly. “Is there a spell to hide that many people? Maybe teachers can’t interfere, but that doesn’t mean you can’t give us ideas.”
“Invisibility can only be conferred by snakeskin,” said Yuba, turning to Bodhi and Laithan. “Where’s Sophie’s cape? That won’t cover more than a few of you, but the right few might be able to save Tedros and the rest.”
Bodhi frowned at Laithan. His friend’s shoulders sagged. “Lost it on our flight back,” Laithan mumbled.
“What about Transmutation?” Priyanka asked. “The spell Yuba used to make all the girls look the same during the Glass Coffin challenge. We could transmute into pirates!”
“Highly advanced hex,” the gnome replied. “Even fourth years would struggle to perform it, let alone first years, and besides, the spell only lasts a minute.”
“We know weather spells, though,” Devan proposed, gesturing to his classmates. “We could conjure a tornado and sweep us all to Camelot?”
“And kill half the Woods in the process,” Professor Manley murmured, still convulsing slightly.
“What about the Flowerground train?” asked Beatrix.
“We’d have to get to the ground to call it,” said Anadil.
Agatha tried to stay engaged, but all she could think of was Tedros being dragged onto a wooden stage . . . thrashing against the guards . . . his head slammed on a block as the axe swung down. . . . Fear suffocated her like a hood. Her friends and teachers could flail for ideas all they wanted, but there was no way out of here. There were pirates occupying every corner of the school. And even if they could get past them, they’d never make it to Camelot in time. It was at least a day’s journey away and Tedros would die in hours—
“Agatha,” said Hester.
Maybe I should go, Agatha thought. Alone. Before anyone can stop me.
She’d turn into a dove and fly out of here without Rhian’s men spotting her. She could get to Camelot easily . . . though it wouldn’t solve the problem of Rhian tracking her. . . . Even so, she trusted herself when it counted. And she knew Camelot better than anyone here. Still, stopping Tedros’ execution on her own seemed like a fool’s game. Too many things could go wrong and the stakes were too high—
“Agatha,” Hester barked.
She raised her eyes and saw Hester looking at her. Along with everybody else.
No, not looking at her.
Looking past her.
She glanced down and saw the Storian paused over the storybook, its painting of the scene complete. The pen hadn’t added anything new to the scene since it drew Lionsmane’s message. But there was something different about the pen now. . . .
It was glowing.
An urgent orange-gold, the same color of Agatha’s fingerglow.
As she leaned in, though, she saw it wasn’t the whole pen that was glowing, but the carving along its side: an inscription in a deep, flowing script that ran unbroken from tip to tip. . . .
She didn’t know the language, but the pen pulsed brighter while Agatha gazed at it, as if it wanted her to know. Then, very deliberately, as if aware that it had Agatha’s attention, the Storian pointed at the storybook and a tiny circle of orange glow spooled from its tip like a smoke ring. Agatha stooped lower, watching the glowing circle drift around the painting like a spotlight, roving across the lurking pirates on the ground . . . then up the School Master’s tower and through the window . . . past the huddling first years . . . and settling on the fourth years in the corner.
No . . . not all the fourth years, Agatha realized, peering closer.
One fourth year.
And it wasn’t her.
Instead, the pen had picked a brown boy with long, matted hair, a bushy unibrow, and a surly scowl.
The glowing spotlight honed tighter on the boy, zeroing in on his bandaged hand . . . something in his bandaged hand. . . .
Agatha turned. “Ravan,” she said, whip-sharp. “Give me that book.”
The School for Good and Evil #5: A Crystal of Time Page 22