Soman Chainani - A Crystal of Time

Modification? Sophie couldn’t see their faces, but the five maids appeared healthy. No missing limbs or marks on their skin.

But then she saw the Snake’s eyes flash . . . that same insidious flash she’d witnessed whenever he’d done something especially Evil. . . .

Sophie looked closer at the maid nearest to her. And then she saw it. . . .

A long, thin scim sliding teasingly out of the maid’s ear, eely scales glinting in the lamplight, before it wedged right back in.

Nausea coated Sophie’s throat.

“Whatever you’ve told them fell upon deaf ears,” said Rhian. “And given that Japeth promised to restore them to their original condition only once they prove their loyalty to the new king, I’d doubt they’d listen to you anyway.”

He raised his finger towards the maids and the tip glowed bright gold. Responding to the signal, the maids quickly exited the room in a single-file line.

The same color as Tedros’ glow , Sophie thought, gazing at Rhian’s finger. But how? Only students at the school have fingerglows and he was never a student there —

As the last maid shuffled through the door, head down, the king suddenly barred her path. It was the maid Sophie had seen shaking in the corner.

“There was one maid whose ears we left alone, however. One who we wanted to hear every word,” said Rhian, hand on the maid’s neck. “One who required a different modification . . .”

He raised the maid’s head.

Sophie froze.

It was Guinevere.

A scim curled around the once-queen’s lips, sealing her mouth shut.

Guinevere gave Sophie a petrified stare, before Rhian guided her out with the others and closed the door.

Japeth’s gold-and-blue clothes magically sloughed away, returning to his shredded suit of black scims, his white chest showing through the holes. He stood next to his brother, their muscles rippling beneath the tawny lamps.

“She’s a queen!” Sophie gasped, sick to her stomach. “She’s Tedros’ mother!”

“And she treated our mother poorly,” said Japeth.

“So poorly it’s only fitting she watches us treat her son poorly too,” said Rhian. “Past is Present and Present is Past. The story goes round and round again. Didn’t they teach you that lesson in school?”

Their eyes danced between blue and green.

Our mother , Sophie thought.

Who was their mother?

Agatha had mentioned something . . . something about her former steward who they’d buried in Sherwood Forest . . . What was her name?

Sophie looked at the two boys watching her, with their twin torsos and reptile smiles, the new King and Liege of Camelot, and suddenly she didn’t care who their mother was. They’d jailed her friends, enslaved a real queen, and tricked her into being a false one. They’d forced her best friend to run and condemned Sophie to live as a stooge of the enemy. Her , the greatest witch in the Woods, who had nearly brought down the School for Good and Evil. Twice. And they thought she’d be their puppet?

“You forget that I’m Evil,” Sophie said to Rhian, her rage replaced by a chilly calm. “I know how to kill. And I’ll kill both of you without getting a spot of blood on my dress. So either you free me and my friends and return your crown to the rightful king or you’ll die here with your brother, squealing like whatever’s left of his slimy eel—”

Every last scim tore off Japeth and slammed Sophie against the wall, binding her like a fly in a web, her palms over her head, with another scim strangling her throat, one gagging her mouth, and two turning lethal sharp, poised to gouge out her eyes.

Wheezing in shock, Sophie saw Japeth leering at her, his scim-less, naked form concealed by the table.

“How about this as a compromise,” said Rhian, posing against the wall next to Sophie’s body. “Every time you behave badly, I’ll kill one of your friends. But if you do as I say and act the perfect queen . . . well, then I won’t kill them.”

“Sounds like a fair deal to me,” said the Snake.

“And besides, there are things we could do to you too,” Rhian said, his lips at Sophie’s ear. “Just ask the old wizard.”

Sophie muffled into her gag, desperate to know what they’d done to Merlin.

“But I don’t want to hurt you,” the king went on. “I told you. There’s a reason you’re my queen. A reason why you belong here. A reason why you have this story all wrong. A reason why your blood and ours are so inextricably linked . . .”

Rhian raised his hand to the two sharp scims pointed at Sophie’s pupils and took one of the scims into his hand. He twirled it on his fingertip like a tiny sword and stared right at his bound princess.

“Want to know what it is?”

His eyes sparkled dangerously.

Sophie screamed—

He stabbed the scim at her open palm and sliced across the flesh, opening up a shallow wound, which dripped small droplets of blood.

As Sophie watched in horror, the king cupped his hand beneath the wound and collected Sophie’s blood like rainwater.

Then he smiled at her.

“Because you’re the only person . . .”

He walked towards his brother.

“. . . in all of the Woods . . .”

He stopped in front of Japeth.

“. . . whose blood can do . . .”

He smeared Sophie’s blood across his brother’s chest.

“. . . this .”

For a moment, nothing happened.

Then Sophie jolted.

Her blood had started to magically disperse across Japeth’s body in thin, shiny strands, branching and crisscrossing down his skin like a network of veins. The strands of blood deepened in color to a rich crimson and grew thicker, knotting into roped netting that sealed his body in. The ropes squeezed tighter, cutting into his skin like whips, deeper and deeper, until Japeth was corseted by Sophie’s blood, his flesh stretched raw. He clenched his whole body in agony, his muscles striating as he tilted his head back, mouth open in a choked scream. Then, all at once, the ropes binding him turned from red to black. Scales spread across them like a rash, as the ropes began to undulate and move with soft shrieks like baby eels, replicating across the gaps in his chalky flesh, scim after scim after scim until at last . . . Japeth stared back at her, his suit of snakes as strong and new as the first time Sophie had seen it.

There was no doubting what she’d just witnessed.

Her blood had restored him.

Her blood had restored a monster.

Her blood.

Sophie went limp under her own binds.

The Map Room was silent.

“See you at supper,” said the king.

He walked out the door.

The Snake followed his brother, but not before putting his mother’s dress on the table and giving Sophie a last glare of warning.

As he walked out the door, the scims flew off Sophie with piercing shrieks and chased after Japeth, the door slamming shut behind them.

Sophie was alone.

She stood amongst the torn wedding books, her hand still seeping blood.

Her mouth trembled.

Her lungs felt like they were caving in.

It had to have been a trick.

Another lie.

It had to be.

And yet, she’d seen it with her very own eyes.

It wasn’t a trick. It was real.

Sophie shook her head, tears rising.

How could something so hellish come from her ?

She wanted this Snake dead in the worst possible way . . . and instead she’d restored him to life ? After all she’d done to protect her friends from him? After all she’d done to change? And now she was the lifeblood of the worst kind of Evil?

Heat rushed to her face, a furnace of fear. A witch’s scream filled up her lungs, clawing at her throat. A scream that would kill everyone in this castle and crumble it to ash. She opened her mouth to unleash—