Soman Chainani - A Crystal of Time

“How?” said Beatrix anxiously. “Anadil’s rats are gone and we’re trapped here. His cell is way at the other end of the—”

But now they heard the door to the dungeons open once more.

Soft footsteps padded down the staircase. A shadow elongated on the wall, then across their cell bars.

Into the rusty torchlight came a green-masked figure. His skintight suit of black eels hung in slashed ribbons, exposing his young, pale torso spattered with blood.

The entire crew flattened against the walls. So did Professor Dovey.

“But y-y-you’re . . . dead !” Hort cried.

“We saw your body!” said Dot.

“Rhian killed you!” said Kiko.

The Snake’s ice-blue eyes glared through his mask.

From behind his back, he produced one of Anadil’s rats, the rodent writhing in his grip.

The Snake raised a finger and the scaly black scim covering his fingertip turned knife-sharp. The rat let out a terrible squeak—

“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.