A Crystal of Time
In this fifth instalment in Soman Chainani's bestselling fantasy series, The School for Good and Evil, Sophie, Agatha, and their friends must find a way to overthrow the sinister evil that twists lies into the truth and seeks to rewrite their story. A traitor has seized Camelot’s throne, sentencing Tedros, the true king, to death. Tedros’s queen, Agatha, narrowly escapes, but their friend Sophie is trapped. She is forced to play a dangerous game as her wedding to the false king fast approaches, and all the while her friends’ lives hang in the balance. Now Agatha and the other students at the School for Good and Evil must find a way to restore Tedros to his rightful place on the throne and save Camelot – before all of their fairy tales come to a lethal end, and the future of the Endless Woods is rewritten forever…
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First published in the USA by HarperCollins Childrens Books in 2019
Published simultaneously in Great Britain by HarperCollins Children’s Books in 2019
Published in this ebook edition in 2019
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Text copyright © Soman Chainani 2019
Illustrations copyright © Iacopo Bruno 2019
Cover design copyright © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2019
All rights reserved.
Soman Chainani and Iacopo Bruno assert the moral right to be identified as the author and illustrator of this work respectively.
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Source ISBN: 9780008292201
Ebook Edition © July 2018 ISBN: 9780008292218
Version: 2019-02-19
For Uma and Kaveen
IN THE FOREST PRIMEVAL
A SCHOOL FOR GOOD AND EVIL
TWO TOWERS LIKE TWIN HEADS
ONE FOR THE PURE
ONE FOR THE WICKED
TRY TO ESCAPE YOU’LL ALWAYS FAIL
THE ONLY WAY OUT IS
THROUGH A FAIRY TALE
Contents
1. Agatha: The Lady and the Snake
8. Hort: Someday My Weasel Will Come
9. Sophie: Empress under the Boot
10. Sophie: Blessing in Disguise
11. Agatha: Friendship Lessons
13. Agatha: Sometimes the Story Leads You
16. Professor Dovey: What Makes Your Heart Beat?
17. Agatha: The Only Safe Place in the Woods
18. Tedros: The Ultimate Mission
19. Agatha: Into the Crystal World
20. Hort: The House at Number 63
22. Sophie: Script of a Murder
24. Sophie: The Garden of Truth and Lies
When the new King of Camelot intends to kill your true love, kidnap your best friend, and hunt you down like a dog . . . you better have a plan.
But Agatha had no plan.
She had no allies.
She had no place to hide.
So she ran.
She ran as far from Camelot as she could with no direction or destination, ripping through the Endless Woods, her black dress catching on nettles and branches as the sun rose and fell . . . She ran as the bag with a Dean’s crystal ball swung and thumped against her ribs . . . She ran as WANTED posters with her face began appearing on trees, a warning that news traveled faster than her legs could carry her and that there was nowhere safe for her anymore . . .
By the second day, her feet blistered; her muscles throbbed, fed only by berries and apples and mushrooms she snatched along the way. She seemed to be going in circles: the smoky riverbanks of Mahadeva, the borders of Gillikin, then back to Mahadeva in the pale dawn. She couldn’t think about a plan or shelter. She couldn’t think about the present at all. Her thoughts were in the past: Tedros in chains . . . sentenced to die . . . her friends imprisoned . . . Merlin dragged away unconscious . . . an Evil villain wearing Tedros’ crown . . .
She struggled through an assault of pink fog, searching for the path. Wasn’t Gillikin the kingdom with the pink fog? Hadn’t Yuba the Gnome taught them that at school? But she’d left Gillikin hours ago. How could she be there again? She needed to pay attention . . . she needed to think forward instead of backward . . . but now all she could see were clouds of pink fog taking the shape of the Snake . . . that masked, scale-covered boy who she’d been sure was dead . . . but a boy who she’d just seen alive . . .
By the time she came out of her thoughts, the fog was gone and it was nighttime. Somehow she’d ended up in the Stymph Forest, with no trace of a path. A storm swept in, slinging lightning through trees. She cowered under an overgrown toadstool.
Where should she go? Who could help her when everyone she trusted was locked in a dungeon? She’d always relied on her intuition, her ability to make a plan on the spot. But how could she think of a plan when she didn’t even know who she was fighting?
I saw the Snake dead.
But then he wasn’t . . .
And Rhian was still onstage . . .
So Rhian can’t be the Snake.
The Snake is someone else.
They’re working together.
The Lion and the Snake.
She thought of Sophie, who’d giddily accepted Rhian’s ring, thinking she was marrying Tedros’ knight. Sophie who believed she’d found love—
