He passed Agatha’s room, tempted to slip in and wake her up, but he’d gotten in trouble for that last night and he didn’t need any more trouble. His kingdom was already on the verge of revolt. That’s why he’d ceded Lady Gremlaine total control over the castle. As Arthur’s once-steward, she was a known face and gave people faith that the new king would be well-managed. But there was another reason he’d let Gremlaine keep him on a tight leash, one he could never say out loud.
Tedros didn’t trust himself as king.
He needed someone like Lady Gremlaine who could watch his every move, who would check his every decision. If he’d only listened to her at the coronation, none of this would have happened. But he was listening to her now. Because if there was one thing he knew, it was that there could be no more mistakes.
Last night had already been a serious blunder. Lady Gremlaine had warned him not to repeat his father’s errors and let a girl interfere with his duties as king. Tedros took this warning seriously. Up until yesterday, he’d done well to concentrate on his tasks and let Agatha concentrate on hers, even if it meant he’d had more freedom to see Agatha at school than he did now as king in his own castle. But then he’d gone and snuck into her room dead-tired, defenses down, and acted like a sniveling child. Tedros cringed, replaying the moment in his head. He’d brought Agatha to Camelot away from everyone and everything she knew, and he wanted her to feel safe and taken care of. He couldn’t let her see how weak and scared he was. He couldn’t let her see that all he wanted to do was run away with her. To hold her tight and shut the world out.
But that’s exactly what he had done last night.
And for the fleeting relief he’d found in her arms, he left his future queen anxious and worried for him and his steward angry and disappointed.
Stop acting like a boy, Tedros chastised himself. Act like a king.
So today he let Agatha sleep, even if it left a big black hole in his heart.
Tedros scuttled through the hall’s colossal gold passage and soaring arches, sweat sopping his wavy blond hair, his breeches sticking to his thighs. He couldn’t remember the castle ever feeling this stifling. Two mice darted past him into a hole in the plaster. A procession of ants wove around the friezes of famous knights on the wall, now damaged and missing limbs. When his father and mother were king and queen, this hall used to be minty clean, even in the August doldrums. Now it smelled like dead cat.
Down three flights he went, socks slippery on dull gold stone, before he hustled through the Gymnasium, a lavish collection of training equipment surrounded by weapons and armor from Camelot’s history, enclosed in glass cases. One would assume this was Tedros’ destination, but instead he scurried right through, his pure blue eyes pinned to the dusty floor, trying not to look at the large glass case in the center of the room … the one case that happened to be empty. Its placard read:
EXCALIBUR
He was still thinking about that large, empty case when he arrived at King’s Cove, a sunken bathing pool in the bowels of the castle. When he was a young prince, this manmade grotto had flowering vines around tall piles of rock and a steaming-hot waterfall. The balmy water once shimmered with a thousand purple and pink lights from fairies who tended the pool in exchange for safe shelter at Camelot. Tedros remembered his mornings here as a child, racing the fairies around his father’s statue at the center of the pool, his tiny opponents lighting up the water like fireworks.
King’s Cove was different now. The pool was dark and cold, the water algae-green. The plants were dead, the waterfall a drip, drip, drip. The fairies were gone too, banished from the castle by Arthur after Guinevere and Merlin had both abandoned him, destroying Arthur’s faith in magic.
Tedros looked down at the kettlebells he’d stolen from the gym and stashed by the pool, along with a sad, lowly rope he’d tied to the ceiling to practice climbing.
He couldn’t exercise in that other room. Not if he had to be near that empty case and think about where the sword was now.
Slowly, his eyes rose to his father’s statue in the murky pool, caked with moss and dirt—King Arthur, Excalibur in hand, staring down at him.
Only he wasn’t staring. At least not anymore. His eyes were gone, violently gouged out, leaving two big black holes.
Tedros endured a wave of guilt, more intense than the one he’d felt in the gym.
He’d done it.
He’d carved out his own father’s eyes.
Because he couldn’t bear the old king looking at him after what happened at the coronation.
I’ll fix it, Father, he vowed. I’ll fix everything.
Tedros tossed his towel onto the mildewed floor and dove into the pool, thoughts wiped out by the harsh, stabbing cold.
Six months before, the day of the coronation had been brilliant and warm.
Tedros was utterly spent after everything that had happened leading up to it—reconciling with his mother, fighting a war against an Evil School Master, and making an all-night ride from school to Camelot in time for him to be crowned king the next day.
And yet, despite feeling like a sore, sleepless zombie, he couldn’t stop smiling. After so many false starts and twists and turns, he’d finally found his Ever After. He was the ruler of the most legendary kingdom in the Woods. He’d have Agatha by his side forever. His mother (and Lancelot) would live with them in the castle. For the first time since he was a child, he had a full family again—and soon a queen to share it with.
Any one of those would be a wonderful enough gift on this, his sixteenth birthday. But the best present of all? Sophie, his old friend-enemy-princess-witch, had been appointed Dean at the School for Evil far far away, where she’d remain at a safe distance from him and Agatha. Which meant no more Sophie thuggery, no more Sophie skullduggery for the rest of their lives. (He’d learned from experience that he and that girl couldn’t be in the same place without killing each other, kissing each other, or a lot of people ending up dead.)
“Hmm, can’t Merlin do a spell to make this smell better?” Tedros said in front of his bedroom mirror, sniffing at his father’s old robes. “This thing is rancid.”
“Whole castle is rancid,” groused Lancelot, gnawing on a slab of dried beef. “And I haven’t seen Merlin since he hopped out of the carriage in Maidenvale. Said he’d meet us at the castle. Should be here by now.”
“Merlin runs on his own time,” Guinevere sighed, sitting next to Lancelot on her son’s bed.
“He’ll be here soon. Can’t possibly miss my coronation,” Tedros said, holding his nose. “Maybe if we spritz this with a little cologne—”
“It’s a coronation gown, Teddy. You only have to wear it once,” said his mother. “Besides, I don’t smell anything except whatever it is Lance raided from the pantry.”
“Oh be serious, Gwen,” Lancelot growled, smacking at the bedsheets and spawning a dust storm. “What happened to this place?”
“Don’t worry. Agatha and I will fix everything,” Tedros declared, combing his hair. “We knew what we were coming back to. Dad’s advisors let the castle go to waste and lined their pockets with the kingdom’s taxes. Would’ve loved to have seen their faces when Lance threw them in the dungeons.”
“Oddly calm, to be honest. As if they expected it—or at least knew better than to fight,” Lance said, with a loud belch. “Insisted I don’t have the authority