Tedros’ mood spiraled as he padded down the Gold Tower stairs in his black socks. For the last few days, he’d hardly been able to focus on his royal duties and kept hounding guards to see if any letters had arrived. The guards already had little respect for him, given his botched coronation and constant deference to Lady Gremlaine, but now he’d been hearing them gossip that instead of a real king they’d gotten a love-whipped pup. (That idiot Pollux had encouraged them before Tedros had him fired.) This was his comeuppance, of course: he’d spent the last six months ignoring Agatha while she was with him and now that she was gone, all he could think about was when she’d be back.
He quickened his pace towards the basement, vowing to lift extra heavy today. He always felt better about himself after a punishing workout. . . .
Except now he was obsessing over why he hadn’t received any letters from her. It took a day or two at most for a courier crow to deliver a note and Agatha had taken the new crow that Camelot had finally saved enough to buy. So why hadn’t she written?
Magic was no use in finding her either. He’d been crap at spells at school, preferring to win battles with a sword, so he’d plundered Merlin’s chamber, searching for a crystal ball or something that might help him pinpoint Agatha in the Woods. No luck. He’d even cast a locating spell out of the only one of Merlin’s spellbooks he could actually read, but the first time he tried it he’d summoned a bowl of grapefruits from the kitchen and the second time he’d made all of Agatha’s undergarments float around the castle for hours before guards had to shoot them down with bows and arrows.
Tedros stopped outside the Gymnasium in full panic. Where was she? Was she safe? Was she even alive? He pressed his forehead to the wall and struggled to breathe. First his mother and Lance sent off. Now his princess too. Even Merlin had disappeared again—though according to the Royal Rot, there’d been a sighting of him near the School for Good by an Ingertroll who insisted Merlin was having secret trysts with Professor Dovey in her office. (Tedros was so desperate for news of Agatha he’d succumbed to reading trash, only to stop when he saw the Rot had started labeling him “the so-called ‘King.’”)
He’d felt so alone after the coronation.
But now he had no one he trusted in this castle anymore.
Now he was truly alone.
Even worse, as he scoured the newspapers, Tedros saw it wasn’t just Camelot or his friends’ quests that were in trouble. All the kingdoms in the Woods were plagued by mysterious attacks, just as the letters he’d received from the leaders of these realms had attested. The selfish part of him was comforted that other leaders were having just as hard a time as he was. But these kings and queens from both Ever and Never lands were calling upon Camelot—on him—to take the lead in building a Woods-wide coalition and rooting out those responsible for the violence. It’s what Tedros’ father had done when wars between Good and Evil had raged out of control, threatening the Woods. And it’s what ultimately killed him: sapped and impaired by his drunken spells, Arthur had still ridden into battle at the Four Point to forge peace between warring sides and paid for it with his life. Despite Tedros pleading with his father not to go. Despite Tedros begging him to stay home as the king put on his armor.
Perhaps this was one of the reasons why Tedros now ignored these calls for help from other kingdoms and refused meetings with any of its leaders. But the new king also had no help to offer them. Camelot had no money, no knights (Chaddick was still missing), and no army. Plus, Camelot had yet to be attacked like the rest of the kingdoms and its people didn’t seem to care about what was happening in realms beyond its own. Camelot could no longer be the Woods’ policeman. They were too busy with their own problems. Like growing poverty and a bankrupt treasury and rising crime—
And a so-called king.
Tedros’ eyes opened. Looking past the wall, he could see Excalibur’s empty case lit up by gem-blue moonlight.
That sword.
Everything, everything, everything was going wrong because of that sword.
Tedros never made it to King’s Cove. He’d turned back and gone straight to the Blue Tower balcony, dismissed a listless guard, and launched himself at Excalibur once more with no other strategy than beating out his own fury . . . until he wrenched the hilt so brutally he split open a blister on his left hand.
Now blood was spurting off his palm, trailing him everywhere like a shadow.
He hustled through the Blue Tower, past the famous Map Room, where the Round Table had once met, but now lay cobwebbed and dormant. He could hear worried stewards calling to each other, having seen his blood. He didn’t want to talk to them. He didn’t care if they thought he was wounded or dead. He wanted it to be like school, where he could lock himself in a dorm room or bathroom to be alone and if he missed class, he’d be punished with detention or kitchen duties, neither with any real consequence.
His father had been like this after his mother left. Arthur would slip off without a word and shut himself in the White Tower guest room, to which the king had the only key.
It was where Tedros was headed now.
Merlin was right. Maybe I’m more like Dad than I thought, Tedros thought mordantly.
He could hear his stewards filing into the White Tower, but he was already upstairs, gliding in his socks towards the door at the end of the hall. He pulled out his cramped key ring, finding the gold-toothed key next to a small black one, slipped it into the lock, and swung into the room, latching the door behind him.
The room was dark.
He slid down and plopped on the warm marble, feet splayed in front of him. Blood leaked from his hand onto the skin of his thigh. He stripped off his shirt and wrapped it around his palm like a tourniquet, but that only seemed to make it bleed more. Out of ideas, he thrust his hand in the pocket of his gym shorts and leaned against the door.
The room smelled like musk and earth and sweat. His father had it built as a private guest suite that he could invite his most personal friends to stay in, but Arthur had never used it for guests as far as Tedros knew. His father didn’t even allow maids in this room when he was alive, let alone his wife or his son—though Tedros had broken in once as a child, having picked the lock during a game of hide-and-seek with the fairies. When the king found out, it was the one and only time his dad had given him a thrashing.
It’s why Tedros hadn’t come back to this place before today.
It reminded him of his father’s disappointment in him.
Using his good hand, Tedros lit his fingerglow like a torch, suffusing the room with soft gold. It still looked the same as it had then: a patterned brown-and-orange rug, a sunken leather sofa, and a modest bed in the corner. It didn’t seem royal at all, let alone fitting for a “guest suite.” Felt more like something you’d find at a seedy Netherwood inn, Tedros thought, scanning the bare beige walls with his glow. Why had his father built a private room so common and far away from the better parts of the castle? A guest room that guests never used—
Two green eyes speared through the torchlight. Tedros lurched back, bashing his head against the door.
Reaper moseyed out of the shadows, batting at fleas.