The chaplain quailed. “Oh, yes . . . I suppose. . . .”
Tedros grabbed the hilt, practically screeching into the star on his shoulder, deafening the crowd: “Then in the name of my father, my kingdom, and my people, I hereby accept my place as Leader, Protector, and King of Camelot!”
He pulled at the sword.
It didn’t move.
“Huh?”
Tedros jerked harder. Still didn’t budge.
He could hear the restless mob shifting.
Putting his foot on the wall, he pried at the blade with all of his strength, his biceps straining against his skin—
Nope. Nothing.
Tedros was sweating now. He pulled right, left, front, back, trying to make the sword slide, but with each pull it seemed to bury harder into the stone. It didn’t make sense. Excalibur wasn’t wedged that deep and the archway’s stone was loamy and weak. Why wasn’t it moving?
People in the crowd were clutching each other, pointing at him open-mouthed. They knew what was happening. They knew after promising to save them as king, he was failing the first test that would make him king, a test that shouldn’t have been a test at all—
“Merlin . . . ,” he pleaded, but the sky was clear overhead, the white star on his shoulder lost and gone.
He couldn’t breathe, his wet grip on the hilt making his pulls shallow and frantic. His crown skewed on his head. His coronation gown ripped at the seams—
Please, he begged, heaving at the sword. Please!
Lancelot ran up. “Just yank the damn thing out!” he said, helping him jostle the hilt—
Tedros shoved him away. “It’s my test—I have to do it—”
But he pushed Lancelot too hard, who knocked backwards straight into the chaplain, upending the old man over the balcony. His priestly gown caught on the railing, leaving him dangling upside down, robes over his head, exposed save for his saggy pantaloons. Gold coins showered out of his pockets onto the crowd, causing a stampede for them as the chaplain howled. The altar boy ran to help his master, only to plunge through the hole in the stage left by the lost anvil.
Paralyzed, Tedros scanned the scene: Lancelot hoisting the chaplain over a balcony; Guinevere lurching to rescue a squealing altar boy hanging off a beam; his kingdom’s people punching each other for a handful of coins . . .
And six monkeys straddling a sword stuck in stone, slathering it with banana pudding, and sliding up and down the blade.
Tedros dropped to his knees.
“IT’S THEM!” a woman bellowed down below, pointing at Lancelot and Guinevere. “THEY’VE CURSED US! THEY’VE CURSED CAMELOT!”
“RIGHT FROM THE BEGINNING!” an old man yelled.
“WHY’D YOU THINK ARTHUR WANTED ’EM DEAD!” his wife shouted.
“TRAITORS!” a young boy heckled.
“FINKS!”
From the masses exploded a murderous mob, climbing up the stage’s beams towards Guinevere and Lancelot—
“GET THEM!”
“KILL THEM!”
But the beams couldn’t support their weight and shattered like sticks, sending the remainder of the stage timbering down over the crowd, the candles igniting the wood and pooled wax and detonating the stage like a fireball into the drawbridge. Shrieking villagers fled for their lives just as royal guards came smashing out the balcony windows, armed with swords and spears, led by Lady Gremlaine.
“TRAITORS!” the terrible cries echoed below. “MONSTERS!”
As people hurled things at the balcony, guards grabbed Guinevere and Lancelot and spirited them inside to safety, along with the others.
Only Tedros stayed behind, pulling and pulling at Excalibur, his bleeding hands slick with pudding, his face streaked with tears, before he suddenly felt the arms of men throw him over their shoulders—
“No! I can do it!” he choked, hands flailing for the sword. “I can do it!”
He screamed those words again and again, voice crumbling to rasps as they dragged him into the castle, until all that remained of Camelot’s Great Hope was a sobbing little boy, crown slid down over his eyes, hands stabbing wildly into the dark.
3
SOPHIE
Flah-sé-dah
“So is he king or isn’t he?” Dean Sophie asked, nose buried in the Royal Rot. “According to the Camelot Courier, he is, but according to the Rot, he isn’t. What both agree on, however, is that once Tedros finds a way to pull Excalibur out of that balcony, then it’s settled and he’s king once and for all. But if someone else were to pull Excalibur out before Teddy . . . well, it wouldn’t matter, would it, since only the blood of Arthur can sit upon the throne . . . which means Tedros is king, now and forever, though it sounds like he’s only a ‘half-king’ without respect or support . . . or a sword.”
Draped in a plushy black bathrobe, Sophie leaned back, picking at the curlers in her blond hair as she scanned more articles:
EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW WITH CORONATION MONKEYS!
AGATHA: LOYAL PRINCESS . . . OR WITCH WHO CURSED THE CORONATION?
HORRO-NATION FALLOUT: IS LANCELOT PLOTTING TO STEAL THE CROWN?
“Six months later and it’s all anyone still talks about,” Sophie sighed, folding the newspaper and fingering a vial of gold liquid hanging from her necklace. “Poor, poor Teddy.”
“If Teddy’s so poor, why are you smiling,” grunted Hort.
Sophie looked out at her shirtless, raven-haired friend and two first-year Neverboys in sleek black uniforms lugging a marble statue of her across newly refurbished Evil Hall. “Are you implying that I’m happy about my two best friends being the laughingstock of Camelot? Are you implying that I take secret delight in whatever strains this humiliation has put upon their relationship?”
“You stalked Tedros for three years, tried to marry a murderous sorcerer to make him jealous, then held the whole Woods hostage when Tedros wouldn’t kiss you,” Hort said, rippled muscles shining as he slid Sophie’s statue through the red-and-gold ballroom. Above him, a few Nevergirls teetered on ladders to hang a chandelier, each crystal shaped like an S. “Plus, you’ve been writing Agatha for months trying to hijack the wedding planning and she won’t write you back and now you secretly want the wedding to bomb,” he added. “So yeah, not really implying. More just saying it.”
Sophie stared at him. “I want to be helpful to Aggie, Hort. She’s far away in a whole new kingdom, preparing for the biggest day of her life, and I want to be there for her. Am I hurt she hasn’t responded? A little, perhaps. But I’m not mad.”
“When you’re hurt, you get mad,” said Hort. “You get so mad that you turn witchy and start wars and people die. Check the history textbook.”