“Look,” Agatha said.

The others followed her eyes to a small farmhouse across the moors.

“Must be our safe house,” said Hort.

Tedros squinted. “Someone’s coming.”

Two people were walking towards them now, tan-skinned and weather-beaten, both holding hands. A bony woman with straggly brown hair and a broad-chested man with rough black curls.

“Hope they have hot water,” said Sophie, smiling at her prince with relief. “I really need a—”

She stopped because Tedros wasn’t smiling at all. Watching the strangers approach, his face flushed dead white, sweat streaking his temples.

“No no no no no—” he gasped.

Sophie spun to the strangers, confused, but the woman had stopped cold, her mouse-like face a mask of shock.

“God help me,” she whispered.

Tedros stumbled back, grabbing Agatha’s arm like a panicked child. “Wake me up . . . please . . . wake me up—”

“T-T-Tedros?” the woman stammered.

“I’m afraid your son and his friends need you, Guinevere,” said Merlin’s voice, as the wizard appeared out of a sun flare, striding onto the moor.

Tedros couldn’t speak, wild eyes darting between Merlin and the woman, his entire body shaking so much Agatha had to cradle him under her arm.

Sophie knew she should go to the prince, but she couldn’t move. She was trembling at the sight of the dark-haired, coal-eyed man the same way Tedros trembled from his mother.

Because just as Tedros dreamed of Guinevere, Sophie dreamed of him.

The devil who appeared inside Rafal’s ring.

The devil who stopped her from Tedros’ crown.

And now the devil who had a name.

Lancelot.

24

Who Do You Belong With?

Tedros had been staring at the steaming cup of cinnamon-apple cider for nearly twenty minutes, but had yet to touch it.

Watching him, Agatha had been so worried about what he was thinking that she hadn’t touched hers either. Nor had Sophie next to her, who was too busy giving Lancelot nervous looks, as the swarthy, pock-skinned knight lay plates and silverware for each of them.

“You must be famished, the lot of you,” he said in a rumbling baritone. “Your dark-haired friend asked if he could have a bath. Funny lad . . . said he didn’t want to stink up the table. What’s his name again? Homer? Hodor?”

None of them answered.

“Hobbin, I think,” said Lancelot.

Agatha could see Tedros’ shirt wet with perspiration, his Adam’s apple lurching up and down, the veins on his arms about to pop—

“Hort. His name is Hort,” Guinevere said, bustling in from the kitchen with a dish of fire-grilled turkey and a bowl of rampion salad. In the torchlight of the farmhouse’s dining room, Agatha saw she had Tedros’ small, snub nose, his flat brows over electric-blue eyes, as well as his tendency to sweat profusely. Her hair was another matter: it was so tangled and twiggish brown that her small, pallid face was like an egg in a bird’s nest.