Neither Cinderella nor Agatha showed up to training on the sixth day.

While the others went out to the oak grove after breakfast, the old princess stayed in her nightgown and roasted marshmallows over the fireplace in the den. Agatha just lay in bed, curled towards the window, watching Lancelot and Tedros clash swords across the moors.

Her prince had come so far with his mother since that day they’d gone off together. He sat beside Guinevere at meals now, helped her scrub dishes, and took her on private walks in the gardens each night. In fact, his kindness towards her touched Agatha so deeply that she had to stop herself from mentioning it, for fear of making Tedros self-conscious. (She’d learned that if you compliment boys for something they’ve done, they go out of their way never to do it again.) But Tedros’ willingness to let go of old resentments and start anew with his mother made Agatha realize that he wasn’t just a worthy prince and a loving son . . . but he’d make a wonderful king too.

Agatha naturally assumed, then, that once paired with Lancelot for training, Tedros would extend the same kindness and openness to the knight as he had to his mother.

She was wrong.

Face red-hot, Tedros slashed and hacked at Lancelot with his father’s sword, only to be beaten again and again. Not just beaten, but humiliated, with Lancelot nicking Tedros’ ear every time he won a round, lopping off a bit of his hair, or smacking him on the backside with the flat of his blade. No doubt Merlin paired the two together knowing Tedros would benefit from the great knight’s sword skills, but by the sixth day of their sparring the prince was a deranged beast, stabbing Excalibur wildly at the knight and grunting and salivating, as if fighting not just for his pride now, but for his father’s, for his kingdom’s—

Lancelot beat him even worse than before.

When Tedros ended up face-first in a pile of horse manure a few bouts later, Agatha couldn’t watch anymore. She took a long bath and sauntered down to the kitchen, hoping there was food still left.

“Shouldn’t you be out training?” Guinevere asked, laying out a spinach omelet and mug of tea for her.

Agatha eyed Cinderella lounging in the den with curlers in her bluish hair, stuffing a cheese biscuit with roasted marshmallows. “You know how well things are going with Tedros and Lancelot?” She turned back to Guinevere. “They’re practically lovers compared to us.”

“I NEED ANOTHER BISCUIT,” Cinderella boomed from the den. “THIS ONE BROKE.”

Agatha ignored her. “I really need to speak to Merlin,” she said to Guinevere. “It’s been six days. Surely you know where he is—”

“If you haven’t noticed, Merlin isn’t particularly forthcoming about his thought process or whereabouts,” said Guinevere.

Agatha looked out the window at the silhouettes of her old and young friends in the distant oak grove. “He hasn’t even told us how he thinks we can win this war. The School Master has both the Dark Army and the students. We’re outnumbered twenty to one.”