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 happiness 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 left Agatha sleeping, 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.