“Merlin . . . some help?” he peeped, desperately glancing upwards.

A pigeon pooed, just missing his head.

“Enough,” Tedros boiled, jaw clenching. “To seal the coronation, I have to pull a sword from a stone? Well, the sword’s in one right now!”

He stamped to the back of the stage and the once curtained-off castle balcony, where Excalibur was still lodged blade-first into a stone archway.

“So if I pull my sword out of this stone, it’s done, right? We can all go home,” he barked at the chaplain.

“Well, I don’t believe your father meant—”

“IS IT DONE OR IS IT NOT,” Tedros bullied.

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 at 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 alone—”

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. . . .