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 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 the 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 at 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 guards 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.

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Books by Soman Chainani

The School for Good and Evil

The School for Good and Evil #2: A World without Princes

The School for Good and Evil #3: The Last Ever After

The School for Good and Evil #4: Quests for Glory

The School for Good and Evil #5: A Crystal of Time

The School for Good and Evil: The Ever Never Handbook

About the Author

Photo by David J. Martin

SOMAN CHAINANI’s first three novels in the School for Good and Evil series each debuted on the New York Times bestseller list. The series has sold over 1.5 million copies, been translated into more than twenty languages across six continents, and will soon be a major motion picture from Universal Pictures.

A graduate of Harvard University and Columbia University’s MFA Film Program, Soman has made films that have played all over the world and his writing awards include honors from Big Bear Lake, the CAPE Foundation, and the Sun Valley Writers’ Fellowship.

When he’s not telling stories, Soman is a die-hard tennis player who never lost a first-round match in ten years . . . until he started writing The School for Good and Evil. Now he loses all the time.