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Dedication

To the girls who dream out loud, want too much, and refuse to give up.

PROLOGUE

The Crooked Spire isn’t remembered in any history books. No important documents were signed at its tables, no heroes rode into battle fortified by its ale, and no revolutions began in its back room. The drinks were watered down, the barkeep turned a blind eye to gambling (how he’d injured it was a constant source of speculation), and the barmaids made no secret that they were willing, for a price. And yet, the Spire does have a place in history—by the pure coincidence of its location—which is, perhaps, why it goes unmentioned.

If you stood with your back to the Thames, just north of St. Paul’s Cathedral, you’d need only walk down the narrowest alleyway that borders the churchyard to arrive at the steps of the tavern. The sheer nerve of such a place to set up shop alongside the greatest cathedral in London raised more than a few eyebrows. But the Spire endured, largely because no one could remember which had come first. The only part everyone agreed on was that the magic sword in the courtyard between them had been there since, well, forever.

It stuck there, buried to the hilt in a block of veined marble, waiting. Occasionally, a knight riding through on his way to Castle Camelot would stop to try his luck. Or a dockworker might stumble out of the tavern, flexing his muscles and calling to his friends, Hey, come and watch this! But the sword stuck fast, and the words chiseled into the stone wore smooth over time.

Whoso pulleth out this sword of this stone

is rightwise king born of all England.

Now there was an idea. Anyone could tell you that, ever since the Saxons invaded and mucked things up, there had been half a dozen kingdoms of England. Sure, the borders shifted on occasion, whenever a restless royal rode off and conquered a neighboring castle. But a united kingdom? The thought, although far-fetched, was intriguing.

Yet no knight came who could pull the sword from the stone, and no great hero arose to unite the Britons. The sword had been waiting for hundreds of years, and to be honest, it was bored.

CHAPTER 1

Arthur Pendragon was drunk. Enormously, blissfully drunk. He slouched down in the booth of the Crooked Spire, enjoying the gentle way the tavern had begun to spin.

Everything about the place fascinated him: The arched stone ceiling that gave the impression of an underground cellar. The iron chains that served as handrails to the back staircase. The fat purple candles that dripped wax indiscriminately over floor and table. And then there was that odd sword in the courtyard. If the rumors were true, the last knight who’d attempted to pull it free had strained so hard that he’d actually soiled himself.