“If you still have that headache this evening, you might want to try butterbur,” said Master Ambrosius.

“I’ll remember that,” Arthur said. He gulped down the infusion and went to see to Princess Guinevere.

The sarding castle was enormous. Emmett didn’t know how he’d ever find his way around it. Not that he needed to, what with his private room, and servants who would fetch him anything he requested. And he spent most of his time in the wizard’s workshop anyway.

Annoyingly, Master Ambrosius had started him on the simple household spells he’d found so tedious back in Brocelande.

“Can’t we do something more exciting?” he’d begged.

“Such as learning to erase someone’s memory?” Master Ambrosius had asked with a pointed look, and had sent him to the library to track down a copy of Introductory Magical Theory. It had taken him damn near an hour to find the dusty copy—how was he supposed to know the books on magic were alphabetical by title?—and he’d almost missed supper.

After three days, the castle was beginning to feel less like a confusing hedge maze and more like a city, whose rhythms he was starting to understand. He could do without the guards making noise beneath his window at dawn, though.

The first morning, he’d been so horrified that he’d clamped a pillow around his head and accidentally slept until noon. Which hadn’t been his fault, as he’d explained to Master Ambrosius.

Of course his sister had conveniently forgotten to mention that he needed a pass to go into the city most days. He’d been planning to spin some pennies into gold by playing cards at the city’s alehouses, with the help of a little magic.

Instead, he was stuck in a pungent attic reciting Latin and Greek from morning until night, and proving to the old court wizard the distance from which he could ignite a candle. How dull. The spells he preferred were ones that dazzled and impressed—or at the very least, things that weren’t shortcuts for servants’ tasks.

Arthur had literally asked him to heat up some water for his tea. True, he probably shouldn’t have goaded the prince about kissing his sister. But the way Emry had looked when she’d returned home, as if all the light and happiness had gone out of her . . . And with a stab wound besides! He couldn’t very well say nothing to the boy responsible for Emry’s misery. Even if, knowing his sister, most of it was likely her fault.

At least the food was excellent. And he didn’t have to trek outside to use the jakes. But he was bored. The other lads his age were royals, squires, or guards, and they all seemed to take their positions so seriously.