Bedivere hadn't wanted him to have it.
Those who were left had argued about it on the shore of the Avalon lake, gesturing furiously in his direction. Tedros, still on Percival's horse, and drowning in a fur cloak that was far too big for him, could only hear snippets;
"...too small for it anyway!"
"...ceremonial..."
"...when he goes to the School..."
Bedivere had paced uneasily back and forth, sloshing about in the shallows, Excalibur under his arm. For her part, the Lady of the Lake hadn't protested, when they'd come back for it, merely handed it over. But Bedivere had been the one to hear Arthur's dying wish for it to be thrown back into the lake, and he was taking it at face value. The others were arguing that he'd surely meant for Tedros to have it, why wouldn't he... that the Lady of the Lake had merely taken it for safekeeping...
Finally, Bedivere had relented. He'd come out of the lake and stomped over, and Tedros still remembered the wet leather squeak of his sodden boots.
"You'll have this when you're big enough," he'd said, then looked Tedros up and down critically, as if he was wondering if it was ever going to happen. "'Til then, it'll be in the Gallery of Kings. Alright?"
"I'm big enough for it." Tedros had said mulishly, patting Percival's horse between the ears with a mechanical sort of detachment. It was his father's sword, which meant, like everything else, like crown and country, it had passed down to him. "It's mine."
Bedivere had just snorted.
"It's taller than you. You'd take your own head off with it. You'll get it one day, don't look like that."
"I get to have the sword. Dad said that I will get the sword when I'm King..."
"Did he, now?" Percival had come up to them, and swung himself back up onto his horse behind Tedros. "There you go, Beds, there's your proof..."
A mollifying promise from Arthur to his young son probably wasn't any kind of proof, in Bedivere's eyes. He'd stared at them, for a minute. Tedros had always been slightly afraid of him; he was one of his father's oldest knights, and had always held far more loyalty to Arthur than anyone else. He was huge, and even with only one hand, he could cleave men to bits with one blow. He said he was going to go to a hermitage, but Tedros couldn't imagine such a huge warrior as a penitent.
"I'm King." Tedros had tried.
"You're nine, little boy," said Bedivere, unmoved.
"I'm ten." Tedros had mumbled. Everyone had missed his birthday, too busy with the war councils, something he deeply resented. Bedivere hadn't listened; he'd gone off and wrapped Excalibur in Arthur's standard, and Tedros had resentfully watched it disappear under all the blue fabric and embroidered gold crowns. He hadn't gotten it back until he'd been about to go to Good.
Now, Tedros finally ran out of air, and resurfaced from the floor of the Groom Room pool.
Beatrix, in a frilly, floral swimming costume with a small skirt, and matching swim cap (she had ignored Tedros when he'd pointed out she didn't really have enough hair to need one) folded her arms.
"I thought you'd drown, if you stayed down there for much longer."
"Oh, Bea, I am sorry. I'll make more of an effort to die next time."
She scoffed and began a matronly sort of paddle across to the deep end. Tedros, who thought such a pathetic technique seemed off for any Jaunt Jolie native under seventy, sank back under the water and pushed off after her, taking half the length underwater before he broke the surface.
Espada had sent them to the gym for the second half of their lesson, suggesting they get a head start on their mandatory Gym and Exercise period, since they could only spend so long riding in circles in the fields. Lots of the Evers that couldn't swim had taken the opportunity to try and learn, and those who could, had volunteered to help. So, now, Agatha was standing in the shallow end of the pool, in a kind of black singlet, with far more leg coverage than he thought women's swimwear usually had (not that he'd know, since this was the first time he'd swum with any of the Evergirls, and none of the young women in Camelot were given to stripping down for a bracing swim in front of the King). Her knobbly knees were turned in and her bony arms were folded across her chest against the cold, but whatever she'd been telling Reena and Flavia, it was clearly working, since neither of them looked like they were at risk of drowning anymore.
"I didn't know Agatha could swim," said Beatrix, leaning on the wall. Tedros squinted.
"She said it was because she'd been through so many witch trials by water, but there's probably just a lake in Woods Beyond..."
Around the edges of the pool, gilded the long, bright pink shape of Kiko, passing as a blur of scales and fins. She'd had to be talked into even approaching the pool, apparently mortified by her true form in front of her two-legged classmates, but she'd gotten in eventually, and had recieved a fascinated round of applause once she'd made her first lap, which had made her blush. Tedros had seen water faeries before, but not a real mermaid, and Kiko was a proper Neverland mermaid, one of the ones that had gotten so popular after Pan, the ones all the other water spirits copied...
She slowed as she approached them, then popped up, spraying them with water.
"Impressive," admitted Beatrix, admiring the shiny, translucent fins on Kiko's tail. "I always wanted to be a mermaid, when I was a little girl..."
"Never seen a real mermaid before," said Tedros, considering Kiko's odd ears. He got the impression she hid them with her blunt haircut on purpose, then was proven right when she looked mortified and covered them with her hands.
"...what do you think?"
"Think all the mermaids in the books aren't as pretty as you," said Tedros. "I like your tail."
Kiko went red and disappeared under the water, then came back up again a second later.
"...has Yara ever seen one?"
Tedros made a mental note to add that to Chaddick's EVERS GO DATING: 2ND YEAR EDITION poster on the back of their door, where they were completely shamelessly tracking everyone's current entanglements. It made negotiating ball proposals easier, they claimed as their cover. The truth of the matter was that Chaddick was a meddler, and Nicholas and Tedros suffered from the kind of nosiness that only developed when you were raised in the cradle of royal court gossip and scandal.
"Don't reckon so," said Tedros pointedly. "Avalon Towers is too cold. They only get the Lady of the Lake."
"Oh..."
Yara's family lived in one of the far-flung Camelot outposts, close to the hidden entrance to Avalon. They were devoted to guarding Avalon, so Yara's father was one of Tedros's captains. Tedros had already known Yara when they'd come to school, which meant he had precisely no delusions about how this whole thing with Kiko was shaking out. Even if they did.
He craned his neck back, saw Yara with Chaddick and Ava at the archery station, thought about shouting her over–
"But Camelot's coastal," said Kiko, saving herself from her fate of YARA COME HERE COME AND LOOK AT KIKO'S COOL MERMAID TAIL. He'd wait for another time.
Tedros shook his head. "No real safe coves for mermaids. It's too treacherous, we're on the worst stretch of the Savage Sea. We only have one harbour because the rest of the sea is only suitable for driving people onto the rocks in sea battles." He glanced at Beatrix. "Have you never seen a mermaid, either? That seems... unlikely."
Jaunt Jolie was as coastal as it got, and one of the biggest trade ports in the Woods. Dealing with sirens, shipwrecks, whirlpools, sea battles, pirates, and everything else you could possibly think of, it seemed unlikely mermaids weren't in the mix. Beatrix pinked, and her brows drew down–
Tedros, knowing a Beatrix lie formulating when he saw one, kicked her underwater. She shot him a dirty look and tucked a wisp of hair back under her hat. She still had some instincts she'd not trained herself out of, and her commitment to maintaining an image was proving very hard to let go of. Tedros understood, but it made Beatrix mean.
"...not allowed to swim much, once I was older." she said. "Unladylike, Mother said. She never let us go close to the mermaids, either, since she said they were bad influences. But I thought they were so pretty..."
She glanced sideways, saw Tedros's overexaggerated side-eye, and thumped him. Hard.
"Ow?!"
"Don't be annoying."
She had taken on the lad's habit of slugging him when he was being a pain. Tedros had never expected to miss the mindless giggling...
Kiko glided off to see Agatha, who was still crouched in the water with an anxious Flavia. She glanced back the way Kiko had come, and saw Tedros and Beatrix at the far wall.
Tedros hauled himself up in the water a bit and waved angelically, knowing full well he was sopping wet and not wearing a shirt. Agatha went red (visible even from this distance, because it spread to her shoulders and chest) and turned back on Kiko. Score. She'd been rebuffing him, especially in the last lesson–
"How's that going?" said Beatrix. Tedros frowned, knowing what she meant.
"It's... going!"
"Mm. First half of the lesson went well, then?"
Tedros dithered. He'd been confident that a riding lesson was a good opportunity for an attempt at romance, and had practically decked Tarquin so he could offer to help Agatha first, since he knew she'd never been on a horse... but, more fool him, he'd forgotten how Agatha handled uncertainty.
"Amazingly," he said. "We took a lovely ride around the lake and kissed passionately under the willows."
"You're such a miserably bad liar, Teddy."
"I was being funny..." Tedros sulked, sliding down into the water. Trust Beatrix not to laugh now, when she'd spent the whole of last year finding everything he said funny.
"Don't make a career of it."
"I have a career, thank you very much."
"The most perilous and soul-crushing career in the world," murmured Beatrix. She saw the look on his face and sighed, shifting the topic back. "What, did you both fall off?"
"No. Agatha nearly went twice, but had the sense to cling onto me so hard it surpassed appealing and crossed into ow, my chest. Then she spent most of the rest of the time telling me my horse was stupid– which I know, but still– and swearing."
He'd thought about redeeming himself when they'd stopped under a tree about a mile from the stables, but Sprout had become a distraction; putting his face close to Agatha's head, and trying to sniff her, and following her around. He wasn't sure if it was the animal drawn to magic lady factor again, or if he'd just unfortunately picked up on the fact Tedros liked her, and decided he liked her too. Tedros had told him to knock it off, but he didn't listen, and Agatha had seemed amused with the distraction.
"She was half-joking, but she tried to grant Sprout a wish," he told Beatrix.
"She granted a wish to your horse?" scoffed Beatrix. "There's nothing behind those eyes."
"Yeah, she called his brain a sticky void, like melted licorice." admitted Tedros. "I asked if he didn't even want food, and then he looked interested, and she granted him the wish and it was a carrot. One carrot. Fell out of nowhere. Not even a good one, just a normal one. Agatha almost laughed herself unconscious."
Beatrix snorted, swilling the water with her legs, regarding Agatha (sloshing about at the other end of the pool with her hair plastered to her face) with a critical eye.
"She really doesn't know what a ridiculous power that is. Not even Dovey can grant wishes like that. And she's using it to attend to the silly whims of animals."
"I know," mumbled Tedros.
"We're going to get embarrassed in lessons, I'm telling you now," said Beatrix. "Only Pollux is going to be an obstacle to Agatha. She's going to storm everything else."
Tedros shrugged, turning over and pushing off the wall to make a lazy loop of a backflip. He didn't mind being in second, as long as it was to Agatha. If Beatrix had further to go to make her peace with it, that was her problem. When he resurfaced, he said;
"I'll race you back over to the others."
"You'll win, I haven't swum properly in years..." murmured Beatrix, but she flexed her shoulders and changed her grip on the wall. "Two lengths. We'll finish back up here."
"Can you flip-turn?"
"I can flip-turn," said Beatrix testily. Naturally. No kid grew up in Jaunt Jolie without learning to race each other in the ocean pools.
"Remember to breathe out the whole way so you don't get water up your nose–"
"Teddy, I was the number one swimmer in the Jaunt Jolie Under-13 Girls Division before my mother pulled me out to prime me for high society," snapped Beatrix. Tedros smiled.
"I know. Millicent told me, once... but now I've got you to admit it. I knew you were faking that motherly little breaststroke."
Beatrix rolled her eyes at him and planted her feet on the wall.
"Don't you dare lose to me on purpose. I want my time in comparison to yours, so I can train back up."
"I am about six inches taller than you."
"But you're younger."
"Not by much!"
"When's your birthday?"
"...Nones of December..." muttered Tedros, knowing the end of December was the school cutoff, and that Beatrix had already had her birthday in the summer. "You know that, anyway, you brought me a present last year."
Beatrix paused.
"...I didn't think you'd opened that." she said. "It was right after the Trial, you were ignoring me because I'd tried to dig my claws back in. You took it without even looking at me."
"You did call me Teddykins and try to sit in my lap, to be fair."
Beatrix pressed her lips together.
"Yes." she said. "Sorry. I suppose I did."
"Maybe if you'd bothered to accept Chaddick's invitation to have coffee with us, yesterday, you might have seen that it's on my desk," said Tedros haughtily. She'd bought him a Baby Bear© inkwell, which at the time hadn't been particularly funny, since Teddy had always set Tedros's teeth on edge and such an earnest solidifying of the wretched name was quite irritating. But he'd never had the heart to get rid of it, and it had grown on him, in a semi-ironic way–
Quite suddenly, Beatrix plunged down into the water and set off, and Tedros shot after her, indignant and intending to have a go at her for cheating... as soon as he won, that was.
----
He did win, but Beatrix had a better time than she'd expected, so she was mollified.
They settled into a sort of routine; as predicted, Agatha flattened them in most lessons, except anything requiring brute strength (she was stronger than she looked, but no one was as strong as Tedros and Chaddick) and Etiquette, where she and Pollux maintained a type of frosty passive-aggression. Someone– either her tall, scary mother, or Dovey– had obviously told him to stop picking on her, but it didn't stop him getting annoyed when she forgot which forks were which, and stood next to her friends instead of in order of rank, or kept on eating after Tedros had stopped. "Why do we have to stop when he does? He's not my King!" had not been intended to sting, but it had, slightly. She'd only meant that she wasn't from Camelot, but it had made him anxious for the whole of lunch.
Speaking of lunches, their table was a hopeless mess of rotating guest appearances. Since Agatha knew everyone, Tedros was experiencing confusing combinations of people at one table, like Hester and Kiko, or Yara and Anadil– or, one unsettling day, Chaddick and Sophie. Sophie had tried to flirt with Chaddick– probably expressly to annoy Tedros, so avoiding rising to this challenge was the only reason Tedros didn't smash his plate over her head and fireman carry his best friend away. Chaddick had happily assured him that he wasn't stupid enough to be taken in by Sophie, then realised what he'd said and hastily added: after all her murders, I mean.
It probably would have been smarter for Tedros to not try and sit with Agatha at every mealtime, since Sophie put his blood pressure up to unfathomable levels, but he was doing his absolute best to prove that he was newly civil with Sophie– or, since he usually just sat there and glared at his plate, that he was at least trying...
Until they came into lunch at the end of the second week, and found Sophie had resurrected her Lunchtime Lectures.
Tedros paused in the doorway and scowled, watching her prance about on the raised stage at the end of the Supper Hall. She was in a black glittery leotard with a feather collar, and a pair of thigh-high pink boots, with a sign behind her that read NEW YEAR, NEW SHOE: BETTERING YOUR POTENTIAL THROUGH BOOTS. Tedros thought she looked like an upside-down flamingo, but maybe that was unkind to flamingos at large.
Agatha was already there, sitting dutifully with her lunch plate in the crowd, though she had a book on her knee and wasn't really paying attention. Tedros went to wait in the lunch queue, stewing silently. Everyone else seemed happy for the free entertainment, but he hadn't forgotten that the farcical lectures had just been another attempt to get Sophie back into his good graces, and he doubted they came from anywhere genuine on Sophie's part.
He hadn't forgotten anything. He had been long aware that he wasn't particularly bright– just charismatic, which covered up for it– but he had a long memory.
Tedros looked around at the hall of students watching Sophie's lecture; most people were smiling along, or taking notes, or desperately engaged. In a corner, Beatrix was stirring her soup moodily, watching with narrowed eyes, and Chaddick was reading some nonsense knight romance, not paying attention at all. Tedros took his tray and went to sit with them. He'd used to have more of a crowd to sit with, but as Good had changed, and people had formed different friend groups, and Tedros had apparently chosen his Princess, no one felt the need to clamour for his attention like they once had. It was making him a bit insecure, though he'd sooner stab his eyes out with his fork than admit it. At least he still had these two to fall back on...
"I thought she'd given them up," he said as he sat down.
"More like hoped." murmured Beatrix, spoon going back and forth, back and forth. "Prayed... But no. She noticed that she was having to share the spotlight, and decided to wrest it back to solely rest on her..."
"Don't think Agatha wants the spotlight anyway," said Chaddick from behind The Trials and Tribulations of Sir Justin of Timber Lake, stabbing blindly about to get bits of his pie. "Makes her look pasty and scared. Not saying Sophie's not an egomaniac nutter, but Agatha isn't going to complain..."
"Well, she never does," said Beatrix crisply.
Tedros, lost in a nice daydream of Sophie falling off the stage and cracking her head open, didn't reply, picking apart his bread roll. Chaddick dropped his wrist down to stare at Tedros without the book in the way. Tedros looked at him tiredly.
"What's happening in your book, then?"
"Princess Brittany is being spurned by Sir Justin, it's all very sad and dramatic and giving me second hand embarrassment." He marked his page and shut it, turning properly to his plate. "Thinking of going to Book Club for the Enrichment period. It's starting next week."
"Knock yourself out, mate..." Tedros put his chin in his hand and resumed glaring at the stage. In his heart of hearts, he knew the real reason he resented Sophie. It was true he tried to be as cordial as possible every time she appeared at lunch, but it was quickly eroding his admittedly limited patience. It wasn't exactly Sophie– it was Sophie's second chance. Second chance in people's esteem, sure, since everyone except Tedros and a few other Evers seemed quite alright with the fact she'd tried to murder everyone... but second chance full stop. Second chance at life.
Tedros had come to the school last year with the impression that he had about the measure of Death. A hundred good knights, several of them cousins, had died at the Battle of Camlann, and his father had received the wound that would kill him a day later. Tedros had been confident that when it came to it, he would be able to dispatch the witch with no effort. He knew what it looked like, what it took, and that no matter what, there was no coming back from it.
But Tedros was often wrong, he'd been finding recently– and in that, he had been entirely wrong. Not only could he not do it, but when Sophie had died– not at his hands, in the end, and it was probably for the best– Tedros had sat and watched with a weary feeling of familiarity. Poor, vainglorious, murderous Sophie. He'd wished for her safe passage to wherever it was Readers went when they died, and wondered if they would send her body back to Woods Beyond...
So when she'd sat back up, he'd felt... conned.
It made no sense that the witch should simply get given back, just because she had someone who loved her. Agatha was exceptionally forgiving, but it wasn't world-changing, surely? Even if they were... odd magical twins. (Agatha had very impatiently and very briskly explained the barebones, and he had thought it best not to push it. But as he'd tried to point out to her, weird magical familial drama was not alien to House Pendragon. She hadn't looked very mollified by this comparison, sadly.)
But if all it took was love– had Tedros not loved his father? Had he not loved him enough? He'd wondered, at the time, if maybe he had been lacking in some way, had desperately picked apart his psyche...
But no. It was a fairytale, and fairytales had different rules. Sophie got to try again, and all the fairies and wolves she'd murdered didn't get so much as a sorry. That was it, apparently. As the Storian willed it. Wonderful.
In the end, it came down to the pen. It was the Storian's fault. Arthur's tale had ended, so it was alright for him to die alone, and for his knights to be slaughtered. It wasn't Good losing, because the tale was over– and at any rate, Evil hadn't won either, since the Usurper Prince had also died. So, no one had won. No matter that everyone was unhappy. The Storian only kept you alive and happy for as long as it took to write The End. After that, it was all your problem.
Sophie didn't seem to understand this– that she was an unfathomably lucky fluke, and it wouldn't be happening again– and it made Tedros prickle with resentment. She'd been unbearable already, and they were barely a few weeks in. She'd given interviews to Teen Woods and the Putsi Post, twittering on and on about herself, with a few footnotes for Agatha... and then, in the first funny thing they had ever accomplished, Teen Woods had turned the entire thing into a cover story on Agatha, by wringing the information out of Sophie. Neither of them had been happy, because Agatha didn't want to be in the tabloids, and Sophie did, but Tedros had laughed, and not covered it up well, and then they'd both been annoyed at him. But the other papers had published pieces on Sophie, even the Camelot Courier, over which Tedros had sent his press secretary a shirty missive asking why his kingdom's broadsheets were interviewing Sophie, rather than reporting on anything more important. He had gotten a sheepish response about readership that he had ignored. It didn't seem to have crossed Sophie's mind that she ought to be sorry and penitent and grateful that Agatha had basically granted her a new life. But sorry and Sophie were oxymorons, so why was he surprised?
On the stage, Sophie was waving about a piece of paper;
"This year, my theme in these lectures is collaboration and cooperation, just like the schools–"
Tedros snorted so loudly that she heard him, and shot him a nasty look.
"So, I'm sending around a sign-up sheet, where anyone with some good ideas for lectures can propose something they'd like to co-host with me, and I will personally hand-pick the best ones!"
The Nevers stared at her. Sophie pursed her lips.
"...also, Lady Lesso said we all had to do something collaborative, so it's either this or doing group improv." Silence. "Led by Castor."
The Nevers clamoured for the sheet.
Beatrix scoffed and got up to go and wave down Reena and Millicent, who had just come in late from Etiquette revision.
"I reckon we should go," said Chaddick, from behind him.
"To the lectures?" said Tedros, aghast, turning back to stare at him.
"I'm still on book club, big lad." said Chaddick.
"Oh." Tedros looked doubtfully down at the leaflet Chaddick was holding out to him, not wanting to hurt his feelings by pointing out that book club and Tedros were alien concepts. "Maybe."
"No, I really think you're going to want to come, actually," pressed Chaddick.
"I've never read Sir Justin, Chad..."
"Well, you can probably get away with not contributing much. But Agatha might have something biting to say, which is always entertaining..."
"...Agatha's going?"
"Dovey's making Agatha run it." said Chaddick. "She laughed so much at her own Reader joke. Agatha just looked a bit tired, but she said she'd do it because they gave her a budget for tea and cake."
A slight pause.
Chaddick held out Sir Justin.
"I'm on my reread, so you better get reading, fella. You've got until the weekend..."
"Don't be a bastard," Tedros muttered, snatching it off him and wrenching it open.
----
Agatha rumbled him almost immediately, since she caught him reading it in the wait before Surviving Fairy Tales. She tramped into the Clearing, looked at the front cover, and frowned suspiciously.
"Is that–"
"The required reading for your book club, yes," said Tedros smoothly, trying to make it seem intentional and suave instead of desperate. Agatha blinked.
"Didn't think you were much of a reader."
"Oh, yeah, I read, uh– loads of stuff." said Tedros, hoping she didn't ask what stuff.
"What stuff?"
Bugger it.
"Er, I don't think you'd have heard of those sorts of things in your village," puffed Tedros. "Kind of niche..."
"The Reader village wouldn't have heard of... books?"
Tedros laughed at the pun that she had definitely not meant as a joke, just to buy himself time, then saw Agatha staring, panicked, and skimmed closer to the truth than he'd meant to.
"Loads of, um, pulp fictions in Camelot, see... courtly love stuff..."
"You read pulp fiction romance?"
Tedros frowned.
"Well, I think courtly love is a bit more elevated than your typical romance–"
He saw Agatha grinning, and stopped.
"Maybe you're a better fit than I thought," she said. "But I still think Chaddick just asked you to go with him."
Tedros deflated.
"He did, yeah." He stared hopelessly at the back of the book. "I do read." he added, just in case Agatha thought he was slightly illiterate in the reading aspect, as well as the spelling one. It was just that he only usually read the short stories in the newspapers, and the occasional novella, and they were of almost always some nonsense courtly love bent. He knew he was just reading them to chase the sort of idealised golden age he remembered from his father's court when he was a kid; he had no high brow persuasions or literary ambitions–
"You don't have to come, Tedros." Agatha said. "I know you're not very... literary."
"I want to come," said Tedros defensively. "I just got to the bit where he's jousting the Prince."
"So you like it?"
Tedros squinted at the little painting of the knight on the cover.
"Bit longer than I usually read, but it's quite... familiar. Yeah, I like it."
"Thought you might." said Agatha. Tedros paused– then looked sideways at her.
"I wasn't aware you knew I was reading it."
Agatha instantly went into defence mode– her mouth tensed, and Tedros anticipated some snark in response–
She exhaled, and said;
"Chaddick said you could be persuaded to read it, if I picked that from the options Dovey gave me..."
She let that hang, arms folded, staring forward.
Tedros paused, had a moment to feel a little bit honoured that she'd always wanted him to come to her book club, then considered that it was funny that they'd both tried and failed to be subtle about it... then snatched both sentiments and beat them to death with the Cudgel of Outrageous Flirts.
He leant into her eyeline to force her to look at him.
"Wanted me to come to your book club, fair damosel...?"
"Because you can bring a lot of people with you. Apparently we get more funding if it's a popular activity." grumped Agatha.
"Mm." said Tedros. "Funny, because I hear that you being the one to run it can be a draw on its own."
"I don't think so."
"Well, I do, because I'm pretending to be academically-inclined, to go," said Tedros. "The lady doth protest, but I'm pretty sure this is a sort of feminine wiles tactic–"
"If you keep embarrassing me and saying silly archaic things, I'm going to turn to you at the first meeting and ask you what you think of the trope of the loathly lady in the Northern Woods Cycle and the effect it has on romance traditions today."
Tedros sucked his lower lip nervously.
"Example...?"
"Dame Ragnelle."
Tedros perked up.
"Oh, Ragnelle? Gawain's wife? She was so much fun, that wedding feast was an absolute riot. Least boring wedding I've ever been to. She used to sneak me candy under the table and give me mice to let loose in council meetings. Shame she only lived five years after the wedding, she was the best..."
"She was–" Agatha exhaled. "Of course she was real. More fool me, for picking someone Arthurian and assuming you wouldn't know them..."
"Everyone goes and gets trolleyed over her grave every year," said Tedros. "It's what she would have wanted. Gingalain was the same as his mum, too bad him and Gawain both went and got killed in the war–"
"Tedros?"
"Hmm?"
"Is there anyone left alive in Camelot?"
Tedros's smile faded a little, but he was saved from answering by the grand arrival of Yuba, who looked glum to discover his group was the exact same as last year.
They were foraging for edible plants and berries in pairs (assigned pairs, the gnome snapped when both Tedros and a late-arriving Sophie tried to claim Agatha), and warned them not to fall in any rivers or down any sinkholes while they were doing it, because this was meant to be an easy start to the term, where no one lost limbs.
He consulted his list:
"Agatha and Hester, you two over here... Sophie and Beatrix, here's your list..."
There was a collective silent wince. Had Yuba just thrown darts at a board?
Sophie, in an immense furry coat and red-smoked glasses, merely sniffed dismissively. Beatrix adjusted her cloak haughtily and took the plant list from Yuba as he rattled off the rest of the pairings.
"Chaddick and Dot, there... Anadil and Reena, please... so that just leaves... Tedros and Hort!"
Hort groaned. Tedros looked around for him, and found him standing like a pallid, runty troll somewhere around his shoulder height. When he saw Tedros staring, he glared. Tedros blinked. He knew he wasn't popular with Nevers– why would he be?– but he didn't think he'd ever wronged Hort. He wasn't sure he'd even known his name until halfway through last year.
Agatha and Hester were the only two who looked even remotely happy about these arrangements. Chaddick and Reena just looked confused. Tedros doubted they'd ever spoken to the Coven before. Then again, he didn't think they were particularly volatile pairings...
Hort let loose another great sigh, like one of the shaggy hunting hounds from home wanting to go on a walk. Frowning, Tedros took the list from Yuba, and scanned it. It wasn't so hard; wild garlic, rocket, and blackberries were easy enough to identify, and there were diagrams with each, even the ones he didn't know.
They started to split off, and Hort stared beseechingly at the other Nevers, apparently hoping for a rescue– but the Coven ignored him, and Sophie had already strode off into the trees with her coat billowing, Beatrix stalking behind her. Apparently they'd decided not to talk to each other.
"This shouldn't be too difficult," said Tedros, deciding to just try and ram his way through the tension with pleasantries. "Do you know where to find feverfew?"
Hort's nose whistled as he huffed again, tramping after him through the grass. He did not reply.
"Or goldenseal?"
Another squeaky sigh.
Tedros whacked the list down and stared at him.
"Hort?"
"I don't talk to Princes." Hort proclaimed, arms folded across his skinny chest.
"What's your problem?" Tedros demanded.
Hort looked instantly defensive.
"What's my problem?"
"Yes. Your problem. I don't think we've ever spoken. What have I done?"
"You princes are even stupider than I thought." Hort leered. "Moved on so quickly already? Forgotten instantly?"
Moved on from—
Oh.
"...are you that little smelly one that's obsessed with Sophie?" said Tedros suspiciously. Hort's mouth pinched unattractively.
"You stole Sophie from me, and now you can't even do me the dignity to ca– hey, wait!"
For Tedros had gone stomping off through the bracken, muttering darkly to himself.
"You're a nutter," he said as Hort caught up, consulting the list. "Sophie's not your dream girl, she's an Evil old crone that tried to murder everyone because I wouldn't take her to the school dance."
"Clearly, appreciation for such incredible Evil is beyond your measly little princely comprehension," Hort sneered. "She appreciates me as her henchm–"
"As her menial?" Tedros snapped. "As her drudge? Hort, I know I was a little bit busy at the time, but I'm pretty sure that when she tried to murder everyone... she also tried to kill you. Along with everyone else. How are you explaining that away, pray tell?"
Hort's lower lip jutted.
"If Sophie wants me to be a sacrifice–"
"Hort, I'm sorry, but you're not special." said Tedros, losing interest. "She's using you as a servant because she knows you're devoted and won't say no. Does she make you do loads of stupid horrible things just because she knows she can? Makes the other Nevers laugh at you?"
He vaguely remembered that Hort had been made to carry all of Sophie's luggage on move-in day. There had to be more. Sophie did nothing by halves.
Hort hesitated.
"Well–"
"Come on." huffed Tedros, hopping over a log. "She's really good at manipulating people. She pulls Agatha's strings like a marionette. Pulled mine too, I can tell you, and now she's pulling yours..."
"You just attribute every decision of Agatha's that you don't like to Sophie's influence." muttered Hort. Tedros ignored him, deciding that he didn't have to give it any weight as a valid claim, because Hort was saying it.
"I certainly didn't wrong you on purpose, alright?" Tedros said. "There is no bad blood between us. It's entirely one-sided on your part. I didn't even know your name, for ages, and I only knew you liked Sophie when you tried to brain me with a mace to defend her at the end of last year. I'm sorry that you felt spurned, but how was I meant to know you were obsessed with her?"
Hort stared at him, slack-mouthed. Tedros shrugged.
"Stick that in your pipe and smoke it. Now can you be useful, and pick some plants?"
----
"Did you really not know my name?" grumbled Hort, coming back later with an armful of wild onions, which did nothing for his personal odour.
"Sorry," said Tedros, since there was no point denying it.
"Suppose you always think you're the most important person in a room." grumped Hort.
"I mean, I am," said Tedros. "I'm King."
Hort raised his eyes to heaven and threw the onions in their basket.
"You one of the Bloodbrook pirate kids?" probed Tedros, stripping sloes from their bush. He knew there was a vast swathe of orphaned kids from Pan's slaughter of the crew of The Jolly Roger, something that the Wolf King of Bloodbrook had infamously done pretty much nothing about. Nevers didn't much bother with orphaned children; there were so many of them, products of 200 years of losses and villain deaths, that they didn't see the point of duty of care, or wards of the state. The Ever kingdoms kept having to take them into their orphanages.
Hort puffed out his chest.
"That's right. And there's rumours that Hook himself is my father."
"Are they true?" said Tedros.
Hort deflated.
"...no. Don't think so, anyway." he perked up. "My dad was a great villain, though. George Scourie. Pan himself killed him."
"Ah." said Tedros. "Sorry." He'd never much liked Peter Pan. Something about him had always unsettled him, the few times he'd seen him. Ancient eyes in a boy's face.
"I'm gonna get him a great coffin," said Hort, in a tone which suggested he'd said it a billion times. "Crypt Keeper won't get to him for years unless I give him a big prepayment, so I'm gonna graduate as Sophie's henchman and get really rich and bury him on Necro Ridge."
Tedros stared at him, feeling a prickle of... something.
"That's why you're so devoted to Sophie?"
"No," said Hort, quickly. "I'm devoted to Sophie because she's Sophie. It's just... a bonus."
"Mm." said Tedros. He paused. "If you want, I could always try and–"
"No." snapped Hort. He saw Tedros staring and went red. "...I have to do it myself."
Tedros just nodded. They went back to the bush.
"Where's your dad buried?" said Hort, at last. "Never seen him in the Garden of Good and Evil."
Tedros threw a squished slough into the leaves.
"...not quite sure. He's not there, though."
He turned, and found Hort gawking at him, aghast.
"What do you mean you don't know?"
Tedros flipped impatiently through the list of herbs, starting to get uncomfortable.
"Somewhere in Avalon."
"Haven't you been there?" said Hort. "I go to visit my dad all the time. Take some food, make a day of it."
"What, you go and... sit with his... corpse?"
"Yeah? You get used to it. Not like it rots, the Crypt Keeper does that much, but I have to go and scare off the vultures pretty routinely."
Tedros and Hort stared at each other, for a moment. And Tedros had thought being with his father's corpse for five minutes was bad.
"Nevers..." he muttered to himself. Hort shrugged, and went back to rifling through the wild garlic.
"So, you don't go see your dad that often?"
Tedros stared at the list, though he wasn't actually reading it.
"No."
"Why not?"
"What's it to you?" snapped Tedros. Hort looked obstinately at him, his weaselly little face jutting at strange angles, in what was probably meant to be defiance.
"Just wondering why you'd never go and visit your own father's grave."
"Keep wondering."
Hort shrugged, an irritating suggestion of holier-than-thou creeping onto his face.
"If my father had some great flash monument in a magic kingdom–"
"My father has an unmarked glass cross in Avalon that is apparently infamously hard to find, according to the pilgrims who go there." Tedros snapped. "Seems the Lady of the Lake sends them on some ridiculous rambling route, and it's never the same each time. They've started positing that only the worthy can find it, and now more and more pious idiots go and tramp through the woods to fall on their faces in front of a single glass cross, leave ridiculous offerings, and pray for the day he miraculously comes back to life as the Once and Future King. I've never been, because I cried myself too sick to go when they buried him, and every year since, I've never been able to guarantee there won't be some wretched religious fanatic wailing in front of my dad's grave."
He banged the basket down and started counting the bushels of rocket he'd found earlier. "They're starting to attract commerce to Avalon because of it. I got a report– apparently it's a good economic advancement and they're looking to set up guesthouses, but it'll be expensive to insulate them all because it's so cold there..."
"What, like a tourist trap?" said Hort.
"Yeah," said Tedros, brittle.
"I mean... at least people go to see him." said Hort uncertainly.
Tedros grunted and said nothing.
"...but that's your dad." added Hort. "Maybe the Lady of the Lake would let you go on your own? I bet she would. Magic Ever ladies can do that stuff, and they're all tender-hearted anyway."
Tedros clutched the basket handle and said nothing. Maybe. Maybe not. He had never gotten the impression the Lady of the Lake, or any of the Avalon princesses, except maybe Aunt Morgan (who, for all her sorceress superiority, occasionally remembered to send him weird presents on holidays) particularly liked him. And who qualified as worthy, anyway...?
"You'll get your dad a good burial, I bet." said Tedros, finally. Hort sighed.
"I'm trying. But Sophie–"
"Oh, god, enough about Sophie!"
Hort looked wounded.
"But–"
"How can you not see she's using you?" demanded Tedros.
"It's just how being a Henchman works!"
"Do you see Anadil doing stupid tasks for Hester? No! You don't!"
"But I love Sophie, and I'm devoted, and that's how–!"
"If you think Anadil doesn't love Hester, you really are single-minded." Tedros muttered. "Come on. Get a bit of self-worth, Hort."
Hort bobbed, frowning, beside him as they walked along the river, stirring up the mud with a stick for tubers. Tiny blue frogs emerged and scattered, and Hort caught them happily.
"Dad made me pyjamas with frogs on," he said, showing Tedros a handful of little frogs. "Love 'em."
Tedros, who had never given much thought to anything amphibious until Agatha had started trying to catch toads in Animal Communication, peered at them.
"If you can catch Agatha a toad, she'll probably give you tips on Sophie."
"Can't you give me tips on Sophie?" said Hort, letting the frogs go back into the water.
"Sophie didn't like me, she liked my birthright and the idea of being Queen," grumped Tedros.
"But you have all the things she says I don't," whined Hort. "I smell funny and dress in rags and say creepy things and have about as much muscle mass in my whole body as you do in one bicep..."
Tedros snorted grudgingly.
"I'm not going to teach you to copy me, that's weird."
"I took out a book from the library about courting girls, and I did everything, but I didn't realise you had to put the turmeric and honey on your face instead of eating it, and then I didn't realise you had to wash out the hair mask, so I just had dandruff that smelled like avocado for a few days, and she didn't like my poetry..."
Out of deeply morbid curiosity, Tedros asked;
"What poetry?"
"I wrote it myself, to tell her how I'm going to impress her this year! It's called Hort's Pursuit."
"Oh no," said Tedros, regretting asking, but Hort was already reciting;
"There once was a girl in Hort's class,
She always wore slippers of glass.
For her, he read books,
Became manly in looks
He even grew hair on his–"
"Alright, alright, I get it!" Tedros squawked, desperately trying to end it before the inevitable conclusion.
"But I didn't finish!" Hort complained.
"I think I get the gist..."
"Well, the last word is chest," sulked Hort. Tedros, who had never felt the need for a fainting couch until now, felt not in the least bit relieved. He wondered if the mental image of Hort's backside might finally finish him off.
"Isn't it meant to rhyme?" he said feebly.
"Is it?" Hort wrenched a scraggly bit of paper out of his pocket. "Do you know about poetry?"
"Only a bit, but I think limericks rhyme on the last line..."
Hort stared at the paper for a long time as Tedros scrabbled up a crabapple tree, then found that most of it had been raided already. He suspected Agatha, based on the bootprints.
"Maybe you should rewrite it?" suggested Tedros desperately, jumping down and adding his meagre crop to their basket. "It's a bit... upfront, isn't it?"
"Yeah, duh," said Hort. "What use is subtlety? Sophie's not subtle."
"...that's true..."
"Do you know a rhyme for glass?" said Hort.
"Nope." lied Tedros, sighting Chaddick and Dot in the distance and making a desperate beeline, hoping for a distraction. As they approached, Hort held up his poem to Dot.
"Tedros is helping me rewrite my poem for Sophie. He says the last line has to rhyme."
Help meeeeee, Tedros mouthed at Chaddick, who looked absolutely gleeful.
Dot looked over Hort's shoulder.
"Oh." she said, "I thought it was going to say ass."
Hort's eyes lit up. Tedros nearly screamed.
-----
The History lesson at the end of Second week was more or less just another Surviving Fairy Tales lesson.
Since the School hadn't managed to hire another History Professor yet, because staff kept dying on the job and no one wanted to apply, it was rotating around the other subjects. Uma had taught them a lesson on animals' historical importance to Evers, Dovey a history of some of the most famous Good Deeds, and Tedros assumed everyone would do the same. Today, Yuba was promising to take a combination of a few Forest Groups on a hike to a historical site, while lecturing them on practical skills on the way.
Hike apparently had only computed with some of the students, since Sophie and some of the Evergirls were wearing heels, and were limping most of the way. Tedros walked at the back with Chaddick and Nicholas, and ignored Sophie every time she put her heel down a rabbit hole or skidded on gravel. She kept using Hort as a prop, and he fell over several times. By halfway, he was incredibly muddy, and Sophie was cross and snippy. Agatha had stomped off with Kiko once Sophie had tried to grab her by the head to steady herself.
The third time Hort went down, he flailed about so pathetically that Tedros cracked, and went to help him up as Sophie tottered off.
"I told you," Tedros said, hauling Hort back to his feet by his armpits and dusting his back and arse down. "For god's sake, just walk somewhere else. She can magic herself up some new shoes if she doesn't want to stumble all the time..."
Hort seemed uncowed, though.
"I've been meaning to ask you." he said, falling back to shamble after Tedros and his lads. "Can you do a guest Lunchtime Lecture? On how to get girls to like you?"
Before Tedros could shake Hort until his eyeballs rattled and possibly try and perform an exorcism on him, Yuba spoke from the front;
"Oh, look," he said, in the tones of one seeing something faintly interesting. "Who can tell me what these do?"
Everyone turned. Several people jumped.
A few of the pumpkin-headed scarecrows from the Trial by Tale were staring out the trees at them, hovering in the fringe. A couple of Everboys, Tedros included, put hands on their swords.
"Guess they weren't a School Master special," Tedros murmured.
"They can do impressions and illusions that are specifically targeted to you," said Sophie, in answer to Yuba's question, mouth tight. Tedros didn't think he needed to wonder what had been chasing her for the first half of the Trial. "To lure you in."
"Quite right!" said Yuba. "Many a silly student has been lured off the path by the voice of a lost loved one, or a romantic interest, or the appearance of a hidden desire, and then bombarded with horrors and ended up strangled or scythed for their troubles. Nevers tend to be more susceptible. More loss earlier in their lives."
The Nevers spat and grumbled.
"Not to worry, not to worry!" said Yuba. "As long as we all stay in a pack, there'll be too many of us for them to pick out anything to target. Just don't leave the group, and you'll be quite safe. They prey on solo travellers."
As the group started back up again, so did Hort;
"Look, I'm not going to beg a prince for anything, because I think you're all a bunch of vacuous blockheads–" The vacuous blockheads stared at him, clearly all thinking about punting him. "But I am saying that I think it might be beneficial–"
"For me to host something with Sophie?" demanded Tedros.
"Entertaining, then." mumbled Hort. "Beneficial if you could get past your differences..."
"Hort," said Chaddick, in his Reasonable Tone Of Voice, that he used on Tedros when he was getting hysterical, "First thing they teach us is that before you can go out and court girls, you have to have your own sense of self worth. You can't get weird and obsessive about it. You have to know what you're about and have a bit of selfhood to fall back on. Can't get consumed. Just makes you look a bit pathetic. You have to be true to yourself. Realistic."
Hort blinked.
"Realistic? I thought Tedros was going to Agatha's book club even though he can't read."
"I can read, you snivelling little git!" snapped Tedros, regretting not leaving him in the mud.
"Hester said you couldn't." said Hort.
"And you believed Hester?"
Hort shrugged. Chaddick sighed.
"Point being, maybe you should take some time for yourself? Get a nice hobby? Experiment with your clothes or your hair, a bit? Sophie's sure to like you more if you've got more of a personality than just being devoted to her."
This was a stretch of the truth in the most disgraceful manner; the only thing Tedros was sure of was that Sophie would never, ever love Hort, because Sophie only loved Sophie, and Agatha on Tuesdays and bank holidays.
But what Chaddick clearly thought, and what Tedros also hoped for, was that in Hort's quest for self-discovery, the main thing he would discover was that he didn't want to be used as a lackey in the pursuit of a love he would absolutely never receive. If he did realise this, it would improve everyone's lives. Mostly his... but also everyone's, because Tedros wouldn't have to hear his poetry anymore. Or smell him.
"D'you really think?" said Hort thoughtfully.
"We can think, sometimes." said Nicholas wryly. Hort stuck out his skinny arms.
"Where should I start, then?"
"Well, it's not for us to tell you," said Nicholas. "Since it's about you. But–"
"Have a bath," said Tedros.
"A really, really, long bath." clarified Chaddick.
"Well!" said Yuba from the front, not letting Hort respond to that. "Here we are. What do you think?"
Tedros looked about, saw nothing of import, and waited for someone else to announce where they were.
Anadil crossed her arms. No one else said anything, so she said;
"This is a field."
"This," thundered Yuba, "Is a site of historical importance! We have obtained special permission from the King of Camelot to come here today, when it's usually forbidden for visitors in the winter months. It's too boggy, silly pilgrims get stuck..."
Tedros, who had been playing keepy-uppy with a rock and not paying attention, looked up in confusion. Everyone was staring at him.
"What?"
"You signed off on this trip, Tedros." sighed Yuba.
"I signed off on some nonsense bit of paper for Dovey about sites held by the crown, but I thought that was for when we were going to Four Point next term..."
"Would that you actually read the things you signed off on," muttered Yuba. Tedros espied the rock behind him–
His heart sank. His hand tightened on the pommel of his sword.
"Oh."
"So you do know where we are?" said Yuba, unimpressed.
"This is the site of the tournament where my father pulled the Sword in the Stone." Tedros said grumpily. More pilgrims, more stupid trips to irrelevant places that had nothing but a feeble connotation. It was just a field.
"Correct!" said Yuba. "So, I thought for a bit of fun before we walk back–"
"No." said Tedros, guessing what he was going to say. Yuba seized his arm and towed him over to the stone. "No, Professor–"
Yuba talked over him;
"Not often that we have the very sword with us, so be a good lad and put it back in the stone for a minute, let everyone have a go..."
"Um, it doesn't really–"
"Scared someone else will be able to pull your daddy's sword and make you a dud?" Hester heckled from the back.
Tedros stiffened.
Ten minutes later, he sulked under an elm tree as everyone else yanked ineffectively at Excalibur's crossguard. The Nevers had tried everything; bribing it, kicking it, shooting it with spells, doing it as fast as possible, making a human chain to pull. Nothing worked. Obviously. The Evers had dithered, but at a grumpy indication from Tedros they'd tried, albeit aiming to make it look ironic and joking. It didn't even budge. He was almost surprised.
Yuba was lecturing;
"Arthur only wanted a sword for Kay, since he was his squire and his role was to deal with his armour and weapons when Kay wasn't using them. He saw the sword in the stone, and didn't realise it was a test. He simply pulled it out and brought it to Kay..."
Tedros dug the toe of his boot into the grass, fed up, until footsteps crunched up to him. He looked up, to find–
"Don't you want a go at it?"
"No." said Agatha, simply.
She put her hands in her pockets and looked out across the field. The wind caught her hair and cloak and snatched at them, but she shook her hair out of her face dismissively. Tedros tried to work out if he was offended, decided he wasn't, and leant back against the tree again.
"I hear you've been teaching Hort poetry," said Agatha.
"Hort read me his limerick to Sophie, I said isn't it meant to rhyme, and unfortunately that spurred him to make more, worse, poetry." Tedros grumbled. Agatha snorted.
"And Sir Justin?"
"Nearly finished with it. Not sure I really understand it, but it was a good read."
"Well, we'll talk about it."
"I don't think I have much intelligent to say..." Tedros turned on her suddenly, Hort's comment about the book club resurfacing. "Look– I'm not coming on too strong, am I?"
Agatha stared at him, brow slightly furrowed.
"...is this somehow linked to what Hort's been saying to you?"
"No." lied Tedros. Agatha put her head on one side and he winced. "Yes. Listen–"
"Only coming to the book club because it's my book club isn't exactly Hort levels of obsession," Agatha pointed out. "If you were waiting for me outside the bathroom, I'd be more disturbed."
"He does that?" said Tedros, horrified.
"Apparently."
"Ugh."
They looked back at the sword, where Ravan and Vex were kicking it.
"I'll need to spend an hour re-sharpening it after this," Tedros said darkly. "Stupid gimmick." He paused. "Sure you don't want a go, though? When you're Queen, you'll have to interact with the stupid thing a bit, sometimes the–"
She tried to hide it, but he saw it– a fleeting little look of panic. He stopped, confused.
"Um," Agatha said, "I'm okay, thanks. Like you said, bit of a gimmick–"
"What was that for?" said Tedros.
"What was what?"
"That look you just did."
"I didn't do a look." said Agatha hastily.
"Yeah you did. I said that, and then you looked really weirded out."
Agatha's mouth flattened a bit, and she said, slowly;
"You're... coming on a bit strong, now."
Tedros, who had not thought he'd said or done anything Hort-like, stared at her in bewilderment. She could obviously tell he didn't understand, because she said;
"I haven't actually... um, agreed to be your Queen, Tedros? It's a big ask. I don't... know how I feel about it..."
Tedros blinked.
"But–"
Agatha scanned his face, then shook her head ruefully.
"You thought that me agreeing to come back to school made it automatic, didn't you?"
"I– no," fumbled Tedros. Yes. "No, I didn't–"
"Listen," said Agatha quickly, cutting back in before he could dig himself into a big hole. "I've never been anywhere in the Woods except the School. I don't know the first thing about... anything, and my worst subject is Etiquette. I wouldn't–" she exhaled desperately. "Look, I'm not saying no, but I'm just saying that– that..."
What was she saying? He didn't–
"It's a bit... premature, isn't it?" burst out Agatha desperately. "We're not even halfway through."
"But that's how it works," said Tedros, wretchedly confused, "You go to the School and you find your true love, and–"
"Didn't you learn anything from last year?" snapped Agatha, then saw his face and winced. "Sorry. That came out wrong. I just..." she looked about as if she was hoping for an escape. "Let me think about it. I can't... we'll see. Alright? I know you don't think there can be anyone else, that every Ever only gets one true love, but is that actually–"
"If it wasn't true, my mother would have sucked it up and stayed with us," said Tedros tensely. Agatha stared at him, mortified.
"Right. Sorry. I didn't even–"
"I know you didn't."
Agatha took a deep breath.
"...honestly, I–"
Whatever it was, Tedros never found out, because Yuba's voice suddenly rang out, carefully controlled.
"You three, walk towards me. Calmly."
Everyone turned to see Ravan, Hort, and Dot slowly pacing towards them, faces tense and terrified. Behind them, three of the scarecrows from earlier peeked out of the trees where they'd been standing. Around the fringe of the forest, there were more, waiting still and silent.
"They must have followed us," muttered Yuba. "Everyone back in a group and back on the path, now." he espied Tedros and Agatha, furthest away, and gestured furiously at them. "Hurry up, you two–"
Agatha seized Tedros's hand and dragged him after her as the group made straggly, anxious progress back onto the path.
"Never seen this many before," Yuba muttered, marching along with his staff thudding, the students huddling behind him. Agatha saw how freaked out Kiko looked, and cut forward to try and calm her down, leaving Tedros frazzled and miserable at the back. "Guess they can't resist a group of School idiots... Sophie, change those shoes or get left behind!"
Sophie rolled her eyes and made an impatient gesture, changing her heels to flat boots. Tedros might have been impressed, if it wasn't Sophie.
"Breakdown?" he heard Nicholas ask Chaddick quietly.
"Ten or so visibly following us." murmured Chaddick, eyes going left and right slowly. "Like Yuba said, probably won't attack if we're all in a group. Reckon you'll have to go for the head if they do come for you, though, it's not connected by much..."
"Can you take them down by shooting them?"
Chaddick tested his bowstring tension.
"Maybe. Might need several arrows, though."
He really was very good. He was a better tactician than Tedros, by a million miles. Glancing into the trees, Tedros's hand went to his scabbard–
His empty scabbard.
He stopped dead.
He'd left the–
But he couldn't. There for too long, sooner or later, someone else would get it. It wasn't hereditary, it worked in a different way to what most people assumed. His father would be so furious if he left it, and as Bedivere had suggested, he might not have ever been meant to have it in the first place. If he lost it, that was just proving that theory right... he'd tried so hard to prove he was worthy of it...
No one was looking, walking in a brisk huddle, Chaddick and Nicholas still analysing. Agatha was at the front with Kiko. Tedros knew the way back. It wasn't far, and he could run to catch up.
He should just...
----
It was barely a three minute sprint back, and he was back on the path in under five minutes. He had been worried it wouldn't come out for him, but it had. He'd never gotten the impression Excalibur really liked him, much, but it had a grudgingness about it, like it had to admit he had some kind of authority, or a reason for it to respond to him. That had not changed, today.
Relieved, he hurried back down the path with his hand on the sword, listening for the group up ahead.
Instead, he heard;
"Tedros."
He stopped, aghast. That had been his father's voice, but–
What had Yuba said? That if you were alone, they looked for something to use to draw you off the path...
Well, then, he'd just not leave the path. Simple.
Tedros gritted his teeth and went on, but his frayed mood was getting worse by the second, and maybe the dratted things could tell, because they redoubled their efforts:
"Tedros, come on. "
"I told you, he shouldn't have had it..."
"Yeah, yeah..." Tedros muttered...
"Tedros, sweetheart?"
He stopped abruptly, then glanced into the trees– where he was sure he saw a turn of dark curls and long sleeves.
"Cute trick," he mumbled, dithering in a puddle. With Woods foes like this, maybe his mother and Lancelot hadn't gotten very far, on horseback and with nothing but Lancelot's sword to defend themselves. Maybe it was better if they were a pile of bones in a bog somewhere.
A grim thought... and a distracting one.
A sackcloth claw seized him from behind. He jumped, spun–
A blast of lightning hit the scarecrow in the shoulder and set it on fire. Shrieking, it fell backwards into a puddle, where it smouldered and spat, keening madly. Tedros staggered away, whipped around–
"WHAT ARE YOU DOING?" Agatha shouted from the top of the incline.
Tedros withered inside. He'd really thought he was hallucinating, that first day when Agatha had popped up behind the meddling mammas and booted her trunk over– then had promptly realised he wasn't, when nothing had gone right and Agatha's mother had tried to kill him with her mind. But he'd immediately resolved to do everything he could to prove to her that she'd made the right decision. Instead, he was being presumptuous and overbearing and getting them both into peril. Again.
"I just–"
Agatha banged her hands together and a sudden squall of rain exploded over them, bogging down the advancing scarecrows with wet sackcloth and saturated straw stuffing. Tedros winced, then straightened up when he saw her coming.
"We could have come back and got it!" Agatha blared, marching up to him and seizing his arm, starting to pull him after her. "The whole point of Excalibur is that it's the Sword in the Stone! No one can pull it–!"
"Oh, that's never been true–"
"What?"
Tedros rammed it into the muddy ground and pointed at the gilded hilt.
"Pull it."
"I don't want your stupid sword!"
"Try it, Agatha, I know you can!"
"Never tried, don't want to try–"
A scarecrow lumbered from the fringe of the trees and onto the path, scythe trailing menacingly. Tedros put his hand down and hastily removed Excalibur from the mud, shook off the blade.
"Shit," said Agatha, as they backed away. "I didn't realise they had scythes–"
"Why would you come back on your own?" barked Tedros.
"Why would I– I just saved you, you miserable bonehead!" Agatha shouted.
"And now we're both going to die!" Tedros shouted back, trying to shunt her up the path as the scarecrow clawed up the incline.
"Oh, well then, in that case, I want a shared coffin." Agatha griped, feet sliding on the wet gravel.
"...really?"
Another scarecrow appeared at the top of the hill.
"SO I CAN GIVE YOU HELL WHEN WE'RE DEAD, TOO!" blasted Agatha.
"You don't get it!" Tedros bawled back. "He'd be so mad–"
"Arthur? How's he gonna be mad at you? He's dead!"
"Oh my god, is he? Oh, I didn't notice, what a shock, I certainly didn't WITNESS IT–"
"God, it really is all about your dad, isn't it?" moaned Agatha. "Mercy me, Tedros, for once in your life can you make an independent decisi–"
A third scarecrow burst out of the treeline to land right in front of them. They both screamed.
"Know what we do to witches in Gavaldon, eh? We–"
Tedros beheaded it, and its head exploded in a mess of pumpkin mulch. But there were more, to their front and back–
An arrow shot an inch past Tedros's head and landed directly in the left eye socket of the next scarecrow, which crumpled. Tedros whipped around to see Chaddick drawing another arrow from the top of the hill, icily calm. Someone was bellowing, further up the path:
"HORT!" Yuba's voice roared. "HORT, DAMN IT, GET BACK HERE– DON'T FOLLOW HIM, YOU MISERABLE IDIOTS–"
"DON'T SPLIT UP!" Beatrix's voice shrieked, but now people were screaming and running in every direction, and the forest had been split with shouting in a dozen different voices.
"Run," said Tedros, pushing Agatha up the hill, "Run for it, get back to the group, Chaddick can cover you–"
This time, thank god, she listened– they went scrambling up the hill towards Chaddick, who was methodically shooting arrow after arrow over their heads, felling the scarecrows as fast as they could come. There was a sound coming up behind them, rattling like a rider on horseback, and Chaddick's face stilled in a horrible recognition.
"Keep running."
"What?" coughed Tedros, staggering up to him.
"I said keep running, and don't look behind you," said Chaddick, slowly drawing a new arrow into his bow. "Do not look at what I'm about to do. Damn it, I didn't know they could do a full shapeshift, or else an illusion, I d– don't, Tedros!"
But curiosity had always killed the cat, and Tedros turned around just as it passed him... and froze.
It sounded like a horse and rider because it was. It was maybe the most infamous horseback escape in the Woods. He'd only seen it through peoples arms, as the stablehands had grabbed him to stop him getting run down by the guard's pursuit, but it was impossible to forget–
"TEDROS," screamed Agatha, from somewhere very distant. "DON'T–!"
Tedros lost his head completely, and ran after the shade of his mother.