Lady Gremlaine was gone and all that was left were her pastel minions, ready to whisk the princess to a breakfast she would have no time to eat.
Halfway through the day, Agatha was about to turn runaway bride.
She’d endured weeks of this with a forced smile—the same deadly dull routine of inspecting a thousand place-cards and cakes and candles and centerpieces, even though they all looked the same to her and she’d be happy marrying Tedros in a bat cave (she’d prefer it actually; no room for guests). Interspersed with all this tedium were appearances for “Camelot Beautiful,” a queen-led campaign to raise funds for the broken-down castle that had been left to blight after King Arthur had died. Agatha believed in the cause wholeheartedly and had a high tolerance for nonsense—she was friends with Sophie after all—but Lady Gremlaine seemed determined to humiliate her with each day’s schedule, whether making her sing the anthem at the Woods Rugby Cup (even the Camelot team covered their ears) or ride a bull at the Spring Fair (it bucked her into a mound of poo) or kiss the highest bidder in a Smooch-the-Princess auction (a toothless hoodlum who Lady Gremlaine insisted had won fair and square).
Guinevere had warned Agatha to expect resistance from her new warden. Lady Gremlaine had been Chief Steward when Guinevere was Arthur’s wife, until she and Guinevere had a falling-out and Guinevere had her dismissed. But after Guinevere’s disappearance and Arthur’s death, his Council of Advisors took over Camelot since Tedros wasn’t yet sixteen—and these advisors brought Lady Gremlaine back. Now with Guinevere returned to the castle, surely Gremlaine would be prickling to exert control over Guinevere’s son and his new queen. Even worse, the old fusspot couldn’t be fired until Tedros’ coronation was sealed.
Knowing this, Agatha had tried to befriend her steward, but Lady Gremlaine hated her at first sight. Agatha had no idea why, but clearly the woman didn’t want her marrying Camelot’s king. It was as if Lady Gremlaine thought if she just tried hard enough, Agatha would give up her groom before the wedding.
I’d sooner die, Agatha vowed.
So for the last six months, she’d woken up each morning ready for the fight.
But today was the day that broke her.
First there was the florist, who shoved Agatha’s face in so many effluvious bouquets over the course of an hour that she’d left red-eyed and nose dripping. Next there were the six tailors who showed her dozens of linens that looked exactly the same. Then came the reporter from the Camelot Courier, a miserably cheerful young girl named Bettina, who arrived sucking a red lollipop.
“Lady Gremlaine already scripted all your answers, so let’s have an off-the-record chat for fun,” she diddled, before launching into an array of startlingly personal questions about Agatha’s relationship with Tedros: “What does he wear when he sleeps?” “Does he have a nickname for you?” “Do you ever catch him looking at other girls?”
“No,” Agatha said to the last, about to add, “especially not fart bubbles like you,” but she held her tongue through nearly an hour of this before she’d had enough.
“So do you and Tedros want children?” Bettina wisped.
“Why? Are you looking for parents?” Agatha snapped.
The meeting was over after that.
She nearly lost her temper again at the Spansel Club fundraiser when she had to read The Lion and the Snake, a famous Camelot storybook, to rich, bratty children, who kept interrupting her because they already knew the story. Now in her carriage after picking wedding doves at the zoo, Agatha slumped over in her sweaty gown, thinking of the waltz and etiquette lessons ahead, and sucked back tears.
“The king hasn’t mentioned your name once,” Lady Gremlaine echoed.
She’d tried to pretend that the meddling bat had lied. But Agatha knew she hadn’t.
Even when Agatha had run into Tedros in the castle these past few months, he’d tell her how pretty she looked or prattle something inane about the weather or ask her if she was comfortable in her quarters before shuttling away like a spooked squirrel. Last night in her room was the first time she’d seen him without a flushed, plastic smile on his face that told her not to ask how he was doing because he was doing just fine.
But he wasn’t fine, of course. And she didn’t know how to help him.
Agatha dabbed at her eyes. She had come to Camelot for Tedros. To be his queen. To stand by him in his finest and darkest hours. But instead they were both alone, fending for themselves.
It was clear he needed her. That’s why he’d crawled into her arms last night. So why couldn’t he just admit it? She knew deep down it wasn’t her fault. But she still couldn’t help feeling rejected and hurt.
Reaper curled up in her lap, reminding her he was there.
She rubbed his bald head. “If only we could go back to our graveyard before we ever thought about boys.”
Reaper spat in agreement.
Agatha gazed out the window of her blue-and-gold carriage as it rolled into Maker’s Market, the main thoroughfare of Camelot City. Given the conditions of its roads, her driver normally avoided it and took the longer route back to the castle, but they were already running late for her wedding waltz lesson and she didn’t want to make a poor impression on her new teacher. Dirt kicked up around the carriage from unpaved streets, clouding her view of the bright-colored tents, each carrying a flag with Camelot’s crest: two eagles, flanking the sword Excalibur on a blue shield.
But as the dust cleared, Agatha noticed a stark divide between the rich villagers in expensive coats and jewels as they shopped along the main street and the thousands of grimy, skeletal peasants living in crumbling shanties in the alley-ways adjoining the market. Royal guards patrolled these slums, forcefully blocking any peasants who drew too close to wealthy patrons entering or leaving the tents. Agatha slid down her window to get a better view, but her driver rapped his horsewhip on the glass—
“Lay low, milady,” he said.
Agatha pushed the window back up. When she first rode into her new kingdom six months ago, she’d seen the same slum cities smack in the middle of Camelot. As Tedros explained then, his father had led Camelot to a golden age, where every citizen improved his or her fortune. But upon Arthur’s death, his advisors had allied with the rich, passing shady laws to reclaim land and wealth from the middle-class, plunging them into poverty. Tedros had vowed to undo these laws and resettle those without homes, but in the past half-year, the divide between rich and poor had only gotten worse. Why hadn’t he succeeded? Had he not seen how far his father’s legacy had fallen? How could he let his own kingdom languish like this? If she was king—
Agatha exhaled. But she wasn’t, was she. She wasn’t even queen yet. And from the way Tedros acted last night, he was clearly frustrated too. He was managing Camelot by himself and had no one to help him: not her, not his father, not his mother, not Lancelot, not even Merlin, the last three of who’d been gone for the past six months—
SPLAT! A black, mashed hunk of food hit the window. Agatha spun to see a filthy peasant yell, “SO-CALLED KING AND HIS ALMOST QUEEN!”
Suddenly, others in the slum cities spotted her carriage and globbed onto the chant—“SO-CALLED KING AND HIS ALMOST QUEEN!”—while pelting her vehicle with food, shoes, and handfuls
