A dark-skulled boy looked suspicious. “Whole Woods is covered in swords. How do you know the real one’s in Foxwood? If that’s true, wouldn’t everyone be searching here?”
“Emilio’s right. How would you know where King Arthur hid his sword?” said a boy at once bald and littered with dandruff.
“No one can know where the sword is. They all look exactly the same,” a boy said, dark skin still damp from his bath. “And it’s not like we’ll even know if we find it. Every time I grab one, it stays stuck in the dirt.”
“And if we do find something suspicious and write the king, he sends his guards to investigate and they probably have a thousand false leads already,” said Emilio.
“Plus, why would King Rhian ask Dean Brunhilde to help him instead of a wizard or sorcerer?” Arjun peppered. “And why didn’t Dean Brunhilde say bye to us? And why is the wart on your nose a different size every day?”
“Questioning your new Dean with such arrogance! Speaking so rudely to the blood cousin of the king! All of you!” Dean Rowenna chided. “I see why your households sent you here to be reformed. No matter. I’ll have the Evil out of you soon enough. As to how I know the sword’s whereabouts, let’s call it a Dean’s intuition. And since I’m Rhian’s cousin, there’s no need to piddle with guards. I have a direct line to the Lion himself! Come, my loves. Whoever finds Excalibur will accompany me to tell the king!”
“I’m gonna find it!” Arjun yelped, bolting out the door.
“No, I will!” cried the bald boy.
“Wait for me!” shouted another, and another, until all eight were gone, even stink-eyed Emilio.
Dean Rowenna watched them go, her smile tightening, before she followed them out to the courtyard, packed with autumn leaves and swords fallen from the sky, her boys yanking uselessly at the hilts.
They were right, of course.
There was no way to find Excalibur.
But she was a witch, after all.
And witches always find a way.
SOPHIE COULDN’T BE sure how she ended up in Foxwood, but she had a pretty good idea.
It was that moment in the Celestium.
After Arthur had revealed the third test, when a thousand Excaliburs stabbed through the night and ripped open the sky. As she fell, two portals appeared: one to Camelot’s castle, taking Japeth . . . one to Avalon’s lake, taking Agatha and Tedros . . .
Sophie could feel herself wanting to chase Japeth, to kill him and finish the job this time. In a flash, she was pulled towards the Camelot portal. Then her heart jolted, wishing to be with Agatha, and her body swerved towards the Avalon portal. She had a split second to choose who to follow, to wish for where she wanted to go next . . .
Which is how she’d ended up falling into bushes near shirtless lads playing rugby, a second before swords rained down from the midnight sky, sending the boys scattering for their lives.
As Sophie caught her breath in the bushes, Evelyn Sader’s dress magically camouflaging her, one might think this is precisely where Sophie had asked the universe to send her—a harem of athletic, teenage males—but it wasn’t.
To Sophie’s own surprise, she’d forgone her wish to kill Japeth or stay with Agatha and made a third wish instead.
A wish to help Tedros win the last test.
Right then and there, a new portal had opened, and this is where it had sent her.
Foxwood.
Which meant the answer to the last test must be here.
Excalibur was in Foxwood.
Except there were swords everywhere, she’d realized as she slipped out of the bushes, scanning the blades blanketing the field and streets beyond. A few night owls poked their heads out of windows and, seeing the new landscape, promptly ducked back into their houses. Hiding in the shadows, Sophie grabbed at a few hilts, but they didn’t budge. Which they wouldn’t, of course, until the true king pulled the true Excalibur.
She had to make sure that king was Tedros.
But there were obstacles. First off, she was a Wanted girl, with Japeth’s men surely hunting her. And she was famous in the Woods, with most kingdoms still thinking she was Camelot’s queen. The moment she was spotted lurking around, word would get back to the Snake. Plus, there was Foxwood’s sheer size, with countless swords alone within its vast borders. To find Excalibur, she’d need help. Manpower she could supervise until there was an inkling of Arthur’s grail . . .
That’s when she saw where she’d fallen.
A gray castle towered above her, bright gold letters carved into stone.
THE FOXWOOD SCHOOL FOR BOYS
Boys, Sophie thought.
A castle full of them . . .
And weren’t some of those boys missing a Dean?
SIX DAYS LATER, Sophie roamed the dead grass around Foxwood’s vales, drearily inspecting another cluster of swords while her students’ voices carried from cottage lanes.
“This one looks suspicious!” Arjun’s voice piped. “The hilt is marked!”
“With crow poo, you idiot!” Pierre-Eve yelled.
“Emilio, where you going!” said Arjun. “Headmistress told us not to talk to strangers!”
A good Dean would go check on Emilio, Sophie thought, but she kept walking in the opposite direction of her students. Her eyes glazed over more swords, on and on and on, her fists balling with frustration. Suddenly, she kicked a blade, then kicked it harder, scuffing its steel. She slapped it with a stun spell for good measure, which ricocheted off the handle and knocked her on her rump. Sophie blinked into the murky sky, Lionsmane’s message still appealing for the Woods’ help.
Clearly, Japeth was having as much luck as she was.
Rafal’s son . . .
And to think she’d kissed that demon at their “wedding.”
Not by her own volition, but still. A kiss is a kiss.
Wherever in hell he was, Rafal must be laughing.
He’d had his revenge.
For now.
Her time was coming.
But first she had to get off the ground, her body still throbbing as she lumbered to her feet. She was tired of looking at the same sword over and over with no clue what she was looking for. She was tired of babysitting smelly boys and reading them stories where Good always won and eating their ghastly meals, which Dean Brunhilde had made them cook to learn “personal responsibility.” She was tired of getting her hopes up every time a student showed her a sword, insisting it was “The One,” only to find a bee nest on the hilt or steel sprayed with skunk stench or a blade caught in tumbleweeds. She was tired of disguising herself to be a Dean, tired of Evelyn’s dress hiding her beauty, tired of the wart she’d conjured on her nose. Most of all, she was tired of missing Agatha.
“This is stupid,” she growled out loud as if hoping some cosmic voice would reassure that she’d made the right wish to come here . . . that the sword was indeed close for her to find . . .
A horn blared in the distance.
It was the Headmistress’s signal, herding the rest of the Foxwood schoolboys on their hunt for the sword. The horn usually sounded at 1:00 p.m., starting the hunt, and sounded again at 3:00 p.m., to signal the boys back to class. Each day, Sophie spied on their efforts, in case one of them found Excalibur, which would send her dashing off to Avalon to tell Tedros. Not that any of them did, of course—including the boys who’d bought phony “Excalibur Detectors” at the market, the sons of blacksmiths who insisted they’d know a king’s sword when they saw one, or the cocky, big-talking lads who claimed to have a drop of Arthurian blood in their veins. Meanwhile, Sophie made it a point to send her own students home for these two hours so she could peek in on the schoolboys undisturbed. (That Foxwood lads tended to be deliriously handsome had nothing to do with it.) Until now, Sophie had also managed to avoid the school’s Headmistress, which meant she’d eluded pesky questions about where Dean Brunhilde had gone. But today, the Headmistress’s horn had come much earlier than usual. It wasn’t even half-past ten.