Chapter 46
No one slept well that night. They already knew the experiment’s outcome.
Vera’s chamber was the most spacious, so the knights dragged extra mattresses from nearby rooms. While the others took turns standing guard, Vera and Gawain attempted to sleep—but mostly, they watched the instrument.
Watched as magic was born into brandnew souls.
By the time they gathered at the Magesary, only the visible signs of two gifts remained in the tube.
The visual of it was powerful. Even the mages who had expressed doubt the evening prior, Naiam included, were transfixed by the pool gathered in the bulb, filling it past the halfway point.
It didn’t hurt that, as they looked on, the instrument vibrated in Arthur’s hands, and one more bit from the tube bubbled into the larger dome.
Before their eyes, magic transferred. Phoebe, the quiet mage, blushed, and her eyes clouded with tears.
That had been one of her gifts. Gawain explained that to Vera last night.
He could feel it when a transferred gift had been his.
Evidently, so could the others. Ratamun’s conceited smile fell. His gifts had been reassigned, too.
Merlin did most of the talking. He convinced the council that the liquid in Gawain’s instrument had been accidentally discovered. There was no formula for it, no replicating it. And that the instrument itself would only work one time. It would be useless after this.
Gawain had argued against this tactic, afraid that without the instrument to hold them accountable, the work of releasing a considerable number of gifts wouldn’t be done.
“But you will have the instrument,” Merlin reasoned, “and plenty of ability to monitor it. We can address logistics later. For now, we need to get you safely back to Camelot, and that means they have to believe that it can’t be replicated.”
The mages had ever presented themselves as a religious order seeking peace and the protection of magic.
The nature of their powers was disconcerting.
Arthur was especially dismayed that the threat within the mages’ own ranks was so dire.
The council had transformed from a shining beacon of hope for the kingdom to its biggest liability over-night—and they knew it.
Vera was sure it was a driving factor as the mages charted a road map for proceeding with this new information.
Their immediate priority was to track Mordred and either kill him or, preferably, bring him in to face justice.
Naiam assigned ten pockets of mages, one from the council with five lesser mages, to go on the hunt for him.
And on the matter of magic, each mage on the council was asked to release ten gifts.
Gawain would have preferred a more aggressive approach, plainly written in his furrowed brow, but Merlin silenced him with a sharp glare.
They were on the right track.
Naiam officially adjourned the mages, and Arthur’s party did not linger.
Their horses were ready just outside. They bid polite but terse farewells and made for the road, even though it was nearly dark when they set out.
Neither Merlin nor Gawain wanted to linger in Oxford for questions that might get closer to the truth.
They’d travel ten miles to stay within the Mages’ Cloak of Oxford, where Naiam arranged for a secure camp with extra magical protection.
Vera steered her horse next to Gawain’s. “Did Viviane know about this?” she asked him as they rode west, chasing the setting sun toward Camelot.
He frowned. “If anyone could have figured it out, it would have been her. She was the most brilliant mage I ever met.” It shook Vera that his voice shone with admiration for Viviane.
“She didn’t have to lay any curse on the kingdom—just steal enough magic and convince us to do the same until it all began to run dry,” he mused.
“We cursed ourselves into vulnerability.”
“How did you know?”
“I wouldn’t have without Mordred’s last attack. I suppose that’s the silver lining to it. There was no other way we could have seen a concentration of magic theft and its immediate impacts on the earth. He did us a favor in that way.”
“And that was what I knew?” Vera asked.
Gawain pursed his lips. He shook his head like he didn’t believe it, though he said, “It must have been.”
It was over. Gawain had figured it out, and her memories weren’t even needed.
Her memories weren’t even needed.
Merlin need not have saved her. Lancelot need not have some broken version of Guinevere’s blood on his hands. Arthur need not have witnessed Guinevere die three times over. She turned her head to watch Arthur riding behind them.
She’d known she loved him since the day of her jousting bout, but Lancelot’s saying the words aloud had uncaged her feelings. And in the tumult since then, it had become an inner roar. Vera was and would remain completely and entirely Arthur’s.
His feelings, on the other hand, did not reach so deep. He was a loyal man. He’d promised to be Vera’s friend, and he’d honor that, but it was magic and magic alone that enchanted him to desire her. The sooner she could accept their feelings’ disparity and start dismantling her own, the better.
Gawain lay his hand on Vera’s shoulder, pulling her from the spiral she’d tumbled into. “When we get back to Camelot, I’ll focus on figuring out this hold magic has on you. We’ll get the barrier dismantled, and we can take our time.”
“Thank you,” she whispered.
“Will you go back to your other home after that?”
“I—Yes.” That was another piece she hadn’t been able to process. This meant she could go home and be with her parents. She could help her father get better, and she did want that. But … she was Guinevere. She didn’t belong in the future. But Vera didn’t exactly belong here, either.
She must have been quiet for some time, lost in her thoughts, before Gawain eventually asked, “Are you done talking to me now?”
Vera shot him a look, only to find Gawain grinning.
It was well after dark when they bumbled into their rather luxurious camp.
Five tents were laid out like a circle of wagons around a crackling campfire—only these were fantastic, brightly colored silk tents three meters tall.
The mages each had their own. Then, there was one tent for the soldiers and the two knights and one each for Vera and Arthur.
She’d heard Arthur discreetly make the request to Naiam.
She hated it. She’d have given anything for the comfort of his arms tonight.
Lancelot stood outside the soldiers’ tent, painstakingly suspending his orb with Merlin’s magical aid as Vera eyed him with a cocked eyebrow.
She laughed. “He can do that himself, Merlin.”
But Merlin glanced up from his work, bewildered. “What do you mean?”
“The orb—” Vera said, then she stooped. Lancelot shook his head minutely behind him. “Erm. I thought you were—never mind. I was confused.” She was eager for Merlin to clear off so she could ask Lancelot what the hell that was about when a hand on her elbow turned out to be Tristan’s.
“May I visit you this evening?” he asked quickly.
“Oh, erm.” Vera tossed a glance at Lancelot, who was pretending not to listen as he tied his tent flaps back. “I can’t tell you about what happened with the mages,” she said apologetically, steering him farther from Lancelot.
“I know,” Tristan said. “I’m used to this job: here to be chivalrous muscle, and they’ll tell me more if it’s pertinent for me to know.
” He laughed. “I wanted to give you some company. Only if you want it.” He squeezed her elbow, trailing his thumb in a circle there as he had on her thigh the other night.
“All right,” Vera heard herself say.
“All right,” Tristan echoed. “I’m going to get cleaned up a bit, and then I’ll come by.”
He trotted off, leaving Vera with Lancelot’s disapproving stare. He was quickly distracted by Gawain, who crawled out from behind the tent nearest them.
“Gawain, what on earth are you doing?” Lancelot asked.
The mage lowered his face to the dirt, examining it closely. “Checking the boundary line of our camp to be sure it’s safe.”
Lancelot sighed and shook his head, chuckling with Vera, his judgment apparently forgotten. He strode over to Gawain and offered him a hand up. “Come on, sir mage, I’ll bunk up with you tonight. Your own private security detail.”
Gawain stared at his hand disdainfully. “You are helpless against magic,” he grumbled.
Lancelot lay his hand over his heart and frowned.
“That hurts my feelings. Hey!” He said more brightly.
“Nobody’s ever died in battle next to me, remember?
Didn’t you and Percival think that was my magic?
There you have it. That’s that sorted. Now …
” He shook his offered hand at Gawain, who glowered and reluctantly accepted it.
“Aw, there he is! That’s the Gawain we love!” Lancelot slung an arm around his shoulder and steered Gawain toward his tent, calling to Vera over his shoulder, “Let’s run tomorrow, Guinna. How often will we get the privilege of running under the Mages’ Cloak?”
She marveled at the nonsensical yet also somehow perfectly logical fit of them.
Vera went to her tent, on the other side of the soldiers’. Merlin’s was beside hers and then Arthur’s, directly across the circle. His tent flaps didn’t stir.