“Why would Merlin say that?”
“It’s nothing,” she said quickly.
“No, it’s not.” He crossed his arms and frowned. “I’d say that’s rather something. Since it involves me, I think I have a right to know.”
Vera had a lot to say about everything she felt she had a right to know. Her raised eyebrows said as much, but she held her tongue. “Just all this time together between only the two of us … like Percival said and—and you did sort of look at me all swoony-eyed when I taught you tic-tac-toe.” She tried to keep her voice playful, though she realized her error almost as soon as she’d said it.
Lancelot cocked his head to the side, the smile gone from his eyes. “Merlin wasn’t there for that. Did you tell him?”
“I—well—”
“Because if you didn’t, I’m not sure who did.”
“No, I—”
“Then who did?” He wasn’t giving her time to think.
“No one! He saw it when—” The mental fog from earlier was creeping back in. “I sort of showed him. I didn’t mean to.”
“All right.” His eyes softened as he watched her struggle through it. He sat back down and patted the ground next to him. “Out with it, you.”
Vera sank to the dirt beside him. She told him nearly everything: that she knew about Guinevere’s betrayal with Viviane, her desperation to get her memory back, the potions, and the horrid procedure Merlin had tried. That he’d seen how close Vera and Lancelot had grown. She hesitated when she got to Vincent’s part, but only for a second, making a gut decision to trust him with the whole story. He’d laid his free hand on her knee, drawing closer to her in the deepening of her hurt. When she told him how painful Merlin’s procedure had been and how her body burned from it even now, he went rigid, his face darkening, especially as she relayed how her memory had shattered.
“So, if I seem broken, it might be that my mind stabbed itself in a thousand places. My brain could be actively bleeding for all I know.” It was a feeble attempt at a joke.
“That was an awful thing he did to you.” Lancelot rolled his jaw back and forth and stared at his feet. “Did you tell Arthur?”
Vera barked a cold laugh. “No. Last night, I couldn’t even string a damn sentence together.”
“He’d want to know. You have to tell him, Guinna.”
“Did you not hear me about the ‘betraying everything he stands for’ bit?” she said, her spark of anger reigniting. “And the potion he had to have just to be able to be near me?”
Lancelot had the gall to look exasperated. “Come off it. I don’t believe for a second that he drank that potion. And we all know what Guinevere did is not what you did.” Vera started to protest, and Lancelot raised his voice. “Stop! You have to actually try to talk to him.”
“Are you fucking kidding me? I have tried. I do try.”
“No, you don’t. You get weird and quiet. Why don’t you talk to him like this? Why haven’t you told him what an ass he’s been? You’re half a room away from him every night, and you’ve never railed at him like you would at me. What’d you say to him when you found out about that potion, hm? Did you tell him off or just bolt out of there?”
Vera scoffed but said nothing.
“That’s not trying.”
Her jaw hung slack. “I can’t believe you’re blaming me for this.”
“You don’t understand what he’s been through—”
“You’re right! I don’t. That’s the problem. You both know all these secrets about me and my life that I’m not entitled to. Fuck you. You deal with it.”
She got up to leave, stumbling a few steps from the exhaustion of having pushed their run so hard. Vera heard Lancelot scrambling to stand and help her before she whirled on him.
“Don’t,” she said. She was confident he caught all her meanings with the one word. Don’t touch me. Don’t help me. Don’t follow me.
She stormed back to the castle alone.
Losing Vincent’s face was like having him die all over again. The shattering of that memory brought the day he died into sharper focus. It had been the worst day of Vera’s life. And it would remain as such for some time to come.
But this day—the day that had barely begun, the sun coyly waiting to kiss the horizon with her warmth, would bring its own darkness.
Thus began the second worst day of Vera’s life so far.
As the haze and stirring sick of the day before waned, Vera felt Merlin’s magic at work. When her thoughts drifted to Arthur, albeit frazzled and nonsensical, she found an unwelcome sense of intimate fondness. This tug toward him had a pleasant aura tinged with the poison of its origin. It felt the way a funeral parlor smelled; overly sweet in an attempt to mask the odor of unstoppable decay.
Vera could begrudgingly acknowledge that Lancelot was right—Arthur had to know. And damn Lancelot. She would rage into Arthur’s part of the chamber and shout him awake from his bed. She would do it.
But he wasn’t there.
Vera looked for him all day, but her hours were far more occupied than usual. It was Christmas Eve. There was plenty to do to ready the castle for the evening’s banquet guests. She thought she’d have time to search for him in earnest once she finished her tasks, but it was straight back to her chamber to get dressed in her green gown and moonstone circlet and then to the great hall without delay.
The hall was friendlier than usual. There was no table atop the dais. Instead, the space was occupied by a band of musicians playing lively background music. Hanging orb lights zigzagged from one side of the vaulted ceiling to the other. Guests milled about on the balcony, sipping from their goblets as they whispered about the growing crowd below.
Under different circumstances, Vera would have loved this, but her cursed fever burned on, as did her focus on finding Arthur.
She saw him across the hall, and her breath caught. He’d replaced his usual and much more casual attire with slim-fitting leather armor, dark like burned charcoal from shoulders to toes except for the cape of deep red clasped at his collarbone, the shine of his sword’s hilt at his waist, and the simple crown of gold on his head. His hair was pulled into a tight knot at the nape of his neck.
He hadn’t dressed this formally since Vera’s arrival, yet it was as natural on him as anything and was very striking. His gaze met Vera’s before he quickly turned away to greet a guest. A sudden flutter had thrummed in her chest. She felt the urge to cup her hand against his cheek. The thought of his skin against hers sent the warmth of desire spreading through her. With a start, she realized the feeling matched what had belonged to the memory that was gone … that her dormant, tucked-away passion for the love she’d lost was now assigned to Arthur.
Something in what happened yesterday had threaded a cord from her destroyed memory of Vincent straight to Arthur. Even after the memory’s disintegration, its emotions remained intact, questing out and latching on to the next face that came along. With the potion and … everything else, Arthur was already the prime target. How could she feel furiously attracted to him and also want to scream wrath in his face and weep for days?
His conversation bore the marks of ending: nods and subtle leaning away from one another. If Vera didn’t move now, she might lose her nerve. She plastered on the most relaxed smile she could muster.
Feigning confidence, Vera came to his side. Had his body stiffened at her arrival, even as his voice remained steady? She decided she’d imagined it and touched his arm. Arthur pulled away from her. No, he violently yanked his arm from her grasp like her touch burned him. Right in front of the nobleman, who was a stranger to Vera—and who absolutely noticed and shifted uncomfortably.