“Can you guarantee that she will not be harmed?”
Oh shit. They were talking about Vera. She leaned close enough to look into the room and found the two men separated by a table. Arthur leaned over it, braced with his hands wide on its surface. If he sounded angry, it was nothing to how enraged he looked.
There was silence before Merlin answered. “I can guarantee that I’ll be able to retrieve her memories—”
“I won’t hear it.” Arthur’s tone was measured and even again. It was as much of a peace offering as Merlin could hope for.
“You must!” The mage rounded the table to Arthur’s side. “When the Saxons attack and you have no plan, no one’s survival will be guaranteed. This is your duty!”
That was the wrong thing to say. Arthur leveled Merlin with a cold stare. “And what of your duty? So far, the mages have made promises about magic that they cannot keep.” His voice was rising again. “What of your responsibility? That you would ask me for a human sacrifice for the magic you don’t understand is appalling. But that it’s Guinevere? You said she was like a daughter to you.”
“She was. She is!” Merlin cried. “Which should convey nothing but the importance of—”
Arthur slammed his fist on the table again. “I told you not to return without a safe solution. You do not rule this kingdom. You do not rule me. And you will not touch her.”
Vera was careful not to move in the silence that followed, aware that even the softest noise would be audible.
“If you do not wish to serve under me,” Arthur said quietly. Merlin huffed. “I will release you back to the council of mages. Is that what you want?”
“Of course it isn’t,” Merlin said. “Your Majesty, is that what you want?”
Arthur cast a glance toward the door, and Vera jolted backward and out of view before she heard him say, “Prove to me that you can unlock her memories and keep her safe.”
She couldn’t stay here. In a daze, with her head buzzing, Vera left. She knew where she needed to go.
The door to the mages’ study was closed. Merlin could be coming back any moment, but she’d decided the chance of a word in private with Gawain was worth taking. He might not even be there, but … she knocked.
“Not now,” Gawain’s voice scolded from beyond the shut door. “I already told you that I will meet you at the festival set up—” he’d flung the door open midsentence and stopped as he saw Vera there. “Oh. Sorry.”
“Is this a bad time?” she asked, curious who he’d been expecting to find.
He opened the door further in invitation, and Vera obligingly stepped in. “I’m just finishing …” he gestured vaguely toward his desk as he closed the door.
There was a glass instrument on the desk—a round globe with a tube as wide as the tip of Vera’s pinky stemming from its bottom and running beside the bulbous main container up to the top.
“What is that?” she asked. She was stalling.
But Gawain’s expression brightened. “It’s … well, magic creates a sort of pressure. Its presence impacts the atmosphere of a space, particularly an enclosed space.” He picked it up. It fit comfortably in his palm as he held it between them. “This device is able to measure that pressure. I’ve just done my first successful test.” He beamed at her.
“Brilliant,” Vera said, bewildered by what it meant. “Congratulations.”
“Thank you. It is rather brilliant.” He laughed like he held the key to the world in his palm. “It’s actually revolutionary.” When he met her gaze again, his excitement faltered, and his head tilted. “But that’s not why you’re here. Is there something wrong?”
“How is the kingdom outside Camelot?” she asked, endeavoring to sound casual. “Is magic doing better out there, too?”
Gawain set the device down. “Why do you ask?”
She’d come to believe that any time Gawain shirked from answering a question, there was a reason. Vera’s heart fell, afraid she’d already gotten her answer. “I overheard Merlin and Arthur arguing about it.”
He sighed and moved the chair that sat beside Merlin’s desk closer. Then he sat on the edge of his desk across from Vera. “Conditions have worsened. Especially in the eastern part of the kingdom.”
“They don’t have a Gawain,” she said, trying to make light of it while a pit gnawed at her insides. She was shaking a little and sank into the seat.
He smiled briefly. “They don’t have yourself and His Majesty.”
“You’re getting better at jokes.”
But Gawain didn’t so much as chuckle.
Vera needed to be brave now. “It sounded like Merlin’s figured out how to break through my locked memories.”
“That’s my understanding as well,” he said slowly.
“Arthur wouldn’t hear it because Merlin can’t guarantee my safety.”
He nodded. “A prudent choice.”
“I was relieved at first … to not have to do it.” But the relief had hit a wall. She was terrified to let magic in her mind. But if the kingdom was suffering, and they weren’t any closer to breaking Viviane’s curse outside the walls of this city, what choice did that leave? She didn’t want to do it.
What if Merlin was right, and it was the only way? Late spring was no longer a distant imagining. The kingdom was running out of time—and so was Vera. “I can never go home if I don’t remember,” she said. “Do you know how Merlin would get through my mind?”
“Yes,” he said. “It’s not so different from what he did before.”
She tried to hide the way an involuntary shiver pulsed through her, but she was sure Gawain had seen it. His deep-set eyes were fixed on her.
“Would it be like before with the pain and …” The pain. She could feel that searing, shattering horror just thinking of it. And there was the hole left in her memory, gaping where Vincent’s face should have been. “And the loss,” she added.
“I don’t know,” Gawain said.
“What if … could you try?”
Surprise made him look younger. “I only know the theory. I’ve never put it to practice.”
“Well, neither has Merlin,” Vera said. “Could you?”
Gawain frowned. She had spent enough time with him to know that he did this occasionally—went silent mid-conversation to think. So she waited.
“I could try,” he said. “I won’t pretend that my motives are entirely altruistic. I am curious. I’d like to study this block better for myself. I have the potion for it. And …” At this, he leaned forward and said through a tight jaw, “I will not proceed without your permission.”
If someone had told Vera three months ago that she’d choose Gawain to meddle inside her brain over Merlin, she’d have laughed. Merlin was the one Guinevere had trusted. Even Vera’s childhood dream memories included him making Guinevere smile on her dark days. And Merlin—the one the queen confided in when she came to her senses. Merlin, who had saved Guinevere’s life.
Not entirely out of kindness, though. He’d saved her to fulfill a task, one he believed vital to their survival. She’d heard it said more than once: Merlin would always put the kingdom first. Ahead of everything. Everyone. Vera should be half as selfless as him. This was her purpose, dammit.
But … what did it hurt for Vera to have some foreknowledge of what she’d be getting into this time? And Gawain, the rude and insufferable young mage who’d spied on her most private moments, who none of them really knew, was the one she chose to trust. Gawain, the secretly tender soul who thrived when teaching others how to use magic and dreamed of gifts being used to make musical instruments rather than weapons.