“I’ve convinced Arthur to ask for peace between Avalon and Camelot. To invite them to his birthday.” Ari winked awkwardly. When no one responded, she added, “We can’t just sit around and wait! We need to make the story happen. The pages in that book could go blank at any moment.”
“You wish to keep Arthur away from Gwen,” Jordan said.
Ari clapped her shoulder. “It’s a win-win!”
“Actually, space sounds great,” Gwen said, with a pointed sigh. “Arthur… wants to make out with me.” No one looked terribly surprised. King Arthur falling ass over crown for Gweneviere was definitely canon. “I’d say he wants to have sex, but I’m not sure he knows how sex works.”
“Because he’s eleven?” Ari asked.
“Every time you say his age, he gets younger,” Lam pointed out.
“Which is offensive to those of us who actually age backward!” Merlin cried.
Gwen’s face went through new contortions as she spoke. “Arthur has been focused on his kingdom for so long, but I think the melee made him feel more… excited… than he’s ever been before.”
“Yikes,” Lam said.
“Wait, the melee made him horny?” Ari nearly shouted.
Jordan did a full-body swivel toward the stage, giving them her back, acting as if the puppets had become suddenly fascinating. At least they were fighting now and not wagging swords.
Gwen focused on Merlin, because of course she didn’t want to talk to Ari about her “husband.” “I keep thinking Arthur is as young as Ari says, and then he gets this look in his eye…”
“Like there’s suddenly Prince playing in the background?” Merlin asked.
Gwen stared at him blankly. “The prince of what?”
A long lecture on the Artist Formerly Known as Prince formed in Merlin’s mind, but he dismissed it. There would be plenty of time for Purple Rain when they got back to the future. Right now, they needed to stay focused.
“I’m sorry you have to deal with this, lady.” Ari’s hands slipped across Gwen’s shoulders, threading her dark hair and doing something to the back of Gwen’s neck that made Gwen close her eyes, her mouth tipping open as if by instinct.
“Stop it, you two! At once.”
Ari and Gwen weren’t listening. Lam looked delighted, while Jordan seemed ready to bolt and reveal Merlin’s invisibility spell.
“Eyes on me!” Merlin said, feeling like the coach of an unruly sports team. “Ari, if you’re headed to Avalon, you might as well kill two birds with one quest. We need the help of an enchantress. We can’t involve Morgana, since that would affect the future. We must find someone willing to sacrifice some magic, so we can form the portal to take us back.”
“’Course,” she said. Which felt a little too easy, and she was staring at Gwen again.
“What did I say, Ari?” Merlin asked querulously.
“Enchantress. Not Morgana. Some magic.”
A troubled look fell over Lam. They fiddled with the tie on their bracer. “And what about Val?”
“Perhaps the Lady of the Lake will release him once she knows we’re close to returning.”
“I really could use my best advisor right now,” Gwen said. “What are your reasons for believing Nin’s helping us, Merlin?”
He shrugged one shoulder. “History?” he managed. “She’s always saved me from the worst of the cycle. Perhaps she’s doing the same for Val.”
“Why?” Lam demanded, an unexpected tone for them. But this was their brother stuck in Nin’s cave.
“No clue!” Merlin cried. “I’ve never been able to figure out the Lady of the Lake.” He started to explain, but the harder he tried, the more he realized he didn’t know. So much of Nin’s life had gotten lost in the fog of Arthurian backstory. She had been an enchantress once, but she wasn’t human anymore. She was eternal in some way that he didn’t understand. Merlin didn’t even know what to call her. A magical being. Somewhere between a ghost and a goddess.
“What is her power?” Gwen asked. “What can she do?”
“She usually… watches. Keeps track of Arthur’s story. Nudges things from her cave. Kidnaps me occasionally, especially when I’m about to die. Oh, and she makes magical weapons.”
“Holy shit, I miss Excalibur,” Ari murmured, fingers grasping the air as if the sword might appear.
“And I’m going to miss you,” Gwen said, sliding both hands into Ari’s. “Again.”
Ari glanced at each one of her friends, and Merlin fought back a strange instinct that she was saying some kind of goodbye that was about more than jetting off to Avalon for a few days. “Merlin, can anyone see us?”
“No. This is the spell I used in the alley when we first met. Remember?”
Ari smiled sadly. “Can you three… turn around for a second?”
Merlin turned, shoulder to shoulder with Lam and Jordan. “How long should we give them?”
“Not too long,” Lam said with a chuckle. “Or we’ll never get them apart.”
Merlin hummed his way through Taylor Swift’s “Ours” and then turned back around. He expected to find a post-makeout hormonal haze, but Ari was kissing Gwen’s wrists, silvery tear tracks on both of their cheeks.
“Be well,” Ari murmured, “both of you.”
She left, and Merlin watched her go, armor blaring in the midday sun. She moved differently here. Held herself differently. As if walking a very high wire.
“I’ve never seen her so serious,” Lam said. “She’s somehow stronger and yet more fragile. Beneath that armor, she’s tired and scared. Maybe more than when we faced the Administrator.”
Merlin put words to a theory that had been forming ever since she walked into the square. “She’s getting lost in playing Lancelot.”
“That’s because she is Lancelot,” Gwen said. “She always was, even before she knew it.” Lam looked at Gwen questioningly. “I can feel it, too. I’m Gwen of Lionel, but I’m also the Queen of Camelot. It’s… too much. Like being the hero and the victim at the same time.”
“The puppeteer and the puppet.” Merlin understood too well.
As if on cue, the stage erupted into a final battle. These shows were equally violent and whimsical, an unsettling combination. “Plus Ari doesn’t have Kay to keep her grounded anymore,” Lam said.
