And then Merlin blinked, and Val was gone.
Stolen right out of his arms.
Drumbeats announced the procession as knight after knight on horseback rode into the ring. Merlin watched while they circled, noticing armor from all kinds of places. Most likely these knights had traveled for weeks to attend the event and seek favor from the king. Some of their suits were polished silver; some red, scratched, and dented; others blackened with coal. One knight stood out in blue armor, a circular dragon emblazoned on his breastplate.
Merlin squinted, both recognizing the image and drawing a complete blank as to what it meant. “I should remember more,” he muttered, but then, he was seeing this wedding for the first time. His old self had boycotted Arthur’s wedding—that much he did remember.
After the knights, women with flowers in their hair and woven around their ankles stepped forward, faces calm but unsmiling. As they formed a circle and started a complex pattern of steps, Merlin noted that it wasn’t a homogeneous medieval dance crew. For some reason, he had expected everyone to be whiter than the puffy clouds above the tournament ring. A single look proved that wasn’t true. While some girls were white and wildly freckled, others had smooth bronze complexions. There were pale blondes and paler redheads, as well as maidens with warm brown skin and tight black curls tumbling out of their braided crowns. One girl had a Middle Eastern set to her features and jewel-bright eyes much like Ari. One looked so much like Jordan with her thick blonde braid that Merlin did a double take. But no. Jordan would put her neck on the block before she’d throw herself into such festivities.
He went back to scanning the—also surprisingly diverse—crowd for his friends, when the star of the show appeared.
“King Arthur!” the people cried as one. “All hail King Arthur!”
Merlin’s heart skidded to a stop. It had been so long since he’d seen Arthur. His first family, his only real family until Ari and the others swept him into their lives. At a distance, Arthur looked small, his straw hair unkempt beneath a golden circlet crown and his moves jerky with nerves. There was no command in his presence, no steel in his gaze. He wasn’t yet the king of legend, but he wasn’t the curious, half-wild boy Merlin visited so often in memories. He was caught between the two.
Merlin wanted nothing more than to shout Arthur’s name, break through the crowds, and reunite himself with his former ward and first magical pupil, but such a meeting wasn’t in the cards. Interacting with the story in the past was strictly off-limits. They were here to steal from Camelot, not make fools of themselves by bum-rushing the king.
Arthur walked slightly sideways, pulling a woman in a cream-white dress in his wake. She wore greenery in her dark curled hair, blossoms around her neck, and a decorative knot of cords on her wrist that bound her to Arthur’s arm.
“Gweneviere!” several people shouted, almost reverently. Many more stayed silent. While no one would openly jeer the king’s choice, dislike crusted over plenty of features. Merlin huffed and looked back to the bride. And blinked. And then blinked harder.
Gwen?
The girl he’d known as the queen of her own Renaissance Faire Planet was standing at the dead center of Camelot, her gaze defiant until she turned to Arthur and gave him an encouraging nod. Gwen looked like she fit right in, perhaps because her life had been a unique form of training for this moment. Even if her mix of European and Asian heritage set her apart enough that the youth at the well had given her the micro-aggressive title of “exotic.”
The truth was that Gwen had come from much farther than anyone in Camelot could imagine. Far enough to be measured in galaxies and centuries. That’s the sort of distance it took to be safe from Mercer, and they were meant to be hiding out, yet it looked like Gwen had done more than storm the castle—she’d broken down the doors of the king’s heart.
In a single day? How?
Merlin clutched his head as he remembered that she’d gotten married to Ari in less time than that. Oh, this was bad. Tremendously bad. He could feel the time continuum wobble. He’d have to freeze the entire stadium and steal her out of the tournament ring, and…
“Merlin!” a voice whisper-shouted. Someone snagged his elbow and he was drawn back through the crowd, away from Gwen upending the entire Arthurian cycle.
Merlin came to an abrupt stop before a familiar knight in unfamiliar clothes. They wore the same rough-spun as the rest of the commoners. Their dreads were pulled back, but they sported no piercings. No makeup glimmered on their deep brown skin. At least their smile was worth a hundred blazing suns.
“Am I glad to see you, dude!” Lamarack clapped Merlin in a hug, thumping his back. He ached all over from his portal dive and subsequent climb. “You look…”
“Younger,” he said with a wince. “I know.”
“At least you’re alive. We thought the worst.”
“Who is we?” Merlin glanced at the scrappy person keeping to Lam’s elbow, the same kid who’d witnessed his arrival.
“He came out of the well, Lamarack,” they squeaked.
“As if that were my first time at the bottom of a well.” Merlin scoffed. “Hardly.” He turned to Lam, only to find them looking over the crowd at Gwen, their height a great help in the effort. “What in the blazes is happening?”
“You’ve missed a lot, old man,” Lam said without taking their eyes off Gwen.
“Missed what?” he snapped. Lamarack ignored him, and the mage spun back to his most pressing concern. “What happened to ‘steal the cup and get out unnoticed’?” Lam quirked an eyebrow. Before they all went through the time portal, Merlin
