Surely he shouldn’t need to explain that one.
“You’ve heard of the butterfly effect?” Merlin barked. “Changing the tiniest thing in the past can damage the future. Gwen has leapt into the middle of a mythological hurricane! She and Arthur are bound to each other! Literally!” He paused. “Are they handfasting?”
Handfasting was a scrap of history he’d forgotten about in the great heap of time that came after it. He’d never paid much attention to anything having to do with traditions of love and romance. He’d called it idiocy, or brainmelt in his kinder moments, but he did remember this test of loyalty and devotion. Those who meant to marry were tied together for the length of their engagement, the knots cut on their wedding day. Most couples handfasted for a year, but Gwen had arrived today, mere hours ago.
Unless… she hadn’t.
He flashed back to the portal’s winds, everyone separated. Merlin had imagined they landed in different places, but what about different times? “Did you arrive—”
“Months ago,” Lam finished wearily.
“Tell me everything,” he yelled. “Now!”
His outburst drew looks from the crowd. Lam—who had lost a hand to Mercer in the future—angled to grab Merlin with the remaining one and hauled him many yards away. “We have to lay low, Merlin. We’ve been here for a long time. Me, Gwen, and Jordan.” Lam pointed to the sturdy blonde girl in the lineup of handmaidens with flowers in their hair.
“That was Jordan!” Merlin squinted. She looked like she wanted to hack her white dress and garlands from her body with the nearest battle-axe. Her hair hung to her waist, her cheeks the severe pink of barely restrained fury. He was afraid to ask his next question. “Ari? Val?”
Lam shook their head. “No sign of them.”
“But how long have they been missing? How long have I been missing?”
“Four months… ish?” Lam managed. It made sense. Tracking Earth’s moon wouldn’t be an obvious business to Merlin’s space-born friends. “Gwen keeps better track of it than I do.”
“Naturally.” She had an internal calendar, set to the progression of her pregnancy, no doubt. “But four months,” Merlin said, swallowing the loss, trying to glimpse Gwen’s stomach and finding that her wedding dress had a strategic shape that turned her into a formless bell. “Does Arthur know she’s…?” He pantomimed having a round stomach, and then having the contents of that stomach, well, slide out.
Lam grabbed one of Merlin’s hands, stopping him. “We’ll explain when we’re all together. Gwen will want to tell you. This place…” Lam winced. “Camelot is not what we thought.”
Looking around, Merlin had to agree. And while he was delighted to be wrong about certain things—such as the total whiteness of ye olde Britain—his lack of clarity about the past was its own kind of danger. Merlin was meant to be their guide. Not just to Old Earth, but to the story itself. As King Arthur and Gwen recited vows in strong, unwavering voices, he pressed himself to remember anything about the original Gweneviere. Too many movie actresses shot through his mind, and only one memory rang true: telling Arthur that he’d read the omens and that the young woman he’d fallen for was a curse on the king’s heart as well as his reign.
No wonder the people of Camelot didn’t trust her—Merlin had told them not to—and Arthur had claimed his first youthful rebellion by marrying Gweneviere anyway, while Merlin had kept to his tower during the ceremony like a miserable old falcon.
He would not glance at that tower right now. Rivers of sweat sprang up on his palms. “Gwen has put herself in horrible danger.”
“She knows what she’s doing,” Lam said as if they needed the reminder, too.
Arthur used a silver dagger to cut the knot binding him to Gwen. They slipped rings on each other’s fingers, and then the inevitable moment came when their lips met. He tucked one of her curls behind her ear. It looked fairly chaste in a picturesque sort of way. Still. King Arthur had just kissed Gweneviere. Their Gwen.
Ari’s Gwen.
“This is all so wrong,” Merlin whispered. Another cheer broke loose, but this time it didn’t die. It grew in pitch and frenzy, twisting from celebration to something more primal. Screams shattered the moment, turning it into a riot. Swords flew from sheaths. Villagers ran, while nobles were tightly circled by their personal guards. Merlin spun. “Who’s attacking?”
“It’s the Middle Ages, man. Who isn’t attacking?” Lam pounded him on the shoulder and rushed against the escaping masses. He kept close behind Lam, whose immense height divided the crowds on both sides. Merlin’s magic was still exhausted, but he couldn’t be a slouch in battle. He popped blue sparks in the face of a man who tried to stab Lam in the back.
“Get to Gwen!” Lam shouted.
It was hard to keep her in sight now that the architecture of the crowd had collapsed, but Merlin caught glimpses of her holding Arthur’s hand at the center of the tournament ring. The knights from the procession had begun battling each other, no order apparent in their attack. They seemed determined to take each other apart.
“Where are Arthur’s knights?” Merlin hollered to Lam as they hopped the railing and entered the straw and muck of the ring.
“Great question,” they called back. “Nothing here is like the story!”
He caught sight of Jordan running to Gwen’s side. She raised her skirts, kicked one of Arthur’s guards in the back, and ripped his sword out of his hand before he fell. Within moments she was taking down attackers, the only one in the crowd with a smile on her face.
An avian cry sliced the sky, making both Lam and Merlin stop. Everyone
