She saw Kay with empty, lifeless eyes.
Ari thrashed until it all evaporated, coming back to her senses in strong arms. Sharp, real smells filtered through her. Hay, mold, horses. A lot of horses.
“This isn’t how I imagined our reunion.” Lam’s voice was in her head, or close to it.
Merlin’s voice floated down. “Have you ever seen that happen before?”
“I’ve never seen someone take one of those before. I’ve heard it can be unpredictable.”
“Unpredictable? I think I prefer Miracle Max’s miracle pill.”
“Merlin, what are you going on about?” Jordan’s taut words made Ari wince.
“I’ll have you know that’s a timeless cultural reference!”
“Shut up,” Ari managed, her mouth cotton. “I’m stuck in my worst memories.”
“That sounds like Ari!” Merlin knelt close, and Ari turned away, still fighting the desire to scream or punch. She peered out a window, searching the night sky and its pinpricks of stars for home. But Ketch wasn’t out there. Neither was Lionel, or even Error. They didn’t exist yet, and it left Ari feeling like she had these long months on her own. Like a futuristic ghost.
Ari closed her eyes. “Damnit, Kay. Help me, will you?”
“No doubt he’d upend Camelot for you, if he were here,” Merlin said, finally drawing her attention to the here and now. She was lying back on Lamarack in the straw mountain of a stable.
“If I let you go, will you behave?” Lam’s tone was gentle, but their hold wasn’t.
“I always behave.” Ari sat up gingerly, her heart still racing, tightening her chest with anxiety. She winced through the bitter aftertaste of Mercer’s famed first aid pills, the kind that could regenerate major tissue damage if immediately administered but were so high priced no one ever had one lying around. Ari had only used a pill like it once before, the day her mothers and Kay saved her from the void, her body riddled with infected burns.
“What happened?” she asked.
Lam rubbed her back. “You appeared like an armored angel in the midst of battle, took a dagger through both lungs, and yet you’re still with us. Thank God.”
“God? Since when do any of you reference singular, all-powerful deities?” Merlin asked.
“Lamarack is a little too good at adapting,” Jordan replied dismissively. “And you’ve been missing for a long time, mage.”
Ari held the spot under her arm that was hot and numb. For the first time in weeks, she wasn’t in her armor. Her clothes were stained and ripped, her breasts barely concealed beneath the ragged linen. “Where’s Gwen?”
“In the keep with her husband, the king,” Jordan said with far too much satisfaction.
“He came back for her,” Lam said, “after you magically appeared in the fray, saving Gwen only to get stabbed by our resident asswipe.”
Jordan narrowed her eyes. “You don’t know what you’ve cost Gwen. Again. That pill was for her.”
Ari stood too fast. Lam steadied her with a soft arm around her waist. “You had that pill for when the baby comes, in case something goes wrong.” Clarity struck like a match. “Shit.”
“No doubt the idiot people here will think this miraculous recovery is witchcraft and burn you at the stake,” Jordan said, “but apart from that you’ll be fine in a few hours.”
“You make it all sound so romantic,” Ari deadpanned. “Did I… hurt Gwen, too?”
“No,” Lam said. “Just us. We brought you here. You called me ‘Administrator’ and Merlin ‘Hector’ and tried to attack us. Who is Hector?”
“No one.” Ari closed her eyes. “I kept hallucinating. Seeing my enemies. What did I call Jordan?”
“Jordan,” she said.
Ari cracked an eye to peer at Lionel’s famed black knight. Jordan smirked, and Ari didn’t stop her own smile. “Perhaps it was just worthy opponents then.”
Merlin wandered to the large, open doors of the stable and back again.
“Why do you keep doing that?” Jordan asked.
“It’s just… if Ari and I returned on the same day, Val must not be far behind. Perhaps he’s in Camelot now, looking for us,” Merlin said. “Perhaps I should go look for him.”
Lamarack’s smile was sad. “If my brother were here, we’d all know it. He’s never made a single entrance in his life without significant fanfare. The same hour he was born an ice volcano erupted on Pluto so huge that a new frozen range formed. Our parents named the highest mountain after him. Percival’s Point.”
Merlin wrung his hands. “But then, where could he be?”
“Judging by where the portal dumped me out, anywhere.” Now that Ari could see her friends clearly—Jordan in a handmaiden’s dress and Lamarack in servant’s rags, she started to put together the hard truths. They must have been here for a while. And it hadn’t been easy. “Tell me what’s happened.”
Lam turned Ari toward them. “Gwen, Jordan, and I found ourselves in Camelot during the last snow of the winter. We were freezing, starving. And desperate to find the rest of you.” Ari winced, imagining Gwen in the melting snow, pregnant and searching for her. “We worked our way into the villagers’ trust. Labored for them, found ways to be paid in food and lodging. It was near impossible because… because…”
“Because when you don’t slot into people’s expectations here, they get suspicious at best and violent at worst? Because you’re used to the future, where it’s no big deal that you’re nonbinary, Jordan is a famous knight, and Gwen is knocked up and not here for patriarchal nonsense?” Merlin said, surprising Ari with robust anger. “This whole planet can kiss my ass!”
Ari held down a smile. That might have been the first time she’d heard Merlin swear. “The people here aren’t welcoming, but at least they don’t seem to treat us poorly based on skin tone. Didn’t you say that was a bizarre, evil thing they did?”
“Oh, they definitely did,” Merlin said heatedly. “But I’d
