This seemed like a fresh rant. “When did you get here?”
“I seem to be the only person who arrived on schedule. I was in the portal only today. Val was right beside me a few hours ago, holding my hand.”
Lam pushed Ari’s short hair behind her ear. “I almost didn’t recognize you with this haircut.”
“Yeah, I’m a cis guy here. Apparently that means stupid chopped hair. Speaking of”—Ari dug around the straw at the pieces of her blue armor—“Where’s my breastplate? I need it. Last time someone figured out I have boobs I accidentally murdered him.” She started the sentence as a sort of informative joke, but it ended as harshly as that particular encounter.
Lam, Jordan, and Merlin watched her with paused expressions. She didn’t like those looks; it meant she’d have to explain the constant ragged lies she spun day after day simply to exist—not to mention the stinging absence of King Arthur’s voice deep inside as if she’d somehow lost him when she’d left the future.
Ari found her blue breastplate and strapped it across her chest. “I think I got knocked out in the portal. The last thing I remember is reaching for Gwen. And then someone pushed me.”
“It must have been my magic.” Merlin sighed. “I was trying to hold us all together.”
Ari shook her head. “Someone. I felt hands strike me. Next thing I knew, I was on the smoking wreckage of a battlefield. I stole a fallen knight’s armor and found someone who’d heard of Camelot. I started walking this way, realized I was on the wrong continent, and then hitched a ride with a bunch of smelly-ass Vikings across the water. The rest I’ll tell you some other time. When we’re safe back home.” Ari looked anywhere other than at her friends. “Tell me the worst thing to happen in my absence is Gwen found a new unsuspecting white boy to toss around.”
“Arthur,” Lamarack breathed, shaking their head. “He’s hard to explain.”
“Oh, but I’d love an explanation!” Merlin said, his voice a slight shout. “How did all of you translate my command of Don’t disturb the cycle to How about Gwen marries Arthur? We were supposed to get the chalice and get out. No parties. Absolutely no weddings. Now we’ve… mingled, and who knows what the future consequences will be!”
“Unless Gwen is the Gweneviere,” Lam said.
Merlin sputtered like a teapot on high boil.
“So we’ve broken the time continuum?” Jordan asked. “If Gwen were the original Gweneviere, Merlin would know. He was here. Is here. Twice over.”
They all looked at Merlin, and he washed a little green in the torchlight. “I don’t exactly remember the original Gweneviere terribly well.”
“Why not?” Ari asked.
Merlin squirmed. “You’ve met me, haven’t you?” Jordan raised one careful eyebrow. Merlin pointed at it as if this were proof. “See? She’s met old me. I’m a veritable monster.”
“Old you can’t be that bad,” Ari tried.
Lamarack gave a slow blink of affirmation.
“I might have limited memory of events that transpired several millennia ago, but that doesn’t prove anything about our current mess,” Merlin said. “It certainly doesn’t mean Gwen has been… absorbed… by the canon!”
Lam spoke up. “Gwen did this so we’d have a better standing, so we could be close to the chalice when the time comes. Also, this place is nothing like the stories. Camelot isn’t a haven for goodness. It’s all hate and fear and assassination attempts on poor Arthur. That guy is a walking bull’s-eye.”
Merlin paced in the straw, kicking it about. He’d rolled his sleeves up his skinny forearms, but it did little to hide the way he’d become so much smaller since the last time Ari saw him. He’d literally shrunk within his clothes. There was no denying it: Merlin was at least a year younger than he’d been when he entered the portal. “The plan remains to get the chalice.”
“Right,” Ari said. “When is Arthur’s eighteenth birthday celebration?”
“The big party is in a fortnight,” Lamarack said. “On midsummer. Morgana said the chalice would appear that night, a gift from the Avalon enchantresses.”
Ari tightened the straps of her breastplate, relieved to hide the part of her that seemed to incense men to shitty behavior in this time. “We find Val, get the chalice, and go home to the same night we left. How do we portal back?”
They all exchanged looks.
Even Merlin seemed to be waiting for one of them to have an idea. “Three kinds of magic,” he finally said. “That’s how we got here. Morgana’s, mine, and the Lady of the Lake’s sword. That should be enough to make an exact jump.”
“Enough?” Jordan tutted. “That sounds like a lot, wizard.”
“Well, you have me,” he said. “And there are bits of magic lying around Camelot. We’ll find… something.”
“Something,” Lam repeated, nice and slow.
Ari dug through the straw until she found the back plate of her armor. She laid it out, unfolding the linen padding until she’d unearthed the remains of Excalibur. The handle and hilt remained intact, but the blade ended jaggedly after a few short inches. “Would this work?”
Merlin stared. “That depends on if Excalibur’s magic is lost.”
Ari held it out to Merlin, but Jordan snatched it. The sword fragment’s weight seemed to grow exponentially in Jordan’s grip. She dropped it back in Ari’s hands after a strenuous second. “Something magical is still going on there.”
Ari smiled at Lamarack. “Something.” Lamarack winked. Perhaps the medicine was finishing up its healing, or maybe for the first time in months, Ari could feel some kind of hope. “Merlin and I will get the chalice. Lam and Jordan, find Val. And Gwen…”
“Will distract Arthur,”
