Vera thought back to how he’d referred to Grady as an inhuman specimen, yet here he was, facing a dire situation and answering it with compassion.

“Why are you protecting me?” she asked.

Gawain looked Vera squarely in the eyes. She’d always been so distracted by how deeply set they were, how he often looked up at people with that unnerving scowl. But he had very kind eyes.

“Because the mages have a part in this, and we must be accountable for it,” he said. “And because you are my queen.”

Vera stared down at her toes, touched by his loyalty. She was stunned when he spoke again.

“But most of all, because you are my friend.”

Vera shifted in her saddle, unaccustomed to how armor stiffened her movements while riding. Lancelot was right: she should have worn it more to practice before it was necessary. After the ambush this morning, they were all in armor, even Gawain. It strangely suited him. Save for Vera, their entire traveling party had been on the front lines of war. She was the only one out of place.

Tristan drew even with her. His dark silver armor shone, and when the morning light hit it from certain angles, the dents and nicks revealed themselves, things he certainly could have fixed. He’d chosen to wear the marks of battle. He looked at Vera sidelong, trying not to let her catch him.

She smirked. “What?” she said, like she would any other day. In an unspoken agreement, they were pretending as if boundaries had not been crossed last night.

“I never thought I’d see you in armor,” he said. “You look incredible.”

She couldn’t keep from glancing in Arthur’s direction. He rode with the younger of the two soldiers, a man with a severe yet boyish face and a nose that had clearly been broken before. He glowed under Arthur’s undivided attention, though Arthur glanced away just long enough to catch Vera’s eye, inclining his head to her with a smile before he returned to the conversation.

He wasn’t avoiding her, but after she and Lancelot gave him the full story of what happened with Merlin, he kept his distance. Tristan, however, stayed close. He rode at Vera’s side, as charming as ever. When he made particularly affectionate comments, he’d cast furtive glances in Arthur’s direction, checking for the king’s responses. Vera chuckled as she realized Tristan was still trying to woo her. She couldn’t imagine she would change her mind about being with him, but she admired his persistence.

There was no definitive delineation between where one town stopped and the next began. But an hour and a half after they left Faringdon, they crossed a wooden bridge (just broad planks bound together) over a trickling creek, and midway, everything in sight visibly shivered like the air above boiling water. Vera whipped around to Gawain in alarm.

He nodded once, his calm an immediate reassurance. “We’ve entered the Mages’ Cloak,” he said. He pulled his horse even with Vera and murmured, “Oxford is shielded by a network of mage craft in a ten-mile radius surrounding the city. If attackers come, this will stop them. There’s no army here, no lord or lesser king. But there are a lot of mages,” Gawain’s eyes glinted, “and it’s a great treasure to protect.”

Nothing could have prepared Vera for Oxford. She could see from a distance that it wasn’t the Oxford she knew. Where she’d expect dramatic gothic spires pointing to the sky, instead, Vera found the skyline dotted with peaked domes, like clouds specked above the city. As they rounded the bend onto the High Street, her eyes went wide. Most of the buildings were round (“It’s the most magically conductive shape,” Gawain had whispered in her ear) and made of polished cream stones that gleamed in the light of enormous orbs glowing even in the daytime. They floated above the cobbled lanes like centerpiece chandeliers every thirty steps. No matter what direction Vera turned, she saw magic at work.

They passed an open-air amphitheater where a team rehearsed their telling of an epic adventure complete with flying performers, precise and colorful explosions of pyrotechnics, and perfectly amplified sound. On the opposite side of the road walked a full-sized elephant crafted of shimmering stone—for what practical purpose, Vera couldn’t divine. She nearly cried out when a woman with wild hair and her face bent low, poring over the parchment in hand, walked right into the elephant. But she wasn’t bowled over. She passed through the beast’s belly, only a puff of mist disturbed from where she reemerged.

As they traveled the High Street, Vera tried not to blink. She peered in any open door she could as they passed, spotting a round room splattered all over with vibrantly colored paint and two people in the center standing back-to-back. There were no features, gender, or clothing to be recognized because they, too, were covered in paint and were only distinguishable as humans because of the way they waved their arms like orchestra conductors, color spraying out at every gesture.

Further on, she craned her neck to watch a wizened woman laden with scrolls in her arms kick open another door. Magnificent indigo smoke seeped out and swirled overhead, dissipating into oblivion. Bright sparks crackled in the laboratory beyond before the door was promptly closed.

Reaching the end of the lane was almost a disappointment, but Merlin waited there, tense and his expression unreadable. He stood before the most prominent building yet; the round structure behind him had tubed corridors jutting from its base on both sides, extending farther out and back than the eye could see. It towered above them. Vera counted five stories of vaulting windows beneath the dome at the top. In lettering no taller than her index finger (useless compared to the vast building it adorned) were simple block letters stamped above the arched doorway: MAGESARY.

“The council is convened and awaiting your arrival,” Merlin said. He arranged for their horses and bags to be taken to the inn, where their party would stay for the night. The soldiers remained at the ready outside the Magesary, with Tristan joining them. Vera didn’t know if that had been discussed before, but he didn’t act surprised nor affronted by his exclusion. The attack this morning had done at least one helpful thing: there was no doubt as to the urgency of this meeting. Gawain took his place next to Merlin, his movements stiff and face pale. Merlin gestured them toward the arched doorway.

There was no door, no visible barrier there at all. Arthur walked through first with Vera on his heels, but as her body crossed the threshold, she felt a sensation of many hands passing over every bit of her skin, whether exposed to the air or beneath her clothing—even the most concealed and intimate parts of her. She jumped at it and turned in time to see Lancelot raise his eyebrow and give a shudder. He’d felt it, too.

The happy cacophony of sound had gone silent on this side of the door. Merlin and Gawain stepped through the entry, unfazed by the experience.

“What is that?” Vera asked.

“It’s an unmasking,” Merlin said, striding past them to resume his place at the front and lead them across the echoing rotunda. “Any enchantments on a person are stripped away when they cross the threshold.”

Their footsteps echoed on the flagstone floor of the vaulted entry until they passed into a long corridor directly opposite where the sound deadened. There were many doors on either side, but they passed them all, walking until the corridor ended at another door, this one made of granite and reminding Vera of the entry to a mausoleum.