Merlin sighed. “I’m sorry, Guinevere. It’s been quite a day.”

She followed the two men into an entry chamber with high vaulted ceilings that made the echo of their footsteps louder than the steps themselves. There was a door on each side—one to the left, one to the right, and a grander door straight ahead on the opposite wall. With a flick of Merlin’s wrist, the fixtures along the walls filled with light.

“Is he … ?” Lancelot asked.

“He’s coming,” Merlin said quickly, but uncertainty colored his voice. “Wait right here.” He hurried off toward the grand door opposite them.

A flutter rose in the lowest part of Vera’s belly. She was suddenly very conscious that she’d been on a horse for hours and had her face pressed against it. She straightened her circlet, making sure the moonstone rested in the center of her forehead, and she tried to flatten her dress around her legs.

“Do I look all right?” she asked without thinking, then felt immediately stupid and wished she could take it back.

Lancelot, however, answered without hesitation. “You look beautiful.”

A flame of affection warmed her chest again. His Adam’s apple bulged with a heavy swallow. He was anxious, too.

Through the open door where Merlin had disappeared, a faint sound from the hall beyond grew louder and more distinct. It was the sound of footsteps. Vera stiffened. She wished she could hold Lancelot’s hand for support. She glanced down. His hand nearest her was poised on the pommel of his sword, a stance he seemed to take out of habit rather than a defensive posture. He, too, watched the doorway but took a small step toward Vera so that his bent elbow grazed her arm.

Merlin rounded the corner first with another man on his heels. He had to be Arthur. His eyes were trained on the floor in front of his feet. He didn’t wear a crown or any finery and was dressed simply in an off-white shirt and dark trousers. And he wasn’t a small man. He towered over Merlin. Everything about Arthur was more intense than Lancelot; his shoulders were broader, and his hair much darker. It looked like it came to his chin but was pushed to the back of his neck, and it had the slightest curl, making it hard to tell its exact length. The wave at its ends may have made him seem boyish if not for the severe line of his mouth. He stalked across the room behind Merlin and stopped three steps away from Vera and Lancelot before looking up.

Vera hadn’t expected a tearful, joyous reunion, but she was still shocked. She took a reflexive half-step back before stopping herself. Arthur’s face was a cold slate, humming with anger, though he held his features in a way that felt determinedly expressionless. He might have been handsome, but Vera couldn’t see past his barely contained rage.

His eyes were a hazy grey when the light hit them right. They shone, a little watery, but not as if he were teary, more like … more like he’d been drinking. Fear prickled at the back of Vera’s neck as Arthur stared at her. She knew she must look exhausted, and she wondered if she looked afraid, too.

Merlin also watched her, expectant. Hopeful.

She shifted her gaze back to Arthur and tried, really tried. But there wasn’t a single thing that was familiar about the man before her.

No one asked Vera for confirmation. Her silence spoke volumes.

Merlin sighed. “It’s not unreasonable that remembering His Majesty will take time.”

Then Arthur looked away from her and spoke for the first time, his voice deep and with a low growl that made him sound frightening.

“That’s not her,” he said to Merlin.

Without a word or even a gesture to Vera, he turned and left through the same door he’d entered.

Lancelot had been as still as a statue the whole time, but now he moved quickly. He shifted his hand to Vera’s elbow. “I need to—” he said, his jaw clenched as he took a step toward the door. “But do you want me to stay here?”

Vera did, but she shook her head. “Go.”

“I’ll find you tomorrow!” he called as he hurried after Arthur.

The heart-thumping nervous energy that had pulsed through her all congealed and lodged as a lump in her gut.

“What now?” she asked Merlin.

His eyes were closed, and he took a breath before opening them. “This isn’t going how I hoped.”

“No shit,” Vera mused, letting out a bitter chuckle.

He smiled and cocked his head to the side like Vera was a painting (or an oddity) he was seeing for the first time. “I think many of us would be served well by a second chance at childhood with parents like Allison and Martin. It has clearly done your spirit good.”

Vera couldn’t help but feel gratified by his praise. And she’d only thought of Vincent once in the hours since she arrived, which was a far cry better than any other day since his death. Even as she congratulated herself, she pushed his memory away, afraid that she’d catch the virus of pain in this time, too, if she let his name linger in her thoughts.

“I thought Arthur would have responded more stoically.” Merlin patted her arm. “I’ll show you to your room. Your chambermaid will be there to help you. She’s helped run castle matters while you were away.”

“Does she know about me?” Vera asked.

“No,” Merlin said sternly. “Matilda, like all others, believed you to be away at a monastery the past year recovering from an accident. In any case, she will help with your duties as you get readjusted.” They wove through a maze of corridors with wall sconces that lit as they passed and dimmed in their wake until they reached an open doorway leading to a spiral staircase up one of the stone towers Vera had seen from outside.

The tower was so large that the stairs wound their own hallway up through it. Every story they ascended had a landing with a corridor cutting across the width of the tower. They stopped at the top, the fourth landing, where a lovely woman stood waiting.

Her wildly curly hair was a shade of red that reminded Vera of maple leaves in autumn. It was mostly tamed in a low twist at the back of her head save a few coiled strands that escaped and framed her forehead. Her simple, indigo-blue apron dress over an ankle-length white tunic complemented everything from her skin to her hair to her eyes. Vera guessed this was Matilda, though she didn’t recognize her. She must have been in her early forties, and she was also one of the most effortlessly beautiful women Vera had ever seen.

Matilda’s brow drew together with concern, and her disbelieving eyes were trained on Vera. “Your Majesty, I can’t believe you’re …” She trailed off. Her arms flinched upward as if to hug Vera. Instead, she stiffly clasped her hands together in front of her. “Well, I’m so happy that you’re home.”

“Thank you,” Vera said, unable to stifle a dull pang at the word home.

“I trust you have things well in hand from here?” Merlin asked.

Matilda nodded, and the mage bid them goodnight before he disappeared down the stairs. Silence fell. Matilda’s eyes searched Vera for a moment before she led her down the corridor to a door on the left. She unlocked it with a key that she fished from her smock’s pocket.

Vera stepped into the room behind her. It was clean and well-lit by a chandelier hanging from the ceiling, speckled with tiny, glowing orbs. Centered against the wall on Vera’s left was a large four-post bed with thick, navy-blue curtains hung from each post. On the wall to her right, next to another door, was a dark wooden desk.

The sound of a slam, wood against stone, pulled Vera’s attention to the wall opposite, the curved wall of the tower’s exterior. She saw the sound’s source almost instantly: a window, taller than her, carved up into the wall. Three stone stairs led up to it, where there was a blue cushion on a bench in what she thought would be a quaint reading nook. The window had no glass pane. Instead, wooden dowels crisscrossed one another to make a trellis of diamonds, each the size of Vera’s face. A gust of wind whistled through them, and again, the window’s unsecured wooden shutter crashed against the wall.