“Well, you’re very good at it.”

“My father would be proud,” he said. He found his place and resumed reading.

Arthur’s voice was so soothing. She didn’t remember choosing to close her eyes, nor how her head came to rest on his shoulder. In a half-awake moment of clarity, she realized that her cheek nuzzled into him, but with his steady voice rumbling through her and the heat of his broad shoulder beneath her skin, she couldn’t bear to turn away from such contentment. It almost felt like being with Vincent. She could nearly pretend it. Perhaps he might be able to imagine her as Guinevere—the real Guinevere of his memory. Maybe this would be their way forward … a broken and imperfect way that Vera and Arthur might bring one another comfort.

Eventually, he must have stopped reading. She came around as he was easing her down onto her pillow, and then his weight was gone from the bed. She opened her eyes in time to see him slipping the photo back into the book and setting it on the table before he touched the slab to lower the lights. Vera let her eyes fall shut as she felt the blanket being gingerly laid over her shoulders.

She’d always thought, always assumed, that Matilda was the one who came to check on her during the night, lowering the lights and putting her book away. Now, she wasn’t as sure.

That night marked the start of their careful friendship and an immediate shift in Vera’s life in Camelot.

“It’s probably best to display some affection,” Arthur had said the next day as they headed into town. “May I hold your hand?”

Her heart nearly leapt out of her chest. “That would be fine,” she said.

But by the week’s end, he inclined his head toward her to share private jokes at dinner. She would lay a hand on his arm as she laughed. It was a convincing act partly because there was no pretense in it for Vera. She liked him. His nearness felt like breathing fresh air after being too long in a cellar. And the people of Camelot began to notice.

It wouldn’t all be fixed in a snap, but the change had already begun to undulate out from them. Most of it was surprisingly due to Gawain, who Vera was convinced absolutely loathed her. Lancelot had insisted she was imagining it, but she would swear his scowl darkened with suspicion when he looked at her.

She didn’t have much cause to encounter him, though. Gawain was regularly dispatched to repair magical deficits through Camelot and the neighboring towns. It was a charge he apparently performed well, for the magic complaints in court significantly dropped the next week.

On the loveliest winter morning, Vera and Arthur watched Lancelot and Percival playing a game at the pit as the castle’s cooks prepared ingredients nearby. Yule was two days away with Christmas on its heels, and Vera and Arthur would travel with a small party (as she delightedly learned was customary) to Glastonbury for the Yule festivities the following morning. All seemed right in Camelot. The celebratory boar hunt was underway outside the town walls, and a great horn blasted in the distance, signaling that the party was closing in on the boar. The gates should soon be opened so they could parade the carcass back to the cook site.

Margaret, the head chef at the castle who was sweet and grandmotherly about all things except for the business of running the kitchen, paused her onion chopping at the sound.

“They’ll be back with the beast soon,” she said, gazing off in the general direction. “I thought we’d have a bit longer.” She wiped her hands on her apron and left her chopping post, calling out as she went. “Oy! Call up the butcher’s boy to magic up the meat. Let’s get the fire stoked for the spit!” She gave one final shout over her shoulder, “And for the love of God, someone finish chopping that veg!”

Vera looked to her left and right. All the other castle staff were already occupied. She wasn’t sure anyone else had heard Margaret’s orders.

She left the wall of the pit without a word to Arthur, stepped up to the vacant spot at the table, and took up the knife. She’d not chopped even a turnip in months, but years of kitchen work at the George were not so easily forgotten.

“Should I be alarmed at your proficiency with a blade?”

She broke her focus only momentarily to find that Arthur had left his spectator spot and was watching her instead.

Vera laughed. “I was trained by the best.”

He tilted his head and raised his eyebrow.

“My mum,” she explained, surprising herself by sharing so readily. She’d mostly avoided any conversation about her parents and certainly hadn’t willingly brought them up before now. “She had me chopping veg before it was wise to put a knife in my hands. I take it your mother didn’t recruit you in the kitchen?”

The moment the question cleared her lips, she wanted to pull it back in. His smile hadn’t fallen, nor his shoulders tensed, but there was something inscrutable that shifted in him and made Vera feel sure she’d touched a tender place.

“No,” he said, and he dropped his gaze to the table as he rolled a bulbous white onion beneath his palm. Just like that, the shadow fell from his features. “Care to teach me?”

“Don’t you want to watch the game?” She nodded at the pit, trying to give him a kind excuse to walk away. But he didn’t budge.

“We can see from here.” His eyes glimmered a little as his lips tipped to a smile. She found she couldn’t look away from them. She was struck by the realization that Arthur knew very well what it was like to kiss her. He knew the taste of her lips when she had no idea the taste of his.

She shoved the thought away as she found an extra knife for him and began showing the proper chopping technique as Allison had once taught her. He wasn’t accustomed to being so close to onion fumes and tears streamed down his cheeks in seconds, reducing them both to fits of laughter before Vera swapped his onion out for a cabbage.

People had begun watching them, pointing at the king and queen preparing vegetables for the town’s dinner. Grady waved to her as he passed by with one of the newly broken horses. She smiled and inclined her head, grateful for the friendly face. Chopping veg for dinner wasn’t exactly a proper royal activity, which nearly gave Vera pause, but Arthur was with her. Anyone watching saw that they were having fun, that he was being so warm—ah.

It hit her with a pang. The flirtation was an effective show.

It wouldn’t have bothered her if she stupidly hadn’t been swept up in it. He was far too charming.

When the sound of a horn cut through the air again, she was lucky her knife didn’t slip. It sounded again, only this time, it stopped mid-blast.

What happened next all went very quickly. Vera wouldn’t have seen anything amiss except that her eyes were already on Lancelot in the pit when his expression hardened. He stopped playing and, trancelike, climbed onto the pit’s wall, holding a post as he balanced on the slim ledge. No one reacted much at first save for askance glances at him.

“Two blasts means the hunt’s over,” Arthur said, but he also stared up at Lancelot. “They’ll open the gates over there.” He gestured in the direction Lancelot was looking, where there was an expansive field between Camelot’s wall and the forest. “So the party can parade into town with their prize.”

But Lancelot was shaking his head. Arthur set his knife down and went to Lancelot’s side. Vera followed.

“That blast didn’t sound right,” he murmured.

“What do you mean?” Arthur asked.

“I don’t know … just … Arthur, I think you should have them close the gates.”