Next came the presentation of the Yule crowns. It wasn’t Maria who processed onto the field for this, but a band of four children. The two youngest were at the front, a girl and a boy, each carrying a crown on a pillow, reminiscent of ring bearers. They were at the end of their toddler years and had an older child attendant accompanying them to keep them on task when they wanted to wander or shy away from the surrounding crowd.

Vera squatted down to be at eye level, and Arthur followed suit. She smiled encouragingly, emboldening the little girl to close the gap.

“Happy Yule, my queen lady!” She held out the Yule crown to Vera. The beautiful and earthy things were made with quartz sticks and gold wrapping them together. The older attendants placed them on Vera’s and Arthur’s heads. His was simpler: woven wire with one dark, round crystal at the center. Vera’s was a radiant eruption of crystals.

“Can we wear these every day?” she asked Arthur.

She was kidding, but Arthur said, “Yes,” though his eyes more plainly said, whatever you want.

The feasting and dancing began in earnest after that. Arthur and Vera retreated to their table to a bawdy welcome from their friends, who were clearly all feeling pretty good. Lancelot fussed and ensured she had food (because that was what he did, and she loved him for it), and Arthur got Vera a drink.

“I need to make a quick round to offer greetings, but you,” he said, emphatically holding up a hand as she stood to join him, “should stay here and enjoy yourself. This isn’t an official affair. No one would begrudge you that.”

She had no desire to argue. This table of raucous laughter and no expectations for her to be anyone but herself was precisely where Vera wanted to be.

“Guinna,” Lancelot said. “We’re interrogating Gawain to get to know him better, and it’s great fun.”

Matilda leaned toward Vera to bring her up to speed. “So far, we’ve learned he’s the youngest mage on the high council—”

“By twenty-two years,” Lancelot cut in.

“Yes, I was getting to that,” she said, batting at Lancelot with her napkin. “By twenty-two years, that his favorite gift he has is being able to do some healing work, and that he is well aware of how much his demeanor infuriates Percival.”

“But only because Lancelot told him,” Percival cut in with the exasperation he reserved especially for the mage. “Otherwise, he felt we were getting on fine.”

Even Gawain cracked a reluctant smile, though he had a drink in front of him, too, and Vera thought it would be a fair guess that none of them were on their first round.

“I have a question.” Percival eyed Gawain sharply. “You said you study who magic comes to and how the break happens and all that nonsense, right?”

Gawain didn’t acknowledge the insult. He merely nodded.

“Isn’t the magical birthrate one in every four people?” Percival asked.

Gawain listed his head from side to side. “It is lower than that now. Closer to one in ten, according to my research. But it would have been about one in four when you were born.”

“Right.” Percival rolled his eyes. “Here,” he gestured around the table, “we’ve got four of us, and not one has a magical ability.”

Gawain waited with a deadpan face. “Do you have a question?”

“Yes!” Percival’s annoyance had them all stifling laughter. “My question is, what the hell? What gives? Shouldn’t at least one of us have a power?”

“Statistics don’t order themselves to our expectations.” If Gawain intended to sound condescending, he succeeded. “It all comes down to the population dispersion, how people tend to group themselves, and what roles each party has to fill. I’ve found that the rates of magic in, say, leaders in armies tend to be far lower. Maybe they’re threatened by their inability and prefer to keep those with magic in a more pigeon-holed role? Perhaps those who cannot do order others to do.”

If Vera only had a blow dart and could have offered Gawain the mercy of tranquilizing him, she would have. Lancelot pressed his hand hard against his mouth, but she could see him laughing. Matilda patted Percival’s arm, who looked like he’d enjoy nothing more than to punch Gawain. Thankfully, the table was between them.

Gawain forged on without any clue. “Whatever the actual cause, the truth remains that it’s perfectly reasonable that none of you would have any powers.”

“Let me get this straight.” Percival leaned forward as far as he could toward Gawain, who finally took note of his precarious position and leaned away a bit. “You’re saying that Lancelot and I are either talentless hacks who are afraid of magic or that we happen to have rotten luck and are statistical anomalies. Do I have that right?”

“Erm,” Gawain said, his eyes darting between them. That was a yes. When Percival burst into laughter, they all followed suit.

“What about Guinna’s knack for strategy?” Lancelot said. “That could be a gift … Though, if it is, it’s a load more boring than being able to make fire or heal people or whatnot.”

“No,” Gawain said. “If Guinevere had a gift, she wouldn’t have ended up queen.”

“Why not?” Vera asked.

“You must have been too young to remember,” he said quickly, his cover for Vera’s ignorance so smooth even Lancelot didn’t seem to notice it. “Right around the time you’d have been born, the Christian leaders near your familial home of the North Upton territories rounded up all children with the gift, no matter how powerful its manifestation, and sent them to vocational training to join the religious order. It was their attempt to respond to the foundation of the council of mages after the massacre of Dorchester. They wanted their own supreme board of power. And,” he added gravely, “they wanted all trace of magic away from their populations. A knee-jerk to the horror inflicted by—”

“Oh! I’ve got it!” Percival pointed at nothing in particular. “Lancelot’s like really lucky. Nobody ever died in battle when paired up with him. Come to think of it,” he turned to Lancelot, “it’s pretty damn brilliant to have you on the king’s detail.”

Lancelot snorted. “Thanks a lot, Perce. Let’s conveniently forget that I trained since childhood and have dedicated my whole life to being a soldier. Can’t be that I’m actually an excellent fighter. No, it’s got to be magic.”

Gawain eyed Lancelot appraisingly. “No one ever died when fighting at your side?”

He tipped his mug toward the mage. “Not once. Bit of a point of pride for me. But even in my big-headedness, I can acknowledge that much of that came down to luck.”

“That could be a gift,” Gawain said as he scratched thoughtfully at his chin. “Part of my theory about magic breaks that occur at an advanced age holds that even someone unaware of their dormant gift might exhibit latent magical traits. Like the specimen in Camelot—”

“His name is Grady,” Vera said with a glare.

He halted and, after a pause, stiffly nodded. “Thank you. Like Grady, yes. His father told me that he’d always been naturally inclined to woodworking. Of course, it’s not evidential proof, but the correlation between that and the manifestation of his power makes me wonder.”

Lancelot nudged Gawain with an elbow and gave his most winning smile. “You think I’ve got some fantastic power lying in wait?”

Gawain cast his eyes upward as he considered it. “Mm. Magic is clever, and I believe it deliberately hides. If you did have a gift, we’d actually make it far less likely to appear by telling you about it. Later life magic most commonly breaks via the necessity of a disaster.”

“There you have it,” Lancelot said. “My life has been in dire peril somewhere in the realm of hundreds of times, so if my incredible secret gift didn’t break during any of those instances, I’m fairly certain it doesn’t exist.”

“Seems about as likely as the original gifts’ existence,” Gawain admitted. “That’s to say; highly unlikely.”