“What are the original gifts?” Matilda asked. She leaned forward intently.

“Rumors, mostly. They’re the powers that have been in myths and stories all across the world. One tells of the power to bring the dead back to life, another invincibility, and there are many different versions of the gift of immortality, the fountain of youth. In the Greek stories, it’s ambrosia—”

Vera perked up as the threads connected. “The Holy Grail?”

Gawain turned to her, his sallow eyes suspicious. “How have you heard about that?”

Vera picked at the tabletop with her fingernail to stall for time. “They mentioned it at the monastery.” Ah. Even with Gawain aware of her memory loss, she had to be careful not to betray the time travel bit. She wasn’t sure how long her go-to excuse of “the monastery” would hold for all the things she shouldn’t know.

Gawain held his stare on Vera.

“What’s the Holy Grail?” Lancelot asked. Percival and Matilda were intrigued as well.

That answered one question. Arthur nor his knights had their sights on the grail. That part of the legend had to be false.

After a pause that felt longer to Vera than it was, Gawain answered. “It’s rumored to be the cup Jesus of Nazareth used in his last meal and that caught his blood as he died on the cross. It’s said to contain such gifts of immortality to those who drink from it, like all the other cultures’ stories. Same ends—different magical mechanisms to achieve them.”

“So, the item gives the power? You don’t even have to have the gift to receive it?” Matilda asked.

“That’s the myth,” Gawain said. “But there’s no logical truth behind it.”

“How can you be sure?” Percival said. “If so many people all over the world have come up with the same thing, maybe there’s something to it.”

“What do all people who live have in common?” Gawain asked. He waited, like a teacher hoping his pupils would rise to the occasion. When they didn’t, he forged on. “We’re all afraid of dying. That’s what frightened people do. They make up stories that make them feel better. In this case, humanity came up with a story of magic that can alleviate our biggest fear. It’s an appealing prospect to believe in, especially when times grow dark.

“Even the council of mages has been caught up in that thinking. But unless we have actual, concrete answers, magic as we know it is doomed. I’ve not gained much popularity by saying it, but someone has to address the situation honestly. Magic’s dying out. If it continues to dissipate at this rate, it will have completely disappeared from humanity within two generations. I’m not entirely certain the world can even survive without it.”

Vera shifted in her seat, at a loss for how her life in the future made sense in all of this. Lancelot watched her keenly, chin propped up on his hand, and raised his eyebrows when she met his eye.

“There’s a sect of mages who believe that the original gifts are our key to saving things.” Despite the topic’s gravity, Gawain’s voice remained dry. “They’re as deluded as whoever came up with the notion of original gifts in the first place. The notion that there’s a power out there that we might find and use to fix things in a markedly bleak situation is soothing. It’s also a farce.”

“So … that’s it?” Matilda asked. “We’re doomed?”

They stared at him in the heavy silence that followed, only broken when Percival let out a low whistle. “Sheesh, Gawain,” he said with a disbelieving laugh, “You’re a real riot at a party, aren’t you?”

“It might be hard to believe,” Gawain murmured, “but I haven’t been invited to many parties.”

They weren’t sure if he was joking until he looked up from his drink, and his sullen face bore a hesitant grin.

“A joke!” Lancelot yelled as he threw his hands in the air. They laughed and offered a toast to Gawain’s efforts at party conversation, an unofficial welcome to his presence among them. Vera wasn’t entirely sold on him after his theories rattled the purpose of her existence. But if Lancelot had made a friend of Gawain, that would be enough to call the man at least tolerable for the time being.

This last toast left many of their cups empty. Vera jumped up and began collecting their tankard handles between her fingers with the particular skill of a woman who’d waited tables since she was seventeen.

“Absolutely not!” Matilda reached to try to grab the cups, but Vera stubbornly pulled them away. “You are not going to serve us!”

“Rock, paper, scissors for it?” Vera asked.

Matilda rolled her eyes and begrudgingly agreed. As Vera sat the cups down and they began to play for best two out of three, Lancelot gaped at them open-mouthed.

“What the hell is this?” he asked. “Is this a game? Why don’t I know this?”

Vera closed out the bout, covering Matilda’s rock with her paper. She spared Lancelot a shrug. “Sorry! Matilda will teach you because she just lost, and I am off to get drinks!”

She’d forgotten that there would be no blending in. Not in this time, not on this night, and certainly not in her incredible gown with the shimmering crown on her brow, marking her as royalty. The barmaid seemed starstruck when Vera carefully set down their five mugs on the counter.

She looked about herself anxiously as she refilled them. “Please let me find someone to help you carry these. There are servers here … somewhere.”

Vera tried to reassure her, but the mugs were rather heavy, and she hadn’t thought through how she would manage it with all of them once filled. Thankfully for her (and further unnerving for the barmaid), Arthur stepped up to the bar beside her.

“I can help,” he said. He procured his empty mug for a refill as well. “I’ve done my greeting duties satisfactorily enough. Think we can manage six of these between the two of us?”

“Easily.”

When they returned to the table, Lancelot, Percival, and Matilda cheered Arthur’s arrival.

“Perfect!” Lancelot said as Vera and Arthur took their seats. “Now we have an even number. Right: the game is rock, paper, scissors. Best two out of three wins. Loser drinks. Arthur, you’ll catch on. Do this, this, or this,” he mimed the three options, “on ‘shoot.’ It’s all luck anyway.”

Vera lost count of how many games she’d won or lost, but she was sure there’d never been a night in her life when she’d laughed more, never been a time when her name (well, sort of her name) had been called so often from someone—a friend—who wanted to talk to her.

She and Arthur had thrown rock simultaneously for the third time in a row when she laughed and leaned into his shoulder. He smiled as he gingerly touched her elbow, his fingers tracing around one of the embroidered swirls before he dropped his hand. Vera’s heart sank as soon as he withdrew that gentle touch. She wanted to be close to him.

“Would you like to dance some more?” she asked, entirely on impulse.

He didn’t remind her that she only knew the one dance. And she couldn’t say how long they danced, only that Arthur called out the moves as he’d done that morning. No one seemed to care that their queen often made missteps or went the wrong direction—only that she often laughed with her head tossed back as their king, more jubilant than they’d ever seen him, didn’t once tear his eyes away from her.

When the night grew old and the dancing music ended, the area was cleared to ready a bonfire for the dried trees of last year’s Yule to be thrown on. The table of friends had dispersed through the party. Vera spotted Matilda and Percival over by the guards who’d traveled with them to Glastonbury. Lancelot proved harder to find. After a while scanning the crowd, Vera caught sight of Gawain as he skirted the edge of the lit festival area. She was nearly ready to give up her search for Lancelot when she noticed movement in the dark beyond Gawain.

He looked only a hazy specter until he broke the lantern’s threshold and entered the light. Sure as day, it was Lancelot. She had seconds to wonder where he’d been when a pretty young woman, her locks of curling dark hair mussed about on one side, emerged from farther down in the dark, too. Now that Vera paid closer attention, Lancelot’s tunic was also askew, and he hurriedly brushed the grass from his trousers.