“She did.” There was a note of defensiveness in Arthur’s voice that bewildered Vera. “She told me right away.” It was true. She had told Arthur all about her interaction with Gawain. But that had been before last night.

Gawain barely nodded before he launched right in. “I’m guessing there’s more to your memory loss than I know … more than Merlin is willing to tell me, I’m sure. From my observation, it seemed the potion had fostered some of the hoped-for attraction between the two of you but without any results on your memory. Am I correct?” he asked Vera.

Arthur had moved, his hand half raised as if to stop Gawain. But the words had already been spoken. Words that Vera didn’t quite comprehend, but a singe rose over the surface of her skin—like she’d touched a scorching oven burner, but her mind hadn’t yet recognized the damage.

A potion. For attraction.

Gawain had to be mistaken.

There hadn’t been any potion. Well, except for the one for the memory procedure and that was only for the procedure, wasn’t it?

But …

She’d never asked Merlin what was in it. And her attraction, that … desire, that need for Arthur was new.

Fuck. Her head swam. Her feelings for him had come from the potion. Did Arthur know? Did he know that Merlin had drugged her into desiring him? Her cheeks flamed with the shame of it as she tried to think through how pathetic and desperate she’d behaved with him. He’d certainly reciprocated, though. And it wasn’t as if he’d had a potion.

Wait.

There’d been the package from Merlin. The one Arthur had grimaced at. The one his eyes shot to in their room when Vera had been drinking the apple wine.

No. No, no, no. He wouldn’t lie to her about that. Gawain was mistaken. Or … Arthur didn’t know. He couldn’t.

She expected his denial or outrage, but he stared back at her, still as a statue.

Vera’s field of vision narrowed. Her ears started ringing.

“There’s another route we could …” Gawain was still saying something, but his words melted in with the ringing and became noise, and noise only. Vera’s breath sped up, and her rage expanded with each moment Arthur held her stare and silently admitted his complicity.

“Are you going to say anything?” she said, interrupting an oblivious Gawain mid-sentence.

Arthur cast a fleeting glance at the mage. “It’s complicated.”

Vera was so angry she could hardly see straight. “Oh. It’s complicated,” she repeated, drawing out every syllable.

Gawain glanced warily between them as he shifted in his seat. “I am unsure what is happening.”

“I will un-complicate it,” Vera said as her muscles began to shake with tension. She wished that she could have screamed at him, but she’d never felt smaller. “Stay away from me.”

She didn’t want to be near him for another second. She stumbled out of her seat, nearly losing her footing as she rushed for the door. She was in the back courtyard before she realized her feet were taking her there. The water tower loomed ahead of her. Merlin’s tower.

She wasn’t even sure the mage was here. He’d wisely avoided her since the day with the procedure—and the potion. But the door to his study was open, so she stormed right in.

Merlin sat at his desk and looked up from the assortment of potion bottles in front of him, the shock at her entry shifting from a smile of greeting to concern as he saw her face. It all flickered through his features in the space of a second. “Guinevere?” He stood, keeping his fingertips on the desk below him.

“Is that it?” She pointed at the bottles on his desk.

“What?” Merlin’s bewildered stare followed her eyes. “Oh, this,” he said. He picked up the smallest bottle and walked toward her, holding it in front of him. “This is a brand-new potion I’ve developed for—”

Vera snatched the bottle that he cradled so delicately and threw it with all her might at the wall behind him. It shattered, the crash and Merlin’s subsequent shock urging her on.

“For secretly drugging me and fucking with my feelings?” Vera asked. But it wasn’t a question. Not really.

Merlin sighed before he, infuriatingly, smiled sadly. “No.”

“Where is that one?”

“Guinevere—”

“I will smash every goddamn one if I need to.” Her eyes shot to the shelves where Merlin’s hundreds of colorful bottles blinked back at her in the orb light.

“That would be unwise,” he said quietly. He crossed back to his desk and sat down, scooting the remaining bottles there to the corner farthest from Vera. “Many of those are rare, one of a kind. And I’ve no access to the necessary gifts to replicate them. Including the potion for traveling through time.”

Vera’s chest tightened as she turned back to the shards of glass sprinkling the floor beneath the remains of the potion that dripped down the wall. What had she done?

“That,” Merlin said, “was a potion I made to help crops persist through poor conditions. I’d hoped it would help the kingdom in the coming season.” He gestured to the seat near his desk. “Will you please … ?”

She stayed rooted to her spot. “Why didn’t you tell me what that potion would do? I should have had a choice.”

“I would have,” he said. “But I thought it unwise in front of Sir Lancelot. And after the king forbade me from further work, I didn’t have ample opportunity to speak to you.”

“But you made time to get a fucking potion to Arthur,” Vera shot back.

Merlin nodded slowly. “I did.”

“Well, it didn’t work. It’s not going to work. There will be no connecting.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Merlin said. His calm was infuriating. “I thought I’d made it clear how important this work is.”

Vera lifted her eyebrows. “Gawain said the memories might not be necessary.”

“They are.”

“As you have assured me,” Vera snarled. There had to be more to this. More reason. “If connecting with me is all that’s needed to save Arthur’s kingdom, why the hell is it so impossible for him? What aren’t you telling me?”

Perhaps he saw in her eyes that she would not leave this room until he answered. Merlin gestured patiently at the seat near him. This time, Vera dropped into it.

“I’ve been surprised,” Merlin began slowly, “that you never asked why Viviane cursed us—surprised, but grateful. I’d hoped you would remember on your own, and I wouldn’t have to be the one to tell you.” He didn’t move. His expression hadn’t changed, but goosebumps rose on Vera’s arms and skittered up her neck.

“When the wars ended, and Arthur began to establish the kingdom, Viviane grew disenchanted,” Merlin said. “She’d believed he would be a different sort of ruler than the power-hungry conquerors, and make no mistake, he is. But she wanted more. She dreamed of a rather idealistic economic structure, and when Arthur accepted money from the rich to build the kingdom and allowed them their titles of nobility, lands, and power, Viviane was dismayed that it was all the same. What was the point in fighting to build a country like every other? Her perspective wasn’t without merit. In many ways, it was a fair critique, the kind of thing a ruler like Arthur wants in his advisors: someone to challenge him and hold him to a higher standard. But he’s also pragmatic. He knew we needed to start somewhere.

Merlin rubbed at his temples and closed his eyes for a moment, like the words were draining him. “Viviane was an exploratory mage. She travelled to discover and develop new ways to use magic. She was away frequently. We did not know that Viviane used those travels to seek out another leader, one she deemed more worthy than Arthur. Her plot began when she found a Saxon ruler who shared her vision. Viviane intended to orchestrate the fall of Arthur and his kingdom.”

Merlin’s eyes lingered on her as if hoping she might remember the rest of the story so he wouldn’t have to say it. “Viviane bewitched you. You were a key piece—the key piece of her plan against the throne.”