“I tried to pretend it wasn’t happening,” Allison murmured. “After a while, though, it became rather undeniable.”

She couldn’t decide if it was better or worse that her mother had noticed all along, but the admission stung as a betrayal that Vera swallowed. She didn’t want to leave angry with her mother.

“They forget you here,” Merlin said to Vera. “But no one has forgotten Guinevere in our time. You won’t be ignored or dismissed there. It’s where you belong.” He tugged the chain of his pocket watch, lifting it from his pocket to peek at its face. “The voyage is possible until sundown. We have an hour and thirty-four minutes.” He picked up a satchel from the floor next to his seat and passed it to Vera. “You’ll want to change into this before we go.”

She opened it and peered inside. All she could see was green fabric. A dress, she presumed.

An hour and a half wasn’t nearly enough time to prepare, let alone say goodbye to her parents.

Shit.

Vera craned her neck to get a glimpse of the door as if looking would make her father materialize. Martin was in hospital in London for two more days. She’d been planning to leave first thing in the morning to sit with him during his treatment.

It was a three-hour drive.

“Fuck.” Vera dropped her head into her hands. Tears blurred her eyes.

“I’ll try to ring your father so you can at least …” Allison trailed off.

Vera nodded. “You could have given me more than an hour’s warning, you know,” she said, reserving some fury for both Merlin and her mother. “And just to be totally clear, this … king who she’s—who I’m married to, it’s …?”

“King Arthur. Yes.”

“Right.” Vera scooted her chair out and held the bag up in place of a wave. “I guess I’m going to go change.”

She threw the shoulder strap across her body. The well-worn, soft leather bag bounced on her leg as she climbed the stairs to her apartment. How was this real?

She upended the bag over her bed and shook it until a rolled-up dress dropped out with a pair of leather slippers flopping down on top of it. It was a mercifully simple garment. She didn’t realize until after pulling the dress over her head that she’d kept her underwear and bra on.

“Fuck it.” Her first act of rebellion would be transporting elastic contraband into the Middle Ages.

The irony of Vera’s distaste for Arthurian lore made her feel sick as she glanced at her bookshelf, already knowing she didn’t own a single iteration of the story. She mentally flipped through what little she knew about the legend: Arthur was the king’s illegitimate son, identified by Excalibur to take the throne. There were the knights of the round table, including Lancelot, who had an affair with Guinevere in almost every account she could recall. That part unnerved her. A quest for the Holy Grail—or had that only been in Monty Python? She did like that version … And a strange name jumped to the front of her thoughts: Mordred. He was the villain, the one who killed Arthur.

Vera sighed, remembering Merlin’s off-hand comment about how much history had gotten wrong. She focused instead on the gown, shifting it to sit correctly on her body. It was pretty, stretching down to the tops of her feet and a deep, forest-green color, with golden trim and embellishments along her waist that came to a triangular point below her navel. Vera smoothed the torso down and noticed a small tear on the hem of her sleeve. This gown wasn’t new. Someone had worn it, though it fit perfectly along the curves of her body and was precisely the right length. She realized with a start that the person who’d worn it before was, in fact, her.

This was the very same dress from the vision in Merlin’s hand. It wasn’t entirely uncomfortable, either; no corset or boning, but there was some lacing in the back. Vera awkwardly stretched to reach around with one arm and managed to secure it enough. She turned and stared at herself in the mirror.

It was a funny thing, dressing in some ancient gown. She willed herself to laugh but stared at an expression uncannily similar to the version of herself in Merlin’s vision.

Vera grabbed her phone and earbuds from the trousers she’d changed out of. It crossed her mind to bring them with her. It wouldn’t work for contact, but she’d miss the comfort of music in her ears. She tapped the screen to see her battery was at 16 percent. Typical for the end of the day, but not worth trying to sneak the electronics past Merlin when she’d have no way of charging them. She sighed and set them and her keys on her desk next to her laptop before taking a pen and sticky note and writing down all the relevant passwords she could remember.

Vera wanted to bring something of her life with her, though. She scanned the room, and her eyes landed on a framed picture of her and her parents. Martin had put it on her shelves the day he’d assembled them for her. She popped the back off the frame, took the photograph, and tucked it into the leather bag. It was the only printed picture in the room. She’d gotten rid of her photos of Vincent on a day when she’d felt the pain of seeing them might kill her. Now, she was furious with herself for it. The anger sent roots of rebellion rushing through her as she eyed the otherwise empty satchel and made a beeline for the top drawer of her dresser. She grabbed underwear, two sports bras, and a few pairs of socks, confident the Dark Age counterparts would be woefully insufficient.

That was it. She straightened the throw pillow on her bed, replaced a book on her shelf, and put away the coffee cup from her dish drying rack. There was a hamper half-filled with dirty laundry, but that would have to be left to Allison. Vera grabbed her trainers from by the door and went to put them in the closet but stopped halfway there. Surely Merlin wouldn’t allow it, but … these were fairly new shoes.

She shoved the trainers in the bag, too.

Vera switched off the light and closed the door without bothering to lock it.

She could hear the din of patrons beginning to gather in the pub before she reached the bottom of the stairs. Allison and Merlin were no longer at the table. They’d moved to the hallway right near the entrance, but Vera took a last look at the bar where she’d grown up anyway. It was jarring to watch people ordering a steak pie or having a pint when her whole existence had just been upended.

“Vera!”

She nearly jumped at Allison’s voice. Vera hoisted the bag on her shoulder and went back to the hall. Allison had her phone pressed to her face. She held it away from her lips to say, “I’ve got your father!” and resumed her focus on the phone. “There’s no time for that. They are walking out the door, Martin.”

Vera could imagine her father on the other end, arguing against her departure. She took the phone and turned away for some semblance of privacy. “Dad?”

“Hey, love.” Martin’s voice, which used to be so quick to a joke and among the loudest in a room, was soft and somber. Vera didn’t want to guess whether that was sadness or sickness. Both options wrenched her heart. “I’m so sorry I’m not there with you. You’ve—”

He stopped speaking. She knew he was crying. She couldn’t stop the lump rising in her throat either.

“It’s all right, Dad. I’m—”

“Vera, love, you’re going to be okay. Just … be who you are. You’re exactly who they need you to be.”

They needed Guinevere. And that wasn’t her, but the notion that fulfilling Guinevere’s purpose might free Vera had already taken root. She didn’t know how to explain that to Martin, who’d been even more alarmed than Allison by her recent shift in demeanor.

“If I can help them,” she said, hoping against hope that he’d understand, “I can come home and help you finish your treatments. I’ll be better. I’ll have really done something that matters.”

“You matter,” Martin said emphatically. “Do you hear me?”