She lay on her back, hair dangling over the side of the bed.

Arthur sat on a footstool behind her and poured warm water down the back of her head to help work the blood out in patches. His fingers were adept and gentle.

“Is this all right?” he asked.

“Yes.” His touch brought more comfort than it had any right. “I don’t want to be angry with you,” said Vera, surprising herself that she’d decided to say it aloud.

His fingers halted. She wished she could see his reaction.

“All right,” he eventually said as he resumed working through her hair. “But if you change your mind, I’ll be ready.”

She smiled, the breath of a laugh but one good night’s sleep away.

They slipped into quiet. It was peaceful enough that Vera started to drift between wakefulness and sleep as he worked. She felt him towel-drying her hair and applying something to the abrasion on her head. He piled her hair on the pillow and pulled the blankets up around her, believing her asleep. She relished in the half-consciousness, aware enough to feel his presence but distant enough not to need to respond. He hadn’t moved far. He sat back down on the footstool.

When Vera heard the door latch, she wasn’t sure if it was a dream until she heard Matilda’s voice. “Your Majesty, may I have a word?”

Vera’s eyes shot open, and she grabbed Arthur’s hand as he stood. “Don’t leave me again.”

She didn’t care if he left the room for a moment. That wasn’t what she meant, and he knew that. He knew what she meant. Arthur knelt back down and encased her hand in both of his.

“I won’t.” And there was so much unsaid behind his words. “I promise.”

Vera held his gaze, expecting him to hurry to escape their closeness for the comfort of some critical task like ruling the country. He didn’t. Vera was the one who eventually nodded and broke the moment.

“Let’s turn you right-ways,” Arthur said.

He helped reposition her in the bed, her right arm elevated on a folded blanket, a pillow under the crook of her knee. Her eyes drooped as she heard him say, “I’ll be right back.”

She believed him.

It must have been late in the morning for the way light streamed through the bars of her open window. Fresh white flowers adorned the table by the fire, which had burned down to smoldering embers. She liked that contrast when sleeping; a heated room with an open window to let a cold blast zip through when the wind saw fit.

And, as promised, she was not alone. Arthur sat in a chair next to her bed, reading. He looked different when he thought no one was paying attention to him. His brow pulled together slightly more than was natural as his eyes followed the page left to right and back quickly like a silent typewriter. There was one instance when his lips moved the slightest bit, half forming the words he read as the corners of his mouth ticked up. Whatever picture the passage painted must have pleased him.

She’d have liked to watch him longer, but his eyes flicked up to her. Arthur set the book down and leaned toward her. “How are you feeling?”

“Not nearly as poorly as I’d expect.” She scooted to prop herself in a seated position. Her voice was raspy, and Arthur passed her a cup of water from the bedside table.

He stretched his neck from side to side, failing to stifle a yawn.

“Did you sleep?” she asked.

“A little.” Before Vera could begin to feel bad about his discomfort of a night spent in a chair, he went on. “How do you feel about allowing Gawain to treat your wounds?”

The cup was halfway to Vera’s mouth when his words stopped her. “But—Merlin will know. Gawain will tell him, won’t he?”

“He might,” Arthur relented. “But not any time soon. Merlin’s already gone. I can tend a wound well enough on the battlefield, but it would be better for Gawain to examine and heal them. It might sound foolish, but Lancelot thinks he’s trustworthy, and that is enough for me.” He shrugged with a sheepish smile. “Speaking of, he’s eager to see you. When you’re ready.”

“Who is?” Vera sat up straighter. “Lancelot?”

Arthur nodded. “He doesn’t mind waiting until your wounds—”

“I’m fine. It doesn’t hurt badly,” Vera insisted. “I’m ready.” The last words she’d shared with Lancelot were horrid. She was eager to say new ones.

She assumed he would have to send for Lancelot, but Arthur had barely opened the door to their chamber before he charged right in.

“Were you sleeping in the corridor?” Vera asked through a disbelieving laugh.

He didn’t answer. He rushed to her side, pulled the chair Arthur had slept in as close to the bed as he could, and sank into it.

“Vera?” Arthur said, drawing her attention and causing her heart to somersault. “I’ll return soon.”

She nodded and held her breath as she watched him go, like she could hold in how it felt to hear him say her name.

“You’re … you’re still here,” Lancelot said. His eyes searched her face and landed on the bandage on her shoulder, peeking out from the neck of her nightgown. Trancelike, his hand drifted up to touch it—so gently. She could barely feel the brush of his fingertips through the bandaging.

“I’m here,” Vera reassured him.

“I—I was an ass yesterday morning. I’m so sorry.”

“Stop. You don’t even need to apologize—”

“Yes, Guinna,” he snapped back, grimacing, and she knew it was only at himself. “Yes, I do. You had endured a sort of torture I can only imagine—and that was before what happened last night.”

Unbidden, her eyes shifted to his throat, where his Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. She knew the way it would look if he were stabbed in the neck, how it would heave and stutter. Knew the way blood spurted from an artery with force at each slowing beat of a heart. She met his eyes again. He’d seen the way her face changed. Two lines carved down the middle of his brow.

“I saw the chapel,” he said. “And the body.”

“I killed him.” It was the confession she’d been bearing like a leaden weight. She’d killed Thomas. It didn’t matter that it had been born of self-defense. All she could remember was the fear in his eyes as his life left him.

Lancelot lay a hand on her knee. “I know.”

The way he said it … like he understood in a way no human should. But it was the gentleness in his voice that undid her. Vera’s tears came quickly after that, tumbling into racking sobs that shook her sore body.

“Oh, love,” he whispered. Lancelot climbed onto the bed next to her and gingerly wrapped his arms around her. “I know. I know.”

Vera clung to his shirt and cried into his shoulder.

“Do you want to tell me about it?” he asked.

She did. And when she tried to apologize for struggling to say it through tears, he hushed her, insisting she take all the time she needed. He held her closer as she explained how Thomas pulled her to the floor when she finally (stupidly, belatedly) tried to run away. He rubbed her arm as she finished the story with the bloodied knife in her hand.

“Why did he do it?” Vera asked as her breathing steadied. “Even if he was right about you and me, was that enough for him to try to kill me or control me or—I don’t understand. He was only ever kind to me before that. A friend, even.”

Lancelot’s chin had been atop her head. She pulled back and craned her neck to look up at him, hoping he could explain it. But he didn’t.

“I don’t know. People can be awful, and sometimes there’s no reason for it.”

Vera curled back into his shoulder, as comfortable with him as she’d ever been with anyone and absolutely certain that there was no intention in it beyond care. But she wasn’t a fool. She knew what even the appearance of their affections had wrought and was grateful for the privacy that allowed it now. For the privacy Arthur had given them. A mad huff of a chuckle escaped her.