“Oh.” Arthur’s eyes drifted up to the ceiling. “It was nothing.”
Vera scoffed. “Don’t spare my feelings. Tell me.”
Arthur sighed, and his cheeks went pink. “He said I should get you pregnant to tame you.”
The tingle flared in her chest. “That made you punch him?”
“Right in the mouth,” Arthur said. He looked at her lips, and Vera reflexively reached up to touch the cut that still stung. “It only seemed fair.”
Lancelot had found them in the chapel with a summons for Arthur from Vera’s father and the local lords. Arthur offered to send Percival instead, but Vera had insisted she was fine. They all knew Arthur was the one who was needed. She planned to head to Merlin’s study alone after that, determined not to delay their session, but Lancelot fell in step with her rather than following Arthur.
“You aren’t needed for whatever diplomacy is about to happen?” Vera asked.
“Oh no,” he said. “Arthur’s far better suited for it. It doesn’t take being pushed beyond the brink of offense and exhaustion for me to start taking swings.”
She thought he’d bid her farewell at the door to Merlin’s tower, but he was right on her heels and looked at her expectantly when she stopped at the threshold.
“You’ve seen me safely here,” she said. “You don’t have to walk me all the way down.”
“Oh, I’m not just walking you. I’m staying.”
She’d been so certain that all the trouble she’d caused would have him running to get away from her. “I’m sure you’d rather be with the soldiers at training or—”
“Guinna,” he said sternly. “I want to be here.”
“Only if you’re sure …”
“I am. I insist.” His intensity fell away as an ornery grin stole over his face. “In case someone needs to take a swing at Merlin.”
At first glance, Merlin’s study remained the same: oddities dangling beneath hooks, piled on shelves, stuffed in baskets. It was a pleasant sort of mess that was actually tidy, with only the appearance of whimsical disorder—except for one island of pure chaos exploding from the epicenter of what was once Viviane’s empty desk. Bits of rumpled parchment and discarded piles of rubbish littered the floor around it. The desk was transformed into a makeshift stronghold, fortified by stacks of hefty tomes lining the edges of it on three sides and partway on a fourth, leaving a gap in the middle where Gawain now worked. Well, presumably, it was Gawain. All that was visible beyond the gap in the book walls was the seated lower half of a robed man.
Vera imagined completing the desk fort with a handwritten Keep Out! sign and smiled—until she caught Merlin’s eye over in the kitchen area. She’d imagined countless versions of what he might say to her, of how he might be angry. Disappointed in her. She’d wondered if there’d be pity.
But he simply looked a little bit frightened, which might have been worse than the alternatives. He busied himself, carefully combining ingredients on the counter. Lancelot plopped down in Merlin’s chair, going so far as to open the giant tome on his desk and flip through the pages.
“What are you doing?” Merlin snapped once he noticed.
“Reading,” Lancelot said innocently. “Merlin, what’s—” he bent his head low over the book, “the defensible transference postulation?”
The top of a head and two eyes barely crested the fort walls as Gawain sat up and blinked at Lancelot, his interest apparently roused.
“Hullo there,” Lancelot said to him. “Wasn’t sure that was you in there.”
“I’m leaving,” Gawain said. “I’ve been instructed that this is a private matter.”
Lancelot smiled pleasantly as he folded his hands on the desk.
“Yet you are staying,” Gawain added with no small amount of disapproval.
Lancelot’s grin widened.
Merlin crossed the room and slammed the book shut. Lancelot barely pulled back in time to spare his nose from being clobbered by it.
“The king has ordered it, Gawain,” Merlin said.
“There you have it.” Lancelot threw his hands in the air in mock annoyance. “I’m here on orders. Nothing I can do about it.”
Gawain tipped his head forward and glowered up at Lancelot through his eyebrows. “I do not find you amusing.”
