“She’s an orphan…again. I feel sorry for her.”
Nimue quirked her blue-black brow at her and rose from where she was sitting on the bed. “Is that all?”
“Yes! What are you, a psychiatrist?”
Nimue laughed and Camelee thought she saw a misty vapor leaving her mouth, sparkling air. Just like the air around the brooch that brought her to Wolf.
“You know,” the enchantress said in a hushed voice. “Your father did what he did to keep you all alive.”
“And what is it he did?” Camelee indulged with a smirk.
“He made us all forget. Well, maybe not you or your brother, Micajah. You were both babies when he and your mother had to give you up, so there was not much for you to forget.”
“Oh, my goodness, please stop,” Camelee begged as tears poured from her eyes. “This is cruel. I will die if you don’t stop.”
Nimue reeled back horrified. “Oh, dear, we do not mean to make you suffer more. I will return in a short while. Rest.” Nimue began to dissolve and disappeared into a sparkling puff of air. Were she and Viviane responsible for the brooch?
Camelee hopped out of bed. She was still dressed. Who had moved her to this bedroom? Odd that though the walls and ceiling were made of glass, she couldn’t see what was on the other side. The glass was not see-though. Every piece of furniture was made of different colored glass. The mattress was not glass. Many things weren’t, but the room was the most beautiful room she’d ever been in.
Someone knocked.
“Come in.” The door opened and the man who claimed to be King Arthur and, more importantly, her father entered the room.
“Nimue tells me you wish to return to the Vikings.”
“I would like him to be brought here,” she answered, not allowing herself to cower to him, king or not. “As I was.”
“That is impossible. He does not share my blood, nor does he possess any magic in his veins. The only reason we were able to bring Hild through is because she is small and clung to you. He must stay where he belongs.”
She scoffed in his face. “Since when does staying where you belong matter to you people? I want him brought here. Please!”
“I cannot, Camelee. I am sorry. I don’t have the power to bring him here.”
The thought of never seeing Wolf again made it difficult to breathe. She loved him. She did. “Why was I sent to him?” she cried.
“Morgan used Mordred to try to kill me. My own son. I could not allow her to come near you and your brother. I foolishly enchanted the brooch to help you all find your true love. I didn’t know it would hurl you through time until I heard from Kestrel from the fifteenth century. But she was happy. It was the only gift I could ever give you.”
“And now you’re snatching it from my hands?”
“I will not send you back while Morgan is free. She is devious, Camelee. I thought one of the sisters sent out the brooch to you all, but it wasn’t anyone here. It was her.”
“Wolf is a berserker,” she told him hopefully, not really hearing his words. “He will protect me from her.”
The king shook his head. “He has no magic. She would destroy him and then you.”
Camelee felt her anger boil up in her. She didn’t care who he was, or why he did it. He’d left her and she had grown up feeling abandoned. She realized now that it was mostly her adoptive parents who made her feel this way. But that hurt was born in the orphanage. “You don’t get to be worried about me,Dad!”
“It nearly killed us to give you up, my daughter. Your poor mother wept until the day Merlin and I cast the spell. I didn’t know who you were, Camelee. I didn’t even know who your mother was,” he told her gently coming to her. “It was the only way to be safe.”
“Do you realize that I know these characters? Morgan, Mordred, all of you! You are all from books. My mind is somehow playing—”
“Camelee!” his otherwise gentle baritone voice boomed off the walls. He stood over her, angry and foreboding. “Enough of this. You are my daughter, behave like it! If I tell you something, you must believe me, for I would not be dishonest with you. Morgan’s heart is twisted against good. She is dangerous in her madness. I separated us and made us forget who we were to protect us all.”
“What changed?”
“Believing that we had captured her, and we were now safe, I lifted the spell. She escaped and is now free among us again. Now that memories are being restored, it will be easier for her to find you.”
Was she supposed to believe this? Why not? Hadn’t she traveled back in time to Viking England? Wasn’t the name Pendragon responsible for setting her world upside-down?
