Kestrel smiled at her. “I won’t lie, I’m—hey, wait. Are you Camelee Pen—” she nodded. “Yes, Pendrey. Pendragon. I saw you inSilver Buttons, that cable series.”
“Yes, before I was pulled back a millennium. How well do you know the king?”
“I grew up with him,” Kestrel answered.
“Was he a good father?”
Kestrel nodded and then veiled her gaze. “I’m sorry you didn’t have him.”
“Thank you,” Camelee told her softly, and then turned to glare at the king.
“Did we all not need to be kept safe?” she demanded of him.
“No. Not all of you did,” he told her candidly. “Morgan would never find me. I would have to go to her. She would use those I love to get me to do that. Or use one of my dear children to kill me. Sebastian possesses more power than you, Kestrel, or Micajah, and he couldn’t stop her from taking over his mind.
“More power? Camelee asked him. “We have power?”
“Of course you do” he replied. “I am a sorcerer. My mother, your grandmother, was Viviane and Nimue’s sister before Morgan killed her.”
It wasn’t real. It wasn’t real. It wasn’t real. She was supposed to believe now that she had magic powers?
Something crashed above them on the second floor. They heard a man shouting, his voice deep and intimidating. “Somebody better start explaining before I take you all in!”
The king smiled, looking up. “That would be your brother, Michael.”
Michael. Oh, it hurt to think she had a brother who’d been given up with her. She heard him pounding down the stairs. Coming closer. It still completely threw her off when she looked up at the glass ceiling and couldn’t see upstairs through it.
Another beautiful woman appeared at the doorway, like Viviane and Nim, she wore a gown that appeared to be spun from the most gossamer gauzy threads. Her black hair cascaded down her back and, like the others, she wore a gold circlet over her brow.
Camelee had met her on her first night here. She was one of the sisters and her name was Gliten.
But Camelee’s attention was on the man walking with her. If Sebastian was a stallion, Michael was a panther. An angry panther.
When he saw the king, he stopped in his tracks. “Mr. Lancaster…or should I saw King Arthur?”
“Dad will do fine,” Arthur told him tenderly.
Michael didn’t react. Except for the tightening of his jaw beneath a closely clipped mustache and beard.
Camelee saw the hurt behind the cool detachment. Yes. Michael had lost his family in this. Just like her.
Finally, he managed to say, “You sent a letter back in time to Judge Whimsey, telling him who you were.”
“That’s right,” Arthur agreed. “We had met after Kestrel’s disappearance. You were assigned to the case. Your name gave you away. There are not many Pendragons left.”
Michael didn’t react but slipped his sapphire gaze to Kestrel when the king pointed to her. “I remember your case. I wanted to find you.”
“And you did,” she said with a quirk of her mouth.
“Yeah,” he said with a smile of his own, though it resembled hers. “Hi, Kestrel.”
“Hi.”
“So, you’re my sister?”
“Half-sister,” Arthur pointed out. “You’ve met Sebastian, your half-brother back in your time.”
Michael stepped in front of the king. “Do you know who he is?”
