He blinked, as if his thoughts had taken him somewhere else. “Fin. After a week, he probably thinks I’m dead somewhere.”
Her belly sank. What if he wanted to go back and show his brother that he was okay? What if he died there?
She smiled and spoke to her new family around the table of King Arthur. She wanted to remember this forever, and push negative thoughts out of her head.
They remained in the great hall and had an extravagant array of fruit cut, sliced, and diced. If anyone wanted bread or meat, it was served. Even Kestrel’s request for mashed potatoes with butter, pickles, and pancakes with lots of syrup was granted.
“Genevra—I mean, my queen,” Wolf stumbled over his words a moment and then spread his warm gaze over the faces around him. “What stops Morgan from coming here?”
“Magic. Avalon is locked to any magic but ours—” she pointed to the sisters,”—and Merlin’s.”
“And Wolf’s?” Camelee asked.
“Not exactly,” said Viviane. “Wolf is a Timekeeper. He is to stop anyone from corrupting the timeline.”
“His kind—in their time—” Nim told them, “—were almost dispatched twice for Kestrel and Michael, but they did not corrupt time, so they were saved from the sword.”
“The sword?” Kestrel gasped and moved a little closer to her husband, who asked why Wolf was allowed to have a sword.
“Was I under the spell to forget, as well?” Wolf asked Nim, his jaw clenched.
“No. Timekeepers live regular lives until they are dispatched.”
“So, I was dispatched?”
Nim nodded. “It would seem so.”
“By whom?” he demanded.
“By the One we all obey.” She smiled at him and bit into a peach.
Camelee tugged his sleeve. “Do you have any memories of your past?”
“Yes,” he told her. “Of Fin and my longhouse in Denmark. That’s my past that I remember. Nothing else. But Idohave this new sense of keeping things moving along as they should. It is strange. I feel…watchful.”
She couldn’t help but giggle at the thought of watches keeping time in the future.
“Let’s just hope you’re not called upon toput your swordto anyone.”
He agreed with a worried look.
“So, why all the Morgan hate?” Kestrel asked their father. “Why does she want to hurt you enough to be a danger to us? What did you do to her?” She turned he gaze to the sisters. “Why do you keep her out of her home?”
“She killed five of our sisters,” Nimue told her. “She should be thankful we didn’t destroy her for eternity or give her boils.” Nim turned the two sisters she had left. “Why didn’t we give her boils?”
“We were…together,” the king told her. “Many centuries ago. I was young and naïve. She was…enchanting. But I saw the evil in her here so I left her and Avalon and built Camelot on earth. The home of my heart. I never knew she and I had a child until Mordred came to me.”
“I’m sorry I asked,” Kestrel whispered. “I’m sorry about your sisters, and for you, Dad. It’s tough being in a relationship with a nutcase.”
Camelee and Michael smiled at her and Camelee suspected her brother also missed future slang.
“I came here,” Wolf reminded them.
“What?” Camelee asked him.
“They said Morgan couldn’t come here because no magic, other than theirs is allowed here. But I came here.”
“Not with magic,” Vivian pointed out. “You were fighting, going berserk, as you call it. You are human. As we said, you are a Timekeeper, most likely alerted to all this movement and dispatched. You found the rift and must have opened it between the realms, where magic is weakest.”
