“I know this is hard to accept and understand—”

  Kestrel’s lagoon-colored eyes opened larger, set on her father. “What do you mean hard to accept? What is hard to accept?” She spun around and stared at Camelee and Sebastian. “What?”

  “You cannot return home at present because Morgan is once again on the loose. She will come after you with complete disregard for Nicholas or anyone else you love to get to me. If you are not there with him, she will not be able to find when or where he is. You are a danger to him. Do you understand?” The king looked at all of them. “You are dangers to those you love because of my blood flowing in you. I am sorry.”

  Kestrel covered her mouth with her hands and cried out. Camelee stepped back. He’d tried to tell her, but she hadn’t heard.

  “I don’t know what you mean, I can’t go back. Dad! I’m married and I’m having his child. I have to go back! You’re responsible for my going back to him in the first place! I never wrote to you about this before, but I was transported right onto the battlefield, in the middle of the War of the Roses! Right in the middle of flying, bloody swords, Dad! I had a hard time. I don’t care about Morgan! Let us worry about her!”

  “Let us finally have our lives,” Camelee added.

  “Agreed,” Sebastian said.

  “Son, you know what Morgan is capable of. How do you expect your sisters to fight her?”

  While father and son spoke, Camelee stared at Kestrel in her chair. She looked to be in shock.

  “There now,” Camelee heard herself say. A sister. She had a sister. Her traitorous heart melted within her. “We will find a solution to this.”

  Kestrel smiled at her. “I won’t lie, I’m—hey, wait. Are you Camelee Pen—” she nodded. “Yes, Pendrey. Pendragon. I saw you in Silver 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?”

  “Yes. Mordred. But now he is Sebastian.”

  “I was hoping you did all right,” Michael told his half-brother and allowed a smile to enhance his rugged good looks. Michael’s mother may have been human, but his father was not.

  After he spoke to Sebastian, his slightly glistening gaze went to her.

  “This is Camelee,” Arthur announced, “Like you, she is born of myself and Queen Guinevere.”

  Michael looked wide-eyed and a bit bewildered, but he understood one thing immediately. They had both been given up and their lives forever altered.

  “I’ve seen you before.” Michael narrowed his eyes on her. “On T.V.?”

  She nodded, happier than she realized she would be that they recognized her. Not because of her ego, but because it solidified that this was real.

  Still, she wondered what he thought.

  “You believe all this? We’re not imagining it? Not dead or something?”

  “I’m not dead,” he assured her, and she wondered if death was afraid of him. “And if I am, I don’t want to go back to my life before my life with Charlotte. That isn’t what this is about, is it?” He turned to Arthur. “Why are we all here, and where is my wife? I’m not going back to twenty nineteen.”

  “None of us are,” Kestrel added.

  “Let us go back to our loved ones,” Sebastian warned. “We will deal with Morgan.”

  They looked at Camelee for agreement. Was she ready to declare that she didn’t want to return to her life in front on the screen? Could the king or the sisters cast a spell on her to make her forget Wolf and Hild…her mother? If so, would she choose her future?

  Chapter Nineteen

  Wolf spent his third night in the forest. He wouldn’t give up. He’d heard Camelee weeping here. If she had truly gone into the future, the veil had to be thinnest here. He called out to her beneath the stars and the anguish in his voice made his companion cry silently on her pallet.

  He’d taken Genevra with him because if she wasn’t mad, and she truly was Queen Guinevere, Camelee’s captor would come for her. And when he did, Wolf would get his woman back.

  “Why do you think he has not come for you yet?” he asked Genevra the next morning while they sat around a small fire and broke their fast together.

  “Mayhap he cannot find me.”

  “Or maybe you are wrong about all of this.”

  She stared at him boldly and frowned with insult. Something about her had changed over the last few days. She possessed an air of confidence and authority she did not have before. Each day, she displayed more royal demeanor. Either she was a true queen, or she was undeniably mad in her head.

  “Do you accuse me of deceiving you?

  “Not deliberately.”

  He studied her while she glared at him. “Tell me, what is happening to you? What is changing you?” He had to ask. If somehow Genevra was involved in all this, then she was his only connection to Camelee.

  “I am remembering,” she answered with gentle confidence.

  “What are you remembering, Genevra, or…my queen.”

  Her smile was so unexpected and radiant he almost bowed his head. She was beautiful with her golden hair braided messily down her back. All the stray tendrils around her head were illuminated in the sun and made her countenance shine like someone kissed by God.

  “I am remembering my past and my future.”

  She told him everything she’d remembered so far. The way she described the future was almost exactly the same as Camelee has described it.

  “When you said King Arthur Pendragon is my husband, my heart leaped at the sound of his name. I know he is the man I love, have loved and longed for for almost thirty years. But I do not remember him. I do not know how he looks or smells, or what I love about him. I dream of him with Camelee, and he is mostly faceless.”

  “I do not think he will be for long.”

  At his words, tears paused at the rims of her eyes, and then fell down her wind-burned cheeks. He realized how cold she must be and yet she had not complained once.

  He swept his cloak off his shoulders and wrapped her in it.

  “No. You need it for yourself. I will fetch an extra cloak from the keep later. Keep it,” he held out his palm to stop her from taking it off. “I am from the north. It is much colder in Denmark.”

  She nodded and smiled, and they were silent for a few moments. Then he looked at her and said. “You know how she feels about her mother?”

  She nodded and swallowed, and Wolf hoped Camelee gave her a chance to make up for the lost years.

  “She thinks I gave her up because I did not love her. But it almost killed me.”

  “You have much to tell her then,” he said in a low voice.

  “You are a good man, Chief. I will make certain the king knows.”

  He nodded, but he didn’t care what anyone thought of him.

  “What are your intentions with my daughter, Chief?” Genevra asked in the still of the morning.

  “I wish to bring her back to Denmark and make her my wife.”

  “To Denmark? You would not prefer to go into the future with her? ’Tis much easier to live.”

  He shrugged his shoulders “We shall see. First, I must find a way to get to her. Unfortunately, we do not know anyone who practices magic.”

  “Hmm, aye,” she agreed, then leaned in and whispered, “but mayhap, he knows, since he just appeared out of thin air.” She motioned with her chin to a man weaving through the trees, coming toward them.

  He had dark hair tied back and a beard just as long. He appeared of middle age and as he drew closer, Wolf unsheathed his sword. He was prepared to do what he must to get Camelee back.

  “Guin! Guinevere! Is that you, my queen?” the man called out.

  Wolf felt his hair rise off his skin. It was happening.

  “Merlin?” she called back.

  Who was Merlin? Wolf wondered as Gen—Guinevere’s eyes filled to the brim with tears.

  She flung off Wolf’s cloak and took off running straight into the man’s arms. “Oh, Merlin! Blessed friend! ’Tis good to see you…to remember you! Tell me, where is the king?”

  “He searches for you each day, my queen. Nothing eases his pain, not even having his children back.”

  Wolf took a small step closer. The king had Camelee.

  “Merlin, why have my memories returned and why were they taken from me at all?”

  He explained about a witch called Morgan, who was free and looking for them. When Genevra heard the name, she gasped. This Morgan, thought Wolf, must be a formidable enemy if everyone was hiding from her.

  “Take me to the witch,” he demanded. “I will kill her!”

  Merlin would hear nothing of it. His duty was to protect Wolf from her.

  The insult was strong in Wolf’s ears. Protect him? He didn’t need anyone’s protection!

  “You are to wait here while I take her to the king. I will return to you shortly.”

  Wolf nodded his consent, but his plan had been to take hold of Camelee’s captor and put a blade to his neck while he took Wolf to her.

  But Genevra was about to go to her husband, a man whose love had kept her heart from all others, without even remembering him. She was going to be reunited with her daughter, whom she loved. Camelee needed that. She deserved to have a good mother, a mother like Genevra.

  They began to disappear. Genevra’s gaze caught his. “I will see to things.”

  He never trusted anything to anyone else but his own hands. He watched solemnly as he let his only link to Camelee go.

  “Saints help us! Where did they go?”

  Wolf spun on his heel and found seven Saxons there. All were armed.

  “Men! You all saw them vanish. This Dane is in league with demons!”

  The other six shouted their agreement.

  Wolf drew his blade and held it ready to fight. He had so much fury in him, he was certain he could kill them all. He didn’t see the small army deeper in the forest.

  *

  “Your Majesty,” Camelee called out, finally ready to give the answer her siblings were waiting for. “Do you want to send me back to my future, in which I hated you and my mother?”

  “No, Daughter,” he was quick to tell her. “That isn’t what I intend to do.”

  “What, then, did you intend to do?” she asked with her sister and brothers waiting for his answers to her.

  “I want you all to remain in Avalon until Morgan is caught.”

  “Without Nicholas?”

  “Noelle will not give up her career to come here.”

  “No,” was all Michael said, but it carried much conviction. He wasn’t staying.

  “Morgan will go after the people you love if you are with them!” Arthur insisted. “Sebastian, you know I’m right. She went after you, and you almost took my life.” He spread his potent gaze over each of them. “Do you want to see your beloved Noelle trying to kill you? And if she succeeds, she will live with it.”

  Sebastian didn’t argue back but turned on his heel and pounded his fist on the door.

  “I don’t care about staying here, Dad,” Kestrel told him. “Just bring Nicholas here. Please.”

  “I will speak to the sisters,” he said. “I know there are exceptions to the rules. Maybe we can find one.”

  She nodded. They all did. There was nothing else they could do.

  “Father…Dad…I’m not sure about any of this,” Camelee told him. “But please consider what you’ve done. You have sent us by way of a brooch to the great loves of our lives, and now it’s being snatched away. I know you have lost your love, as well. I now believe I know where—”

  “I will see to things,” the voice called out, interrupting Camelee. It was Genevra’s voice. She was not in the great hall, and then she was. It was just like that. No silver sparkles. She was simply there…with a man who looked like he’d just come from a magic lamp.

  “My king,” the man said with a slight bow. “Please forgive the interruption…”

  “Guin?” the king choked out. He rose from his chair and rubbed his eyes. “Guin, are you real?”

  Camelee felt her vision blur with tears while she watched Genevra cover her mouth to quiet her cries. She walked to him slowly, wiping her cheeks. When she reached the steps leading to the king, she knelt.

  He was there to gently pull her to her feet.

  “Guinevere, it’s truly you,” he cried, pulling her into his arms, where they wept, and kissed, and touched each other’s faces in awe of being together again.

  “Guin, our children…” The king turned her to look at them.

  Michael went to her and swallowed her up in his embrace.

  Genevra cried into her son’s shoulder and Arthur cried into his hand. “I hated leaving you both at that orphanage. I try to imagine what the pain is like. Losing a part of my body? Losing a parent, your home, but there is nothing to compare with what I had to do.”

  She set her warm gaze on Camelee and then lifted her chin and turned to her husband. “I cannot stay.”

  “What?” the king’s question boomed off the glass walls.

  “My queen,” said the man who arrived with her. “You can stay. This is where you belong now. There is no one back there for you.”

  “No, Merlin, but there is someone back there for her.” She motioned to Camelee and then turned to Nim and Viviane, who had stayed though their sister Gliten had left. “My dear friends, my heart rejoices at seeing you again, but my happiness is only temporary. For when I think of the man I just left, I cannot partake and enjoy in what he needs to live and cannot find.”

  She speaks of Wolf, Camelee thought, ignoring the burning behind her eyes. Was he angry she’d left? Worried? Sad? From the sadness in Genevra’s eyes while she looked at her, Camelee’s heart ached to think his was aching for her.

  “He does nothing but sit in the forest where you disappeared and call your name, hoping you will answer.”

  At Genevra’s words, Camelee threw her hands to her face and wept. Was this what she had reduced a warrior to? No one ever cared for her this way. She wouldn’t lose him. Genevra was trying to help her.

  “You’re her then,” Camelee accused. “My mother.”

  Genevra shook her head and tears streamed down her face. “Not the woman you believe.”

  No. Genevra’s memory had been taken. She’d been ripped away from her children, stripped of the memory of them because of Morgan. She’d lived in England as Genevra, mother to all because she wasn’t mother to two. “I know…Mom.”

  They walked toward each other, crying. When Genevra reached her, she smiled. “What changed your mind about me?”

  Camelee shrugged a shoulder. “My pain is real. It’s so real. Why shouldn’t my happiness be real, as well?”

  “Pain for…?”

  “Him,” Camelee told her. “Wolf.”

  Her mother nodded. “I will do everything I can to help you.”

  Camelee never thought it would be so easy to forgive her mother. But she also never thought there was an evil faerie after them and in order to save their lives, her parents made the heart-wrenching decision to leave them. “I’ve missed you.”