Guinevere did not think so. But she could not be sure. And even though she had memories of looking at her face—seeing it reflected back to her in water, trees overhead coloring both with greenish tinges, a black pool of…no, that one slipped from her and she let it—she knew better than to trust her own mind. “Merlin could have changed my face. It would be the simpler option for him.”
“Would you know? Could you sense if he had?” Arthur put the backs of his fingers against her cheek, stroking softly down it. He looked sad, as though the idea that Guinevere’s face was not real hurt him.
It hurt her, too. She could not claim her mind, or her memories, or now even her face.
“Maybe. I doubt my knots could undo his work. But I am afraid if I actively tugged too hard at anything Merlin did, it might unravel. And then where would we be? Your wife would have a new face. That would be difficult to explain to the kingdom.”
Arthur let out a dry laugh, joining her by lying back on the bed. “It would.”
“So what do we do?”
“I will assign Sir Gawain to her and have him watch her closely.”
“Brangien can spy, as well.”
There was a light knock on the door. Arthur sat up. Guinevere followed his lead. “Come in,” Arthur commanded, even though it was Guinevere’s room.
Lancelot opened the door but did not enter. “Guinevach arrived in Camelot with three guards and two maids. One an older woman, one barely a woman at all. I have given her guards rooms on the far end of the castle and assigned guards to watch them. I put Guinevach on the sixth story and am locking the interior door. The exterior walkways will be guarded day and night, and her movements marked at all times.”
Arthur nodded. “Very good. You may go.” He turned back to Guinevere. “We leave for Sir Bors’s wedding in three days. You can be ill and take to your bed until then.”
“And I will do what I can to sense whether there is magic at play.” Guinevere bitterly regretted rendering her hands worthless for the time being. She could not even grasp Guinevach’s hands to feel whether there were any currents of threat or anger. “But if she is here to catch me, I will have to be careful. I cannot give her evidence that I use magic.”
Arthur’s shoulders were squared, his face determined but not worried. “Tonight I will visit the dining hall while she is there and unsheathe Excalibur. We can rule out whether she has fairy magic.”
“Mordred could be around Excalibur, and his father was a fairy knight.”
They both sat in silence for a moment. Mordred had explained to Guinevere how much pain he bore all the time living here. How patient and determined he must have been to endure it, to endure Excalibur. Guinevere saw the hurt on Arthur’s face and regretted bringing Mordred up. “But that is a good idea. If she reacts to it, we will have an answer.”
Arthur recovered, looking more confident. “Magic or not, we can handle this.”
They could and they would handle it, together. If Guinevach was a threat, Guinevere pitied her. And if she really was just a girl trying to visit her sister, everything they were doing was cruel and Guinevere pitied her all the more.
But sending Guinevach away was no crueler than letting her know her sister was in a hole in the ground, her grave unmarked, her name stolen. Maybe even her face stolen.
Was nothing truly Guinevere’s?
“Well?” Guinevere asked, looking up at the cliff face. They had come nearly to the top of the castle, carved from the mountain in levels. “Do you think you can climb it?”
Lancelot squinted in the darkening light, considering. Guinevere hated sitting in her room, stewing, waiting for more information about Guinevach—she wanted to do something. And she realized that in her search for magic, she had not looked east. The mountain behind them felt like safety. And it was—safety from men. No army could stage an attack from that direction. But a Dark Queen, fueled by magic? Guinevere could picture it, vines bursting overhead and spilling down the castle like the waterfalls on either side, creeping and choking.
She had used blood to knot magic onto a rock. It would link to her other sentinel rocks and tell her if any threat came from this direction. But she needed to get it up there.
“I think so.” Lancelot held out her hand. Guinevere gave her the rock, and Lancelot tucked it into a pouch at her waist. She had stripped down to her tunic and breeches, removing even her boots. She wore a coiled length of rope across her body, from right shoulder to left hip.
“I saw you climb, once. Straight down to the lake, to get to your boat.”
“My boat?” Lancelot stared upward and considered her path. “I have never had a boat.”
This was surprising. “How did you get back and forth for the trials, then, without using the ferry?”
“There is a cave. I spent many years there as a child, when—” Lancelot stopped. Guinevere wished she would continue. She wanted to know more. How Lancelot had survived as an orphan. What it had been like. Guinev
ere was ravenous for details of other childhoods to tuck in around the blank spaces of her own.
Lancelot cleared her throat. “Well, and I can swim.”
“Across the whole lake?” Guinevere asked, horrified.