A threat is coming, he had said. We need more time. I need to give you more. But it is nearly here, and I dare not delay. You must go to Arthur. But why me? she had asked. Your power is so much greater than mine. What if I cannot protect him? You are afraid of the wrong thing, he had said.

Guinevere was drawn to the sorrow in Arthur’s voice. She had been worried he would still be angry with her. But she saw how sad it made him to have to weigh the lives of those he loved against the burden of an entire kingdom. She had made it harder for him, forced him to protect her at the cost of Sir Tristan. How could he live with such decisions?

“Only Guinevere? Nothing else? I know the power of names.” His words hit her with two meanings. Names that were titles gave power among men. True names gave power among the things that came before men. She focused on the torch to make her voice cheery, like it. “Guinevere, when spoken by you, has power enough.”

Me, she thought. Guinevere. She imagined stepping into the name as she had stepped into the clothing. Putting it on sound by sound, piece by piece. Draping it over herself, and then cinching it up tight so it would not slip away. It was a complicated name. So many pieces. She would have to be very complicated to fit it.

Today, the brave warrior who saved my queen—” The crowd roared in approval again, and Arthur let them carry on. Guinevere raised her hand, acknowledging the people, though her only role in this narrative had been to be in peril and be saved.

He set her down, hands lingering at her waist. She stumbled. Now that the threat was past, shame claimed her. How could she be strong, how could she complete her mission, if she could not so much as cross a river? An apology bloomed on her lips. She plucked it and discarded it. Be what they expect. She straightened carefully. Regally. “I do not

“It sounds complicated.” He flopped onto the furs and put his forearm over his eyes. “It is. Why do people get bored with peace? Why is a border seen as a challenge rather than a barrier?”

Mordred answered. “We worked and fought to push the Dark Queen and her fairy forces back. But leaving any magic here was like sowing tares among the wheat. The tendrils grow and choke out what we are trying to do. And so it was decided that there would be no magic allowed inside Camelot. Which meant our resident wizard was no longer welcome, and

Guinevere understood Mordred’s anger. She felt it herself. Everything wondrous was being unmade, and it was terrible beyond comprehension. But wonder, too, was terrible. The meadow around her was proof enough of that. Was not Maleagant’s death terrible and wonderful in equal measure? The tree’s sentience beautiful and abominable? Trees, magic,