Sword in the Stars (Once & Future #2) - Cori McCarthy Page 0,7

Jordan said, “but apart from that you’ll be fine in a few hours.”

“You make it all sound so romantic,” Ari deadpanned. “Did I… hurt Gwen, too?”

“No,” Lam said. “Just us. We brought you here. You called me ‘Administrator’ and Merlin ‘Hector’ and tried to attack us. Who is Hector?”

“No one.” Ari closed her eyes. “I kept hallucinating. Seeing my enemies. What did I call Jordan?”

“Jordan,” she said.

Ari cracked an eye to peer at Lionel’s famed black knight. Jordan smirked, and Ari didn’t stop her own smile. “Perhaps it was just worthy opponents then.”

Merlin wandered to the large, open doors of the stable and back again.

“Why do you keep doing that?” Jordan asked.

“It’s just… if Ari and I returned on the same day, Val must not be far behind. Perhaps he’s in Camelot now, looking for us,” Merlin said. “Perhaps I should go look for him.”

Lamarack’s smile was sad. “If my brother were here, we’d all know it. He’s never made a single entrance in his life without significant fanfare. The same hour he was born an ice volcano erupted on Pluto so huge that a new frozen range formed. Our parents named the highest mountain after him. Percival’s Point.”

Merlin wrung his hands. “But then, where could he be?”

“Judging by where the portal dumped me out, anywhere.” Now that Ari could see her friends clearly—Jordan in a handmaiden’s dress and Lamarack in servant’s rags, she started to put together the hard truths. They must have been here for a while. And it hadn’t been easy. “Tell me what’s happened.”

Lam turned Ari toward them. “Gwen, Jordan, and I found ourselves in Camelot during the last snow of the winter. We were freezing, starving. And desperate to find the rest of you.” Ari winced, imagining Gwen in the melting snow, pregnant and searching for her. “We worked our way into the villagers’ trust. Labored for them, found ways to be paid in food and lodging. It was near impossible because… because…”

“Because when you don’t slot into people’s expectations here, they get suspicious at best and violent at worst? Because you’re used to the future, where it’s no big deal that you’re nonbinary, Jordan is a famous knight, and Gwen is knocked up and not here for patriarchal nonsense?” Merlin said, surprising Ari with robust anger. “This whole planet can kiss my ass!”

Ari held down a smile. That might have been the first time she’d heard Merlin swear. “The people here aren’t welcoming, but at least they don’t seem to treat us poorly based on skin tone. Didn’t you say that was a bizarre, evil thing they did?”

“Oh, they definitely did,” Merlin said heatedly. “But I’d forgotten that things were actually better if you went this far back. I’d even grown used to the notion that people of color were not featured in this era of European history. I don’t know who started that lie, but Hollywood was quite talented at spreading it. Did you know that enough poorly cast movies can whitewash a time period you’ve lived through? Because I didn’t.”

This seemed like a fresh rant. “When did you get here?”

“I seem to be the only person who arrived on schedule. I was in the portal only today. Val was right beside me a few hours ago, holding my hand.”

Lam pushed Ari’s short hair behind her ear. “I almost didn’t recognize you with this haircut.”

“Yeah, I’m a cis guy here. Apparently that means stupid chopped hair. Speaking of”—Ari dug around the straw at the pieces of her blue armor—“Where’s my breastplate? I need it. Last time someone figured out I have boobs I accidentally murdered him.” She started the sentence as a sort of informative joke, but it ended as harshly as that particular encounter.

Lam, Jordan, and Merlin watched her with paused expressions. She didn’t like those looks; it meant she’d have to explain the constant ragged lies she spun day after day simply to exist—not to mention the stinging absence of King Arthur’s voice deep inside as if she’d somehow lost him when she’d left the future.

Ari found her blue breastplate and strapped it across her chest. “I think I got knocked out in the portal. The last thing I remember is reaching for Gwen. And then someone pushed me.”

“It must have been my magic.” Merlin sighed. “I was trying to hold us all together.”

Ari shook her head. “Someone. I felt hands strike me. Next thing I knew, I was on the smoking wreckage of a battlefield. I stole a fallen knight’s