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“Mordred…”
“I had to send you away—a mortal woman has no place by my side. I am too dangerous. Too despised. Better you hated me, believe that you meant nothing to me—than…than force me to bury you in a crypt.” He leaned both hands on the anvil of the forge, as if it were the only thing holding him up. “Better my heart go alone to the grave than to see you beside it.”
Apparently, she wasn’t done with crying today. Even if these were dream tears. She walked up behind him, not caring about the sweat. She hugged him around the waist, resting her cheek against his back. She felt his muscles slacken.
She had nothing to say.
“I do not regret sending you away. I would do it a thousand times again. You are safe now, on Earth, with those who love you.” He placed his hand over the back of hers. It was rare to feel the skin of his palm. It was rough, but not unpleasant. “And we can dream together until death takes me.”
“I love you, Mordred.”
He let out a small breath. “And I shall cherish those words you wrote to me, Gwendolyn Wright. For they are a kindness not once ever spoken in this world.”
She wasn’t sure when the dream faded away.
Gwen felt like she had been hit by a car by the time they hit the road again that morning. She had slept like garbage. Once she had woken up from her “dream,” she had tossed and turned until the sun came up and Doc knocked on the door to her room.
She was pretty eager to get going, even if she did feel terrible.
Because now she had a plan.
It had come to her in the hour just before the sun rose. She knew what she needed to do. She just had no idea if it would actually work or not.
Mordred would refuse to be with her until she wasn’t a squishy mortal anymore, right? Okay, so she had to become something other than a squishy mortal. Which was, of course, easier said than done. Doc was going to try to hook her into the magic of Avalon, but there was no telling what would actually come out of that.
Would it work at all?
Would it do anything to her?
Or would she just wind up with the power to rapid-boil pasta water or some shit?
There really was no way of knowing.
But Avalon was full of magical creatures. Maybe there was a vampire somewhere who would turn her—ew, on second thought, she quickly decided she’d make a terrible vampire. Blood made her kind of nauseous. Not to mention, she’d probably end up apologizing to every single person she bit.
“Is there a way to become an elemental again? Like, willingly?” she asked Doc as they walked along the road.
“No. Avalon chooses who it wants. Sorry.” He tucked his hands into his robe pockets. “Why?”
“You know why. You know the answer to everything, don’t you?”
“Yeah, but I like to play dumb sometimes. I like to hear what people say.” He grinned cheekily at her.
Wiseass. She rolled her eyes. “I—I need to find a way for Mordred to accept me. But he’ll just send me away again until I can prove to him that I can hold my own in a fight. That I won’t get used by others to manipulate him.”
“You realize that even if you became an elemental, you can still be outnumbered and lose, right?” He kicked a pebble down the road ahead of them. “Same if you learn how to use some magic.”
“Well, you’re immortal, right?”
“Unfortunately.”
“Can’t I just become a wizard like you? Only, not insane?”
“That’s not up to you. That’s up to the island. I’m taking you to the heart of Avalon, where you can—eh—talk is the wrong word. It doesn’t talk. It simply is. The island of Avalon is alive.” He gestured at the forest. “And I don’t just mean trees and animals. It’ll decide what to do with you.”
“I still can’t wrap my head around the fact that the island is sentient.”
“It doesn’t really think. It feels. Like the way tree roots are connected. It exists. And it does that on a level far, far above the tiny minds of creatures like us. But it can be communed with, pardon the hippie phrase.”
