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Arthur’s face wrinkled in confusion, then smoothed out with deliberate understanding. “Oh. Your sister. I was not aware she was coming for a visit.”
“Neither was I.”
“Lancelot, will you wait outside?”
“She knows everything,” Guinevere said. Arthur did not revise his statement, though, so Lancelot bowed her head to her king, then closed the door behind her.
Guinevere started babbling. “She saw me. She saw me!”
“What did she do?”
“Embraced me.”
“She—wait. She saw you as Guinevere?”
Guinevere sat on the edge of her bed, throwing her hands up. “Yes! No. I do not know. It would have been three years since she had seen her sister, and of course no one is aware that the real Guinevere is…”
She trailed off. She hated the cruelty of letting the family think their daughter and sister was alive and well when in real
ity the girl had died in the spring. It was demanding a price of people who never agreed to pay it, all to keep the false Guinevere safe and at Arthur’s side.
But as she had learned, much of Merlin’s magic had a breathtakingly cruel edge. So much smashed and broken and discarded on the way to an end only he could see. An end only he chose.
Arthur reached for her hands and she let him take them, wishing again she could feel what he felt. She would give anything to siphon some of his calm assurance into herself right now. “Did Merlin do something to change your appearance?” he asked. “To make you more like Guinevere?”
“Not that I remember, but you could fill a thimble with what I remember and still have room to spare. Curse that faithless wizard!”
Arthur flinched and let go of her hands. Whatever Guinevere’s own complicated feelings toward Merlin, Arthur revered him as his oldest friend and protector. Guinevere rubbed her face, then stopped, her numb hands making everything feel off. Strange. Was it her face? What secrets did it hold?
She shook her head. “As far as I know, he only changed the memories of the nuns so they would think I was their own Guinevere.” The information was just there, in her head, much the same as the knot magic and her few memories of growing up in the forest. There was no lead-up to it. No planning with Merlin, no discussions, no memory of it actually happening. “He could have done something to my appearance. I do not think he did, but he could have.”
“So either Guinevach truly recognized you, or…”
Guinevere leaned back and stared at the ceiling. “There are two options. The first, that Guinevach is only pretending to recognize me. Either because she was young enough when the real Guinevere left—” Arthur flinched again. He did not like it when Guinevere referred to the other one as the real one. But was it not the truth? She was the imposter. “Because she was so young that there is enough room for Guinevach to convince herself she misremembers what her own sister had looked like.”
“You said ‘either.’?”
Guinevere made a clumsy attempt to undo her tight plaits. The braids were tugging at her scalp, but her fingers struggled uselessly. “Either that, or she is pretending to recognize me because she has some reason to pretend. We have had enemies in fine clothes in the castle before.”
Arthur reached out, taking one of Guinevere’s braids and slowly undoing it. “But how would she have known it was you arriving at the castle? You were not accompanied by heralds. And you were with Brangien. She did not assume Brangien was the queen.”
“Brangien looks like no one else here.” Her father had walked across the world to change his fortunes. Brangien’s features favored him, with beautiful big eyes and a round face.
“True. But if she truly could not remember her own sister’s appearance, she would have asked. Not flung herself at you.”
“She did call out my name before I turned toward her. And I reacted. So maybe by the time she reached me, she convinced herself, or was too confused? But no. That is not right. She was comparing our heights to what they had been and talking about our freckles. She seemed confident.”
Arthur paused. His fingers ran down the waves left behind in her hair. “Maybe Guinevach is not Guinevach. Magic can—magic can alter faces. Perhaps yours was not the one altered.”
Guinevere knew exactly what event he was remembering. The betrayal of his mother. His father, Uther Pendragon, wearing the face of Lady Igraine’s husband through magic. Merlin’s magic.
“True. But if that were the case, my knots at every doorway would undo the spell. Mordred is aware of those knots, though. And if whoever sent her knows I am not the real Guinevere, they would not need to change her face. I cannot recognize a sister I have never met, either. It would be easy to send someone pretending to be her.” Perhaps, after the fairy queen’s failure with the forest, Guinevach was another method of attack. If she had been sent here for Guinevere, that would explain how she knew exactly who to look for. She would have been prepared. “The Dark Queen cannot enter Camelot, so she created someone who we would never turn away.”
“It is a possibility. But you said two options. What is the other option?”
Guinevere tapped her chin, wondering. The second option made even less sense. “That Guinevach did in fact recognize me. There were only a few days between when I took the real Guinevere’s place at the convent and when I left with your men. Merlin changed the nuns’ memories. I cannot imagine him slowly walking south for a month just to change Guinevach’s memory. But then again, Merlin saw all of time at once. So he would have known Guinevach would come to the castle.”
Arthur sounded dubious. “If Merlin walked—and he always walked, I never knew him to use a horse—or even if he had ridden, would he have had time to get to Guinevach and then come back before you saw him be sealed into the cave by the Lady of the Lake?”
