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Lancelot ran his fingers through his hair, scratching his scalp. “This is taking too long. We should split up.” He knew, sadly, where he was most needed. “I should go and ensure that Grinn is neither dead nor busy terrorizing the countryside. I should learn what has become of him and Gwendolyn.” After a pause he added, “And the wizard, I suppose.” Lord above, he hated wizards. Shifty bastards.
Zoe chuckled. “I can send you to him. Enin and I will rally as many others as we can find.” She opened a portal through space. “Five days at dawn.”
Enin nodded once curtly. The Lord in Green was not a talkative fellow.
Letting out a breath, Lancelot kept his hand on the hilt of his sword and stepped through the portal, not knowing what to expect on the other side. But he knew one thing.
His headaches at the hands of elementals had only just begun.
TWENTY-ONE
Damn it all, Gwen wasbored.
She hadn’t seen Mordred in a day, as he was busy continuing to prepare the keep for war, and everyone else seemed to ignore her existence. Hours and days fell into the same pattern—wake up, let dog out, wait, let dog in, sit around, poke at things in the room, eat what was brought to her, let dog out, wait, let dog in, sleep.
There were books in her room, but one of them looked like it was in Old English—so it was pretty much gibberish—and the other one was in Latin. Which was as good as gibberish. The only person she had to talk to was the guard that was stationed outside of her room.
And he couldn’t talk.
This time, when Eod was let out in the afternoon, she sat down on the floor on the inside of the jamb into the room and waited. It was just nice to have the door open for a bit. It made her feel a little cramped.
“Y’know, I’ve been thinking,” she said to the unfinished soldier. “I shouldn’t name you. You should name you.”
He tilted his head to the side slightly with a squeak.
“You should have the right to pick your own name.” She smiled. “I’ll list off a bunch of choices, and you can stop me when you find one you like. First—would you like a boy name?”
A nod.Squeak-squeak-squeak.
At first, she tried to list all the names she could think of in alphabetical order. “Aaron, Alex, Andrew—”
Nothing.
Then, she kept remembering other names and quickly gave up on the idea of doing them in order. She just decided to jump around at random. “Ben, Mac, Jon, Jake—”
Nope.
“—Lorcan, Jeremy, Brennan—”
Nada.
“—David, Jim, Garry, Dillon, Isaac, Michael, Don, Eagan—”
Zilch.
“Tim—”
He raised his hand. She paused. He thought it over for a second, turning his head away. Then he nodded emphatically.
“Tim?” She smiled. “I like it. Tim the Tin, although…I guess you’re technically made of iron and all.” She pushed up from the ground and stuck her hand out to him. “Nice to meet you, Tim.”
He stared at her hand for a moment as if not knowing what to do with it before carefully putting his hand into hers. It was missing a finger, like it had rusted away or hadn’t been drawn at all. It didn’t bother her. Shaking his hand, she couldn’t help but feel a little proud of herself. It wasn’t fair that he was so neglected. She’d have to lecture Mordred about taking better care of his creations next time she saw him.
Speak of the devil, and there he was. Mordred rounded the corner of the hallway and saw the exchange. He arched an eyebrow. “Am I interrupting?”
“Meet Tim.” She smiled and pointed at the metal guard. In response, Tim straightened his back and puffed out his breastplate in pride.
Mordred stared at her flatly. “You really must stop naming everything.”
