Merlin stood up, breaking the calm of the tiny cabin.
“Where are you going?” Val asked, worry running through his words like a current.
“I’ll be right back,” Merlin said, holding up a finger. “With ideas.”
He wanted to scout out a place beforehand. When Merlin finally kissed Val, it would be with all of the focus and purpose he usually saved for ending this blasted cycle. But Error was so tiny. Merlin rushed from room to room. Kay’s cabin was locked up, and Lam was in the bathroom. Merlin felt dizzy with indecision and lack of food. “Snacks!” he cried, remembering the one place on the ship that no one else had access to.
The pantry. He’d unlocked it with Kay’s retinal scan once. He could do it again. He bolted toward the back of the ship, imagining Val up against the dry goods, the rustle of boxes mingling with soft breath. Merlin had just enough magic left. He put his fingertips to his chest and shocked himself with a burst, his body swelling into Kay’s. He used Kay’s large, blockish hands to open the pantry.
And shut it.
Merlin tried to un-see Kay’s pale, fully undressed backside. The twin logs of his legs, the squared-off cheeks of his buttocks, his mussed silver hair. And behind him, pressed against the shelves, her dark curls raked with sweat, her sighs dashing Merlin’s hopes, was Gweneviere.
This was the other new part of Gwen and Kay’s relationship, post-Ari. They grieved together… and then they slunk off somewhere to have sex.
Merlin slammed the door, emphatically. He understood the strength of their grief, but that didn’t mean he wanted to see Kay’s naked pantry dance. His magic melted away, leaving him Merlin-shaped.
He whispered a single word as if it were a curse. “Kay!”
Val ran in. “Kay what?”
“Kay and Gwen,” he mumbled.
“Are they in there?” Val asked, disgusted. “Oh, celestial gods, please tell me he wasn’t doing the sexy talk.”
Jordan lumbered in.
“I thought you were in the cockpit,” Val said. “Who’s flying the ship?”
“I discovered something when I turned on the com line,” she said. “I must tell my queen.”
“Not now, Jordan,” Merlin said, flicking her away with his fingertips. Her presence only reminded Merlin of how wrong he’d been about the Lancelot situation. Merlin thought the same impossible thing he’d thought so many times since Ari’s death: Kay is Lancelot.
Merlin had wasted his time worrying about Jordan’s ferocious-blond brand of loyalty. Kay had failed knight camp, but he was stubborn and true. And he had given up everything to be Ari’s brother. He was her most loyal knight.
And now he was bursting out of the pantry, dressed in red boxer briefs. “You have to stop stealing my face!”
“Stop stealing Ari’s wife!” Merlin shouted.
“Ari is dead!” Kay yelled, a vein appearing on his forehead like a bolt of angry lightning.
Gwen emerged from behind Kay, tugging her dress back together.
“No judgment, no judgment, no judgment,” Merlin muttered under his breath.
“Really?” Val asked. “I vote judgment.”
Jordan sighed. “My queen, I’ve found something.”
“No one is queen anymore,” Gwen said, her voice low and shadowed. “What is it, Jordan?”
The black knight paused. Her potent silence told Merlin that she was in possession of a factual grenade and was about to drop it. “The ship has four thousand, three hundred and seventy-two missed messages,” she said. “And they’re all from Ketch.”
The stone-paved main street was a battlefield.
Ari rode up to meet the line of Mercer associates astride a damn dragon. “That’s right, you corporate assholes!” she called out, sword high, sun glinting off the blade. “He might not breathe fire but he does eat dumbasses for breakfast!”
She sounded her war cry and spurred her great green steed into a scurrying charge. Ari meant to flip off his back, cutting through the Administrator’s front line of defense with one fell swoop from Excalibur. Instead, her taneen sank on its hindquarters to scratch its shoulder with a vigorous thumping from its back leg.
Ari launched off him sideways, taking out the front row all right, but not gracefully. The stuffed associates’ shirts exploded, spilling rice everywhere, and Kay dove at the sight, lapping up the uncooked grains.
“No, no! Kay, stop!” She grabbed him around the neck, nearly thicker around than both of her arms, and pulled the young taneen back. “Remember the last time you ate a bunch of uncooked rice? Your belly ached for a week. Sit, Kay! I said, sit.”
The dragon, who was only a few months old and yet already bigger than the horsebots on Lionel, sat back on his haunches, whipping his tail around and kicking sand and rice everywhere. Ari laughed, digging out a piece of lamb jerky from her pocket and tossing it into Kay’s mouth. Her favorite taneen hatchling was exactly like her brother. Obstinate, obnoxious, smelly, and always thinking with his stomach. That’s what had made him the easiest to train. And fall in love with. She gave him a thorough rub along the soft skin between the plates across his back. Kay made a moony, happy sound—which also sounded like her brother.
“Stay…” Ari said, backing up. Kay began to wiggle out of place, and she gave him a stern eye. He sat back down, but continued to create chaos with his tail. “Okay, one more. This is the big one, remember?” Ari eyed Kay, who was already more interested in whatever might be in her pocket than her command. “Play dead!” she called.
Kay grinned, triangular mouth hanging open, tongue hanging out to the side.
“Does Big Mama know you’re playing with her baby again?” Morgana said, appearing out of thin air like an annoying ghostly know-it-all.
“Big Mama is fine as long as I feed them both. Besides, Kay doesn’t like being secluded in the hot, boring desert. Do you, buddy?” Ari rubbed down his hard nose, getting licked on the cheek. “Now, play dead!”
Kay squatted low and playfully. Big Mama’s howl echoed down the street, and the sight of the enormous taneen turned Kay into less of a trained dragon and more of a toddler, wiggling with delight to perform for his mom. He rolled on his back, legs in the air, and lolled his tongue out. Big Mama came scuttling down the street, dwarfing everything in sight, including her baby. She sniffed at Kay’s position and then growled disapprovingly.
“He’s just playing dead, Big Mama.” Ari stuck two fingers in her mouth and whistled. Kay jumped back onto his feet. She pulled out two pieces of lamb jerky, tossing one in Kay’s mouth and the other up to his mom. Big Mama swallowed it whole and turned around, pounding the rice-associates into the sand with her large, clawed feet as she went. Kay slobbered on Ari’s arm for a minute and then scuttled after his mom.
Ari climbed the street sign, unwinding the camera tied to the post. She reviewed the footage they’d made. “There’s some good stuff, I think. Not a complete loss considering it took two weeks to build those dummies.”
“I still can’t understand why you’re doing this,” Morgana said.
“It’s training.” Ari hopped down and swung Excalibur with a loose wrist. “Practice for the real thing.”
“Assuming you ever get off this rock.”