“Can’t do it.” I put my head in my hands. “I just can’t be here anymore.”
A whip of seaweed flew from the water and wrapped around my waist. I screamed for a half second before I was dragged underwater, traveling through a whirlpool until I was spit out into the lady’s cave.
“Tell me what changed,” she demanded, her heated voice echoing through the cold chamber. “You are dying, being destroyed and devoured from the inside by two forces that care not a whit for what happens to you. Whatever could be keeping you from saving yourself?”
Each time I went through the whirlpool, it felt like an eternity of being alone. Maybe I needed to tell someone how I felt before I exploded—or worse, broke down in tears. “Everything’s messed up. I’ve got all these feelings. But they’re for someone I can’t have. So being in Camelot, close to him, is like chugging poison-apple cider.”
“Rex.” DumBeau stumbled around a stalagmite, tripping a few times over his Rapunzel hair-length ears. When he finally got to me, he threw his arms around me and patted the back of my head.
A sigh whipped through the chamber like a breeze. “You remind me far too much of myself for my own good,” the lady said, a nearby pool of water growing into the shape of a see-through woman. “I too once loved a man who I wasn’t supposed to have. He loved me as well. And that angered the supposed heroine of the story.”
I squirmed to get out of DumBeau’s well-meaning but crushing embrace. A few minutes ago, I would have said the lady was lying about someone falling in love with her, but the woman made of water was a far cry better to look at than the jellyfish, kelp, and eel swamp thing. Still, her story didn’t add up.
“Wait. I was raised on the legends of Camelot. And that wasn’t in any of the stories.”
The liquid sculpted more, further defining the woman’s details.
“Haven’t you learned by now that every story has more than one version?” The nearest pool of water shimmered, showing an image of my friends and my outlaw posters in succession. There was a new line at the bottom of the poster: Dead or Alive. Great.
“So what’s the unauthorized version?”
“I tried to be nice and follow the rules. I thought that love would conquer all. I was wrong. The heroine decided if she couldn’t have him, then no one should. So she ordered Morgana La Fey to create a death curse.”
“Is that what happened to Mordred? Or was it Arthur?” I racked my swiss cheese memory. “Who was he, and what happened to him?”
Water beads formed on the rocks overhead. Drip. Drop. It was as if the cave were crying. “My dearest love died in my waters, and that is why he is known in all the versions of the story as Lancelot de Lac. Lancelot of the Lake.”
Drip. Drip.
After all these centuries, the Lady of the Lake still mourned Lancelot. And if I put her story alongside the “official” legend, it wasn’t hard to figure out who the other woman, the heroine, was—Gwenevere.
“And then there is your story, an echo of my own,” the lady started.
There was a distant splash, and DumBeau perked up.
“It’s Kato,” the Lady of the Lake said.
I sighed. “Yes, I know. It’s complicated and I couldn’t have picked a worse person to fall for, but it’s not like I could help it.”
“No, I meant it’s Kato in my lake, looking for you.” The drips slowed. “He cares for you, so perhaps your situation is less complicated than you think. Take the sword and fight. No one, no matter their story, is unworthy of being loved. You deserve this happiness.”
“I can’t. Betraying him would kill me faster than Dorthea or Morte or any of Gwennie’s self-empowerment therapies. I just can’t go back to Camelot again.”
Every puddle and pool of standing water boiled. “Gwenevere. She’s alive? And holds Camelot?”
“Well, sort of. I mean her head does. Not sure where the rest of her went.”
“It’s ash. Her body was burned at the stake after Arthur beheaded her for treason and what she did to me.” The lady’s body exploded into millions of droplets and whipped through the cavern like a squall. “If Gwenevere is in Camelot, Mic must have succumbed to her charms. She will try to seduce Mordred next and claim Excalibur. We have to be ready.”
“Mic…as in the Mimicman? Whoa.” The seaweed struck out at me again, this time grabbing my heels and snapping off their golden arrows.
“I need these, but I give you this pearl in exchange.” A glistening orb floated up out of the water. “Magic can create but a pale imitation of love. However, it can give you a fair shot. Put this in Kato’s mouth and he will forget all before him except you. Beyond that, securing his love is something only you can do. But if you don’t go now, I believe he will drown searching for you.”
“Stay, Rex.” DumBeau plucked the pearl from the pool and laid it in my hand, then threw me in the whirlpool. “Away.”
The watery cyclone tossed and turned me before spitting me back out. Kato was not on the shore. I looked to the lake. I could see a black shape splashing, then sinking.
Without a thought, I dove back in. What was he thinking? Jumping into a lake in a full suit of armor? The whirlpool had disappeared, meaning Kato was sinking to the bottom of the lake. He couldn’t breathe underwater like I could.
I grabbed Kato and furiously kicked my way back to the surface.
“You moron,” I cursed, dragging him to shore and pulling off his armor so I could get to his chest. No heartbeat. “You can’t have him, Morte!” I pushed on Kato’s chest again and again. He wasn’t breathing. I was about to blow air into his lungs when he started coughing up water like a fountain.
I pushed him onto this side so that he could breathe. Then I thumped his back, perhaps a smidge harder than necessary. “What were you thinking?”
“From the castle. Saw you. Fall into lake.” He sputtered and hacked more.
“I’m immortal, you big beast. You, on the other hand, are not.”
“I don’t like it when you suffer or die. You come back different, and I don’t want you to go through that. I can’t watch the embers of your life’s hearth fade.” He huffed and closed his eyes. “You are important to me, so I’m going to take care of you. Deal with it.”
The pearl in my fist grew hot.
I could use the enchantment. Just a quick pop, like a pill. It would be so easy. Why shouldn’t I get a chance? Maybe he could love me if he didn’t have Dorthea on his mind.
As soon as the thought came, I pushed it away. I was ashamed I’d even considered it. I knew what it was like to be controlled, to lose a piece of myself. I would never wish that upon anyone. Let alone someone I—
I felt her a split second before the strike of lightning cracked the ground. A dust cloud formed from the damage, but the outline of a figure was plainly there.
Kato eased himself up and squinted to see what was going on. “Who’s that?”
“The lightning was green.”