Gareth had only a jumble of impressions after that. He felt someone lift him, felt the bouncing of the carriage as they traveled back to London. Heard snatches of an argument between the queen and her uncle about where Gareth should be taken.
The queen must have won, for he saw the diamond-studded walls of Buckingham Palace, and not the warded ones of the Hall. He was carried upstairs to a bedroom paneled in strings of diamonds, and laid on a bed of clean linen sheets. Cupids danced above him, carved into a wooden canopy. He heard whispered conversations, felt the calming warmth of healing magic, and was stripped naked and washed by a stern-looking matron.
When would the relic suck him back in and end this nightmare?
“How is he?” whispered Queen Victoria.
“He’ll recover,” answered Lord Sussex.
Gareth cracked open an eyelid. His entire body still ached, but the sharp pain in his side had faded with the healer’s magic.
“He is awake,” said the queen, who stood in a beam of sunlight that slanted from a floor-to-ceiling window. “Thank heavens. I am… yes, I am rather fond of him.”
Gareth bolted upright in bed, gasped in pain, but refused to collapse back against the linens.
The queen stood in a beam of sunlight.
Sunlight.
“It’s about time you quit playing possum,” drawled the Master.
“It’s morning,” replied Gareth in amazement.
“Jolly right. You’ve been winking in and out of consciousness for hours.” The old man studied him with a frown. “Wait… by Jove! Aren’t you supposed to be taken by the relic with the dawn?”
“Yes.” Gareth swung his legs over the side of the bed. They had dressed him in some kind of gown, but he wouldn’t have cared if he had been stark naked. He stood, his legs a bit shaky, but managed to walk over to that beam of sunshine. Queen Victoria backed up a step, staring at him with wondering eyes. Gareth walked into the golden light, felt the warmth spread over his shoulders and down his arms. He narrowed his eyes against the glare and smiled at the queen. Truly smiled. For the first time in centuries. “Yes! I’m not supposed to be here. I should be in the relic. I should not be in pain. But I welcome both. Both!”
“You’re babbling, man,” said Lord Sussex.
“Babbling? Yes! The enchantment is broken and… and I have not turned to dust! After centuries of darkness, I stand in the light. After eons of immortality, I am finally mortal! Me, Gareth Solimere, once a knight of the Round Table, and once cursed by the great Merlin himself. Do you not understand what this means?” Gareth spread his arms, lifted his face to that glorious sun. “I am free! Finally free to live out a normal life.”
“But how?”
The Master’s softly spoken words brought Gareth up short, and his arms fell limply to his sides. How, indeed. What had happened to break Merlin’s curse? Had the relic finally acknowledged Millicent as his one true love? No, the bracelet had not tightened on her wrist…
Gareth stepped from the glare of that circle of sunlight. He blinked, stared at the haggard face of the Master of the Hall of Mages. They stood in a sumptuous room decorated in diamonds. The walls dripped with strings of them, and any slight movement caused those strings to sway, the stones to sparkle with mirrored light. Magic had crafted tables from enormous stones, including a fireplace surrounded with a mantel of the rock. A curtain of diamonds hung from the corners of the canopied bed, draped the sides of the tall windows. Chandeliers with teardrop-cut diamonds studded the ceiling. In the evening, the room would sparkle in the glow of fire and candlelight. Right now, it flashed with a dizzying array of prismatic color from the refracted sunshine.
He frowned.
Had Merlin’s curse truly, finally, been broken?
“That is not an illusion of the sun coming through the windows?”
“No, Sir Gareth,” replied Queen Victoria. “It is as real as you or I.”
“I do not understand.”
“That is obvious,” said the Master, his white brows creased together in thought. “Surely you had some inkling that the curse had been broken.”
“None. I…” Gareth turned to Victoria. “Your Majesty, do you still wear the relic?”
She nodded, brown curls bobbing against her cheeks. She pushed up the sleeve of her gown, the blue poplin cording into folds at her shoulder. The bracelet easily slid down her arm, dangled at her wrist. “It still has not tightened for me. Although, oddly enough, that fact isn’t as important as it seemed to be a few hours ago.”
“Thank Merlin!” snapped the Master. “I think the spell is finally wearing off. I’ve had enough of love spells to last me a lifetime.”
“You know, Uncle,” mused Queen Victoria, “I did not believe you… about Lord Ghoulston… and Sir Gareth.” She frowned, a delicate wrinkling of smooth skin. “But I feel as if I am waking from some strange dream…”
“May I see the relic, Your Majesty?” interrupted Gareth, forcing his voice to stay calm.
“Oh, yes. I don’t see why not.”
Lord Sussex sighed with relief as the queen removed the bracelet and handed it to Gareth. “You wouldn’t have given it up a few hours ago,” he said to her.
“I rather think you are right, Uncle.”
Gareth studied the band of silver, turning it until the moonstone caught the reflection of the sun, something it had not done since the time of Merlin. A crack ran along the middle of the gemstone, something it had not possessed before, either… when had he first noticed it?
“What is it?” asked Lord Sussex, turning his attention away from his niece.
“The gemstone is cracked.”
“And it did not have this flaw before… no, apparently it did not. Do you think it has something to do with why you have not been… taken, again?”
“I am not sure.” Gareth felt the room sway. Alas, he could not ignore his injuries. They would never be magically erased again. He smiled, although he rather imagined it resembled a grimace, and staggered back to the canopied bed, collapsing onto a puffy blanket.
Why must they always be puffy?
“I first noticed the crack when Lady Yardley gave it to the were-lion in the Hall of Mages. Yes. But I thought it a trick of the light. Nothing happened to cause the break… nothing that I can recall.”
“Mayhap it did not happen then,” said Lord Sussex, dragging over a silk-cushioned chair sprinkled with diamonds at back and arms, and settling his bulk atop it. “Good heavens, Victoria. Do you realize we are witnessing an historic event?”
“The entire past twenty-four hours have been historic,” replied Victoria, who began to pace the room, stepping in and out of that glorious beam of sunshine, her brown hair sparkling every time the light touched her head. She looked beautiful. Almost as beautiful as Millicent.
Gareth squeezed the band of silver.
“Think back,” prodded Lord Sussex. “Can you recall anything unusual that happened before then?”
“I…” Gareth flinched. Before they had met with Harcourt, he had woken up in Lady Yardley’s bedroom… and he had discovered that Millicent had broken his heart. “Can it be?”
“What, man?” exclaimed Lord Sussex, leaning forward in his chair, his eyes bright with excitement.
“I heard something crack…” But he had thought it was his heart.
“And?”
“And… could Merlin be that vengeful? Yes, of course he could. And after the way I felt when Millicent betrayed me, I cannot blame him.”
Lord Sussex let out a huff. “I’m not following you. What, exactly, is the nature of the curse that confined you to the relic? I have only bits and pieces of rumors.”
Gareth nodded. Yes, best to start at the beginning, and reason this through. If reason could be found from it. And who better to help him puzzle it out, than the Master of magic? After the battle with Ghoulston, Gareth had every reason to respect the intelligence of this man. “The words have been etched in my mind, for they have echoed to me again and again over the centuries. He said, ‘Only true love will break this spell, boy, and I curse you to search until you find it.’ And I thought I had.”