Lancelot curses beside me. “Cachu…!” We move as one, pulling blades as we go, driving into another battle that we hoped we would win, but did not.

Later, after the dead have come home and lie wrapped, Lancelot finds me at the north wall of the hold. “Arthur!” I sigh wearily.

When he reaches me, the angry stream of Welsh simply becomes meaning in my mind. “How many more have to die? How many, Arthur? Do you even know who we lost tonight, or are you already dreaming of the next strategy?”

His stag sigil is streaked with blood. None of it his. He swipes away the sweaty, flaxen hair plastered to his forehead. “Arthur, are you even listening—”

“Boras’s son, Elyan.” My voice is a low roll of thunder that stops him short. “Clawddyn. Brandylles. Morolld. Balan.” Each name sinks deeper into my chest, alongside the others I have lost. We used to be fifty and one hundred. We are dwindling.

His eyes find mine, pleading and desperate. “Sixty-seven gone, now.”

I advance on him, angry. “I know that number better than you ever will! See their faces more clearly. They pledged their lives, as well as their swords, to mine.” I pound on my chest, where the dragon sits in shreds. “I feel it when that pledge is torn apart! I bear that pain every day.”

“I…” Lancelot’s eyes flutter. Look away. “I did not know, my liege. Forgive me.” When he looks back, the image stutters, shifts—

And it is Nick’s broad shoulders filling the tunic and mail. Nick’s eyes, fierce and strained.

Then he is gone, and Lancelot is back.

I open my mouth, because this is when Arthur speaks. But this time, I pause, and he does not speak.

Lancelot waits, and I do not say a word, and this is not what happened.

Because this is not real.

I am not Arthur.

I am Bree.

And maybe I can control this.

In this frozen almost-past, my mind whirs toward the possibilities. I did not travel back in time. I am in Arthur’s memory, but I am not walking it as an observer like Patricia in a memory walk. It isn’t view-only.

When I channel Arthur, his spirit possesses my body in the real world, and he can do things that I can’t control. But right now, his spirit has somehow channeled me. I’m possessing his body in a memory. Does that mean I can take control in Arthur’s world, the way Arthur can take control in mine?

Twice I have seen Nick, who wasn’t even born centuries ago. I wrap my mind around hope that this world is… mutable somehow. That I can influence it again. Oh please. Please, please.