Morgaine takes this comment as encouragement and bounds forward. “Stop resisting my demands and accompany me!” She can’t be more than twenty-five, but here she behaves like an impish teenager. She waggles her dark brows. “I have something to show you, brother. And don’t ask what, because it’s a surprise.”

Arthur peers down at her and releases a long-suffering sigh. “I am tired, Morgaine.”

She tugs at her brother’s hand, and he smiles down at her. “Then you should come with me before your old bones get lost forever in this chair.”

Arthur surprises me by murmuring words that do not quite feel like they are for her ears, but for his own. “Were you always this mischievous, sister?”

“Yes.” She laughs. “Come with me,” she begs, and pulls again. “Quick, before Merlin returns.”

“Are you hiding something from Merlin?” His eyes widen, with a glint of their own mischief. “Nothing good can come of this.”

She giggles. “Like that has ever stopped you.”

Arthur watches Morgaine like I might watch him, wondering if she is a figment of his imagination. It gives me an idea.

I step forward so that I stand between them. “Arthur, I don’t know if you can hear me. But this is a dream, she isn’t real—”

Behind them, the flames of the fireplace roar higher, hotter. A second later, and all is as it was, except I am left reeling. This world reacted to my words, just like it had in the throne room.

Morgaine frowns at her brother. “Must you be so stubborn?”

Arthur’s eyes sharpen on her face. “No. Let’s go, then. Show me your surprise.”

“Stop!” I hold out a hand, but his body passes through mine just like before. Dizzying, nauseating. “None of this is real—” The light shifts in the room as if night has abruptly descended. Thunder rolls nearby, foreboding. The precursor to lightning.

Then, as I hold my tongue, the fire quiets down and the thunderclouds clear. The light shifts outside and the sky turns calm. The dream, warning me again that if I continue, it will break down around me. That the only way to keep things peaceful here is to behave as though this place is real, believe that it’s real. Ignore that there is any other world than this one made of magic and consciousness. If I acknowledge the dream is a dream, then it becomes a nightmare.

Are these Merlin’s rules? Or did Arthur turn on himself after centuries of waiting, and make his own dreams a prison?

No wonder he was so eager to meet me and see the world through my eyes in the beginning.

I was his escape.

As the last bit of thunder quiets, Morgaine and Arthur chatter happily, like the volume turned up again. They walk to the door and exit the room to turn right down the hall.