“Did it go as planned, Sire?”

I froze in my steps, for I could not find courage to move another inch toward the man who had spoken. His eyes—were those eyes? I saw them as black pits amid his steel gray beard. He wore a black gown bordered in stars and moons and strange devices that shone with their own weird green glow in the half-light. Instead of riding a horse, he rode a long-eared white mule. Although I stood in the shadows, he looked straight at me and smiled—it was as if a skull had grinned at me. And a fey and fearsome shock of recognition burned through me, even though I had never seen such a person before.

Sorcerer.

“Just as planned,” said my father—but his voice was not my father’s voice. Daddy’s voice was slow and golden, like honey, but this strange daddy’s voice was like the scratch of dog claws on gravel. Swinging onto his horse, a fat, brass-colored charger I had never seen before, he said, “I owe you a purse of gold, Merlin.”

“No, Sire. You owe me only what you have promised.”

A look passed between them. I cowered; I could not have withstood looking into that wizard’s empty black gaze.

“The baby she will bear,” said the Sire man in a low voice.

“Do not forget, my king, or you will rue it.”

“I keep my promises. But what do you want with my son?”

Merlin only laughed. He laughed like a night bird as they rode away.

I slipped back to my bed and lay trembling with my hands naughtily under the covers, curled between my legs for warmth. After a while I slept.

Oddly, Nurse let us girls sleep late that morning. When we awoke, we saw that she had been crying. She gave us porridge to eat, then told us that our father was dead.

I did not understand dead. I understood only that Daddy was gone. Somehow he had been turned into this Sire person, who turned out to be Uther Pendragon.

I did not think to fear that I would lose my mother also.

Nurse put us in our plainest frocks—brown wool—with brown hose and shoes. She brushed our hair smooth but let it hang loose down our backs. All the while Morgause cried, squeakily, like the mouse she was, until she hiccuped. But I did not weep. I turned to stone.

When she had dressed us, Nurse took us to our mother and left us.