The white, aspiring ramparts of Camelot. On a rare day of winter sunshine I looked up at them and knew with a pang that I belonged there. It was a castle under a spell, as I have said, and it had taken me back. I belonged there, fate and all.

Pellinore’s son, Sir Torre, saying to me, “You know, Mordred, you are not to blame.” I thought he meant for his father’s death and his brother’s death, but he said, “We bastards are not to blame for any of it.”

Garet, asking me, “Do you grieve for our mother?” And meaning it, even though it was he who had seized her by the hair and beheaded her.

Gawain, telling me, “I was always jealous of you for the sake of that brachet of yours. She would follow you anywhere. No dog was ever so faithful to me. No woman either.”

King Arthur’s smile as he offered me yet another gift. “Mordred, lad, I’d like to have a proper shield made for you. What device shall we put on it?” And I did not know how to answer him.

Pelleas riding in, worn so thin that sunlight seemed to shine through him, as if he were an angel. He had achieved the quest of the Grail—one of only four knights ever to do so, the others being Bors, Percival, and that bastard virgin Sir Galahad. Pelleas did not know me. He knew no one but King Arthur.

It was Pelleas who gave me my solution, in a way.

I went to see him in the tower he had once shared with Nyneve. Servants looked after him there, for he would not have eaten if they had not fed him. He was transfigured, folk said.

It clenched my heart to see him sitting there so thin and pale, with no white falcon on his shoulder, yet alight with happiness as he stared through the windows, up at the empty sky.

“Pelleas?”

He did not turn to me until I spoke his name. Then he gave me the same smile he gave everyone, as if he carried a sunrise inside him.

“Pelleas—” I wanted to get my errand over with quickly. “Pelleas, did they tell you about Nyneve?”

He did not answer. His smile shone yet warmer as he stared at me. “You were there,” he said.

“Yes.” I swallowed hard and sat down across from him. “Well, no.” In a way I had not been there when Nyneve died. I wondered often whether she knew beforehand what I was doing, whether she knew I was to blame. Whether she hated me. “I saw her—”

“You were there. I saw your reflection in the silver chalice.” Pelleas leaned toward me. “What is your name?”

“I—” I was a fool. I could not tell him my name; his sunlit innocence would not let me. I could not tell him about Nyneve either.