Mistress Vivienne tap-taps her way out of the room. She and Bedwyr and Isaac pass through the gathering of astonished knights and then out into the arcade. She leads them down a long hallway draped in tapestries, away from the castle bustle and noise, then turns into another empty and silent hallway with bare stone walls, and stops.

“Here we are,” she says, and leans her cane against the nearest wall. She pulls at her high collar and tugs at a chain that hangs around her neck. When it falls free, Isaac knows. It’s his pendant. The eternity knot.

The eternity knot has also been scratched into this stone wall.

She looks straight at Isaac. “This is how it is done,” she says.

“Mistress?” says Bedwyr.

“Not for your ears, knight, though you will play a part yet to come.” She holds up the pendant. “The key opens the Vault, which appears at a place the Guardian chooses and marks with the symbol.”

Vivienne holds the pendant tight in one fist, places her other hand on the wall, and says, “The Guardian requires you, door, here and now.”

The wall shimmers like water. A door forms, a door Isaac recognizes, and it opens to darkness.

“Do you understand?” she asks Isaac. “The words that work make a request for the door to appear.”

Leo was right, Isaac thinks.

Though he wonders how she can see him, Isaac nods, and she nods back.

“Give me the Myrddin and Caledfwlch, knight,” she says. She takes the orb and the sword from the knight. “I will not return. It’s time for another, who is waiting for me even now. Bedwyr, see your king to the end.” The knight bows and backs away.

Vivienne turns back to Isaac. “That watch you have. It carries a witch’s curse and a witch’s promise. Your parents made a choice to give the watch to you, and their choice saved everything, except them. Everything else you need to know you’ll find in your own time.”

Isaac’s heart aches for his parents, for the choice they made that has trapped them in time.

“Isaac Wolf,” Vivienne says, “you are already a master of your magic. You already know what to do. Be true to your heart and believe in yourself and in the power of your friends.”

Mistress Vivienne steps in through the door and before Isaac can move, the door vanishes. He’s left standing before the stone wall with Sir Bedwyr.

“I cannot see you,” the knight says aloud. “But I’ve pledged myself to the Guardian.” A smile creeps across his rough face. “I think you shall see me again, though I may not be as I am today.” He walks away just as the watch in Isaac’s fist begins to chime the hour, its sweet bell echoing through the stone hallways of Camelot.

CHAPTER 44

The Wraith