He smiled bashfully, jamming his hands in his pockets, but it slipped away as he looked at his feet. “So what was the deal with you lot last night?”

“What do you mean?”

“I had coffee with Morg this morning. She told me you all fell asleep on David.”

I took a step away and grabbed the ball off the ground. “Yeah. And?”

“Where was Emily?”

I passed him the ball. “What’d you mean?”

He sighed, hinting the obvious. “Where, Ara?”

“Oh, um, she had her head in his lap.”

“Exactly.” He spun the ball around a few times between his palms, studying it. “You all looked at me last night like I was coming to Morg’s room for sex or something, yet Em falls asleep with her head in your husband’s crotch, and no one bats an eyelid?”

“Someone did.”

“Who?” He glanced sideways at me, the ball rolling off his fingertips toward the hoop again. “You?”

I nodded.

He sighed. “Things aren’t great between her and I, Ar, but . . . I love her.”

“Do you? Really?” I asked in a flat but curious tone.

“Of course.” He bent down to grab the ball. “She just expects too much of me. I can't be with her twenty-four-seven.”

“Or you don't want to.”

He made a basket, his hands staying in the air a few seconds longer than needed. “I . . . I don't know.”

I grinned, trapping the ball under my toe as it rolled toward me. “Trouble in paradise.”

“Shut up.” He copied my grin, elbowing me in the ribs after.

“Just tell me one thing,” I said.

“Sure.”

“Do you actually want to be with her, Mike, or are you holding on to her like some trophy?”

“Nice shot.” He laughed, watching my ball go through the hoop without hitting the rims. “And . . . yes. I do want to be with her, Ara. But—” His gaze went distant.

“But?”

“There are . . . things. I dunno.” He shook his head. “I just . . . it’s not all black and white.”

“So talk,” I said, and Mike walked away, taking a seat on the courtside bench, with his head in his hands.

I sat beside him, leaving the ball to roll off, coming to rest on the foot of the hill.

“When I spend time with her, she’s not even there. You know, I told her something really personal the other day, and she. . .” He leaned back, looking up at the sky. “She laughed. Yet, when I told Morg the same thing, she. . .”

“She?”

“Well, she supported me. It’s like, I know you think there’s something with Morg and me, but there’s not. She just . . . listens.”

“She gets you,” I said with a smile.

“Yeah. But it’s not just her special talent, Ar. She’s a good person.”

I nodded and looked up at the same place Mike was staring. “So, are you saying you want Emily to be more like Morgaine?”

He laughed, catching the humour in my voice. “I just want her to want me for more than the idea she has of me, if that makes any sense.”

I ran the words over in my head, interpreting them as best I could. “You want to be free to be you, and have her love you anyway.”

“Yeah. But she’s got this image of me and what I should be, you know? And it’s not me, Ar.”

“I know.” I nodded, thinking more about the Mike I grew up with. “So, what was it?”

“What was what?”

“The personal thing you told Morg and Em, but not me.”

His lips parted in a breathy grin. “It’s private.”

“Please tell me.”

I saw him considering it as he studied me in his peripheral, and I knew that, for the first time in so long, he saw me as his best friend again. “I spend more time down here than I do at the barracks.”

“Hm.” I was taken aback for a moment, disguising my shock quickly with a smile. “You like hanging with the children?”

He nodded, his whole body rocking with the movement. “I get something out of this. I don’t know. I just . . . when I spend the day with them—teaching them things, playing with them, and I see the difference it makes—see them put what I’ve taught them into practice or see them behave differently each time I visit, it. . .” He stopped for a second to look at my face. “It makes my life seem like it has a purpose.”

“Really?” was only one of the hundred questions I suddenly wanted to ask.

“Yeah.” He looked into my eyes then at my lips, probably expecting me to laugh. “Morg thinks I should change my career path.”

“To what?”

His hands tightened, a slow breath filling the lengthy pause. “A teacher.”

My gut dropped. “Are you—?”

“No.” He waved a reassuring hand. “I’m not even thinking about it. You know I couldn’t leave you, but I . . . I like the idea, you know, that maybe this—” he motioned around himself and my world, “—isn’t all there is for me.”

“And what did Em think of that?”

“She thinks . . . She—” He swallowed the lump in his throat. “Well, she said it was ridiculous. Said I was born to be Chief, and that I shouldn’t be anywhere else.”

“I. . .” I nodded, stalling for time until I could sort my own thoughts and opinions out from my fears and worries. “Morg’s right, Mike. You’ve always been the sort of guy who’d be good at teaching. I mean, hell, you taught me nearly everything useful I know in life.”

“Aw, shucks.”

I laughed. “Buuuut. . .”

“I know.” He patted my hand. “I know you need me here.”

“We won’t always, though, Mike.” I patted his hand back until he looked at me. “I think it’s great, and I think you should definitely do it. But, just . . . can you wait ‘til this Drake thing’s resolved?”

He put his arm around my neck and pulled me close. “Sure, kid. I hadn’t made any plans to go anywhere just yet. You can count on me.”

“I know.” I smiled, pressing my brow into his kiss.

Since the king took his place on the throne, so many things had changed around here, including our secret meeting place under the Throne Room floor. The plain wooden chairs that edged the round table before had been replaced by what looked like dark-wood artefacts from King Arthur’s Vault, each one square-topped, high-backed and identical. Even the king’s and queen’s chairs were the same as everyone else’s, symbolising unity, David had told me, adding that the round table represented equality among men for the better of the kingdom.

We’d discussed brightening the room with modern lighting but, in the end, David felt it was best to leave things traditional. I guess growing up by the light of torches in sconces made him accustomed to it. But my new vampire vision hadn’t enhanced my ability to read in the dark, which was another thing that’d changed since David returned from the dead: minutes. We now documented and recorded every discussion held in this room, unless spoken in confidence—the minutes jotted down in some giant, yellowing old book with a quill and ink. David had come down with a bad case of sixteenth-century-itis. And, now, I was stuck editing the A4 sheets before they were sent to the scroll room for insertion into the giant book.

“Arrangements have been made,” David finished, cutting Mike off. “I need you here to protect the queen while I’m away.”

Mike sat down on the long wooden bench against the wall. “I am the head of security, David. It’s my job to—”

“It’s your job to do as I tell you,” he finished, looking back at the faces around the table. Mike shook his head, yielding. “Besides,” David added. “I want you to oversee Court in my absence.”

“What?” pretty much everyone in the room said.

David sat down, his eyes moving past Blade, Ryder, Quaid, then Falcon, landing finally on Mike. “We both know Ara doesn’t have the guts to do what has to be done around here.”

“Like what?” I cut in.

“The men who were arrested last week for breaking human law?” he said, his brow arching to prompt my memory.

“So I let them off with a warning.” I shrugged. “What’s wrong with showing compassion?”

“It’s not how things are done,” David said. “Now, more than ever, we need to show strength. We need to make examples of these lawbreakers and make certain their behaviour is not contagious.”

“I think the fear of torture was enough to scare them into behaving from now on,” I said.

“If that were so, my love, they’d not have committed a crime in the first place.”

“David,” Mike said. “I’m not undermining Ara by ruling Court while you’re gone. She has to appear strong and independent, and that’s more important than seeing everyone gets the right punishments.”

“To show mercy is to exude weakness,” David said, and looked at Morgaine.

“I agree,” Morg said. “But also agree with Mike, David. You can’t put your security chief on the throne to do your bidding when you have a perfectly capable queen. What message does that give our people about your faith in her?”

David looked sideways at me.

“Never mind that,” I said. “What does it tell me about his faith in me?”

David leaned his elbows on the table, his head falling heavily into his sigh. “I have faith in you, Ara. But you’re too kind, sweetheart. You let too many murderous villains off with a warning.”

“Well—” I sat taller. “I can be mean, if you want me to.”

He half laughed. “Fine. Prove it.”

“O. . .kay.” I looked at Mike for a second. “How?”

“There will be a case brought before us in Court today—three men accused of murder in the human realm. I want you to judge them harshly, Ara. I want you to make an example of them.”

“What do you want me to do?”

“Same thing that was done before you took the throne.”

“What?”

“You must sentence them to seven days’ burial, without comforts. No torchlight, no air, no blood.”

“David, no.”

“Yes,” he said sternly. “They have to learn.”

“But that’s barbaric. They’ll go insane.”

He smiled. “Lesser men have survived worse. Perhaps they’ll come out better for it in the end.”

“I have to say, I agree.” Blade leaned back in his chair, chewing a piece of grass he’d smuggled in.

“Blade? You can’t be serious,” I said.