“Why did I even get the brooch in the first place?” Kes asked. “What do I have to do with Arthur Pendragon?”
“Well,” Walter looker her over. “You are obviously not King Arthur, but you must have Pendragon blood in you.”
“My great-great-great-aunt was a Pendridge.”
“Ah!” Walter smiled. “Pendridge/Pendragon. Same thing.”
Kes’ mouth fell open. “Are you telling me that my distant aunt was a Pendragon?”
“If there is an aunt,” Walter said.
“But why did she send the brooch to me?”
“We do not know who wanted you to have the brooch. Unfortunately, as I understand it, the brooch is not functioning properly, hence your landing in the middle of a battlefield.”
“So she may not return to the day she left. Or to the same century,” Nicholas pointed out. “There is no guarantee.”
“If our friend can even procure it, but aye, that is correct,” Walter admitted.
“That is not good enough,” Nicholas told her. “If you are going back for your father and your friends, I will not have you lost and never returned.”
“Yeah, I wouldn’t like that either,” she agreed. “There’s a lot to think about.”
“Aye,” he nodded, looking a little…relieved? “We should go.”
She nodded and then called back to Walter when he asked her what he should tell his contact.
“Tell him to look for other more foolproof ways to get me home.”
Nicholas stopped and turned to her. “Kestrel.” Her name came on a deep, throaty groan.
“Yes?” She closed her eyes, unable to stop her heart from banging and her entire body from going stiff. She knew he was going to say something that he didn’t want to say. She could see it written clearly in his storm-filled gaze, shaping his lips, shortening his breath.
“I think Walter’s friend might just find a way to take you home and…” He shifted his body and held his hands, as if in prayer, to his nose and mouth. “…I return to duty in a little more than a sennight. I do not want to be pining over you then, so I will say farewell to you now. Walter!” He turned to the old merchant. “May she stay here?”
Walter nodded.
“What?” Kestrel hadn’t anticipated this. She thought he was going to tell her he was hurt that she was so desperate to go home. She would have told him she was a little less desperate than she had been the day before. But this? “That’s it, then? I don’t even get to say goodbye to Elia or any of my friends?”
“Friends?”
“Yes, Cook, Claire the laundress, Hilde and Caitlyn, the girls from the kitchen.” She tightened her lips. “You’re just like the others.”
“No. I am not,” he said with an angry thread in his voice. “Am I wrong for not wanting to get to know you more, hold you more…” He paused while Walter left the room. “Kiss you more, so that I can watch youchooseto leave?” He shook his head. “No. You will do well here. You are away from the king, and from me. Walter will get you home. I cannot continue on with you knowing how badly you want to leave. Understanding why you want to go does not help. I am beginning to feel too much for you. I cannot go into battle with a such a heavy heart.”
Kes couldn’t be angry with him. He was right. She didn’t want to cry, but her eyes stung, and her vision blurred with tears.
“I’m selfish, Nicholas. I don’t want you to go.”
“I do not want you to go either,” he told her.
Did she have a future with him? Would she give up her past for him?
He took her hand and brought it to his lips. He kissed her knuckles and closed his eyes.
She wanted to kiss him, to feel his arms around her. She did nothing and said nothing as he left Walter’s house and her life.
Chapter Fifteen