Kilgharrah flew down to a narrow strip of shore on the side of the lake where the waterfalls poured into the lower basin, then crouched down to let his passengers dismount. "This is as far as I dare go. If I approach the castle directly, I fear I would be shot down on sight, and all of you along with me."

"Well, we can't have that," Merlin sighed. He climbed down, then gestured for Morgana to pass Bo to him. She took one last look up at the castle, gritting her teeth in frustration at seeing their goal so close yet still so far away, before complying.

Once they were all on the ground, she wasted no time in asking, "All right, oh wise dragon, if you can't take us where we need to go, how do you suggest we get Bo there?"

"The Blood King would scarcely be more likely to grant an audience to two humans than he would to me, so I would suggest sending the wolf as your emissary. That is why you chose to include a fae in your party, is it not?" Kilgharrah rejoined in a tone of exaggerated patience, as if speaking to a rather dim child.

Morgana didn't appreciate his attitude, but was forced to concede that his proposal made sense. After some discussion, they decided that Dyson would go alone; it seemed safer for the rest of them to stay where they were until they had a better idea of what their reception might be, and traversing the wild terrain leading up to the castle would be much easier if he didn't have to carry Bo. He was ready to set off immediately once this was settled, but Morgana insisted that he bathe in the lake first, then made him sit still while she trimmed his hair and beard. At last, when he was as well-groomed as was possible with the supplies they had and dressed in his armor, complete with the red cape the knights wore on formal occasions, she declared him fit to appear before a king, though she regretted that they weren't able to procure a horse.

"Knights don't typically wander around on foot, so you can't really look the part without one," she fretted.

"Don't worry about it," Dyson advised. "I'm not sure how well a horse would do on these steep slopes anyway." He wasn't sure how well the shiny armor she'd forced him into would fare under such rugged conditions either, but decided not to waste time arguing with her. After all, she had spent a lot more time around kings than he had, so if she thought he needed to look like a proper knight in order to speak with one, maybe she was right.

Once he was out of her sight, however, he did remove the cape, which was almost guaranteed to get snagged on a rock or tree branch. He would put it back on before presenting himself at the gate, but it just wasn't practical attire for climbing mountains.

###

Dyson did indeed don his cape once more when he reached the castle, yet when he was ushered into its vast marble halls and saw the courtiers scattered throughout in their finery, standing around in small clusters or sitting on various seats that were placed here and there at seemingly random intervals, he realized he was still somewhat underdressed. He wrinkled his nose slightly at the sight of a man in a silk half-cape thrown over his shoulder in what he probably thought was a dashing manner (or perhaps he'd just done it to show off the rich brocade of his doublet) and a large hat topped with an ostentatious scarlet plume, and silently vowed that he would never wear such a thing even if it was the height of fashion here.

Thankfully, the guards escorting him were dressed more sensibly; they wore armor, though theirs was much lighter than the cumbersome layers of chainmail and metal plates the human knights preferred. After all, many fae species possessed some degree of enhanced healing capability, and their armor was imbued with defensive enchantments, so they didn't depend so much on its physical properties for protection.

At last, they led him into the throne room – more marble, mullioned windows with panes of stained glass around their edges so that the few sunbeams that made their way through the clouds cast patches of jewel-toned light on the floor while the clear panes in their centers gave an excellent view of the lake on one side and the lower parts of the castle on the other, and a high vaulted ceiling that gave the room a cathedral-like atmosphere – and there at the front of the room sat the Blood King, the man who had shaped the very foundations of the world in which all fae now lived when he wrote the laws that established the division between Light and Dark Fae while allowing each individual to choose their own side, thus ending the ceaseless struggle that had played out through untold ages as the two opposing philosophies' adherents fought for dominance and finally permitting both sides to coexist.

Although he considered himself fairly jaded when it came to kings, Dyson couldn't help feeling a little awed at seeing such a legendary figure in the flesh. This feeling persisted even after he realized the Blood King was not ten feet tall like he'd always imagined him, though he still towered over everyone else since his elaborately carved throne sat atop a marble dais with a deep blue carpet, its borders richly embroidered in gold and silver thread, leading up its steps.

He was also relieved to see that the king wasn't dressed as foppishly as some of his courtiers; though obviously of the finest quality, his garments were almost simple, their hues somber and largely devoid of ornamentation except for a touch of gold braid on his jacket, and of course he wore no feathered hat. On his head sat a much more dignified gold crown set with a few small gems.

The king leaned forward as Dyson approached, inspecting him through slightly narrowed eyes. No sooner had the wolf reached the base of the marble dais and gotten down on one knee than he demanded, "Who are you?"

"My name is Dyson, sire. I-"

"Why do you come before me wearing the emblem of Camelot?" the king interrupted. "Our latest intelligence is that Camelot's current regime is no longer friendly to creatures of magic." He paused, leaning back in his seat and rubbing his chin thoughtfully before adding, "We haven't had a visitor from Camelot in some time, though. How long has it been – ten years? Fifteen?" He glanced around at the advisers and guards closest to his throne, then refocused his gaze on Dyson when his inquiry was met only with shrugs and blank looks. "Is Uther Pendragon dead?"

"I'm afraid not, he-"

"Why not?" a silk-clad noblewoman with oversized pearl earrings wondered aloud. "Fifteen years is long enough for a human to die, isn't it?"

"How long do humans live anyway?" the lord next to her mused.

"I once had a human who lived almost thirty-five years," another lady piped up. "Although he was already near thirty when I claimed him, so who knows about their natural lifespan in the wild…"

"Yours might have lasted longer if you hadn't starved him," the lord pointed out.

"That's ridiculous! I fed my pet every week!"

"I've heard that they need to eat every day, though – perhaps even multiple times a day."

"Well, that's a bit excessive, isn't it?"

"This is why my house doesn't keep humans," the first woman with the pearl earrings sniffed. "They're too expensive."

The Blood King shot them a quelling look, and the trio instantly ceased their quibbling over the proper care and feeding of humans. "Now then, Dyson, tell us – if Uther Pendragon still lives, how were you able to pass through his lands without losing your head, and apparently get yourself knighted in the process?"

"I doubt he would've knighted me if he knew I was fae."

Everyone thought that the king who hated magic more than anything else in the world having a magical creature right under his nose without even realizing it was absolutely hilarious, especially when Dyson, mindful that he wasn't there to entertain a gaggle of courtiers, raised his voice above their laughter to add that he wasn't the only fae who'd taken up residence in Camelot at Uther's invitation. When he mentioned her name, however, a deathly silence fell over the room.

The king leaned forward once more, his knuckles turning white with the strength of his grip on his throne's armrests. "Isabeau?" he whispered, staring into Dyson's eyes with an intensity that, as the wolf gazed back, almost seemed to him to border on desperation. "Are you certain?"

"She prefers to be called Bo, but yes."

"How old is this woman?"

"A bit younger than thirty, I think."

"Yes," the king murmured to himself, "she would be around that age now." Still looking as though he didn't quite dare to believe it, he demanded every detail of how Bo and Dyson met, how she came to be in Camelot, where she had been before that, and generally everything Dyson had managed to learn about her.

He was astounded to hear that this woman who might be his missing granddaughter claimed to have spent the first twenty-odd years of her life in the distant future (though gratified to think that, if this was true, it wasn't his fault that all his efforts to locate her had failed), impressed at how she had insinuated herself into Camelot's royal court and claimed it as her territory with Uther none the wiser, then furious when Dyson got to the part where Kilgharrah had been freed in order to bring her to him.

"So that treacherous, conniving old lizard escaped the punishment I devised for him, did he? Still, if he really has brought my granddaughter home, I suppose I'll have to pardon him," he muttered, which only seemed to further sour his mood. "Of course you'll be richly rewarded as well, Dyson," he added in a much kinder tone, before ordering horses saddled for himself, Dyson, and his guards so they could ride out to where the wolf had left his fellow travelers.

"That's very generous, your majesty," Dyson said as they left the throne room together, "but the only reward I need is for you to break the curse that's killing my friend."

"I'll certainly do that," the king vowed. "Even if she turns out not to be the one I've searched for all these years, she must be a very special person to inspire such devotion from those who know her."

Privately, though, he couldn't stop himself from hoping against hope that this Lady Isabeau, or 'Bo' might actually be his long-lost granddaughter. After all the years of fruitless searches for the last remaining member of his family (or at least, the last one he didn't fear was irretrievably lost to him), all the false leads and dead ends he'd encountered at every turn, he wasn't sure he could stand another disappointment.

###

After Dyson's departure, Morgana decided to bathe herself and Bo, and ordered Merlin to do so as well. "Put on your other shirt when you're finished," she added. "The red one's getting rather…stale."

"You don't say," he grumbled, rolling his eyes at her apparent need to point out the obvious. "Anything else?"

"Well, I expect you to go all the way into the water, don't just wet a cloth and wipe yourself off. And don't forget to use the soap either."

"Yes, dear."

She responded to his blatant sarcasm with an overly sweet smile, earning a disgruntled look before he turned away, muttering about how she hadn't left him much soap to work with. It was true; despite the limited opportunities for bathing on their journey, they had still managed to wear their single bar of soap down to a sliver. Still, it hardly matters now. Surely there'll be plenty of soap in the castle.

The prospect of having a plentiful supply of toiletries again was certainly a welcome one, and she was even more eager to get Bo back, yet as she dressed herself in her favorite purple and teal ensemble and Bo in royal blue, casting off the armor and homespun wool they had worn throughout their long journey and once more donning the rich garments that marked them as members of the noble class, a tiny knot of trepidation formed in her stomach.

What, she wondered, would their lives be like in this magical lost kingdom? Would the same strictures she had chafed at in Camelot still apply, forcing her to hide her love for Merlin and Bo once again?

As she put the finishing touches on Bo's hair, she glanced up at the castle where the answers to her questions would be revealed if they ever got there, idly noting the flock of birds flying out from it, then did a double take upon realizing that those specks in the sky weren't birds at all. They did have wings, but they were too large to be birds, and as they came out over the lake where she could get a better look at them, she saw that their bodies were more like…

With a surge of mingled awe and disbelief, her mind finally registered that the creatures soaring toward her were winged horses, all decked out in finely crafted tack, and her heart leapt when she recognized Dyson as one of the riders. It seemed his mission had been a success.

Leaving Bo in the shelter of the trees, she ran out onto the narrow shore. "Merlin!"

He looked over at her, his fingers automatically finishing the job of tying his red scarf around his neck as he did – she was pleased to see that he had put on his clean blue shirt as per her instructions – then followed her gaze upward to where the winged horses were swooping in for a landing.

They alit in a graceful line at the water's edge, allowing their riders to dismount; aside from Dyson, there were two women and a man who also looked like warriors, as well as a much shorter man whose gold crown and simple yet elegant attire suggested that he might actually be the king himself. His dark eyes swept over the scene before him, naturally focusing on Kilgharrah first due to his size, despite the fact that the dragon was hanging back and seemed to be trying to make himself as small as possible.

"Well, Kilgharrah," he called out in a voice that was as commanding as any king's despite his diminutive stature, "it's been a long time – though not nearly long enough. Come here."

The Great Dragon slunk forward while keeping his body low to the ground, almost like a dog that knew it had misbehaved and went to its master expecting punishment, and bowed his head.

"I hope you've used this time to reflect on the error of your ways."

"I have, your majesty," he answered in a wheedling, obsequious tone neither Merlin nor Morgana had ever heard from him before. "I see now how foolish it was to think I could defy your edicts or escape your judgment."

"And have you repented your crimes?" the king asked sternly.

"Oh yes, sire. If you are merciful enough to grant me a second chance, I swear never to disobey you again."

There was something uniquely absurd about watching the gargantuan beast grovel before someone who was practically the size of a gnat compared to him, and although she knew it was mean, after everything Kilgharrah had done or tried to do to her, Morgana couldn't help enjoying the sight just a little.

"If you truly have returned my granddaughter to me, you will be pardoned in full," the Blood King assured him, though he didn't sound happy about it. He then cut off the dragon's effusive expressions of gratitude before they could begin with an impatient, "Where is she?"

"Our human companions will bring her forth at once, sire."

Kilgharrah shot a look at Merlin and Morgana as if ordering them to do so – not that Morgana felt very inclined to take orders from him after seeing him so thoroughly chastened – thereby drawing the Blood King's attention to them for the first time.

At first his eyes passed over them with an almost dismissive look, as if he was merely taking in part of the scenery, but then his gaze sharpened as it came to rest on Morgana's face. His eyes widened in apparent disbelief, then narrowed, his eyebrows crashed together, and a thunderous expression came over his features; if she didn't know better, she'd think he was as displeased to see her as Kilgharrah, but she couldn't imagine what she might have done to elicit such a reaction.

It appeared, however, that her illogical impression was in fact correct as he strode forward and addressed her in a low voice that practically throbbed with anger – and, if she wasn't mistaken, something else, something she couldn't identify. "You – how dare you show your face here? Seize her!"

"What?" Dyson objected, looking down at him in astonishment. "Your majesty-"

The king paid him no mind, but one of the guards, an ebony-skinned woman with long hair styled in a multitude of braids and tied back from her face with a leather thong, rounded on him, drawing her sword in one smooth motion and pointing it at him. "Don't interfere," she warned. "It'll go badly for you if you do."

As Dyson growled at her while silently weighing the odds of being able to draw his own sword before she lopped his head off and cursing the restrictive armor that prevented him from shifting, the other two guards moved to carry out their king's orders, converging on Morgana like lions stalking their prey, and her confusion rapidly gave way to fear. Her magic reacted accordingly, instinctively lashing out and hurling them away from her – which proved to be a mistake, as it only served to provoke them.

They quickly picked themselves up, and the woman, a hazel-eyed redhead, sprang straight up into the air, her body twisting and changing, bursting out of her light leather armor – except, instead of becoming a wolf like Dyson, she came back down to earth as a lioness, letting out a deafening roar as she prepared to pounce.

In the same moment, a gout of flame issued from the man's fingertips, but Merlin turned it aside with a wave of his hand and sent it toward the lioness-shifter instead, forcing her to leap out of its path. She landed a short distance away, snarling and spitting, while the man chuckled and rubbed his hands together, seeming bizarrely pleased at this turn of events. "So the humans have a trick or two up their sleeves, eh? This is going to be fun…"

The third guard glanced away from her standoff with Dyson for the tiniest fraction of a second, just long enough to roll her eyes at him. "We're not here for you to have fun, Gabriel, we're here to obey our king's commands."

Gabriel ignored her, smirking as he raised his hands and conjured a ring of fire around Merlin and Morgana – the kind that burned low, emitting thick clouds of stinging, choking smoke. They swiftly put it out, but before they could clear the smoke from their eyes and lungs, the black woman's form seemed to shiver as if she were an image cast on rippling water, and a duplicate of her materialized directly behind Merlin, holding a dagger to his throat.

"Enough magic tricks," she hissed in his ear. "Surrender, or I'll cut your throat to the bone before you can so much as blink." She emphasized her point by pressing the blade into his skin, exerting enough pressure that blood beaded on its razor-sharp edge.

"Stop it!" Morgana cried, her heart seizing up in terror at the sight of those red droplets. "I don't know what you think I've done, but it's me you want, so take me! Leave him alone!"

Merlin made a strangled noise of protest, which was all he could manage with the blade against his throat, and even that was cut off when its owner grabbed a fistful of his hair in her other hand and yanked his head back while ordering him to be quiet. Meanwhile, the lioness, frustrated at having been sidelined by Gabriel's pyromantic antics, stalked over and headbutted Morgana from behind, knocking her to her knees, then moved to stand beside her with a menacing growl that Morgana took to be a warning – one wrong move, and she was likely to get her arm ripped off.

With the two of them subdued, the Blood King finally approached, with Gabriel, the other female guard (one version of her, at least), and Dyson, who looked as thoroughly bewildered as Morgana felt, on his heels. He came to a stop a mere foot in front of her, staring into her face; this close, she was able to see his expression much more clearly. Predictably enough, there was anger there, yet she also thought she detected a hint of doubt in his eyes, and… Could that possibly be regret? Sadness, even?

"Why have you come here?" he demanded – yes, there was definitely a heavy note in his voice, well-hidden as it was beneath the steel. "Did I not warn you of the consequences if you ever again set foot in my domain, Vivienne?"

"Vivienne?" Morgana gasped. "I'm not-"

She fell silent when the lioness snapped at her, but Dyson finished the thought for her. "I think there's been some mistake, sire. Her name is Morgana, not Vivienne."

"Vivienne was my mother's name, though," Morgana blurted out, speaking quickly before the shifter could silence her again. "Did you know her?"

The Blood King didn't answer, but he did take a closer look at her face, the doubt in his own becoming more prevalent as his anger receded. "Vivienne's daughter… Yes, there is something… The resemblance is extraordinary, but the eyes are different," he muttered, seemingly more to himself than to her. "Besides, it's been almost forty years, so Vivienne would be older now, wouldn't she?"

"Well, yes," Morgana said, just a bit dryly, "that does tend to happen in the span of forty years."

Jolted out of his reverie, he looked at her strangely, as if surprised to hear her speaking to him. "Yes, I suppose it does," he acknowledged. "For humans, at least." Then he gave himself a slight shake and raised his voice to address the assembly at large. "I'm satisfied that this is not the woman I banished. She may pass freely and safely through my lands."

The lioness immediately stepped back, abandoning her threatening posture and going to sit by Gabriel, docile as a housecat.

"Uh, sire…" Dyson said with a pointed look at Merlin, who was still being held at knifepoint by the third guard.

"Oh, yes – you can let him go as well, Zhadia. Now-" He turned back to Dyson, determined not to be distracted from what he'd come for any longer. "Bring me this woman you claim is my granddaughter."

The wolf hesitated for a moment, until Zhadia released Merlin, her replicant form vanishing as the original came to stand in the same place, behind him and Morgana; even though the king seemed to have decided they weren't a threat, she still wasn't sure they could be trusted.

Merlin quickly stepped away from her, one hand coming up to rub at his throat, then nodded at Dyson, silently assuring him that he was all right and asking him to do as the Blood King said, and fetch Bo. Although he would have preferred to do that himself, he didn't think he should press his luck by trying to move out of the guards' sight just yet.

As Dyson turned away, following Kilgharrah to where Morgana had left Bo under one of the trees that bordered the thin strip of shore, the king glanced over his shoulder once more and said, "Oh, and Mireya, unless you intend to walk home, you'd better shift back."

The lioness stood up, stretched herself fluidly, changed back into a woman, and stood up in an equally sinuous, sensuous motion – giving them a full frontal view of her gorgeous, lean-muscled body, which her transformation had left entirely exposed.

Gabriel turned away in disgust, mumbling about how nobody needed to see their cousin like that, Zhadia eyed her with obvious appreciation, and Merlin and Morgana were too shocked to do anything but stare, their eyes and mouths wide open. Mireya licked her lips, seemingly relishing their reactions, and ran her hands through her red-gold mane, which had the incidental effect of lifting her perfectly shaped breasts. Then a metal band on her wrist, which had expanded when her arm became a powerful foreleg banded with thick muscles, then contracted when it turned back into a slender arm with a delicate wrist, gave off a flash of light, and her clothes reappeared, much to the relief of everyone except Zhadia and the Blood King, who was facing away from the group, watching for Dyson's return.

He came back a few minutes later with Bo in his arms, her body wrapped securely in the blanket Morgana had laid her out on, and placed her in front of the Blood King for his inspection.

"Here she is, sire," Kilgharrah announced unnecessarily. "Princess Isabeau."

The king gave no sign that he heard him, the unconscious woman before him instantly claiming his undivided attention as he knelt beside her, his breath catching as he eagerly drank in every detail of her face – which, aside from being younger, was the spitting image of her grandmother's. Tears almost sprang to his eyes at the reminder of his late wife, the woman he had loved more than anything in the world, but he held them back. His Isabeau was gone, but their granddaughter was still here and in need of his help, which he couldn't give her if he let his emotions get in the way. He quickly wiped at his eyes before turning to face the people who were all waiting anxiously for his verdict.

"It's her," he said shortly, completely businesslike. "Everyone mount up; we need to get her to a healer at once. Put her on your horse, Dyson."

"What about Merlin and Morgana?"

He glanced at the two humans, then looked back at Isabeau's sworn knight with one eyebrow raised. "Will they be accompanying us? I rather thought they would want to be on their way, unless they belong to one of you."

"They're hers," Dyson replied.

"Ah." The king turned this logistical dilemma over in his mind for a moment, then grinned ever so slightly as a perfect solution came to him. "Since we don't have enough horses, Kilgharrah can carry the humans."

The dragon wasn't thrilled with this, because even though he had been carrying them for some time now, it was one thing to let people ride him out in the wilderness, where there was no one to witness the indignity of it; to fly right up to the Blood King's palace and land in the courtyard with passengers – humans, no less – on his back like some common horse was an entirely different matter. Still, he wasn't about to risk losing whatever tiny amount of goodwill he might have gained by arguing.

As he contemplated the humiliation that was being inflicted on him, Dyson called Merlin and Morgana over to help him get Bo on his horse, though they suspected this was only a pretext, as he was quite capable of managing her by himself.

Sure enough, once they had joined him and he had subtly maneuvered the horse so it was between them and everyone else, he lowered his voice to ask, "Bo never actually claimed either of you, did she?"

"Not the way she did with Kenzi, no," Merlin answered.

"We were told she only claimed Kenzi out of necessity, to protect her from other fae," Morgana elaborated. "Since there were no other fae in Camelot until you arrived, we didn't need that protection."

Dyson nodded as if he'd expected as much, his mouth hardening into a grim line. "Well, you'll need it here. Do yourselves a favor and don't mention this to anyone, understand? Let them think you belong to Bo."

They quickly agreed, doing their best to hide their apprehension. It wasn't until they were on Kilgharrah's back, winging their way over the lake, that Merlin asked in a hushed voice, "Am I the only one starting to wonder whether coming here may not have been our brightest idea ever?"

"Almost being arrested due to a case of mistaken identity doesn't seem like the most auspicious beginning, does it?" Morgana agreed with a faint smile. "Still, we had no choice."

"What was that all about anyway?" Merlin went on, in response to her comment about mistaken identity. "Do you think it really was your mother the king mistook you for? Has she been here before?"

Morgana could only shrug. "I don't know of any other Vivienne I might resemble closely enough to cause such confusion, but if my mother ever had dealings with the fae, she never spoke of it to me. If she did travel to this land once, I want to find out why."

"Well, if she did, she must've gotten on somebody's bad side while she was here, so I'd be careful asking around if I were you."

"Sound advice coming from the man who started off his time in a new land by picking fights with the crown prince," Morgana teased. "Don't worry, I'll go carefully – more than you ever did, at any rate – but… You know my mother died when I was very young; I barely have any memories of her, and Father rarely spoke of her. When he did, I could see how it pained him, so I hardly ever asked about her even though I wanted to. Then he died too, and I lost my chance. If I have another chance to learn more about her now, I need to take it."

"I understand," Merlin assured her, briefly tightening his arms around her waist where he sat behind her. He just hoped Morgana's quest to learn more about her deceased parent turned out better than Arthur's had, and she didn't end up uncovering something she would have been better off (or at least happier) not knowing.

###

They flew around to the other side of the castle, where Merlin and Morgana saw that it did in fact have a courtyard, slightly smaller than the one at Camelot, but more open since it wasn't surrounded by high walls; instead, its paving ended in a short set of steps that led directly to the lake. There were a number of people out on the water in rowboats, and several more bustling around the courtyard, but they all stopped what they were doing when Kilgharrah came into view.

A chorus of murmurs rose up, in tones ranging from astonishment to outrage to a hint of fear, but they all subsided when the king landed his winged horse alongside the enormous gold dragon and raised his hand for silence. "Do not be afraid. The Great Dragon Kilgharrah, who I denounced as a traitor, has indeed returned, yet he assures me that he feels deep remorse for his past transgressions and has sought to make restitution, so I have decided to grant him the opportunity to prove that he is truly reformed. We welcome him back into our fair land, to live among his fellow fae once more!"

The king's announcement received a round of applause, though it did not go unnoticed that his decision to place himself right next to the dragon while delivering it kept every eye fixed on them, thereby ensuring that every single person present saw Merlin and Morgana climbing down from Kilgharrah's back. This gave rise to more than a few snickers, and whispers about how the punishment for his prior misdeeds must have humbled him indeed, if he'd been reduced to serving as transportation.

The Blood King may have officially pardoned him, Morgana observed with a smirk, but it seems that all is not forgiven and forgotten just yet. He's very crafty too, to be able to sound so benevolent while still reminding everyone that our scaly friend's standing here is tenuous at best.

Yes, he is, Merlin agreed. I think we'd better tread carefully around him.

Meanwhile, the king was still speaking, directing the nearest servants to take Bo inside and summon the court healer. Turning to Dyson, he added, "As her sworn sword, you may accompany her if you like."

Dyson glanced at Merlin and Morgana with a frown, knowing that by rights, they should be the ones who stayed by her side yet aware that they almost certainly wouldn't be allowed.

Sure enough, when the king followed his gaze, he frowned too, though his expression was more impatient than sympathetic. "Don't worry, her humans will be looked after. They can be housed with the other claimed humans until she requires them."

"Begging your pardon, sire, but I don't think Bo would approve. She likes to keep them close. I'll take responsibility for them until she wakes up," Dyson offered.

"Fine," the king replied with an air of not wanting to be bothered with such trivialities any longer. "You three," he addressed the trio of guards who had gone out to the lakeshore with him, "organize a room in the guards' wing for your new comrade and put the humans there. Dyson, come with me."

Since they were all headed in the same general direction, inside the castle, they stayed together long enough for Dyson to snatch a few words with his human friends. "Sorry for leaving you like this. Would you rather I stay…?"

"No," Merlin said at once. "Bo should have a familiar face nearby when she wakes up."

"You'll make sure they take good care of her, won't you?" Morgana added.

"I will. And you two…" Dyson stole a glance at their companions, none of whom seemed particularly interested in their conversation, but still dropped back a pace and lowered his voice before saying, "Wherever they put you, stay there until I come for you, all right? Don't go wandering off."

"Why not?" Morgana demanded, her usual defiance flaring up. "This castle may be large, but I'm sure we can find our way around."

"I'm not worried about you getting lost. You've never met any claimed humans except Kenzi, and you've only seen her and Bo interact in places where humans outnumber fae, so you don't understand how things work in our world. Humans aren't allowed to roam freely in places like this, and if you overstep your bounds… Let's just say the consequences won't be pleasant."

"What, are we supposed to stay shut up in some room like dogs in a kennel?"

Dyson shook his head at the outrage in Morgana's voice; she was still thinking like the lady she had been in Camelot, and clearly failing to grasp just how different her position was here, in the heart of the fae world. "Trust me, I did you a favor by offering to keep you in my room. I don't know if things are any better here, but when I visited my old king's castle in Ailech, the place where they housed the humans that visiting nobles brought with them made the dog kennels look like the height of luxury."

Her eyes widened, and she almost stumbled, though luckily Merlin caught her arm in time to save her. He was used to being treated as inferior by those of higher standing, so Dyson's warning wasn't quite as much of a shock to him, but it was still unsettling to realize just how precarious their situation truly was.

There was no time to ask more questions or seek reassurances, however, because at that moment their paths diverged. Dyson followed the Blood King and his attendants, leaving Merlin and Morgana alone with the trio of palace guards – who, after what they had just heard, suddenly felt more like their captors.

So here we have our first look at Trick as the Blood King and the characters that hang around in this fancy fantasy castle of his; I'm always a little hesitant about using OCs even for minor roles, but one of the challenges with creating a brand new setting is that you have to populate it. Anyhow, I'll try to keep their appearances to a minimum unless I need them to showcase some aspect of fae culture or something.

Next time we'll finally get Bo awakened, I promise.