Coventina squeezed Isabel’s hand even more, although strangely it didn’t hurt, but felt like energy being exchanged between them. “Because you were the woman I was looking for. I asked the gods for one who was beautiful, smart and, I’m sorry to say, about to die. And what was a must for me was a woman who had an, as you put it, ‘shoulda.’ One who mourned in her last moments that she’d never found true love.”

“What makes you think I’ll find it here, Cov—”

“Call me Viviane. Merlin is the only one who ever has, but I’d like if you would as well. Because I believe you will be the one who brings him back to me.”

“Okay. What makes you think I’ll find it here, Viviane? And how do I bring Merlin back?”

“I cannot be certain. But if I do not try, I have not done enough to win back the man I love. And this isn’t acceptable to my heart, or my waters. I fear what will happen if my unhappiness roils the waters that sustain me.”

Isabel glanced over at the lake to see it suddenly making waves when moments ago it had been calm, clear and as blue as Viviane’s eyes. Now it was uneasy, gray, unhappy. And it churned in her the memory of Grand Lake, which had seemed angry at her just at the moment that she and her car had taken a decidedly ungraceful dive into its unsettled depths.

She looked back to the woman, wondering just when she’d wake up from this dream. Until she did, she’d try to help. “My camera equipment?” she asked.

Viviane shook her head. “There’s nothing like that in this time. This place.”

“Okay,” Isabel said, but mourned that she couldn’t capture the beauty all around her, the beauty of this woman . . . who’d make her rich were she to sell the Lady’s pictures to People magazine . . . the amazing truth of Camelot. “Who, pray tell, am I supposed to fall for? Or who do you hope might fall for me? What if I accidentally fall for, say, the court jester?”