There once was a prince named Arthur, son of Uther and Lady Ygraine, heir to the throne of sub-Roman Britain, better known as Camelot. But before Arthur Lady Ygraine bore three daughters to her first husband, Gorlois of Tintagel-among them was Morgan Le Fay, often called Morgana. It was with this woman the book began.

She was a daughter of Albion, the sister of its future king, and the ward of then-King Uther upon her mother's death. She was a girl plagued with darkness in the form of haunting visions of the future, a curse in a kingdom where the barest hint of magic yielded a death sentence. Morgan Le Fay was a girl manipulated by her guardians and betrayed by her friends, a girl who stole back her power at the cost of her those who loved her. She was a girl who eventually was forgiven for her trespasses but who never forgot those against her.

"Were you named after her?" Stella asked on a whim.

Morgan Fayne gazed at her for a moment, her lips tilted in a smile the Mona Lisa would admire. "You could say that."

Stella returned to the book, more of a book of charts, a hierarchy of names connected by faded lines. A dashed line connected Morgana to Arthur, labelled sister. A florid green line linked Arthur to Merlyn, the legendary sorcerer. There was always talk that they were bound to each other by bonds that defied life and death. This book seemed to agree; there was no designation for what they represented to each other. A plain yet broad band of black bound Arthur to a bleached-out color portrait of another figure. A woman with dark eyes and skin who wore a crown. Gwenhwyfar, daughter of King Leodegrance. Between them, the bond read, wedded.

There were more lines in a surfeit of colors, linkages that distilled centuries of legend into fundamental truths. From Lancelot to Arthur, broken, blood-brother. From Lancelot to Gwenhwyfar, beloved. Mordred. Morgause. Uther. Ygraine. Disloyal. Forgotten. Dead. Betrayed.

It went on for dozens of pages, yet from the first page to the very last, there was a thread that reappeared again and again. An ornate violet chord bisecting the flurry of bindings that formed the Round Table, its enemies and cohorts. This chord wound through these unnamed kinships and treacheries and courtly loves to bind two who should be bound by nothing. Morgan Le Fay was touched by Gwenhwyfar, it read. Always.

This truth settled into the lonely recesses of Stella's mind with a snick, ringing through her crystalline heart clear as church bells.

"She loved her. Morgana loved Guinevere." Stella turned the book over in search of some sign that this wasn't real. It couldn't be real. Everyone knew that story. Guinevere loved Lancelot. She had betrayed her king to love him. That was the story everybody knew. It had to be true.

But what if Lancelot wasn't the only one she loved?

Stella realized she was being watched. She flicked her eyes sideways to see Morgan's skitter away. "You've been staring at me for the past hour. Is there something on my face?"

Morgan adjusted her mirror absently though they seemed perfectly positioned already. "Nothing. I just noticed you look like somebody I used to know. That's all. Nothing personal."

Stella crossed her arms, hugging the book to her chest. "Sorry. Being stared at makes me antsy." It reminded her of the watcher in her dreams. Her sadness. Her disappointed love. How Stella hadn't meant to do whatever she'd done. Had Guinevere loved her, too?

"It's cool."

"Who do I remind you of, anyway?"

Morgan pursed her lips. "An old priestess of the coven. You have her eyes."

Stella blinked. "That's weird, isn't it?"

"Honestly? Yeah." Morgan tapped her lean fingers on the steering wheel to a song only she could hear. The radio sat dormant between them.

That was when the sky opened and the day's spring shower began in earnest, littering the windshield and then the interior of the car with a mist that made them both curse and scramble to close the open top. Well, Morgan swore and Stella laughed as she fretted about her leather interior and drenched hair. It was coilier when wet and just as beautiful in Stella's eyes. She couldn't envision any event where Morgan wouldn't be. Mysterious Morgan just like her namesake.

Still giggling, Stella settled back into her seat as Morgan cranked up the heat in the car. She was shivering in her damp hoodie.

"You all right?"

"Never better."

Stella bit back a yawn. The previous night's sleeplessness was catching up to her. "Tell me about Guinevere and Morgana. Did they love each other?" It was Morgan's book, she should know.

"Legend says Morgana hated her. Some believe it was because she wanted Lancelot for her own. Others attribute it to Guinevere's betrayal of her brother whom she loved."

"And?"

"And I think they're wrong. Partly, anyway. I think she was disappointed that Arthur was not enough for the girl who would be queen. Because she could never have Guinevere for herself, she wanted her to be content with what she had instead of chasing fantasies. She wanted Guinevere to stay where she could reach her and her betrayal sent her a world away after Morgana and Arthur reconciled."

"Did Guinevere love her back?"

"Does it matter?"

"It does."

Morgan breathed deep and slow as if it hurt to do. "What almost nobody knows is that Morgana helped Lancelot save Guinevere from burning at the stake. She had been her confidant when Guinevere became betrothed to Arthur, so she helped her escape, and when the time came, she helped her say goodbye to Lancelot and Camelot, both."

"How do you know?"

"It's all out there, if you know where to look."

Stella pillowed her head on her hands, watching Morgan guide the car along the quickly emptying roads. "I think she'd have been a fool not to love her in the end. A bond strong enough to defy a king, a knight, and exile? I would have loved her."

"Wouldn't that be lovely?" Morgan replied after a lengthy pause.

Stella wasn't sure she believed everything Morgan had said, but it made for a compelling story. The steady rocking of the car lulled her into a doze. All the while she could feel her watcher watching. It wasn't so bad for once.

"I see you all the time," Morgan spoke eventually, rousing Stella slowly from her nap. "In every puddle of fresh water, I can see you out there, going on with your life. Time and time again, I tell myself not to look, to let you be, but the Fates keep shoving us together. I sat next to you on a fourteen-hour flight to Ireland a lifetime ago. It's amazing we didn't crash, I wanted to be somewhere else so desperately." She laughed to herself, pained.

Stella worked frantically to calm her tell-tale heart, realizing that Morgan must have thought she was still asleep.

"No matter which life it is, I know you. I'm always me, but you're never you anymore. I wish you could be you."

Stella carefully opened her eyes to scrutinize the shining trails dripping down Morgan's face.

"You know me, don't you?"

Morgan didn't seem surprised to find her awake. "And you know me."

"Were you even planning to take me to Ostara?"

The other woman shot her an apologetic look. "Eventually. They can't make it better, Stella. I've been trying for lifetimes."

"What does that mean?"

Morgan kept her eyes fixed on the blurry view of the highway giving way to green pastures, her full lips pinched together like she was trying to hold something back.

"Who am I?"

"Morgan Fayne."

She hissed, "Who am I?"

"Morgan Fa...." Stella thought about the day, the book, Morgan's ancient eyes, and gasped. "Morgan le Fay. You're...her? Sorceress, healer, half-sister to Arthur Pendragon, and storied enemy of the Knights of the Round Table."

The other woman snorted, more like her younger, less burdened self. "There's a statement that ought to come with footnotes."

"Then, who am I?"

"You know."

She scoffed. "I don't!"

"You dream of who you are all the time."

"A woman without a heart..."

"You're a woman whose heart was crushed and then enchanted. You've dreamed about it. Who are you?"

"Why are you doing this?"

Morgan's jaw clenched, her hands were bloodless on the wheel. "Because I loved you first and that means something. Who are you?"

Stella covered her mouth. Arthur. Lancelot. A death at the stake and a life in exile. "I broke your heart."

"I broke yours back and it's been breaking ever since." Morgan ruffled her hair in agitation. "I don't care what you did to me; you didn't know. I just care about you. I can't fix your heart, nobody can, but I can make it right. Who are you?"

"I don't-"

"Stop lying to yourself! Why are you called Stella?"

Stella tugged nervously at her ponytail. "I see the stars in all my dreams. I drew them all the time when I was little. My mother used to say my fate must be written up among them. It's the name I go by."

"But it isn't the name you were born with."

"No."

"Who are you?"

"Ginevra." The named had seemed too grand for the little girl she used to be, so she had let it go. Now it felt too grand for the fate she wanted: tragic instead of the happiness she still sought.

"Ginevra, Gwenhwyfar, Guinevere." Morgan took her hand and Stella was abruptly certain of all the things that hand could do, good and bad, cruel and fair. She remembered instinctively. A nervous almost-princess, magic in her eyes, fire in her soul, and righteous enough for one hundred knights. Lancelot behind her and Morgana and all the world ahead. Their forever had begun at her end.

It was Stella who spoke this time, voice shaking but sure, "I loved you."

Morgan's bottomless eyes glittered in the scattered light of the sun.

"The magical cost to fix a mortal wound is a life. I don't have one to give you-you made me promise never to sacrifice another for you-but I can give you my hands and hold your heart together myself."

Stella's heart pulsed and clanked as ice might in a glass. "For how long?"

Morgan drew Stella's fingers to her warm lips and vowed, "Always."

As Stella came to discover, always was a very long time.