The Magician's Mistake (The Fay Morgan Chronicles Book 1) by Katherine Sparrow

was wrong with my mind?
    And she had tracked me down because I’d stolen her … boyfriend? “About the boyfriend,” I said, still disoriented and needing a moment to breathe and think before I could be focused enough to act. “You do remember that Arthur was my half-brother, yes? And as I recall, you screwed up that relationship all on your own, or should I say you screwed the lovely Lancelot, loudly and often until you were discovered.”
    Her cheeks turned red and she gave me the nastiest smile I’ve ever seen in all my centuries. “Arthur? Are you mad? Touched by dementia? That would actually explain a lot: how it was so hard to find your essence in the world. Perhaps there is little of the true Morgan left in you.”
    Her words worried me. I snarled. “Or perhaps it’s just that you are a terrible witch.” I took a deep breath and tried to focus, here and now, on what must be done. Pricks of memories stabbed at me, begging me to pay attention to them.
    Guinevere forbidding me a seat at the high table I had always sat at. Guinevere laughing with her maids about the length of my hair and its dark wildness. Guinevere lying to my brother and telling him that I used my magic against him and —
    “Excellent, Morgan. More teeth gnashing and seizures. What is the matter with you? I have imagined destroying you so many times, but never, in all my daydreams, have you been so out of it. It’s a bit of a disappointment, really.”
    I swayed where I stood, barely upright. “All right then, Queen Guinevere. If not Arthur, then you think I stole Lancelot? The man who never met a gazing pool he didn’t adore? I like my men a bit rougher.”
    Guinevere scowled. “There is only one man who has ever been a match for either of us.”
    I tried not to remember. I didn’t want to, but —
    The Grail in my hands, resting cold against my lips. The cup, overflowing with life and vitality. I longed to drink all of it, yet made myself stop. I handed him the Grail. White light danced all around us. Our fingers touched. “Together. My now and future, for always and ever. My Morgan,” he said.
    I came back to myself, laying on the ground again. My knees hurt. My head spun. The world, my world, was broken. That man, he was the love of my life. He was my light, and yet I had no memories of him. I had always thought myself solitary. Alone. It wasn’t true. How had I forgotten him? How was that possible?
    “Well, Morgan, this has been fun, seeing you broken and confused, but now the time has come to—”
    “Leave her alone,” a voice boomed, and Kestrel stepped out from the darkness behind Guinevere. He stood haloed in bright magic.
    Guinevere hissed. “You. Here. Of course you are.” Her voice dripped with hatred. She took a couple of steps to the side and turned, so that she could keep an eye on both of us.
    “Took you awhile,” I muttered. I didn’t look at him as I picked myself up from the ground.
    “Guinevere set up sticky binding spells all over the damn place,” Kestrel said coldly. “I’ll give you this, white enchantress, you’ve become better at magic through the ages. Though worse in every other way, I assume.”
    She scowled and threw a glass ball full of swirling smoke at his face.
    Kestrel batted it away with a quick gesture. It veered away from him and smashed into the wall twenty feet to his left. Gray smoke began eating through the wall.
    Guinevere threw hateful glances at both of us. “So this is how it ends. Fitting, I suppose, that you would both be here together.”
    “And why are you picking on Morgan, anyway, Guin? Your true beef is with me. I couldn’t love you. That’s not her fault. It’s mine and the fact that you are one of the nastier pieces of work this green earth has ever made.”
    “No one speaks to me like that,” Guinevere snarled. Metallic magic gathered in her hands. “No one who lives to tell of it. Tell me, have the centuries been full of tender and true love between you? Tell