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past my table on their way to the dais, and I gasped, so struck by surprise that I grabbed at my chair for support: On the left hand of each of them, maiden and matron and ancient crone, shone a silvergold ring, and on each ring I saw just such a stone as the one that hung over my heart. A druid stone. Egg of the world serpent. A milpreve.
    I whispered to Nurse, “Are they goddesses?”
    She gave me a look full of silence.
    More fays walked behind those three. I remember a fierce dark woman with the wings of a raven, a brown man with the horns of a stag, a woman who seemed to be all a flow of green water, a snow white man who carried a naked skull in his hands—I grew afraid to look any more. I hid my face against Nurse and listened to the voices.
    â€œHow shall the child be named?” It was the maiden’s melodious voice.
    â€œHe shall be called Arthur,” said my mother in a low tone I had never heard from her before. I did not understand the shadow in her voice.
    â€œArthur,” said a fay; it might have been the ancient crone. “Princeling, I gift you with long life.”
    â€œArthur who shall be king, I gift you with dominion,” said another.
    â€œArthur, baby prince, I gift you with strength,” said yet another.
    â€œThank you,” murmured my mother’s voice.
    And so it went on. Courage, manliness, valor in battle. Uther Pendragon had brought Arthur to this place for his name-day just so the fays could come and gift him; Avalon is a magical place, and many such presences dwell there. And it is one of the ways of fays to give gifts to a baby prince. But as I listened, the fire dragon burned in my chest again, and fiercely, fiercely I wished that someday it would be in my power to inflict some ill upon this annoying baby who was a prince and everyone’s darling when I was not a princess and nobody was paying any attention to me. I wished it, and I felt my secret stone turn hot against my skin.
    â€œMorgan,” said a voice that was not Nurse.
    Startled, I straightened and looked. The barefoot girl with primroses in her hair stooped to gaze into my face with laughing green eyes.
    â€œLittle oddling-eyed Morgan. And Morgause,” she said with a glance at my sister to include her. “And your good nurse.” She gifted Nurse with a secret, loving look I did not understand, then turned back to me. “Little Morgan fated to be fate, do you know why you are here?”
    Fate again. That word harrowed me with memory of fearsome Merlin, the haunted darkness of his eyes as he had spoken to me that day upon the moor. Whatever fate was, I didn’t like it. Dumbly I gazed back at the merry-eyed fay, feeling Nurse’s arm creep around me as if to protect me. I felt the snake stone burning against my chest.
    â€œWhy are any of us here? For luck for the babe,” the half-naked fay answered her own question. Her eyes were like cat eyes shining in firelight, like clover leaves, like green wells. I cowered, and my hand wavered up to cover my chest as if she might somehow see the milpreve under my frock. She smiled. “You’re here because it would have been bad luck not to include you,” she said. “As if luck matters to fate. Bad luck! Ha! Ha!” She danced away, laughing wildly.
    â€œTrue love,” the matronly fay gifted the baby Arthur.
    â€œThank you,” said my mother in that same low, strained voice, cuddling the sleeping baby in both arms.
    I laid my head against Nurse again, closed my eyes and gave up trying to make sense of anything.
    The next thing I remember is waking up in the bedchamber. It was dark, and I knew it must be mid of night by the snores of Nurse and others; Morgause and I shared that chamber with a couple of ladies and their maids, for there were many guests to be housed that night at Caer Avalon. Someone besides me was awake, for I heard women’s voices whispering.
    â€œPoor Igraine, having to