Merlin landed in O’Hare in the early afternoon. He booked a room at the Intercontinental, took a quick nap, then went out in the afternoon sunshine for a walk to get his bearings and maybe a snack. He stood on the Navy Pier and looked out at Lake Michigan.

  “If I was a royal dumbass, where would I be?” he asked the lake pensively.

  The lake said nothing in response. In the hot August day, it looked cool and inviting… if he didn’t know about the pollution. And if he wasn’t trying to find his best friend before the idiot got himself killed again.

  Merlin sighed and folded his arms. He had no idea where to start. The lake was huge. But perhaps Arthur would appear in a crowd? He turned to look at Chicago. Here was a good place to get lost in crowds. He raked his gaze through the throng at Navy Pier. A familiar gait arrested his attention.

  It wasn't Arthur, though. He saw two strikingly handsome young men holding hands as they strode through Navy Pier. He pondered why they'd attracted his notice, why he'd seen them from the corner of his eye and his mind had exclaimed, King! They did not look like Arthur, though they were tall and well built. One was dark, and while the other was fair he was not blond. But then Merlin realized they walked like a young Arthur: heads held just so, gaze unwavering, and strength in every step.

  He walked along the lake, headed for Millennium Park. Last time he’d been in Chicago had been for the World Fair. He’d liked the Fair and the city back then. He didn’t like it much now in some ways. And the last minute transatlantic flight didn’t help with his new impression of the city.

  He was disgruntled. It felt like he’d missed some vital part of a favorite nephew’s growth. Here it was, tall and broad shouldered and boisterous. All without him. At least he’d seen London’s growth himself.

  He stood in front of Cloudgate and pondered it grumpily. Why a bean? It seemed bizarre yet compelling, in the same way that calling deep dish pie a pizza was atrocious but mesmerizing. On a whim he ordered some back to his hotel room with his phone (more of a miracle than magic, most days) and returned, slipping through the wandering crowds of bustling humanity. He settled onto the bed with a deep dish 'pizza' in hand. He was disgruntled again. It was actually good.

  As he licked sauce off his fingers, he ruefully acknowledged that as much as he didn't wish to, he thought that he’d grow to enjoy this bright new sharp Chicago. It wasn't just the food or the inexplicable nature of the public art or the bold liberty that allowed two young men to hold hands and walk the pier like kings. There was something about walking through the streets of downtown that reminded him of canyons. He’d always liked canyons. They reminded him he was small, which was no mean thing for an immortal wizard. He’d stumbled onto the Grand Canyon some several hundred years ago during a sojourn following the Black Death, and then again when it had just begun as a tourist destination. That was one thing the Americans got right: national parks.

  Later, he spun up a spell in his room to ping if Arthur was within the city. While it ran, he went to a historic steak house to have dinner. As he ate marrow from the bone with a small spoon as an appetizer to what was supposed to be an incredible steak, he listened to the live pianist through speakers piping music up from two floors below. He gazed out on the city in the golden hour. He thought maybe there was a second thing Americans had gotten right.

  The car ride to the store had been very straightforward. Artie tensed up when speed increased above a horse drawn carriage, but made no complaints. He’d been incredibly wary when the automatic shop doors opened on their own, but once Julie had gone in and out a few times they were less of a concern and more of a curiosity. He and Julie were now in the grocery store looking at produce.

  Artorius pointed at a dragon fruit. “Food?”

  “Fruit,” Julie said. “Food.”

  He gave her a look. “No.”

  She grinned. “Yes.”

  She put it in their cart. She pointed at an apple. “Apple. Fruit.” Then at strawberries. “Strawberry. Fruit.”

  Artorius pointed at grapes. “Fruit.”

  “Yes.”

  He pointed at the grapes again. “What?”

  “Grapes.”

  He nodded and put them in the cart.

  “Grapes,” he said authoritatively.

  She snickered. “Yes.”

  That one he wrote down.

  When they got home, Artie helped bring the groceries in. She showed him where everything should go, then while he started eating grapes straight from the bag, she sat down at the table and pulled up a video of how to eat a dragon fruit. He glanced over her shoulder then leaned over her so he could look at the screen, putting a hand on the chair’s back. He said something and looked down at her in amazement.

  “Videos are new to you too, huh?” she asked, looking up at him.

  She rewatched the video then put on some cat videos for Artie while she prepped the dragon fruit.

  “Here. You have a lot of Internet to catch up on. But first, let’s put those in a bowl for you.”

  Artie absently sat next to her to watch and eat a whole bowl of grapes.

  Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

  When she finished, she said, “Come on, let’s go put on a reality show so you can see how people talk. You’re gonna love the TV.”

  She put the dragon fruit into two bowls, turned off the phone to his disappointment, handed him a bowl, and led him into the living room.

  “You know, there are some studies that suggest that even if you don’t understand a language, you benefit from just listening to it constantly. Your brain is doing word statistics, cataloguing all the most common sounds, until one day it clicks and it’s no longer white noise but actual recognizable noise you can parse meaning from.”

  She clicked open Weblic and went hunting for a reality show.

  “I feel like your Amish brain would explode from Cupid Island, so let’s just watch some Garage Gangs.”

  During Garage Gangs, Julie’s thoughts kept returning to the problem of communication. Between episodes, she reached over and tapped Artie’s shoulder.

  He looked at her with a curious expression. “What?”

  She gestured at his notebook. “May I?” She mimed flipping through a book.

  He tilted his head, then said, “Yes,” and gave it to her.

  She paged through it, eyebrows furrowed with confusion. Judging by the number of filled pages, he’d been writing more than just translations. But then again, she’d never seen an alphabet like it before. It was a series of largely disconnected lines arranged on the horizontal ruling of the notebook.

  “What the heck, Artie,” she muttered. She turned it to a right angle, as she’d seen him do so to write, but it still didn’t make sense.

  After a minute, she took a few pictures of the contents and navigated to a language subuppit. She glanced up at the TV, grinned, then posted them with the title: Found in grandpa’s garage, any thoughts?

  Merlin woke up early to a failed locator spell. Arthur was not in the city and it was back to square one. He decided to go for a walk to clear his head, only to glance out the window and see that the sun hadn’t even risen yet. Defeated, he began to wander the hotel. He soon found himself restlessly prowling the empty conference tower of the Intercontinental. It felt nostalgic, with its faux courtyard and fountain, the marble floors and arched doorways aping at a castle, the gilt lions looking down from on high, the little alcoves for resting away from the meetings complete with couches and Renaissance paintings. But then he would stumble across the elevators or look up at the electric chandeliers and the illusion would be broken.

  It was in one of the comfy alcoves that he got an alert from b/realogham, one of the Buppit subs he moderated. (Not to be confused with b/ogham, which he’d been banned from.)

  He opened the sub, saw the post was a crosspost, and sighed. He was about to delete the post (original content only!) when he paused and actually gave the photos a once over.

  “Who’s translating the phonetic for grape into old Welsh?” he muttered.

  He frowned. “Wait, who knows grape in old- Arthur!”

  He sprang to his feet and cackled. “Aha! I got you, you dumb idiot! Time to come home!”

  He sat back down. “Right after I message this person first…”

  In Which the Knights of the Round Table… Meet Themselves. (A Series of Interludes from Two Days Prior.)

  Lucky and Percy were making out when they suddenly realized that they were both Knights of the Round Table. It was unfortunately accompanied by a wave of intense and unavoidable nausea.

  Lucky immediately rolled off Percy. “Oh god. Trash can, Perce!” She gagged.

  Percy, feeling a little squicked out himself, said, “Right over- pardon.” And snagged the trash can by his bed to heave into.

  Lucky scrabbled at his shoulder. “Perce- Percival, you assbutt- I will barf in your bed!”

  Perce shoved the can at her, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “Here, Lottie, go.”

  He held her hair out of the way and gently stroked her back while she vomited.

  When she was done, she set the trash can on the floor and they leaned into each other for comfort, exhausted.

  “So this is weird,” Lucky said, her voice muffled in Percy’s shoulder.

  Percy kissed the top of her head. “Yup.”

  “Just- uh. Just to check. We’re reincarnated Knights of the Round Table?”

  “Correct.”

  “Great. Good. Okay. If I’m Lancelot, am I trans now?”

  “Dunno. But if I wasn’t before, I definitely am now.”

  Lucky snorted, then said, “Shit.”

  “What?”

  “Artie. And… uh. Gwen.”

  Percy said, “Oh. Yeah.”

  “Oh? Yeah?”

  “Well. We should probably find Artie. But would Gwen really come back?”

  Lucky squirmed. “Is it bad I hope not?”

  “Hm? Why would you hope that?”

  Lucky ducked her head. “…I had an affair. With her.”

  Percy said, “Oh.”

  Lucky said, “Yeah…”

  Tyrus was soaking wet, nauseous, and thoroughly unamused.

  His niece gingerly patted at his head. “Sorry, Uncle T.”

  He couldn’t stay mad at her. “I accept your apology. Come here, baby.”

  He gave her a big warm hug.

  “You’re not mad at me?” she whispered into his ear, her breath hot on his cold skin.

  “I was, but I forgive you. But why did you pull me into the pool? I told you I wasn’t feeling well.”

  She pulled back. “I’m sorry. I thought it was funny. But it was just mean.”

  “Well, thank you for the apology. I think you really meant it. Which maybe means you’ll share your ice cream tonight?”

  She grinned. “If it’ll make things okay, yes!”

  Tyrus’s sister called to bring them into the house, and his niece scampered off. Tyrus took a moment to look at his hands.

  “Long way from being queen, Gwen,” he muttered to himself. Then went to eat ice cream with his niece.

  Wes was just finishing dinner for the kids when they remembered being Gwaine. They turned off the heat, pulled the pan off the burner, and puked into the sink. They rinsed the sink and their mouth out then stood staring out the kitchen window, lost in thought.

  Angie stuck her head in the kitchen. “Dinner?”

  Wes gestured at the pan. “You can eat in front of the TV tonight.”

  There was a chorus of thank yous from the four kids as they stampeded to collect their dinners. Wes pulled out their phone to scroll through their contacts on a hunch.

  “I can’t be the only one,” they muttered.

  Gideon was nursing a nauseous stomach along with a badly bruised leg after a nasty fall from bouldering when Wes called.

  He picked up. “I told you, I’m not coming over until Cass lets me be the princess.”

  Wes didn’t say anything.

  Gideon said, defensively, “It’s just- it’s been my turn for weeks now and I’ve got dinosaur temporary tattoos just sitting here. Not that I don’t love flowers, but I thought we could mix it up a little.”

  Wes said, “Hey, uh. Gal?”

  Gideon said, “Woah. That’s strange. Uh. Hi, Gwaine. How…?”

  Wes said, “Artie’s back. How else?”

  “Mmmm. Okay. Do you know anyone else?”

  Wes said, “I don’t really do friends, Giddy.”

  “You used to. But I guess that was another life.”

  Wes said, “I’m gonna try and find Merlin. Call me when you find more of us.”

  Gideon said, “Alright. Say hi to the kids for me.”

  Wes hung up.

  Gideon leaned back against the couch cushion to stare up at the ceiling.

  “I guess we’ll recognize each other. That’s good. But I can’t exactly call everyone in town. If everyone is in town. But… there are two of us here, in this town, in the US. Why wouldn’t we all be here for weird magic reasons? Which means Arthur is somewhere around here too. So how do I see as many people in town as I-“

  His gaze fell on the calendar. Right. State fair was Friday.

  He groaned. “No. Nope. Don’t do it. Gideon, come on. Be strong.”

  Then immediately caved and texted Wes, “Going to the fair to look for you know who. Want me to take the kids?”

  He threw his phone on the couch beside him in disgust. “Why do you do this.”

  But he grinned when Wes texted back a smile.