"What if she doesn't reject him?"

"If she doesn't reject him… if they're able to overcome the beliefs, prejudices, and fears to which they've both been exposed for most of their lives and create a positive relationship for themselves, then his report would probably be far less harsh and certainly wouldn't advise so drastic a step as destroying all women of power. If she leaves Atlantis with him, the future of our kind is likely to be very different."

"But we can't know for sure until we step back through the gate."

"No, we can't."

Serena thought about it for a moment. "Do you think we should do anything else to try and change the future? I mean, have you decided that the best chance of changing what's wrong in our present without screwing up everything else in our time is to help Tremayne and Roxanne overcome their doubts and wariness so they can leave here together?"

"It makes sense, I think. One person-if it's the right one, that is-can make a small but very critical decision that changes everything. I believe Tremayne is honest and fair-minded enough to be that voice."

"So you told him about Roxanne's being attacked, and he went rushing right over to comfort her?"

Ignoring her mild sarcasm, he said, "I told him about Roxanne. And I told him that even though it's against our very nature to allow anyone-anyone-to get close to us, we have to overcome that flaw."

"We?"

"Serena, I don't have all the answers. I can't tell you that the past few days resolved all my doubts or changed me in some fundamental way."

"But?" A dull ache between her shoulder blades told Serena she was standing too stiffly, too tensely, but she couldn't seem to make herself relax. This was too important, too vital to her happiness.

Merlin spoke slowly, as if feeling his way through a mine field. "But seeing what happened here, seeing the waste of lives and energies, the destruction of the powerless people and the death of Atlantis… I know I don't want any part of me to come from the wizards here, what they were and what they did. I know I don't want to be so closed and guarded that there's no room in my life for anyone else. No room for you. I don't want there to be any walls between us, Serena. Or boundaries we're afraid to cross. I know that."

"Does knowing make a difference?" Serena kept her voice matter-of-fact with an effort. "You still don't trust me. I can feel it."

"Do you trust me? Now, after knowing why we're here and what I'm capable of doing to you? You were afraid of me a few days ago, Serena-are you now?"

She wanted to back off, to fence with words and avoid the emotions clawing inside her because they were so painful and disturbing, but she fought against the urge. All around them lay a ruined city, a doomed society, and a dying land; she was no more willing than Merlin to allow herself to be poisoned by what was happening here.

"Not afraid," she denied at last. "But wary. And I do trust you, Richard, in so many ways… just not in all the unthinking ways I used to trust you."

Merlin was a little surprised that it hurt so much to hear her say that. "I see."

"I wonder if you do. You didn't answer me; does knowing make a difference? Maybe you don't want to be closed and guarded… but you are. Maybe this place and what's happening here sickens you, but you still see and feel the boundaries created by what happened here millennia before you were born. I'm a woman and a wizard-and all your instincts tell you that's wrong, unnatural, something to loathe and fear. We both know that. And knowing it doesn't change a damned thing."

He drew a short breath and let it out, wishing she weren't right. "What do you want me to say, Serena?"

She took a jerky step toward him, her arms still crossed defensively. "It isn't enough to define the problem. Change it, Richard. Fix it. Heal the wound the way you healed Roxanne's, the way you mended my broken wrist when I was sixteen." Completely beyond her ability to halt it, a hot tear slipped from the corner of one eye and trickled down her cheek. "Make it all right again, please," she whispered.

Merlin slowly closed the distance between them and pulled her into his arms. He didn't think about what he was doing even to realize he'd never done it before; all he knew was that her aching plea almost broke his heart. It reached inside him, past all the stubborn boundaries, deeper than instinct, and touched a part of him intended by all the beliefs and laws of his kind to lie forever dormant.

In all his life no one had ever looked at him as Serena did, expecting only the best from him and believing he was capable of near perfection. Her confidence in him had often disconcerted him and more than once had given him a sleepless night; and when he had fallen from the pedestal on which she had placed him, the landing had been brutal. Yet, even after he had disillusioned her by behaving as an all too human male, and even after she'd been frightened by the knowledge that he could destroy her, she still possessed an innocent and touching faith in his ability to repair whatever was broken in her life.

And, Christ, he didn't want to destroy that…

He held her close, his head bent and his cheek pressed to her silky hair. "I wish it was that easy," he told her reluctantly in a low, husky voice. "But a wizard's power can't heal his own wounds, correct his own flaws; you know that. What's wrong with me can't be fixed by me with a simple spell or a wave of my staff, no matter how much I want it to happen."

"Then let me try to heal you." Her arms crept around his waist as her tense body relaxed against him, and her cheek rubbed gently just above his heart. "Give me a chance to try, please. Let me be close to you. Let me in, Richard."

It occurred to him as he held her that their only chance might well be Serena's virtually untried ability to heal. Though his intellect would allow him to consider the possibility of their being involved as a man and woman, the taboo stamped in his very genes set up a potent emotional conflict he had little chance of winning-not without years of struggle. In any case the end would likely be meaningless because he was sure Serena would have left him by then.

If he could overcome his mistrust now to the point of allowing her close to him, then perhaps she could correct the flaws and wounds his ancestors had inflicted on him and in so doing make him whole. Perhaps…

But could he allow her close? She was close to him now, warm against him, soft and yet strong, the scent of her hair and skin going to his head like fine wine. Had they been this close before? No. Not this close. And the urge to comfort was changing into something far more elemental.

The banked desire he had felt for years flared up inside him, and the instant he admitted to himself that he wanted her, he could feel something in him trying to draw back, to pull away from her almost in horror, attempting to dose itself off in safety. The instinctive withdrawal was overwhelming, but he struggled against it, trying to master the clamorings of a taboo he wanted no part of.

She was Serena, for nine years a central part of his life, and there was nothing wrong with how he felt about her, he told that wary part of himself fiercely. Nothing. She was no danger to him, no threat. She took nothing away from him, didn't make him less than he was; she added to his life, to himself. He had risked everything to come back in time because he couldn't bear to hurt her, to lose her, and surely the seeds of trust could be found in that…

"Richard." She raised her head to look up at him with shadowed green eyes. "Just tell me you're willing to try. Tell me I'm not alone in believing we're more than Master and Apprentice. Tell me that what I feel isn't wrong."