He looked at her finally, and his face was still, unexpressive. But there was a hint, just a hint, of vulnerability in his eyes.

Instinctively she reached out, taking one of his hands in both of hers because she needed to touch him. "When you explained who that blond woman was, what I mostly felt was jealousy," she admitted. "That's how I've felt about her all along. Finding out she's a… a paid bedmate didn't really change that." She paused, then added deliberately, "Of course, if you go back to her, I'll cut your liver out."

Merlin smiled slightly. "Will you?"

"Yes. Or do my best to turn you into a toad. And we won't even discuss what I'll do to her. Remember those intense emotions of mine."

His long fingers twined with hers. "Thanks for the warning."

"Don't mention it." Serena kept her voice grave. "As for what happened in the ruins, I pulled back-very reluctantly-because I thought we were rushing things a bit. And because you were still struggling against that damned taboo."

"You felt that?"

She lifted his hand quickly and brushed her lips across his knuckles in a fleeting caress. "I could almost see it. Richard, what we need isn't more time-we've had plenty of that in every sense of the word-but more understanding of each other, and more willingness to be honest like this. If we become lovers before we're ready to be, I think it'll destroy us both."

He nodded. "You're saying that what we're really lacking is trust, aren't you? At least… trust on my part."

Serena hesitated, but only briefly. "In all trust lies the possibility of betrayal. We put ourselves at risk when we care about someone, because we trust them not to hurt us. Not to betray our confidence in them." She took a quick breath and let it out slowly. "For a while-not very long-my trust in you was put to the test. I found out what you could do to me, and it was terrifying, especially when I heard so many tales of how brutal the male wizards here were. But it was relatively easy for me to hold on to my trust in you, Richard, because you had never hurt me and because you had gone to the extraordinary lengths of traveling back in time to try and change history so you wouldn't have to take my powers."

"You don't fear I'll betray you?"

"No. But even if I were afraid of that possibility, I'd still trust you. I'd take the risk. I don't have the luxury of doing anything else. A part of falling in love with you is being vulnerable." She hesitated, then added quietly, "Don't you see, Richard? You wouldn't have to take my powers as a wizard to destroy me. You can do that as a man. It wouldn't be hard at all."

In the firelight her green eyes were mysterious pools, dark and bottomless. He thought again of how seductive the notion was of losing himself in them- and this time there was no fear of the idea. He leaned toward her, and her erotic lips were soft and silky and warm under his. He kept his eyes just barely open, and through her lashes he could see the gleam of her eyes.

The kiss was not brief, but it was more tender than passionate, careful and sweet.

When he finally eased back, Merlin tried to control a voice that insisted on emerging huskily. "It would be impossible, Serena. I don't ever want to hurt you. And more than I've ever wanted anything in my life, I want to trust you."

She smiled at him. "Then that's enough for now. We'll find the rest, I know we will."

Merlin hoped she was right; he didn't know how much more of this he could stand. For a man who had been virtually isolated and unemotional for most of his life, he was certainly making up for the lack now.

Serena released his hand reluctantly and said, "I haven't had a decent night's sleep since we got here, so I think I should take advantage of being above the Curtain. If you don't mind…"

He gestured slightly, and a comfortable lean-to appeared several feet back from the fire in the shelter of a granite outcropping.

She looked, then returned her gaze to him. "There's only one," she noted neutrally.

"I'm not very sleepy," he told her, wryly conscious of understatement. "If I change my mind, it's easy enough to conjure another or a cushion by the fire. Besides… I'm a little apprehensive about Varian. He gave in far too easily, from what I know of him. It wouldn't surprise me if he was somewhere about trying to find you."

Serena had forgotten the other wizard so completely that it took her several moments to remember the acquisitiveness in the eyes that had stripped her naked. "Oh, him," she said finally. "Do you really think he could be watching?"

"No, because I've hidden our camp. If he's near, he won't be able to see us. But I'd rather stay alert for a while just to be sure."

She nodded and climbed to her feet. Then a thought occurred to her, and she gazed down at Merlin with a slight frown. "You said that I'd be a Master wizard one day, and I know that's assuming we do change our present and change the attitudes of male wizards in our time-but what about us? When we step back through the gate, won't we be changed, too?"

Merlin shook his head. "No. If we're successful, we will have created a slightly different reality for ourselves, but because we were in this time when it happened, we'll remember our lives as we lived them."

"What about other people? The other wizards in our time, let's say. If we're successful, they will be different, won't they?"

"Yes, very likely, and they may well have different memories than we do. For instance, since the Council will, presumably, have no ban against females to enforce, they won't remember that I was ever called to explain myself on that topic. But that memory still exists for me because I lived through it."

"So… we'll retain our own experiences. But will the other wizards have memories of us that we don't? I mean, say they had a wizard gathering for Christmas or something and we came because I wouldn't have been forbidden. Is that possible?"

"Serena-"

"But we won't remember that because we were here. So who was there singing 'We Wish You a Merry Christmas' with all the other cheerful wizards? Our doppelgangers? And are those two impostors banished to some weird twilight zone because we return to our proper time?"

"Stop scaring yourself."

Serena heard herself laugh a little. "It's not hard. Please tell me we don't have doubles."

"We don't have doubles. Serena, you and I have been very isolated from other wizards, and I don't see why that would change even if the society of wizards has. You would still have come looking for me when you were sixteen, and since wizards have always learned their craft with a single Master away from others, I would have trained you virtually the way I did. The other wizards won't remember ever seeing you because they didn't-though they'll likely know about you."

"Yeah, but-"

"Remember what we discussed before we left Seattle? The theory is, we can't change our pasts because if we did, the reasons we had for coming back in time would no longer exist. Paradox. Satisfied?"

"No. I think there's a hole in there somewhere, but I guess we'll find out when we go back to Seattle." She only hoped she didn't have nightmares. She was halfway to the lean-to when another question caught her interest, but she didn't ask until she was comfortably wrapped in blankets against the night chill and turned on her side to gaze toward the fire and Merlin. "Richard?"

"Hmmm?"

"While we're being so honest with each other…"

He turned his head toward her, his profile sharply outlined by the leaping flames. "Yes?"

"How old are you?"

A little chuckle escaped him. "Judging by the questions you asked when you first came to me, quite a bit younger than you think. Wizards aren't ageless, though we do tend to live quite a bit longer than our powerless counterparts."