I was once again greeted by the heavenly smell of a cooked breakfast. Arthur was so used to cooking each meal and eating simple foods, but plenty of it that he assumed all breakfasts were cooked and consumed while hot. It was going to blow his mind when we finally had something like ice cream together.

By the time I was decent and had gone through to the kitchen, he was sitting beside two full plates and reading another book. He had made notes by hand in a small notebook and I noticed he was a decent way through it already. He was also wearing the same clothes as the night before.

"Did you sleep at all?" I asked him, sitting down opposite.

"A little. Enough for now." He didn't even look up, too busy skimming over the tiny lines of handwriting. I couldn't see the spine of the book and I couldn't read any of it upside down, so I tucked into the bacon and eggs and considered what we would need to do. Arthur had marked some locations on a map for us to check out.

If even one of them contained the level of coins, gemstones and jewellery he said it would, this was going to be a huge discovery. I knew that a lot of these sorts of things were then turned over to who owned the land eventually, but only if the rightful heir or owner didn't come along.

And who knew what might have been built on top in that time. I wasn't about to get in a fight with someone over wanting to dig in their back garden. But no matter what I imagined, Arthur kept looking over the maps and books and trying to narrow things down even further.

As soon as he was satisfied, he got up and went over to the kitchen counter. I hadn't noticed but there was already a basket on the side and fruit as well as some of the snacks I'd shown him on previous days.

"I thought I should pack up as much food for our journey as possible as well. I know that we can travel far faster than in my time now, but I didn't know what it would be like to find an inn or tavern once we got there. These modern maps seem to be full of houses and I do not know if the nobles of the area are friendly or held to the same standards as they were when I was last... here."

"Food is good to take even if we find somewhere. I don't know how long this is going to take."

As soon as I'd eaten, I helped Arthur tidy up and gather what we might need. Once again I was confronted with how little food I had in the place and the grocery shopping I hadn't done. I was also painfully aware that I was low on money and would need what little I had left for this trip, the fuel for the car, and possibly a place to stay tonight, especially if we didn't find what we needed in one day.

It seemed like such a foolish thing to be doing if I thought about it too much. I was running across the country to look for treasure that might not be there anymore and was almost certainly going to be hard to get to and I could barely afford to do it. But the excitement in Arthur's eyes when he picked up the sort of picnic he'd thrown together tugged at my heart too much.

All my life I had done the responsible and right thing, never really living and then Arthur had shown up, and I wanted to believe. I wanted to think fairytales did exist and magic and all the old stories were true. I wanted to see what a king might actually look like. One who deserved the crown on his head.

And that meant taking a huge risk.

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I led Arthur back down to the car, taking all the maps and notebooks with me while he had his arms full already. It was exciting and as soon as everything was in the car, I even felt happy about this. I was leaving the city for the first time in possibly years and going somewhere else. I noticed he'd also stashed the sword in the car, out of the way, but it was clearly important to him that it came with us.

I didn't say anything about it, but he saw me notice it and our eyes met for long enough that he was aware I was letting it go.

The drive was going to take a while, but I showed Arthur how to work the satnav and he soon figured out how to get the location he wanted up on it. We were going to Glastonbury.

We'd got up early enough that traffic in the city wasn't too bad, and we weren't lingering, but either way, we were heading out of it on a Saturday and that meant the roads were going to be quiet enough no matter what part of the journey we were on.

"What do you want to do with this money if we find it?" I asked Arthur once we got going and were out of the worst of the traffic.

He shrugged. "That depends on the country and what we can achieve. I don't want to rush into anything I don't understand, but I am back for a reason and I want to get on with helping the people here."

"And you want to be king again?" I asked.

"I don't know if I need to be. If you already have a king, I don't have to take his throne to unite the country and make it better. But I am going to need wealth. The pursuit of money is often a fool's errand, but it is necessary to make a big difference. People want to be paid and the more corrupt they are, the more money is needed to remove them."

He had a point, but it also calmed me that he wasn't thinking of starting a revolution. Even if it was likely to mean more politics.

"So you want to invest the money or something. In things that will help?" I threw the idea out, not sure that it would make much of a difference, but I liked to think out loud and it was something to consider if he was going to need money.

"That might work. In the right projects. I can't just spend it all unless we can find all seven of my stashes. Then I could afford to be more free with it."

"How big exactly are these stashes?" I asked... starting to get the impression that he was deluding me again, but also, speaking so matter of factly that I had no idea what to expect.

"Well, each one has a treasure chamber about as big as the area you parked your car in." Arthur glanced over at me as he spoke and I had to grip the wheel as my mind tried to imagine that. Almost one hundred cars fit into the car park underneath my apartment block.

"Full?"

"Well, not to the very top. That would be dangerous. A person needs to be able to walk through it. And not all of it is worth as much as other parts. Merlin's most prized books are also in one. He made sure that time wouldn't hurt them. Or well... any of it. I don't know exactly what he did. His magic is stronger than mine."

"You speak about him as if he's still alive." I frowned, hoping that I wasn't about to have more strange people showing up at my door and needing a place to stay.

"Well, possibly yes and possibly no. He said his magic wouldn't die and I would never be without it when I most needed it. I don't actually know what he meant by that. Merlin could also be..."

"Vague?" I offered, starting to get the sense the guy was like all stereotypical mediums or people who said they could predict the future. It was all a bit wishy washy and not certain.

"Yes, that. Vague. He tried to be more clear when it was important, but... he said it was like looking through the ripples on a lake sometimes. Everything is distorted."

I nodded, concentrating on the road and getting a clearer idea of where we were going. I wanted to get there as fast as possible and didn't plan on taking any breaks, so I let Arthur talk about Merlin on the way there. Everything from how they'd met to the strange magic. Finally Arthur did a few more showy magic tricks, making a flower grow from a single seed in his hand.

Again I marveled. This was yet more to suggest that he really did know what he was doing and he was something special. I had one of the old kings of England in my car, and he was trying to impress me by growing me flowers.