Aboard the small enchanted boat soaring above Britain, Collum kneels and thanks Queen Guinevere, who insists she is no longer queen nor nun. She pilots the vessel skillfully, doubling back over Camelot as arrows fall short, then heading west toward the Severn Sea. She tells the company she will explain herself, not under interrogation but to spare them mutual suspicion on the long voyage ahead.

Guinevere recounts her marriage to Arthur, conceding she flirted with Lancelot but never slept with him. The first principle of courtly love, she notes, is that it remain unconsummated. She entered the convent because she knew Lancelot would eventually move for the throne and try to kill her.

She then exposes Lancelot's true betrayal: on the night of the supposed affair, Lancelot forced his way into her chamber, bound and gagged her, and undressed only to wait. He had himself sent Mordred an anonymous note to ensure they would be 'caught.' Guinevere describes Lancelot as empty, a sinkhole hungering only for God, who committed violence with cold precision. When Mordred and his knights burst in, Lancelot slaughtered them with terrifying efficiency, killing Colgrevance, Gromore Somir Joure, Agravaine, Lovel, Curselaine, and Petipase, sparing only Mordred to spread the false story.

Guinevere laments that the romantic legend of her and Lancelot will outlive the truth, insisting to Bedivere that her love for Arthur was real, a marriage, not a romance. She reflects that Arthur's capacity for love—including for Mordred—was both miraculous and his undoing. As dawn breaks over the sea, Collum asks their destination. Guinevere reveals they are sailing to Avalon, which is a real island, and that the gravely wounded Arthur is there.