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I STAND IN front of Nick’s door for what feels like forever, but is probably only a few uncertain minutes.

I don’t know why I’m hesitating. He could just be sleeping. He should just be sleeping. And if that’s the case, I’ll just go home and sleep too. See him in the morning.

No, I know why I’m hesitating. It’s because it’s late, the Lodge is quiet, and he might not be sleeping—and being alone with him has started to feel… intense.

I gaze hopefully down the hall as if someone might appear and rescue me from the Schrodinger’s Cat of Conscious Boys scenario I find myself in, but it’s empty and unhelpful. The only signs of life on the floor are the scattered few glowing lamps on some of the teak console tables between residents’ doors.

On the other side of this door, Nick is recovering from yet another attack that could have killed him. That’s what I should focus on. That’s what I need to focus on.

I take a slow, deep breath and open his door, slipping inside and easing it closed behind me.

Nick is asleep on top of the comforter in loose clothing; flannel pants, a soft T-shirt. His arms lie straight down at his sides. The fine strands of his hair are partly matted on one side, partly strewn across the pillow like he’s just been blasted by a gust of wind. He’s flushed, too; each of his cheeks bears a slash of red.

I walk closer, my arms clutched tight across my middle.

He’s recovered from the broken ribs that William treated. His steady breaths say he’s out of danger and his lungs are fine, but the slight pull at the corners of his eyes says he could still be in pain. Did William give him something to make him sleep? I hope so.

I start to turn, to let him rest, but jump when Nick whispers behind me.

“Who’s creepy now?”

I turn back to the bed, where Nick has started to push himself up his pillow. He winces but waves me off when I move to help him. “I’m okay, just stiff.”

I look him over with a suspicious eye. “If I stay and talk to you, will William yell at me?”

Nick laughs, but the sound is cut short when his breath catches in pain. “William will yell at us both, probably.” He rubs a hand over his chest and swallows thickly. Watching the motion sends my mind flying back to the arena.

I shift my weight from one foot to the other. “I heard Sel say to the others that he thinks this attack was planned too. Not a coincidence. That the Shadowborn sent a creature that would be able to subdue you quickly and take you away.”

His eyes go distant as he nods. “My father said the same in the infirmary. The Regents have called a meeting. My dad is going to take another day to recover, then fly up to the Northern Chapter to speak with them and the other Viceroys.” I watch him pick at the gold anchors embroidered on the comforter, almost like he needs to do something to keep his hands busy.

“Sel’s in charge while he’s gone, William said.”

“Unfortunately.”

After Nick had been recovered alive, but injured, Sel took him straight to the Lodge. The long walk back through the woods had given me a lot of time to think about my “mission” here, and the danger it was putting both me and Nick in. With every step, guilt dropped into my body, one heavy brick at a time.

Sel may be terrifying and cruel, but he’s the only reason the Shadowborn’s plan to kidnap Nick failed tonight. Sel’s role as Kingsmage is more critical than ever right now, and his suspicions of me are taking his attention from his job. It’s worse, too, because those suspicions are unfounded. He’s wasting energy on me when, after tonight, there’s no doubt that Nick’s life is in danger. The Order is an army, and the Legendborn are its soldiers. Could I really keep going in the tournament and become William’s or Pete’s or even Nick’s Squire if my only intention is to gain the title so that I can find out what happened to my mother?

This afternoon with Patricia, finding the truth had felt like the most important thing in the world. Important enough to lie to my father, lie to Alice, and lie to everyone at the Lodge every time I showed my face. My mission still feels important and necessary, because how can I rest knowing that someone may have taken my mother away from me? That it might not have been an accident at all.

But whether or not Camlann arrives, and whether or not someone in the Order killed my mother, Nick needs a real Squire, not a fraud.

For the first time, I wonder if maybe Sel’s right and I am born of shadows. Or maybe those shadows aren’t who I am, but I keep finding my way to them anyway.

Nick huffs. “Earth to Bree? You’re just standing there, zoning out. It’s making me anxious.” He pats his bed, and his eyes hold a hint of their old mirth. “You can sit down, you know. I won’t bite.”

I stare at him then, really stare at him. Someone I care about is alive but hurt. Someone I like very much is right here in front of me, asking me to sit with him. It dawns on me that if I ignore that or forget how important that is, then I truly will make the shadows my home.

I take a deep breath and step forward, pulling off my shoes and climbing onto his bed, and just like that, the nearness of Nick pulls all of my focus: his warmth; the bright scent of William’s aether mingling with the detergent smell of fresh clothes; his half-lidded eyes that follow me as I move toward him and watch me as I get settled. It’s too much all of a sudden, and my entire body knows it. I lean back a tiny fraction.

Of course Nick notices. He presses his lips closed to fight a grin, and the expression somehow makes his already handsome face more endearing, more inviting. “You nervous, B?”

“No,” I say, and raise my chin a fraction to feel—and appear—convincing. I’m not sure it works, because he makes a soft, curious sound.

“Do I make you nervous?” He tilts his head to the side in query, but it causes his matted hair to flare up comically. I cringe and laugh.

“You look like a rooster.” It takes everything in me not to stretch up and press it down.

“A rooster?” He tilts his head the other way, sending his hair flopping again. I blow out a laugh, just like he wants me to, and he smiles.

I can’t help it. I lean forward on my knees and smooth his hair down. Once the soft strands lay flat, I notice how carefully Nick watches me, how still he’s gone. His eyes are slate blue with dashes of gray, his lashes fine strokes of paint against his skin.

I wonder if he’s holding his breath too.

I start to pull back, but he catches my wrist with one hand and passes his thumb, calloused and warm, over the inside of my palm. The motion tingles and tickles, until his thumb presses down and sends an arrow of heat from my hand to my toes.

My heart beats so rapidly I’m sure he must see it, feel it through my palm.

“Thank you.”

“For what?” I ask. This close, Nick’s laundry-and-cedar scent is rich enough to make me dizzy. There are other smells that I pull in with a silent breath: green grass on a warm summer day, the slight bite of metal.

His eyes travel an unhurried route over my face, from my brows to my nose. They flicker to my mouth and back up to my eyes and, just like that, my breath is gone again.

“For still being here,” he says, his expression a mixture of wonder and gratitude. “Even after the hellhound, and the uchel, and Felicity being Called, and now a sarff uffern. I never thought we’d be this close to Camlann, but I’m glad you’re here with me.” His eyes lower; he shakes his head. “When we first met, some part of me trusted you. I don’t know why. I just did.”

Despite my guilt, I think of how, in so many moments since I’ve met him, my own trust had risen inside to meet his, sure and steady.

Call and response.

Maybe Nick’s thinking of that too, because he caresses my palm once more and takes a ragged breath.

“How about now?” he whispers, his voice rough.

“Now?” I breathe.

Something heady and dark pools in Nick’s eyes. “Does this make you nervous?”

The last boy I kissed was Michael Gustin in ninth grade in the corner of the school dance. I remember being terrified and, after the too-wet, too-sloppy ick of it, disappointed. But that was ninth grade and Michael. This is now. And this is Nick.

I don’t feel nervous. I feel desire batting against my ribs like a caged bird. I feel hesitation. I feel overwhelmed. Then, I feel mortification when I realize that Nick, with his sharp, perceptive eyes, has seen it all.

He smiles, small and secret, and brings his free hand up to cradle my jaw, sweeping his thumb over it. His eyes follow the movement thoughtfully before they rise to claim my gaze again. He squeezes my wrist, then lets me go.

I lurch backward on my knees, my cheeks heated, the ghosts of his hands on my skin.

I’m grateful that he’s busy adjusting his pillows and not looking at me.

I have a feeling he’s doing it on purpose, giving me a moment to collect myself.

Once he finishes, he settles back against the headboard and folds his hands in his lap. “Will you sit with me?” he asks pleasantly.

And just like that, the air between us feels lighter, easier. Like nothing unusual had happened at all.

I’m impressed, despite my still-racing heartbeat. How does he do it? How does this boy navigate my emotions like a seasoned sailor, finding the clear skies and bringing them closer, when all I seem able to do is hold fast to the storms?

He waits patiently for me to decide, his eyes soft and open. Finally, I nod and crawl up to the headboard, making myself comfortable in the space beside him.

We sit like that for a long time, until our breaths rise and fall as one.

I must have dozed off, because I jump when I hear the Lodge’s front door slam downstairs.

The room is black. For a moment I forget where I am.

Nick presses a hand to my knee and says in a groggy voice, “If it’s bad, they’ll come find us.”

The digital clock above his door says it’s close to one a.m. “I should go.”

“If you leave now, Sel will know you’re still here and yell at both of us,” he says reasonably. “Stay.”

I can’t really argue with that. Plus, now that the adrenaline has fully left my body, I’m beyond exhausted.

Still, I pull out my phone and text Alice to let her know where I am and that I’m okay before putting my phone on silent. When the screen goes black, we sit in the darkness listening to the voices downstairs until the house becomes quiet again.

I start to wonder if I should find some pajamas and sneak into one of the spare rooms to go to bed for real. I reach up to my hair and tug on my bun. I’d hate to sleep without my satin pillowcase. Maybe Felicity has a scarf?

Before I can slip off the bed, Nick starts to speak, his voice low and disembodied in the pitch-black room.

“Most Scion parents can’t wait until their child is old enough to begin training. I know my dad couldn’t. My mother, though? When I look back, it was obvious that she was terrified .”

“You don’t have to talk about this now, if you don’t want to.”

“I do. Want to.”

I reach for his hand in the darkness, and he squeezes my palm.

“My mother was raised in a Vassal family, and she Paged right away but never tried for a Squire title. Marrying a Scion of Arthur was the next best thing, her parents figured. My dad was never Called, but Scions of Arthur still hold… a lot of power. When I was growing up, she and my dad fought a lot. About my future, about my dad’s training regimen. I couldn’t go to regular school; he homeschooled me so he’d have more control over my studies. I was eight when Dad started bringing other Lieges around to train me. He told them not to go easy just because I was a kid. Because really, I wasn’t a kid. I was their king. And they didn’t. Go easy, that is. They…”

Nick pauses, and I can hear him swallow once, twice. I’m scared that he’s crying and I don’t know what to do. I press my shoulder into his and hope I can send my warmth and strength over to him. When he starts again, his voice is thick with memory.

“It’s not the broken bones or the bruises, the black eyes or the concussions, that keep me up at night. Those were healed by a Scion of Gawain. It’s the look in my mother’s eyes when I’d come inside, like the sight of me was carving holes into her heart. They’d fight the most those days.”

He takes a deep breath in the darkness, and I take one with him because I want him to know I’m here.

“One night she woke me up and told me to grab my things, that we were leaving. She’d had enough of watching her son get beaten. We made it about a mile out of town before these black cars surrounded us. Dad comes out of one of them and he’s frightened and angry. More upset than I’d ever seen him. I think he was scared we’d both been kidnapped by the Shadowborn, and that’s why he called the Regents for help. He’d never imagined his own wife would take his son from him. A Merlin I’d never met took my mother away without letting either of us say goodbye.” His voice has gone cold with rage, quiet with sorrow. “Dad broke down in tears when they drove off, because he knew she’d be punished. I think he tried to stop it, but the Regents’ word is final. The trainings stopped for a while. He started me at private school, stopped talking about my rank, our bloodline. The next… the next time I saw her was a few weeks later at a park near our neighborhood. My dad and I were getting ice cream. Mom walked by, and I ran up to her and gave her a hug, told her I was glad she was back. But she wasn’t back. She smiled, but… then she held me at arm’s length and asked who I was.”

I choke on my next breath. Tears burn at the edges of my eyes.

“I spent years researching Merlins’ mesmers. Trying to figure out how to break what they’d done. Extracting a mother’s child from her psyche is mesmerwork only a Master Merlin could do. When we met and you told me you’d broken Sel’s mesmer, I thought maybe I’d missed something…” His voice trails off into a heavy sigh.

That’s what I’d seen in his eyes that first night at the Lodge. Hope. “I’m sorry,” I murmur.

He squeezes my thigh. “Not your fault.” He inhales sharply, returning to the memory. “Anyway, after we ran into her, Dad moved us out of town within the week. To protect me, I think. Not long after that, Sel came to live with us, and another Merlin brought us here to perform the Kingsmage Oath. Sel’s a little kid, pledging his life to protect me, and all I could think was how much I hated the Merlins for being monsters and how I didn’t want this strange boy in our house. I wanted my mother. I blamed my dad for calling the Regents that night, but, in the end, it was Arthur who drove my parents apart, and I’m… I’m so angry with him, Bree. Angry with a sixth-century ghost.” He laughs bitterly. “I was so… so furious at all of it that I thought if I stopped training every day, stopped doing everything my dad wanted me to do, and stopped hanging around everyone here—William, Whitty, Sar, everyone—that I could make it so Arthur wouldn’t even want to Call me. I left this world, the people, the politics, the rituals… so that maybe he’d think I was unworthy and leave me alone. And now that it might be real…?” He huffs out another hollow laugh. “I’ve pushed it all away for so long that sometimes I’m not sure I’d even be able to hear Arthur if he did Call.”

I wrap my arms around his chest and squeeze until he drops his cheek onto my head and squeezes back.

I don’t mention Sel saying that same thing when he was aether-drunk, about Nick not being able to hear Arthur’s Call.

I hate that Sel, in his own fit of fury, might have been right.

I wake up to the sound of Nick showering in the room’s bathroom. My phone says it’s seven thirty—early enough that I can still make my first class. I sit up, hands smoothing down my unwrapped, slept-on curls in apology, and notice a small basket of toiletries on the nightstand beside me. Soap, a washcloth, a comb I’ll never be able to use, and a small toothbrush and tiny tube of toothpaste.

I can already hear Alice’s squeal of delight when I tell her about Nick’s efforts. I may not be able to tell my best friend everything, but I can at least tell her about sleeping in Nick’s bed and waking up to a literal gift basket.

I grab the toiletries and head downstairs to one of the hall bathrooms, hoping against hope that no one saw me emerge from Nick’s bedroom. Ten minutes later, Nick finds me and insists on walking me back to my dorm.

Dew and fog have settled over the grounds of the Lodge overnight, and the quiet of the morning falls thick and heavy around us.

Nick shakes his head, eyebrows drawn tight as soon as we step away from the building and toward the tree-lined gravel road and trail that leads back to campus.

“What?”

“Every time I come here, people look at me like I know what the hell I’m doing.”

I cross my arms as we walk, and a memory comes to me. “My mom used to say, ‘Fake it till you make it.’ Maybe that’s what you’ve got to do. Fake it till you make it.”

He chuckles, and the warmth of it fills my chest. “Thanks, partner.”

“Oh, I’m not your partner.” I jerk a thumb over my shoulder, back toward the Lodge. “I think Vaughn wants that gig.”

“Ugh, that dude.” He rolls his eyes. “He keeps asking me to spar. It’s all very… bro-y? Is that a word?” I giggle, imagining Vaughn the asshole chasing Nick down with sparring swords, begging him to practice. “I really don’t want him as my Squire.” Nick’s eyes widen hopefully. “Any more thoughts about—”

I hold my hands up. “As we all saw last night, I don’t have a clue how to hold a sword or a bow and arrow or… anything. I’d be horrible.”

“We’d train you.” Nick grins. “I’ve seen you move. You’d be incredible .”

“Oh, really?” I cross my arms, narrowing my eyes.

“Yeah, really.” His laugh is a soft rumble in the quiet morning air. “Maybe I like watching you move.”

I open my mouth, but no actual words emerge, so I just shake my head and turn away.

He stops in the road, catches my wrist, and tugs until I have to angle toward him. “Don’t do that,” he chides.

“Do what?” Shadows play across his face as he draws me nearer. Like last night in his room, he presses his thumb into my palm, and just that bit of pressure ignites my insides, sets my heart racing.

“That thing you just did. That thing you do,” he says, his eyes filled with humor—and a shadow of hurt. “Tell yourself I’m just teasing. It’s okay to be nervous, but please don’t dismiss the idea that I like you, B.”

I make a strangled sort of indignant sound. “I’m not nervous. I’m just…”

He tilts his head. “Just what?”

I blink in shock, because he’s really, really expecting an answer, isn’t he? “I’m… a lot of things.”

He hums in amused agreement, his lips tight in a suppressed smile. “You are. I agree.”

“And… and… I’m not used to feeling this way.”

“What way?”

I feel heat rise in my cheeks and look away just as Nick flashes a soft, knowing grin. He trails his fingers up my forearms to my inner elbows, making me shiver. His right hand skims past my elbow to my bicep, over my shoulder to rest on my collarbone, his thumb swiping along my jaw.

“I had a thought about what I said last night.” His voice is quiet, almost meditative, as he watches his thumb on my cheek. “About being Arthur’s Scion and how, on some level, I never thought I’d have to really deal with it, you know? Not really. My dad didn’t. Granddad didn’t. A dormant Scion has clout, but no real say in the Order. I never thought about how his powers might feel and what I might do with them, until…” His eyes flick to mine.

My breath hitches. “Until?”

“Until the uchel took you.”

“Oh, sure,” I joke, my voice trembling only slightly. His face is so close I can smell the shampoo he used this morning. See the fine lashes against his cheek. I’m scared to want him—but I want him anyway. My next words come out breathy and faint. “Damsel in distress activates your hero mode?”

The passion in his voice, the breathless force of it, is enough to make me shiver. “You’re not a damsel to me, Bree. You’re a warrior. You’re strong and you’re beautiful and you’re brilliant and brave.” He presses his forehead against mine, his eyes squeezed shut, and takes a slow, ragged breath. “And I’d really like to kiss you.”

“Oh,” I squeak, and immediately wish I’d thought of something more to say. Anything more.

He chuckles, his clean, minty breath already intimate against my mouth. “Oh, ‘no’? Or oh, ‘yes’?” He pulls back to meet my eyes, and there is affection and something more flickering in their heated depths. It’s the something more that sends an arc of electricity through my body.

“The second o—” He tilts my chin and presses his mouth against mine, warm and soft.

I’ve read books, watched movies, whispered secret wishes to Alice in the darkness of bunk-bed sleepovers. I expect this kiss to feel an awkward sort of good.

I don’t expect each gentle brush of Nick’s lips to shift, grow insistent—and set me on fire.

The distant sounds of early morning birds fade away when Nick’s fingers smooth up the column of my throat, angling my face so that our mouths connect more fully. My fingers clutch at his T-shirt, pulling closer until I am all feeling and no thought: my heart pounding with his, the heat of his chest against mine, the strength of his thigh pressing into my own. Someone gasps for air; then we find each other again. I make a sound in the back of my throat that should be embarrassing, but Nick consumes it with a low hum against my mouth, drawing me forward until we’re flush. In that instant, I feel the two sides of our familiar dance. The call and response of trust and loyalty, intermingling until they become a melody. A beautiful truth that circles in the wind, swirling against my mind, growing louder until everyone, everyone must hear it too.

I don’t know what our kiss is becoming—just as his lips ghost over my jaw, just as his fingers feather over my sternum, we hear someone’s feet crunching down the gravel road behind us.

“Nick? That you?” Russ.

I instinctively freeze, but Nick lifts his head, a frustrated groan rising from his chest.

Another voice nearby. “Who’s that—?” Oh God. Evan too. “Whoa!”

At some point, we’d rotated so that my back is toward the way we’d come, and Nick is facing Russ and Evan’s disembodied voices. Thank the Lord, too, because I can duck my face into Nick’s shoulder and catch my breath instead of die of mortification in front of frat boy Evan Cooper.

Evan crows. “Oh-kayyy, y’all! Sheeit…! Get it!” He’s wheezing with laughter.

“Is this a good morning kiss or a good night kiss?” Russ calls, the sound of a grin all over his voice. “Are we coming or going?”

“Kinda busy right now, guys.” I can’t help but feel a little thrill at the steel underneath Nick’s hoarse voice.

“Oh, we can see that.” Russ laughs at his own joke while Evan says, “Sorry to interrupt, my liege! Please, proceed with thy gentle tonguing!”

They both laugh a long time at that, and even I crack a grin into the soft fabric of Nick’s shirt. They walk around us, whooping and cheering the entire way down the gravel road toward campus.

As soon as they get out of earshot, Nick sighs, pulling me tighter into the circle of his arms. “You okay?”

I nod into his chest and press my ear to it. We stand there in comfortable silence. After a few minutes, both our hearts slow from a rapid gallop to a steady thump. My lips still tingle and the fine hairs on my arms are alert with want, but I sigh into it all rather than act on it.

For the first time in a long while, I let myself enjoy a moment of warmth and safety without wondering if it’s real.