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I WAKE UP once before William’s done

healing me. I must have done something I shouldn’t—tried to sit up,

tried to talk—because firm hands hold me down.

I slide back into a murky, aether-induced sleep.

When I open my eyes again, I’m in an empty, windowless room

lit only by a small lamp. The digital clock on the wall reads 10:17 p.m.

My left fingers fly to my right collarbone, where there’s a

steady, pulsing ache. Stiff paper crinkles when I touch it. I pull it away,

expecting a bandage but instead find two yellow sticky notes.

Clean, oblique fracture to the r. clavicle. Hit you hard with

swyns.

Will heal in a few days.

Wear the sling.

Min. healing time w/o aether? = 8 wks, + physical therapy.

You’re welcome.

William

P.S. Mod. intra-abdominal bleeding.

Healed, but STAY PUT.

P.P.S. Nick wanted to stay.

I told him to go on to the airport

since you’d just be sleeping.

GO BACK TO SLEEP!

“Sorry, William,” I whisper. “Got a boy to

see.”

It’s only after I’m in the elevator that I realize

I’m going to have to walk down the very public upstairs hallway of the second

floor of the Lodge in order to get to Nick’s room. This realization takes me

so off guard that I accidentally get off on the first floor and run right into

Sarah.

“Bree!” A wide grin spans her face and she bounces on her

heels under her skirt. “What are you still doing here? Do you need a ride

home? I could drive you back to your dorm, no problem, easy peasy!”

I narrow my eyes. “Are you talking faster than

normal?”

She flushes pink and bites her lip. “I think so?”

Realization hits me then. Everything about Sarah is brighter, and I

swear I can actually see her vibrating. “You’re bonded to Tor now. You

have Tristan’s speed.”

She tilts her head back and forth. “Technically, I have

Tor’s speed. She has Tristan’s speed. But yes! Wait.” She

frowns, and the cogs in her mind turn faster than ever. Her eyes grow wide.

“You’re waiting for Nick, aren’t you?”

Voices reach us from the dining room and the living room. “What

if I am?”

“Oh, I think you two are a cute couple. Do you want something to

drink while you wait?” She’s already walking down the hall under the

staircase toward the kitchen, so I follow.

The Lodge’s bright chef’s kitchen is empty when we walk

in. I’ve never actually been in here before, since most of the meals are

catered in, and very few of the Legendborn seem to cook for themselves. It’s a

large, square room with white cabinets, two stainless steel fridges, a gas stove on

a center island, and gleaming gray-and-white quartz countertops. Sarah pulls out two

glasses and fills them with water while she talks.

“People are such gossips around here, but

honestly, it’s not a big deal that you’re hooking up with Nick. There

are some Pages who might be jealous. Ainsley, for one. Sydney. Spencer

too.”

I settle into a bar stool, cradling my shoulder in its sling.

“Wonderful.”

“Nick lost it on Vaughn, by the way. Kicked him out of

the tournament. Said there’s no place for vengeance at the Table.” She

shakes her head. “Vaughn thought that being the best combatant made him the

best Squire for Nick, but it doesn’t work like that. It’s not just the

fighting. It’s the match.”

The way she says that last word, the emphasis she puts on it, reminds

me that she’s got more than Tor’s speed now. She has access to her

emotions. She’ll always know when she’s in danger. They’re in sync

now and forever.

And her life span has just been capped. I can’t think of a

polite way to ask how she feels about the Abatement, so I ask another question

instead.

“What does it feel like? To be bonded?”

She considers my question. “Tor and I were already bonded in a

way. We’re in love, so I thought this would feel like more of the same, but

it’s not. It’s deeper. More intimate. I don’t know how it feels to

other people. Maybe it depends on how long they’ve been bonded or how well

they already knew each other.”

“How long have you and Tor been together?”

“Couple of years. Before that she was with Sel, and I was still

in high school.”

I hadn’t forgotten William’s revelation, but now that

it’s out in the open… “About that… I’m having a little

trouble imagining it.”

Sarah laughs. “Yeah, that was Tor’s rebellious phase. I

think she did it just to piss her parents off.”

“Dating Sel pissed her parents off?”

“Dating a Merlin would piss any Legendborn parent

off.” She rolls her eyes and tips her glass back.

That surprises me. Sure, Sel is a jerk, but does that mean all Merlins

are? “Why?”

Her nose wrinkles. “It’s just not done.”

“But—”

Boom! A thunderous sound reaches us from the woods behind the

Lodge. I’m on my feet in a second.

“Speaking of…” She doesn’t

even budge from her chair, just rolls her eyes and finishes her glass of water.

“You want a refill?”

“What was that?” I gape at her nonchalance, then jolt

again when a large crack echoes in the forest, followed by the sound of a

flock of nearby birds fleeing into the night sky.

“That”—Sarah raises an unimpressed

brow—“is Selwyn, aether-drunk from our Oath,” she says as if that

explains everything. “Except he’s been pissed off all week, so

it’s worse than normal.” She takes my glass and brings both over to the

dishwasher. “I wouldn’t go in the woods tonight, if I were you.

He’ll be out there for a while throwing a tantrum. When he cools off,

he’ll come back in, slam a bunch of doors, and hole himself up in his tower

for the rest of the night. It’s a whole thing.”

Sarah walks me back to the elevator, spilling gossip at a rapid-fire

pace. I can barely keep up with her new speed, and right now I’m only half

listening. I wait until she takes the elevator to her and Tor’s room on the

third floor, then move as quietly as I can to the stairwell and out the back

exit.

The sounds of destruction grow louder as soon as I step into the

woods.

Using my phone as a flashlight, I take the path Nick guided me down

the first night—I know it must be the same because it’s the only one I

see. This close to Selwyn’s epicenter, each crash and boom and crack sends

reverberations through the ground beneath my feet. Whatever he’s doing,

it’s violent. I must be the only living thing in a mile radius that

hasn’t taken shelter from his rage.

I don’t quite know why I’m walking into the storm instead

of waiting it out like Sarah suggested. I could be upstairs in Nick’s shower,

using the much-stronger water pressure in the Lodge to release the tension from my

back and arm muscles. Then, rooting around in his drawers for pajamas that smell

like him.

But I’m not.

Maybe I’m seeking Sel out tonight because last night he

stayed behind to help me . Nick told him to stay away. Sarah told me to stay

away. And yet there he was, and here I am. We keep crossing paths in all the wrong

ways.

As if compelled by a force out of my control, I follow the sounds of

Sel’s anger, through the curve where I first met Lord

Davis, down the rocking bridge that Nick guided me over, and past the hint of silver

on the forest floor that marks the ceremony site.

I end up climbing a slope. The deep cracking sounds are further and

further apart now, but each time they come, they’re loud enough to set my

teeth on edge and send adrenaline spiking. I pause to catch my breath against a tree

trunk and get my bearings. I’ve walked half a mile or so, some of it uphill.

The Lodge’s balcony lights are barely visible through the dense trees, and

beyond that is the misty haze of light marking the tops of campus buildings, the

nearby hospital, and the rest of downtown. I direct my flashlight up the hill again

and gasp.

Starting about twenty feet away are half a dozen broken tree trunks.

Jagged, pale yellow spikes and splinters the size of my forearm stretch up from raw

stumps about the height of my knee. They look like fresh wounds. Beside them are

long fallen trunks, laid out like Lincoln Logs on the forest floor.

Right on cue, I hear another tree being torn apart. I follow the

sound.

This close I can catch all the details of Sel’s efforts: the

initial popping sound of a wide trunk protesting against his muscles; the ripping

sound of bark tearing away; a slow, deep whine and a final crack when the

trunk is severed from its base.

Just as I reach the ridge, I see him about fifty feet away, hefting a

long pine trunk between his hands. He inhales deep and heaves it over the side.

There’s a second where all I can hear are his panting breaths amidst silence,

and then a mighty boom shakes the ground as the tree splits into pieces on the earth

below. In the waning moonlight, I can make out a dozen trees just like it, spread

out across the grass like broken chopsticks as tall as a house.

I realize where I am—this is the ridge above the arena from the

first trial. This is where the Legendborn watched us fight Sel’s boars and

where Nick was taken out from under Sel’s nose by a hellsnake.

“What are you doing here?”

My head jerks around at Sel’s voice. In the second I’d

taken to peer down into the arena, he’d turned to face me. His gaze feels like

sparks, but they’re scattered. Unfocused.

The last time we spoke, he’d made a joke

about his lineage. Taught me how to follow through on a lunge.

Now it feels like he wants to burn me to ash.

I stumble on a response but stop when I see his expression. Sarah was

right, he’s aether-drunk, and it’s worse than before. Even though

he’s on his feet, he’s swaying gently, his normally stern eyes blurry

and red-rimmed. He glances down at my injured arm, briefly.

“Well?”

“Why are you so angry?”

His laugh is a hollow, dry bark. “Learn that shit from your

therapist?”

I swear I see red. “ What did you just say to

me?”

He smirks. “I saw your little outdoor therapy session with that

campus doctor.”

“You spied on me?” Which session? How much did

he hear?

Sel rolls his eyes to the sky. “ Of course I spied on you.

The day after the Oath, I followed you from your dorm to the gardens, listened in

while you and she had a heart-to-heart about your abilities.” He bends down

and picks up a rock, then chucks it across the arena so hard it makes a loud

pop! against a tree on the other side.

“How dare you—that was private!” I shout.

He scoffs. “Put your self-righteousness away, mystery girl. I

followed you that day to see if you were meeting an uchel coconspirator, and I

thought you two were speaking in code about your demon lineage. Looking back,

I’d given you far too much credit. I don’t care about your family

drama, and I sure as fuck don’t care about someone whose dead mother used

aether to grow prettier flowers —”

“ Don’t talk about my mother,” I growl.

“All of that effort”—he shakes his head and gives a

mirthless laugh—“and look where it got me. What a waste of

time.”

Fury and panic are rushing through my blood, and I don’t know

which one to act on. I’m still reeling from the revelation that Sel followed

me, my mind searching through that first conversation with Patricia to remember what

he could have learned.

“God, look at you!” Sel chuckles incredulously.

“You’re trying to remember what I overheard that day and how much I know

about your boring, basic Onceborn life.”

He prowls toward me on slightly unsteady legs, his

glowing eyes tracing my features. A tiny memory from the back of my mind reminds me

that running from a predator only invites them to chase you, so I freeze where I

am.

And I thought I could be what? His friend?

Sel’s low voice dips and slurs as he talks, and I can’t

tell if his words are for me or for himself. “How could I have risked so much

for a lost little girl who probably needs as much therapy as I do?” He tilts

his head, eyes going unfocused. “Well, that’s not possible.” He

laughs again, but this time it’s so self-deprecating it feels like my anger

has nowhere else to go. “No one needs as much therapy as I do.”

“Is that why you’re out here chucking trees over a

cliff?” I snarl.

His head snaps up. “Why are you here again?”

“I have no idea,” I say, and turn to leave.

“I do.” Even intoxicated, he’s far faster than I am.

He’s in front of me the second I turn. “Guilt.”

“Get out of the way.”

He leans back against a tree in my path and regards me under

half-lidded eyes. “I bet you heard I was out here throwing a fit and that

I’d been ‘monstrous, angry Sel’ all weekend. I bet Nicholas told

you we fought again and that Lord Davis put me in my place yesterday. And now you

feel bad because you still haven’t told Nicholas that you can generate aether,

and you think if you had, maybe he’d realize my instincts were right, and I

wouldn’t be out here crushing trees and feeling sorry for myself.”

I sputter, but I can’t deny the ring of truth in Sel’s

words. Is that what brought me here through the woods to him? Guilt?

“Move.” I take a step, but he matches me again. His eyes

gleam, mocking the thoughts he’d deduced from me like a demonic Sherlock

Holmes.

“Well, don’t bother feeling guilty,” Sel purrs.

“For our once and future king , the ends will never justify the means.

He’s a good person like that. And further, Nicholas doesn’t care about

what you can do , he only cares about you . A fact now fully impressed

upon the recently disgraced Page Schaefer. As a matter of fact, how do you think

he’d feel if he heard you sought me out in the woods while I was drunk on

aether?” His gaze hits me all over—sharp pricks across my face, down my

throat, and over my bare arms.

Face hot, I flounder for words. “I—I

have no idea.”

He snorts. “Liar. Nicholas would draw and quarter me and you

know it.”

“That’s a little dramatic.”

He unhitches himself from the tree and stands up, shaking his head.

“Do you honestly not realize what he feels for you?”

He’s turning everything around so quickly. I feel a wave of

confusing emotions: fury at him still for following me, pleasure at hearing about

the strength of Nick’s feelings for me, guilt for being here against

Nick’s wishes and our agreed-upon rule, and bewilderment that I’m having

boy talk with Sel.

“You don’t.” Sel glares at me, and this close I can

see the fine tremor in his mouth, his shoulders, all the way down to his fists. He

steps closer, crowding me. “Not fully.”

I back away, but it’s a mistake. There’s only a foot

between me, the edge of the ridge, and a steep drop down to the valley and the arena

floor below. It’s much too much like our first meeting. And this time I know

exactly who Sel is and what he’s capable of.

“Sel, stop it! I’m gonna fall!”

He shrugs. “Only if you move.”

“Let me pass.”

“No. You’re going to stand right here and listen to me

explain something to you.”

I glance over my shoulder. He’s right; I’m safe—if I

don’t move again. “Explain what?”

“Do you know why Merlins serve the Legendborn?”

That catches me off guard. “No.”

“Guess.”

His tone is so sharp, I speak slowly to avoid being cut. “To

fight the Shadowborn?”

“Adorable.” He rolls his eyes. “The Shadowborn

are evil, but don’t think for one second that every Merlin serves

the Order wholly out of the goodness of their heart. You called me a crossroads

child once, but you don’t fully understand what that means. You

can’t.”

He takes another step forward, not enough to push

me over but close enough that I can smell lingering spice from the Oath on his skin

and feel the warmth rolling off him. A memory of his heated fingers that first night

at the Lodge flashes through my mind, and I wonder, just briefly, if the rest of him

runs just as hot.

“Merlin children are, for all intents and purposes, fully human

at birth. But when we turn seven, the changes begin—the strength, the speed,

the senses—and with those changes comes a type of… countdown. Every year

after that we gain power and our connection to aether deepens, and every year we

lose a bit more of our humanity. We call it ‘succumbing to the

blood.’?” Sel shudders, eyes focusing on me again. “When

Merlin created the Legendborn spell for Arthur and his knights, he designed a

similar spell for himself. One that would allow all of his descendants to inherit

the unique mage abilities he’d honed over time—mesmer, constructs, an

affinity for aether.” The tiny tips of his white canines gleam as he speaks.

“But Merlin knew his own nature. He knew that demons only care for themselves

and chaos, and powerful but uncontrollable part demons would never be compatible

servants to the eternal Order he and Arthur envisioned. So, in his spell,

Merlin folded in a bit of insurance. ”

My chest is suddenly tight. “What kind of insurance?”

Bitterness turns his features sharp in the shadows. “Do you

remember when I told you that the hellfox couldn’t dust with a part of you

still inside it? That’s because the darkness of the underworld and the light

of the living shouldn’t exist in one body. My blood is fighting itself every

day. The older I get, the stronger the demon essence becomes, but my commitments to

this Order and its members keep me from going over.”

I return his stare, horror and understanding washing over me in a

wave. “The Oaths…”

“The Oaths.” His eyes are suddenly bright. Fierce.

“They are Merlin’s insurance that his descendants would never abandon

his mission. Performing them, fulfilling them, no matter how large or how small the

task. It’s the Oaths that bind the two sides of a Merlin together. As long as

we are in service, we are in control of our own souls. It’s why they Oath us

early, before we’re old enough for our blood to gain a foothold.”

Cecilia’s voice comes back to me, and what

she said about the infant in Pearl’s arms. Cast it away before it could

grow large enough to do harm.

Sel’s not done yet. His eyes dart back and forth across my face,

cataloging my responses to his words. “There. You understand now. You can see

how, for any Merlin—even a weak one—raised as a human among humans, the

greatest punishment would be to cast us out of the Order’s service. Force us

to witness our own regression. To strip a Merlin powerful enough to earn the title

of Kingsmage of that same title would mean taking them away from their charge.

Cutting them off from the immense connective power of that Oath. It’s a

penalty so severe that it’s never been done before.”

The burning heat rolling off him and the poison in his eyes scare me

more than his temper ever has.

“But we are two Called Scions away from Camlann. So, after

Nicholas told his father what I did to you, Lord Davis threatened to replace me.

Take my title, cast me out. Leave me to self-destruction.” He huffs.

“Bullies, like I said.”

Air leaves my lungs in a rush, like I’ve been tossed over the

cliff myself. “No, that… that sounds like torture. Nick wouldn’t

let that happen—”

“Oh, it is torture. But if the Order thinks I’m

growing unstable, that is exactly what Nicholas will be forced to do.”

His face turns sour. “These are the choices kings make, mystery

girl.”

“I’ll talk to him. I’ll tell him—”

I don’t get to finish my sentence, because Sel spins me in a

blur of speed, pushing me to the path. “Too late. Go away.”

“Sel—” I smell the crackle of Sel’s casting

and turn to see him standing at the edge of the cliff, his hair swaying gently in

the early stages of mage flame, his eyes shining like stoked coals.

“Nicholas thinks I’m losing my humanity. Maybe I am. But I

have not lost my dignity,” he sneers. “I don’t need your

help.”

Before I can say another word, he steps over the cliff and drops out

of sight, landing without a sound far below.