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WE WALK WIDE around the perimeter of the Lodge’s lawn, taking care not to rustle any gravel. If Isaac’s inside, it probably won’t matter, but I need to avoid detection for as long as possible. Alice is quick and careful, and follows my hushed orders without question.

By the time we reach the basement-level side door, my grandmother is back, but she’s completely asleep. Like, straight-up old person on the couch asleep. Jaw slack, slight snoring echoing in my skull, and releasing a heavy, slow feeling in my chest.

I suppose it’s for the best. I check my mental boundaries like Mariah taught me. Visualize yourself as a house. Shore up each entry point. Close the blinds. Close the chimney flue.

On the way over, I reasoned that if Isaac and Lord Davis are inside, they’d be upstairs on the main level, but now that I’m here, I’m not sure. What if the reason the upper levels are dark is because everyone’s downstairs? What if they’re not here at all, and everyone’s out fighting the Shadowborn Davis has already released? What if Nick’s already been Called and Camlann is here?

All I know for sure is that I’m here now. And if the Legendborn are here too, there’s only one person I’d trust right now to be discreet. I dig out my phone and send a quick text.

Two minutes later, the door opens to reveal William, still in his dress shirt and green suit pants, his face a mixture of relief and shock. “They told us you quit. I didn’t believe it for a second. I knew the moment you walked in wearing that dress, you were going to steal the show.” He pulls me into his arms.

“Then you knew before I did.” His bright smell floods my nose. It’s fresh. Too fresh. “Who’s hurt?”

“You’d better get inside.” When he stands back, he notices Alice. “Who’s this?”

“Alice Chen. She’s with me.”

“If she’s with you, then I trust her.” His eyes slide to mine. “But if you walk in with an outsider, then everyone will know you broke the Oath of Secrecy, and wonder, like I am, how you’re still standing.”

“Long story.”

He nods again, and I notice the sweat on his brow, his rolled-up sleeves. He tugs me into the hallway and then turns an immediate left down the stairs. “Everything’s gone to shit in the past two hours. Sel, Tor, and Sar are off hunting some demon, Russ barely made it back in one piece…” As soon as we emerge from the stairwell, we hear shouting and set off at a run.

Russ’s yelling guides us to a room I’ve never seen before. “We need to wait!” It sounds like his fist hits a table. That stops me short; I’ve never seen Russ angry enough to hit something. He and the other Legendborn are standing around a large square table covered with maps.

“No,” Fitz says, his voice booming. “Three attacks in less than two hours, and they’ve all been fully materialized. They’re moving closer to campus each time, pushing inward toward the middle. Onceborns will see them, and then what? We need to go out in full force. Now!”

No one notices us walk in. The Scions and Squires are bent over the stack of maps talking across one another, shouting in raised voices. Fitz, Evan, Felicity, and Russ are in aether armor, with weapons across backs or slung around hips, while the others are still in jeans and T-shirts. I spot Greer and Whitty in the middle of it all.

“Felicity, you’re fourth-ranked,” Russ says. His Scion stands with her arms crossed on the far end of the table, gnawing on a thumbnail. “Tor isn’t here. Nick isn’t here. You tell us what to do.”

I respond before Felicity can answer. “We’ve got to find Lord Davis. And Nick.”

They all turn to me. Russ looks like he’s thrilled to see me, and so do a few others, but some, like Fitz and Pete, look unnerved by my presence. Greer walks over to me first and wraps their arm around my neck.

“Bree, what are you doing here?” Felicity says, coming around the table to hug me too. Her armor tingles against my skin.

“Who the hell is this?” Fitz says. Alice is tucked back in the shadows, her eyes wide and bright. She’s keeping quiet, just like I told her.

“A Vassal,” I say.

William chimes in. “Someone we can trust.” That seems to settle the room some.

Fitz’s eyes narrow. “Lord Davis said you rejected Nick’s offer after the gala.”

“I’ll tell you everything, but first, catch me up. Where are Nick and his father?” I step closer to the table. In the center of the pallet rests a large piece of paper covered in topographic lines and color-coded circles and squares. A map of campus.

Felicity joins me at the table. “We don’t know. They came back after the gala, argued in the foyer. Davis said you were gone, and Nick just—”

“Flew off the handle,” Evan says.

Felicity nods. “It was loud enough that we could all hear, even in our rooms. I don’t think Lord Davis wanted an audience. He told Nick they should talk privately, and then they left.”

“Then shit got real weird,” Pete mutters. Several pairs of eyes turn to him. He shrugs. “What? It did!”

William looks nervous. He rubs his thumb over his brow. “Sel sensed a demon a little over an hour ago, just off campus. He, Felicity, and Russ went after it.”

Russ takes over. “Full-corp hellhound. Not full-grown, but big enough. We dusted it easily, were on our way back, and wham , Sel senses another one on South campus, so we head that way.”

“Russ was wounded,” Felicity adds. For the first time I notice the smear of dried blood on her glowing chestplate. Russ’s blood, by the rattled look on her face. I realize his weight leans more heavily than usual on his left side. “I carried him back. Just as William got started on him, Sel sensed another demon. This time on mid-campus. He went back out right away with Sar and Tor.” My stomach sinks at her next words. “We’ve been calling Nick since the first attack, and he and Lord Davis aren’t answering. And now, Sel and Sar and Tor aren’t back.”

“It’s happening,” Fitz says harshly. “It’s just like Lord Davis said, this is how it starts. We can’t wait until we’re all in agreement to do something. This is what we’re trained to do. The shadows are rising. This is Camlann!”

“No,” I say. “It’s not.”

“Help!” Sarah’s frantic scream tears through the hallway. “Help!”

William and Whitty are through the door before anyone else has even moved. The rest of us crowd into the hallway to see the two boys take Tor’s still form from Sarah and rush her down to the infirmary.

“Move!” William barks as he runs. Tor’s head lolls back in his arms, supported by Whitty’s steady fingers. Blood, deep crimson in the fluorescent hall lighting, trickles in a line down the side of her mouth and pools in her straw-colored hair. Her chainmail, light and thin for an archer, but strong, has been rent into shreds. Chunks of aether metal links drop from what remains of it, falling to the floor and exploding back into nothing as William passes by.

I tell Alice to hang back and follow William into the infirmary. Felicity and Russ join me, pushing the doors open after I enter. Sarah has already sped past both of us. I didn’t even see her move.

Sel must have already bonded the Scion and Squire, because William and Whitty work in unspoken concert over the archer’s body on the table, William hovering his hands over Tor’s head and Whitty moving his fingers like he’s playing a piano inches above her chest and stomach. They speak without looking at each other, without looking at anyone. Their eyes are closed.

“Broken ribs, internal bleeding. Punctured left lung. Spleen and left kidney sliced right down the middle. Damn.”

“Explains the blood in her oral cavity. No injuries to her brain or cervical spine.”

Whitty hesitates. “I don’t know how to—”

“I’ll do it.” William wordlessly moves into Whitty’s space, calling aether into his fingers until it encases Tor’s torso like a shining shell. He seems to pull away from us and into another world inside his head. His mouth moves soundlessly, speaking Welsh again, I think, and his eyes move rapidly under his lids like he’s in REM sleep.

“What happened?” Felicity asks Sarah, who is hovering over Tor’s still form with trembling hands at her mouth.

“I should have been there,” Sarah says, her voice quivering. “It should have been me. That’s my job. This is my job.”

“Sarah, honey.” Felicity grasps the smaller girl’s shoulder. Sarah flinches, but her lost eyes find Felicity and slowly focus. “Tell us what happened.”

Sarah tries several times before words come out. “A… a… fox, I think? Something that stole Sel’s aether and weakened our armor. We—we had it cornered, but then a cougar showed up.”

“A hellcougar?” Russ exclaims. “What in the f—”

Felicity silences him with a look. “What happened then?”

Sarah blinks. “Tor heard it before we did. She went to pull an arrow, but it was too fast. Fast as us. It… it just jumped, and it—I thought it was going to open her up right in front of me…” Sarah sobs. Her face has gone white as fresh snow, and her shoulders start to shake uncontrollably.

“Get her on the table,” Whitty orders, already moving to the other table in the room. Russ lifts her like she’s made of shredded paper and sets her gently on the table. Whitty grasps her hand, and her body goes limp, but her eyes and face stay alert. A calming injection of aether, right from his hand to her system.

“Where’s Sel?” Russ asks carefully, the tension suppressed in his voice.

“He sent me back with Tor. He said he could handle them himself.”

Felicity gasps beside me, but I can’t breathe at all. Sel is good. He’s better than good, but if he’s bonded Whitty and William, and maybe even Greer and Pete? He could be too intoxicated to fight.

“Sel said…” Sarah moans quietly. She tries to sit up, but Whitty presses gently against her shoulder. Her eyes scan the room wildly until they land on mine. “He said he thinks Lord Davis is trying to force Arthur’s hand.”

Russ’s head jerks up. “What the hell does that mean?”

“Davis wants Arthur to Call Nick,” I tell them. “But maybe it isn’t working.”

I gather everyone who’s still standing in the room down the hall, along with Alice, and tell them why I came here and what I know. What Sel and I found, what Lord Davis did to me. And what he said he’d do if his son refused to claim his throne.

I worry that they won’t believe the parts of the story that Sel and I uncovered at Davis’s home, with Sel’s title in the balance as it is, but the Legendborn trust him more than he thinks. It helps that Sarah shared his message and that there were so many witnesses to Nick’s argument with his father.

And some of them, I think, have come to trust me, too.

Russ speaks first, the frustration in his voice barely under control. “But how is Lord Davis breaking his Oaths? He’s taken the First Oath, the Oath of Service, who knows what else.”

William grimaces. “Every Oath comes back to the same common commitment—to be in service to the Order’s mission. If Lord Davis’s logic is that warped, it could be that, from his perspective, his intentions are in service to the mission. Or maybe his Kingsmage has protected him somehow from the Oaths’ effects. A Master mage would know more.”

“But how would Nick be Called?” Felicity says. “The Scion of Lancelot is at Northern, and he’s still dormant.”

“As far as we know,” Fitz interjects. “Maybe Davis fixed that, too, or he’s working with allies. Maybe that Regents’ meeting at Northern last week was just a cover.”

William runs a hand over his face. “Or the kid at Northern is still dormant, and threatening Arthur’s Scion will somehow force Lancelot to Call his.”

“It doesn’t matter!” Russ throws his hands up in the air. “It doesn’t matter if Davis is trying to force the Callings if the demons he’s letting cross over are real. Why is Arthur waiting?”

“Could Nick hold Arthur off?” I ask William, thinking of Nick’s confession about trying not to be Called and his desire to prevent Camlann at all costs. “Is that possible?”

William blinks. “No. There have been Scions who wanted to resist the Call before, but they’ve all failed.” He scratches his head. “I mean, I could see it for the other knights, maybe , but the strength of will—and life force—it would take to stop the Call of Arthur…”

“If it’s possible, then Nick will be the one to do it,” Evan says from where he’s leaning on the back wall. “Especially if he thinks he can talk his father down from starting Camlann. He has faith in us to handle the demons in the meantime. And we can, now that we’ve got two more bonded pairs. But there’s another variable here.” He looks over at me. “Nick’s in love with Bree.”

My cheeks heat. “That’s not—”

“Yeah, it is.” Evan smiles and pushes off the wall. “The entire gala saw the way he looked at you. Davis made a bad gamble. He thought Nick would believe that you’d accept his Squireship, then quit. Instead, that tightly controlled temper of his finally popped. I bet Nick is furious. Angry, heroic, and in love is a formidable combination; he’ll hold off Arthur’s Call, all right.”

Everyone looks at me then, and I feel like I might burst into flames. I’m saved from an internal wildfire when someone knocks, hard, against the back door.

“Sel!” Felicity yells, and runs out the door again. I want to follow, but I can’t. My feet are rooted to the floor in terror, my heart suddenly beating so hard that the blood rushing in my ears sounds like an ocean. It doesn’t make sense, but my brain tells me that if I don’t see Sel injured and broken like Tor, that might mean that he isn’t injured at all.

It’s not Sel, though. Felicity walks back into the room with Vaughn trailing sullenly behind her.

Greer scoffs. “Didn’t you run off with your tail between your legs?”

“My question exactly,” Fitz says.

Vaughn watches us warily. “Lord Davis said he had a plan for me. That I should just wait in my room until he called.” His eyes slide to mine, but when I look into them, I can see that the arrogance from before has taken a blow. Then it hits me: Davis had reserved Vaughn for Nick.

Russ frowns. “So, what, you got antsy and decided to come here?”

“My dorm’s on the sixth floor of Ehringhaus. I looked out the window and I saw some lights over mid-campus. Green mage flame. Blue-white too.”

“Sel,” I breathe. “When was this?”

“Ten minutes ago,” he says, spreading his hands wide. “I ran straight here, but… it sounds like you already know?”

Fitz steps forward to fill his Page in. I hope Sel is still alive. The thought that he might not be steals the oxygen from my body.

“Fitz,” I say quickly. His head raises. “What did you say earlier about the campus map? About the demons’ movement?”

“They’re moving toward a central location.”

“Why would they do that?” Alice asks, and the room turns toward her. She raises her chin, and soldiers forward with her question. My chest bursts with pride. “What are they drawn to?”

“Onceborns, obviously,” he says.

“And aether,” Greer says.

My heart races in my chest. “What source of aether is in the middle of campus?”

Felicity’s and Fitz’s faces blanch. They’re the only veteran Scions in the room, and they’ve come to the same realization at the same time.

“Care to share with the class?” Russ huffs. “Or is this a bloodline secret?”

“Actually…” Felicity flushes. “It is.”

Somehow, I already know what she’s going to say.

“Excalibur,” she says, her voice a mixture of fear and awe. “It’s the oldest aether weapon in the world. Forged by Merlin himself, it contains so much power that it never dissipates, like ours do. Not even when its bearer releases it. Each king, each Scion of Arthur, adds to its strength every time they wield it. When the last Camlann was over, and we’d won, that Scion returned it to the stone. Shadowborn usually aren’t materialized enough to get this far. Or Sel finds them first, so I didn’t think of it, but if a lesser demon doesn’t find a specific person to hunt, they’ll seek the nearest, biggest source of aether to consume. The more they consume, the longer they can stay. And the biggest source of aether would be the sword.”

“Where is it?” Russ demands.

“Ogof y ddraig,” I breathe.

She nods. “Yes. Under the Bell Tower. And there are Gates underground too. Tons of them. Merlins sealed them hundreds of years ago, but if Lord Davis wants Nick in position to take up Excalibur…”

“Then that’s where Nick and his dad are,” I say, my chest tightening at the very thought. “We’ve got to get to them and stop Davis before he opens any more.”

Pete throws a hand up in the air. “What about the Gates up here ? I know they don’t spit demons out rapid-fire, but are we going to just let them stay open?”

“I’ll go,” William says from the doorway. “I can close them.”

“How?” Pete asks.

“With this.” William produces something small from his pocket and wiggles it back and forth. A vial of blood.

Sel’s blood. I’m sure of it.

“You don’t need to be a demon to close or open a Gate. You just need demon blood. Or part-demon blood, in this case.” He steps forward into the room. “I don’t have the same radar that Sel does, but my healing abilities give me a pretty good sense of where aether is. This is sort of like that, except on a bigger scale. And Russ, Felicity, and Sarah can point me in the right direction.” He nods to Alice. “I’ll take Vassal Chen with me to keep the Onceborns out of the way.”

“No,” Felicity says firmly. “You’re a solid fighter, but it’s not even close to midnight, so you don’t have Gawain’s strength. What if you get hurt? You’re our only healer.”

William’s lip curls. “No, I’m not. Whitty’s a fine apprentice already. He’s in the infirmary right now finishing up with Tor. What I’ll be doing is ten times safer than going into the tunnels to find the ogof. If you’re worried about someone still being around to patch y’all up, then you don’t want me in there. You want me out here.” He smirks. “And if Sel returns, I’ll tell him where you’ve gone and send him in like frikkin’ Gandalf the White. It’ll be great, promise.”

Russ places a hand on his Scion’s wrist. Felicity tilts her chin slightly in his direction. A silent conversation passes between them before she sighs and turns back to William. “Okay.”

Before she and William leave, I pull Alice aside. “You won’t be able to see them coming. If William says run, you run.”

She nods, her mouth tight. “You gonna be okay?”

“Yeah.”

“You mean it?”

I pull her into a hug. “I mean it.”

Before we part, she grasps my arm. “Make him pay, Matty.”

It only takes a quick twist of Russ’s wrist to break the lock on the door to the hidden weapons room. Well, hidden to me, at least.

“The Lieges don’t like us playing with their stuff, aka real weapons that stick around after a fight, but the padlock always makes me laugh.” He pulls the door back to let us in. “It’s insulting, honestly. Do they forget whose traits we’ve inherited?”

“Lamorak is known for his temper and his wisdom,” Felicity says as she steps through the door. “I think they’d hoped the latter would prevail.”

“Where’s the fun in that?” Russ says, winking as I pass.

The Scions and bonded Squires—Russ and Felicity, Fitz and Evan, Pete and Greer, and even Whitty, with William’s help—will all use aether weapons in the tunnels. But since Vaughn and I aren’t Squires, we need real weapons in our hands.

I hesitate in front of the rack of shining steel and heavy, polished wood. There are swords, of course, but some are in shapes I’ve not seen used before. Curved cutlasses, katana, shortswords, and even a thick machete for hacking. There’s also a rack of daggers of varying lengths, a double-bladed axe, and what Evan calls a lochaber axe. On the far end are maces, flails, and crossbows.

“Take the sword,” a voice says gruffly from my shoulder. To my surprise, it’s Vaughn. He selects a blade for himself and hefts it, testing its weight. “You’re hopeless with the daggers, and the staff’ll be hard in tight quarters. You’re passable with the sword and probably won’t cut your own arm off,” he mutters before ducking his head and walking back out into the training room.

Honestly, it’s probably the best compliment I could have asked for.