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WE WALK SLOWLY side by side through the open yawn of the field beside the Quarry.

Sel’s silence is a balm against the harsh flurry of voices at the Lodge. His hands in his pockets, the clean line of his profile in the sun, the relaxed set of his shoulders as he paces—they ease the harsh edges of my anxiety so I can finally breathe, and finally think.

These are the facts:

Nick helped me find more truths than I’d known to look for, and now he is the one who’s lost.

Even though his heritage crumbled beneath the weight of my truths, if it were me in Isaac’s clutches and at risk of being hunted by the Morgaines, Nick would fight to bring me home. And so I will fight to rescue him.

I don’t know if it’s our inheritances or our bloodlines or what we’ve forged together all on our own, but I can feel Nick’s absence like an open wound in my chest.

I love him.

Nick is in my heart, and I am in his. This is irrefutable, no matter how it happened or when or why. And I won’t lose someone that I love again. Not when I have the power to save them.

Unspeakable evil gave me Arthur, Vera’s resistance gave me power, but I earned my will.

The Order is my court now, whether I want it to be or not. The Table will look to me to lead.

I’m scared, but like Vera said, I’m not alone.

As I bend to untie my shoelaces, my companion leans against an oak tree, and our eyes meet. A light prickling pressure passes from him to me like a blessing: the exact opposite of what he offered the last time we were here together.

Sel doesn’t ask why we’re here. He doesn’t ask why I discard my sneakers. He doesn’t ask why I bundle my socks and stuff them into the mouth of each shoe. His gaze stays warm on my back as he watches me walk barefoot past him and deeper into the woods the way we’d come. Satisfied with the distance, I crouch in the dirt and look to the sky. I dig fingers into cool earth, and it sends whispers up into my arms. I push toes into the buried memories of bodies gone past, bodies running away, and bodies bearing through.

This is why I’m here. I need one wild horizon—one sharp moment that belongs only to me—before I return to battle.

No more Before. No more After. Only Now.

I surge forward, and the strength of armies sings through my muscles. Survive. Resist. Thrive. Each pound of my feet echoes in my joints like a blacksmith’s hammer, ringing loud into bones and ligament and sinew until the forest blurs past in a stream of moss greens and umber browns.

I sprint fast and faster.

And then I’m in the air, leaving the earth and trees far behind me.