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His jaw ticked and our eyes locked.

Fable cleared her throat. “Doyen Moreno ... is it possible that someone could have done something to make sure we all got stuck here, unable to be removed even if we were hurt?”

We all looked at him, and I thought he’d clam up, but he answered.

“Anything is possible, I suppose. But I don’t know who would do such a thing.”

“One of the other houses, maybe? Just look at how hard Julius and his crew from House Draconell came at us. They don’t want to be replaced. Certainly not by people they consider losers,” Caterina said.

Gary grunted. “Who’d want to be replaced by a bunch of nobodies?”

Typhon shook his head. “You aren’t nobodies. You’ve all done amazing things today.”

Ellie blushed again, and Caterina patted her on the shoulder. “ You are amazing, don’t for a second believe you aren’t.”

He surprised me and went on. “You all did incredibly well.” He tipped his head at each of us.

“You work as a unit, better than I would have thought. The hours of practicing to get the runes exact, the struggles you’ve faced .

.. the improvisations you’ve made. All of it.

Especially against those that had a distinct advantage.

Removing the bracers, I think that was the last key. ”

I stiffened and felt the others from my house mimic me. “What kind of advantage?” Did he mean because they were better than us?

He sighed. “None of you read the rules, did you?”

“We didn’t break any rules!” I said, feeling the heat from the fire in my veins now.

“There was nothing against you bringing in one item each – a single item from your dorm. That’s why Mortan had the flaming sword. Julius had a power booster. The others all had something to aid them in defense or offense. Any magical item would have counted.”

As the de facto leader, that was on me one hundred percent.

I’d wasted time breaking the rules and bringing food when I could’ve – and should’ve – been reading the rules and bringing a frucking weapon.

But instead I’d inadvertently brought Typhon’s gift with me – the enchanted glass.

And it had saved us. So maybe I wasn’t such a sheet loser after all.

Still, I couldn’t help but mourn the fact that we could’ve been armed with Fable’s Fae knives and my still-untested magic gloves.

“And Julius,” Phyllis said. “What exactly is his item, you said a power booster?”

“An object of great power that has been in the Rendimion family for generations. It comes to Neverthorn with any of their bloodline, specifically to help with any fights or duels. Because they would not want to lose face.”

I pulled the cylindrical item out of my pocket. “This it?”

Typhon nodded. “That’s it.”

The item was about six inches long, smooth, I realized that it was stone. The colors just seemed so unreal. Deep red swirled with black and gray, tiny flecks of iridescent sparkles danced through the item as I rolled it, changing each time it did a full roll in my palm.

“What does it do?” Fable asked. “I’ve been studying magical items. I’ve never come across it in all my reading.”

“You wouldn’t have found it anywhere. It’s not well known outside of the Rendimion family, never mind outside of Draconell,” Typhon said.

Was he trying to help us? I shot him a look, but he was staring at the fire, avoiding my eyes.

“You didn’t tell us what it does.” Gary frowned. “Or are you forbidden from telling us?”

I winced and wanted to yell at Gary not to give Typhon an out, but he surprised me again.

“I am not forbidden. It dulls the scent and sensation of magic, so people would be less likely to pick up on their presence, or the building of a rune spell. That was how they ambushed you. It can amplify magic too, at least of the person holding it – making Julius that much stronger.” He looked at me and this time I could all but read his mind.

He couldn’t figure out how I’d beaten Julius when he’d been holding the stone cylinder.

Me either, big boy, me either.

Because even with a Quirk like mine, that allowed me to throw my weight around like a supernova, it was new and largely untested. Julius, with his experience, still should have been that much stronger and faster than me. Those moments had been a blur of instinct and rune magic.

“That explains the fireball,” Phyllis said, her voice dry as a crisp white wine. “We can use it now. Any items taken from the fallen become a part of our stash of weaponry or tools.”

Fable held out her hand and I let her take the ...

“Does it have a name?” I asked with a frown.

Typhon shook his head. “It’s not got a name. Or at least not one that I know.”

“Caterina,” I looked over at her, noticing and trying not to notice that she’d been holding Ellie’s hand, “Can you set up the outer wards? Everyone needs to do a layer, follow her lead.”

No one argued.

Typhon was staring at me again.

I rolled my shoulders and tipped my head side to side as I began my own ward, weaving the runes with my fingers, seeing the magic of my friends sliding around us.

Reds, orange, yellow, white, even a whisper of blue and green.

Colors of the House of Phoenix. The colors of the flames that made up each of us.

“Harlow, explain why you’re each doing a ward.” Typhon said, pulling my gaze from the colors of the magic.

“Because each of us will wake up when our ward is disturbed,” I said. “We won’t have to wake each other up, we will all be woken at the same time. Caterina is the strongest at hiding things, so she goes first. The rest of us pile on behind her, buoying up her rune casting as an added bonus.”

His smile was swift and gone like a bird on the wing. “Smart.”

“It was Harlow’s idea,” Fable muttered as she ran her fingers over the cylinder.

“She’s a survivor. Here. I think I can set this up now too, I can make it so our magical signatures are harder to trace.

” She cast a rune that slid into the magical item we’d taken from Julius.

It glowed for a moment and then a pulse of energy rolled out of it, casting us all in a coating of silvery mist that settled into our hair and clothing, resting on our skin.

“That will do it,” Typhon said. “I’d say you have about five hours of sleep ahead of you, if you’re lucky.”

No one needed prompting.

One by one they curled around the fire, sleep overtaking them quickly if the sound of their even breathing was any indication.

I found myself staring wide awake at the ceiling of the cavern. It didn’t take me long to give up and scoot so that my back was against the wall. Typhon was to my left, his head tipped back against the wall as well, his eyes closed.

His stomach growled.

I snorted. “Bet you’re wishing Tarquinius hadn’t taken all that food.”

“Indeed,” he muttered. “He has a strange sense of fairness.”

Another snort out of me, this one with some serious weight to it. “Since when has Neverthorn played fair?”

He opened his eyes and looked at me, and there was none of the irritation or ire I expected. He looked ... worried.

“Typhon,” I shimmied closer to him as I lowered my voice. “What’s going on? Like, what’s really going on?”

His eyes seemed to search my face. “House Phoenix has far more at risk in the Solstice Games than any other house. I think the fact that neither you nor Ross were pulled out when you were so badly injured is an indicator that there is more at play even than I know. I think you’re right.”

I stared at him. “You think someone ... might be trying to kill us? I was just speculating earlier.”

His eyes were thoughtful. “I didn’t want to panic the others, but there is no reason you two shouldn’t have been pulled out. Not with injuries like that.”

I frowned and rubbed at my face. “I know, it’s a training exercise, making sure we weed out the weakest, like Tarquinius said.”

“There’s more.” Typhon lowered his chin, and his voice. “This isn’t just about weeding out the weak.”

I leaned closer to him to hear. “What then?”

“Heronius was killed because he wasn’t strong enough, despite being the best we had. Not just to face Nocta. But because he couldn’t wield even a single piece of the Grym Dunaras.”

I laughed; I couldn’t help it. “That’s a fairy tale.”

I sat there, my mind whirling. The Grym Dunaras was a myth of a myth. Part magic, part weapon, all powerful. The story went that it was created by the Morrigan when she felt that Arthur was becoming too powerful with Excalibur at his side. She wanted something to offset the human king’s power.

Only ... Typhon wasn’t laughing. My jaw dropped, I stared at him, and whisper yelled. “Are you frucking serious?”

“A piece only – we had a shard of the weapon and set it into the blade of a sword. And it was stolen by Nocta after he killed Heronius.”

The Grym Dunaras had been the Morrigan’s answer but it was too powerful.

A battle between Arthur and the Morrigan had ensued, one not spoken of by the Dim’s history books.

This one had rocked the foundations of the world and had resulted in Excalibur being banished, and the Grym Dunaras being shattered into four pieces and spread out across the world.

No one even knew what kind of weapon the Grym Dunaras was – that’s how dangerous it had been. Every mention of it wiped out of books, out of everything but oral lore.

“It’s not real.” I knew I sounded naive, but it terrified me. Not only because the Grym Dunaras had been used as a threat, almost like a boogie man, but the thought of Nocta holding even a piece of it ...

“We’re frucked if he has it.” I grimaced when he was dead silent. “You’re not arguing.”

“Nothing to argue,” he said, which scared me even more.

I closed my eyes and tried to think of something – anything else. Maybe my heart rate was up, maybe I was hyperventilating ... whatever the case was, Typhon noticed.

He took one of my hands in his, and held on tight, locking our fingers together. And then he did something I didn’t know he had in him.

He broke the rules. “Sleep, Harlow. You need to sleep.”

He traced a rune across my hand with the hand that wasn’t clenching mine, and sleep crashed over me.