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WHEN EREBUS CRAWLS to his crown, reaching for it even though it’s still enchanted, I am too dazed to stop him. Too stunned that he’s willing to risk touching it at all.

Nick shouts, running in a blur—

But Erebus is closer, hand outstretched—until a bolt of green aether slices through his bloodied wrist, severing his hand to the ground.

Nick skids to a stop and I freeze, while Erebus stares, stunned, at the bleeding end of his forearm.

A second bolt strikes him, blasting a hole through his opposite shoulder.

“I have always wanted to do that.”

The voice comes from above me. I look up to find Selwyn staring down at his former mentor, fangs flashing in a grin, with both hands in his pockets. When Sel returns my gaze, our history floods me in a rush. In a split second, his face and voice and presence fill in the waiting gaps of our every shared moment. The emotions he’s inspired tumble through me like dominoes, stealing my breath where they land. Guilt is there in my throat, but then frustration arrives. Indignation, not far after. When affection spreads through me like melted metal, heating everything it touches and leaving something even more molten behind, my eyes widen and my chest flushes—and he arches a single, amused brow. “Hello, Briana.”

“Selwyn!” Erebus’s fury snatches our attention. He is back on his feet, snarling—but then he sways, tipping forward onto both knees and his remaining limb. Blood pools beneath him, soaking his pants.

“You don’t seem to be healing very quickly,” Selwyn drawls. “All those bodies to draw from, twenty centuries and all that, and a little hole in the chest is slowing you down?” He scoffs. “Pathetic. Maybe you should go back to being a Seneschal.”

Erebus’s teeth pull back. “Nice to see you, Kingsmage.”

“Can’t say the same.”

“It appears your mother failed you,” Erebus sneers. “Or did you fail her ?”

“Oh, I think there is plenty of failure to go around,” Sel says. He stalks forward toward his former mentor. “So you were the snake in our midst the whole time. You commanded the legion of foxes at the Lodge. You planted the uchel attack on the road. You attempted to capture Briana before she underwent the Rite of Kings. And yet you had me arrested.”

Erebus wavers on his knees, but his mouth kicks up. “Clever Kane.”

The green aether in Sel’s palm crackles. “You let the Order name me a traitor.”

“Does it haunt you that the blame was so easily shifted?” Erebus straightens. “It should.”

“Few things haunt me these days,” Sel says. “Enough talk. Shall I finish you off?” Erebus eyes the crown—and Sel wags a finger. “Nuh-uh. You get to die, or you get to run. Two choices—take your pick. This dusty old piece of metal isn’t one of them.”

“That dusty old piece of metal was your ancestor’s greatest prize. Merlin paid for it in pain and blood .” Erebus’s eyes drag up to Selwyn. “You don’t know the enemy you’re making.”

Sel grins. “Neither do you.”

Erebus stares at me once more. “We’ve only just gotten started, Briana Matthews. You still bear my mark. You are a king without a sword. A Pendragon, poisoned. Your own pain and blood await.”

I lower my chin to level my gaze at the tormentor of both my bloodlines, my former mentor, my opponent—and my enemy, bleeding out on his knees. “Goodbye, Arawn.”

He smirks—and a churning cloud of dark shadows sweeps him away.

When the King is gone, Selwyn peers down at me from one crimson eye. “You are yourself in full.”

I gape at him. “I… what?”

He nods at the sparkling red root still glowing on the ground around us. “Your magic. Your scent. You.” He looks down at me again. “I like you better this way.”

I blink, shaking my head. “Thank you?”

“And you’re quite fast, Nicholas.” He turns to Nick. “That’s new.”

Nick comes to stand with us, his armor fading. “Sel, your powers are—”

“Much improved,” Sel sneers. “Thank you for noticing.”

He studies the crown where it lies on the stone pavers, lit by a single glowing line of magical protection. “We saw this crown in your blood walk, just after the original Merlin acquired it.”

“Yes.” I rise to my knees, ignoring the wave of dizziness and the answering weakness in my limbs. The memory of that blood walk appears easily. “The Table thought taking it from Arawn would be enough to weaken him. They were right, but it didn’t last.”

Sel tilts his head. “Merlin attempted to keep the crown from his apprentice, the original Morgaine. It seems his efforts were unsuccessful.”

“The Morgaines’ enchantment kept the crown cloaked from demon senses for centuries.” When I glance at Nick, I think of the hidden shard in his chest—the one that neither Erebus nor Sel can detect due to that same Morgaine cloaking magic. “But now that Arawn knows we have it and he knows that Nick can remove the enchantment for good, he’ll definitely be back to take what’s his. We’ll have to hide it too, like the Morgaines did.”

Sel lowers to his heels to get a closer look. “I see.”

A small pinprick of apprehension draws my stomach tight.

Nick must feel it too. “Don’t touch it.”

“Why not?”

“It could kill you,” Nick says.

Sel frowns. “Less than ideal.”

“The Morgaine enchantment also makes it so that no demon can touch the crown without dying, and well”—I hesitate—“you aren’t a typical cambion right now. You’re more…”

“Demonic?” Sel’s lip curls. “You can say it, Briana. I won’t be offended.”

“Yes, demonic!” I say quickly. “You might die! Just… let me grab the wrapping—”

“?‘Could’ and ‘might,’?” Sel muses, low voice singsongy. “?‘Might’ and ‘could.’?”

“Selwyn…,” Nick cautions. “Don’t.”

Sel’s eyes gleam. “But those odds are fun .” Sel extends a long-fingered hand—but before his fingers can touch a single black spire, the crown disappears in a blur of speed.

Sel’s hand remains hovered in the air, arm outstretched, as confusion strikes him. Then, we both turn to see Nick standing ten feet away, one hand clutching the crown.

“No!” I scramble to my feet.

Sel can’t touch the crown, but Nick shouldn’t either. We don’t know what the King’s living creation will do if its broken pieces are reunited, even for a second. The crown already calls to itself as if it wants to be whole—and Nick’s heart is bound to one of its shards. A wicked conduit quietly burning inside his body.

“Nicholas, that was very rude,” Sel states, bewildered as I run past him.

“Drop it!” I skid to a stop an arm’s length from Nick. “It’s too dangerous!”

“Sorry,” Nick mumbles. He sways on his feet, but when the crown falls from his hand, clattering to the ground, his balance returns. He shakes his head as if to clear it from a fog. “Had to. Had to stop him.”

I start toward Nick, but he halts me with a look. “I’m fine.”

“I have no clue what’s happening with you two”—Sel stands, dusting off his pants—“but I do love a chase.”

Sel moves toward Nick and the crown on the patio, but stumbles. His eyes fall to his left leg where it extends behind him—caught by a band of smoking red root coiled around his ankle. He follows the root to its source to find my glowing and curled fingers.

He makes a pleased sound. “You have new tricks too.”

“More where that came from,” I mutter, straining to hold him.

“Excellent. Keep them coming.” He summons a dagger from the air, swiping it through my root in an instant. As he stalks toward Nick again, he extends a hand, curling his palm upward until bright green sparks appear in his palm.

I call root to both palms, preparing for a fight. Nick calls a blade to life in his fist.

As he pivots to face us both, Sel widens his fingers, then squeezes them closed—

And I gasp, my hand flying to my chest.

Sel stops to stare at my bloodmark as it flares bright.

“Calling you already?” he asks. “That old man really is pathetic.”

But the scent of my flaring bloodmark isn’t the same as it had been moments ago with Erebus. It’s not the earthy fragrances of oud and incense and myrrh… but the charred spice I’ve grown accustomed to over the past few months.

This scent—warm resin turned to ash—has become as familiar as my own face.

A signature once rich and full, now burnt to embers.

I stare down at my bloodmark—and then back at Sel’s hand as his fingers curl around the sparkling green flames in his palm.

I thought it was always the King calling me, his signature sometimes that of Erebus and sometimes that of his true form, but…

When Sel’s fingers open, my mark pulses.

When Sel’s hands contract, my mark dulls.

Nick speeds to my side. He watches the rise and fall of the bright light, his sharp gaze following the rhythm as understanding dawns in him, too. “Holy…”

“What?” Sel demands. “If you’re trying to distract me—”

“Sel,” I say.

He looks at me, annoyance incarnate. “Yes, Briana?”

“Your magic.”

He rolls his eyes. “Is different now, I am aware. Do keep up.”

“No—”

“Excuse me?”

“Selwyn!” Nick snaps. He points to his Kingsmage’s hand and then to my mark. “Look.”

Sel’s eyes fall to the glow of my mark beneath my shirt, then travel back to his own palm. He opens his fingers wide, sending the aether flames high—and my mark blooms high with it.

His eyes widen, then narrow.

He repeats the motion, and my mark follows along.

His face and body go still. “When I woke up in my mother’s cabin I felt a fathomless well of power but did not know where it was or how to find it. I pursued it as best I could, alone in my room, by calling out to it. Not once did I consider that that well might belong to you. Or that the power I craved and the power that felt so eternal… both belonged to you.”

“How are you doing this?” Nick whispers.

Sel squeezes his hand shut, then opens it wide. “How, indeed.”

But I know. “Bloodmarks can be… inherited.”

Sel’s hand stills. His flame falls.

The three of us stare at one another in silence. Waiting for someone to speak. To fill the empty patio with the impossible, possible truth. Sel’s eyes fall to the crown on the stone between us.

Before Nick and I can stop him again, Sel waves a hand—and wide glowing green bands snap in place around us, pinning our arms to our sides.

“Stop!” Nick shouts, struggling. “Even if it is true…!”

Sel stares at the black metal crown and its uneven spires. “Yes, Nicholas?”

I groan, red root flaming from my arms. “Even if you touch it and survive the Morgaine enchantment, Arawn forged his crown to be its sole bearer! It’s a living weapon, just like Excalibur, except if you aren’t its true wielder, the crown could kill you!”

“There’s that word again,” Sel murmurs. “Could.” His bands wrap our mouths shut.

Sel extends black-veined fingers to the crown, grinning at our muffled, desperate screams. When his fingers grip the thick black metal, the grin falls—as if he hadn’t really expected to make contact with it.

A deep, ear-popping boom—and shadows explode beneath Sel’s hand. They race up his wrist, ravenous for his skin. He hisses as the dark shapes twist around his forearm to his elbow, shooting to his feet with a grimace.

I use Arthur’s strength to tear through one of Sel’s constructs while Nick’s arm is a blur, eroding a band at his elbow. But when we each snap a snare, the broken bands grow back in an instant—stronger than before. Crimson root burns bright and brighter at my fingertips. Nick’s eyes flash deep blue and shining silver as he strains to unravel the ancient power consuming Sel—a power no one has seen in over a millennium. But our attempts to fight back make no difference; we cannot escape and we cannot stop the King’s crown. The deadly shadows climb Sel’s throat, forcing us to witness his destruction in helpless horror.

When the writhing, grasping streams of ink reach his cheekbones, Sel’s head snaps back—violently. In a crack. In a snarl. His spine arches. Death slithers beneath his eyelids, slips between his teeth, then flows from his ears in raging black rivers.

The end comes quickly.

As Sel loses consciousness, he loses control. His glowing aether bands wither around us. A Merlin’s decaying constructs, dimming beneath the starlight.

As our bodies are finally freed from Sel’s waning magic, his body goes rigid—then lax.

As we hold our terrified breaths, Sel releases a single breath of his own—ragged, clawing, final.

Then, there is only silence and shock and heart-shattering agony… because Selwyn Kane is dead.