by Tracy Deonn
Fury races through my body like a forest fire. “What have you done to her?” Isaac bares his teeth in a chilling smile. He holds Alice’s hand in both of his, caressing the top of her fingers. “Don’t touch her!”
“I’m afraid Isaac has to keep touching Ms. Chen in order for this particular mesmer to continue.” Davis walks back to his chair and settles in his desk. “Which it will until we come to an understanding.”
“If you don’t let her go—” I choke out. “I swear to God, I will tear you apart!”
“Such fire.” Davis smirks. “Let’s see if we can put it out. Isaac?”
Isaac moves in front of Alice as if wrapping her in a hug and slides his hands up to her cheeks, holding her head still until their eyes meet. A slow, sickly shimmer of silver-gray mage flame circles her from the neck up. A second later, Alice blinks rapidly.
“Bree?” she whispers. Her eyes focus on me. “What happened to your dress? Why are you tied to a chair? What’s going on?”
“Alice! Alice, listen to me. I’m going to get you out of here!” Isaac shifts his fingers, and she goes under again, slouching slightly against the Merlin’s chest.
“What are you doing to her?” I demand, looking back and forth between Isaac and Davis.
Davis nods to the other man, and he brings Alice up again, like a puppet being tugged awake by its strings.
This time her eyes take a while to find me, and even then, they don’t focus. I don’t think she can see me at all. I call her name again, but she frowns, disoriented. “Matty? I know you don’t have a dress for the gala thing this weekend. We should go shopping after class…”
She’d said this exact sentence to me two days ago at breakfast.… Cold horror bleeds through me when I realize what Isaac is doing.
He’s erasing her memories.
“Stop!” I strain against the ropes, tears burning my eyes. “Stop it, please!”
Isaac grins and clasps his hand tighter against her skull.
“You’ve been weird all week.”
“Stop it!”
“If it feels like it’s just the two of you, then it’s a date, no matter who else is around.”
That was two weeks ago. On the phone the day after Nick kissed me in front of the Lodge.
Isaac had just erased two entire weeks from her mind. Everything she’d learned in her classes, every idea she’d generated, every memory of laughter, of joy. Every conversation with her parents or brother. Everything we’d said to each other. Gone.
And he could do more. I know he could. He could take her from me right before my eyes, just like Nick’s mother had been taken from him.
That’s what this is. A show of power. A reminder that no matter how much I know, I don’t know enough to survive in this world. That I’m not worthy.
“Please,” I whimper, the tears running in hot streaks down my face. “Please, stop. Stop it.”
Davis signals Isaac to stop, and Alice and I both sag. He taps his fingers on his desk lightly and lets out a tired sigh. “Normally we’d simply mesmer any inconvenient Onceborns, but since you’ve proven a bit stubborn in that regard, I sent Isaac to collect Ms. Chen for some persuasion. You’ll have to forgive the dramatics. Merlins are quite showy beings, aren’t they?”
“What do you want?” I whisper, because that’s all I need to know.
Davis smiles as if I’d finally asked the right question. “You’ll leave Carolina and the program. Tell the dean you were ill-equipped to keep up with the rigor. A poor fit. I’m sure that won’t be hard for the administrators to believe, coming from you.”
My fingers curl into fists.
“You won’t speak to Nicholas or any of the other chapter members ever again. You’ll apply to another college when the time comes, out of state preferably, and forget you ever found the Legendborn world.”
I glance back up at Alice, who is swaying, eyes fully closed now. Only Isaac’s arms on her shoulder seem to keep her upright. Davis follows my gaze toward Alice.
“And if I don’t?”
“You’re a clever girl, so I’m sure you already know the answer.” He sits back in his chair and drums his fingers on the desk. I’m boring him. Even as he tortures my best friend, and through her, me. “But I suppose it’s best to make things clear. If you don’t comply, Isaac will take you to one of our institutions where his colleagues, the other Masters, will enjoy themselves finding out exactly why your brain won’t accept their illusions—whether it’s in your skull or out. And while you cannot be mesmered, please understand that we will happily find and manage other loved ones in your life who can. Like Ms. Chen here.”
I see my dad sitting in the vinyl chair at the hospital, putting on a brave face while his world crumbled. I hear his voice, warm and laughing in my ear. The texts I’ve never responded to. How he tried to help me even when I didn’t want to hear it.
Lord Davis leans forward and pins me with a pleased smile. “Now tell me, Ms. Matthews. Do you consent to this offer?”
All the frustration, all the fight, leaves my body.
“I do.”
48
ALICE MOVES AS if sleepwalking, and she falls asleep as soon as I get her upstairs and lay her on her bed. Her thin eyebrows are drawn up tight, and her stringy hair is glued to her neck and forehead. She shivers with nightmares and moans without waking up, not even stirring when I pull her into a sitting position to change the damp, clammy bedsheets. I wipe the sweat from her face and neck and sob, praying for whatever Isaac’s done to leave her system.
‘This craft is a poison.’ My grandmother’s voice is loud in my mind. ‘I’m sorry, baby.’
“Where were you?” I cry. “Where did you go?”
‘I am using all of my power to call back to the old mother, like you asked,’ she murmurs. ‘I couldn’t help you back there, and I can’t help you here.’
“There must be something I can do!”
She is silent, and I worry she’s gone again.
Then my body turns hot, and a new presence stretches beneath my skin. “Who—”
A new voice answers. ‘Jessie. A healer. Three generations back.’
“Please—” My voice cuts off in a strangle as Jessie pushes my hands over Alice’s forehead.
‘My healing and your immunity… maybe.’ A pause. ‘No herbs on this side, so you’ll have to do.’
“I’ll have to do wh—”
Red mage flame erupts from my palms and flows over Alice’s face and hair. Jessie won’t let me pull away. All I can do is watch with horror as my root, my aether, cascades down my friend’s body and soaks into her skin. Then Jessie releases me, and the flames snuff out.
The threat of fainting shudders through my frame. I’m drained. Weak.
Instead of herbs, Jessie used me, my own power and energy.
Alice’s eyes flutter open. “Bree…?”
“Alice!” My hands fall to her cheeks and smooth her damp hair away from her eyes.
She pulls at my wrist. “What happened?” she gasps, and her eyes dart back and forth. “There was a man. A man with red eyes… and fangs… and he—he took me somewhere. A house off campus—” She pushes up into a half-sitting position, trembling as the memories return. “You were there. They’d tied you up. Oh God. Oh God. He took my memories.”
She starts to hyperventilate. I kneel, nearly falling forward in the process. My blood feels sluggish in my veins, heavy and spent.
“Just breathe,” I soothe, for myself and for her. “I’m right here.”
“They knew you.” Her brow furrows; then her eyes meet mine. “And you knew them.”
It’s time. I can’t avoid this anymore. “I can explain.”
* * *
When I finish telling Alice everything, she has a dozen questions ready to go. She paces the room, hands moving while she talks, while I kneel on the floor, recovering my reserves by the minute. Then she asks a new batch of questions about the Lines and the Order while changing out of her swe
at-soaked pajamas and into jeans and a tee. I answer each inquiry one by one and end with Lord Davis’s plan.
Confident that she and I are both well enough, I push to my feet to search for new clothes while considering my options.
No, I consider if I even have any options.
I could just leave, like I agreed to do, I tell her. It’s my fault Alice is in the Order’s sights, and it will be my fault if they get to my father. I can’t risk her or my father falling to Isaac. I care less about my own well-being than theirs.
“But what about Nick?” she asks, standing as I pull on a black tank and leggings.
“I don’t know,” I say. I draw my hair into a tight, high puff. Battle ready. “No one’s texted or called to find out where I am, so whatever Lord Davis and Isaac are doing, they’ve either convinced everyone I’m gone for good or they’re keeping the chapter busy in some other way.”
“With demons?”
I bend to pull on my sneakers. “If Davis plans for Nick to take up Excalibur tonight, then he’s got to have a plan in motion to expose Nick to more Shadowborn. And putting Nick in danger puts everyone else in danger, including and especially Sel.”
My eyes fall to my mother’s box.
Our Brave Bree.
“Well,” Alice says, pulling her hair up too, “I’m coming with you.”
“No, you’re not,” I say, stunned.
She raises a brow. “You’ve been doing this by yourself. You need backup.”
“No, I need you to be safe. Lord Davis is behind all of this, Alice. He’s a monster. He got people killed, he sent my mother into hiding, kept me from my family’s truth. And now he wants to start a war, killing more innocents in the crossfire. I’m not letting him anywhere near you.”
She smirks. “And I could say the exact same about you.”
I blink, speechless.
“I won’t claim to be some sort of demon hunter, but I am your best friend, Matty. I loved your mother. I love you.” She meets me in the middle of the room, close enough that I can see the steel in her eyes. “So if this is your fight, then it’s my fight too.”
49
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.