by Tracy Deonn
“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 enou
gh 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.
50
FELICITY TELLS US there’s an entrance to the tunnels not far from Davis’s home, being the family property of the Line of Arthur. She guesses that’s how Nick and Davis will have entered the cave. We don’t have time to go that far, and we don’t need to.
I should have known the Order founders would want an entrance close by, but even then, I’d have never guessed the door to the tunnels would be the Wall of Ages itself.
“This has been here this whole time?” Russ exclaims, clearly put out that his Scion had kept something from him.
Felicity winces. “I’m sorry, Russy! All of the Scion families are sworn to secrecy. It’s a security measure, just in case anyone tries to get in.”
He harrumphs, and she goes to squeeze him around the middle, their armor clanking together when she does.
The founders weren’t playing around. Not only did they keep the entrance secret and, literally, right under everyone’s noses in the basement, but it takes actual Scion blood—at least three Lines in agreement—to open the door.
The group going to the tunnels stands back as Felicity, William, and Fitz step forward to do the honors.
William uses a small needle to prick their thumbs. I reach nervous fingers to the sword strapped to my back. It helps to touch the solid pommel and leather-wrapped grip. I’d selected a blade that was light, sharp, and well-balanced. I’m still scared I’m going to accidentally chop my own arm off. The thought, vivid and violent, seems to be enough to wake my grandmother.
She stirs inside me, in what feels like her chair. ‘Oh, finally doing something, are we?’
“Wow. Just wow,” I mutter. Evan looks at me strangely, and I smile back and gesture at the wall in front of us. “It’s impressive, right?” He nods in agreement and focuses on the Scions.
You find that old mother yet, Grandmother Charles? I ask inside my head. I could use some of those red flames right about now.
‘Young folk never listen,’ she mutters, scoffing so loud it rattles my ears from the inside out. ‘I’m not findin’ her. She’s comin’ to you. And no, she ain’t here yet. ’Spect she’ll be by shortly.’
I don’t even bother responding, for fear I’ll say the wrong thing and she’ll find a way to slap me again.
The three Scions bend in unison and smear their thumbs over their names in the carved Lines of the Wall. As they do, the Lines blaze to life, streaking up to the top of the Wall in three distinct colors—red for Lamorak, green for Gawain, and deep orange for Bors. Right as they reach the gemstones at the top, a deep grinding sound shakes the room and the tables and files inside it.
“Oh, shit,” Russ says, his irritation now replaced with unsuppressed glee. “Oh, shit!”
We step back as hidden gears, still working even though they must be centuries old, pull the door inward inch by inch. A rush of stale, damp-smelling air blows into the room, and we cover our noses. The passage beyond must be filled with mildew and decay. I can taste it in the back of my throat. It’s so strong, even my grandmother pulls back.
Just as the door comes to a squealing, echoing halt, the door behind us opens, and Tor and Sarah walk in. “We’re going too,” Tor says in a surprisingly strong voice.
“Oh no you’re not!” William points a finger at her and Sarah both. “I should have told Whitty to knock you both out.”
“Oh, shut it, Will,” Tor says, even though her movements are stiff and her breath is already leaving her
mouth in rattling pants. “I’ll be healed soon enough. And they need more firepower.”
“I said no!”
Tor reaches the group and leans against a cabinet to gaze into the gloom beyond the Wall. The tunnel has no lighting installed, so we can only see what the fluorescent lights in the room reveal: a pounded charcoal-black dirt floor, smooth from wind-distributed dust. A pathway about six feet across that disappears ten feet in. No ceiling, as if the Wall marks the boundary between the Lodge’s foundation and the passage to another world. An older world. One that is deep, dangerous, and much nearer to the demons’ plane. Beyond the Wall, in total darkness, we’d be in their court, not ours.
And what’s worse is that just a foot before the light weakens, we can see a rounded antechamber that ends in six openings. The first branch in the network.
William runs his hand down Tor’s back, evaluating her condition with a deep scowl on his face. “Impatience is an inherited personality trait in your Line,” he mutters. “Fortunately for you, so is rapidity of aether metabolism. You’ll be healed in less than an hour, you ungrateful girl.”
Tor grins. “Toldja.”
“All right, everyone, listen up.” Felicity calls us to attention, her back toward the tunnel so she can see our faces.
“Hey!” Tor calls, limping over to her. “I’m here now, and I’m third-ranked. I’ll make the pronouncements!”
Felicity fixes her with a truly damning stare. Tor, to her credit, only holds her stance for a moment before she concedes, stepping aside.
“The good news is, according to my dad’s stories, there’s a tunnel network map that will show us the most direct path to the cave. The bad news is, we don’t know where that map is.” Our groans echo into the tunnel behind her. “But since all paths eventually lead there, we’re splitting the group four ways.” She glances at Tor and Sarah. “Five ways.” William walks between us, handing out small black flashlights.
There’s an odd number of us, so I get put into a group of three with Fitz and Evan. Vaughn and Whitty agree to join forces, leaving the rest of the bonded pairs to work together.