“For Ariel,” she said firmly. “For Boot and Audrey.”

He felt a rush of hot shame and anger, the revelations she had provided burning through him in a fresh wave of shock and disbelief. But truth has a way of making itself known even to the most skeptical, and he had stripped away the blinders that had kept him deceived and was empowered by his new knowledge and the determination it generated.

“For myself, John,” she finished.

But she had not seen herself as he had, back at the museum, in the shadowy confines of the Exhibition Hall, where the two of them had come face-to-face in a confrontation that might have led to the horrific fulfillment of his dream. She did not realize yet what she had revealed to him that even she did not know, of the way her magic had evolved, of the secret she now held inside. Powerful forces were at work in Nest Freemark that would change her life yet again. He should tell her, of course. But he could not bring himself to do so now, when the secrets of his own life weighed so heavily on his mind and demanded their own resolution.

He stepped closer to her and put his hands on her shoulders. “I am a Knight of the Word, Nest. I am what I was always meant to be, and I owe much of that to you. But I cannot claim the right to serve if I do not resolve first the reason I lost my way. I have to do that. And I have to do it alone. This is personal to me, so close to the bone that to settle it in any other way would leave me hollowed out. Do you see?”

She studied his face a long time. “But you’re hurt. You’ve lost a lot of blood.”

He took his hands away from her shoulders and settled them on the polished length of his staff. “The magic will give me the strength I need for this.”

She shook her head. “I don’t like it. It’s too dangerous.”

He looked at her, thinking it odd that someone so young should speak to him of what was too dangerous. But then the dangers in her own life had been, on balance, no less than his.

“Wait for me here, Nest,” he told her. “Keep watch. If I don’t come out, at least one other person will know the truth.”

He didn’t wait for her response but wheeled away quickly and went down the sidewalk to the corner, turned left along Second, and walked to the apartment entrance. Feeders reappeared in droves, creeping over the walls of Waterfall Park, coming up from the gutters and out of the alleyways between the buildings. They materialized in such numbers that he experienced an unexpected chill. Their yellow eyes were fixed on him, empty of everything but their hunger. So many, he mused. He could feel the weight of their expectations in the way they pressed forward to be close to him, and he knew they understood with primal instinct what was at stake.