I can wield Excalibur when no one else on the planet can, and “the Line is Law.” That should have been enough.

But the Regents had been five, ten steps ahead. Power is one thing; control is another. They could have taken me prisoner right away, but instead they laid the trap so carefully and so slowly that no one could say they betrayed the Order’s mission and laws. How could I have failed before I’d even gotten started? How could I not see it coming? All of that fighting, and it ends here. I step back from the window and clasp both hands to my mouth. If I don’t, the scream I’ve been holding inside my chest will rip itself from my body.

All of my ancestors, and my mother, running so I would not have to… and I failed them.

18

TWO DAYS PASS.

Someone I can’t see slips food into the small passage in the wall three times a day without a word. I call for them, but they never respond. They are human, though, because I can hear their footsteps approach and retreat.

I worry about William and Sel, and where they are being imprisoned. The other Legendborn are likely busy with Cestra’s mission. I hope, for their sake if not my own, that they believed what the Regents told them about my departure; if they didn’t, they’d likely end up drugged and imprisoned just like me and William.

I worry about Alice, too, but eventually find gratitude that she and my father are safe in their ignorance, even if hers is newly formed. I don’t usually go more than a day or two without texting my father. I wonder what the Lieges are telling him. My stomach sinks when I think that maybe they used a mesmered and brainwashed Alice to tell him their lies about my whereabouts and why I haven’t called. He’d believe her, because she’s Alice.

I should worry more about myself, but it’s easier to think of the others’ fates than my own. Or to sleep and forget it all.

I wait for my powers to return, but the emptiness remains.

It doesn’t occur to me until the end of the second day of confinement without the return of my abilities that the serum is probably in the food.

On the third day, I am leaning against the wall, waiting, when dinner arrives. The footsteps are critical. Footsteps tell me that the person approaching isn’t Erebus, or at least isn’t him alone. He has not come for me yet, but I know he will soon.

The steps pause outside the door and the flap clicks open. The metal tray slides in.