Nick’s thumbs catch the tears before they fall. “Don’t cry, B,” he whispers. “This is wild, yes, but I’m here. You’re here.”

“But you’re not here!” I gasp. “You’re missing. Everyone wants me to tell them what to do, but I’m barely holding on. I don’t know how to control Arthur’s powers, and he wants me to summon him—”

He blinks, focusing. “Wait, wait, slow down…. Summon him?”

“Yes. His spirit. But that might mean him possessing me.” I shake my head rapidly. “I don’t want that.”

Nick’s eyes flash. “You don’t have to do anything Arthur wants you to do.”

“I’m not sure…” I shrug. “I’m not sure that’s true.” I wrap my hands around his wrists, pressing into the warm skin and bone. “Are you okay?”

He huffs. Hesitates. “Honestly? No. No, I’m not.”

“Are they hurting you?”

His brows draw down. “Not me. Other people, though. Two Mageguard found us a few weeks ago. There was a fight.”

My jaw drops. “They found you? But they said they were gathering intel.”

He chuckles sourly. “Both can be true. I don’t think those guards were meant to make themselves known to us. But Isaac is too good. He saw them watching us from an alley in a town near Brevard. Went after them. Came back bloody.” He swallows hard. “I don’t know if they survived.”

The Regents never said they’d found Nick. I suppose, if the plan was to possibly murder him, they wouldn’t have. “Nick, the Regents are looking for you, but not to rescue you. Gillian says they’ve secured the next in line to Lancelot.”

I wait for shock, but it never comes. “I know. My father has contacts on the inside. They told him the Regents have already begun to prepare the next in the Line. If they track us down, they’ll kill me to force the Spell to him, then place their puppet at the Table.”

I study him, the acceptance written across his brow, settled into his shoulders. “You can’t let them find you again.”

“I don’t think they will. Isaac takes more precautions now.” Nick releases a low sigh. “He and my father keep us far away from their search teams. They seem to be able to stay one step ahead. I don’t know what they’re planning. If there even is a plan.”

I press forward, uncertain of when our time together might end. “Where are you now?”

His brows draw tight, and I know he understands that I mean the real world, not here. “Isaac keeps us moving from place to place. Yesterday I woke up in a car headed east, toward the coast. Now we’re in a hotel somewhere near a beach.”

“You’re on the coast?” I ask, desperate. “Okay, we’re coming to find you.”

His brows shoot up. “We?”