Nick inclines his head. “Yes. You. He rages about you. He’s convinced you’re at fault for it all. That you’ve ruined his life and my life and stolen our future from us.”

My head snaps back. “But I didn’t! I didn’t steal anything.”

“It doesn’t matter. To him, you represent everything he can’t have. Everything he was owed.”

“Well”—I laugh nervously—“at least he can’t kill me.”

Nick’s expression doesn’t change.

My chest tightens. “But he can’t want me dead. If he kills me instead of a demon, the Spell would be safe, sure, but the Line of Arthur would… disappear. I don’t have any kids.”

His mouth twists. “If you die, someone, somewhere will be Called to replace you. That’s how it works for all of us. My dad is already looking for the next eligible descendant in your family. Trying to trace the direct bloodline from the last Awakened Scion of Arthur, find where it branched. They keep saying something about needing more than first names? They’re having trouble, but they’re not giving up.”

My veins turn cold, tight. Then they widen, go hot. “They’re having trouble because enslavers only cared to write down my ancestors’ first names. Not because that’s all they had.”

“Christ,” Nick says, wiping a hand over his mouth.

“I hate this,” I hiss. “I hate that your father probably has the resources to go back that far and find… when my family—” I break off, chest tight with the layers of injustice, the sheer density of it. “I didn’t ask for this. No one in my family asked for this!”

Some of the anger drains from Nick’s face, replaced with a mixture of sorrow and worry. I realize he may not know the truth.

“You should know why it’s me,” I insist. “In the cave, I had a vision. You should know how…”

“How Arthur’s blood came to be in your veins?” he asks quietly.

“Yes.”

“I know,” he murmurs. “My father and Isaac figured it out. They were obsessed those first few days, trying to understand ‘what happened to the Davises.’ They followed the power because they think that’s the legacy. But that’s the thing. The Legendborn legacy isn’t power; it’s violence.”

We let that sit between us. That one word and all that it holds, all of the harm and the hurt and the theft. The brutality of men who design and destroy legends. The intersections of history that have brought us both here… There’s a sour, metallic taste in my mouth.

I sigh, releasing what I can. “Maybe that’s why I’m not very good at this Scion-of-Arthur thing.”