“He’s…” I trail off, not sure how to explain.

She rolls her eyes. “You have to admit he sucks. If not a lot, a little. Small amounts of suckage, scattered generously.”

I groan. “I mean, yeah. Especially right now.”

“Plus, he looks…” Alice shudders.

I bristle. “He looks like what?” I hate the idea of anyone mocking Sel’s appearance. His Merlin eyes or his long canines—features that I forget stand out to outsiders. Cambion features that can compel or frighten.

She raises her hands in defense. “He can be kinda terrifying, Matty. Not to like, discriminate or whatever, but I don’t trust him. He spent a lot of time trying to kill you for being a demon.”

I slump back. “Not recently…”

Her side-eye could cut through steel. “Let’s just say I don’t feel a strong urge to go out of my way on his behalf. Ever.”

“Again,” I say, “you are vicious right now, you know that?”

She smirks. “I like excelling at new things.”

She puts the device back in her pocket and glances toward the hallway, dropping her voice. “Do you know why Tacitus’s mesmer didn’t work on me?”

“Not at all.”

“I have a working theory.”

I throw up a hand. “Why did you ask me then?”

Alice rolls her eyes. “You know I like drama. I think it’s because whatever you did to bring my memories back when you were possessed by that healing ancestor after…” She pauses, frowning. “After Isaac attacked me. Whatever you did that night, it stuck.”

“Stuck as in… you can’t be mesmered again? Ever?”

“I think so.” She nods. “You were in mega Medium mode. Wide open to your ancestors, and you got possessed by… what was her name?”

“Jessie,” I murmur. “Her name was Jessie.”

“I mean, William told me no one can resist a mesmer, but you can. It’s a passive component of your Bloodcraft, just part of your makeup. But you’re also a Medium, so maybe if a healer ancestor used your already-mesmer-resistant body as fuel to break my mesmer, she made it permanent.”

“I guess it’s possible.”

“At least you have Bloodcrafter ancestors to talk to about it,” Alice says. “You could always ask them, see if they ever did something like that.”

I sit up, mind whirling. “Alice, you’re a genius.”

She lifts a brow behind her glasses. “I know. But why at this exact moment am I a genius?”

“Because I need to learn to control my Bloodcraft in battle. Use it on purpose, use it to attack. And now I think I know how to do that.”

“How?”

I grin. “I’ll ask the dead.”

25

IT TAKES A few minutes to catch Alice up on the ancestral stream conversation I had with Vera during the Rite and the way I’d defended myself against Arthur by burning him away from me.