“So, you think one of the ancestors between Vera and you knows how to activate your root as an offensive weapon, not just defensive?”

“Yes. It can’t just be fight or flight.” I shake my head. “I need to be able to fight my own demons—”

“Literally,” she adds.

“Yes, literally.” I pace the room. “I’ll work with Arthur to control his aether and the Line of Vera to control my root.”

I stop pacing. I think of what it feels like to call aether: the burns, the flare of power too big to control. “I need to see it, be there. Feel it. I need to… reverse-channel them. To blood walk, like I did with Arthur during the Rite and on the airplane.” I check for the place inside myself where I can usually find my root, or Arthur’s power, and it’s still gone. “Serum is still active, so blood walking is definitely a Medium ability, not a Legendborn one.”

Alice, ever logical, asks, “How did you initiate it with Arthur?”

I scowl. “ ‘By my blood, on my heart.’ ”

She frowns. “That don’t sound right at all.”

“It’s really not,” I agree. I pull out the Pendragon necklace. “But blood is how this works. How it all works. You said it yourself, my body became an offering of sorts to Jessie. Maybe my blood can be an offering too. It’s literally life.”

Her entire face twists in disgust. “Okay, that’s cool, but also gross.”

“I summoned Arthur during the Rite with a fresh cut from Excalibur. I summoned him on the plane with dried blood on the Pendragon coin. Both items are deeply connected to him, and blood is the gateway for Bloodcraft, I bet.” I shrug. “It’s not a regular Medium thing, but I don’t think I’m a regular Medium. I just don’t have anything of Vera’s Line….”

“Oh yes, you do,” Alice says, eyes wide. “Your mom’s bracelet!”

My jaw drops. “Genius levels, maximum.”

She darts toward me, holding my wrist up in the light. “You’re gonna have to bleed on your mom’s jewelry, which is a bit…”

“Witchy?” I offer hopefully.

“I was gonna say ‘morbid,’ but sure, let’s say ‘witchy.’ ” She wrinkles her nose. “I also think you should wait to try this until after you’ve gotten some rest and we find, like, a safety pin or something we can disinfect.” Abruptly, with her hand raised, she sniffs under her arm. “Ugh, I reek like plane exhaust and sweat. I should shower. Unless you want first?”

“Nah.”

“So,” she says, voice suspiciously mild as she pockets her iron knuckles and moves toward the duffel, “you gonna go talk to him?”

“Wh—” I start to ask who she means, then realize who she means, and glare at her. “Oh. Sel.”