“I agree,” I spit, even though my heart is thundering beneath my ribs. “Let’s go.” Alice and I are already moving to the exit, but William hasn’t budged. I don’t even think he’s noticed that his hands have dropped to his sides—a gesture that Sel, Alice, and I recognize immediately. The palm-open position for calling aether.

He wouldn’t.

Sel is at William’s side in two steps, hand wrapped around his elbow, fingers digging. “William.” The pain gets William’s attention. He looks between Sel and the other men.

“Better get moving, William,” the man with the key sneers. He waves us away with the key we’d asked for, brandishing it out of our reach with a smile on his face.

William lets Sel drag him out of the store.

We make it back to the Escalade as a group and pile in silently. Sel starts the car and pulls out swiftly. As soon as we get on the highway, he shakes his head. “Will—”

“I know,” William mutters. “I’m sorry.”

“They had a gun behind the register,” Sel says plainly.

I freeze. “You… did you see it?”

“Smelled it.” Sel’s jaw works back and forth. “If either of them had gone for it, I would have stopped them. I’m fast enough. But we can’t afford to make a scene. Can’t afford for the police to be called.”

“These are the people the Legendborn are supposed to save from demons? The humans you’re sacrificing yourselves for?” Alice scowls and drops her head against the window. “Those two aren’t worth it.”

After a long moment, William sighs. “Not our choice to make. We’re born into that fight.”

“Ha,” I snort. “Yeah, well, what happened back there? Me and Alice got born into that fight.”

Alice groans. “Just trying to freakin’ pee. That’s it. But then we end up with Racist Thing One and Thing Two. What the actual fuck.”

“I shouldn’t have let you go in by yourselves,” Sel says. He looks up at me in the mirror. “I’m sorry that happened.”

“Can’t fight every demon,” I say quietly. I watch the trees whish by, willing the adrenaline from my body. Squeezing my hands into fists to work it out of my system. “Just a reminder that it doesn’t matter what my title is, whose magic I have…”

“I’m not Legendborn,” Alice continues. “But if I were and a Shadowborn was coming for either of those assholes, I might have to look the other way.”

The car falls silent. The fact that no one bothers to answer Alice, to counter her, should probably disturb all of us on some level. Her statement should probably shock someone into arguing for human life, even if those two men barely qualify. But no one says a word.