Satisfied, he nods. Before he can speak again, his nose turns up, eyes cast over my head to scan the parking lot left and right. “I don’t like the scent here.”

Before I can ask what that means, someone approaches from the other side of the lot. A figure in a dark jacket moving so quickly to get inside that they don’t see us. They knock on the door—three quick knocks, then a short one—and the door cracks. Distant voices. Sel tilts his head, listening. A hot pulse of magic hits me in a rolling wave, and William and I both gasp. As if compelled, I stumble forward, but the door shuts before I get far—and I feel a ward ripple in place across my cheek.

Sel watches the impact of magic on my face and William’s. “What do you feel?”

“Power,” I say. “Loads of it. Trapped behind a ward.”

He makes an irritated, impatient sound. He can’t sense the magic himself and it must be driving him beyond frustration. “Aether user? Or Rootcrafter?”

I shake my head. “Neither.”

“Agreed,” William says, tilting his head. “What I felt wasn’t how the Legendborn wield power, but it’s not Bree’s, either.”

Sel bares his teeth at the structure, as if the building itself was his opponent. “William.” His voice is a scarcely controlled snarl. “Did we just bring the Scion of Arthur to a rogue’s den?”

William tilts his head, unimpressed. “If we behave in this rogue’s den, then we’ll walk out with what Bree needs: information.”

Sel fumes at no one and everyone. “If half of what is said about these places is true, then the second someone catches wind of who we are, we’ll be surrounded by a bar full of furious rogue aether users. Aether users who have every reason to hide from—and hate—both the Order and Merlins.”

“Why do they hate you?” Alice asks. “Also, you just said ‘Order’ even though—”

“Because the O-word used to hunt and imprison ‘rogue’ aether users for using magic they didn’t understand and couldn’t control,” I answer dryly, crossing my arms. “Experiment on them. Lock them up in pretty buildings with wards on the doors and windows. Ask me how I know.”

It’s not just me, though. I think of Patricia, and how I’m still hiding her identity. Mariah, the only other root practitioner and Medium that I know. My mother, hiding her abilities. Then, the memory of the Salem Witch Trials manacles on display in the Lodge’s library rises up behind my eyes.

Alice’s nose wrinkles. “Gross.”

“It will be fine.” I nod to myself and walk forward. Alice joins me. “We stick to the plan even more. No Legendborn or Merlin or Order talk.”