“That’s good, Sel,” I murmur, ready to turn away.

He’s not done. “But before we keep traveling together, you should know that no one knows exactly what would happen if a Merlin killed an Awakened Scion of Arthur.”

My breath catches. “What are you—”

“We are generations and generations removed from the original half-demon Merlin and our full-demon ancestor, all of us. But Shadowborn blood is strong. ‘If a fully Awakened Arthur is struck down by Shadowborn blood, the Legendborn Lines will be broken forever.’ I don’t think it has ever occurred to any Kingsmage in history that that warning might apply to us. No one has ever considered it. I couldn’t kill Nicholas even if the demon wanted me to. Not without killing myself. But you… we’re not…” His eyes are pleading and helpless and wild in the night.

I watch him for a moment, too thrown off guard to respond. “Are you saying you’re going to kill me?”

He shakes his head rapidly. “No. I’m saying that it kills me that I could have. And it scares me that I might still.”

I lift my chin. “I could send you away. Tell you to find Nick.”

He stuffs his hands in his pockets. “You could.”

The possibility hangs between us, because I am the blade that he’s waiting for. The one that could sever him from me and from us. I think of the place in my mind still healing from what the Regents did. From Tacitus, wiping my memories and sending me to sleep. The serum, robbing me of the magic in my veins. Arthur, holding his knowledge over my head, keeping me from not just Nick, but the knowledge and power I am owed.

He swallows hard. “I won’t ask you for forgiveness.”

A month ago, I would have already offered him exactly that. Maybe more.

Tonight, I offer him nothing.

Instead, I turn on my heel—and walk away.

When I get back to the house, it is silent. Not an empty home, but a resting one. There’s no sign of Valec. Fine by me. I don’t want to talk to anyone here.

In the room I’ve been assigned to with Alice, there are two twin beds with a large chest between them under a window. Alice is a rumpled shape in the bed farther from the door, her soft snore a steady rhythm in the room. I ease the door shut behind me so as not to wake her.

My thumb is punctured before I fully find my seat on the floor. By the time my legs are crossed, the coin is a smeared mess in my hand, and I am whispering.

“By my blood…”

38

‘YOU ARE ANGRY, my Scion. In pain.’

“Yes.”

‘Good. Then I will show you why dragons never die.’

Clang!