I stare at him, gauging how much to say, how much I want him to know. Emotional exhaustion and the shadow of guilt leave me at a loss.

I take a shaky breath. “Sel made a bad call. A messed-up, selfish decision that”—I squeeze my eyes shut—“really hurt me.”

Nick’s hand cups my face. When I open my eyes, his expression is sympathetic, but hard. “He does that.”

“Advice?”

“About Sel? If I had any to offer, I’d have given it to myself a long time ago.” He frowns. “His Oath, is he—”

“Not great,” I say, and scowl. “But stable, for now. We found a sort of potion at a demon bar….”

His eyes grow wide. “A demon… bar?”

I nod. “Long story. But Sel’s okay. Back to being more asshole than demon.”

I inhale slowly, looking out at the scene that is the beginning of the Legendborn. Our origin. Even mine. “This is where it all started. And eight Camlanns later, it’s still going.”

Nick follows my gaze to the knights surrounding us, held still by the diversion I’ve made in Arthur’s memory. “Where are we?”

“Arthur is more show than tell.”

Nick’s face twists in a scowl the way it always does when I say Arthur’s name. I find it oddly validating. “He brought you here to show you this place and time? Why?”

I look up at the mountain, the lake. The ritual circle, power held within. The knights with bare heads, in tunics, stripped down, and the answer surfaces.

“Because… this is the night the Spell was cast. This is the first time the original Table received their aether abilities. He said he would show me how to control his power, and this is the first time he would have used it.”

“Then that’s why he brought you to this memory. So you could feel for yourself how he gained control.” He frowns. “Too bad they’re frozen.”

“When I break from his memory, it creates some sort of… split in the stream. That’s why I can bring you here when you weren’t there to begin with.” I focus on the memory again, will it to go forward. At first, nothing happens. Then…

Clang! Merlin’s aether hammer strikes the stone.

Nick kneels beside me, then he freezes. “Holy… I just saw—”

“Yeah,” I whisper. “It’s—” My breath catches, because something inside me has just expanded to fill my chest. When I look at Nick, I know he felt it, too. “I remember what happens next.”

He nods. “So do I. I know where to go, what to say, what he did.” He stands, blinking at the world with fresh eyes, finding the other eleven knights now moving, shifting, alive around us. “Do you think they see us, or Arthur and Lancelot?”