Erebus sighs, hands clasped before him. “Where are the Davises? Did you shield them from your blast inside?”

As if on cue, Lord Davis walks out onto the step beside Isaac. He is more gaunt than I’d last seen him, running from the ogof, but his pride has only spread, wild and overgrown in his every movement. It fills his eyes, lives in his sneer. This is a man undaunted.

“The Council deigned to send the general o’ the deep shadows after all these weeks? I was beginnin’ to feel insulted.”

“Where is the Scion?” Erebus asks.

Sel and I both hold our breath.

We see him at the same time. Against his instincts, Sel nearly rises to standing—before he forces us both back down.

It’s Nick. Finally. Emerging from the destroyed cabin in slow steps.

He is as I have seen him in the memories. Thinner, perhaps. But still broad-shouldered and regal—and angry as he takes in the wounded Merlins on the ground. Before he can speak, a silver aether shield snaps around the group on the stairs.

A casting, brought up by Isaac in an instant around Nick, his father, and himself. Lord Davis grasps his son’s arm tight.

Erebus tilts his head. “A barrier, Isaac?” He looks past him to Davis and Nick, then deliberately turns to the left and right. “You have nowhere to go.”

Isaac smirks, drawing one palm out in front of himself while the other arm continues to hold the shield. Offense and defense both.

Erebus’s gaze sharpens. “You cannot fight me and hold that barrier at once.”

Isaac responds with a blast of silver flames, swiftly blocked by Erebus. Max looks between them both, eyes wide.

Erebus sighs. “Have it your way.” He pivots, holding his own palm out toward Isaac’s barrier. For a moment, I think that he might send his own blast back, but that’s not what happens at all.

Instead, Isaac’s dome shudders. Cracks. Isaac growls, using both hands to reinforce it, but it splits as fast as he repairs it, faster. Then it peels away in layers, rushing across the driveway—and right to Erebus’s open palm.

Isaac roars, charging for the Seneschal in a blur of motion, blades forming in his hands as he moves. The two Master Merlins battle it out, aether weapons meeting again and again, flames roaring and swirling across the pavement.

Then, several things happen at once:

Up on the stairs Nick wrestles from his father’s grip and makes a break for it, darting down the stairs.

Lord Davis shouts after him, running.

Erebus barks an order to Max, who summons an aether spear in an instant, throwing it in a blink at Nick’s back. Sel jerks forward, but someone else gets there first—

And the spear pierces Lord Davis’s chest straight through with a wet, loud thunk.