The sorcerer moves with silent footsteps through the hall, though they leave wet marks on the stone behind him. In one hand, he holds a large black bundle. He ascends the dais, past the knights, nods to them in greeting and stops to stand before me.

“My liege.” Merlin throws his hood back to reveal his thick, ink-black hair striped through with silver, long enough to hide the tips at his ears. Blazing, unmistakably supernatural golden eyes study me from above high cheekbones.

Nick and I nearly miss the next moment, because we can’t stop staring at Sel’s ancestor. The originator of all Merlins everywhere. The architect behind the Spell of Eternity. We see all of this, but we are also looking for something—someone. Looking for the part of Sel that is this cambion, even here. Merlin does not notice. Instead, he tosses the heavy bag onto the table with a metallic-sounding thunk.

“You have it?” Arthur had asked, and so I ask it too.

Merlin nods. “He could not survive without it. And no one will ever wear it again. His Court has been broken.”

Arthur stood with trembling hands to pull the fabric away from the Shadow King’s crown, and so I do too.

It is towering, menacing, and obsidian black. So dark it absorbs light even now, dimming the little illumination offered by the chandelier overhead. If solar crowns have a circle of radiant spires, the Shadow King’s crown is the exact opposite. Its spires are blades of night, as long as a man’s hand, nearly daggers themselves.

Worry curls in my stomach. When Valec described the Shadow Court, Sel behaved as though they were less than a folktale. A made-up story as unbelievable as the stories the Onceborn world tells of Arthur. Maybe Sel and the other Merlins are taught that the Shadow Court is a legend, but I know better than anyone that legends are only half a shade distant from truth. And this memory proves that not only was the Shadow Court real, but the Round Table fought it.

And that Court once had a king that Arthur defeated. A king that neither Valec nor Sel seemed to know about. I hold the crown between my palms, finally, and raise it high. “The Shadow King has fallen, and his Court has scattered, weakened without their leader. The Round Table will force them behind the Gate our sorcerer has crafted, to be barred from our world for all of eternity!”

The room erupts. The celebration will go long into the night.

“I will take it from you, brother.” A pale young woman with dark tresses and deep green eyes appears at the table, her approach nearly as quiet as Merlin’s. Arthur recognizes her immediately, and so do I.

“Thank you, Morgaine.” I start to pass the crown to her waiting, open palms, when Merlin intercepts the handoff, lifting the heavy headpiece away before she can take it.