Suddenly, the screams multiply. Merlins, clutching their heads. Merlins, falling to their knees. Selwyn, too, gasping with eyes wide, curling into a ball to cover his ears.

And Alice, standing just outside the barrier. Her face is stricken with fear, but she holds a small black device with a blinking red light high over her head in a fist that does not waver.

The ultrasonic weapon, taking the cambions out all at once. Every Merlin, on the ground in pain, incapacitated.

Except one.

Erebus stands with blood streaming from his ears down the front of his black overcoat and surveys his fallen Mageguard. His troops are writhing masses on the ground, disarmed by their own bodies. When he turns back to face us, his face twists in an inhuman growl.

The device has injured him, but not enough.

And then, its ten seconds are up.

Alice tosses the now-unblinking device down on the ground, and dashes toward one of the moaning bodies. Selwyn! Behind her, the barrier opens to reveal Mariah, shouting for her to hurry.

Alice lands at Selwyn’s side, heaving until his arm is up over her shoulders, trying to drag him back to Volition.

Selwyn’s body is heavy, and his legs drag in the dirt. Alice’s progress is slow going, she gasps, straining—

Erebus looks from us to our friends with vengeance in his eyes, aether gathering around his fists, lifting his hair high.

He’s not going to let them cross that barrier.

We’re running to intercept just as he snarls and leaps to stop them.

We reach Alice and Selwyn before the Seneschal does—barely. Block his attack and return with one of our own—a punch that sends him flying spine-first into the barrier. He collides with the concrete-hard surface with a deep crunch and slides to the ground.

A hand grasps at our shoulder—

We pull the attacker up and over by their arm, throwing them into the broadside of the van with a heavy thunk. The person falls motionless to the ground.

Oh God.

Oh no.

Alice’s black hair. Her glasses, shattered. Her limbs, too limp. She doesn’t get up.

“ALICE!”

It wasn’t a Merlin who grabbed us; it was Alice.

Because she thought we were… me.

Alice! I scream, but the sound hits the walls of my own mind and bounces back, useless. Let me go. I need to go back. Let me go now, let me—

But Arthur’s consciousness expands, pressing me further and further away from the place of possibility, from control.

‘Though I may fall, I will not die.’

Those words. Every Scion utters those words the moment they are Called, except when they speak, the voice that emerges is that of their knight’s, announcing that their spirit has Awakened. Arthur twists them in my ear, and I realize much, much too late that he is not announcing his return—he’s announcing my departure.

Arthur!