“It’s too late for that, old man,” Ava replies sourly. She raises a hand, aether crackling around her fingers in that same crosshatch style. The way that my sister’s magic came to her.

Boom! The Seneschals strike at their prison as one, forming hairline cracks that spread like a web. It is only a matter of moments before they break through.

From within her crosshatched prison, Cestra shouts at the Scion of Tristan. “You hid this, Victoria. You hid that the Table has aligned with Morgaines!”

Tristan’s Scion raises her hands. “I didn’t know, I swear!”

“The Morgaines approached us with their intel about what the Regents were really doing behind the scenes,” Greer says. “The Morgaines are the reason we know that you’d drugged and kidnapped William and Bree. They told us that you’d locked Sel away in a Shadowhold without a trial. They’re the reason we know that the three of them escaped, and that you wanted to murder Nick. The enemy of your enemy is your friend, and the Regents have proven themselves to be the enemy of all Legendborn.”

Rage fills Victoria’s features. “And you kept this from me?” She casts an angry glare at her fellow Legendborn. “All of you?”

“Yes.” At Victoria’s side, her lover’s face is shrouded in disappointment. “Because we didn’t trust you.”

Victoria stares at her girlfriend, eyes wide. “Sarah?”

Sarah shakes her head. “You kept trying to get us to trust the Council, even when we all knew that they were lying to us…. You’ve gone after Bree from the beginning, Tor, for all the wrong reasons.” Her eyes shine with unshed tears. “So I told the others they couldn’t trust you with this.”

In the moment of distraction, Serren, the Seneschal of Constructs, finally breaks open the prison, releasing all six occupants at once. Without stopping, he creates two scythes and whirls against the Morgaine closest to him. Erebus and Tacitus follow close behind, casting weapons as they blur against their opponents. At first, it appears as though the Morgaines might hold their own, but the three Seneschals are older, stronger, and cambions built for war. And yet the Morgaines do not fight alone; it takes but a moment for the Scions and Squires to join them and face off against the three Master Merlins.

The traitorous Regents begin a hasty retreat, leaving their Seneschals and their magic to face the crowd of nearly twenty trained warriors.

But they won’t escape me.

As the battle grows in volume and violence around me, I stride toward the escaping Regents, but on my third step, I feel a tug from the ground and look down to find the broken pieces of Caledfwlch. From where Aldrich has let it fall to the earth, the blade calls to me once more.