There is one final step to take. One last decision. One last choice.

I sit on the patch of grass facing the darkening forest, release a quiet, bright pulse of root, and wait.

It doesn’t take long.

Red pupils glow in the darkness, and a great shadow moves through the trees toward me, wings in silhouette.

“I knew it was you,” I whisper. “I know who you are. And who you’ve been.”

“Oh, I doubt that.”

“You are the Hunter. The bloodmarker. The Great Devourer. The Shadow King.”

The shadow pulls inward into the shape of a man. The man from Jessie’s memory in the diner. From Emmeline, standing over her as she died in the street. Then, to the shape I recognize most. Dark hair, olive skin, a long black jacket, and an aether signature older than the ancients themselves.

How many people has he killed, just to walk among us? I look up at him without moving, and he stares down at me with a calm, curious expression, waiting for me to call him by the name I know best.

“And you are the Seneschal.” I smile. “Hello, Erebus.”

“Hello, Briana. Scion of the Pendragon, Scion of Vera, Daughter of Faye.” He drops his hands into his pockets. “How did you know it was me?”

“My many mothers told me, in their own way,” I say. “They kept saying that the Hunter always shows when our root grows powerful enough. And the Rootcrafters said that the Hunter is afoot.”

He smirks. “And?”

I glare at him. “When my root flared bright during the battle of the ogof, that should have been enough to bring the Hunter to me, but he never showed. You never showed, or so I thought.” I climb to my feet. “Then I wondered, what if the Hunter was someone I came to know after the cave? Someone in disguise?”

“That could be any number of people,” Erebus says with a shrug. “Anyone you met at the funeral. A member of the Mageguard. Larkin, even, or Valechaz.”

I shake my head. “No. It was Valec who told me what a bloodmark was. Explained why Kizia was terrified to feed from me. A very old demon was very interested in keeping my bloodline—and me—alive.”

Erebus hums. “Go on.”

“My bloodmark responded to your crown in Arthur’s dream realm. It made me realize what a defeated Shadow King who survived Arthur’s attack might want most of all: revenge.” I spread my hands wide. “What better position to seek revenge than that of a Council member, who are the first to know when Arthur’s Scion is Awakened.”

He claps slowly. “Bravo.”

“Figuring that out was the easy part,” I say. “I know what Vera pleaded for the night she bargained with our ancestors, but your bargain with Vera was unregulated. How did you find her? And what did you exchange, exactly?”