“Last night was part ritual symbolism, part security—we can’t allow the Unoathed to wander our grounds. But tonight is the first trial. Every competing Page is mesmered so no one will see the trial site and get an early advantage.” He pinches my shoulder affectionately. “Slow, then a turn.” Humidity hangs in the air from the rain, and my heels sink into the forest soil.

“Why mesmer the veteran Pages, though? Didn’t they do this same thing last year?”

“Nope. The three aspects tested by the Trials are immutable, but the tests themselves change year to year. Slow, slow. Okay, easy, one foot in front of the other.”

I wish I could see what he has me walking over. It feels bouncy and extremely unstable.

“What’s the Line of Morgaine?”

“Caught that, did you?”

“I’m here to be sneaky and learn things.”

“Uh-huh—whoa! Stop-stop-stop!” One of his arms loops tight around my middle, steadying us both on whatever unsteady surface we’re standing on. The close smell of him—laundry, cedar, a slight tang of sweat—and the rocking sensation under our feet makes me dizzy. Not good, Bree. Focus on the task at hand and not the nice boy who smells nice too.

After a moment, the world stops tilting. “Okay, that’s better.” He gives my hip a squeeze. “You good?”

“Yep,” I say in a voice that’s about two octaves too high.

“ ’Kay”—he grasps each of my biceps—“one step at a time. Keep your right foot tucked in. Yep, like that. Where were we? Oh, right. The Line of Morgaine. Exodus 22:18. ‘Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.’ ”

“Okay…”

“That’s essentially the Regents’ take on the Line of Morgaine. After the Shadowborn, they’re Order enemy number one. Sometime in the 1400s, things went downhill with a certain sect of Merlins. I don’t know much, except that they didn’t like the Regents’ way of doing things. They also didn’t want to wait around for a Scion of Arthur to be Called and risk that that Scion would rule the Order just as poorly. Some stories say they even started attacking Order members, using mesmers on Lieges to influence the Lines and Vassals. Eventually, that group of Merlins splintered off from the Order and rebranded. Called themselves the Line of Morgaine. A lot of things changed after that: how the Merlins are trained and Oathed, how the Regents manage their assignments. The Morgaines are the primary reason the Regents have a zero tolerance policy for anyone using aether outside their purview.”

I mull on this. The Line of Morgaine are Merlins gone bad. There’s something else bugging me about Nick’s story, though, something much more immediate. “If the Regents found out about me, would they treat me like I’m from the Line of Morgaine?”