Sel turns slowly, deliberately to Nick. “You haven’t taken up Excalibur yet, Davis, and your father named me the current leader. Further, as your Kingsmage, it’s my responsibility to keep you safe.” His low voice carries to the rest of the group in the quiet, reaching every ear over the rhythmic trill of crickets. I catch a faint gust of cinnamon and whiskey between the scents of night-blooming jasmine and crushed grass. “Until that sword is in your hands, you will stand down.”

Nick’s face is unreadable, his eyes a deep, cold blue. He stalks back into the Lodge without another word.

Sel tilts his gaze to the sky. He tracks the moon for a few seconds, then quickly scans the sky and stars around it. His eyes drop to the group.

“It is now one thirty a.m. You have three hours.”

There are forty objects on the list, but any relief I feel disappears when I read the first three clues and see how they’re written.

Eighty-eight keys and not a lock in sight.

Microfiche, carrels, stacks abound, and yet on this floor, there’s not a book to be found.

“Riddles?” I exclaim.

Sel’s lips quirk as we walk toward campus through the Battle Park forest. A handful of pairs have run ahead, but the rest, like me, are reviewing the clues before they dash off.

I point to one of the clues farther down with the light of my phone. “ ‘Silver and red, white and yellow, find me flashing where the stoners mellow’?! How am I supposed to know where ‘the stoners mellow’?”

“Maybe you’d know if you got high,” Sel says dryly.

I suppress the urge to smack him. I’m pretty sure I don’t want to touch him, but maybe a kick will do. I inhale and turn back to the page, trying to ignore the prickling sensation of his gaze. “The first one is easy. That’s a piano, and the music building isn’t far.”

“Ah,” Sel says in a noncommittal tone. I ignore him and start jogging west, thankful that I’d thrown on exercise leggings and sneakers. He keeps up with me easily, his feet practically floating over the ground, silent as the dead.

After a few minutes, I fold. “Why?” My breath comes out in short puffs.

“Why what, Briana?” His voice is so even, he could be standing still.

“You know what.”

“I told you, I’m keeping an eye on you, mystery girl.”

“Because you think I’m a demon?”

“Are you saying you’re not?”

His response pulls a frustrated sound from my chest. “Isn’t that the pot calling the kettle black? Aren’t you the Shadowborn here?”