“Of course I did.” Lord Davis tilts his head. “You wouldn’t understand the frustration of a Scion who has never been Called, but for a Scion of Arthur? To be that close to that much power and be forced to wait for it to come to you? The impotence was intolerable. But that’s not why I am accelerating Camlann. That, I’m doing for my son’s future and the future health of the Order.” He waves his hand at the paintings on his walls, the old books. “In the old days, Vassals served us in exchange for protection. Now, CEOs and politicians expect Lieges to follow their whims, give them what they want. Vassal infighting pits Lines against Lines. Once, ladies were respected and honored at court, but then the Order of the Rose fell to the wayside and now women sit at the Table, when Malory tells us that ‘the very purpose of a knight is to fight on behalf of a lady’! And now my son’s foolishness in choosing you, who sits at the crux of two faults. Can you not see the sickness here? How the corruption must be rooted out and corrected?”

Two faults. My race and my gender.

But they are not faults. They are strength.

And I am more than this man can comprehend.

Lord Davis watches me, waiting for an answer with open curiosity on his face. The disconnect in his eyes, the cold way he talks about war and power… Suddenly, I remember the records, the affidavit, his signature at the bottom—and sickening horror floods me.

“It was you. You opened the Gates twenty-five years ago. You laid out the welcome mat for the Shadowborn, invited them right into our world.”

I expect him to deny it. Call me a liar. But he doesn’t. Instead, he wags a finger. “Isaac told me he could smell both you and Selwyn here in my study. I imagine you availed yourself of my archives while he pursued his very inconvenient ‘mole’ theory?”

“You aren’t even denying it,” I breathe. “You got people killed! My m—” I start, then stop. He has no idea about who I really am. That my mother suffered because of his greed. I don’t want to raise her name here. Don’t want to give him any more power over me.

He hums, sliding off the desk. “I admit, it was a failed experiment. I’d hoped to create the threat of Camlann through the sheer numbers of Shadowborn crossin’ and the loss of Onceborn life, as you might infer from the tenets of our mission. ‘Protect the Onceborns from the scourge.’ It took a few more years of research before I realized that the more the Scions themselves were threatened, the more the Calling would occur.”