She starts to hyperventilate. I kneel, nearly falling forward in the process. My blood feels sluggish in my veins, heavy and spent.

“Just breathe,” I soothe, for myself and for her. “I’m right here.”

“They knew you.” Her brow furrows; then her eyes meet mine. “And you knew them.”

It’s time. I can’t avoid this anymore. “I can explain.”

When I finish telling Alice everything, she has a dozen questions ready to go. She paces the room, hands moving while she talks, while I kneel on the floor, recovering my reserves by the minute. Then she asks a new batch of questions about the Lines and the Order while changing out of her sweat-soaked pajamas and into jeans and a tee. I answer each inquiry one by one and end with Lord Davis’s plan.

Confident that she and I are both well enough, I push to my feet to search for new clothes while considering my options.

No, I consider if I even have any options.

I could just leave, like I agreed to do, I tell her. It’s my fault Alice is in the Order’s sights, and it will be my fault if they get to my father. I can’t risk her or my father falling to Isaac. I care less about my own well-being than theirs.

“But what about Nick?” she asks, standing as I pull on a black tank and leggings.

“I don’t know,” I say. I draw my hair into a tight, high puff. Battle ready. “No one’s texted or called to find out where I am, so whatever Lord Davis and Isaac are doing, they’ve either convinced everyone I’m gone for good or they’re keeping the chapter busy in some other way.”

“With demons?”

I bend to pull on my sneakers. “If Davis plans for Nick to take up Excalibur tonight, then he’s got to have a plan in motion to expose Nick to more Shadowborn. And putting Nick in danger puts everyone else in danger, including and especially Sel.”

My eyes fall to my mother’s box.

Our Brave Bree.

“Well,” Alice says, pulling her hair up too, “I’m coming with you.”

“No, you’re not,” I say, stunned.

She raises a brow. “You’ve been doing this by yourself. You need backup.”

“No, I need you to be safe. Lord Davis is behind all of this, Alice. He’s a monster. He got people killed, he sent my mother into hiding, kept me from my family’s truth. And now he wants to start a war, killing more innocents in the crossfire. I’m not letting him anywhere near you.”

She smirks. “And I could say the exact same about you.”

I blink, speechless.