“If it’s possible, then Nick will be the one to do it,” Evan says from where he’s leaning on the back wall. “Especially if he thinks he can talk his father down from starting Camlann. He has faith in us to handle the demons in the meantime. And we can, now that we’ve got two more bonded pairs. But there’s another variable here.” He looks over at me. “Nick’s in love with Bree.”

My cheeks heat. “That’s not—”

“Yeah, it is.” Evan smiles and pushes off the wall. “The entire gala saw the way he looked at you. Davis made a bad gamble. He thought Nick would believe that you’d accept his Squireship, then quit. Instead, that tightly controlled temper of his finally popped. I bet Nick is furious. Angry, heroic, and in love is a formidable combination; he’ll hold off Arthur’s Call, all right.”

Everyone looks at me then, and I feel like I might burst into flames. I’m saved from an internal wildfire when someone knocks, hard, against the back door.

“Sel!” Felicity yells, and runs out the door again. I want to follow, but I can’t. My feet are rooted to the floor in terror, my heart suddenly beating so hard that the blood rushing in my ears sounds like an ocean. It doesn’t make sense, but my brain tells me that if I don’t see Sel injured and broken like Tor, that might mean that he isn’t injured at all.

It’s not Sel, though. Felicity walks back into the room with Vaughn trailing sullenly behind her.

Greer scoffs. “Didn’t you run off with your tail between your legs?”

“My question exactly,” Fitz says.

Vaughn watches us warily. “Lord Davis said he had a plan for me. That I should just wait in my room until he called.” His eyes slide to mine, but when I look into them, I can see that the arrogance from before has taken a blow. Then it hits me: Davis had reserved Vaughn for Nick.

Russ frowns. “So, what, you got antsy and decided to come here?”

“My dorm’s on the sixth floor of Ehringhaus. I looked out the window and I saw some lights over mid-campus. Green mage flame. Blue-white too.”

“Sel,” I breathe. “When was this?”

“Ten minutes ago,” he says, spreading his hands wide. “I ran straight here, but… it sounds like you already know?”

Fitz steps forward to fill his Page in. I hope Sel is still alive. The thought that he might not be steals the oxygen from my body.

“Fitz,” I say quickly. His head raises. “What did you say earlier about the campus map? About the demons’ movement?”

“They’re moving toward a central location.”