“You don’t need to be a demon to close or open a Gate. You just need demon blood. Or part-demon blood, in this case.” He steps forward into the room. “I don’t have the same radar that Sel does, but my healing abilities give me a pretty good sense of where aether is. This is sort of like that, except on a bigger scale. And Russ, Felicity, and Sarah can point me in the right direction.” He nods to Alice. “I’ll take Vassal Chen with me to keep the Onceborns out of the way.”

“No,” Felicity says firmly. “You’re a solid fighter, but it’s not even close to midnight, so you don’t have Gawain’s strength. What if you get hurt? You’re our only healer.”

William’s lip curls. “No, I’m not. Whitty’s a fine apprentice already. He’s in the infirmary right now finishing up with Tor. What I’ll be doing is ten times safer than going into the tunnels to find the ogof. If you’re worried about someone still being around to patch y’all up, then you don’t want me in there. You want me out here.” He smirks. “And if Sel returns, I’ll tell him where you’ve gone and send him in like frikkin’ Gandalf the White. It’ll be great, promise.”

Russ places a hand on his Scion’s wrist. Felicity tilts her chin slightly in his direction. A silent conversation passes between them before she sighs and turns back to William. “Okay.”

Before she and William leave, I pull Alice aside. “You won’t be able to see them coming. If William says run, you run.”

She nods, her mouth tight. “You gonna be okay?”

“Yeah.”

“You mean it?”

I pull her into a hug. “I mean it.”

Before we part, she grasps my arm. “Make him pay, Matty.”

It only takes a quick twist of Russ’s wrist to break the lock on the door to the hidden weapons room. Well, hidden to me, at least.

“The Lieges don’t like us playing with their stuff, aka real weapons that stick around after a fight, but the padlock always makes me laugh.” He pulls the door back to let us in. “It’s insulting, honestly. Do they forget whose traits we’ve inherited?”

“Lamorak is known for his temper and his wisdom,” Felicity says as she steps through the door. “I think they’d hoped the latter would prevail.”

“Where’s the fun in that?” Russ says, winking as I pass.

The Scions and bonded Squires—Russ and Felicity, Fitz and Evan, Pete and Greer, and even Whitty, with William’s help—will all use aether weapons in the tunnels. But since Vaughn and I aren’t Squires, we need real weapons in our hands.