I’m worried too. I think about my connection to Nick. Our trust and affection. Now I wonder how much of that was me and Nick and how much was Arthur and Lancelot. Call and response. A king to his first knight, tied together by the deep bonds of loyalty and betrayal both.

“What will we tell the Regents?” Sarah asks.

Tor strides back into the room. “Not sure, but I just called their emissary. They’re on their way.”

“You did what?” Sel roars incredulously.

“I had to!” Tor yells. “I’m in charge now, Merlin, and I say we have two dead Squires, a dead Scion, a goruchel who murdered a Squire and infiltrated us—for months! You heard that thing, there are others embedded in the Order. What do you think will happen if we try to hide all of that?”

“That was not your call to make,” Sel says between his teeth. “And you are not in charge. Bree is—”

“Bree is what?” Tor demands. “Our king? By accident? This is a mistake!”

“Accident?” I growl. “Mistake?!”

Alice is on her feet already, fists clenched. “Is that what you’re calling chattel slavery? Three hundred years of accidents?”

Tor’s face turns red. “You know what I mean.”

“I don’t think I do!” I spit. A flash behind my eyes of Vera’s face as she spilled her own blood into the earth. My fingers curl, nails cutting deep into my palm. William’s eyes—and Sel’s—stare down to my fist and the strength that lives there now. “What that man did was not an accident. He knew exactly what he was doing. He liked owning her life. Her body. And he wasn’t the only one. She wasn’t the only one.” Suddenly, I want nothing more than to launch myself at Tor. Would the Legendborn stop me? I wonder. Could Sel even stop me?

Tor catches sight of my growing anger and takes a step back, but she won’t shut up. “People gave their lives for the cause last night, and you what? Just showed up at the last minute?”

I take a step forward, and Sel’s arm shoots across my chest. “Tor!” he booms. “Bree is your king!”

“Not my king.” Tor shakes her head, staring at me accusingly. “Not when she doesn’t even want to be.”

“I—” The memory of Whitty’s and Fitz’s and Russ’s bodies rises up before me, blood spraying into pools so red it was black. “I…”

Alice steps in front of me, arms crossed. “Scion of Tristan, right? Bree doesn’t have a choice in any of this, as far as I can tell.” She looks Tor up and down. “And neither do you, third-ranked.”

Tor lunges so quickly that only Sarah can catch her around the waist. And only Sel is fast enough to move in front of Alice.