Alice doesn’t even flinch. She’s catching on fast, all right. She’d been up early learning all she could from William.

But William’s had enough. “Everyone, calm down!” he yells. “Tor, back off!”

Tor’s heaving in her girlfriend’s arms. She pulls away, glares at me and Alice both, and speeds out of the room in a gust of wind.

In the ensuing silence, William orders, “Take a breath, all of you! Before I sedate you myself!”

I do, but it doesn’t keep the world from tilting. I wonder if I’ll ever see it tilt back in the right direction or if I need to learn a new way to move through it. A way without Nick. A way where I’m in charge of all of… this.

Does a king imagine strangling her own knight?

The events in the ogof showed me answers, even if those answers are hard and ugly. Those same events only gave Nick questions. And we didn’t get a chance to talk about them and what they’d mean for us, for the Table, for everything we both have known.

Soon, Sarah’s, William’s, and Sel’s predictions and plans swirl around me, peppered with occasional references to my new title and rank. Alice holds her own, interjecting with logical questions and demanding answers on my behalf.

Sel is adamant that we stand our ground against the Regents and start the search for Nick ourselves, but even he doesn’t sound so sure of our success without outside assistance; the Order’s network can cover more ground than we can, and they’re better equipped for a manhunt. Sarah wants to wait for the Regents’ instructions, but Sel says they’ll waste time debriefing all of us about what happened here, me especially. I will have to share Vera’s story again. The Mage Seneschals will want to know about my other abilities, maybe even run tests on me. Sel won’t allow it. He thinks I need to select a Squire as soon as possible, before I take the throne. William argues I need to recover before taking the Warrior’s Oath. In the meantime, the Regents will need to confirm Arthur’s presence before they transfer power to me and alert the whole Order that Camlann has come. He says that, as king, the Regents will expect me to promote calm among Order members instead of panic. Then I can gather the Table and designate members of the search committee myself. The discussion goes on and on… and right now I don’t want any part of it.