He was right. The cavern was going to collapse, and if they didn’t make it out in time . . .

Emry let him pull her away.

Rocks tumbled at their feet, and statues tipped, their heads rolling across the floor.

Emry and Arthur scrambled up from the underground crypt as fast as they could, finally tumbling out into the eerie silence of the churchyard.

Alive.

CHAPTER 48

Shadows cloaked the London streets as the two bloody, dusty figures limped away from the cathedral.

Emry didn’t know how she was still standing, but she was managing it somehow. And so was Arthur. He hobbled at her side, clutching the hilt of his glowing sword. There was a scrape on his cheek, and a rip in his cloak, and his clothes were sticky with blood. He looked as if he had been through hell, which he very nearly had. Emry suspected she didn’t look much better.

She felt shaky and strange, as though there was too much magic inside of her. She could feel it in her blood and beneath her skin, the unfamiliar power humming through her veins. It set her teeth on edge.

Her chest clenched, and everything warped and—

“Hey,” Arthur said. “Hey, it’s okay.”

He wrapped his arms around her and held on tight. She leaned into him, burying her face in his chest. His closeness made the fresh magic inside of her stop churning. Made her feel a little more like herself.

“No, it isn’t,” she choked out. “I’m so sorry. I did this. I—”

“Of course you didn’t.” Arthur sounded upset. “Morgana did. The same way she stole the enchantment on my scabbard.”

“But it’s my fault you came to help,” she insisted.

“I had that dream about the stones weeks ago,” Arthur promised. “If anything, it was probably foretold that I would face Morgana in that cave. Excalibur chose me for a reason. And it wasn’t to sit in my father’s vault. Or, as much fun as it was, to cure Lance’s hangover.”

Emry offered him a sad smile. “That’s one of my favorite memories,” she admitted. “The afternoon in the clearing.”

Arthur’s expression went thoughtful. “Mine too,” he admitted. “That day, it was almost as though nothing bad could ever happen.”

“And then it did,” Emry finished, pulling away and rubbing a patch of dried blood from her wrist.

They lapsed into silence. No matter that Arthur insisted it wasn’t her fault—if she hadn’t been so foolish—if she had only stayed at the castle—he wouldn’t have needed to come after her. To risk his life.

He had almost died. He should have died. She still wasn’t sure how she had healed him.

Smart as spades, but foolish as hearts.

Oh, her father had known her well. But she hadn’t known him at all. What had he done to Arthur’s sister? And to his mother? It was terrible, dark magic. A variation of the rotten spell Emmett had tried to use on his debt collectors.