I smile for my friend. Time to break their rhythm.
Greer’s shoulders draw back, and when they speak, their voice is strong and clear. “I do. I accept Scion Hood’s offer.”
More applause this time, but it’s so raucous I’m not sure if it’s for Pete and Greer, or for the announcement that’s coming next.
“The moment we’ve been waiting for has arrived.” Lord Davis uses both hands to quiet the room. “My son, Nicholas Davis, Scion of Arthur, will announce his Squire.”
Nick steps forward beside his father, flinching almost imperceptibly when Davis claps him on the back. I knew this moment was coming, but I wasn’t prepared for Nick’s face, so solemn and so serious as he surveys the room. When he approaches, the room falls silent, as if the whole of the Order even outside these walls is holding their breath, waiting for their future king to announce his first decision on the path toward the throne.
Beside me, Sel tilts his head in my direction, as if his ears are antennae. His eyes flick down to my chest and back up; the corner of his mouth twitches. Oh. My heart is a beating drum in my chest—so loud he can hear it.
Nick takes the mic, and the room takes a breath. He looks down at the three remaining Pages, eyeing them one by one. I wait for him to pick Sydney. Try to be happy for him to pick Sydney. She is a better choice than Vaughn or Blake. She will serve him well.
He holds the gold ribbon of Arthur up and the coin glints in the light.
“I, Nicholas Martin Davis, Scion of King Arthur Pendragon, first-ranked…”
Oh God. I turn away. I can’t look. I don’t want to hear.
“… select Page Matthews as my Squire. With her agreement, we will be bonded. For this war and beyond.”
46
THE ROOM ERUPTS.
Sel hisses, a sharp intake of breath beside me.
I feel hundreds of eyes search the ballroom for the Onceborn girl who would be Squire to the king, but I can’t move. Can’t think.
Davis tries to calm the crowd. I hear him say something about “respecting the king’s decision.”
The mic squeals. “Page Matthews?” Nick calls, and everyone in the room turns back to him. “Do you accept?” When Nick’s eyes find me again, his new subjects follow his gaze. Everyone turns toward me. “Do you accept my offer?” Nick repeats, and I can hear the uncertainty in his voice mixed with the hope.
Suddenly, all I can think is that tonight was supposed to be an apology and a goodbye, but if I become Nick’s Squire and Arthur Calls him, I’ll never be able to leave.
Fear wraps its hand around my heart.
I came to the Order to find answers about my mother’s death, and I found them. Finding a way to leave the Order afterward was always the next step. That was our deal. But Nick’s offer would take me on a new path: accepting the Order’s mission as my own. Living with the risk of Abatement.
Sel steps close to my side; I feel the tension in his shoulders. “You must respond,” he whispers, the harsh sound in my ear jarring me back to life.
“I…”
I meet Nick’s eyes across the room and across hundreds of people, centuries of history, secrets and truths—and I feel the familiar tug between us. If you can be brave, I can be brave. If I can, you can. Call and response. In a way, Nick and I are already bonded. We have been since that very first night. In that second I am in two places at once: here with Nick and back in the hidden memory from my mother. I see the same qualities in his eyes that I saw in hers: faith, hope, pride. Camlann is coming and, like my mother, I have a choice: fight or flight.
Take risks. Follow your heart. And move forward.
I am my mother’s daughter.
“Yes,” I call, loudly and clearly. “I do. I accept Scion Davis’s offer.”
As soon as the words leave my mouth, the crowd explodes again.
The ballroom becomes a storm of exclamations, gasps, and outraged shouting. Lord Davis calls for order, even tapping the mic. It’s no use. No one is listening. An attendant moves Nick offstage. He’s protesting, they’re pushing.
“You stole this from my son!”
I flinch. The woman next to me sneers, disgust turning her face into a hideous mask. It’s Vaughn’s mother, Rose member Schaefer, who had been kind to me before. Tonight, the slurs in her eyes rain on me like daggers.
“This is his future, you… you nappy-headed little—” Someone pushes her back, but another man with a graying beard takes her place, his teeth bared.
A pair of strong arms—Sel’s—wraps around my middle, pulling me backward through hands that grab at me. Hands that try to pull me close so that they can inspect me, judge for themselves. I twist in his arms to find Nick, but he’s gone.
Insults fly as I pass.
“Gold digger!”
“Onceborn cheat.”
“Charity case!”
“Come on! Her blood is dirty. She’ll taint the Line!”
That sets me off. I swing around for the culprit. “Who said tha—”
Sel twists me out of a Vassal’s grip. He manages to get me off the dance floor without being harmed, but it takes Whitty, Greer, Sarah, and Evan forming a wall behind us to hold off the grown men and women ready to come after me with pitchforks. Behind the crowd, the stage is empty. Sel hauls me to his side, halfway lifting me off the ground, and bolts to the locked doors on the far side of the room. Two Lieges move out of his way—just in time—before he kicks the doors open and sprints down the long hallway, shifting me onto his back as he runs.
“Fucking assholes!” His curses reach my ears over the rush of air.
“Where are you taking me?”
“Away!” We’re heading toward the exit. “From the aforementioned assholes!”
“Fuck them!” I bat at his arms. “I need to see Nick!”
Sel growls low in his throat and curses again, but changes course. He runs us down a short, empty hall, and suddenly we’re in a dark room that smells like leather and books, striped with amber light streaming in from the balcony windows. He deposits me on the floor, and pain shoots up an ankle when I land awkwardly on one heel, but I barely notice it. Adrenaline roars through my veins along with giddiness, pride.
In the light of the hallway, Sel peers out to see if we’ve been followed. He shoves a hand through his hair and turns back to me with electricity in his eyes. A surge of fierce triumph, a current of conflict. “Stay here. I’ll get him.” And then he’s gone in a whoosh of black.
I press both palms to my flushed cheeks and whirl around in a circle. Even though I’m still shaken from the mob, endorphin-fueled joy bubbles up in my chest, escaping from my mouth in breathless laughter. I can’t find the light switch, but it doesn’t matter. I don’t need to see. I need to feel. Fresh panic is still bouncing around my chest and against my ribs, but there’s anticipation, too.
A click behind me, then Sel and Nick appear together in the doorway, their hair equally tousled from Sel’s run.
For a moment, the three of us stare at one another in wordless comprehension. I look between the two of them—a fallen angel and a king, the dark and the light, and feel a deep, churning thrill at what I’ve done. What we’ve done. This is how it will be now. Oaths between us. Bound to each other. Forever.