“We should discuss this matter in a closed assembly,” Naiam said, a clear warning, the delicate chimes of her voice now sounding shrill.

“As your ruler,” Arthur said at a nod from Gawain, “I insist on being present for a conversation of this gravity. By the first order laid out in establishing the council of mages, I am entitled to bear witness to your proceedings when it pertains to a direct impact upon this kingdom.” It sounded like he was quoting the order word-for-word, and, Vera suspected, that was precisely the case. Nevertheless, they were shocked to hear it invoked. “Proceed, Mage Gawain,” he said, without turning away from Naiam. Her smile no longer reached her eyes.

“The king must know,” Gawain said. “We’re on the edge of the destruction of all we’ve worked for. He has to know. We can’t persist in claiming that we keep this secret for the kingdom’s safety. We’re protecting our own power at the expense of magic itself.”

“Do I correctly understand that mages get their power from another source beyond training and study?” Arthur directed his question at Naiam, who was clearly hesitant to answer.

“I—it’s complicated.”

Arthur held her stare.

“Yes, Your Majesty,” she said, finding no way out of it.

“How?” One word that rocked everything. Tilted it sideways. No one answered. “Do I need to command an answer from you?” Arthur asked, scanning their ranks with a hard stare.

The ancient and bent mage with a beard down to his middle was the one who answered. “Study and training teach us how to broadly utilize our gifts. There are two ways we might acquire new powers. A gift may be given from one magic being who has some mastery over their skill to another. The second way is … on the battlefield. When an enemy with a gift is killed, if they are stabbed by a mage’s weapon directly to the heart while any life remains there, the mage can absorb their gift with the dying one’s last breath. It was a closely held secret that only the council knew until now, and it was our greatest advantage during the wars. No one we fought understood how our mages were so powerful.”

“The wars were long,” Gawain cut in. “To my count, we have over ten thousand known gifts among the high council alone. That’s just between the six of us. It doesn’t include the other mages in this room, not to mention any of the lesser mages not on the council. I believe this accumulation is causing magic to dissipate. It’s dying because we are hoarding it. And it’s hiding, too.”

“Do you mean the boy from your first report out of Camelot?” It was the mage with the quiet voice again.

Gawain nodded. “Grady. His gift only appeared when he would have perished without it. Magic is wiser than all of us. It’s actively hiding, so we can’t take it. But for every Grady whose gift could manifest, how many have gifts that appear too late or that cannot save them? I’d guess many of you saw instances of it during the war as I did—bursts of power as a soldier was in peril, snuffed out before the gift could manifest. How many are lost in a state of traumatic duress?”

“As interesting as your stories are, what do you propose we do?” Ratamun said in annoyance.

Gawain unhunched his shoulders, pressing them back. “We should conduct a sample study of what happens when mages release their power back to the earth.”

The mages on the high council shared stunned expressions.

“Are you volunteering?” Ratamun drawled.

“If I need to do so, then yes, I am,” Gawain said.

Ratamun’s rehearsed disinterest slipped. He hadn’t expected that. “Did you concoct this with him, Merlin?” he asked after a moment.

“No—” Merlin began before Gawain interrupted him.

“I kept my theory from Merlin. This is my work, my specialty. I’m prepared to take on the consequences of it.”

Vera realized that she was witnessing a quiet act of extraordinary courage.

“Let’s not be rash, Gawain,” Merlin said. “What good does dumping power do? It would take years to meaningfully survey and measure any change. There’s no way to know if it has an impact on such a small scale.”

“Yes, there is.” Gawain carefully pulled a bundle of cloth from his pocket and unwrapped it. Vera craned her neck to see. It was his glass instrument, the one he’d shown her in his study. The mages shifted in their seats for a better look.

“It measures the balance between assigned gifts and ones that have become available at any given moment in close enough proximity to this instrument. When someone with a gift perishes without a Retention Spell in place, a liquid-like substance will appear in the tube. If the gifts are distributed by the birth of a new magical child, they will transfer to the bulb. When mages accumulate masses of gifts and die with a Retention Spell in place, the magic doesn’t go back into circulation. Magical births cannot occur. While we live with thousands of gifts locked up within us, those gifts cannot be circulated either. I believe that if we release some of our many gifts—not all, but some—those will be recirculated. My instrument can test that.”

“The magical birth rate first noticeably dipped twenty-three years ago,” the oldest mage said thoughtfully. “And the Magesary was founded four years prior. I don’t know why none of us recognized the alignment before.”

“It’s been slow enough that it was easy to blame other things,” Gawain said.

Vera wasn’t following. Was this the secret she had known? Was this Mordred’s aim? To steal enough magic that Arthur’s kingdom began to collapse on itself?

Naiam stood and said sharply, “We don’t know that this is correct. Hearing it and thinking it makes some logical sense doesn’t make it so. The kingdom wouldn’t even exist without the power of our mages. We protect the magic. Mage Gawain is not old enough to remember. But many of us well recall when our grandparents hid their gifts because they were deemed unholy and could land them a death sentence before the order was founded. I respect Gawain’s ability to remove his self-interests from his studies, but I will remind you: it does not mean he is right.”

“Let me perform the experiment,” Gawain said. “By our best guesses and records, there are twenty births a day in our kingdom. I will release twenty of my own gifts tonight. If my theory is correct, releasing gifts will also put powers back into circulation, the same way a death would. We would be able to read if that part were effective immediately. And then, if we take a reading tomorrow, there should be fluid in the larger bowl.”

The tiny mage shifted in her seat before she spoke. “If all that happens as you theorize, it means—”

“Yes.” Gawain nodded. “It means this crisis is no one’s fault but our own.”

“And your device. You’ve made that using your gifts, have you?” Ratamun said, his anger gone, hunger replacing it. “There’s never been anything that could track power before. Does it work?”

Gawain hesitated. “I believe so.” He didn’t answer the first question and quickly wrapped the device back up, tucking it away.

Ratamun’s chin jutted forward, and he called out louder than the murmurs around him, “I think we should do it.”

The room erupted. Gawain wasn’t bolstered. He clasped his hands tightly, knuckles going white. Naiam tapped her hand on the table, the thick gold ring she wore echoing like a gavel with each strike.

“We will take a vote,” she said as the room quieted. Her eyes were dark, and all the lilting of her voice had gone. “Will you excuse yourself?” she asked Gawain.

Gawain, shoulders tight, stiffly nodded as he rose and left the room, not through the main entry stone that entombed them but into a side chamber directly behind him.

Lancelot’s chair scraped against the floor as he stood abruptly. “I would like to excuse myself as well.” He moved before anyone acknowledged him.

Vera started to follow, remembered that they were already suspicious of her, and settled back in her chair.