Arthur gave her hand a soft squeeze. “Go on,” he whispered.

She darted to follow, noting Naiam’s tight-lipped disapproval and feeling it on her back the whole way. Vera didn’t care. She slipped into the side chamber and closed the door. It was little more than a closet, a stone dungeon with no windows.

Gawain pressed himself into the corner. “I’ve signed my death warrant,” he said dully, though his eyes were wide and skin pale. “It would have been enough to tell our secret, but suggesting we sacrifice our gifts … I’ll be executed.”

“You won’t.” Lancelot took Gawain’s face between his hands, giving the mage’s roving eyes a focal point. “We aren’t going to let that happen.”

Gawain looked like he felt sorry for Lancelot. “The authority you have does not carry the power you think it does,” he said in a monotone.

Lancelot sighed, patting him on the cheek with an exasperated laugh. It set Gawain off. He pushed Lancelot’s hands away. “Did you not hear what I told you in there? About how we get our gifts? Stabbing in the heart. Lancelot, I have more than a thousand powers.”

“You’ve killed that many people?” Vera said quietly.

“No.” The animalistic urgency cleared from him, bringing back the Gawain they knew as he thought about the numbers. “More were—” His mouth twisted, moving soundlessly as his face reddened. “Shit. I’m not in the room. I can’t say it. I should have said it before.” He groaned and shook his head. “Over two hundred and fifty human beings have met their end looking into the whites of my eyes. Do you understand?” His voice rose frantically.

Lancelot reached for him. “You were only—”

“No,” he snarled, reeling away. “I am a monster. Look at me like I’m a monster.” Lancelot didn’t. Vera knew she didn’t either. Gawain stumbled back against the wall. “Fuck.” He crushed his hands against his face.

“What’s a Retention Spell?” Lancelot asked abruptly.

Gawain sighed. “It makes a gift impossible to steal on death, disincentivizing killing amongst mages. Viviane invented it. She had more gifts than most mages combined.” Had they known that alone … that those gifts weren’t won by her brilliance in the laboratory but by her willingness to end life, would they have ever trusted her? Would they have trusted any of the mages?

The door opened, and they all tensed at the combination of movement and noise, relaxing some when it was Arthur who entered the already crowded room. Gawain moved like he was about to kneel, but he wasn’t fast enough.

Arthur hugged him, muttering, “Thank you.” As he released Gawain, he said, “That was selfless and courageous to stand against all of your upbringing—”

“My upbringing but also my choice, Arthur. No one forced me to keep being a mage.”

“How old were you when you became a mage?” Arthur asked. “Did you have to kill to receive your earliest gifts?”

Gawain shook his head. “We’re all given our second power, marking the start of life as a mage. I was seven when Merlin gave me mine.”

“On receiving that, you were also inducted into the secrets you were magically bound to keep. Then there was war, and you did what we all did in battle.”

Gawain’s voice chirruped in the start of a protest that Arthur would not hear as he continued. “And you were made the youngest member on the high council of mages. And today, you stood against them as no one has ever done, and it just might save the kingdom and save magic for all of us. I’d knight you for a second time if I could.”

Gawain dared to look hopeful, searching Arthur’s gleaming eyes. “Did they approve—”

“Yes. They’ve approved the test.”

It was evident that the vote had not been unanimous, but it passed, and enough mages shared Gawain’s spirit of selflessness that they offered some of their own gifts to the cause. The ancient man and the quiet woman who had asked the best questions offered three gifts apiece, and, surprising to Vera, Ratamun offered up five of his own, so Gawain only needed to release nine to meet the agreed-upon number.

They gathered in the open space, the rest of the council and the royal party watching. Gawain passed his instrument to Arthur to hold.

“How do we do it?” the quiet mage, who Vera learned was called Phoebe, asked in her tiny voice.

“It’s exactly like when you would give a gift to another person, but focus on the earth … dirt or grass or trees,” Gawain said. “Whatever part of nature you need to call to mind, and then …”

“Release,” Phoebe finished for him.

Ratamun smirked as he rolled the sleeves of his robe up. “What if one of us lies and gives fewer gifts than we vowed?”

“If the instrument works, we should be able to count, and we would know,” said Gawain. “If it doesn’t work? Nothing will happen.”

Gawain went first. He steadied himself, closed his eyes in a silence that stretched on for long seconds, and then breathed the deliberate and sacred breath as he extended his hand, palm down before him. Nothing notably changed, but Arthur made a hum of approval beside Vera, and all eyes pooled on him.

A swirl of gel-like liquid bubbled up from nothingness into the tube. At first glance, it was all the same silvery sheen. But from another angle, there were sharp delineations and, indeed, nine separate and countable sections, each a slightly different color.

At that, the mages stirred. Naiam sucked in a sharp breath. One by one, the three mages who’d volunteered also released their gifts, and the tube slowly filled.

“The gifts are in circulation?” Ratamun said, moving closer to Arthur and the instrument.

Gawain’s hand flinched toward Ratamun as if to stop him, but the mage was out of his reach. “Yes,” he said.

Naiam did not look pleased. “So it appears.” She drummed her fingers on the desk as she scanned the room. “We will reconvene at first light to see what comes of this experiment.”

Merlin’s lips parted. He watched the instrument in Arthur’s hands in disbelief. Ratamun bent low over the globe, shifting his head back and forth between two angles.

“They’re all a different color,” he mumbled, eyes glinting. “Can you tell what each power is?”

Gawain shifted uncomfortably. “No,” he said sharply. “Only the number. There is no way to know anything more.”

The smirk never left Ratamun’s face. “As you say.”

It felt like a victory—until they got out of the Magesary and into the quiet of Vera’s chamber at the inn where she, Arthur, Lancelot, and Merlin convened. Merlin’s tight expression betrayed the anger simmering under the surface of his calm.

“Why didn’t you tell me this was your plan?” he said through gritted teeth.

“Because I knew you’d stop me,” Gawain said.

Merlin huffed. “Of course I would have. Even if you’re correct, this was an ambush. It was not the way. You’re going to be expelled from the Magesary at the least.”

“I know,” Gawain said. “But you know as well as I that if it hadn’t been an ambush—if the king hadn’t been sitting in that room, they would not even have entertained it.”

Merlin’s face filled with sorrow as he looked at Gawain. It frightened Vera.

“And Ratamun’s suspicion about your instrument?” Merlin said.

Gawain nodded. “He knows how it might be used.”

“How might it be used?” Arthur asked. He held the instrument cupped in his lap where he sat.

“Ratamun correctly guessed that this tool is the foundation to sense what gifts someone has and how many,” Gawain said. “I knew that was a risk in revealing it.”