Oathbound

The stranger (Nick) continues to address Bree by name until he recognizes that she does not remember him. Bree knows they have met before and feels strong feelings for him, but does not know if he is with or against her. They hear someone coming. As they are leaving, Nick comes up with a plan to get caught elsewhere, making it look like they were sneaking off for a clandestine meeting rather than to steal the crown. Nick kisses Bree, and she feels like she knows him again, but they are caught by Bianca and her warlocks. Bianca is going to detain them until Nick gives her his invitation, which identifies him as Benedict Pierce, a famous heir. Bianca infers that Bree must be Iris Bauer, Benedict’s fiancée.

Bree doesn’t know what to think when Nick, still a stranger to her, calls her his fiancée. Nick asks Bianca about the power outage, and she reveals that someone tried to break through one of their “barriers,” which both Nick and Bree understand to be a ward. Bianca has one of the warlocks escort them back to the ballroom, but when they are out of sight, Nick tells Bree that all of her friends have been looking for her. Nick quickly understands what has happened with her memory and guesses that she has not fought to get it back for a reason. Nick apologizes for fighting her, but also for kissing her. Bree wants to know how this man knows her, but Nick asks her if she has chosen to be with the demon that took her. Bree evades the question and asks him for his real name, which, upon hearing it, feels familiar.

Their conversation stops when Zoe and Ava approach. Ava, who appears to know Nick, berates him and assumes he has double-crossed her. Meanwhile, Bree wonders if she is Nick’s real fiancée. When Zoe calls her Vivienne, Bree is forced to admit that she is now pretending to be Iris, confusing everyone. Suddenly, another woman approaches Bree and calls her by name. Bree doesn’t remember the woman who introduces herself as Mariah, but she feels drawn to her. Everyone is confused, but Nick and Ava insist that they all need to get back to the ballroom before anyone notices them. They reveal the dilemma with the identities until all the women switch, with Bree now as Iris, Mariah as Vivienne, and Ava as Mariah’s former alter-ego, Juliet. All of the newcomers know that Bree is the Scion of Arthur and a Medium, and they seem afraid of her getting possessed by Arthur again.

Bree and Nick arrive at Benedict and Iris’s table (believed to be theirs), and Bree tells Nick that she wasn’t the one who turned off the power. Nick learns from a server that Mikael will arrive shortly, and that someone did try to break into the Penumbra grounds. Bree learns that she and Nick were romantically involved. Mikael enters the stage in the ballroom, the only one without a proper mask, and reminds everyone that “[w]hat happens at Penumbra stays at Penumbra” (390). He shares that someone tried to break in earlier, but someone had also attacked one of his guards and hidden him in a closet, as Bree did when she was looking for the crown.

Mikael says that anyone who wants to leave because of these strange events may do so, but everyone stays, wanting to make a good impression on Mikael and be invited to future galas. Mikael also mentions that all auction items have been moved to a secure location. When no one moves, Mikael announces that the auction will take place in three days, and anyone who wants to attend must stay at Penumbra until then. While many guests are excited to stay at Penumbra, those trying to steal the crown are not. Nick tells Bree, “There’s no way in hell I can be around you for that long” (394).

Bree is hurt by Nick’s words and his refusal to elaborate, but Nick reminds her that they have been seen in these identities and can’t switch back now. Mikael brings a man up on stage whom he addresses as Eric, the man who tried to break into Penumbra. Mikael can sense his thoughts and knows he was thinking about exposing everyone at Penumbra, so Mikael has one of his warlocks publicly execute him, reminding everyone else what happens if they don’t play by his rules. A server comes by to collect their phones for the weekend so they can’t contact anyone on the outside. Nick and Bree know they need to meet up with the others, but Mikael intercepts them before they can. He describes the communions that will be happening before the auction as intimate conversations, but Bree understands them to be interrogations. The communions will help to decipher who shut off the power and who attacked the guard, but will also reveal the true character of all the guests, who will be magically bound to answer Mikael’s questions. As he leaves, Bree and Nick see that a new ward has been cast around Penumbra, and they can’t escape.

A warlock escorts Bree and Nick to their suite, and Nick gives Bree the one key to the room so she isn’t beholden to him. Inside the Chambord Suite, they see that new clothes have been left for them, and there is only one bed. Nick looks to see if the room is bugged while Bree worries for Zoe and Mariah, wondering if the latter has been looking for her. Nick finds a hidden camera, and when Bree sees him using his magic, she finally realizes that he is the Scion of Lancelot, who was raised to believe he was the Scion of Arthur. She also remembers that Nick was there chasing after her when Erebus initially took her with him. Nick asks her if she knows anything about Sel, and Bree registers the name as that of the Merlin who sacrificed himself for her. Erebus calls to Bree’s bloodmark. She assumes he is angry that she will be staying with Mikael, but the bloodmark feels different again. Nick knows about the bloodmark and correctly assumes it is from the demon that took her. They hear a knock from behind a panel in the wall, and Bree is relieved to hear Zoe’s voice.

Zoe emerges from a secret tunnel behind the wall, which she found by memorizing Elijah’s map of Penumbra. Zoe and Nick distrust one another. Zoe takes them to a hidden library where Mariah is waiting, the two pretend sisters having bonded while they were away. As Nick and Mariah start to discuss the acquaintances they have in common, Zoe gets concerned and confused and tries to get Bree to leave, but Bree knows they can’t escape and must be honest with one another to survive; Bree especially has to tell Zoe what she has been hiding about herself. When Nick confesses that Ava wants to kill Bree, Bree admits that this is because she is the Scion of Arthur. Zoe attacks Bree, but Nick stops her, so Zoe asks Bree to prove that she is the Scion. Bree says she can’t, and Zoe storms off. Mariah tells Bree that she came here to find her, but she goes to check on Zoe because she feels no one should be alone in this.

The next morning, Bree sees everything Nick has done to make her comfortable, including sleeping on the too-small chaise so they wouldn’t have to share a bed. She is startled when someone comes to deliver them clothes, and Nick suggests they should practice touching each other so they look natural as a couple, because he knows everyone in the house could be secretly watching them. As they get ready to leave, they talk about Sel, and Nick’s shares about his quest to find Sel and Bree. A note slips under the door with a time and location listed, and Nick believes it is from Ava, so Bree encourages him to visit her on his own.

At breakfast, Bree apologizes to Zoe, explaining that she only just discovered her association with the Order. She also tells Zoe she is a Rootcrafter, and Mariah realizes that Bree did go with the Hunter by choice. Zoe forgives her when she learns Bree has only been dealing with this information for less than a year. When Nick enters the ballroom, he is stopped by a table of wealthy white men who look disgusted when he later goes to sit next to Bree. Nick tells his friends that he can pretend to play into the other guests’ misogynistic and racist power structures to take advantage of them and learn more about what they know. Nick also tells them that Mikael won’t be holding communions for all guests, just those he finds suspicious and those who weren’t in the ballroom when the power went out.

There will be five communions a day, and Bree and Nick are scheduled for the last day. They all gather in an auditorium to watch the first communion, where Mikael will ask each guest five questions, none of which will reveal their identity. Mikael says he will know if anyone is lying, and they will be punished. The audience chants “discretion and truth” (447), and Mikael asks the first collector if he attacked his guard or broke into an outbuilding on the grounds of Penumbra. The man answers no, but for the third question, Mikael asks when was the last crime he committed. As the man confesses to altering his father’s will, Bree can see how Mikael is consuming his negative emotions. She also knows that everyone is being mesmered to confess the truth. This continues with more participants.

Nick comes into the communions late after talking with the arrogant white men he met earlier. After the communions, he tells Bree he has learned something and that they need to talk alone. When Bree, Nick, Mariah, and Zoe meet again in the library, Zoe lets it slip that the Shadow King is alive, though all the Legendborn thought he had died long ago. Bree admits that the king is alive, but weakened without his crown, and she wants to give him back the crown so he can return to his own realm and stop hunting Rootcrafters. Nick learns about the missing girls, but also that Bree chose to run away with the Shadow King, and the group begins to fight. Ava enters and reveals that her plan was to get Nick caught stealing the crown, which was never really in the basement. She never told him whose crown it was, hoping he would get killed and start a war between a Nightshade and the Order. Ava wants the crown back for the Morgaines, who have guarded it for centuries. After Ava leaves, Bree asks Nick what he got for his bargain with Ava, but he tells Bree not to ask and leaves as well. Mariah and Zoe hug Bree in silent support.

Bree and Nick wake that night to the sound of someone in the secret passageway, and they know it can’t be Zoe. Four warlocks wearing balaclavas enter and attack them, but Nick and Bree subdue the warlocks and toss their unconscious bodies back into the passage. Nick senses something off about them and thinks they might not be warlocks at all. They agree to pretend nothing happened, and Nick keeps watch as Bree goes back to sleep. The next morning, Nick has fallen asleep beside Bree, and he feels guilty about his carelessness. Erebus calls Bree’s bloodmark more painfully than usual. With Nick’s enhanced vision, he can see the bloodmark working through her veins, and he explains that this is how he saw and dissolved her constructs in the basement. Bree is touched by Nick’s compassion for her as they discuss her bloodmark, and she tells him that Erebus is the Shadow King in disguise.

Bree reveals that the Erebus Nick has known and trained with since childhood was always the Shadow King, who wants to unmake the Order from the inside out. Nick remembers what William told him about how Erebus experimented on Bree at the Institute. After Nick comes to terms with this revelation, he is seized by a sudden pain. It is his bond with Sel, who Nick knows is feeling murderous again, and Nick mentions that this happens daily, but he is usually better at hiding it. At breakfast, they fill Zoe and Mariah in on what happened with the warlocks, who Nick believes are enchanted somehow. After Nick leaves, Mariah suggests they talk privately to figure out a backup plan if he can’t find out more about their attackers. When the three girls are alone in the library, Mariah asks Bree what happened to her root, as she senses Bree has changed with the enhanced powers of the Dame’s Heart she still wears.

Bree admits that she burned her ancestral plane, feeling shame as she sees Mariah’s anger. Mariah knew Bree was the chosen one, but Bree says she never wanted to be chosen. Bree tells them how her ancestor Vera didn’t know that the Hunter cursed their family so all the mothers would die young. Mariah begins to sympathize with Bree, but Zoe, having Rootcrafters in her own family, sees things more clearly. She knows that they don’t have to obey their ancestors, just communicate with them, and says that Bree should get back her ancestral plane for help finding the missing Rootcrafter girls. Bree feels supported but is still crying when Nick comes in, and she tells him what happened. Nick has found out more about the communion and says they need to go now, as Mikael thinks he has found the third thief.

Everyone suspects Ava is up to something as they go to the communion auditorium. The last interviewee resists telling the truth about breaking into the Penumbra grounds. He finally admits that someone made him do so, and Bree, Nick, and the others know it was Ava who mesmered the man, and likely the warlocks who attacked them as well. Ava’s mesmer is set to fade before anyone can tell who she is, but Mikael, impatient with the man’s lies, kills him just before the auditorium lights go out. Ava leaves immediately, and Bree and Nick try to act normally as they follow her, but Bree get separated from them. After dinner, while Bree is roaming the hallways looking for Nick, someone comes up behind her and claps a hand over her mouth before she can do anything.

Bree’s captor in the hallway is Nick, and he pulls her into a closet. Nick reveals that some of the other guests know the man who was just killed and feel uneasy about his confession. Outside, they hear a warlock mention to Bianca that a new visitor wants to join the auction. Nick and Bree wonder who this new visitor could be, but they don’t think it is Erebus. Nick says Ava knocked him out while he was chasing her. He and Bree then share an intimate moment before leaving the closet. Later in their room, Nick admits that he still wants Bree, but knows it isn’t a good idea. They kiss, but when Bree wants to take things further, Nick refuses because she is not her full self with her full memories. Still, they fall asleep together.

In the morning, Bree and Nick talk about running away together but know this is impossible. Bree tells Nick her full bargain with Erebus and how she sent Sel to his mother, and Nick tells her she did the right thing. She also tells him that she still owes Erebus whatever he wants, and Nick wants to kill Erebus for her, even if it means sacrificing his own life. After breakfast, Bianca comes to escort “Benedict and Iris” to the communion, but Nick slips away to go to the bathroom while a warlock seats Bree. Nick isn’t in his seat by the time the communions start, and Mikael mentions that today each communion will have four questions instead of five. Nick walks out on stage before he comes to his seat, and won’t look at Bree. Mikael announces that Nick has proposed answering 10 questions for both him and Bree, so she doesn’t have to lie about attacking the guard.

Bree, Mariah, and Zoe are scared for Nick. During his questioning, Nick reveals that he took Bree’s place in the communions because he doesn’t deserve her, referencing a time when he ran from her when she needed him. He confesses that he knows Bree and Selwyn are attracted to each other, and though he is heartbroken, he is relieved that his two closest friends can find happiness. When Mikael asks if Nick is angry with Bree because of this, he says that he could never be angry at her, saying, “[W]hile I have lost my faith in the world…I never lose faith in her” (509).

The audience loves Nick’s statement, and Bree runs to find him when he makes his way off stage. While looking for Nick, Bree runs into a stranger who recognizes her. Bree does not recognize the middle-aged white man, who seems to know she has lost her memory, and she runs from him to her suite. She finds Nick in the bathroom, but when he comes out shirtless, she sees a small piece of metal lodged in his chest. He says it is a piece of the Shadow King’s crown and that he asked Ava to put it there. Nick reveals that it can only be taken out by a Morgaine, just as the Morgaines had enchanted the crown itself. Lancelot’s visions showed him that the Morgaines had experimented for centuries with something they called Enthralling, where pieces of the original Morgaine’s spirit could transfer to anyone who had a shard of the crown implanted in their body. Nick felt helpless when he saw Arthur possess Bree’s body at Volition, and had the shard implanted in hopes of taking Arthur’s spirit out of Bree and into him if she was possessed again. This way, those who wanted to kill Arthur could kill him, ending all of the Legendborn’s powers while letting Bree live. Nick isn’t scared of death after everything he has endured. He knows it is best for the cycle of the Legendborn to end.

Bree and Nick stay together until it is time for the auction. At the auction, they see many warlocks guarding boxes covered in black velvet. They know Ava will try to bid for the crown and will follow the winner if she doesn’t get it, and Bree and Zoe try to plan their escape around this. A door opens, and Bree sees the man she ran into earlier in the hallway, whom Nick recognizes as the Regent Gabriel. Nick knows they need to escape before Gabriel sees him, but they are outnumbered by guests in the large room and must wait to escape. Toward the end of the auction, Mikael reveals the Shadow King’s crown, which he calls the crown of Arawn from Annwfyn, the Welsh otherworld. The bidding lasts several minutes, until the crown is awarded to Ava for $9.8 million. Mikael reveals the last items, saying their power lies not just in what they are, but in whom they represent. Mikael reveals a box containing four crystal vials filled with root. Bree knows that these vials represent missing Rootcrafter girls, and she recognizes the color in one from the girl she met in the bathroom at the Rat.

Mikael mentions that he is selling access to the living sources of power. This rattles Bree and Mariah, and they change their plan, forgetting the crown and following whoever bids on the vials so they can find the girls. Zoe and Nick get on board quickly, knowing this is far more important than the crown. The three girls suffer through the bidding as Nick moves to protect them from the winner: Gabriel. Bree knows that the Regents must want to experiment on the Rootcrafters as they experimented on her. Other members of the crowd are angry that a newcomer was let into the gala without enduring communion. The collectors are angry at Mikael for breaking their trust, and Bianca signals for the other warlocks to attack. Chaos ensues as they try to follow Gabriel, knowing that Ava must have already left for the crown. Zoe helps Mariah use the power of the Dame’s Heart to hold back the warlocks while Nick and Bree chase after Gabriel, who is getting into a helicopter as they get outside. As Nick runs toward Gabriel, a dark mass of aether hits him, and Gabriel escapes. Bree tries to follow but is hit with aether and knocked to the ground, where she hears a dark laugh and sees a pair of heavy boots walking toward her before she loses consciousness.

Bree wakes up surrounded by Nick, Mariah, and Zoe in a small, dark room underground. The warlock who found them steps out of the shadows and transforms into Erebus, who reveals he was at Penumbra the whole time. Erebus knew that Bree and Zoe were really there to save the Rootcrafter girls, and he couldn’t let them go unsupervised, but he also enjoyed feeding on their torment. Erebus created plans within plans to ensure that he could get the crown, but to wear it again he needs a Morgaine to disenchant it. He reveals that Ava left before she could disenchant the crown, but she left it behind with a warlock. Erebus leaves them in the prison while he goes to learn more about what the Regents are doing with the Rootcrafters.