Chapter 22

Three months after Briana Matthews disappeared, William travels with Nick and Lark while Nick retraces old hideouts in hopes of being found by the Morgaines. At a lax highway motel, Nick searches the woods alone, leaving William and Lark to revisit their recurring argument: Lark distrusts the Morgaines and fears Nick may be avoiding his duty to kill Ava, while William argues that the Regents are no more trustworthy and insists Nick must have reasons for his secrecy.

Lark reports that Merlin scouts trailing the group have not returned and warns that the Regents may escalate if Nick’s search drags on or if they demand proof of a dead Morgaine. The conversation shifts from strategy to moral stakes when Lark asks whether William is prepared to watch Nick commit deliberate murder. William admits he does not know, then presses Lark on why Lark joined the quest at all.

Lark first says he worries Erebus might capture William again, but his concern becomes more personal and urgent. Lark challenges William for treating himself only as a healer and never as someone who also deserves care, naming William’s accumulated losses: kidnapped friends, dead Legendborn, Whitty’s death, and William’s breakup with Dylan. Lark asks to be called by his preferred name, Lark, and pushes William to examine whether William is protecting Nick as Gawain’s Scion or protecting Nick’s secrets as William.

William answers by recounting the night Bree pulled Excalibur and became the Crown Scion. In the Lodge after the battle, William found Nick guarding an unconscious Bree, hypervigilant and ready to fight at the sound of a door. Nick revealed that Martin Davis had used training as abuse, forcing Sel to hurt Nick under the logic of protection and letting resentful Lieges inflict broken bones, cracked ribs, internal bleeding, and concussions while William’s cousin Reese healed the evidence away.

William admits that he did not believe Nick immediately because Reese had been William’s mentor and because the healings left no trace. After William did believe Nick, William tried to push Nick to acknowledge his own trauma, but Nick insisted the night had to be about Bree and the danger Arthur posed to her. Sel entered, recognized Nick’s distress, calmed him privately, and dismissed William, making clear that Sel could care for both Bree and Nick.

Back in the present, William tells Lark that Nick understands the Order’s violence and silence more deeply than most, which is why William believes in Nick and will not fail him again. William fears he may have shared Nick’s story for selfish reasons, but Lark responds with compassion rather than judgment. Lark says suffering takes many forms and that Nick is not the only Scion who needs healing from what the Order has done; William does too.