Bloodmarked

Bree shares the paper Samira gave her, which leads to Clayton, Georgia—a three-hour drive away. Halfway there, they stop to get gas and use the bathroom. William uses the bathroom first; when Alice and Bree go, the white men behind the counter say it’s out of order. Bree and Alice know they’re being racially profiled. Sel enters, saying they should go; outside, he reveals he smelled a gun behind the counter. Bree and Alice know that not every “demon” is a magical one.

They arrive at their destination, the Crossroads Lounge. From inside, Bree and William sense magic that isn’t aether or root. They’re at a “rogue den.” Rogue users are hunted by the Order. Louis, the bouncer, tells them not to use magic inside. Bree needs to find Lucille, the name given to her by Samira.

Bree relaxes in the presence of “so many Black and brown people” (308). They get a table, and Alice and William compliment Bree on the outfit she chose from the safehouse. Alice tries to bait Sel into complimenting her; he says she looks “nice.” A waitress brings them drinks with a “pick me up” mage-flame shot for Sel, who is concerned at being easily identified as a cambion. William hypothesizes that ingesting aether will “soften the effects of humanity-demonia imbalance” (314). Sel insists he doesn’t need it.

Sel accompanies Bree and Alice to the bathroom. Outside, Bree challenges him about calling her outfit “nice”; he pulls her close and says he really thinks she looks “devourable.” They see a sign on a nearby door for a “broker.” Kizia said a broker made the deal for her to kill Bree. Sel goes to pay the tab so they can leave. At the bar, Sel gets in a fight with the barkeeper, Alonzo, for trying to jump the line.

Bree’s root flares as she defends Sel. From the bar stage, a Black teen covers for Bree, saying her magic is a “demonstration of a new powerset” he’ll have available (321). He introduces himself as the broker Valachaz, called “Valec.” Louis relocates Bree and Sel to the second-floor office for breaking the bar’s no-magic rule. Sel says the man he started a fight with was a “warlock,” a human who bargains for magical power by making a life-changing, often negative deal with a demon.

Valec enters, angry at the chaos Bree’s massive display of magic caused. Bree can’t figure out what Valec “is,” as he resembles demon, human, and cambion. Valec asks which demon Bree brokered a deal with to gain her power; multiple brokers mean it’s possible Valec didn’t authorize the hit on Bree. They don’t want to tell Valec they’re Legendborn, but he somehow knows Sel is Kingsmage, though he still thinks Nick is Arthur.

Valec easily overpowers Sel. Bree doesn’t understand. Valec realizes Sel has been mesmering Bree to hide his run-down appearance. Valec lends Bree his sight to see Sel’s true form.

In reality, Sel is beaten and haggard, his eyes turning from yellow to red. She thinks back to their recent moments of intimate exchange: Sel had been mesmering her. Valec says the imbalance of demon-human blood in Merlins is what makes them volatile. Half-demon half-humans, like him and the original Merlin, are steady and balanced. Bree feels violated: Sel performed magic on her without consent, just like the Regents and Arthur.

Valec says that Oaths, especially the potent Kingsmage Oath, “does a number” (336) on people. Demons feed on human emotions and aether; Bree is now so miserable that Valec must protect her from Sel’s hunger. Valec orders Louis to take Sel away and feed him aether.

Alone, Valec warns “a daughter of the enslaved” from becoming entangled with “the colonizers and their descendants” (339). Bree knows his warning is founded. Valec takes Bree to the roof, where Sel is in a cage and William and Alice are in a large crowd. For breaking his bar’s rules, Valec will demand a “death” or a “deal.” Alice says she’ll make a bargain: their lives and a meeting with Lucille for the information that Valec’s waitstaff has been stealing aether.

Valec takes the deal. Bree tells Alice and William about Sel’s mesmer. Valec says he’s a “crossroads” demon who facilitates human-demon deals, but he has standards: no murder contracts. He leads them to his “niece” Lucille. Lucille is a Black woman with graying braids; though he looks like a teenager, Valec is 205 years old. Bree enters Lucille’s office and is shocked to see Mariah.

Lucille is Mariah’s aunt. Lucille and Valec are interested in Bree’s “spontaneous root generation,” but Mariah won’t reveal Bree’s Bloodcrafting secret (351). Bree tells them they’re fugitives from the Order and she must learn how to control her root. Lucille has a place they can go called Volition but says she’s busy fending off “the Hunter,” also called “the Great Devourer”—the same demon that Kizia mentioned and Bree’s ancestors ran from.

With Mariah’s prompting, Bree reveals Vera did Bloodcraft, but doesn’t say anything about Arthur. Mariah says with training, Bree can help defeat the Hunter. Bree wants to protect the Rootcrafting community, whom she keeps inadvertently putting in danger. Lucille agrees to help Bree.

William and Sel take their car to the waystation that leads to Volition, while Mariah drives Bree, Alice, and Valec. Valec says he was cast out as an infant by his mother, an enslaved woman seduced by an incubus. Bree remembers seeing a “crossroads child” cast out by an enslaved woman named Pearl, in a memory walk she did in Legendborn with Patricia. Valec confirms this was his mother.

The “conductor” of the station is Lucille’s partner, Miss Hazel. Bree realizes Rootcrafters still use technologies from the Underground Railroad to stay safe from the Order.

The next morning, Mariah does Bree’s hair in flat twists. Bree tells her about dating Nick, who she sees in Arthur’s dreams, and how her mother, Faye, was protected by Sel’s mother, Natasia.

Later, Bree talks to Valec on the porch about how fear of judgment makes people hide things from those they care about, though Valec admits what Sel did was wrong. He tells her where Sel is in the woods.

In the woods, Sel apologizes. He thinks his descent began before he knew Bree was the Scion of Arthur, when he thought she was a goruchel and tried to kill her. Sel admits that now, his “judgment is not what it should be” around Bree (369). He can’t force himself to leave even as he succumbs. He assures her his manipulation was only visual and her feelings were her own, but admits he manipulated their connection. Bree leaves and starts a bloodwalk.

In Arthur’s memory, the original 150 Knights of the Round Table have been reduced to 13. Lancelot and Arthur don’t know if Merlin’s plan for them to be reborn as spirits in their descendants will work. When Bree as Arthur touches Lancelot, he becomes Nick. He confirms he’s safe for now. Bree says that Sel isn’t doing well.

They’re in the memory of the day the Spell was cast: They both remember what their ancestors did in this moment. They go through the motions of the memory as the Spell of Eternity bound the 13 original knights. Afterward, they kiss, but Nick suddenly feels something threatening him in the real world. He says he’s at “the cabin.”

Sel knows where the cabin is; they go while Alice and William stay. Bree discovers part of her hair is turning silver, a mysterious sign of Arthur’s power.

Sel feels Nick’s mortal danger as they arrive. Sel carries Bree to the cabin so her feet don’t make noise, but it explodes before they get to it. Isaac Sorenson, Lord Davis’s Kingsmage, incapacitated four Mageguard and now fights Erebus and Max.

Lord Davis emerges, holding Nick. When Isaac and Erebus fight, Nick runs. Max throws a spear into Lord Davis’s chest, stopping Nick and Isaac. Nick summons full armor and beheads Max.

Isaac attacks Erebus again. Nick sees Sel and Bree. Instead of joining them, he runs. Bree and Sel flee from the fight, but Erebus follows. Bree follows the example Jessie taught her in Chapter 29, summoning her root purposefully. She channels the root into Sel’s void cuffs, breaking them.

Sel’s magic is red now, like Bree’s root. Erebus warns her that it will make Sel hungry for more of her aether. She continues to funnel her magic into Sel’s aether construct until she passes out. The construct burns Erebus, and they escape, but they worry it may have summoned the Hunter.

The aether infusion has a drunkening effect on Sel: he tells Bree he can “taste” her and her magic. Both are confused, knowing they should keep their distance while still wanting to be closer. A voice interrupts.

It’s Valec, who felt Bree’s power from a distance. It knocked out the waitstaff of the Crossroads Lounge. He confirms that every Shadowborn “in the Southeast” felt her magic and will be pursuing her (401). On their way to Valec’s car, they’re approached by hellhounds and hellfoxes. Bree pleads for Arthur’s defense. He constructs armor for her, but the demon gets in a potentially fatal blow.

Valec realizes Bree is the Scion of Arthur. Valec runs to get William. Bree can see her own ribs and muscle. Sel uses his aether to try and keep her alive.

Bree wakes three days later at Miss Hazel’s with William at her side. Sel is in the same room, also recovering with William’s help. William says her veins, ribs, liver, stomach, and diaphragm were lacerated. Sel’s magic held her together until he could heal her, but Sel “almost died to keep [Bree] alive” (408).

When Bree wakes again, Sel is gone and William and Alice are there. Bree apologizes for endangering the Lines; William is angry she’d think he cared more about the Lines than her life.

Bree dresses and goes to find Sel in the woods. She thanks him for saving the Lines. Like William, he’s angry she thinks of the Lines before her life. He didn’t save her because of an Oath; he saved her because of the feelings between them.

The next morning, Valec tells Bree he can “look around” in her magic to judge its extent. Her ancestors push him away, but he was able to reveal marks that show that Vera’s Bloodcraft was acquired by bargain. This “bloodmark” reveals that Vera made a deal with a demon, who is “out there waiting on [Bree] to fulfill a bargain” (421).

Bree has inherited the bargain Vera made. Such a powerful bloodmark could only be cast by the Great Devourer, also called the Hunter. Valec says they need to get to the protection of Volition immediately.

Three hours later, they arrive with Mariah at Volition, which used to be Guthrie Plantation. It’s surrounded by a powerful aether construct held in place by the enslaved ancestors who died there.