Chapter 12
“What do you mean I can’t go back?”
“I am sorry,” Shiro said. “But I do not control these things. As Merlin, the Heart of the World is yours to use and command. In this place, you are aware and stable, possibly for a very long time. But while you are safe in this sanctuary, traversing the Sea of Magic and the barrier that divides it from the physical world has always been the sole realm of the spirits. That is the practical side of why a partnership between human and Mortal Spirit is required of every Merlin. They control the roads.”
“I know that,” Marci snapped. “How do you think I got here? But if Ghost can fly me around, why can’t he fly me back out?”
“Because he is what he is,” the shikigami said helplessly. “Ask him yourself.”
Ghost flinched in her mind at that suggestion, but Marci was too panicked to read the warning. She’d already let the shikigami go and whirled to face her spirit, her body shaking in fury. “Why?” she demanded. “Why didn’t you tell me I couldn’t go back?”
“I’m sorry,” he whispered, his voice shaking. “I needed you, and I thought…I didn’t realize I was the only way.”
“But you brought those other ghosts back,” she argued. “Why not me?”
“Because they were different,” he said, looking at her at last. “I shepherd the forgotten, Marci, and that’s not you, nor should you want it to be. You’ve seen my true face. You know what I am. I’m the only one who remembers the souls I care for, and I can only bring them across the barrier in service of their final regrets. That’s why you had to die to come here, because this is the realm of the dead, but our original problem remains. I am the Spirit of the Forgotten Dead. Unless you are both dead and forgotten, you are not part of my domain, and since our domains are how spirits straddle both worlds, that means I can’t take you back, no matter how much I might wish to.”
Marci closed her eyes with a curse. She wanted to scream at him that he was wrong. That he’d promised her she could go back. She couldn’t even form the words, though, because they weren’t true. Ghost had only promised to get her to the Merlin Gate. He’d never said anything about going back. She was the one who’d jumped to that conclusion.
She’d assumed Merlins could go back because she’d assumed they had to be alive to do their job. Given what Shiro had just said, though, it was apparently perfectly possible to be both dead and a Merlin, because that’s what she was. Dead. Really dead. Really, really, doornail dead. Never-going-home dead. Never—
A sob ripped through her, sending Marci to the ground. A second gut-wrenching sob landed right on its heels, and then another and another until she was curled into a ball on the stone floor. It felt terminally unfair that this was happening when she didn’t have actual tears to cry or guts to wrench, but she couldn’t seem to stop.
I’m so sorry, the Empty Wind whispered in her mind, his voice desperate. I never meant for this to happen. I should have—
“It’s not your fault,” she said weakly. “I was dead either way. If anything, I’m grateful. You’re the reason I’m here and not still stuck in my death. It was stupid to get my hopes up. I should have been smarter, known better. I just always thought…”
She’d thought she could go home.
From the moment she’d first woken up in the dark, that had been her prize, her reward for all this suffering. She would become a Merlin, use her fantastic powers to fix whatever was wrong, and then pop back to life so she could go home to Julius. That was the hope that had given her the strength to keep going, and now it was gone. She was a Merlin with more power than she’d ever imagined, and it didn’t make a lick of difference. Even if everything worked out and she kept the magic, beat Algonquin, and forged a world where humans and spirits could live happily ever after, there was no happy ending for her. Whatever good she did, she was still just as dead as she’d been when she’d bled out in Julius’s arms, and selfish as it was, that sucked. She wasn’t ready to die. There was so much left she’d wanted to do, wanted to say. She hadn’t even gotten to tell Julius goodbye.
That was the final straw. With that one thought, all of Marci’s ability to keep it together fell apart, and so did she. She was painfully aware that everyone was watching her, but she couldn’t stop sobbing.
It was just so unfair. Hard work and sacrifice were supposed to be rewarded. The good guys were supposed to win, not end like this. Not with nothing. But just as she was sinking to the lowest circle of despair, Amelia flapped down to land on the ground beside her head.
“That’s enough of that,” she said, folding her wings tight against her small, snaking body.
Marci turned away. “If this is about bootstraps, Amelia, I don’t want to hear it.”
“As if I’d sink to something so trite,” the dragon said with a huff. “You’re free to have all the emotional breakdowns you want, but before you wallow too deeply, you really should take the time to explore your options.”
“Options?” Marci sat up, wiping her red eyes as she glared down at the little dragon. “What options do I have? I’m dead, and my spirit can’t take me back.”
“It’s true the Empty Wind can’t take you back because returning souls is outside of his jurisdiction,” she said. “But Ghost isn’t the only one here with you, is he?”
After having her hopes crushed so epically, getting them up again felt like lunacy, but Marci couldn’t help it. “You can take me back?”
Amelia’s grin grew painfully smug. “Who do you think you’re talking to? Do you really think I would die without a solid exit strategy?”
Marci clutched her aching chest. “Don’t do this to me, Amelia,” she said angrily. “Can you bring me back to life or not?”
The dragon shrugged. “When you’re playing with stakes this high, nothing’s a hundred percent, but I wouldn’t have gotten on this roller coaster with you if I didn’t think we both had a good chance of getting off again. Bob and I—”
“Bob?” Marci said, eyes wide. “What does he have to do with this?”
“Everything,” Amelia said. “Whose plan do you think this was? If all I wanted was to get a look at the magical half of this plane, I could have hitched a ride inside any old human death, but I didn’t. We chose you specifically, because Bob foresaw that you and you alone could get me here. To the place where it all comes together.”
She turned to gaze hungrily out at the wild Sea of Magic, but Marci didn’t understand. “How did Bob foresee me? I’m not even a dragon. And what do you want with the Heart of the World? This is Merlin land. You can’t do anything here.”
“You don’t have to be a dragon to get swept up in a seer’s plot,” Amelia said smugly. “And Bob’s had his eye on you for a long time. Who do you think posted the advertisement you answered the first night you got to the DFZ? It certainly wasn’t the little old lady being possessed by an angry newborn Mortal Spirit so he could feed her body to his legion of stray cats. Bob put it up because he’d foreseen that you would take the job, bind Ghost, and eventually team up with Julius.”
“You’re kidding,” Marci said. “I mean, that’s just ridiculous.”
“It is not,” Amelia said. “Giant chains of coincidence are how seers work, and my brother is a brilliant one. The moment he foresaw that a Mortal Spirit would rise early, Bob started maneuvering to make sure we had someone in position to catch him. Someone who would value the things we needed her to value, and who would take the risks we needed her to take.” The dragon smiled at her. “You.”
Marci still couldn’t believe it. Ghost looked equally shocked, though the others didn’t seem surprised at all.
“I knew you worked for dragons,” Shiro grumbled.
“Not on purpose!” Marci cried, staring at Amelia in horror. “So none of it was real?”
“It was all real,” Amelia said. “Bob pointed you at the pins, but you were the one who knocked them down. You fought all the fights and made all the hard decisions that got you to where you are, which is why my brother picked you out of all the other potential mages. He knew you had the ambition and the guts to get where we needed you to be. I did, too. That’s why I gambled my life on you. Because of all the humans who had the potential to walk through that gate and become the first Merlin, you were the only one who’d choose not to shut the magic off again.”
“Why did you even care?” Myron said, glowering. “Dragons make their own magic. You would have survived another drought just fine.”
“Surviving isn’t the same as thriving,” Amelia snapped, giving him a dirty look before turning back to Marci. “You’ve been to our original plane. You know our race’s tragedy better than any mortal and, sadly, most dragons. What you don’t know, though, is what we were before. Before we fled to this plane, the average lifespan of a dragon was thirteen thousand years. Thirteen thousand! Can you name a dragon even half that old today?”
“No,” Marci said. “But dragons don’t normally make their ages public, so that doesn’t mean—”
“It does in this case,” Amelia said. “The reason you can’t name one is because they no longer exist. Estella and Svena are revered as ancient dragons, but by the old standard, they’re not even middle aged. If you look at our history, it’s easy to blame our lowered life expectancy on clan infighting. Bethesda certainly wasn’t the only dragon who killed her father for power. But dragons have always tried to kill their parents. The difference is that they’ve been uncommonly successful over the last ten thousand years. This isn’t because modern dragons are cleverer, stronger, or more ruthless than previous generations. It’s because old dragons like the Quetzalcoatl, who should have been unbeatably powerful, were weakened by living here.”
She dug her little claws into the stone. “This isn’t our world. We came here as refugees, and though we conquered, we never fully adapted. That’s no big deal for young dragons who’re still small enough to be supported entirely by their own flames, but once we achieve a certain size, fire alone won’t cut it. Like every other magical creature, including humans, we need native magic to buoy us up and keep us stable. We were able to limp along before the drought, because even though we couldn’t actually use the magic of this plane, we could still lean on it.”
“But then it vanished,” Marci said.
Amelia nodded. “We had nothing after that. Most dragons couldn’t even change into their true shape during the drought, and the ones that could manage couldn’t maintain it for more than a few minutes at a time. But even the trick of staying in our far less magically intensive human forms only really worked for the young and small. The truly large dragons, the ones who’d fled here from our original plane, they had to either go to sleep or find alternate sources of supplemental magic, like my grandfather and his Aztec blood sacrifices. Those who could left this plane entirely in search of greener pastures, but it was always just a crutch. Even the richest power of a foreign plane is no substitute for the magic of your home.”
Marci frowned, thinking her words through. As Bethesda’s daughter, Amelia had been born right before the drought hit, well after the dragons fled to this plane. But though she couldn’t have lived through their loss, she still sounded as if she were speaking from personal experience, and suddenly, Marci realized why.
“That’s why you were always on other planes, wasn’t it? You weren’t running from Bethesda. You got too big to stay.”
“Don’t write my mother off totally,” Amelia said. “Avoiding her was a huge part of why I didn’t come home, but I was also nearing the edge of what this world could handle.”
She fluffed her smoldering feathers proudly. “You remember my impressive wingspan back on the beach? I might have mentioned this before, but thanks to the time dilation between planes, I’m a lot older than I should be. How much older is impossible to say since no one’s ever managed to make a reliable inter-planar calendar, but my best guess is I’m actually around four thousand, give or take a century.”
“That’s impossible,” Myron said. “That would make you the oldest dragon on Earth.”
“Now that the Three Sisters are dead, I am,” Amelia said matter-of-factly. “I’m older than Svena or Estella, and well big enough to have major problems with my magic. During the drought, I couldn’t be on this plane for more than a few days before I started feeling dangerously drained. Now that the magic’s back, I can manage a month, but it’s still unpleasant. This isn’t just a matter of my comfort, though. When the Merlins sealed the magic a thousand years ago, there were over a dozen ancient dragons remaining. By the time the seal broke, only the Three Sisters remained, and that was only because they’d slept through the whole thing. That’s a lot of world-class dragons dropping dead in a relatively short period of time, and while none of them died as a direct result of the loss of magic, it’s no coincidence that they were all defeated by lesser dragons who should never have had a chance of beating them, including my charming mother. That weakness is why I’m here, because unless someone does something, that’s the future of my species.”
Myron snorted. “Dying to your children?”
“Dying to a lot of things we shouldn’t,” Amelia said. “And while I know you don’t have a problem with that, this is far more serious than a few old dragons dying before their time. It’s the loss of our elders, the only dragons with the power and experience to keep the young idiots in line. Why do you think the clans have been so volatile since we got here? It’s not just because there was a land grab the moment we arrived. It’s because, by traditional dragon standards, we’re all children. We’re an entire race of young, hot-blooded fools, and when one of us does survive long enough to learn some sense, there’s not enough magic around to sustain us, which causes us to reach for power we shouldn’t in order to survive.”
That didn’t sound good. “What kind of power?” Marci asked.
Amelia shrugged. “Anything we can find. Blood sacrifice was a popular choice. Even during the drought, there was power in blood, but it wasn’t exactly an efficient exchange. Even with an empire offering him sacrifices, the Quetzalcoatl still lost to Bethesda, and only part of that was due to her backstabbing the hell out of him. Personally, I’ve never cared for blood, so I made up the difference by Planeswalking to places that had magic in abundance. It worked well enough, but it was always a temporary fix, and it’s not like Planeswalking’s a common skill. Even Svena’s never mastered it, and she’s one of the greatest dragon mages in modern history, though if you ever tell her I said that, I’ll have to kill you. The point is, even if I could teach everyone how to Planeswalk, dimension-hopping in search of food is no way for most dragons to live. We’re stupidly territorial. We need land. We need a home. And since we’re all already here, I’ve decided it’s time to properly move into this one.”
“How are you going to do that?” Myron said, trying and failing to hide his obvious curiosity behind a wall of academic disdain. “Dragons operate on a fundamentally different magical system. You can’t just ‘move into’ our plane.”
“But we already have,” Amelia said, looking up at Marci. “Do you remember how nice your death was? How big and spacious and well furnished? Whose memories built that for you?”
“Julius’s,” Marci said. “But—”
“Exactly,” Amelia snapped. “Julius, a dragon. By everything we know about magic, his memories shouldn’t have done squat because, as Captain Curmudgeon here just reminded us, dragons aren’t part of this world’s magical mojo. Or, at least, we weren’t ten thousand years ago. But that separation must be starting to blur, because as you and I both saw, Julius’s memories mattered. And if a dragon’s memories can help build a human death, what else can we do? The question is no longer ‘is integration possible?’ It’s how much integration has already occurred, and how much further can we take it?”
By the time she finished, Marci’s mind was racing. “It’s absolutely possible,” she said excitedly. “Magic is a natural system, and natural systems change and evolve when pushed.”
“Not this much,” Myron said, glaring at both of them. “This whole theory is ridiculous. Dragons have only been here for ten thousand years. That’s nothing on an evolutionary time scale, especially given how slowly the dragon population turns over. There can’t possibly have been any meaningful change in such a small period of time.”
“But we’ve already seen it,” Marci argued. “Amelia and I were both inside the death Julius shaped for me with his memories. How would that be possible if this isn’t happening?”
“Are you sure it was him?” Myron countered. “It’s no secret you were infatuated with your dragon master. Do you have any proof that it was his memories doing this and not your own wishful thinking?”
“Yes,” she snapped. “Because I was dead, and as my death spirit has informed me, human deaths are holes dug into the floor of the Sea of Magic by the memories of the living. None of my old friends from Nevada even knew I was in the DFZ, much less knew what kind of house I lived in. Julius is the only one those memories could have come from. Plus, the whole reason I was trapped there to begin with was because I was too remembered for the Spirit of the Forgotten Dead to find me. Where were those memories coming from if not from dragons?”
“They were from dragons,” Ghost confirmed. “Memories are memories no matter which head contains them. A mage who is remembered by a dragon cannot be said to be forgotten.”
“And thus we see how the wires get crossed,” Amelia said. “Even during the drought, dragons were part of every human culture. We filled your stories and your legends, decorated your art, and fought your heroes. Even today, you make endless video games and books and movies about us. It’s dragons all the way down with you guys! And as we’ve firmly established, nothing moves magic like humans.”
“Wait,” Marci said, staring at her in wonder. “Are you saying that humans integrated your magic into ours for you?”
Amelia nodded rapidly. “That’s exactly what I’m saying. We don’t need to wait for physical evolution to naturalize us because humans have it covered. Our magical bed has already been made, so to speak, and the only reason we’re not in it already is because we’re still lacking a connection between our fires in the physical world and this one.”
Marci’s eyes went wide. “You need a spirit.”
“Actually, we already have one,” Amelia said, pointing a curved talon at the blue sea. “Remember what I just said about dragons being a huge part of cultures all over the world? That’s a lot of human attention, and when a lot of humans pay a lot of attention to something, what happens?”
“You get a Mortal Spirit,” Marci said immediately.
“Bingo,” Amelia replied, staring at the swirling waters of the Sea of Magic with hungry eyes. “Somewhere out there, beneath one of those whirlpools, there’s a giant hole created by humanity’s collective idea of ‘Dragons.’ When that hole fills up, the magic inside will become the Spirit of Dragons, or at least humanity’s idea of one. Left on its own, that wouldn’t mean anything for us real dragons except trouble. Who wants a god made out of someone else’s stereotypes meddling in your affairs? But if an actual dragon got to that hole first and exerted some good old draconic influence over the magic building up inside, you’d end up with a very different sort of spirit.”
“What kind of influence?” Marci asked nervously. “Are you going to try and become its Merlin or something?”
“No way,” Amelia scoffed. “Merlins are a strictly human gig. I’m a dragon.” She showed her sharp teeth in a predatory smile. “I’m going to conquer it.”
Everyone stared at her in horror.
“What?” Marci cried at last.
“You can’t conquer a Mortal Spirit!” Myron said at the same time. “They’re enormous, pure magic on a geologic scale. You’re the size of a cat.”
Amelia snorted. “As my brother would say, ‘Judge me by my size, do you?’ I might be little now, but I’m magic, too. Everything is on this side. That’s one of the greatest things about this plane: parts is parts. Just as mages can suck down magic from anything to use in their spellwork, I can set fire to any magic I come in contact with. That’s why I gave Marci the dragon’s share of my fire. Since this isn’t our world, there’s no afterlife here for dragons. Once our fire’s gone, that’s it. We’re ash. But when Marci died with my fire inside her magic, she smuggled me across the border, and then she brought me here, to the only place on this plane where I could possibly make this work.” She grinned up at the spellworked sky. “The sanctuary of the Merlins.”
“I never should have let you in,” Shiro growled. “Dragons are always trouble.”
“But why did you want to come here?” Marci asked. “The Sea of Magic I get, but only Merlins can manipulate the Heart of the World. What good is that to you?”
“None at all,” Amelia said. “If I was here for the spellwork, which I’m not. I’m here for this.” She pointed up at the blue sky. “Calm, light, not getting burned alive—that’s what I’m after. Don’t forget, the Sea of Magic was every bit as dark and terrible and dangerous for me as it was for you. It’s all well and good to know there’s a hole out there in the shape of a dragon waiting for me to claim it, but if I had to bumble around in the dark looking for it, the Sea of Magic would chew me up before I got close. From up here, though, I can look for my spirit’s vessel without having to worry about getting ripped apart. That’s critical, because once I find our spirit, I’m going to need all the fire I’ve got left to claim it, because that sucker’s going to be huge. We’re talking about all of humanity’s collective idea of dragons gathered in one place. Do you know how many stories there are about us? We’re practically a genre.”
“I’m sure it’s very big,” Marci said. “But isn’t that a problem? Even if you can spread your fire, how are you going to take over something that size?”
“By getting in early,” Amelia said, her gleaming eyes more serious than Marci had ever seen. “The return of magic is a once-in-eternity opportunity, Marci. That’s why I was willing to risk everything for this. Somewhere out there is an enormous vessel for a dragon spirit, and this is the only moment in history that it will ever be half full. If I can get in there at the right moment and spread my fire through the magic before it develops a consciousness of its own, I won’t have to take over anything. I’ll just be the mind that’s already there when the new spirit wakes up. Once that happens, we’ll blend together, and its magic should naturally become mine. That’s what I’m here for. That’s the trick. Other than the nature of the force that carves their vessels, there’s no actual difference between a lake spirit and a Mortal one. They’re both just craters in the floor of the Sea of Magic that fill up and get a personality. Dragons can’t dig out a spirit because this isn’t our world, but if I can take over the one that humans dug for us and fill it with real dragon fire, the end result should be a spirit of dragons by dragons, just like every other animal spirit on this planet. And once we’ve got that—”
“You’ll be a native species,” Marci finished excitedly.
“Better,” Amelia said with a grin. “We’ll be rooted here. All of us. They all might burn individually, but every dragon’s fire sparked from the same original source: the magic of our home plane. The power that birthed us still burns in every dragon. It’s a thin connection, but if my theory is correct, that shared inheritance means that if I take over that spirit, it won’t just be me and my fire. It’ll be all of us. I’ll become the tie that binds dragonkind to the magic of this plane. We’ll no longer be stunted and limited to whatever power we can scrape together or cook up on our own. We’ll be home again, dragons of this plane, and it’ll all be thanks to me.” She took a deep breath, amber eyes gleaming. “I’ll be their god.”
Marci sighed. So that’s what this was about. “I knew all that ‘saving the species’ stuff was too altruistic for you.”
“I’d hardly be a dragon if there wasn’t something in it for me,” Amelia said unapologetically. “And it’s not as though I’m being underhanded. I’m the one who had the idea and who took the ultimate risk—it’s only fair that I should reap the rewards. Besides, it really is good for everyone. The whole world benefits when dragons become invested in our mutual long-term future, not to mention live long enough to grow out of our rampant megalomania stage.”
“Do you grow out of that?” Myron asked sarcastically.
“We mellow with age,” Amelia replied with a sniff. “Just look at me. My play to become the god of dragons was all wrapped up in the greater good. I’m practically a saint.”
Marci had to laugh at that. “At least now we know you weren’t kidding when you said you had bigger ambitions than Heartstriker.”
“Please,” Amelia said, disgusted. “I never wanted Bethesda’s job, and I think Bob owes Julius an apology for saddling him with that dumpster fire of a clan. This is way better. If I can pull this off, not only will I be the god who solved the deepest existential crisis of our species, I’ll be a spirit, which means I’ll be truly immortal. Even if someone does manage to kill me, I’ll just respawn in my domain. The only downside is that I could technically be bound by a mage, but I’ve never had a problem managing humans, so I’m sure it’ll be fine. Certainly worth the risk to lock in this much power and put my entire species in my debt.” She winked at Marci. “That’s what I call a win-win.”
Marci rolled her eyes. Amelia looked disgustingly pleased with herself, but while she didn’t like that the dragon had kept her in the dark about her true intentions, she didn’t actually have a problem with Amelia’s plan. It felt a little questionable to take over the Spirit of Dragons before it could wake up, but considering there wouldn’t even be a spirit of dragons without actual dragons, it could be argued that it was their spirit already. In any case, dragons needed a way to integrate, because after ten thousand years, they were definitely here to stay. The sooner they got properly merged into the native magic, the more peaceful and better off everything would be.
If it worked.
“Not that I doubt your brilliance, Amelia,” Marci said, “but how are you actually going to pull this off? I got you into the Heart of the World, but there’s still a lot of whirlpools out there, and even if you can find the right vessel, how are you getting inside? This place is a model, not the real thing. You can’t just dive in.”
“Actually, that’s exactly what I plan to do,” Amelia said. “Remember, this model is not to scale. Considering how big the Sea of Magic is, that’s a critical advantage. I might fly for years without finding anything outside, but in here, everything’s all nicely squished together.” She smiled at the sea. “I bet if I fly out into that wild blue yonder, I’ll find my vessel. After that, it’s just a matter of winging it.”
“Winging it,” Marci repeated bleakly. “That’s your plan?”
The dragon shrugged. “It’s been my M.O. since I got here. Worked so far. Remember, no dragon has ever been to this side of the plane, and Bob can’t see what happens on this side.”
“You mean you’ve been making it up this whole time?” she cried. “What’s the point of following a seer’s advice if you’re just going to fly blind?”
“Plenty,” Amelia said, giving her stern look. “Bob picks horses, not races. He chose you not because of any specific event, but because your personality and choices gave you the best chance of success over the long term. The rest was up to us. This whole thing has been one giant long shot from your death all the way to here, but we pulled it off. Now we just have to keep that up. That said, this final part is the hairiest bit, which is why I’ve taken the precaution of enlisting some outside help.”
Shiro’s head snapped up in alarm. “What kind of outside help?”
“The very best,” Amelia said, glancing up at the twisted pine tree. “I’m actually surprised he hasn’t already outed himself. He normally can’t resist a dramatic entrance.”
Marci didn’t see anything in the branches, but Shiro still looked utterly appalled.
“Where do you think you are, dragon?” he cried, reaching down to snatch Amelia up. “You are a guest in the Heart of the World! The sacred fortress of the Merlins! You have no authority to bring in others. The fact that a snake like you was permitted entrance is itself a miracle. You can’t expect such a thing to—”
He stopped, eyes going wide, though Marci had no idea why. Nothing on the mountaintop had changed that she could see. When she asked the shikigami what was wrong, though, all he said was, “There’s a bird here.”
Confused, Marci looked up again to see he was right. There was a bird in the tree above their heads. An absolutely massive black raven with a very familiar gleam in his intelligent eyes. “My ears were burning,” he croaked, hopping down to perch on the edge of the cracked seal. “Did I miss anything?”
“Hello, Raven,” Amelia said as she wormed out of Shiro’s slack fingers to join him. “Right on time.”
“I should be. I’ve been checking this place every few minutes since I heard you’d died. Though I must say, Amelia love, you look worse every time I see you. And the company you keep…” He turned sideways to examine Myron with a black eye. “Dreadful.”
Amelia lifted her lip in disgust. “I didn’t invite him. He’s a stowaway on Marci’s better nature. One of the bad habits she picked up from my baby brother.”
“Really?” Raven said, turning gravely to Marci. “You must be more discerning, Madame Merlin. Betrayal is usually a repeated behavior.”
“I don’t have to defend myself to you,” Myron said, lifting his chin. “I did what I felt was necessary to preserve the future of mankind.”
“I know,” the spirit said tiredly. “It’s one of humanity’s worst traits. Good intentions justify all kinds of terrible behavior.”
Myron was opening his mouth to argue when Shiro cut him off. “How are you here?” the shikigami demanded, his normally calm demeanor abandoned as he made a grab for Raven. “You’re an animal spirit! How did you get into this place?”
“Well, firstly, you can’t keep ravens out of anything,” Raven said, dodging easily. “And second, I’m only partially an animal spirit these days. I started out that way, but I’ve been improving myself over the years.”
“What do you mean, ‘improving yourself’?” Marci asked.
“Nothing too drastic,” Raven assured her. “But as I’m sure you’ve picked up, humans have been my hobby for a very long time. I’ve been helping your kind since you first discovered language. With such a long run, it wasn’t hard to insert myself into your stories and mythologies, start building my legacy. Every culture in the world has tales of clever ravens and crows, which I might have also coopted.”
Amelia snorted. “You stole Crow’s stories?”
“Crow is a curmudgeon who wasn’t taking advantage of humanity’s incredible abilities,” Raven said, utterly unapologetic. “And most people can’t tell us apart anyway, so I helped myself to his share.”
Marci stared at him in wonder. “You weren’t exaggerating the first time we met. You really are Raven from the stories. Not just the Spirit of Ravens, but Raven the Trickster God. You used our myths and legends about you to make yourself a Mortal Spirit!”
Raven puffed out his chest. “Finally, someone’s figured it out. It’s about time I got credit for my brilliance.” He poked his beak at Amelia. “Where do you think she got the idea of taking over the dragon spirit? She cribbed it from me.”
Marci was opening her mouth to ask him about that when Myron grabbed her shoulder and physically pushed past her. “You were a Mortal Spirit?” he yelled at Raven. “This whole time?”
“Slow on the uptake, aren’t you?” Raven said coldly. “But before you achieve critical hypocrisy by calling me a traitor, I’m not a true Mortal Spirit. My original vessel has always been the one carved out for me by my ravens all over the world. All I did was craft myself an expansion using the human tales of my actions as the mythological Raven. The result was a sort of hybrid blend of the two, but though it’s a lot of work playing two roles, I’ve always enjoyed a challenge. And before you bring it up, there’s still not quite enough magic yet to bring my Mortal Spirit side up to snuff, so I couldn’t have solved our Merlin problem any faster than Marci here did. Not that you were any help in that regard. In fact, you are a big part of why I’m here.”
Myron’s brow furrowed, but Raven had already turned back to Shiro. “You’re one of old Seimei’s shikigami, aren’t you?”
“Yes,” Shiro said, his voice suspicious. “What of it?”
“Nothing,” Raven said. “Just appreciating a master’s work. I make servants, too, though I stick to physical constructs, not intelligent magic like yourself. Still, I have a deep appreciation for the art. Tell me, are you bound directly into this place, or were you just locked up like a message in a bottle for the next person who happened to stumble through the door?”
That struck Marci as a reasonable question, but Shiro looked terminally insulted. “My master would never be so irresponsible as to leave his shikigami with no anchor,” he said haughtily. “Of course I am properly bound to the structure that governs the Heart of the World.”
“Excellent,” Raven said, turning back to Marci. “That means he has to do what you say. As the current and only Merlin, you are the undisputed master of the Heart of the World, which, as Shiro has just admitted, includes him. So, Madame Merlin, would you be so kind as to order your shikigami to bring up a scrying circle on the DFZ?”
Blinking in surprise, Marci turned to Shiro. “You have to do what I say? Why didn’t you tell me that?”
“I did,” he said sourly. “I told you I was bound to the Heart of the World and I told you you were its master. I simply assumed you would put two and two together.”
“Of course,” Marci said, rolling her eyes. “Do as Raven says.”
Shiro set his jaw. “You should not listen to him. He’s an unbound spirit and a trickster god, and he is not supposed to be here.”
“Well, I’m giving him permission to be here,” Marci snapped. “And a scrying circle is a good idea. If I’m going to be Merlin, I need to be informed, so fire it up.”
With a final scowl, the shikigami turned and walked across the flat top of the mountain to a clear spot near the outer edge. When he reached it, he pulled the folding fan out of his sash and waved it in a circle in front of him. It wasn’t until a corresponding completely spellworked circle lit up on the stone below, though, that Marci realized what had just happened.
“Holy—”
She rushed over, dropping to her knees at the edge of the glowing circle to get a closer look, but she wasn’t mistaken. There were no markings on the ground, no carved circle or premade spellwork for him to activate. Shiro had just waved his fan, and the whole thing—the circle, the spellwork, the variables, all of it—had appeared out of thin air.
“How did you do that?” she cried, jaw hanging open. “You just freecast a scrying circle!”
That was a sentence she’d never thought she’d say. Freecasting, or casting spells without written spellwork, was one of the core elements of Shamanistic magic. It worked okay for small spells if you didn’t care about safety or quality standards, but doing anything complicated was out of the question, which definitely included scrying spells. Particularly a fancy one like this. The circle at Shiro’s feet was now a clear window looking straight down through the mountain into an aerial shot of the DFZ. There was no haze or distortion, and it moved, the picture swirling around as the shikigami steered with the top of his folded fan.
“You have got to teach me how to do that.”
“Of course,” he said, his voice resigned. “I was bound here to inform and protect. But I still do not understand why we are doing this.”
Looking down, Marci didn’t either. “I don’t get it,” she said, staring at the city. “It’s just the DFZ.”
“Exactly,” Raven said, hopping over to perch on Ghost’s shoulder, which the bigger spirit didn’t seem to mind at all. “It’s just the DFZ. No cars. No people. Nothing.”
He was right. The longer Marci looked, the creepier the picture became. There were no automated taxis, no delivery drones, not even people on the sidewalks. In a city that had barely paused when the Three Sisters had been shot out of the sky above it, the emptiness was just plain wrong, but when Marci glanced at Raven to ask why, the answer found her.
“GET OUT!”
The words came from the ground itself. They echoed through the city in a roar of rage, breaking windows and cracking the supports of the abandoned Skyways. That would have been terrifying enough, but what made it a thousand times worse was the fact that Marci recognized the voice.
“Is that—”
“Yes,” Raven said. “It’s the spirit of the DFZ. The one boy genius there used my spellwork to bind and fill because he couldn’t stand the idea of someone else becoming Merlin.”
“No,” Myron said, jerking his head at Marci. “I couldn’t stand the idea of her becoming Merlin. An opinion I still maintain since her plan to deal with the upcoming magical apocalypse is to hurry it up.”
“Congratulations, then. You beat her to it,” Raven croaked, bobbing his head down at the city. “Thanks to you, we’ve got a fully formed and fully enraged Mortal Spirit on the loose. The only reason she’s not burning a swath right now is because Algonquin is holding her down, but that won’t last much longer, which is why I’m here.”
Amelia’s head whipped toward him. “I thought you were here because I asked.”
“I’m always here for you, my darling snake,” Raven said. “But this is slightly more pressing than old favors.” He turned back to Marci after that. Then, to her surprise, he lowered his head, bowing down before her until his beak touched the stone.
“I’ve come on behalf of all spirits to beg the Merlin’s help,” he said quietly. “In her fear, Algonquin used the spirits of the land who were afraid of change to fill the DFZ to the brim. This has left a newborn Mortal Spirit filled with the land’s old anger. Needless to say, it’s a volatile and dangerous situation that’s only been made worse by Algonquin’s order to evacuate the DFZ.”
“How does evacuating make things worse?” Marci asked. “I’m amazed Algonquin cared enough to get people out.”
“She didn’t do it to save the humans,” Raven said. “The DFZ is the spirit of the city. As such, her instinct is to protect her population, because people are the soul of a city. Without them, though, the DFZ is empty in more ways than the obvious. She has no anchor, nothing but the rage and fear of the spirits Algonquin stuffed her full of, and with no Merlin to help her calm down, she’s rapidly spiraling out of control. Algonquin’s managed to keep her in check thanks to Myron’s plagiarism of the spellwork I created for Emily, but the DFZ is a Mortal Spirit. She’s orders of magnitude bigger than the Lady of the Lakes. Even my brilliance can’t handle that sort of power difference. If we don’t do something soon, she’s going to break free, and when she does, she’ll destroy Algonquin, and probably her own city as well.”
“Saving the DFZ is obvious,” Marci agreed. “But why do you care if she destroys Algonquin? I thought the two of you hated each other.”
“That doesn’t matter right now,” Raven said. “Whatever happens, we cannot allow Algonquin to believe she’s lost.” He turned to Shiro again. “Show us the lake.”
The shikigami didn’t move a muscle. Only after Marci motioned for him to go ahead did he finally flick his fan, turning the scrying circle’s magical window to show the lake below Algonquin’s white tower, and the shadow floating above it.
“Wow,” Marci whispered, eyes wide.
She knew what she was looking at, of course. Algonquin’s Leviathan was almost as famous as the Lady of the Lakes herself, and Marci had gotten her own up-close-and-personal introduction to him when she’d been Algonquin’s prisoner. But the monster floating in the air above Lake St. Clair was multiple times bigger than the one they’d fought in Reclamation Land. Even with his tentacles stuck down in the lake water, which was lower than Marci had ever seen it, the crest of his rounded, beetle-like back was taller than the Skyway’s superscrapers.
“Wow, he got an upgrade.”
“No, he didn’t,” Raven said, his normally joking voice grim. “He’s just not bothering to hide his true nature anymore, which is our sign that this situation’s gone critical.”
Marci looked sideways at him. “The Mortal Spirit of a city has gone psycho, and the Leviathan’s your line for critical?”
“Yes,” he said, his talons tightening on the Empty Wind’s shoulder. “Do you remember what we discussed on the jet before you died? When you asked me about the Nameless Ends?”
“You mean what we didn’t discuss?” Marci said, crossing her arms. “Because I distinctly remember you saying it was too dangerous for mortals to know.”
“I said it was too dangerous for normal mortals,” Raven corrected. “But I did promise to tell you if you became a Merlin, which you have.”
Marci smiled. Finally, a perk to being the Merlin. “So what are they?”
“Whoa,” Amelia said, pointing at Myron, who’d gone suspiciously silent. “Should you really be outing this in front of the freeloader? He’s not exactly trustworthy.”
“He’s a traitor,” Raven agreed. “But that might actually work in our favor. If this plays out how I think it’s going to, Myron’s position as Algonquin’s inside man might be our only chance of getting out of this alive.”
Myron looked visibly relieved by that, but Marci was starting to get frustrated. “So what’s going on?” she demanded. “Why’s the Leviathan getting so big? What’s Algonquin doing?”
Raven sighed. “What she feels she has to.”
He hopped off Ghost’s shoulder, flapping down to land on the cracked seal. “Algonquin didn’t always hate humans,” he said, tapping his talons on the spellworked stone. “This changed that. When the Merlins cut off all magic and plunged the world into drought, Mortal Spirits weren’t the only ones who vanished. We all did.”
This was not new information, but the way he said it was. Marci had never heard one of the really old spirits sound anything other than demanding or cocky or angry, but this was different. This time, Raven sounded afraid.
“Do you know what that was like for us?” he whispered. “We are the immortal spirits, as old and immutable as the land itself. Our changes happen on geologic timelines: mountains eroding into plains, or tiny proto-birds evolving into ravens. That was our reality, the world we’d always known. Then, all of a sudden, it wasn’t. Magic, the very stuff of our existence, dried up like a river in summer, and without it, we—the deathless—died.”
“That’s a little dramatic,” Marci said. “I mean, you came back.”
“We didn’t know that then,” Raven said bitterly. “The Merlins made their decision without consulting us. They knew what would happen to us, but they decided we were an acceptable sacrifice for humanity’s safety. There’s not a spirit in the world who took that well, but Algonquin took it personally.”
“But I’m not going to take the magic away again,” Marci said quickly. “The Last Merlins made a tough call with a lot of negative externalities, but the situation now is different. I’m not going to repeat—”
“I know,” Raven said. “Why do you think I’m so delighted you beat Myron to the punch? But while we know you’re not like your predecessors, Algonquin doesn’t. I got in here because I’m clever and adaptable, but Algonquin’s a true spirit of the land, stubborn as a rock. She has no access to the Heart of the World and no idea what’s happening on our end. All she sees is what’s in front of her, which right now consists of Myron’s comatose body and an unbound Mortal Spirit running amok. She thinks her bid to get a Merlin failed, and now Myron’s stuck on this side while his spirit goes haywire, which means it’s up to her to put the DFZ down again before it destroys her lakes.”
Marci bit her lip. “I see why you came. Algonquin and the Leviathan are bad enough on their own, but if they start beating the spirit of the DFZ into submission, the whole city could be destroyed. It’ll be the night of the flood all over again.”
“Actually, that’s the good part,” Raven said. “We want her to fight the DFZ, because fighting means she hasn’t given up hope yet that she can salvage the situation. The real danger comes when she gets desperate.”
“How much more desperate can she get?”
“Plenty,” he said. “Remember what I just said about the night the magic vanished? We thought it was the end of the world. We’d never even contemplated death, and then suddenly everyone we knew was dropping like flies. We had no idea how to stop what was happening or if the magic that sustained us would ever come back. That sort of fear drives even the wisest spirits to do desperate, stupid things, and Algonquin was no exception. She thought the end of the world was upon her, so she did the only thing she could. She cried out for help, offered everything she had if this would only stop, and unfortunately for us, something answered.”
“What?” Marci asked breathlessly.
Raven opened his beak to answer, but Amelia beat him to it.
“A Nameless End.”
Marci whirled to face the little dragon. “You knew about this?”
“’Course I knew,” Amelia said with a shrug. “Raven and I have been in cahoots for a long time. Plus, I’m the Planeswalker. This is kind of my area.”
“How so?” Marci asked. “Are Nameless Ends something from the planes? What are they?”
“Good questions,” Amelia said. “I have answers for both, but to understand them, we need to do a little Planeswalking 101.” The small dragon sat back on her haunches, making herself comfortable on the spellworked seal like she was about to tell a story.
“There are uncountable millions of planes in our collective multiverse,” she began. “Some are enormous, like this one. Others are much, much smaller, but they’re all self-contained with their own magic, physics, and rules. Most of the time, these rules overlap with only a few minor differences. The rules of physics in particular appear to be universal. Alike or unalike, though, every plane is its own specific thing. A little universe all its own separated from everything else by a planar barrier, which is what I, as a Planeswalker, have to cut through whenever I want to walk between them.”
“I know that much,” Marci said impatiently. “You’re describing the principle behind all portal magic. Even we’ve figured that out.”
“Ah,” Amelia said, lifting her talon. “But what you modern mages haven’t rediscovered yet is that you can’t just cut the hole anywhere, because not all planes touch in all places. Imagine the multiverse as a room full of balloons. There are places where the balloons touch and places where the curves form gaps. Obviously, it’s not quite that simple since we’re working in multiple dimensions, but the basic idea of all Planeswalking is that you want to make your portal where you know your plane is touching the one you want to travel to. That’s why artifacts like the Kosmolabe are so incredibly cool. They show you where planes touch.”
“And where to cut through,” Marci said, nodding. “But what does this have to do with Nameless Ends?”
“I’m getting to that,” the dragon said. “Go back to that room full of balloons. Just as there are places where the surfaces touch, there are places where they don’t. Those bits of emptiness, the spaces between the curves of the planar barriers, are where the Nameless Ends reside. They’re what we in the business call ‘extraplanar beings,’ entities bigger and broader than anything we can imagine. They’re so huge and old and alien, no one I’ve spoken to on any plane knows where they came from, but they do all seem to be unique. They’ve all got their own goals and ways of doing things. Despite their diversity, though, all Nameless Ends perform the same function within the planar ecosystem: decomposition.”
“Decomposition,” Marci repeated slowly. “You mean they eat dead planes?”
“Dead, collapsing, on the brink.” Amelia shrugged. “You name it, they take care of it in their own way, and there are a lot. I’ve never heard an exact number I believed, but the common saying is that there are as many Nameless Ends as there are ways for things to end. Each one’s got its own flavor: violent explosions, infinite expansion to point of collapse, the heat death of the universe, classic annihilation—you get the idea. But even though they can be wildly different, every Nameless End is called such because it represents a way the world can, and will, end, which is why it’s cause for alarm that Algonquin has one.”
Marci clapped a hand over her mouth. “The Leviathan,” she said. “That’s why no one knew where it came from, because it’s not from our world at all. It’s a Nameless End!” When Raven nodded, she leaned forward eagerly. “Do you know what kind of end it is?”
“Nope,” he said. “And seeing how there’s no way to know until it starts actually ending things, I don’t want to. I just want it gone.”
Marci was about to ask how to do that when Myron spoke over her.
“If the Leviathan is what you claim, why aren’t we already dead?” he asked. “That monster’s been at her side since the night magic returned. Possibly earlier, if your story about Algonquin calling for help is true. That’s a long time for something called a ‘Nameless End’ to hang around and not end things, especially given the way Algonquin treats it. She acts like it’s her pet, which is not how I’d expect a spirit to treat a supposed end of everything. For that matter, why would she call out to a monster like that in the first place? Whatever she’s guilty of, no one can doubt Algonquin’s dedication to her lakes. Presumably, a Nameless End would destroy those as well. Why would she risk that?”
He had a point there. “How did she even get a Nameless End?” Marci asked. “If he’s an extraplanar being, wouldn’t him being here inside our plane end the world?”
“It would,” Amelia said. “If he were really inside. Thankfully, he’s not. At least not yet.” She pointed down at the shadow of the Leviathan staining the scrying circle. “I’m sure you’ve noticed how he always seems to be made of shadows. That’s because what we know as the Leviathan in this world is just a projection. A broadcast of a bit of his magic into our plane from the outside. If he were actually here, our world would already be toast, and we wouldn’t be having this conversation. But the trick with Nameless Ends is that they only ‘clean up’ planes that are already breaking apart. Before that point, the planar barrier keeps them out, like how a healthy cell wall keeps out viruses. This is a strong, stable plane. Normally, a Nameless End wouldn’t be able to slide so much as a tentacle through our barrier. With enough force, though, anything’s possible, and I’m afraid we had a breach.”
She tapped her claws on the crack in the stone seal, and Marci cursed. “The meteor. That’s what was inside it, the alien magic Shiro was talking about. It was the Leviathan.”
“It was,” Raven confirmed. “Algonquin called out to it when the magic vanished. What she promised, I don’t know, but a thousand years later, the Leviathan came to collect, striking our planet hard enough to crack the Merlins’ seal and wake the spirits again.”
“That must be why none of the space agencies saw the meteor coming,” Marci said. “It didn’t come from space. It came from outside our plane.”
“It also explains the mystery of how a physical space rock was capable of cracking the Merlins’ spell,” Myron admitted, despite clearly not wanting to. “It wasn’t a rock at all.”
“It was a piece of a Nameless End,” Raven finished. “Called here by Algonquin, and now we’re all in hot water.”
“But why now?” Myron pressed. “If it was in the meteor—”
“It was,” Raven said.
“Then why didn’t it kill us all sixty years ago?” the mage finished. “And why did it only send a piece? If this thing’s so huge, why didn’t it blast its way in?”
“Because it can’t,” Amelia said. “I just told you, Nameless Ends only devour collapsed planes, and our plane isn’t in collapse. The only reason it was able to get anything through the planar barrier at all was because someone let it in. Probably Algonquin, given the whole ‘crying out in desperation’ story. Or maybe it just waited until it found a gap. Those do occur naturally sometimes. Either way, this plane is healthy enough that it was only able to get a tiny sliver of itself inside. If it wants to bring in the rest, someone on the inside has to help. Someone powerful, with enough magical weight to drag the rest of that thing’s body through the planar wall. Someone like Algonquin.”
“That’s why it woke her up,” Raven said, “and why it’s served her ever since. The Leviathan needs Algonquin to pull it the rest of the way inside so it can destroy our world.”
“But why would she do that?” Marci asked. “Destroying the world would mean destroying her lakes as well. Even Algonquin’s not that crazy.”
“Not yet,” Raven said. “But that’s only because she still hopes to turn things around. So long as there’s no Merlin to break this seal, she still has a chance of clamping the magical flow down to a level that stops the rise of the Mortal Spirits while leaving the rest of us intact. That’s her entire end goal. In her mind, the full return of magic is the end of the world. If that happens, she will be that crazy, and we’ll all be toast.”
Marci blew out a long breath. “I see what you mean. But if our survival depends on keeping Algonquin’s hopes up, we’ve got a problem, because she’s already lost. I’m the Merlin, not Myron.”
“You could repair the seal,” Myron suggested. “That would stop her.”
“I’m not going to screw over all of humanity, the Mortal Spirits, and Amelia’s shot at integrating dragons into our plane because Algonquin’s holding a gun to our heads,” Marci said angrily. “That’s extortion. We’ll just have to find another way to beat it.”
“I don’t think you can beat a Nameless End,” Raven said. “But that’s fine, because if we play our cards right, we won’t have to.”
Amelia chuckled. “The trickster at work.”
“I have a reputation to live up to,” Raven said, winking at her before turning back to Marci and, surprisingly, Myron. “Here’s my plan. As of right now, Algonquin has no idea what’s happened in the Heart of the World. She still thinks that you’re dead”—he nodded at Marci—“and that you screwed up.” He nodded at Myron. “She doesn’t know yet that anyone’s become a Merlin, and so long as she stays ignorant, we have a shot at fixing this.”
“How is she not going to know?” Marci asked, pointing at the empty city on the other side of the scrying circle. “She’s about to be in an all-out war with the spirit of the DFZ. I don’t care what evacuation orders she gave—you can’t empty a city of nine million in a few hours. There are still people down there, and I’m the Merlin. Dealing with rampaging spirits is my job. I have to do something. What, exactly, I have no idea, but the moment I do it, I’m pretty sure Algonquin’s going to know I’m not dead.”
“Not if she doesn’t see you,” Raven said. “It’s a big city, and she’s a huge spirit, but you’re human sized. If we sneak you in, you can deal with the DFZ. Bind her, drain her, knock her out, whatever. Just get her back under control. Once she’s locked down, Myron can come in and claim the credit.”
“Excuse me?” Myron said.
“Why him?” Marci said at the same time.
“Because he’s the one Algonquin sent,” Raven explained patiently. “Remember, Algonquin’s a spirit of the land. She’s heard stories and seen the pillar, but she’s never actually been inside the Heart of the World. If the DFZ goes quiet and then Myron walks out cocky as ever with a good story about how he temporarily lost control of his spirit, but everything’s good now, Algonquin has no reason not to believe him. That’s a totally plausible story to her, and even better, it’s the one she wants to hear. She wants to believe that she’s won, that she’s successfully hacked the system. Once we’ve got her buying that, all Myron has to do is promise to knock the magic levels back down as ordered, but only if she boots the Leviathan first.”
Myron looked horrified. “You want me to scam Algonquin?”
“You already scammed her,” Raven said. “You can’t fool me. I’ve worked with you for decades. I know you came in here intending to shut the magic off completely, and I’m equally certain you didn’t tell Algonquin that while you were ripping Emily to pieces. You’ve already played her. Now we’re just taking things a step further.”
“Misleading Algonquin about my true intentions is a far cry from pretending to be Merlin to her face,” Myron said, his eyes wide and fearful. “How am I supposed to explain my knowledge of the Leviathan?”
Raven shrugged. “Just say I told you. She already thinks the worst of me. What’s a bit more?”
“Especially since it’s the truth,” Marci said. “But there’s a critical flaw in your plan. If we’re going to have any chance of making Algonquin believe Myron’s her Merlin, he’s going to have to show up with his Mortal Spirit, and I just don’t see that happening right now.”
Myron whirled on her. “You just told me not ten minutes ago that you wanted me to rebind the DFZ legitimately!” he cried. “That was your entire requirement for building a failsafe into the seal. Now you’re saying I can’t do it? Make up your mind!”
“It is made up!” Marci yelled back. “You can do it, just not like this.”
She threw out her hands at the scrying circle, where the city was groaning like a chained animal. “When I was talking before, I assumed we’d be waiting until she calmed down and then go in slowly, building trust back from the ground up, but this situation is lunacy. She’s beating against Algonquin with everything she has. If you go down there now, assuming we can even find a way to get you down there, seeing how we’re both ghosts, I’m pretty sure she’s going to eat you.”
“Then you’d better figure out a way to change her mind,” Raven said. “Because Algonquin’s already losing her control over the situation. Even with the Leviathan helping pump in water to hold her down, it’s only a matter of time before the DFZ breaks free. When that happens, it’ll be all-out war between Algonquin and the world’s only full Mortal Spirit, and considering the size difference, I think we all know how that’s going to end.”
“Don’t write Algonquin off so easily,” Ghost warned. “She may be much smaller, but she’s experienced, determined, and desperate. The DFZ is maddened, young, and lacking a human anchor. If she throws her power around without thought or a mage to feed power into her, she will very quickly run out, and then Algonquin will have the upper hand.”
“You can’t kill a Mortal Spirit,” Marci reminded him.
“But you can destroy her domain,” Ghost replied, looking down at the familiar buildings. “The DFZ is the soul of a city. Algonquin can’t remove that from people’s minds, but she can easily destroy Detroit again. It won’t kill the DFZ’s spirit, but a setback like that will probably keep her from rising again for decades.”
“And meanwhile, the entire city will be destroyed,” Marci said grimly. “Again.”
She scowled down at the scrying circle for a long moment, and then her head shot up. “Is there a reason we couldn’t just fake the whole thing? What if Ghost pretended to be Myron’s Mortal Spirit. Would that work?”
The blast of cold in her mind made the Empty Wind’s opinion of that plan very clear, but Raven’s answer was the one that made her slump.
“No,” he said. “Even if the Empty Wind could pull off his part, Algonquin would never believe it, because Myron doesn’t look like a Merlin.”
“Merlins look different?” she asked, staring down at her body, which, other than the ghostly transparency, looked normal enough to her. “How?”
“Lots of ways,” Raven assured her. “Humans generally can’t tell because you don’t see things like we do, but there’s not a spirit born who can’t tell a Merlin on sight. No. If we’re going to sell Myron as Merlin, then he’s going to have to actually be a Merlin, and since the DFZ is one of only two Mortal Spirits in existence right now, he’d better brush up on his groveling.”
Marci didn’t think any amount of groveling would make up for what Myron had done, but the other thing Raven said gave her an idea. “What about you?” she asked, looking the bird up and down. “You said you’re half Mortal Spirit.”
“And the last one in the world Algonquin would trust,” Raven said, shaking his head. “If Myron showed up with me as his Mortal Spirit, Algonquin wouldn’t believe a word he said, which defeats the entire purpose. We need her to believe she’s won. It’s the only way she’ll feel confident enough to give up her trump card.”
“Assuming she hasn’t decided to destroy everything already,” Myron said bitterly. “She has a very low opinion of the world.”
“I don’t think that’s it,” Marci said thoughtfully. “Don’t get me wrong. I’m sure Algonquin hates all of our guts individually and by name, but no one who’s fought as hard, long, and creatively as she has is going to give up before the bitter end. So long as there’s even the faintest hope of turning this around, I don’t think she’ll sell out to the Leviathan. That buys us time.”
“Let’s just hope it’s enough,” Raven said, folding his wings tight against his body. “Right, let’s do this. First things first, we need to get the two of you back to the physical side of things. Myron will be easy. We just have to find where Algonquin’s stashed his carcass and take it back. Your return, Marci, will be slightly more involved, but I’m pretty sure I’ve covered all the angles, so if you’re ready…”
He trailed off, but Marci was just staring at him, too afraid to speak. “I—” She stopped, swallowing against the terrible tightness in her chest. “You’re saying you can take me back? As in bring me back to life?”
“Absolutely,” he said, giving her a wink. “Why do you think Amelia begged for my help? Ravens are famous for bringing back the souls of the dead.”
After having her hopes dashed so hard, Marci couldn’t bring herself to believe it. And yet… “Really?”
“Really,” he promised. “I actually made up that part of my legend myself. It seemed like it would be useful, and it has been. I’m glad it stuck.”
“So you can take me back,” Marci said again. “Actually back to life?”
“Yes,” he said, turning to Amelia. “Is she always this suspicious?”
“She’s been through a lot recently,” the dragon said. “And you are a trickster.”
“Not about this sort of thing,” Raven snapped. “I’m not cruel.” He turned back to Marci. “Yes, Miss Novalli, I am sincerely offering to bring you back to the world of the living. That said, since I’m not your bound spirit or even a true Mortal one, I should warn you the journey will be—”
“I don’t care,” Marci said immediately. “So long as I don’t wake up as a zombie, I don’t care what you do. Just, please, take me back.”
“I already offered, but your begging is noted,” he said happily. “Now, let’s get this—”
“Wait!” Amelia cried, jumping off the seal to dig her claws into Marci’s arm. “You can’t go yet!”
“Why not?” Marci cried, staring at her friend in betrayal. “You brought him here to do this.”
“Yeah, but not yet. Remember how I said this was all part of Bob’s plan? Well, he warned me about this. No one is allowed to leave the Heart of the World until we get the signal.”
Marci couldn’t believe this. “What signal?”
“I don’t know,” Amelia admitted. “But he said I’d know it when I saw it.”
“That’s it?” she cried. “That’s our reassurance? You’ll ‘know it when you see it?’”
“That’s all I need,” Amelia said firmly, letting go of Marci’s arm. “I trust Brohomir with my life and my death. If he says something is important, I listen, especially since this was the only specific information he gave me about this entire trip. He said that if I got to the Heart of the World, I shouldn’t let anyone leave until I got his signal, and that I’d know it when I saw it.”
“And you believed that?” Raven said skeptically.
Amelia gave him a burning look. “Why do you think I haven’t flown off to find the vessel for the Spirit of Dragons yet?”
Raven sighed. “Good enough for me,” he said, settling down on the seal. “Looks like we wait.”
“You can’t be serious,” Myron said. “What happened to ‘we have to move now’ and ‘let’s hope there’s still time?’”
“Oh, that’s all still there,” the bird spirit said. “But when a dragon seer says you should do something, it’s generally a good idea to follow instructions. They see the future, you know.”
“But how long can we wait?” Marci asked, glancing at the scrying circle. “The DFZ will break out at any moment.”
“I don’t know,” Amelia said. “But it’ll be worth it. You’ve seen Bob in action. You know what he can do. Trust him.”
Marci covered her face with her hands. She was so close, so close to going home, and now this. As much as she hated it, though, Amelia was right. She had seen Bob in action, and while she didn’t always like where his plans led, she’d yet to see the seer be wrong. If he said there would be a signal, then there would be a signal. The only question left was would it come in time for their plans, or his?
There was no way to know. With so many power players pushing their own agendas, picking out what was actually right felt like trying to catch a single snowflake in a storm, though it did give her renewed sympathy for Julius’s position. He had to deal with stuff like this all the time. If he’d been here, Marci was sure he’d already have a brilliant compromise that pleased everyone. But Julius wasn’t here, and if she ever wanted to see him again—ever wanted to be alive again—she was going to have to make a decision.
“Okay,” she said, letting out a long breath. “We’ll wait.”
Are you sure? Ghost whispered.
“No,” she said. “But while I’m certain Bob would have no problem discarding us all as pawns in his game, he wouldn’t do that to Amelia. If he says she needs to wait, then that’s how she’s getting out of this alive, and since that’s what I want, too, we’re playing along.”
And if we get played?
Marci laughed. “Little late for that. According to Amelia, Bob’s hand’s been in my life since before we met. But other than the dying part, I like where he’s taken me, so I’m going to stay on the ride. If nothing else, it’s nice to have someone on our side who knows what he’s doing.”
“I’m not so sure about that,” Myron said, giving Amelia a dirty look. “Isn’t Bob the crazy one who nearly ran you over with his car at the diner outside Heartstriker Mountain?”
“He’s not so bad,” Marci said with a shrug. “And he’s never wrong.” She sat down on the ground beside the scrying circle. “We’ll wait for his signal.”
“You won’t be sorry,” Amelia promised, hopping into her lap. “My brother put a lot of work into this. Trust me. It’s going to be awesome.”
Myron rolled his eyes at that. Raven didn’t look particularly happy, either, and Shiro seemed ready to throw them back out into the dark. For all the mixed reactions, though, they must have respected Marci’s authority as Merlin at last, because no one challenged her further, not even Myron. They all just stood there in silence, watching the empty shell of the evacuated DFZ through the scrying circle as the spirit’s groaning grew worse and worse and worse.