Chapter 14
If Marci had had a life left to lose, the last thirty minutes would have taken twenty years off it.
Not five minutes after she’d agreed to wait for Bob’s signal, the DFZ had started shaking like gelatin. The collapses came next. It started by the river, but within minutes, every Skyway in the city was either cracked or falling. It was the worst disaster since the original flooding of Detroit, and stuck here in the Heart of the World, she couldn’t do a thing about it.
“I don’t know how much more of this I can take.”
“Bob will come through,” Amelia assured her. “Just wait.”
“If we wait much longer, there’ll be nothing left to save,” Myron said, clenching his fists. “We have to stop this.”
“But what do we stop?” Marci asked, pointing at the collapsing city. “Is this the DFZ’s doing or Algonquin’s?”
“I don’t think it’s either, actually,” Raven said, head tilting quizzically. “I’ve never felt magic like this before.”
“Neither have I,” Amelia said. “But there’s definitely a dragon involved. A big one.” She leaned out over the moving image, peering curiously down through the scrying circle into the destruction. “I wonder who it is?”
“The dragon’s the least of our worries,” Ghost said, pointing at the city’s northern edge. “Look.”
Marci swore under her breath. Below the Leviathan’s shadow, Lake St. Clair was dropping at an alarming rate. So was the Detroit River, the muddy water retreating, like something upriver was sucking it in. The riverbed south of Fighting Island dried up as she watched, leaving a flat swath of barren mud and gasping fish all the way to Lake Erie, which was also drying up. All the water was, and the longer Marci watched, the more afraid she became.
“I think we’re out of time.”
“Not yet,” Amelia said. “Bob will come through.”
“I’m sure he will,” Marci said. “For you. But we’ve got to do something now. Look at this!” She pointed at the city, where buildings were collapsing and helicopters were falling out of the sky like dead bugs. “This has gone way past ‘wait and see.’ Whatever that dragon’s doing, it’s kicked off a full-blown disaster, and if we don’t do something to stop it, Algonquin will.”
As though it’d been waiting for its cue, the retreating water chose that moment to break, surging back down the riverbed in a wave as tall as the Skyways. It crashed through the city, tearing telephone poles out of the ground and picking up trucks like dead leaves. The water hit the crowded bridges next, knocking buses sideways against the guardrails and ripping people unlucky enough to have their windows down out of their cars and into the churning river below.
“That’s it,” Marci growled.
“Marci, no,” Amelia pleaded, digging her claws into her arm. “Trust me!”
“I do,” she said, staring down at her friend. “I absolutely believe you when you say Bob’s got a plan. I just can’t wait for it anymore. There’s more at stake here than buildings and people’s lives. Our plan relies on getting the DFZ on our side. That was always a long shot, but it’ll be legitimately impossible if we let her domain be destroyed.”
“She has a point,” Raven said.
“I never said she didn’t,” Amelia snapped, looking back at Marci. “You’re absolutely right, but that doesn’t change the fact that if we move too early, we’re not going to win.” She clasped her claws together. “Please, Marci, I’m begging you. Give Bob more time, and I swear on what’s left of my fire, he will come through.”
Marci clenched her jaw, glaring down at the collapsing city as Algonquin’s wave finished washing through it. She was still trying to make a decision when Shiro’s voice spoke behind her. “I don’t know if we have the luxury of more time.”
She looked up in surprise. The last she’d seen him, the shikigami had been to her left, controlling the scrying circle. He must have walked away while they’d been watching the destruction, though, because he was now back at the center of the circular mountain top, standing over the seal with a pale, worried look.
“Merlin.”
Marci was at his side in an instant. Myron joined her a split second later, his eyes widening in alarm as he reached down to touch the crack in its surface. The damage that had once been a hairline fracture, but was now big enough to slide his fingernail into.
“How did this happen?”
“I already told you,” Shiro said. “It’s the volatility.” He looked pointedly out at the Sea of Magic, which now looked like footage of the Florida coast during a hurricane. “Algonquin and the DFZ are two very large spirits. When they fight, the whole sea churns. If we don’t calm it down, quickly, it’ll no longer be a question of how to fix the seal. The whole thing is going to break.”
And send a thousand years of magic flooding back into the world all at once. “So how do we stop it?” she asked, turning to Myron.
“I don’t know if we can,” he said nervously, leaning over the stone to study the marks split by the crack. “Patching the Merlins’ seal was always going to be the spellwork equivalent of putting duct tape over a crack in the Hoover Dam. Now we’ve got Algonquin and the DFZ taking a hammer to the other side as well.” He shook his head. “Frankly, I’m amazed the crack’s only widened this much.”
“You have to calm them down,” Shiro said desperately. “Even before it was damaged, the seal was not made to withstand this sort of abuse. If your plan to return the magic slowly is to survive, this war between gods cannot continue.”
“It can’t continue if any of us wish to survive,” Raven croaked from where he was still perched on the edge of the scrying circle. “The DFZ’s domain is getting hammered. If she goes down, our best chance to trick Algonquin into getting rid of her Nameless End goes with her.”
“And if she breaks out, the Sea of Magic will grow even more violent,” Myron said, turning back to Marci. “We can’t wait anymore. The seal is at its structural limit. Also, with all the water Algonquin’s throwing around, my physical body, which I left in the Pit, is probably in serious danger. I’m not tied to a death spirit like you. If I drown, I just die, and Raven’s plan comes to nothing. The longer we wait, the smaller our chance of success becomes. Seer or not, you have to go now.”
“If she does that, it won’t work!” Amelia said angrily. “This isn’t a question of chance. Bob’s already seen the future. He knows what’s going to happen, and the only way we land the future we want is by following his instructions and waiting for the signal.” She put a claw on Marci’s hand. “He’ll come through,” she whispered. “Wait.”
Marci let out a long breath. She knew Amelia was right. Going against a seer’s advice was monumentally stupid, and yet…
She turned and walked back the scrying circle, looking down at what was left of her city. The wave that had washed through the Underground was receding now, but the damage it had caused was immense, and that was her fault. She was the one who’d cut Myron’s leash and sent the DFZ back, the one who’d decided not to stop the magic again. Those were her decisions, and while she still believed she’d done the right thing, the costs were greater than she could have imagined. Everywhere she looked there was chaos and destruction, and the longer they waited, the worse it would get.
The logical choice was to do as Amelia said and wait for Bob’s cue, but when the stakes were this high, did she have the right to make it? To stand here and wait for the right moment while others suffered for her decisions?
No.
Marci closed her eyes. The voice in her head was cold comfort, literally. But while Ghost’s opinions could be sharp, they were usually spot on, so she sucked it up and asked, “Why?”
No one has the right to make others pay for their choices, her spirit said, stepping up beside her. But that’s the price of making decisions that matter.
Marci didn’t understand. “But—”
You are Merlin now, he said. No matter what you decide, there will be consequences. Someone is going to get hurt, and it will be your fault. That’s the burden of leadership, but I wouldn’t have chosen you if I didn’t think you could carry it.
He looked over his shoulder at Amelia, who was still watching Marci like a tiny red hawk. The dragon and I both chose you because we trusted you to make the right decisions when the time came. Not the safe ones or the easy ones, but the choices that will actually get us to where we need to be. That’s the burden we place on you, but you don’t have to carry it alone. We are with you, whatever you decide.
He held out his ghostly hand as he finished. After a moment, Marci took it, sliding her shaking fingers into his still, freezing ones. It felt wrong and reckless to accept so much trust. She’d been punching above her weight class since the night she’d blown up her childhood house. Even now, standing as a Merlin in the Heart of the World, she was making it all up as she went. She had no idea what she was doing, how she was going to pull it all off without disaster, and yet, despite everything, she was the Merlin. Even if Bob had pulled the strings that got her in front of it, the Merlin Gate had opened for her. That had to count for something.
“Audacity is the baseline for entry,” she whispered, clutching her spirit’s hand as she turned back to Amelia. “We’ll wait.”
The dragon slumped in relief, but she was the only one. Everyone else looked deeply concerned, including Marci herself. But then, just as she opened her mouth to tell them—and remind herself—of all the times Bob had pulled off the impossible, something incredible happened.
Later, looking back, Marci was never able to say exactly what it was. There’d been no jolt, no flash of light or swell of magic. It was just a feeling. An odd giddiness that spread through her mind like golden sunshine.
If it’d been only her, Marci might have written it off as the relief of finally making a decision, but Amelia had clearly felt it, too. The moment the happiness had blossomed in Marci’s mind, the little dragon had jumped, leaping so high, she nearly fell into the scrying circle.
“Did you feel that?!”
Marci nodded, eyes wide.
“I felt it, too,” Ghost said, his deep voice rich with wonder. “It was beautiful. What was it?”
“Dragon magic of some sort,” Amelia said, her eyes round. “Insanely strong, too. Almost primal. I’ve never felt anything like it.”
“Is that good or bad?” Marci asked.
“I don’t know,” Amelia said with a sharp-toothed grin. “But I bet it’s our signal.”
Myron scoffed. “I didn’t feel anything.”
“Neither did I,” Raven said, his croaking voice deeply disappointed. “Can you describe it?”
“No,” Marci said, grinning as wide as Amelia. That only made Raven more upset, but she couldn’t stop. The beautiful golden feeling was getting bigger by the second, filling her to bursting with happiness and an insane confidence that whatever she tried, no matter how risky, it would work. Today was her lucky day. It was all going to work!
After a terrifying half hour of waiting, the sudden joy was like a starter pistol. Amelia was already racing for the mountain’s edge, flapping her little wings frantically as she shot off the cliff, over the green forest, and out toward the tumultuous blue sea.
The smile fell off Marci’s face. Even the supernatural giddiness wasn’t enough to stop the flood of panic as she realized what Amelia was doing.
“Wait!” she cried, running after her friend.
“No more of that,” Amelia called back, flapping faster. “I’ve waited centuries for this. I’m not waiting another second. Somewhere out there is the spirit of dragons, and I’m going to find it!”
“But you don’t even know where it is!” Marci shouted, skidding to a halt at the cliff’s edge. “There are thousands of spirits out there. At least wait until I can help you find—”
“I told you,” the dragon yelled, her voice fading as she flew farther and farther away. “No more waiting. This was my signal as much as yours. I don’t know what’s going to happen, but Bob told me it was the only way, and he’s never let me down.”
She looked back over her shoulder, her eyes flashing with excitement. “I’ve got this, Marci! Go with Raven. He’ll take you back so you can actually do all that Merlin stuff we went through all this nonsense for.” She turned back, folding her wings close against her body as she prepared to dive. “Just stick to the plan, and I’ll see you on the other side.”
“But how are you even going to get there?” Marci yelled. “Amelia!”
But it was too late. The little dragon was already falling like an arrow, her serpentine body vanishing with barely a splash into the intense, endless blue of the Heart of the World’s interpretation of the Sea of Magic. Marci was still staring at the place where she’d gone under when a heavy weight landed on her shoulder.
“There, there,” Raven said, clutching her gently with his talons. “She told you she was going to take over a Mortal Spirit, and she can hardly do that from up here.”
“I didn’t know she was going to dive into the water!” Marci said frantically. “She could barely keep herself together in the Sea of Magic without Ghost. How’s she going to find the right vessel before the magic grinds her to paste? She doesn’t even know where she’s going!”
“That’s her yoke to bear,” Raven said with a wink. “But you’re not the only one who’s good at playing things by ear. I’ve known Amelia since she was younger than you are. She’s as twisty and conniving as the next dragon, but she never jumps unless she knows she’s going to land on her feet. She’ll be fine. You need to worry about yourself.”
He ducked his head, leaning over to stare straight into her eyes with his black, beady ones. “It’s time to keep your promise, Merlin.”
With a shaky breath, Marci nodded. She turned away from the cliff where Amelia had vanished and walked back toward the others, who were still standing beside the cracked seal. “Myron,” she said firmly, “keep an eye on that crack. Block it with your own magic if you have to, but do not let it break.”
“I’ll do what I can,” he said. “It’ll be about as useful as putting my finger in the dike, but I’ll try. Just don’t take too long. And good luck.” He glanced nervously at the wild sea. “You’ll need it.”
In the strangest way, Marci felt like she already had it, because scared as she was, she’d never felt luckier in her life. She wasn’t sure if that was from knowing she was safe in Bob’s matrix or what, but the moment Myron said it, Marci knew from the top of her head to the tip of her toes that he was right. This was her lucky break, and she was going to need every bit of it.
“Ready?” she asked Ghost.
Rather than answer, her spirit jumped at her, turning back into a fluffy white cat just before he landed in her arms. When he was safely curled in a freezing ball against her chest, Marci turned back to Raven with a determined look.
“Take us back.”
It was impossible to tell, thanks to the beak, but she would have sworn the bird spirit grinned at her as he spread his wings. When he flapped them, his talons dug painfully into her shoulder, yanking her soul out of the Heart of the World and into the dark beyond.
***
Back in the DFZ, everything was going wrong.
Algonquin knelt at the bottom of the lake she’d made in the Pit. The lake that was supposed to hold the monster down, but was now draining away. She didn’t even know how it had happened. The water was hers, pulled from all her bodies through rivers and lakes and storm drains, from the very bottom of herself. This entire section of the DFZ should have been under her absolute control. Hers to command, just like the beds of the lakes that gave her her name. And yet, somehow, it wasn’t.
Water had slipped. Magic had failed. Leftover spellwork from her mages had interacted poorly. The crazed spirit below had gotten a few lucky hits. Alone, none of it would have mattered. Together, though, it had been too much, and she’d been forced to let the water—her water, her life, the essence of what she was—go. Now it was all flooding uselessly through her city in a wave of failure, and she didn’t know if she had the strength to pull it in a second time.
I told you it was lost.
“It’s not lost,” Algonquin said bitterly, looking back at the shadow that was always behind her. “It’s just bad luck.”
Bad luck like this doesn’t happen by accident, the Leviathan said. You saw the reports of the Chinese dragons’ arrival in New Mexico. You knew the Qilin was close. I warned you to be careful.
“I’ve been careful!” she cried. “I’ve killed every dragon that dared enter my city, but I can’t do anything about worms on the other side of the world. What would you have me do, flood China?” She rippled with rage. “I can’t exterminate their entire species by myself!”
I can.
“Yes,” she said, her voice quiet. “Yes, you can. But not yet.”
Why not?
“Because I’m not ready,” she snapped, turning back to the circle. “I’m not defeated yet!”
Black tentacles came out of the dark to curl around her. There, there, he whispered. You’ve fought so hard, but there’s no point in lying to yourself. You always knew it would come to this. That’s why you called to me. No one can say you haven’t gone above and beyond, but one spirit cannot stand against the world. The tentacles snaked through her water, wrapping through her like coils. Let me finish your work. Let me in, and I will devour all your enemies.
The words were cool darkness in her mind, welcoming as sleep, but Algonquin had already slept enough for an immortal lifetime. “No,” she said stubbornly, shoving his touch away. “Not yet.” Her water clenched. “I’m not beaten yet.”
But you will be, the Leviathan promised, his huge head lifting above her in the dark. It’s already coming. Listen to the wings.
She couldn’t miss them. There was no way to see the sky from down in the Pit, but this bird wasn’t in the sky. He was in the world that belonged only to them, a huge black specter flying through the Sea of Magic with prey in his claws. Raven, the traitor, was bringing someone back from the other side. Who or for what purpose, Algonquin didn’t know, but if he could do that…
Then the end is even closer than you thought, the Leviathan finished, shaking his head. There’s no stopping this, Algonquin. Every second, the trickle of magic pouring back into the world widens, and your dream of turning back the clock grows fainter and fainter, if it was ever possible at all.
His tentacles flicked over the circle Myron had made out of Raven’s construct. The one she was currently using to keep the monster they’d built at bay. Your would-be Merlin is lost, your city is in ruins thanks to the dragon’s cursed luck, and you have already given everything you have. You are finished. Now’s the time to give up. Let me help you. Let me save you while you still have something to save.
Algonquin clenched her water tight. But before she could tell him she would never go down, not so long as she had a drop left in her, the circle of spellwork she’d been keeping closed through sheer brute force finally burst open, sending what was left of her water flying into the dark as the spirit she’d been desperately holding back exploded into the world.
“ALGOOOOOONQUUUUUUIN!”
The name was a hateful cacophony, an ugly combination of car horns and gunshots and every other terrible sound the hideous city could make. The Lady of the Lakes roared back, slamming the thing trying to crawl out of the broken circle back down under a wave of pounding water, river silt, and raw determination.
“Not yet!” she screamed, hammering it again and again. “I’m not dead yet!”
She wasn’t even sure whom she was screaming at: the city trying to claw its way through her, or the shadow waiting like a vulture behind her. Either way, the words were true. Even like this, even now, she was still Algonquin, Lady of the Lakes. The only spirit who’d ever stood up to humanity and survived. Her fury had already drowned Detroit once. If the DFZ pushed her now, she’d gladly do it again, and this time, the city would never be rebuilt.
“I’m not dead yet,” she whispered, the words bitter as old runoff as she looked up at the dark. “The pact still stands! I gave you your name, Leviathan! I called you here. I let you in. Until I die, you are mine, and I order you to help me!”
A sigh rattled through the giant shadow, and then black tentacles began landing around her like falling bombs, crushing the screaming Mortal Spirit back down into the black, fetid mud.
“And keep her there this time,” Algonquin snapped, sinking back into the flood. “I’m going to get more water.”
I’ll do what I can, but it won’t be long. Until you let me in, I’m only a shadow, and shadows can’t fight gods.
She knew that, but a shadow was what she had, so a shadow was what she would use. It wasn’t as though she had a choice now, anyway, so Algonquin left him to it, rushing off through the flooded landscape to ready her lakes for war.
And behind her, hidden by the dark, the Leviathan held on just long enough. The moment he’d honored the letter of the deal that had bought him a name and a crack in this plane, he faded into the dark, releasing the screaming spirit of the DFZ into the ruins that had been her city.
***
Marci was still in the dark when Raven let her go.
“Wait,” she cried, grabbing his talons before he could escape. “You can’t leave me here!”
“Why not?” he croaked, curious. Or, at least, he sounded curious. She couldn’t tell for sure since she couldn’t see anything but black.
“You said you’d take me back to the world of the living,” she said angrily. “This is just back where I started.”
She’d know this particular dark anywhere. It was the same empty blackness she’d seen right after she’d died, before she’d figured out how to open her eyes. Or maybe someone had taught her? Marci couldn’t remember, and she didn’t have time to worry about it now. Even Ghost wasn’t with her anymore, which was cause enough for panic.
“This is no time for tricks, Raven,” she said, trying not to sound scared. “Take me back to my body now.”
“Silly child,” the spirit replied, his mocking voice soft as a feather in her ear. “Where do you think you are?”
His talons vanished from her hand as he finished, and the darkness became heavy in a way Marci had never felt before. Heavy and cold and solid, like a cement blanket pressing down on top of her. She was still trying to figure out what had happened when she realized she couldn’t breathe.
Terror shot through her. Marci began to panic in earnest after that, fighting and clawing and kicking at the black weight that was holding her down. Dirt, she realized as her fingers dug in. She was buried under dirt. Buried alive.
“Marci!”
Ghost’s shout was a real sound in her ears, not a sensation in her head. It was also muffled, coming from somewhere above her. When she tried to yell back, though, all she got was a mouth full of soil. In the end, she had to settle for digging, pawing frantically at the dirt with her hands until, at last, she broke through, plunging her arm up out of the shallow grave someone had built over her body.
The moment her hand punched free, deathly cold swallowed it. A second later, Ghost yanked her up, plucking her body out of the dirt and into the too-bright light of the world. The real world, filled with real air that she sucked deep into her lungs before collapsing back to the torn-up ground, coughing and spitting the dirt out of her mouth as she fought to catch her breath.
“Are you okay?” Ghost asked, slapping his hand down hard on her back to help clear her lungs.
Marci coughed again, raising a shaking hand to brush the dirt off her face. “I’m alive,” she said, her voice hoarse from disuse. “I’m alive.”
It felt too good to be true, and since things that were too good to be true usually were, Marci began frantically checking her body. Other than being filthy and numb with cold, though, she was fine.
Her limbs were all there, whole and unbroken. Her head was good, and her lungs were working great now that she’d coughed out all the dirt. Even the hole General Jackson had shot through her chest was healed, though you’d never know it from her T-shirt, which still had a giant bloody hole in the front. Below the filthy fabric, though, her skin, muscles, organs, and bones all felt perfectly fine. Too fine.
“How is this possible?” she asked shakily, pressing her dirty hands to her face. “I didn’t even rot.”
“You can thank me for that.”
Marci whirled around to see Raven directly behind her, perched on top of what looked like the blackened remains of a gigantic bonfire. The fine ash and charred bits didn’t smell like fire, though. They didn’t smell like anything. After all the weirdness of her recent life, that seemed like a minor detail. At least until Marci realized where they were.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” she said, leaning into Ghost as she looked up at the picturesque valley surrounded by forest and crowned with a mountain that she knew way too well. “You brought me to Reclamation Land?”
“Technically, you never left,” Raven said. “This is where you died, if you’ll recall.”
It wasn’t something Marci could forget. Now that she knew where she was, though, the giant burn pile Raven was sitting on had a new, far more sinister edge.
“Is that…?”
“Yes,” Raven said, shaking the fine ash off his feathers. “This is all the remains of the dragons Algonquin bled for power in her first attempt to raise the DFZ. There wasn’t enough magic left in them for another try after you and the Empty Wind wrecked things, so Algonquin just abandoned them here when she moved on to Myron’s plan. But I’m a thriftier bird. I hate seeing anything go to waste, especially something as rare and valuable as a dragon corpse. So, since I had an inside tip that you and your kitten might not actually be out of the game, I decided to put them to use.”
He pointed his beak at a shallow ditch that someone had dug from the base of the ash pile to Marci’s grave. Fittingly, it was lined with chicken-scratch spellwork, though Marci supposed it was technically Raven-scratch. She couldn’t read it either way, but she didn’t really need to. The bloodstained channel that ran from the pile of dead dragons to her grave made it pretty obvious what had happened here.
“Ugh,” Marci said, putting a hand over her mouth. “You used dragon blood to bring me back to life?!”
“No,” Raven said. “I brought you back to life with my own fantastic powers. The dragon blood was just to make sure your physical vessel was back in working order when the time came to return you to it.” He puffed out his chest. “Pretty neat trick, if I do say so myself, and quite fitting. Everyone’s always accusing you of being a dragon’s pawn, so it’s only fair that you actually get to enjoy a bit of their power for once.”
Marci supposed that made sense, but she was too busy dry heaving to appreciate his cleverness. “I can’t believe you used blood magic on me.”
“That’s a fine thank-you for a miracle,” Raven said, turning up his beak. “And for the record, it’s only blood magic if all parties involved are human. If I’d been a mortal mage like you, then it would be necromancy, but seeing as I’m a spirit using dragons he didn’t even kill, it’s all aboveboard.”
Technically, but… “You used corpses!”
“I’m a scavenger!” Raven cried. “I’m not going to leave perfectly good power lying on the ground when I can use it, and I didn’t hear you griping over the details when I was bringing you back to life!”
“Okay, okay,” Marci said, reaching up to brush the dirt out of her short hair. “I don’t mean to complain. It’s just…I personally knew at least one of those dragons, and the idea that you healed me using the magic left in dead bodies is really freaking creepy.”
“Says the woman who just crawled out of her own grave and keeps an aspect of death as a pet.”
Marci winced. “Touché,” she said, looking down again at the smooth skin of her healed stomach through the hole in her shirt. “And, um, thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” Raven said, hopping into the air. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, we both have pressing business to attend to. I have to collect an old friend, and you, I believe, have a city to save.”
“Right,” Marci said, getting her head back in the game. Now that the initial shock was fading, it was finally starting to sink in that she was alive again. Actually alive, breathing and everything. She had a body, a real one, with no hole in her stomach. Which reminded her…
“Wait!” she cried at Raven as he flew into the sky. “So am I a hundred percent human again?”
“What else would you be?” he cawed, circling over her head. “You’re as human as you ever were, and on a related note, you should probably try to avoid dying again. I was able to bring you back this time due to an extremely fortunate series of events. We won’t be so lucky again, so you might want to think twice before you jump in front of any more bullets.”
Marci had no intention of ever going through anything like this again. In fact, when this was over, she was going to corner Shiro and make him teach her everything the ancient Merlins had known about life extension, because she’d heard stories of mages living for centuries, and she wanted in on that. She had a dragon to keep up with, after all. A dragon she was going to find as soon as things stopped being on fire.
“Come on,” she said, reaching out for Ghost to help her up. “We’ve got a lot to do and no time to do it. First, though, we need to get back into the city. I say we break into one of the Algonquin Corp garages, steal a car, and—”
“We can do a lot better than that,” the Empty Wind said, grabbing her hands and lifting her, not to her feet, but into his arms. Before Marci could ask what he was doing, a freezing wind whipped up from the ground, lifting them both smoothly into the air. It was just like when he’d flown her through the Sea of Magic, but much shakier and way scarier now that Marci could actually see the ground shrinking under her feet.
“Whoa,” she said, wrapping herself around his body like a koala clinging to a tree. “Since when can you fly on this side?”
“Since you became Merlin,” Ghost replied, his deep voice rich with pride. “Our bond has always been strong. Now that you’ve seen my true face, though, we are unbreakable, and you have a physical body again in a place that’s brimming with magic. Both of these give me leverage to do things I never could before. Not on this side, anyway.”
Now that he’d mentioned it, Marci knew exactly what he meant. The air was tense with magic, but not the usual sort. The wild, heavy Reclamation Land magic that normally dominated here was completely overpowered by a sharp power that smelled of grease and wet asphalt. It was the same magic she’d felt in the endless city where she’d confronted the DFZ. What really caught Marci’s attention, though, was the way the magic clung to her skin, seeping into her body like water that then flowed in a torrent straight down her connection to Ghost.
“Are you drinking magic through me?” she cried. “Without my permission?”
“We’re connected,” he said innocently as they picked up speed. “And I needed power. I haven’t gotten anything new to eat since before you died.”
That was true. But still. “I am not your sponge,” she growled, though it was hard to be mad at him for taking what he needed, and it wasn’t as though Marci had to worry about him getting the upper hand on her anymore. After what they’d been through, she trusted the Empty Wind with her life and death, and she could get used to traveling like this.
Ghost was flying them through the air the same way he’d moved through the Sea of Magic. Other than the occasional wobble and the ground whooshing past below, there was no sensation of movement, which was crazy seeing how they’d already cleared the forest at the edge of Algonquin’s Reclamation Land. By the time they were over the tumbledown old neighborhood where Marci had first settled into her hoarded cat house, she was a hundred percent on board with this new and improved mode of transportation.
“This is awesome!” she cried, turning around to get a better look at the rapidly approaching city. “You’re better than a helicopter!”
“I am a wind,” he reminded her, but his voice sounded nervous. “Careful. We’re close now.”
Marci nodded, looking down to check her bracelets, which were thankfully still on her wrists. A quick search also turned up a miraculously unbroken piece of casting chalk in her pocket. Given how wet everything looked, her markers would have been more useful, but though Marci had gotten her body back, her bag seemed to be a total loss.
It was probably in the hands of some sellout Algonquin corp mage, along with her Kosmolabe, the loss of which upset her even more than her two-hundred-dollar marker set. Still, after her miraculous rise from the dead, complaining about losing a Kosmolabe was like criticizing the color scheme of your winning lottery ticket, so Marci shoved her disappointment to the back burner. She was looking up to ask Ghost about their next step when a blast of magic shot up from the ground below.
For a terrifying second, the impact sent them reeling. Even after Ghost regained control, wild power was whipping through the air around them in waves, forcing him to weave and dodge to avoid being socked again. After several sickening drops, he gave up and went for cover, setting Marci down on the pointed roof of one of the superscrapers that hadn’t started leaning yet.
“What was that?” she cried, clinging to the building.
The Empty Wind hovered, his glowing eyes worried in the void of his face. “Not sure, but I think Algonquin just lost control of the situation.”
He hadn’t even finished speaking when a second wave of magic even bigger than the first ripped through the city like a cannon blast. Just like before, the magic was a physical presence, a moving wall of power that shattered windows and set Marci’s ears ringing. This time, though, there was a voice inside the blast. A screaming wail of rage and loss that rose from the city itself.
“ALGOOOOOONQUUUUUUIN!”
“Oh boy,” Marci whispered, tightening her grip on the roof. “That can’t be good.”
“At least she’s not mad at us,” Ghost whispered back, crouching down beside her. “A common enemy works in our favor.”
“Not if she runs us over on her way to battle.” Marci peeked over the building’s edge to get a better look at the city below. “We have to calm her down, convince her that blindly lashing out at Algonquin will hurt more than it helps. Shouldn’t be too hard. Her city’s already broken all to—”
The building groaned beneath them, and it wasn’t alone. All throughout the DFZ, the ground was swelling. It rose up like a building wave, sending the broken Skyways and toppled buildings sliding in all directions for a terrifying heartbeat before they suddenly jerked back together, the cement foundations and support beams twisting together like wires as the ground opened up below them, gaping up at the night like an enormous mouth.
“SLAVE MAKER.”
The roar came from the city’s foundation, echoing from the sewers and the storm drains and the forgotten warrens of the Undercity in a cacophony of bending metal and breaking glass. Even with so much noise and distortion, though, Marci recognized the voice. It was the same one she’d heard after Ghost ate her in the Sea of Magic. The voice of the city itself, rumbling like an earthquake.
“DIE!”
At the word die, a volley of debris shot out of the city’s gaping maw. Cars, buses, chunks of buildings, entire intersections broken off during the chaos were sent flying over Marci and Ghost’s heads and into the water of Lake St. Clair. Each missile landed with a tremendous splash, sending water flying hundreds of feet into the air. But this was just the start, an opening ruse to cause confusion. Before the water finished falling, the DFZ roared again, and the superscraper Marci and Ghost were clinging to began to lurch violently. A second later, the whole thing tipped sideways as the gigantic building tore itself out of the ground and launched like a missile straight at Algonquin’s Tower.
That was the last thing Marci saw before she was flung off the side and sent spinning into the empty air beyond.
***
“Come on,” Julius said, tugging at his sister’s arm. “We need to go.”
He never thought he’d have to say that to Chelsie, but between the Qilin’s unexpected thanks and the incredible rush of magic that had come after, everyone had just sort of…stopped.
Not that Julius could blame them. After years of anxiety, worry, and misfortune, the power of the Qilin’s luck going full bore was like a drug. Everything felt right, perfect, as though nothing could ever be wrong in the world again.
But even the happy haze of good fortune couldn’t hide the fact that the ground was shaking worse than ever. Scarier still, the magic was moving with it, trembling like a wire about to snap. The absolute worst part, though, was that Julius would have sworn he could smell Marci on it.
That was impossible, of course. The magical craziness going on here was new, and Marci was dead. It was probably just confusion caused by the fact that her scent and the DFZ’s magic were so closely linked in Julius’s mind. Unfortunately, knowing it was an illusion didn’t make it go away. Every time he breathed in, there she was, faint but unmistakable.
Each breath left a little crack in the wall he’d built to keep the pain of her death from washing him under. It had already worn down the happiness of the Qilin’s good fortune, leaving him scrambling to get his family moving before he broke down again. But just when he’d finally managed to get the dragons to their feet, a horrible screech sent them all right back down.
It sounded like an entire steel factory going through a shredder, but angrier. The sort of fury you felt to your bones, even when it wasn’t yours. Julius was still trying to get his body to unclench when the unnatural scream hit him again. This time, though, the rage formed a word.
“ALGOOOOOONQUUUUUUIN!”
It came from everywhere and nowhere, vibrating from the cracked pavement and the toppled buildings and the broken edges of the collapsed Skyway overhead. It came from the water and the dirt, from the air itself. Even the Qilin was knocked out of his thankful, serene haze, looking around in alarm for the source of the sound. “What was that?”
Before Julius could say he didn’t know, the voice blasted them again.
“SLAVE MAKER.”
“That’s our signal to go,” Chelsie growled, tucking her daughter against her side as she turned to her son. “Fredrick.”
The F was way ahead of her. But as he lifted his Fang to cut them all back to Heartstriker Mountain, a third scream exploded through the air.
“DIE!”
The word went off like a bomb. The whole city lurched, throwing them all sideways, along with what was left of the tilted Skyway ramp. If the miracle of the Qilin’s luck hadn’t still been flowing through them, the ramp that had been their shelter against the flood would have landed on their heads. But as impossible as it seemed, the broken slab of Skyway didn’t fall. It actually lifted up, hurtling into the dark sky as though it had been plucked out of the ground by some giant, invisible hand.
It wasn’t the only one. Through the hole in the broken Skyways, Julius could see the air was full of flying objects. Vans, cars, hunks of cement, dumpsters—whatever wasn’t nailed down was hurtling over the city to bombard Lake St. Clair.
Or, at least, that was what Julius assumed. From where they were on the river’s southern bend with all of downtown between them and Algonquin’s lake, he couldn’t see a thing. A few seconds later, though, he realized he didn’t need to. The explosion of water when the attack landed was so big, he could see it over the tops of the superscrapers. And that—watching the white water shoot up so high it cleared the skyline—was how he saw the two figures standing on top of one of the Financial District’s tallest buildings.
They were so far away, a human wouldn’t have seen them as more than specks in the night. Now that he was unsealed, though, Julius’s eyes were back to their usual dragon sharpness, which meant he could clearly make out the woman standing nonchalantly on the superscraper’s peak.
A young woman with short dark hair, standing beside a tall man wearing a Roman centurion’s helmet.
“Julius?”
Chelsie’s voice was sharp in his ear, but Julius barely heard it. He was too busy rubbing his eyes, grinding his palms into them until he saw spots. When he looked again, though, the woman was still there. She’d actually turned toward him now, her face tilted down to look at the city below. The beloved face he’d know anywhere, but never dreamed he’d see again.
Marci.
“Julius!” Chelsie yelled, grabbing his shoulder. “What are you—”
He tore out of her grasp, throwing his Fang away to ditch the extra weight as he charged forward. He ran so fast, his feet barely touched the ground, and then they didn’t touch at all. He didn’t even realize he’d changed shape until he was in the air, flying through the broken Skyways faster than he’d known he could go.
But still not fast enough.
Like the world had gone crazy in slow motion, he saw the building Marci was standing on rise up just as the skyway had done earlier, as though it were being picked up by an invisible hand. A hand that then tossed the entire hundred-floor building like a spear straight at Algonquin’s tower, and sent Marci flying off in the other direction.
She sailed through the empty air, helicoptering her arms as she tried desperately to slow her fall, and Julius’s heart clenched in the terrible realization that he wasn’t going to make it. No matter how fast he flew, there was no way he could get to her in time before she hit the ground. He was desperately trying anyway when the Qilin’s magic rang through him like a golden bell.
When the emperor had thanked him, his luck had been a hammer, a blunt, overwhelming presence that had no aim except to bring happiness. This was different. This time the luck was as sharp as his own claws, eager to slice the world to ribbons to give Julius what he wanted. What he desired most.
Marci, Julius thought frantically. Marci. Marci. Marci.
He was still repeating her name when a violent wave of magic—the same magic that had tossed the buildings around—shot up from below. Julius folded his wings instinctively, letting the explosive force slam into him.
In any reasonable universe, that should have smashed him flat. But the Qilin’s golden luck was singing in him now, twisting his body in just the right way that the magic threw him instead, launching him faster than he could ever have gone on his own. Faster than Marci could fall. Fast enough that, when she hurtled through the broken hole in the Skyways toward the ground beneath, Julius was already there, his wings spread to catch them both as she slammed into him.