Chapter 17
Algonquin’s millennia-old hatred of dragons was getting a lot of new ammunition.
She rode high over her lake, looking down from on high at the smoking city she’d built. The city that should be washed off the map again. But though the DFZ was heavily damaged, it had not yet fallen because of the three dragons in front of her. Two black, one gold.
And they wouldn’t die.
She turned her waterspout with a hiss, sucking in new water from the part of her body that the mortals of this time called Lake Erie. The waves rose at her command, shooting up like spears at the dragons above. She hammered down on them at the same time, launching an enormous wave from the top of the spout she’d formed beside her broken tower.
The attack was bi-directional and nearly a mile wide. It should have been unavoidable, and yet somehow, again, it missed. The dragons moved as though they knew in advance where every drop of water would be, dancing through her waves like eels through a fishing net. As they had every single one of her waves since they’d appeared.
And yet you keep sending them.
Algonquin’s water hitched as her attention slid to the shadow behind her. You really think you can win like this? the monster said, his sneering voice slipping over her like the oil that had covered her shores when she’d first risen. That’s the Qilin. The dragons’ living luck. You can’t just beat him down.
“I don’t have to,” she snarled back. “Dodging doesn’t equal winning. All I have to do is make a wave big enough that luck can’t save him.”
That would work, the Leviathan agreed. If you could. But you can’t, can you? The shadow’s head turned toward the smoking city. You’ve already spent more water tonight than you did destroying Detroit the first time. Do you even have enough to finish this?
As if to prove his point, the dragons chose that moment to dive, streaking their fire across the falling water left by her attacks, evaporating it instantly. The golden one’s flame was biggest, but it was the female who burned hottest, atomizing Algonquin’s lake all the way down to the sandy floor.
“I will feed her head to my fish,” Algonquin whispered, yanking in yet more water from her lake to replace what the dragons had burned off. “I’ll turn their bodies to river mud. I’ll—”
It’s too late for that.
One of the Leviathan’s tentacles snaked out in front of her, dipping into the churning water of Lake St. Clair. But though he’d chosen what should have been the deepest point, the appendage barely sank past its blunt tip before hitting the sandy bottom.
You’re at your limit, Algonquin. Your water is dangerously low. Your fish are dying. You cannot keep fighting.
“I will,” she snarled, pulling in water from every one of her bodies. “I’ve killed hundreds of dragons. Thousands. These are nothing.”
They are the step too far, the shadow whispered. You’re not infinite, but I am. The black tentacles rose up, bashing one of the dragons sideways before swinging out to curl around her swirling water. Let me in. Let me finish what you’ve started, and I will—
“No!” Algonquin roared, throwing another wave at the dragons to keep them busy while she turned to deal with the threat behind her. “I am not dead yet. Until I decide otherwise, you are bound to me, Leviathan. You serve me, obey me, listen to me. That is our deal, and if you don’t stop undermining it, I will revoke your—”
She stopped, her water going still. Deep below them, the Sea of Magic was ringing like a gong. It was hard to hear over the storm, but the vibration was unmistakable. A human soul had passed through the gate.
A second soul? the Leviathan said angrily. Impossible. Where did it come from?
“There is no second soul,” Algonquin said, her water spinning faster. “It has to be a second try.”
I thought there were no second chances.
So had she, but the only constant about humanity was change, and she knew so little about the Heart of the World. The first time the Merlin Gate rang through the Sea of Magic today, she’d thought victory was in her grasp. But then the DFZ had erupted, and everything had gone wrong. From there, she’d had no choice but to assume Myron had failed, leaving his Mortal Spirit to run mad.
But unlike the traitor, Raven, she’d never actually been to the Merlin Gate herself, much less seen inside it. What if there was something she didn’t know? An angle she hadn’t anticipated? What if Myron wasn’t dead?
What if it’s a trap?
“How could it be a trap?” she asked, sinking back to her waters to avoid the dragons as they came round again. “The only human soul in the Sea of Magic is the one I put there. It has to be him.”
Then let him come to you, the Leviathan warned. Your water is dangerously low. If you stop paying attention, the dragons will burn what is left of it out from under you, and then neither of us will have anything to work with.
“If I’m right, that won’t matter,” Algonquin said excitedly. “I’ll be reborn with the next rain, but this might never happen again.”
The shadow rumbled, but she wasn’t listening anymore. She wasn’t fighting, either. She was diving, flitting between the pools of water that covered her ruined city until she reached the dark, stagnant lake covering what remained of the Pit.
The moment she rose, Algonquin knew something had changed. The DFZ’s raging magic was calm now, almost orderly. The quiet sent her hopes soaring. In her experience, gods didn’t stop rampaging until they’d destroyed everything or were defeated. Since her lakes weren’t filled with buildings yet, that left only one option, and Algonquin found him standing on an island of trash at the Pit’s very center.
He didn’t look well. Algonquin had seen mortals at all stages of death, but Sir Myron Rollins looked as if he’d been through the entire spectrum today. Even so, he was standing, and kneeling at his side was the humanoid reflection of the DFZ.
Algonquin began to tremble, but excited as she was, she was too old to take anything at face value. She would have to test him, to make sure this really was the miracle it seemed. To that end, she rose from the black water in front of them, shifting her face into a reflection of Myron’s own.
“Did you do it?”
“I did,” he said, his voice weak but confident as he reached out to touch the city’s bowed head. “I apologize for the trouble the DFZ caused you. We had a bit of a false start, but I turned it around. My second attempt at the Merlin Gate was a success.” He lifted his chin haughtily. “You’re now in the presence of the First Merlin, Master of the Heart of the World.”
Algonquin frowned, her mask shifting into the mage’s own skeptical look. He was lying—she could feel it in his pulse. Mortals always lied, though, especially the egotistical ones. The question was: was he lying about the one thing that actually mattered?
“Did you cap the seal?”
“I did,” he said firmly. “I can’t do anything about the magic that’s already leaked out, but the flow of new power has been staunched. In a few weeks, everything that was spilled tonight will filter out, and the world will be left high and dry once again.”
“How dry?” Algonquin demanded. “Did you honor our agreement?”
Myron looked insulted. “Of course I did. I hate Mortal Spirits as much as you do. I capped the magic back to what it was the night you woke, exactly as requested. And I am Merlin, exactly as I requested, which means our bargain is at an end, Lady of the Lakes.” He smiled. “We won.”
Algonquin wasn’t listening. She was too busy checking every inch of her domain, sinking down into the deep, cold waters that ran through her vessel at the bottom of the Sea of Magic. But even though she was there, she couldn’t tell for sure if he was speaking the truth. Everything was still too turbulent. Too riled up. There’d be no way to know for certain until the magic calmed down, and yet…
She returned to her water in the Pit, flowing up onto the island so she could stare directly down into the mage. Into what made him human. But there was no lie here. The shifts and marks she’d seen in every Merlin since mortals had first started calling themselves such were plain on his soul.
Her water began to tremble. Whatever else he might be, Sir Myron Rollins was unquestionably a Merlin now. Her Merlin. Her agent, her tool, the weapon she’d given everything to make, saying it was done.
“I won,” she whispered, the reflected mask dissolving as her water rippled in excitement. “I won.”
“We won,” Myron corrected, leaning on the cowed city spirit beside him, who had yet to make a sound. “Tonight was a victory for the entire world. You are free from the tyranny of our mad spirits, and humanity is safe from itself. I get the Heart of the World as my own personal laboratory, and you get to stop worrying about the DFZ.”
He was right. Now that the spirit of the DFZ had done its job, she could finally scrub its filthy city from her shores. She could scrub all the cities and boats and humanity that polluted her waters. First, though, she would take tonight’s leftover magic and finish what she’d started when she’d killed the Three Sisters.
There was more than enough power left to melt Heartstriker Mountain and all the other clan strongholds to their foundations, especially since the Golden Emperor had already served himself up to her on a platter. Once she’d destroyed their safe havens and gutted their clan leadership, it was only a matter of taking the time to hunt down and exterminate the snakes that remained, and now that the Mortal Spirits were no longer a threat, Algonquin had all the time in the world. An eternity of safety lay stretched out before her, a return to the time before mortals and their gods. A chance to go home again.
And it was hers.
Not yet.
Algonquin turned around. Her mind had been racing so fast, she hadn’t felt the Leviathan’s approach, but that didn’t matter. He was where he always was: right behind her.
“What basis do you have for saying that?”
Common sense, he replied, his tentacles spreading out to surround the island where Myron stood. Your mage is a known traitor who went to a place you cannot see. Now he’s come back to tell you he’s done the impossible, which also happens to be exactly what you wanted. You are a fool to believe him so quickly, especially since he has yet to produce any proof.
“I felt him enter the Heart of the World,” Algonquin said. “That is proof.”
Proof he served his own interests, the monster whispered, his many eyes skeptical. But his service to you has yet to be verified. Can you not feel the magic?
She couldn’t feel anything else. But the Sea of Magic had been churning like an ocean in a hurricane even before Myron woke the DFZ, and large systems took time to calm down.
“It will drain,” she said confidently. “Because if it doesn’t, I will kill the mage and destroy his spirit’s city. For good this time.” She glanced back at Myron. “But you are telling me the truth?”
“I’ve never told you anything else,” Myron said. “It’s you who’s been lying.”
He lifted his chin, looking over her water at the dark shadow behind her. “I learned things in the Heart of the World, Algonquin. For example, I now know what your Leviathan really is, and I will not tolerate it.”
“My actions are not yours to tolerate,” she said coldly. “I am the Lady of the Lakes. You’re just a man.”
“I am much more than that,” Myron said. “I am the Merlin, champion of humanity. I’m also the one with my hand on the spigot you’re so desperate to control.”
She went still. “Is that a threat?”
“Absolutely,” he said, looking at her head on. “Personal ambitions aside, I went along with your plan to banish the Mortal Spirits because I wished to make this world safe for humanity, not so you could gamble all our futures to a darker god. I know the Leviathan is here at your request, and that he’s the one who cracked the Merlins’ seal in the first place. But however he got here, a Nameless End has no place on a healthy plane. Send him away, or I will undo everything I just did.”
Waves went out in rings across the flooded Pit as Algonquin’s rage began to rise. “You think to threaten me? I am the land you stand on, fool. I will not be dictated to by a dying insect!”
Myron’s smile grew infuriating. “If that were true, you never would have agreed to work with me in the first place. Looks like you do need us dying insects. You should embrace that, because I’ve won you more today than he’s ever delivered.” He nodded at the Leviathan. “His victory is your defeat. He’s a Nameless End, a force that eats failed planes. There’s nothing in this for him if you succeed. The only way he gets what he wants is if you fail. I, on the other hand, have as much of a stake in this world as you do. I want you to win because we share a future. That makes me infinitely more trustworthy than him.”
Algonquin scowled. That was true.
No it’s not, the Leviathan hissed, moving until his huge shadow was right on top of her. We had a deal, Algonquin.
“We did,” she said, looking up at him. “But that’s why he’s right. Our deal was that you would serve me until I failed. Only then, only if I couldn’t make it, would I let you in to finish the job. I always knew you’d only agree to such an offer if you thought I couldn’t win, but I did. I’ve won, Leviathan.” She looked up into his shadows. “I don’t need you anymore.”
You will always need me, he boomed, his echoing voice vibrating through every bit of her water. You called me here. You gave me a name. I am your end, Algonquin. I will not be sent away empty when the deal is not yet done.
“It is done!” she cried, rising up in front of him. “The magic is cut off! In a day, the sea will calm, and this current glut will vanish. In a year, the ambient magic will be back down to what it was that very first night. With so little magic, the Mortal Spirits can’t threaten us, no matter how many humans there are. The world belongs to the land again, as it was always meant to. I am victorious, Leviathan, and your failure to accept that is proof that what the Merlin says is true.”
Is it, now? The enormous shadow began to spread, filling the dark recesses of the Pit with tentacles that spread and multiplied, shooting across the flooded ground and up the remaining Skyway supports like spilled ink spreading across a picture. Poor Algonquin, you’ve grown so gullible. So desperate. You used to be the wisest spirit, but now any charlatan mage can charm you. All he has to do is say what you want to hear, and you eat it up.
“And you are wasting my time,” Algonquin said, drawing in her water until she stood taller than him. “You were a good failsafe, but winners don’t need those, do they? I don’t regret our deal. It’s only because of you that I was able to be victorious today, but it’s over. We both gambled, and I won.”
She lifted her water to point at the smoke-filled sky. “Go, Leviathan. Leave to find new prey, because there’s no more hunting for you here.”
Algonquin had been waiting a long time to say those words. Six decades, to be precise. They felt every bit as good as she’d imagined, but there was a problem, because Leviathan wasn’t leaving. He didn’t even seem to be listening. He was just hovering there in the dark, making the flooded Pit churn as his tentacles spread in every direction.
She couldn’t tell if he was searching for something specific or grasping at straws, but either way, Algonquin was losing her patience. But then, just as she opened her mouth to banish him for good, the Leviathan’s tentacles snapped back, snatching something small, surprised, and mortal down from the cracked Skyways and dropping it in the trash at Algonquin’s feet.
***
Marci was biting her nails again, ripping each one down to the quick.
“Don’t do that,” Amelia snapped, reaching from her perch at the edge of the broken bridge to smack Marci’s hand away. “You just got that body back. Stop ruining it.”
“Sorry,” Marci said, peering down through the crack at Myron, who was holding out impressively in the face of Algonquin and the eldritch horror behind her. “I just hate waiting. Can you hear what they’re saying?”
“A little,” the dragon spirit said. “Myron’s lying like a champ. Didn’t know he had it in him.”
“Myron Rollins is a man of many talents,” Emily said from where she was lying on her back, staring up at the smoky night sky while Raven continued working on her piecemeal body. “It’s why we put up with him.”
“I just hope he picks up the pace,” Raven said around the piece of metal in his beak that he was shoving into General Jackson’s chest cavity. “I know a good con takes time, but if he drags this out much longer, Algonquin’s going to notice that the magic’s getting more potent, not less.”
Marci had no idea why she hadn’t noticed already. Myron hadn’t been kidding about the crack getting wider. Now that she was sitting still, she could actually feel the ambient magic levels rising like the tide coming in.
“And we’re sure the seal’s not broken already, right? I mean, no one’s watching it, so—”
It’s not broken, Ghost said.
She looked skeptically at the transparent cat in her lap. “How do you know?”
Because we’re still sitting around talking, he said between licks of his wounds. This is more magic than we’re used to, but it’s not even close to dangerous yet. When the seal actually breaks, that’ll change. Trust me. We won’t be able to miss it.
“I suppose that’s reassuring,” Marci said, biting her nails again. “Is Julius almost back?”
“He’s coming in fast,” Amelia said, breaking into a grin. “This is so cool. Now that the magic’s jacked up, I can actually feel each individual dragon’s fire.” Her grin turned into a smirk. “I can’t wait to sneak up behind Chelsie for once.”
Given Amelia’s total lack of stealth, Marci didn’t see that happening anytime soon. Before she could say as much to Amelia, though, the water beneath the Leviathan began to churn.
“What’s that?”
Everyone moved to the Skyway’s crumbling edge. “I think they’re tentacles,” General Jackson said. “He’s sending them out.”
“Ugh,” Marci said, disgusted. “I hate those slimy things.”
“How many does he have?” Amelia asked at the same time.
“As far as I can tell, as many as he needs,” the general replied grimly. “Number, length, and size all seem to be as variable as the rest of him, but what else can you expect from a creature who’s not really here?”
Marci shivered. “He felt real enough to me.”
“Me, too,” Emily said, her frown deepening. “I wonder what he’s trying to—”
She cut off with a curse, jumping back as one of the black tentacles suddenly surged upward, smashing through the crack in the Skyways they’d been using as a peep hole. Marci jumped back, too, yanking Ghost with her as she scrambled backward down what was left of the elevated street.
And right into the second tentacle.
She yelped as cold slime touched her back. But just as she braced her feet to start running full tilt in the opposite direction, the tip of the tentacle whipped down to wrap around her chest.
Found you.
She choked in fear. Even Ghost jumped at the cold, liquid voice that whispered through them both. He dug his freezing claws into her arms to get away, but for once, even he wasn’t fast enough. The Leviathan yanked them both backward, snatching them through the crack in the Skyways and then down, down, down through the dark before unraveling suddenly, dropping Marci and her spirit in the trash at Myron’s feet.
The impact knocked the breath out of her. Marci was still trying to get it back when a cold voice said, “What is this?”
The question came from high above. Then Algonquin’s watery voice was enhanced by a bathtub’s worth of actual water as the spirit lurched down to grab her by the throat.
“What is this?”
Marci grabbed frantically at the whip of water that was wrapped around her neck, but though it was choking her, it was just water, and her fingers went right through it.
“Answer me, Leviathan!” the lake roared, thrusting Marci into the air as she spun around. “What trick is this?”
A low rumble went through the land like thunder, and the Leviathan leaned closer. “The Merlin.”
He spoke aloud this time. That was, if you could say a voice that was more pressure than sound was speaking “aloud.”
“You’ve been played, Algonquin,” he went on, bringing up his tentacles to poke at Marci’s kicking legs. “Look at her. See what she is. She is Merlin, too.” The rumbling morphed into deep laugher. “Myron Rollins betrayed you. He didn’t try two times. There were two Merlins.”
“How?” Algonquin demanded. “How did you know?”
“Because I knew better than to believe a mortal who’d bound death could be defeated by it,” he said simply. “Because I knew Raven had to be poking around your pile of dragon corpses for a reason. Mostly, though, I knew because I saw her flying around earlier.”
The tentacle came up again to pat Marci wetly on the head. “Next time you decide to fake your death, little creature, you might want to exercise a bit more discretion.”
Marci closed her eyes with a wince. Stupid, stupid, stupid. When she opened them again, though, she realized that blowing her cover might be the least of tonight’s fatal mistakes. The whole point of this farce had been to raise Algonquin’s hopes to the point where she felt safe enough to dismiss her Nameless End. Now, wrapped up in Algonquin’s water, Marci had a front-row seat as all those hopes crumbled.
“No,” the water whispered, the clear flow turning cloudy. “No!”
Her scream echoed through the Pit, and the water wrapped around Marci’s neck clenched tight. If she’d been alone, it would have cut her head off, but Marci was never alone now. She was a Merlin, and the moment Algonquin moved, Ghost moved back, his grave-cold magic exploding out to blast the water away, dropping both of them into the trash beside Myron.
The older mage helped her up at once, yanking her to her feet as the Empty Wind stepped protectively in front of them. The DFZ scrambled forward as well, hissing at Algonquin like an animal guarding its territory, but the lake spirit made no move to attack again.
She wasn’t even a towering pillar of water anymore. All that had fallen away, leaving just the soaked and wavering reflection of the old Native American woman that was Algonquin’s public face kneeling on the surface of the Pit’s black water.
“It was a lie,” she whispered. “It was all a lie.”
“Only parts of it,” Marci said quickly, coughing. “We didn’t cap the magic, but the seal is still in place. You don’t have to give in to him, Algonquin. He’s a monster from outside. He’s not part of this world. We are. We can help you.”
“No, you can’t,” the spirit said as her human form began to melt. “You’re not part of my world, because my world is gone. I tried to save it, but Raven was right. Our paradise is gone, and it’s never coming back.”
With every sorrowful word, she collapsed further. “There’s nothing to look forward to. Just gods and humans and dragons and monsters walking all over us, crushing the land forever. We have no escape, not even death. Nothing—”
“Algonquin!”
The name was an earsplitting war cry as Raven swooped down, but not the Raven Marci knew. That spirit was just a big black bird. This one was a god in truth, a giant Raven the size of an elephant with clever eyes that flashed like lightning as he landed on the water.
“Algonquin, listen,” he said, his croaking voice booming. “Nothing is lost unless you give it up. The Nameless End is your enemy, not us. Send him away, and we will help you rebuild.” He ducked closer, his eyes desperate. “Come back to us, old friend.”
Algonquin lifted what was left of her head to give him a glare so hateful, it didn’t fit on her human face. “I was never your friend, and I have nothing to go back to.”
She sank as she finished, the final remains of her human disguise vanishing into the black water without a sound. The Leviathan disappeared at the same time, his giant body melding into the shadows as though he’d never been anything but one of them. When they were both gone, the water covering the floor of the Pit began to drop.
“What’s happening?” Marci asked.
Raven shook his huge head in dismay. “Nothing good.”
The words weren’t out of his beak before Marci felt the truth for herself. It wasn’t the water that was receding. It was Algonquin. The lake spirit was collapsing into herself, her waters pulling back into her lake like the tide going out. And as the water drained, the pressure began to build.
“Not good,” Raven said, spreading his enormous wings to fly back up to the Skyways. “Not good, not good, not—”
A horrible sound cut him off. Marci covered her ears, but that didn’t help at all, because the violent roar wasn’t a physical noise. It was magic. Algonquin’s magic was roaring like Niagara Falls as she pulled everything—every drop, every wave, every bit of magic in every lake—into the center of Lake St. Clair. Through the new cracks in the Pit’s protective walls, Marci could actually see the water rolling itself into a giant ball as Algonquin pressed herself tighter and tighter, and still the pressure rose.
And then, just when it felt the tension would keep building forever, something big cracked.
***
Under normal circumstances, Julius would have struggled to keep up with the larger dragons flying around him. Tonight, though, they were struggling to keep up with him.
“Slow down!” Chelsie yelled over the wind. “I know you’re in a hurry, but it’s all for nothing if you tear a wing.”
“Something’s gone wrong!” he shouted back. “We have to get to Marci!”
“I’d be more worried about ourselves,” Fredrick said, flying up beside him. “Look down.”
Julius didn’t have to look. He could feel Algonquin’s magic sucking in as she curled herself into what he could only assume was the spirit equivalent of the fetal position. Either that, or she was building up for an all-out final attack. Whatever it was, it wasn’t good, and he had to get everyone he cared about far away from it as fast as possible. Especially his sister, who was doing all of this with her child clinging to her back.
“I still can’t believe you brought a baby into this!” he shouted at her.
“What else was I supposed to do?” Chelsie shouted back. “I couldn’t leave her alone! She’s a hatchling, and Bob’s still down there somewhere. As is the Empress Mother.”
“And taking her into a fight with Algonquin is better?”
“Absolutely,” his sister said. “She’s a dragon. Going into battle with your mother used to be a rite of passage. If Amelia were still alive, she could tell you all kinds of stories about the ridiculous things Bethesda made them do.”
“Actually,” Julius said, smiling for the first time since this started, “I meant to tell you, Amelia is—”
He cut off with a choke, eyes bulging. Behind him, the others gasped as well. Even the Qilin faltered, his golden body jerking.
A second later, Julius realized it wasn’t just them. The whole world was jerking. The air, the ground, the buildings—everything he could see was hitching and splintering like the epicenter of a magnitude-nine earthquake. Terrifying as that was, though, what nearly dropped Julius out of the sky was what was happening on the inside, deep in the core of his fire.
There was no pain, no injury he could identify. Just an unyielding pressure accompanied by the absolute knowledge that something had gone horribly, fatally wrong.
“Julius!”
He forced his head up to see Chelsie hovering beside him, her green eyes pained. “What was that?”
“I don’t know,” he said, forcing the words out.
“It’s magic,” the Qilin said, his normally calm voice on the edge of panic. “Everything is in uproar. What is happening?”
“I don’t know,” Julius said again, forcing his wings to keep flapping. “But Marci will. We have to get to her.”
Chelsie scowled. “I don’t know if that’s—”
But he was already gone, putting on a burst of speed before folding his wings to dive down past the now-dry lakebed and through the broken walls that were supposed to protect Algonquin’s water from the Pit. The others followed a second later, matching his speed as they raced through the no-longer-flooded Underground cavern following Marci’s scent...and then nearly ran over Marci herself, who was flying up with Ghost to meet them.
Julius was too relieved to speak. He didn’t even mind her freezing spirit as he landed hard to grab her in his wings. “Are you okay?”
“Right now? I’m fine,” she said quickly. “Long term, not so much.”
“What happened?” Chelsie demanded, checking her dive with her wings.
“The stupidest thing possible,” said an irritated voice above them.
Chelsie’s head shot up, and then her eyes went wide as the giant red dragon with feathers made of actual fire swooped down to grin at her.
“What?” Amelia said. “No hello?”
“What are you doing here?” Chelsie yelled at her. “You’re dead!”
“So people keep telling me,” Amelia said with chuckle. “But I’ll have to explain later. Algonquin’s hissy fit just broke the Merlins’ seal, which means we’re about to get one thousand years of pent-up magic in the face unless we move.”
“Move to where?” Julius said frantically. “That doesn’t sound like something you can dodge.”
He was looking at Amelia, but it was Marci who answered. “Got it covered,” she said, scrambling up onto Julius’s back. “Head for our house.”
Julius blinked. “Our house? You mean the one here in the city?”
She nodded rapidly. “Remember all the wards I put up? I know it feels like forever, but we’ve only actually been gone for a week and a half, which is well inside the upkeep window. If the building’s still standing, all my protections should still be on it, but we gotta move fast. Ghost estimates we’ve only got a couple of minutes before the wave hits us.”
“Less than that,” the Empty Wind said, giving Julius a freezing push. “Stop talking and go.”
Julius didn’t wait to be told twice. He took off like a rocket, keeping his wings tight to make sure Marci stayed on as he wove his way through the now bone-dry Pit. “What about the others? Myron and the rest?”
“Already ahead of us,” Marci yelled over the wind. “I told them where to go before I went looking for you.”
Any other time, hearing that would have made his heart skip. This time, though, Julius couldn’t do anything except fly, racing through the collapsed Underground on memory and instinct until he reached the spiral of onramps that hid the house Ian had rented them.
Please be there, he prayed as he dove into the tunnel that led through the spiral of cracked overpasses. Please don’t be destroyed. Please. Please.
He burst out into the open again, spreading his wings to check his speed before he slammed them into the opposite wall. It all happened so fast, he didn’t see anything at first but a blur of light and dirt. Once he was sure he wasn’t going to crash, he looked up and saw what he’d been hoping to see.
“It’s still here,” he said, staring in wonder at their miraculously uncrushed three-story house. “It’s still intact!”
“Except for the wall Conrad chopped in half when Estella came for me,” Amelia said, flying in right behind them. “Marci, help me fix it. Best ward in the world’s no good if you’ve got a big honking hole in the front.”
Marci nodded and hopped down, sliding off Julius to run after Amelia. Chelsie, Fredrick, and the Qilin were swooping in now as well. Raven was already here, and a lot bigger. He barely fit inside the slashed-up porch where he and Emily were frantically fitting the front door and parts of the wall that Conrad had cut in half back together.
“Should we be doing this, sir?”
Julius looked over his shoulder to see Fredrick standing behind him. And above him, since the F was easily five times Julius’s size in this form.
“What else would we be doing?”
“Going back to Heartstriker Mountain, for a start,” Fredrick said, lifting his claws, which were still encased in his Fang. “Bethesda’s still there. Probably in her panic room. It’ll take a few trips, but I can cut us all back to her, and a bunker under a mountain seems much safer than—”
“NO!” Amelia yelled, appearing above them in a flash of red fire to smack Fredrick’s claws back to the ground. “No teleporting!”
“Don’t yell at him!” Chelsie snapped, getting physically between Fredrick and her sister. “It was a good idea.”
“Maybe under normal circumstances,” Amelia said. “But there’s nothing normal about this! Just because the ambient magic isn’t literally crushing us to death yet doesn’t mean it’s not going haywire. Do you have any idea what would happen if we opened a portal of any sort under these—” She froze, eyes going huge. “I have to warn Svena.”
“If you know not to do it, I’m sure the White Witch does, too,” Chelsie said, dropping her dragon form with a puff of smoke, which left her standing naked on the stairs with a baby dragon the size of a Doberman clutched in her arms. “If this is as safe as we’re going to get, we stay. Everyone inside.”
The other dragons changed, too, running after her into the house, except for Amelia, who stayed to help Marci, Myron, and Raven with the front porch. Julius should have followed suit. He might be small, but his dragon was still too big to fit through the newly repaired front door. Unlike Amelia, though, he couldn’t conjure up clothing at will, and there was no emergency in the world that could get him to be naked in front of so many, especially not at his own house.
So while everyone else was busy out front, Julius hopped into the air again to wing his way around to the back of the house. He landed on the roof, sliding the window to his bedroom open with one claw before changing shape and diving inside. The second he was in, he grabbed the first clothes he saw and started shoving himself into them. He was still pulling a shirt over his head when Chelsie burst in.
He had no idea how she’d managed it ahead of him, but she was wearing one of Marci’s college T-shirts and cut-off jean shorts. She didn’t even ask permission before she walked over to Julius’s dresser and started tossing clothes to Fredrick and the Qilin, who were right behind her. As for her daughter, she was still in dragon form and climbing the walls like a lizard, poking her claws through the drywall to keep herself up, and thoroughly enjoying the chaos.
“I’ll fix the damage,” Chelsie said before Julius could say a word. “Just get downstairs.”
Julius nodded and ran out the door, taking the steps three at a time down to the living room. He’d just hopped the banister on the last landing when everyone—Marci, Ghost, Myron, Amelia, Raven, Emily, even the DFZ, who was back to her giant rat—rushed in through the hastily repaired front door. Amelia came in last, slamming the freshly nailed and spellwork-covered wooden door closed behind her just in time.
Through the windows, Julius could see the faux cavern outside getting brighter and brighter. Then, when it was almost too bright to look at, the light broke apart. Just fell into pieces until it looked like snow. A soft, thick, glowing blizzard of pale light in all colors, only it wasn’t cold, and it wasn’t falling from the sky. It was rising from the ground, and it was beautiful.
“That’s it?” he said, walking to the window. “That’s what we’re afraid of?”
“Yes,” Amelia said, her face grim. “Don’t let the pretty light show fool you. That’s pure magic of a grade this side of the world has never seen.”
“It looks like the barrier between the Sea of Magic and the physical world absorbed most of the impact,” Marci added as she joined Julius by the window. “That’s better than I’d hoped, but there’s still way more magic out there than the physical world has ever experienced.” She bit her lip. “We are going to see some weird stuff coming out of this.”
“We’ll have a rash of new mages for certain,” Myron said, glowering at the beautiful glow from the window by the fireplace. “Everyone who was on the edge is going to get shoved right over, and it’s not going to be pleasant.”
“Animals, too,” Marci said. “Remember all the crazy mana beasts that popped up around the meteor crater? Take that and spread it all over the world. Detroit’s probably going to get the worst of it since the DFZ thinned the barrier here, but I don’t think anywhere is safe.”
“How long will it last?” Julius asked, transfixed by the glowing particles rising from the ground like fireflies.
Amelia shrugged. “Who knows? Even I’ve never seen a magical surge of this magnitude.”
“I’d guess two weeks, tops,” Marci said. “They weren’t this big, but we’ve had magical disasters before. In those cases, the majority of the fallout—”
“Generally settled within forty-eight hours,” Myron finished. “But you’re assuming this follows the same fallout pattern as events that happened on this side of the divide. This magic is coming from the Sea of Magic itself, and we don’t have any data for that.”
Marci scowled thoughtfully, and then she turned and headed for the stairs. “We need to get a better look. I’ve got an observation circle in my lab upstairs.”
“Do you have a phone?” General Jackson asked, chasing after her. “The UN office in New York will have accurate readings for sure.”
“If the phone networks are up,” Myron said grimly as they all went up the stairs. “It’s a miracle this building still has power.”
That was a good point. Now that he thought about it, all of this—the intact house, the power, the wards—struck Julius as suspiciously convenient. Another time, he would have stewed about the implications of that. Right now, though, he couldn’t do anything except stand there and watch Marci walk up the stairs with everyone else. Walk away from him.
He was still watching when a hand landed on his shoulder, and he turned to see Chelsie waiting beside him with her daughter, who was now back in human form as well and wearing one of the T-shirts Justin had left behind like a dress.
“There’s a lot going on,” she said quietly, her green eyes flicking pointedly at the bend in the stairs where Marci had just disappeared. “She’s just busy right now. It doesn’t mean she doesn’t care.”
“I know,” Julius said, taking a shaking breath. “She’s a Merlin now. She’s doing what she needs to do, and I’m happy for her.”
He didn’t sound happy. For once, though, Chelsie didn’t call him on the lie. She just squeezed his shoulder and set off toward the kitchen. “I’m going to raid your freezer. There’s no telling how long this will last or how long we’ll have power. Better to stock up now. Want to help?”
Julius tried for a moment. He really did. He even managed to walk all the way to the kitchen door. In the end, though, he just couldn’t. This entire night, through everything that had happened, he’d been holding it together on sheer adrenaline. Now that things were suddenly calm, there was simply nothing left.
“I’m sorry,” he said, his body shaking. “I…that is…”
“It’s fine,” Chelsie said, looking over her shoulder. “Go to your room and do whatever you have to do to get yourself together, because we’re going to need you.”
Technically, she had no business telling him what to do, but Chelsie’s words weren’t a command. They were an escape, and Julius leaped on it, whirling around and going up the stairs to his room as fast as he could without actually running away. He was turning to lock the door behind him when someone else grabbed the opposite handle.
Julius froze, confused. Then confusion turned to joy when Marci pushed her way in.
“Hey,” she said.
“Hey,” he replied lamely, running a hand through his hair. “I thought you guys were talking big-time magic stuff.”
“We were,” she said, stepping into his room. “But then I thought, you know, this is going to be going on for a while, and I didn’t want to sit there being a third wheel while they called every mage at the UN, so I told them I was tired.”
He frowned at her. “Are you tired?”
“I was dead for four days,” she reminded him, closing his door so she could lean against it. “So yeah, I’m pretty tired. But I don’t want to sleep in my room.”
She flipped the lock on the door behind her with a click, and suddenly, Julius understood what was going on.
“Oh,” he said as his heart began to hammer. “That is, I mean…”
He had no idea what he meant. Fortunately, it didn’t seem to matter. Marci had already closed the distance, reaching up to wrap her arms around his neck as she pulled him down for a kiss.
Julius jumped when their lips met. Practically leaped out of his skin. She’d clearly anticipated that, though, because Marci’s grip on his neck just clenched tighter, keeping her locked against him as she started walking them both backward toward his bed.
It was at this point that Julius’s brain started to fail him, which was a serious problem, because he’d never needed to think more. This was all happening way too fast. Marci had just come back from the dead. They were in the middle of a magical apocalypse. He needed a chance to decompress and process it all. He needed to talk to her about all the things he hadn’t gotten a chance to say before she’d died: how much he needed her, that he loved her, that he’d never missed anyone as much as he’d missed her. Everything he’d spent the last week desperately repeating to her memory was still there, eating at him.
He needed to get that out, but he couldn’t bring himself to push Marci away. She was just so close. So here and alive and kissing him and…and…
His thoughts were still stuttering when they reached the bed. The moment the back of his legs brushed the mattress, Julius’s knees gave way, and they both dropped down together. It wasn’t until Marci’s hands left his shoulders and slid down his chest to grab the hem of his shirt, though, that Julius finally realized if he was going to say anything, it had to be now.
“Wait,” he gasped, grabbing her hands as he sat up. “Stop for a second.”
The hurt that flashed over Marci’s face sent him into a panic. “It’s not like that,” he said as fast as he could. “I want this, but—”
“Good,” she said, leaning back in with a smile. “I want this, too.”
He grabbed her arms. “Marci,” he said, voice shaking. “You were dead.”
“Why do you think I’m in a hurry?” she asked irritably, struggling against his hold. “I already lost everything once. I’m not wasting any more time.”
“Neither am I,” he promised. “But I can’t let this go any further without…without saying…”
Marci went very still. “Without saying what?”
Julius clenched his hands. Here it went. “I love you.”
She took a deep, satisfied breath. “You love me,” she repeated, savoring each word.
“Not a little, either,” he added. “A lot. And this isn’t just something I only realized after you died. I’ve loved you for a long time, but I never said anything because I didn’t want to hurt our friendship and because it would make so many problems for you.”
She stared at him like he was crazy. “Why would you loving me be a problem?”
“How can you ask that?” he cried. “I’ve caused nothing but problems for you! Gregory tried to kill you—”
“And I kicked his butt.”
“—and things are only going to get worse now that I’m a clan head. I’ve nearly died three times in the four days you were dead. I can’t ask you to be part of that. It was my fault you died this time.”
“You’re not asking me,” she said angrily, yanking her arms out of his grip at last. “I’m choosing. You think you’re the only one with a crazy life? I’m a Merlin now. You’ve already seen how scary that can get, and you weren’t even there for the stuff on the other side. Is that going to scare you off loving me?”
“No,” he said immediately.
“Exactly,” Marci said. “So stop expecting me to be different.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “I am well acquainted with the dangers of being your girlfriend, Julius Heartstriker. I’ve seen it all, and none of it has changed my mind. So if it’s all the same to you, I’d like to sample the benefits of our relationship for once before I die again.”
Julius went pale. “That isn’t funny.”
“It wasn’t meant to be,” she said firmly. “I’m only saying it so you’ll understand I’m going into this with eyes wide open. I know what you are, and I know what that means, and it doesn’t change a thing. You’ve always been the one I wanted. There’s nothing you can say at this point that’s going to change my mind, so while I know you mean well, kindly cut it out. I love you. I want this. End of story.”
That was pretty clear, but Julius couldn’t help it. “You love me?”
“Duh,” she said as her cheeks turned red. “In case kissing you in the hotel wasn’t a big enough hint, I’ve had a crush on you pretty much forever.”
He was grinning like a happy idiot by the time she finished, and Marci rolled her eyes. “So is there anything else embarrassing you want me to admit, or can we go ahead and do this? Because I’m not sure how much of a breather we’ll get in this crisis, and I’d rather not miss what might be our only chance to—”
Julius pulled her back against him. She responded in kind, frantically kissing him back as she pushed off the floor with her foot to send them both tumbling backward into the bed.
The moment they landed, Julius knew they’d crossed the point of no return. Marci was on top of him now, her scent and warmth all over him as she helped him take off her shirt. His went next, and when she settled back down on top of him, pressing skin to warm skin, he thought he was going to die.
Surprisingly, not of anxiety. The few times he’d let himself imagine this scenario, he’d always been slightly terrified. Now that it was actually happening, though, the fact that he was a virgin who had no idea what he was doing suddenly felt like a minor concern next to the absolute wonder that was having Marci so close to him. It was completely overwhelming. Too good to be true. The sort of good fortune that shouldn’t be questioned. But then, just as he was getting the hang of things, Marci froze.
“What?” he asked, terrified he’d done something wrong, but she wasn’t looking at him. She was looking at his window.
“There’s a bird out there.”
Julius sat up in alarm. Sure enough, a pigeon was sitting on his windowsill. A perfectly normal-looking city pigeon wearing a little flower hat that someone had tied to her feathered head at a jaunty angle.
She pecked the glass when she saw Julius looking, her throat fluttering as she cooed questioningly. She was still cooing when Julius reached up and grabbed the string for the blinds.
“Wait!” Marci cried as the blinds crashed down. “Wasn’t that Bob’s—”
“Yes.”
“Then why did you—”
“Because I don’t care,” Julius said, burying his face in her neck. “Whatever it is, whatever he has to tell me, it can wait.”
“But what if it’s important?”
“Doesn’t matter,” he said stubbornly, pushing up just enough to stare down at her. “I am done putting other things ahead of us, Marci. The last time I chose Heartstriker over you, you died. That’s not a lesson I’m going to forget. Bob can take care of himself for a few hours, but I am never taking you for granted again.”
He was holding her too tight by the time he finished. When he tried to let go, though, she wouldn’t let him. She kissed him instead, dragging her lips over his until they were both lost again, cocooned in a warm world where, for once, they were the most important things.
***
High above the dry bed of Lake St. Clair, on the last remaining steel support beam of what had been the elevated boardwalk for the elegant—and currently collapsed—lakeside hotels, a dragon sat cross-legged beneath the protective bubble created by his enormous fang-shaped sword, eating a chicken sandwich and watching the magic rise from the ground like a heavy snowfall in reverse.
It was a little cramped—even the Magician’s Fang of the Heartstriker was hard pressed to ward off this much disaster—but Brohomir was quite content. After all, it wasn’t every day you got a front-row seat for the end of the world.
He’d just finished his sandwich and was reaching into the paper bag for another when a pigeon wearing a pretty hat fluttered down to land on his leg.
Alone.
“I take it that’s a ‘no,’ then?” Bob said, lowering his sandwich sadly.
The pigeon bobbed its head, hopping onto his knee to peck at the sandwich he’d just set down.
“I suspected he wouldn’t come,” the seer said, opening the bread so she could eat it more easily. “But there was a small chance, and I’d much hoped I’d get a chance to talk to him properly before…”
“Before the end.”
Bob looked up just in time to see the Black Reach drop out of the sky. Not as a dragon—things weren’t that far gone yet—but his human form was bad enough.
“Do you mind?” Bob asked irritably. “Not that I object to a good cryptic drop—which was nicely done, I admit—but there’s not enough room up here for two.”
“I won’t be long,” the Black Reach assured him, helping himself to a sandwich from the paper bag beside Bob’s bloodstained leg. “That looks serious.”
“Things are always serious with my sister,” Bob said with a laugh that quickly turned into a wince as the movement irritated the bruises on his chest. “Even with her Fang, that fight would have been a gamble. Without it…” He grimaced. “Let’s just say I’m happy to still be in possession of all my organs.”
“Couldn’t have been that bad if you’re able to joke about it,” the Black Reach said as he unwrapped his stolen sandwich from its paper. “And I noticed your tool arrived right on time to save you.”
Bob smiled serenely. “Punctuality is one of Julius’s many virtues.”
“So I’ve seen,” the oldest seer said, giving him a piercing look. “That’s the trouble. I’ve seen everything, and I still don’t understand. This meeting, for example.” His eyes flicked to the pigeon, who was still happily pecking at her sandwich in Bob’s lap. “You have everything you need now. What are you waiting for?”
“If you truly saw everything, you wouldn’t be asking me that,” Brohomir replied, reaching down to stroke the pigeon’s folded wings with his finger.
The Black Reach crushed the sandwich in his fists, and Bob sighed. “Really, did you just come up here to waste food or—”
“Why?” he growled, throwing the sandwich aside as he knelt down in front of the younger seer, getting right in his face. “I’ve been watching you every step of the way, waiting for you to reveal yourself. To surprise me. But every single step has done nothing but bring us closer to the inevitable.”
“That’s the problem with inevitable things,” Brohomir said. “They always—”
“WHY?” the Black Reach roared at him, pointing at the pulsing ball of water floating above the dry bed of Lake St. Clair. “Your plans have done nothing but make things worse! You have irritated and agitated and destroyed, and for what? The future is still what it always has been. All your work, your cryptic secrets, it’s all been for nothing!”
“Ah,” Bob said, lifting a finger. “That’s where you’re wrong.”
“Tell me,” the older seer demanded, grabbing him by the collar. “Tell me how these things add up to anything but disaster.”
“I can’t,” Bob said, hanging limp in his grasp. “You said it yourself. The end is inevitable.”
The Black Reach bared his teeth. “Then why do you seem to be doing everything in your power to make it come faster?”
“Because I need it to,” Bob said, growing serious at last. “I need this chaos, because this”—he nodded at Algonquin’s ball—“was always doomed to happen. I’ve spent my entire life looking down these paths. I’ve lived through every way this night ends, and the only way we live on to see tomorrow is if I make sure every disaster from here out happens on my terms.”
The Black Reach let him go with a long sigh. “There’s the fault in your logic,” he said tiredly. “There is no tomorrow for you, Brohomir. Thanks to your actions, there might not be a tomorrow for any of us.”
“You won’t let that happen,” Bob said confidently. “You’re Dragon Sees Eternity, the guardian of the future. If there’s no more future for dragons, you’re out of a job.”
The Black Reach reached up to rub his eyes. “I’ll try,” he said. “But has it ever occurred to you that I’m a construct, not a god?”
“Oh, that’s occurred to me many, many times,” Bob promised. “But don’t worry. I wrote in a part for you, too. It’s a bit of a grand one, but I promised my darling a show, and I never disappoint a lady.”
He leaned down to press a kiss to his pigeon’s head, and the Black Reach’s lip curled in disgust. “That’s no lady,” he growled. “That’s a—”
“Ah, ah, ah,” Bob said. “Not another word. I will tolerate no maligning of my consort.”
“Your consort?” The Black Reach snorted. “You’re her consort, and she’s using you.”
“It would only be using if I weren’t aware,” Bob said, leaning back against his Fang. “But I know exactly what’s going on, because it was all my idea. Not that it’s any of your business, but I asked her, so if you have any ideas of me being an innocent victim, you can toss them. I went into this with eyes wide open.”
“Then you should have seen more,” the Black Reach said coldly, turning to face the ball of compressed water and the enormous shadow that covered it like a cloud. “Last chance, Brohomir.”
The Seer of the Heartstrikers smiled as he stood up, yanking his sword out of the support beam and resting the giant blade on his shoulder. He snagged his bag of sandwiches next. Then, with a polite bob of his head, he stepped backward, dropping off the jutting beam like a stone.
He landed nimbly as a cat a good thirty feet below, hitting the sandy dirt of the dry lake bed without leaving so much as a footprint.
“See you soon,” he called up to the Black Reach, waving at him with his sword before returning the blade to his shoulder and strolling into the Underground, using his Magician’s Fang like a machete as he hacked a path through the thick strands of toxic, glowing magic waving like wheat in front of him.
“One more time,” the eldest seer muttered back, reaching down to grip the strap of the battered messenger bag he’d been carrying since he’d left Heartstriker Mountain. The one that—now that Brohomir had refused his final chance to lift himself from the rails—held their last hope for the future.
With a grim shake of his head, the Black Reach sat down in the spot Brohomir had vacated, settling in to watch as the glowing magic began to swirl around Algonquin’s darkening ball of compressed water like stars around a black hole.