“Gotcha,” she whispered, hugging her cat tight as she shoved up off the ground and ran across the false square toward the stairwell that, in this version of the DFZ at least, still led to the Underground.
Where are we going?
“To where it started,” she panted, racing down the stairs. She was taking them two at a time when the spirit in her arms transformed, leaving her hugging not a cat, but an angry solider with a shadow for a face and eyes that burned with blue-white determination.
“Then let’s go,” he growled, whisking them both off the stairwell and into the shadows of the sprawling Underground as fast as the wind could blow.
Chapter 16
“We have to find Marci,” Julius said frantically. “I don’t know what this place is—”
“I do,” Raven said, hopping around the strange silver circle where Myron was tied down like a spider’s dinner. “This is the DFZ’s domain.Bothhalves of it, overlapped. She’s pulled in so much magic, she’s torn the barrier, and now the physical world and the Sea of Magic are blending.”
“That doesn’t sound good.”
“It’s a disaster,” Raven agreed. “But it’s an unsustainable one.”
“And we’re standing on the weak point,” Amelia finished, kneeling beside the strange silver ribbon. “Pull out the pin, and the whole thing blows.”
“Still not reassuring,” Julius said, lifting into the air. “If this place is going to blow, I’m going to find Marci.”
Amelia grabbed his tail. “Relax,” she said, yanking him back to the ground. “Marci’s a Merlin now. That makes her the biggest girl around. She’ll come to us. We just need to make sure we’re ready when—”
The rest of what she said was drowned out by a sudden roaring wind. It swept through the cavern of the Pit in a freezing gale, blowing the silt into a dust storm. Then, fast as it had arrived, the wind vanished, leaving…
“Marci!”
Just like before, she appeared out of nowhere, standing straight and determined in the center of the cloud of falling dust. She was shaking the debris out of her hair when Julius pounced on her.
“Are you okay?” he cried. “Where did you go? What happened?”
“I’m fine,” Marci said, staring at him in confusion. “But how didyouget here?” She turned to the Empty Wind, whom Julius only now realized was standing right behind her. “Did you bring him?”
“Not I,” the spirit said out loud.
Marci frowned. “Then how—”
“It was me,” Amelia said, walking over with a cocky grin. “Well, team effort, really. Julius provided the fire, and I did the rest.”
“Amelia!” Marci cried, delighted. “You did it! You’re alive!”
“I’m way more than that,” the dragoness said with a wink. “But we’ll talk about that later. Right now, we need to deal withhim.”
She turned to point at Myron, and Marci’s face grew grim.
“I thought so,” she said as she walked over to the silver circle. “I knew the DFZ had to be getting all her magic from somewhere, and the only thing that feeds magic to spirits is a mage. For her, that means Myron.”
“But how?” Julius asked, hurrying after her. “He’s unconscious.”
“This is just his empty body,” Marci explained. “His soul is still back in the Sea of Magic.”
That sounded a lot worse than unconscious. “Can you fix him?”
“That’s the plan,” she said, getting down on her knees beside the silver circle. “First, though, I have to get him out of…” She faded off, leaning over to peer at the spellworked metal ribbon. “Um, what is this?”
“My spellwork,” Raven said angrily, flying over to perch on her shoulder. “Myron and Algonquin had nothing that could chain a Mortal Spirit, so they stole my creation.”
He nodded at the head in Myron’s hands, but it must have taken Marci a few seconds to realize what she was looking at, because Julius could see the moment her curious confusion turned to horror.
