“Holy—” She jumped back, eyes wide in horror. “Is that…?”
“It is,” the raven spirit said, his voice dark and angry. “It’s bad enough that Algonquin and Myron altered my Emily to be a vessel, but then Myron was reckless enough to follow the DFZ to the Sea of Magic while leaving his physical body hardwired to her magic. Now the overgrown city’s taking advantage of that to suck magic through that idiot’s empty body like a straw to continue her war with Algonquin, which would actually be pretty brilliant if it weren’t so horrifically destructive.”
“And dangerous,” the Empty Wind added, looking out at the dark. “The magic of this place is deeply polluted. Taken directly, with no Merlin to help mitigate it…”
“It’s driving her nuts,” Marci finished, her face pale. “So how do we unplug him?”
“Very carefully,” Amelia said. “The DFZ’s already pulled in enough magic to overwhelm the barrier that divides this plane, blending her physical domain with her vessel in the Sea of Magic. I didn’t even think that was possible, but apparently anything’s game if you use enough force. Unfortunately, this means we’re basically standing inside a magical pressure cooker.”
Julius might not have known much about magic, but he’d seen enough Internet fail videos to know what happened when a pressure cooker went wrong. “You’re saying this place could explode.”
“Only if we’re not careful,” his oldest sister said. “Or unlucky.”
There, at least, Julius had an edge. It wasn’t as overwhelming now, but the golden music of the Qilin’s good fortune was still humming in his bones. If there was ever a time he could count on not being unlucky, it was now. “Let me help.”
“I was just about to ask,” Marci said, flashing him a warm smile as she motioned for him to come closer. “I need to borrow your magic.”
“Whyhismagic?” Raven asked as Julius sat down beside her.
“Because he’s a dragon,” she said, reaching up to bury her hand in the soft feathers of Julius’s neck. “Amelia might have connected them to our plane, but no amount of spirit representation can ever make them truly native. So long as they have fire, they’re always going to be on a different wavelength from everything else, and different is what I need.”
She turned back to the silver circle. “There’s so much power running through this right now, I can’t even touch it without cooking myself. But if I can get some dragon magic in there, the disconnect might disrupt the flow long enough to yank Myron out.”
“Use a foreign element to jolt the system,” Amelia said. “Clever. But does Julius have enough juice for that? I might have made him use up a lot of fire getting in here.”
“I don’t think I’ll need too much,” Marci said. “Source seems to play a much bigger role in spirit magic than it does for normal spells, and dragons have always been part of the DFZ. Also, Algonquinhatesthem. That makes dragons a DFZ ally by default, and given how much anger she’s wallowing in, I think some friendly magic would go a long way right now.”
“And no one’s friendlier than Julius,” Amelia said with a grin.
“Technically, personality’s not an issue here, but it can’t hurt,” Marci agreed. “I just need something to make her hesitate long enough to let us break the chain without getting fried.”
“I don’t like all this talk of frying and cooking,” Julius said nervously. “Can’t we justtalkto her? We’re all on the same team against Algonquin.”
“You can talk to her all you like once we knock her out of her cackling madness phase,” Marci assured him. “That’s actually what I’m counting on. Like I said, she’s not bad. She’s just drunk on power.”
“I think you mean high on revenge,” Ghost said, his eyes glowing brighter as he watched the dark above them. “Be careful. She’s—”
He never got to finish. There was no sound, no warning—the Empty Wind just doubled over, his glowing eyes wide in shock at the slender hand that had been stuck through his ribs. It vanished a second later, and his warrior’s body crumbled like sand to reveal the figure standing behind him. A figure that appeared to be a human girl in very plain clothes but smelled like madness and death.
“Ghost!” Marci threw out her arms just in time for a white cat to fall into them, his transparent body panting and smaller than Julius had seen it in a long, long time.
“Are you insane?” she cried at the newcomer, shooting to her feet as she clutched Ghost to her chest. “I’m trying tohelp you, and it’d be a lot easier if youstopped hurting my cat!”
“You’re the one hurting people,” the DFZ replied, her strangely glowing orange eyes flicking to the mage bound in silver ribbons. “Step away from him.”
“No,” Marci said stubbornly. “You’re using him.”
“He used me first!”
“That doesn’t make it right!”
“That’s how Iwin!” the DFZ screamed, throwing her hand out like a spear.
Magic seized at the same time, forming a wave so dense, Julius could actually see the outline of it shimmering in the air. He got an even closer look a second later when he jumped in front of it, taking the full blast before it could slam into Marci.
In sober reflection, it was a smart move. As his family’s favorite punching bag, Julius knew how to take a hit. He knew how to brace his magic and use it like a shield, just as he had against the giant lamprey in the DFZ storm drain what felt like forever ago.
But clever as all that was, Julius hadn’t actually considered any of it. He’d just jumped, because whatever happened, it couldn’t hurt more than losing Marci again. The fact that everything else lined up was just happy coincidence. More good luck.
