“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 ofactualwater 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 weretwoMerlins.”
“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 alie.”
“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’snevercoming 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 havenothingto go back to.”
