Whatever it was, Myron had made it clear he wasn’t pulling his punches, which meant she had to do somethingfast. His glowing maze already covered a third of the wood around the crack. At this rate, he’d have the whole door marked for destruction in minutes, along with Marci’s hopes of ever being a Merlin. Or getting out of this alive.
“Screw this,” she growled, turning to her spirit. “Ghost?”
The name wasn’t out of her mouth before the wind surrounding them picked up.I thought you’d never ask.
She grinned at the eagerness of the voice in her head, but Amelia curled her body closer, wings twitching nervously. “Marci,” she whispered. “I’m not sure sending him out is a good—”
A howl of wind drowned out whatever she’d been about to say. The protective magic surrounding them didn’t budge, but Ghost himself was gone, his centurion’s body blowing away like dust only to reappear directly beside Myron. The mage snatched his hand away from the door, turning to block himself instead, but Ghost wasn’t going for him. He was reaching for the leashed spirit, snatching the black rat-thing up by the scruff of its neck and throwing it into the dark. But just as Marci thought they’d landed it, the DFZ twisted in midair, launching itself off of nothing to slam into the Empty Wind like a furious, sharp-toothed school bus.
“Ghost!”
He went down with a crash, his shadowy body crushed under the rat-shaped spirit, who was getting bigger as Marci watched. In the seconds they struggled, it had grown from bus sized to house sized, its orange eyes gleaming with wild fury. No matter how big or angry it got, though, Ghost was still a wind. When the monster tried to trap him, he simply blew away, racing through the dark to safety. The rat didn’t give up, though. Ghost was infinitely faster, but the spirit of the DFZ was stuck on him as stubbornly as it had been on the door. No matter how deftly he dodged, it just kept coming, forcing him to run again and again, retreating farther and farther back into the dark.
“Why is he retreating?”
“That’s what I was trying to warn you about,” Amelia said quietly. “It doesn’t look it, but Myron’s DFZ is alotbigger than your Empty Wind.”
That couldn’t be possible. “How is the spirit of a city bigger than the fear of being forgotten?”
“It isn’t, but remember what the shikigami said: the DFZ was stuffed full of spirit magic. Ghost rose on his own. He has enough juice to be conscious and active, but he’s nowhere near full, andyou’re not alive to feed him power anymore. That’s a double whammy. Not only did he start in the hole, but he’s still running on the magic that he came in with when you died. That’s nowhere near enough to face a full-blown, fully juiced Mortal Spirit.”
“Then I’ll feed him magic!” Marci said desperately, looking around at the swirling dark. “There’s plenty of it around.”
“Too much of it. That’s the problem, remember?”
How could she forget? The one time she’d touched the stuff without the Empty Wind’s protection, she’d nearly lost her hand. Even so. “I have to do something!” She pointed at Myron, who was already back to working on his maze. “He’s halfway done.”
“Then don’t help him by being stupid!” Amelia snapped. “I know you want to do something, but if you touch the raw magic out there without a physical body to help diffuse it, it’ll burn right through you, and then Ghost willreallybe lost.”
Marci clenched her jaw. Amelia was right. The spirit of the DFZ might not have looked like much at the beginning, but now that they were going head to head, it was obvious the Empty Wind was outmatched. If he hadn’t been so fast, he’d have already been ripped to shreds, and while he retreated, Myron’s maze on the door got bigger and bigger and bigger.
“Screw this,” she growled, taking a step forward.
“Marci!” Amelia cried, digging her claws into her shoulder, but Marci wasn’t listening. She didn’t care if she burned out. That pompous idiot wasnotallowed to win. Not after they’d fought so hard to get here. So, before she could chicken out, Marci lunged forward, thrusting her hand through the protective swirl of winds Ghost was still maintaining.
Touching the raw magic felt like sticking her hand into a roaring furnace. The swirling chaos around them might have looked like ink-black water, but it burned like acid. Even braced for the worst, it still hurt more than she’d expected, but Marci didn’t let go. She just took another step, grabbing as much of the raw pulsing magic as she could and shoving it through the spellwork that was still marked on the inside of her bracelets.
The chunky plastic held up better than she’d anticipated, probably because it wasn’t actually plastic. Like all the rest of her, the colorful circles were only echoes, the residual magic of a life. For all that, though, her spellwork held up fine, as well it should. The founding theory of Thaumaturgy was that spellwork was a tool, a way for mages to keep the immensely complicated logic needed to cast spells straight in their heads. No chalk or marker could actually channel magic. Even the circle, the base of all casting, was just a physical line to serve as a mental barrier.
That was the theory, anyway. Of course, since nothing was physical in this place, casting this spell meant Marci had just accidentally proven the theoretical basis of the most popular casting method in the world. That should have been an enormous deal, but Marci didn’t have time to think about the ramifications. She was too busy forcing the burning magic through the bracelet containing her trusty microwave spell and out into Myron’s back.
As theory predicted, the spell worked perfectly. The moment she let it go, heat exploded from Marci’s fist, shooting instantly across the distance to leave a blistering burn mark across Myron’s back between his shoulder blades. He screamed in pain, dropping the maze he’d been carefully crafting as he reached instinctively for the wound. A blow that would have felt more like a victory if Marci hadn’t been screaming, too.
She hadn’t felt it during the rush of the attack, but now that the magic was gone, her whole arm was throbbing in pain. Even with no physical flesh to scorch, the burning magic had still blistered her skin to her elbow. Her entire right hand from the wrist down was a bloody, scorched mess, far worse than the second-degree burn she’d landed on Myron. But even knowing she’d come out the worse in that exchange didn’t keep the defiant smirk off Marci’s face when the older mage whirled around.
“Are you mad?” he yelled, stomping forward to face her. “What is it you hope to accomplish here? You’velost, Novalli. I have the bigger spirit, the ready magic, and the physical life needed to safely handle it. Even if we were on equal footing, I would still have the advantage because I’m the better mage. I’m more experienced, more educated, and my labyrinth casting is infinitely superior to your pedantic Thaumaturgy. I am better than you in every possibleway. You have a zero percent chance of stopping me, and you’ll only hurt yourself more if you try.”
“If you wanted me to stop, you shouldn’t have put my back against the wall,” Marci growled, tucking her burned right arm to her side only to raise her left instead, pointing her uninjured fist at his face like a cannon. “I’ll burn myself to a crisp before I let a cowardly, shortsighted, selfish man like you become Merlin!”
Myron rolled his eyes. “Is that what this is about?” he asked in a patronizing voice. “I never expected you to accept defeat gracefully, Novalli, but I didn’t think you’d stoop to denying reality. Your part in this is over. The dead don’t get to have a say in the affairs of the living. But I’m not a cruel man. Stand down, call off your spirit, and I’ll give you another chance.”
“A chance at what?” she demanded, holding her arm steady. “As you just so kindly reminded me, I’m already dead. Thisismy last chance.”
“Mine, too,” he said quietly, holding up his fist, which was still gripping the spirit’s silver leash. “You’re not the only one with your back to a wall. This is a mission Icannotfail. I don’t want to kill what’s left of you, but I will if I have to, and we both know I can, so be a good girl andstand down.”
Marci bared her teeth and clenched her fist, ignoring the pain as she yanked the burning magic into the bracelet containing her force choke this time. Unlike her microwave spell, which was capped specifically to prevent lethal damage, this one had no limit. With enough power, she could crush an armored truck, and power was no problem in this place.
“Marci, think about this,” Amelia whispered as smoke began to rise from her curled fingers. “If he’s talking to you, he’s not breaking the door. Don’t be hasty.”
