The wind sighed. “I know I chose you for your determination, but I think you’ve finally pushed too far. Myron did enormous damage to you. I barely caught your soul before he shredded it, and the only reason your magic is still together is because I’m keeping it that way by holding you in the one place I have total control. If you go out into the chaos of the Sea of Magic again, even with my winds to protect you, you’ll be extremely vulnerable. A ghost.”
Then we’ll match,Marci said.I’m not giving up on this. You know what could happen if Myron blasts his way into the Heart of the World, assuming he hasn’t done so already.She wasn’t sure how long she’d spent flipping through the dark, but Myron’s maze had to be nearly complete.I know it’s dangerous, but we have to do this, Ghost. If we don’t become a Merlin together, you’re toast and I’m dead. For real, this time. Even if I could go back to my death, you wouldn’t be there to pull me out when it finally collapsed, would you?
“No,” he said gravely. “Without Mortal Spirits, no one would come to save you.”
Exactly,she said.That’s why we can’t stop.This is more than just our lives. I don’t even know enough to describe the full breadth of what’s at stake here, but we’ve already run the ‘personal safety or Merlin’ scenario, and we both know what I chose.
“We do,” he said, his voice resigned. “All right, what are we doing?”
Trying another angle,Marci said, peering out toward where she could feel the edges of his dark.I need you to take me to the DFZ’s vessel.
The wind went still.
I know you can do it,she said before he could argue.The two of you were born right on top of each other. Right in Algonquin’s shadow. I’m betting that means you know where her vessel is. I want you to take me there.
“I do know where she is,” the Empty Wind admitted. “And you’re right, she is close, but…”
But?
“She’s not like me,” he said at last. “Not like I am now, anyway. You remember how I was in the beginning? How lost and angry and eager to control you?”
How could I forget?Marci said, rolling her eyes, or where her eyes should have been.You tried to make me your pet human. But you had good reason for feeling that way. You’d just woken up with no help and your domain screaming at you to fix things. Of course you were angry and confused.
“So is she,” Ghost said. “Only she’s much bigger and has far more reason to be enraged. She is not a kind city, Marci.”
I know that,she said.But she’s my city. I didn’t run to the DFZ just to get away from Bixby. I’d always wanted to live there, because it was the place where anything was possible. That’s the dream of the DFZ. It’s the city where anyone can start over, and anything can happen. Myron can’t put a chain on that. No matter how mad she gets, if she’s still the DFZ I know, I’m betting I can talk to her.
“I’m sure you can,” he said. “I just don’t know if she’ll listen.”
That’s a chance we’ll have to take.
The Empty Wind heaved a long sigh, and then he started moving, whisking her through the dark at what must have been ludicrous speed. “I just hope you know what you’re doing.”
I don’t,she confessed.I can’t. We’re in brand-new territory here. There is no knowing. We’ll just have to give it a shot.
That was a terrifying truth, but in a way, Marci was used to it. From the moment she’d bound Ghost, everything had been new and strange and unknown. She’d been making things up as she went for months now, but that was the price of being at the cutting edge. She just hoped being on this one didn’t cut her to bits. But there was no turning back now. Ghost was already slowing down, his wind buffeting her gently as they reached the edge of the dark.
Like everything else in this place, the Empty Wind ended at a cliff. It rose from his depths like a wall. Unlike the hole at the top of Marci’s death, though, there was no upside-down pool of liquid dark or barrier of any kind. It was just a stone lip, the place where the floor of the Sea of Magic fell off into the chasm that was humanity’s fear of being forgotten, and over it, pouring down into the abyss below like a thousand-mile-high waterfall, was the swirling magic.
Wow,Marci said, staring in awe as her spirit lifted her over the silent spectacle of a black sea pouring into an even blacker chasm.Is that the magic filling you up?
“Trying to,” he whispered as he pulled her into the space above his vessel at a much slower speed. “It’s been flowing like that for a long time, but I am a very big hole to fill.”
So I see,she said, tearing her eyes off the waterfall of magic to look at what was up top instead. Or try to. They were definitely flying over the floor of the Sea of Magic, but there wasn’t actually much to see here. The chaotic swirls and nauseating waves that had made her eyes cross earlier were now so small she could barely see them. She was trying to figure out if this was because the magic had changed, or if she had, when Ghost explained.
“The magic is thin here,” he said, sweeping them low over the stony floor. “The Sea of Magic is still filling. That leads to uneven spots, especially in places where many Mortal Spirit chasms need to be filled. The magic pours into us faster than it can be replaced, creating localized shallows.”
Is that why we’re going so slow?
“No,” he said, setting them down on the sea floor. “We’re slow because we’re here.”
Marci jumped. Now that she was down, she could feel the stone beneath her feet, which meant shehadfeet again. A quick inventory revealed she had hands, too, along with the rest of her body. She still couldn’t see anything in the dark, but it was an enormous relief just to feel her physical parts, or at least the illusion of them. She was turning to ask Ghost if this was due to their leaving his domain or if he’d done something to put her back together, but the question died before it could form in her mind when she looked down and saw where they’d landed.
They were on the edge of another chasm with magic pouring over the edge just like Ghost’s, except this one wasn’t empty or dark. It was vast and shining, a Grand Canyon of glittering light below them that stretched down and out as far as she could see.
What am I looking at?she whispered, kneeling at the edge of the sea floor.
“What you asked me to show you,” the wind whispered nervously in her ear. “The city.”
