“I don’t believe you do,” Myron said coldly. “Since you asked for my advice, you should know that I agree with the shikigami. Algonquin got me the spirit I needed to come here, but I didn’t become a Merlin because I wanted to follow her plan. I came here to save humanity from monsters like her by shutting the magic off for good.”
Marci took a step back. “What? But you were the one who told me about Merlins in the first place! You said they were our weapons, our chance to meet the spirits on an equal field.”
“That’s what I believed,” he said. “Until I met you.”
Her eyes went wide, but Myron wasn’t done.
“I know you think I sold out,” he said bitterly. “That I betrayed my team and all of humanity when I went to work for Algonquin, but what you don’t understand is that I was just doing what needed to be done. What I havealwaysdone. My entire life has been dedicated to doing what is best for humanity as a species. That’s why I joined the UN and stayed there for decades. Despite receiving countless offers for far better-paying positions, I chose to remain where I could do the most good, pushing our understanding of magic and advancing humanity’s ability to stand up to the monsters that were so much stronger than us. For years, I thought the Merlins were the key to that victory. They were the mages of legend, the weapons that would finally elevate us to the level of spirits and dragons. That was my hope, but then you came along.”
His dark eyes narrowed. “You showed me the truth, Marci Novalli. Through you, I saw that Mortal Spirits weren’t our shining swords. They were our monsters. Our deaths. Even bound, your Empty Wind was always greater than you,alwaysstronger.”
“But that’s a good thing,” Marci argued. “Ghost is my partner. His strength is my strength.”
“Is it?” Myron asked. “Do you really think your Empty Wind couldn’t kill you in an instant if you angered him? Or the dragons? Do you think you’ve ever been anything to them but a tool?”
“Hey!” Amelia said. “Don’t bring us into this.”
“Why not? You’re part of the problem.” He turned back to Marci. “You stand there and criticize Abe no Seimei for taking away magic, but now that I understand what he was up against, I think he was a hero. The thousand years of peace he bought us with his drought were the greatest in our race’s history. We were the unquestioned masters of the world. Even dragons were forced to pretend to be human to survive. When magic returned, though, we went right back down to the bottom, and that’s where we’ve stayed. Emily and I were trying to change that when we sought you out, but now I know we were doomed from the start. No matter what we invent or how clever we get, humanity just can’t win so long as magic is in play. Even if we learn to deal with the dragons and Algonquin, we would still be doomed, because of things likehim.”
He pointed at Ghost, and Marci clenched her jaw. “I get it. You’ve never liked my spirit, but—”
“This isn’t aboutyourspirit,” he snapped. “It’s aboutallspirits, Mortal ones in particular. You heard Shiro’s story about how the ancient Merlins were overrun, but I don’t think even he understands just how bad these new ones will be.”
“But—”
“The world’s population when magic vanished was roughly three hundred million people,” he said over her. “Today, there are nine billion. That’s a thirty-fold increase, and that’s not even taking into account the global spread of ideas caused by mass communication. You saw how huge the DFZ was, and she’s not even naturally occurring. Algonquin created her specifically so that she’d have a Mortal Spirit small enough to fill before the others did. TherealMortal Spirits, the ones who’re a natural result of humanity’s collected fears, are bigger than we can comprehend.”
“You think I don’t know that?” she said, jerking her head at the Empty Wind. “I’m bound to one. I know how big he is, but just because somethingcankill us doesn’t mean itwill. Ghost helped you, if you’ll recall.”
“But will the next one?” Myron said. “We’re talking about a plague of gods unleashed on an unsuspecting world. You’re asking me to believe that all of them can be controlled like your Empty Wind, but you didn’t have full control over him at the beginning, did you? You told me yourself that you had to bind him multiple times, and that was with the handicap of him barely being awake. We won’t get that break with the rest of them, and I’m not willing to gamble humanity’s future on the hope that all these spirits of death and anger will miraculously turn out to be reasonable.”
Marci rolled her eyes. “That’s not—”
“I don’t care,” he snapped, placing his hand on the broken seal. “You want my advice? This crack should be repaired as quickly as possible, not enshrined. Even without Mortal Spirits, the return of magic has already caused irreparable harm and loss of life to people all over the world, particularly in Detroit. Sealing it away again is the only responsible course of action. To do otherwise is to doom us all.”
Shiro nodded as he finished, looking wistfully at Myron as if he were seriously regretting not letting him attempt to enter the Heart of the World first. The rejection stung, but Marci couldn’t blame the shikigami for it. She couldn’t make herself be mad at Myron, either, because pompous as he was, he wasn’t wrong. Mortal Spiritswerea threat. What Myron was saying now was the same thing Amelia had said before the fight with Vann Jeger: that if Marci didn’t control her spirit, he’d end up controlling her.
It had almost happened, too. If she’d been less bold in the moments after he’d first remembered his name as the Empty Wind, he would have taken over. Their entire relationship had been a delicate exercise in trust building, and as happy as she was with the end result, Marci had no illusions that it was the sort of process that could be easily reproduced. Even if she could come up with a process, every Mortal Spirit was different, as was every mage. Every pair had to forge its own unique connection, build their own bridge of trust. That was hard enough between two normal people, but when the price of failure was a god rampaging out of control, Myron’s argument made a lot of sense.
And yet…
“I understand what you’re saying,” Marci said slowly. “There’s no question that sealing off the magic again would save lives, but you’re missing the part where human lives aren’t the only things at stake here. This isn’t justourplanet, Myron. It’s home to spirits and magical creatures of all kinds, many of whom were living here long before we came down from the trees. If we bring back the drought, we might save humanity, but we’ll hurt everything else.”
Myron sneered. “If you’re asking me to feel sorry for the dragons who have to stay in their human forms—”
“I’m not just talking about dragons,” Marci said. “I’m talking about magical animals, the chimeras and tank badgers and unicorns and all the other magical species that have reemerged since magic returned. If I seal magic away again, I’ll send them back into hibernation, possibly forever. And what about the spirits? They’re not all like Algonquin. There aremillions of land and animal spirits all over the world that live peacefully with their human neighbors. Many of them even help us. Are they monsters? Do they deserve to die?”
“Of course not,” he said. “But we do what we must to survive.”
“Do we?” she asked. “Are we really surviving?”
“You’re alive, aren’t you?”
Marci lifted her chin. “Am I?”
He sighed. “Bad example. But your death was—”
“Mydeathis why I can talk about this!” Marci cried. “Magic isn’t just power, Myron. It’s oursoul, and I’m not speaking poetically. When my body died,thisis what was left.”
