“Winging it,” Marci repeated bleakly. “That’syour plan?”
The dragon shrugged. “It’s been my M.O. since I got here. Worked so far. Remember, no dragon has ever been to this side of the plane, and Bob can’t see what happens on this side.”
“You mean you’ve been making it up this whole time?” she cried. “What’s the point of following a seer’s advice if you’re just going to fly blind?”
“Plenty,” Amelia said, giving her stern look. “Bob picks horses, not races. He chose you not because of any specific event, but because your personality and choices gave you the best chance of success over the long term. The rest was up to us. This whole thing has been one giant long shot from your death all the way to here, but we pulled it off. Now we just have to keep that up. That said, this final part is the hairiest bit, which is why I’ve taken the precaution of enlisting some outside help.”
Shiro’s head snapped up in alarm. “What kind of outside help?”
“The very best,” Amelia said, glancing up at the twisted pine tree. “I’m actually surprised he hasn’t already outed himself. He normally can’t resist a dramatic entrance.”
Marci didn’t see anything in the branches, but Shiro still looked utterly appalled.
“Where do you think you are, dragon?” he cried, reaching down to snatch Amelia up. “You are a guest in the Heart of the World! The sacred fortress of the Merlins! You have no authority to bring in others. The fact that a snake like you was permitted entrance is itself a miracle. You can’t expect such a thing to—”
He stopped, eyes going wide, though Marci had no idea why. Nothing on the mountaintop had changed that she could see. When she asked the shikigami what was wrong, though, all he said was, “There’s a bird here.”
Confused, Marci looked up again to see he was right. Therewasa bird in the tree above their heads. An absolutely massive black raven with a very familiar gleam in his intelligent eyes. “My ears were burning,” he croaked, hopping down to perch on the edge of the cracked seal. “Did I miss anything?”
“Hello, Raven,” Amelia said as she wormed out of Shiro’s slack fingers to join him. “Right on time.”
“I should be. I’ve been checking this place every few minutes since I heard you’d died. Though I must say, Amelia love, you look worse every time I see you. And the company you keep…” He turned sideways to examine Myron with a black eye. “Dreadful.”
Amelia lifted her lip in disgust. “Ididn’t invite him. He’s a stowaway on Marci’s better nature. One of the bad habits she picked up from my baby brother.”
“Really?” Raven said, turning gravely to Marci. “You must be more discerning, Madame Merlin. Betrayal is usually a repeated behavior.”
“I don’t have to defend myself to you,” Myron said, lifting his chin. “I did what I felt was necessary to preserve the future of mankind.”
“I know,” the spirit said tiredly. “It’s one of humanity’s worst traits. Good intentions justify all kinds of terrible behavior.”
Myron was opening his mouth to argue when Shiro cut him off. “How are you here?” the shikigami demanded, his normally calm demeanor abandoned as he made a grab for Raven. “You’re an animal spirit! How did you get into this place?”
“Well, firstly, you can’t keep ravens out of anything,” Raven said, dodging easily. “And second, I’m only partially an animal spirit these days. I started out that way, but I’ve been improving myself over the years.”
“What do you mean, ‘improving yourself’?” Marci asked.
“Nothing too drastic,” Raven assured her. “But as I’m sure you’ve picked up, humans have been my hobby for averylong time. I’ve been helping your kind since you first discovered language. With such a long run, it wasn’t hard to insert myself into your stories and mythologies, start building my legacy. Every culture in the world has tales of clever ravens and crows, which I might have also coopted.”
Amelia snorted. “You stole Crow’s stories?”
“Crow is a curmudgeon who wasn’t taking advantage of humanity’s incredible abilities,” Raven said, utterly unapologetic. “And most people can’t tell us apart anyway, so I helped myself to his share.”
Marci stared at him in wonder. “Youweren’texaggerating the first time we met. You really are Raven from the stories. Not just the Spirit of Ravens, but Raven the Trickster God. You used our myths and legends about you to make yourself a Mortal Spirit!”
Raven puffed out his chest. “Finally, someone’s figured it out. It’s about time I got credit for my brilliance.” He poked his beak at Amelia. “Where do you think she got the idea of taking over the dragon spirit? She cribbed it from me.”
Marci was opening her mouth to ask him about that when Myron grabbed her shoulder and physically pushed past her. “You were a Mortal Spirit?” he yelled at Raven. “Thiswhole time?”
“Slow on the uptake, aren’t you?” Raven said coldly. “But before you achieve critical hypocrisy by calling me a traitor, I’m not a true Mortal Spirit. My original vessel has always been the one carved out for me by my ravens all over the world. All I did was craft myself an expansion using the human tales of my actions as the mythological Raven. The result was a sort of hybrid blend of the two, but though it’s a lot of work playing two roles, I’ve always enjoyed a challenge. And before you bring it up, there’s still not quite enough magic yet to bring my Mortal Spirit side up to snuff, so I couldn’t have solved our Merlin problem any faster than Marci here did. Not that you were any help in that regard. In fact,youare a big part of why I’m here.”
Myron’s brow furrowed, but Raven had already turned back to Shiro. “You’re one of old Seimei’s shikigami, aren’t you?”
“Yes,” Shiro said, his voice suspicious. “What of it?”
“Nothing,” Raven said. “Just appreciating a master’s work. I make servants, too, though I stick to physical constructs, not intelligent magic like yourself. Still, I have a deep appreciation for the art. Tell me, are you bound directly into this place, or were you just locked up like a message in a bottle for the next person who happened to stumble through the door?”
That struck Marci as a reasonable question, but Shiro looked terminally insulted. “My master would never be so irresponsible as to leave his shikigami with no anchor,” he said haughtily. “Of course I am properly bound to the structure that governs the Heart of the World.”
