“Excellent,” Raven said, turning back to Marci. “That means he has to do what you say. As the current and only Merlin, you are the undisputed master of the Heart of the World, which, as Shiro has just admitted, includes him. So, Madame Merlin, would you be so kind as to order your shikigami to bring up a scrying circle on the DFZ?”
Blinking in surprise, Marci turned to Shiro. “You have to do what I say? Why didn’t you tell me that?”
“I did,” he said sourly. “I told you I was bound to the Heart of the WorldandI told you you were its master. I simply assumed you would put two and two together.”
“Of course,” Marci said, rolling her eyes. “Do as Raven says.”
Shiro set his jaw. “You should not listen to him. He’s an unbound spirit and a trickster god, and he isnotsupposed to be here.”
“Well, I’m giving him permission to be here,” Marci snapped. “And a scrying circle is a good idea. If I’m going to be Merlin, I need to be informed, so fire it up.”
With a final scowl, the shikigami turned and walked across the flat top of the mountain to a clear spot near the outer edge. When he reached it, he pulled the folding fan out of his sash and waved it in a circle in front of him. It wasn’t until a corresponding completely spellworked circle lit up on the stone below, though, that Marci realized what had just happened.
“Holy—”
She rushed over, dropping to her knees at the edge of the glowing circle to get a closer look, but she wasn’t mistaken. There were no markings on the ground, no carved circle or premade spellwork for him to activate. Shiro had just waved his fan, and the whole thing—the circle, the spellwork, the variables, all of it—had appeared out of thin air.
“How did you do that?” she cried, jaw hanging open. “You just freecast a scrying circle!”
That was a sentence she’d never thought she’d say. Freecasting, or casting spells without written spellwork, was one of the core elements of Shamanistic magic. It worked okay for small spells if you didn’t care about safety or quality standards, but doing anything complicated was out of the question, which definitely included scrying spells. Particularly a fancy one like this. The circle at Shiro’s feet was now a clear window looking straight down through the mountain into an aerial shot of the DFZ. There was no haze or distortion, and itmoved, the picture swirling around as the shikigami steered with the top of his folded fan.
“You havegotto teach me how to do that.”
“Of course,” he said, his voice resigned. “I was bound here to inform and protect. But I still do not understand why we are doing this.”
Looking down, Marci didn’t either. “I don’t get it,” she said, staring at the city. “It’s just the DFZ.”
“Exactly,” Raven said, hopping over to perch on Ghost’s shoulder, which the bigger spirit didn’t seem to mind at all. “It’sjustthe DFZ. No cars. No people. Nothing.”
He was right. The longer Marci looked, the creepier the picture became. There were no automated taxis, no delivery drones, not even people on the sidewalks. In a city that had barely paused when the Three Sisters had been shot out of the sky above it, the emptiness was just plain wrong, but when Marci glanced at Raven to ask why, the answer found her.
“GET OUT!”
The words came from the ground itself. They echoed through the city in a roar of rage, breaking windows and cracking the supports of the abandoned Skyways. That would have been terrifying enough, but what made it a thousand times worse was the fact that Marci recognized the voice.
“Is that—”
“Yes,” Raven said. “It’s the spirit of the DFZ. The one boy genius there used my spellwork to bind and fill because he couldn’t stand the idea of someone else becoming Merlin.”
“No,” Myron said, jerking his head at Marci. “I couldn’t stand the idea ofherbecoming Merlin. An opinion I still maintain since her plan to deal with the upcoming magical apocalypse is to hurry it up.”
“Congratulations, then. You beat her to it,” Raven croaked, bobbing his head down at the city. “Thanks to you, we’ve got a fully formed and fully enraged Mortal Spirit on the loose. The only reason she’s not burning a swath right now is because Algonquin is holding her down, but that won’t last much longer, which is why I’m here.”
Amelia’s head whipped toward him. “I thought you were here because I asked.”
“I’m always here for you, my darling snake,” Raven said. “But this is slightly more pressing than old favors.” He turned back to Marci after that. Then, to her surprise, he lowered his head, bowing down before her until his beak touched the stone.
“I’ve come on behalf of all spirits to beg the Merlin’s help,” he said quietly. “In her fear, Algonquin used the spirits of the land who were afraid of change to fill the DFZ to the brim. This has left a newborn Mortal Spirit filled with the land’s old anger. Needless to say, it’s a volatile and dangerous situation that’s only been made worse by Algonquin’s order to evacuate the DFZ.”
“How does evacuating make things worse?” Marci asked. “I’m amazed Algonquin cared enough to get people out.”
“She didn’t do it to save the humans,” Raven said. “The DFZ is the spirit of the city. As such, her instinct is to protect her population, because people are the soul of a city. Without them, though, the DFZ is empty in more ways than the obvious. She has no anchor, nothing but the rage and fear of the spirits Algonquin stuffed her full of, and with no Merlin to help her calm down, she’s rapidly spiraling out of control. Algonquin’s managed to keep her in check thanks to Myron’s plagiarism of the spellwork I created for Emily, but the DFZ is a Mortal Spirit. She’s orders of magnitude bigger than the Lady of the Lakes. Even my brilliance can’t handle that sort of power difference. If we don’t do something soon, she’s going to break free, and when she does, she’ll destroy Algonquin, and probably her own city as well.”
“Saving the DFZ is obvious,” Marci agreed. “But why do you care if she destroys Algonquin? I thought the two of you hated each other.”
“That doesn’t matter right now,” Raven said. “Whatever happens, we cannot allow Algonquin to believe she’s lost.” He turned to Shiro again. “Show us the lake.”
The shikigami didn’t move a muscle. Only after Marci motioned for him to go ahead did he finally flick his fan, turning the scrying circle’s magical window to show the lake below Algonquin’s white tower, and the shadow floating above it.
