“Wow,” Marci whispered, eyes wide.
She knew what she was looking at, of course. Algonquin’s Leviathan was almost as famous as the Lady of the Lakes herself, and Marci had gotten her own up-close-and-personal introduction to him when she’d been Algonquin’s prisoner. But the monster floating in the air above Lake St. Clair was multiple times bigger than the one they’d fought in Reclamation Land. Even with his tentacles stuck down in the lake water, which was lower than Marci had ever seen it, the crest of his rounded, beetle-like back was taller than the Skyway’s superscrapers.
“Wow, he got an upgrade.”
“No, he didn’t,” Raven said, his normally joking voice grim. “He’s just not bothering to hide his true nature anymore, which is our sign that this situation’s gone critical.”
Marci looked sideways at him. “The Mortal Spirit of a city has gone psycho, and theLeviathan’syour line for critical?”
“Yes,” he said, his talons tightening on the Empty Wind’s shoulder. “Do you remember what we discussed on the jet before you died? When you asked me about the Nameless Ends?”
“You mean what wedidn’tdiscuss?” Marci said, crossing her arms. “Because I distinctly remember you saying it was too dangerous for mortals to know.”
“I said it was too dangerous fornormalmortals,” Raven corrected. “But I did promise to tell you if you became a Merlin, which you have.”
Marci smiled. Finally, a perk to being the Merlin. “So what are they?”
“Whoa,” Amelia said, pointing at Myron, who’d gone suspiciously silent. “Should you really be outing this in front of the freeloader? He’s not exactly trustworthy.”
“He’s a traitor,” Raven agreed. “But that might actually work in our favor. If this plays out how I think it’s going to, Myron’s position as Algonquin’s inside man might be our only chance of getting out of this alive.”
Myron looked visibly relieved by that, but Marci was starting to get frustrated. “So what’s going on?” she demanded. “Why’s the Leviathan getting so big? What’s Algonquin doing?”
Raven sighed. “What she feels she has to.”
He hopped off Ghost’s shoulder, flapping down to land on the cracked seal. “Algonquin didn’t always hate humans,” he said, tapping his talons on the spellworked stone. “This changed that. When the Merlins cut off all magic and plunged the world into drought, Mortal Spirits weren’t the only ones who vanished. We all did.”
This was not new information, but the way he said it was. Marci had never heard one of the really old spirits sound anything other than demanding or cocky or angry, but this was different. This time, Raven sounded afraid.
“Do you know what that was like for us?” he whispered. “We are the immortal spirits, as old and immutable as the land itself. Our changes happen on geologic timelines: mountains eroding into plains, or tiny proto-birds evolving into ravens. That was our reality, the world we’d always known. Then, all of a sudden, it wasn’t. Magic, the very stuff of our existence, dried up like a river in summer, and without it, we—the deathless—died.”
“That’s a little dramatic,” Marci said. “I mean, you came back.”
“We didn’t know that then,” Raven said bitterly. “The Merlins made their decision without consulting us. They knew what would happen to us, but they decided we were an acceptable sacrifice for humanity’s safety. There’s not a spirit in the world who took that well, but Algonquin took it personally.”
“But I’m not going to take the magic away again,” Marci said quickly. “The Last Merlins made a tough call with a lot of negative externalities, but the situation now is different. I’m not going to repeat—”
“I know,” Raven said. “Why do you think I’m so delighted you beat Myron to the punch? But while we know you’re not like your predecessors, Algonquindoesn’t. I got in here because I’m clever and adaptable, but Algonquin’s a true spirit of the land, stubborn as a rock. She has no access to the Heart of the World and no idea what’s happening on our end. All she sees is what’s in front of her, which right now consists of Myron’s comatose body and an unbound Mortal Spirit running amok. She thinks her bid to get a Merlin failed, and now Myron’s stuck on this side while his spirit goes haywire, which means it’s up to her to put the DFZ down again before it destroys her lakes.”
Marci bit her lip. “I see why you came. Algonquin and the Leviathan are bad enough on their own, but if they start beating the spirit of the DFZ into submission, the whole city could be destroyed. It’ll be the night of the flood all over again.”
“Actually, that’s thegoodpart,” Raven said. “We want her to fight the DFZ, because fighting means she hasn’t given up hope yet that she can salvage the situation. The real danger comes when she gets desperate.”
“How much more desperate can she get?”
“Plenty,” he said. “Remember what I just said about the night the magic vanished? We thought it was the end of the world. We’d never even contemplated death, and then suddenly everyone we knew was dropping like flies. We had no idea how to stop what was happening or if the magic that sustained us would ever come back. That sort of fear drives even the wisest spirits to do desperate, stupid things, and Algonquin was no exception. She thought the end of the world was upon her, so she did the only thing she could. She cried out for help, offered everything she had if this would only stop, and unfortunately for us, something answered.”
“What?” Marci asked breathlessly.
Raven opened his beak to answer, but Amelia beat him to it.
“A Nameless End.”
Marci whirled to face the little dragon. “You knew about this?”
“’Course I knew,” Amelia said with a shrug. “Raven and I have been in cahoots for a long time. Plus, I’m the Planeswalker. This is kind of my area.”
“How so?” Marci asked. “Are Nameless Ends something from the planes? What are they?”
