Justin jerked as the command hit him, his whole body seizing as if he’d been electrocuted. Julius wasn’t much better. He was already on the ground, so there was no danger of falling, but the pain was still excruciating as Amelia grabbed his fire and twisted, forcing her will into the flames.
Everyone on the ground NOW,she roared, her voice shaking with effort before cutting out as fast as it had come up. Her presence vanished from Julius’s fire at the same time, making him gasp in relief as the unnatural weakness faded, leaving only good old-fashioned normal pain behind. He was still trying to breathe through it when a tiny voice spoke beside him.
“Whew,” it said. “Sorry about that. Dragons lost in battle lust are notoriously bad listeners, so I had to pull hard to make sure I had enough oomph to get through.”
Julius blinked in confusion. The voice sounded like Amelia’s, but it was so soft he could barely hear it. He couldn’t see her either when he opened his eyes, then something poked his forefoot, and Julius looked down to see a tiny dragon made of fire standing on the ground beside him.
“Hi,” it said. “Thanks for the boost.”
He blinked at the little creature in wonder. “Amelia?”
The dragon was no larger than a kitten, but the annoyed look on her face wasdefinitelyhis sister’s.
“What is going on?” Justin demanded, setting down beside them. Then he spotted the little dragon. “What the—is that thePlaneswalker?”
“Laugh at me and die,” Amelia growled, giving the knight a killing look before scampering up Julius’s leg to perch in the spot between his wing and his neck. “This isn’t a form I wanted to revisit, but I didn’t have much of a choice. Something’s gone seriously haywire in the Sea of Magic. I don’t know what Marci’s doing over there, but it’sbig.” She cowered in Julius’s feathers. “You might want to duck.”
Julius swallowed. Now that she’d mentioned it, the world did feel a bit… empty. He’d been too busy to notice before, but now that he was paying attention, he could feel the lack of magic like dryness in the air. If the city hadn’t been so saturated with the stuff only minutes before, Julius didn’t think he could have maintained his dragon. He already felt uncomfortably heavy, like a fish out of water, and he wasn’t the only one. Justin was actually gasping, his green eyes strained as he ripped the cage of his transformed Fang of the Heartstriker off his mouth.
“What is… going…on?”
As though in answer to his question, a cold wind rose, but not winter cold. This was the cold of the grave, and it was coming from the ground, rising up through the dirt like it was blowing in the world below. Under any other circumstances, it would have been the creepiest thing Julius had ever felt, but this time, the dry, death-scented air brought a giant smile to his face.
“It’s Marci,” he said, crouching low, as Amelia had suggested. He was reaching up to drag his gasping brother down as well when the wind doubled, filling the air with the cold anger of the forgotten dead.
***
Marci had never known she was so empty to be so full.
She was holding more magic than she’d ever felt in her life. Keeping it all contained felt like trying to carry the ocean in a thimble, and yet, thanks to Ghost, it worked. Everything she couldn’t hold, the Empty Wind took, letting the magic pour into the abyss of his vessel, which was now floating below them.
Marci stopped, blinking in confusion, but that didn’t change what she saw. With one blink, she was standing on the mountain in the Heart of the World. With the next, she was floating inside the yawning emptiness of the Empty Wind’s domain, the same place he’d brought her when he’d eaten her during the fight with Myron and the DFZ at the Merlin Gate.
“What’s happening?”
You’re blending with me,her spirit replied, his voice as loud as hers in their shared head.The magic is blurring the barriers, making you see as I see.
“Thisis what you see?” Marci said, horrified. Every time she blinked, she saw something different: the dark, the mountain, her own unconscious body back in the DFZ, their crushed house far below the battle. Hundreds of images flicked past like slides on a sped-up reel. But while Marci found the chaos even more nauseating than the Sea of Magic, a cold part of her mind found the mishmash comforting, even inspiring. It was utterly confusing until Marci realized that bit wasn’t part ofhermind at all. It was Ghost. Her spirit was inside her thoughts in a way he’d never been before. Likewise, she could feel herself in him, blowing through the dark as the magic poured in.
“Wow,” she whispered, flexing her hands, which weren’t her hands at all, but his. A soldier’s dark, sure fingers. “And it’s the magic that’s doing this?”
The magic is crushing us together, yes,he said.But the fact that we’re handling it is all us.She felt his smile on her face.Our bond is strong.
“We areawesome,” Marci agreed, searching through the confusion of images until she found one that looked down on the DFZ from high above. “There.”
They moved together, sliding through the barrier, which was no longer much of a barrier at all. With so much focused magic near it, the wall between reality and the Sea of Magic was running like hot wax, sliding out of the way easily as Marci stepped out of the Heart of the World and into the high, cold air above the Leviathan.
“Wow,” Marci said, looking over their shoulder at the melted hole in the world they’d left behind them. “It’s just like when the DFZ was pulling in magic through Myron. We’ve blended worlds.”
“We’ve done more than that,” Ghost replied, turning their winds—because theywerewind now, a freezing, grave-like wind that blotted out the sun and filled the air with memories—back to the Nameless End below. “The magic of the world, all the spirits and those who rely on them, the life of this plane itself has been shaped into one massive force. The only reason it hasn’t blown itself to bits yet is because the Heart of the World is holding it. We’re hooked into it now too, but if you want to bring it down onhim”—he nodded at the dark expanse of the Leviathan—“you’re going to have to grab that mass and swing it.”
That was the part she’d been dreading. There was no turning back now, though, so Marci rubbed the memory of her hands together and reached through their connected magic to the flimsy shadow of her soul, which was still kneeling in the Heart of the World. Using her new double vision, she kept one eye on the Leviathan while the other focused on her spellwork, opening the dam to let the high-pressure magic surge out of Myron’s circle into the banishment she’d scratched onto her bracelet.
Even merged with Ghost, the force nearly blew her apart. The moment she pushed the power into the spellwork, all that magic—that ocean in a thimble—became a living, pounding thing desperate to be free. Controlling it was like trying to hold a dragon with a hair, but every time Marci started to slip, Ghost was there to catch her, his winds shoring them both up. There was more here than any spirit, even a god, could hold, but Ghost and Marci together were greater than the sum of their parts. Somehow, they kept it together, Ghost containing the edges while Marci guided the magic through her spell, folding and winding and condensing the power just as she’d done with Amelia’s flame when Svena had shoved it down her throat. On and on and on it went, until, at last, all the spirits who’d jumped down Myron’s well were crushed into a ball that fit in Marci’s hand.
And it was beautiful.
Short as their time was, Marci couldn’t help but stop and stare. No mortal eyes had ever seen all the magic of the world together in one place. Given how dark the Sea of Magic normally appeared, she’d expected the spell to look like a black hole, but it didn’t. It looked like a star. A shining orb of every color that glowed so bright it hurt to look at. It was heavy, too, dense enough to weigh down even their wind. If she held it for much longer, the weight would crush them against the Leviathan’s back, but Marci didn’t need to hold it. Thanks to the Empty Wind, they were already in position, which meant all she had to do was let go. So, with a triumphant smile, Marci opened her hands and let the magic drop, releasing the spell that was so simple, it had only one word.
