“Because I owed you,” Bob said, his voice uncharacteristically sincere. “You’ve suffered for my plans for a long time now, Julius. The least I could do was pick up the slack at the end. Anyway, I was done being a seer. Once you’ve beaten the Black Reach, where else is there to go? The challenge was gone, so I thought I’d give myself a handicap and try playing the game on your level for a while. You know, just for something different.”
“But you’re the Great Seer of the Heartstrikers!” Julius cried. “How can you just give that up?”
“Because I never asked to be it,” his brother said with a shrug. “There’s no pride in being what you were born to be. It’s how you use your gifts that counts, and I don’t need to see the future for that. Everything that makes me great was always up here.” He tapped the side of his head. “Never forget, I was a genius long before I was a seer. If you think losing my vision of the future will make me any less good at manipulating dragons, you haven’t been paying attention. And speaking of attention, I need to be going.”
“Why?” Julius asked, alarmed. “What’s about to happen?”
“Nothing I’m aware of,” Bob said, pointing at his eyes. “Blind as a bat now, remember? But I haven’t slept since you went down two weeks ago, and I’d very much like to break my streak. Also, the sleeping pill I slipped your mortal should be wearing off any minute now, and I don’t think you want me in the room forthat.”
He wiggled his eyebrows suggestively, and Julius’s cheeks began to burn. Laughing at him, Bob rose from his chair and held out his arm for his pigeon, who hopped off Julius’s vitals monitor with a happy coo. It was such a usual Bob thing to do, Julius didn’t even realize it was wrong until his brother was almost out the door.
“Wait!”
Bob glanced over his shoulder, and Julius pointed to the bird-that-wasn’t-a-bird. “If you’re not a seer anymore, why do you still have your Nameless End?”
“Julius!” Bob cried, cupping a hand over his pigeon’s head as though he were trying to shield her from such offensive speech. “What sort of dragon do you think I am? I wouldneveruse and leave a lady just because my plots were finished. I can’t believe you’d say that.”
“Sorry,” Julius said quickly. “I didn’t mean to insult your, um—”
“Consort,” his brother said primly. “She is my consort, and you are being very rude. She gave up her futures to save you as well, I’ll have you know.”
“I-I didn’t know that,” Julius said, bowing his head respectfully to the pigeon. “Thank you.”
The pigeon blinked at him, uncomprehending, but Bob looked placated. “I am exceedingly lucky I found her again,” he said, pressing a kiss to her feathered head. “I had to bribe Amelia to open me a new portal into the space beyond reality so I could start us over since all our timelines in this reality were used up. But that’s the lovely thing about the future: you can always make more of it. All it takes is a bit of effort, and the fact that she was waiting just outside for me didn’t hurt, either.”
The pigeon cooed happily at that, and Bob sighed, lovestruck. “Anyway, you owe your life to both of us. I expect you to show proper gratitude in a few days after I’ve slept this off. Our pick, your treat, and make sure you behave like agentlemanthis time.”
“Of course,” Julius said, ducking his head to the pigeon again. “I’m sorry if I offended you, ma’am.”
The pigeon nodded back to him, which seemed to please Bob greatly. “Splendid!” he said as he walked out the door. “See you soon.”
“You too,” Julius said quietly, staring after his eldest brother in bafflement. He was still trying to puzzle out if Bob had been really offended just now or if this whole exchange had been another of his ploys when Marci woke with a start, her eyes shooting wide as she turned her head to gape at him.
“Hi,” Julius said, smiling awkwardly. “Um, I’m back?”
The words weren’t even out of his mouth before she tackled him, sobbing and laughing and hugging him until he couldn’t breathe. He hugged her back with all he had, closing his eyes as he breathed in her scent. Breathed in beingalive.
Needless to say, he didn’t worry about Bob again for a long time.
***
“Yeah, well, I always knew he’d pull through,” Amelia said, taking a swig from her cocktail. “How could he not? He had me on his team, and I’m a god now, remember?”
“How can we forget?” Svena grumbled. “You remind us every five minutes. And it’s not as though godhood is anything special these days.” Her blue eyes slid pointedly to Raven, who was perched on the railing beside Ghost’s cat and the giant rat that was the DFZ. “We are overrun with vermin.”
They were sitting on the roof of the hospital Julius had been taken to, which turned out to be an Algonquin Corporation private hospital on the edge of Reclamation Land. Like everything else in the city, the modern steel-and-glass building had taken heavy damage during the fighting, but it was now as good as new thanks to the DFZ.
“Pro tip: it’s not a good idea to call the god of the city you’re currently in ‘vermin,’” Amelia whispered loudly. “This building was on its side when we found it, but she set the whole place to rights in under ten minutes with a flick of her little pink tail. Imagine what she could do to a delicate snowflake like you.”
“I’d like to see her try,” Svena said with a sniff, though Julius couldn’t help noticing the White Witch’s retort was much quieter than usual. No one was stupid enough to point that out, though, for which Julius was profoundly grateful. He’d had enough conflict to last him a lifetime, and Svena was surprisingly pleasant to be around when she didn’t have her hackles up. Pleasant and amazingly knowledgeable. The things she would casually mention about magic constantly blew his mind. He just wished Marci were around to hear them.
Now that all the Mortal Spirits were up, the new Merlin had her hands full. She was in the Sea of Magic right now with Myron for a big peace talk. Ghost, Raven, and the DFZ were with them as well, though somehow also here. Julius wasn’t entirely sure how that worked, but apparently spirits could be in multiple places at once now. He’d tried using that to his advantage, asking Ghost about Marci when she wasn’t here, but the cat’s shoulder was as cold toward him as ever, and he hadn’t gotten far.
That was probably for the best. Marci didn’t need him distracting her while she was trying to convince the new Mortal Spirits to cooperate with the Merlin Council she and Myron were trying to found here in the DFZ. As she’d explained it to Julius, the idea was to locate, test, and train a whole bevy of suitable mages so that new Mortal Spirits could have their pick of certified not-crazy humans for their potential Merlins. Something certainly needed to be done. In the fourteen days Marci had spent by his side helping keep him alive, the new gods had been running amok all over the world. She’d left to help Myron calm things down the moment she was certain Julius wasn’t going to expire on her. That was two days ago, nearly all of which she’d spent inside the Sea of Magic, but Julius was confident she could handle it. Meanwhile, he was relearning how to handle himself.
Not being a mage or fond of burning things, Julius had never paid much attention to his fire. Since he’d woken up, though, the emptiness in his chest had been a constant ache. His family and friends still dropped by regularly to make donations, so at least he wasn’t flat on his back anymore, but he was still confined to a wheelchair. Amelia had assured him his flames would come back in time, but time was a fuzzy thing to a dragon who’d lived for thousands of years. Julius hadn’t gotten her to specify yet whether they were on a schedule of months, years, or decades. There was nothing he could do about it, though, so he tried not to worry too much. His magic would recover eventually. What really mattered was that everyone was safe.
After the Leviathan vanished, UN troops had swarmed in to take control of the city. The people had started coming back a few days later, though most had been forced to turn right back around again since their homes were in ruins. Normally, damage on this scale would have taken years to repair, if it could be rebuilt at all. For them as for Julius, though, having a god on your side changed things. The DFZ wasn’t just powerful—shewasthe city. She knew how every inch of it should be, and she could put things back to rights in minutes, raising the broken buildings with a flick of her hand. She’d already made a ton of progress, but the DFZ was abigcity, and all of it needed work. She was also very busy with Myron, keeping the other Mortal Spirits from destroying things. Unlike Ghost, though, the DFZ always took time to pass Julius’s messages along to Marci. Provided he paid her, of course.
