Merlin gulped back a sob.
“She went in the cauldron,” he repeated, choking on the words. “She broke it to save you and me and fix Southaw and all you can say is ‘That was clever’?”
Vivien frowned and pointed to where the left-handed were chopping up Cauldron-Born.
“If she broke the cauldron, why are there still Cauldron-Born flopping around?”
Merlin stared at her, then over at the tree. The booksellers stood shoulder to shoulder now, close against the bole of the Totteridge Yew. The first group of singers fell silent, and then the second, and finally the third. The round was sung, the banishing done, and with the final word the last wisp of Southaw vanished from the tree. Now, perhaps forever, it was only a yew.
Merlin and Vivien felt Southaw go, sent somewhere akin to that place of nothingness they had traversed to reach Silvermere.
The ring of booksellers broke apart, excited chatter spreading, with handshakes and embraces far more of relief than triumph. But at one spot, near the tree, several booksellers peered down into a hole lit by a faint copper-red glow. One of them called out to Una, who turned away from the Cauldron-Born she had been chopping up and marched over, her sword held ready in her silver hand.
“Pick me up!” ordered Merlin. “Fireman’s carry! Get me over there now!”
“Una’s not going to kill Susan,” chided Vivien. But she bent down and picked Merlin up, settling him across her shoulders. “But since this will get you to an ambulance quicker, I might as well.”
“Do you really think she’s still alive?” asked Merlin. “Unchanged?”
Vivien didn’t answer for a moment. Alive, she thought likely, given the cauldron had not shattered. Unchanged might be too much to ask.
“I don’t know,” she said as gently as possible.
Sirens got louder and closer, and a veritable parade of police vehicles roared in from north and south. At the same time Inspector Greene came running through the churchyard towards the yew, followed by half a dozen armed police officers in full tactical gear. Three of them carried old steel poleaxes, doubtless from the Tower of London, the others H & K MP5s.
A vicar stepped out of the front door of the church as they ran by, and looked around in extreme puzzlement at all the blue-suited, silver-handed people with medieval weapons, and the armed police.
“Go back inside, sir!” shouted Greene.
“We charge for filming here!” retorted the indignant vicar. “And no one has asked for permission! This is sacrilege and a disgrace! I will call the actual police!”
Greene pointed to one of her officers, who peeled off and took the vicar’s arm, taking him still protesting back into the church.
Merlin and Vivien reached the yew a few seconds behind Una. But she sheathed her sword, and reached down to lift Susan up. Her face was smeared with dirt and she was holding her right wrist up high near her neck, but otherwise she appeared to be unharmed, and unchanged.
“Put me down,” said Merlin, too much aware of how he looked like a flopping fish draped over Vivien’s shoulders. His sister lowered him more carefully than he deserved and helped him sit up against a tilted gravestone. Susan walked slowly towards him and sat down by his side.
They sat in silence for several seconds, looking at the Totteridge Yew and the booksellers and police bustling about it, with Una shouting orders, and Greene trying to talk to her, and a completely white-haired right-handed bookseller joined them, and there were more ambulances and police cars coming in from everywhere with sirens on, and an RAF helicopter began to circle the column of smoke from the crash site over to the west, and all was bedlam.
“I thought . . . I thought you’d broken the cauldron,” said Merlin. “And . . .”
He choked back a sob and took a breath, holding it for a second before he continued, his voice regaining some of his normal, insouciant tone. “I thought it was a rather extreme way to avoid having a drink with me.”
“I’d simply stand you up,” agreed Susan cheerfully. “Much easier. Particularly since I seem to have broken my collarbone.”
“How did you not . . . die?” said Merlin. “I saw you dive for the cauldron—”
“I couldn’t think of anything else sufficiently distracting,” said Susan. “But I thought there was a chance it wouldn’t break, and it wouldn’t kill me. Two chances, actually. One, because it is rightfully my father’s and he gave me some of his power. He made the cauldron, you know; he isn’t just the Keeper.”
“What?”
“I don’t know how I know that,” said Susan thoughtfully. “But it’s true. Southaw could never have bound Dad if he hadn’t been so far from his own demesne, taking human form so he could be with Mum. I wonder how they met in the first place? She’s never even been to the Lake District as far as I know.”
“What was the second reason?” asked Merlin very slowly. He was finding it hard to concentrate. The pain in his legs was sharper and demanded more attention. It was so nice having Susan next to him. . . .
He started as Susan shook him very gently.
“Sorry, what was that . . . I . . .”
“Passed out,” said Vivien, leaning in. “Stay still, Great-Aunt Evangeline is going to fix up your legs.”
“As much as I can, for now,” said the white-haired right-handed bookseller, clearly Great-Aunt Evangeline. “I’ll see to your collarbone, too, young lady. And I’ll offer you my preliminary thanks as well, for saving us all from continuing down the road to disaster paved by the unlamented Merrihew, more official thanks to be forthcoming in due course.”
“They never liked each other,” whispered Vivien to Susan.
“That is entirely untrue, Vivien,” said Evangeline. She laid her glowing hand on Merlin’s left leg, took a sudden intake of breath, and slowly let it out. Merlin grimaced, then sighed in relief as the magic took effect. “Merrihew and I were quite amicable as children, indeed might even be described as friends until she stole my young man, shortly before Waterloo.
