Their anger at the sight of Ari’s team made her instantly queasy. Arthur looked from Jordan to Lam and winced as the entire tournament ground toward silence. This was no longer a game, if it ever were to begin with. Ari couldn’t imagine what would happen next, but she didn’t have to.
In a blast of darkness, the blue sky was covered by vicious storm clouds. Ari looked around, finding strange, robed figures set around the tournament ring, hands raised as they chanted. People fled while thunder and lightning mangled the atmosphere. Arthur curled up despite his armor, making himself small, and Ari put her arm around him.
“What’s happening?” she shouted over the storm.
“It’s the enchantresses of Avalon!” he said, eyes wide with fear.
From the bottom of the pit, the storm sounded like a great battle overhead. Thunder shook the oubliette, while the lightning could only be imagined through the dark. And yet, after a few intense moments, the storm was gone. As if by magic.
“That’s not quite a good sign,” Merlin muttered—a sentiment only magnified when, not long after, Ari stamped down the stairs above, her words dropping into the oubliette along with hard and heavy breaths.
“Merlin!”
“I’m here,” he called out, sounding young and scared. He’d stopped using magic to cheer up the oubliette the same time Jordan had been let out, which kept him from growing younger while also deeply gnawing at his mental state.
“Arthur just got spanked by Avalon enchantresses in front of Camelot! They came, they chastised, and then boom. They disappeared. Arthur said they do this a lot. That they hate him.”
“Oh, dear.”
“‘Oh, dear’? You said they were in favor of the king. You said they were going to bring him a birthday gift. Small cup, infinite power… does that ring any bells?”
“Technically, I said I’ve been having trouble remembering anything.”
“Merlin.” Ari’s voice fell away, followed by a sigh. “Does he know about Morgana?”
“When I took Arthur in, I was his only family. As he was mine.”
“So he doesn’t know that his sister loves him. And the enchantresses think he’s a childish waste of space… how am I going to fix this, Merlin?”
“No clue, I’m afraid.”
Again, Ari grew too quiet for his liking. “You okay? You taking care of yourself?”
“Oh yes, pure Bermuda down here,” he lied. “You should see my tan.”
“I’ll try to get you out. Arthur owes me after our win in the melee. Hang on, old man.” Ari’s footsteps echoed in reverse, growing farther and farther away.
“Pure Bermuda,” Merlin whispered into the cold, stinking black.
“Camelot is a medieval mess.” Merlin waited for a response, but no matter how much he talked to the malodorous puddles of the oubliette, he hadn’t gotten a peep from Val, or even Nin. “The fabrics are dyed these very dull shades. Everyone looks like walking bits of moss and stone. But I do know a shop where you can get a fantastic bespoke corset that…”
Footsteps cut off his chatter.
“Still down there, carbuncle?”
Merlin looked up and found a face cast in the cold, blue light of magic. His face—snarled by time, ignorance, and suspicion. The rope dropped, and Merlin batted it away like a furious kitten.
“Too proud to accept my help?” Old Merlin’s voice rattled in the empty space. “You’d rather stay down there?”
With every sort of trepidation pulsing through him, he grabbed the rope and clung to it. Old Merlin hauled him up with ease. Was Merlin really that small now, or was Old Merlin using magic? Definitely the latter.
Which made Merlin angry at how much magic the old, stupid version of him had thrown around, not knowing it would push him toward becoming a powerless child. Not to mention too young to kiss the boyfriend he’d been waiting literal lifetimes to find.
“What do you want with me?” Merlin shouted. The hapless question wasn’t exactly the power move he’d imagined opening with, but it was the best he could do, swinging on the rope as Old Merlin dangled him.
“What do I want?” Old Merlin asked, his voice sweet for one whose heart was basically a rotten crab apple. “The question, boy, is what you wanted so desperately that you would break into my tower.” He set Merlin down and slapped on the same pair of magic-binding manacles Merlin had feared in the tower.
The old man turned to a dark twist of stairs. “Come.”
Merlin tried to keep up. His muscles had grown numb, his pulse fluttering like a moth caught in a jar. When he emerged into the castle proper, even the spindly flames of torchlight were too much for his eyes. He squinted and gasped. Merlin thought his old self might be leading him to the tower. Instead, they stopped in a room with a great fire built in the hearth, a single chair set in front of it.
“Sit,” the old man said, humming to summon a stool for Merlin’s feet. When he didn’t move, the chair scraped toward him, knocking the backs of his knees. Merlin plopped down, the chains at his wrist jangling all the way to the stone floor. He waited for spiders to swarm out of the chair, or the whole thing to burst into flames. It remained stubbornly, suspiciously, a cozy place to sit. Old Merlin hummed a ditty, and a small table arrived at Merlin’s elbow, laden with food. The greatest hits of Britannia: a pile of roasted meat, a piece of thick black bread, potatoes charred on the outside and cream-white on the inside. There was even a baked apple, oozing delicious sweetness.
Merlin was prepared for torture, interrogation. He was not prepared for this.
Merlin’s thoughts shot wildly toward Val. Had the Lady of the Lake remembered that he was a mortal being who needed food to keep him alive? She wasn’t a hot-blooded murderess, but she wasn’t exactly
