Old Merlin turned away from Arthur, perhaps hiding the wince of hurt that Merlin caught. “We are in agreement.”
He tossed the ransom note into a mortar and pestle, grinding it with a few black sprinkles from one of his jars. The note crumbled into a dark dust before Merlin had a chance to see it. Old Merlin ran his finger through the gritty coating on the bowl, touching it to his tongue. He closed his eyes and meditated on whatever he’d tasted before snapping them back open. Grabbing up an old map, he plopped a withered finger down on a hill in the middle of nowhere.
Arthur took the map and ran, shouting thanks over his shoulder.
“No need to thank me,” Old Merlin said darkly as Arthur disappeared down the stairs, no doubt to fetch Lancelot.
Merlin tried to force himself back to a state resembling calm, but then he saw the thorny delight on Old Merlin’s face. “This is our opportunity, carbuncle. We know where Gweneviere is, and we can rid the kingdom of all threats before she returns to Camelot.”
“We… can do what?” Merlin asked.
He got the sense that the horrors were only about to deepen as Old Merlin pulled open a drawer in one of his magical inventory cupboards.
“I’ve been conducting an augury,” he said, waving Merlin forward. He found three birds with their wings pinned to the wood, stomachs slit open. Their innards had been taken out and scattered in random-looking patterns.
Not just any birds. Baby birds.
Merlin wanted to vomit. Middle Ages magic was disgusting. He was disgusting.
Old Merlin pointed at the organs. “The signs point to a baby that will grow up to be Arthur’s great downfall.”
“Not Gwen’s baby!” Merlin shouted before he could stop himself.
Old Merlin folded his hands over his stomach as if that settled things. “If there was a sliver of a question that the queen carried another man’s child, you’ve just eclipsed it. Thank you, carbuncle.”
Merlin crouched down, head in his hands, stomach suddenly tight. He’d made it worse. He was always making things worse. He was Arthur’s downfall.
“What are you going to do?” he asked, dreading the answer more than Nin’s voice.
“Stealing children is one of my specialties,” Old Merlin said with a dry, horrible twist of humor. He’d taken Arthur—but that was to save him. That was an act of mercy. Merlin had been telling himself for centuries that he’d done a good thing on that day he found a squalling infant in the fields.
This was different. Dark and unrepentant. “You can’t just grab a baby and toss it wherever you please.”
Old Merlin huffed dryly, dismissing the whole argument. “I’ll kill the child if I must. Whatever must be done to protect Arthur.”
Merlin closed his eyes against the words, but they were still true in the dark. His old self didn’t believe in any goodness but Arthur’s. Still, if Merlin needed a sign that he was no longer this horrible wretch, he had it. He would never, ever think of killing a child, even if he believed it would save Ari someday.
“We’re not the same person,” Merlin whispered, a revelation that hit him with all the subtlety of a power cord. “We’re not.”
He raised his hands, and the element of surprise gave him a slight edge. Old Merlin had never seen his apprentice work magic; Merlin had been trying to keep his identity secret. But now keeping Gwen and the baby safe from this monster was all that mattered. Merlin didn’t need to make peace with his past. He needed to stop the person he used to be from harming his future. He released a pent-up burst of magic at the exact moment that Old Merlin flicked his fingers.
Merlin felt every muscle in his body go stiff. His mouth was dry, propped open; his eyes couldn’t force a blink. Across from him, Old Merlin had frozen as well, down to the wispiest hairs on his beard.
They were in a stand-off, and whoever managed to break it first would have a head start in the battle over Gwen’s baby.
Ari tore across the landscape, swearing and steering her horse around the worst of the overgrown wood. The sunset dropped an ominous orange light on almost everything, suiting Ari’s fraught imagination a little too nicely.
Gwen kidnapped.
By who? And for what purpose except to hurt the young king? Would they realize that Gwen was pregnant? What if the baby was harmed? Ari cursed the needs of the Arthurian canon. No wonder Jordan hadn’t let Gwen out of her sight.
“You wouldn’t be happy with me now, black knight,” Ari muttered. She almost smiled, thinking of Jordan pushing her out of the way, beating Lancelot to the place where Gwen was being held captive. Ari tried to focus on the other part of the story she’d read in the Arthurian notes—that Lancelot saved Gweneviere, and that they returned newly inseparable—but the sweetness didn’t match the reality. And some of those legends bore whispers of terrible things done to Gweneviere by her captors.
Ari broke out of the edge of the wood, eyeing a thoroughly deforested landscape. It was somewhat reminiscent of Mercer’s leveling of Old Earth, down to the bedrock. Here the trees had been stolen, used for timber or fire, and the ground had turned to slipping soil. In the far distance, upon a worn mound, a tower stood. Dismal and crooked—that had to be the bald spot Arthur had pointed to on the roughly drawn map.
She kicked her horse into a gallop, racing up the landscape, leaning forward to push the stallion when the terrain became muddy and steep. Finally, at the base of the forgotten tower, she jumped down and lashed her horse to a stone marker.
She took a moment to note the absence of wind.
Of sound.
Racing around the narrow, circular structure, she found a door unguarded.
It opened at her touch.
Unlocked.
Ari started to shake. She drew her sword as the last of the sunset left the sky a bruised
