Ari caught the way Merlin’s voice fell on that last part. No triumph or gloating. Whatever he knew was costly. “What is it, Merlin?”
He ignored Ari. “I’ll need the chalice for my plan. Arthur was right on that score.”
Ari took it out of her pocket but didn’t hand it over. “Tell me what you’re going to do with it first.”
“Beat her at her own game.” Merlin stared at Gwen, attempting to keep the caginess out of his voice, but Ari heard that too. She might not be genetically related to Merlin, but he had a few of her heroic loner tics.
Merlin interrupted Ari’s thoughts by turning to her. “I know the deal you made to free Arthur. He’s at peace now. I felt it even in the past… a deep release as if time itself was relieved.” Merlin sighed sadly in a way that told her he’d also seen her body beneath that lake. He knew they were all running out of time.
Even for someone who could pause it.
And just like that, people started to blink, and move, ever so slightly.
“What can we do to help you, Merlin?” Gwen asked in a rush.
“Keep the Mercer baddies off my back. Distract them?”
“Well, the Ketchan starship due any minute should do just that,” Ari said. “How will you get Nin to show herself again?”
“I don’t need her to come to me. I’m going to her.” Merlin gave himself away by wrapping his moms in a huge, emotional hug. Gwen held on, but Ari’s mind started to whirl.
Whatever Merlin was about to do was possibly—or even purposefully—fatal.
Merlin came out of the hug with the chalice, and all of a sudden, the Mercer heat guns were revving up again, and the entire amusement park broke open with chaos.
Gwen started shouting to the Lionelians, getting them in ranks, protecting the tourists. Amal appeared overhead, causing screams of fright and then pure shock.
Ari stood in the middle of it, guarding Merlin’s back while he asked the chalice a murmured question and poured it out into the hole where the Sword in the Stars had been plunged into the soil. “What’s that supposed to do?”
“Quiet, please. I’m concentrating.”
Ari watched Merlin hum a few different notes, eyes closed, focused on something that seemed to be inside of him, or beyond him, or both. The small puddle began to grow.
After a few minutes, it was as big as a bucket and still getting bigger.
That’s when the black Mercer starships arrived in pairs. The view of the cosmos was blocked out, and Amal was hopelessly surrounded. Ari heard shots, far away at first, then coming closer. “Hurry, Merlin.”
“Not something to be hurried!” he sang. A series of associates broke through the Lionelian blockade, and Ari threw them down with her new sword, loving the way it sliced the air. It was shorter than Excalibur, but sharper, too.
Gwen was fighting alongside her people with nothing but a replica bow and arrow. The Lionelians were strong and mad, but the associates had the numbers. When an entire block of them moved in, Ari had an impossible choice—continue to protect Merlin or rush to their aid.
A hacking sound fired from above, like a spaceship with a smoker’s cough, and then Error tore into the dome, landing on an entire battalion of Mercer associates.
The loading bay opened, and Jordan leaped out swinging dual axes, Yaz right behind her with her knives. Jordan immediately took a stray heat gun hit to the armor, bucking slightly and then swinging her ever-buff arms with furious precision.
Ari found herself screaming out a short cheer that caught Jordan’s attention, and the black knight grinned hard and cheered right back. Ari couldn’t think of anyone she’d rather have at the head of the resistance, swinging heavy weapons. And loyalty really had won the day—because Jordan would never let anyone hurt Gwen. Which left Ari free to keep Merlin alive.
His puddle had grown as large as a bathtub. It gained depth, spreading up Merlin’s legs, contained by an invisible force. “You’re drawing Nin’s lake?” Ari asked. “Can she not exist in space or something?”
“She’s not remotely vulnerable unless we can get in her cave, and we can’t make her open it. Nothing can. Unless I’m as powerful as she is.” The water had grown huge, looming over Merlin like a liquid doorway.
An entrance to drowning.
Ari turned to fight two more associates as her thoughts clicked into place. Whatever Nin had done to make herself so immortal, so ethereal, so powerful had cost her humanity. And Merlin was about to make the same sacrifice.
People screamed as the park was suddenly awash in red light. The Mercer ships fired on Amal, all at once. Ari had to do something to save the last Ketchans, but there was only one thing that would stop Mercer mid-attack: bad PR. Like not saving the thousands of tourists in their stupid park.
Ari launched her blue sword skyward. It flipped as it flew, magically enhanced, striking the enormous dome and causing instant fractures. The last time the dome had broken on this particular moon, the cracks gave way to searing, boiling sunlight. Not this time. This time, the surface was turned away from the sun and the instant cold of the void roared through the cracks. “Run,” Ari shouted to Gwen. “Get everyone to safety!”
Gwen herded her people and the tourists toward the emergency lockdowns.
Merlin looked at Ari, eyes blown wide. “What did you do?”
“Remember when we met? Right here?” Ari smiled. “Unless you count that other time. The time I watched you take your first breath.”
Merlin sputtered, fighting tears. “You’re making this harder than it already is!”
The shattering cold of space pushed through the crack in the dome, prying it wide. Everything was freezing, starting with Ari’s confidence, and ending with the lake. It solidified with a sickening crack. The dome above gave way, the cold pouring in along with the silver of the stars. Ari’s sword shot out
