“You have?” Merlin’s eyes were huge. “I mean, you know?”
“Someone had to do the parenting math on all this nonsense. The second Gwen gave birth to a glowing baby, I was pretty damn sure.” Val tossed a look at Ari, who had definitely not figured it out and felt a fair amount of parental shame on the subject. “Of course, you can’t just tell someone their lost baby found their way home a long time ago.”
“Next time,” Gwen growled, “try, Percival.”
Val’s scowl turned to a laugh, and Merlin caught his lips in a kiss. Ari’s whole body hummed with happiness at the sight of the two of them.
“What is the status on the evil time lake?” Jordan asked, as if the effort of holding back had been a serious trial. Her shoulder was bound, but she still had a ready weapon in each hand.
Merlin took offense. “Evil? Time cannot be evil. But it can hold on to the pain of its past. We’ve put an end to all that. We’ve set it free.”
“Merlin took care of Nin,” Ari said. “And then we broke the lake apart. Now we only have to worry about Mercer.”
“Hardly,” Jordan scoffed. Everyone stared until she elaborated. “You both pulled the Sword in the Stars. Technically you two are now the Administrators of the Mercer Company.”
The sudden silence was a small explosion.
“I abdicate,” Ari said automatically. “Gwen’s got this one.”
Gwen wove her fingers with Ari’s in agreement. She turned back to Merlin. “What about the pieces of time lake? Can they ever rejoin?”
“They will go everywhere,” Merlin said. “Not bent to the needs of one story, but naturally flowing into new legends.”
“Your magic is entirely too sexy,” Val breathed, and Merlin blushed as red as his hair. He smiled at his friends, just as a bright spark of magic shot out of him, firing around the small spaceship.
While everyone ducked, Jordan clapped her hands around the light. She held her cupped palms out, and they gathered around. When she opened her fingers, the magic stayed put, lighting up the center of their family like a brand-new star.
Several moons of time—and literal moons—later, Ari checked her watch. Gwen was supposed to have met her an hour ago. Her shuttle from Troy was late. Ari waited on the balcony of the little nightclub on Tanaka, the vivid view of a neon-green water planet before them.
She fussed with her outfit for the hundredth time, and Val put a light hand on her wrist. “You look epic. She’ll be here. Relax.”
“Easy for you to say,” Ari said, eyeing the way Merlin was attached to Val, arms around his waist, his chin resting on Val’s shoulder. “You two already have your happily ever after.”
“It’s got to be Mercer BS that’s holding her up,” Merlin said. “This is the cost of putting her in charge of the universe.”
“She’s only interim Administrator. She’s setting up something she calls an ‘elective congress’ to oversee the first age of the Mercer Trading Company.”
Merlin made a terrible face. “Sorry, just got a bad historical taste in my mouth.”
“What?”
“Remind me to talk Gwen through the better examples of democracy… as well as the ones where fascism leaked in and trumped everything else.”
Val and Ari watched Merlin shiver away whatever he was remembering. “I don’t actually envy how much you know about humanity and all of time in general.” Val’s arms were looped around Merlin’s shoulders.
“This is what I get for not going with her,” Ari said, typing a quick message to ask if Gwen was all right. “The lovebirds in action.”
“Time away from each other does build up the missing,” Merlin said, nuzzling Val’s neck.
“If you take even one portal away from me before I’m ready, you’ll be sorry, mage. Very sorry.” Val wore a solidly no-nonsense look.
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Merlin said, placing a light kiss on the back of Val’s hand.
Ari groaned and turned away, glancing out the picture window on the balcony. “You’d better get that out of your system before she arrives. I might not go full mama bear on you two, but she’s likely to punt the PDA out of the nightclub.”
Ari’s watch buzzed, and she warmed throughout at the short message on the small screen. ETA five minutes. Ready for me, baby girl?
Ari looked up and found Merlin and Val in the sort of hands-everywhere kiss that no parent cared to witness. Most of the time, when she looked at Merlin, she saw her best friend. The person she’d crawled through history and across space with, surviving side by side. This time, however, when she looked at him she was seeing entirely too much tongue.
“That’s it. Out! Go dance. She’s almost here.”
Val looked back at Ari, dark eyes gleaming while Merlin breathed heavily, the collar of his shirt opened up, no doubt by Val’s teeth. They led each other with a double set of locked, entwined hands, off the balcony and through the curtains that led to the thrumming bass of the club.
Ari sighed and fussed with her short hair. She stared out into the endless black nothing, the stars twinkling through like the kind of hope that had always been, and would always be, too expansive to be snuffed out. Not by any evil company, or disgusting Administrator, or uncaring time enchantress, or even grief.
Ari felt Gwen before she saw her. Arms circled her waist, and Gwen’s cheek rested on her shoulder. “Missed you,” Ari managed, feelings swelling into each word. “Too much.”
“We’re in recess for a few weeks. Long enough to go home with you for a spell.”
“You’re going back to Ketch with me?” Ari turned around in Gwen’s arms, leaning against the glass and pulling her tight. She wasn’t ready for how Gwen looked. Short shorts, dancing flats, a goldenrod tank top that slipped off one of her shoulders like a silky bedsheet. But that was nothing compared to her powerful, certain
