“Yup,” I reply. “Let’s raise my not-a-father from Avalon.”
54
Myla
An hour later, we’re back at Camelot. Nimue and Merlin have recovered the Staff of Avalon. Ximena stands nearby in her human form. Fluff zips overhead. Now Nimue waits by the forest’s edge, her arms raised. The Staff of Avalon is gripped in Nimue’s fist. Merlin still holds the new Opus Magica against this chest.
True fact: There’s a certain kind of joy I usually feel when defeating an enemy. I want to do a happy dance, punch my fist in the air, or at least let out a good mwah hah hah. After sending the archdemons back, though? I just feel numb.
Maybe that’s because I now know there’s an angelic entity who’s been floating around inside me for who knows how long.
On second thought, it’s definitely that.
After all, having an inner angel makes sense, considering how I already have an inner lust and wrath demon combo. I’m just starting to get really crowded, that’s all.
Across the courtyard, Nimue and Merlin whisper their incantations. The golden stones in the Staff of Avalon shine with a golden light to rival sunshine. Lincoln moves closer to my side. We haven’t spoken much since the laboratory battle. Even while flying on Dragon-Ximena’s back on the way here, we’ve been more cuddly than chatty.
Perhaps I’m not the only one who’s feeling a little overwhelmed.
Lincoln sets his palm on the base of my back. “So what happened during the spell to recharge the Opus Magica?”
“You mean when I pumped extra power into the magical circuit we’d created?”
“Yes, that.” A sly look enters my guy’s mismatched eyes. He so knows I’m avoiding telling him something.
And he’s right.
When it comes to my inner angel, there’s actually a lot I haven’t shared with Lincoln. Mostly because I’ve been actively avoiding the truth myself. If I told my husband, then the mysterious-me would be a real issue.
“I only ask the best questions,” quips Lincoln.
My gaze flicks over to Merlin and Nimue. They’re still pretty tired after the whole laboratory adventure, so it’s taking them a while to actually get this spell going.
“It’s a long story, so I’ll just give you the punch line.”
“Whatever you like.”
“Know how I have inner wrath and lust demons?”
“My favorites.”
“Turns out, I have an inner angel, too. And she’s a mega-powerful sorceress.”
Lincoln’s face does that thing where his emotions turn completely unreadable. “Wow.”
“I know. Shocker.”
“What has she said since the laboratory?”
“Nothing. I haven’t asked for her and she hasn’t shown up. I’m trying to actively ignore the whole deal.” I sigh. “But maybe I should give it a try.” Closing my eyes, I call out to my inner angel.
Hey, uh, you. Hi.
Not my best greeting, but this is a super-weird situation. I wait for a reply.
Nothing.
Nothing.
And nothing.
At this point, the ground begins to rumble. An electric charge of magic fills the air. The earth splits. Trees snap. The silver castle of Avalon rises once more.
Some part of me knows that I should focus now. After all, we’re about to go inside a freaking castle and awaken my Not-Dad. But the most I can do is go through the motions. I might as well be sleepwalking as we enter Avalon and watch Nimue awaken all the archangels.
The reason is simple. Before, when I was ignoring my inner angel, I didn’t care that she wasn’t chatty. But now that I called out to her? It’s getting on my nerves how she won’t reply. I mean, if I think about how Lincoln is hot, then my inner lust power is right there. Should I focus on kicking a horde of Rodentia demons, my inner wrath entity will fire up in my soul.
But my inner angel? She’s a no show.
Now sure how I know this, but I’m positive she’s still rattling around inside me somewhere. She’s just holding out. What’s up with that?
Lots of time passes while I sulk on this issue. Soon all the other archangels have woken up and flown off. Avalon is back underground. Not-Dad stayed behind for some reason; now he’s striding over in my direction.
“I’ll give you two a minute,” says Lincoln. He kisses my cheek before stepping away.
Not-Dad pauses before me. “Greetings.”
I give him a mostly-serious salute. “Hello, General.”
“About the Staff of Avalon … You were right.”
I grin. How I love being told that. “Let it be a lesson to you.”
Not-Dad chuckles. “I will.” He gestures to the Band of Epochs on my thumb. “You’ll be leaving us soon.”
“Yeah, I came back in time to stop Colossus from starting the demonpocalypse. That’s all done, so I need to head back and hope my reality is fixed again.”
“Were there magical visions that drove this journey of yours?” asks Not-Dad.
“Oh, yeah. From both a wrath coven and an oracle angel.”
“Then as long as you followed the path of those prophecies, your future is safe.” He shakes his head. “By the way, it would be nice to think I’d have a daughter some day, but that’s not me. Some souls aren’t built for love.”
I rock on my heels and press my lips together. It’s really tempting to prove I’m his daughter, but I don’t want to monkey with the future. If my father knew he’d have a kid, that could change things. I like my reality just the way it is, thank you very much. Besides, I am such a charismatic figure, I bet Not-Dad will already spend centuries wondering who I really am.
“Have a good life, Mika.” Not-Dad spreads his wings and takes to the skies.
My mouth hangs open in surprise. Mika? Then again, maybe Not-Dad will fly off and forget me in all of five seconds.
Lincoln steps to my side. “Did he just call you Mika?”
“That he did.”
Nimue, Merlin, and Ximena step over. Fluff hovers in the air above them. A sinking feeling moves through my insides. I’d gotten really attached to these guys. Now we need to go home.
“What will you do now?” I ask.
“We’re not sure,’ says Nimue. “Maybe rebuild the Pendragon Academy.”
Lincoln looks to Ximena. “How about you?”
She scans the skies. “In your history, I’m still locked up. I should like it to stay that way .. officially. None of my dragons saw the end of what happened in the laboratory. For all they know, I’m all locked up again.” She grins. “There’s a certain freedom to leaving your crown behind and living a simple life. I doubt that makes sense.”
“Oh, it makes tons of sense,” says Lincoln.
I look to my little group. An image appears. All of us holding hands as we fought none other than Colossus and his archdemons. Words begin to tumble form my mouth, seemingly without any instruction from my brain.
“If you guys are around in another eight hundred years or so, be sure to look me up. I have this problem with fading angels. I bet if we worked on it, we could come up with something cool. After all, we brought down Colossus after an hour’s worth of planning.” My voice gets a little wobbly as I say the next bit. “You’ve become my own knights of the round table.” I look to each familiar face: Merlin, Nimue, Fluff, and Ximena. “I need you.”
“We mages live a long time,” says Merlin. “But eight hundred years is a stretch.”
Nimue sniffles. “We like you, too.”
“Love, love,” chirps Fluff.
Ximena pretends she needs to clear her throat. It’s a trick I use myself to hide when you’re tearing up. “You two better go. I have a lot of meaningless meandering to do.”
“We’ll depart,” says Lincoln.
“And thanks,” I add.
Lincoln and I pull out our respective last bands, speak the incantation, and snap our rings in two. Purple mist surrounds us as the time travel spell kicks into action.
We’re going home.
55
Lincoln
The spell ends as quickly as it began. Myla and I soon find ourselves back in Soul Tower One. The place isn’t done up like a disco anymore. Even better, the cloud carriers hover overhead. Joy lightens my heart. I pull Myla into my arms and twirl her about.
“We did it!” I cry.
She laughs, and I simply adore that sound. “Go us.”
I set my wife down and wave to the control room. “Ho, there!”
A figure steps to the window while the intercom springs to life. “Yes, your Majesty?”
“Do you happen to know if my son is at home?” I ask.
“He is at your Purgatory residence. The Consort to the President is watching him.” The sound of paper rustling echoes through the speaker. “In fact, the general contacted us not long ago. he asked you to pick up more maple syrup on your way home.”
My gaze locks with Myla’s. She’s beaming, same as I am. Maxon is safe. Xavier and Camilla are back. Our world has returned. It’s everything we’d hoped for.
“We better get moving,” I call to the control room. “Thank you for the information.”
The voice crackles over the loudspeaker once more. “But your guests are almost here.”
Sure enough, the front doors to the soul tower swing open. In walks a group figures, their outlines highlighted by the setting sun behind them. I blink hard, not believing who I’m seeing.
Nimue.
Merlin.
Ximena.
Fluff.
Myla and I race over to them. It’s the most natural movement in the world for us to fall into a circle once again.
“What are you doing here?” asks Myla.
“I decided to take a little nap in Avalon,” answers Nimue.
Merlin raises his hand. “Same thing.”
“Same, same,” adds Fluff.
Ximena shrugs. “So I woke them up at the right time. It’s not hard to do when your have the Staff of Avalon. And now we’re here.” She sets her fist on her hip. “You still need some help with those fading angels or what?”
“Yes, I do.” Myla’s eyes narrow while she steeples her fingers under her chin. I know that look on my wife. Some kind of scheme just popped into her mind.
Can’t wait to see it in action.
Epilogue
1
Lincoln
One week Later
One week later, we’re back in Ghost Tower One. Myla paces the concrete floor. I know how nervous she is about today’s dry run of the new system for the fading angels. In my opinion, she has nothing to be concerned about.
Myla rakes her fingers through her hair. “This is risky.”
Which it isn’t.
“No,” I counter. “It’s brilliant.”
Because it is.
The tower is a bustle of activity. Against the far wall, Myla’s knights wait by an enchanted mirror on the wall. And by her knights, I mean Merlin, Nimue, Fluff, and Ximena. All wear lab coats, even Fluff. For the past week, they’ve all been locked up in this tower while testing out different spells. Since there are spirits so close by, they can easily ask for souls to volunteer to try out different incantations.
It’s a rather small tower, so everyone overheard what Myla just said.
“This probably won’t work,” agrees Merlin.
“Stop being a worrywart,” says Nimue.
“Worry, worry,” squeaks Fluff.
“Dragons never fret.” That’s Ximena. She goes by Lady X now and is a master of taking measurements. Like always, she grasps a clipboard in her hands. Officially, she’s a quasi-demon these days and loving it.
Nearby, Maxon plays with his truck collection. He’s having a grand time using the concrete floor for races.
I glance toward the front doors. Any minute now, Camilla, Xavier, and Walker will enter for the official test of our new system, Camelot One.
At last, the doors swing open. Xavier, Camilla, Walker enter the tower. They’re all in human suits, which fits their roles today as the ruling team of Purgatory. I’m in a human suit as well, while Myla opted for her new Scala robes.
After all our hellos and greetings, Myla steps before the mirror to speak. The thing is about give feet tall, oval and with a gilded frame.
“Tell us about your invention,” prompts Camilla. In this moment, Myla’s mother is every inch the President of Purgatory.
Myla nibbles on her thumbnail. “We don’t know if it will work, just so you know. We haven’t had much time for tests.”
Being so close to Myla means that sometimes, I have a mainline to her anxiety. Right now, I sense her nervous energy like its my own. She wants so badly for this to go perfectly; that’s my wish as well.
Xavier flashes one of his most angelic smiles. “No expectations from our side,” he says smoothly. Still, there’s a curious twinkle in his eyes. No doubt, Xavier is planning something special for after the test. It’s even more suspicious considering how he’s been in touch with Octavia. Mother loves nothing more than to plan a party.
Myla inhales a deep breath. Her gaze locks with mine. I shoot her a thumbs up. Myla grins, straightens and addresses the group.
“We all know how human lives have various cruxes. These are key decision points which decide their future and afterlife.” She gestures to Merlin. “Can you show the example?”
Merlin touches the mirror. Blue mist rolls over the reflective surface. When the colored haze fades, the mirror displays Drusus sitting on a straw mattress, gripping his lute. A trio of guardian angels stand behind him. Although we can’t hear what’s being said, there’s no question what’s happening.
Myla gestures to the mirror. “This human is about to do something terrible. Namely, he’s about to sing a song filled with untruths. In some ways, the damage of the song has already been done in terms of history. But for Drusus, this particular concert marks his crux of no return. To convince him otherwise, a guardian angel already left a what we call a serendipity nearby. In this case, it’s song lyrics from another composer.”
I think back to the serendipity we saw with Drusus’s extended son, Charles. In that case, it was when the guardian angel changed the image on Charles’ cell phone. It changed from an email to a picture of Charles’ family.
In the mirror, Drusus picks up his serendipity—that parchment—from a nearby table. The bard scans the sheet and pauses.
“As you can see, this serendipity has got Drusus thinking,” continues Myla. “He’s considering singing something else … or skipping the performance altogether.”
“This happened long ago,” says Camilla. “What became of this man?”
“Drusus doesn’t heed the warning. After he died, he was sent to Heaven and became a fading angel. Yet the situation gave us an idea. What if the guardian angel had tried a different song? Perhaps another serendipity could have worked. In the past, guardian angels could only try one thing during a mortal’s life. Now, with the Mirror of Avalon, we can give a soul an unlimited number of chances.”
My chest swells with pride. In this moment, Myla exudes a heady mixture of confidence and excitement. No other Great Scala has ever attempted to fix the problem of the fading angels. But there’s never been anyone like my Myla.
After closing her eyes, Myla raises her arms. I’ve seen her do this a hundred times before, and it never gets old.
She’s calling her igni.
Hundreds of tiny lightning bolts of power appear nearby. Myla lowers her arms and the igni swirl about in a column that reminds me of a school of fish. When the igni disappear, the barest outline of a figure stands before us.
It’s Drusus.
And he’s almost completely vanished.
Myla turns to him. “Are you sure about this? It will seem like you’re back in your mortal life. And it will be hard.”
“I want to try,” says Drusus. “Did you get my lyrics? Not the ones from the guardian angel, but those I wrote.”
; “Yes,” explains Nimue. “They’re already loaded into the illusion.”
“Then it’s time for me to go,” intones Drusus.
Merlin raises his hand. Cords of blue power wind from the mirror and curl through the air. The magical tendrils wrap around Drusus, outlining his body in blue lines. A long pause follows as the spell hangs in space.
Then it moves.
The blue cords pull on Drusus, dragging him into the mirror.
The test has begun.
Inside the mirror a new image appears. It’s the same small room we saw before. Drusus sits on his cot while holding his lute. To him, he’s alive again. There is no memory of his afterlife, only the present moment. Drusus notices the parchment on a side table and reads it.
And now, after days of practice and planning, both Drusus and Avalon One reach a crossroads. Will Drusus crumple up these lyrics, like he did the other set? Or will he change his life … and all of Purgatory?
Myla nibbles her thumbnail and watches the scene unfold. Maxon makes happy vroom noises with his red truck. Seconds pass.
Drusus takes the new lyrics, folds them up carefully, and sets them in his pocket.
Back at Ghost Tower One, a palpable sense of excitement fills the air.
Inside the mirror, the door to Drusus’ chamber slams open. None other than King Arthur stands framed on the threshold.
“You’re late,” says Arthur. “Take your lute and come with me, man.”
Drusus rises. “Yes, your Majesty.”
“What do you plan to play tonight?”
Drusus slips the sheet out from his pocket. “This.”
Arthur unfolds the paper. “The Song of My soul. What’s this?”
“A new tune. I will play it tonight.”
Arthur reads the lyrics aloud.
“Let us sing and raise our flagon
Celebrate the man who saved the day
His name was the Pendragon
His deeds are great and …”
The Brutal Time Special Edition Page 22