“You hit pause on this whole battle?” Ari spoke slowly and blinked hard.
“I think I paused the entire universe, truth be told. That’s, um, the only way Nin wouldn’t butt in. It won’t last forever so we should probably catch up quick.”
“Merlin, where’s my baby?” Gwen asked, shaking rainbow glitter off her body in sheets.
“Oh, I’m… Well, I never did work out how best to explain this.” Merlin looked to Ari, whose understanding was coming in fits and starts, unlike Gwen’s, which was rigidly stuck on her tiny, baby Kairos.
Ari stared at Merlin’s red hair, graying at the edges, or really turning a silver that was reserved for a certain space rat lineage. Like Captain Mom. And Kay.
“You?” Ari asked, carefully. He nodded with such hopeful brown eyes. Gwen’s eyes in color and Kay’s in shape. She turned to Gwen. “Do you remember when you said Kai was special? That our magic time baby might come help us at any moment?” Ari spoke slowly, half confused, half shocked.
Gwen was impatient. “Of course, but—”
“What if he already did? What if we met Kai years ago… and he’s been with us all along?”
Gwen looked at Merlin for half a second and then back at Ari. “What?”
“We have been flying around the cosmos with a backward aging magician like it’s no big deal.”
Gwen put her hands on her hips, making a fresh cloud of glitter fall to the ground. “I don’t understand what you’re saying. How could Merlin be my baby?”
Merlin held up a finger. “Technically I’m not. Or, I was, but that was a few millennia ago. See, the baby became Old Merlin, and then aged down, and down, and down to… well, me.” The girls stared until he added, “And then aged back up a bit. Toddling about, entranced by my own boogers, wasn’t for me, not when I knew there was an alternative. I hope you understand.”
“My baby turned into Old Merlin?” Gwen shouted. “The mage who stormed around Camelot telling everyone that I was a scheming harlot? That’s ridiculous. It’s horrendous. It’s—”
Merlin closed his eyes and spoke fast. “I turned the baby into Old Merlin, started him on his path in Camelot. That’s why the old version of me was so feral. I might have looked like an old man, but I had an infant’s understanding of the world. It was all hunger and fear. And that’s why I formed a desperate tether to the one person I loved.”
“Arthur,” Ari said, head down as she touched her new sword lovingly. Gwen shook her head, which only freed more sparkles. “Glitter, Merlin? Really?”
“It was the first thing that sprang to mind!”
“How could you, Merlin?” Gwen asked, scolding in a way that felt distinctly parental. “How could you do that to Kairos?”
“I did it to myself, point of fact,” Merlin said, the truth etched on him as pain. “I knew that, no matter how much I suffered by living through the cycle, I would survive it and find you eventually. Any other choice could have kept us apart forever.”
“You’re telling me you put yourself through all of those monstrous, lonely lifetimes to come back to us?” Gwen peered at him from all sides.
“I had to. You’re my family.”
Gwen grabbed his hand, pulling it close to her face. She examined each digit as if counting and inspecting a newborn’s fingers. “Are you really mine?” she asked. “I should know. I should look at you and just know.”
“Our family does stretch the imagination a tad.” Merlin smiled crookedly. “Although, the first time I saw you, you seemed familiar. I thought maybe it was because Old Merlin had had those run-ins with you back in Camelot, but now I think I was remembering your voice. Your face. I know most people don’t remember their birth, but I’m not most people.”
Gwen let go of his hand. “I’m really confused right now. I think I need a minute.”
“I understand. I had about fifteen years to think it all through.” Merlin plucked a soft pretzel out of the hands of a frozen person. “Time travel is horrible on the blood sugar.”
Gwen watched him devour it. “Oh, gods, he really is Kay’s baby.”
“He has your eyes,” Ari said. “Kay’s hair. Can’t believe I never noticed before.”
Gwen shook her head. “How do I explain to people that I have a seventeen-year-old baby?”
“I’m closer to twenty now,” Merlin said, rubbing his stubble proudly.
“My baby is older than me,” Gwen deadpanned. “Sure, why not.” She rushed at him, nearly picking him up despite their size difference. Ari’s relief wrestled with her panic. Time might be on pause, but a hundred weapons were still pointed at them.
“I’m going to stop Nin,” he said into Gwen’s shoulder, holding her tightly. “I know how she became so powerful.”
“Do you also know she’s been pretending to be the new Administrator?” Ari asked, sheathing the beautiful sword in her belt.
Merlin opened and closed his mouth. “What? She has no body. It’s part of the problem, truth be told, although it does keep her locked in that cave, which is a help.”
“Well, she’s figured out how to use Mercer’s technology to be here now, as a hologram of some sort.” Ari cursed. “There have been signs all along that she’s been dabbling with humanity in this time period. I should have seen it.”
“That’s why she wanted my baby…” Gwen touched Merlin’s scruffy, lightly bearded cheek. “Why she wanted you. If Mercer had taken you, you never would have been born in the water. You never would have become the powerful Merlin who will stop her.”
He grimaced. “I haven’t done it just yet.”
Ari’s thoughts were sudden and bleak. “The water.”
“What was that?” Merlin asked.
“The poisoned water that killed nearly all the Ketchans… that was Nin, too!”
The silence was new darkness.
“Wait, there are Ketchans still alive?” Merlin said. “That sounds like good news.”
Gwen spoke up. “They went into deep space hiding years ago and came back when we took a public stand against Mercer. Only we’d vanished to the past before they arrived.” She turned back to Ari. “How could Nin do that? I thought she was bound on Old Earth.”
Ari grabbed at her skull, roughing up her short hair. “I should have seen this before! The way she showed off how easy it was to drop me in the fountain on Ketch. She was laughing at me.” Ari pointed at Merlin. “You said her power is in every atom of that lake. When I first pulled Excalibur from that oak, there were Mercer machines harvesting the trees and bedrock. They would have gone for the water, too, wouldn’t they? All of the resources? They sucked up Nin’s lake and launched her into the cosmos. She probably reached everywhere in no time. Infiltrating the universe one drop at a time, controlling things from her cave, unlimited power via Mercer’s same-day shipping!”
Ari looked over the thousands of frozen faces, and then up through the massive crystal dome at outer space. Soon Amal would arrive, but it wouldn’t matter because Mercer wasn’t the bad guy after all. They were the weapon.
“Look, we probably only have a minute before the universe starts rolling again.” Merlin spoke quietly. “I know this sounds bad, yes. It sounds awful, but I also know how to defeat Nin. That’s where I’ve been so many years, spying on Nin’s backstory. Waiting to find out the secret to her power.”
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 toward space, and she shouted.
Merlin’s magic snapped into place, creating a bubble to keep out the cold and leave her with oxygen. He called the sword back to her hand in the same motion. She held it tightly, but she held on to Merlin tighter. Until she couldn’t. He sealed the atmosphere around her skin like a space suit and pushed her away.
“Stop! Merlin, stop!” She propelled herself toward him, which was increasingly hard in the limited gravity.
Merlin hummed until the water returned to the state of a liquid doorway. “I’m sorry,” he said, tears muffling his words. “Don’t make me say good-bye!”
She got a hand on his shoulder and held on to his robes. Her mind spun with ways to make him stop. “But we just got you back.”
“There’s no other way to get Nin to open her cave!”
But there was. And Ari knew it.
Merlin went to step into the water, and she pulled a low blow.
“You didn’t even see Val yet,” she shouted. Merlin’s resolve cracked ever so slightly, and she grabbed him by both shoulders. “You’re the hero now, Merlin. Not the martyr.” Ari put a hand to his cheek. “Our perfect moment. Our beautiful Kairos.”
And she pushed her sword through her own chest.
Merlin’s tears froze along the rims of his eyes.
“This is not what I made you the sword for!” he cried, as Ari fell to her knees, blood suddenly everywhere.
Gwen screamed and rushed back toward them as the rest of the crowd disappeared toward evacuation pods. Val must have already made it out; Merlin didn’t see him at Gwen’s side. Ari’s distraction had been only that—a ruse to keep him from carrying out his plan.
He magically sealed Gwen into an air-suit as she knelt and frantically searched through the folds of her dress. She came up with a tiny pill, as white and hopeful as the first sight of the evening star.
“Is that what I think it is?” Merlin asked. “How did you procure it?”
“I knew Ari was going to get hurt doing something exactly like this, so I traded in my crown.” Gwen forced the pill between Ari’s lips and broke it by pushing Ari’s teeth together.
Ari choked, which pushed blood from her wound, and for a second Merlin truly thought she might get better, might come back swearing and spitting and ready to fight like last time. Instead, she slumped all the way to the ground. Her eyes were two blank screens, staring up at the broken dome.
“No, no, no,” Gwen said, her voice strangely empty. She must have thought her contingency plan would work—just as Merlin had been sure of his own scheme to save her. And now she was dying, just like Nin had promised she would.
Ari’s body started to vanish.
Gwen looked to Merlin like he might be able to stop it.
“Nin is collecting her,”
Merlin said helplessly.
Which meant she had to open her cave.
That’s what Ari had died to give him—a way to get to Nin.
But there was no way Merlin could stop Nin from creating a new cycle with Ari’s spirit. His magic wasn’t as powerful as the Lady of the Lake’s. Ari had ruined the only plan to make him strong enough. If Merlin cast himself into the body-sized bubble of the lake and bound his death to it now, Ari would have died for nothing.
With only seconds until she was completely gone, Merlin shouted, “Get Val off this blasted moon! Keep each other safe!” This wasn’t the way Merlin had dreamed his reunion with Gwen—with any of them—would play out. Even with all of time at his glowing fingertips, there was never enough when he needed it most. Merlin threw his arms around Ari’s quickly disappearing figure. He felt her dissolve right as the moon’s dome cracked into a final collapse. Merlin closed his eyes and caught a ride with Ari’s body.
He smelled Nin’s cave before he saw it—damp and close, like all of the misery Nin had inspired over the centuries had been trapped down here and distilled into a particularly strong odor. Wet dog and stale dreams.
When Merlin opened his eyes, Nin was standing over Ari’s body like a beautiful vulture.
Nin didn’t seem to mind that Merlin had appeared in her cave, but then, he was still cloaked to her. He undid the spell and waited for her to notice.
“Oh, good,” she said, with the first genuine smile she’d given him in centuries. It was terrifying. “Even when I can’t see you, Merlin, you remain as predictable as a tightly wound Swiss watch. Your desire to save this shiny hero brought you here just in time for the end of this show. And the beginning of the spin-off.”
Merlin scrambled to his feet and raised his hands, his magic grabbing for the first thing it could find. A scattering of loose stones rose into the air and flew at Nin—passing through her incorporeal body and hitting the cave wall.
“That’s it?” Nin asked with a canned laugh. “That’s how you’re going to fight me after all this time? Sticks and stones?”
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