by Chant, Zoe
“I think we’re good,” said Carter.
He used his gadget to unlock Cloud’s cage. The dragonfly kitten flew out and into Dali’s arms, nuzzling her and rubbing her face into Dali’s chest. Dali held her close with her left arm while she put her left hand back on.
The phoenix landed on the floor. For an instant that was seared forever into Dali’s mind, he became a man still wreathed in flame. Then the fire vanished, and he was Roland, looking a little tired but unhurt.
“Pete, get off him,” Roland ordered. “Hellhound, dinosaur, shift back now, kneel down, and put your hands behind your heads.”
Pete clambered off the dinosaur, growling. Once he was off, both the guards shifted back to battered, bleeding men who sullenly obeyed Roland’s orders. Roland cuffed them with handcuffs that had a line of shiftsilver running through their steel. Pete stayed a bear and Ransom stayed a hellhound to keep watch over the prisoners.
Roland continued, “Carter, call the shifter police and tell them to come for a hellhound and... some kind of big dinosaur.”
Shifter police? Dali thought. But she didn’t waste time wondering about that, but ran to Merlin.
He shifted back to a man before she reached him, then staggered. She caught and steadied him. His clothes were covered in blood, making her heart miss a beat.
“Merlin’s hurt—he needs help!” Dali shouted.
“I’m fine,” Merlin said. “Don’t worry about me.”
Roland hurried to his side. “Merlin, sit down.”
Merlin didn’t try to go to a chair, but sat down on the floor. Dali kept her arms around him. “Lean on me.”
Blue padded up and nuzzled him. Carter knelt down, produced a pair of scissors from his coat, and cut off Merlin’s shirt. His chest and shoulders were gashed and bleeding, but to Dali’s immense relief, none of the wounds looked life-threatening. Carter opened his briefcase, which turned out to be a first-aid kit in the world’s most inappropriately expensive case, and he and Roland began bandaging Merlin’s wounds.
Merlin leaned his head against Dali’s shoulder, and she stroked his hair and held his hand.
“You saved me,” she said. Then, no longer caring about who heard her or what they might think, she said, “I love you.”
“I love you too,” said Merlin. “And I’m pretty sure you saved me a couple times too.”
They caught each other up on how Morgana had tricked them. Dali saw red when Merlin told her Morgana’s plot to destroy the circus and set him up. She burst out, “That woman is the worst! I can’t believe she escaped.”
“At least she’s gone. And I doubt I’ll ever see her again. She had her chance with me, and she blew it. But I have to talk to my mom. And everyone. Undo the damage she did.” Merlin glanced up at Roland. “How about you wait for the shifter cops, and Dali and I go back to the circus?”
Roland frowned, his hands still full of rolls of gauze. “You should go back to the office, actually. There’s a puncture wound that an actual medical professional should take a look at. I can call the paramedics on the west coast team...”
“We have a paramedic at the circus,” Merlin pointed out. “I’m sure he can handle a pterodactyl beak stab wound as well as Shane or Catalina or Ellie.”
“In that case, let’s go now. I have the biggest car—you can lie down in the back seat.” Roland straightened up. “Carter, can you stay and talk to the police?”
Carter shook his head. Dali expected him to say he wasn’t on the team and it wasn’t his job, but he looked agitated rather than put-upon. A small muscle twitched at his temple as he said, “Roland, I have to go before they get here. I told them I was you over the phone. Shifters are a small community—someone might recognize me—”
“Go, go,” said Roland. Carter practically ran out. A moment later, Dali heard the motor revving as he sped away.
Before Dali could ask what that was about, Roland glanced at Pete and Ransom. “Can you both shift for a moment? They’re cuffed with shiftsilver, they’re not going anywhere.”
Pete shifted back to a man. Ransom didn’t.
Roland looked closely at the huge black dog. “Are you all right?”
The hellhound made a sound that made the hairs on the back of Dali’s neck stand up before she recognized it as the world’s scariest version of a dog’s whimper of pain.
Merlin struggled in Dali’s arms, trying to stand up. “Roland, he’s hurt—we have to get him help.”
“I can handle the prisoners,” Pete said. “And I’ll explain everything to the cops. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but Merlin’s right. The rest of you should go to the circus.”
Roland crouched down and lifted Merlin from Dali’s arms.
“I can walk,” Merlin protested.
“This is faster,” Roland said as he strode out with Blue following him, whining anxiously. Dali walked beside him, with Cloud perched on her shoulder. The hellhound that was Ransom padded silently at their heels.
Dali opened the back door of Roland’s car and got in, and he helped Merlin lie down with his head in her lap. Cloud jumped down and nestled into Merlin’s shoulder. Blue scrambled in and sat on the floor, resting his head on Merlin’s chest.
Roland said, “Ransom, you have to shift back. If you can’t—”
The hellhound became a man, pale and swaying.
“Sorry,” whispered Ransom, and fainted.
Roland caught him before he hit the ground, then lowered him down and checked him for injuries.
Merlin rolled over and propped himself up on one hand. “Where’s he hurt? I don’t see any bleeding. Maybe a head injury?”
Roland gently felt around Ransom’s head. “No, doesn’t look like it. There’s no blood or swelling.” He stood up, tilted the passenger seat as far back as it would go, and buckled Ransom into it. As he got in the driver’s seat and began heading away from the warehouse, he said, “I think he overused his powers. He’s the one who found you.”
“How’d you know we were even missing?” Dali asked.
“I set off Carter’s house alarm on my way out,” Merlin said.
Roland nodded. “We all came running, and we found your house empty, your car still there, and Blue gone.”
“Huh.” Merlin scratched behind Blue’s ears. “I left him inside. I wonder how he got there?”
“Same way he got to the circus, I expect,” Dali said. “However that was. It’s not like he can fly.”
Roland shrugged. “Well, I wish he’d waited till we got there. Maybe we could’ve followed him. As it was, we had nothing to go on. So Ransom found the address. By the time he got it for us, he was in so much pain, he couldn’t drive. But he insisted on coming anyway. ‘Just in case,’ he said. So I drove him. I told him to stay in the car. When he came in anyway, I figured he was feeling better.”
A police car drove past them in the opposite direction, sirens blaring.
“There they are,” said Roland.
“The shifter police?” said Dali. “I thought shifters were secret.”
“They are,” said Merlin. “But there’s a few high up in law enforcement, and they pull strings to create small units where every officer in them is a shifter, then assign them shifter-related crimes. Something like this is probably going to be completely off the record, and the prisoners will stand trial in a shifter court. A normal jail couldn’t hold a hellhound or a kentrosaurus.”
Dali patted his shoulder. “I love that you know what kind of dinosaur that was.”
“Of course I started really studying them once I could turn into one,” Merlin said. “But even when I was a kid, I was interested in prehistory. Did I ever tell you how Natalie and me helped return a stolen trilobite to a museum? It all began when Leona Pride, the lioness, got the bright idea of using the French poodles to scam a dogfighting ring...”
As Merlin went on, Dali felt herself slowly begin to relax. There was no way he was seriously injured when he could talk like that. Morgana had fled,
and her minions were under arrest. The circus had been saved.
Most of all, Merlin loved her. They’d figure out their future, and she’d listen to his stories for the rest of her life. She knew she’d never tire of them, with the bone-deep certainty with which she knew that they’d never tire of each other.
CHAPTER 27
Getting pecked by a pterodactyl was no picnic. And though Merlin knew that Ransom’s powers took a toll on him, he’d never seen his teammate actually pass out before. Not to mention that he had a difficult conversation coming up with his mother—and he wasn’t even thinking about the one where he explained to her that he was not in fact a heartless, conniving sociopath who’d frame an innocent man out of greed and petty dislike.
But despite all that, Merlin was happy. His enemies were defeated. Dali was safe. His teammates cared about him. He had a flying kitten curled up on his shoulder and licking his face with her little sandpaper tongue, a bugbear resting his furry head on Merlin’s chest, and his head in Dali’s lap. She had her prosthetic hand wrapped protectively around his, and her other hand was stroking his hair.
How could he be anything but happy, when Dali loved him?
“What’s a true mate?” she asked. “Morgana mentioned it, and you seemed to know what it was.”
“Oh, sorry,” Merlin said. “I was going to tell you about that earlier, after the performance, but... er...”
“I broke up with you,” she said, wincing. “Merlin, I am so sorry—”
“Don’t worry about it. Anyway, your true mate is your true love. It’s the person you’re totally compatible with, who you’ll always love and never fall out of love with.”
“Till death do you part,” she said, nodding. “That’s us.”
That’s us.
All the weight of ancient shifter lore, all his angst over mates, and the wizard-scientists’ greatest science and magic brought to bear to try to prevent him from ever having a mate, and Dali had recognized and accepted that they were true mates so simply and easily, before he’d even gotten the chance to explain any of the context.
But that was Dali. She was like a knife that cut through impossible knots, all the way through to the heart of things.
That’s us, echoed his raptor.
“There’s a little more to it,” Merlin said. Seeing the stiffness of Roland’s neck as he drove, Merlin decided not to get into it in his earshot. He still remembered Roland saying, “If I ever had a mate, she’s dead.” He went on, “But yeah. That’s us.”
Ransom stirred, his hand dangling by the side of his seat clenching into a fist. Merlin could see him in the rear view mirror, his face white and tense with pain. He struggled to sit up, mumbling, “I can’t shift—he’ll know me—”
“Easy.” Roland put his hand on Ransom’s chest. “It’s me, Roland. You’re safe.”
Ransom’s dark eyes opened wide, glassy and unseeing. He sat bolt upright, pushing Roland’s hand aside, and said urgently, “She’s dying! I can—I have to—turn around, turn around, you’re going in the wrong direction—”
He slumped back down in the seat, his eyes falling shut again. When he opened them, he looked infinitely weary, but present. “I lost it. I had it for a moment, and then I lost it.”
“Lost what?” Merlin asked.
“A woman... I could see her so clearly, but now I can’t even remember what she looked like.”
“It sounded like you were having a nightmare,” said Dali.
“No. It was real.” He leaned forward, resting his head in his hands. “I can’t remember.”
“Maybe it’ll come back to you,” said Roland. “Don’t push it.”
“Hey, Ransom?” said Merlin. “Thanks for finding us. I know it wasn’t any fun.”
“Yes, thank you,” Dali said. “I really appreciate it.”
Ransom mumbled something into his hands that might have been “you’re welcome” or “don’t mention it” or possibly “never again.”
“We’re taking you and Merlin to a paramedic at the circus,” Roland said.
Ransom lifted his head slightly. In the rear-view mirror, Merlin caught a faint glimmer of humor as he said, “I know.”
They pulled up to the circus gates. Merlin had lost all track of time, beyond that it was very late at night or else very early in the morning; either way, he’d expected that given the situation with Fausto and him, at least some people would still be up.
He hadn’t expected everyone to be up and at the gates, waiting for him. A very angry-looking Fausto included.
“Maybe Roland had better explain,” Dali suggested. “He has a natural air of authority, and he’s less emotionally involved than me.”
Roland got out and stood in front of Merlin’s door, unobtrusively blocking it with his body.
Just in case he needs to defend me from an angry mob, Merlin thought. It touched him, though he knew the worst that would happen was getting placed on house arrest.
But when the crowd parted to let someone through, he realized that explanations might not be necessary: the people who came forward were Zane Zimmerman with four stretcher-bearers, followed by his mother. She waved Roland aside, saying, “We already know what happed. Pete called us from the warehouse. Not that it was necessary. Everyone knew that person couldn’t have been my son!”
“You sure didn’t know I couldn’t have poisoned his coffee,” muttered Fausto.
Over her shoulder, Mom said, “On the contrary. The fact that you had previously been seen doing something very out of character helped us realize that there was an imposter on the loose.” Then she squeezed partly into the car and touched Merlin’s cheek. “I can’t wait till you quit this dangerous job of yours!”
“About that,” Merlin said. “I want to talk you. Can you wait till Zane gets through with me?”
“Of course.” Mom extracted herself from the car and snapped her fingers at the stretcher-bearers. “Step quickly! There’s two men to be taken to the infirmary.”
“I can walk,” said Merlin.
Dali’s eyebrows conveyed her steely determination to not let him, as did his mother’s frown and Roland’s head-shake. Outnumbered, Merlin let them lift him on to the stretcher. To his irritation, he saw that Ransom had quietly gotten out of the car on his own two feet, forestalling any attempt to make him get carried away. It was especially frustrating because he was certain that Ransom felt worse than he did.
In the infirmary, Zane did a quick check of them both, then said to Ransom, “Your vital signs are stable. I can’t find anything obviously wrong. Has this happened before?”
Avoiding Roland’s gaze, Ransom admitted, “Yes.”
“What did you do then?” Zane asked.
“I lay down for a while.”
Roland looked like that answer gave him a headache. “Of course you did, you were already on the floor!”
Ransom didn’t reply to that, but cast a pleading glance at Zane, who said, “Then do that again,” and gave him the bed beside Merlin.
After that, Zane removed Merlin’s bandages, thoroughly cleaned his wounds, and re-bandaged them. It hurt more than getting the injuries had, and it took a while. Dali held his hand, Cloud licked his face, Blue lay across his feet, and his mother distracted him by making him, Dali, and Roland recount to her exactly what had happened.
When Zane finished, Merlin said, “Mom, I have something I need to talk to you about.”
“I’ll just check my inventory,” Zane said. Merlin knew perfectly well that he meant “I’ll pretend to count pills while I nearly break my ears eavesdropping.” But he didn’t mind. This was something the whole circus would find out about anyway.
“Shall I...” Roland began.
“No,” said Merlin. “You and Dali may as well sit in. It involves you both. That is, it definitely involves Dali. And it involves you too, Roland, you just don’t know why yet.”
His mother snapped her fingers. “Enough stalling, son.”
Merlin plunged
in. “I realized some things during the performance earlier. One is that there’s exactly one person at this circus who could step into your shoes, and it’s not me. It’s Kalpana.”
His mother looked stubborn. “Of course Kalpana’s wonderful. But...”
“Who’s been helping you run things around here? Who runs the show every night from the booth? I’ve been gone for years—have things fallen apart, even a tiny bit? No, because Kalpana’s been here, actually doing the job that’s supposedly mine.”
“That’s all very well and good, but she’s not a shifter. If, hypothetically, I named her heir, she’d have the exact same problem you did.”
“I don’t think so,” Merlin said. “I think me not being a shifter was an excuse. I didn’t realize it till I came back here as a shifter, and nothing changed. Fausto’s jealous and some people just don’t like me, but I think most of the opposition honestly doesn’t think I’m right for the job. The reason they’re so set against me as heir is because they love the circus and they want it to succeed.”
“That’s their problem, not yours,” his mother replied with a sniff.
“Mom, they’re right,” Merlin said. “Your heir needs to be detail-oriented, with excellent organizational skills, who can manage a large group of people and keep them all working together smoothly. Be honest: does that sound like me?”
Fiercely, she said, “You can be anything you want to be!”
“I know.” Merlin squeezed her hand. “And I know you love me. I know you’re my mother in every way that matters. You don’t need to give me a job I don’t want to prove it. And I don’t want it. I love the circus, and I love performing in it, but I’ve done that. I want to do something else now. I want to stay here in Refuge City and be a bodyguard.”
Then, for the first time uncertain, he looked up at Dali. “That is—unless you’d rather join the circus? If you do, I’d be happy with that too. But if it’s all the same to you, I choose the Defenders.”
Dali’s eyebrows rose in an arch that suggested equal parts delighted surprise and exasperation. “Merlin, why on earth didn’t you tell me any of this earlier? I broke up with you because I didn’t want to join the circus, and I thought it was the only place where you’d be happy!”