“I was so mad, Kay. I snuck into the tower and hit the fuses so you could fly out. Mercer was going to send me to some work camp as punishment. My parents paid them off, and I ended up with a reminder of my disobedience.” Lam rubbed their left wrist. “I was lucky.”
Only Lam would look at the loss of their hand as luck. Always optimistic. Always looking for beauty, for hope. After all, that’s why she’d set her young eyes on them. When everyone else was grumbling about water shortages at knight camp or static storms coming off the desert on Lionel, Lamarack would find an odd flower growing between the rock walls. They’d pull her over to see it. Proof of life, no matter what.
Lam squeezed Ari’s Kay-shoulder. “The bounty on your head was part money, part violent threat. The worst one my parents ever saw come through the militarized associates.”
“Oh.” Ari had always known that they were marked, but this? They were being specifically—and expensively—hunted. “It’s a miracle they haven’t caught us yet.”
“I bet they’ve been monitoring you.” Lam folded their arms over their chest. “Waiting to see if Ari has contacts outside Ketch. Or inside.”
Contacts? Ari would kill for a few Ketchan contacts. She kept that to herself.
“And now we have no choice but to run into the black,” Ari said quietly.
Lam shook their head. “You promised to let me off first, man. I need to get to Lionel. They’re going to track that call you made from Earth, and they know I helped you in the past. When they can’t find me, they’ll go after my brother, Kay. I have to warn him.”
“Val?”
“He’s a fancy type on Lionel now. An adviser to the queen. Can you believe that?”
“Yes.” Ari imagined the boy who had been her favorite brand of childhood mischief. “He could rig any system by its own rules. It was his specialty.”
“What if they take more than Val’s hand, Kay? Can you live with that?”
“No,” she said slowly, processing. No, she could not live with one of her very few friends being tracked down because Mercer had a renewed interest in her existence.
Lamarack put their hand on her shoulder. “You don’t look so good. Your skin is grayer than your hair.”
Ari blasted out of the room, terrified by how much her brother’s boots crashed on the grated walkway with each step. She must have been a solid hundred pounds heavier than usual, but that wasn’t important. She slammed her fist on the cockpit door. Over and over.
Her brother answered angrily—before he stared. And blinked. Then he started screaming. “I’ve lost it! I’ve lost my damn mind!”
“You haven’t. Shut up. I’m Ari.”
“Ari?” Lam asked. They’d followed from the bunk room and were now turning from Kay to Ari-Kay. “What the actual fuck…”
Merlin-Kay came running in, orange cheese flavoring stuck all over his face and hands. “Why are we screaming?”
Kay pointed to Merlin-Kay and started screaming all over again.
“Merlin!” Ari yelled over the sound. “Change us back.”
“It takes less magic if it wears off,” he said.
“Change us back, little wizard!” Ari cried.
“I prefer magician.” Merlin wiggled his fingers and muttered. Ari felt the full body itch again, and then she relaxed into her slender and suddenly gangly frame. She took one deep breath, enjoying her own body before she pushed her brother in the chest with both hands, shoving him into the cockpit and shutting the door behind them.
“What in the hell just happened?” Kay blustered.
“I told you Merlin has magic. And you know I don’t lie,” Ari snapped. Kay opened his mouth, but she talked over him. “Val is in trouble, Kay. Because of me. We’re going to Lionel. Now.”
“We can’t take on Mercer in a retired lifeboat. Our best bet is to escape. Val has people who will look out for him.”
“What did our moms make you promise before they were arrested?” she asked. Kay looked over at her, a painfully slow move. “I want the truth. I can handle it.”
“The truth is that you’re reckless, and everyone who loves you gets punished,” Kay blustered. Ari’s face stung as though he’d slapped it. He squeezed his eyes shut. “I didn’t tell you about Lamarack because I didn’t want you to feel like it was your fault. All because you…”
Ari waited for a word that could possibly cap that sentence. When Kay couldn’t find it, she finished for him. “Exist?”
“Yeah,” he said sadly. “Lam thinks that going to Lionel will help Val, but it’ll just prove to Mercer that Val is leverage. If we don’t go, Val will be safer. Lam should understand that.”
“You’re being a coward, Kay.”
Her brother punched her in the arm. Hard. “Mercer will arrest us. Send us to a work camp or prison. Or worse.” Ari searched her brother’s eyes. Desperation made them glow, or maybe that was just Error’s cockpit lights. “We’ve got four people on board and only enough supplies for two. We aren’t going to get far. We have to make some choices.”
“We eat Merlin.”
Kay barked a surprised laugh. “Too gamey.”
“So we don’t run. We make a stand. We have a magician now. He can change our faces like he did a few minutes ago.”
Kay’s head jerked up. “Really?”
Ari stared out the window. Either the black of space or her frozen fear had finally gotten to her. “Or I’ll go away. By myself. Maybe they’ll follow me and leave you all alone.”
“We’re staying together, Ari.” Her brother leaned closer, pulling her attention from the void outside… and the one inside. “Ten years ago, I had a dream that I could hear a kid crying. When I woke up, I told our moms that the junked ships we were passing weren’t empty. Someone was on them. They listened to me because, well, you and I have the best parents in this damn universe.”
Ari’s heart beat wildly. Kay never talked about the day he’d found her. They didn’t need to talk about it; the sharpness of the memory still cut.
“We flew to those junked ships, and I climbed through them until I found you in that empty water heater, all starving.” He opened his hand to Ari, showing off the circular scar on his palm from one of the water heating coils. It matched the scars all over Ari, the lifelong souvenirs from her time trapped at the bottom of that barrel. “That was magic, Ari. We were meant to find you. To keep you safe.”
Ari ran her fingers down Excalibur, aching to use it to make some sort of difference in this messed-up universe. “But I can’t live knowing that our parents are suffering, Kay. Can you?” She took a shaky breath. “And we can’t leave Val to face Mercer.”
Kay shook his head, looking like Captain Mom. They had the same roughly blond hair that skewed gray. Captain Mom had been their leader, and now Kay was in charge, but he was too soft. Too much like Mom, a squishy hug of feelings. “Ari, before Mercer took them, they made me promise one thing. One. To keep you safe. They traded their freedom so we could get away.” He leaned over the control panel. “If I jeopardize that, they’ll never forgive me. I will never forgive myself. So we’re going to Tanaka. Or the Ridges, if Error can make it.”
“I love you, but you leave me no choice.” Ari sighed deeply. And then she kicked her brother’s ass, wrestled him out of the cockpit, and used Excalibur to wedge the door closed.
“No turning back,” she muttered, laying in the course for Lionel.
The winds blew strong on this new planet, and Merlin’s robe nipped at his ankles like a terrier. When he turned in one direction, he saw Error, surrounded by desert of the tan, sandstone variety. When he turned the other, he saw a page ripped from his own past. Tournament rings. Pennants. Thatched houses, piping smoke, a lively marketplace.
Merlin grabbed Arthur—girl Arthur—no, Ari—as she passed him.
“This place…” He pointed to the city, then lapsed into song lyrics, a habit that bubbled up when he was nervous. “‘Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy?’”