“The Administrator would let you die, you know. You’re not worth any more to Mercer than these prisoners are. They’ve trapped you inside of their decisions and their poorly cut suits. You know that if you cross them, you’re already a forfeit in their game. But today, you get to decide. Tell me where Lian and Vera Helix are, and you can pretend I found them on my own. Mercer will be none the wiser.”
One of the guards stepped forward, her hands up, as if placating a feral child. “They’re in cavern four along the west wall. Now… put the needles down.”
“Of course,” Merlin said, crashing them to the floor, breaking them open so the plague juice ran in toxic yellow streams, sliding over the ice. The guards yelped and tried to avoid it at all costs as Merlin took off.
Cavern four along the west wall turned out to be several miles away, and when Merlin and Hex made it there, a rogue guard was waiting.
Hex hit the highest power setting on the heat gun and blasted his way forward.
“No!” Merlin cried, but the guard was already firing back. Merlin raised his hands and twisted the heat ray away from Hex, using it to melt the doors along the hallway, one by one. Some prisoners leaped out and ran on limbs half-rotted with sores. Others were too sick to move. While Merlin was distracted, another guard ran up behind them and hit Hex square in the back. He went down, hard, with a smack against the ice and the smell of sizzling flesh.
Merlin tossed fireballs from both hands—one at each of the guards—too late. Hex stayed motionless, his face frozen in a moment of victory. He’d gone down believing they would escape. Merlin had doled out hope, and then let him die, which somehow felt worse than giving him no hope at all. Hex wasn’t coming back to Error. He would never be a knight of Ari’s round table.
“I’m sorry,” Merlin said, one last apology.
And then Merlin saw two women emerging from their cell, slowly, to see what the commotion was. Their arms were locked tight around each other. If they were going down, they were doing it together.
One of them faced Merlin with an unusual sharpness in her eyes. He recognized the shine of filigreed silver hair that didn’t seem to have anything to do with age—and this woman’s hard blue eyes.
Kay. She looked like Kay.
“You must be Mom,” he said to the quiet woman in her arms, Lian. She looked glassy, her skin taut and shiny. They’d stuck her with plague. “And you’re Captain Mom,” he finished, looking straight into Vera’s hard eyes.
He knew these women. He had seen them float into the water heater and save young Ari.
Vera’s already pale face took on the sheen of ice. “What did you call me?”
“My Arthur is your daughter,” he said, aware of how sick he looked, how strange he sounded. “Your Ari is my Arthur.”
“You know Ari?” Lian exclaimed, tears flooding her eyes.
Vera shifted her hold on her wife, so she could raise a finger to Merlin. “If you are messing with us, I will end you.”
Merlin surprised himself with such a deep sigh. “As if endings were that easy…”
The dehydration that he’d been fighting sent him to his knees, dizzy and weak.
“I think this boy is sick, Vera,” Lian whispered.
“I’m much, much better,” he said with the small burst of an unexpected laugh. “I’m here to save you from Mercer, like you saved Ari so many years ago. My name is Merlin.”
“Merlin… like the bird on Old Earth,” Lian offered, and Merlin would have been overcome with tears if there had been a bit of water to spare in his body. As it was, his eyes just felt gritty and pained as he thought of that tiny wooden falcon—the only possible sign he’d ever had parents of his own.
“How exactly are you going to save us?” Vera asked.
Merlin had no idea. He was too sick to have ideas. He coughed out half of his confidence, and Vera stepped back reflexively, but Lian rushed to his side, dabbing sweat from his forehead with her sleeve. She smiled down at him. Ari had told him she was the sweet one, the one who kept them all from losing hope.
Even with her death coming on fast, she was still trying to comfort a stranger.
Mom was dying.
Merlin coughed harder, and a plan came out. “We’re going to leave the only way that Mercer will let us. As dead bodies.”
Lian pulled her fingers back, cringing.
“Not actual dead bodies.” Merlin shook his head. “I have… magic.” For the first time in history he was afraid he wouldn’t be able to explain things. He needed a small demonstration. Something that wouldn’t take up too much magic. Merlin hummed a few notes of a lullaby. “This is the color of your son’s hair,” he said, twisting one of his own reddish locks into a silver-gray. He opened his palm. A red circle etched itself across his skin. “And this is the shape of your daughter’s scars.”
“Vera…”
“I see it, Lian. I should have known this little ginger was trouble from the second he said Ari’s name.” She paused. “Maybe a few seconds before that.”
“We told them not to come back for us,” Lian said.
Merlin thought of Ari and Kay, their strange bond that defied the cycle. “Kay’s heart is as hard as porridge, and Ari is loyal to a fault. You taught them to save people. This is a cycle of your own making, and simply getting arrested won’t break it.”
“He’s right,” Lian said, releasing a dry cough.
Merlin made a silent promise—even if Lian was dying, she would see her children first. This vow wasn’t on his list of steps. It wouldn’t change the story. And yet it mattered so much that he could hardly breathe right.
“All right,” he said. “Ready to take a little nap?”
Vera nodded staunchly. Lian grabbed her hand and kissed it once, twice, as Vera watched her with so much love. Merlin hummed the calming tones of a meditation and touched Lian on the forehead with one thumb, and Vera with the other. They stiffened and turned a distinctly gray-ish color.
Then Merlin touched his own forehead with his thumb. He froze, his mind the only moving thing inside of his sinking stone of a body. He told himself one thing over and over again.
Stay awake.
Ari couldn’t sleep as Error crashed and shuddered through the unstable nebula surrounding Urite’s solar system. Everyone was laying low, preparing for what was sure to be a costly prison break.
Gwen lay beside Ari, on her stomach, her curls cascading over her back, revealing a shoulder that Ari was too fond of. She wanted to draw it. Or bite it. But Merlin’s warning returned sharply. Gwen would hurt her; it was canon.
“I won’t believe it,” Ari murmured, running a hand over Gwen’s skin, smiling at the way it made Gwen’s nose wrinkle in her sleep. Before she could enjoy the still, warm moment, her thoughts returned to Merlin. She couldn’t shake the idea that he was in trouble. A lot of trouble.
“Ari,” Gwen said sleepily. “Merlin is going to be okay.”
Ari’s fingers froze on Gwen’s elbow. “How do you always know what I’m thinking?”
Gwen sat up, tucking the blanket over her breasts. “Because you’re translucent. You always have been. It’s not just your words that beam honesty. It’s everything about you. It’s why people in a universe controlled by Mercer’s lies look at you and see King Arthur. A true hero.”
Ari squinted playfully. “I could have secrets, if I wanted to.”
“But you don’t want to,” Gwen said, riffling in a drawer beside the bed. “You’re nakedly brave. Courageously stalwart.”
“And how do you know that?”
“I told you. Translucent. My own personal stained-glass window.” Gwen sighed with a small smile. “You’re going to make the worst politician in Lionel’s history. Or perhaps the best. We’ll have to wait and see.” She held out a small velvet bag, pouring two silver rings in her palm. “I have a present for you.”
Ari inspected one, finding it heavy. “Jewelry? Are we that far into our marriage already?” she teased. Teasing made sense; being married did not.
Gwen placed one on her delicate fourth finger and one on Ari’s. “People wore these to denote married status on Old Earth. Antique thinking, but one of the more romantic gestures in the heap of barbarity my planet is trying to resurrect. You should read some of the ancient texts we’ve uncovered. It’s all, Bow to the men, you wicked females!”