“How long will the heat-skin hold?” Gwen asked Kay, as an uncomfortable warmth seeped through the walls.
“Error is still mildly damaged from when someone broke a planet,” Kay announced.
“It was a moon,” Merlin muttered.
“We must take off, my queen,” Jordan said shakily as another gust of dragon’s breath hit the tiny ship. “This moment demands bravery and decision. If we do not meet it with both, we will perish.”
“Ready to jettison Ari already, are you?” Merlin asked wildly, pointing his accusations at this would-be Lancelot. “Think it will give you more time alone with your beloved queen?”
“We’re not jettisoning anyone,” Val said, fighting his way back to his feet. “We’re saving our lives now, so we can still save Ari. Those guards on your tail must have grabbed her.”
The knights fled toward the main cabin, and Jordan and Kay took up residence in the cockpit. Merlin stood at the door, heart strained to the breaking point. Had Ari gotten captured by Mercer? Would Mercer see more value in her as a prisoner—or as a dead hero they could wave around to destroy everyone’s mounting hope?
“No one is leaving this frozen wart of a planet until we get my sister back,” Kay said, knocking Jordan away from the controls just as another heat ray hit them hard. Captain Mom appeared beside Merlin at the cockpit—she must have been securing Mom for the journey.
“Ari?” she asked, looking around at the crew.
Kay looked back and shook his head once. He hesitated for a second too long, and another blast hit them.
“HEAT-SKIN COMPROMISED,” Error said in a stilted voice.
Jordan grabbed the controls from Kay—and he didn’t fight, only sat back with a thud. The ship soared as blast after blast hit them, making it impossible to turn back.
Merlin couldn’t stop any of it. Merlin couldn’t twist this moment into something better. Without magic, or hope, the only thing left to do was lie to himself. Ari had come up with some kind of scheme while the rest of them packed into the ship. She was promising, but still too impulsive for an Arthur.
Unacceptable, Merlin told himself as he spun on his feet. When he found her, he’d give her a good talking-to about keeping close to her knights and not striking out on her own so much. Error burned through the atmosphere, rattling so hard that Merlin thought his bones might liquefy.
“We’ll find her,” he said to anyone who was willing to listen. Sickness and exhaustion swelled to take up every inch of his body. “We’ll find Ari. I promise. I always find my Arthur.”
But that was the biggest lie of them all.
And with that, he fainted into Captain Mom’s strong arms.
When Merlin woke up, the confusion of his body told him that he’d been out for days. He no longer felt horribly sick—only a bit stiff. He was settled into one of the canvas hammocks in the bunk room, his back permanently curled.
He tipped himself out of the fabric and onto the floor, where he sat for a few minutes, staring at his faded plague sores.
When he heard a voice at the end of the ship, he ran toward it.
“Ari Helix, also known as Ara Azar, a Ketchan criminal, has been found dead in the Avelo solar system,” said a slightly delighted, disembodied voice.
Ari’s knights—minus Gwen—were sitting at the round table in center of the ship, their eyes pinned to their watches, which were streaming video of Ari. Fighting on Troy. Winning the tournament on Lionel. Kissing the queen.
All while the Administrator announced, over and over again, that she was gone.
“No,” Merlin said. “No, no, no, no.”
“Does saying that five times bring her back?” Lam asked. “Because anything else is just useless.”
“She was found dead?” Merlin asked as the video looped and started over, tiny Aris everywhere. She looked so real, so furiously alive.
“It’s from the tyrannical textbook,” Val said, anger spilling over as he pressed his watch to stop the news stream. “They don’t want to brag openly about killing her. It might rally more people to Ari’s cause. They made it sound like she tripped and fell on her own heroic ideals. Nobody’s fault. Nothing to see here. Move along.”
“They’re lying!” Merlin said, hopping from foot to foot like he was standing on hornets. “They want people to believe she’s dead, to cut off the universe’s hope at the knees…”
Val shook his head slightly, as everyone else’s eyes magnetized to Merlin.
“You missed a lot while you were asleep, old man,” Lam said, getting heavily to their feet, their knee bound up tight. Despite their obvious pain, they put an arm around Merlin and guided him toward the cargo area where Kay was staring at a long box, gray-faced. “Mercer delivered her body this morning,” Lam said. “Free two-day shipping on all deceased loved ones,” they added, with a hard crust to their mocking tone.
Ari was laid out in a person-sized shipping crate, the brittle plastic version of a coffin. There were no wounds that Merlin could see—but she was still in a way that only meant death. Had Mercer cornered her and then waited for her to freeze? Had she fallen into one of Urite’s icy chasms? There were no traces, no wounds to tell the story. Ari’s lips were bleached, so far from their living shade Merlin couldn’t imagine them back to the right color.
“You got to rest,” Kay said, voice cracking. “Now fix her.”
“I can’t,” Merlin croaked. “Resurrection is a nasty, heartless business. My magic couldn’t reanimate her for more than a few minutes, and she would be a zombie, not… not your sister.”
Not my friend.
Merlin’s palms leaked sweat and his brain seethed as he tried to find a loophole. Maybe this wasn’t Ari at all—maybe some horrible magic was involved. But Morgana’s power was in the mind, and Nin had been out of the cycle for so long and never bothered to interfere like this before. Merlin was the only person who might have been able to craft a fake Ari, but she would have faded as soon as he stopped holding the illusion in place.
There was only one explanation left.
Ari was dead, and this cycle was done. Failed. Like all the others.
Merlin picked a point on the ship to stare at, a rivet, so he wouldn’t have to keep looking at Ari’s body. At his failure. At the impossible future. He narrowed the moment down until he could deal with it again. He whittled and shaved until it was only a single rivet in a single seam in Error’s belly.
Val cleared his throat. “Lam, do you want to say…?”
“You’re better at it,” Lam said.
“You’re older,” Val argued.
They had never sounded more like siblings. Merlin snuck a glance and found their shoulders set in hard lines, their broad faces taking on the dim light of the cabin, their dark-brown skin glowing with overtones of gold.
“Ari Helix,” Lam said, “may your body rest softly where it lies. May your spirit follow the path of the nearest moon to a softer place. May there be nothing but ease for you now, and always.”
“Ara Azar,” Val corrected quietly. “That was her Ketchan name. If you don’t say it right, she won’t go where she needs to be.”
Ara Azar. It flowed like a swift bend in a river. It shone like a coin in the sun.
It belonged to her.
And so did they.
Captain Mom drifted to the cargo area, drawn by the sound of Lam and Val’s prayer. At the sight of Ari’s body, she hunkered against the doorjamb and covered her face. Kay moved beside her, one arm on her back. Jordan put both hands on the pommel of her sword, head low. Without anyone saying a word, it became a vigil, with starlight streaming through the portholes instead of candles.
Merlin felt slightly out of place. Everyone else here was family—Lam and Val, the moms and Kay. Gwen and Jordan weren’t strictly related, but their closeness spoke of a lifetime spent together.
He was the only one left alone now that Ari was gone.