“The only circle big enough is the Heart of the World,” Marci said apologetically. “I know you just got out of there, but I swear it’ll only be for a moment. Once I’ve gathered your magic, I’ll cast the banish and blow up the Leviathan, scattering Algonquin’s power and everything else. Since you’re all immortal spirits, you’ll just fall back into your vessels to rise again once things calm down, but the Nameless End will be left high and dry. When that happens, our plane will shove him back out into the void between worlds, and we’ll all be free.”
The spirits began muttering again as they discussed this. Marci waited impatiently, biting her lip as the whispers dragged on and on. Then, as if he were just as fed up with waiting as she was, Vann Jeger threw up his arms and stomped over to Marci.
“No one ever won a battle putting off the inevitable,” he said, his words breaking like ice as he put out his giant hand. “When this is done, you shall again be my sworn enemy, dragon lover, but for now…” He trailed off, staring up at the pillar of the Merlin Gate with a mix of hate and resignation. “Show me where to jump.”
“Right this way,” Marci said, turning around so he wouldn’t see her triumphant smile. “Just let me see if Myron has the landing pad ready.”
***
Myron did not have the landing pad ready. Marci wasn’t sure how long she’d spent talking to the spirits—time flowed a bit wonky in the Sea of Magic, and it wasn’t as though her soul had a watch—but it felt like enough time to patch up a circle. When she returned to the Heart of the World, though, Myron and the DFZ were still elbow-deep in preparations. Soggy bits of spellworked leaves and rocks were scattered everywhere, making the island mountaintop look like a yard after a big storm. When Marci nudged one of the branches aside so she’d have somewhere to stand, Myron shouted at her, stomping over to put the branch back exactly as it had been.
“Please tell me you’re almost done,” Marci groaned, squeezing her feet into the one bit of clear mountaintop left. “I’ve got every spirit in the world lined up to help, but it won’t count for squat if they’ve got nowhere to go.”
“Sorry to lag behind,” Myron snarled. “But I’m doing my best to pull off the impossible here, and that’s hard enough without you stomping all over my matrices.”
“He’s in a bad mood,” the DFZ informed her. “His first attempt didn’t work.”
“If you want to be useful, get in here and help me hold all of this in place,” Myron said, gesturing at the interlocking maze of wet leaves he’d layered over the top of the broken seal.
Marci tiptoed through the chaos and put her hands where he pointed. “How much longer do you—”
“It’ll be done when it’s done,” he snapped as he laid down another layer. Sticks, this time. “I’m using the mountain’s existing spellwork to save time, but it took forever to gather materials with everything being underwater. Shiro was helping, but then he had to go deal with the situation downstairs.”
Marci frowned. “What’s happening downstairs?”
“The Leviathan’s tentacles are starting to creep into the base of the pillar,” the DFZ said, handing another armload of sticks to Myron.
“Are you kidding?” Marci cried frantically. “This place was built to be a magical collection chamber! If he gets his slimy tendrils into the Heart of the World, he’ll be able to suck all the power out of our plane like he’s drinking it through a straw!”
“Why do you think I’m working so fast?” Myron said testily, nudging the last stick into position. “There, that’s done. Now I just have to…” He spread his hands over the layer of leaves and twigs, closing his eyes as the green light began to rise from the maze of spellworked foliage. As it lit up, Marci felt the magic working through every part of the submerged mountain below, but it wasn’t until the stone itself began to shift that she realized what Myron had done.
“Holy—” She backed away, eyes widening as the leaves and twigs began to burn themselves into the seal, forming a patch over the crack that had split the stone circle. “You reordered the mountain?!”
When they’d first arrived, one of the things that had blown Marci away most about the Heart of the World was how everything—the rocks, the trees, the leaves, the grass, even the pebbles—was crafted from spellwork. The whole place was a giant circle, the biggest spell ever made, and Myron had just made it bigger. He hadn’t just taken spellwork from below and repurposed it. He’d woven his own school of labyrinth magic into the work of the ancient Merlins, adding new spellwork not just on top of, but into the finished matrix of an already functional circle. That was hard enough to do with normal spells, but Myron had done it on the most complicated magical artifice ever constructed. Even more impressive, he’d done it in hours rather than years, but the most amazing part of all was the fact that it worked.
The crack in the stone seal that had once held all the world’s magic was healing in front of Marci’s eyes, the labyrinth of leaves and twigs melting into the spellworked stone as though they’d always been part of it. When the green light finally faded, the stone circle at the center of the mountain was whole once again. Not perfect—the patch job was obvious—but it held together when Marci knocked on it, and she looked up at Myron in awe.
“That’s impressive.”
“I’m aware,” Myron said, brushing off his hands with a superior smile. “I am the world’s greatest mage.”
Any other time, Marci would have rolled her eyes. This time, though, Myron had earned his bragging, and she applauded accordingly. “Bravo.”
“Thank you,” he said, looking around. “So where are these spirits you were boasting about?”
Now it was Marci’s turn to show off. She walked to the line in the stone that served as the temporary Merlin Gate since the official entrance was underwater and grabbed hold of the magic that kept the barrier closed. The spellwork yielded easily to her now that she was officially a Merlin, allowing her to peel the bright air back like a curtain to reveal what was waiting in the chaos outside.
Raven flew through first, followed immediately by Vann Jeger. The bleeding man came in third, his bloodshot eyes wide as he looked around at the island in wonder.
“Is all of this yours?” he whispered to Marci.
“It’s ours,” she replied warmly, turning to Myron. “Did you remember to build an entrance into your seal?”
“Of course,” Myron said as he gave the giant stone circle a shove. “Hop in.”
Marci’s jaw dropped. The very first time she’d come up here, she’d thought that the circular stone at the center of the mountain looked like the cap on a well. Now, she saw that she’d been right. The giant seal—which had always felt as solid as the mountain itself whenever Marci had touched it—moved easily when Myron pushed it, sliding aside like it was on tracks to reveal a shaft that went straight down into the stone below.
“It was a well,” she said breathlessly.
“More like an access port,” Myron replied. “You don’t put water into a well. But this is by far the easiest way into the Heart of the World’s holding chamber. So, as they say in your country”—he pointed down the deep, dark hole—“Geronimo.”