The first thing Marci did when Julius landed was look for Myron.
She spotted him immediately, sitting up from the ground where the DFZ had left his body when she’d taken him to the other side. The city spirit was nowhere to be seen, though. Just another sign that everything had gone wrong.
“Myron!” she yelled, practically falling off Julius in her rush to get to the other Merlin. “What happened? How did the Leviathan re-form so fast?”
The older mage put his head in his hands, which were shaking so badly his silver, maze-worked rings were rattling like bells. “It was the roots. Shiro, Raven, and I thought they were there so Leviathan could drink the other spirits as soon as he was done with Algonquin, but…” He took a shuddering breath. “We were wrong. So wrong. The tendrils he sank into the Sea of Magic weren’t so he could consume it. He was holding on, making himself a foundation. When the hammer banish blew him apart, he just dug in and pulled himself back together.”
“That can’t be,” Marci said. “I watched him explode into water vapor.”
“And I saw this,” Myron snapped, looking up at her at last. “He was ready, Marci, and why wouldn’t he be? Algonquin’s a spirit who’s been running the world’s largest magical consumer goods corporation for the past six decades. She has a private army of mages. Of course she knows how banishments work! And if she knew, he knew. He was by her side the entire time.” His face grew bleak as he returned it to his hands. “We should have known.”
“What difference would that have made?” Marci said angrily. “Even if we’d suspected he was prepared for a banishment, there was no other way to break up his magic. This was our one real chance to beat him. We had to take it. No one could have predicted he’d survive. We hit him with all the magic there is. It doesn’t get bigger than that!”
As she said them, Marci realized what those words really meant. They’d taken their best shot, and they’d failed. Not missed, not screwed up, not fallen so they could get up and try, try again. No. They’d hit the enemy head-on with everything they had, and it simply wasn’t enough.
“We’ve lost,” she said quietly.
“No, we haven’t,” Julius said. “We’ll think of something else.”
“Not this time.” Marci shook her head. “It’s over, Julius. Everyone went above and beyond anything we could have asked, and it wasn’t enough. Even if I came up with something else to try, I don’t think we have the oomph left to pull it off. Ghost is stuck as a cat, Myron’s a wreck, I’m exhausted, and I don’t even see Amelia—”
“I’m here,” said a small voice, and Marci looked down to see a cat-sized dragon made of fire appear on the ground beside Julius’s foot.
“Just like old times, huh?” the little dragon said with false cheerfulness. “I nipped back to the Sea of Magic to try and scrounge up enough power to get back to my old incredible self, but all that exploding really mixed things up. It’s chaos over there. Even Raven’s not up yet, and he’s normally the first to get himself together.”
“What about the dragons?” Julius asked. “Where are they?”
Amelia shrugged helplessly. “I don’t know. Like I said, the magic’s all scrambled, including mine. I can still feel their fires, so they’re alive, but I can’t pinpoint my own nose in this mess.” She glanced up at the hole in the ceiling. “If I had to guess, though, I’d say they’re feeling about as peppy as we are right now.”
It was pretty quiet out there. Other than the Leviathan, there was nothing in the sky. No dragons, no planes, no helicopters. The entire counterattack had ceased, leaving the black monster hovering completely unopposed.
“They’re probably taking cover,” Julius said, breaking the grim silence. “Can’t blame them, really. I told everyone from the start that we were only holding out until the banishment.”
“Which didn’t work,” Marci said, her shoulders sinking as the reality of their situation landed hard. “I failed you.”
“You didn’t fail,” Julius said. “You did everything right. It just didn’t work.”
“But I told you it would,” she said, lowering her eyes as her vision grew blurry. “I promised that if you could just keep the Leviathan busy, I’d take care of everything. You all did your part, but I—” She stopped, scrubbing the tears off her cheeks. “I wasn’t enough. I’m the Merlin. I had everything, all the magic in the world, and I still couldn’t do it. Even if I had a plan B, we don’t have the resources left to try it, and we’re out of time. The lakes have to be almost dry now.” She slumped forward, pressing her wet face against Julius’s blue-feathered chest. “I’m sorry. I wasted all our time.”
“You didn’t waste anything,” he said, leaning down to nuzzle her cheek with his soft nose. “You tried your best, we all did, but it’s not done yet. We’re still alive, and I mean to keep us that way.”
Marci looked up at him. “How?”
She hadn’t meant for the question to come out quite that disbelieving. Fortunately, Julius didn’t look offended. “Because I do have a plan B,” he said. “It was my plan A before everyone shot it down, but I see no reason not to try it now. It’s not like we’ve got anything left to lose.”
That was certainly true, but… “What plan are you talking about?”
He smiled down at her, his green eyes warm. “The one where we talk to Algonquin.”
Marci stared at him for a good ten seconds before her tact ran out. “Tell me you’re kidding.”
“Why would I be kidding?” Julius asked, looking genuinely confused. “Algonquin’s always been the heart of this problem. It only makes sense that she’d be the key to getting us out.”
“B-But you can’t be serious,” Marci stuttered. “I know you’ve talked people into some truly crazy stuff, Julius, but Algonquin wouldn’t even listen to her fellow spirits, and she hates dragons. You could make the best case in the world, and she still wouldn’t listen.”
He shrugged. “I’ll never know if I don’t try.”
“She’ll kill you,” Marci snapped.
“She might,” Julius said. “But I won’t be any more dead than I’d be if I stayed here.” He dug his claws into the ground. “We have to do something, Marci.”
“Yeah, something that will work!” she cried. “Something not insane!”
“I don’t think it’s insane,” he said. “Algonquin’s not some evil overlord. She’s just a spirit who’s hurt and upset and doing stupid things because of it. Look at it that way, and she’s not so different from Ghost, and you talked him around.”