20 years later.
Alicia Williams sat on the edge of her chair in the opulent golden lobby of Merlin Tower, nervously sorting through the notes the Merlin Council had posted for mages interested in internship positions. The other half of her AR interface was covered in her credentials: her honors certification from the University of Georgia School of Thaumaturgy, a list of her extracurricular activities and personal accomplishments, including the ward against mice she’d perfected for her local food bank and the results from the one MSAT where she’d gotten a perfect score on the spellwork portion of the test. Everything was strategically arranged to make her look like the best possible candidate. The trouble was, everyone here was already the best.
Merlin Tower in the DFZ was the home of the Merlin Council and the heart of everything magically important in the world. No one got here on anything less than their A-plus game, and while Alicia had been the best back in Atlanta, she was on the world stage now. She wasn’t even sure which Merlin she was applying to intern under, but it didn’t matter. Just working in this building would be enough to get her a full ride to any grad school she wanted. She’d already passed the weed-out test and the first-round interview. All she had to do now was ace this final meeting today, and the future was hers.
That should have been exciting, but it felt like there was a lead brick in her stomach when a man wearing a very nice suit called her name. Hands trembling, Alicia swiped through her AR to close it and stood up, clacking across the marble floor in her borrowed, slightly-too-big high heels to duck into the elevator he was holding open.
She expected the man to lead her to another waiting room, but the elevator took them straight to the top of the tower. When they reached the highest floor, her guide told her that the Merlin was waiting for her in the office at the end of the hall. Before Alicia could ask which hall—because there were two—the elevator doors closed, and the man was whisked away, leaving her alone.
Heart pounding, Alicia decided to try the right side first, creeping down the hallway that was lined with priceless magical artifacts, including a genuine spellworked leaf from the Heart of the World and a full labyrinth drawn and signed by Sir Myron Rollins himself. It was a jaw-dropping collection, and if she’d had more time, Alicia would have spent an hour taking pictures of all of it. But after the long wait downstairs, she didn’t want to delay any longer, so she hurried through the hall of wonders to the door at the end, a solid wooden panel with no sign or nameplate beside it.
Taking a deep breath, Alicia raised her hand and knocked. When nothing happened, she was sure she’d chosen the wrong hallway. For all she knew, she was knocking on a closet. But just as she turned to try the other side, a woman’s voice said, “Enter.”
Swallowing, Alicia opened the door and poked her head inside. “Sorry to bother you,” she said quickly. “I’m here to interview for the internship position…”
Her voice trailed off. The door hadn’t opened into an office—it had opened into another world. After a few stunned moments, Alicia could acknowledge that was probably an exaggeration, but the room she was looking into still must have taken up half the top of Merlin Tower.
The ceiling was all glass. So were the walls, leaving nothing between the furniture and the glittering city below, the superscrapers and the lake beyond shining like gems in the bright morning sunlight. As always, the landscape was moving, the roads reworking themselves through the buildings like rivulets before her eyes, but that was to be expected in the Living City. Thankfully, big buildings like Merlin Tower only shifted occasionally. As she’d discovered on the harrowing drive from the airport, the smaller ones moved constantly, rearranging themselves according to the spirit of the DFZ’s ever-changing whims.
As the home of the DFZ’s human partner, Merlin Tower was the tallest tower in the city. It was only to be expected that the view from the top would be unparalleled, but what really surprised Alicia was that the rest of the room was equally as impressive. Everywhere she looked, the office was packed with casting tables and state-of-the-art workspaces. Wooden shelves held packs of casting chalk and markers in every color and type. Another corner was packed with special lamps that synthesized moonlight, sunlight, and starlight on demand, and there was an entire ten-foot square of slate on the floor for drawing casting circles. There was so much going on, Alicia didn’t even see the woman with gray-streaked brown hair sitting at the cluttered desk in the middle until she stood up.
“Ah,” the woman said, reaching out to nudge the large cat bed perched on the edge of her desk to a less precarious position. “You must be here about the job.”
Speechless, Alicia could only nod. The job listing hadn’t said whom she’d be working for, but the woman in front of her was one every mage in the world knew. Even with her graying hair in a bun and a piece of casting chalk stuck behind her ear, there was no question that this was Marci Novalli, the First Merlin, Archmage of the Merlin Council, and three-time winner of the Nobel Prize in Magic.
“Well, come in,” Merlin Novalli said, her lips curling into a grin. “I don’t bite, though he might.” She pointed at the glowing cat Alicia could now see curled in a ball on the cat bed. “You’ll have to excuse him. Ghost isn’t a morning spirit.”
Alicia obediently stepped inside, her eyes so wide they hurt. That was the Empty Wind. She was standing in the same room as an honest-to-god Mortal Spirit. The first Mortal Spirit! And the first Merlin! She was actually here, with them!
And she still hadn’t said anything.
“Merlin Novalli,” she said, almost tripping over herself as she rushed forward to offer the woman her hand. “Thank you so much for meeting with me. I can’t tell you what an honor it is to be in your presence.”
“Oh, I like you,” Novalli said, shaking her hand with a wink. “But lovely as this is, I’m afraid we’re on a schedule, so I’ll have to make it quick.” She reached down to tap the mana contacts on her desk’s glass top, and a glowing AR display appeared in front of her with Alicia’s face displayed front and center. “My secretary—the man who led you up—already sent me your information, and I’m very impressed. You’ve got a marvelous record all around, but I was particularly intrigued by your focus on wards.” She glanced at Alicia through the floating display. “How do you feel about last-minute trips?”
“I… think they’re exciting?” Alicia said nervously, unsure where this was going.
The Merlin nodded as if that was a satisfactory answer. “Who owns the magic of the world?”
“No one,” Alicia answered promptly. “Magic is a natural resource to be shared by all.”