Once & Future (Once & Future #1)(39)

A sickly, electric rush flowed through Merlin’s body.

Not hormones this time.

He had walked straight through Morgana.

“You really don’t notice what is right in front of your face,” she said with a low laugh that hit Merlin’s spine like a crackle of static. She looked out of place in the daylight, but no one else seemed to notice the ancient enchantress on their commutes. People flowed around her as if she wasn’t there at all.

Merlin sighed. “It was only a matter of time before you found me.”

Morgana’s forehead might not have been covered in real skin, but it could still knot with disappointment. “That’s what lazy people say. Time heals all wounds. These things take time. It’s only a matter of… time. You and I have been here long enough to know that’s not true. Wounds fester, and time changes nothing.”

Merlin would never admit it to Morgana, but she was right. Troy, for instance, might look and taste and feel like the future, but this was just a new kind of Dark Age. The path humans took through time was less the mythical arrow of progress, and more of a squiggle that doubled back on itself, curling and looping. A roller coaster designed by a drunkard.

If things truly got better, Morgana couldn’t have given him a head full of the terrible happenings since the last Arthur. His brain served them up in king-size portions. Rampant fire. Choking floods. Clouds that smeared the sky with toxins. People trampling over each other to leave Earth, and then scattering so far and wide they could no longer help each other without a company like Mercer sliding in to fill the void.

This was why people needed Arthur.

“Are you two old friends?” Lam asked, stepping forward with interest.

She gave them a smile she had honed to a blade over the centuries. “I hate Merlin with the venom of an adder, the rage of a forest fire, and the vigor of a woman making love.”

“So… no,” Lam said. They stepped back, tugging Val and Kay.

“Go,” Merlin said, flinging a hand to send the knights toward Ari, and safety. “Leave Morgana to me.”

“I’d rather have them stay,” Morgana said, and the words were like concrete pouring around the ankles of Val and Lam and Kay, sticking them in place.

“What the hell?” Kay asked.

“It’s mind magic,” Merlin barked.

“Really? It feels pretty damn physical to me.”

“Don’t worry, meaty little mortal. You have your own will,” Morgana said, advancing toward Kay one step at a time. “It’s what I’m using against you. Brute force will only get a person—a government, a company—so far. Dig an inch below the surface, and you discover what someone wants, which can be used to nudge them.”

Morgana trailed her non-fingers along Kay’s arm, and he shuddered as the air released a slight crackle. “The greatest power is a hand on your shoulder, a whisper in your head, gentle but insistent. These people don’t want to see what’s happening, so they don’t see it. You don’t want to find out what will happen if you threaten me, and that makes it easy to ensure you won’t take a single step closer.”

Morgana swiveled back to Merlin. Those pale lips, not dead, not alive, made him want to retch. “This isn’t the whole party, is it? Where is your precious Ari?”

“You will stay away from her,” Merlin nearly yelled.

Morgana chuckled. “Always trying to tell people where to go, what to do, what their destinies are.” Merlin’s anger pitched him forward, just as Morgana touched Lam’s brow, making them writhe. “Where is she?”

Lam’s eyes and mouth burst wide open, as if they were shouting without speech. “The Galactic State Department?” Morgana asked, reading their thoughts. “That way?”

Lam slumped to the ground, long limbs releasing as unconsciousness dropped over them. Kay and Val cried out, still frozen to the spot, while Morgana strode in the direction Ari had gone, ready to torture her.

Merlin couldn’t let that happen to another Arthur.

He couldn’t let it happen to Ari, who had caught him when he was nearly claimed by the blackness of space.

Merlin hummed a song from the climactic scene of his favorite boxing movie—this was going to be a magical showdown, wasn’t it?—and picked up items from the nearest store, tossing them through the air, creating a whirlpool of goods. He threw them in Morgana’s path. It wasn’t much, but it stole her attention away from her purpose. He would make himself a nuisance. He would get her to fight him, exhaust her magic before she could get to Ari.

Morgana spun on a heel, hissing at him. Merlin almost cheered at how predictable her hatred was. Now he needed to keep her contained. He grabbed boxes and carts with his magic, trying to wall her in, but she strode through everything, her shimmering form emerging in front of each new obstacle.

Their fight was growing more obvious by the second to the people around him. Merlin needed to draw them in, to use them as Morgana’s cage. He’d seen her avoid passing through people whenever she could, as if it left her with a bad aftertaste of humanity.

“What draws crowds?” Merlin shouted to Val and Kay, both still stuck in place.

“Music?” Kay suggested.

“Fireworks,” Val shouted.

Merlin snapped his fingers in agreement. A tune by an old songstress known as Katy Perry fizzled to his lips. Fireworks exploded in the sky, red and yellow and green, causing everyone to gather around, looking up.