Once & Future (Once & Future #1)(48)

“Where are Lian and Vera Helix?” Merlin asked. He would never find them on his own in this icy labyrinth.

“Let me look,” the guard said, cagily, as he reached for his watch.

“Grab that!” Merlin shouted, but before Hex could torch the watch, the guard had pressed a red button on the inside.

Every guard in Urite had been alerted to their presence.

Merlin took out the guard with another finger-spark, and ran. But he had no idea where he was going, and this place was impossible to navigate, every hallway the same, each one lined with the dead and dying.

And now Merlin was starting to feel ill, sweat cropping up in all sorts of places. The bubonic plague had taken a week to incubate, but judging by the way his insides felt like they were swelling and withering at the same time, Mercer had sped that process up a bit.

“I won’t die, I won’t die,” Merlin chanted on thin breaths as he jogged.

“Yeah, buddy,” Hex joked. “Keep telling yourself that.”

He had saved Hex, at least. Ari would be proud of him for bringing her a new rebellious knight. Maybe Val would make Merlin some chicken soup, or whatever fake medieval stew they made on Lionel when people got sick. And they would have Ari’s parents back. All he needed was to find them.

And get them out.

And…

And…

There were always so many steps. His feet slowed, his wheezing starting to burn his lungs, his throat crowded with pain. He remembered now just how miserable quests had always been.

“Don’t go down that way,” Hex said, grabbing Merlin by the back of his uniform like taking a puppy by the scruff of his neck. “That’s the guard station and med bay. Tons of Mercer types.”

Merlin nodded. And then, through the haze of sickness, he thought of another step he had to add to his plan. He couldn’t leave all of these people here to die, at the hands of Mercer. This company did not care what happened to the people of this universe as long as they had their power. And Merlin was finding, with each day, he cared more and more.

Ari was the hero. But Merlin was here, and he could help.

He hobbled toward the guard station, the exact direction he wasn’t meant to go.

“Hey!” Hex cried. “Did you hear me?”

Guards rushed at them, a whole battalion. At the same moment, Merlin caught sight of what he needed. A room with the words MED BAY written on the door, and behind the ice-walls, case after case with medical warnings stamped all over them. He hummed and pointed and splintered the cases. The guards looked back at the med bay as if a bomb had exploded behind them—and were met with the sight of a thousand plague needles flying straight at their faces.

Merlin stopped the syringes an inch from sticking anyone.

“Now,” he said. “I need the location of two prisoners. Lian and Vera Helix.”

The guards traded looks, but none of them made a move. They didn’t have Mercer telling them what to do, and Merlin could see how dependent they’d grown on their orders.

“The Administrator would let you die, you know. You’re not worth any more to Mercer than these prisoners are. They’ve trapped you inside of their decisions and their poorly cut suits. You know that if you cross them, you’re already a forfeit in their game. But today, you get to decide. Tell me where Lian and Vera Helix are, and you can pretend I found them on my own. Mercer will be none the wiser.”

One of the guards stepped forward, her hands up, as if placating a feral child. “They’re in cavern four along the west wall. Now… put the needles down.”

“Of course,” Merlin said, crashing them to the floor, breaking them open so the plague juice ran in toxic yellow streams, sliding over the ice. The guards yelped and tried to avoid it at all costs as Merlin took off.

Cavern four along the west wall turned out to be several miles away, and when Merlin and Hex made it there, a rogue guard was waiting.

Hex hit the highest power setting on the heat gun and blasted his way forward.

“No!” Merlin cried, but the guard was already firing back. Merlin raised his hands and twisted the heat ray away from Hex, using it to melt the doors along the hallway, one by one. Some prisoners leaped out and ran on limbs half-rotted with sores. Others were too sick to move. While Merlin was distracted, another guard ran up behind them and hit Hex square in the back. He went down, hard, with a smack against the ice and the smell of sizzling flesh.

Merlin tossed fireballs from both hands—one at each of the guards—too late. Hex stayed motionless, his face frozen in a moment of victory. He’d gone down believing they would escape. Merlin had doled out hope, and then let him die, which somehow felt worse than giving him no hope at all. Hex wasn’t coming back to Error. He would never be a knight of Ari’s round table.

“I’m sorry,” Merlin said, one last apology.

And then Merlin saw two women emerging from their cell, slowly, to see what the commotion was. Their arms were locked tight around each other. If they were going down, they were doing it together.

One of them faced Merlin with an unusual sharpness in her eyes. He recognized the shine of filigreed silver hair that didn’t seem to have anything to do with age—and this woman’s hard blue eyes.

Kay. She looked like Kay.

“You must be Mom,” he said to the quiet woman in her arms, Lian. She looked glassy, her skin taut and shiny. They’d stuck her with plague. “And you’re Captain Mom,” he finished, looking straight into Vera’s hard eyes.