Once & Future (Once & Future #1)(64)

Of course, not everyone was delighted with Merlin’s barrier.

“Do you think the tourists will ever forgive me for sealing them in?” Merlin asked, as the energy lines reconnected in the night sky, the glowing cage repaired, and Lionel safe—or trapped.

“There are worse places to be stuck than Lionel,” Gwen said, her brown eyes brightening with argument. “Even when it’s under siege.”

“They burned me in effigy. They even put a scruffy little red beard on the thing.”

“It was strikingly accurate,” Gwen agreed.

Merlin didn’t know why it bothered him so much. He wasn’t used to being popular. That was Arthur’s job. But for some reason he wanted these people to understand he was on their side—maybe because he’d cast his lot with them in a way that he never truly had before.

“You saved all of us from death at Mercer’s hands,” Gwen pushed on. “Including me, and for that I will always be grateful.”

“Saving people is woefully temporary,” Merlin muttered. Mercer was still up there. And Ari was still dead in the hold of Error. Now that they were planet-bound, the ship had become a sort of tomb. Merlin could barely see it, docked past the edge of the city, a dark lump in the desert, glowing softly with reflected light.

Lam spent hours kneeling at the side of Ari’s plastic coffin, filling her in on what was happening with her friends. Kay swore he visited so often to keep the ship in flying order, but he always came back with a red, puffy face. The Lionelians went to have their hope brought back to life after long days of dehydration, exhaustion, and fear. Even in death, Ari was a symbol of pushing back against Mercer’s tide.

Gwen and Merlin didn’t visit.

Merlin couldn’t face his longing to have Ari back at his side. Every time he saw her lying in that Mercer box, the sensation felt ineffably wrong. It was even worse for Gwen, he suspected. Her wedding ring never budged from her finger. She still wore Ari’s watch, and she lit the thing up now, staring at one of the pictures she often returned to. As far as Merlin could tell, it was a pile of laundry.

He wanted to comfort Gwen—but what did he know about love?

“I’m going to bed,” Gwen announced. The old Merlin would have muttered, Whose bed? But he kept his mouth shut. It was none of his business, even if this truth would have made Ari’s heart split into mismatched pieces.

“Good night,” Gwen whispered. She seemed to be saying it to her watch. Perhaps to Ari herself. Gwen cut off the display and padded down the stone hallway.

Merlin’s fingers roamed over a small wooden falcon in his pocket. He’d found it in the abandoned marketplace, half finished. It reminded him a little of the one he’d had when he was very, very old. The one he’d woken up with in the crystal cave, clasping as if it were a lifeline to an unknowable home. And that really was the problem, wasn’t it? Merlin had begun to think of Lionel as his home. He looked out over the tournament rings and the marketplace, the houses and the shops. He loved this place in a way he’d never dared to love anything in ages.

Merlin turned his attention back to the skies. Barrier maintenance was never-ending, and if he wanted to keep this place, he could not falter. He could not fail his friends the way he’d failed Ari. When he felt like his neck was going to snap, he sang every Earth song he could remember, not for magical purposes, just to keep himself awake. The truth was that his mind clung to the catchiest tunes, which meant a disproportionate number of nursery rhymes and pop songs. After bumbling his way through a few half-remembered K-pop hits, Merlin heard soft footsteps behind him.

“Up again, your majesty?” he asked.

Long, strong fingers settled on the back of his neck, rubbing at the sore muscles. Merlin melted into the feeling.

“I am not the Queen of Lionel,” Val said. “Though I do look good in her clothes.”

“Yes,” Merlin said. “Yes, I can confirm that you do.”

Merlin had seen Val dressed up in Gwen’s clothes more than once and found it distractingly exquisite. Everything about Val delighted him. He calmly organized, keeping everyone alive in the face of this painful, drawn-out siege, and yet he also insisted on beauty. He planned little picnic dinners out of the meager portions of food, making a show of the last of the Lionelian mead. Merlin was also in love with that burning, bold way Val stared across a crowded room. And the times when the weight of the siege was too much, and Merlin’s hand found a home on Val’s arm, or the small of his lower back, and Val murmured in appreciation of the touch.

They had been flirting mercilessly with each other for months. But there was absolutely nothing more that Merlin could do about it unless he wanted a heartbreak as grand as anything on the Arthurian scale.

“You have a nice singing voice, have I ever told you that?” Val asked, his hands still searching out the tension in Merlin’s neck.

“No one’s ever told me that,” Merlin said. People were often awed by his magic—never by him. “I do have quite a bit of practice at singing.”

“Should we practice other things?” Val asked.

Merlin looked down, abruptly taking his eyes off the barrier and finding Val’s glowing brighter than the magic overhead. “I’ve told you all of the reasons why I keep my distance,” Merlin said, his voice perilously thin.

Val nodded, ticking them off on his fingers as, somehow, their bodies drifted closer. “You’re getting younger. I’m getting older. I’m probably going to die soon. You might never figure out mortality. These seem like small issues, really,” Val said, teasing Merlin like it was his life’s work. “If you can come up with a good one…”