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Chapter Text

Dragon

Junmah'ferak was practically a child, as dragons went. Technically, like all dragons, she was slightly younger than the universe itself. But she'd never incarnated until forty-two years ago, making her approximately the age she appeared to be.

Dragons were perhaps the strangest creatures in existence, starting with the fact that they did not, technically, exist. Reality may have had room for many strange things, but giant fire-breathing lizards were apparently over the line. Dragons had adapted, learning how to sustain their existence on a steady diet of magic, and retreating to a timeless demiplane when they couldn't.

And then some jackass had unleashed an army of nightmares onto the universe and suddenly the dragons had to hoard power just to keep a presence in this realm. They'd dwindled since then, leaving when there wasn't enough magic, or they got sick of being harassed by assholes who wanted their hide or blood or just wanted them dead. Oh, they'd popped in and out of existence because there wasn't much to do in timeless demiplanes except argue, which was like being on internet forums, except because everyone there was functionally immortal and knew who each other were, conversations got more contentious.

As far as Junmah'ferak, who'd taken the slightly shorter, if equally regal name of 'Erika', when she'd forced herself into the physical realm, knew, there was only one other dragon in existence (one and a half, now). And where she had taken human shape - one of the cheapest to maintain, magically - to keep her place here, Kilgharrah had apparently bound himself to a power-hungry parasite so he could drink of the magical power that creature stole.

And it wasn't as if there was such a thing as 'un-dragonish' behavior, because the proper draconic mindset was one of unchecked braggadocio, which meant dragons more or less made their own rules. But Kilgharrah's connection to Myrddin Wyllt made Erika feel queasy. Dragons shouldn't be leeching off of Blood Mages; they had their own magic. They could speak their will into existence; fueled by their own self-confidence.

It wasn't that she couldn't understand Kilgharrah; the world was a little lonely, with only two (and a half) dragons in it, and lacked enough magic to sustain more. There were legends, as there always were, about a distant day when the dragons would return, of a creature who would lead them, their mastery of Dragon Magic, of the dragons themselves, distinguished by the Orb of Dragonkind.

But as no one in the dragons' realm would confirm starting those rumors, Erika didn't believe them.

She worried, though. Not just about Eli, who was young and inexperienced and convinced it was his responsibility to defeat Myrddin Wyllt, but about the fact that Myrddin Wyllt seemed exactly the sort of person to follow up on something like legends of the Orb.

The last thing he needed was an army of dragons at his command.

Lucky Erika didn't intend to give him a chance to get one.

---

Rune

Life was a series of compromises. Rowan hadn't always believed that. In his younger days, he had worked alongside Tsar Lunar XI to eradicate all evil that plagued existence, including a half-demonic Blood Mage named Myrddin Wyllt. There had been no compromising with evil of that magnitude.

And then things changed. At first for the better, when the universe was free of the supernatural evil that once infected it. But then…

Rowan had been surprised to discover the peace of the Golden Age bored him. Hadn't a universe free of pain been their goal? Wasn't it better that Myrddin Wyllt was bound in a prison at the furthest edge of the universe?

For a time, Rowan tried to occupy himself by experimenting with runes. He'd grown practiced with them during the war against evil, but the magic he'd rubbed into his fur with ash was nothing like what a master could do with a henge or a stone slab the size of a small mountain.

It was there he first learned about compromises. Runes were a sort of language, but more like a computer language. There were rules and constraints that Rowan had long presumed he simply lacked the skill to break. But instead he found that there were limits - you could have more power, but less flexibility. More complexity, but little strength. Always, always, he found it was impossible to just...do what you wanted.

It wasn't this frustration with the limitations of runes that drove him to blood sacrifice, not for all the work he'd put into creating the Golden Age.

It had, however, set him on a quest for the Well of Urd, from which scholars had found the first runes. If rune magic itself would limit Rowan, he would at least learn how far those limits stretched.

And for a time, it was enough - not the Well, but the search. If the Well were easy to find, mastery over runes would be more common. Any given day could find him buried in old texts, chasing down rumors in abandoned ruins, or exploring deep wilderness for some hint of the Well. It kept him occupied, filled Rowan's need for excitement, until Kozmotis Pitchiner was consumed by the Fearlings and declared war on all that was good in the universe.

It dragged Rowan home, to defend those who had come to rely on the peace Rowan had once built.

To defend his home.

Catalla was one of the crowning jewels of the Pooka - a city built into a sprawling forest, trees supporting the great towers. It was burning now; Rowan had spent hours digging through the ashen ruins to find some sign of a living creature, Pooka or no, and some thirty minutes sobbing when he'd found none.

In time, he found Myrddin Wyllt standing at the edge of the city, the man, aged, leaning on a tall staff for balance, watching over the smoldering city.

The man turned when Rowan approached, apparently unsurprised by his approach (could Blood Mages sense the presence of living things? If so, Rowan would have stood out like a blazing beacon in the dead city behind them), and gave him a wide smile. Toothy.

"I see you heard the news," Myrddin Wyllt said.

Rowan smudged the soot covering his coat into a rune of binding and restraint and snarled at the Blood Mage. "Did you do this?"

"Me?" Myrddin Wyllt chuckled. "Of course not. It's wasteful, what they did - tens of thousands of lives lost to the Fearlings, hundreds of thousands of lives taken without proper preparation...a Blood Mage would have done this more thoughtfully." He smirked, close-mouthed, and Rowan, already furious finding his people all but dead, felt his temper snap in the face of Myrddin's casual dismissal of the - value of the lives lost to Pitchiner's rampage.

"I've beaten you unconscious once before - if you think the circumstances have changed now that you've caused more misery-"

"I told you," Myrddin Wyllt retorted, voice sharp, "I didn't make anyone do this - destroying your homeworld was Pitchiner's own idea. You know," he mused, voice quiet as he tapped his chin, "I think he might be angry with you."

"Angry?" Rowan gave into the urge and stormed to Myrddin Wyllt's side, grabbing the old wizard by the front of his tunic, and lifting him in the air where the Blood Mage could hear the rumble of Rown's snarl. "He was my friend! Whatever happened to him - whatever you did to him-"

Myrddin Wyllt shoved against Rowan's chest, the movement filled with surprising strength. Rowan fell back, letting the wizard drop; the man landed on light feet, suggesting his apparent age had not touched his capabilities (it was one of the great injustices of life, that warriors grew weaker with age, while sorcerers grew more powerful). He brushed down his robes (untouched by the ash drifting through the air), and gave Rowan a gentle, almost pitying smile, bright blue eyes sparkling. "Me? I didn't leave him alone for years at the gates of a prison full of irredeemable wickedness. Can you imagine what that did to him? I think he opened the door just for a change of pace."

Rowan snarled and lunged at Myrddin Wyllt. The wizard knocked him aside, laughing. "Are you trying to make your people truly extinct, Rowan? Because I can indulge you. One more life will not make much of a difference to my grail, but - well, I've never turned my nose up at more power."

Rowan, half-risen from the ground, paused, rapid pulse slowing. "What do you mean…grail?"

"I have heard you are something of a scholar," Myrddin replied, "so forgive me for assuming you knew the intricacies of Blood Magic. That we capture the lives of our victims and store them in grails - gems and cups and other vessels - to be used at our leisure. This," He held up a gem, a scarlet stone that fit easily into his hand, "holds the last remnants of your people - what power I drew from their fading lives, held in one convenient package."

Rowan lifted a paw, briefly, toward the stone, wondering if he might snatch it from Myrddin, find some way to break it, or release the lost souls bound within it. But given Myrddin Wyllt's unearthly strength, Rowan doubted he had much chance, and let his hand drop. Myrddin Wyllt laughed. "I can see it in your eyes, your desire to hold this power in your hands. I don't know what use you'd have for it, though; you can't bring them back."

"They're my people," Rowan snapped back.

"Are they?" Myrddin Wyllt asked. "Well, far be it for me to separate you from them."

He stepped forward, faster than Rowan could track, and crushed the stone. Scarlet fluid, like blood, welled up within his fist and dripped onto the fur of Rowan's chest. Rowan flailed at it, but only managed to turn the blot into a smeared, bloody handprint, a stain that in the eons that followed had never faded, never left him.

It was the first species whose lives Rowan had bound into a grail and smeared into his fur.

But not the last. And with practice, experimentation, Rowan painted that blood into runes, shaping those lives into the power, the talents, of those species. It felt...better, somehow, to memorialize those who Myrddin Wyllt marked for destruction, rather than allowing them to be forgotten, one of a trillion nameless souls bound into his grails.

---

Shadow

Jackson bolted up, shuddering as he tried to draw breath. The fact that the breath came at all, through airways clear of freezing water, was a shock. That he wasn't even shivering was a worry; the soft warmth around him was something he'd heard happened to people in the moments before they froze to death.

"Hello, Jackson."

At the quiet voice behind him, Jackson twisted around. A woman, pale, dark-haired, slim, was crouched just outside of Jackson's reach, watching him with eyes that glittered silver and gold. There was a faint smile on her lips, gentle, sympathetic, and she didn't look much older than Jackson's 19 years. But her eyes told - not another story, but a longer one.

"Who are you?"

She tilted her head to the side, and her smile went wide, a little mischievous. "My name is Emily Jane."

Jackson nodded, uncertain if asking more questions would be wise. As the panic of the last few moments he remembered (of drowning) faded, he could see more of this woman, the glint in her eyes, the white cloak trailed behind her, dark hair spread across the breadth of it, the length of her face, an expression not entirely human.

She was either a witch or an angel, and he wasn't certain which he preferred.

But dancing around the question sounded exhausting, and Jackson's day had been tiring enough already, what with the getting his sister off the ice and subsequently drowning. So he decided to be straightforward.

"Am I dead?"

Emily Jane tapped her chin, frowning a little. "Yes...and no."

"That…" Jackson glowered at her, because angel or witch or whatever, she had to know that wasn't helpful. "Which is it?"

"Neither. Or both. I'm sorry!" she concluded when Jackson glared harder. "We're in - a place sort of between life and death, and sleep and waking." She reached back, waving at the dark forest surrounding them, warm light casting them in an orange patina, autumnal and almost dreamlike.

"So I'm dying?" Jackson asked carefully.

Emily Jane shrugged. "I suppose. It might be more accurate to say you're…mostly dead. Your heart's stopped beating, but there's - well, sort of a chance."

Jackson reached a hand up to his chest, shocked, despite Emily Jane's pronouncement, to find it cold and still. He looked over at the woman, who lived in a realm between sleep and waking, who knew when someone was mostly dead, and felt a thread of unease that was more unsettling that it came without a twist to his gut or skipping heartbeat.

"Who are you, really?" Jackson demanded.

"My name really is Emily Jane," she replied. "But…" She shrugged again. "I took on the responsibility of ushering the souls of the dead into the afterlife after that unpleasantness with - well, the suicide golem was the least horrible of the lot."

"You're the angel of death."

"I...suppose," she admitted, brushing a lock of hair away from her head and ducking her head. "Just not - well, if you ever met an angel, you'd understand why a woman might resent the comparison." Her cheeks darkened just a shade.

Jackson, who'd read the Bible some dozen or so times in his life, looked Emily Jane over, crouched in front of him like some sort of bird perched before him, wings dark and spread out to her side. "If you don't want people to mistake you for an angel, you should go for a less intimidating look."

Emily Jane gave him a sharp look, narrow, but then stuck out her tongue at Jackson, stealing some of the sting from it. Jackson relaxed.

"So what's the point of all this?" Jackson swept his hand around to take in the trees, the two or three winding paths leading further into the woods. It wasn't particularly welcoming, and did little to make the circumstances less anxious. "Are you trying to ease me into being dead?"

"No, I have a sitting room for that." Emily Jane sighed and rocked back until she was seated fully on the ground. "I don't do this often, but I sort of - look, despite its size, this place is quite lonely, and the only place I can be certain I can't be spied upon."

"Spied on?" Jackson retorted. "Who'd want to spy on Death?"

"Lots of people!" Emily Jane snapped, and for all she'd been kind and quiet, in her anger Jackson saw a hint of the power she must have wielded, a flicker of anger in her eyes, a wind gathered around her feet.

"Sorry! I meant - who'd risk it?"

Emily Jane's anger vanished in an instant. "Oh, lots of people. Not very nice ones, either. What would you say, Jackson, if I offered you the chance to live again?"

"I'd ask why I'm getting this offer. What the catch is."

Emily Jane leaned back, tilting her head up to look at the sky - or the canopy, at least. She hummed to herself before responding, "I needed someone who would jump at the chance to combat evil. Not - Satan or the Devil or whatever. Real, human evil. Gritty, selfish, terrible." She looked down, and her eyes were hard, face set in a - not quite a glare, but as far from a smile as Jackson could imagine. "You didn't hesitate for a moment, Jackson, before leaping onto that ice to save your sister's life. I'm not saying there aren't others who I might see the same spark in, but I'm tired of putting it off."

"Well," Jackson replied, irritated at Emily Jane's apparent indifference, "as flattering as it is to hear I'm convenient-"

"No! You're - your selflessness is a treasure, Jackson! I need someone like you, to keep the Light safe."

"The Light?" Jackson asked, and Emily Jane unfolded a hand to reveal it - a silvery egg that glowed gently from within.

"The Light," she said. "As in, 'let there be Light'."

Jackson had been hesitant, before, but the sight of that, of - it couldn't be what Emily Jane said it was - the Light, filled him with a sort of determination.

"So what, you want me to take this home, keep it safe?"

"Oh." Emily Jane faltered, ducking her head again, and when she looked up at Jackson, she was frowning. "I should have mentioned that first. Resurrection - it's not easy, Jackson. Or everyone would do it. It requires sacrifice...everyone who's written about the subject calls the cost 'too much to bear'."

Jackson's heart sank, twisting a little as he looked to Emily Jane. "So what's the catch?"

"You can't retain the attachments you had to the mortal world," Emily Jane replied. "I can't let you keep any memories - not of any person or the life you lived before. This has to be your mission, your drive, and nothing else..."

There was a thin place in the ice, through which the young man easily burst through, and from there it was easy, compared to his desperate flailing underwater, to scrabble for purchase and crawl out onto dry land.

Well, dry-ish. Covered with snow or no, it wasn’t underwater.

It gave him a moment to draw a breath - two or three before he took a deep breath clear of water. Dry powder ground together under his knees, legs tucked underneath him as he looked around. It was night, stars filling the sky, the moon hanging full over him, watchful-

”Keep out of the sight of the Moon, Jack-“

Panicked for a moment at the unbidden voice - a memory - the young man froze, before darting beneath the shelter of a wide-branched pine. The voice had said a name - Jack. Was that him?

No answer came to that question, nor the dozen or so that followed it. He had no idea how he had come to be here, soaked from his journey into a frozen pond, freezing-

Not freezing, he realized, though cold water soaked through his shirt and trousers. He could remember little, but it was odd, he knew, that he wasn't cold. Almost...supernatural.

Jack (without any other name, he’d take the one he had) fumbled at his chest, and his hand caught on a lump beneath his shirt. Cautious of the warning to stay out of sight of the moon, he tugged his shirt away to see an egg-shaped bulb of silver suspended around his neck by a thin cord of...something sleek and strong, he found as he pulled at it.

"Keep it safe, Jack Frost…”

He shivered at the memory, the desperation in the plea. Jack Frost, though, suggested a number of things, among them how he’d survived the pond and, now, the frigid winter air.

He let his shirt drop, though, both because he saw little point in continuing to stare at it and because he had little doubt this was the intended subject of the protection demanded by the phantom voice in his memory.

There was, too, the concern it might be what was keeping him safe when he should be dying of hypothermia.

Still, he dug a little deeper, trying to recall something, anything, about that voice, what he was doing here. When it came, he yelped in surprise at the clarity of the voice.

”Keep it safe, Jack Frost, out of sight of the Moon, of alchemists and drinkers of blood, shapechangers and creatures of the night…"

It explained exactly nothing, but protecting the little egg was a purpose, a direction. Better than hunting fruitlessly for some hint of his identity, what had brought him to the frozen pond and the certainty he had nearly died here.

Something to do, at least, until he found some fragment of himself or the woman pleading in his memories.

---

Light

Clyde scanned the assembled officers. Generals to a man (and they were all men), all so elevated they would never see combat, and allowed, by that virtue, the most dangerous secrets the United States possessed.

The lead one coughed and leaned forward. "If you can, Colonel, walk us through it one more time."

There were a lot of things an enterprising man could sweep under the rug - discourage curiosity or too many questions from law enforcement. Being the lone survivor of an assault on a secure military facility was not one of them.

"I had taken control of Area 49-B, as directed by the Secretary. We were tracking an extraplanetary object - I believe the logs will show that. I was concerned with the impending extraterrestrial contact, so took my attention from Colonel Kubritz-"

"You mean Neasa Kubritz, correct?"

Clyde nodded. "Yes."

"I believe...she pressed for your court-martial four years ago?"

"Yes," Clyde said. "I hope the record shows I was cleared of all charges."

One of the generals snorted. "I remember she kept bringing up your divorce - like your home life has anything to do with your fitness as a soldier."

Clyde made a gesture and drew on the grail set in his ring so he wouldn't have to conceal the words of power necessary to cast the spell. It probably wasn't necessary, but there were few things he wanted less than the generals talking about his court-martial, when that bitch Kubritz had dredged up the depositions from Clyde's divorce - the fucking protective order, like Cheryl's whining about Clyde's 'mood swings' had anything to do with his job. And it wasn't like, mind control, the spell; it just encouraged them to move on, away from the discussion of the completely irrelevant fact that Cheryl was fine if Steve grew up to be a pansy who couldn't even defend himself.

"So. Colonel Kubritz."

"She released two specimens - two extremely dangerous alien entities - while I was occupied with the issue of the extra-terrestrial craft. You'll note her access codes were used to enter the containment room."

Clyde had cast another particular spell before this all started; it gave him something of a silver tongue, more so if he avoided any direct lies. And as such, the generals nodded, not asking what, exactly, Clyde had been doing with the extra-terrestrial craft, or the exact timing of events that led to the release of the specimens.

"And the only survivor of the ensuing carnage was...you."

"And Colonel Kubritz."

"Yes." Eyes narrowed down the line, and Clyde fought to keep his face impassive. With the aid of magic, he could get away with a lot, but it still paid to keep up appearances.

There was quiet for some time, as they considered his words. Clyde wasn't nervous; there wasn't a point. That was the benefit of Light Magic - Merlin had made it to be regular, regimented. You said some words, made a gesture, and got the same effect every time. Clyde didn't need to have a strong will, to understand a dead language, or rip out his own eyes to cast it. He didn't need the blessing of a god who made impossible demands.

Even without the extra power granted by his grail, Clyde would be a force to be reckoned with. With the combined power of the lives sacrificed for the glory of Merlin, so many of the restraints of Light Magic were gone. Blood could empower a spell with fixed effects, eliminate the need for gestures, words, allow him to cast powerful magic with only a thought-

The only way Clyde could be more powerful is if Merlin ever saw fit to release the Staff of Avalon to him, so Clyde might have access to the boundless knowledge scribed upon it, the ability to tap into leylines to duplicate many of the feats Clyde now accomplished only through Blood Magic.

"Well, I believe that is all," one of the generals said. "Unless anyone else has any questions?" There were shakes of the head all around. "Now, Colonel Palchuk, while we're looking into Colonel Kubritz's actions, you will need to lay low. She has reason to target you, and we don't want to lose a promising officer like yourself, especially given the possible threat of an incipient alien invasion."

"No," Clyde agreed, "you'd hate to lose a loyal soldier to someone who'd like nothing more than to hand our country over to a hostile alien power."

---

Spirit

There was a power greater than any other magic - the power reserved for angels and those revered as gods. The work of miracles, it was sometimes called Spirit Magic, or…

The Word.

Other magic was engendered in objects, sources of great knowledge and power, but Spirit Magic was different. The Holy Grail, the source of knowledge and understanding of Spirit Magic, could only exist when three or more were gathered in pursuit of - not worship, exactly, but a higher purpose.

Through the will of God, Galahad was ageless, immune to disease and could heal most any injury.

Through the grace of the Holy Spirit, Galahad could speak every language, and among those was the tongue of angels - the key to Spirit Magic.

Through a draught from the Holy Grail, Galahad received visions of Merlin's long, bloody history.

And for centuries, he had believed these gifts had been given to him for a purpose - that maybe God expected him to bring an end to Merlin's billion-year-long reign of terror. Or, at least, that he was meant to guide those who would eventually put down the Blood Mage.

But Morgana and her only son, those promised by the oracle Cassandra to bring Merlin's doom, were dead. Merlin walked the earth unimpeded by anyone who could threaten him. And Galahad-

It was all his fault. He'd tried, a dozen times, to warn Trollhunters that Merlin was not to be trusted, but only one had believed him (and given what that revelation had done to Sloane, Galahad hadn't tried again after that).

For the first time in his life since he'd found the Holy Grail, Galahad felt helpless.

For the first time in his life, Galahad's faith wavered.

Because if Myrddin Wyllt were allowed to destroy all hope that he might ever be defeated...

There was no God, or if there was, He was not kind, or loving, or He simply lacked the power to challenge Myrddin Wyllt.

---

Blood

Fin was standing on the bluffs overlooking the land Merlin had purchased from a human who had claimed dominion over it by killing everyone who might have otherwise laid claim to it. That man had parted with the land for a pittance - a handful of nonmagical gems, useless trinkets - clearly unaware of the true worth of the land. It was just as well; the original owners would have accepted no price in exchange for it (Fin had seen human suggest the original owners of this land had no concept of ownership, like they were savages, as opposed to reasonable people who recognized no mortal being could lay claim to certain of the world's natural resources). There were no more than a dozen locations like this across the entire planet, jealously guarded by...well, Merlin's people, for half of them.

But Fin had never troubled herself much with leylines. Blood Magic, and by consequence alchemy, did not draw power from lines of invisible force, or own's own strength.

Blood Magic was born from death. The more death, the more power. Merlin, who had seen an intergalactic society destroyed by his puppets, trillions of lives sacrificed to his glory, was perhaps the most powerful entity in existence.

Fin peered down at the site where trucks had spent weeks delivering stone and steel, wood and plastic, wires, pipes, tubes, and raised the Philosopher's Stone. Legend said that the Philosopher's Stone was a grail bound to every living thing in the universe, that every death that happened anywhere granted it a fraction more power. There were other tools Merlin did not let out of his control, things he did not trust in others' hands. But mere power, the theoretically infinite power of the Philosopher's Stone, he did not fear.

There was no sound behind Fin, but she knew a creature was approaching her anyway.

"Rowan," she said.

There was a rumbling chirp behind her, and then, slowly, "Why you here? Behind...after...time?"

"We are behind schedule," Fin corrected. She wondered, idly, if Rowan's apparent speech impediment were some attempt to make others underestimate him. He could, apparently, bind the power of those who died by his hands into the runes he smeared into his fur. Moreso, he had been Merlin's emissary, and she would have expected that came with a head for languages. "I am aware. This, however, is the best place for me to work from." She shifted the Philosopher's Stone so she was viewing the construction materials through its bright red shine, and dropped her consciousness down to the complex circles dug into the ground around the site. There was matter there, steel and stone and concrete, wires and plastic and-

Everything you would need to build a fortress.

It was useless in its current form, but that was the point of alchemy.

With Blood Magic, you could sacrifice life for power, like how Palchuk burned through human lives to change the parameters of his spells, making them easier, more powerful. You could bind the essence of a life to a rune of power, as Rowan had, carrying the talents of a thousand different races, and the strength of countless more. Presumably, Kilgharrah drew some benefit from the lives he stole, or else Fin could not believe any dragon would shackle himself to Merlin's service.

Alchemy was simple, in comparison. You sacrificed matter for matter arranged into a slightly different form. You could turn lead to gold, with alchemy.

Not as the old alchemists had ever imagined, with endless rounds of distillation of purification. But with blood.

There could be a fortress here - all Fin had to do was imagine it, and kill perhaps a hundred people. Or she would have, if she didn't hold in her hand the power of every death that had ever happened.

Below her, stone and metal shifted and flowed together. Wires twisted into patterns Fin had memorized, bulletproof glass settling into slots created in the walls. At Fin's direction, runes were etched into walls, windows, every conceivable surface, so that when she was finished, her master had a true fortress, an impregnable structure empowered by the crossing of leylines beneath it, the spells worked into its heart.

Rowan chuffed behind her. "Should burrow," he muttered. "Safe. Deep."

Fin laughed and turned to smirk toothily at Rowan. It was hard to remember he was dangerous, sometimes, for all he looked like a...large lunch. "You forget our enemies include my people, who are more used to the depths than yours ever were. We are beset by enemies, Rowan; it is best we let them know how hopeless it would be to assault us. Besides, the time for subtlety is fast coming to an end. Once our preparations are complete…"

Fin knew only a fraction of Merlin's plans, as she was certain were the same for each of her compatriots. But each of them, she knew, understood the most important point. Through some trick of fate, a portion of orichalchum had found its way to Earth. Three weapons were forged of this metal, the only weapons that might stand against a master Blood Mage. The Pendragons were destroyed, so no creature might rightfully claim Excalibur. Tsar Lunar was in Merlin's thrall, and had reclaimed the Sword Unbreakable.

And that left…

The child. Toby Domzalski, who claimed to be the reincarnation of a troll king. Who held some natural sorcery. Who had somehow proven himself worthy of the hammer wielded by the long-dead Thor.

Merlin would not make a move until that child was dead, and Mjolnir beyond retrieval.

Which was where the newest member of their little troupe came in. The Shadow Weaver.

Fin allowed herself an idle wish she could be present when the Shadow Weaver killed the child; Fin had killed his parents, so it seemed she should witness it even if she couldn't do the deed herself.

Chapter Text

Darci folded her arms and stared at Dr. Capulet, silent. Sitting behind the battered teacher's desk in the drab tan counselor's room, the woman wore her forty or fifty years poorly, face lined, tired, and pinched in strain. But she was still smiling, as if it could make things better.

"So, Darci-"

"I don't get why I'm here," Darci said. "I mean, sure, a fuckload of trolls tried to burn down Arcadia. They didn't. Yay us."

Dr. Capulet's smile vanished for a moment, but only that (it wasn't like a creepy smile, but clearly the sort of polite, professional smile certain people wore because they thought it made them approachable. "The school board felt the student body needed help processing - well, everything that happened-"

"God, we've known about man-eating trolls for months - something like this was inevitable," Darci retorted.

Dr. Capulet's eyebrows raised. "Would you care to elaborate?"

"No." Darci waved her hands toward the door. "Can I go?"

"We've got half an hour scheduled, Darci."

Darci scowled, because this was one of those meetings. "You can just say 'no'."

Dr. Capulet's smile was back, eyes crinkling a little. Indulgent. "Then no. You can't. So since we're stuck with each other...is there anything you want to talk about?"

Darci shrugged. Because there were things she wanted to talk about, but nothing she wanted to talk about with Dr. Capulet.

"It's been a month," Dr. Capulet tried. "The town is progressing back toward normality-"

"Ha!" Darci scoffed. "Normal? We've got a resolution to make the trolls town citizens - I think one of them's planning to run for city council this fall-"

"And that worries you?"

"Ha!" Darci did wish someone sensible, like Aaarrrgghh, or Wumpa, were in the running, but they both had entire communities to lead. But there were worse candidates for city council than Blinkous Galadrigal. "No. I mean, not the troll thing - but."

But they were waiting for the other shoe to drop. It turned out Merlin was a bad guy, and while killing the sun and murdering humanity was clearly unreasonable, Morgana had the right idea trying to kill the wizard. But after he'd killed Morgana and broken both the Amulet of Daylight and Shadowstaff, Merlin had disappeared. They hadn't heard a peep from him, which Darci guessed made sense. Guy had waited centuries for a chance at Morgana; he could afford to wait a few months, years, even.

Darci was unofficially the head of the 'hunt Merlin down and hurl him into the sun' faction, and every day they didn't hear from Merlin put her a little more on edge. It wasn't something she was about to share with Dr. 'call me Clara', even if it was probably stressing Darci out more than college plans, which was suddenly all anyone could talk about.

"But…" Dr. Capulet prompted.

"But it's an adjustment," Darci said. "All this stuff I don't have to keep secret anymore. Troll problems are our problems, now."

"And vice-versa."

Darci gave Dr. Capulet a tight smile. "Sure."

---

"I don't understand. How do I get an 'A' here?"

Clara (her name was Dr. Capulet, but she'd insisted Krel ignore the norms of children addressing adults for reasons she hadn't explained) smiled at Krel (and she kept smiling).

"There aren't any grades here, Krel."

"What sort of class is it, then? They grade us on climbing ropes."

"I...understand you're not originally from Arcadia Oaks."

"Why do you ask?" Krel demanded, glowering at Dr. Capulet. He hadn't ruled out the possibility she was a representative from one of the government agencies that dissected people, even if her dark blue pantsuit didn't look much like the 'men in black', and she didn't have enough room in her pockets to conceal any dangerous weapons.

Dr. Capulet held her hands out, trying to look non-threatening. "I just want to know more about you, Krel. So I can help you."

"By...talking?" It was novel, certainly; Krel was more used to being the recipient of important talks than a participant. Dr. Capulet, with her white-streaked hair piled up into a bun, settled against her chair easily, loose, hands lined with the signs of human aging pressed against one another, copper eyes fixed on Krel unwaveringly, did seem like she was interested in what he had to say, which put her a couple steps above...pretty much everyone except Aja.

"By talking. What's happening to you, how it makes you feel."

Vex hadn't been keen on feelings; the most important one, in his opinion, was whether you or not were in enough pain that you couldn't walk. And Aja - well, she listened, but she always seemed to be hearing something else, complaining about their responsibility and expectations, instead of-

"So what, do you tell me how I'm supposed to feel?"

Dr. Capulet pursed her lips, shaking her head gently at the question. "This isn't about changing how you feel, Krel; there's no right or wrong way to that. But examining your feelings, why you feel the way you do, gives you a - frame of reference, tools to build - healthier reactions, a healthier mind."

She smiled at him, and Krel almost smiled back. It sounded like a sort of magic, but like - Constellation magic, which was what happened when you understood so well how something worked you could change it. But there weren't any Constellations on Earth; there weren't any Constellations at all, just unmarked graves scattered across a score of worlds.

But impossible or not, it was Constellation magic, so Krel nodded jerkily.

"I guess...I spent most of the - that night - in the hospital." Dr. Capulet raised an eyebrow, a clear sign to continue. "My sister didn't."

"And what about that upset you?"

Krel stopped short, startled. He'd almost expected Dr. Capulet to tell him what she thought about it, but-

How did he explain it without explaining his and Aja's history? That they were expected to be leaders of an entire planet, but she sent inspiring messages out into the universe, fought evil trolls, faced down the Sleeping God, while Krel-

Spent the night in the hospital. Helped her build a transmitter. Got perfect scores on math tests.

"I was scared," he said, at last, which was close enough to the truth that Dr. Capulet didn't seem suspicious Krel was actually an alien prince on the run from the cult of an evil god who had set up shop here on Earth.

So, he counted it as a win.

---

Dr. Capulet (graduated summa cum laude from Princeton University, after which she joined the Lyons Group as a consulting therapist) put her hand over Mary's phone, offering a gentle smile in response to Mary's glare.

"I think this meeting might be more productive if you put your phone away," Dr. Capulet said. Her smile faded a little, to a flat expression, eyes glinting in a familiar glare, the sort that meant she wouldn't drop the subject until Mary let it go. So Mary tucked her phone away (she wasn't missing anything; her Twitter feed was full of people complaining about the closed-door confirmation hearings for the new Secretary of State, as opposed to supernatural happenings that might hint at Merlin's evildoing).

"So, what are we doing here?" Mary asked, leaning back on the couch she'd commandeered on entering the counselor's office.

"We're talking about you, Mary. I've talked to your teachers; they say you spend a lot of time on that phone."

Mary tried not to roll her eyes. She'd expected her meeting with the counselor to be pointless, but she hadn't expected it to turn into a 'technology is killing young kids' brains' lecture. "Yeah, it sucks I've got a direct line to friends I have all across the world, current events, my library's ebook app, and, in a pinch, a phone."

"Would it be unreasonable for me to suggest you've heard a lot of criticism about your phone use?"

Mary sighed, folding her arms on her stomach. "No. Look, I get I'm on my phone a lot, like a lot a lot, but - there's a lot of answers out there. I can look up shit on Wikipedia, get some idea what's going on in my friends' lives, get some help if I can't figure out what's going on in pre-calc."

"And so it upsets you when people suggest you're-"

"Lazy, self-absorbed, or just uninterested in what's going on around me! Like, I bet I know more about Martin Walters than some of the teachers around here, and I can't even vote."

"Martin…" Dr. Capulet raised on eyebrow, curious.

"Walters? The Secretary of State - well, pending Senate approval."

"Of course," Dr. Capulet replied, tapping on her knee with a pen. "I'm familiar with him. And while it's certainly understandable to want to stay connected with the world, you might want to consider how you're relating to the people around you."

"My friends understand," Mary snapped. Especially now, with Mary and Eli watching for some sign of Merlin's evil plans - supernatural goings-on, or signs of an evil cult gaining undue influence over the world. But even before, Claire and Darci had gotten it, trusting Mary cared enough to listen, even if she was keeping her eye on the rest of the world.

"I'm sure they do. But I wonder if you're spreading yourself a little thin."

Mary twisted her head around, finding Dr. Capulet just watching - she wasn't smiling, but had none of that furrowed brow, sort of glare Mary was used to from adults talking to her about her phone.

"What do you mean, thin?"

Dr. Capulet shrugged. "Between school, your friends, the goings-on of the world - it all takes energy. And at your age, putting so much of your energy in all these places isn't healthy."

Mary huffed in response, because Dr. Capulet didn't get it, and more talk wouldn't make her understand. Not how they'd rallied around Jim, and Aja (an alien), who'd lost so much at the hands of Merlin. How they needed people looking into this.

How Mary was neglecting the here and now to keep watch.

"Yeah, I guess so," she agreed, because trying to explain all that, something Mary couldn't change, would be a waste of time.

---

"Steve?"

Steve, who'd found his eyes wandering to the walls (the posters were massively dorky, like 'You can't have self-esteem without me!'), jerked up in his chair (a giant soft thing nearly as comfortable as the one in Eli's living room), looking to Dr. Capulet (he wasn't calling her 'Clara' because she was a billion years old, and it was too much like 'Claire' to avoid confusion). She was spindly - taller than Eli, but that wasn't hard, and not by much, anyway. And the way she looked at Steve - that attentive, focused look, not unblinking, but brown eyes unwavering - made him squirm in place. It made him feel like she was trying to get him to admit to something.

"Are you alright?" Dr. Capulet pressed.

"Yeah, fine," Steve muttered. "It's just...been a while since I've been in one of these places."

"A therapist's office?"

"Yeah, last time was back when my dad-"

Steve bit off the rest of the comment, because he didn't want to discuss it. He hadn't wanted to back then, when he was angry and hurt and still convinced his mom had done something to drive Steve's dad away. And then when he'd figured out what she'd done was put her foot down about Clyde's temper and the way he thought it was appropriate to raise a son, when he was just mad.

"Left."

"Yeah." It didn't take a genius to figure out why Steve couldn't get his dad off his mind lately, what with the revelation his dad was a Blood Mage - an evil sorcerer who got off on killing people. With Jamie, Wumpa, and the Lord of Flowers (the name seemed to embarrass the rabbit, but Steve had come around to thinking it sounded sort of cool) agreeing, there was no doubting Colonel Clyde Palchuk (and when had he gotten a promotion?) was an evil wizard.

"Would you rather we do this later, Steve? You seem distracted."

"No." Steve shoved himself back in his chair, folding his arms across his chest. "Aren't you supposed to say we don't have to talk if I don't want to?" He'd spent the first three sessions with his other therapist staring at the ceiling.

"Well, if your insurance company were paying for weekly sessions, yes. As I'm being paid for two weeks of work by a cash-strapped school district, we need to make good use of our time."

Steve scowled at Dr. Capulet and tightened the knot of his arms. He'd only had the one therapist, but was pretty certain they shouldn't be pressuring him to talk. She couldn't make him, anyway, and he was not here to talk about his stupid dad.

...He actually wasn't entirely clear why he was here. Something about Morgana? No one had made clear exactly what the general populace knew about what had happened, except that the trolls were citizens now, and Blinky was trying to get on the town council.

So aside from not wanting to tell some strange adult how he was feeling, Steve was not going to be the one who let some big secret slip.

"You know what? I've got - practice or something. We'll talk later." Steve waved as he pushed himself to his feet. "Good luck with your...thing."

---

Aja and Dr. Capulet had been staring at each other for the last fifteen minutes. Aja had no idea what the therapist was thinking, but she wasn't about to talk to some strange woman about any aspect of her life. Sure the school had claimed this woman was a professional and here to help, but Toby's friends had failed to notice they were unwitting puppets of the Sleeping God, and they had known about evil wizards and shit the entire time.

Which wasn't to say Aja thought Dr. Capulet was a servant of the Sleeping God, but she wouldn't put it past shady government agencies to install a spy in the local high school to try and root out alien threats.

"We can sit here for the next quarter hour in complete silence if you like," Dr. Capulet said, "but I'd like to think there's something I can offer you."

Aja snorted; she didn't mean to, but the idea that a human doctor could do anything to help the fact Aja was light years from home, on the same planet as the evil god who'd killed her parents and destroyed her kingdom, was ludicrous. Much less a scrawny woman like Dr. Capulet; she didn't have calluses on her hands, battle scars, or the posture of someone ready to enter battle at a moment's notice.

The only thing she did have was a pattern of lines around her eyes, her lips, that pulled in unfamiliar ways when she smiled at Aja, as if the expression were unfamiliar. She'd lost something, too, but it wasn't enough to make Aja talk.

It couldn't compare, anyway, to what Aja had lost.

"You can just tell me how you feel, Aja. Sometimes that helps."

"Feel?" Aja rolled that word around, and in part to do something other than stare at the therapist for another fifteen minutes, considered how she felt.

Aja felt-

Unsettled. She'd thought Arcadia Oaks was safe - safer than the world they'd left behind. And in the end, it'd been...the same, tied up in the machinations of the Sleeping God, Myrddin Wyllt, Merlin.

Angry. No one on this whole planet had seen through his deceptions and tried to stop him.

Frightened. Merlin had stepped up close to Aja and - it hadn't been a threat. He was so much more powerful than her, he didn't even need to threaten. He just had to promise - if she crossed him, she would be obliterated.

...Lost. Even if Aja understood what was going on, she wouldn't have any idea what to do. She'd barely known what to do when they'd just been planning to track down and eradicate the remnants of the Cult of the Sleeping God on Earth.

Tired. She let herself slump down in the chair. "I don't know. Like the world's going to shit." She jerked a little, having been lectured by enough teachers that she knew at least half the words human adults didn't like hearing children use. "Sorry."

"Don't worry, this is a place for open expression. And I understand why you'd find the current world stressful, but - part of dealing with it is recognizing what you can do about it. And no one expects you to fix the world, Aja."

Aja hummed noncommittally, rather than answer, because Dr. Capulet was wrong. Aja was Queen of Akiridion 5, which meant the defeat of Merlin was her job, and one she was doing terribly at.

---

"I'm fine," Eli insisted, because he was. Clara (who Eli wasn't going to call Dr. Capulet until she stopped pestering him like she was six) pursed her lips, like Darci and Claire when Eli got off-track and they were hoping he'd notice and stop rambling.

"Elijah-" Eli scowled, because only trolls (who put great importance on one's name) and assholes called him Elijah, "what's happened in Arcadia Oaks is monumental. It wouldn't be unreasonable to be shaken by it."

Eli snorted, earning a short glare from Clara.

"Would you mind explaining that reaction?"

Eli hopped off the chair set in Clara's (he wasn't actually clear if she was a new employee or what) office and stepped up to her desk. She'd retreated, leaning back a hair, until Eli smiled at her, a grin as wide as he could manage. Then her forehead wrinkled, not quite a scowl, but a sign of the...concern she'd been showing all session.

Eli, though, wasn't going to be intimidated, not by anyone who wasn't at least a monster of legend or a master of one of the six branches of magic, and crossed his arms. "They obviously didn't tell you anything about any of us, because I'm the paranormal kid. I've spent most of my life certain there's boogums and monsters and aliens out there; finding out that's true isn't a world-shaking development." The real world-shaking development had been discovering how close that world was to Eli's own - Jim was half-troll, Aja and Krel Tarron weren't the sort of aliens everyone assumed they were, Toby was half-alien, half-troll, half-human, and half-whatever you had to be to wield a magic hammer Eli was almost positive was Mjolnir, and Eli was a fucking dragon.

"It's more surprising that I got my first boyfriend before I went to college, if you want to talk about radical shifts to my worldview."

Clara bit her lip, lips twitching, like she was trying not to laugh. "Would you like to talk about that?"

"Ha, no," Eli replied, without thinking. As he returned to the chair, settling down on the rough fabric of the chair, which barely sank under his weight, he considered the question, before concluding he didn't. He and Steve's history was strange, convoluted, and involved stories Eli wasn't certain Councilwoman Nuñez had passed on to the general public. And Eli had already debated the entire transformation with Darci, so didn't need to hash it over again.

Clara clasped her hands on her desk, peering through Eli with narrowed eyes. Her gaze had been easy, slightly bewildered for most of the meeting, but he felt suddenly pinned in place, Clara's gaze fixed on him. And then she shifted, and Eli wondered if he'd just had a strange moment.

"Well, is there anything you'd like to talk about so we can say we didn't waste an entire thirty minutes?"

Eli laughed; he'd been on edge since he'd been dragged into the therapist's office (despite the fact every other student had been in and out of here already), but the joke eased that tension, reminded him that not everything was life and death. He was planning for the PSATs, and the SATs, and college. He had a boyfriend. All things that should be taking up his attention instead of evil wizards and whoever might be working with them.

---

"I know how you feel, Claire."

Claire resisted the urge to snort, but only because when Claire was sarcastic, Dr. Capulet gave Claire a narrow-lipped stare that reminded Claire uncomfortably of her grandmother when the woman was disappointed - from the wrinkles all around her eyes to the tense lines of her jaw grit behind her closed mouth.

It was a near thing, though, because Claire had heard some variation on that declaration much too often. Mostly from some of her earlier therapists, before they'd found Dr. Waller, but adults just loved pretending they knew what Claire thought.

"With all due respect, I don't think you do. Just because there's trolls and-"

"You thought you had it together." Dr. Capulet leaned forward, eyes narrowing a hair, some of the irritated tension fading from her face so she was - well, she wasn't smiling, but her mouth was flat, instead of frowning, which was probably good. "You had a plan - honors classes, AP tests, a good college, a good job. And then the rug got pulled out from under you. You tried to adapt, tried to find a place in this new world, and thought - you might have it. And then - it all got taken away."

Claire's heart was racing; she felt exposed, and had a brief panicked moment of wondering if Darci or Mary had been telling Dr. Capulet about her.

And then she took a deep, steadying breath. "Trolls don't change my life that much."

Dr. Capulet's lips quirked up as she sat back in her chair. "Give me some credit, Claire. I did my homework before I got here. A lot more is going on than the feud between different troll factions, and you and your friends are in the middle of it. And I know enough about you, Claire, to know you've been trying to excel at it. And now-"

Now, Merlin had destroyed the Shadowstaff - all Claire had left were the gems encased in it, the Shadow's Eye, Dragon's Tear, and Fiend's Blood - leaving Claire powerless. Toby was - an alien, and had a magic hammer; Eli was a dragon; and even Jim, who'd lost the Amulet of Daylight, was half-troll, stronger and more resilient than the average human. Claire was just a human, now, albeit one in possession of a trio of magic stones. She'd considered trying to get her hands on a phylactery, but fighting Merlin with Blood Magic felt skeevy, with possibly the exception of Steve's phylactery and the Eclipse Gauntlet, because using the corpse of a Nazi to fight evil felt right, and Morgana would appreciate her remains being used to kill Merlin.

"I'm fine," Claire retorted.

"You aren't," Dr. Capulet said. "Not for someone who's been pushed to excel in every way, suddenly powerless. But Claire - you aren't defined by the tools you possess, or what power others allow you to have. If you want to be powerful, or important - you can be. Your parents didn't lie to you, teaching you that you could be anything."

It was an odd conclusion to their meeting, but one that stayed with Claire for the rest of the day. She'd lost her tools, but she'd also named the changeling that had replaced her brother, had done something that had protected him from the effects of his familiar escaping the Darklands.

...So there was more to her than just the Shadowstaff.

---

"It's weird, you know? Everyone's acting like the trolls are the big adjustment, this thing we have to be talked to about, when it's just - I've got friends who are trolls, like this big guy who's like, the sweetest ten-foot-tall dude you've ever met. But for me, it's like - it's been me and Jim, and my Nana, and Dr. Lake for a while. Jim and I weren't good at making friends. But now we hang with Claire Nuñez and her friends, Eli - Pepperjack, who I took to the winter formal. Obviously that didn't go anywhere, cause he's got a boyfriend now, but still! God, is Steve a friend? I guess so.

"But that's the life-changing thing that's happened to me over the last year. All these people, these connections that I sort of assumed weren't going to happen. And it's - a little overwhelming, all these people wanting a piece of my life, when it was just me and Jim for so long. But it's - did I tell you I met some kids whose parents knew my mom? It's not the same as - them knowing her, but it's - a connection, you know? A connection to my heritage!

"And I get that other people are bummed about shit that's happened. They've lost stuff - important stuff. But not me. I came into this with my parents gone, and - I haven't lost anything else, and I just keep - getting."

Toby took a breath and felt some of his energy settle as he sank back against the couch (squishy, worn, a patchy, comfortable thing in muted tones of blue. He didn't understand why anyone would choose that hideous orange chair). "I worry sometimes, though. I can't keep - getting. I'm going to have to lose something, eventually."

Dr. Capulet took a moment; she was staring at Toby, eyes fixed on his face, rather than just over his shoulder, which he was used to when people zoned out listening to him. But then she shook her head. "Life doesn't work that way. Losses and gains aren't in perfect balance. I'm not about to suggest it's impossible for you to lose something, but - you can have good days, months, years, even."

"I've had some bad years," Toby added, letting himself sink down, ignoring the tug of depression of some of the past couple of years.

"Well, like I said, that's life. They won't balance out - you can't let yourself think that, it'll drive you crazy."

Toby bit his lip, worrying at it a little, afraid to present his next question. But if he didn't...he'd regret it. "What if it changes? What if it just starts going bad for me, and doesn't stop?"

Dr. Capulet inhaled, a sharp, short noise. When Toby looked up, he saw the tension in her posture, sitting straight up, gaze fixed (again) on Toby. He couldn't see her hands, but he bet they were clenched in her lap.

"Then you take things one day at a time," she said at last. "Congratulate yourself every time you make it through the day. It isn't a good idea to console yourself with the thoughts that it gets better, because it might not.

"But as long as you keep surviving, it - might." She shook her head suddenly, and smiled at Toby. "But I think our time's up. Go on."

Toby hopped off of the couch (he'd gotten good at making shit like that look natural), but paused at the door, turning back to Dr. Capulet. Her arms were folded in front of her, and she'd sank down a little herself, staring at the wall with blank eyes.

"Hey, are you okay, doc?"

She twisted around, eyes soft (a little wet), lips quirking back into a smile. "I forgot-" She shook her head, and when she looked back at Toby, she had a professional, neutral expression back. "It's not your job to worry about me, Toby. But...thank you, for asking."

---

"I understand you're...new here, Douxie."

Galahad gave a vaguely affirmative noise from his place sprawled across Dr. Capulet's couch. He hadn't paid close enough attention to understand the point of this exercise, but was pretty sure resisting would draw too much attention.

"Recent events must have made this a real adjustment - more than moving already is."

It really wasn't, Galahad didn't say. It was like visiting Mordred's mom's house. Even back then, Morgana had had an odd fascination with trolls, and it wasn't unusual to find two or three staying the day because they had stayed too long speaking with her. The vague threat of Merlin was nothing new, although the acknowledgment of that threat was.

Finding, for the first time, people who might be willing to stand with him, to fight the losing battle against Merlin, was a change. He wasn't certain what to do with them yet, how to tell them it was hopeless.

"I suppose."

Dr. Capulet chuckled. "You're a little quiet, aren't you?"

He hadn't been, once. When Mordred was still alive and Gawain and Galahad were still just squires. They debated (argued, really), explored, made fun of Mordred as he practiced magic-

He still wasn't, really. Galahad looked up at Dr. Capulet, watching him with an indulgent look in her eyes, smiling, but looking through him, and wondered what would happen if he just told her-

Everything. How an evil wizard had talked his brother into killing himself, and his other brother into seeking revenge on exactly the wrong person, and how Galahad, looking for answers, had found-

Well, not religion. He'd already had that.

But a religious experience, certainly.

The religious experience, probably.

...She'd probably have him committed.

"Yeah, that's me. Not wanting to spill my guts to a complete stranger."

And oh, how he wanted to. Wanted to find Jim Lake and demand to know if he'd known what had happened to Mordred. If he'd met him, talked to him. Galahad hoped so, that in exchange for what Merlin had done to him, Mordred had found...something. Friends. Companionship. Jim was an absolute dork, so he and Mordred would probably get along.

A sense of longing hit Galahad in the chest, a sharp sort of pain that almost drew a gasp out of him. For the late winter days when he, Mordred, and Gawain would raid kitchens for mulled cider, watch the snow from the upper battlements of Camelot. For the coming of spring, when Gawain dragged them out into the forests flourishing with new life. For autumn, when Mordred thrived, somehow delighting in the dying world around them ("it's just a sleep," he'd protest, "a long sleep. What's dying will bring new life, anyway.").

He wanted his home back.

"Still, I think it would help if you gave me some idea of what you're feeling, Douxie."

"I'm...homesick, I guess." And the worst part was that everyone who'd made Camelot a home was long-dead.

The only one left was Merlin, and that did little to comfort him.

---

Jim had curled up on the chair in Dr. Capulet's office. It didn't make him feel better, and wasn't comfortable, but it did make it easier to avoid looking her in the eyes. Avoiding eye contact had made things...easier the last month. Everyone who knew what had gone down wanted to talk, and everyone who didn't wanted to know why Jim looked like a ghost.

Toby, though, had asked once and now just did homework quietly in Jim's room while Jim tried to focus on stuff that seemed to matter less and less each day.

"So, with everything that's happened, Jim, how are you feeling?" Dr. Capulet asked.

"...Bad," Jim muttered, because it was true, and the therapist would at least leave him alone, eventually.

"Would you mind elaborating?"

"Yes, I would," Jim replied, pressing his forehead against his knees. If he were a troll, this would be more comfortable; his spine curved more easily, and the movement felt natural. He heard a sigh from Dr. Capulet's desk.

"Jim, a number of people have spoken to me about you - they're worried. The trolls that have been living in Arcadia, the battle - it's obviously affected you."

"It's got nothing to do with that!" Jim snarled into his legs. "I've known about the trolls for - a year. I like the trolls, the ones that aren't trying to eat me. It's just…"

He shivered. It had been a month since that moment, when Merlin had clenched his hand around the Amulet of Daylight and-

The worst part was not knowing for certain what had happened. If Mordred's soul had passed on, if it was still in the gem at the heart of the Amulet of Daylight, or something worse.

No.

The worst part was not having Mordred there anymore. The dwelling in Jim's mind had been new, but he'd grown used to being able to see Mordred whenever he'd liked. Being cut off from that had been nearly as upsetting as being separated from Toby and his mother.

"I...lost someone. During the fight," Jim admitted, mumbling into his legs.

"A friend?"

"A - yeah," Jim agreed.

"You sound a little unsure."

Jim laughed, a weak sound, gravely from disuse and - breathless. "Everyone else called him me boyfriend, but we didn't - we weren't."

"Did that upset you? That they did?"

"Yeah, I mean." Jim sighed, turned his head around, because if he was going to talk, he should at least look Dr. Capulet in the eyes. She didn't quite look like she was crying, but he thought there was a glimmer in her eyes, a soft lilt to her smile. She looked sad, and Jim wondered who she'd lost.

"We'd never talked about it - things weren't - it wouldn't have worked."

"That response suggests you weren't...opposed to the idea," Dr. Capulet said.

"No," Jim agreed. "I wasn't. I thought maybe someday we'd get somewhere that...but he's dead, so what's the point in wondering?" It hurt to say that, but at the same time, some of the tension in Jim's chest eased. Mordred was - had always been - dead. Convincing himself there was some way to bring Mordred back would drive him crazy looking for it.

"I don't think that's everything, though, is it?"

Jim tilted his head up. Dr. Capulet's gaze, copper-bright, was fixed on him, smile faded to something serious. Like she was studying him.

Jim shook his head. "I just...I trusted someone. And he-" He grit his teeth, a snarl building up from his chest. "He hurt me. All of us. He was lying to us the entire time." Dr. Capulet made a quiet noise, and Jim, encouraged, plowed forward. "None of it was for us - for the greater good. It was all for him, what he wanted, and in the end, he-"

Jim clenched his hands into the fabric of his jeans, growling.

"You can't let that upset you, JIm."

"What?" Jim looked back at Dr. Capulet, whose expression had shifted again. Gone was the sympathy. Instead there was-

Her mouth was pressed close into a tight line, her eyes dulled, somewhat. She looked younger, some of the wrinkles smoothed out by the expression. "People lie, Jim. They manipulate you, try to use you. Powerful people, weak people - it's all the same. All you can do, Jim, is do it for yourself, what you want."

It sounded selfish and cruel, and probably, probably based on Dr. Capulet's own experiences. But.

Blindly following what Merlin had demanded of him had left Jim absent one friend, and let an evil wizard run rampant, unchecked across the globe.

"And don't worry about being 'okay', Jim. You've the right to be upset as long as you want."

Jim huffed, and tried to offer Dr. Capulet a smile. "Thanks. I think...you might be the only person who's told me that."

"Well. You deserve to be happy, but at your own pace. Go on. We can be done now."

"Thanks," Jim repeated, and fled. He wasn't okay, and wasn't certain when, or if, he would be. But…

He had a lot to think about.

Chapter Text

Barbara found Draal in the kitchen at half past eleven when she was returning from work, sitting on the floor while he sorted through their recycling. He had particular tastes, as she'd found most trolls did, if they had a choice. Draal wasn't a fan of aluminum, but could scent out crinkly plastic containers he would gorge himself on, if he were allowed. Wood, too - he'd cleared out the dozen or so pieces of old furniture laying around the basement in the past week, and after their original missteps, had become something of a half-ton warrior against home clutter.

There were worse people to have as a brother-in-law.

Draal was - well, she wasn't certain if being an Eclipse Knight paid, but he had a vocation, at least, in public service. He cared for Jim, in his own gruff way, not as effusive as Aaarrrgghh, who had a tendency of tackling Jim when they saw each other (the casual...physicality of trolls had taken some getting used to), but his inquiries after Jim's safety were frequent, much more frequent than those of Jim's father (who had, by the reports gathered after the battle, survived his fall, only to vanish in the confusion following Morgana's death).

"Good evening. Is Jim around?"

Draal looked up - not quickly, not surprised, he'd likely smelled Barbara even from outside. His eyes flicked to the side, the yellow dimming a shade as he hunched in on himself a little. "He's on the roof," he offered.

Barbara let out a brief sigh, chest easing. "You might have said that without all the theatrics," she replied, walking past Draal to grab the coffee pot (dire threats had been made to any troll visitor who decided that was an appropriate snack). She poured the last cup into a mug that read 'Doctor Mom', and stuck it in the microwave to heat before turning around to face Draal. Crouched, too-large, in her kitchen, he made it look smaller than it was, or himself larger, bumping up against both counters when he shifted.

"Thea - I didn't lie."

Barbara bit back a groan; it was easy to remember trolls' diet (practically anything), that they could smash through a house with little effort, but their unfamiliarity with human metaphor wasn't as easy to keep in mind. "I meant - you don't have to act like I'm going to be upset, whatever's going on with him. Come on, what's got you worried?"

"He is in his troll form," Draal muttered.

Barbara couldn't place what his stance or tone were supposed to mean to her, so she settled to wait a few moments for her coffee to finish, pulling it out to sip at the drink. For a moment, she let the heat of the steam soak into her skin, distancing herself from the strange world where her brother-in-law was a troll and more or less living in her basement.

Barbara opened her eyes and tilted her head at Draal; trolls were good at nonverbal cues, she'd found. "You're worried," she said.

Draal nodded, finally dropping down to sit on the floor of the kitchen. Barbara rolled her eyes.

"Come on," she said, waving him after her, "let's go to the living room."

Draal followed with little comment, though Barbara was certain he was tense - moreso than usual, she guessed. It was easy to tell when other trolls were tense, given how they perked up as they went on alert. But Draal - had been more or less on high alert every time Barbara had met him. He was an adult, she knew, but she didn't think it had been any different as a child, and it made her want to get him somewhere he could feel safe.

Barbara settled on one of their chairs while Draal dropped down onto the couch, which had now been subject to enough trolls that it barely groaned under the weight. Impossibly, when Draal looked up at her, eyes wide, he looked...young. Lost.

"There are not many of Jim's kind," Draal rumbled. "I know of one other, and Kellor is-" He waved a hand vaguely, and Barbara, who had met Kellor several times, nodded in understanding. Kellor, who, like Jim, was the child of a human and a changeling, always seemed to be distancing herself from others. As the leader of the Eclipse Knights, a position inherited from Angor Rot on his death, she could claim some of that distance from the authority she now wielded.

But still…

"You're worried he's-"

"He needs to be human. He needs to be a troll. Those are part of him. But it is...hard being a troll alone."

Barbara felt her lips quirk up into a smile. It was easy to think trolls were alien, apart from humans, but of course they were as social as humans were.

"Still, Jim's been through a lot. And sometimes, people need space when something big happens."

"You mean Merlin," Draal growled, voice transforming, a snarling rumble to his tone, and Barbara didn't shiver, exactly. But the noise was a promise of violence, and one she didn't disagree with.

"I mean...Merlin, certainly. I mean - Jim had gotten used to the idea of being the Trollhunter all his life. He was - friends with some of the past Trollhunters. He's lost a lot."

"There is a great deal he hasn't lost," Draal replied, one hand waving vaguely to encompass - himself, the house, the entire town.

Barbara tilted her head at Draal, uncertain how to answer without offending him; it was clear he had next to no experience dealing with teenagers. "Well, you can try to talk to him about that, if you'd like. I can't say how successful it will be."

Draal furrowed his brow, but after a moment clambered to his feet, sending the couch skidding back a few inches. "You're right. Maybe I should speak to him."

"Be careful!" Barbara called after him. Toby had tried some surreptitious stress testing, but she still wasn't certain if her roof could take the weight of a full-grown troll.

...Or a full-grown troll and a three-quarters-grown one.

Barbara let her head drop back over the top of the chair, quiet, and sat there a moment. Of all the things that had changed (normality settling over the town as the humans and trolls felt each other out, the quiet tension from everyone around Barbara as they waited for some sign of Merlin's presumably evil plans), Jim's transformation was the hardest to adjust to. It wasn't just the moment of shock seeing Jim's other form when he wore it around the house; he'd taken on trollish mannerisms even in human shape. Nothing truly unusual, but when he sniffed at the air like it would tell him something, or crouched when startled, as if ready to pounce, Barbara was set off balance by the strangeness of it.

She loved Jim, of course she did, but she was adjusting only slowly, and worried Jim could sense it.

A rap at the door drew Barbara from her musings. In another life, she would have called out that the door was unlocked, but Barbara had enemies, now (one, really, but he was dangerous enough on his own). So she slipped a scalpel out of the sheath she'd gotten Eli to find her on the internet and drew close to the front door, careful to stay out of sight. She paused, sliding her knife hand behind her back before yanking the door open.

A six-eyed, four-armed creature stared down at her from just above her head, hunched down a foot or so beneath their full height. Barbara smiled at Blinky, letting her knife hand drop. Blinky wasn't harmless, of course, but he was a friend, and unlikely to cause deliberate harm to Barbara or her household.

"I haven't come at a bad time, have I, Dr. Lake?"

Barbara squinted up at Blinky, whose weak smile told her nothing of his intentions, except possibly that standing outside in the street was putting him on edge. He'd had centuries of believing it necessary to hide from humans, after all. So Barbara stepped aside and waved him in; Blinky scurried in, standing up straight only when he was inside.

"I just got off work, and don't have any plans, so you're quite welcome. And you can call me Barbara, if you like."

"I'm not certain it would be appropriate. Your accomplishments are due a certain amount of respect among trollkind."

Barbara led Blinky to the kitchen, where she handed him the recycling, leaning against the counter to watch as Blinky cheerily devoured a dozen aluminum cans and empty cans of tomato sauce. She waited until he was licking his fingers clean of whatever invisible residue of tomato was left on the allegedly clean cans to speak up.

"I appreciate the sentiment, Blinky, but doctor or not-"

"I do not speak only of your medical accomplishments, Dr. Lake!" Blinky protested, waving his hands wildly at his side. "I have looked through many of my brother's tomes, and from what he knew of Blood Magic, you qualify as a Master."

"I - what?" Barbara felt her knees loosen; she nearly fell before she caught herself on the counter. A dozen objections warred for dominance, until one managed to slip out. "It took over a decade for me to become a doctor! How-"

"Sorcerers view mastery in a slightly less regimented manner than licensing boards," Blinky allowed. He was a little close, hovering, and Barbara spared a moment for the thought of whether he was concerned for her for Jim's sake, or honest concern. He offered a bright smile, toothy, and Barbara found herself smiling in response. "In any case, you seem to have a talent for the art, and if there were any question, your Masterwork would put them to rest."

"Masterwork?" Barbara asked, faintly. It sounded very medieval, which she supposed was accurate, given they were talking about magic.

"The hospital," Blinky replied. "The grails you devised to capture the blood spilled anywhere within the building. My brother only accomplished such a task with direct guidance from a sorceress with over a thousand years of experience in the art. And that is discounting the other enchantments you wove into them. Negating the power of any deliberate sacrifice made within those bounds - a brilliant tactic to keep it out of the hands of the more ruthless sort of Blood Mage."

Barbara felt a flare of tension, a clench of her chest that hurt, and she straightened, taking a step toward Blinky. "How do you know that?"

Blinky backed up, stopping when he ran into the counter. His eyes were wide, staring at Barbara with something akin to fear (maybe not quite, but he looked worried).

"I didn't mean - only Lord Aster insisted. I tried to explain you were a fine woman, beyond reproach, but he needed to see for himself! He doesn't practice Blood Magic, so couldn't see - well, when I explained what you'd done, he was impressed." Blinky's smile was delighted, bright-eyed, and Barbara felt a little spark of annoyance. She understood, sort of, that the little rabbit was important to the trolls (and maybe an alien?), but not why she needed to fight for his approval.

"Well, good for him." She considered making more coffee; it was clear between Jim's nocturnal kick and the trolls running around the property, she wasn't going to get much sleep. In the end, she just stepped around Blinky and back to her chair, throwing herself into it, maturity be damned. "Why are you here?"

Blinky, trailing Barbara, paused next to the couch, hands clasped in front of him, twisting a little. "You had asked for some references on magic from my brother's library." For the first time, Barbara noticed the bag slung over Blinky's shoulder; he dropped it lightly on the table, where leather-bound tomes, vellum scrolls and a stone tablet spilled out. "If you don't mind me asking-"

"Merlin is a master of Blood Magic, Light Magic, and Rune Magic - at least, and he's got a dragon in his employ. You might call me a master of Blood Magic, but I don't know a tenth of what he knows. Wars are won and lost on intelligence, and that means understanding what's possible - what he can do, and what we can do. And that means, right now, studying runes." Barbara grabbed the nearest book and tilted it around, frowning when she saw it was written in the mostly unfamiliar lines of Trollspeak. "You brought a trollish dictionary, right?"

Blinky drew a little closer, still managing to look small despite towering over Barbara seated in her chair. He tapped the book in question. "This tome is a little advanced; I was thinking we could start with one I have over here-"

"No, let's start with advanced," Barbara replied. She flipped the book open, frowning at the few words she recognized. "We can use that book for reference, if I need it." She gave Blinky a gentle smile at his confusion, patting his hand. "Don't worry - I got through med school in three years, instead of four, with this method."

The study session was cut short after only a few minutes when a thundering from upstairs drew her out of her chair, hand going back to her scalpel before Jim, in human form, barreled into the living room. Draal stumbled through a few moments later, his bulk obviously making navigating the Lake home more difficult. Jim was panting, phone clutched in his hand so tight it would have been mere splinters of plastic if he'd been in troll form.

"What's going on?" Barbara could feel the rapid patter of her heart. Things had been quiet, but she knew the kids, all of them, had been on edge through it all, waiting for the moment when Merlin made his move.

"I got a call from Douxie - some sort of shadow monster broke into his apartment and attacked Aster."

Barbara nodded, taking a breath to steady herself. It wasn't the big one - wasn't Merlin trying to destroy the world or anything, or blow up Arcadia Oaks. But it was clearly worrying. Aster may not have possessed the power the trolls said he once had as the Lord of Flowers, but his age (which the trolls put as 'older than the mountains') and experience meant he was a font of knowledge that was dangerous in the wrong hands.

"Okay. I'll get the car, and-"

"I'm gonna get Toby, mom. Draal, make sure nothing's happening in Trollmarket, Blinky-"

"I'll get right to researching!" Blinky agreed.

Then Jim and Draal were out the door, leaving Barbara staring at the blank spot behind them. She looked to Blinky, who was himself hurrying toward the door.

"Do you think he remembers he doesn't have a sword?" she asked.

Blinky paused, giving Barbara a gentle smile. "I suspect not, but our - that is troll - bodies are more resilient than human ones, and even unarmed, we can be quite destructive. Still, I do understand your concern."

Barbara's phone blinked; she glanced at it to see, 'Muv thetr', in the distressingly difficult to parse texts that Raquel Domzalski thought saved time. Still, it was useful intelligence.

"Come on, Blinky, let's go."

"What?" Blinky hopped anxiously as he trailed Barbara to her car. "You heard them, I should be studying-"

"I've seen enough movies and TV to know you're going to find a dozen different things it could be, so we're going to get some first-hand observation." Once Barbara was situated in the front seat and Blinky settled in the back, Barbara turned and gave him a stern look. "Brace yourself, Blinky."

"Why - yyyyyyyyyy!" Blinky's inquiry twisted into a cry as Barbara roared out of her driveway.

Blinky was being a little overdramatic, Barbara thought, as he hurled himself from the car when she stopped two blocks from the movie theater. She hadn't run any red lights, and hadn't hit anyone. There was an impact that shook the ground beneath their feet, and a crash; dust billowed up through the few bands of light Barbara could see along the darkened street. Barbara grabbed her umbrella from the back seat and turned toward the source of the conflict.

"You ready?"

"With you at my side, Dr. Lake? Certainly."

Barbara had grown up reading fairy tales, and had never considered she would be the one walking into battle with a sword (well, an umbrella) at her side, loyal compatriots trusting her to keep them safe (she'd always felt greatest kinships with the sages and fairies who sat around giving advice, rather than fighting). Blinky's obvious faith gave her the boost of confidence she needed to walk forward without more than a twinge of worry - for her and the minors she expected to find in the thick of the action.

As they rounded the corner, Blinky yelped and tackled Barbara to the side. A moment later, a dark tentacle, barely visible in the dark, with faded edges, slammed into the ground where Barbara had been standing. It whipped back, swinging past two bodies that dove out of the way. Both of them looked human, which meant Barbara had to take a moment to look for her son. Perched on top of the marquee was a dark figure - little more than a silhouette within the bands of light and shadow from the sign's bulbs. Like the tentacle itself, the shadow enveloping the figure trailed around them like smoke. The tentacle that had nearly crushed Barbara was one of four arcing out from their back, two holding them in place, and another wrapped around a tiny pale form that struggled in its grip.

Barbara drew a quick cut along the back of her arm, smeared her finger along the blade of her scalpel, and threw it at the tentacle wrapped around what could only be Aster. It wasn't a powerful enchantment, and not the sort of thing Barbara should get used to ('martyrs' - Blood Mages who used their own blood as the fuel for their spells - tended to die young, bleeding themselves dry for magic that didn't hurt anyone else to cast), but it did make the thrown scalpel fly true, and slice through shadowy flesh well enough that a part of it fell away, the rabbit (Pooka) twisting around to land on the ground below, where the pavement was cracked and littered with the rubble that Barbara guessed were the fault of the shadow creature.

The figure cursed, in a voice more mundane than Barbara would have expected - a little worn, a little deep, but not quite as eldritch as their form appeared.

A human shape broke away from the shadows of the buildings across the street - someone dark-haired, not familiar at a glance, and dressed so dark Barbara thought for a moment the shadow creature had dropped down to street level. But their form was sharp, clear, making straight for Aster.

"It's not going to be that easy," the shadow growled, raising a hand. They (there was a feminine lilt to their voice, but it was probably too early to say for certain) twisted their hand around, and the ground underneath the slim boy running across the pavement glowed red.

"Alley-oop!" Toby's voice cut through the air, a sharp shout, like a command, and the ground under the running boy buckled, launching him into the air, an arc carrying him out of the area a second before the ground burst open, flame erupting from the concrete, dancing like a bonfire for a moment before dying out.

The boy stopped next to Aster, standing in the flickering lights of the marquee just long enough for Barbara to confirm it was Douxie, and he grabbed the rabbit up from the ground. And then Toby and Claire were soaring up toward the marquee, Toby swinging his hammer up for a strike, Claire gesturing with the hand not clenched in Toby's shirt. Two tentacles whipped up toward them, but before they made contact, Toby and Claire vanished. Claire landed heavily behind the shadowy figure, but Toby was in motion as they reappeared, hammer swinging down.

The shadow figure's head twitched, and Toby's hammer ricocheted off the empty air, or some invisible barrier. "You've got more than a hammer, Domzalski," the shadow snapped, sounding - almost angry.

"They're using Shadow Magic!" Barbara shouted. "Distract them!"

"Just because they are manipulating shadows, Dr. Lake-" Blinky started.

"I know, Blinky," Barbara retorted. Up above, Claire made a gesture, causing the shadow creature's foot to sink into a portal; their tentacles flailed to steady them, but it allowed Toby to swipe at the creature, forcing them to catch the blow with their own hand (or whatever was inside the cloak of shadow). "But they're not using the ritualized motions Light Magic would require, Rune Magic is mostly automatic once you've got it set up, and Dragon Magic is - well, they'd be shouting." She scanned the area for some sign of Jim, but if he were here (he'd brought Toby, hadn't he?), he was laying low. There was no sign of Eli, Steve, Claire's friends, or Aja and Krel Tarron (aliens themselves, who'd apparently crossed the galaxy to find and kill Merlin, a relatable sentiment if Barbara had ever heard one).

"And you would know Blood Magic," Blinky said.

"Hm," Barbara agreed, watching the exchange as Claire blocked another swipe at Toby with a portal to the Shadow Realm that flickered out of existence a moment later. Claire was braced against the wall behind her, and Barbara thought she could see the weakness in the girl. It was just a moment, and Barbara wouldn't have been certain she'd actually seen Claire's face paling if the Shadow Mage hadn't chuckled, a low sound that nevertheless carried across the street.

"Are you honestly making portals on your own?" they demanded. "I know you must have grown up hearing girls can do whatever they put their minds to, but making this many portals without the aid of the Dragon's Tear is suicidal."

One tentacle whipped back at Claire and the other three toward Toby; Claire barely seemed able to raise her hands, and the tentacles didn't respond to Toby's own shove. And then Jim dropped down from above, dressed in his jeans and loose shirt, grabbing at the tentacle menacing Claire, digging clawed hands into the flesh and pulling. The tentacle tore, tip splitting and spreading into strands of darkness twisting around them. Jim grabbed Claire, crouched, and leapt, trollish reflexes carrying him out of the way of the grab.

But the shadowy figure could multi-task, and at the same time grabbed Toby by one arm and leg and slammed him into the street in front of the theater. They hopped down after him, their two other limbs supporting their weight as they dropped. Toby struggled against the tentacle, hammer held uselessly to the side and something, Barbara suspected, interfering with his natural talents. She'd seen him cornered, how easily he would knock himself, and anyone holding onto him, skyward. But the shadow held him in place without any apparent effort. In fact, they were already shifting their attention away from Toby, raising two hands as they tracked Jim's landing, following him as he darted toward Douxie at the far end of the road.

"Oh, hell no," Barbara growled, and broke into a sprint. Shadow Magic was about focusing intent through the primal forces of the universe; it was highly individualized, and hence impossible to identify the way you could against a Light Mage if you'd memorized a comprehensive spellbook. But something that required two free hands meant it needed a lot of focus.

It meant it was big.

Barbara was halfway there when a bolt of lightning arced across the street, striking the shadow in the chest. They flew backward twenty feet into the ticket counter with enough force to shatter the glass in a shower of diamond dust. They were back on their feet a moment later, just as Steve took his first steps toward them. One hand was spasming, the lightning gem in his phylactery playing havoc with his nerves (it didn't damage them, but Barbara had warned him the twitch could become reflexive, a sort of psychosomatic injury). The other hand held one of Steve's ever-present sidearms, pointed at the shadow.

They took a step back, into the deeper shade of the marquee, and a shot rang out. There was no cry from the Shadow Mage.

"Steven!" Blinky cried, drawing Barbara's attention back to Steve. He was flailing at his throat with his empty hand. If they weren't fighting a creature cloaked in shadow, Barbara might have thought Steve was grabbing at nothing. But the darkness behind him was almost solid, a hand clamped around Steve's throat.

Barbara tightened her grip on her umbrella and started moving again, toward Steve. So she saw the moment when the shadow tugged their hand away, holding Steve's phylactery, and reached in to pluck out one of the glimmering gems from within it. One hand cast the phylactery away, gems scattering as it hit the pavement. The other they closed in their palm before stepping back into the deeper shadow behind Steve. A stream of pearlescent dust fell away from where they had been standing.

Barbara was already changing direction when the creature stepped out of the shadows behind Jim and Claire and Douxie, but she was too far away to stop the creature from hurling Jim aside, shoving Claire out of the way, and closing in on Douxie and the blue-grey rabbit cradled against his chest.

Barbara had run track in high school, had taken regular runs through college, and some part of that time came to her in muscle memory as she pushed forward, sprinting toward the shadow, who ducked away from a swing from Toby without a hitch in their step, hopped over a portal that Claire conjured at their feet without any shift in their momentum. Barbara couldn't see the Shadow Mage's face, but they were moving effortlessly, dancing toward Douxie with preternatural grace.

Barbara grit her teeth and pushed herself forward, ignoring the strain in her calves as she closed in on the Shadow Mage. She swung her improvised weapon at the shadow overhand, and felt a shift in its balance as the shadow stepped out of the range of the arc. Barbara swung the umbrella around to slice horizontally, expecting to leave the shadow's side bruised, presuming they were physical enough to take it-

"What the fuck?" the shadow demanded as they twisted to avoid the blow. Ignoring her opponent's outburst, Barbara stepped in close immediately, stabbing forward; the shadow was moving like Steve did when he was using the power of his phylactery, which meant, if they were using a talent anything like Deya's Grace, Barbara could overwhelm it by distracting them, or forcing them to fight too many people at once.

Barbara turned the stab into a slice when the shadow stepped aside, and nearly stumbled when she saw what had startled the shadow.

Barbara wasn't holding an umbrella; instead, she swung a silver longsword that sparkled like stars. The shadow stumbled forward, one arm flung up, and Barbara sliced into it with her sword - or tried to. The blade struck against the shadow, cutting away a long stripe that exposed skin - ordinary human skin beneath the shadowy cloak.

The mage drew a circle around their feet with a quick gesture; the ground underneath them went from dark pavement to black void, and the mage fell. The shadow cloak trailed behind them, so as they fell, Barbara caught the briefest glimpse of a form clad in a brown-grey tracksuit, a soft form, feminine, to match the voice.

And then the portal closed.

For a moment, Barbara stood still, heart racing, sword held in mid-swing, eyes scanning her field of vision. When nothing immediately appeared to keep trying to kill her, she eased her stance to check a proper circuit of the battlefield, a part of the town only recently recovered from the Not-so-Eternal Night. Finding it absent any shadowy sorceresses, Barbara looked to the children.

What she found was Douxie staring up at her with wide golden eyes. Jim had shared, in his more talkative moments, that Douxie was Galahad, knight of the Round Table and Mordred's brother in all but blood, but in that moment, he looked as young as the children gathered here to protect him. His long, narrow face was - tired, eyelids heavy and bagged, hair hanging raggedly to his shoulders, pale roots showing. Tired, worn. As if he'd been struggling just to get up every morning. He was alone, Barbara realized, with no one to share whatever burdens he'd been carrying for his centuries of life.

"That's - Excalibur," Douxie whispered, startling her from her worry (setting it aside for when she had a moment to find a solution).

"Is it?" Barbara swung the sword up to examine it more closely, but between one breath and the next, it was an umbrella again. She looked to Douxie, offering a brief smile. "Not anymore, I suppose."

"But it was!" Douxie protested, stepping around Barbara, eyes narrowing in focus, though they still looked as tired. "Arthur Pendragon's sword." He looked back at the others. "You saw, right?"

"Yeah, but just appearing like that - it could be one of those 'showing up in the time of greatest need' things," Toby replied. "Like the Sword of Gryffindor."

Douxie - Galahad - shook his head. "It doesn't work like that. Excalibur was gifted to the Pendragons by Nimue - the Lady of the Lake. You shouldn't be able to wield it unless you're a Pendragon!" His gaze was still narrow, but it felt more accusing, then.

Barbara shrugged. "I couldn't say one way or another." Although most legends said Arthur was sleeping somewhere, to return when he was most needed. And Jim - well, she wasn't so sure, with that idea in her head, that it was a coincidence they kept gathering allies. A boy-king uniting human and troll against a common enemy sounded almost mythic.

It was something to think about, when they weren't worrying about who this new sorceress was, what she was after.

As they picked themselves up and made an assessment of the minor scrapes and bruises that were the only injuries they'd sustained, Barbara felt a tug at the leg of her pants. She looked down to find Aster looking up at her, green eyes slanted, a little worried, she suspected.

"Yes?"

"Ah - thanks," he muttered. "For the-" He waved around at the scene, encompassing, Barbara guessed, not the crumbling facades and cracked pavement, but the situation that had brought them here.

"I've gotten into the habit of making sure no one gets themselves killed during all of this," Barbara replied.

"And sorry for…" Here Aster paused, looking away to the ground. "Hard to imagine Blood Magic being used for good. Without hurting anybody."

"Already forgotten. You need a ride somewhere?"

"Ah." Aster's ears twitched, nose wrinkling, looking vulnerable (cute, too, if Barbara were being honest; it was hard to think of the little grey-blue rabbit as more than a rabbit). "Galahad suggested - it's just him at the apartment, and I know you've got one of the Eclipse Knights living with you-"

"You want a place to crash," Barbara concluded.

"I - yes," Aster admitted, drawing back in on himself, ears falling. "And I know I was rude to you-"

"You're no worse than Archimedes, and he turned out to be the servant of a world-killing abomination, so come on."

She scooped up the rabbit, who quivered, tense, for a few moments, before deciding she wasn't going to turn on them and murder him, and splayed out a little. As she returned to the group, she found Blinky shaking his head.

"That sort of power is rare among Shadow Mages, and her command of shadow itself-"

"I've still got the Shadow's Eye," Claire interjected. "And the Dragon's Tear. Everything she was doing, you'd need both of those gems to do, right?"

"Certainly, but a two, three-stone phylactery with several items with similar, if lesser, effect, could do much the same."

"I don't think she uses phylacteries," Barbara said. "She took a stone out of Steve's phylactery and broke it. Afterward, she was moving like-"

"Like she had its power," Claire concluded. "That's smart."

"But dangerous," Blinky cautioned. "If you don't know exactly what you are taking into yourself, the consequences could be disastrous."

"And obviously Blood Magic," Barbara added. At the set of startled looks, she shrugged. "Consuming the power within a magical object? It might not be killing someone, but it still destroys something."

"All these Blood Mages popping out of the woodwork can't be a coincidence," Steve groaned.

"No, they can't," Barbara agreed. "And if she were working with Merlin, it would explain why they're after Aster." She peered down at the little rabbit. "Do you think they know you don't know where the Light of Creation is?"

"No idea," Aster replied. "For all I know, they're just trying to finish the job Pitch Black started and get rid of all the Pooka."

---

"You know, if you need tips on killing teenage sorcerers, I've had my share of practice."

The Shadow Weaver shot Clyde a dark look and went back to writing out the details of the fight. Once, she had thought the practice juvenile, something only middle school girls should do. But it was a meditative experience, one that allowed her to examine old experiences through the lens of experience and wisdom, without the distortions and erosion that time might wreak on the memories.

"I'm just saying - you had a job, killing the kid, and here he is, still alive."

Shadow Weaver sighed and set aside her pen; if Clyde was anything like she thought he was, she wasn't getting out of this conversation by pretending to ignore him. She looked up at the man, who had taken her moment of inattention to sidle up behind her shoulder, where he was reading her musings on her fight with Toby Domzalski and his protectors. There was a time she would have protested her journal was private, but it had been some time since she'd let pissants like Clyde Palchuk threaten her.

So she half turned and looked up at him, offering a sweet smile. "Well, I figured running in there half-cocked is how people lose hands."

"Hey, fuck you!" Clyde snapped, metallic left hand clenching, like he was considering hitting her. Shadow Weaver rolled her eyes and tugged at an old, familiar power, so the hand's weight made him stumble, nearly fall. Not an attack - a reminder of who he was dealing with.

"In any case, I wanted to scope them out. Make sure there weren't any nasty surprises. And guess what? There were. Toby Domzalski might have Mjolnir, but Barbara Lake has Excalibur."

Clyde scrambled to his feet, eyes narrow. "And did you kill her? You know Merlin's going to flip when he hears there are still Pendragons running around."

"Barbara Lake isn't some secret great great grandchild of King Arthur," Shadow Weaver scoffed.

"And how would you know?" Clyde demanded.

Shadow Weaver snapped her journal closed and rose; she clearly wasn't going to get any more work done today. "Just a feeling."

Clyde didn't know the whole story - didn't need to know the whole story. But she'd gotten her answer from the horse's mouth-

Anyone who might lay claim to Arthur's lineage was dead.

Which made the mystery of how Barbara Lake had gotten ahold of the king's sword one Shadow Weaver intended to solve before she faced the woman down again.

Chapter Text

"Six A.M., the clock is ringing, I need to spend an hour snoozing-"

Krel slapped a hand on the alarm on his radio, silencing it. He'd taken to using it because humans in movies all had clock radios, and he was trying to blend. He clambered out of bed and yanked open his dresser. Sure, they could more or less look like anything with the ship's help, but actual human clothing helped sell the illusion. Ten minutes later, Aja barged into his room, and seeing him looking between two plaid shirts, groaned.

"Why do you put so much thought into this?" she demanded. "You never cared what you wore back home."

"Back home, fashion wasn't considered an art form," Krel replied, squinting at the blue-checked plaid, wondering if it would make him look better than the red. "People here make judgments based on what you're wearing. Merlin fooled humanity for so long because he cultivated an appearance consistent with a kindly old wise man."

Aja scoffed, leaning against the side of Krel's dresser. "People on Earth don't pay attention, that's how he fooled them." She kicked the back against the dresser and let her head fall back against it. When this failed to produce a reaction, she peered around to look at Krel's shirts. "Wear the blue. Otherwise we'll look like we tried to match."

"O...kay." Aja was wearing a red skirt, or long shirt, over her pants-

"Hey, is that mine?"

Aja shrugged. "I don't know. I just picked whatever out of the laundry."

"You don't do laundry - all of your clothes are made with the transducer! So it is mine!"

"Guess so," Aja agreed. She pushed herself back up and gave Krel a two-fingered salute, smirking as she walked to the door. "Wear the blue, and be downstairs in two minutes."

Krel glared at the back of Aja's head, and pulled the blue shirt on. He barely had time to grab a banana (he'd seen someone on a show once say is was the perfect breakfast - energy packed into a biodegradable package) before they had to be out the door for school. They were actually a little late, so Krel nearly clipped a man passing by their driveway with his bike.

"Sorry!" he called. The man responded with a wave, easing Krel's moment of guilt. He didn't want to be like the aliens in human movies, who wantonly caused mayhem in their wake. With the Sleeping God here on Earth, threatening humanity by his very presence, Krel actually hoped humanity would eventually think of him and Aja like - well, not Superman, but maybe the Martian Manhunter or one of the other alien superheroes.

It wasn't a complicated dream, but one that occupied Krel on the way to school. It so distracted him that he actually ran into Mary Wang on the way to math. She yelped as her phone slipped out of her grasp, and Krel dove after it. He missed the phone, stumbled, ducking around Seamus Johnson, and slammed into a locker. There was a crunching thud behind him that suggested Mary's phone had been another casualty to the collision.

"Jeez, watch where you're going, Tarron," Seamus sneered, putting a weird emphasis on Krel's family name.

Krel sighed and picked himself up, turning to Mary. She was frowning at the remnants of her phone. "Sorry," Krel said.

"It's fine," Mary replied, shrugging. She even gave Krel a brief smile before hurrying off to European History. But it didn't stop Krel from worrying through AP calculus, doodling wormhole transformations instead of taking notes. He froze when he saw Seamus glaring at him. Krel tried a little wave, because it was a neutral, friendly gesture, but Seamus had so far proven unreceptive to any genial displays, and the deepening of his scowl proved today was no exception.

So Krel returned to worrying about Mary. The Kalsor had had a widespread information network like humans did, and people like Mary, who plugged themselves into it. Oracles and counselors, they fared...poorly when disconnected from the network. The Cult of the Sleeping God had taken over Kassaria by privatizing that network and buying it up, thereby controlling who could access that information. From what Krel had seen of the internet, Mary was facing much the same problem. She was trying, scouring the web for traces of Merlin's activities so the ragged alliance of humans, trolls, aliens, and (half) dragon would have some intelligence to help them defeat the most dangerous creature in existence. But the sheer volume of information available was daunting, so even if the answer was out there, no normal person could ever find it.

That thought carried Krel through first period math, kept him distracted through physics and art (where he also doodled wormhole transformations), to his lunch period, the first and therefore early enough that Krel normally couldn't work up an appetite. But he'd skipped breakfast, and loved tater tots anyway, so got two plates and a soda. He spent a moment scanning the cafeteria, trying to remember who would be there.

Almost as a response to Krel's pondering, the PA system crackled, the familiar voice of the secretary saying, in a clipped tone, "Steve Palchuk, please report to the main office."

About ten feet away, close enough that Krel should have noticed them, Steve stood, muttering something to Claire Nuñez, and waved as he headed out the door.

Krel took the opportunity to approach the table, waving when Claire and Toby looked up at him.

"Can I sit here?"

Toby rolled his eyes. "You always ask that. Go on, sit down."

Krel did, eyeing Claire as he did. Claire was...cool, he supposed, just a little intimidating. Akiridion hadn't had a lot of witches, so what he knew about them was mostly from comics. She didn't seem to be paying him much attention, just eating some sort of soup with incredible focus.

"So, how're you doing, dude?" Toby asked with a 'punch' to Krel's shoulder so gentle it was basically a nudge. "Racking up those A's in multi-dimensional space calculus?"

"My understanding of multi-dimensional space calculus was deemed 'acceptable,'" Krel replied between mouthfuls of tater tots. "Differential equations are more my specialty."

"Well, as long as you're good at something," Claire drawled. She jerked suddenly, and offered Toby a glare. Rolling her eyes, she added, "Anyway, good to hear the planet's been treating you well. Aside from, you know, everything."

It was a small word to encompass - well, everything: the death of countless worlds, the terrified flight across the galaxy, and the discovery that the man responsible was here - had always been here, in the guise of one of the three most beloved wizards in human history.

So Krel nodded, rather than talk about it any more.

"Good morning, Arcadia Oaks." Krel jerked at the unfamiliar voice; most other students seemed to be ignoring it, but Toby and Claire froze, Toby eyeing the nearby speakers with a narrow, wary glare. "I've got some good news and some bad news. The good news is that for most of you, the day's over. Go home, play some video games, I don't care." The chatter of the cafeteria faded for a moment before exploding into the chaos of students packing up, making plans, and leaving. Krel, though, was suspicious, and he could see in the quiet attention Claire and Toby were giving to their surroundings, that they were too.

"The bad news, of course, is that some of you aren't. Some of you know a friend of mine - Myrddin Wyllt. I'd like to meet you in the gym in ten minutes, and I can't be held responsible for what happens if you don't."

Krel's heart skipped a beat, and he looked to Toby. "Who-"

"Clearly one of Merlin's lackeys," Toby growled.

"If he's on the PA, he's in the office," Claire added, glancing at the speakers.

Toby jerked up, hands clenched at his sides. "Steve," he hissed. He grabbed Claire's and Krel's hands and yanked them both up. "We gotta find Eli and-"

"If I know anything, Eli's halfway to the gym already," Claire said. "So let's go."

There wasn't time to find Aja or Jim or Mary, so they fought against the flow of students toward the gymnasium. The doors were closed, and when Toby pushed them open, it was dark. Empty.

"Okay, this is sort of a letdown."

"Kids these days are spoiled." It was the same voice from the PA, and somehow familiar, though Krel was certain he hadn't heard it before today. A figure stepped into the gym from the locker rooms at the far end of the room. Rather, two figures, one, Steve Palchuk, tugging at his throat, where the other's left hand was clamped. Both were blond, tall, but the one behind the other was taller, broader, and his face twisted into a smirk. It didn't take a genius to see the similarity between Steve and the man holding him hostage, and thus to conclude this was Clyde Palchuk, Blood Mage and terrible father.

"The world doesn't owe you a good story. It doesn't owe you anything. You only thing you deserve is what you take for yourself. Take me, for example. My bitch of a wife took my son away from me, tried to ruin my career. But I put my head down and took the respect I deserved. And now…" Steve grunted as Clyde's hand twitched around his throat. "I'm taking initiative."

"Get away from him."

Clyde didn't move at the demand, didn't look toward the other set of doors, nearest the lockers, where Eli stood, glowering at him. Clyde's smirk did widen, though, at the quaver in Eli's voice. "I did wonder how long it would take your boyfriend to show up, Steven."

"What are you - are you trying to freak me out here?" Steve demanded. "It's not a secret Eli's into dudes, which I'd know, because we have been dating for three months." His voice choked off abruptly as Clyde yanked him up off his feet.

"Yeah, I'm not really here for a touching father-son reunion," Clyde growled. "You're more or less leverage."

"Fus-" Blue light flared at Clyde's right hand, and Eli's voice cut out mid-word.

"What the hell did you do to him?" Steve cried, twisting, struggling against Clyde's grasp.

Krel gave Eli a quick glance, hesitant to see what a Blood Mage would do to keep someone out of his way. But Eli was fine - he wasn't bleeding or struggling for breath, though he was shouting soundlessly at Clyde and Steve.

"Let go of Steve," Toby said evenly. "And undo whatever you did to Eli."

Clyde glanced at Toby, one eyebrow raised, and grinned. "Well, since you asked so nicely…"

When Clyde didn't do anything, Toby growled. "And?"

"You'll have to make a trade. You for them."

"What?"

"Give yourself up to me," Clyde repeated. "I'd say I wouldn't hurt you, but that would be a lie." When Toby didn't move, Clyde smirked and tightened his grip on Steve's throat. "What's wrong? One person for two - it should be an easy decision, unless you think you're better than them."

"He thinks nothing of the sort; he is shocked to silence by your casual disregard for human life."

Krel yelped as a hand landed on his shoulder; a man, elderly, with white hair and mustache of length unusual for most humans, pushed gently past Krel. He felt a thrill of fear, the worry that this was Merlin, here to kill him. But neither Toby nor Claire, who'd seen the wizard, seemed to recognize him; they looked equally confused at his appearance.

Clyde, though, narrowed his eyes at the man. "This isn't your business, Ombric."

"Isn't it?" the old man, Ombric, asked. "You came to me to learn magic, only to use it for evil, to join the degenerates who follow the path of death and sacrifice. Don't I bear some responsibility for the purpose to which you turned your talents?"

Clyde shrugged. "If you want the blame for this, sure. Still waiting on an answer, anyway, Domzalski!"

"No!" Ombric snapped. "You will not harm them!" He twisted one hand, from which dangled a pendant made up of two triangles attached at the point, one green and one blue, tangled up with a silver chain. His other hand stretched out toward Clyde-

Who in one swift motion drew a gun from his pocket and shot the old man.

"Fuck!" Toby charged toward Clyde, tugging an iron horseshoe out of his backpack (it was a versatile tool, for both magic and mundane uses, like giving evil wizards concussions). Clyde fired a bullet at Toby, but Toby was clearly on guard, darting to the side a split-second before Clyde pulled the trigger.

Krel…

Dropped next to Ombric, with the vague feeling there was something he could do to help.

There wasn't. He didn't have a first aid kit, and treating Ombric's wounds like he had Akiridion biology would likely end in disaster anyway.

Also, Krel couldn't find a pulse (although in his defense, he didn't actually know how to look for one), and the man's eyes had slid shut. Was he dead?

Krel's hand fell on the little hourglass-shaped pendant, and felt something there - a spark or beat or pulse from that. He looked down; the pendant was glowing, but oddly. Only the outside halves of the two sides glowed, giving the pendant the appearance of - Krel felt a thrill when he saw a single glowing speck slide from the greed to blue side. It was counting time! Not much use, admittedly, but-

The pendant's glow intensified, between one breath and the next, to a blinding brightness. Krel raised his hand to shield his eyes, and then everything went white.

---

"Six A.M., the clock is ringing, I need to spend an hour snoozing, 'Cause I don't think I'm gonna make it…"

Krel sat up, blinking to clear the spots from the pendant's glow. He fumbled to the left on instinct, until he hit the button that silenced the radio, before Krel jerked around to stare at it. It was his clock radio, sitting innocuously next to his bed, as if he hadn't just been sitting next to a dead man while his friends tried to rescue Steve Palchuk from his father.

The clock read six-thirty-five.

Krel nearly fell out of bed when the door to his room slammed open to reveal his sister, wearing one of Krel's shirts, long enough to function as a short dress, over her jeans. She frowned at the sight of Krel.

"You aren't dressed? We've got places to be!"

"We've got school," Krel corrected, but stumbled out of bed to dig through his dresser for clothes.

"Well, if we don't show up, they send someone to talk to our parents, and that is not something we're prepared for. I don't know why you bother with these; the transducer can make our clothes look like human stuff."

"You're wearing my shirt," Krel retorted.

"As an accessory," Aja replied. "Like that 'bling' you're wearing." Krel looked down, and saw, yes, an hourglass-shaped pendant hanging from his wrist with a silver chain. The green side was glowing, and the blue was dull and dark.

Aja had no time for Krel's confusion, however; she grabbed Krel's hand, but he instead shoved her out of his room.

"Let me get dressed; I'll just be a minute."

He took most of that minute staring at the amulet, and the green light sliding from one side to another. He'd thought Ombric's amulet was just keeping time, but it was clearly doing something else...what exactly he couldn't quite figure out.

"Come on!" Aja shouted from the other side of the door.

They were late enough Krel didn't even have time to grab anything to eat, and that his legs were straining from the bike ride to school. He was so distracted worrying about Ombric's trinket that he ran into Mary Wang on the way to math. She yelped as her phone slipped out of her grasp, and Krel dove after it. He missed the phone, stumbled, ducking around Seamus Johnson, and slammed into a locker. There was a crunching thud behind him that suggested Mary's phone had been another casualty to the collision.

"Jeez, watch where you're going, Tarron," Seamus sneered.

Krel sighed and picked himself up, turning to Mary. She was frowning at the remnants of her phone. "Sorry," Krel said.

"It's fine," Mary replied, shrugging. She even gave Krel a brief smile before hurrying off to European History. But it didn't stop Krel from worrying through AP calculus, doodling wormhole transformations instead of taking notes. He froze when he saw Seamus glaring at him. Krel tried a little wave, but Seamus' scowl just intensified, the way...Krel...remembered.

Krel looked down at the pendant, whose green half was a third empty, and blue half was a third full. Keeping time? No. Ombric had died, and Krel had woken up to the same music he'd woken up to that morning. Krel looked up at the chalkboard carefully, but as he hadn't been paying attention yesterday (today?), he couldn't tell if it was the same topic they'd been talking about before. He was equally perturbed in physics and art, neither of which he actually remembered. Krel was starving when lunch rolled around, so was first in line to get himself tater tots (and a salad). He sat down where he vaguely remembered Steve, Claire, and Toby sitting, and dug into his lunch. It took a few minutes before Toby dropped down next to Krel, flipping open a brightly-decorated lunchbox before grinning at Krel.

"How's it going, dude?"

Krel took a deep breath. "I'm not sure," he replied.

"What?" Toby jerked up, leaning closer to Krel with a slight widening to his eyes, paling a little. "What's going on?"

"I'll...tell you when I figure out."

"Figure out what? We didn't find where that Dumbledore wannabe is hiding, did we?" Toby spat out his drink as Steve sat on Krel's other side.

"...No," Krel replied. "But - have either of you heard the name Ombric?"

"Legendary wizard, called Ombric the Undying." Claire sat across from Krel and gave him a sharp, wide grin. "I've talked to a few trolls about him, and most of them don't think he really exists - like - well, not King Arthur, but like Robin Hood or something."

Krel shook his head. "I think...he might be real. I've been having - a feeling like I've been through this day before."

"Deja vu," Toby said, around a mouthful of some sort of dumpling.

The PA system crackled, a terse voice saying, "Steve Palchuk, please report to the main office."

Krel snapped out a hand, grabbing Steve's arm as he stood.

"Wait," he said, as Steve turned to him, mouth open to protest. "I'm coming with you."

Claire raised an eyebrow, but didn't comment. Steve was quiet until they were out in the hall. "I don't need a babysitter," he grumbled.

"I didn't-" Krel paused, realizing it was something like that, and dropped back a step. "I've just got a bad feeling about this."

"I haven't got in any fights or anything," Steve retorted. He turned around as they were walking so he could actually look at Krel, scowling, as he was wont to do around pretty much anybody except Eli. "So it's probably some paperwork thing."

"I hope so."

It wasn't.

They stepped into the office. Steve turned to the secretary, rolled his eyes, and said, "So what's the deal and how can I get out of here as soon-" and froze when he saw Clyde Palchuk standing just behind her.

The man gave Steve a wide smirk, twisted his right hand around so Krel could see the gleaming of the blue stone set in the ring on that hand, and said, "Why don't you two just stay there for a minute, hey?"

And Krel froze. He was breathing, but found anything more than that impossible, like the sort of lethargy that could set in during class, where for a moment, the effort of even the slightest movement seemed beyond him. Except it went on longer than a moment, Krel unable to move even as Clyde tapped the button for the public address.

"Good morning, Arcadia Oaks." Clyde said, cheery, that smirk still on his face. "I've got some good news and some bad news. The good news is that for most of you, the day's over. Go home, play some video games, I don't care. The bad news, of course, is that some of you aren't. Some of you know a friend of mine - Myrddin Wyllt. I'd like to meet you in the gym in ten minutes, and I can't be held responsible for what happens if you don't."

He switched off the PA and stepped around to loop his arm around Steve's shoulders. "Come on, son. Let's go for a walk."

Krel strained against the power holding him in place as Clyde dragged Steve out of the office, but to no avail. They didn't teach much about magic on Akiridion, but comic books were pretty consistent that it was hard to throw off a spell if you failed to resist it the first time around. So Krel was stuck here until the spell wore off naturally, or-

---

"Six A.M., the clock is ringing, I need to spend an hour snoozing-"

Krel shut off his alarm and sat up; delighted to find his mobility back, he stretched his arms. The elation lasted only a moment, however, on seeing the pendant, the green light piled back up in the top.

So.

Time travel.

Or rather, a time loop. But even that had been something beyond anyone but the Constellations. There were rumors of artifacts, remnants of the Golden Age that retained some of the fantastic powers held by the Constellations, and if anyone had access to those, it would be someone with a name like Ombric the Undying.

But clearly something had gone wrong. Ombric had died in that first loop (although it occurred to Krel it might not have been Ombric's first time through the day), and Krel was stuck with his artifact, and whatever circumstances that caused it to loop back to the beginning of the day.

...Although it seemed a good bet to presume Clyde Palchuk had something to do with it.

Krel swung out of bed, landing light on his feet on the floor. He might not be a fighter like Aja, or a sorcerer like Claire, or a dragon like Eli Pepperjack, but he was a prince (the king, now) of Akiridion 5. Clyde Palchuk was going to kidnap his son and use him as leverage to get to Toby.

Whatever his relationship to Merlin, Clyde Palchuk was a threat to one of Krel's people.

Krel stormed to his dresser and pulled out fresh clothes (blue, not red, so he didn't look like he was trying to match Aja), and then turned to his comics. The Cult of the Sleeping God had conquered with lies and persuasion, gathering an unstoppable army. The sorcerers in the Sleeping God's employ had been a sort of rumor, until the moment Krel had fled Akiridion, shaken by an encounter with a master Blood Mage.

Which made the comics about the heroes of the Golden Age the best guide Krel had to defeating an evil wizard one-on-one.

"We're late, and you're reading comic books?"

"I was just looking something up," Krel replied, flipping the book closed. It hadn't been much help, anyway; what had seemed like epic battles when he was younger now seemed like stories written by people who had never seen a sorcerer fight. But as Krel grabbed a banana on his way out of the house (he was going to have to start getting up earlier), he felt an idea forming. He mused on that the entire trip to school, and rather than go to his locker, he headed to the gym.

Coach Lawrence was behind his desk, hunched over the mysterious log he kept roll in, but at Krel's hesitant knock, he looked up and gave Krel a wide smile.

"What can I help you with, Tarron?"

"Steve's dad - he isn't supposed to be around him, right?" That fact was one of those strange pieces of knowledge that humans seemed to communicate without direct discussion, something Krel had heard and couldn't quite remember who from (it was almost, but not quite, like being around a hive mind). Krel was vague on the details, but seeing the man's casual manhandling of his son for the sake of some vendetta against Toby Domzalski, he couldn't say the prohibition was unwarranted.

"No, he isn't." Coach Lawrence's expression shifted, from a smile to something sharp, shape of his face squaring, eyes barely visible within the narrow glare. "Why - have you seen him?"

"No, I-" Krel stammered as he remembered how bad he was at lying. "Steve said he'd some sort of message on - Twitter, said it was a joke. But. I think he's going to try to come see Steve. Maybe today. Around lunch. First period."

Coach Lawrence was quiet, and through that, Krel held his breath, worried Lawrence would laugh this off.

"You did the right thing, son," Lawrence said, reaching for the phone on his desk.

"Wait! What are you doing?"

Lawrence's expression was less threatening, but he wasn't smiling anymore, and his stare was a little intense. It made Krel worried about everything he was hiding from the coach (he consoled himself that Coach Lawrence wouldn't believe three-quarters of it anyway).

"I'm going to call Steve in here-"

"No!" Krel sat back, heart pounding. "No. I - really don't want him to know I told you. Can you just sort of - handle it?"

Coach Lawrence set the phone down before nodding. "Alright. We'll put in a call to the police, see if they'll be willing to put an eye out."

Krel was ten minutes late to math, earning a piercing glare from Seamus Johnson, one that lasted until the end of the period. But Krel didn't have time to worry about Seamus, on edge for some sign of Clyde's arrival. Nothing had changed from how Krel remembered the day going, so there was no reason to expect him to arrive before lunch, and yet.

Krel was just taking a careful seat next to Claire when a bell rang three times in quick succession, and all motion in the cafeteria ceased. The sound came again, the students in the cafeteria still frozen, because, well, they'd always gotten notification about active shooter drills (and there were great things about Earth, but the fact that schoolchildren here were in constant danger of being shot during social studies ranked up there with Merlin as reasons this planet sucked).

Students started scrambling for their bags, trying to remember what they were actually supposed to do when someone started shooting up the school, and then-

---

"And I feel like I'm living the worst day over and over again-"

Krel slammed his hand on his alarm, silencing it, and took a moment.

So.

Ombric had tried to stop Clyde from killing Toby or someone else, and because he was a sensible man in possession of a time machine, had set up a way to go back to the beginning if he failed.

And apparently, 'failing' included any attempt in which someone, anyone died.

Despite the unreasonable situation, Krel felt a flicker of respect for Ombric, a man who apparently believed no life was worth exchanging for the ones he wanted to save.

And because Ombric deserved someone willing to put the same effort into his endeavors, Krel took a deep breath and rose to face the day (again).

---

Krel wished he had somewhere to keep notes about all this. It took a minute to work through how many times he'd woken up to Simple Plan, and he still wasn't sure he had the count right; he'd slept through at least one cycle, after enough cycles he'd been awake for nearly thirty hours straight.

But it was trying to piece together where Krel could interfere to stop Clyde that was frustrating him. Clyde Palchuk was staying in the Embassy Suites because killing a seventeen-year-old half-alien required a balanced breakfast. He walked into the high school at 10:45, armed with a pistol, a magic ring, and a brain full of magic. He forced the secretary to summon Steve to the office, took him hostage, and lured Toby into the gym to kill him.

And the path to that death - to any death - was relentless. Clyde was a wizard, a Blood Mage, and a killer. Krel had cornered him at his hotel, at which point Clyde had hypnotized a dozen people, half-asleep and waiting for omelettes, to provide a distraction while he bolted. People seemed to ignore him if Krel didn't directly point him out, and when Krel had called the cops on Clyde, he'd blown up a patrol car and sent Krel back to the beginning.

Once, just because he'd needed to know, he let it play out without any interference, and-

He'd been sick when he woke up that time, because Clyde Palchuk really wanted Toby Domzalski dead.

So Krel spent a couple of loops just trying to figure out that stand-off in the gym - Jim's history class was on the other side of the school, and Darci was out sick, so it hadn't seemed worth the effort to get either of them. So he, Steve, Eli, Toby, and Claire versus one evil wizard (the one time he'd gotten Aja there, she'd produced an unstable magic rock she'd gotten off one of Toby's troll friends and blown them all to hell, so he wasn't trying that again).

And the problem was - on top of being an evil wizard, Clyde Palchuk was a soldier - a professional killer. He had the practice, and the instincts, to fight five or six teenagers and kill at least one of them before losing.

But for all that, Krel was learning.

Clyde recognized Eli Pepperjack as a threat - if he could help it, he'd silence the boy before turning his attention on anyone else. And it was odd, taking Krel a while to figure it out, why Clyde didn't kill Eli the moment he saw him. Eli was a dragon - creatures that consumed magic to exist. If Clyde used a powerful spell to try to kill Eli and failed, he'd have wasted his chance to protect himself. But a weaker spell - it might take less effort to try, and might have ways to fortify it to bypass Eli's resistance.

Clyde never paid attention to Claire unless she actually hurt him - but Clyde responded to such a threat immediately and brutally, making those times the ones where Claire's death sent Krel back. Steve had never been the one to die, but Krel wasn't going to bet on the wizard's paternal instincts.

(Krel, too, had never died, and it worried him, thinking about what would happen then. He hadn't seen Ombric since his first time through the day, and couldn't think of an explanation that didn't mean something bad if Krel died.)

Toby himself, Clyde had seemed...unconcerned with, defensively. In all of the cycles, Krel hadn't seen any of the impressive displays he and Aja had drawn descriptions of from Toby's friends - pinning people to the ground, hurling them skyward, collapsing a cave on top of them. And that was...odd. Once awoken, the spark of magic in an Akiridian's soul didn't fade or die. They'd recognized foul play in Toby's mother's death because her ability to manipulate gravity had been enough she could have flown away from the shipwreck that claimed her life. That Toby wasn't using these talents to defend himself was a sign something was wrong.

Krel wasn't so distracted that he ran into Mary Wong on the way to math; he'd become practiced at sidestepping her, and catching her phone at the apex of its arc when the near-miss caused her to fling her phone aside in surprise. He was barely focused enough to respond to Seamus Johnson's stare, but he did absently take notes during math, because six or seven cycles ago, Krel had caught the declaration that there would be a quiz on the material the next week, and he wanted to be ready in case next week actually happened.

Between second and third periods, Krel was passing one of the boys' bathrooms when a hand reached out, grabbed him by the shoulder, and pulled him in. Krel yelped, flailed, and wished he'd spent more time training with Aja as Seamus slammed and locked the door. Krel glanced behind, edging toward the sinks, and when he looked back, Seamus was looking up at him, eyes focused, narrowed, with an unfamiliar expression on his face.

"You aren't going to 'pound' me, are you?" Krel asked. "Because I don't remember-" He bit back the rest of the response, because he was not telling people about this. He didn't understand how this was working, erring on the side of discretion.

But Seamus stepped up, mouth flashing into a wide grin, tilting his head at Krel. "Don't remember what, Tarron?"

"My name is Krel," Krel replied, taking another step back, or half of one before he ran into the sink. He grabbed at the edge of the sink, heart racing despite the fact Seamus couldn't do anything worse than Krel had already witnessed today.

Seamus was still staring at him, until he suddenly jerked his head up, stepped back, hands slipping down into the pockets of his jeans. "Yeah," he agreed. "So what's up, Krel?"

"Are - what are you doing?" Krel's panic gave way to a coiled tension in his shoulders, his chest. He wondered if in all this time travel he'd somehow slipped into some other world where he and Seamus were friends, if that Krel had ended up trapped with Seamus making snide comments at him all the time.

Seamus sighed, shrugged, and when he looked back up at Krel, his eyes were wide, startlingly open, clear, darker blue than a proper Akiridion's would be. "Something's wrong with you, Krel. I've got a theory, but I want to hear it from you."

And Krel's heart raced, in the fear that Seamus knew, had some secret government agency on speed-dial to drag him and Aja to a lab somewhere, that-

The laugh escaped in a burst, sending Seamus skittering back as Krel sank down to the floor, head clunking against the sink as he kept laughing. He could tell Seamus anything, and it wouldn't matter if he just let the day reset. It was like living without consequences, except for the big one, getting kicked back to six thirty-five in the morning if he let anyone die.

"You're right," Krel replied. "I'm an alien. Aja and I are the last living members of the royal family of the planet Akiridion 5."

"What." Seamus' forehead wrinkled as he stared at Krel, odd, blank.

Confused?

"That's what you dragged me in here to figure out, right?"

"What? No! Why would I - my money was on you being from Venezuela!" Seamus' hands were no longer in his pockets; he flailed them a moment before tucking them against his chest. He gave Krel another careful look - there was still something unfamiliar in it, but also more intense. Focused. Curious. "You aren't here to enslave humanity, are you? Or eat our brains?"

Krel snorted. "In what way would either of those options be worth the time and effort to travel halfway across the galaxy to get here?"

"I don't know!" Seamus snapped. "You might be from a race of morons who don't understand interplanetary economics!"

And Krel opened his mouth to respond before remembering-

Seamus had a theory about what was going on, which wasn't that Krel was an alien prince from Akiridion 5. Seamus, who was a contender with Aja and Krel for consistently highest math grades in the school. Who'd cornered Krel in the bathrooms because-

Krel felt a jolt, a skip in his chest when he finally placed Seamus' expression. He hadn't seen it much on human faces, explaining why it had taken so long to recognize.

It was concern.

Seamus had cornered Krel because something he'd seen in Krel's behavior left him worried for Krel's well-being.

"So if you weren't trying to expose me for being an alien-" He heard Seamus snort, "what is this about?"

Seamus shrugged. "It's dumb," he said. "I - you're an alien, worried about getting dissected or whatever, I - well, I don't get it, but - just forget it. Get to art class."

"No, no." Krel scrambled up, hurrying in place between Seamus and the door, holding his arms out in case Seamus tried to push past him. Krel had been trying to keep this quiet, but Seamus had noticed something was wrong with Krel, and maybe that meant-

Maybe he'd notice something Krel had missed.

"What did you think is wrong?"

Seamus flushed at the attention, scowling at Krel's chest. "Don't - don't laugh, okay? I thought you were like, some version of Krel from the future."

And even though he'd already shared his big secret, Krel stumbled, a moment, startled. "How?" he demanded.

"I don't know!" Seamus shouted, arms flailing again. "Some sort of time machine, I guess!"

"No, I mean - how did you know?"

Seamus gaped, before shaking his head, snapping his jaw closed. Trying, it seemed, not to seem like he was surprised. “You were reaching for Mary’s phone before she dropped it. You weren’t even looking at the blackboard but were still copying what Miss Janeth was writing on the board.”

Krel huffed out, feeling a little relieved. He’d been scared to tell anyone else, worried even if he could convince them, they’d somehow get dragged into the cycle. But if someone forced their way in, demanded answers-

“Yeah, I’m not from the future. I’ve just - I keep waking up at six-thirty this morning. I know how this day goes if no one does anything and it - it’s not good.”

“What, is there some sort of alien invasion?”

“No! Not everything is about aliens!” If they got through this, Krel was going to apologize for oversimplifying, given that Clyde Palchuk was technically the emissary of an evil alien wizard. “It’s. Um. Steve’s dad.”

Seamus’ face crumpled into a look of disgust. “That dick? He’s not supposed to get within a hundred yards of Steve - wait. What does he do to Steve?” His voice wavered a little at that, concern or fear.

“Nothing. I mean he holds him hostage, but it’s just so he can get close enough to kill Toby.”

“Domzalski? What’s he have to do with this? Why aren’t you calling the cops right now?”

“It’s a long story,” Krel replied. “And for the second part - it doesn’t end well.”

“Then what does?”

Krel laughed. “If I knew, do you think I’d be arguing with you about it in a bathroom?”

Seamus gave Krel a flat look. “How long have you been doing this?”

“Days, probably. It’s the same six hours over and over-“

“You slept at all?”

Krel growled. "I'm fine. I just need to find some way to keep Clyde Palchuk from killing anyone-"

"Have you tried kicking him in the dick?"

"He's an evil wizard; I'm sure he's got some sort of magic shield-"

"Wait. Wait. What?" Seamus grabbed Krel's shoulder, pulling him around to face him. His eyes were wide, and it occurred to Krel he hadn't told anyone about him being an alien who didn't already know about the existence of trolls and wizards. "Since when is Steve's dad a wizard? And are we talking Harry Potter? Like, does he have a wand we can take?"

"No, it's like some sort of Dungeons and Dragons shit-"

Except.

Krel closed his eyes, replaying the moments he'd seen Clyde use magic. Sometimes there was a gesture from his metallic left hand, sometimes a word, but there was always a flare of blue light from the ring on his right hand.

Krel's eyes snapped open. "He has a magic ring."

Seamus pumped his fist in the air, smirking. "Fuck yeah! So let's go yank that off his fucking hand and then kick him in the balls!"

"It's not going to be that easy - he's a combat veteran, and a Blood Mage. And if anyone gets killed, I get kicked back to the beginning of the day and start over."

Seamus shook his head and patted Krel's shoulder. "Clearly you have no experience raising hell. Just keep him distracted and I'll deal with it."

In the end, Krel agreed, because what the hell, if Seamus failed, at least Krel wouldn't have to see someone he cared about die.

So at ten forty-five, Krel stepped into the gymnasium, trying to keep himself from shaking. He settled on the bleachers and waited. It was only a moment before they summoned Steve to the main office. Krel tucked his arms around his side, waiting for the announcement, the moment the other kids would stumble into the gym and Clyde Palchuk would walk in like he owned the place.

He didn't know why he felt so nervous. If it didn't work, he'd get another shot at it. He had as many shots as he needed to get it right.

"Where is he?" Toby's voice was surprisingly shaky, worried, for someone he'd hated as late as nine months ago.

And then there it was, Clyde's chuckle. "Over here, Tobias." Clyde yanked Steve into the gym, left hand clenched around his son's throat. "Now, don't do anything rash - not that you could." It was an odd comment, one that tugged at Krel's mind.

"Let go of him," Claire growled.

"And how, exactly, are you going to make me?" Clyde asked. "Even with the 'Shadowstaff', you wouldn't stand a chance against me."

"Gaan-"

Clyde twitched, turning his head, and Eli broke off mid-word. "Do you think I came here without a way to deal with your little freak of a boyfriend?"

"Yeah, that's smart," Toby said. "But we've got more than a dragon on our side." He crouched and leapt-

And fell on his ass. "Ow! The fuck!"

Clyde snorted. "I'm here to kill you, Domzalski, and I'm not going to make the same mistake Fin did when she killed your mother - I am not spending a decade at the bottom of the ocean like a sucker."

Toby, already on his feet, stumbled, nearly falling back to his knees. His eyes were fixed on Clyde, mouth open, hands fisted, shaking. And Krel felt a twinge of - sympathetic pain. He didn't know who'd killed his parents, but the thought of seeing the blood-smeared Pooka who'd killed Vrax would leave him similarly shaken.

"What - who's Fin? And what does she have to do with my mom?" Toby growled, but the ground didn't shake, nothing nearby fell.

Krel, who had the benefit of distance, who'd already explored every angle of this story, hopped down the bleachers as Clyde laughed, sharp, mocking. "You don't know? Your mother had the arrogance to believe she could kill Merlin. But even his guardians proved more than a match for her."

"Yeah, but you said this 'Fin' ended up at the bottom of the ocean, so it couldn't have gone well for her, either." Krel sauntered toward Clyde, trying to look casual, because he needed to keep the Blood Mage's attention. Clyde was keeping Eli silent, Steve immobile, and Toby locked down somehow, which meant he didn't have a lot of attention to spare.

"Well enough," Clyde retorted, turning only slightly to smirk at Krel. "These are strange times, and those you thought dead may yet walk the earth again." He paused, squinting at Krel. "And who are you? These kids I know, but you-"

"It doesn't matter who I am, just that I'm going to kick your ass!" Mindful of Clyde's right hand, of the ring, and his gun, Krel leapt, close enough that he collided with Clyde and Steve, sending all three to the ground. Steve slammed his knee down, missing Clyde and hitting Krel's side, while Krel tried to pin Clyde's arm down. Krel was almost certain they had him when he was thrown back away from Clyde; he saw Steve flying in the other direction.

There was a quiet noise from the far doors, and then, "Fus ro dah!"

Nothing happened. Clyde rose, slowly, turning, where a wide grin marked his face, sharp, highlighted by the narrow, intense focus of his dark eyes. Eli, eyes wide, was mouthing words over and over, trying to find some Draconic word that would break through whatever Clyde had done. Eli’s face paled at Clyde’s smirk.

“Confused? This is one of Merlin’s crowning achievements - a way to shut down any kind of magic, dragons included.”

Krel tried to stand, and found for a moment his balance was off. He had too many limbs - or, he realized when he looked, the right number for him, but too many for a possibly Venezuelan human teenager. The transducer had failed.

And looking back at Clyde, Krel had an idea why Clyde hadn’t used this before. Magic was all about trade offs, and something that could stop a dragon had to have a drawback.

...Unfortunately, it meant if they were going to beat Clyde, Krel had to take a risk.

Krel still didn't know what would happen if he died - if he would be kicked back to the start of the day, or if he'd die for real and someone else would get stuck in the loop.

But they had a plan, and it meant Krel needed all of Clyde's attention.

"I can see why all the Sleeping God trusted you with is killing a teenager, seeing as you can't handle five children."

Clyde glanced at Krel, likely to dismiss him out of hand, but jerked back, shaking as he fell back a step. Krel offered the wizard a wide smile - all his teeth, like Aja in their early stages of learning human expressions. "Or maybe you thought you could handle a couple of half-breeds - a half-dragon, half-Akiridion, a girl who stole what power she does have. But you didn't really think it would be that easy to challenge Akiridion royalty - the Sleeping God sent a Pooka to do that."

Krel tried to ignore the litany of panicked curses in the back of his mind; he'd yelled at Aja for far less than threatening a Blood Mage with nothing - with less than nothing - to rely on. All he had was the hope that as long as he had Clyde's full attention-

There was a quiet click, and then there is was, Clyde's sidearm pointed at Krel's forehead. "I could just shoot you," Clyde said. "Even if you've got some freak magic that makes you bulletproof, it won't work now."

And there it was - Clyde couldn't control what magic stopped working when he did this. He couldn't use his own magic. All he could do was shoot Krel.

"Hey, this is for how much you fucked up Steve."

Clyde twitched his head, but not enough to catch sight of Seamus before the boy slammed a baseball bat into his side. The man's hand twitched, and Krel heard a gunshot; he'd gotten used to how the sound differed from movie gunshots. Seamus slammed his knee up, causing Clyde to drop his gun, and then kicked one of his legs, sending the man tumbling to the ground. Seamus stomped on Clyde's right hand, once, twice, and then, as the man raised his free hand, metallic, like Bular's prosthetic, grabbed and twisted, and when Seamus stood, he was holding the ring that had recently graced Clyde's finger.

Clyde's left hand twitched, and he spat out a garbled word. Nothing happened. "God - fuck," he growled, pushing himself up, and said something else, words slightly different from the first recitation but still, apparently wrong.

"Oh my god," Eli laughed. "You've been using that thing to cast your magic without the right gestures or the right words, haven't you? You've forgotten how to do anything worth a damn without it!"

"Yeah, sure." Clyde yanked behind him to produce another pistol, turning to Seamus. "But I've still got this." He pulled the trigger.

Krel's hand was out, as if his stupid body thought he could stop this (as if it really mattered; even if Seamus died, it'd start over again). But he was sick of it. He'd seen more than enough people bleed out and die today. And Seamus - had been surprisingly cool about all this. Maybe he'd been a dick for a while before all this, but...well, this Sleeping God thing was making allies out of people who'd been fighting for centuries, so a couple months of high school bullshit was probably nothing.

But Seamus was still standing, one hand on his chest. And over his shoulder, Krel saw Clyde, brow tight, raised, twitch his gun to aim at Krel, and pull the trigger-

The bullet stopped a foot from Krel's face and dropped to the ground, its momentum spent striking…

Krel really looked, and saw a sparkle to the air around him, a shine that suggested the presence of a personal shield, but those were so expensive, and used so much power, they hadn't taken one with them when they'd fled Akiridion. But there was no other explanation, except…

Krel laughed, a high, frantic sound, because he'd been shot at twice, but was still alive, because he had a spark, like Laira, like Toby. He could protect himself, could protect other people, and all it'd taken was for him to nearly die (if he'd never come to Earth, never faced mortal danger, Krel might never have discovered his spark, but that was the point).

"Do you want to try that again?" Krel asked.

"Zun haal viik!" Eli barked out, dragging Clyde's gun out of his hands. "No," he concluded. "He doesn't."

"Oh fuck this," Clyde snarled. "You better watch yourself, though. Merlin's not going to take a defeat like this lightly." He shouted a word, a short one, and vanished - a spell he'd memorized, Krel guessed, in case he needed it.

And then Krel's legs collapsed under him; he sank to the ground, bracing himself up (barely) on his hands. His breath was shallow, heart racing, because.

Because he hadn't been convinced that beating Clyde was possible, that this day might ever end, everyone alive and well.

Krel heard Toby, vaguely, in the background. "-awesomesauce! Could you always do that?"

"Just give him a minute, okay?" Seamus retorted. "He's been through a lot."

"Yeah, someone should get him to the nurse's office," Claire offered.

"Looking like that?" Steve asked.

"Someone should get him to Mr. Strickler's office. And call Dr. Lake," Claire corrected.

Krel tuned them out, because it didn't matter anymore. This day was over; he could finally relax.

He woke, the next morning, to some peppy song that was not Simple Plan, and just lay there a moment, enjoying the fact he'd gotten a full night's sleep and it was finally tomorrow. The light in the pendant had migrated fully to the bottom, and hadn't responded to any other commands, which was probably for the best, because Krel had no idea how to make it work. Toby and, surprisingly, Steve, had been the easiest to convince about the time travel thing, but in the end everyone had at least agreed not to bug Krel about it. Steve had taken point on explaining the whole mess to Seamus (they'd been close, it seemed, before the trolls and wizards), which had allowed Krel ample opportunity to get the sleep he'd sorely needed.

He was ready before Aja, and had a real breakfast, and was in a good mood when he left their driveway, at least until he saw an old man passing the sidewalk by their house and skidding to a stop. Because it was Ombric, alive and well, as if he hadn't been shot the day before.

"You!" Krel shouted. "You're - are you-"

Ombric smiled at Krel, eyes crinkling a little, as he reached out to pat Krel's shoulder. "Doing quite well, thank you. And I do mean 'thank you'. If you hadn't found the Kairoverse and used it to make things right, I would have been trapped in the void outside time forever."

"Oh. That's-" Krel lifted his wrist, examining the little pendant. "Is this the Kairoverse?"

"Yes, a tricky little artifact, but one I thought vital to use when Clyde Palchuk killed your friend Toby." The old man reached a hand to the pendant before looking back to Krel. "May I?"

"Sure. It's your time travel magic doodad, anyway." Krel took it off and handed back to the old man. "So, should we expect you to pop up to try and fix anything else that goes wrong?"

"Ah." Ombirc ducked his head before shaking it. "No. The Kairoverse may only be used thrice, and this is the third time I have used it. I lack the magic to restore power to it, or any of the other artifacts I have collected and exhausted in my years. So you should consider this your - well, your one do-over."

"Good to know," Krel replied. "Thanks, though."

"You are quite welcome. As long as we oppose Myrddin Wyllt, we are all in this together."

---

Clyde was putting a splint on his hand (at the very least, his prosthetic was more dextrous than his old left hand) when Shadow Weaver stormed into his hotel room and slammed both hands onto the dining table. Her eyes were dark, almost black, some of that shadow bleeding into the whites of her eyes.

"What the fuck is wrong with you?" she demanded.

"Well, right now my right hand is broken in at least three places, including my ring finger." He looked up at Shadow Weaver, who did not have a broken hand, and probably still possessed her primary grail, and waved his hand. "Would you mind fixing it?"

"Yeah, no." She dropped into the chair opposite Clyde, eyes narrowing slightly. "Do you want to know why?"

"You don't need to explain the whole thing-"

"Do you know what I discovered today?" Shadow Weaver asked. "Some middle-aged guy broke into the Arcadia Oaks high school with a gun, kidnapped his son, who he's not supposed to have contact with anyway, and tried to murder a student! Do you know how many eyes are on that school right now? Do you know how much harder you've made my job?"

"Well, if I'd succeeded at killing Domzalski, you wouldn't have to worry about that."

"And on top of that, you let them know we want Toby dead!"

"So?" Clyde asked. He twitched his hand; it didn't hurt too much, so he thought he might have gotten things properly splinted.

Shadow Weaver grabbed his hand, causing a warning twinge as she squeezed, dragging him so he had little choice than to look at her, half-sprawled across his table. Her eyes were almost entirely black, now. "First of all, your little stunt hasn't just put the school on guard, it's put the Trollhunter and his buddies on guard. But worse - they're going to start wondering why we want Toby dead. And they're smart - Eli or Mary or fucking Blinky is going to figure out what it means that Toby's got his hands on Mjolnir. The last thing we want is for them to start wondering if Merlin has any weaknesses."

Chapter Text

Darci had never been afraid of the dark. Her father had taught her about the dangers of the world, most of which were human, and just as likely to work in the day than the night. The discovery of trolls had done nothing to change her mind; the enemies of trolls walked in the light.

But as clouds gathered in the sky, casting the winter afternoon into early twilight, Darci felt a chill along her arms, the back of her neck. She wondered if it might just be the tension hanging over the school; everyone, at school and in town, had been tense ever since the trolls had been forced out of hiding by Morgana. She'd like to believe it had nothing to do with the trolls themselves, but she'd paid enough attention in social studies to guess they could end up with another group like the Order of Dawn on their hands if they weren't careful.

But that was probably the least of their problems.

Maybe. It was February, and Merlin hadn't shown up to kill them all - only a Shadow Sorceress who ate magic, and Dr. Lake had taken care of her.

That might have been the source of Darci's unease, if she thought about it. Mary was running herself ragged trying to find some hint of Merlin in the news; even now, sitting behind Darci, she was staring at her phone, sorting through every newspaper, the same as she did every day.

Darci glanced back out the window, where the wind had picked up, scattering loose papers across the parking lot. Spinning in erratic circles, they made strange shapes, fluttering wings of birds and dragons, and for a moment, Darci thought she saw something running in the shadow of the papers, a cat or-

"Miss Scott, are you paying attention?"

Darci, who hadn't been, jerked up, flushing, at Miss Samigina's demand. The woman peered at Darci through her glasses, reminding Darci, as it often did, of being under a microscope.

"Sorry, I was just-"

"Then maybe you can get back into the proper mindset by picking up where Ms. Longhannon left off."

"Ah. Right." Darci looked down at her book. "Not yet had Nessus-"

"Further along, Miss Scott! 'When the exasperated soul abandons, The body whence it rent itself away, Minos consigns it to the Seventh abyss'." Miss Samigina narrowed her eyes, eyes skipping over the class. "Why aren't you taking notes? This is the beginning of one of the most heart-rending passages in the Divine Comedy-"

As Miss Samigina appeared in the sort of mood where she might finish reading the entire rest of the poem aloud herself, Darci looked back outside. The wind had died down, papers settling back in untidy piles, and there was no sign of anything else out there. If Claire and Eli hadn't dragged Darci into the world of supernatural shenanigans, she wouldn't have given the moment a second thought. As it was…

Well, chances were good it was nothing.

But worrying about it was more interesting than listening to Miss Samigina. So Darci sort of zoned, at least until Mary poked her hard in the side. Mary smirked at Darci, like Mary hadn't been on her phone for the last forty-five minutes. Darci flipped Mary off as she grabbed her books and stood. When Darci got no response, it was to find Mary had returned to her phone. Darci rolled her eyes and grabbed the strap of Mary's backpack, dragging her toward the cafeteria.

"Have you found anything?" Darci asked.

"Have you?" Mary retorted. Darci stopped mid-step, or tried to; the crowds in the hallways knocked them both forward and to the side. Darci turned, finding Mary watching her with the same intensity she usually gave to her phone.

"What are you talking about?"

"I know Miss Samigina isn't the most captivating lecturer, but there had to be something interesting outside for you to be staring at it all class."

Darci shrugged, shaking her head. "I'm pretty sure there wasn't. Just - paranoia."

Mary groaned, leaning back against the wall. "I know," she said. "I'm sitting here reading up on every little thing that might be related to Merlin - natural disasters, genocides, shit like that. Trying to find out where he's hiding, what we can do to stop him, anything. I'm this close to putting together one of those cork boards with string and newspaper articles, look like a conspiracy theorist. And on top of that, I'm trying to wade through discourse about international philanthropy because places like the Lyons Group don't show up before humanitarian crises."

"Yeah, that-" Darci paused, actually thinking about what Mary had said. "How would they?"

"Consult the Shadow Masters or whatever fucking bullshit conspiracy they think is going on, I don't know." Mary shook her head, and when she looked back at Darci, she was smiling (it was a bit of a grimace, but it was a smile). "So you think everything's clear?"

"I mean, I doubt anyone's breaking into the school to make trouble." After Steve's dad had shown up, trying to kill Toby on Merlin's orders, security at the school was stepped up, and the principal had finally bowed to Kellor's request that the Eclipse Knights provide some security.

Well, that was the party line. Somehow the security had ended up being Bular, one-time Gumm Gumm and scourge of a thousand years of trollish history. Not that he'd eaten anybody, but it was a sign that Kellor was spread thin, trying to gather intelligence, resources, and now, at Aster's insistence, the Light of Creation (it didn't bear thinking about what Merlin could get up to if he got his hands on it).

But Darci's dad insisted on her using the buddy system, or calling him to get places, which Darci would mock if her friends didn't include some of the most dangerous people in Arcadia Oaks. Anyone who tried to hurt her while she was with Claire, or Eli, or Toby, was in for a world of hurt, making them effective bodyguards.

Still, Darci chafed at the restriction. She wasn't a target - she wasn't the one-time Trollhunter, alien royalty, or one of two (and a half) surviving dragons, or the only Shadow Sorceress they had on hand. So at the end of the day, she ducked out of the gym and headed for her bike at the side of the building. It hadn't gotten brighter since midday, so Darci flicked on the lamp on her bike before taking off. She was halfway home before remembering she'd promised to pick up eggs on the way home. So she took a detour, parking outside the store and picking up eggs and chocolate granola bars, because she deserved a treat.

Darci paused one step out of the store as the door swung close behind her. Something had changed, and she wasn't certain what, at first. It was quiet, she thought, and scanning the parking lot and the street beyond, she didn't see anyone else. She twisted to check, just in case, and the grocery store was still lit, open, but it hadn't been crowded when she'd been inside, and the lone cashier was...taking a break or something, because she couldn't see them.

She heard a clatter to the side, in, yes, the alley nearest the grocery store. "If that's a goblin, I'm friends with Steve, hero of goblinkind," she called. There was no answer, just the continued silence and emptiness of the late-afternoon winter street.

And Darci knew she shouldn't, but-

Just because there was an evil wizard out there, didn't mean that every little thing was a danger to them.

So, feeling every bit like the stupid girl at the beginning of every horror movie ever, Darci unhooked the light from her bike and edged into the alley, sweeping the light across the space. When the light exposed nothing out of the ordinary, Darci let her shoulders fall back, relaxed, because even in this weird pre-apocalyptic world, sometimes a noise in an alley was just a raccoon.

"Miss Scott? What are you doing out here alone?"

Darci yelped, jumping, and spun, light flashing across Miss Janeth. Having stepped only far enough to see into the alley, Miss Janeth's form was mostly obscured, except for the portion Darci had seen lit by her flashlight. Her mouth was downturned, a faint frown, or at least the half of her mouth Darci could see.

"I was just - I thought I heard something."

"It could have been a troll, Miss Scott. Or something equally as terrifying."

Miss Janeth stepped fully into the alley, for the moment still half-turned from Darci, but something in that movement, in Miss Janeth's posture, struck her as odd. Miss Janeth was - she always seemed a little tentative, until she was pushed far enough to get mad, imperious. She always looked a little small for her size.

But she stepped into the alley with a smooth gait, standing ramrod-straight, confident, unconcerned.

"The trolls are our friends, Miss Janeth. Mostly."

"Then a werewolf or vampire or something…terrible."

Darci nodded. "I can see that." She made a note to get some clear answers out of Eli or Blinky about werewolves and vampires, later, when Miss Janeth weren't being creepy...er than usual. "So I think I'll get home-"

"It is a terrible thing, to be alone, isn't it, Miss Scott?" Miss Janeth's voice quavered on that question, but she stepped forward again, movement smooth, relentless, and despite any overt threat, Darci stepped back, feeling a flutter of her heart.

"Yeah. You were saying, which is why I'm going-"

"Home, you said. Where your family lives."

Darci jerked her head in a nod, not trusting her voice not to shake if she spoke. Because something was clearly wrong, and she didn't have time to worry about how to talk to...what might be Miss Janeth, when she needed to focus on getting away.

"Family is really the most important thing, isn't it, Miss Scott?"

Darci scoffed. "I don't know. I love Claire and Mary, and if my dad hadn't been cool with my - with me, I can't say I'd give a damn about him."

Miss Janeth's frown tightened, tugged down, and she turned so Darci could finally see clearly, and-

Well, it couldn't be good, what it was.

A mask, pale as bone, smooth, depicting a woman's face set in an eternal sneer, covered the right half of Miss Janeth's face. With the frown on her real face, it made her look like the weird drama/comedy mask.

Darci stumbled back, though, as she realized Miss Janeth was still approaching, relentless. "I know you're a teacher, but you're starting to creep me out, so if you don't back off-"

"What? Will you cut me in half?" Miss Janeth's voice rose in a tinkling laugh, and Darci could hear, now, that it didn't sound like her. "I have already lost my other half, Miss Scott, so I am afraid there is no threat you can make that will frighten me."

"I wasn't threatening you!" Darci snapped, whipping out her baton (iron, heavy, but more useful against trolls and more sturdy creatures by that weight, and possibly a good weapon against other supernatural horrors) and slamming it into Miss Janeth's leg. Hitting the back, she still earned a gasp from the teacher as her leg buckled, giving Darci a moment to turn and run, darting past Miss Janeth and back out to her bike. She was accelerating away from the store when Miss Janeth made a pained, animal sound; Darci debated looking back, but the need to know what she was dealing with won out. Miss Janeth was in pursuit, her coat billowing around her feet in such a way that Darci could not tell for certain if they were touching the ground.

So Miss Janeth was either possessed or had always been some creepy over-dramatic ghost. In either case, Darci wasn't keen on her following Darci home. Options included the Pepperjack home, which was basically a fortress, but would involve a stern talking-to from Mrs. Pepperjack for dragging supernatural shenanigans to her doorstep; Mr. Strickler's house, which usually had somewhere between zero and four trolls in it at any given time, but little chance of having a troll on-hand who knew about ghost-hunting; the Lake home, which would involve getting Dr. Lake and Toby mad at her; the Nuñez's, which didn't bear thinking of, and…

The Tarron house was a new addition, and not...a bad idea. As far as Darci understood, they believed in magic (or at least in evil alien wizards), meaning they might have some way to help, and had no guardians who might be upset at Darci for leading a ghost to their home.

Darci accelerated, giving herself a brief lead, and took a sharp turn toward the Tarrons' house.

Or tried to.

Something darted in front of her bike, forcing Darci to swerve and nearly fall. The figure, a shape pale, like moonlight, circled in place just out of reach before perking their head up, revealing a sharp, triangular face with pointed ears. One brown eye stared unlinking at her.

"What are you doing?" the fox demanded. Their voice was sharp, deeper than their size suggested, and from the tension in their stance, all but arching like a cat, carried a note of panic.

"I don't know if you've noticed, but I'm being chased by a-"

"I know! But she won't hesitate to burn this entire town down just to get what she wants." The fox's gaze darted over Darci's shoulder and they were suddenly clambering up her bike and onto her head. "Go go go!" they shouted, and Darci went.

Because if there was one thing she'd learned over the past year, it was that there was a time for questions and a time to just do what a stranger who claimed to want to help told you to do. And the fox at least seemed less dangerous than whatever was going on with Miss Janeth.

As she turned back toward the Tarrons' house, the fox tugged anxiously at her hair.

"No, not that way," they pleaded. Darci took a quick turn through someone's backyard to return to the main street. The fox shifted on her head, keeping their balance despite Darci's desperate pedaling.

"I wasn't just running," Darci said. "I had a plan. My friends Aja and Krel-"

"They won't be able to handle this," the fox interrupted. "Without access to magic, real magic, they won't stand a chance."

"Krel's got this, like, magic shield he can make." It was apparently some sort of alien thing, but still sort of magic.

"I - oh. I think I might be using the wrong word. God's magic?" the fox tried. "Celestial - yes, celestial magic! I don't know anyone aside from the Moon King who can use that sort of magic."

The phrase 'moon king' sounded sort of familiar, but Darci was not going to waste time worrying about that. "Well, if the Tarrons are out of the question, I'd love to hear any ideas you've got." Darci retorted. "And I would not object to some sort of explanation."

"Hallowed ground would be ideal, but a graveyard is a good second-best," the fox said.

"Hallowed, like - a church?"

"Mm," the fox agreed, "although it isn't certain that any given church is appropriately...hallowed."

"So, a graveyard," Darci concluded, shifting her balance to take a quick turn. There was a scream from behind her, and something flew past her ear. A mailbox to her right shuddered with the force of something like a short scythe slamming into it, the blade piercing through to the other side.

"Don't look behind you!" the fox shouted, paws twisting Darci's head to face forward. "We don't have time for that. Just - ride."

Darci grit her teeth and picked up speed. "I'm still waiting on an explanation," she said, turning toward the canals, and the road out of town.

The fox sighed and shifted, as if turning around on her head (and their balance must be incredible). "She is - or was - my aunt Karasu."

"I can't say I see the resemblance."

"Well, neither of us are in our proper shapes!" the fox snapped. "She's possessing that old woman, and I - well, dealing with her is our primary concern, here."

"And how are we going to do that?"

"Don't worry about that right now, just worry about staying away from her."

It wasn't a promising declaration, but Darci could hardly protest staying out of range of the ghost possessing Miss Janeth. So she kept pedaling.

"So...do you know why your Aunt Karasu is possessing my drama teacher?"

"It's...a long story. She and her sisters were once the Moon King's hands in the mortal realm, hunters and assassins. Her sisters were killed, and their spirits passed on. But Karasu...her spirit lingered, brooding on her misery and loneliness. And now...she hunts for bodies to possess so she doesn't have to be alone anymore."

"But...you said her sisters died." The magic experts in their group were unified on one point - raising the dead was impossible. Several Blood Mages had done something almost like resurrection, but the end result had been a body possessed by some sort of twisted, bloodthirsty spirit.

"In death, what you know, and don't know, becomes...confused." The fox curled up on Darci's head as she kept pedaling. "Karasu lost...half of herself, and wishes to reconnect in the only way she can." They sounded sad, and Darci wondered, before their aunt's death, how the fox had felt about their aunt.

"Um. I won't have to kill Miss Janeth, will I? I mean, if she's - if she's gone, I guess I'll have to. But…"

"It depends," the fox said. "Karasu is a creature of Celestial Magic tied to the mortal realm through her death curse - Blood Magic fueled by her own death. If you had the Sword Unbreakable, you could use it to shatter the mask in which Karasu's spirit dwells. If you were a Constellation, like the Moon King, you might know how to command her to depart this realm."

"Yeah, neither of those apply to me. So again, if you've got any ideas-"

"You're a girl, which is a point in our favor. Women have a connection to the moon that can give you an edge in a fight against the Moon King's daughter."

"How...do I use the - moon?"

The fox shifted on Darci's head. "I'm not sure, exactly. The Moon King has always employed his sisters and daughters as warriors, and - even without her magic, my mother stood against them."

Oh god.

The fox didn't have a plan.

Darci took a deep breath. She was going to have to do something she'd grown accustomed to not doing in these weird, supernatural situations:

Think.

A blade shot past Darci, close enough she wavered and nearly fell trying to avoid it.

So.

She couldn't stop, couldn't turn, and according to the fox, couldn't fight. The only idea the fox had was for Darci to rely on a mystical connection to the moon Darci wasn't about to explain she might not possess.

...Well, they'd made another suggestion. The 'Sword Unbreakable' sounded magical enough to deal with shit like this, but was, Darci suspected, hidden in a mystic temple somewhere or guarded by a riddle-spewing sphinx (or given their luck, in Gatto's Keep).

And they'd had...an idea. A notion. They'd suggested Darci run toward a graveyard. Obviously, they didn't know how to go from there, but.

Some fights you couldn't plan out. If cornered, pinned down, you had to improvise, be unpredictable.

Make shit up.

"What're the chances she'll chase you if she sees you?" Darci asked the fox.

"Right now? She's pretty focused on you."

"Good. When I get to the cemetery, go back to Arcadia and find Eli Pepperjack. He won't have any idea what to do, but he'll have some idea how to find out."

"I can't leave you alone!"

"This isn't a fight for men," Darci said, hoping her voice didn't waver. It shouldn't; she'd walked into fights worse than this one already.

Of course, every time before then, she'd had a plan. Well, she'd been with someone else who'd had a plan.

It took only a few moments before Darci reached the cemetery, kicking her bike aside and leaping for the fence while the fox vanished in a flash of white fur in the dark. Darci dashed to the cemetery wall, scaling the rough stone in only a few moments, scrambling across worn stone before making a brief leap onto the grass slowly going wild at the edge of the plots nearest the wall.

Darci stood there for a moment, trying to catch her breath. It was quiet, there, no cry from Karasu, no sound of her tossing that blade against anything. Still. Dead. It gave her a thought, the barest inkling, of what the fox had intended, leading Karasu to the cemetery.

"Miss Scott!" There was no motion, not transition; Darci merely turned at the sound to see Miss Janeth perched atop the wall surrounding the cemetery. Face and mask were both smiling, which was no less creepy than the half-smile, half-frown. "Your recalcitrance in this matter is quite vexing." She stepped off the wall and at last, Darci had confirmation that Karasu had not been making Miss Janeth walk, as the teacher drifted down from the wall, advancing relentlessly toward Darci. Her head tilted at an odd angle, smile fading. "I so miss my sisters, Miss Scott. I miss being whole."

"Yeah, um, I don't know how I can help with that. Your sisters are dead, right?"

"Of course they are. Washi dead at Kubo's hands, and Sariatu visited with a fate befitting a traitor."

"So, um, what do you want from me?"

Karasu paused, Miss Janeth's face twisting in a frown. "Of course you wouldn't know. Washi's spirit was shattered by the Sword Unbreakable, cast beyond retrieval. And I…" She reached within her coat with the hand not holding the weird scythe, and her frown morphed into something softer. Mournful. And then it twisted into an expression of fury, eyes gleaming red in the dark.

She removed her hand from her coat, producing something pale.

A half-mask showing the face of a smiling woman.

"I was cut in half," Karasu said. "I will be forever alone, my sisters beyond my reach. But perhaps...I may find another sister, and though I must be alone, we may be alone together."

Oh god.

Darci turned and ran. She'd expected - she didn't know what she'd expected, except that Karasu wanting to house half her spirit wasn't it. Darci dodged between gravestones as Karasu drifted above them; the ghost hurled her scythe, and for the first time, Darci saw the chain attached to the end. Could she use that?

Not without some idea how to get the ghost out of Miss Janeth, no.

...Darci spared a moment to wonder if she'd have a better idea how to deal with this if she'd been raised Catholic. The answer was probably not, and she probably wouldn't be allowed to be friends with Claire, who was a witch, and Jim, who'd spent a year consulting the dead for advice, which probably was technically necromancy.

She darted into a cluster of mausoleums, dodging through the space between them to give her a moment to - she didn't know - think.

Wait - necromancy! Was there a way raising the dead would help here?

"Come on, Darci, don't be stupid; our problem is too many ghosts," Darci muttered. She was, she had to admit, rapidly approaching the moment when her best option was prayer. Darci was pretty sure Douxie (or Galahad, or whatever) had actually stood in the literal presence of God, so she couldn't hold onto atheism with any sort of intellectual honesty, but given the fact that Merlin and his lackeys had coopted some nonzero portion of human religions, she wasn't about to request the help of anyone she might have heard of.

Except…

Well, it couldn't hurt.

Darci looked up, where the moon was waxing, half-full, and let out a breath. "Hey. Um. Moon?" She broke away from the crypts, jogging toward the far end of the cemetery, where the graves gave way to a rugged hillside. "It's Darci. Scott. I'm uh, well, I've never done that whole 'power of the moon' thing for, uh. Reasons. But I've heard we've got a special bond, and. If you're remotely inclined, I'd love some help fighting this evil ghost lady."

Darci risked pausing for a moment, waiting for a response.

But she couldn't risk more than a moment, and in that moment, no answer came.

She sighed. She hadn't expected anything, really. Not with a vague hope she had a connection to the moon, that the moon would respond to her.

"What's the point of being a woman if you are not a sister to all women?" Karasu asked. "What sort of woman hears pain of the type I feel, and runs from it?"

"You're in pain; I'm doing everything I can to find a way to end it."

"No," Karasu whispered. "You fear what it means to be part of me."

"Being possessed by half a ghost doesn't sound like a good time, no," Darci agreed. "But you're hurting. You're hurting Miss Janeth. You'll hurt me."

"What is the well-being of two human women when compared to that of one of the Moon King's daughters?"

Oh.

Fuck her.

"I'm worth ten of you!" Darci screamed. She fumbled in her purse for anything, a gaggletack, some mace-

And pulled out a hairclip she'd borrowed from Aja Tarron two weeks ago. It was made of weighty metal, nowhere as heavy as a gaggletack would be, but something. There were angular lines cut into the curved back of the clip, and it sparkled like stars, gleaming in the moonlight. Darci twisted the elastic band of the clip into her fist, and hefted it. It wasn't brass knuckles, but any additional weight to Darci's fist would help.

"Do you intend to fight me using that useless trinket?" Karasu asked with a high, tinkling laugh. "It took one of my blood, a daughter of the Moon King, to kill me."

"Yeah, well, you called me your sister, so-"

Darci swung her fist at Karasu, who danced back, laughing. The possessed teacher tucked her other half-mask away and grabbed at the chain attached to the end of her scythe. She threw the scythe at Darci, who dove clear, stumbling over a tree root. The trip turned out to be lucky, as Karasu twitched the chain, swinging the scythe around to slice through the air just above Darci's head. It bounced off a gravestone before Karasu reeled in in with a subtle jerk. Darci growled and kicked off the ground; she knew a person sprinting at another could get close enough to get in a few hits before the victim could react. Of course a ghost possessing a high school teacher wasn't exactly a normal person. Karasu swung her scythe up in a tight arc, forcing Darci to duck away to avoid being bisected herself.

"There was a time I would call this amusing, but now it is just tiresome. Children pretending they are a match for me."

"Oh, I don't know about children, but this kid is going to kick your ass!" Darci threw her purse over the gravestone she'd taken cover behind and dodged around the other side. Karasu swung her scythe at the purse, slicing it neatly in half, but Darci had no time to mourn the death of a practical purse that didn't look like complete shit. She sprinted at Karasu and tackled her. And while Karasu was a centuries-old assassin with keenly-honed reflexes, Miss Janeth was a frail, middle-aged math and drama teacher, so when Darci barreled into her, Karasu's host fell back, limbs flailing.

Darci grabbed the mask and-

It didn't come off.

Karasu threw Darci aside and rose, laughing. "Do you think it would be that easy? Take off the mask and your teacher is free? My spirit lingers in this world by virtue of a death curse, and such magic is not easily undone."

Right. A death curse, which the fox had called Blood Magic.

Blood Magic needed a sacrifice - Karasu's own life. But every Blood Mage they'd seen had a grail, too - an object that stored the power of the sacrifice.

The fox had said the Sword Unbreakable could be used to break Karasu's mask and banish her spirit. Darci didn't have a magic sword, but how hard could it be to break a porcelain mask?

Well, she considered, as Karasu swung her scythe in tight spirals, it would be easier if she could get close to the ghost.

Darci ran. Karasu laughed as Darci stumbled, caught her hand on a fence, and pushed herself up to keep moving. At the edge of the cemetery, a few hills bled into each other, scraggly trees scattered across them. Darci ran for them, running serpentine, which was much less helpful when her opponent could make her weapon practically dance at the end of its chain.

The scythe struck the ground, sticking for a moment before Karasu recalled it. Darci glanced back as Karasu caught the handle, reared back to throw it again. Darci dodged the blade again, ducking behind a small tree, only for Karasu to slice it in half with a horizontal swing.

"Fuck! What's that thing made of?"

"It will soon be beyond your concern," Karasu replied, winding up for another throw.

And Darci, not thinking, because her 'ideas' had not been helping, sidestepped the blade, which slammed into the tree she'd been standing next to. And still not thinking, she grabbed the chain and yanked; Karasu, still lacking a body used to regular fights to the death, stumbled forward.

And Darci, hoping either Miss Janeth didn't bruise, or would forgive Darci for absolutely necessary violence, punched Karasu's host in the face.

The half-mask shattered, shards of ceramic falling away from Miss Janeth's face.

Miss Janeth, no longer suspended by ghostly magic, followed a moment later.

---

Darci had punched the other half mask into powder before calling an ambulance, and sitting through a forty-five minute on personal safety from her father. It was midnight, and she'd, against all wisdom, been waiting with her bedroom window unlocked. The fox hadn't made it to Eli's, but Darci had hoped-

Something scratched at the glass; Darci jumped, not quite recovered from the stress of the evening. But perched on the outside windowsill was a white fox, who clambered inside when Darci opened window.

"You're alive!" the fox exclaimed as they circled Darci.

"You sound surprised."

"Well, I am." The fox paused, looking up at Darci as their ears fell back, worried. "I hoped you could defeat her, but...well, she was a fearsome warrior before she died."

Darci shrugged. "But like you said, I've got a special connection to the moon."

"Um." The fox ducked down, ears falling flat against their head. "That was more of an - I was trying to inspire you. Only another Constellation, or someone wielding a weapon like the Sword Unbreakable, could have defeated her." They twisted their head around, peering at Darci. "You aren't a Constellation, are you?"

"Um, no? I'm pretty sure we would have figured it out already if I were Sailor Moon or something." Darci turned her head to show off Aja's hairclip. "And before you ask, I didn't have the Sword Unbreakable or anything, just some improvised brass knuckles."

The fox hopped up onto Darci's bed, pacing around to examine the hairclip. "That certainly isn't the Sword Unbreakable," they agreed at last.

"Still, Karasu's out of the picture, so yay us, right?"

"I wish it were that easy," the fox replied. "Karasu is just the start of your troubles."

"Start?" Darci demanded. "Do you know what's been going on around here? Trolls, and Nazis, and - evil faeries and evil alien wizards!"

The fox wrinkled their snout before shaking it with a huff. "Well, the continuation of them, then. Karasu is just the start of the dark powers that will descend on Arcadia Oaks."

"What? Why? We got rid of Morgana, and Merlin's off who knows where plotting to kill everybody."

The fox sighed, twisted their head around, and then pounced at Darci's printer.

"Hey!"

The fox ignored her protests, but did not, thankfully, attack the printer, instead upending the half-empty pack of paper next to it. The paper didn't fall, however; it began to spin and dance in response to irregular twitches of the fox's tail. Paper folded as it moved, taking the shapes of little people.

One of them was a little robed figure laying flat on the ground. "The history of this planet, of humanity, has been haunted by a prophecy, of the Lord of Blood. Ageless, immortal, he slumbers beneath the waves, until the stars are right and he wakes." Little human figures lived out their lives next to the prone figure until it stood. "Although he is a pitiless man, he will gather servants to him, those who would sacrifice others for fragments of the power he possesses." The robed figure waved its hands, and paper folded into the shape of a rabbit, a dragon, a troll, who ran toward the human figures. "They will conquer those who will not join them, until they stand astride the world." The robed creature conjured a lasso with which they leashed a bird (an owl, or eagle, or something) and a hulking troll...or bear, Darci wasn't good with zoology. "Until at last, his armies will come to Arcadia and the war for our souls will end."

The hooded figure charged at another wielding a sword, and the papers exploded into a blizzard that lasted for nearly a minute before settling in a neat pile on Darci's bed. The fox was there, again, licking at their paw.

"Okay, I'm not sure I follow."

The fox rolled their eyes and flopped onto their back. "Arcadia will play host to the final battle between Merlin and his enemies, whether that battle should end in his favor, or ours. For ages, everyone who knew anything about this believed 'Arcadia' referred to Greece, and have watched Arcades for the signs of that coming battle. But then the trolls' civil war led to the return of Morgana to Arcadia Oaks, California, and then…Merlin. Merlin's war for the souls of the universe will end here, for good or ill, and that means anyone with a stake in the outcome will be drawn to this place. Like I said, Karasu is just the beginning - Merlin's cult is coming, and every monster he created in anticipation of this final battle."

Chapter Text

Hair still wet from her shower, the Shadow Weaver stepped out into the living room of the house she'd rented for the duration of this mission. There were two boxes sitting on the coffee table next to her couch, which she ignored for the moment. She took a few minutes to finish a cup of coffee, and start a second, before settling on the couch with her coffee and pastries that didn't taste right. She ate half of one, set it aside, and opened the first box.

The box was small, a little larger than her hand, made of the rarest mineral in the multiverse, the only one that could survive dragonflame and the voice of an angel. Inside was an item that to the untrained eye wouldn't seem worth the trouble - a tiny sliver of green crystal. But to a master Shadow Sorceress, it was a priceless artifact, the last shard of a power long lost to the world.

The Shadow Weaver took a deep breath, sketched out a simple diagram in the air above the crystal, and then pressed her palm against the shard.

The magic bound within the crystal flared, a flame encased in ice. And it was like that for a moment, the crystal's magic separate from the Shadow Weaver.

The lattice cracked, releasing the power it caged, and if the Shadow Weaver were any normal person, the crystal's power would disperse and become part of the magical background energy of the universe. But because she was a Master Blood Mage, the power leapt from the broken stone into her blood. It was just a spark of power, a jolt no more than she might feel from a static shock. But it was a spark of power she didn't possess - Celestial Magic, the voice of angels - and so made her more powerful.

She remembered the first time she'd done this, a half-trained Shadow Sorceress trying to make use of the gem set in a broken Phylactery. When she'd crushed it in her hand and felt the power flowing through her.

She'd grown wiser, since then, knowing not to consume artifacts she knew nothing about. But she'd grown practiced with the process, of separating magic from the objects that contained and directed it.

With that spark nestled within her spirit, ready to call upon when she needed it, the Shadow Weaver finished her second cup of coffee and her plate of pastries, which weren't bad, but whose difference from what she was used to grew more intolerable with every passing day.

So fed and caffeinated, the Shadow Weaver opened the other box. It was carved of dark wood, largely ornamental, and at first glance, your average human might have presumed it contained a lightsaber - not a real one, but the replica that nerds paid thousands of dollars for. The object within the box was rocky, mineral in nature, but looked a little like it was grown. The Shadow Weaver reached for it, but paused, hand just over the artifact.

It had been...some time since she'd used the Skathe-Hrün, and even though Morgana was long-dead, there was always a worry in the back of the Shadow Weaver's mind that drawing too much on the shadows bound within the staff would open her up to the faerie sorceress' influence.

But it was a foolish worry, and the Shadow Weaver needed every edge she could find in the upcoming fight.

There was a shift in the air behind her; the Shadow Weaver didn't move her head, because only one creature would arrive in such a manner, and they were expected.

"Rowan."

"Shadow Weaver."

"You may sit, if you like."

"I prefer to stand."

"Suit yourself." The Shadow Weaver shrugged and grabbed the handle of the Skathe - the Shadowstaff. The magic within surged at her touch, but without the Shadow Weaver consciously draining it, the magic remained separate from her. There was nothing in the Shadowstaff she did not already possess, but if anything, Clyde had taught them that relying on a single source of power was the road to humiliating defeat.

Plus, it made her feel nostalgic for the old days, when it had all seemed to simple.

Go to the Darklands. Save her brother. Kill Gunmar. Kill Morgana. Kill Merlin.

"Are you ready, Shadow Weaver?" Rowan's voice was polite, restrained; if the Shadow Weaver didn't know better, she might call it subservient. They were polite, professional, but had other places to be, and it was best to respect the value of their time.

"Yes."

She took a quick breath to steady herself for what she was going to do.

It shouldn't be hard; after all, she'd killed Toby Domzalski once already, and it wasn't like the boy she'd seen in the halls of Arcadia Oaks High School was the same one she'd killed years ago.

---

On her way down to breakfast, Claire paused at her desk and tugged open the drawer and then, after a moment, the drawer hidden in the base of that. She stared at the three gems within - one more or less an eye with a black iris, another a crystalline tear, and the third a hexagonal stone the color of dried blood. The Shadow Sorcerer they were pretty sure was working for Merlin had held a crystal like these in her (Dr. Lake had said she was certain the sorcerer was a woman, so Claire wasn't going to argue) hand, crumbled it to dust, and then used its power as if she had a Phylactery to channel its magic through.

It was Blood Magic, but perhaps among the most benign type of sacrifice they'd seen.

And yet…

Claire shut the drawer. Despite the idea being an obvious one, none of Blinky, Eli, Aster, or Galahad had ever heard of a sorcerer doing something like this. And Claire might not be dumb enough to suggest the way people had always done things was the right way, but…

There had to be a good reason no one other than the mysterious sorcerer had tried this.

So until they had no other choice, Claire would stick with trying to access the magic of the stones that had once made up the Shadowstaff on her own.

She ran into Rico halfway down the stairs, clambering up the stairs himself. He was in his human shape, dressed in a sleeveless T-shirt, coveralls with ragged hems, and no shoes, which, along with the wild haircut (or lack thereof) and a hint of fang in his smile, suggested his inhuman nature in a way he wouldn't have dared before Arcadia Oaks became aware of trollkind.

"You're late for breakfast," he announced, "and the Councilwoman says no one eats until everyone's at the table."

"She said you can call her Mom."

"Yeah, well." Rico's face twisted, not quite disgusted, but...He glanced away. "I got a mom. Somewhere. Probably. Doesn't feel right pretending otherwise."

"And what does that mean for me?" Claire asked. Rico called her his sister, even though he might have a troll sister who'd written him off for dead.

"That's - it's different for siblings. I can have any many sisters as I want. So don't think you're getting out of this just because everyone knows I'm a troll!"

"Well, then, I guess I better keep my little brother from starving."

Claire swept up the little troll to carry him back downstairs, where breakfast was...surprisingly normal, for a family that'd acquired a troll son unexpectedly. But then again, Claire wasn't certain the Nuñez family was the strangest family in Arcadia Oaks. Between the dragon widow and her only son, a half-troll and half-alien who were as close as blood brothers, Arcadia Oaks was a regular melting pot of the supernatural.

They were going to the fucking farmer's market later.

And being the middle of the day, it wasn't like there were trolls wandering around the place, but. Talk of the trolls, of Blinky's campaign for city council, of the few people who'd ventured into Trollmarket, was everywhere. They didn't know about Morgana, or Merlin, but they knew enough about the world Claire had been forced to confront that it was surreal.

Dr. Capulet ran into them in the parking lot, nearly actually colliding with Claire's mother as she stared at the group.

"Dr. Capulet!" Claire's mother said, holding out a hand. "It's good to see you."

"I...the same," the therapist said, though her voice was strained, eyes fixed on Claire's mother.

"I've been meaning to check in to see the school's been providing you the resources you need," Claire's mother said. "I know we had to press on them-"

"No, it's fine," Dr. Capulet said distantly. Her eyes had wandered to Rico, who was pacing a perimeter, but to the untrained eye, must have looked like he was just running in circles. "This must be-"

"Rico," Claire said. "He's a changeling, and we sort of adopted him."

"We couldn't very well throw him out, even after Claire brought our little Enrique back," Claire's father said, patting the stroller that held the toddler in question.

"En...rique?" Dr. Capulet bent down, turning to get a better look at Enrique who, fred from the Darklands, was growing normally, but still noticeably younger than Rico. She stayed like that for a moment, quiet, before drawing up straight, flushing. "I'm sorry, I'm keeping you up," she said. "Thanks so much for looking in, Councilwoman, but I assure you I have all the support I need." And then she fled for her car.

"What an odd woman," Claire's father said.

"Hush, Javier," Claire's mother chided. "Come on, we still have groceries to get."

Coming across Jim Lake arguing with Toby over sunchokes (which, if they were the twisted roots sitting in the basket behind them, she was not for them) was almost a relief for something expected, normal. So what if Jim were half-troll, and Toby half-alien (and maybe half-troll? She still wasn't certain what was going on there) - they were the same dorks she'd known for years, and she knew what to expect from them.

Claire's hand was raised, about to call out to them, when a figure cloaked in shadows stepped out of a dark circle in the air. They swung their arm around, revealing a staff of dark stone and crystal in their hand, which they pointed at Jim. Claire couldn't say if she was more shocked at the Shadow Sorceress' appearance, or the fact she was clearly holding the Shadowstaff. The shock, though, rooted Claire in place, so she didn't react in time.

A portal opened just behind Toby, revealing a flicker of white and then a sheet of black-edged flame. The fire twisted and burst from the portal, catching the edge of the vegetable stand. As Toby and Jim leapt away from the portal and stand together, the flame darted along the seams of the stand and in an instant the entire structure was in flames. The sorceress was already turning, Shadowstaff tracking the two boys, calling a jet of black flame from a tiny portal at eye level. Toby dragged them both down, falling as a shelf of cookbooks burst into flames.

Other people (humans) were running, leaving Jim, Toby, Claire, and Rico standing between two flaming tents, one already a blazing pillar and the other catching quickly. Ash fell in the wake of the flames, tents collapsing as the black fire consumed them, spilling onto the pavement, which itself caught flame.

So.

A problem.

Jim and Toby leapt apart as the sorceress opened the ground beneath them, flames licking along the edge of the hole to ignite the asphalt.

"Rico?" Claire asked.

"Yeah?"

"Get that staff off of her."

Obviously, the sorceress wasn't using the Shadowstaff to make the fire; she was opening a portal to - Hell or something, where fire burned hotter. Claire narrowed her eyes at the scene, where Toby jumped to the top of a lamp post to avoid a stream of flame, as the sorceress focused the fire on him.

Unsurprising, given how much effort Clyde Palchuk had put into trying to kill Toby himself. They still didn't know why Merlin's lackeys wanted Toby dead, but the fact they wanted it would have been reason enough to work against them even if they didn't care about him.

Rico, because he was properly on the ball, hopped onto the table of a fruit stand, crouched, and launched himself at the sorceress. She turned just before he would reach her back, sending him sailing into a cooler full of yogurt, accompanied by the shattering of glass.

"Were you even paying attention the last time we met?" the sorceress demanded, flicking out the Shadowstaff (and how could she have it? Did Merlin have access to time travel?) to create a portal underneath her feet just as Toby slammed a hand down, likely trying to drop her to the ground. She fell through the portal, appearing a moment later behind Jim, sweeping the Shadowstaff at his legs while opening another portal behind Toby. From the angle Claire could see the portal, she saw something - a pattern of white and red, like blood - within the portal, before fire, filling the entire area of the portal, erupted out toward Toby, who was looking away from where the sorceress had arrived.

A white sheet - likely a table cover from one of the stands - intercepted the flames, turned to ash in a moment, but protecting Toby. Jim, standing next to a now-empty table at one of the stalls, grabbed an umbrella, holding it as he would Daylight. The sorceress didn't hesitate, making a portal behind Toby, and this time, Claire knew she saw something. With the sorceress still using the power she'd stolen from Steve's phylactery (and how long would that last?), directly attacking her was out, but if the fire wasn't coming from some plane of evil fire, Claire might be able to stop it. So as Toby rolled back, yelping as his shoe and hem of his pants caught fire, Claire reached out to one of the portals, propping it open with what power she could still muster so she could dive through.

The familiar shock of passing into the Shadow Realm, not the momentary passage through it to reach another world, told Claire she was right.

Claire didn't have much time to examine her surroundings, as the portal opened to a wide platform, stone floating in the abyss, on which stood a strange creature. They looked something like a rabbit, molded into a humanoid shape, perhaps eight feet tall, covered in bone-white fur stained blood-red with symbols, some unfamiliar, and others - almost recognizable. The left side of their face looked diseased - covered in black veins and burned, bare flesh - and a tracing of pale scars sealed their eye shut. Their good eye twitched toward Claire before narrowing.

"You have made a terrible mistake, child," the rabbit said.

"Yeah?" Claire retorted. "Do you know who I am?"

"Claire Nuñez," the rabbit replied. "Ally to James Lake Jr., the last Trollhunter. A practitioner of Shadow Magic, who once possessed the Skathe-Hrün. Clever and resourceful - though only a journeyman, your magic can be considered effectively that of a young master." They smiled, revealing sharp-edged teeth Claire wouldn't have expected to see on a rabbit. "Do you know who I am?"

"You look like what Steve said Aster did, when he powered up. So I'm going to guess some sort of evil Pooka wizard."

"Wizard?" the rabbit - the Pooka - asked, one large foot tapping the ground. "No, my people have always been monks - sages. I don't wantonly sling spells around-"

"You're pitching fire through portals pretty recklessly," Claire pointed out, waving behind her.

The Pooka grunted, ears twitching back, though they didn't settle along their head. "I don't 'pitch'," they said in a short, clipped voice. "I invoke the Flame Undying through a rune painted in blood. I give it a sacrifice which sustains it, gives it power, and it will continue to burn until there is nothing left to consume."

And because Claire wasn't here to make friends, and because the Pooka's scars did look like burns, Claire blurted, "Is that what happened to your eye? Cause that's not the sort of accident that happens to people who are being careful."

"I lost my eye in battle with a foe more dangerous than you," the Pooka snapped.

Claire shrugged, unconcerned, even as she cheered in her mind, the discovery that the Pooka had buttons she could press. Even with the Shadowstaff, she doubted she could match the Pooka in power, so she would welcome any edge she could find. "So I'll have to settle for a hand, then?"

The Pooka bared their teeth - but then stepped back, took a breath, let their ears ease back up, and gave Claire a tight smile that looked like something...out-of-place on their face (maybe it was them being a rabbit; she didn't know). "You can delude yourself with the hopes of defeating me, or of foiling Myrddin Wyllt's aspirations; it will not change the end result."

Which, yeah, Claire got that bad guys had a script. But she'd heard this sort of thing more than enough in her life. So she snorted. "So who are you, anyway, that you're so confident you can take me?"

"Take-?" The Pooka's face crinkled a little before their expression smoothed out. "I see. Yes. My name is Rowan. I defeated and cast Myrddin Wyllt into the Great Prison, until he returned and wiped out my people. I am a monk, a warrior, and a sage, and my pelt is an epitaph to the peoples that have died at my master's hand."

And obviously Rowan wasn't painting their fur with red paint, but there was something in the way they spoke that suggested something more vast than just painting runes on themselves with other people's blood.

Claire paused in her thoughts, realizing that they'd been conversing for some time, enough that she would have expected the sorceress to call more portals, for Rowan to use more of the Flame Undying. But she hadn't; they hadn't. She couldn't imagine they'd paused the fight so Rowan could argue with her. So what was happening?

Claire turned to look behind her, to see if there was some other portal, a monster, some trick.

...Or she tried to. She found her body struck with a strange paralysis, as if her body were unwilling to follow her directions. Her eyes remained fixed on Rowan, on-

Their eye. The bloody runes were eye-catching, but a rune could be anything laid out in a pattern. It could be a pattern of scars across the face, something a person could be expected to look at, even if they were wary of looking directly at what was obviously a magic sigil.

She was clearly hypnotized, unable to turn away from the rune, trapped in place while Rowan mocked her, probably hallucinating or seeing some illusion they'd made for her.

"You know, I keep meeting powerful Blood Mages, and they keep being dirty hackers instead of real wizards," she said, because the rune couldn't keep her from talking, at least.

Rowan's nose wrinkled, briefly. "You noticed?" they asked. "Blood Magic isn't all that powerful, on its own. It's a way to gather and store power, a way to, yes, 'hack' the way other types of magic work. Even curses, the most iconic type of Blood Magic, are just Shadow Magic powered by pain and death, rather than your own emotions. You'll rarely ever find a Blood Mage who isn't another type of mage, as well, and none that don't do everything they can to leverage what power they do possess."

And maybe Rowan was trying to taunt her, but Claire found her mind latching on the word 'leverage'. It meant there was a lack in Rowan's magic. A weakness they downplayed or tried to compensate for, but a weakness nonetheless. Obviously she couldn't turn away, and now that she thought about it, she couldn't remember blinking since she'd arrived in the Shadow Realm. But she could move her head, as long as she didn't look away from Rowan, and-

She could move her hands. A part of her couldn't believe it was that easy, but another - the one that had out-thought Morgana - was certain she had to try. Because magic wasn't an all-knowing force. You couldn't just demand exactly what you wanted - a rune that would root people in place so they couldn't break eye contact with you. You had to piece things together.

So Claire just did it - tried to raise her right hand over her eyes.

It was anticlimactic how quickly it went, how easy it was. And once her eyes were covered, she stepped back, away from Rowan.

"Yeah, thing about hacking?" Claire asked. "You don't tell people you're doing it. If you didn't tell me-"

"It doesn't matter," Rowan said. "It's done."

"What?" Claire glanced down, cautiously, at herself, feeling chilled, empty, at the declaration.

"This wasn't about you," Rowan said. "I didn't seek you out; you came here. But as long as you were here, I decided to distract you while - well." They chuckled.

And Claire might have kept demanding answers, except that her heart skipped a beat before her stomach plunged, a sense of panic tugging her away, back home. And Claire might not be able to jump around a battlefield with abandon like she could with the Shadowstaff, but Shadow Magic was about emotion and intention, and it was a poor Shadow Sorceress who couldn't get home when she needed to.

She stepped back, and this time, it was from blazing cold to searing heat. If she hadn't fled the Shadow Realm in response to her little brother's shock and fear, Claire might have wondered if she'd missed her target somehow.

But there it was, a few hundred yards away to her left, the belltower of the church, proving she was in Arcadia.

Ahead of her, though, a forty-foot-long stretch of street was a bubbling mess of tar. The buildings on either side of the area were burning, black flames burning eagerly, showing no sign of slowing. Jim was standing at the edge of the rough circle, one hand out, and the sorceress was standing on the other. There was a portal behind her, but her head raised, turning, it seemed, toward Claire, and she paused.

"He didn't feel any pain," she said. "If that makes you feel better."

And then she was through, and gone. The sound of sirens told Claire the fire department had gotten word of this. Jim had sunk down next to the molten edge of the circle, one hand just at the edge. Rico was standing a few feet away; when he saw Claire, he scampered up to her, grabbing her tight when she picked him up. Claire ducked her head around, surprised to find Rico's cheeks wet.

"Rico? What happened?"

"That black fire can melt steel," Jim said, voice cracked. Broken. "Toby didn't stand a chance."

"Toby-?" The molten circle was coated in ash, more appearing as the nearest structures collapsed into ashy ruins. Nothing, it seemed, survived the touch of those flames. It seemed impossible, though, that there would be no sign, no remnant. That Toby had been - taken from them - without more than a - whimper.

"He's dead!" Jim barked out. "He was right there, and she - she fuck!" He slammed his hands against the pavement, a blubbery sob escaping him. "He wasn't supposed to die," he whispered.

And Claire stood apart from him, her little brother clutched tight against her, helpless to offer comfort.

---

When the front door of Dr. Lake's home slammed open, Aster ducked into the space between the cushions of the chair he'd been reading in. Of course he knew she'd been putting protections up, had spent an hour critiquing the runes she'd pieced together out of halfway useful tomes, before she'd painted them in her own blood above every door and window in the place. It would have been decent work without Aster's intervention; with it, he was certain Merlin himself would have some difficulty getting through them.

But it would take more than a few months of relative safety to shake the instincts of over a thousand years of looking over his shoulder.

It was Jim, though, in human form (Aster had explained to the boy he should get used to shifting often; letting that instinct grow rusty meant it might fail when he needed it most), leaning on the young lady, Claire. Or, rather, she dragged him through the door.

"Dr. Lake!" she called. "Oh, please be home."

"She's sleeping," Aster said, kicking a little to free himself from the chair. "But she'll want to see this, even if she does need sleep." He bounded up the stairs and into Dr. Lake's room (no wards here, another of a dozen little signs she was nothing like any other Blood Mage Aster had met. If someone was welcome in her home, she trusted them not to betray her sanctum). It took a moment to find a path from floor to bedside table to bed, and to shake the woman awake. Her eyes were bleary, a little bloodshot, when she opened them, but then she forced them closed.

"I told you, help yourself to whatever you want-"

"It's Jim. He isn't bleeding, but-"

Aster didn't get a chance to explain before Dr. Lake launched out of bed, not even grabbing a bathrobe to cover her tank top and loose sleep pants as she left her room, slipping on bare feet in her haste to get to her son. When Aster made it back downstairs, she was carefully pressing her hands against Jim's arms, muttering.

"Oblaan Mah Sos," she hissed. "Vokren Kopraan Qeth," she whispered. Aster hung back, wary. He hadn't met many dragons, but was certain Dr. Lake was speaking in their tongue. And he couldn't say for certain if the words had any power to them; magic clung to Dr. Lake all the time (even as she insisted she kept no grails for herself), so he couldn't say if there was more magic here.

"He alright?" Aster asked.

"I don't think anything's physically wrong, but-"

Jim whimpered.

"It's Toby," Claire said. "The Shadow sorceress showed up, and she - Toby didn't have the hammer, and I got distracted fighting this evil rabbit wizard-"

"What do you mean, rabbit wizard?" Aster demanded.

Claire glanced up, barely seeming to see Aster as she did so. "I don't know - like a big white rabbit standing on two legs. They'd painted runes all over their fur-"

"What happened to Toby, Claire?"

"No, wait," Aster said, scrambling up the couch so he could look Claire in the eyes. "You don't know what you're talking about - you sound like you're talking about Rowan, but he-"

"He's dead."

"Yes, that's what I was saying," Aster snapped, before he saw Claire's expression, Dr. Lake's, Jim's. Hurt, shock, despair. He tried to recall if they'd had real casualties in this fight, if they'd lost anyone (who wasn't already dead). None of them had lost their entire people, but the first time was hard, Aster knew. "I mean-"

"They said their name was Rowan," Claire said, voice soft. "They were summoning this black fire that-"

"You mean they did it?" Jim demanded, voice dropping into a trollish register, a snarl building in his chest. His eyes glowed, as if he were shifting. "They killed Toby?"

"No!" Aster protested, panic rising with his heartbeat, racing. "They wouldn't! Rowan was a hero! The greatest - the best one of us." But his confidence petered out halfway through his declaration, voice little more than a squeak at the end. Because.

He'd seen it before, how the Sleeping God came to a people lost, despairing, and won them to his side. How Myrddin Wyllt won converts. He'd just thought-

The Pooka were better than that.

He'd been wrong.

It seemed that among Merlin's efforts had been one to kill or corrupt those responsible for his imprisonment. Pitchiner. Sanderson. Lunar. And now Rowan.

Aster let out a scream, a sound that sent the assembled humans skittering back. But as the sound devolved into sobs, Aster struggling for some balance, realizing that he was worse than alone, was betrayed, that there were places in the universe now where the face of a Pooka would bring only terror, they drew closer.

"Aster, are you alright?" Dr. Lake reached out a hand, almost touching.

"Are any of us?" he choked out.

Her hand fell back, and Aster almost begged her to bring it back, to show a little comfort. But how did he deserve it, his people being responsible for this mess?

"No, I suppose not," she said carefully.

"I guess they're a friend of yours," Jim said, voice almost calm, if you didn't know trolls. But there was steel, adamant in his voice, and Aster could hear the promise in it. "But I'm going to have to kill them."

Aster giggled, aware his voice was a little high, that he was probably hysterical. "Not a friend - an inspiration. Who am I supposed to look up to now? You've got a human around here who betrayed God, right? I could take a page out of his book."

"Oookay," Claire said. "I-" She looked between Aster, Jim, and Dr. Lake, and gave a sharp nod. "One of you should probably go talk to Toby's Nana, and...we really need everyone to get together. I don't think any of us should be alone right now."

Chapter Text

Darci tossed the little stress ball Dr. Capulet kept in her office up, catching it as it fell back down. She did this again a few more times, but it didn't loosen the knot in her chest, the tightness in her throat, the simple fact she didn't want to talk about this.

And the slightly more complex fact that if she didn't talk about it, she was going to scream.

It seemed all any adult wanted to talk to her about, but none of them wanted to talk about it the way Darci wanted.

"We discussed it, sometimes," she said, at last, still staring at the ceiling, the stupid bland high school tiling. "That we were risking our lives, that we might die. We - some of us killed people - trolls, humans, well, Nazis, anyway. But I always felt…"

"It's common for people, even those in circumstances like yours, not to internalize the reality of the risk to themselves."

Darci snorted and turned around, glowering at Dr. Capulet. "I didn't honestly think we were all going to survive this; Jim's nearly died a couple of times. I just thought - we'd - we were fighting for something important, I didn't think any of us would die for nothing."

And it was for nothing - like Clyde Palchuk, the sorceress had shown up for the express purpose of killing Toby, but with no centuries-old wizard around to help them, they hadn't gotten a second shot. They hadn't learned anything, hadn't gotten in any shots at Merlin's lackeys, and Toby was-

Dead. Burned to a crisp by black fire it'd taken one and a half dragons shouting at it to extinguish before it spread to the rest of the town. Jim was-

Well, if he'd been moody when Merlin had destroyed the Amulet of Daylight, he was inconsolable now.

"It's an unfortunate fact of war - of life - that it doesn't follow our rules. We can't make every death have some meaning or greater purpose."

Darci scoffed. "That's bullshit."

"Is it? I think it's better than the alternative - that death is in place to somehow teach us a lesson, that someone has planned to cause us this pain. Still…" Dr. Caulet shrugged. "It's good to look at each death around us and try to find something to take from it - from the death, or the life the person had."

Darci was a little sick of feeling bad about it, of every memory of Toby stained by the shock of his death (at least she hadn't been there, like Jim and Rico, hadn't been forced to watch it). But she tried, over the next few days, to find something in it. Something she could learn from Toby's death.

...Well, it was clear the buddy system wasn't much help anymore.

---

"Come in."

Krel set his shoulders and pushed open the door to Dr. Capulet's office. She was sitting in the chair next to her desk, taking notes, but looked up at Krel with a smile when he closed the door.

"Mr. Tarron. How can I help you?"

"I. Made an appointment," Krel said, in case Dr. Capulet had forgotten. He hadn't been sure, if this was the right decision, but Aja was hard enough to talk to in the best of times, and this wasn't the best of times.

"Yes, go ahead and sit, if you'd like." Krel dropped onto the chair nearest Dr. Capulet, letting his hands fall into his lap. "Do you have something in particular you'd like to-"

"I'm an alien," Krel blurted out. He pressed his hands into fists, trying to keep them from shaking. "Not a - not from another country, but another planet. Akiridion 5. And...there was a coup, and my sister and I had to flee, and we came here. Because we thought it'd be safe. Safer."

"I." Dr. Capulet's pen was still, pressed against her notepad. She looked between Krel and her notepad, lips pressed into a tight line. "Can we maybe take a step back here? You're from-"

"And then we hear from Claire Nuñez that the same Pooka sage who razed our home to the ground followed us here!" Krel let his fists go, shuddering as his shoulders fell. He was tired. He'd heard Aster mention he'd been running for centuries, Fin and, later, whatever human cultists Merlin had in his employ at the time, on his heels. Krel had been on the run for what, less than two years, and he was already...tired. "And I can't help wondering - did we lead them here? Would Toby be alive if we'd gone to - Alpha Centauri? Or was it just - his time?"

"Do you believe in that?"

"What?" Krel looked to Dr. Capulet, who was sitting back, one finger pressed against her lips, brow furrowed. Thoughtful. She must have heard a lot of weird shit from patients, Krel guessed, to recover so quickly.

"That Toby had a 'time'. That the time of our death is set."

"I - no." Krel swallowed, trying to find his voice. "I think I - it's supposed to make people feel better, I guess."

"Does it? Make you feel better?"

Krel laughed, aware his voice was still shaky, that the laugh threatened to escape him, hysterical. "No. Yes. I don't know. I don't know if - if I couldn't do anything about it, I might feel better." It was quiet for a few moments; Krel guessed Dr. Capulet was giving him space to think. He took a quick, steadying breath. "Dr. Capulet?"

"Yes?"

"Never mind." It wasn't important, really, in comparison to what had happened to Toby. When compared to the fact the Pooka sage was on Earth, had followed Krel and Aja across the galaxy, to finish the job they'd started on Akiridion 5. Still...

"I haven't been here long," Krel said, "On Earth."

"Of course."

"And it's - I like it here. I like the people - mostly. I don't want anything to happen to them. But. I belong back on Akiridion 5. With my own people. And."

Krel wasn't certain that's what he wanted, when this was all over.

---

"I just don't get it," Mary muttered. She had, because it made Dr. Capulet more comfortable, set aside her phone (she'd heard a dozen alerts from three separate apps - Twitter, where people were flipping out about the final vote on the nomination of now-Secretary Walters, half of them still pissed about his connection to the Lyons Group, a nonpartisan think tank and international relief foundation; Tumblr, where she'd accidentally gotten in the middle of a debate about whether funding post-disaster relief was reprehensible for taking advantage of others' suffering; and Facebook, where she'd found a bird-watching page that she was almost certain had captured a picture of Raum, Morgana's crow familiar, somewhere in the south of Greece.

"Get what?"

"Why," Mary said. When Dr. Capulet just raised an eyebrow at her, Mary sighed. "Why Toby died."

Dr. Capulet shook her head. "People don't always die for a reason-"

"But they were targeting him for one!" Mary snapped, slamming a hand against the back of the chair, to little effect. "This wasn't some random terrorist; we're at war, every right-thinking person against an evil wizard and his - entourage. But they've been quiet, up to whatever dumb little plans they've got, except for this. They've shown up three times in the last couple of months, and each time, someone's been trying to kill Toby."

"I understand the drive to find some meaning in your friend's death," Dr. Capulet said, slowly, but careful, like she wanted to avoid upsetting Mary. "But looking too hard for connections can lead to-"

"No!" Mary shouted, shoving herself up in place. Her heart was racing, chest tight and hot - angry. She'd spent years on the internet, knew what a conspiracy theory looked like, and what simply connecting the dots looked like. "Clyde Palchuk - this asshole wizard - made it perfectly clear how badly he and his boss wanted Toby Domzalski dead."

"I...see." Dr. Capulet made a few notes, subdued. "Is that what you want to talk about? Because I'm afraid I don't have any thoughts I can share."

"God, I wouldn't expect you to be able to tell me why a gang of alien wizards wanted my friend dead," Mary retorted, letting out her anger with a sigh. "But would you mind me thinking out loud?"

"Go ahead," Dr. Capulet said. "If thinking this through helps you - cope - I couldn't in good conscience stop you."

"Good, because I have a lot of thoughts." Mary rocked up onto her feet, grabbed for her phone before leaving it where it was. Typing wouldn't help here. But she began to pace as she talked, walking the perimeter of the room, making a detour around Dr. Capulet's desk and the other furniture. "Like, Toby's half-alien himself, you know? And half human. And half troll...maybe. And maybe that means they're trying to get rid of anyone who might have, like, experience with all this alien wizard shit. But then I start thinking - what does that mean for-" She snapped her mouth closed, flushing as she realized she'd almost spilled the beans on Aja and Krel.

"Is it the fact he was basically the chieftain of the Quagawumps? But then they'd have been targeting Blinky, and Aaarrrgghh - leaders of our sister town Heartstone Trollmarket, and the Krubera tribe."

"Right," Dr. Capulet said, sounding a little distant. Dazed, Mary guessed.

"But then I had another idea. And it sounds - well, weird."

"I'm not here to judge."

"Toby had a hammer. A magic hammer. None of us have been able to move it from his room where he left it. And I - Myrddin Wyllt's this super-powerful wizard. He could probably wipe us out with a thought. Unless."

Dr. Capulet wasn't taking any notes at all, staring fixedly at Mary. "Unless what?"

"Unless he was scared. Of Toby. And that - that makes sense. Jim wouldn't have gotten involved if he hadn't been shanghaied into it. And I don't think any of us - except maybe Eli - would have gotten involved if other things hadn't made it personal. But Toby...Toby forced his way into the middle of this mess. Plus, you know, the magic hammer."

"You may be fixating on this 'magic hammer'-"

"I mean, Merlin broke the Amulet of Daylight, so Jim wouldn't have a magic sword. He broke the Shadowstaff, so Claire doesn't have a magic staff. Of course, if his people were targeting magic swords - well, weapons - he'd be after Jim and Dr. Lake, too."

Dr. Capulet's pen went flying, bouncing against the far wall, leaving a small smudge of blue there. "I'm...sorry? I thought you said Jim didn't have a magic sword."

"Well, not all the time, but he and his mom - Dr. Lake - they've got this thing where they've pulled Excalibur out of nowhere, like the Sword of Gryffindor. And no one's tried to kill either of them since we stopped that whole 'evil troll' thing."

"Well, I really think that's our time," Dr. Capulet said with a smile. "Good luck figuring this out, but. Try not to obsess over it. Even in war, death is random and pointless."

And maybe it was good advice.

But Mary wasn't a fighter; she never had been. She'd always looked to the connections - to the ones between people, and the ones between events. The first battle of Killahead had made it clear she wasn't going to be contributing any fighting ability to their victory. So if Mary was going to bring anything to the fight against Merlin, it was going to be intelligence.

Information.

So letting this question go wasn't an option.

---

"I know I said we don't have to talk, Steven, but we do have a limited amount of time to meet, so if you want to actually discuss anything-"

"I know," Steve snapped, but lapsed back into silence rather than talk.

Because-

He'd come to Dr. Capulet's office to - talk, he guessed. But now that he was here, he couldn't bring himself to talk about what he'd wanted to.

Toby Domzalski was dead, which sucked, for a dozen reasons, none of which had to do with Steve feeling - well, bad about it. As early as a year ago, he still shoved people like Jim and Toby out of his way in the halls. He'd probably threatened to beat Toby into a bloody pulp (and probably implicitly threatened his life) on a few occasions. There'd even been an awkward couple of weeks, before Steve was really aware of his attraction to Eli, where he'd been an ass to Toby out of some misplaced sense of jealousy. So it felt skeevy to act like he'd lost a cherished friend now, even if they were allies.

Eli, on the other hand, was a wreck. Whatever may or may not have or had the potential of happening between him and Toby, Eli had been Toby's friend. They'd gone hunting for Jim together when he'd been lost in the Darklands. They'd had sleepovers in Trollmarket.

"What am I supposed to do?" Steve asked, "if I'm not - I didn't know Toby well, but I know people who did, and I can't - pretend I understand what they're going through. I can't pretend to-"

"Grieve with them," Dr. Capulet suggested.

"Yeah," Steve concluded, letting his head fall back against the back of the couch. "Like, they're - Eli's miserable, and I can't - pretend I get it. And I can't just tell him to stop being sad…"

"Well, with the right magic, you could make him stop being sad. But I presume that's not the sort of solution you want."

Steve snorted, but didn't point out his boyfriend was likely immune to whatever spell she had in mind. The whole 'evil wizard' thing was more or less out of the bag, but Steve was pretty sure outing people's non-human heritage still wasn't cool.

"Still," Dr. Capulet allowed, "it's a good point to think about. It isn't your job to stop him from being sad, but it's not your responsibility to understand how he feels, either. Being supportive of your loved ones doesn't require you to feel the same way they do."

At that, Steve ducked his head down, flushing, because he was supposed to be talking about Toby, and Eli, not-

Not the moment Steve had blurted out something he still wasn't certain he felt - or wasn't certain he knew how it felt. He didn't look at Eli the way Coach Lawrence looked at Steve's mother, and sure as hell didn't look at him the way his father ever had at anyone. Which left-

What?

"Can I speculate, for a moment?" Dr. Capulet asked.

"I-" Steve's cheeks flushed, but he couldn't work up a protest.

"Young people, especially young men, are raised to think the only acceptable way to use the word 'love' is in relation to a romantic partner. That there's something emasculating about admitting to love their family, their friends. Your panicked look makes me think you're suddenly wondering if you've got these deep, forever feelings for your boyfriend, instead of acknowledging you care for him, however that care manifests."

"O - oh."

Dr. Capulet's lips quirked up. "And I think that's our hour. I hope I've given you something to think about, Steve."

He supposed she had. He still had no idea how to help Eli, but.

It felt a little less terrifying caring about whether he could.

---

Aja wiped her face with a tissue and gave Dr. Capulet a smile, even though her lips trembled at the attempt.

"Thanks," she said.

"It's what the tissues are there for," Dr. Capulet said. She waved at Aja as she tried to return the box. "If I decide I need them, I'll ask. You just - keep them there. So."

"I don't know why I'm crying," Aja said.

"A friend of yours died," Dr. Capulet said. "It's natural."

"But I'm not sad!" Aja retorted, voice rising more than she'd intended.

"You aren't?"

"I mean, it's sad that Toby's dead. But you can't waste the time grieving every time one of your - someone you're responsible for dies."

"I wasn't aware you were responsible for him," Dr. Capulet replied.

"Well, you wouldn't."

"Is he family, or-"

"It's none of your goddamn business," Aja snapped.

"I. Um. Did you have something you wanted to actually talk about, or?"

"Have you ever lost a patient?" Aja asked.

"Hm," Dr. Capulet mused, tapping at her chin. "I have lost people I've felt responsible for, if that's what you're asking."

When Dr. Capulet remained quiet, likely not intending to reply, Aja pressed. "How did you...deal with it?"

Dr. Capulet didn't respond, and when Aja looked to her, the counselor was staring at the wall above Aja's head, eyes blank, unfocused.

"Dr. Capulet? Clara?"

She shook her head, suddenly, and when she looked back at Aja, she looked...old. Of course, she was old, but the lines on her face seemed deeper, her eyes weary.

"One day at a time," Dr. Capulet said.

It was remarkably unhelpful advice, Aja decided. Because Toby had been hers, the one subject she could even reach from here, across the galaxy from her home. And now he was beyond her reach, fallen victim to Merlin's schemes, as his parents before him. She didn't feel sad - what would be the point?

Just, every time she thought of Toby, of what they'd lost, of what he'd never had a chance to experience (their home planet), she felt.

Angry. Helpless. Useless. She'd left her planet behind, billions of people in need of her protection. And here...she couldn't even protect one.

She'd been told her whole life she would be queen one day, and she'd...never taken it seriously. Not until it was too late, not until she no longer had a people to protect.

What would being sad do for her? She was miserable enough without it.

---

Eli looked up when the door to Dr. Capulet’s office opened, and then away, to preserve the privacy of the student leaving. It wasn’t anything to be ashamed about, needing someone to sort your thoughts out, but he got not everyone felt the same way. Especially high school students, who could be cruel.

Dr. Capulet stepped out of her office and raised an eyebrow at Eli. In or out?

Eli waved her away, watching her take the current lack of clients as a chance for coffee, all but stalking toward the teachers’ lounge. And once she rounded the corner, Eli let himself relax.

He’d come to sit outside Dr. Capulet’s office a dozen times over the past week, going back and forth over whether he wanted to talk to her.

About Toby. About Merlin.

But she hadn’t helped one bit when the school had forced everyone to talk to her, and Eli was sure he’d figured out why.

She was a wizard - a Celestial mage. But she was an apprentice, and it would take a master to get through Eli’s natural defenses.

He was pretty certain no one else knew, not even Douxie - Galahad - who was the closest they had to Celestial firepower (Steve had mentioned something Aster had done, a word that’d messed with Blood Magic, that suggested they might have more if they fixed the Pooka, got the real Lord of Flowers back).

But Galahad’s expertise was - divine intervention, the Holy Spirit. He didn’t understand what Celestial magic was.

But Eli had talked to Krel, who read comics about the adventures of the Constellations, the Celestial masters who’d ruled over a Golden Age. He’d read Blinky’s books.

Celestial Magic was the lost art, the purview of gods. It was the power to shape the universe. And Eli got that. It was the big mystery, how to recapture that power. He bet Merlin thought the answer was power itself - if you were as powerful as a god, you’d get their magic.

But Eli was pretty sure the answer was understanding. Krel had described Celestial Magic as - understanding the heart of something, of knowing how to change it. The Constellations had specialized: time, life, luck, whatever. Krel had joked he’d thought for a while that therapists were doing something like Celestial Magic.

He was wrong.

Therapists were doing something exactly like Celestial Magic.

Biologists, physicists, engineers, were all engaged in the sacred art of Celestial Magic, of understanding the world well enough to change it. Aster understood something of Blood Magic, enough to negate the power of a sacrifice. Galahad could speak to the world instinctively, probably could request small miracles.

And all that meant a couple things.

First, some things people thought of as science qualified as weak Celestial Magic, and thus useless for dragons. Unless you really understood dragons.

Second, knowledge really was power.

Eli sighed and pushed himself to his feet. He was done here, and that meant he had a lunch date.

---

"What I'm hearing, and correct me if I'm wrong, is that you blame yourself."

Claire groaned, dragging a nail across her palm as she stared at the ceiling of Dr. Capulet's office. She'd been to enough therapy to know lying on the couch wasn't necessary, or strictly helpful, but she was tired (hadn't been sleeping well).

"It's not my fault!" Claire retorted. "I know that. But what if I'd stayed? Helped protect Toby - I knew Merlin's lackeys wanted him dead. But I wanted to be clever, thought I could - whatever."

"Do you think there's something you could have done - specifically?"

"Of course!" Claire snapped. She raised a hand and began ticking off her fingers. "I could have made a portal to intercept the fire, overwhelmed her weird drunken master thing and grabbed the staff, or do it with portals and take her arm, tried to make a fireproof cloak or something…" She trailed off, looking up at Dr. Capulet, who was watching her, distantly. Claire shrugged, suddenly feeling a little weird, talking about magic to her therapist. "It's - magic stuff. I can sort of do that. Um."

"I've been reading up," Dr. Capulet said in response. "What with the trolls and all, I've made sure I know what sort of experience is and isn't likely to be the product of delusions. Blaming yourself, though - it won't help. I'm sure, if you thought hard, you'd think of a way you could have kept Enrique from being kidnapped. But it happened. But because you thought you were responsible, you went haring off into the Darklands, endangering your life, worrying your parents and your friends."

"But I got him back," Claire pointed out. "You met him. And neither Jim or I got killed; hell, he got some quality time with-" She cut herself off, wary of bringing up Arthur (or whatever his real name was); it felt like gossiping about someone who'd already been through a lot of shit. "Anyway, it all turned out for the best."

"But fixating on what you could have done differently, obsessing over it, isn't doing anyone any good. Nor will acting like it's your job to fix this. Your friend is gone, whether or not you could have done anything to prevent it. And your job isn't making up for whatever failing you think led us to this point; it's moving on."

"Just forget him?" Claire growled.

"No. That isn't what moving on means. It's - you need to find peace with this."

"How? Toby's dead, and this whole coalition is falling apart. Jim's more inconsolable than he was already, the trolls are freaking out, Mary's buried herself in some sort of research, and-"

"And you're blaming yourself. You have to let go, Claire. Whatever you could have done differently, this is the reality we have to live with."

"Well, it sucks."

Dr. Capulet sighed. "It often does."

---

...

---

"You're holding back, Douxie," Dr. Capulet said.

Galahad shrugged, tugging his feet up onto his chair. He didn't like lying more than necessary, so he wouldn't deny keeping things from Dr. Capulet.

"I want to help you, Douxie, but there are - gaps in what you're telling me that makes it difficult to do so."

Galahad scowled and shrugged again. "Why? I told you what's wrong. I - this isn't supposed to happen. I was supposed - people aren't supposed to keep dying."

"People die, Douxie," Dr. Capulet said gently. Or, well, quietly. Her eyes were...he wasn't sure she was actually looking at him. "Everyone dies, someday."

"Do they?" Galahad asked. He'd been assured he wouldn't, if he didn't want to, and evidence was mounting that Merlin wouldn't, either. And if that were the case…

He wasn't certain what he was doing here, anymore.

But Dr. Capulet - she wasn't looking at Galahad. Her shoulders were shaking, and for a moment, Galahad thought she was crying. Which was - what were you supposed to do when your therapist started crying?

And then he heard the noise. She was laughing, quiet, shuddering breaths. "Do they? Yes, Douxie. No one is immortal."

"How can you know that? There's magic in the world, Dr. Capulet. All sorts of magic, and - what's to say one of them can't make someone immortal?"

Dr. Capulet looked down, lips flat, serious. "I couldn't say, Douxie. Maybe if you told me what's going on with you - I might be able to help you work through this."

Galahad took a steadying breath. "You have to promise you won't have me committed. You won't say it's a delusion. I've - it's one of the reasons I don't tell people."

"Hm," Dr. Capulet said, and then was quiet a moment. "I won't dismiss it out of hand, Douxie. But-"

"My name is Galahad, of Camelot. I have been charged by the Holy Spirit with the task of seeing to the destruction of the wizard Merlin. But I haven't - people are dying, Merlin's out there doing who knows what, and - I haven't made a difference. And I'm not certain I believe you, that everyone dies. There's an author, who wrote about Merlin - 'that which is not dead can eternal lie'-"

"I'm sorry," Dr. Capulet said. "I need you to back up a moment. You're actually Sir Galahad, of the Round Table. And…" Her brow furrowed, pen tapping on the notebook on her lap. "You're on a mission from God to kill the actual, real, Merlin?"

"I don't know, anymore," Galahad murmured. "If I were, wouldn't I have managed something by now? More than running around, watching while innocent - well, not bystanders, really - got killed?"

Dr. Capulet settled back in her chair. "You suggested you doubt Merlin can be killed. Do you really think that?"

"Why wouldn't I?" Galahad snapped. "Just because I wasn't telling you everything doesn't mean I was lying!"

"I wasn't implying that," Dr. Capulet said with a casual wave. "Just. You clearly feel guilty or disappointed at your failure to complete this mission, and I wonder if you…want to believe it's impossible. That it's not your fault."

She was silent after that, and Galahad didn't reply. What could he say? She'd offered him a choice - either he'd sent himself on an impossible quest, or failed at the one thing that'd given him meaning over the centuries.

---

Jim didn't want to be here. He had classes (physics, with - well, physics). He had stuff to do. Probably. He couldn't really work up a clear thought of what there was to do (killing the rabbit wizard who'd killed Toby was on the list - the sorceress who'd helped him, or told him to do it, was, too. But how to do that, where to start, kept slipping away from him).

But his mom had insisted. Well, she'd insisted he talk to someone. Mr. Strickler, though - Jim couldn't look at his teacher without remembering the moment when his life had turned upside-down, and he didn't need that on top of...this. And if he was talking to a professional, it might as well be one he'd talked to before.

"I understand Toby was your friend."

"My brother," Jim corrected. Because if there was any time to make that distinction, it was now. "He's been around since - my dad left." He swiped at his eyes, unsurprised to find them wet. He'd had headaches and a dull ache to everything for days, now; he tried to remember to stay hydrated, but sometimes he'd just raise his head and realize four hours had passed without him noticing them.

"Your brother, then," Dr. Capulet said. "Do - you have any other family?"

Jim scoffed. His mom had always said his dad's parents were out of the picture, and well, his birth parents were definitely dead at this point. "My mom's uncle - or great-uncle - or whatever, was...around. Ish. Sometimes. Her dad...wasn't around." He'd never quite figured out the situation. His mom didn't know her father's name, and the few times Jim had asked his uncle, he'd been vague, and Jim wasn't certain he'd known, either.

And as for her mother…

They had a name, but except for the assurance she wasn't the famous New Zealand artist, Jim had never gotten much out of either his mother or uncle about his grandmother, Vivian Lynn.

"Besides, what does it matter if I do?"

"Other family members might provide support, understanding, for what you've lost. But it seems like it's just you and your mother."

Jim closed his eyes, fighting tears, as he considered that. There'd been a brief period when he'd had his mom, Toby, and Mordred. And now...it was just his mom.

(And Draal. Fuck, how'd he forget about Draal? Especially when Draal...only had them.)

"I'm not sure...what you're looking for, Jim."

"I want it to stop," Jim whimpered.

"Jim-" Dr. Capulet said, voice a little strained. Worried.

"I want to stop losing people!" Jim shouted, rolling around to stare at the back of the couch. "I want to stop - being dragged through all of this bullshit I never asked for, watching people get hurt and die, watching people I love suffering for no reason! Has anyone explained the whole thing for you? What's going on here?"

Jim jumped up from the couch, chest tight, burning, with anger (he'd have called it trollish anger, in the first few weeks after finding out he was part-troll, but he knew better now. It was his own anger, human or troll, although his trollish nature made the emotion burn hotter). "It's because fucking Dumbledore wants to be a fucking god! Some old white asshole killing people because he's selfish. It's so fucking - human." He dropped back to the couch, exhausted.

It was quiet for a time before Dr. Capulet spoke up. "I know it's tempting to leave it all behind, Jim. But it's our lot - putting up with how terrible humans can be."

Jim squeezed his eyes closed, feeling the tears falling nonetheless. His chest was tight, raw from crying. "When does it get better?" he asked.

"...I'll tell you when it does," Dr. Capulet replied.

---

Claire had started awake at 1 o'clock that morning, when quiet thoughts lingering at the back of her mind snapped together into one picture.

She didn't wait for a ride from Mary, but took a portal to school, carried by the realization she'd had last night (that morning), the desperate need to know if she were right, or had finally lost grasp on reality.

She stalked down the halls, finding, despite the crowding, that there was never anyone in her way. And then she found Dr. Capulet's office and pulled it open.

"Claire Maria Nuñez!" Claire snapped.

Dr. Capulet's head snapped up. "I didn't do it!"

There wasn't silence after Dr. Capulet's protest; there were students outside, chattering, walking, unaware of the import of the moment in here. But Claire couldn't quite hear them. Dr. Capulet's eyes were still wide, mouth tight in an expression that didn't really remind Claire of her grandmother.

Not now that she knew it was really her own.

"I should ask how you figured it out," Dr. Capulet (Nuñez?) replied, "but this was really inevitable. You're a smart girl." Claire was used to bristling at that sort of statement; it always felt a little condescending. But here, it was sort of a boast, that Dr. Capulet hadn't believed it was possible to fool her younger self.

"I never told you about the Darklands," Claire replied. "And the rest was-" She shrugged.

"Intuition," Dr. Capulet said.

"So what, are you from the future or something?" Claire asked. "Like, trying to keep some terrible future from happening?"

"Oh." Dr. Capulet's eyes crinkled a little as she gave Claire a smile, close-lipped at first, before she gave a sudden smirk. "I hope you weren't planning on that - that I might be afraid to hurt you because of paradox. I'm from another world, Claire. Somewhere that's suffered a terrible fate." She stretched out her palm, and Claire fell to her knees. It was like a glamour, when people had fallen before Morgana when faced with her unearthly beauty.

Except that wasn't what made Claire unable to stand.

It was grief.

She'd lost a friend - not one of her best friends, but a friend nonetheless. She'd abandoned him, left him with the dubious protection of a half-troll without a proper weapon and a changeling spy. Toby wasn't coming back. Because Merlin's Shadow Sorceress had-

Claire jerked her head up, shock breaking through the despair. Dr. Capulet hadn't moved, was just watching her.

"You still have the Shadowstaff," Claire said. It wasn't a question. Now that the idea had occurred to her, it made a lot of sense.

"Well, not here," Dr. Capulet said. "But yes."

"And you're a master Shadow Sorceress," Claire said.

Dr. Capulet nodded.

"And were you lying?" Claire asked. "When you said he didn't suffer?"

Dr. Capulet shook her head. "No. He didn't feel any pain. I couldn't - I've caused enough hurt already, I thought."

Claire nodded. "That's good. If you were lying, I'd probably kill you right here."

Dr. Capulet smirked. "Claire. You guessed - I'm a master of Shadow Magic."

"Blood Magic too," Claire replied. "Meaning you've destroyed a lot of magic items to store their power in yourself. Including, if I were just making wild assumptions, the Light of Creation."

Dr. Capulet jerked back, stumbled into her desk, nearly falling. When she looked back at Claire, one hand pressed against her desk for balance, her eyes were wild, free hand twitching, and Claire worried for a moment Dr. Capulet might attack her, before remembering Dr. Capulet was Claire. She might not worry about paradox, but.

If she killed Claire, she'd be stealing Enrique's older sister from him.

"How did you know that?"

"A lot of reasons," Claire replied, shrugging. "But let's go with 'intuition'. Given how much Aster's put into keeping the Light of Creation out of Merlin's hands, it can't be good for - well - anyone, doing that."

"It was necessary," Dr. Capulet said.

Claire shrugged. "Well, I'm not here to argue. I'm here to give you a warning."

"A what?"

"I'm walking out of this office and texting the group chat. And once Jim Lake Jr. knows who you are, you're fucked, Dr. Capulet. He wanted Rowan dead, but he'll cheerily kill you, too."

And Dr. Capulet didn't argue, because Claire was her, and knew it wasn't a bluff.

Chapter Text

"What the fuck?"

"Ms. Wang! Language!" Stricklander snapped, before turning back to the board.

"No, seriously," Mary said. "What. The. Fuck."

Stricklander turned to the class, finding Mary Wang standing, staring (unsurprisingly) at her phone. "Ms. Wang, I understand that you find comfort in being 'plugged in' to current events, but there are few circumstances that warrant interrupting our class."

"Yeah, sure, I get that," Mary said. She stepped up in quick, clipped steps (she looked a little unsteady, Stricklander noted), and showed Stricklander the screen of her phone.

"What the fuck?" Stricklander bit his lip, but it was too late to stop the expletive. But it was...almost warranted. He was certain Mary was responding to the main thrust of the article, which was, he supposed, startling. But she certainly didn't know how bad it really was.

By the time they all met at Stricklander's house after school, everyone had heard the news. The children were particularly worked up, Mary especially, who kept reading reactions from Twitter.

"Like, are there actually random packs of wolves wandering around Moscow? Because I'm rethinking my vacation plans," she recited from the other side of the room. "And of course, 'I thought we were just air-dropping wolves in to reduce deer populations'."

“It’s werewolves, I hope you know that.”

The room fell silent at Aster’s declaration. Stricklander let his gaze drift across the room, at shocked, wide-eyed faces (except for Aaarrrgghh, who was impassive, maybe a little worried, for the way his hand was settled at the base of Blinky’s neck).

“No. I wasn’t aware, although it is less puzzling for...most of the Russian government to have died at the hands-“

“Claws,” Steve said. “And teeth.”

“Yes, thank you, Steven. At the claws of a pack of werewolves than for some wild dog pack to have somehow gotten into the Cabinet building. Though some explanation may be in order.”

"Classic werewolf tactic," Aster said, hopping up onto the back of Stricklander's couch. "Wipe out the local power structure, rule by fear and intimidation."

"Correct me if I'm wrong," Blinky cut in, "but don't werewolves usually frequent...more rural areas?"

"That brings us to my concern," Stricklander said. He waited until everyone had paused and looking at him. "There are photos of the Secretary of the Interior, the highest-ranking member of the cabinet to survive the incident. Shura Lebedev. I know her." When this failed to produce an appropriate reaction, Stricklander added, "She is a changeling, most recently of the Janus Order."

That got everyone's attention; it got Mary Wang to look up from her phone. For a moment, at least, until she glanced back down, typing furiously.

"No, that's not right," she murmured. "She's standing in the sun. Changelings can't."

They couldn't, not now that their familiars had been rescued from the Darklands. Only through the use of illusion magic had any of them kept their cover.

...With one exception. Stricklander looked to Rico, who was having a hushed argument with Claire.

"Mr. Nuñez, would you have any thoughts to share with the class?"

Rico started, bolting up, ears straight up, panicked, wild-eyed. "I-" He looked to Claire before shaking his head. "No. No idea."

"I." Eli's voice was quiet, but still drew attention. Blinky and Aaarrrgghh, especially, both looked to him attentively. And that meant they thought this was worth hearing. "I had a thought about that. Rico's - he and Claire are linked. He can draw on her magic. So if this Shura is linked to a mage of some sort-"

"Um." Darci's hand was raised, which was odd. Darci did not usually contribute to these discussions until they migrated to determining what to do about things.

"We are not in class, Ms. Scott," Stricklander said. "You may speak."

She stood, hands at her side, face - pinched. Nervous. "The thing about werewolves is, they're creatures of the moon. One of Merlin's servants is the Moon King."

"The guy from the fairy tale?" Steve demanded.

"Steve. Your boyfriend is a dragon," Mary retorted. "Get over your skepticism."

"That doesn't entirely track," Eli said. "Just because dragons and Merlin and aliens exist doesn't mean everything exists."

"But in this case, it does," Aster piped up. "I knew the Moon King, back before - well, when he was a good guy. When he went bad - yeah, he made werewolves. He can...influence them. He could make them decapitate the Russian government. But that would mean-"

"Shura is working for Merlin," Stricklander concluded. "The whole Janus Order might be."

The worst part was they didn't have any way to find out for sure. Nomura and Frederick, their last links to the Janus Order proper, had more or less disappeared. And whatever the Order was up to, it wasn't in Arcadia.

So on that note, the meeting broke up.

---

Jim woke to someone poking his face. The offending appendage was sharp at the edge, but was being used only with enough pressure to make their presence known.

"Go away," Jim mumbled, shoving blindly and rolling over. It was Saturday, which meant he didn't need to be up at all, especially since his mom wouldn't be home to worry if he was in a depressed funk (he was not. He just couldn't work up the energy to do much of anything, lately).

His mattress shook a little, and the poking resumed, this time at Jim's back.

"Go away!" Jim snapped, rolling over and pushing. He saw a brief glimpse of grey and blue, and heard a yelp and a thump from the edge of his bed. It was quiet, still for a moment, and then,

"That was uncalled for," Aster's voice drifted up from the floor.

"Yeah, well, so's waking up a guy at-"

"Nine in the morning," Aster said, voice clipped, prim. "If I still had my garden, I'd have been up ages ago."

"Yeah, well, we've all lost shit - carrot gardens, sleep, best friends."

Aster growled, huffed, and suddenly appeared at the edge of Jim's bed, scrambling for a moment before rising up on two feet and storming to Jim's side. He poked Jim's side hard. His ears were flat against his head, twitching, and he looked-

Furious.

"Don't talk to me about losing people," Aster snarled. "I lost a whole world. So talk to me after you've gone through that."

"I've lost half my world!" Jim howled in reply. "Half of my family - half of everyone I've - loved!" The last word was a sob, the prelude to tears Jim had hoped he'd be able to get through the day without. He heard, vaguely to the side, quiet sounds, Aster saying something, he supposed. But for a few minutes, he couldn't listen.

And then the poking was back.

Well, more of a pat.

And when he looked to Aster, eyes bleary, face wet, the rabbit (Pooka) looked.

Well, contrite, he guessed, if the flop to his ears, wide eyes like some cartoon character, nose quivering, was any sign.

"Um?" Jim tried.

Aster took a quick step back, frowning, and when he looked back up at Jim, his expression was mostly smoothed out.

"Sorry," Aster said. "That was low of me. Can't pretend I get to be sadder than you. Even if I've lost more - numerically - than you."

Jim wanted to say it was fine, but it wasn't. Mordred was gone. Toby was gone. If Mary's theory about Mjolnir and Excalibur were right, Jim's mom was next. And without Daylight, without a real weapon, Jim was useless.

"But look - I didn't come here to wallow. I had an idea." There was a pause, Aster hunching down a little, ears flicking back. "Well. Not a new idea, per se. But one I've put on hold for - a lot of reasons. But I figure with all the shit going down, it's worth a shot."

When Jim didn't respond, Aster stepped closer, poking his side. "An idea how to help our side."

Jim shrugged. "I'm not stopping you."

"Yeah, well, it isn't exactly close," Aster said. "I need a ride."

"There's a phone downstairs," Jim replied. "Call Eli or someone."

"...Okay. I'm going to be honest with you. This is...not a great plan. It is not a particularly safe plan. It might border on 'suicidal'. But I figure our best chances at succeeding with a minimum of bloodshed is if it's you and me that does it."

Jim snorted and fell back against his pillow. "You don't need me. Get - Aaarrrgghh."

"No, I - wake up, damnation! I thought this through, and if they see a full-blooded troll show up, they'll kill them straight off!"

Jim shifted onto his back, and turned his head to eye the Pooka warily. "Kill?" Obviously, they were all in constant danger of death at the hands of Merlin and his wizard squad, but Jim wasn't about to be, like, courting death.

His mom would kill him, for one.

"Look, we need heavy hitters, now that we - um." Aster slumped down a little.

"Lost Toby," Jim said flatly.

"Yeah. So there was a tribe of trolls that I used to know. Quiet. Shy. But they were smart, and strong. But they're still shy. Um. Sort of. Aggressively so."

"Wait." Jim rolled over to look at Aster properly, a sort of thrill of - he couldn't tell, really. His chest was beating faster, and his stomach was - uneasy. "You aren't talking about the Yeti, are you? Because Nomura said the emissary Gunmar sent to them got sent back in pieces."

"Yeah, but that's because Gunmar doesn't know the, nuance of Yeti culture. You don't go in looking like you want a fight. If you can help it, go in looking like you can't fight. If they feel threatened or challenged, a Yeti'll fuck you up rather than posture. So you see? I can get us in and out alive, and anything more than that's just a bonus!"

And objectively, it was a terrible idea. Jim wasn't so far gone he didn't know that. His mom would object. Neither Toby nor Mordred would have let him go along with it.

But they weren't here to tell him not to. And sure, Jim might die, but he might die pointlessly at the hands of one of Merlin's lackeys, or - a werewolf, apparently. And.

Jim felt something when Aster told him about the mission. Something other than crying. So maybe this was what he was supposed to do.

So he got dressed hurriedly while Aster hopped in anxious circles or whatever downstairs. It didn't take long - a hoodie, jeans, sandals, after some thought (Aster thought it was dangerous, and that meant Jim might have to troll up, which was hard on clothing that wasn't particularly flexible). But Aster was still tapping his foot against the floor when Jim arrived, anxious. He nodded when he saw Jim.

"That's good. That won't get anyone worked up."

Jim wasn't sure how to respond to the declaration he looked harmless enough the Yeti wouldn't see him as a threat. But he did know how to respond when Aster butted his ankle, trying to steer him toward the door.

"Yeah, no. If we're going to be fighting Yeti-"

"We're not fighting them; that's the point."

"If we're in a situation where fighting Yeti might happen, I'm eating breakfast first."

"Whole 'most important meal of the day' deal is just propaganda," Aster muttered as Jim breezed through making eggs benedict (it wasn't that much work, and was probably Aster's favorite; Jim didn't know why he was complaining). But for all that, the Pooka ate. In exchange, Jim made an allowance for Aster's impatience and just left the pans to soak. He could do them when they got back, and if he didn't...well, his mom would have bigger things to worry about.

Jim left a note - 'Gone with Aster, important TH business, be home soon. Love Jim' - but just as they were about to leave, a knock came at the door. Aster darted behind the coat rack, and Jim, rolling his eyes, as if their house wasn't basically a magical fortress, opened the door.

Douxie (Galahad) was on their front step. He was smiling, a little weak, uncertain, face tight. He wasn't certain of his welcome, Jim realized.

"Hey," Jim said. "We're sort of on our way out, so-"

"That's okay. I just wanted to talk to Aster."

"He said 'we'," Aster said from ground level. "And I noticed no one's thought to carry the two-foot-tall Pooka on this long, extended journey." He glanced up at Galahad. "You'll do," he declared.

"What?" But Aster was already clambering up toward Galahad's shoulder, digging into his clothes (and, if the startled yelp was any indication, flesh) for purchase. Once so situated, he pointed in an apparent random direction.

"To Trollmarket!"

"It's the other way, dude," Galahad said.

Jim spent most of the ride to the canals watching Galahad. He didn't look much like Mordred (though they wouldn't - Mordred was Arthur's and Morgana's son, and Galahad Lancelot's and Guenevere's). But it didn't stop Jim from trying to see something in Galahad, a hint of the connection. The closest they had, though, was Galahad's black hair, and Jim could see white-blond roots that showed even that similarity was artificial.

Jim kept trying to work up the courage to talk to Galahad, but he couldn't imagine what he could say. 'Hey, your brother possessed me for a while, and we sort of ended up sharing a mind. Sorry he's dead'? No. 'Your brother wants to know he doesn't blame you for the fall of Camelot - he blames himself'? No. 'Did Mordred ever date'? Definitely not.

So he left it quiet, uncertain how much Galahad knew about Mordred and the Amulet. And it got harder every day imagining talking to him.

It was around eleven when they reached Trollmarket, and therefore the town was mostly sleeping. The Gyre was guarded, though not with anyone Jim recognized. It was a relief, he realized; he wasn't certain what he would have done if Draal were here.

Aster took the lead, apparently knowing wherever the Yeti hung out. And it was only after the Gyre slammed to a stop that Galahad spoke up.

"So...what exactly are we doing?"

"We're asking the Yeti for aid," Aster said.

"That would explain the cold."

And it was cold. Jim was used to Gyres being buried deep enough that the caverns were slightly cool, but this was cold - not quite freezing, but the stones seemed to be, given the patterns of frost across them. There was no guard here, which seemed odd, given Aster's assertion the Yeti would kill anyone who looked like a threat, or a challenge, or just capable of fighting, apparently.

Galahad stepped away from the Gyre, examining the ice covering the walls of the cavern - cramped, just large enough to hold the Gyre and a few passengers disembarking. Aster was still perched on the vehicle, head up, sniffing at the air. So Jim decided to wander toward the exit, get a look around, see if there was a death squad waiting just outside to kill them all.

"Yeah, hold up, Jim," Galahad called.

"What?" Jim turned, finding Galahad tracing his hands just above one of the patterns of ice. He was frowning, brow wrinkled.

"The ice," Galahad explained. "It's - ice doesn't spread this way, naturally. These perfect whorls, spiral patterns - someone made this."

"There's something else weird about this place," Aster said. "Can't put my finger on it-"

"Paw," Jim said, earning a glare from Aster. "So," he said, "are we heading out?"

"Is no need."

Jim whirled, and if he'd still had the Amulet of Daylight, probably would have taken off the head of the person who'd just spoken. He was a bearded man, wide, tall, and almost familiar. He was dressed in a heavy red cloak with fur lining it - smart, Jim decided, if the ice in this cavern was indicative of the rest of the Yetis' home.

The man was smiling, blue eyes bright as he took the sight of them all in. "I see you brought friends, Trollhunter."

"You...know me?"

The man sagged a little, but his smile remained bright. "I see you don't remember. Was possible - you were quite ill when we last met."

Jim thought on that, staring at the man's face. And then he recalled, a similar face hovering over him, before he was dragged home by triumphant, relieved friends.

"The Toymaker?"

"Ha! Nicholas, to my friends."

"...Are we your friends?"

"Oh, certainly. Though unsure how much that will help." Nicholas waved at them to follow as he turned toward the exit, a tunnel shorter than Jim might have expected for a troll settlement. Except - they were isolationists, Aster had said. They probably didn't get much use out of the Gyre. Galahad raised his eyebrows at Jim, probably questioning if they should follow Nicholas. But they were here to find Yeti, which they weren't going to do just standing here.

Aster took a flying leap onto Galahad's head, which seemed to settle the matter, as Galahad trailed after Jim and Nicholas. It didn't get warmer when they left the cave; ice still coated the walls, forming irregular patterns along the stone. But it wasn't colder, at least.

"So, um. What's going on here? Like, are we prisoners, or-"

"Prisoners?" Nicholas asked. "Technically, yes."

"We can just head back to the Gyre," Galahad interjected. "Like, we could be out of here in two minutes."

"You could try, yes," Nicholas agreed. "Wouldn't advise it."

It was at that point that a figure stepped out of a side tunnel. They were - around Jim's height, build concealed by a grey-brown robe, but not much heavier than him, he guessed, by the way they moved, easy, light. A changeling, he guessed, or someone like Jim - part-troll, or merely favoring a less threatening form. Nicholas paused, mid-step (froze), looking sidelong at the figure.

"Ah. Was just explaining-"

"A very simplistic picture of their situation here," the newcomer said in a lilting voice - not one easy to replicate with a trollish throat. "You know the rules. They're free to stay if the Lord of Winter decides they aren't a threat."

"And, um, leaving?" Jim asked, because if he wasn't home when his mom got back, he had an hour, maybe two, before she tracked Jim down and started asking this Lord of Winter very pointed questions.

"Ah. Well, that doesn't happen," the figure replied (Jim was going to settle on them being some sort of advisor or vizier). "I mean, we sent that one guy's head back to his boss, but I don't think that qualifies as 'letting him leave', really."

"That might...be a problem," Jim offered. "I mean, sure, if you want to keep us imprisoned here, obviously, there's not much we can do. But my mom's - well, she worries."

Galahad burst out laughing. Jim turned to scowl at him; Galahad was braced against the wall, heedless of the chill, just laughing.

"What?"

"Worries, he says," Galahad snorted. "If Dr. Lake hears you're being held captive by a bunch of snow trolls, she'll rip this mountain apart."

"Lake?" the vizier demanded. Their voice went a little high, almost - but the mere mention of Jim's mom's name couldn't frighten a troll who'd sent a messenger's head back to Morgana.

But then they stepped up to Jim, proving to be a few inches taller than him, leaning in close enough Jim could feel their breath - cold, almost frigid, but coiling around him gently, leaving trails of frost along his skin. Jim's hand twitched, missing Daylight now more than ever (or Excalibur; it'd be an excellent time for the mythical blade to make a reappearance).

"You're the Trollhunter," the vizier said, voice a little breathier, almost - Jim didn't even know what to read in that emotion.

A moment later they were out of reach, almost crouching (making sure their footing was stable, Jim realized, like they were expecting a fight).

"Yeah, we've gotta let the snowmen see this," the vizier said. "The Lord of Winter fighting the Trollhunter."

'Snowmen' had to be some sort of slur, but that thought had to make way for the fact that the vizier wanted Jim to fight the Lord of Winter - badass leader of the Yeti who was presumably responsible for their aggressive border policy.

"Er." Nicholas clapped a hand on Jim's shoulder and pushed him forward; Jim stumbled before catching himself and moving along with the Toymaker. The vizier was all but skipping ahead of them, leading them along wde, tall passages (all coated with frost; as they continued further, Jim saw the patterns grow more regular, almost deliberate). Aster and Galahad brought up the rear, offering suspiciously few protests to this plan of action.

Jim turned as best he could, being guided (pushed) by an elderly artificer. Aster was whispering something in Galahad's ear, but jerked up when he noticed Jim's attention; from Galahad's quiet grunt, Jim guessed Aster had dug his claws in.

"Are we just going along with this?" Jim demanded.

Aster's ears fell back, bunching himself up into a little ball, eyes wide, and Jim felt a flare of irritation at the Pooka. "Ah. I'm not, um, surprised."

"Not surprised?" Jim hissed. "You planned this!"

"Of course I did!" Aster snapped, voice hoarse from his efforts to stay quiet. "The Yeti aren't going to go along with us without a fight, but we couldn't look like we were looking for one."

"I don't have a sword, or a - anything!"

"Yeah, well." Aster scratched at one ear. "That's a flaw in the plan, admittedly. But I figured if your life's on the line, Excalibur might choose to show its head."

"You're going to get me killed," Jim growled. "And then my mom's gonna kill you."

"You're going to be fine," Aster said.

"You don't know that."

Aster shifted a little in place, still hunched up. "Well, not for certain, no. But I asked the Krubera about it."

"Aaarrrgghh?"

"Yeah. He said you'd be fine."

That triggered a flare of relief, a loosening of the tightness in his chest. Because sure, Jim didn't understand how Aaarrrgghh's vague prophetic powers worked, but he'd never been wrong. Aster, though, still looked like he expected Jim to hit him.

"You don't look happy about it," Jim said.

"Yeah, well." Aster's ears twitched. "He wasn't really optimistic about my chances."

Jim stopped, or tried to; Nicholas urged him on along, giving him a tight smile. "What did he say?"

"Said it was up to me," Aster said, voice tight, "if I live or not."

"Not strictly helpful, no," Jim agreed.

"Oh, hey! Quiet. You're gonna want to see this - everyone always gets really stupid looks on their faces when they first see it; it's great."

Jim rolled his eyes and looked forward as they stepped from the corridor into whatever the central settlement of the Yeti was.

And.

"Holy fuck," Jim whispered. He would have spoken louder, but it felt - sacrilegious, somehow. A massive crystal, over a hundred feet tall and twice as wide, loomed over the massive cavern that housed the town. It cast a clear white light over everything, the spread of buildings, some squat little homes, others sturdy triangular towers, all covered in delicate frost that sparkled like diamonds.

Trolls, ranging from tall, slim creatures to stockier, bulky ones, all covered in thick fur, wandered the streets, the paths built around the Heartstone itself (which supported a dozen or so blocky homes set against its surface). He caught sight of smaller trolls, too, covered in shorter, fuzzier fur, some that would barely come up to his shoulder.

And it was more than that.

It had taken Jim a while to discover that the feeling he had when he was in Heartstone Trollmarket was the Heartstone itself - the slow-beating heart of a healthy trollish community. It was an energizing warmth, and Jim had secretly wondered why trolls didn't bask in the light of it like lizards on warm rocks.

He hadn't felt that sensation since Morgana had shattered the Heartstone to escape her imprisonment.

He'd forgotten how that radiance warmed the body down to the bones, filling him with a comfort he hadn't felt since-

Well, he couldn't say if it'd been since Mordred died, or Toby, but Jim let out a shuddering sigh when he realized he didn't feel empty anymore.

"Well," Aster said quietly, "That'd explain it. Haven't been near a Heartstone in ages."

"Haha, right?" the vizier said, spinning in place. "We've got the best Heartstone in the world here! Now come on - we haven't had a good fight in ages, so we'll do this in the auditorium." They stepped back, and were suddenly gliding on ice that - seemed to appear on the ground just ahead of their feet. Jim followed, slowly, gaze fixed on that icy path, a familiar sense of foreboding rising. He'd sort of assumed the Lord of Winter was going to be some hulking ice-covered troll.

But he'd immediately identified this cloaked person as someone trying to look less threatening than they actually were, and hadn't taken that thought to its logical conclusion.

That the hooded figure was the Lord of Winter themself.

"So how'd you end up in charge of this outfit?" Jim asked.

And the cloaked figure tripped, tumbling forward into a heap of dark cloth. When they stood, their hood had fallen back, revealing a pale face, human (or at least human-shaped), eyes a bright, brilliant blue (almost unnaturally so, like Toby's since he'd embraced his heritage), hair white, and, Jim couldn't help but focusing on this face, deathly pale. They were frowning, though, which might have been a point of concern.

"How'd you figure it out?" The Lord of Winter demanded, crossing their arms with a huff. "I was gonna show you this big dude, make you think you were gonna fight him, and then, BAM, surprise, it was the tiny guy all along!"

Jim shrugged. "I figured if anyone's the Lord of Winter, it's the guy who's ice-skating instead of walking."

The Lord of Winter looked down, where they were at the center of a four-foot wide circle of ice, and snorted. He was grinning when he looked back up at Jim, and shrugged. "Yeah, okay. I totally played myself, there." He clicked his tongue. "I like you, Trollhunter."

"Does that mean we can skip the fight to the death?"

"Ha! No. Come on."

The Lord of Winter continued on, unconcernedly skating along his self-made ice rink, cheerily greeting Yeti by name as they passed through the streets. And Jim watched him, trying to figure him out. He looked something like a teenager, like, college-aged at best, but there were enough stories about him Jim bet the Lord of Winter had been this age for a while, like Galahad. Given the Lord of Winter's attitude, Jim would bet he wasn't an ageless human, though. It was more like a faerie to joke about killing someone in the same breath as claiming to like them.

"So you never answered me," Jim said. "How long have you been running this place?"

The Lord of Winter turned, taking a lazy circle around Jim and Galahad, before continuing on. "Just about two hundred years - maybe a little less. You know us immortals - always losing track of time."

And that was a decidedly human response - acting like he thought an immortal would, reminding people all the time about it. Jim frowned; he felt like understanding this guy would help him in their fight, but the guy was some sort of enigma. Half acting like a fae, half like a human - none like a troll, except for the tendency to murder outsiders, but that was practically human.

But then they arrived at the auditorium, and the time for studying the Lord of Winter was over. The auditorium wasn't a building so much as a sort of amphitheater, a series of benches descending to a flat open space, the Heartstone looming over it, a slice carved out of the bottom to form a natural arc and backdrop.

The Lord of Winter hopped forward; his ice path thickened as it shot forward, forming a ramp he used to slide all the way down to the arena below.

"So I guess we're walking," Jim muttered.

"You're a troll, Jim," Galahad pointed out. "You can still make a fucking entrance."

Which, yeah. Jim looked around at the benches, where Yeti were already gathering, a low rumble of excitement filling the auditorium. Sure, his troll form wasn't impressive in comparison to other trolls, but the whole changeling thing was a threat display itself. Jim crouched, digging for the weird, arcane sense he could use to change his shape.

"Hold on," Aster grunted.

Jim looked up at the top of Galahad's head. Aster was leaning forward, almost far enough to slip off, sniffing at the air.

"Are you smelling some sort of secret weakness or something?"

"He's using the Heartstone for himself," Aster growled, low. "He's not using his own magic. I can smell it practically bleeding."

"For what, two hundred years? Can a Heartstone do that?"

"Used to be I had to check in every hundred years or so, just to keep things running smoothly," Aster said. "A Heartstone this size, or the one that used to be in Arcadia, could last two thousand years or so. But being deliberately drained? Wouldn't last a tenth that long."

"Yeah, we don't have time for that," Jim said. "Got any advice before I go down there?"

"If you can find out how he's accessing the Heartstone's magic and shut it down, that'd be a help," Aster said.

"And if you can figure out how to get your hands on Excalibur again, you could probably win no problem," Galahad added.

"Yeah, I'll get on that." Jim crouched down, dug down, and leapt, forcing his body into his troll form as he did so. With that, he reached the bottom of the auditorium in a few short leaps. The Lord of Winter was smirking when Jim arrived.

"Seems you got a couple of surprises in you, too, Trollhunter."

"Not the Trollhunter anymore," Jim growled. "Isn't any Trollhunter anymore."

"Huh. We are officially out of the loop," the Lord of Winter said. "Well. James. Jim. Jimbo-"

"No."

The Lord of Winter's smirk grew a little, eyes all but sparkling. "Hit a nerve, have I? Well, you don't make the rules here, Jimbo. I do, and if I want to call you Jimbo-"

Jim leapt at the Lord of Winter with a fierce snarl, swiping at him with his claws. The man (faerie?) kicked back, skating along a now-slick floor, laughing. He dodged a few jumps like that, cutting a serpentine path along the ground. "Jeez, fighting like that, I can see why people are more scared of your mother than you."

Jim snarled, making sure of his path, and leapt at the Lord of Winter. When the Lord darted away, Jim, who'd gotten nearly good at judging momentum and velocity, dropped from his deliberately weak jump and redirected, pouncing so he'd intersect the Lord of Winter's new trajectory.

"Fuck!" The Lord of Winter kicked at the ground and took to the air, a frigid blast of air knocking Jim back. When Jim righted himself, the Lord of Winter was hovering over the battlefield, smiling wide, honest. "Not many people force me off the ground, kid, I gotta hand it to you. But that's the last-"

Jim had watched the Lord of Winter for a few moments, enough to see he was shifting constantly, held aloft by the wind, to realize there was a limit to his maneuverability. And whether or not the Lord of Winter liked to trash-talk, this was a battle to the death, not a debate. So Jim leapt at him, going a little high, with a little more power than necessary, hoping the Lord of Winter was distracted enough by his boasting that he wouldn't dodge sideways.

So Jim plowed into the Lord of Winter mid-sentence, claws digging into his arms (which were cold, radiating it, or soaking up Jim's heat, he was never sure how that worked), and sending both of them toward the ground as the wind holding the Lord of Winter up faltered at the extra weight. The Lord of Winter's grin was gone, given way to a focused scowl as he twisted one hand up between them.

But Jim had learned from Draal, from Mr. Strickler, from his mother.

So he snapped his knee up.

"The hell, dude?!" The Lord of Winter flailed out, and the wind pushed with him, forcing Jim back. The Lord of Winter, though, fell to his hands and knees, cursing.

The Lord of Winter had called this a fight to the death, so Jim didn't have the luxury of stopping for breath, or not hitting a guy when he was down. Jim fell on all fours to cross that distance more quickly, raising a claw-

And a hand grabbed onto his ankle, not merely cold, or frigid, but a burning cold Jim felt down to his bone. The Lord of Winter yanked on Jim's leg, sending him sprawling as he tried to process the shock of cold. The Lord of Winter rose, face marked by a new smile, a feral, wild grin, more at home on a trollish berserker's face than a (possibly) human's.

"Fuck, dude, no one tries that!" the Lord of Winter said with a bubbly laugh. "I considered ditching the cup like, ten years ago, but the look on your face, dude! God, totally worth it!" He raised a hand, and between one breath and the next, his fist was coated in ice, three frozen spikes rising from the space between his knuckles. "But game over, man." Letting go of Jim's leg, the Lord of Winter stepped in and punched down at Jim's chest.

Jim punched the arm aside with his opposite hand, grabbed it, ignoring the sharp, searing pain as the Lord of Winter's flesh burned it with cold. He hauled the Lord of Winter in, who kicked down, somersaulting over Jim's prone body in such a way that Jim had a choice between letting go or breaking his own fingers.

So Jim let the Lord of Winter go, jumped up as the Lord of Winter rolled, stood, still grinning like he was going to rip Jim's throat apart while laughing.

Like this was a game.

"Are you having fun?" Jim asked.

"Of course I am. When I first heard about you, I thought, 'there's a good fight'. But the reality, dude!"

"Yeah? You got a name?"

There was a flicker - a stutter in the Lord of Winter's smile. It faded to something less fierce, but Jim could sense the strain there. "You can call me Jack. Since we're having a good time together."

"That your name?" Jim retorted. "Jack? Sounds like you might have made that up. Just for me."

"Don't flatter yourself." The Lord of Winter - Jack - was suddenly next to Jim, fingers ending in icy claws. He slashed across Jim's chest, leaving four lines of cold heat that didn't bleed, but numbed almost immediately.

He wondered how many of Jack's opponents had frozen to death.

Jim knocked aside the follow-up swipe and slammed his skull into Jack's; with stone skin and trollish bones, Jim barely felt it, while Jack stumbled back, looking dazed. Not trusting Jack's apparent handicap, Jim stepped in close enough to kick at the man's leg. The blow connected, and Jack fell, twisting, just about catching himself to end half-crouched just out of Jim's reach. He was breathing hard, smile no longer fierce, but still pleased.

"Fuck, dude, heard you took out Fenrir, but didn't expect you to be so-"

He rolled, took to the air as Jim tried to hit him with an overhead swing with both fists. Jack laughed again. "So brutal!" Jack concluded as the wind held him up, out of reach, high enough it'd be difficult for Jim to jump without Jack having the time to dodge. Jack, though, rolled a hand, ice coalescing into a slim dagger in his grasp. He smirked, tilted his head, and threw the dagger at Jim. Jim ducked to the side, knowing, even as he did so, that it couldn't be that straight-forward. And indeed, there were something like another half-dozen daggers in the air, two of them shattering against his skin before another sank into his thigh.

Ugh, fuck, his mom was going to be pissed.

Jim stumbled, tumbled, landing flat on his back, until he felt the touch of Jack's cold breeze and rolled, pushed himself up just in time to dive to the side to avoid a sweep from something like a scythe with a long haft. Jack was laughing nonstop, now, officially putting this in the three creepiest fights Jim had been in (Evil Troll Jim topped the list, naturally, and until recently, he would have considered the fight against Sloane a close second).

Distantly, Jim could hear the Yeti in the audience cheering Jack on, except for a few lone voices wishing Jim luck. He spared a glance toward the stands, catching sight of a trio of trolls, two larger ones and a third that wouldn't come up to Jim's waist even if they were standing.

A whelp.

...without living within the light of a Heartstone, without feeling its warmth, a troll may not have progeny.

Every Heartstone in the world was dying.

…

Every one except the Yetis'.

Something slammed into Jim, knocking him to his back. Above him, Jack was wearing heavy armor made of ice, one arm bolstered and pressed firmly against Jim's neck; the chill of it was sharp only for a moment before Jim could feel his skin begin to numb. The Lord of Winter shook his head.

"It's been a good fight, Jim, but it was always going to end this way. I'll try to make it quick."

"Don't I get some last words?" Jim croaked.

Jack stared for a moment, smile fading. Like he was really considering if letting Jim talk would be a mistake (if it were Eli, obviously it'd be a bad idea, and Jack would know). But Jim thought he got Jack, a little. He needed for this to be a show, and part of this was following certain conventions.

"Alright," Jack said, lifting his arm only slightly. "But no funny business."

Jim took a deep breath. "He's got the Light of Creation!"

Jim heard a pained yelp from Galahad, shouts from the spectators, and Jack glanced up, away from Jim.

Jim shoved Jack off of him; his opponent went easily, and a moment later, Jim understood why.

A creature like a humanoid rabbit the size of a troll (well, a smallish one. Jim, for instance) was there, between Jack and Jim, covered in grey-blue fur, clawed hands (paws?) slashing at Jack.

When that frozen moment ended, Jack was floating twenty feet away, the front of his robe in tatters, revealing a loose blue hoodie beneath. And something was dangling from Aster's (because who else would it be?) hand. A silvery egg twisted at the end of a leather or some other cord, shedding pure white light across everything within a few feet of it. This close, Jim felt…

Not at peace. Jack was still trying to kill him, and Merlin was on that list somewhere. But Jim felt-

Well, warm, for one, which was a change.

"All this time," Aster breathed, staring at the dangling egg, "and it's been with the trolls the whole time."

"Give it back," Jack growled.

"What?" Aster sneered, "You found it lying about somewhere and decided it's yours?"

A howling wind tore through the arena as Jack screamed along with it, "Give it back!" The wind seared across the floor, hurling tiny shards of ice as Jim and Aster with enough strength they cut through Jim's skin, leaving dozens of freezing cuts. Diamond dust or snow began falling, swirling around them all, and the temperature plunged.

"Hm. An impressive show," Aster said mildly. "You said you'd had it, what, two hundred years?"

"It was given to me over three hundred years ago, so I'll give you one more chance to return it."

"I've got a better idea," Aster replied. He tossed the egg toward Jim; Jim fumbled, grabbing it out of the air as delicately as he could manage. "We set the Light to the side and try to kill each other like God intended - you with your magic snow bullshit and me with whatever I brought in with me?"

Jack took a deep breath, and the winds eased, tightened around him, and he drifted slowly to the ground. His gaze flicked to Jim before he smirked, shrugging.

"Sure. What the-"

"The world turns and the seasons change. As spring awakens, allow winter to slumber."

The words were - strange. Jim was certain they weren't a language he recognized, but he understood what Aster was saying.

Or maybe just understood what he meant.

Jack was silent, still; Jim braced himself for the Lord of Winter's counterattack.

But then Jack fell to his knees, and, slowly, slumped forward onto the ground. It took a moment, and the slow shift of the man's chest, for Jim to realize Jack was asleep.

"So," Aster asked, taking a slow turn in place, "Anyone else want a go at me?"

The answer was no - the Lord of Flowers had clearly won this fight.

Two Yeti hesitantly approached, and when Aster made no move to stop them, carted Jack off. Another dozen or so edged closer - possibly some sort of guard, although they seemed uncertain how to deal with Aster, who was technically a prisoner until their boss said otherwise, but also clearly not someone they wanted to mess with. After about ten minutes, Jim remembered he should take a look at his wounds, remembering the frozen sting and subsequent worry about frostbite.

He couldn't find any sign of his wounds - not even a scar remained.

Aster chuckled. "Just noticed, did you?"

"What?" Jim asked. "No one ever said you could do this with Shadow Magic."

"Well," Aster said, "it's not really healing. Just sort of - accelerating what you'd do in your own time. Once you put it down, you're going to be starving." They were quiet a moment. "Good job, figuring that out," Aster added. "I knew something was off about this place. Using that much magic all the time? He was trying to burn it off, keep this place from lighting up like a beacon."

"Because I'm trying to keep it hidden, Cottontail." Jack, flanked by Nicholas and a wide Yeti with brown fur and a long, pale mustache, ambled down the steps of the amphitheater. He looked...worn, which made sense; Aster'd just said using the Light to heal could drain you. Other uses might do the same.

"Cottontail? I'm-"

"A Pooka, I know," Jack drawled. "Lord of Flowers, apparently. A big deal among trolls. Til you disappeared, leaving the Light of Creation bouncing around unaccounted for."

"Disapp - I wasn't taking a vacation, Frostbite!" Aster snapped. "I got ambushed and nearly killed; it's all I could do to keep the Light out of their hands!"

"Hm. Yeah. I - get that." Jack looked around before dropping onto one of the benches on the lowest level. His shoulders slumped a little, and when he looked back up at them, he was smiling, but it was wry. Faint. His eyes were still bright. "I think we might have gotten off on the wrong foot - er, paw. I'm Jack Frost."

Jim couldn't help the snort, but he did feel ashamed when Jack shot him a fierce glare. "Sorry. I just-"

"No big deal. It's descriptive, you've got to admit."

"E. Aster Bunnymund."

Jack snorted. "And you were making fun of me?" he demanded of Jim.

"Shut up, or I'll kick your ass again," Aster snapped.

"Don't remember you laying a hand on me, bunny."

"Hey!" They both looked, startled, at Jim, at his shout. "How about we save this for later while we figure out whether I still have to beat Jack to death in order to get home to make dinner."

There was something in Jack's expression, the slightest shift of that cocky attitude, that gave Jim an idea. Probably dumb, but they'd crossed dumb straight into foolhardy two hours ago.

"Look, how about we - and your bodyguards or whatever - adjourn to my house? Talk it out over…roast?"

"Well, sure, if you can't do anything better," Jack said airily, and Jim grit his teeth. He'd been planning to make nice, but if Jack was going to challenge him…

"Nah, just need to grab a few things from the store."

Two hours later, Jim set down a tray of beef Wellington on their dining room table and sat down across from Jack, grinning as wide as he could. He watched as Jack cautiously cut into the pastry, revealing the perfectly-cooked beef, and took a bite.

"So?"

"I'm confused," Jack said. "I expected some kind of epic take-down here. Bleach, dog food-"

The Yeti muttered something, which Jack ignored.

"But instead you serve me something - I don't even know what half of this is, except that it's delicious."

"I haven't been training my whole life to fight trolls and evil wizards," Jim retorted.

"No, you've been trying to get into the Cordon Bleu or something. Okay. You have duly impressed me with your combat and culinary prowess."

"Good. Now, let's talk about the Light of Creation," Aster said, dropping his elbows onto the table, leaning in toward Jack. "Who gave it to you?"

"The Angel of Death," Jack said casually, tugging over the roasted brussels sprouts.

"I'm sorry?" Aster asked.

"I nearly died, drowned, and when I came to, I had this, so I figured Death gave it to me," Jack responded around a mouthful of vegetables.

"Excuse me?" Aster repeated.

"I'd think you could hear me fine, Cottontail-"

"If this is a comment about my ears, I will fight you outside right now!"

"Guys!" Jim shouted. "Can we chill a minute?" They both settled back against their seats, each scowling, a little mutinous, and Jim felt a moment of disbelief that he was counseling two creatures, each centuries older than him, to behave themselves in company.

And then the doorbell rang.

"Can I trust you two not to kill each other for two minutes?"

Galahad snorted. "Not what I'd worry about them doing."

"Not helping," Jim snapped, before storming to the front door, yanking it open-

Dictatious Galadrigal was standing on Jim's front porch, umbrella in hand to shade himself from the fading afternoon sun. A crow was perched on his shoulder, a creature Jim was certain was Raum, Morgana's familiar.

"James!" Dictatious said, mouth pulling into a wide smile. "Can I come in?"

Jim ended up shoving Dictatious in the basement while he called an emergency meeting. Jim didn't explain the reason, because it wouldn't help anyone for Blinky to arrive mad.

Unfortunately, with not telling anyone, he forgot the other notable thing that had happened that day, which meant everything got derailed while Jack Frost explained how he'd awoken, saved from near-drowning with only the haunting words of the Angel of Death in his mind, and the Light of Creation in his hands.

He was halfway through describing his fight with Jim when the basement door opened.

"Okay, I am almost certain this is some sort of 'hazing' - oh, hello, Blinkous."

"Traitor!" Blinky howled, launching himself over the back of the couch as if he weren't the least dangerous person in the room.

Dictatious flinched back, door slamming closed as he hit it. "Wait wait! I'm on your side here!"

Draal dropped his hand on Blinky's head, holding him in place even as he flailed toward Dictiatious.

"That's what you claimed last time. If you think for one moment we're going to be fooled again-"

"Obviously you're skeptical; you're not stupid," Dictatious said, pulling himself up to his full height. "But I think my explanation will quite reassure you. First, Merlin threatens the future of all creatures - troll and human alike. Second, I hardly intended the extermination of anybody - as far as I knew, all Morgana wanted was revenge against Merlin. And third - well, I brought a token of good faith. A demonstration that I want to help you."

"Yes? And what's that?"

Dictatious looked away from his brother, gaze resting briefly on Jim. He smirked. "I know how to return the dead to life."

Chapter Text

Clyde was, as he often was ever since he'd beat a hasty retreat from Arcadia (his right hand was almost back to normal, but until then, his grail, his second replacement in the past year, was in a locket hidden beneath his shirt), at lunch with Secretary Jackson (of Defense) and assorted military bigwigs he'd never bothered learning the names of.

They were mostly interchangeable, and indistinguishable from dozens of colleagues and superiors he'd had over the years - tall (mostly) white men who'd once had impeccable physiques now gone soft out of practice.

"Has there been any progress tracking down Kubritz?" Jackson demanded.

Clyde shrugged. "Not directly, but. Well. You remember how she hit Langley, before we wiped her clearance?"

"I tore Lansing a new one over that; we might not have scrubbed her clearance, but we sent a memo."

"Well, we think one of the specimens - the humanoid one - was helping her out with some sort of alien technology, so it might not strictly be Director Lansing's fault." Jackson snorted, but didn't comment. "Anyway, she deleted most of the data on extraterrestrials we had on our servers, but that doesn't mean she got everything we have. The local networks in our field offices are kept disconnected except during uploads or direct requests, so we figure she's heading out to get those."

"Damn, son!" Jackson burst out. He grinned at the remaining officers. "You see? I told you the kid was smart. Got good initiative, too!"

Clyde grinned back. "Well, I try."

"No, seriously. I've got a meeting with Walters, later, and he's been needling me about this shit. Got it in his head that since this is what the nerds call a 'first contact' situation, he's got some sort of say on how we run this." Jackson took a swig at his scotch before gesturing at Clyde with his glass. "You've worked with his people before, right? The Lyons Group ran some of those 'watchdog' missions on peacekeeping forces."

"Well, it's not like I met him personally until recently," Clyde said, shrugging.

"Yeah, but you've talked to his people; you've got to have some idea how to talk to him."

Clyde had, in fact, talked to Walters' people. "Get to the point - Walters hates people wasting his time. And pay attention; he tends to jump around a lot, and doesn't like answering questions."

"How the hell did he get through confirmation hearings like that?"

"I didn't say he wouldn't answer questions," Clyde retorted. Although from what he'd heard, Walters had spent a lot of time answering questions in such a way no one could figure out what his answer had been. "But if you want him to like you, don't ask more than are necessary."

"Hmph," Jackson grunted, and Clyde could see the irritation in his stance, the wondering why he had to kiss up to Walters when they were both Cabinet members. "Well. We're done here." Jackson pushed up from the table and waved at his subordinates, and they all moved to the door.

Until Clyde stopped, staring out at the sidewalk, which was empty except for a single black bird perched on a parking meter.

Jackson looked back at him, brow furrowed. "What's up, Palchuk?"

Clyde took a step forward, narrowing his eyes and tugging at his grail to cast out his senses without any word or gesture to betray his spellcasting. The crow seemed ordinary, but Raum was a thief and assassin, and with that came the ability to avoid notice.

"What, you worried about a bird? Better not be scared of them, Palchuk. You get whole murders around here, just screaming like it's the end of the world."

Jackson slapped Clyde's back and pushed him out of the restaurant. The crow took to the air with furious flapping wings and a defiant croak. Nothing attacked Clyde, allowing him to return to his hotel unmolested.

But it cast a pall over an otherwise productive day, a reminder that this secrecy and backhanded dealing was in place for a reason, how Merlin's success might be assured, but that of his servants was not.

---

Kilgharrah was currently in the form of an owl, in which he had once masqueraded as a helpful familiar named Archimedes. It itched - feathers were an infuriating thing to have to wear, and the sensation hadn't improved over the centuries. He'd suggested a fox, but Merlin had been adamant that foxes were seen as too untrustworthy to project the air of wisdom and majesty that Merlin's habringer should embody.

He was also in London.

He hated London. It was filthy, smelled of rot and untapped bloodshed, and they had no respect for owls.

But familiars went where their master commanded; it was the way things worked. Because Merlin wanted answers, and those answers were in London, so was Kilgharrah.

He was perched in a tree just outside the Bodleian Library, looking inconspicuous. He sighed every so often, because every library since Alexandria had been sort of a let-down. But he wasn't here to check out books; he was here to meet someone.

Kilgharrah had been waiting for hours, because this person was a nerd, and he was strongly considering just shedding this stupid feathered form, burning the building to the ground, and picking his target out from among the fleeing crowd.

It's how he would have done things before he'd shackled himself to Myrddin Wyllt for the power to manifest in this world.

But compromises were a necessary part of life, so he was waiting for his target to emerge before accosting her.

And there! At last, a red-haired figure was walking away from the entrance to the library. Kilgharrah took to the air, soaring after her on silent wings. His target moved slowly through the streets of London, apparently unconcerned with potential threats to her safety.

He followed her for five minutes before she stepped into a narrow alley and Kilgharrah swooped down after her.

Lashes of blinding light snared Kilgharrah's wings, suspending him between the walls. His target, a tall woman, grey-eyed and red-haired, stood at the far end of the alley, one hand out, half-clenched as if she were holding Kilgharrah in place with her own hand.

Not exactly a master of Shadow Magic, Kilgharrah thought smugly - not that it would matter. He flexed his wings and the bands snapped and dissipated into the night. He alit on a trash can and hooted at her dismissively.

"I'm going to be charitable and conclude you don't know who you're dealing with, because otherwise what you did was really stupid. Optimistic, sure, but still dumb."

The woman didn't shift, her gaze focused on Kilgharrah, impassive. "Then enlighten me."

Kilgharrah puffed himself up, twisting his beak into a grin. "I am Kilgharrah, familiar to Myrddin Wyllt, and not someone to be trifled with."

"Kilgharrah. That's a draconic name. Are you any owl at all, or is this a disguise?"

Oh god. She was a nerd. Kilgharrah waved his wing at her to cut her off. "Hey. Look. You answer some questions of mine, I'll answer some of yours, huh?"

The woman's stance eased, but she shifted a step back. Her expression tightened; she knew well enough to be wary.

"What kind of questions?"

"Well, I first have to confirm you are Katherine. Secretary or assistant or whatever to Ombric. The Undying," he added, so there wouldn't be confusion.

"And if I am?"

"Then I need to know about Nimue."

Katherine shrugged. "If the Arthurian romances are right, your boss is a lot more familiar with her than I am."

"Don't be cute," Kilgharrah snapped. "Yeah, they were, I don't know, intimate, but then she ghosted him and I've been spending over a thousand years trying to figure out what happened. She isn't dead, is she?"

Katherine took a deep breath, began tapping at her chin. "That's an interesting question."

"Is it one you know the answer to?"

Katherine shrugged. "You see, I'm not sure I should answer that question. Because I've got a theory. You want to hear it?" Kilgharrah glowered at her, which she seemed to take as permission to continue. "You see, we both know Merlin and Nimue were, you know. So I'm wondering - Merlin's a smart guy. You're sleeping with a chick and she disappears, you wonder if she had a kid. And if you're a megalomaniacal wizard who knows his classical mythology, it niggles at the back of your mind. A kid out there, with demonic blood who might exist outside of your control, that's the sort of thing that ends reigns of terror."

"No such child would pose any threat to Merlin!"

"Maybe. Maybe not. But he asked you to find out, didn't he? Ask me if she lives. If she had a child. If the child lives. And you asked me because you wouldn't dare corner Ombric - you don't know what tricks he's got up his sleeve."

"Oh." Kilgharrah stretched his head out, and kept stretching. "That's not the reason why. We figured if you weren't cooperative, we could kill you. Still have a spare. And Ombric would know we're serious." His bulk reached the limits of the alleyway and Kilgharrah pushed, stone and wood shattering, splintering, as his tail whipped out behind him, smashing a parked car aside.

Katherine snorted. "You're going to get yourself noticed like that, Kilgharrah."

"Oh, don't you know?" Kilgharrah asked. "We're done hiding. We're taking what's ours."

And he took a breath, drawing on the grail that beat in place of his heart, so it could speak the words to the universe in Kilgharrah's place, and spat out a wave of dragonflame.

---

People were dying here.

People were dying in a lot of places, but the earthquake that had swept through three days ago, and the subsequent tsunami, had accelerated the process somewhat here.

Rowan hadn't been responsible for the earthquake. He didn't think any of them were responsible, but when Merlin had caught wind of it, he'd called it a happy accident and sent Rowan to supervise.

People were dying here.

The tsunami accelerated the process, but so too did Rowan, who was sabotaging relief efforts in small, subtle ways. Blood flowed more easily, tools developed small flaws, infection flourished.

People were dying here.

People were dying in a lot of places, but Merlin ensured they were in much larger numbers, where they did.

Rowan was certain it wasn't about powering a grail, anymore. They knew the math behind Blood Magic, and could estimate the power Merlin had gathered over the millions of years he'd been alive. They knew Merlin's works, and how much power those took from him.

Some people equated Blood Magic to wealth - once you'd gathered enough power, it grew almost by itself. It wasn't an accurate analogy, but for Merlin, it was correct in one regard - his power was so great, and the means by which he gathered more so abundant, that there was little he could do that would appreciably reduce it.

It would not be inaccurate to say Merlin had the power of a god, but there were more important things than power. Not many, though, and having the power of a god made achieving such things easier.

There was a rune between Rowan's shoulderblades that let them walk unseen - even those looking for them would find their eyes sliding away from the Pooka. Merlin could do such things with a thought.

They - Rowan, not Merlin - were using this power to pass through this camp unnoticed, aiming for the command center, where a neat, slim human (or, rather, a creature in human shape) worked on the paperwork generated by an international relief organization serving a disaster-struck area. Rowan nudged the door shut behind them before returning to normal visibility. The...person started, before easing.

"Oh! It's just you."

"Just me," Rowan replied, flat.

The human flushed. "No! Not that I didn't mean - I only worried-"

"I don't really care," Rowan retorted. "What are you reporting?"

"It's a nightmare out there," the human replied. "We lost over a dozen people today alone."

"I know," Rowan snapped. "That's the point."

"You - I mean, that's what I'm reporting. I can't very well tell the United Nations I'm in league with a Blood Mage sacrificing people to advance some nefarious plan."

Rowan shrugged. Their past efforts had demonstrated it didn't make much difference if the people on a world were aware of Myrddin Wyllt's efforts to conquer them, but Merlin had commanded them to remain 'below the radar' on Earth, so.

Here they were.

"So," the human said, breaking off as they glanced at Rowan. They rolled their eyes.

"What?"

"It's been a while," the human-shaped creature said, shifting in their seat. Their face was strained; it was mid-day, and if their disguise failed now, it could be a death sentence. "And you - Merlin said-"

"Yes, of course." The creature held out a bracelet that was unremarkable to any but those who could see the slow pulse of a grail. Rowan held the bracelet in their hands and made a show of adding more power to it.

The creature - the changeling - sighed as he put the bracelet back on, the tension in his form easing at the comfort that his human shape was safe, his again, until such time as he felt the anxious strain in his human form, and sought out Rowan to recharge the magic so he could keep on taking human form, despite the fact his familiar had escaped the Darklands. Providing the changelings the power to do this had won Merlin the service of many changelings desperate for the protection of their human forms, enough that Russia now lay firmly under his command.

And it was Rowan's job to maintain this masquerade, that none of them ever discovered Merlin's deception.

And they ironically had Morgana to thank for it. She'd made the changelings believe their ability to take another form was from a mystical bond between them and their familiar - a point of weakness she could leverage to control them - instead of where it really came from: the rune painted on their hearts with Polymorph blood. The familiar, bound to them by another rune, painted on flesh, rather than within it, was an anchor, a crutch, to give them a form to believe to be theirs; the families of their familiar a template for what they should look like as they grew.

Because a creature had a natural affinity for their own form - transformative magic tended to revert, after a time. And Morgana, using a combination of shapeshifter blood and centuries of lore and psychological conditioning, had convinced her changeling spies they had two natural forms.

The trolls' natural magic did the rest.

It had taken Rowan only a moment to figure out the trick, once they'd learned about changelings, and to suggest this plan to Merlin.

Merlin had been impressed, but that was a double-edged sword.

Because it was now Rowan's responsibility to ensure the changelings never discovered this deception, never realized that the forms they'd taken for decades, centuries, were theirs by right of practice and identity, not Merlin's largesse.

---

The Moon King was aware there were times he had been of a different mind. He had been the scion of a Constellation, and, briefly, believed himself to be a kindly grandfather.

But these incarnations of the Moon King were born when he was cursed with sight, had been forced to look upon the world through eyes of flesh as corrupt as the world around them.

But looking at the world through eyes of spirit, the Moon King could see the truth. Earth festered, corruption pooling wherever humans gathered. He had known the Golden Age, when all thinking beings walked in the Light; in comparison, the darkness of Earth was unbearable.

The first Tsar Lunar had seen potential in the world of the distant past, and helped usher in the Golden Age.

The Moon King saw how far the world had fallen, and so worked to herald the Age of Blood.

At the request of the Sage of Blood, the Moon King had pulled at the minds of the moon-touched, tugging them on silver strings to rampage where the Sage wished to see signs carved into the world with blood.

At the suggestion of the Stained Man (a Pooka, the last of their kind), the Moon King had pulled at the seas, casting great storms at humanity, to drown them and shed more blood for the sake of the Sage.

At the behest of the Murderer, the Moon King watched the Earth to see the movements of the Sage of Blood's enemies.

The Mourning Witch had exhorted the Moon King to rebuild his fortress on the Moon. And so he had.

The Fallen Hero had reminded the Moon King to guard his blade, the Sword Unbreakable, from those who might use it to do the Sage of Blood harm. And he had.

The False Alchemist had demanded the Moon King watch for signs of those who wielded the Light. And so he had.

And he was certain there were no such people on Earth. Because it should be easy to see the Light in a world bathed in shadow and stained with blood.

The Moon King was blind, and so could see the world clearly.

---

Claire wondered some days if she had ignored some advice from her mother, some piece of wisdom that would have kept her from ending up here, working for a wizard who wanted to (probably) destroy the world.

It had probably all started going wrong when Jim Lake Jr. went back on his word and left Claire to cross the Shadow Realm alone to rescue her brother from the Darklands. She could have used a sword on her side when she faced Fenrir. She certainly could have used help facing Gunmar, because if she hadn't been alone, she might have been able to kill him without drowning in the power of the Shadowstaff.

And if she hadn't done that…

She wouldn't have fought Morgana for possession of her soul, and killed her. Wouldn't have taken up the mantle of her crusade against Merlin (who'd taken Morgana's hand, turned her own son Mordred against her as the first Trollhunter).

Wouldn't have discovered what he could do if he got his hands on the powers he sought.

With enough power, he could kill the universe, and then leave it behind to find new worlds he could kill for the sake of his dreams of omnipotence.

…

Claire suspected her mother would have suggested she ask for help, but a childhood hearing how Claire could do anything she put her mind to…

Sort of backfired.

So she'd beat him to it.

Killed the universe to get to him.

Admittedly that was not her best decision.

Maybe she'd killed everyone she knew, doomed her home universe to an inevitable decline (faster than expected, unless it turned out magic could reverse entropy), but at least 'everyone she knew' included Merlin.

But it turned out that Merlin was the same no matter what the universe. This one at least was a little scared of Claire, which meant he preferred to give her commands and leave her to her own devices, unlike, say, Clyde, whose disastrous attempt to kill Toby Domzalski had prompted Merlin kept on a short leash.

She was pretty sure this Merlin wasn't planning to consume all life in this universe and move onto the next.

But until she knew for sure, until she knew if it would be necessary to scour all life from this universe to keep Merlin contained, Claire had to keep her head down. Do what it took to stay in his inner circle, close enough to keep an eye on him.

Whatever it took.

---

Scowling, Fin reached up to adjust the Glamour Mask. In all her years, she'd never stooped to wearing such a thing; it made her feel like a common changeling, needing to wear another's skin even to walk under the moon.

But alchemy was the work of sacrifice, and so sometimes...you made a sacrifice (Merlin had sometimes opined there was a way to ensure others made the sacrifice for you, but there were limits even to what the Philosopher's Stone could do).

So Fin was shrouded in the form of a human woman, accompanied by a dozen children of the night, who looked quite like humans, in the right light. The Moon King had no subtlety, sending his wolves rampaging across Eastern Europe. The children of the night, who feasted on blood, knew how to conceal their machinations. Did they rule a nation, as did the changeling put in place by the wolves' slaughter? No. But they were powerful in their own way.

For instance, one of them was a gendarme, and so they walked with the borrowed authority of the police. Two were soldiers, which might come in handy.

They paused at the ground floor of a small apartment, a modest place that showed no hint of what was inside. Fin waved at the children of the night; the soldiers and police took the lead, the rest trailing behind Fin. They moved quickly; Fin knew they were close to something she had sought for close to a century.

Their quarry was on the third floor, where they found an unassuming door. Fin nodded to the gendarme, who rapped at the door.

"Miss Franklin?"

"Who is it?" The voice that responded didn't sound like that of a woman; it was smooth, cultured, and, Fin was certain, male.

"The police, Miss Franklin."

"Oh, dear." There was a quiet sound, like cloth against cloth. "Can you perhaps tell me what this is about? I have rights, you know."

Fin glanced toward the gendarme (Calhoun, she believed). He gave a helpless shrug, having apparently never given much attention to the rights of those whose lives he stole.

"Is Miss Franklin there?" Fin asked. "If she doesn't, we have no business here."

"Well, that is an interesting question. Where could one say Miss Franklin to be? And for that matter, where are any of us?" There was another sound, a metal clink or shifting, and Fin felt a shocked moment of realization.

"He's stalling!" she snapped. "Force your way in."

"April, never mind your old bones! We've got to get out of here!"

There was a muffled clank, and then a shuddering, grinding noise, and an explosion. Calhoun and the others slammed through the door a moment later, but what they found was a hole in the exterior wall, something moving away very quickly through the air, and most of the apartment in flames.

"Ma'am?" Calhoun asked. "Should we-"

"Forget it," she growled. She'd been in a place like this a dozen or more times in the past century, and she knew what they would find. The apartment would be filled with burned paper, cracked lab equipment, tantalizing hints at what April Franklin had been working on in her spare time.

But not enough to piece together even a fragment of what she had been studying.

Fin had stared at scraps of paper for months, feeling like she stood at the edge of understanding, but it always slipped through her fingers.

It was infuriating; Fin had spent centuries pretending at being the world's sole alchemist, when she was just a clever charlatan. She used the Philosopher's Stone to transmute base matter, sacrificing life for power.

It was this scrap of a girl, not much older than a century, if that, who had discovered true alchemy. Who could transmute base metals to gold.

Who could create the elixir of immortality. Not the cut-rate immortality any Blood Mage with a modicum of talent and the proper will could manage, but true immortality.

...One of the few things that yet escaped Merlin's grasp.

---

r/Paranormal * Posted by u/wirtzdonnit 7 days ago

I've Been Having Weird Dreams - And All My Friends Are, Too

Advice

I haven't ever posted on this subreddit, but the last few months have left me adrift, absent any guidance from my usual sources, so here I am, on bended knee, seeking your advice.

My dreams these past few months have been strange, twisted things, full of blood and pain. Like - every atrocity in human history set against the backdrop of some surrealist drama. And the longer I watch, the more clear it becomes it is not merely a play, but some macabre puppet show. I can see the strings, and the hands whose motions make the string dance.

The Sleeping God.

The name echoes through my dreams, and other, equally ominous names. The Nightmare King. The Bloody Alchemist.

But I am used to strange dreams drifting across my memory. I wouldn't trouble you all for the sake of my insomnia.

Except-

My friends are having the same dreams. Not the same ones, obviously - but the names are familiar to them, the imagery of a bloody king. And it's - so weird. Because I could swear I'd never heard of the Sleeping God, but I keep seeing posts, and memes, like people have known about him for years.

What's going on here?

anonymousangelfish 2 points * 7 days ago
Oh, our dreams just be like that sometimes.

dean_worch 3 points * 7 days ago
Don't be shitty, angel. To answer your question, wirtz, I'm like ninety percent sure this is just one of those pop-up memes. Like someone on tumblr made a shitty video edit and now everyone's talking about the Sleeping God. I wouldn't worry about it.

anonymousangelfish 2 points * 7 days ago
You say that, but I've been doing some sleuthing. I've been everywhere - Know Your Meme, Twitter, Tumblr, Imgur, Furaffinity (and that was not a walk in the park). I can't find the precipitating post - the first mention of the Sleeping God, or Nightmare King, or whoever.

dean_worch 3 points * 6 days ago
Oh wow, angel's doing sleuthing. Look, just because the idea came from a private discord channel or whatever doesn't mean the Sleeping God's poisoning our dreams or whatever (also what did you see on Furaffinity? Inquiring minds want to know).

yin-lotus67 0 points * 6 days ago
Keep on-topic for wirtz.

anonymousangelfish 2 points * 6 days ago
Any theories, lotus?

+ Comment removed by moderator 6 days ago

dean_worch 3 points * 6 days ago
Looks like the Sleeping God got lotus

yin-lotus67 0 points * 6 days ago
I'm OK. Just mod issues - you know how it is.

pitcherblack -1 points * 6 days ago
Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn

dean_worch 3 points * 6 days ago
Can someone ban this guy?

anonymousangelfish 2 points * 5 days ago
I don't know. That's almost on-topic. 'That which is not dead can eternal lie' and all. I meant to say earlier that I started doing some digging in folklore and mythology about sleeping gods. It's a common theme among some kings, heroes, etc. The Egyptians believed you could 'wake up' from death if they properly prepared the body.

yin-lotus67 0 points * 5 days ago
When the stars are right?

dean_worch 3 points * 5 days ago
We're not taking cues from HP L*vecr*ft - dude named his cat N*****-Man, and his whole body of work was an allegorical expression of his intense racism.

pitcherblack -1 points * 5 days ago
His racism aside, it is not impossible Mr. Lovecraft became aware of a fundamental truth of the universe that upset him. The themes of sleeping gods and kings throughout human history are themes for a reason, and could very well reference something that has otherwise been well concealed.

wirtzdonnit 0 points * 5 days ago
Are you suggesting the Sleeping God refers to an actual god or spirit influencing our dreams?

+ Comment removed by moderator 5 days ago

yin-lotus67 0 points * 5 days ago
DAMN IT

dean_worch 3 points * 5 days ago
Hey, FBI agent watching this thread, any thoughts, or do you just want to keep censoring lotus?

wirtzdonnit 0 points * 5 days ago
Is posting on here going to get me on some government watchlist?

anonymousangelfish 2 points * 4 days ago
Nah. Lotus just has bad luck with the mods. They've got wild conspiracy theories about some Los Angeles suburb.

yin-lotus67 0 points * 4 days ago
IT'S NOT A CONSPIRACY THEORY. I HAVE PICTURES. NEWSPAPER ARTICLES. THERE IS A MONSTER RUNNING FOR CITY COUNCIL.

wirtzdonnit 0 points * 4 days ago
Does that have anything to do with the Sleeping God?

anonymousangelfish 2 points * 4 days ago
Lotus is only half crazy. But probably not.

dean_worch 3 points * 4 days ago
This might be memers just memeing, but there are, like, themes in all this fanart (?!? Also fuck I should not have checked out Furaffinity). No tentacles, though.

pitcherblack -1 points * 4 days ago
Mr. Lovecraft was trying to convey the true magnitude of his horror to his audience. He could hardly do so by describing an indescribably evil Welshman.

anonymousangelfish 2 points * 3 days ago
...What do you mean, Welshman?

anonymousangelfish 2 points * 3 days ago
Okay, that's just stupid.

yin-lotus67 0 points * 3 days ago
SHARE

anonymousangelfish 2 points * 3 days ago
Well, I already mentioned sleeping kings - King Arthur's one of the names that comes up a lot. But if we're talking 'Welsh', we've got Myrddin Wyllt. Merlin. In at least one story, the sorceress Nimue put him to sleep.

dean_worch 3 points * 3 days ago
I am not letting this discussion seriously address whether Merlin == Cthulhu. This is a serious subreddit about serious discussions about real-world paranormal events.

wirtzdonnit 0 points * 3 days ago
Can everyone at least confirm they've been having weird dreams about the Sleeping God?

dean_worch 3 points * 2 days ago
Well, yeah

anonymousangelfish 2 points * 2 days ago
Natch

yin-lotus67 0 points * 2 days ago
Now that you've put that idea in my head, the 'Merlin' thing makes a lot of sense. I didn't grow up reading about King Arthur, but in my dreams, it's like - there's knights and wizards shit. Plus there's - well, stuff that keeps getting my posts deleted.

dean_worch 3 points * 2 days ago
Ah, yes. 4rc4d14 04k5

anonymousangelfish 2 points * 2 days ago
Was anyone just violently projected back into 2012 by that gratuitous typing quirk?

dean_worch 3 points * 2 days ago
Fuck you that's 733t

wirtzdonnit 0 points * 1 day ago
Look, I'm certain I'm interrupting a natural rhythm you've got thinking on these boards, but. Does it worry any of you? That there might be an evil god just waiting for the right time to rise up and kill us all?

pitcherblack -1 points * 1 day ago
It shouldn't worry you.

pitcherblack -1 points * 12 hours ago
You're all doomed no matter what you do.

pitcherblack -1 points * 11 hours ago
The old gods are dead, and their weapons are lost to you.

dean_worch 3 points * 9 hours ago
You okay, pitcher?

pitcherblack -1 points * 8 hours ago
Lotus is right. It all ends there.

+ Comment removed by moderator 4 hours ago

yin-lotus67 0 points * 2 hours ago
It wasn't me this time!

anonymousangelfish 2 points * 1 hour ago
Well, that's a comfort. The world might end, but lotus didn't get their post deleted again.

+ This thread has been locked

---

James Lake sat in darkness. He had no idea what this place was meant to say to a human, but the slightly cavernous feel, the gentle breeze circling the room, felt almost homey. The room was over warm, but this was Haiti. It was to be expected.

There was movement near the far wall; James straightened, looking toward the boy standing at the door. The boy waved at the space behind him.

"The Mambo will see you now."

James nodded and stood. He ducked to enter the Mambo's chambers, even though it must have looked strange for a man his apparent height. And there...was a woman. Seated in a wide green chair, overstuffed but sturdy, in the look of something you could hit with a truck without making a dent in it. Her skin was an earthy tone, lined, aged, but her brown eyes were sharp, peering through the darkness of her office.

When her gaze fell on James, she chuckled. "You can take that mask off."

James stiffened, opening his mouth to reply.

"And if you say 'what mask' I'll kick you out and you can find your own answers."

"Ah. Then I'd rather...leave it on."

The Mambo laughed. "As you wish, Mr. Lake."

"How-"

"You come to me for my wisdom, my vision, and ask how I know things you have not told me?" The Mambo shook her head. "I hope your son is not half as foolish are you are."

"No," James said, hesitant. "He...takes after his mother."

"Good," the Mambo said. "Now, come closer, so I can see you properly."

James stepped close, finding a chair, a hard, wooden thing that looked as sturdy as the Mambo's own chair. He sat and let the old woman examine his face. She did so agonizingly slowly, but as she had reminded James he was here only with her grace, he kept silent and still until she leaned back, hands on her knees.

"Well. I can't say you impress."

"Thanks."

"It wasn't a compliment," the Mambo retorted. "Lucky I don't judge my clients based on whether they deserve my help - a good way to treat people, if you're taking notes." She patted her knees. "Now. What can old Mambo Cherisse do for you?"

James took a deep breath and considered. What did he want from her?

...Well, surviving whatever Merlin planned was a good start. He'd used to rely on the Kairoscope, back before he'd misplaced the artifact and could no longer divine the consequences of his choices (and he was sure he'd lost the one chance he'd had to scour Barbara's house for it; he'd been welcomed in, once, but was certain the place was now warded against unwelcome visitors). The Kairoscope had shown him that staying with Barbara would lead to his own death. Before that, it had shown him that joining the other Janus Order would bring about the end of trollkind.

And as the supernatural crawled back into the human world, humanity, though unaware, had begun to align itself into two camps - those who followed the immortal Myrddin Wyllt, and those who would do anything to bring about his end.

And James...didn't know which side to choose. He knew, of course, which side Jim and Barbara (and Draal, his brother) had chosen. But it didn't mean it was the right side for him. If Merlin would accept as an ally the father of one of his enemies, or if James' only hope for survival was to join his son's side.

"Why did you come here, James Lake? What do you want?"

"You're a Blood Mage," James said. "You practice a sort of magic feared and hated on every other planet in the universe."

"Well, I don't know about that. Sure, blood's part and parcel of talking to the lwa, but that's just natural."

"Then you must know him - the bokor who sleeps, the Pale Man, Myr-"

"Do not speak his name, child!" Mambo Cherisse roared, rising like a vengeful spirit. "God, you're a foolish one!" She settled back on her chair. "But yes. We know him. Bokor, you call him - ha! Bokor use magic for good and ill; the Pale Man uses it only for evil, for his own selfish desires."

"He is my son's enemy," James said.

"You cannot protect him," Mambo Cherisse said, shaking her head.

"I don't - I wanted to know-"

"Just say it child."

"Should I join him?"

"Should you - are you simple?" Cherisse stood in a swirl of skirts, stalking around James in a quick circle. "Do you think living in the Pale Man's world is better than death?"

"...Yes?"

"Fool," Cherisse snarled. "Always will he seek things to sacrifice for his own ends, until there is nothing left. If you cannot see that, you are more in need of my guidance than I thought."

"Then tell me what to do!" James demanded.

"What to do?" Cherisse mused. "How would I know that?"

"If anyone would know how to stop him, it would be another Blood Mage - a Mambo or bokor..."

"Oh." Cherisse pressed a hand against James' cheek (where it was, not where it seemed to be), stepped back. She looked sad. "There is no stopping him, James. There is only one mercy we might hope - and that is to earn a quick death from him. To be threatening enough that he has no choice than to kill you quickly."

"You can't be sure. Nothing is absolute. Nothing is certain."

Cherisse shook her head, impassive. "God is."

---

Merlin stood in front of a well. To the uninformed observer, it was not spectacular, as wells went. It was a few feet tall, made of irregularly-shaped stones roughly mortared together, and there was a pulley, bucket, and small ladle set on its edge. They were made of wood.

To the informed observer, however, the well was quite spectacular.

Your first clue would be its location. It was not a place that could be identified by latitude and longitude. You had to use directions like 'east of the sun', or 'second star to the right'. Things that made no conventional sense, until you solved the riddle behind them.

Men came to the Well of Urd for wisdom, but they needed a modicum of wisdom to find it in the first place.

Merlin had come here once, ages ago, seeking knowledge he did not possess. He had left without that knowledge, furious with the guardian of the well. She had proven unyielding, adamant, about what it would take to drink from this well. Wisdom, after all, came from experience, which was necessarily painful.

And that pain, the guardian had insisted, must come from the one who sought that wisdom. It was just one eye, Odin had opined, all those years ago. But he wasn't even a million years old, and didn't understand how protective you got of your body when you'd had it for over a billion years.

"This isn't, strictly, a public place," Urd said from her place perched on the edge of the well. She was playing cat's-cradle with a length of twine (Merlin eyed it carefully; there was a possibility it was the marker of his life, and she might be taunting him that she knew the date of his death), paying no apparent attention to Merlin. "So if you're going to loiter, do it somewhere else."

"I'm thinking!" Merlin snapped.

Urd shrugged, popped a bubble of gum Merlin did not remember her having when he'd arrived, and turned back to her cat's cradle.

"Just, if you're thinking that hard about it-"

"And what would you do?"

"Me?" Urd hopped down off the edge of the well, tucking the string into one of the many pockets of her vest. "I wouldn't take the deal. Mind, I have comprehensive knowledge of all things that have ever happened, so it's not really a step up."

Merlin growled; the entire pantheon had always been insufferable, and the Norns especially so, presumably because they knew he wouldn't risk the chance they could kill him on their own initiative.

"I'm gonna be real with you," Urd said, putting a light hand on Merlin's shoulder. She looked serious, but her eyes, silver and full of stars, were hard to read. "Drinking from the well of wisdom? The knowledge of runes? Not nearly as satisfying as wisdom hard-won through a life of experience."

"But the Well of Urd holds the wisdom of all things, not merely those I've experienced."

"Huh. Never thought of it that way." Urd shrugged and sauntered back to the well. "Well, I'm out of cogent advice." She pulled the thread back out; Merlin stared, trying to figure out if it was the same one.

She was toying with him, he was sure. Acting unconcerned, telling him that infinite wisdom wasn't all it was cracked up to be-

Merlin stormed to the side of the well. "Fine," he growled. "Let's do this."

"Ooh!" Urd hopped down and gave Merlin a quick salute. "Well, let's see it."

Merlin raised a hand to his left eye, and paused. He'd been certain a moment ago Urd was playing him, and maybe she still was. But he'd never know if he didn't...just...do it.

He dug his fingers into the edge of his eye socket, sliding them along the edge, delicate, until they were deep enough to tug at it a little. To feel - yes, the nerve. Merlin pinched with a sharp motion, enough to send a line of fire from his eye to his brain; but he grit his teeth, unwilling to give Urd the satisfaction of hearing him scream.

And then it was done. His vision was - not quite halved, but reduced, a dark spot along the left side of his body. He reached his hand out to where Urd had been standing.

"Now, may I please drink from the Well of Urd?" he demanded.

The Norn laughed, a high, bright sound. "All you had to do was ask!"

Chapter Text

There were, it turned out, a number of caveats to Dictatious' declaration.

First, not just anyone could be returned to life. Once a spirit had passed 'beyond the veil', no force could return them to life. Phoenix down, which Walter had used once to save Aaarrrgghh's life, could only work in that brief period between when someone's body died and their spirit left their corpse. Morgana had used darker methods to imprint a body with something like the original creature, albeit twisted by their more vicious tendencies (useful when resurrecting a cannibal queen; less so when returning loved ones to life).

Second, there was no ritual, no spell. To return someone from the dead, one had to travel to the Underworld and convince Death herself (a woman apparently named Emily Jane) to allow the resurrection. There were stories from every culture about how such endeavors could fail - the best result of such failures was usually a lifetime of incurable depression. It was implied, but not certain, that any one person only got one shot at this.

And third...there was a price. There was no set price, no one thing that could be traded for another life. The cost, by tradition, was one 'too much to bear', and it was the inability to pay that price that led the seeker to disaster.

Hearing that, that it was possible, Barbara knew there would be no way to talk Jim out of trying. If there was a chance to get Toby or Mordred back, he'd go to the ends of the Earth (likely required, as the Underworld could most reliably be accessed from Cape Tenaron in Greece). And - Barbara understood. Toby might as well have been a second son. And as for Mordred…

Well, she couldn't say for certain what Jim was thinking. She had wild speculation on the part of his friends, which wasn't nothing, but was still just rumor.

Regardless, he held Mordred in high enough regard she fully expected Jim to try to bring him back, as well.

He was quiet, though, the next few days. Barbara reached out to everyone, carefully, to let her know if it looked like he was about to go off to the Underworld on his own. But she received no call, no text, and a week later, woke to a clattering in the kitchen to find Jim storming around, halfway through preparing some sort of quiche, something she thought was a lasagna cooling on the counter, and something so pungent it could only be one of Jim's experiments with creating troll cuisine. Barbara edged past Jim to the coffeepot, which involved maneuvering around a pan of cinnamon rolls cooling on a rack.

"Jim? Are you okay?"

He slammed a saucepan down, and in the silence following that moment, Barbara could hear heavy breathing. Ragged.

"I can't do it," he whispered.

"Do what?"

"I can't choose!" Jim screamed into the stovetop. "One shot - I bet that means I can bring back one person. And I can't…"

"Oh, Jim." Barbara pulled Jim away from the stove and pulled him close. He was...taller. Broader than he'd been a year before. Of course he was - he'd been fighting for most of that time. She wrapped her arms around him, holding close until he returned the embrace, albeit gently. Uncertainly. "Is that what you thought? That you'd have to do this alone?"

"I can't ask-"

"Jim," Barbara said, firm, steady, because Jim had to internalize this. He had to know it in his bones before they went to Hell to argue for the lives of their loved ones. "Toby's as good as your brother. He's as good as my son. I'm not letting you go out there alone again, and I'm not going to make you choose."

"F - fuck," Jim muttered against Barbara's chest, and he began shaking, tears dampening the front of her shirt. But because it was one of the things she'd signed on for when she decided to have a son, Barbara held on and rubbed Jim's back through it. He was smiling when he pulled back - it was weary, set among tear tracks, but sincere, the first real smile Barbara had seen from him in weeks.

She wouldn't have offered to help him beg the god of death for the life of his friends just for that smile, but it made her feel like it was the right decision, anyway (she'd yet to find a book, or blog, or forum, for parents of children fighting against bizarre, supernatural threats, to figure out if she was handling things right).

Once it was decided, there didn't seem much point in putting it off. Barbara put in a call to Walter, who understood well enough to help them sell whatever excuse they needed, and to work, claiming a family emergency (she didn't worry so much about missing work; there were runes etched discreetly around the ICU that whispered the Draconic words for preserving life, for stemming the flow of blood, so she'd done her part for saving lives). And that evening, bags packed with necessities (makeshift weapons, mundane and magical first-aid kits, and a host of items that had proven useful to one or more of their friends in their adventures), Barbara and Jim drove to Heartstone Trollmarket.

For how little time had passed since Aster had found the Light of Creation, Trollmarket had changed. The Heartstone was cracked, and that was unlikely to change. But it had taken Aster little time to rekindle the light within the Heartstone, and that spark already cast Trollmarket in pale white light. It would grow, he explained, over the course of months, until it reached something like the strength of the Yetis'.

The change among the trolls of Trollmarket was far more pronounced. Bathed in the light of a healthy Heartstone, they moved with renewed energy. There was laughter, an ease to their movements, that Barbara had never seen before.

Jim must have felt something, too, as they hadn't been underground for more than a few moments before he took his troll form, lifting his head to bask in the light of the Heartstone (a distant, analytical part of Barbara's mind worried at that problem. Half-trolls, like Jim and Kellor of the Eclipse Knights, could take their human and troll shapes without familiars; while full-blooded changelings needed a familiar, some sort of anchor. Except for Rico Nuñez. There was a connection she was missing, a solution that might win the Janus Order to their side if she could make it.).

When Jim looked back at Barbara, he was grinning, easy, like she hadn't seen - it might be overdramatic to say Jim hadn't looked so happy since before the Amulet, but she couldn't recall a moment when he'd looked so - unguarded.

She'd expected to realize her son was growing up only in a few years, but Merlin had, it seemed, accelerated that process. Barbara wasn't alone in wanting to punch Merlin in his smug face, or even the person who felt personally wronged by him.

But by god, she hoped she'd have a chance. She knew if she got a chance, she'd go for the whole kit and caboodle - solar plexus, instep, nose, groin. But if she got only one shot - she'd go for the nose. There was nothing quite like permanently disfiguring someone's face to make sure they never forgot you.

"Trollhunter?"

The smile vanished from Jim's face, the moment gone, as he stopped, half-turned, to see the dark, hulking shape of Bular. The elder troll was - well, as Bular had made no attempt to eat either of them in the months since he'd publicly abandoned his father, the bared fangs was probably an attempt at a smile.

"I'm not the Trollhunter anymore," Jim replied. "Remember? The Amulet-"

Bular scowled, a brief compression of his smile, before returning to something more neutral. "You took an oath, whether the means by which you made that oath still exists or not. You are the Trollhunter-"

"Then I don't want to be!" Jim retorted, slamming a fist into Bular's stomach. There was a frozen moment then, Jim staring, wide-eyed at Bular, who looked down at him with an impassive face (Barbara hated she still couldn't pick up the nuances of trollish expressions, but here they were).

But after that long moment of tension, Bular nodded. "There were times, long before I rebelled, that I did not wish to be my father's son. But no matter I turned away from him, no matter he is dead, I will always be his son. You accepted a...mantle, Trollhunter. It shaped your history among our people, and you cannot abandon it, merely because it has become...distasteful."

Jim grunted, and let his fist drop. Glaring at his feet, he nodded. "Fine. Anyway, we gotta go-"

"Where are you going?" Bular glanced between Jim and Barbara, eyes narrow.

"To the Underworld," Barbara replied, "to get back Arthur...and Toby."

Bular huffed, crossing his arms, and there was a moment Barbara worried he'd try to stop them. And then he shook his head, and Barbara prepared to do whatever it took to get past him (she hoped she wouldn't have to hurt him).

"And you intended to do so alone? Unacceptable."

"We're going, Bular. No matter what," Jim growled.

The elder troll grunted. "I expected nothing less. But if Aaarrrgghh learned I allowed you to travel to the Underworld without offering my assistance, he would be...upset." He fiddled at his prosthetic arm before baring his teeth, a surprisingly heatless expression. "So if you expect to travel to the Underworld, it will be with my accompaniment - or not at all."

Jim huffed once, twice, and then was laughing, the strange, gruff tones of his troll form. He slapped a hand against Bular's left arm. "Alright, if it's to keep out of Aaarrrgghh's bad books, you're free to come along. But no more delays."

With the Gyre, there weren't any more delays; the trolls had a knack for building Gyre stations near places of magical importance, so there was a station beneath Cape Tenaron. It was a cramped cave, carved from rough black stone, and when they stepped out from it, it was into a wide, low cavern, hewn from the same stone. The floor was covered in dull grey stones that cracked underfoot, and collapsed pillars of the dark rock interrupting the empty space.

It was dim, but not totally dark. A faint glow gave enough light to see the silhouettes of the stone structures, but nothing else.

Well, to Barbara. She grabbed Jim's elbow; he paused, looking back, before starting to move again, more slowly but no less sure.

"Do we know the way?" Bular asked. "I don't want to be down here any longer than necessary."

"Yeah," Jim agreed. "It - gives me the creeps. I think."

"No wonder," Bular replied. "You aren't inured to death, as a Gumm Gumm would be. Admittedly, this many shattered bodies is...unnerving, even setting aside the dead Heartstone."

"Shattered?" Jim asked, voice rising at the end.

"Bodies?" Barbara stopped moving; Jim tugged at her a moment before realizing she wasn't moving. Barbara stared at the ground, which was dark around her feet, indistinct pale patches marking the stone they'd been walking across.

No. Not stone.

Corpses.

"What happened here?" she whispered.

Bular shrugged. "There's no way to know. Disaster. Plague. Violence."

"There wasn't anyone left to bury them," Jim said. "What could...do that?"

"Nothing good," Barbara said. "Let's get moving."

Neither of the trolls seemed inclined to protest, and they fell silent, the three of them walking across the corpse-littered floor on their way to the entrance to the Underworld. Thankfully, their directions didn't involve more than cursory travel through the dead settlement, and in a few minutes they were back on the surface. Jim took a moment to shake himself out, a full-body shiver, before looking back at Barbara, brow dipped.

"Are you okay, Mom?"

"Fine," Barbara replied, hoping it would be enough to dissuade Jim. The graveyard seemed to be occupying his mind, though, because he remained quiet along the mile or so walk to the cave Dictatious had identified as the entrance to the Underworld. It was a wide cave with a low entrance set just at the edge of Cape Tenaron. The air was filled with a fine spray from the sea, chill in the spring night. Or maybe that was the chill of the entrance to the world of the dead.

...Or maybe it was just Barbara's anxiety at standing on the boundary between life and death.

What was a cost too great to bear?

And what would they do if it was a price they couldn't bring themselves to pay?

What would it do to them?

(Barbara knew the answer; she'd read the tale of Orpheus and Eurydice.)

"Is there some human thing we're waiting for?" Bular asked, "Or can we go?"

"Yeah," Jim said, voice a little shaky. "Let's go."

There was no fanfare, stepping into the cave. The stone underfoot was smooth, dark. The walls looked slick, and the air beyond...dry. It smelled musty, not like death or rot, but...like an abandoned library, not long enough to rot, but full of dust. No one had been here in some time.

Something about the atmosphere discouraged speech, Barbara thought; she certainly couldn't bring herself to speak, and Jim and Bular were silent as they walked deeper (they were underwater, now). Although that might have been their natures; Jim had grown quieter as he accumulated losses during this war, and Bular had proven more quiet, thoughtful, than he was as Gunmar's attack dog.

There was a splash ahead of them. Barbara looked up, finding Jim standing at the very edge of...well, according to legend, it was a river. The cavern had, it seemed, been widening as they walked, and it stretched along the shore. There was light, too - not the dying glow of the mass grave next to the Gyre, but...something like starlight, faint, just enough to highlight the edges of things. Not enough, though, to show the far shore of the river, just the inky black surface stretching on, apparently infinitely.

"Don't drink the water," Barbara said absently, eyes fixed on the (was it a horizon? she hadn't seen any place underground large enough to find out) far distance.

"Do you think us fools?" Bular demanded.

"You shouldn't swim in it either," Barbara added.

Jim grunted, quiet, crouched at the edge of the water. "There should be a boat," he said.

"A what?" Bular asked. "Why would there be a boat?"

"Who brings dead trolls to the afterlife?" Barbara asked in reply.

Bular squinted, scowled at her. "No one - we find our own way."

"Well, for us, there's a ferryman. A guide."

"A psychopomp," Jim piped up. "Eli lent me some pennies from his coin collection. Well, I say borrowed. He said it was okay if we had to pay the ferryman with them."

Bular looked away from them and back to the water. "And how long are we supposed to wait for him? I may not have any pressing engagements, but-"

"As long as it takes," Jim growled.

Barbara shook her head. "Well, let me try something before we spend the rest of our lives waiting for a ferry. Neamhach each, cuilidh!"

There was a sort of necessary intention to magic, but Light Magic required very little of it, such that the right gesture and word at the same time could accidentally wreak havoc (thank goodness the gestures were so precise). Runic work was much the same, of course, but even more complex, so accidental summonings were unheard-of. There were few Light spells that could heal, but within Light Magic's purview were many...useful spells. Specific, inflexible spells, but useful ones nonetheless. If you had a complete index of Light Magic spells, you had at your fingertips a vast repository of specialized solutions. Otherwise, you learned to adapt what spells you knew.

One of the spells Barbara had found, looking for Light spells to aid in her work, was the ability to summon a mystical horse that would, indefatigable, carry passengers across mountains, marshes, even the sea.

And indeed, at Barbara's command, a single spark of light appeared at shoulder-level; in a moment the spark split in two, and then each spark doubled again, and again-

The sparks leapt and began cascading down, and that rain of light highlighted a form, sparks tracing shoulders, long haunches, a pointed head-

In mere moments, it stood before them, a glowing horse, taller and wider than Barbara (wider than Jim, but not quite larger than Bular in any dimension), not some slim form idealized by children's books, but a serious, heavy workhorse, whose forehead was crowned by a jagged obsidian spike about three feet long.

...A unicorn, then.

Barbara took a moment to study the unicorn, to get some sense of its nature (she could ride a horse, but her education had taken place on placid creatures, not wild, possibly intelligent mythical beasts). And those few moments made it clear the horse wasn't real.

That is, Barbara could place her hand against the horse's flank, and it felt solid, but its skin wasn't warm, didn't shift from its breath or heartbeat. She might as well have been touching plastic.

"You are full of surprises, Dr. Lake," Bular murmured.

Barbara shrugged. "I suppose that depends what you expect from me. Everyone get on, and let's go."

"You do not understand," Bular protested as Jim hopped onto the horse. "Sorcery is not like - a second or third language. It is among the most complex arts in the world, and to master more than one aspect-"

"Well, I'm hardly a 'master' of anything," Barbara retorted. She let Jim help her up onto the horse's back. "And we're leaving now - so get on."

The horse seemed to respond to Barbara's intentions, rather than her words, as it didn't move until after Bular clambered on behind Barbara and Jim. Not made of flesh, the horse moved from still to an easy canter in just a moment, moving from the stone floor to the surface of the river (Styx, Barbara supposed) without a shift in its gait. The water was still below its hooves, no irregularity in the movement of the dark water, or sign of anything lurking beneath the surface.

As such, it gave Barbara, who couldn't see much more than the faintly illuminated surface of the river and the dark air above, space to think. She couldn't quite understand the trolls' awe at her accomplishments. Admittedly, not many doctors had the background to easily adapt their medical knowledge to an unknown species. Fewer still would dismiss their instinctive distrust of magic over science to study it.

But there weren't many sorcerers among the trolls, so maybe that was enough to impress them.

Because magic...wasn't that difficult. Certainly, it would take a lifetime to master, but.

Maybe sorcerers didn't see much point in science, believing magic placed them beyond it. So not many knew enough about the fundamental forces and Grand Unified Theory to wonder if the different types of magic were connected, somehow. That runes and Light Magic seemed to be formal ways to draw on the same type of energy that Shadow Sorcerers drew on. Blood Magic seemed to be another form of energy entirely, and Dragon Magic entirely unrelated, but Barbara suspected the connections would be apparent if she understood Celestial Magic in a way that neither Galahad nor Aster (the former of which had some divine insight, and the latter three or so useful phrases) seemed to.

It was a puzzle to work out after she broke Toby out of Hades, Barbara reminder herself as the horse slowed, stepping carefully from river to shore, and she had her first glimpse of the afterlife.

Not visible from the far shore, or even a few yards from the near one, Hades was a plain that fell away from the river with a gentle slope. The horse sank to its knees before fading, dropping its passengers lightly to the ground. The grass was soft, brushing feather-light against Barbara's ankles as she turned, taking in the descent into the world beyond. The scene was lit with warm yellow light - ultraviolet-free, obviously, as Jim and Bular showed no discomfort. There were no walls or roof visible - the sky was blue, bright, clear. There was no visible source of the light, and consequently neither Barbara, Jim, nor Bular cast any shadows. Their faces, too, were strangely flat. But beneath their feet, the grass was normal, vibrant green, shadows falling as if the sun were behind them, hanging over the river.

It made Barbara feel out of place - like she didn't fit into the world around her (like she wasn't as real as her surroundings).

Except…

It wasn't a particularly concerning feeling, more of a vague awareness of the sensation. Neither Jim nor Bular looked on edge.

Which they should have been.

"Bular? Jim? Do you feel...odd?"

Bular took a deep breath, eyes sliding shut. "I feel at peace. Don't you?"

Jim let out his own breath, raising a hand to his chest, an edge or tension gone from his face. "Yeah," he murmured. "What-"

"It's Elysium," Barbara said. "Or something like it. The fields of paradise."

"Not quite." Barbara turned, reaching for a scalpel that should have been concealed on her person. There was a startled growl from Bular, which shifted into a deeper snarl, because unlike Barbara, the absence of a manufactured weapon didn't leave him unarmed.

There was a cat sitting between them and the edge of the river. They were of average size, slender, and a brownish sort of black. Their ears were relaxed, and their tail swaying gently. It was...likely that the deep, smooth voice that had just spoken belonged to the cat.

"Was that you?" Barbara asked.

"I don't see anyone else about who might be speaking," the cat said, licking casually at their paw before rubbing at their face. "But I should make allowances for newcomers; you can't be expected to have seen this place before." They paused, sniffing at the air. "But I can tell there's something extra-special about you three," they said. "You're all alive!"

"Will that be a problem?" Barbara asked.

"Certainly not!" The cat perked up, ears and tail twitching, and Barbara wondered if she'd offended them. "We're hospitable sorts here. And besides, it would cause confusion if people got it into their heads some people aren't welcome here."

"Well, how were we supposed to know?" Jim demanded. "You said it yourself - we're new here!"

"Well, yes," the cat allowed, settling back down, head sinking to their paws. "It's been quite a while since folks like you have gotten this far. The living normally get as far as the Unknown before realizing they belong in the world of the living."

"We know that," Barbara said, hesitantly. "But we were told - we could come here to beg the return of our loved ones from Death."

The cat's right ear twitched. "Ah. Well. You might, at that. You are aware, though, that every attempt to do so has ended in tragedy?"

"Are you telling us it's impossible?" Jim demanded. "Because if it is-"

"Oh, no. If their spirit has not passed through this realm on to their final destination, and you are willing to pay the price, Emily Jane will be happy to reunite you with your loved ones. It's part of her Duty."

"And what is the price?" Bular asked.

The cat stood, stretching, before settling sitting up. "Only Emily Jane knows for sure."

"And where is Emily Jane?"

The cat yawned in response to Barbara's question. "Don't you realize? She's here. There. Anywhere. Everywhere. It's part of her Duty."

"Then where does she take visitors?" Bular asked, voice several tones less...growly than usual.

The cat opened one eye. "Now that...is the right sort of question."

"Is it one you intend to answer?"

"Well, of course." The cat stood and stretched again before settling on all fours, tail upright as they trotted past Barbara. After a moment, they looked back, ears up, alert. "Are you coming?"

"Are you taking us to Emily Jane?"

"Well, not the whole way - I have my own home and own people to get back to. But I do intend to show you how to find her." They trotted forward, apparently believing the matter settled. Barbara hurried after them, Jim, and at last Bular, following.

"You must understand," the cat continued as they walked a serpentine path through grass absent any landmark or distinguishing features, "that Emily Jane doesn't have the time to speak to just anyone. I welcome anyone who finds themselves in my domain, but that is because my Duty is one of welcome, and care."

"What is your Duty?" Jim asked.

"Oh!" The cat paused, twisting in place. "You must think me unforgivably rude! My name is Enoch - I am the mayor of Pottsfield, and shepherd to every soul that lies within."

"I'm Jim," Jim replied. "And this is my mother, Barbara, and-"

"Bular," Bular interrupted.

"Well, rest assured that you will be most welcome if you ever come to Pottsfield, to stay or just passing through."

"And what sort of place is Pottsfield?" Barbara, who had been puzzling out Enoch's strange pronouncements and familiarity with the Angel of Death, asked.

"A waystation and settlement for souls lost and forgotten," Enoch replied.

It gave Barbara a jolt, a twitch in her chest at the chance to answer a question she'd wondered about ever since Dictatious and Raum had explained the process of raising the dead. Namely - would Toby have lingered in the world between life and death, or joined his parents in whatever lay beyond the 'veil'?

"Would you be able to tell us if someone we know passed through Pottsfield?"

"Hm, I can't see the harm," Enoch said. "Who's the friend you're looking after?"

"Toby Domzalski."

Enoch stopped, still except for the slightest twitch of their tail. "I can't say I've met anyone by that name. Pottsfield, though, is for the forgotten and unmourned; I'd suspect you aren't asking after anyone like that."

"No," Barbara agreed.

Enoch nodded and continued along on padded steps (Enoch had a shadow; Barbara wasn't certain if that made Enoch dead, or something more than the cat they appeared to be). Jim didn't ask anything on his own, which made sense. Mordred was hardly unmourned; Morgana had enacted a fifteen-hundred-year-long campaign of vengeance against Merlin for her son's death.

After some more time (Barbara realized, after a hundred or so more steps, that she wasn't breathing, that her heart wasn't beating, to help her keep time), something resolved within the grass.

It was a gate, white, painted wood, set in a circle of pale brown dirt packed down. It wasn't much higher than Barbara's waist, and just wide enough to accommodate Bular. There was nothing visible on the far side of the gate, but there was a simple, sturdy latch of dark metal set within the gate, a clear division between the two sides.

Enoch was still winding through the grass, but was unmistakably angling toward the gate. Barbara wasn't certain if the cat was leading them in the irregular path because another path would be incorrect or dangerous, or if Enoch was messing with them.

She wasn't eager to discover for herself.

At last the cat stopped next to the gate, sitting down with a prim motion. "If you go through the gate, you'll find Emily Jane, and she'll hear you out. You're on your own now, though." They lifted one paw and then paused, lowering it carefully. "Good luck," they added, and then dashed past the three of them.

Barbara looked back to the gate. Jim was staring at it, intent, a faint frown on his face. Bular was peering around it.

"What happens if we go around?" he asked.

"We don't find Emily Jane," Barbara replied. "Plus, and I'm just throwing around wild ideas, we might die."

Jim snorted, a little laugh. "What I'm worried about is that Enoch never said that Emily Jane's just on the other side. We might have to fight a monster or something."

"We have two of the world's fiercest trolls, and Dr. Lake," Bular retorted. "A monster is the least of our concerns."

"Well, not the least," Jim replied, but did reach forward, twisting the latch of the gate. Were they breathing, Barbara might have held her breath; as it was, she watched the edge of the gate as Jim pulled it toward them. Nothing slipped between the gate and post in the moment it was opened, and then it was done, gate swung back against the empty air to the leftmost post, the plain dropping gently beyond it.

They stood in silence a moment before Bular grunted, "This is ridiculous," and strode through the gate.

And, predictably, vanished.

Jim huffed and looked back at Barbara, chin set, resolute. "I'm going, Mom," he said.

Barbara patted his shoulder. Jim surprised her by turning and pulling her into a tight hug (strange for him to be so much taller than her, holding her tight, but not enough to make breathing difficult, if she still were). It was a few moments before Jim pulled back, unabashed, but eyeing the gate, hands clenched at his sides.

"We shouldn't leave him on his own."

Barbara didn't reply that she expected Bular to be able to handle himself, just nodded. Jim took an unnecessary breath and stepped through, Barbara a step behind.

It wasn't dark beyond; Barbara simply couldn't see more than a vague, pervasive greyness.

"Jim?" Barbara called out. There was no response; the grey surrounding her soaked up the sound like fog. "Bular?"

At the continued silence, Barbara took a step back, unsurprised when she failed to locate the gate. Enoch had said they could find Emily Jane this way, but had failed to note what would happen if they couldn't. Presumably, they would be escorted into the afterlife whenever Emily Jane got around to checking the traps.

...Except that didn't quite sound like something a woman named 'Emily Jane' would do.

It was more like-

The river had been a physical barrier - dangerous, so people didn't accidentally find their way to Emily Jane's doorstep. Enoch had been a social one - to ensure they were the sort of people who should be guided, or those who should be left to fumble through Elysium on their own.

And if you had two magical barriers, they probably took away your 'mysterious sage' license if you didn't have a third.

And that meant...well, Barbara wasn't sure. She couldn't imagine-

Except she could. Death was a woman named Emily Jane, and that meant she was human enough that Barbara could imagine what she would do.

Emily Jane didn't kill people, but ushered their spirits to the afterlife. A guide, and a comfort. And that meant she wasn't cruel. She was, however, busy. And in a situation like that, Barbara would try to keep people from bothering her unnecessarily. A river to keep out casual trespassers, a guide to weed out the arrogant or uncooperative, and then-

Barbara would try to ensure her visitors weren't wasting her time. Which she supposed meant showing she had a loved one she needed returned to life.

"Excuse me?" she asked. "I'm trying to resurrect my - well, not quite my son, but close. His name is Toby Domzalski."

Nothing happened.

"Look, if you could give me some sort of hint-"

"I need to know you're seeking to return someone you love."

There were no fancy lights, sounds, or even movement. One moment Barbara stood in a featureless grey mist, and the next she was in a cozy sitting room. The walls were ridged planes of wood, lit to a warm brown shade by a lamp hanging from the ceiling. Two couches sat half-turned toward each other next to a wide stone fireplace. One was a vibrant red, the other white with cats of every color stitched into its surface. Both were low, sturdy, and covered in cushions that looked soft and deep enough to bury someone.

A chair sat next to the cat-covered couch, basically a high-backed stool; a woman sat on the chair, dark hair braided into a ring around her pale, long face. She was wearing a black dress, simply cut, loose, and likely practical. There was a coffee table shaped like an apple in front of her, on which sat a pot of tea and four cups.

"Hello," the woman said, face taking on a gentle smile. "My name is Emily Jane." She waved at the couches. "Please, sit," the woman said. A creak of movement to Barbara's left made her turn, seeing Bular and Jim, the former appearing as wide-eyed, confused as Barbara felt. Jim, though, stood straight, tense, hands fisted at his sides. His teeth were bared, and Barbara felt an odd flutter of worry (an actual emotion) that he might attack Emily Jane, the Angel of Death.

"You didn't bring me here when I told you about Toby," Jim said.

"True," Emily Jane replied. "Your friend Mordred, though-"

"Don't act like you can tell me whether I love Toby or not!" Jim snarled, bringing his fists up, not quite a threat, but. Well, they were clawed.

Emily Jane shrugged. "I'm not suggesting you don't. Just...from what you told me, there's no point in me trying to help you get him back."

"He passed on?" Barbara asked. At those words, Jim's tension broke, shoulders falling, hands falling open. She herself felt...conflicted. She'd loved Toby, but he'd missed his parents with such a - resolute sorrow, and the chance they might be reunited was...happier than some alternatives.

"Well, no." Emily Jane's smile faded. "But you said - he was taken by Black Fire. It's a nasty sort of magic."

"And what? Is Toby trapped somewhere?"

"Um." Emily Jane glanced at Jim, hands falling to her lap. She bit at her lip, and Barbara was already moving to Jim when Emily Jane spoke. "No. If he was killed by Black Fire, he's gone. Black Fire destroys a thing down to its very essence-"

"You're wrong!" Jim slammed his hand into the back of the cat-covered couch, which cracked, somewhere deep in its frame, at the strike. "He can't be-"

"What reason would I have to lie?" Emily Jane retorted. "It's my Duty to care for the spirits of the departed, so I make it my business to know what places a soul beyond my reach."

"Because you're - he can't be! It was bad enough when he was dead, but-" Jim stumbled against the couch, a pitiful whoof coming from his throat. "He can't-" Bular was there, catching Jim as he slumped, helping him down onto the couch.

He retreated, at that, allowing Barbara the space to sit next to Jim. She wasn't certain what she expected - to see him crying, shutting down, as he had the past few weeks.

But Jim's eyes glowed a dangerous red, his fangs bared, a ferocity she hadn't yet seen him manage. "I'll kill them," he muttered.

Barbara reached her hand out to him. "Jim-"

"I can't say I approve, technically," Emily Jane said, "but Black Fire's one of those things I would prefer didn't exist, up there with suicide golems. Still-" She held out a cup of tea, steaming, to Jim, "just because you can't get back everyone you wanted doesn't mean you have no chance for the other person you were looking for."

Jim accepted the tea, wordless, and sipped at it for a few quiet minutes. Barbara watched him the whole time for some sign of tears, of a need for comfort-

But Jim seemed...fine. Not the depressed son she'd seen over the past few weeks (And she wondered if this, then, was closure; there was no pronouncement more final on a loved one's fate than that of Death).

At last he looked to Death, the fury gone, his eyes a gentle blue. "Mordred Pendragon. He's-"

"If his soul is free and willing, and you pay the price, I can return him," Emily Jane replied.

And Jim's eyes widened, his hands shaking. Barbara reached out a hand to steady his shoulder, suspecting that, rather than unmoved, Jim had pinned his happiness on the possibility of getting one person back, at least.

"What do you mean, free? His soul was bound within the Amulet of Daylight-"

"Broken, last I heard," Emily Jane said.

"And that would be enough?"

"So long as it was a phylactery, he was bound to it," Emily Jane said. "Now...well, he should be as free as any ghost."

Jim nodded. "Okay." He lifted his head a little, setting his jaw as his eyes slipped closed. "Then you can take me in his place."

"Jim-"

"Trollhunter!"

"No," Emily Jane said curtly. She took a sip of her own tea before continuing. "Your life is something you value too little to offer up for Mordred Pendragon's."

The shock at that made Barbara's hand jerk away from Jim; her chest hurt, ached at the suggestion Jim had felt this way (for how long?) and she hadn't known. No one had known, or if they had, hadn't thought she needed to know. Jim's hands were in his lap, whole body shivering.

"Then what?" he demanded.

Emily Jane sighed. "I don't know, Jim. Not until you offer. Not until I can weigh what you offer against the care you feel for him. Not until you offer a cost too great to bear."

"So what? Do I offer someone else in his place?"

"You must pay the price, here, Jim," Emily Jane snapped. "Try again."

Jim's gaze dropped to his hands, and stayed there. His eyes narrowed, and, so watching it, raised one clawed hand, twisting it around. "What about my troll half?"

"Hm?" Emily Jane raised one eyebrow, but made no immediate protest.

Bular, on the other hand-

"You cannot deny your heritage, Trollhunter!" he snarled, leaping up from his place. There was a real threat to that tone, eyes blazing bright.

"I didn't even know about it until my dad showed up!" Jim retorted.

"True," Emily Jane agreed. "Blood, heritage, are powerful sacrifices, but not one you have yet to learn to value."

Jim growled, shaking his head. "Then-"

"Your humanity, though," Emily Jane mused, "that would be enough."

"What."

"Yes!" Emily Jane declared, patting a free hand against her lap. "You have lived your whole life as a human. You know your place amongst them. Abandon that, Jim, and I will return Mordred Pendragon to life."

And that…

Gave Jim pause.

He looked at his rocky, trollish hand, and then over at Barbara. His lips were parted, revealing his fanged mouth. And then he was human again, rushing against Barbara. He held her, tight against his chest, and Barbara realized it was a goodbye. Not to Jim, who was her son no matter what magic was done to him, but to the part of their life when they might have once called themselves normal. He wouldn't be a chef, at least not to humans. He would never see the sun again. And...she didn't know what else it would entail.

Barbara returned the embrace, and they stood there for a long minute.

And then Jim stepped away, turning toward Emily Jane. He set his feet apart, hands easy at his sides, and shifted back into trollish form. He nodded.

"Alright."

"Are you certain?" Emily Jane asked. "There are no refunds."

"Yes."

"Aright." Emily Jane sat up a little straighter, and spoke. "All will die, but Death may relinquish her grasp. You may walk the Earth again, Mordred Pendragon - for the second and last time."

Like the transition between the foggy realm and Death's sitting room, there was no sparkling, special effects, or strange noises. Merely...one moment, Mordred Pendragon was dead and bodiless, and the next he was alive.

Or, rather, she presumed the boy was Mordred Pendragon, given the way Jim gasped at the sight of him. The boy was tall (shorter, now, than Jim, though), skin a dusky sort of umber, dark hair tied behind his neck, and eyes, sharp, emerald-green, fixed on Jim. The long shape of his face and slight point to his ears suggested an elvish heritage, and the shade of his eyes a relation to Morgana, whose own eyes had transfixed two battlefields.

He was (thankfully) dressed in tan slacks and a loose blue sweater.

"What…"

"What?" Jim replied, lips quirking up into a smile. "Didn't you realize the Trollhunters never leave a man behind?"

Mordred rushed at Jim, slamming into him, not with enough force to unbalance a troll. Jim, though, swayed as Mordred wrapped his arms around Jim's waist, and reached down to wrap his arms loosely around Mordred's shoulders.

"I'm...happy to see you," Mordred murmured.

"This is a touching reunion," Bular said, "but we still need a way back."

"Yeah, like I'm eager to have a bunch of malcontented living people sitting around my living room," Emily Jane said. "The exit's over there." She jerked a thumb behind them, where a bright red fire door sat in the wall (a door that hadn't been there before, Barbara was certain).

They took a few minutes, Jim and Mordred to steady themselves, one to having a body for the first time in over a thousand years, the other to the presence of someone he'd thought lost; Bular to study the boy he now knew to be Morgana's son; and Barbara to ask a Death few pointed questions about all this sacrifice and Blood Magic nonsense (millions had been sacrificed in Merlin's name, and she wasn't certain what that meant, what might be done about that).

And then they left, hopefully to return only once more.

Presumably, because their price wasn't specifically a long walk back through the Underworld, a quiet specter trailing them, their return was...almost anticlimactic.

In the end, returning the dead to life took less than twelve hours.

Twelve hours, any hope of seeing Toby again, and Jim's humanity.

...A cost too great to bear? Perhaps.

But maybe it would be worth the price.

Chapter Text

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez @AOC
No, Kubritz Papers are not a hoax - 49-B and existence of extra-terrestrials are real. Fox is wrong to suggest an 'imminent' alien invasion.
13:02 - 11 April

6,878 Retweets 30,959 Likes

Real American @1patriot * 3h
Replying to @AOC
Are you planning to let them overrun America like illegals already are?

Jason Wentz @out-conspiracy * 3h
Replying to @AOC
Col K: the government's been hiding aliens! AOC: maybe they have but they definitely aren't hiding an invasion. how dumb do you have to be?

A Real American Hero @thirtysomething * 3h
Replying to @AOC
You should be shot just like Colonel Kubritz

Grant Wilson @bluestar * 3h
Replying to @AOC
Way to give a platform to every traitor who spills American military secrets

Xiao Xiao Li @howsue * 3h
Replying to @AOC
Has anyone told David Duchovny yet?

Dory A @anonymousangelfish * 3h
Replying to @AOC
Sure, AOC tells us about the aliens, but no one's talking about ghosts

[pizza emoji pizza emoji pizza emoji] @suckmytacobell * 2h
Replying to @AOC
Haven't read the report, so can anyone tell me? How fuckable are the aliens?

[This tweet is unavailable]

@#!@&&! @whatthecuss * 2h
Replying to @AOC
Holy fuck have you seen William Shatner's take on this?

Hmm, Hot Take @nowhatthefuck * 2h
Replying to @AOC
Yeah, but what warranted the leak? I've read this five times and can't figure out what made Kubritz do this

Mara "Bi Rights" Wilson @MaraWilson * 2h
Replying to @AOC
Thank you for letting me know this isn't just CNN forgetting that The Onion exists. Should we be excited or nervous?

Don Cheadle @DonCheadle * 2h
Replying to @AOC
Can you confirm that it appears we've been holding alien lifeforms in indefinite detention? What crime did Specimens 03 and 07 commit?

Jason Funderberker @orionsastronimical * 1h
Replying to @AOC
Hey, @unknownadmirer, did you see this?

Sean Hannity @SeanHannity * 2h
Replying to @AOC
Ocasio Cortez admits to lying to the public, tries to downplay the space alien threat

Ralph Summers @TenTeninSpace * 2h
Replying to @AOC
HOW MANY ALIENS ARE THERE?

Kelley Keillor @kellsman * 2h
Replying to @AOC
I hate to sound like the Red-State morons, but on a scale of ET to Independence Day, how dangerous is our current situation?

Stu's Tacos @stuartsfirst * 1h
Replying to @AOC
Please don't lump all aliens together. Some may be intergalactic conquerors; others may just want to experience the human emotion of 'taco'

Jason Funderburker @croaksinabucket * 1h
Replying to @AOC
Wirt wirt wirt did you see this? THERE ARE ALIENS

Conspiracy Hypothesizer @swelltitans * 1h
Replying to @AOC
Who is Col Kubritz? What's going on that she needed to dump this on the Internet?

Farrah Fearless @overtherainbowwall * 1h
Replying to @AOC
Can all you monsterfuckers calm down and pay attention to the fact it's pretty clear we've been holding innocent people captive for years?

MJW @notmaryjane * 1h
Replying to @AOC
This has been the weirdest fucking year.

Mordred was holed up in his room when someone began banging on the front door of his and Galahad's apartment. He didn't move at first; he was having fun hanging upside-down from his bed, reveling in the sensation of - feeling things, even if that sensation was the woozy light-headedness from all the blood settling in his head. Plus, the sheets might have been scratchy, catching over his skin at the slightest movement, but he hadn't had a bed to sleep in for over a thousand years (he wasn't sure he'd slept in the last thousand years, but he wasn't interested in examining the exact mechanics of his existence while his soul was in the Amulet of Daylight).

The banging continued unabated.

Mordred groaned and grabbed a pillow to cover his ears so he didn't have to listen to the noise. He sighed at the moment of blessed silence, elated that he had hands, so could actually block out the sound.

…

Wait.

Mordred rolled off the bed (slamming into the floor when he misjudged his balance), and, after a few missteps, got to his feet. Swaying a little (he did not remember having this much trouble moving Jim's body around), Mordred pushed his bedroom door open and crossed the apartment's common space

Galahad was nowhere to be seen, but since it was (Mordred checked the clock on the microwave) nine in the morning, he didn't expect otherwise. It had always been a struggle getting Galahad moving if he didn't otherwise think he needed to be awake.

So Mordred pulled open the front door to find a slim, dark-haired boy standing on their welcome mat (it actually said 'You are Here', because neither Mordred nor Galahad were dumb enough to put a sign on their front door that counted as an invitation to enter by any creature who could perceive it).

"Eli, right?"

"Um. Yeah." Eli was staring pointedly at the side of the door, cheeks pink, but he did nod.

"I'm Mordred? I was in control of Jim's body for a while, though I was going by 'Arthur' then?"

"I - yeah, remember who you are," Eli replied, still looking away.

Mordred squinted his eyes at Eli, detaching his sight from the illusions his mind cast over what was actually there. The shadow of wings fell over him, sign that this was a dragon in human form, rather than any sort of malicious spirit using Eli's face to trick Mordred into inviting them inside.

"Do you want to come in?" Mordred asked.

"Um. Okay. But...could you put on some pants first? And maybe a shirt?"

Mordred glanced down, confirming that while he was wearing the boxer briefs Galahad and he had acquired in his post-resurrection acclimatization to the world, he wasn't wearing anything else.

"Ah." He glanced back into the apartment to make sure there wasn't anything scandalous in view before waving Eli in. "You can sit down...anywhere, I guess, and I'll go find...clothes."

Mordred didn't feel embarrassed, exactly. He kept forgetting he had hands, so worrying about how much of the rest of him was showing seemed sort of pointless. Still, it was unsettling; he didn't remember having this much trouble with adapting to the physical world when driving Jim's body (although he'd been very conscious that the body wasn't his, and had expended a lot of effort not interacting with it more than necessary). Pulling on a T-shirt and pants that didn't feel painted on took only a moment, and when Mordred padded back out into the living area, Eli was examining one of the bookshelves. He was, Mordred suspected, looking for something more interesting than Galahad's complete Discworld collection.

"Galahad isn't much of a reader," Mordred said. Eli yelped and stumbled into the bookcase, dropping a few hardcovers on the floor.

"I'm sorry, I-"

"It's fine. If we had anything dangerous lying around, I'd tell you," Mordred replied, pulling open the refrigerator to grab a smoothie (the mix of vitamins were supposed to counter the fact Mordred kept forgetting to eat). "And it's not like any of my shit survived the last millennium. So 'me without pants' probably qualifies as most of what I've got around here I'd try to keep visitors from expressing too much interest in." There was a sputtering noise from the other side of the room. "Oh - do you need a drink?"

"No, I'm - fine," Eli gasped. "Just. Yeah."

Mordred shrugged and closed the refrigerator. Eli was seated on the couch, staring at his feet. Mordred dropped onto the far end of that couch and took a long drink. He took a moment to enjoy the flavor, or try to.

"So. Is this a social visit? Are you and Galahad close?"

Eli sat up in a swift jerk of his body, shaking his head. "No! I mean - not that he isn't a good guy, but I wasn't here to see him for, um, social reasons. Or any reasons, actually. We sort of have a problem and Darci suggested we get you to help. Because you're a sorcerer and probably not evil."

It was heartening that the defenders of Arcadia Oaks had mostly decided Mordred wasn't evil (possibly because he hadn't jumped at the chance to steal Jim's body, but he couldn't claim to know what any of them were thinking). It was worrying Eli was coming to him for help, however, because Mordred was certain there were at least half a dozen people Eli should have gone to before him.

"What's wrong?" he asked.

"Um." Eli's gaze dropped away again, although his cheeks weren't flushed. Not embarrassed, exactly, but.

"What happened?" Mordred tried to inject the question with the same harmonics his mother could manage, that made the subject spill out the truth no matter their intentions. He couldn't say if he got it right, because it occurred to him only after he spoke that it wouldn't work on Eli.

Except that there was a mundane power to that sort of demand. Eli's fists clenched in his lap. "Nothing! She was supposed to be fine, but something's wrong and I have no idea what!"

Mordred sighed; he remembered Jim's occasional concern that Eli might get in over his head, but hadn't expected to have to deal with something this soon.

"Well, give me a minute to get Galahad, and then we can deal with your problem."

Galahad was, as Mordred expected, asleep. Mordred yanked on the free edge of Galahad's sheets, sending his brother tumbling from the bed.

"Ow!"

"Rise and shine, Galahad - we've got heroics to perform."

"What?" Galahad mumbled into his blanket.

"You've got five minutes!"

Because Mordred wasn't a monster, he left Galahad alone to dress, and went to the kitchen to fiddle with the coffee maker. He'd just turned on the machine to ensure Galahad would have a cup of coffee when they left, when Eli shrieked. Mordred flung the cup he'd been holding to the side; he heard it shatter at the far side of the room. He grabbed one of the kitchen knives and turned toward the living space, where Eli was hunched on the couch, hands over his eyes.

"Don't either of you ever wear pants?" Eli demanded.

Alchemy

Late Modern Period

During the occult revival of the early 19th century, alchemy received new attention as an occult science.[83][84] The esoteric or occultist school, which arose during the 19th century, held (and continues to hold) the view that the substances and operations mentioned in alchemical literature are to be interpreted in a spiritual sense, and it downplays the role of the alchemy as a practical tradition or protoscience.[80][85][86] This interpretation further forwarded the view that alchemy is an art primarily concerned with spiritual enlightenment or illumination, as opposed to the physical manipulation of apparatus and chemicals, and claims that the obscure language of the alchemical texts were an allegorical guise for spiritual, moral or mystical processes.[87]

A competing school of thought, championed by Gustave Franklin, contended that the occultists prematurely dismissed the potential of modern chemistry, famously stating that, "as the body is a thing of chemistry, there should exist a catalyst that may perfect its operation."[88]

Franklin found support in his research from Napoleon III, who famously demanded the creation of an "Immortal Legion" of soldiers who could not die.[89] Whether this research succeeded or failed is unknown, as a lab accident killed Franklin, Napoleon, and Francois Achille Bazaine in 1870.[89] Franklin's grandson Prosper continued his grandfather's research until his death in 1941. The history of the Franklin school is presumed to have ended here, although rumors have persisted that the Franklin family (including grandson Paul and great-granddaughter April) have continued this research to this day. No scientist has credibly demonstrated they produced Franklin's hypothetical compound.

Mary Wang was looking at her phone. That alone wouldn't be cause for worry. Her fingers were tapping industriously at the screen - again, not a worry.

Her eyes were unfocused, though, which was a concern. She hadn't responded to snapping fingers, clapping next to her ears, or any other reasonable attempts to catch her attention, which was unusual (apparently if they'd tried that in normal circumstances, they would have at least gotten a 'knock it off' before Mary started ignoring them).

And on top of that…

Mordred sniffed the glass sitting on the desk next to Mary. It smelled of dust and paper, drying ink, and a sharp, almost electric tang. His mother would taste potions to determine their contents, which had seemed suicidally stupid to him. Especially when there were much more reliable methods to identify compounds.

Mordred tugged a pen toward him and, after a moment, the nearest piece of paper, a crumpled receipt. He sketched a few runic diagrams - insight, knowledge, matter - and tipped out a drop of the colorless fluid inside the glass onto the paper. The liquid splattered, twisting along the runes on the paper to form a new shape.

"Well, the good news is that she didn't drink, like, poison or anything," Mordred said. Eli's shoulders slumped in relief. "The bad news is she's showing the classic symptoms of an Elixlore overdose."

"Oh." Eli, hovering at Mordred's shoulder, stepped away, movements jerky. "Um. It's not, um, fatal, is it?"

Mordred looked back at Mary, whose eyes weren't glowing, even though they were darting back and forth as if she were dreaming. "It depends," he allowed. "How much did she drink? A drop or two is the usual dose, but an ounce wouldn't be too dangerous, even if she gets a little weird."

"And what if she drank like a...cup?" Eli asked, voice quavering.

"Why would you do that?" Galahad snapped.

"She said she didn't feel anything after three drops, so we thought-"

"You're supposed to treat potions like edibles," Galahad retorted. "Wait ten or twenty minutes after the first dose to see if anything happens. Why were you giving her Elixlore anyway?"

"Because she asked for it!" Eli shouted back. He stepped up to Galahad, hands fisted at his side, cheeks flushed, skin at his knuckles darkening. "She wanted help, and I found the recipe online-"

"What is she trying to do?" Mordred asked.

Eli shrugged. "She's been researching Merlin - or, rather, current events, trying to figure out what he's been planning. She's not much of a fighter, so I think she's been worrying she hasn't been contributing."

"So, what? She downed a cup of Elixlore to read faster?" Galahad asked.

Mordred rolled his eyes. "If you're going to dole out potions for your friends, you should read up on what they do first."

Eli launched himself at Mordred, one hand pulled back to strike; Galahad stepped in and caught his hand, yanking the other boy back. Eli growled, a bone-rattling sound, and swiped at Galahad. Claws scraped across Galahad's cheek; Eli'd manifested them without a Word, so they were merely as sharp as daggers, instead of powerful enough to cut through steel.

"Calm down, Eli! We can't help Mary if you tear up the people you brought to help!" Galahad shouted.

Grumbling, Eli let his hands fall, and, once released by Galahad, stepped away from him, rubbing at his wrist with a hand now free of claws. He glared at Mordred as he did. "I did read about Elixlore. The best way to use it isn't to just read a lot of books or whatever - it's to draw conclusions from what you read - discover the connections between apparently unrelated facts. Mary's been reading every major newspaper every day for months - as a start. She runs around every social media website imaginable. So she figured she has enough data to - piece together - what Merlin's plans are, as long as she can piece together. To find his grail, so we can stop him. Rob him of enough power we can beat him. All she needed was a way to connect them."

Mordred exhaled in a quick huff; he'd thought he understood Eli, but it only occurred to him what he knew came from Jim's diluted memories, and stilted interactions when Mordred had controlled Jim's body. The boy might be reckless, but he wasn't stupid. He'd risked Mary's life for things they didn't have any other way to get (without leads on a reliable prophecy) - the perspective to connect the facts they did have to a plan, and…

Merlin's grail. Not the source of his power - he'd created Light Magic, and likely knew every spell possible to cast with it, knew enough Shadow and Rune Magic to create an artifact no artificer had since matched, commanded an elder dragon…

But anyone could kill a wizard. To kill a demon (son of Satan himself, some legends said), the beneficiary of untold deaths, who had relied on their mastery of every other arcane art and an organization of bloodthirsty fanatics to effect them, who could use that power to heal fatal wounds, you needed to find where he had hoarded that power..

"Well. The mixture is toxic - but reasonably easy to reverse. So she should be fine."

dont-mind-me-im-just ⇌ incognitoinfo

worriedbisexual

International Observers in Russia

A new initiative by Prime Minister Lebedev has welcomed international relief workers…

Can anyone explain if this is good news or bad news?

were-watcher-z

It sounds like good news - some of the areas they're inviting these observers into are places where there's been a lot of accusations of humans rights abuses.

asrielsfuckingass

human rights observers in the US 2019

rad-is-not-a-slur

uhhhhh, idk if you fuckers have actually read the article, but they're inviting the Lyons Group in, which might as well be a giant 'fuck you' to anyone who thinks these people should get help.

skynnz-boytoy

@rad-is-not-a-slur is a TERF

fuckyeapolisci

Okay, not that I'm not looking forward to a back and forth about whether transphobia invalidates one's opinions (it does), rad almost has a point. Charity Watch and Charity Navigator agree that the Lyons Foundation (the Lyons Group is a nonprofit think tank and policy advocate; they spun off the Foundation in 1980 something) has a good ratio of their funds put toward actual charity. But

But

A lot of people question their effectiveness. Their last high-profile intervention in Pakistan involved a super-high mortality rate. Like, I know their policies have been reviewed by MSF, but some people question how they still end up knee-deep in bodies anywhere they go.

appendinganalysis

You sound like J Jonah Jameson asking why Spiderman is at the scene of so many crimes.

crowleysatop

Charity: *Goes to a lot of areas where people are suffering and dying*
Tumblr: Why do so many people die around this charity?

theavengerzpisskink

But this doesn't really answer OP's question. I mean, sending 'observers' to areas where a lot of reported shit is going down doesn't do much if they can't do anything about it, right?

worriedbisexual

I mean, Secretary Walters seems optimistic about this.

asrielsfuckingass

You mean Warcrimes McGee?

fuckyeapolisci

Okay, I know there was a lot of overwrought rhetoric over Walters' appointment, but he worked for a policy think tank, not a security contractor. And not even one of those shitty libertarian tanks. Blaming them for the Iraq War because they didn't know that literally everyone in charge was lying about it is fucking ridiculous.

Frankly, the fact he's suggesting we use international diplomacy instead of some of the shit we've gotten up to the last twenty (?) years or so is heartening.

appendinganalysis

You spelled 'fifty' wrong.

dont-mind-me-im-just

Does anyone else think it's weird the group doing this is the foundation split off from the Secretary of State's think tank?

Like, I get they're a nonprofit, but.

I'm getting weird vibes from that.

Mordred left Galahad to watch Mary while Eli showed Mordred to the Wangs' kitchen. Eli sat on the counter, watching Mordred as he mixed the potion they needed to cleanse Mary's system of the Elixlore.

"Could you use coriander seeds instead of fresh cilantro?" Eli asked. Almost before Mordred could consider a response, he followed with, "where did that chant come from? It doesn't sound like standard incantations from any spells I've seen."

"Look, we don't have a lot of time," Mordred said, "so maybe don't distract me while I'm trying to do this."

"Oh." Eli fell silent, and Mordred, who didn't need to spend that much attention, began counting in his head. On 'four', Eli starting talking again. "Did you date at all before you died?"

Mordred snorted as he began swirling the beaker to mix its contents. "I hope Steve's on board with you asking me out; I'm not good at sneaking around."

"What?" Eli swiped at the counter behind him, dislodging a sugar bowl that shattered when it hit the ground. "That's not what I - I'm not - we're - no!"

"Then ask what you meant to," Mordred replied, setting the potion down, and giving Eli a wide smile, which he had on good authority was 'creepy as fuck'. "And maybe I'll answer it."

Eli, face bright red, unable to look directly at Mordred, crossed his arms across his chest. "I wasn't trying to - and Steve and I-"

"You don't need to explain yourself. It's not like my parents were a model of monogamy."

"Wait - what?" Eli's mortification shifted to a curious stare. "Your mom was Morgana, right? And your dad-"

"Arthur Pendragon, yeah. But that was a - weird political thing. Dad was married to Guenevere, and they both loved Lancelot."

"Oh, so you - I wasn't sure if you…"

"Are you sure you aren't asking me out?" Mordred asked, more seriously now. "If you are...I'm afraid I'd have to decline. I'm not very good at sharing, or splitting my affections."

"And you already like someone." Maybe Mordred didn't know Eli well enough to read his tone, but that didn't sound like a question.

"What makes you say that?"

"I mean, I don't know, but. Um. You and Jim are close. And." Eli shrugged, words apparently failing him. Because how could he explain what intuition had allowed him to understand, that Mordred had found a kindred spirit in Jim Lake Jr., someone with courage and compassion and a strength Mordred had despaired of ever possessing himself. That in watching Jim grow into the Trollhunter, a warrior and servant, a knight in the greatest tradition, Mordred had…

Well, Gawain had made fun of Mordred's tendency to dramatics, but Mordred had never let that change how he did things, so he'd say it.

In the quiet of his own mind, not aloud - not to Jim's friends, and not to Jim himself.

I love him, he thought quietly, where no one would hear him.

"It's not really any of your business," Mordred said.

"I mean, sure it isn't. It sort of is, but yeah, it isn't. But. I'm pretty sure he likes you a lot - Jim, I mean. If that's who you like. And if you were worried he didn't feel the same way."

Mordred wasn't worried. There had been...not quite conversations, but - exchanges, that had made him think…

"And it might not be my business, but if you don't like Jim, you should tell him," Eli said.

"Of course I-" Mordred snapped his mouth closed, and nearly dropped the glass he was holding. He shot Eli a brief glare before setting the glass down, carefully. "We've got a potion to finish," he concluded, and refused to answer further questions until he was finished preparing it.

Local

Lyons Group Violated Zoning Laws, Whistleblower Claims

By Ruth Weiner | Los Angeles

An internal whistleblower provided the Times documents alleging the Lyons Group violated zoning, environmental laws in the construction of their Los Angeles-area headquarters. The nonpartisan think tank completed construction on a massive headquarters (data on the cost was neither publicized nor available) on the outskirts of Angeles National Forest, in the Los Angeles suburb of Arcadia, early this year.

The area is not, however, zoned for commercial buildings, and internal Lyons Group documents suggest they were unconcerned with required environmental impact reviews prior to construction.

Arcadia Zoning and Planning Director Josie Ramirez confirmed the space was not zoned for commercial development, nor did they receive requisite zoning variances or building permits. "Our records don't show a single application or notice from the Lyons Group," Ramirez said. "They didn't even appear before the City Council to discuss the project, which [Councilwoman Ophelia] Nuñez would have insisted on."

Placed adjacent to federal land, the construction also required EPA approval to ensure the process, and eventual campus, wouldn't negatively impact the environment. Freedom of Information Act requests yielded no evidence of such a request. Similarly, requests for comment from the Lyons Group went unanswered.

Galahad was standing just at the edge of Mary's room, a fact Mordred discovered only when he ran into him. Galahad grabbed Mordred's arm before he could stumble back into Eli.

"What are you-" Mordred demanded, before he saw for himself. Glowing panes hung in the air around Mary, symbols scrolling across their surfaces too fast to read. Mary's phone similarly hung before her eyes. Her hands, held out to her sides, flickered as if she were typing on keyboards.

"Is she okay? Does that mean she's dying?" Eli demanded.

"Well, it's not ideal," Mordred offered. But Mary's eyes weren't bleeding, her body wasn't shaking, and she wasn't making cryptic oracular pronouncements, all the signs of Elixlore poisoning. Of course, no one had ever consumed eight ounces of the potion; every story of overdose involved five to ten drops, no more than an ounce of it.

Mordred took a step closer, and understood suddenly what had driven Galahad to the edge of the room. The air was thick, tasting of static, and filled with a spidery haze. He waved his hand to dispel the haze and froze when the flat of his hand passed his eyes to reveal words. Examining his surroundings more closely, Mordred found the haze was made up of letters, words, whole paragraphs, hanging in the air, drifting in a slow circuit around Mary. Peering close, he saw a string of letters peel away from one of the screens to join the circle closest to Mary.

Mordred turned in a slow circle in place. He couldn't see the point, couldn't see the order, but he knew, now, what was happening. Mary was sorting through data, using the Elixlore's fantastic ability to consume information to organize whatever facts available to her in order to discover Merlin's secrets. She'd remain more or less safe as long as the data she reviewed was pertinent to her question, or if the Elixlore ran out before she began sorting through too much useless data. In fact, that's why a drop or two was the preferred dosage; with one or two pertinent sources, you could get an answer and the Elixlore would burn itself out before you got distracted by irrelevant information. But there was practically no limit to the data available on the internet, and it was incredibly easy to get distracted from your primary topic…

Mordred stepped forward, uncapping the glass in which he'd prepared the antidote (there wasn't really an antidote to Elixlore specifically, but Mordred's mom's concoction could shut down most potions). When he pressed through the circle just outside the screens surrounding Mary, she snapped her head up, and here, Mordred could see that her eyes weren't glowing, but that words were scrolling across her pupils.

"Stay away," Mary commanded. "I can see the shape of it - creating the Elixir of Life requires a complete understanding of chemistry, biology, thermodynamics - theocratic dogma creates a tendency toward violence in the name of an abstract principle, which with the proper iconography can create an interface between the action and intended beneficiary - there are enough of them that there need not be a single plot, even if there is a singular aim - it's clear he's responsible for the takeover in Russia, and silenced the part of our government who was supposed to stop alien invaders-"

"You may think you're on the edge of a breakthrough, Mary, but all that data passing through your mind is hurting you," Mordred said.

"No!" Mary protested, shaking her head. "I'm used to this - not this fast, but I can see it. He's built structures to allow him to benefit from death without the presence of an active cult - he needs strongholds, and somewhere he can keep an eye on us, so he can expect if a conflict with us is likely to be the endgame - and somewhere to keep it, somewhere secret, hidden-"

Her voice was getting faster, and that's what decided it for Mordred. He stepped up next to Mary; there was no pressure, no resistance, as he passed through the floating words, and none from her as he supported her head and poured the potion into her mouth.

She swallowed reflexively, and for a moment, nothing changed. The letters stuttered, then, pausing, and then began melting, glowing letters darkening and running together as they fell toward the floor.

"No!" Mary cried. She shoved Mordred to the side as she grabbed for the letters. The darkening ink fell onto her hands and arms, all but illegible as they ran together and splattered to the ground. She turned to Mordred, scowling, eyes fixed, fierce, on Mordred. "Why did you do that?" she demanded.

"That much Elixlore was going to kill you!" Eli protested. "Mordred was just trying to help."

"I almost had it!" Mary snapped. "Just a few more minutes, and I could have told you how we could beat Merlin!"

"Well, you could have told me what to expect!" Eli retorted. "You started getting all weird, and Mordred said it was toxic-"

"And you weren't thinking clearly," Mordred added. "Literally - Elixlore can make your brain overheat - cook in your skull - if you're under its effects too long. The time it would take just to read everything-"

"I read it all; I just couldn't organize it! But I almost had it!"

"Had what?" Mordred asked. "Eli said-"

"I almost knew where he had his grail!" Mary retorted. "I could see the shape of it - not his tomb, he buried it under two miles of water-"

"So what about his strongholds?" Eli asked.

"What?"

"You said he had strongholds. Places like that have - vaults, safes, other stuff, to keep valuables safe."

Mary shook her head. "I just know one - for certain. He's - connected, somehow, to the Lyons Group, and they built this huge complex just outside of Arcadia Oaks. To keep an eye on us."

"Then that's perfect! His final battle's supposed to be here; of course he'd keep his grail nearby."

"And if he doesn't?" Galahad asked.

"Well, there's a reason he built the place," Eli said with a shrug. "It can't possibly be good for him if we burn the place to the ground."

r/Paranormal * Posted by u/yin-lotus67 3 days ago

Not a Meme - Myth, Legend, and Apocrypha on the Sleeping God

Discussion

So let's talk apocalyptic death cults.

Not joking.

'The Sleeping God' isn't something that comes up often, at least in so many words. But myth, folklore, and religion the world over have a common theme of 'death as sleep', which suggests a common memetic source. An obvious origin is Egyptian mythology, where they preserve the dead to enable them to rise again in the afterlife - one of the few mythologies with a physical post-death existence.

The concept of Valhalla is similar - an eternity of deathless existence in exchange for a warrior's death.

So, are we talking a single legend that split into many, or one dude walking the Earth, spreading his legend?

dean_worch 3 points * 3 days ago
Is this a wild speculation thread or serious research thread? Asking for a friend

yin-lotus67 0 points * 3 day ago
Serious speculation

dean_worch 3 points * 3 days ago
Okay, because it sounds like you're building up to something and just want us to stumble into it. Like - who else worships life after death, who might have conveniently killed millions of people in the name of a god who rose from the dead?

yin-lotus67 0 points * 3 days ago
I'm not trying to make any points, really. I'm thinking out loud. This whole Sleeping God thing has me freaked out - everyone seems to have heard of it, the bloody history of his existence. I'm trying to understand if this is something we, as a species, have dealt with before, and if so, how.

anonymousangelfish 4 points * 3 days ago
In that case, you should be looking for legends about how evil sleeping gods were defeated, not who believes their god will awaken again. Like, it doesn't matter whose king is waking up in a year or whatever, only what to do about it.

yin-lotus67 0 points * 3 days ago
Maybe we should be looking for prophecies.

dean_worch 3 points * 2 days ago
Good luck. The subreddit on prophecies and clairvoyance is full of credible morons.

anonymousangelfish 4 points * 2 days ago
On that note, how do you determine if you've got a useful prophecy, instead of one that's complete bullshit?

notmaryjane 1,324 points * 2 days ago
Valid question. Is a prophecy 'true' just because it's old?

anonymousangelfish 4 points * 2 days ago
Why is a reddit legend on our thread?

dean_worch 3 points * 2 days ago
It can be worthless just because of linguistic drift and erosion. I wouldn't trust anything old on that basis unless you've got an original source. Aside from that - I mean, people put a lot of weight in the usual sources - Delphi, usually, who was really good at hedging her bets.

notmaryjane 1,324 points * 2 days ago
Sure, yeah, so Delphi's a good source, but you gotta be careful cause she equivocates a lot. Who else? What if you've got something you think might be Atlantean?

dean_worch 3 points * 2 days ago
It isn't Atlantean if it doesn't go on and on in symbolism. But if you can work your way through twelve layers of symbolic bullshit, they're usually legit.

notmaryjane 1,324 points * 2 days ago
So if it sounds like they've got a weird obsession with animals, it's either furries or Atlanteans. Good to know.

pitcherblack -1 points * 2 days ago
It won't help, Mary.

pitcherblack -1 points * 2 days ago
He knows both of those prophecies

pitcherblack -1 points * 2 days ago
And another

pitcherblack -1 points * 1 day ago
You need the fourth

notmaryjane 1,324 points * 1 day ago
What. The. Fuck.

Chapter Text

They'd picked the school gymnasium as a staging area. It was two in the morning - dark, and too early for any innocent bystanders to be in the Lyons building. There were more trolls than Jim had expected, but the trolls of Arcadia had changed, since they'd found the Light of Creation. Jim had felt the energy of the revitalized Heartstone, but hadn't realized-

Hiding wasn't really in a troll's nature.

Jim's mom was packing up her supplies - medical and magical all together, more blades on her person than was necessary for a medic (but Merlin's people didn't follow the Geneva Convention; they wouldn't let her live just because she was a healer).

He saw Steve sorting through an arsenal that really shouldn't have been possible to assemble in California, Eli sitting nearby, apparently meditating.

Everyone was here.

Except Claire.

Movement at waist level drew Jim's attention; he moved toward it, pleased when it turned out to be, as expected, Rico. He caught up just as Rico finished a first pass through the Jim; Jim dropped a hand on Rico's head to stop him.

Rico yelped and fell back, before his eyes crossed, looking up, and he relaxed. "Jeez, warn a guy!" Rico growled. "Not all of us are used to the big blue thing, yet."

"Where's Claire?" Jim asked.

"Ah." Rico held up a hand, in which he held a crumpled piece of paper. It had Jim's name on it, and a taped seal that had been ripped away. Jim offered a glare to Rico, who shrugged, unrepentant.

Jim flipped open the paper.

The note inside was short, and explained little.

'Jim

I'm sorry. This is my fault. I have to fix it.

Claire'

Toby would like to say he'd woken that morning with some sense that something was going to happen, that he possessed some echo of the future, like a cut-rate Krubera.

But the reality was, he woke up three minutes before his alarm went off to the scent of burned toast. He smiled at his bedroom ceiling as the smoke alarm downstairs started blaring; it would have woken him up a moment later, anyway. Sure, he wasn't looking forward to eating it, but if he was smelling burnt toast-

Toby was downstairs inside of five minutes, swinging into the kitchen, where his mom was glowering at their breakfast, peanut butter spread on scorched carbon.

"You know," she said as Toby stepped around her to get at the fridge, "I'm one of the most skilled diplomats in the known universe. I brokered peace between Irk and Duria, which was a prime strip mall location. Why does cooking still escape me?"

"I really can't say," Toby replied, pulling out a jug of milk. He poured himself and his mom a glass apiece, and sat at the kitchen table, taking a moment just to...watch her. He'd stopped keeping count of how many times he'd nearly died nine months ago, and now, just.

Tried to remember how lucky he was to have all these people he loved.

So he ate his mom's burnt toast, smiled at her admonition to be safe, and left with more than enough time to get to school.

Well, with an important stop beforehand.

Jim answered the door after the first knock (they tried to keep down the noise when Dr. Lake worked late shifts). There was a moment where his eyes widened, lips parting in surprise - then another where he stared at Toby, narrowly, before his expression shifted into a smile, wide, relieved, eyes bright. He dragged Toby in for a hug, and Toby grabbed back, because-

Well, he'd nearly died, recently. A reminder that Toby was alive was good for both of them.

"It's good to see you," Jim muttered into Toby's shoulder.

"Same," Toby replied.

Jim patted Toby's shoulders, squeezed, and stepped back, still smiling. Toby nudged Jim's shoulder when Jim didn't move for a little too long.

"You alright? We've got class."

Jim shook his head, and when he stopped, there was more focus to his gaze. "Yeah," he replied. "Just let me grab lunch, first."

It took a moment, and then Jim, Toby, and their packed lunches were on the way to school. It took a few minutes for Toby to catch his rhythm; Jim kept nearly running into him, forcing Toby toward the shoulder of the road. But except for that, it was an easy ride to school.

They didn't take the canals.

Toby followed Jim to his locker, leaning on the one next to it as Jim packed away his books, and their lunches. At the sixth student openly staring at Toby, he turned to watch Jim rather than flip them off or start cursing. Sure, he was sick of the attention, but it wasn't their fault. For months, everyone had thought Toby was dead; of course his reappearance would cause...comment.

"Are you okay, Tobes?"

Jim's face was pinched, brow furrowed; to that, Toby could just grin and nod. It wasn't worth worrying about, or at least not worth Jim worrying about. They'd all been through enough without getting upset at teenagers being...curious.

"Sure. Let's get to history."

Jim's expression shifted in a moment - narrow, suspicious (like the startled moment he'd had at the door earlier, except it didn't leave).

"Yeah," he agreed. "Keep an eye out."

Toby sighed; he kept forgetting how stressful school had been, ever since…

Well, since he'd gotten back.

Still, he watched Jim's back as they headed toward history class.

Which was how, as they passed the library, Toby saw Claire watching them. No, not Jim and Toby - just Toby. And there was something - unfamiliar in her eyes. An intensity to her gaze, he thought, a longing. Which.

Toby'd considered asking Claire out a couple of times, could remember talking with Jim about it (after that ship had sailed for him; it wasn't cool to put that sort of tension on a friendship). But now, it was...complicated. So Toby tried to put it out of his mind.

It was easy enough to do during history; despite Jim's concerns, Toby hadn't seen Mr. Strickler do anything during class, but he kept his eye on him regardless. Whether or not he'd meant to do it, Mr. Strickler had nearly destroyed Jim with what had happened to Toby. So Toby wouldn't afford the changeling any trust, even if he didn't seem to be up to anything.

But then there was English, which Toby had with Claire...and not Jim.

And she was trying to be subtle about it, but Toby caught her - two or three times, but enough to confirm she was watching him. And there was something odd about her. Not just the way she was watching Toby (which was flattering, but it didn't change that things were complicated), but her…

Style? Stance?

She was watchful, certainly, and tense. And (not that Toby was looking too closely at her) her clothes were a step less fashionable than usual - and a step more practical. But he still couldn't put his finger on it.

Not until after class, when Toby inexcusably let his attention wander, and stumbled when someone ran into him. He caught himself against the nearest locker, but something grabbed him in that moment of distraction, and yanked him through an open door.

The room was dark, blinds pulled so no sunlight came through, and the door slammed behind Toby to reveal Claire smiling at him.

Toby cursed himself for not considering the obvious, that Claire looking and acting strange might not be Claire at all. That she was Otto Scarbach, or some other Polymorph.

Toby grabbed at the nearest desk, pulling a Bunsen burner into his hand, and turned back to Claire. "You picked the wrong dude to mess with," Toby growled.

"What?" Claire glanced at Toby's makeshift weapon, before her grin widened. "Oh, god, no! I'm - I'm Claire, Toby! Nuñez!"

"You don't act like her," Toby retorted.

"Yeah, well," Claire replied, "the whole Trollhunting thing got real intense when you fought Bular. Everyone thought you died like, six months ago. And then you showed up again, like, a month ago? And it was a traumatic experience, so no one asked questions if you seemed...different. Off."

"What are you saying?" Toby demanded, hands clenching at his sides. Claire sounded so sure or herself, but the way she'd been looking at him, he wasn't certain what she planned to do about it.

"How many dragons do you know, Toby?" Claire asked.

"W - what?" The question, so far from what Toby had expected, left him stuck in a moment of vertigo, enough that he grabbed at the nearest flat surface to make sure he was still on the ground.

"Dragons," Claire repeated. "How many have you met?"

"Dragons are - aren't real," Toby murmured.

"Of course not," Claire agreed. "But how many have you met?"

She was so intense, so serious about this, and Toby didn't know what she'd do if she thought he was lying, so he blurted out, "Two! And a half."

Something slammed into Toby, and he nearly flipped it into the ceiling before he realized it was Claire. Hugging him. He could see tears along her cheeks, and she was - he didn't know if she was laughing or crying.

"Thank god!" Claire cried out. "I thought - I was imagining it, but it's you!"

"Wait." Toby struggled for a moment; Claire seemed unwilling to let go, but she eventually seemed to get the point and stepped back. She was smiling, wide, uncontrollable, even though her cheeks were tear-stained. And with the idea planted in his head, Toby could see what had been weird about Claire. Like him, she moved a little uncertain in the world, as if unfamiliar with it. But also-

She was familiar.

"Claire?" He realized a moment too late how stupid he sounded. "I mean-"

"You aren't from here, Toby, are you?" Claire asked.

"And...neither are you," Toby replied. "You…"

"We thought you were dead," Claire said. "Death told us - the Black Fire would have consumed you, body and soul."

And Toby laughed, because it wasn't just Claire from another world, it was Claire from his world.

And he started crying, and couldn't stop, because-

He couldn't say, just that he sank against the wall, sobbing for...well, he was probably late for economics when the crying stopped. Claire was sitting next to him, not quite touching, but she was watching him, her smile-

Brittle. Like she was afraid he'd disappear.

"Where's Jim?" Toby asked.

Claire shook her head. "I didn't tell him I was doing this. I didn't tell anyone." She huffed and fell back against the wall next to Toby. "I didn't know if I was right - thinking you were still alive."

"I can respect that."

"So can we head back now, or do you want to say goodbye to people first?"

It had been a shock to realize this was his Claire (well, not his, but there was no easy way to describe this aside from the awkward 'Claire from his home universe'), but this was like a blow - a sudden shock to his chest, a rush of panic, throat tight. Tears gathered at his eyes again.

"Claire, I can't," Toby protested.

She took a step back, eyes falling into a steady glare. "You can't?" she asked. "You know Jim's a mess, right? He tried to get the Lord of Winter to kill him, and when that didn't work, he offered his own life in exchange for Mordred's. Dr. Lake's basically vanished when she isn't at work. Word around town is she's spending all her time training with Draal, Bular, whatever troll will fight her. I don't know what's going down with your Nana - she keeps things close to her chest. But they're suffering; we all are, Toby. Do you think I threw myself into the Shadow Realm looking for the one world out of billions you might be in because I don't care?" And, jeez, she was crying; Toby fumbled for a tissue, or something, but Claire waved him off as she stormed to the window.

Toby rose, slowly, following Claire until they stood side-by-side at the windows. He didn't know what she was doing; the blinds meant they couldn't see anything.

"Is it Jim? This one? Are you and him…?"

"No!" Toby insisted. After a moment, he added, "He's missing someone else. It wouldn't be fair." When Claire didn't respond, he continued. "But he needs someone. He doesn't have anyone close like that, anymore." Toby had wanted to cry when he'd realized that, how alone this Jim felt. Claire...wasn't quite an enemy, but it was close. Eli didn't know about trolls, Steve was a jerk, and Toby couldn't figure out if Draal was Jim's uncle in this universe or not. They didn't get along, anyway.

"There's something else," Claire said. It wasn't a question, and it was a reminder that Claire had hidden depths. She'd outwitted Morgana, stolen the Shadowstaff from her; you couldn't do that if you weren't smart. Canny.

Toby sighed. "My parents are alive here. They were so happy to see me, even if I'm not-"

"They're not your parents."

"So what?" Toby snapped. "They're - I barely remember mine!"

"This isn't healthy!" Claire retorted. "You can't just-"

"What do you know?" Toby retorted. "You lost your little brother and got him back, and another one on top of that! I'm not getting my parents back, so maybe I'm allowed this! Maybe this is something I can have in exchange for going through all that shit back home." He huffed and turned around so he could lean, awkwardly, against the wall under the windows.

"Would you change your mind if I told you we couldn't beat Merlin without you?" Claire asked.

"Can you?" Toby asked. It left him feeling a little sick, leaving all this - Jim, his parents - behind, because otherwise-

"Who knows? It was a - thought, really. Telling you that. If it made a difference, maybe it'd be worth you hating me when you found out I'd lied."

“I would have kicked your ass for that,” Toby replied, despite the fact he wasn’t sure he could. He wasn’t sure Claire could kick his, either.

He didn’t want to fight her, is what he was saying.

“Hm,” Claire replied. She wandered over to the front desk and flopped backward onto it, heedless of the mess. “So should I head home and tell Jim - our Jim - you’re not coming back?”

And the thought of that - of how that would make Jim feel (like he wasn’t enough, that Toby had wanted him just as a replacement for his parents, that as long as he had them, even substitutes, a substitute Jim was good enough) - was - well a lot like the feeling of abandoning this Jim.

“That’s low,” Toby protested.

“Yeah? Good.” Claire twisted around and, propping herself up on one arm, jabbed a finger at Toby. She was scowling, teeth bared, and despite knowing he could maybe take her, Toby stepped back.

“Because if I have to tell Jim that you’re not coming back - that you chose not to come back - I’m wringing every speck of guilt I can out of you first.” She rolled onto her back again, sighing. “Besides, I figured guilt might work where logic didn’t." She let the silence sit between them a moment. "Did it?"

"I don't know." Toby slumped down against the desk, drumming his fingers against the side of it. The tapping gave his fingers something to do when his mind had no idea. And with his mind wandering…

"How did you find me, anyway?"

Claire shoved herself off the desk, landing, light, next to Toby. She was grinning, hands loose but twitching at her sides. Excited, Toby guessed. Proud.

"I haven't had a chance to tell this yet," she said. "You saw that shadow sorceress' face, right? You know who she is?"

"Yeah, Dr. Capulet." She'd dropped that hood in the moment she'd shoved Toby through a portal, to give him a sad smile, a wish that he could be happy, wherever he ended up. And he had been-

"But that's not all," Claire insisted. "I bet when you first saw her, she looked familiar, right?"

"I guess." Eli had explained once that because the human brain looked for patterns, it saw familiar faces even when people didn't look much the same at all; he thought Dr. Capulet had been one of those moments, but it was clearly not. "What, is she secretly Stricklander's mom or something?"

"What?" Claire's smile slipped. "No! She's - me! Claire Maria Nuñez."

"Huh. It seems you might be letting the side down, a bit, with the banishing one of our heavy hitters to another dimension."

Claire huffed, stalking a few steps away so Toby didn't have to hurt his neck to look at her face. "She's not, like, literally me. She's-"

"From another dimension," Toby guessed.

"Yeah. She...I think she killed Merlin, there. But she had to kill a lot of other people to do it. And when she told me you didn't suffer, I thought at first she thought it made her good that she made it quick, even though you were dead either way. And then Death told Jim that the fire Dr. Capulet used destroys the body and the soul. And I got to thinking."

Claire spun around to face Toby, and the smile was back. "She's me. Anyone else in the world, if I heard their tragic backstory, I'd sympathize, maybe, but I wouldn't know how they felt. But Dr. Capulet? I bet I can. And if I can imagine how she feels, I can imagine how she'd act. And I couldn't imagine she'd kill you, not unless it was absolutely necessary. Maybe not even then."

"What, because you're madly in love with me?"

"Because she's caused enough hurt already. Because she didn't need to do it the way she did it. Burning you to ashes, so we didn't bother looking for a body? Destroying your soul, so there wasn't any chance of resurrection? If I had to kill someone, I'd just do it - none of this melodramatic bullshit. No, this was a show, and she was overacting the hell out of it."

"Oh! Like when you played Captain Hook in seventh grade!"

"Fuck you, I was brilliant!" Claire retorted. "But Dr. Capulet isn't quite as good an actor as I am. All those portals - sleight of hand. And once I figured that out, all I needed to do was search an infinite number of universes for our Toby Domzalski."

"Yeah," Toby agreed, uneasy. "That's actually - I'm pretty curious about that. Like, there's an infinite number of universes-"

"Yeah, about that."

And Claire looked - nervous, probably, unwilling to meet Toby's eyes.

"What did you do?"

"Nothing bad!" Claire protested. "Just maybe...not particularly safe." She raised her right hand, palm up, and then twisted her hand around, tracing a circle in mid-air. The simple gesture turned empty air into a hole opening to the infinite darkness of the Shadow Realm.

"I knew you could make portals," Toby replied.

But Claire shook her head. "Not just any portals - all the portals. The Dragon's Tear - that was always the part of the Shadowstaff that made opening portals easy. Because dragons live outside reality, they can be used to step between worlds. But using a phylactery to access that power is - you lose so much of the power locked in the stone. Because the tear is tied to eyes, to vision, and dragons can track people through the Shadow Realm! Once I accessed the Dragon Tear's full power, I could see where you'd been."

And with Claire all but raving about magic stones next to the same breath as talking about Merlin's sorcerer friend, Toby had a suspicion.

"And how...did you access the full power?"

"Consuming - well, subsuming - the magic in it." She clenched her fist and the floating portal vanished. "It was...strange at first. But I'm getting used to it - that power in my blood."

"Your blood? What did you-"

"Oh, don't tell me about all the risks. I thought about that. I asked Eli and Mrs. Pepperjack. It was perfectly safe. More or less." She dropped down and poked Toby's chest hard enough to almost hurt, and when he looked up at her, she was staring at him fixedly. Serious. "It was risky, okay? Maybe...pretty risky, I don't know. I weighed it against the benefits, and, well, here I am." She shrugged.

Toby felt a shift - a lack of balance. His hand hit the floor, catching him before he could fall. Because he couldn't wrap his head around it. "We're not even friends!" Toby protested.

"Maybe," Claire replied, "But you're important. I don't think Merlin would have gone to these lengths for nothing, and I'm still not sold on the 'fearing Mjolnir' theory. You're - I don't know - a bridge, a foundation for us. You're a human, an alien, and a troll. You keep bonding with people, and you've got this energy…" She pushed herself back up, stretching with a rough sigh. "I don't know how to say it, but we lost something important when we lost you. And since it was my fault we lost you-" She shrugged. "So here we are."

Toby shook his head, because he didn't have a good enough way to express how that wasn't right. It couldn't be. He couldn't be that important to - everybody. Jim, sure, his Nana, of course-

"I'm not-"

"No. Don't do this self-deprecating shit. I put up with it from Rico, because he's my brother and I have to. But you? No. You're one of the Krubera King's best friends, the Trollhunter's brother, confidante of one of the world's two - and a half - living dragons, you've got the Akiridian royal family wrapped around your finger…" She trailed off with a shrug.

And laid out like that, it did sound impressive. Like Toby mattered.

But it didn't change one important fact.

People here needed him, too.

"Tobes, if you're going to disappear between periods, I'd appreciate a heads-up that you're not dead-"

Claire froze, which Toby got was some sort of reflex, but Jim, who had just pushed the classroom door open, wasn't a T-rex, wouldn't fail to notice her just because she wasn't moving. Toby, though, pushed himself up, offering Jim a smile, a shrug.

"Sorry. Claire just sort of ambushed me-"

"Get away from her."

Claire yelped and stumbled back, because, yes, Jim had Daylight in his hands (he was good at getting the sword without the invocation), held, easy, ready.

"Jimbo, calm down," Toby said, spreading his hands to remind Jim he was unarmed. "Claire and I were just talking-"

"That's not Claire. She's got calculus with me; I saw her five minutes ago!"

"Wait." Toby turned to Claire. "You didn't even give her a heads-up that she had a doppelganger running around? There's changelings and Polymorphs and shit I do not have time to list out!"

"Of course I told her!" Claire snapped, arms folded against her chest. "But there's a test today, and I've been through the calculus thing once already."

"What's...are you a changeling?" Jim demanded.

"God, no," Claire retorted. "I'm Claire Maria Nuñez."

Jim glanced to Toby, and back at Claire, eyes still narrow. Suspicious. He had right to be, and having already lost one Toby, well.

"She's telling the truth, Jimbo." Jim's gaze snapped back to Toby; he tried to offer a comforting smile.

Jim shook his head, though. "How could you…" He looked back at Claire, before letting the sword drop, vanish. "Because you know her. She's from your world."

Claire eased her stance, sighing. "Thank god; I wasn't sure how Toby would feel about me beating the shit out of you if you insisted on fighting."

Jim scoffed. "You wish you could take me."

"Ehh," Toby said; he shrugged when Jim gave him a wavery, wide-eyed look. "What? She probably could. She was dangerous enough before she supercharged her teleportation abilities. Right? That's what eating the Dragon Tear did to you?"

"If you want to be simplistic, yes," Claire agreed.

"Wait - what? Why are you eating tears?"

Claire rolled her eyes. "It's a long, complicated discussion that I don't want to have right now. Suffice to say, you can think of me like Nightcrawler, except not fuzzy. Also with control over the shadows, but that's less precise unless I decide to eat the Shadow's Eye, and that's...not as good an idea as this was."

"What," Jim repeated.

Toby clapped a hand on Jim's shoulder. "Just roll with it. I'm...pretty sure it won't matter for us at all. I don't even know what the Amulet of Daylight is, if it's not a Phylactery."

"For me."

"What?"

Jim was watching Claire, and Toby had thought he'd eased up, but Jim was tense again. "It won't matter for me."

"Us, dude. We're all in this together-"

"But you're going back. With her."

"Dude, no. I'm not abandoning you just-"

"I'm telling you," Jim said.

"What?"

"You're going back with her. Home. Where you belong. With your Jim, and Claire and - whoever else is missing you."

"Dude, I can't do that to you-"

"And I can't do that to them!" Jim snapped. "I can't take you from them just because I miss...someone who's not coming back."

Toby closed his eyes, feeling the tears gathering at their edges. They both knew Toby wasn't the person Jim wanted around, but it was a quiet fact, one they hadn't really talked about. But it was true. Jim, Toby's parents - they were happy to have Toby because it - put a band-aid on a wound. It didn't keep them from missing the real - their - Toby. He wasn't a replacement; he was a - temporary measure.

And knowing how that felt, missing someone, knowing there was no replacing them, Jim wanted Toby to leave them to their grief.

"But my parents-"

"You're great, Toby. Awesome. But."

But Toby wasn't just a balm to soothe the pain of losing this Toby; he was a reminder to everyone who knew the truth of what they'd lost.

"You have to go."

"Jimbo-"

"I mean, tell your parents. Say goodbye. But." Jim stepped up to Toby and pulled him into a tight hug - more like what troll-Jim could do than human Jim. Toby returned the embrace and tried to ignore the quiet snuffles from Jim. It was only a few moments, but then Jim pulled back, pausing only to press a quick kiss to Toby's cheek. That had been something else unspoken, what else Jim had lost that Toby was just a reminder of. "But go," Jim concluded. "I'll miss you. We all will. But." He stopped, swallowing, quiet, and then shook his head. "Go." He turned, stepped out of the classroom, and was gone down the hall before Toby could bring himself to move.

"Yeah, okay," Claire said after a moment. "I didn't expect that."

"You didn't?" Toby asked. "Didn't you say Jim was going to offer his life for Mordred's?" He swiped at his eyes, unsurprised to find his own tears there. "Trollhunting's about making sacrifices. Your health, your happiness, you life, for what's supposed to be the greater good. And Jim's an excellent Trollhunter." He chuckled and stepped up to pat Claire's shoulder. "Now, let's go have some tearful goodbyes with my parents and Dr. Lake and then go home."

Because Jim was right - there wasn't a point staying here, reminding everyone, even himself, of things they'd lost and could never get back. If Toby felt a little sick when he finally stepped out of his mother's embrace, shook his dad's hand, and followed Claire outside to return to their universe, he didn't tell her. They all had to make sacrifices for this war.

Chapter Text

"Can we go over the plan again?" The alien - the one that could speak English - scratched idly at the fake face he'd made with some weird alien tech (that was somehow more hideous than his normal face). "Because it sounds a little-"

Kubritz punched the alien's shoulder, causing them to yelp, a weak, squeaky noise.

"Clyde Palchuk ruined my career," Kubritz growled. "He betrayed this country, allying with a hostile alien invader for the sake of his overblown ego, and made a mockery of the United States Army!"

"I know that, but I don't see how that leads to...your plan."

Kubritz rolled her eyes. "There's no way Palchuk got where he is on his own - someone was pulling strings from him, someone with connections - and power. The corruption goes all the way to the top, and we're going to remove it."

Mordred tripped, stumbling into Aaarrrgghh; Aaarrrgghh caught the boy before he could fall further.

"Alright?" Aaarrrgghh asked. When Mordred didn't answer, he nudged his shoulder (carefully; Mordred had been dead for a very long time). "Mordred?"

"I - I'm fine," Mordred replied, distant. "Just - what's that on Jim's back?"

Aaarrrgghh glanced to Jim, whose back at first glance seemed to have been carved. Aaarrrgghh felt a little flush of confusion; even taking into account a human was considered an adult over a century before a troll would, Jim shouldn't have carvings for at least another year. But, peering at the lines a little more closely, he saw they weren't carved, but painted or drawn on, white interspersed with reddish highlights.

"Don't know," Aaarrrgghh concluded, at last.

"That's - thanks," Mordred said. He didn't move, eyes still fixed on Jim, who was arguing with Draal by the door to the gym. "Do you know where Dictatious is?"

Aaarrrgghh didn't, but he knew where Blinky was, which, on average, would be as far away from Dictatious as possible. Blinky was helping organize their magical arsenal (well, arguing with Galahad about their magical arsenal; Blinky was slightly less concerned about collateral damage than most of their allies), about ten feet away, which would put Dictatious…

Aaarrrgghh perked up and pointed to the far corner of the gymnasium, where Dictatious was huddled in conference with Aster.

"Good." Mordred strode toward the group. After a moment, Aaarrrgghh followed. He wasn't certain what was going on in Mordred's head, but he had to look out for Jim, who was just on the border of adulthood, when a young troll needed guidance the most. Aaarrrgghh had to move carefully; the gathered humans, trolls, and assorted other creatures crowded the gymnasium, which had been the largest space they had for staging this operation. Still, he was taller than Mordred, and arrived at the meeting just a moment after Mordred.

"Have you seen Jim's back?" Mordred demanded.

Dictatious raised one eyebrow. "I generally don't have much reason to be looking at it," he replied. "But I presume you will shortly illuminate us as to what you discovered during your study of it."

Mordred's form tensed as he crossed his arms, frowning at Dictatious.

"Be nice," Aaarrrgghh chided; Dictatious jerked his head, startled, toward Aaarrrgghh, before scowling himself.

"Someone's painted all over him," Mordred said. "And it looks like some sort of rune."

"It should be," Aster said. "Dr. Lake has been designing her own runes as long as she's been studying them."

"Then come on," Mordred said, grabbing the Pooka's arm. "You, too," he snapped at Dictatious. "I want to make sure this thing isn't going to get Jim killed."

Mordred clearly wasn't in a mood to hear that Dr. Lake wouldn't have put a rune on her son if she weren't certain it was safe, so Aaarrrgghh stayed quiet. The others, too, were smart enough not to argue, either, as Mordred stormed toward Jim. He slowed as they reached Jim and Draal, reaching out a hand to tap Jim's wrist.

Jim turned, giving them all a toothy grin (it was strange to see a proper trollish look in his smile, to be a little more certain how he was feeling than when he was human), the expression softening, a little, when he saw Mordred. "What's up?"

"Can you hold still a moment? We're trying to figure out what this rune is for," Mordred said.

"Mom said it was to protect me-"

"Well, there are a number of ways to do that," Dictatious said. "We want to know exactly what it's going to be doing. There was a sword that ensured its bearer was always victorious in battle - a condition that notably did not guarantee he would not die of his wounds shortly afterward." He narrowed his eyes as he stared at the rune. "I hope this is her blood," he said, noting the red smears in the lines of the rune.

"A willing sacrifice for her own child? Bound to be," Aster said. He pointed at the right side of the rune. "That, though, I didn't expect."

"What?" Jim demanded, twisting his head around.

"No, that's Dr. Lake all over," Mordred replied. "She might want Jim safe, but she wouldn't risk someone else to do it."

"What's going on?" Jim asked. He turned, cutting off further study of his back. Mordred let out a startled squeak as Jim did so, so it was Dictatious who replied.

"The easiest way to protect someone is to - deflect harm. Turn it aside. Your mother clearly believed that risked inflicting the deflected harm onto your allies, and instead worked a rune that will mitigate harm. There's an aspect of luck manipulation here, but also one of blunting. She must have used her blood to make it powerful enough to be noticeable."

"The short of it is, you and any of your nearby allies are likely to be hurt less than they would otherwise," Aster said.

"Where is she?" Dictatious asked. "We need to figure out what other magic she's throwing around."

"I think she was talking to Kellor about how to bolster the defenses in other Trollmarkets?"

"Good, come on." Dictatious yanked Aster after him as he hurried to another corner of the gymnasium.

Mordred hadn't moved, and Aaarrrgghh, certain his own people knew their place in this battle, stayed, as well. It was quiet a moment before Jim cleared his throat.

"Do you think we're ready to go?" he asked Aaarrrgghh. "I think most of the humans are set-"

"The faeries are good on their part of the plan," Mordred interjected.

Jim gave him a sharp glance, lips quirking upward before nodding. "Right. The faeries, too. Um. Darci mentioned something about a magic fox - do we know if they're around here, somewhere?"

Aaarrrgghh shrugged, feeling a little lost. Mordred still seemed...oddly quiet, staring distantly at Jim. "Maybe just need to go," Aaarrrgghh offered.

"Yeah," Jim agreed. "We definitely want to get out of here before it gets bright out. Hey! Let's go!"

And Jim may not have technically been in charge, but his command finally moved the mixed group of warriors toward the door. They had three cars for the humanoids, to allow them to keep up with the trolls. The Lyons Group building wasn't far outside town (still technically in Arcadia's boundaries), but the travel was tense, silent. Merlin would not leave any of his strongholds unprotected, and if this contained anything as valuable as his grail, it would be guarded by his most dangerous servants. The moon was only half-full, so that wouldn't include werewolves, but the basement was likely full of vampires, hence why the Krubera and Yeti were leading the subterranean attack.

There was, of course, one remaining concern, which Darci voiced when they reached the fence surrounding the massive office building. There were few lights on, expected for it being at least half an hour before dawn, hours before the office would be open.

"So...how sure are we this is the stronghold of an evil wizard?" Darci asked. "Because I'm going to feel a little bad if we smash in there and it's just a think tank."

"Only one way to find out," Eli said. He tried to take a step forward, only to be halted in place by a hand on his shoulder.

"Dude," Steve said, "there's like six I can think of off the top of my head. The first one being, are there any weird magical defenses?" He whistled, and a cat-sized form uncoiled around his neck and leapt into the air, chirping as they went. The creature, a pseudodragon, flapped twice for the height to clear the fence, and then was gliding over the landscaping and parking lot that stood between them and the office building. Sparks danced along the pseudodragon's wings, violet, green, yellow-

"Get back here!" Eli shouted; the pseudodragon was already wheeling around, darting toward the fence. They were almost there when the sky lit up. Lightning danced along the grass and pavement, arcing into the sky. The pseudodragon cleared the fence a moment before the lightning slammed into it, washing along the fencing, sending sparks a few inches from the surface. The lightning died, but there was still bright light cutting through the darkness - a huge sigil glowing at the center of the parking lot.

"Okay, so - not a lot of think tanks use rune magic to protect the perimeter," Darci concluded.

Aaarrrgghh, though, was staring at the rune, uneasy. "Why little dragon set it off?" he asked. "Dragons supposed to-" He waved his hands vaguely, uncertain exactly how to explain the way dragons handled magic.

"Dragon Magic can affect dragons," Eli replied. "If they bound Dragon Magic in a rune-" He shrugged.

"So...." Steve drawled, "any ideas how to get through there?"

"Well, it's a rune," Dr. Lake said. "Which means we may be able to erase it - and, of course, it can hold only a limited amount of power."

"Kill-bots," Galahad breathed.

"What?" Jim asked.

Rather than explaining, Galahad sprinted forward, clambered up the fence in a few movements, and vaulted onto the pavement of the greenery nearest them.

Lightning jumped in short arcs from the rune to Galahad, striking him with a crack and the smell of ozone; Jim, closest to Galahad (in Mordred's absence from the war party, Jim had likely been tasked with Galahad's safety), screamed, and most of the rest of their party looked away. Aaarrrgghh, though, kept his eyes on Galahad. The boy had moved too certainly; he knew something the others didn't.

The lightning stopped, and Galahad, skin red and scorched, took a step forward. The lightning struck again, and his body jerked, twisted, as he fell.

"Is that all you got?" Galahad screamed - at the sky, at Merlin, at someone, Aaarrrgghh hoped. He rose to his hands and knees and got two, three steps before he was struck again. When he stood again after that, he was moving more surely, and when the next bolt struck him, he barely flinched. He was moving - slowly, because he must have been in excruciating pain, but still moving - toward the rune. It took a minute for Aaarrrgghh to realize, and perhaps only because it took that long for it to be noticeable, that the lightning was getting weaker. Enough to easily fell a human, but possibly not enough to drop a troll. When Galahad was ten feet away from the rune, the lightning stopped. Jim, who, like Aaarrrggh, was watching Galahad intently, was breathing heavily, unevenly. It was quiet for two, three seconds, and then Galahad cried out, a jubilant 'whoop'.

"See that, you fucker? It'll take a hell of a lot more than that to kill Sir Galahad, last living knight of the fucking Round Table!" He spun around to face them, and even at this distance, Aaarrrgghh could see his wide grin. "Come on!" he called. "This trap is out of fucking commission!"

The others were still, uncertain, but Jim's face twisted into a snarl and he stormed forward. When he reached the fence, he swiped his hand, through it, tearing metal grating with trollish strength, and ten feet of fence fell away, cut cleanly through the wire. Jim continued forward, though he slowed when he reached Galahad.

"I'm supposed to be looking after you," he growled. "Mordred said - you can't just run off to get yourself killed without warning us. If we lost you-"

"Ah. That can be arranged."

Aaarrrgghh could hit himself for how stupid they'd been, forgetting there weren't just traps, weren't just walls.

There were guards.

A dozen or so humans were spread about thirty feet back from the fence, holding guns (the ones that went fast). But the person who had spoken stood back from them, angled so he could watch Galahad and the rest of their group at the same time. They looked like an elderly human man, face wrinkled, severe, and slim, white hair bound up into a tight knot on the top of his head, eyes - pale, clouded. As if he were blind. He stood straight, stiff, still, and was smiling, almost gently.

"Or you could leave. We are not unreasonable, and have no quarrel with you if you will abandon this foolish notion of penetrating this facility." He tilted his head, as if listening for a reply, and Aaarrrgghh decided he really was blind. Not that it meant he wasn't dangerous, just that - well, it was a thing to know.

Aaarrrgghh glanced to Jim, who stepped between the old man and Galahad - worried, obviously, if they would be safe if the group surrendered and left. Blinky was twitching, next to Aaarrrgghh, just barely holding back from throwing himself straight at the old man. Everyone else was still, uncertain. As if the magic traps, and this old, blind man who held himself like a king, didn't prove this was a place Merlin thought was worth protecting.

"You know, those guns are impressive and all," Darci said, stepping forward, stopping just at the ragged edge of the cut fence. "But do you think we didn't expect guards with guns? Do you honestly think we're afraid of a couple of bullets?"

Darci was not, as far as Aaarrrgghh remembered, wearing a bulletproof vest. He tensed, ready to throw himself at her if the guards started shooting.

But they didn't move. The old man's head twisted in the direction of Darci's voice, his mouth twisting into a sneer.

"Watch yourself, boy," he snapped. "I have it within my power to destroy you in a moment."

Darci, standing easily a moment before, suddenly looked smaller, tense, shivering. It took a moment to realize why, to remember that Darci had shared, once, that she was like Draal, had cast aside a name and identity that had been forced upon her, to take up one that was true to her. That what this man saw when he looked at her was a twisted reflection, something false he believed to be true.

It took Draal less time to understand, because he roared and slammed his fist against the ground. The earth rose up before him, a rippling wall that twisted and broke the fence as it passed through it, ignored the bullets the guards shot at it, and rolled over them, crushing bones and bodies as it tossed them aside.

And when it was over, the old man was standing there, unruffled, not a hair out of place, the lines of his sleek black suit in place.

"Calm yourself, Rokka, daughter of Kanjigar," the old man said, voice sharp, but unemotional. "You may lead me to believe you do not intend to absent this place, and I will be forced to destroy you."

Draal's face was tight in a silent snarl, and it took Aaarrrgghh an unforgivable amount of time to realize what was going on. He glanced at the old man, wondering if he knew that misnaming a troll was a mortal insult. He wondered if he cared.

"That's it," Darci snapped. "You and me, buster, one on one!"

"What?" the old man burst out, a startled laugh. "You would challenge me? A half-grown boy fighting Raiden, the Tsar Lunar XII?"

"No," Darci growled. "A girl beating the shit out of some transphobic asshole."

The man, Raiden, laughed again. "If this is the fate you choose for yourself, then so be it!" He huffed out a breath, and mist billowed out from his mouth, hiding himself and most of the open space in vapor. A moment later, a massive spined serpent lunged out of the mist, a creature with armored plates all along his form, covering even his head, except for his gleaming blue-white eyes. He swam through the air toward Darci, jaws gaping. Aaarrrgghh was already running to get her out of the way when Draal, riding a wave of earth, rose up and punched the giant snake in the nose.

Raiden recoiled with a hiss. "What happened to 'one-on-one'?" he demanded. "Do you pretend to be honorable, as you do at being a girl?"

"What? No, I just realized - I don't owe jack shit to someone who can't even get a dude's name right."

Draal leapt off his platform, slashing at Raiden's hide with twin blades, roaring an archaic warcry.

"It does not matter, anyway," Raiden retorted. "Whether you are two, or twenty, or a hundred, you cannot defeat me." He swiped his tail at Draal, forcing Draal to drop and roll out of the way. Raiden turned back to Darci, who lobbed an iron horseshoe at his right eye. Raiden screamed a the blow, twisting away, rising out of their reach. "You will all perish here!"

"Yeah, no," Darci said. "I might have been worried before you told us who you were. Tsar Lunar XII? The Moon King? I know your son, dude. And he told me your weakness."

Raiden paused, turning to look down at Darci, eyes glowing with moonlight.

"The Lunar Samisen is destroyed," Raiden said. "The Sword Unbreakable cast into the world between life and death, guarded by a sleepless, immortal guardian. Nothing that can defeat me yet remains in this world!"

"Yeah, but you're blind," Darci said. "You can only see what's reflected on the moon's surface. And I've got like half a dozen sorcerers with me - enough to block out the moon. Not for long, but enough to kill you, I bet."

Raiden held still for a moment, eyes narrowed, fixed on Darci. And then between one breath and the next he was gone, like a mirage.

"Well," Darci said, "who's ready to kick ass?"

Aaarrrgghh was not the first one to hurl themselves through the glass fronting of the office building, but only because he couldn't talk his way out of four bodyguards, meaning they went in first.

It was a close thing, though.

Eli was close behind the front line of trolls, human-shaped, because most office buildings weren't built to accommodate almost fully-grown dragons. Steve was somewhere near the back, ostensibly because he was a sniper, but Eli had overheard Jim asking Steve to make sure his mother didn't go charging in somewhere.

Regardless, being at the front, Eli got a clear view of the lobby as the first combatants slowed, turning to take in the lay of the space. The lobby was three stories tall, more than enough room for a full-grown dragon to, say, descend from the balcony overlooking the lobby, a wide, empty space lit by dim ready lights.

The ground shuddered, and the lights flickered, replaced a moment later by red emergency lights. Eli grinned; with Krel and Aja leading the charge into the basement levels, they should be free to search the upper floors for their target, and keep people from splitting off to take out their own targets.

A pale shape dropped from the upper stories, landing so lightly they didn't make a sound. Except for the dull red marks crossing their skin (fur), Eli would have thought they were a ghost. But he knew who they were even before they stood in a smooth moment, ears flicking up as the Pooka stood tall.

"I'm supposed to tell you that you're trespassing and to return during regular business hours or we'll shoot," they said. "I think it's supposed to be some sort of joke, because my actual orders are to kill anyone who isn't supposed to be here." Their eyes widened, and they shifted in place, twisting just as a dark blue troll barreled toward them. Jim missed Rowan, slammed into the far wall, and uncurled as he crouched and launched at Rowan.

"I'll kill you!"

"Doubtful," Rowan retorted, one hand passing along one of the tattoos on their ear. As they drew it away, their hand glowed, pure white light that couldn't be good for Jim. Jim stumbled into a roll, however, so when Rowan swiped down they struck the floor, which blackened and crumbled at their touch. "Are you just going to watch me fumble around, or are you going to shoot him?" they snapped.

A hail of bullets from the darker corners of the room managed to miss Jim entirely, although one nicked the corner of Rowan's ear. They swore, reached up to the wound, and dragged the blood out into a long needle they flung into the darkness.

"Idiots."

The presence of further fighters (which Eli could just about barely see in the darkness) spurred the rest of the team to action, charging at the dark-clad guards with guns. Eli saw the flash of bullets catching the edge of trollskin, nicks that wouldn't require serious treatment, before the first line of trolls hit them and.

Well, they should have expected Merlin wouldn't staff this place were ordinary humans. Blood mages or vampires or what, Eli didn't know, but one of them kicked Aaarrrgghh into a bank of elevators, so whoever they were, they were as strong as-

Changelings.

Rowan let out a growl. "Is this because I killed one person? I've killed billions, and I don't hear you getting bent out of shape about that."

They hopped out of the way of a swipe from Jim, then again as Jim turned the missed attack into a roll. Runes along their legs flared as they set themselves low, catching Jim and hurling him aside. "This is a waste of time," they snarled. "What the fuck are we paying you for, Archimedes?"

Eli turned, scanning the air, because he'd thought too much about full-grown dragons, and not enough about dragons in owl form, which were smaller, harder to see in the dark, and could fly silently.

"Feim Rotmulaag!"

Eli scrambled for a meaning of the shout. Fade...word of...power?

Jim stumbled forward as the shouted voice struck him, catching himself on his hands and knees as his back bled.

"I'll leave them to you," Rowan said, body shifting as they turned, four arms bursting from their side as they leapt up the wall leading to the third floor.

A pained shout from the side drew Eli's attention; turning, he saw Aaarrrgghh bleeding from the shoulder as his opponent drew back with a bloody blade. Their first real injury of the evening. The attacker flew back, as if shoved by an invisible hand; a moment later, Dr. Lake emerged from the scrum, sprinting toward Jim.

She'd given Eli an idea, though.

"Fus ro dah!"

Archimedes laughed, evading the blast of force with a twitch of his wings. "There's nothing you can do to me, whelp, that I can't turn back on you tenfold. Fus ro-awk!"

A leap from Aster brought the Pooka bearing down on Archimedes, sending Pooka and dragon tumbling to the ground. Archimedes roared, body twisting in the moment of uncertainty of a dragon changing form.

"Oh no you don't," Eli growled. "Joor Zah Frul!" And the shout, cutting at the dragon's soul, should have made Archimedes stagger, possibly forced him back into his owl form.

"Do you think this was mere boasting?" Kilgharrah roared, stretching up over the battlefield. "I bear not only my own voice, but Merlin's, as well! No lesser being's shouts may harm me! Gol Hah Dov!"

Eli recoiled, mind stuttering in the force of the dragon's voice, a shout that could bend others to his will. There was silence in the wake of it, and after a moment, Eli looked up.

Mr. Strickler stood between Kilgharrah and the rest of the battle, one hand raised between him and the dragon. One finger was broken, metal twisted within the wreckage of it, the ring's setting empty.

"How long have I carried Gunmar's eye," Mr. Strickler said, "the guard against the one thing I could not fight or evade - the Decimaar Blade. How long have I carried it even though the blade is broken?" He grinned toothily at Kilgharrah. "Long enough, it seems."

"Hrg," Kilgharrah huffed. "Your ring is broken, so that trick will not work again-"

"Heads up!" Blinky called, and Mr. Strickler dove out of the way. Weighing several tons more, Kilgharrah was slower, and so the trio of dvorkstones exploded against his side, making him roar in pain.

Something grabbed Eli's shoulder; he twisted, flailing, and nearly elbowed Aster in the nose. The Pooka's eyes were hard, focused, but he seemed unconcerned by Eli's attack.

"You're coming with me," Aster said.

"What are we-"

But Aster crouched and leapt, tucking his arm across Eli's chest so he didn't pull Eli's arm off, but Eli still screamed as they soared upward (he didn't fly that much, and anyway, not moving under his own power was terrifying). They landed heavily on the balconies, where it was quiet.

Well, quieter.

"What are we-"

"Shh!" Aster pointed, and when Eli turned toward a heavy (broken) door to the right, he heard the sounds of battle. "Kid's going to get himself killed, probably hasn't noticed he lost his protective runes," Aster growled. "So come on."

"Why me?" Eli demanded as Aster broke into a loping, four-legged run.

"One, you're a fucking dragon - that's a hell of a lot of firepower to point at someone. Two, Frost hasn't found his way in yet, or I'd be dragging the couple-of-centuries-old guy in, rather than a child. Three-"

Aster pulled up short as they ducked through another door to what had once been a cubicle-filled office, and was now a shattered, uneven battlefield. Jim, bleeding from a dozen wounds, snarled in uneven huffs as he glowered at Rowan. The tattooed Pooka looked much better off, though it was hard to tell if the few smears of blood were actually wounds or just more tattoos.

"Figured it'd take one of his friends to talk sense into him."

"You fight without magic, without strength more than that of an average troll," Rowan taunted, "and yet you intend to defeat me? How?"

Jim hurled a shattered table at Rowan; the Pooka blocked it with an outward palm, the table crumbling to dust at his touch. But Jim had burst into motion after the table, ducking to the side of Rowan's hand to charge through the remains of the table to tackle the Pooka, whose fur sharpened to spikes that left another dozen smears of blood on Jim's hide as he pulled away.

"It doesn't matter how, as long as I do it!" Jim howled. He grabbed at Rowan, whose form melted into shadows and reappeared twenty feet away, hand brushing along another rune. As he pulled the hand away, black flame coated it, flickering hungrily.

"What hope do you have?" the Pooka asked, "when I hold in my hands the same unquenchable fire that killed Tobias Domzalski? I am a master of ten thousand runes, James Lake, powered by the countless lives taken at my hand, and kept at hand in a way that cannot be stolen, cannot be broken!"

He hurled a ball of flame at Jim, who dodged and broke back into a roll, but Rowan, it seemed, was done playing. His claws lengthened to blue-white points, cutting through the floor as he ran, low, at Jim, who-

His protective runes were gone, Aster had said. But nothing had happened to him that would have removed them.

Except.

"Get him still, Jim, for just a second!"

Eli ran in as Jim kicked low, forcing Rowan to jump, suspended in the air for a moment, which was all Eli needed.

"Feim Rotmulaag!"

The runes on Rowan's fur were dyed, likely ground in so deep they'd stained the skin, as well. They were held as much by ancient magic as chemistry, but when Eli's voice hit Rowan, the color was blasted from their fur, as if it were nothing but temporary dye.

The Pooka landed, snapping their foot out for a kick, and swore when they kicked solid stone. They glared at their leg and-

Froze.

Jim slammed into them, knocking them back into a pile of shattered cubicle walls. The Pooka rose, face twisted into an expression of fury.

"What did you do?"

"He didn't do anything," Eli said. "I did. Did you think we'd let him do this without having his back?"

"That was all that was left of them!" Rowan howled, springing toward Eli.

Aster shoved Eli aside, catching Rowan with a quick knee to the stomach. "Go!" he snapped. "You don't have time to waste, and I've got this."

"You're out of practice, kit!" Rowan snapped, grabbing Aster's knee and twisting, sending him to the ground. "Some of us have been fighting for over a million years!"

"Only one of us was relying on magic they can't use anymore," Aster retorted. He rose, slamming his skull into Rowan's chin, kicking at his knees, and then swiping at the other Pooka as Rowan tried to roll away. "Do you even remember what it feels like to use your own magic?"

Eli ran past the scene, grabbing Jim when he reached the troll's side. "Come on."

"But-" Jim's eyes were fixed on Rowan, mouth twisted into a half-snarl.

"It doesn't matter what happens to them," Eli said. "If we find Merlin's grail, it's over." And Jim went with the pull, turning away after only a few steps. The emergency stairwell was a few yards away, which Eli went for. He knew they were supposed to be sweeping each floor, but he couldn't help the feeling that Merlin was arrogant, proud. He wouldn't hide his treasures in a vault under his fortress. He would want to stand with it above the whole world. So he sprinted up the stairs, ignoring the intervening floors, Jim overtaking him after a few cycles, bounding up toward the top floor.

And when they burst into lobby by the top floor's elevators, Eli hadn't been certain what they'd find. He might have said a hundred guys with guns, or a platoon of vampires.

One tall troll, skin red like it was coated in fresh blood, standing in the center of a wide, open room, walls and floor covered in metal polished to a reflective shine, wasn't it.

"Hello," they said, head tilted as if to examine them. "Is this all you bring to bear against me? A whelp and a dragonling? Of course, you are wanting for powerful allies - the Domzalskis are all dead, and Claire Nuñez gone into the Shadow Realm."

Jim growled, and Eli glanced behind the other troll, to a door set at the far wall. It looked secure enough to be Merlin's last stronghold, but he couldn't be sure. To their right, Eli heard a muffled clank, and then the doors to the nearest elevator wrenched open.

"Top floor, senior executives, battles for the fate of the world, and the observation deck!" Aja called, pulling herself up to the floor. She grinned at Eli before waving at the troll. "Hello! I think we're here to kill you."

"An amusing thought," the troll replied, "that you might kill Fin the Alchemist." She twisted a hand and the floor rippled, metal fusing into a fanged mouth that rose, snarling silently, to lunge at Eli. Jim knocked them both aside, so the metal beast turned to Krel and Aja, snapping its jaws on a sparkling plane that appeared within its mouth.

"Ha!" Krel laughed. "Take that, you-" The wall nearest him shot out a sideways pillar that knocked him into Aja and them both to the ground. When Eli looked up, Fin was standing in the middle of a circle of waving tentacles made out of metal, and for all their apparent flexibility, he was certain if any of them caught him, they would be able to crush the life out of him.

Well, it was only metal. Eli took a deep breath. "Yol Toor Shul!" A wall snapped up between him and Fin, searing and melting in an instant, but it had done its job, blunting the flames. As Jim charged in, spikes of metal forced him to dodge enough he lost all momentum before hopping back with a furious growl. Metal melted from the walls, flowing toward Eli, Aja, and Krel, forcing them to scramble away from the approaching mass, toward Fin, and Eli felt a twinge of unease. He'd been impatient, running up here, leaving other people instead of waiting for their backup-

A chill wind yanked Eli off his feet, hurling him past Fin. He saw Aja and Krel borne by the same force, all of them skidding when they hit the floor. The metal nearest the elevators was frosted over already as a pale form rose from the same elevator shaft Aja and Krel had vacated. Behind Jack Frost, the same wind deposited (more gently, Eli noted) Aster and-

"Steve? What are you doing here?"

"You think I was going to let my boyfriend run up here without backup?" Steve demanded.

"Yeah, sorry I'm late," Jack said. "The exterior of this place is just crawling with wards. So, what're we up to?" Two planes of metal slammed toward him; Jack fluttered back, wind catching Steve and Aster and throwing them forward just before a rippling wave of the ground would have yanked them back and thrown them into the elevator shaft.

"Man, I gotta keep on my toes with you," Jack said. Ice walls spread along the surface of the walls, cracking slightly as the metal ran up against them. "But lucky-"

The ice sublimated, mist flooding the room, and Eli knew a chance when he saw one. He grabbed Steve and, as it turned out was closest, Aja, and ran toward the door. There was no time for subtlety, for waiting around.

"Fus ro dah!"

The door splintered and fell back, and Eli dragged his friends forward into-

It was a boardroom, paneled in mahogany and centered with a wide table. A dozen or so people could have been fit around it, and there was a man sitting there. Blond, green-eyed, built like the parody of a soldier-

"Mr. Winston?" Steve breathed.

The man grinned, a wide, open smile. "Steven! Good to see you. And you brought some of your friends with you." He stood, reaching a hand out to them. "George Winston, VP of local operations out here."

Steve was still, eyes wide, shaking next to Eli, but Eli was so off-balance, he held out his hand in response. "Eli Pepperjack."

"It's a pleasure," George said. "Won't you sit down?"

"Um, we didn't exactly come here for a meeting," Eli said.

"Oh, I know. But you came here for something that isn't here, so we figured we'd enlighten you a bit."

Eli's heart sank. "It isn't here? Then where-"

George laughed. "Do you think Mr. Walters tells me where he keeps important things? I'm just a front-man, here."

"...Walters?" Aja asked, voice distant.

"I'm sorry, 'Secretary' Walters," George said. "Although - wait, if we're lucky-" He picked up what looked like an ordinary remote control from the table and pointed it at the wall, which flickered on to reveal - it looked like CNN.

The scene was a disaster, a room full of broken chairs, a ceiling half-collapsed, and bodies still strewn among the rubble. Eli's breath caught, because there was something familiar about the space-

"-addressing a joint session of Congress when Neasa Kubritz and an alien life form attacked. Twelve are confirmed dead, including the Speaker and Senate majority leader, but most focus has been on the President and Vice President, who were among the first victims."

It was surreal, to be fighting through sorcerers and trolls and dragons, to find something so mundane had happened in the outside world. But there was something nagging at the back of Eli's mind, something that should have jumped to mind immediately.

"It was a bitch to pull together on short notice," George said, "but once we figured you were going to attack this place, we had to. Otherwise you might have spoiled the whole game."

"We go now live to the Oval Office, where we're told Secretary of State Martin Walters has just been sworn in."

And the television cut to a space any American would have recognized, the chair and seal and flag all in the right place. An old man, probably the Chief Justice, stood in the background, but all Eli could focus on was the man sitting at the desk. The screen identified him as 'President Martin Walters', but Eli knew him by a different name.

"My fellow Americans," Merlin said.

Chapter Text

"Be careful out there," Darwin chided as his carrier jolted uncomfortably.

"Sh!" April hissed, voice barely audible over the clamor of the airport. "It was enough trouble getting a permit to take a regular cat through Customs without quarantine-"

"Regular?" Darwin protested. "I am an extraordinary specimen of my species and breed."

"And we are trying to keep that quiet," April retorted. "Now come on."

Darwin scowled but settled down, quiet, in his carrier. He heard the shuffling of humans moving through a queue, quiet chatter, and then a voice piped up, very close.

"Passport and visa."

"Yes, here you are. April Franklin-"

"And what do we have here?"

"This is Darwin."

"Cats need to go through quarantine. We have to take him to our doctors," the thug said. Darwin rolled his eyes; humans' tendency to work from a script rather than pay attention to the world around them was so tiring.

"Actually, if you'll note the attachment on my visa-"

There was a short sound, as of tearing paper, and then another, and another. "No," the guard said. "I don't see any sort of attachment. Now, how about you hand over your cat, Miss Franklin, and that can be the end of it."

"Shit," April muttered, and tripped, sprawling among the wreckage of her bags. Struggling against them, her hand banged against the door of Darwin's carrier, which popped free. "Run," she whispered, voice barely audible even to Darwin's enhanced hearing.

"April…"

"They'll kill me if they have you," she retorted. "As long as I'm their only hope at the Elixir of Life-"

Darwin debated only a moment later before bolting from the carrier, darting toward the line of humans waiting to talk to their own thugs to get into America. The guard let out a startled snort, and then a high-pitched giggle, and Darwin felt a swell of pride in his breast. If Alchemy weren't the pinnacle of all knowledge of chemistry, what April had just done would have been a party trick - something you could easily do anywhere you had enough oxygen and nitrogen (say, pretty much anywhere on Earth with an atmosphere). A simple transmutation, really, to replace a substantial portion of a room's air with nitrous oxide. And while it might not deter a serious border agent, it created a wave of chaos as it spread through the airport, enough that Darwin, running away from the guard at foot level, was able to find his way to a quiet spot, and, eventually, out of the airport, at which point he took stock.

It certainly could have been worse. He could have been stranded somewhere he didn't know the language (there weren't a lot of them, but they existed). He might have still been trapped in his carrier, or injured in the flight.

But it could have been a lot better. The border patrol apparently working for Fin wasn't ideal, nor was the fact Darwin was completely on his own. And given that April had their tickets, and Darwin was a cat, he wasn't going to be catching a ride to California anytime soon.

Still, things could have been a lot worse.

Darwin could have been helpless, instead of the second-most powerful alchemist in the world.

And, of course, April could have been the one carrying their trump card, the only weapon that could defeat Fin and her gruesome false alchemy, instead of Darwin.

So all there was to do was trust in April and find someone who could help turn that weapon against Fin and her benefactor.

"Hey, Otto."

Otto screamed and spun, stabbing at his attacker with what turned out to be his keys. Frederick, slouching at the far end of the alley, didn't look impressed.

"Don't do that!" Otto snapped.

Frederick offered Otto a wide, sharp-toothed grin. "Do what?"

"Sneak up on me!"

Frederick shrugged. "I didn't expect you to be this jumpy, what with how well the Janus Order is doing. Back on top of the world, in service to the most powerful man in the known universe?"

Otto scowled at Frederick, who didn't seem to notice his fury. "You know it's nothing like that - it's like with Gunmar, but worse! They're all Blood Mages in one way or another, and if you slip up, or they need a boost, or they're bored..."

"Never thought the leopards would eat your face, huh?" Frederick retorted.

"What?" Otto's heart was still racing a little from the shock of Frederick's appearance, skin dark enough to blend into the alley, even if Otto could still catch glimpses of light glinting off Frederick's jewelry-

Otto's heart leapt again in shock. Frederick's skin was dark. He was human-shaped, something no Changeling aside from a Polymorph should be able to accomplish without Merlin's help.

"How-"

Frederick clicked his tongue. "I could tell you, but I'm not really seeing what I'd get out of it."

"You could get the Changelings out from under Merlin's thumb!" Otto snarled, waving at the street. "If they don't have to rely on him, they'd-"

"Yeah, I'm not really in the middle of this fight with Merlin," Frederick replied.

"Not in it - he's a monster!"

"So was Gunmar." Frederick walked around Otto, patting his shoulder as he passed. "You didn't seem to care much then."

"You can be Grand Commandant!" Otto blurted, and Frederick paused. He wasn't quite looking back, which Otto knew was some sort of power play.

"...I'm listening," Frederick said.

Which had always been Frederick's way of saying he was looking for more. Otto took a deep breath, trying to think of what he might possibly have to offer the other Changeling in exchange for the soul of the Changeling race.

Wirt huddled under the overhang at the edge of the student union. It was drizzling, a steady, cold rain that had peppered the campus with near-constant tears, a chilling miasma that held the entire school in its grip. The rain had been falling for nearly a week, starting nearly a day after the country had been shaken by the Congressional Massacre, but less than an hour after the death of Mimi Sosa.

Wirt shook his head, scowling as he drew closer to the building. As poetic as it felt to suggest the world was crying for Mimi, he couldn't quite dismiss the quiet logical corner of his brain (Eddie, one of the people who frequented the Reddit board Wirt had found and went to for answers about how the world as growing stranger with every passing day, was a relentless skeptic who'd managed to leave Wirt a spark of that steady logic to counter his more whimsical nature). Rain didn't mourn people - people mourned people.

Headlights swept across Wirt and a car slid to a stop. The back door opened and a voice shouted, "Thanks!" before a figure stood, swaying a moment under the weight of a massive backpack. About Wirt's height, and a little wider, they were dressed in a baggy grey shirt and a black skirt that flowed around their legs as they moved. They had on a face mask with a ghost pattern, and had a green scarf tied up with their hair.

"Wirt?" they asked.

"Hui?" he asked in reply.

"Yes!" She was suddenly next to Wirt, hugging him, and when she pulled back, she tugged down her face mask, grinning from a blocky face. "I am so glad to see you! My Lyft driver does not know this area as well as he thinks he does - yes! Thank you! This is my friend!" She waved at the car until it pulled away before turning back to Wirt. Her smile faded a little, possibly finally taking in Wirt's demeanor (or maybe she could, as she claimed, see into the world of the dead, and could see the veil thinning here). "But this is not a visit for pleasure."

"Yeah, when I mentioned Mimi, you said - something. It got taken down-"

"The censors are more aggressive than they usually are," Hui agreed. "And besides, it is a dangerous topic to discuss. The world between life and death. Between waking and dreaming. The-"

"Unknown," Wirt said, without thinking.

Hui snapped her gaze up to Wirt's, and something of her grin returned. "Yes. You have been there."

"I…" Wirt scrubbed at his eyes, head swimming as Hui's words melded with hazy memories of a distant Halloween night. "Maybe. I remember-"

"Fragments. A name, or a face, or a feeling."

"There was a cat," Wirt said slowly, trying to tease out some detail beyond the certainty there had been a cat.

"Do not try too hard," Hui said. "The memory will not come easily as long as we are in the land of the living. It will be easier once we return."

"Return?" Wirt asked. He didn't remember much of what his time in the Unknown had entailed, but he knew the circumstances that had led to his tenure there, when he and Greg had nearly died. "Why?"

"In the - seventh circle, I think, of Hell is a grove of trees, called edelwood, made from the souls of those who committed suicide," Hui replied. "Once, a beast called a suicide golem rampaged through those woods, consuming the souls to fuel his monstrous existence. These times have grown strange, and I believe another suicide golem has been constructed." She took a quick, steadying breath. "You asked if you could help your friend. I do not think you can. But you can prevent what happened to her from happening to anyone else."

Claire groaned as she tried to roll over. She didn't know what muscles were used to facilitate inter-dimensional travel, but they ached. Her last trips between the worlds hadn't been this hard, hadn't involved a sensation like a hand grabbing her and dragging her sideways-

Suddenly remembering the purpose of the jump, she scrambled up, moving unsteadily in the darkness surrounding her, looking for-

"Did we get hit by a truck? Are there trucks in the Shadow Realm? Like, interdimensional convoys?"

"Toby!" Claire dropped to his side, hand resting, briefly, against the pulse point in his neck, just to make sure he was breathing. "Are you alright?"

"What happened?" he asked.

"I don't know. We were fine, and then-"

"Astral beacon," a voice rasped. A familiar one. And then a light flickered to life. They were in a cell, maybe twenty feet across, with four cots set at the corners of the room, but what drew most of Claire's attention was Dr. Capulet, the weathered, aged face that would someday be Claire's. The woman was sitting, propped up, against the far wall, and her face was covered in bloodied grooves. Her arms were bandaged, and Claire doubted the rest of her was less bloody. "He figured the best way to control your return to this universe was using your own spirit."

"He...who?" Claire asked.

(But she needn't have bothered. She knew who 'he' was.)

"Merlin, of course. Old bastard's canny - I thought he didn't realize...what I was planning."

"And, um, what were you planning?" Toby asked.

"To nuke this whole fucking universe if he got out of hand," Dr. Capulet replied. She laughed, the sound turning into a cough, as blood splattered the floor in front of her. "Bastard had a plan for that, too, though. Pulled it right out of me, left me here to tell you - you don't have a chance to defeat him, now that he's got the Light of Creation."

"What, no - we have the Light-"

"He doesn't need your Light," Dr. Capulet retorted. "As long as he's got a Light. Ripped it right out of my blood and left me to die." She raised her head and bared her teeth, a vicious smile. "But we all know he isn't all-powerful, that he isn't invincible. If you weren't a danger to him, he wouldn't have stuck you in here."

"And where is 'here', exactly?" Claire asked.

"Where else would you build a magic prison?" Dr. Capulet asked. "Alcatraz."

Shannon checked the nearest cross street as the bus pulled away from the stop, and then checked her phone. Three more stops until - well, whatever she was in L.A. to find.

("I want you to promise me something," Shawn had said, when the whole Trollhunting thing had slipped out - he really was terrible at keeping secrets. "Don't - get involved in this.")

It had been easy to stay out of the supernatural bullshit that plagued Arcadia Oaks - there had always been dragons, sorcerers, knights, and a Trollhunter (even after Shawn had died) to pick up the slack, to keep them all safe. She glanced at the passing streets. Two stops.

("Do you really expect me to sit on the sidelines while you endanger your life?" Shannon had demanded.

"Yes." Shawn had given her a level stare. "I wouldn't be doing this if I didn't have a magic amulet, so you shouldn't even be thinking about it.")

And Shawn had been right; it was dangerous. Setting aside he was the penultimate Trollhunter in a fifteen-hundred-year-long line of warriors, Shannon had watched the fallout of dozens of supernatural encounters among her classmates, a hellish school year that ended with Toby Domzalski's death.

One stop left.

("Look...there are a lot of people who are better equipped to deal with this shit that you - than even I am. But one day, if there's no Trollhunter, if you can't find anyone who can stand between you and whatever magic evil is befalling the world…"

He gave her a scrap of paper with an address on it. And when he'd died, she'd found a key in his room.)

And, Shannon thought as she disembarked, things seemed pretty bad. There hadn't been a Trollhunter since Christmas, and the Lakes, Domzalskis, and half a dozen of Shannon's classmates had disappeared (and stern men in dark suits and glasses had shown up asking about them). So she'd decided it was time to give in to her curiosity and track down her brother's legacy.

And when she found it, at first, she was disappointed. It was a one-room apartment in someone's basement, a map marked with a maze of pins and string, articles and pictures stuck over it - a paranoid's obsession. But she saw depictions of Merlin, a yellowed picture of Douxie that must have been over a hundred years old, a picture of the dark side of the moon that showed what appeared to be a man-made structure on it.

And a picture of Shannon nearly hidden under three others of people, including Miss Nomura, one of the changelings she knew worked with Jim on occasion. Puzzled, she tugged the picture free and turned it over, finding a few words written on it.

"I open at the close?" she asked, and the wall in front of her shifted, slightly. Looking up, Shannon found a grin tugging at her lips. Because there was a door, there, hidden behind the map, and tugging it forward, she stepped into something else entirely.

A shelf to her right held a dozen books - several ancient tomes, a notebook, some newer ones, and a bright yellow book that was labeled, in hand-lettering, 'Sorcery for Dummies'. A rack on the left held an axe, a wooden staff, a rifle, and a dagger. There was a dummy wearing an exotic set of armor (Japanese, Shannon thought) in front of her, a box full of gems, and stranger things she couldn't even name.

Her brother hadn't wanted Shannon to get involved.

But if she had to, he had made sure she would be as well-prepared and well-armed as anyone could be.