I couldn’t let any of them down—but I wasn’t sure there was any way to end this well.
It didn’t matter if the world didn’t remember me kindly. I just had to protect my people and Alisa and these Fae knights who had become my family.
“Let’s split up,” Az said. “Excalibur, or anything else useful you can find. Merlin can help save the world one more time, whether he likes it or not.”
I nodded in agreement. The two of us separated, searching through Merlin’s house.
I didn’t find Excalibur.
But I found what I needed most—what I really believed could help set the world to rights.
A giant emerald, like the one that the statue of Herrick’s great, great grandfather gripped in his hand in the garden. He’d been overthrown by his son, and his son had turned him into the first of the statues—and placed the tool by which the magic had worked in his hand.
That stone glowed with power, but people misunderstood what kind of power it was.
I didn’t want to bring back any of Herrick’s family. But this stone had the power to turn the statues in the garden back into the people they once had been. All I had to do was get it into the center of the garden and work the spell.
I reached for it—but a voice stopped.
“I wouldn’t steal from me if I were you, son.”
I whirled to face Merlin. His staff was gripped in one hand, and magic crackled around it. The hum of that magic was electric in the air, raising goosebumps along my arms.
“Ah,” I said eloquently.
The next second, my thoughts would catch up, and I’d be able to spin some story, but Merlin raised his hand to stop me.
“I get very angry when people steal from me, and then I have to be murderous instead of generous, and that is very taxing, especially when it’s almost time for my favorite telenova to come on.” He glanced at the clock. “So please, let’s skip over all that. Take the stone, son.”
I hesitated, sure that this was some kind of trick.
“Oh good grief,” he reached past me and plucked up the stone before pressing it into my hand. “I know your sad story, winter king. Your quest is a noble one even though you’re doing a pretty shit job.”
“I don’t think I’m doing a shit job—”
“You don’t think any of it is noble either,” he said, “because you’re lying to your friends, people you love, and you think that makes you a terrible person. And it does! But that’s not the whole sum of who you are.”
“That is certainly a pep talk,” I said evenly.
“Yes, Arthur hated my pep talks too. And look how he ended up.” Merlin clanked his staff against the floor. “Look how he ended up!”
I had a feeling perhaps the world’s greatest wizard hadn’t fared so well over the passing millennia.
But I looked down at the rock in my hand, and it suddenly seemed to throb against my palm. I almost dropped it. It had felt for a second as if I held a beating heart.
“The plan has always been that I would take the High throne.” As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I frowned, wondering why I was blathering on to the wizard. I hadn’t meant to say that.
But I didn’t want the High throne; there was no way to take it from Faer without taking it from Alisa, too, and nothing about that felt right.
“You can find a way to set the world right, Tiron,” he said. “And to be the hero of your own story. You’re no longer that boy, being hidden by his people for the time when he will save them. You no longer have to play by their rules.”
“I want to save them, though.”
“Then do it,” he said. “But on your own terms.”
He made it sound so easy.
“It will be brutally difficult,” he promised me, “but I think you’ll find your way out of the maze in the end, Tiron.”
I nodded.
Then he said, “I can’t give you Excalibur. But I do have another sword helpfully labeled Excalibur that your friend is eying right now, and I’d like to give it to you before he tries to steal it.”
“Won’t he just be in danger trying to fight the Shadow Man with it, then?”
“The Shadow Man isn’t his battle or yours anyway,” he said. “Good luck, winter king.”
He waved his fingers at me and then disappeared—very slowly, slowly enough that it became quite