Sword in the Stars (Once & Future #2) - Cori McCarthy Page 0,103

in the water. You never would have become the powerful Merlin who will stop her.”

He grimaced. “I haven’t done it just yet.”

Ari’s thoughts were sudden and bleak. “The water.”

“What was that?” Merlin asked.

“The poisoned water that killed nearly all the Ketchans… that was Nin, too!”

The silence was new darkness.

“Wait, there are Ketchans still alive?” Merlin said. “That sounds like good news.”

Gwen spoke up. “They went into deep space hiding years ago and came back when we took a public stand against Mercer. Only we’d vanished to the past before they arrived.” She turned back to Ari. “How could Nin do that? I thought she was bound on Old Earth.”

Ari grabbed at her skull, roughing up her short hair. “I should have seen this before! The way she showed off how easy it was to drop me in the fountain on Ketch. She was laughing at me.” Ari pointed at Merlin. “You said her power is in every atom of that lake. When I first pulled Excalibur from that oak, there were Mercer machines harvesting the trees and bedrock. They would have gone for the water, too, wouldn’t they? All of the resources? They sucked up Nin’s lake and launched her into the cosmos. She probably reached everywhere in no time. Infiltrating the universe one drop at a time, controlling things from her cave, unlimited power via Mercer’s same-day shipping!”

Ari looked over the thousands of frozen faces, and then up through the massive crystal dome at outer space. Soon Amal would arrive, but it wouldn’t matter because Mercer wasn’t the bad guy after all. They were the weapon.

“Look, we probably only have a minute before the universe starts rolling again.” Merlin spoke quietly. “I know this sounds bad, yes. It sounds awful, but I also know how to defeat Nin. That’s where I’ve been so many years, spying on Nin’s backstory. Waiting to find out the secret to her power.”

Ari caught the way Merlin’s voice fell on that last part. No triumph or gloating. Whatever he knew was costly. “What is it, Merlin?”

He ignored Ari. “I’ll need the chalice for my plan. Arthur was right on that score.”

Ari took it out of her pocket but didn’t hand it over. “Tell me what you’re going to do with it first.”

“Beat her at her own game.” Merlin stared at Gwen, attempting to keep the caginess out of his voice, but Ari heard that too. She might not be genetically related to Merlin, but he had a few of her heroic loner tics.

Merlin interrupted Ari’s thoughts by turning to her. “I know the deal you made to free Arthur. He’s at peace now. I felt it even in the past… a deep release as if time itself was relieved.” Merlin sighed sadly in a way that told her he’d also seen her body beneath that lake. He knew they were all running out of time.

Even for someone who could pause it.

And just like that, people started to blink, and move, ever so slightly.

“What can we do to help you, Merlin?” Gwen asked in a rush.

“Keep the Mercer baddies off my back. Distract them?”

“Well, the Ketchan starship due any minute should do just that,” Ari said. “How will you get Nin to show herself again?”

“I don’t need her to come to me. I’m going to her.” Merlin gave himself away by wrapping his moms in a huge, emotional hug. Gwen held on, but Ari’s mind started to whirl.

Whatever Merlin was about to do was possibly—or even purposefully—fatal.

Merlin came out of the hug with the chalice, and all of a sudden, the Mercer heat guns were revving up again, and the entire amusement park broke open with chaos.

Gwen started shouting to the Lionelians, getting them in ranks, protecting the tourists. Amal appeared overhead, causing screams of fright and then pure shock.

Ari stood in the middle of it, guarding Merlin’s back while he asked the chalice a murmured question and poured it out into the hole where the Sword in the Stars had been plunged into the soil. “What’s that supposed to do?”

“Quiet, please. I’m concentrating.”

Ari watched Merlin hum a few different notes, eyes closed, focused on something that seemed to be inside of him, or beyond him, or both. The small puddle began to grow.

After a few minutes, it was as big as a bucket and still getting bigger.

That’s when the black Mercer starships arrived in pairs. The view of the cosmos was blocked out, and Amal was hopelessly surrounded. Ari heard shots, far away at