Sword in the Stars (Once & Future #2) - Cori McCarthy Page 0,107

above the water, but Merlin could fix that. He pulled more rocks from the cave walls, creating bridges for the Arthurs to rush across. Every time one got close enough to attack her, she flicked a finger and his sword froze. “Merlin, I made those swords. You think I can’t stop them? You think I can’t make them do any little thing I please?”

All of the Excaliburs rose in the air, danced a little jig, and returned to the hands of their owners.

Nin sighed heavily and then every Arthur disappeared at once, along with the Lady of the Lake. When she reappeared, she wiped her hands clean as if all of those boy heroes had left a sticky residue on her incorporeal skin.

“What did you do with them?” Merlin asked, suddenly terrified.

“Sent them back where they were meant to be and convinced them it was a horrible dream,” she said. “Really, Merlin. Always expecting Arthurs to do your dirty work.” Her glowing face morphed, expression stretching until it took on a familiar cast. A crown rose from her incorporeal brow. “I notice you didn’t include the first Arthur in that little brigade,” Nin said, tugging at one of his wayward golden curls. “Too soon?”

Merlin’s heart skidded over the next several beats.

“Oh, you must be rather distraught, having just watched Ari die.”

Merlin’s heart was no longer rampaging. Now it was on fire. “She wouldn’t be dead if you hadn’t put your hand up Mercer’s rear and used them as your own personal puppet!”

“I don’t usually have to become so… involved,” she said, sliding back into her original form. “But Ari makes things difficult, doesn’t she? You’re mad at her right now. You’re furious that she killed herself and stopped you from carrying out whatever plan you’d concocted to save the day. People don’t ever listen when you want to save them, do they? They would rather do the same wrong thing, over and over again. They would rather die than let you be right.”

Nin’s words doubled in intensity. Merlin couldn’t help thinking they weren’t only about him. They were echoes of that day when she’d tried to save her people. The day when she’d been stopped instead of hailed as a hero.

She changed, skin shading darker and hair growing shorter until it was cropped nearly to her skull. Her smile stretched until it was Merlin’s favorite smile in the universe—stolen right off Val’s face. “You know who’s easy to get along with? Percival. I really did enjoy his company. How long has it been since you’ve seen him?”

“You know,” Merlin said, hands spitting sparks.

“I just want to hear you say it,” Nin said, spreading her hands generously wide. “You and I have all the time in all the worlds.”

“It’s been fifteen years,” he ground out, trying to keep more magic from exploding out in a fireworks display of anger.

“Such a lovely, round number.” When Nin smirked, she looked exactly like Val. And when she came nearer, Nin’s fingers on his neck felt exactly like his. “If you left now, you’d get a whole mortal lifetime together.”

The temptation of seeing Val again, of truly having a future with him, was almost too much. “I don’t run away anymore,” Merlin said, clenching so hard he thought he might break. “And I’ve stopped taking your bargains, remember?”

Nin changed once again, as it she was rifling through a deck of cards, looking for the ace. She settled on a face that Merlin’s heart had always known—a face that held secret hints of his own. Dark curls tumbled down as Nin grew curves. She adopted a scowl, half serious and half sweet. “What about your lovely mother? Shouldn’t you get back to her? Haven’t you waited all this time to return to her? She would hate to think of you here, watching this new cycle be born.”

Merlin gasped, terrified at just how good she was at this game.

“I told you I knew who your parents were,” Nin said. And then her face changed again, and somehow she was Kay, cocky and stalwart and wearing those mythical cargo shorts.

“Gwen and Ari gave me a great gift when they brought you to my lake to be born. You were the perfect window to watch humanity fail itself. Your dedication to these little Arthurs has been deliciously comical. Your suffering has brought me so much life… such as it is.”

Nin gestured down at herself, her true form flickering. “You can’t hurt me, Merlin. You can’t even touch me. You