He’d never brought anyone here before, and suddenly it seemed like a mistake to let Val see this hidden part of him. The crystals were a splendid blushing pink quartz, natural columns sparkling in the dim light. But Merlin hadn’t kept the place up through the ages. With everything he’d stashed in various nooks and crannies, it was midway between a historical museum and a level four hoarding situation.
“I only ever come here to sleep off the cycles,” Merlin admitted, running about to do a lightning round of tidying. “It’s become a bit of a dumping ground for things that came to me over the ages. Though I swear I did clean it up after Arthur 28. Or was it Arthur 29? Please don’t judge!”
“Too late,” Val said. “I just saw the little crystal bed where you sleep. The collection of nightcaps? Merlin, you have like two hundred.”
“Have you ever slept for a decade?” Merlin asked. “It requires extreme comfort.”
“Where do you think the chalice could be?” Val asked, nudging an orphaned slipper with his toe.
“I probably wouldn’t have put it in a special spot because that’s exactly where someone else would check. As you can tell from looking around, my strategy was to toss things in all higgledy-piggledy.”
“Did you say higgledy-piggledy?” Val asked.
Merlin blushed. Why did blushing feel so different as an eleven-year-old—less tingly and pleasant, more cruelly embarrassing? “The younger I get the more conversational filters I lose. Just give me a lunch box and some juice and call it a lifetime.”
Merlin thought that Val might comfort him, even put an arm around his shoulder. He would take any scrap of age-appropriate affection he could get at this point. Val reached into a pile of souvenirs and pulled out a tin square. “Done and done.”
It was an ancient, rusted-out lunch box, complete with Thermos. The metal was adorned with an image of King Arthur and a very powerful-looking magician with a gnarled staff. “Do you collect your own merchandise, Merlin?”
He laughed—despite himself. Despite everything.
Val still had the power to make him happy. Considering how slim their chances were of ever being a couple again, it was quite a miserable revelation. “All right, you take the right-hand chambers and I’ll take the left,” Val said. “Sing out when you see a magical cup.”
Merlin squatted in the first cluster of crystals looking for the small, bony, gold-rimmed chalice. He hated being apart from Val for even a minute, but as the future moved on without them, it grew ever more imperative to fulfill the Arthurian legend, grab the chalice, and get out.
Would that really end the cycle, though, if Nin was the one behind it? Or would she find a way to keep it spinning on forever?
Merlin suddenly couldn’t handle being back in this place, stuffed with the detritus of so many years spent chained to Arthur’s story—the evidence that this cycle truly was his prison.
“Val?” Merlin asked, his voice pinging around in the high-ceilinged space. “Val, did you find anything?”
No answer.
Merlin ran back to Val’s last known whereabouts. He was sitting cross-legged on the cold ground, seemingly unable to move.
“What’s the matter?” Merlin asked, poking Val’s shoulder. It felt like they were both hitting personal rock bottom.
Crystal bottom?
“I thought I would be fine,” Val said, his eyes unfocused, his breath hard. “I was fine. I survived Nin’s kidnapping and you fished me out of her lake but… I was terrified the whole time I was down there.”
Merlin didn’t know what to say; this was entirely his fault.
Val stood up, grabbing Merlin’s skinny arms. “Look, there’s a reason I wanted to come here with you, even though I am ready to cancel all caves forever. There are things I need to tell you, Merlin.”
“Private things?” he asked, hopeful and terrified.
“Nin-flavored things,” Val said.
Merlin braced himself against the smooth face of a particularly large crystal.
“The good news is, I don’t think she can see in here,” Val said. “Like Avalon, it’s built on someone else’s magic, and that makes it off-limits.”
“But she can see everywhere else? Because of her water?” Merlin asked, needing to understand everything about Nin, as if this were a thirst he’d had for several hundred years.
“Wherever her water goes, she goes, too. Information trickles in that way, but that’s not enough for Nin. Are you ready for the bad news?”
“How bad?” Merlin squeaked out. “On a scale from mild rubbish to total Armageddon?”
“Nine and a half,” Val said. “She has a window into the cycle.”
“What is it?” Merlin asked, whispering even though this was the one place they wouldn’t be overheard.
“It’s who. And… it’s you.”
Merlin’s brain hit a boiling point. Nin had been watching him? This entire time?
“You’re the one person she can always see. That’s why she needs you in play in the cycle, that’s why she keeps you alive. And she’s especially excited when you’re suffering. It’s a little like one of Mercer’s extreme reality shows, except you’re the star and Nin’s the producer and the audience. Oh, and it lasts forever.”
“She’s been watching every horrible thing that’s ever happened to me because she… enjoys it?” Merlin’s nausea rolled so hard that he wavered on his feet. Val reached out to put a comforting hand to the back of Merlin’s neck like he had so many times before—and stopped himself.
“More like she feeds off it,” Val said, stuffing his hand in his pocket.
“But how did she create the cycle? By stealing Arthur’s body?” Merlin had been in her cave the day Arthur died—sidelined while she made him watch Arthur’s demise, after which she must have stolen the one true king’s body on its way to Avalon, where Morgana was waiting to put him to rest. How had Merlin not realized she was this awful much, much earlier? It was starting to seem like the one true oversight.
“Arthur is important,” Val said, “but he’s not the whole story. He’s trapped in this like everyone else. Nin pulled some kind of power move that gives her dominion over a piece of time. I couldn’t figure out how it works. She guards some things a lot more closely than others, and she did not want me sniffing around that.”
So Nin really had crafted the entire cycle. On purpose. To hurt people. “I thought she was a neutral voyeur. A magical master of schadenfreude. But she’s more than that, isn’t she?” Merlin had barely seen Nin for centuries, and now she seemed to be everywhere. That couldn’t be a coincidence. Evil time lords didn’t really do coincidence.
And Nin was evil.
He’d thought for so long that lurking and watching was harmless, but now he could see the truth. Not to give hate a pass, but it had the potential to be overcome. The emotion could be purged; the person who’d ingested its poison could heal and move on. Whereas sitting back and manipulating people to feed your own power? Without feeling a single one of the consequences? That was perhaps the best working definition of evil he knew.
“Look…” Val said, “There’s one more thing I have to say. I know this is a weird time and that things with us are in the land beyond awkward, so this is not the right moment to bring it up, but…” Merlin crossed his fingers and waited for Val to say something about their relationship. Anything. “You’re a lot like Nin, what’s that about,” Val said flatly.
“… what? I am not like Nin.”
“Some observations,” Val said, pacing the crystal with a hard sound. He was fully avoiding Merlin’s gaze now. “You both have caves. That exist outside of time. Neither of you age like the rest of us. And please think about the portals.”
“I need help to make those!” Merlin cried. “Three magics, remember?”
“Yes, but you ripped spacetime to save me from the lake. By yourself.”
“You think I can make portals all higgledy-piggledy?” Merlin nearly slapped himself for that one. “
You think that my magic is like Nin’s? But… why?”
Val’s amber eyes were dark in the half-light of the cave. “I don’t know, Merlin. You tell me.”
“I can’t! I have no idea where I came from!” he cried.
“Yes, that’s part of the problem. What if you need that answer?” He took a step closer, reflected light from the crystals winking into his eyes. “What if your power’s greater than you’ve ever known? She’s afraid of you, Merlin. And she’s not afraid of anything else in the universe.”
Val looked so wondrous, even in full cave gloom. His dark skin collected what light there was and turned it into a burnished glow. His hair had grown out into soft inches of black curls. Merlin was just old enough to understand that he wanted to kiss him. And far too young to actually do it. Nin had waited until the precise moment when big magic would take that possibility away—and then reunited them.
The Lady of the Lake wanted him alive. She wanted him miserable. She wanted him, most of all, weak. And that’s how he felt when he looked at Val. Dizzy and helpless and far too young to deal with any of this.
“We have to find the chalice,” Merlin said. It was the only thing he felt sure about.
“What if that’s not enough?” Val asked feverishly. Merlin had seen him fly into this mode as advisor to the queen on Lionel. Once he saw the best plan of action, he wouldn’t let anyone else rest until they were on the right path. “We need to stop Nin, and for that we need you. Which means you have to end this backward aging.”
“I can’t.”
Val picked up one of Merlin’s hands, touching his fingertips—the source of his magic. “When was the last time you actually tried?”
The certainty that he couldn’t be fixed was something that Merlin had been holding on to for ages. He didn’t know how to let go of it. “Perhaps I can give it another go,” he said in a tiny voice. The entire crystal cave seemed to echo his doubt. “If that’s what it takes to finish the cycle—”
“You’re still playing by Nin’s rules,” Val cut in. “Merlin, what if you don’t have to finish this cycle? What if you have to break it?”
They searched for hours. The crystal cave seemed to hold everything but the chalice. Merlin and Val eventually gave up. They worked up an impressive awkward silence as they portaled back—and the truth grew crystal clear. All things Nin aside, Merlin needed to turn his aging right-side up if he ever wanted his boyfriend back.
When they reached the peat bog again, Lam was waiting. With Morgause. They were kissing furiously. Lam stepped back long enough to wipe their lips and cast a worried glance at Merlin and Val’s chalice-free return.
“I’m to escort you to Camelot,” they said, holding out their arm for their sibling.
“Ari and Gwen are too busy being scandalous?” Val asked.
“It is sort of their thing,” Lam admitted with a shrug.
“I need to make one stop on the way to the castle,” Val said. “I have to burn the clothes I’m wearing because: Nin. I’ll need something new to meet this Arthur fellow. And someone told me there’s a place where I can get a bespoke corset.”
A few weeks ago, Merlin would have begged Val not to stick out. Now he couldn’t think of anything he wanted more than to walk into Camelot on Val’s arm as he finally made his grand entrance.
Instead, he had to scurry in through the servants’ quarters.
“Carbuncle!” Old Merlin cried as soon as he’d made it through the kitchens and swiped a few biscuits. Which, of course, he dropped at hearing that word. “I hope the peat bog taught you a lesson. You shouldn’t have left Arthur’s birthday celebration. How can I depend on an apprentice who vanishes into nothing?”
That description was uncomfortably close to what he’d actually done.
Old Merlin turned around and headed back toward his tower. Across the main hall, Arthur came in with Gwen on his arm. The court didn’t even smother their gossip. It flared wherever they walked. Gwen shot Merlin a look of pure misery.
She and Ari must have been exceptionally successful at hurting Arthur. It wasn’t an easy task, but they were all committed to making it through the Arthurian legend as quickly as possible and getting back to their time before Mercer grew stronger. Which meant that Merlin didn’t have much time at all to figure out this backward aging business.
He needed help. He needed someone with magic to spare.
Merlin looked at the receding back of the withered, worm-hearted old mage. Merlin had been amazed, disappointed, and relieved that Old Merlin hadn’t noticed his de-aging. It would no doubt end in another interrogation. And most likely some magical experimentation. But wasn’t that what he needed right now?
He ran to catch up, stopping Old Merlin at the tower door. Merlin took a mighty breath, preparing himself to pull an Ari and tell the truth. It was harder than it looked.
“Haven’t you noticed anything strange?” he demanded.
“Yes,” Old Merlin said. “You’re getting more pesky these days. Like a fly around a rotting piece of fruit.”
Funny, because you’re a rotting piece of fruit! Merlin nearly shouted.
He sighed until he found a sense of calm, which was harder to summon than magic these days. “The night of Arthur’s birthday celebration, I disappeared because… I was losing time.” Old Merlin still looked puzzled. Gods, did he have to spell everything out for himself? “Getting younger.”
“And you didn’t wish everyone to see your humiliations,” Old Merlin filled in with surprising alacrity. He circled Merlin with his hawklike sharpness. He whipped a piece of string out of one of his robe pockets and took a few measurements as Merlin hummed nervously. What had he gotten himself into? Had he really invited the person he feared most into his personal space? “It does seem you’re growing… down… rather than up.”
“As your apprentice, you probably don’t want me crawling around this place,” he said. “It is not baby-proof.”
Merlin held his breath. What kind of tortures awaited him now?
“This is most fascinating!” Old Merlin said, clapping his hands together and standing on his tiptoes, filled with the helium of delight. “Why didn’t you mention that someone put a curse on you? I revel in countercurses.”
“You… you do?” Merlin bumbled. He didn’t remember helping people in this time, besides Arthur. Of course, he didn’t remember much at all.
“Up to the tower at once,” Old Merlin said, complete with impatient snapping. “No more dusting the prophetic orbs for you. We have bigger work to do.”
Under any other circumstances, Merlin would have said no. And possibly left the castle screaming. But right now, he was desperate enough to work with the very last person he would have chosen in any era, sociopathic dictators notwithstanding.
If he was going to break Nin’s cycle, he needed complete control of his magic. Starting with his age. This time and place had always terrified him—but what if it held the answers he’d always sought? What if facing it was the only way to find them?
“Kairos,” Old Merlin muttered. The tower door opened on its magical hinge, the stairs looming above them.
Merlin took a deep breath and said, “I guess it’s you and me, old man.”
Ari awoke to a bucket of water being dumped on her head. Her neck felt terrible. Her back felt terrible. The evening sun beating down on her felt, well, terrible.
She was in the stocks, head and wrists locked into worn, soft wood.
“What happened?” she asked, unable to look up, trying to figure out if what she was looking at were in fact Val’s feet.
Val’s voice floated down. “You are no longer Camelot’s favorite knight, that’s what. Hope this was your plan.”
“Not exactly.”
He began to pull back the mechanism that kept the wood clamped. “The good news is that your sentence has been served. One night and day in the stocks for impertinence toward the queen.”
“Impertinence? That all?”
“
I believe Arthur is covering for you. Even in his jealousy.” Val helped her stand up, which was important because her body was stiff and her muscles felt like cement. “Tell me, did you and Gwen plan this or did you just whip out your sheer animalistic urges for one another in front of that poor young royal?”
“Worse,” Ari grumbled. “I told her I loved her and we got all moony.”
Val whistled. “That is worse.” He led them toward the stable where Lam worked.
All was quiet in Camelot, and it left Ari feeling ill at ease. “Hang on a sec. I need to stretch.” She stood on her own and leaned her chin way up while pulling her arms back. “That’s better.” Ari took in Val’s sensational indigo corset and the kohl around his eyes. It was an absolute relief to see at least one of them dressed as themselves. “You look good.”
“Keeps the commoners out of my way,” he said. “Call it demiboy superpowers. Come on. We’ve got to figure out what in the hell to do next.”
Ari couldn’t agree more. They were about to round the corner toward the stable door when a dagger pointed hard into a notch at the side of her armor.
“State your purpose,” young Roran said, shoulders thrown back and glaring mightily. The fact that the kid was half Ari’s height didn’t seem to bother him in the slightest.
“I’m here for Lamarack,” Ari said, hoping this kid wasn’t on Arthur’s payroll, and that the people didn’t yet know that crowd-favorite Lancelot was persona non grata.
Roran shoved his dagger in his belt. “They’re meeting. I’m keeping watch.”
“Ah, thanks.” Ari slid down from where she’d been pressed up against the door by Roran’s rather sincere blade. He took up a post in the shadows like a tiny palace guard. Val chuckled and opened the door.
They ducked inside, shutting the huge door behind them. Ari turned to find half a dozen people looking at her in utter alarm. They were all commoners, mostly muddy and dirty—but there was at least one familiar pink dress in the bunch.
“Um, what’s up, Elaine?” Ari said, feeling red. What was going on here?
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