by Rachel Aaron
By the time he finished, David looked horrified. “I don’t know if what you’re describing is even possible,” he warned. “Dragons are not—”
“Dragons are whatever we want to be,” Julius said firmly. “We’ve been told our whole lives that if we’re not violent, greedy, and ambitious, we’re not dragons, but anyone with eyes can see that’s ridiculous. Dragons come in all types, with all different personalities and dreams. Those differences mean there will always be conflict, but that’s fine. We’re not trying to build a utopia. I just want to create a system where being strong enough to eat your opponents isn’t the only option for victory. Something with fair and understandable laws, not a supreme leader’s whims. You know, the kind of government most human nations take for granted, like the one you’ve worked in for the last five decades. I’m not asking for the moon, here. I just want you to help me build something that will work. A clan government that takes its lessons from the best of what the humans have already discovered, but is still designed to take into account dragon lifespans. That’s what I want. Help me build it, and I’ll count your debt paid.”
He wiped the blood from his hand and held it out, but David just gave him a funny look. “You could have made me your slave, you know,” he said as he shook Julius’s hand.
“I could have,” Julius said, happy that David’s normal handshake wasn’t nearly as crushing as his murdering one. “But I don’t think either of us would have enjoyed it. You seem like you’d be a very bad slave, and I know I’d be a terrible master. This solution plays to both of our strengths.”
David nodded, closing his eyes with a wince as the sharp, stabbing magic of the life debt bit down, locking them both to their promises. “I just hope you know what a mess you’re inviting,” he said, dropping Julius’s hand to shake out his fingers. “Designing a system dragons can’t abuse isn’t going to be easy.”
“That’s why I called you in to help,” Julius said, slumping back into his chair with a relieved sigh. “No one can do everything on their own.”
In what seemed to be his default expression now, David gave him another baffled look. Before he could say anything, though, Fredrick cut between them with a large plate of food, which he shoved unceremoniously into Julius’s hands.
“That’s enough of that,” the F growled, glaring at David. “The debt is made, but if you want the Great Julius to be conscious later for the vote, he needs to eat and rest.”
“I was just leaving,” David assured him. “I have a lot of work ahead of me.” He turned back to Julius with a bow that would have been graceful if it wasn’t so obvious how unused David was to lowering his head. “I hope you feel better.”
Julius nodded, his mouth too full of delicious roast to answer. As soon as David moved away, Fredrick moved in to cover Julius’s side, keeping the other dragons away while Julius stuffed himself as fast as his hands could move.
***
After the excitement surrounding their entrance into Algonquin’s airspace, the rest of Marci’s grand return to the DFZ was almost boring.
They landed on a small, private airstrip beside the DFZ’s massive, modern, and eternally crowded airport and got straight into a car that was already waiting for them on the tarmac. Once they were in, the general turned off the autonav and took the wheel herself, driving them straight into the Underground. When Marci tried to tell her this wasn’t the right way, she just put a finger to her lips and kept going, driving them in ever-widening circles for nearly an hour before finally pulling into a nondescript parking deck below downtown filled with black armored SUVs identical to the one they were driving. They sat there for a while longer, and then, as though she’d reached some pre-agreed-upon checkpoint, Emily ordered them all out of the car and into the identical one beside it before turning the auto drive on the previous car on again and sending it empty back into the city. When it was gone, she joined Sir Myron, Raven, and Marci in the new car, which Sir Myron had already programmed with their actual destination.
“I know we’re trying to avoid being followed,” Marci said as the general climbed over the seat to join them in the back of the armored SUV. “But don’t you think that was a little overkill?”
“Better over than under,” General Jackson said as she settled into her seat. “Algonquin’s on high alert, and you’re a known target. Under those circumstances, there’s no such thing as too careful.”
“And we absolutely can’t have her getting your Mortal Spirit,” Sir Myron added, looking dourly down at Marci’s empty hands. “How is he, anyway?”
Marci reached inside with a mental hand to pet Ghost’s tiny shadow. “The same,” she said sadly. “But everything’s going to be okay once we get him home.”
The mage looked more skeptical than ever. “And where is home? The address you gave us is within spitting distance of Reclamation Land. That’s the middle of nowhere.”
“I didn’t give you the wrong one,” Marci said defensively. “Relax. I know where we’re going.”
Sir Myron did not look convinced, but he didn’t say anything more as the new black car left the Underground and rolled out into the open streets of what had once been the lovely University Heights neighborhood.
The old house where Marci had lived before she met Julius looked exactly as she remembered: stuffed with trash, riddled with bullet holes, and on the verge of collapse. “Good god,” Myron said as the car pulled to a stop. “This is where you found the first Mortal Spirit? I’ve seen war zones in better shape.”
“I’ve seen worse,” Raven said as he fluttered into the air. “Not many, but some.”
“What happened?” the general asked, nudging the spent ammo shells that still littered the driveway with the toe of her polished boot. “Or are these not yours?”
“They were fired at me,” Marci said as she climbed out of the car. “I had an altercation with an old associate. He tried to force me to give up something that was mine. I had other ideas.”
“Obviously,” Sir Myron said, glancing pointedly at the burned bushes in the next yard over. “What was he after?”
Marci opened her mouth, but nothing came out. She’d already decided not to tell them about her Kosmolabe, which was still hidden in her bag, but when she tried to tell them the other reason for her beef with the dearly departed Bixby, Marci had suddenly realized that she couldn’t remember. She was positive there’d been something else, but when she tried to remember why she’d run from Bixby or even how she’d gotten the Kosmolabe in the first place, all she found was a blank. She knew she had good reason to hate him, knew that she’d been in the right, but the harder she reached for the truth, the more it faded.
She was still working on it when a cool hand landed on her shoulder, and she looked up to see General Jackson standing over her with a concerned look. “You okay?”
“Fine,” Marci lied, plastering a smile on her face. “I’m fine. Just bad memories.”
As always, Sir Myron didn’t seem to believe a word she said. Fortunately, Marci’s past wasn’t why they were here. Now that they were out of the car, the stray cats—who’d been conspicuously absent when they’d pulled up—were starting to appear, poking their noses out of the undergrowth and through the remains of the house’s dusty broken windows. There were even cats up on the collapsing roof, their reflective eyes gleaming through the rainy evening as they stared down at their visitors. It was every bit as creepy as Marci remembered, and she breathed a deep sigh of relief.
“Come on,” she said, clutching her bag even though she knew Ghost wasn’t in it. “Let’s get inside.”
Sir Myron’s eyes widened in horror. “In there? It doesn’t look structurally sound.”
“It’s sound enough,” Marci assured him, hurrying down the old steps and through the empty door into what was left of what had once been her basement apartment. “This is where I found Ghost.”
“No accounting for taste, I suppose,” Raven said, landing on the stairs to peer through the dark
at the mountain of trash, which had only gotten moldier without the door to protect it. “Is he the spirit of consumer culture?”
Marci scowled at the bird. She wasn’t exactly proud of the place, but she didn’t think it was that bad, especially the bits she’d cleaned. Of course, between the broken glass, spent shells, and other debris from the firefight, it was kind of hard to tell which bits those were at the moment. Some luck must have still been on her side, though, because the stretch of cement floor where she used to draw her circles was still clear and only a little damp from the rain blowing in through the broken windows.
“Ah, ah, ah. No.”
That exclamation came from Sir Myron, and Marci looked over to see the undersecretary of magic gingerly trying to keep one of the stray cats from coming through the door with the toe of his expensive leather loafer.
“It’s okay,” she said, digging into her bag for a piece of chalk. “Let them in.”
He gaped at her. “You want stray cats in your casting area?”
“Not normally,” Marci said as she set her bag on the stone floor and knelt down to start drawing her circle. “But I think they’re part of this.”
Sir Myron muttered something under his breath about Thaumaturges and their lack of standards that Marci pointedly chose to ignore, focusing instead on the spellwork she was writing along the inside of the hastily drawn circle. It was the same spellwork she’d written on the shield when she’d bound Ghost a second time after he’d defeated Vann Jeger, or as best she could remember it. She wasn’t actually quite sure about some of it, but this was uncharted magical territory for everyone, which meant best guess was the best she could hope for.
Thankfully, given how much of a hurry she’d been in at the time, the new binding was a relatively simple spell. Even so, Marci took her time, going over each symbol one by one to make sure they were exactly as she meant them. She was doing a final check when her elbow bumped into something furry and soft, and she looked up in surprise to see that the basement was now full of cats.
They were obviously strays, small cats with lean bodies, ragged coats, and hungry, wary eyes. Despite their numbers, they didn’t step on her spellwork, and not a one made a sound. They just sat in silence around the circle she’d drawn, staring at the empty spot in the middle like an audience waiting for the show to start. Even for Marci, who was used to this sort of thing, it was pretty creepy, but UN Team looked seriously spooked. Sir Myron especially seemed to be fighting the urge to kick the cats away, looking at Marci’s spell with increasing nervousness.
“What kind of spirit did you say Ghost was again?”
“I didn’t,” she reminded him, earning herself a nasty look. Honestly, it was kind of a silly thing to be a stickler about, especially since these people were helping her, but Ghost had fought so hard for his name. Telling it to strangers just felt wrong. Maybe she was making too much of it, but until he told her otherwise, Marci had decided the Empty Wind’s true name and true nature was for her alone.
Of course, if she didn’t get a move on, it wasn’t going to be for anyone.
“Okay,” she said, putting her chalk in her pocket. “That should do it.”
She moved to the spot she’d designated as the beginning of the spell and put her hands down, fingers just touching the edge of the bright-yellow chalk circle. When she was sure she was in the right position, Marci put everything else out of her mind and reached out, gathering the rich, familiar, pea-soup magic of the outer DFZ into her body before channeling it back down her arms and through her fingers to fill the circle in front of her.
It didn’t take long. Compared to the thin, scattered magic of Heartstriker Mountain, being back in the DFZ was like standing under a waterfall. She barely had to hold out her hand and the magic rushed in, filling the circle instantly. And as the magic swirled and gathered, a small, flickering figure began to appear at the center, pulsing like a will-o’-the-wisp in the dark.
“That’s it,” she whispered as she pushed even more magic into the circle. “Come back to us. Remember your promise.”
The words rang with unexpected power, and Marci glanced up in surprise to see the cats moving their mouths in time with her own. They made no sound, couldn’t even physically form the words, but that didn’t seem to matter. They were clearly working with her, almost like a casting team would, and as they followed her lead, Marci could feel the faint lines of their natural magic mingling with her own, all of it boosted by something else. Something cold and familiar.
It was power of the forgotten, she realized with a start. The longing of the lost to be remembered, and it wasn’t coming from the cats alone. There were others here as well, shadowy figures hovering at the edge of the dark basement. Every time Marci reached for more power to feed into the circle, they reached out to meet her, handing her magic as cold and lonely as the grave itself.
If Marci hadn’t been in the middle of a spell, that would have been enough to send her running. It was one thing to see the undead tearing apart a violent dragon-hunting spirit who was trying to kill you, but it was quite another to take magic from them like you were borrowing a cup of sugar from your neighbor. Unsettling as it was, though, running wasn’t an option. The spellwork around the circle wasn’t just a binding for Ghost. She’d specifically engineered this spell to cut both ways, and with every fistful of magic she fed into it, the more tightly Marci bound herself to everything around her: the cats, the ghosts, the emptiness, the death, all of it. But while she was now inextricably part of it, the magic was not being offered to her. Now that they were flowing through her, Marci could almost hear their silent voices crying for him to wake up and remember what no one else bothered to. To wake and keep the names of the forgotten souls the DFZ was built on, to be a champion for the forgotten dead.
I have not forgotten.
Marci almost jumped out of her skin. The deep voice rose like a gale in her mind, scouring away every other thought. When it passed, only the cold remained, a grave-like chill that still froze her to the bone, though that didn’t stop Marci from mentally hugging it tight as she looked up with a joyful grin.
“Welcome back.”
In the middle of her circle, Ghost’s furry body shone bright as moonlight, lighting up the dark basement. He stayed like that just until he saw he had her attention, and then he changed again, the cat blowing away like dust to reveal the ghostly soldier in his ancient centurion’s armor, his blue eyes glowing happily from the depths of his empty helmet.
You came for me.
“Of course I came for you,” she said, laughing with relief. “I’ll always come for you. We’re a pair, remember? You to me, me to you.”
Always, he finished, his shadowy body shaking with emotion. I was right to choose you.
“Same here,” she said proudly. “Best cat ever. Now.” She spread her fingers, sucking in as much magic from the air as she could hold. “Let’s get you fed up and get out of here. Not to be cocky, but I’m probably near the top of Algonquin’s to-kill list at the moment, and I’d rather not stick around here longer than is strictly necessary.”
No need. I am ready.
Marci frowned. “Are you sure? Because I’ve only fed you—”
You have been good to me, so I shall be good to you, the Empty Wind said firmly. You have kept faith, Marci Novalli. I will do the same.
That didn’t sound like it had anything to do with obtaining an adequate amount of magic, but before she could point that out, her spirit made it a moot point. As soon as the Empty Wind finished speaking, the centurion vanished, his shadowy body blowing away on a wind she couldn’t feel. The shadows at the room’s edge did the same, the ghostly figures collapsing back into the dark with a unified sigh of relief. In the end, only the cats remained, and standing in the middle of them like a proud king was Ghost, big and white and glowing brighter than ever as he glanced up at Marci with a slow blink.
Ready when you are.
“So it’s back to the cat, eh
?” she said, shaking her head. “You know, you’re not nearly as impressive this way.”
But far less obvious, Ghost replied. I don’t think your guests could take much more in any case. The pompous mage in particular looks like he’s going to pop. He swished his tail. I’d enjoy that.
So would Marci, but she knew better than to say so out loud. In any case, the look on Sir Myron’s face when she turned around was satisfying enough.
“Wh-What was that?” he demanded, whirling around to peer into the now-empty corners where the shadows of the dead had been. “What did you do?”
Marci shrugged and held out her hands for Ghost, who jumped nimbly off the floor into her arms. “Exactly what I said I’d do. I took my spirit back to his home and fed him magic. Now he’s all better, see?”
She held out her glowing cat for Sir Myron to inspect, but the mage recoiled. “You said he was a Mortal Spirit!” he cried, his voice growing angry. “That’s a death spirit if I ever saw one.”
Marci nodded. “I thought so, too, at first, but while death is a part of his powers, he’s most definitely not a death spirit. You see, death spirits are just echoes—”
“I know what a death spirit is,” Sir Myron snapped. “I’m not talking about technical classifications. I meant that that thing can’t possibly be the first Mortal Spirit! Mortal Spirits are the spirits we create. They’re the living incarnations of universal human obsessions: love, war, wisdom, bravery, anger, fertility. You know, the things we made gods for. How is it possible that the spirit of this”—he threw out his arms at the stray cats, who startled and scattered to the safety of the trash—“is the first to rise? What does that say about humanity? About our magic?” He glared at Marci. “What does it say about you?”
