Merlin's Children (The Children and the Blood)

by Megan Joel Peterson

  The old woman shrugged again. “Not the same for you. Made you different than them all. Could still fight and bind like Merlin, but had to stand in the middle like him too. Had to hold it all together, both sides. Conduit for the spell. Made you look like them, but not be them. Weakened, but not as much as them. Become the spell, while they were under the spell. Nothing strange on you, no dogs barking at you, because the spell was you. What you were. The link for it all.” She paused, the sad expression drifting back across her face. “Hurt so many of my little ones when it fractured all wrong, though. Took so many of them away, when it never should have. But it left you. Her too.”

  Thelma gave Lily a tender smile. “Scary, I bet, when you slipped outside,” she added to the little girl. “Even if it was good. You could help. Especially since those bad men slipped outside too.”

  She returned to picking at the debris, her smile fading.

  Ashe stared, and she could see Cole doing the same. Questions pushed on her, each more incredulous than the last, and for the life of her, she couldn’t seem to find words for any. Brow furrowing, she floundered through the flood of information and, in desperation, latched onto the last thing the woman had said.

  “Outside the spell?” she hazarded.

  Thelma nodded, seeming confused by the question.

  “And is that what happened to you? Were… were you there that night?”

  The confusion didn’t fade. “Always been outside.”

  “Since you were a kid?” Cole tried.

  Thelma looked at him oddly. “Since we made the spell.”

  Incredulity bubbled up, hitting Ashe with the sudden urge to laugh. They were talking to a crazy woman. Someone who chatted with her cats in fragments of poetry and used to call the farmhands’ truck a Jabberwocky.

  Someone who’d known exactly how the spell worked, had an explanation for why cripples had magic, and possessed more detailed information about the last war than anyone else she’d ever met.

  The urge to laugh melted away, leaving her with the sense that her grip on reality had suddenly become unstable.

  “Thelma,” she asked delicately. “What exactly does that mean?”

  “Just,” Cole added, “assume we don’t know.”

  Thelma paused. “Made the spell,” she said again. “Didn’t want to. None of us did. But didn’t have any choice. He wouldn’t listen. Always so headstrong, even as a little boy. So talented, but so terribly headstrong. And to have him take the world…” She shook her head. “Couldn’t let him do that to people. To humans. To us. We’d have to hurt them eventually. Always more of them than us.”

  “Who wanted the world?” Ashe asked faintly, afraid she might know.

  “Taliesin.”

  Ashe swallowed hard.

  “I would have done it,” Thelma continued. “Bound my little one, but Merlin wanted to protect me. Always so protective of family. Worried the spell might not work and kill whoever took it on. I argued, but he was the stronger one. Both were. Took after their father. If anyone had a chance, Merlin did. And he wouldn’t help unless I was the one who stayed outside. Unless I was the one who stayed behind.”

  She glanced to Lily, the smile returning with a touch of melancholy. “Couldn’t know you’d get outside too.”

  Ashe shivered.

  “Anybody remember where reality was?” Cole murmured. “Because I think we’ve lost it.”

  “You were alive back then?” Lily asked, putting words to at least one of the questions Ashe could no longer bring herself to raise.

  Thelma nodded pensively. Her gaze drifted to the side, losing focus as it went.

  “That’s not possible,” Cole said.

  Lily looked at him, tremulous credulity in her eyes. “Ashley catches herself on fire and you say people glow,” she pointed out.

  “Well, yeah, but–”

  “Not common,” Thelma said as if answering him, though her gaze never left the carpet. “Took so much to do. But necessary.” She nodded to herself. “Part of the plan. One spell to bind and one to stay, in case the binding weakened before peace came. Elvis wanted to just pass the spell’s secrets down. To tell the little ones how to do what we’d done. But what if the spell didn’t end the war? What if we failed? What if later someone pushed it harder… and killed?”

  She shook her head. “Needed someone to stay. Someone to be strong enough because they were outside. To know the secrets in case the spell had to be put back again, and to guard the secrets so bad people couldn’t use them to kill. And I had to be the one. No one else could.”

  The old woman paused, her brow furrowing distantly. “Never knew what it’d be, though. To watch people fade. Babies’ babies fade. To change names over and over to hide, while things went and went and went… and never came back again…”

  Her voice trailed off.

  Gingerly, Lily reached out and took her hand.

  Thelma drew a breath, the ghost of a fond smile rising again. “Always meant for the spell to end eventually, though,” she told the girl quietly. “Wouldn’t have left you with the canyon forever. To bind him and his friends forever. Just had to wait till they’d listen. Till they saw they didn’t need to run the world to be happy, and could have power without burning everything down.”

  From the corner of her eye, Ashe saw Cole look away.

  “But… it didn’t go like that,” Thelma said, her smile melting. “Made sense at first; so much blood on both sides. But then, when the Merlin’s little ones grew old, and more grew old, and more… it got worse. Cruel. Became everything we tried to stop. They took pleasure in the power. Pleasure in the hurt.” She closed her eyes. “So, so much hurt.”

  Ashe shifted uncomfortably.

  “And then it fractured,” Thelma sighed. “And I couldn’t do it again. Couldn’t help if it would be like last time. So many of my little ones were gone that night, but… hoped maybe the rest would work it out this time. Even if there was fighting, even with all the blood and hurt between them… still hoped maybe it would be okay.”

  She glanced to Ashe apologetically. “Never meant to let them take everything but the little flower.”

  Ashe looked away.

  She wanted to be angry, and deep down, she could feel it bubbling inside. The rage at what could have been. Maybe even should have been. The things they could have been spared, and all the things that wouldn’t have been this way. She wanted to be furious.

  But it wouldn’t change anything, or bring anyone back again.

  Somewhere in the distance, sirens echoed, the sounds faint and meaningless on the wind. Bits of paper fluttered over the carpet from the destroyed books scattered across the office floor, and beyond the shattered glass, wisps of cloud drifted through the darkening blue of the early evening sky.

  “You want to get out of here?” Cole asked quietly, his gaze on the windows.

  She nodded.

  Silently, they climbed to their feet and helped Thelma rise. Papers scattered away as the four of them made their way to the door, the white flecks sweeping out with the wind to float over the city and leave the office behind.

  *****

  Defenses rising, Ashe left the portal with Lily at her back. Cole followed, dizzily stepping away from the old conference room door and ignoring Thelma’s quizzical stare.

  The Merlin guard filled the first floor lobby, their identity recognizable only through vague familiarity, since they felt nothing like they had before. Strain lined their faces, along with a lack of surprise at the sight of Cole coming through a portal that left her unnerved, and as they spotted her, the nearest of them simply turned away and lifted his phone to his ear.

  “She’s here,” he said tersely.

  Ashe’s brow drew down and warily, she looked back at Cole.

  He didn’t notice. Bent with a hand to his head, he blinked as though trying to steady the floor beneath him.

  “Leaning on the wall helps,” she murmured, keeping one eye to the guards.

>   Cole glanced up at her. She gave a small shrug.

  Closing his eyes briefly, he drew a breath. “I’ll be alright,” he said, straightening. “It’s still better than last time.”

  His gaze went to the wizards at the end of the elevator corridor. His expression tightened.

  “Glowing?” she asked under her breath.

  He nodded.

  “Good, though?” Thelma interjected. “Not working for the bad ones?”

  Cole paused, his gaze flicking from the woman to the guards, and Ashe could read his discomfort at whatever it was he saw. “I guess so,” he allowed.

  Ignoring Thelma’s smile, he headed toward the guard, looking as though the wizards were far preferable to the old woman right now. Taking Lily’s hand, Ashe followed.

  A portal opened in the conference room door behind them.

  “Your majesty!” Elias called, rushing from the shadows with Cornelius and Nathaniel a step behind. “Are you–”

  He paused, catching sight of her back. Behind him, she could see Nathaniel register the same. The large wizard’s face went dark, though she couldn’t tell if the anger was for her, the bloodied rips in her shirt, or just both.

  “We’re fine,” Ashe said before they could speak. “We’re all fine.”

  Swiftly, Nathaniel shrugged off his jacket and swung it around her shoulders, his expression practically daring her to protest.

  “We’ve been trying to reach you,” Elias said. “We–”

  “Yeah,” she interrupted, shifting uncomfortably in the enormous coat. “I’m sorry. I just…”

  She didn’t know how to finish the sentence. They’d been exhausted after fighting their way through the building, and they were protective as hell. In trying to defend her and Lily from Jamison, they almost certainly would have been killed.

  But she couldn’t tell them that. The insult wouldn’t even be the half of it.

  “Where is the Taliesin king?” Cornelius asked flatly into the awkward silence.

  She hesitated. “Dead.”

  Cole looked away.

  “What’s going on?” she asked, jerking her chin toward the guards.

  Elias glanced to Cornelius and Nathaniel. “You should probably just come with us,” he told her.

  She tensed, struggling not to show nervousness at the words, and followed him. The guards surrounded them all as the three men headed around the elevator island for the door to the concrete park at the building’s side.

  Her footsteps slowed as the windows came into view. Up ahead, Nathaniel pushed open the glass door and then stepped back, waiting as the others continued through.

  The Merlin guard ringed the park. At least, she was fairly certain it was them, based on how the others weren’t reacting. Brentworth and Blackjack were there as well, sitting among the wounded beneath the trees at the edge of the concrete, with Katherine and Ermengarde nearby. On the broad steps of the building, Spider, Bus and Samson watched the crowd, nearly motionless and ignoring Harris as he studied them all from a few yards away.

  And in the center of the concrete expanse, over a hundred people stood, eyeing the guards and casting furtive glances to her as though waiting for the moment when she’d try to kill them all.

  “Whoa, this is weird,” Cole said, coming to a stop behind her.

  Spider glanced back, tense agreement in her eyes. “I’m assuming you did this?” she asked Ashe.

  Walking up next to her, Ashe couldn’t respond. Everyone looked the same. As human as Harris. As unremarkable as the Blood had appeared to be. The instant recognition of Merlin and Taliesin and cripple was gone, leaving nothing to differentiate them from any of the ordinary people strolling obliviously past on the sidewalk.

  “All wizards once,” Thelma murmured.

  She looked back. By the doorway, Thelma smiled.

  “So,” Elias began uncomfortably. “We’re pretty certain these are all allies of–”

  “They are.”

  Spider’s voice was flat and tight, and when the others glanced to her, the girl didn’t take her eyes from the park.

  Irritation flickered across Elias’ face. “How do you–”

  “Get away from me!”

  Ashe turned.

  In the lobby, Tanya stood, a disappearing portal and a little girl both at her back. Guards circled the woman, and sparks flew from their defenses as Tanya threw bursts of magic to hold them at bay.

  “Well,” Elias commented, watching her. “Guess we know who sold us out.” He paused. “Again.”

  “She was upstairs with Jamison,” Ashe said quietly.

  “Put her with the others,” Cornelius called to the guards.

  Tanya’s eyes went wide and her gaze snapped over, spotting them beyond the glass door.

  Magic raced from the woman.

  And died as it passed Cole.

  Ashe blinked. Her attempt to intercept the attack faded as the guards snagged Tanya and shoved her to the ground. Distractedly, she took the woman’s magic, ignoring the shriek it elicited from Tanya, and turned to Cole.

  He looked as confused as she felt.

  “Bastards!” Tanya shouted, struggling in the guards’ grip. “You killed him!”

  The woman choked as the guards hauled her up from the tile. Muscling her forward, they headed for the door, one of them bringing the little girl behind.

  “I’ll make you pay,” Tanya snarled as she came closer. “I know what you had planned for us. How the king wanted to have us killed and how his guards murdered Howard that night for showing the Blood how to find them first. I know everything, and I will see you burn in hell before you lay a hand on my daughter!”

  Ashe’s brow furrowed. “What?” she asked, glancing to Elias.

  “Just get her out of here,” he sighed tiredly, motioning to the guards.

  Holding Tanya, the guards started forward, only to come to a stop as Thelma wandered into the doorway. “A friend came with the bad firemen?” the old woman asked.

  Thelma looked between Tanya and her daughter in confusion, and then she paused, cocking her head.

  “Dead man by the road,” she said slowly, studying the child. “Glasses. Heavy. Her eyes.”

  She blinked at Tanya. “Never came near the farm. I went out when the Jabberwockies left and I saw him… saw him lying by the roadside. Bullet in his back and hands all clawed up with dirt like he’d tried to crawl away.” She paused. “Had to hide as the firemen came to drag him back when they were burning the house down.”

  Tanya stared. “No,” she whimpered. “No, that’s not true. They–”

  “Get her out of here already,” Elias ordered the guards.

  Ashe came over, taking Thelma’s arm. The old woman blinked again, and then obediently followed her aside.

  “No,” Tanya said again. With her gaze locked unseeing on the ground, she kept repeating the word as she stumbled after the guards.

  “There’s not a chance…” Ashe started, looking to Cornelius and Elias.

  “Your father valued the Bartlow family’s safety almost as much as your own,” Cornelius replied. “No.”

  Ashe exhaled. Her gaze returned to Cole.

  The confusion on his face hadn’t changed.

  “Yeah,” Elias said, reading the young man’s expression. “About that.” He glanced over as Spider came closer. “Guards figured that out real quick a few minutes ago. One second they were covering your friends here on a retreat from the Taliesin, and the next…”

  “It appeared magic could no longer touch them or those they were near.” Cornelius supplied into the pause. “Magic intended for harm, in any case.” He hesitated. “We are not certain what this development entails.”

  Spider scoffed. “Says the guy suddenly glowing like a damn Christmas tree.”

  Cornelius eyed her. “Or that as well,” he acknowledged.

  Ashe glanced between them, but no one seemed to want to continue. “Well, um,” she said to Cole awkwardly. “Thanks for that.” />
  He seemed at a loss. “Anytime.”

  She paused. Clearly uncomfortable, Cole turned back toward the park and after a heartbeat, she followed his gaze.

  “So, your majesty,” Spider said dryly. “Now what?”

  For a moment, Ashe didn’t respond, her eyes on the people filling the park beneath the shifting colors of the setting sun.

  “Now,” she answered. “We end the war.”

  Epilogue

  Three Months Later

  “The worst was one called Penguin Rally,” Lily said.

  “Penguin Rally,” Ashe repeated.

  The little girl nodded. “You had to race these really ugly penguins around this ice-rink thing, and Travis kept insisting I play it because then he could tell his Aunt Mauve he’d gotten to the end. He even emailed Cole last week wanting to know if I could remember a certain part, because his five-year-old cousin wouldn’t stop asking about it.”

  Ashe laughed as she pushed aside a low-hanging tree branch. The ice on the wood melted at her touch, sending fat drops of water down into the snowbank below.

  “And you had to do this for how long?”

  “Like a month!” Lily replied incredulously, and then she paused, amending the statement. “Well, I mean, not every day. I did get to make some stuff while I was there. Not like I did at Sue and Ben’s, though. They had so much stuff for making things. Craft paper and beads and yarn like she used in that blanket she sent. You liked that one, right? I thought it was so pretty.”

  Ashe nodded, but Lily had already moved on to talking about their plans to visit the Summers’ farm. Clambering over a snow-covered log, the little girl continued down the path through the trees.