Harley Merlin 11: Finch Merlin and the Lost Map Read online

  “I didn’t even know it was a physical thing with a backstory until now.” An idea burst into my brain. “But don’t worry about sifting around in your mind palace. I’ll ask Erebus about it the next time I see him, since this thing is clearly so precious to him. That jackass has a whole universe of explaining to do next time I see his ugly mug, anyway, so I might as well throw that in, too.” I kept running, with the other two trailing after me.

  “You mentioned Kenzie—is she the parrot?” Melody called out.

  I nodded. “She’s not usually a parrot.”

  “Right, I mean Morph,” Melody panted. “Is she working for Erebus, too? How did she know you’d need it?” Nothing got past Melody.

  I channeled my anger into my legs. “Seems that way. I can’t really deal with that right now, though, or I might put my fist through a wall.”

  “Noted.” Melody pointed back to the pendant, continuing between breaths. “Why do you think Erebus wants it?”

  “No idea. Those answers will have to come later—from the Prince of Darkness’s own mouth. Right now, we need to find Blanche.”

  “I have an idea.” Luke raised his hand.

  “What?” I glanced at him.

  “If she wants the map, and you have it, where’s she most likely to go?” Luke came to a stop, and so did I.

  I clenched my jaw. “Crap, you’re right.”

  “Am I missing something?” Melody chimed in.

  “My room,” I said. “She’ll be lurking there, I’d bet. She’ll have ransacked my drawers already. By now she knows I have it on me.”

  “Then let’s get going.” Melody shot me an encouraging grin.

  Retracing our steps, we raced through the labyrinth of hallways until we reached my room. There, we pulled to a halt. I lifted my finger to my lips and rested one hand on the handle.

  They nodded, raising their palms for a fight. Luke looked worried, and he had every right to be. His skills hadn’t worked well during our last encounter with Blanche, but we didn’t have time to find weapons. He’d just have to hope the element of surprise would make a difference. Besides, he had Melody and me to help him out, and this time, we knew we were walking into a potential warzone.

  I flung the door open. We were all fired up, wound tight and ready to come to blows. But the sight before us abruptly halted our attack.

  Blanche stood in the center of the room behind a solid, floor-to-ceiling wall of ice. She’d drawn all the water from the creepy moat surrounding Hades and used it to build the barrier. The ice was so smooth, we could see her smirking on the other side.

  “You had to sound the alarm, didn’t you?” She tutted loudly. “Not that it matters now. You’re too late.”

  I lifted my palms and forged a fireball, then pummeled it at the ice. “Is that right?”

  She chuckled. “Poor thing, you were so out of it, weren’t you? That’s the trouble with monastic medicine—you only get the best stuff when you’re here. They don’t share it with the rest of the world. Potent sedatives and powerful healing serums. But they make you a little woozy, don’t they?”

  “What are you talking about?” I spat, bombarding the ice wall. It was deceptively thick, and the fireballs took time to make a dent. Luke stepped up beside me and wrenched a poker from the fireplace, using his Magneton powers to form a pick. He started to hack at the ice while Melody applied pressure with Air.

  “You didn’t notice your feathery friend disappear in the middle of the night, did you? That stoic sentinel needed to rest back in their real body, I imagine. And Melody and Luke couldn’t stay awake forever. All I had to do was wait, and, as you know, I’m good at that.” Blanche smirked.

  My heart stopped. “What?”

  “A concerned friend, coming to make sure you were okay. It couldn’t have worked more perfectly,” she went on. “Although, I confess, I’d have been out of here a lot sooner if you hadn’t hidden your oranges so well. Very sneaky, to dose them with Shapeshifting energy to make them look like a laundry basket.”

  I glanced at the corner of the room, where I’d hidden the oranges before Melody and Luke finally dragged me to the infirmary last night. The fake laundry basket was gone… which meant the oranges were, too.

  “You don’t have what Davin wants,” I insisted, surging more Fire into the torrent aimed at the ice wall.

  “Oh, but I do, Finch. I was just on my way out when the sirens sounded. I couldn’t resist seeing the look on your face when you realized you hadn’t managed to stop me.” Her smile never faltered.

  My hand delved into my pocket, whipping out the map. “If you think you have the map, then what’s this?” I brandished it at her.

  “A blank sheet of paper,” Blanche replied.

  My eyes darted to the map. Crap. She was right. No directions, no locations, nothing marked the paper.

  “I took it from you while you slept. Or, rather, Mr. Abara did—his form is very useful. Nobody questioned him.” She leered through the ice, smug as anything. Her tricks had been so simple. Deviously simple.

  “Davin isn’t who you think he is.” I returned to bombarding the wall, the ice finally starting to break. If this had been her way of buying time, she was running out of it, fast. “Whatever he’s promised, he’ll turn on you at the first opportunity.”

  Blanche snorted. “He told me you’d say that. And, besides, you don’t have what he has. You’re not a Necromancer. You can’t bring my husband back.”

  “Give me the map, and we’ll forget about this,” I urged her. “He’s manipulating your grief to get what he wants. He won’t give up that much energy to bring back your husband, trust me. He betrayed Katherine! Do you really think he’ll give a damn about betraying someone as insignificant as you?”

  “Insignificant?” Venom dripped from her words.

  “Just hand over the map and the oranges, and we’ll figure this out!” I could feel the control slipping through my hands, as slippery as that ice.

  She flicked the ice, and the cracks spread. “I have more reason to trust Davin than you. He betrayed Katherine because she was evil. He was playing her all along—he told me everything.”

  “And you believed him?! If you do, you’ll end up with nothing. It’s never too late. You can always change your mind.” I was pretty much begging, at this point.

  “My pigeons have already delivered the goods.” She checked an imaginary watch on her wrist. “It’s time for me to go.” She turned toward the window.

  NO! Closing my eyes, I gathered every Elemental and Telekinetic ability I possessed and formed a swirling ball of five powers. I’d never done this before, and my palms could barely contain the volatile energy. With a shove that stole my breath, I hurled the ball at the ice wall. It slammed into it so violently that the entire room shook on impact. In a split second, the ice disintegrated into a thousand jagged splinters.

  “Grab her!” I yelled.

  Blanche looked back with terror in her eyes as she scrambled for the windowsill. Mustering the strength I had left, I grabbed her around the waist with a tendril of Telekinesis, tugging her back into the room before she could escape.

  “Let go of me!” she wailed as she hit the floor. I held her in place, but her hands twisted wildly in front of her. She sent daggers of ice flying toward us in a barrage of glinting projectiles.

  I dropped the Telekinesis to create a barrier of Air, as did Melody. The combining air currents swept the icy shards back the way they came. They hit the far wall with a series of cracks.

  Blanche ducked and covered her head, catching a few ice splinters in her forearms and back. Blood trickled down her arms and to the floor—wounded by her own weapons. As for her legs, the larger shards that struck her had buried in her skin, melting slowly from the heat of her oozing blood.

  She recovered quickly, drawing up the last water from Hades’s pool and turning it to a solid lump of ice. Her gaze fixed on Melody. Her breath went ragged as she lifted the ice block with her Chaos, her ar
ms shaking over her head under the strain of holding it in midair.

  “Don’t you dare!” Luke howled, curling his hands into fists. The adapted poker he’d used to chip away at the ice flew at Blanche. It thudded through her chest with a sickening, wet sound. Her eyes went wide in surprise, and the ice block dropped to the ground. Tiny pieces and bigger chunks skittered across the floor, their target forgotten.

  “What… did you… do?” Blanche stared down at the end of the poker, which was deeply lodged in her flesh.

  “What I should’ve done when you first threatened Melody,” Luke snarled back. Melody, on the other hand, stared in utter horror. She looked pale, like she might faint.

  “Luke! Your girl’s about to keel over,” I warned.

  He rushed to Melody, catching her as her knees gave way. Melody’s eyes rolled back into her head, and she was down for the count. Luke held her close and sank to the ground with her in his arms.

  I strode to face Blanche. She swayed like a poppy in a hurricane, her hands reaching for anything that might hold her up. She even looked at me in desperation, as if I would help her out.

  “Finch… I… change my… mind. Just… help me,” she pleaded. “Get me… to Davin. He’s the… only one that… can save me. I don’t want… to die.”

  I shook my head slowly. “I gave you a choice, and you refused. There’s nothing I can do for you now.”

  “It might not be… too late.” Blanche’s eyes darted to the window. “Help me and… I’ll get the map back.”

  I hurried to the window and stared out. Beyond, the Ionian Sea lay eerily flat except for one cluster of ripples, forming around a long shadow. A single boat rowed away from the island with a familiar figure sitting in the center, his arms pumping the oars.

  Davin. Two dead birds lay on one of the empty rowing benches. Birds I recognized. Kenzie had Morphed into one to tell me about Blanche’s deception. And, resting in a basket on the stern, were my oranges and, presumably, my map.

  “You didn’t need to get inside, did you?” I whispered, broiling with rage.

  Davin and his boat waited in the water beyond the monastery and its protective shield. He hadn’t even had to set foot on the island with Blanche doing all his dirty work. No need to risk setting off alarms or alerting Etienne. And those carrier pigeons had delivered everything to him. Kenzie must’ve tried, too late, to Morph into one again to steal the items back… but Davin had killed them.

  Even now, a vicious seagull circled the boat, divebombing it. With one bolt of Necromantic Chaos from Davin, it plunged into the ocean, dead as a doornail. Fear spiked through my anger. What would happen to Kenzie if her Morph vessel died? If she’d already made her way through three, hopefully that meant she’d be okay, but I couldn’t shake the dread that pulsed in my veins.

  But that dread stemmed from more than my worry about Kenzie. The oranges were gone, the map was gone, and Blanche had collapsed behind me, the light gone from her eyes. Up ahead, I could’ve sworn I saw Davin grin back at the monastery. A moment later, he snatched up his stolen goods and vanished in a dark puff of smoke. It enveloped him whole, leaving the boat empty, bobbing on the water.

  “Finch?” Luke called out.

  I turned slowly, on the brink of a panic attack.

  “What happened?” he asked. Melody was still out.

  “Davin… got away.” I clenched my jaw, my teeth squeaking.

  Luke furrowed his brow. “What are you going to do? Should we go after him?”

  “He’s already gone.” I shook my head, wanting to scream at the top of my lungs.

  “What does that mean? What can we do?”

  I glanced back at the empty ocean. “It means I’ll have to draw that map again, from memory. And that Davin might beat us to Atlantis.”

  Thirty-Five

  Finch

  The door of my room opened, silencing a whole tirade of filthy words about to trip oh-so-elegantly off my tongue. Etienne burst in with a cluster of monks. Mr. Abara wasn’t among them.

  I pushed the pendant under my T-shirt, since it was stolen goods. Well, someone had swiped it from Erebus, and I’d swiped it back, but that was a distinction that Etienne probably wouldn’t appreciate. I’d gone snooping for it, after all. That would likely be enough to punish me, even if I explained why.

  Melody stirred in Luke’s arms, blinking in confusion. “What happened?”

  “An incredible offense to myself and the monastery is what happened!” Etienne cried, his cheeks purple with fury.

  “Mr. Abara found you, then?” I sighed, edging past Blanche’s body and the blood pooling across the floor.

  “Yes, he did. He is leading another team through the monastery as we speak,” Etienne replied tersely.

  “No need. Blanche gave everything to Davin, and he’s gone. And she’s… well, you can see what she is.” I gestured to her lifeless form. Luke did what he had to, but death was never something to jump for joy over.

  Aside from yours, Davin. When I finally killed that slimy, evil, devious, wormy little… it wouldn’t have been polite to use the word I wanted to. Nevertheless, when I finally killed him, there’d be fanfare and a friggin’ festival to mark the occasion. Fireworks, free candy for everyone, and effigies of that devil burning on pyres across the whole damn world!

  Etienne looked ready to explode. “Davin Doncaster has made an eternal enemy out of me over this sacrilege! I don’t care if I owe him a life debt. If I ever see his face again, I’ll rip it off with my bare hands! All of this, because he failed to learn the skill of map-making himself, years ago. All of this, because he wasn’t intelligent enough to gain the art of his own accord! So, he sends a spy to steal the craft, instead!”

  “Wait, what?” I narrowed my eyes. “Davin tried to learn map-making?”

  “Yes, and he couldn’t, and now he’s done this! It’s the height of vulgarity!” Etienne paced. I could’ve sworn I saw steam coming out of his ears.

  The news brought a sickening “aha!” moment. Davin trying to learn the art had to have something to do with Erebus. I already knew there were some crossovers in my work for Erebus and Davin’s involvement with the Child of Chaos. The Fountain being the first, and this being the second. There were definitely some connections between the two of them, but this revelation made me realize that Davin’s and Erebus’s paths might have been intertwined for a lot longer than I could’ve guessed.

  “Well, now he has the map, and those oranges, to boot. So, I’m back at square one with no poison to send me on a magical mystery ride.” I kicked a chunk of ice, wishing it were Davin’s severed head.

  “What of that? It’s the act of thievery that appalls me. But you’re not back at square one.” Etienne turned to me, visibly calming himself.

  I frowned. “I’m not?”

  “Do you think the art of map-making relies solely on oranges? That’s nonsense and would be a highly inefficient skill. Mapmakers aren’t always going to have a potted orange tree handy, now, are they? They were just a method of channeling Chaos. Now that you’ve drawn your first map, you can do it again without the help of such fruits.”

  “I can?” I gaped at him.

  Etienne sighed. “Think about it logically.”

  “Well… I guess it would be pretty inefficient if you always needed to have orange trees around,” I replied.

  “Precisely. You can still draw the map without the poison; it will just take you longer to achieve the end product,” Etienne explained dryly. “A few days instead of an hour or two. Inconvenient, perhaps. Unattainable, no.”

  “How come it takes longer?” I pressed.

  “Think of it like caffeine and writing an essay while tired.” Etienne gestured to an empty mug on my desk. “You can still write the essay without the caffeine, but you will write it a great deal quicker if you have the caffeine to sharpen your mind and keep you focused. The oranges provide the added stimulus, in this scenario.”

  Just then, Hades started to move
, the statue stretching like it’d come out of a thousand-year coma. Ah crap… not the time, Erebus! Etienne would lose his mind if he realized I really was in cahoots with a Child of Chaos, after everything I’d told him to the contrary.

  The statue’s head twisted to me, the limbs glitching—freezing and starting as if running on a low frame rate.

  “Boy, there you are!” Erebus boomed. “Kenzie’s mortal form has grown weak. Too weak to remain here, so I’ve come to you myself. I see you have company. Nevertheless, I must speak to you. You are needed. Return to where Kenzie lives so I don’t have to repeat myself. We have work to—”

  The statue crumbled suddenly, pieces breaking away and tumbling into the now-empty pool around Hades’s feet. Erebus’s communication spell had failed again. And poor Hades had taken the brunt of it.

  Etienne pinched the bridge of his nose. “All of these constant violations!” I opened my mouth to explain, but he cut me off. “Don’t bother with excuses, and I won’t ask whom you were speaking with. The sooner I can have you all out of my monastery, the better! I must prepare for the next batch of potential students.”

  If that’s the worst of your problems, you’ve got it easy. I had to deal with Erebus. And, by the sounds of it, my overlord was already in a foul mood. Oh, goody… Just the temperament I wanted him in when I told him we’d lost the map and that Davin probably had it.

  I was a little surprised that Etienne wasn’t ripping my head off about Erebus’s sudden arrival. It clearly meant I’d lied about my ties to the Child of Chaos. Maybe Etienne cared more about stopping Davin than he did about my servitude to Erebus. Or maybe it just wasn’t clear enough that Erebus had taken over old Hades.

  “So, I can really draw the map again?” I said, to test the waters. At least I’d have one glimmer of optimism to share with General Shady.

  Etienne rolled his eyes. “Yes. Would you like me to say it until I’m blue in the face?”

  “Does Davin know I don’t need oranges?”

  Etienne paused. “No… I don’t expect he would. He never made it past that stage, so he should have no reason to believe that.”