by I made my way to the library with some feelings of mild apprehension. Jay might justifiably kill me for having left him to fret all day. Val might justifiably murder me for having failed to get her the contents of Merlin’s grimoire.
My life was in all kinds of danger, lately.
I found Jay sitting in one of the deep, silver-brocaded chairs before the hearth in the main hall of the library. Those self-same chairs I hardly saw anyone use, until recently when Val sat there with Crystobel Elvyng.
Now Jay sat alone, a book on his lap but his gaze fixed upon the empty grate. He didn’t look worried so much as forlorn, which tore at my heart-strings rather a lot.
‘For a man pretending to read, you’re doing an abominable job,’ I said.
He looked up sharply, and then sat up, so fast he almost tossed his book onto the floor. ‘Ves! You’re okay. I mean… are you okay?’
I wondered, too late, what I looked like. I hadn’t bothered to check, and considering my frame of mind, I probably looked like a washed-out wreck. ‘I’m fine,’ I said, attempting a reassuring smile. ‘And I’m really sorry that I worried you. I should have thought of that before.’
Jay smiled. ‘In your shoes, I’m not sure I would have reacted much differently,’ he said, generous as always. ‘It’s a big ask.’
Daringly, I took the opposite seat to Jay’s. It felt like I was lounging all over hallowed ground, and I half expected Val to come shooting in from her desk, ready to incinerate me on the spot.
But she didn’t, and nothing happened, so I relaxed a bit. ‘It’s just been a… strange couple of months,’ I said, with towering understatement. ‘I don’t feel much like myself anymore.’ I remembered Rob’s recent words, and his encouragement to visit Grace for some in-house counselling. I’d spurned the very idea at the time, but.
Perhaps he had a point.
‘I think you aren’t like your old self,’ Jay said. ‘You aren’t quite the person you were when I first met you.’
Dismal thought.
‘But is that a bad thing?’ he went on. ‘You were magnificent before. Now you’re going to be epic.’
I had to grin. ‘Epic! Will people pen long accounts of my daring exploits?’
‘Undoubtedly. Great tomes of extravagant praise.’
My smile faded. ‘But no, because in this new future scenario, I wouldn’t be me anymore. I’d be doing the things I do under the banner of Merlin’s legacy. Who will remember Ves?’
Jay looked long at me. ‘Is that what’s bothering you?’
I thought about it. ‘Not the likelihood of not being personally remembered. That is the fate that awaits almost all of us. But ceasing to be me anymore, in my own lifetime? Yes, that bothers me. What’s left of Ophelia? What became of her life?’
‘You can do this your own way, Ves. Like you do everything. You don’t have to let Ophelia’s choices rule you.’
‘But maybe she made them because she had to.’
‘Maybe she didn’t. Maybe she made those choices because she wanted to.’
I shifted in my seat. ‘I need to talk to her again. I mean, I don’t even know why she wants to replace herself, or what I’d be expected to do as the next Merlin.’
Jay nodded. ‘She anticipated that, so she left me the means to reach her.’
‘She left you the means?’
‘She’s got a little henge, apparently. I assume it’s attached to that secret abode you visited. If you’re ready to talk, I can take you there.’
I felt a surge of gut-gnawing apprehension, and badly wanted to say no.
But fear is there to stop us from doing things. That is its sole purpose. And while, on occasion, it’s wise to pay attention, most of the time it’s talking crap.
‘Right,’ I said. ‘If you’re at leisure now, shall we get it over with?’
Jay smiled like he was impressed with me, which made me feel a tiny bit better. If Jay experiences such ordinary human sensations as nerves or indeed screaming terror, I’ve rarely caught a glimpse of it, but I suppose he must. ‘I can take you right now,’ he said, and stood up.
‘Ves?’
I looked up. Val came floating towards us in her spectacularly green Elvyng chair, one hand held out to Jay. He placed into it the book he’d been ignoring, and she settled it tenderly in her lap. ‘You’re going?’ she said.
I nodded.
‘Good.’ She looked piercingly at me, and added, ‘You’ve got this, Ves.’
‘And there I thought I was doing a good job of exuding an effortless calm.’
Val snorted. Then, pointing a finger at me, she said: ‘Get me that grimoire.’
Before I could reply, she’d turned her chair and sailed back into the depths of her beloved library.
When Jay whirled us away upon the Winds, we emerged into a compact little grove, ringed around with rowan and ash trees, and carpeted in deep moss and clover. Merlin’s henge was a collection of low, time-worn stones, reddish-brown in hue and veined in moss agate.
At one edge of the grove rose a low-roofed cottage, timber-beamed, with whitewashed walls and a thatched roof. For a building that apparently dated from somewhere in the late fourteen hundreds, it looked curiously new and fresh. This couldn’t be the dwelling of the original Merlin; it wasn’t old enough. But its state of preservation owed much to the powerful enchantments that kept this place just a little separated from the regular flow of time. Which long-forgotten Merlin had created this place?
I set off in the direction of the cottage, heading for the diminutive, blue-painted front door that led into it.
Halfway there, I realised Jay was not following.
When I turned, I saw he’d settled himself cross-legged in the middle of the henge, and looked fixed there for a while.
‘Aren’t you coming?’ I called.
He shook his head. ‘Not my place.’
‘Not your place? Jay, you’ve every right to be a part of this.’
His smile was faint. ‘I don’t think so. I’d be intruding.’
I went back over to him, and held out my hand. ‘If you mean you’d rather not be dragged into this, I can understand and respect that. But we’re friends, and we’re partners, and if I’m given the choice I don’t want to do this without you.’
Jay still looked doubtful.
‘If it’s Merlin you’re worried about, I think she acknowledged and accepted your involvement when she left the means to bring me here with you.’
‘Instead of one of the several other Waymasters at Home?’
‘Jay, don’t be an idiot. She could’ve just opened a gateway. You know, like she did at the Elvyng house.’
His eyebrows shot up. ‘I… didn’t think of that.’
I grinned, and wiggled my outstretched fingers. ‘Come on. Somebody’s got to keep me from doing anything too completely crazy.’
‘Since when have I ever had that power?’ said Jay, not without justice. But he permitted me to pull him to his feet, and when I set off again for Merlin’s cottage he came with me.
‘Ves,’ said Ophelia shortly afterwards, as she answered the door. ‘Excellent. Do, please, come in, both of you.’
Feeling obscurely pleased to be addressed as Ves, rather than anything more intimidatingly formal, I followed her inside.
I soon concluded that some kind of illusion was going on somewhere, for there were more rooms inside than seemed possible. Ophelia led us through a small kitchen (not without its modern conveniences); a cosy parlour, resplendent with polished wood and tapestry; a book-room stuffed with volumes both aged and new; and finally back into the workroom I’d seen before, which was far too big for the cottage’s confines.
‘This,’ she said as we entered, ‘is inherited from the first Merlin, or so it’s said. The rest of the building has been added at different, later times.’
‘Has every Merlin lived here?’ I ventured. Subtext: would I be living here, too, someday?
‘I assume so,’ said Ophelia. ‘I lived here with my predecessor for some years before he moved on.’
Moved on. I hesitated, but I had to ask. ‘Do you mean… did he die, or…?’
She shook her head, busying herself with a brisk tidying-up of the cluttered chamber. ‘Not then. He spoke of a desire to travel beyond the borders of Britain. I do not know where he was, when he finally died.’
Heartened by this vision of life after Merlinhood, I perched atop my chosen stool from before. Jay had taken a similar seat, and looked similarly uncertain. But when I looked at him, he managed to find for me an encouraging smile.
Poor Jay. Remorse smote me again. From the moment he’d joined the Society, he had been swept up in my orbit, and I had no doubt I had run him ragged since. I hadn’t meant to, but did that matter?
I needed to think of a way to make it up to him. Or at the least, to show the enormous gratitude I felt for his staunch presence at my side, no matter how crazy I got, or how foolishly I’d failed to listen to him.
‘You’ll have questions?’ said Ophelia into the silence.
‘Right. Yes,’ I said, dragging back my wandering thoughts. ‘I was wondering… about the practicalities, I suppose. Like, how does it work? Will I be your apprentice? Will I live here? How is the role handed over? What will I do, as Merlin? And… and what won’t I do, anymore?’
She nodded along with each question, and when my trail of worries had come to a close, she spoke with the kind of brisk efficiency which made short work of my anxieties.
‘You will be my apprentice for a time, though you won’t have to live here if you would prefer not to. I can arrange for a gateway to be available for your use. You won’t have to give up your present occupation, if that concerns you. In fact, I would rather that you did not. It is my hope that Merlin’s legacy will be used to support your stated goal of a magickal restoration for Britain, and indeed beyond, and you will best achieve that by remaining with the Society.’ She took a breath. ‘There is no complicated process in handing over the role. It will not hurt you.’
Which neatly answered most of my questions, and quieted some of my fears. I wouldn’t have to change completely. I could still be me, and do the things I do. Hopefully.
But.
‘If you’ll forgive me for prying,’ I said. ‘Why is it that you want to hand off the role? Are you not… happy with it?’ For while she was no longer a young woman, she wasn’t a crone either. She had nothing of the look of a woman in imminent danger of her life, nor of a woman in urgent need of retirement. If it wasn’t those things that spurred her to seek a replacement, what was it? Something about the role itself?
Ophelia met my eyes, briefly, and looked away. ‘I have not been a stellar Merlin,’ she said quietly. ‘I have tried my best, but… the things at which I have excelled have done little to further the role. I have compiled a new grimoire. I have developed new enchantments, new magicks, derived from all those ancient practices I have inherited. But I have not used them. It has been my nature to remain within these walls, working alone. Is that what Merlin should be? Is that why his powers have been handed down? I think not.’ She shook her head, and I saw raw regret in her face. ‘For three years, I have been searching for someone who could carry those powers back into the real world. Someone who will use them, who will do something that matters. Someone who will not be alone; someone with the right people beside her.’ Her glance acknowledged Jay, and her words encompassed the Society as a whole. ‘I think I have found that person at last,’ she said, looking squarely at me again. ‘I am well aware of the trepidation you must feel, but I assure you I will do everything in my power to make the process as painless for you as possible.’
There was an undercurrent of pleading in her words, I realised. She really, badly wanted someone to say yes.
She wanted me to say yes.
I swallowed another surge of terror, and said: ‘Must it be me? Are you sure?’
‘Who can ever be absolutely sure of anything?’ she countered. ‘But as far as I can judge, I believe you to be the right candidate.’
‘But… why?’
She’d already answered that question, of course. Something to do with my capacity to absorb magick, my affinity with ancient musical wonders and mythical creatures — none of which I could understand or explain. I struggled to believe it. I struggled to feel that these happenstances were anything I could claim, anything I could take credit for. They were just… me.
Ophelia’s eyebrows twitched. Amusement? ‘Humility is healthy,’ she said. ‘But look back over your track record these several years past, and tell me I am asking the wrong person.’
‘Touché,’ I sighed. I could bleat a bit more, if I wanted to. I could bang on about my lack of inherent magickal prowess — I wasn’t a natural genius like Jay or Indira, and I lacked the discipline to study and learn as much as someone like them. Or Val. But those things weren’t really being called for, were they? If she needed someone with a cause, and a support network, and just enough reckless determination to tackle utterly stupid goals in the name of magick, well… that’s exactly what a Ves is for. Right?
‘Okay then,’ I said, all in a rush. ‘I accept.’
There. I’d said it, and that was a promise. I couldn’t turn chicken and back out now.
Ophelia smiled, the first real smile I had seen from her. It had a great deal of relief in it. ‘And you?’ she said, turning to Jay. ‘Are you in agreement?’
Jay looked rather wide-eyed, and I could picture the words scrolling through his brain. Just exactly what am I agreeing to do here? But to his credit, with only a visible swallow, he said: ‘Absolutely.’
‘I don’t suppose you’d make a Merlin of Jay instead?’ I offered. ‘He’s much more responsible than me, and cleverer, and he’s more powerful, too. He’s used to wielding magick of absurd potency. He’d be great!’
Jay’s eyebrows had climbed into his hair at this portrait of himself, and his eyes telegraphed a frantic no, thank you, at me.
Fortunately for us both, Ophelia shook her head. ‘I have alternative ideas in mind for Jay Patel,’ she said, and if those words terrified Jay half as much as they did me, then we were going to need another karaoke night in pretty short order.
