3MA

3MA | Chapter 36

36
RETURN

I kneel at Amaris's side, brushing the sweat-slick hair from her ashen face, and checking her wrist for a pulse. My own heart seems to stop when, for a sickening moment, I don't feel anything.

I exhale with relief when I feel a weak thump on my fingertips.

I glare up at McNair's grinning face, marveling at how one single man could hurt so many people I love. It's as though he were made for the task.

He reaches both hands into his vest and extracts a pair of Caster's Cuffs. "Time to become reacquainted with old friends," he says.

The Cuffs spring open with a familiar serpentine hiss, a sound that brings me back to a day in my childhood.

I stand and crack my knuckles.

"You do exactly as I say, or I'll have one of my boys put a hole in her head," McNair says, motioning to Amaris.

I nod behind clenched teeth.

"Hands," he orders.

I hold my hands out, fingers limp, wrist splayed upward. The Cuffs clamp around them, digging into my skin with a definitive click.

"There," McNair says with a satisfied nod. "You look so much more stylish with a little bit of jewelry."

"What are you going to do?" I hiss.

"This castle is a historical landmark. You're all trespassing on city property. I'm clearing this joint out."

"This castle belongs to the people," Lyon roars.

"It belongs to the people with the biggest guns," McNair corrects, causing his fleet of officers to bark with laughter behind their glowing face-shields.

"You," McNair says, pointing his blaster at Lorna's face, "Mother of Mustaches, or whatever you're called. Run upstairs and gather every damned soul who lives in this place. Bring them all into the main hall. You have five minutes and then I start cutting fingers off."

"Please," Lorna yelps. "There are children asleep. Hundreds of them."

"Well, when you wake them, tell them they're all going to Fantasia. That should make them feel better."

McNair's soldiers wrangle the group at gunpoint, pressing blasters into our shoulder blades and directing us to leave the Hall of Heirs the way we came.

McNair leers at Amaris's slumped form on the ground and sighs. "Carry the girl," he orders me. "It could be the last time you'll get to touch her."

I scoop Amaris in my arms, cradling her unconscious body like a sleeping child. It could be my imagination, but for a second it looks like her lips curve into the tiniest of smiles.

The group marches in single file through the dungeons and back up into the dining hall. When we arrive in the welcome hall, it's already packed full of bleary-eyed people, Lorna hushing the alarmed crowd and comforting the crying children.

"Nothing like a little late night exercise," McNair announces, motioning the muzzle of his blaster out the front door. We're all manhandled across the drawbridge and through the dim cavern to the mouth of the stairs that lead up to the Amphitheater.

"Walk, people," McNair orders, glancing at the glowing face of his watch. "And let's see some pep in those steps. Fight starts in less than an hour."

One by one, we press into the lightless staircase and begin the long march to the Surface. The only light is from the glowing tips of the officers' static-charged weapons, bobbing throughout the grumbling procession.

I tip an ear to Amaris's lips, listening for breathing.

"I've always wanted to be carried up a flight of steps," Amaris whispers.

I smile in the dark. "Glad to bring your wildest fantasies to life," I say, my voice betraying my desperate relief. "I'm glad you're okay."

Amaris loops her arms around my neck and pulls my face down to hers. I don't need light to know that her lips are less than an inch from my ear; I could feel their heat from across a crowded room.

"All this time, I thought you were the one who needed to find all the answers," she says. "On your own. But I see now. I've been such a fool."

"It doesn't matter now. No Staff. No sword. I'm Cuffed. And we're nearly out of time."

Amaris huffs. "It's kind of worse than that."

"Isn't is always with us? Spit it out, Amaris."

Silence. And then: "It was the night my sister and Filben died. They stood up on the dais in the dining hall holding hands and waiting for sunrise. I could tell from the look in her eyes that they had run out of time. That they were missing something."

"What happened?"

"A second before they both burst into flames, my sister shouted something at me: 'find the command'" she said.

"What command?" I whisper.

Amaris shrugs. "I've asked the same question to her grave every night since then. But I think she meant a command powerful enough to awaken Camelot. So I spent years searching Merlin's journal. Testing each command. Feeling around for one that felt...different. But after years of searching, I realized that the command didn't exist in the journal."

"Where then?"

"It had to be a catalyst. A broken command, drifting around somewhere on the Surface. Right under our noses. I found ten possible contenders from various catalyst dealers. And I sold them to Larry Shore, one by one, so they could be passed off to you in the arena. None of them proved interesting in the least. Until--

A word flashes across my vision, reminding me of the dream I had a few weeks ago. The subway car and the reaching hands.

The single neon word burning in the dark.

"The catalyst I used against The Constrictor. The rose petal catalyst," I say.

Amaris nods. "At first I didn't understand. But then it hit me. Queen Guinevere adored roses. So much in fact, that Arthur had them planted across the kingdom by the millions. So I checked a map of Old Camelot I found in Arthur's chambers. Guess what used to be right where the Iron Cauldron was built? A massive rose garden."

"What does it mean?"

"Before it was broken, I think the rose petal catalyst was the command for return," Amaris says. "For returning things to the way they were. The way they were always meant to be. You said it before: the Staff and the sword are amplifiers. I think the command needs to pass through them to work."

I grumble in the dark, my arms and legs quivering with exhaustion. "So let me give us the runthrough here. We've got a wizard's staff being guarded by a three-hundred pound dark spirit. A sword the size of a walnut. And a shattered command we have no idea how to fix."

"Pretty much," Amaris says, the inevitability of our defeat finally sinking into her voice. "Look. I'll be honest. I never thought we'd even get this far. You did amazing, Marlon. And no matter what happens up there tonight, I'm still glad I Claimed you."

I press my lips to her forehead and squeeze my eyes closed, taking in one final breath of her skin. "I'm glad, too. Because I'd rather be reduced to a pile of ash than live in a world without a pain-in-the-ass like you."

"Oh, meathead. You always know exactly what to say."

My body collides with the officer in front of me as the group finally comes to a winded halt.

"How do I get this damned thing open," McNair shouts at the front of the line.

"Ah, the hell with it," he exclaims. I hear him grab his blaster from his holster and adjust the intensity to full throttle.

The secret passage ignites with static and bursts into molten pieces.

When the debris clears, I see the moon smiling down at me from the heavens through the smoking hole. McNair slowly turns to me, his pale, lunatic face a nearly identical reflection of the demon moon burning over his shoulder.

"Let's get ready to rumble," he cackles.