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In her dream, Claire got out of bed in the middle of the night. The darkness felt like a caress against her skin; she didn’t need a light. She took her Shadow Staff - no, the scath-hrûn - from her bag. It extended as she lifted it up, then commanded: “To the Pale Lady!”On the other side of the portal was a cave by some sea the name of which Claire didn’t know; it didn’t smell like the ocean. “Pale Lady!” Claire called loudly. “Here I am!” Her voice didn’t sound like her own, but then - such were dreams.Suddenly there was fire. It lit up on top of some ancient horned beast’s skull that was mounted on the rocks. And from the fire there formed a woman in a flaming armor, her helmet rising like the towers of a city and her left hand green.That, Claire knew in her dream, was the Pale Lady, whom Claire served.“My child!” the Pale Lady declared. “We are linked now; now and for all of time, your essence and mind - we are one.”“Yes, my Lady,” Claire obediently replied.“Go now, child, and bring me my champion; bring me Angor Rot.”The Lady did not need to say a word more; in her dream, Claire already knew what she was to tell the Lady’s Champion.Claire turned around, lifted the scath-hrûn, and called out: “To Angor Rot!”  It took him a while to track Strickler, but Angor Rot managed it. Or rather, it had taken him a while to track Strickler the first time: he’d since caught up to him and let him go multiple times. He told Strickler that it was to torture him; it was certainly having that effect. But when Angor was honest with himself, he acknowledged that it was because he didn’t know what else to do. He was taking temporary refuge in a warehouse in some city the name of which he didn’t bother to remember when a tear in the universe opened up between two piles of crates. Angor Rot reached for a dagger: he knew a portal when he saw one and, unless the scath-hrûn had changed hands again, on the other side of that portal were the Hunter and his band.Only one person stepped out of the portal, though: the girl-child who the scath-hrûn had chosen over him. Angor’s gaze was immediately drawn to her eyes, which did not appear human; rather they were pitch-black, with an amber fire burning in their middle. Angor knew the colour of that magic: it belonged to the Lady Pale.Angor relaxed his hold on the dagger. “What do you want?” he asked.“The Lady Pale requires your service,” the child replied.Because of course she did. Somehow, that was entirely unsurprising. Some part of Angor, the part that enjoyed the thrill of the hunt and the thrum of power, lifted its head at the words. A different part of Angor, however, withdrew - the part of him that was slowly returning to life now that the ring made from his own living stone was, finally and truly, his. That part of him didn’t care that he was drawing out the hunt for Strickler, letting the impure go whenever he had him, because he didn’t know what else to do . That part--That part won. “Tell the Lady that I no longer serve. ”Undeterred, the child continued. “You have been Her loyal servant for centuries. Should you choose to remain so, She will restore your soul to you from the Inferna Copula.”The offer stunned Angor speechless. The Pale Lady was offering him his soul back…? Did she finally trust him, or was this some sort of a trick?The child continued. “Come to the Aysa-Thoon. You have one moon.”The child then turned around and cast another portal.“Wait,” Angor called after her.She turned to face him. “Do you wish for me to take you to the Aysa-Thoon now?”“I wish to know how you came to the Lady.”For a long moment the child merely looked at him, expressionless as a mask. Then she said: “I opened a door. Would that be all?”Angor knew the Lady’s words even when they came from another’s mouth. If the Lady was leaning so heavily on the child, then it was better to not push his luck until he knew what he wanted. “For now.”The child turned back to the portal, and left.Angor was left alone with his swirling thoughts. He’d been free for a little under two moons, but he was not yet whole. Though he now possessed the ring, his ring, his soul remained trapped in it. He’d attempted to free it, to free himself from the aching emptiness that tore him up from inside, and failed - miserably so. The magic that bound his soul was too intricate, too profound; it was well and truly beyond him. The Lady, though - oh, the Lady could do it in a snap, if that was what She desired. Yet the part of Angor that dared speak back to the Lady refused to trust Her.There was the conundrum: it wasn’t just Her that he couldn’t trust. More than one hand had worn his ring over the centuries, and only recently had he finally won it. In the two moons that had passed, Angor found that he couldn’t trust his own mind either. What once was clear to him was now like shifting sands; he was at war with himself as often as not. The only thing he knew clearly was that he refused to be leashed ever again.Repossessing his soul should help with that end. And yet…Angor turned and hit a crate with his open palm, turning it to so much saw dust. He was too restless; he couldn’t think.He had one moon to know his own mind. It would have to be enough.  In her dream, Claire knew that she’d dreamt about this before: about the Lady on her skull-throne and Claire, standing at the foot of the throne and telling the Lady about her day. In the dream - in all of her dreams - Claire knew that the Lady was terrible as She was sublime, and that Claire was to treat Her with the utmost respect. And yet, the same scene repeated in nearly all of Claire’s dreams: all that the Lady wanted was to hear about Claire. The part of Claire that believed in the Lady was awed by that. The part of Claire that knew she was dreaming wondered why this, why her mind made up this specific scenario.That night, Claire thought that she had figured it out. It should’ve been obvious; after all, the Lady kept calling Claire Her child.The last time Claire’s parents knew anything true about her had been in November; now it was May. The night that Jim had told her the truth about his war, the night that Nomura had attacked them in the forest - that was the last time Claire’s parents knew anything true about her. It was worse with Claire’s mother in particular; her father was at least home , at least made an effort to talk to Claire about something other than her grades and Enrique’s diapers when they needed to be changed.“Mother,” said Claire, and stopped.“What did you call me?” the Lady asked.The part of Claire that believed in the Lady shrunk in fear and wanted to apologize; the part of Claire that had figured it out, though, that part wanted to say, You call me Your child. “There are no secrets between us, child,” said the Lady. “But you are right. I shall be your mother, now.”  The Aysa-Thoon: the Temple of the Pale One, the Temple of the Dark One. There were many such temples dotted across the continent; Angor had been trapped in one for over a century. Yet only one of those was the Aysa-Thoon, the one where Her magic was strong enough to weaken the walls of Her prison.Into that temple Angor Rot entered, and the fires across the main chamber’s circumference lit up upon his entry. Last of all lit up the fire in the centerpiece altar, and when that lit up the image of the Lady appeared above it, as it did above her throne by the Black Sea.“My champion,” She said.Angor went down on one knee. “My Lady.”“You have served me well over the centuries. Step forward and receive your reward.”His reward? Angor stamped down on his anger before that could get him in trouble; he had no doubt that the Lady could read that on him; or perhaps, he realized a moment later, as a tendril of magic extended from the Lady’s hand to the center of his chest, the Lady could read that on him if she cared to - which She evidently did not.He did not have the time to dwell on that; he barely had the time to realize it before the first touch of his soul returning made him close his eyes in bliss. He’d forgotten what it felt like, to be whole.When it was over, he went down on both knees and touched his forehead to the ground. “Thank you, my Lady.”“Rise, my champion.”He rose to his feet.“Soon, Gunmar will arrive at this place. You are to lead him to Merlin’s Tomb, where the Staff of Avalon is. With it you shall free me from my prison, and I will bring forth the Night Eternal.”The Staff of Avalon! The Eternal Night! This was the stuff of legends. Gunmar had been trying to bring forth the Eternal Night for almost a millennium. Merlin had gotten in the way of that, ultimately imprisoning the Lady, but he had not been seen since that climactic battle; it was believed that he died of the exertion. If that were true, then there was nothing to stop the Lady this time - if he and Gunmar did as the Lady commanded.Angor didn’t need to ask where the Tomb of Merlin was; he found that the knowledge was just there , imparted to him when the Lady had returned to him his soul.There was only one thing to say.“Yes, my Lady.”  What had gotten into her? Claire filled her palms with water and splashed it over her face. Where had that come from, the angry voice that demanded her steak raw and specified, dripping with blood ? And what was that with the dizzy spell, when she’d only just recovered from one illness? “Come on, pull it together, Claire,” she told her reflection, and splashed her face with water again.The lights in the restaurant bathroom went out. Claire just felt relieved; even with her eyes closed, the light still hurt. Then, though, she opened her eyes and found her reflection, frozen in the mirror and staring at her intensely. Wary, Claire reached forward to touch the glass surface.The mouth of her reflection split in a wide grin. “Hello, darling,” it said. “Claire?”Startled, Claire stepped back all the way to the other sink. “This is not real,” she said out loud, hoping against odds that maybe if she said it, it would become true.“Sorry, dear,” said the reflection’s voice from the mirror behind her. Claire startled away from the sink, and her reflection continued, now speaking from the first mirror: “Did I scare you?”“This isn’t real,” Claire told herself again. In the second mirror, her reflection multiplied. “I’m imagining this.” She had to find a way out of this bathroom; she had to grab Jim and get away from this restaurant. She ran for the door, but she may as well have run into a wall made of rubber: it catapulted her back into the bathroom, the door slamming shut in her face.“Do you think I’m just a reflection you can run away from?” said the voice from the first mirror. The image changed, became that of a woman in a fiery armor, her eyes glowing green through her face plate. “I’m under your skin.”Claire stared at at her hands. Her vision became distorted, the world shaky and unbalanced as it had earlier by the table. She cried out, “Get out of me!” and slapped her face, as one did to wake up from an unwanted dream.“You’re only hurting yourself,” said the lady from the mirror. Her voice went sing-song, as if she was amused by Claire’s actions.“Who are you?” Claire asked.“I have many names,” said the lady from the mirror. “ You call me ‘Mother’.”In a flash, the dreams returned to Claire. The memory of them always faded within minutes of her waking up but now it all returned to her: the fiery Lady on her skull-throne, who wanted to know every last intimate detail of Claire’s life, who never called Claire by her name but only ever ‘my child’, and who--The memory of the first of those dreams slammed into Claire like a gut punch: the one where the Lady had sent her to Angor Rot , whom the Lady called Her champion --“Stop it!” Claire cried out. “Get out of me!” She slammed herself against one of the stall doors: perhaps if she heightened her awareness of her physical body enough she could kick this alien presence out .Fire poured out of the mirror and pooled on the floor, the Lady rising from it to meet Claire face-to-face. “My, you are strong,” She said. “Strong enough to wield my weapon. Strong enough to be my gracious host.” She smiled. “You open up a big enough door, something’s bound to escape.” A big enough door. Suddenly, Claire understood. How could she have been so stupid? The first dream had occurred the night that Gunmar had taken Trollmarket; she really should’ve remembered Blinky’s warning. “The portal, the sickness, the signs under my bed--”“You’ve already told Gunmar all he needs to know,” said the Lady, “but since I’m out and about, I thought we’d kill Merlin’s Trollhunter, as soon as we get him alone.”Claire never even had the chance to scream: the Lady became a stream of fire, and poured herself down Claire’s throat.The world turned black.  The Lady was gone, her attention pulled away from the Aysa-Thoon and focused firmly elsewhere. Angor had no idea what was occupying the Lady so, but he nevertheless felt the difference. It was a marked difference, too: She’d been very nearly obsessing over him, in the days that passed since he’d arrived at the Aysa-Thoon. The Lady’s absence was both a relief and a disappointment. A relief, because Her scrutiny was heavy to bear, and occasionally he found that he had to police his thoughts; and a disappointment, because he’d been alone for so long that any company was a blessed respite.In the Lady’s absence, the thoughts that Angor pushed away bubbled up, as relentless as the Lady’s attention had been. The words did not let him be: the Eternal Night, the mythical time when trolls would be able to take over the surface world and the age of humankind would finally be over. Angor found that he did not know how he felt about that; it was a disconcerting discovery.Did it matter, though, how it felt or what he wanted? He’d made a deal: the return of his soul, for this last service to the Lady. He had to guide Gunmar to the Tomb of Merlin, where the Staff of Avalon was, and he had no doubt that should he turn away from the task the Lady’s vengeance would be swift and brutal.Angor remained where he was seated, and continued waiting.  Claire woke up and, as soon as she opened her eyes, cried out: Strickler, Blinky and NotEnrique were standing over her, fighting over a knife. She was seated and bound to a rolling chair, she discovered when she attempted to get away from the knife. Her rolling chair; they were in her room.“Were you going to stab me with that thing?” she demanded.“No,” said Blinky.“Yes, obviously,” said Strickler. “We were--”“Going to break your chains,” NotEnrique took over, and firmly pulled the knife away from the other two before he jumped on her lap, and proceeded to do as he said.Jim and Toby pushed through to get to her.“Claire!” Jim said. “That was…”“We were around the world in zero seconds! You outwitched a witch!” Toby said, all excitement and waving arms.“Is she still… there?” Jim asked.Claire turned her awareness inwards. There was no fire, no other voice, no presence looking over her shoulder. “No,” she said after a moment. “She’s--” after a month, Claire was no longer used to being alone in her skin; she involuntarily sighed before she continued, “--gone.”  When Gunmar stepped into the Aysa-Thoon, his thrall dragging the fallen Gumm-Gumm behind, the temple was dark. Then, with a whisper of Angor’s magic, the circumference flames lit.“Angor Rot,” Gunmar acknowledged.“Gunmar the Black,” Angor returned. He didn’t bother to get up from where he was sitting, cross-legged on the floor, by the main altar.“The Lady said you know the way to the Staff of Avalon.”Gunmar didn’t sound too trustful; Angor didn’t care. Gunmar wasn’t his master. It didn’t matter whether or not he trusted Angor Rot, so long as he was willing to do as the Lady wished.“That I do,” Angor agreed. Finally, he pushed himself to his feet. He towered over most trolls, but he didn’t even reach up to Gunmar’s shoulder; Gunmar the Black could’ve just as accurately been called Gunmar the Mighty. “And I will lead you there - as soon as we set up the bait.”Gunmar glanced behind his back. “I did wonder what use the Lady had for him.”“The Lady has use for all of us,” Angor assured him. “Now let us get to it.”  
We are linked now; now and for all of time, your essence and mind - we are one.
Claire woke up with a gasp. This time, though - this time it really was just a dream, just fragments of memories that her mind mixed up to be re-lived. Still, Claire wasn’t sure of that until she raised her eyes and found NotEnrique, still perched up where he settled when she’d gone to sleep.“Just a dream,” he confirmed. “No midnight joy rides with your staff.”Claire slumped back in bed, relieved. Then, though, she pushed herself back up into a sitting position and got out of bed.“Where are you going?” NotEnrique asked suspiciously.“To find Blinky,” Claire replied. She opened the closet and started pulling clothes out. “You can come too if you want.”“No need to go far,” NotEnrique said. “He’s downstairs.”Claire stopped with a pair of leggings in her hand. “He is? Why?”“Because the first part of tonight was exciting, and your parents aren’t home.”“Point taken,” Claire said. She dumped the clothes on the chair and headed out the room in her pajamas.They did indeed find Blinky in the empty living room, snacking on empty cans from the recycle bin. He hurriedly put away the half-eaten can when he saw them. “Claire! Are you all right?”“Yeah,” she said; she headed for the kitchen. “Just a bad dream. This time, at least.”Blinky and NotEnrique followed her into the kitchen. “What do you mean, this time?” Blinky asked.“Morgana had me come to her every night,” Claire explained. She pulled the cocoa mix out of the cupboard. “I thought they were dreams. At least while it happened, I did; I never remembered those ‘dreams’ after.” She poured milk over the cocoa mix in the mug, and stuck it in the microwave. “There’s something she said the first time that I’d went to her that I can’t forget. She said we’re linked for all time; that we are one.”“The Shadow Staff is a relic of Morgana. I know that now; had I realized it before, I would’ve never let you use it.”“You told me it was dark magic, Blinky.” The microwave oven beeped. Claire pulled out her hot chocolate.“Yes, but I did not realize just how dark. One of Morgana’s names is the Eldritch Queen, you see; she is mother of all that is dark and twisted in the world.”Claire froze with the mug halfway down to her lips. She put it down with shaking hands. “She kept calling me her child,” she said weakly.NotEnrique hopped along the counter, and reached up to Claire’s face.She picked him up and hugged him close. “What’s wrong with me?” she said. “You told me using the staff might corrupt my soul, and I didn’t listen.”“You did what you had to do to save lives, many lives,” Blinky said. “Half of Trollmarket’s refugees are alive now as a direct result of what you did. It was the right thing to have done, for all that it demanded great courage.”“She called me her child , Blinky. And I called her ‘mother’. You said she’s the mother of--” Tears started spilling down Claire’s face.“Hey, now, easy with the waterworks,” NotEnrique said, but he didn’t squirm out of Claire’s arms. Instead, he returned the hug with all four of his limbs.“By using the staff, you became receptive to her magic. She tried to twist you even further; that’s why she told you those things,” Blinky said. “But if what she said were all true, then we wouldn’t be standing here now.”Claire sniffed. “But if that’s true, how can I…” She shifted NotEnrique to her left arm and reached out with her right, but closed her fist on empty air instead of actually summoning the staff to her, like she’d done earlier that night.“The deepest of magic cannot always be entirely undone,” Blinky said.“So she and I are connected.”“Claire…”“Don’t lie to me, Blinky. If you do that, I’ll - I’ll just ask Strickler.”“You’d trust the changeling--”“He was going to kill me to stop Morgana. You wouldn’t have.”“And that’s a reason to trust him, now?” NotEnrique said.“I still carry something of her within me. I need you to take that seriously, not--” she took a deep breath, “--try to spare my feelings.”The kitchen was silent was a long moment. Then, Blinky asked: “Did she really have you call her ‘mother’?”“No.” Claire wiped her eyes. “That was me. She wanted - she wanted me to tell her everything, every night. I know now that she probably wanted to know about Jim, about all of us, but I - I was trying to understand why I was having those dreams. And my mom and I - we haven’t been getting along lately.”“That’s putting it mildly,” NotEnrique said.Claire continued. “So I thought - I thought my mind had made up a different mother for me.”“It is said that in the vernacular of wizards, one’s teacher is sometimes called one’s parent,” Blinky said. “It might help to try and think of it that way. Otherwise, I do not know what to tell you, other than I believe that you are free of Morgana’s influence. If you wish to ask Strickler, I cannot stop you; but I would advise against it.”“Thanks, Blinky. It does help.”“Here.” NotEnrique liberated one arm, and offered Claire the mug she’d put down earlier. “It won’t be hot chocolate much longer.”“I think it would be; I kind of nuked it,” Claire replied, but she accepted the mug and she was smiling slightly.“Eh, details.” Finally, NotEnrique gently squirmed out of Claire’s hold and back to the counter.“I remember liking chocolate. It is one of the few things I miss about being human,” Blinky said. “That, and whipped cream.”“Yeah, I miss human food, too,” said NotEnrique, “but socks are still kind of awesome.”Claire wiped her eyes again. “Thanks, guys.”“It’s okay to feel not okay, Sis. Life isn’t always sunshine and puppies.”“Indeed; sometimes it is dark and gruesome,” Blinky said. He’d assumed his teaching stance, with two of his hands held behind his back as he gesticulated with the other two.NotEnrique gave him a Look; Claire laughed weakly.Blinky ignored them, and continued. “The first step towards feeling better is accepting that right now, you do not.”“Nah, that’s the second,” NotEnrique said. “The first one was making hot chocolate.”All three of them laughed. It felt good, to laugh; it made Claire believe that maybe the two trolls were right - maybe it was going to be all right.After all, they’d made it so far.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Of all the times for Blinky to show up at Jim’s house unannounced, this was perhaps the worst possible: the last thing that Jim, Toby and Claire needed when attempting to throw Claire’s parents and Toby’s nana off the truth was a troll in the house.“Blinky, what are you doing here?” Jim asked, exasperated, as he finally gave in and came downstairs to the basement, leaving Claire and Toby to handle the lies.Blinky grabbed him by the shoulders and pulled him away from the stairs. “Forgive me for using the tunnel, but this is most urgent.”“This is neither the time or the place, Blink,” Jim replied in a hiss. It was bad enough that Blinky was there; it would be worse if Jim’s mom came downstairs to investigate and found an actual troll.“If you don’t listen to me now, there will not be a time, or a place,” Blinky said. He finally let Jim go. “We may now know the reason for AAARRRGGHH!!!’s absence, though I’m still unsure if I should trust its source.”Jim did not have the time to demand to know what on earth Blinky meant by that; instead, someone cleared their throat - and another troll stepped out from behind one of the canvases. Jim took an involuntary step back. “Dictatious?”“Gunmar has taken AAARRRGGHH!!! captive, and is en route to rendezvous with Angor Rot!” Gunmar’s lackey replied by way of hello.“What does Angor Rot have to do with any of this?” Jim asked. He followed Blinky, who stepped towards his brother.“He has everything to do with this,” Dictatious said. “They serve the same mistress!”“I fear we already know her name: Morgana,” Blinky continued.Morgana, who’d possessed Claire mere days before; Morgana, who’d said that she’d told Gunmar everything he needed to know to bring forth the Eternal Night. It was too much to take in all at once - so Jim didn’t. Instead, he asked: “Why do you believe him? He’s Gunmar’s stooge. It could be a trick.”“I thought so too, thus the timber-hitch quadruple knot. But if what he speaks of is true…”“Jim?” echoed his mother’s voice from upstairs. Her footsteps followed.“Hide!” Jim told the two trolls.So much for the conversation that Blinky wanted to have.  Hidden behind one of the canvases, Blinky listened in to the conversation between mother and son. So that was what had Master Jim so frazzled: his mother was attempting to break the truth to the others’ guardians. It was easy to understand Jim’s flat refusal to support his mother’s attempt; that was the position Blinky would’ve advocated as well. As the conversation progressed, though, Blinky found his judgment shifting. Blinky had gotten to like Barbara during the month he’d spent as a human. That wasn’t the reason Blinky’s opinion changed as he listened to her talk, though; it was what she was saying.“Jim, listen. I’m a doctor; I know saving lives isn’t easy work. I’m not trying to stop you, I’m trying to help you. But with danger this close to home, their parents should know--”Blinky moved aside the canvas behind which he was hiding; Jim, who was looking straight at him, gasped; and Barbara turned around, to see what startled her son.“Hello,” Blinky said.Barbara took several steps backwards, and made a noise that wasn’t quite a shriek but was longer and louder than a gasp.“Mom, Mom, it’s okay, he’s fine, it’s just Blinky,” Jim said urgently.“It’s good to see you again, Barbara,” Blinky said.“Oh my god. Mr. Blinky?”“That’s Blinké,” Blinky replied with a smile.Barbara didn’t seem afraid; she seemed extatic. “I knew it, I knew it, I knew it! I remembered you turning in that café but that didn’t make sense until I remembered about - what are you?”“I am a troll,” Blinky replied.Dictatious came out from behind the canvas he was hiding behind. “I can’t see,” he said. “Is this a joyous occasion, or a terrifying on--”Blinky put a hand on his brother’s mouth to silence him.  Telling their parents the truth was going better than Claire expected. Toby’s nana took it in stride, and her father was positively enthusiastic.Then, though, her mother spoke up. “No, Javier, this is not ‘awesome’. Our daughter is sixteen; she can’t even vote, and she’s supposed to protect the world?”The dismissal in her mother’s voice hurt. A lot. “You don’t even know what I can do, Mom,” Claire said hotly.Her mother merely ignored her as she pulled out her cell phone.“Who are you calling?” Dr. Lake asked.“The mayor,” Claire’s mother replied. “I have him on speed dial.”“Ofelia, you can’t,” Dr. Lake said, at the same time that Claire asked, horrified: “Mom, what are you doing?”“Besides showing her age with the phrase ‘speed dial’,” Toby muttered.“If an apocalypse is brewing under my city, it’s my responsibility to stop it,” Claire’s mother said.It was such a patently ridiculous statement, Claire nearly laughed despite the gravity of the situation. Her mother couldn’t catch a gnome, let alone stop Gunmar’s Eternal Night. She had no idea how her mother could witness magic, and think that she could do anything about it.Before anyone could say anything more, though, the unmistakable thuds and crashes of trolls attempting to navigate a human home sounded from elsewhere in the house - the direction of the basement door, probably, though Claire couldn’t see it from where she stood. Her mother, on the other hand, screamed.“They’re hideous,” her father said in fascination.“We could say the same of you,” retorted Blinky’s voice.Claire turned around; Blinky was leaning against the basement door and his brother - what was he doing there? - was struggling to get up from the floor with his hands all bound.Claire snatched the phone from her mother’s hands, said the first harmless flattering prattle that came to her, and disconnected the call.“Mrs. Nuñez, he’s good,” Jim said, getting between the adults and the trolls. “The other one, not so much.”“Master Jim, apologies for interrupting, but we have a little problem,” Blinky said - and then stumbled backwards as the basement door was forced open from the inside, and a flood of white goblins came through.“Oh jeez, these guys are the worst,” Toby complained.“Gotta get our parents out of here,” Jim said.Yeah, that was going to be exciting.“Are those the trolls?” asked her father.“They’re not trolls, they’re goblins,” Jim replied, exasperated, as if their parents could be reasonably expected to tell trolls from goblins.Three goblins were headed straight at her parents. Claire smacked them into goo with her staff, but the goblins kept coming and Claire to keep dispatching them, until Toby cried out: “What are you waiting for? Portal them out of here!”That was easy enough to do; Claire had plenty of emotions to power her staff with.“We are not going in that thing,” her mother said, as disgusted as if Claire had asked her to step in poo.Two goblins grabbed Claire from behind; Dr. Lake smacked them away with a kettle, and said hotly: “We’re not leaving you here!”Funny how her mom and Jim’s mom could say nearly the same thing, and make it sound so different.The next goblin jumped on her face. Surprisingly, it was her father who pulled it off, yelling, “That’s my girl!” as he threw the goblin into the still-open portal.It was seriously heartwarming.Her father was kicking a bunch of goblins as if they were soccer balls when her mother - who Claire was physically shielding - yelped: “This is because of my campaign, isn’t it. We’re not spending enough time with you.”Claire had had enough. Before she could think better of it, she snapped: “Everything doesn’t revolve around you, Mom!” Then she pushed past her father and sent a bunch of goblins through a portal.“That’s my girl!” her father cheered.Her mother, though, was nearly crying. “Why do you want to fight goblins, you wanted to be an actre--” Then a goblin jumped on her head, and she screamed.Claire pulled it off, turned around and threw it, too, into the still-open portal.Yeah, she wasn’t going to be lacking in emotions any time soon.  They were hiking through the forest when the vision found him. Luckily, it wasn’t as overwhelming as visions could sometimes be. Rather it was a shadow, another layer superimposed upon the world around him. That told Angor what the source of the vision was: the Shadow Realm.In the vision, he saw snatches of the Daylight Amulet being made and of what had come before it, Merlin’s betrayal of Morgana. These were ephemeral and relatively easy to ignore. The next image was that much more solid: the girl-child whom Morgana called her own, except in the vision her eyes were human-clear warm brown, rather than oily black and fiery amber. She saw him too, there was no doubt about that: he could sense her surprise and her fear.He’d wondered how Morgana had gotten her claws into the girl. Now the question became even more fascinating. His magic was the Lady’s; he hadn’t known, when he’d come to Her seeking magic, that the only way for Her to grant it to him was to take it out of Her own. Small wonder that She’d taken his soul in return! That was how he could be privy to Her memories. But what had the Child done, that bound her so to Morgana?Did that even matter? It mattered more that she had to now know where he was headed - and perhaps even with whom - whereas he found out nothing about what she had planned; such was the advantage of her not having a plan at the time that this connection between them manifested.He should, perhaps, inform Gunmar of this development - but Angor was no fool, and Gunmar’s temper was well known. This was bound to make Gunmar furious, and Angor did not fancy finding out whether his magic was enough to counter the power of the Decimar blade; the blade was one of the Lady’s relics, too.No, it was better to keep quiet, and keep leading the way.  Toby hated Angor Rot. He really, really did. Bular had been vicious and a real menace but in retrospect, Toby could appreciate how straightforward he’d been about it: if Bular wanted you dead, he was going to be very in-your-face about it. Real uncomplicated; next to anyone else they’d gone up against since, practically a relief. Strickler was an unpredictable headache and Ursuna a professional backstabber but Angor Rot - he was just a sadist. Nobody who didn’t enjoy it was going to be so elaborate, so thorough in finding ways to fuck with people.Case in point, the stasis trap that presently held both AAARRRGGHH!!! and a dozen or so live dwörkstones.One of them needed to come up with an idea, but Toby wasn’t sure how that was going to happen. He was nearly in tears, Blinky was whatever the troll equivalent of that was, and Claire was still halfway out due to her misadventure in the Shadow Realm. That left just Jim, and bright off-the-wall ideas weren’t usually his department.Or possibly that was just Toby’s distress speaking, because Jim did come up with something. Maybe it was going to work, maybe it wasn’t; the important part was, they weren’t going to leave one of their own behind. Toby was pretty clear on his priorities, there: they were the Good Guys, and there was shit the Good Guys just weren’t supposed to do, like sacrifice one of their own just because the bad guys got off on being sadistic assholes.“Tobes, are you ready?” Jim asked, getting into position.“Ready to possibly kill us all and die in horrible failure?” Toby replied. “Yeah - for AAARRRGGHH!!!!”And with that, he ran forward.  Water was falling down on him; lots of water, enough to be heavy. Draal stumbled and the force that drove him pushed him forward, inside and out: both the pressure inside his head that made it impossible to think or feel, and a heavy hand on his shoulder. On the next step Draal fell down on his knees; his body was worn from having kept up with those larger than him for days, and from having not eaten properly in longer than that, long enough to affect even slow troll metabolism.That was more than Draal had managed to think in - a while; as long as that force had been there that made it impossible to think or feel or even remember, impossible to do anything but buckle under the pressure and obey commands he couldn’t even understand. That force was receding now, falling back like the water dripping off his skin. First to return was the ability to recognize what was happening to him; next returned a memory, the memory of what he had been doing when that force invaded and forced everything else out, forced Draal out of his own mind and body.He had been fighting Gunmar. He had been fighting Gunmar, who’d held a sword over his head and the name of that sword was Decimar--The last drop of Decimar’s magic evaporated from within him, and then the other memories returned: the memories of everything Gunmar had made him do, everything he’d done and not done, everything he’d seen and heard in the - Deya’s grace, but it’d been more than a month since Draal’s mind was his own.He could still hear, echoing in his mind, the words that Gunmar had just spoken: In this place of my final rest, no magics here may enter. He knew where they were; Angor Rot was to lead Gunmar to Merlin’s Tomb. Gunmar must have read that statement out loud. Here in Merlin’s Tomb Draal was free, but what would happen if he were to walk back out through the waterfall? Would Decimar’s power capture him again?Slowly, carefully, Draal pushed himself up.Gunmar turned around, and saw Draal standing. He growled and motioned with his right, as if to summon Decimar, but that didn’t happened.
No magics here may enter.
This was Draal’s one chance.“You took my mind!” he cried out, then charged forward. “I will not be enslaved again!”His second battle against Gunmar did not go much better than the first. Gunmar lifted him up then slammed him against the cave floor, struck Draal’s face with his elbow then lifted him up to slam him against the floor again and again and again. There was no way for Draal to win this fight - but then, he wasn’t aiming to win, not in the usual meaning of the word: the only victory possible when fighting in single battle against Gunmar the Black was to die as one’s own person, rather than go on living as a mindless, will-less slave.Gunmar lifted the heavy chain previously used to bind AAARRRGGHH!!!, and which Draal had been carrying for the entire long walk from the temple to the Tomb. “You are a dog,” Gunmar growled, and lifted the chain higher, “and this is your leash!”Whatever he was about to do with that chain never happened. Instead, Angor Rot cried “Stop!” and Gunmar did. It made no sense; for a moment, Morgana’s assassin sounded scared. Then he continued, sounding more like himself: “He can be useful to us. We do not know what lies up ahead.”Gunmar growled, then threw the chain down on the floor. “Chain him up,” he commanded Angor Rot, then turned back to Draal to promise, “You will not make it out of this cave alive,” before stalking forward, into the Tomb.Draal didn’t bother to get up as Angor Rot bent down to pick the chain up, then walked over and knelt down beside Draal. There was no reason to make this easier on Morgana’s servant; Draal may as well use this chance to rest a little - it wasn’t as if he was going to get another opportunity.He didn’t bother getting up at all: Gunmar could no longer make him walk, and Draal wasn’t going to make anything easier on him. By stubbornly remaining on the floor he could slow Gunmar and Angot Rot down. At best, he’d make it easier for Jim and the others to catch up. And at worst - at worst, Gunmar would kill him then and there.Either way, Draal was willing to count it as a win.  The farther they got into the cave, the more Angor doubted the wisdom of his impulsive decision to stay the former thrall’s execution. This was not because Angor had to physically haul him every step of the way, including the climb up to the timeline hall. Rather, it was because of the sheer stubbornness the other troll displayed. It would have been easier - and less painful - to walk, but he refused to move at all, even when Angor deliberately tried to motivate him. He was an enemy and an enemy this committed, Angor knew, would sooner or later find a way to make his resistance matter.As soon as Angor had - finally - hauled the other troll up to the timeline hall, Gunmar had torn the prosthetic arm off of him and the chain out of Angor’s hand. He’d then strode over to the source of the strange noise and blinking light, jammed the arm into it then pushed the former thrall through before he’d looked up at Angor, who was still taking stock of the room.“Stay here, and kill them,” Gunmar had said. Then he’d jumped through, himself.Hours later, Angor was still in that hall. He’d been angry at Gunmar’s blunt dismissal of him, but not so impulsive as to defy his order outright. Instead, he studied the room first, and found the reason that Gunmar had ordered him to stay: the timeline etched into the hall’s circumference, the last scene of which showed Angor towering over the Hunter and his friends.Curious, that that was the last scene depicted. Angor had been studying the etchings for hours, and still had no idea why that was. There was no magic in the etchings themselves, nothing for him to tap into; that left him very little to work with. Curious also that the Lady had given him precise knowledge of the Staff’s location within the cave - and yet Gunmar chose to follow the vision depicted in the etchings over the Lady’s orders. Whose vision was it? Angor wondered. This was Merlin’s sanctuary, but Morgana had clearly been there at some point before the betrayal, else she couldn’t have given Angor the instructions that she had.Angor repositioned the arm so that the next arrivals wouldn’t be immediately drawn to the source of noise and light, and settled in to wait.He did not have to wait long.  “Guys!” Claire said urgently. “If this is a timeline…”She, Toby and Jim turned around. Two dots of yellow light glowed in the darkness. Claire aimed her flashlight: there, slowly straightening out from a crouch, was Angor Rot.Claire couldn’t help it; her first response was to scream. So, for that matter, was Jim’s and Toby’s.AAARRRGGHH!!! got between Angor and them, giving them a moment to flee. They ran away, but Angor descended on them from above. What did he do, run on the walls? Never mind; there was no time to ponder that - they had to keep running. She and Toby got away, but Angor leaped from above and intercepted Jim, both of them landing flat on the cave floor.“Trollhunter,” Angor snarled.Claire sprinted forward, ignoring Blinky’s cry of alarm. She knew Angor; there was no time to explain it to the others, but she knew him in a way that perhaps no one else did. They were Morgana’s, him and her, and there was no explaining what that meant to anyone who didn’t feel Her stare on them, heavy like an actual weight, and Her magic under their skin like a fire.“Angor!” she cried out. “She doesn’t own you anymore!”“You know nothing,” he snarled. His hold on Jim’s arm tightened as Jim struggled to escape.“I know everything,” she countered. “I know why you asked Her for magic, I know what She made you do. I know what it feels like to have Her power fill you up. I know.”Behind her, a whirr started up and light began flashing across the room.Angor stood up, Jim dangling from his grip. “And how did you get away, Child? If you ever did. I saw you, you know.”“And I saw you. But She doesn’t control either of us, anymore. You never wanted to kill Trollhunters; you wanted the power to fight Gunmar. I know it’s hard to remember but please, you have to try.”“I remember just fine,” Angor spat out.Behind her, the whirr stopped and the light became steady. Jim’s eyes travelled to a point behind Claire’s shoulder. There was a loud thud, then a rumble. Jim swung around and kicked Angor in the shoulder, fell down into a roll and only just got away before rocks fell from above, burying Angor.“I had this!” Claire cried out as she turned around to face the others. “You didn’t have to do this!”“You almost had this,” Blinky said, his face illuminated by the light that seemed to come from a hole in the floor. “But I’m afraid Angor Rot may not be so easily redeemed. Quickly now!”She didn’t have time to ask anything as AAARRRGGHH!!! tossed her down through the hole; the others all jumped.Claire landed in a crouch; next to her, Jim, Blinky and AAARRRGGHH!!! all landed on their feet. So did Toby, but he slid to the end of the smooth crystal they landed on, and had to be rescued by AAARRRGGHH!!!. Only then did Claire have time to look around. They were in a ginormous cave, filled with huge, smooth, glowing crystals that were the source of the light she’d seen earlier. She was going to protest again, but then she realized what Jim was cradling. “Draal’s arm!”“Gunmar must’ve used it to jam the blades,” Jim confirmed.“Deya’s grace,” Blinky whispered. “We’re in the innermost sanctum, the heart of Merlin’s Tomb.”“If this is the heart, I bet that Merlin’s Staff is somewhere close,” Jim said. “Draal can’t be far. You guys look for the Staff; I’ll get him back.”  He was stuck between two pieces of crystal. Perhaps Draal could break himself out if he tried, but it was difficult to find a reason to. It was a long fall down; everything hurt, in a way that Draal had no idea was even possible. He was exhausted, and may as well rest for a while.A voice sounded through the haze. It was familiar, and Draal struggled to open his eyes. When something small and warm touched his face, though, Draal reacted on instinct; he roared.Then he opened his eyes and saw Jim, sprawled on the crystal several yards away.“Troll… hunter?” Draal grit out. He wasn’t sure if what he was seeing was real, or if exhaustion and pain were tricking his mind.Jim’s expression cleared. “Guys, I found Draal!” he called out.The others? They were there, too?Jim got up and came over to help Draal free. There was little the human could do, but the realization that he wasn’t alone seemed to have breathed fresh energy into Draal. Within seconds, he was standing free.Free, except for the crushing weight of guilt. “I made an oath to protect you; I have broken that oath. I remember attacking you. I have lost my honour, failed you all.”Jim put a hand on Draal’s shoulder and turned him aside gently, then picked up the prosthetic from the crystal they were standing on. “No, it wasn’t your fault,” he said as he placed the prosthetic back. “Gunmar forced you to do things you would never have done yourself. You were under his control.” Prosthetic in place, the Trollhunter looked up to meet Draal’s eyes. “You’re not just my protector, Draal. You’re my friend.” Then he spread his arms and stepped in, hugging Draal to the best of his ability.It took Draal several seconds, but he put his arms around the fragile human body, marvelling at the trust Jim showed. It was as if Jim’s warmth against him was a healing balm.Humans had many strange practices, but hugging, he decided, he could get into.A distant roar startled them and made them step apart. “Where is it?” cried out Gunmar’s voice from elsewhere in the cave.“Gunmar! We got to beat him to the Staff,” the Trollhunter said. “Come on, Draal!”“By my father’s name,” Draal breathed. Funny how he suddenly felt alive, when minutes before he was beginning to give up. “She will taste vengeance!”The Trollhunter laughed, and Draal found himself laughing back.They alternately ran across the horizontal crystal beams and slid down the vertical pillars, making their way down the cave in a spiral, until the Trollhunter called out: “I see it!”The Staff was on top of a crystal pillar parallel to the one they were climbing down on. No sooner did Draal locate it than he saw the black shape climbing up that pillar, reaching out: Gunmar.“You get to the Staff,” Draal told the Trollhunter. “I’ll take care of Gunmar.” He held out an arm to the Trollhunter, who climbed up on Draal’s back without needing to be told. Then, Draal jumped to the other pillar.Halfway through the air the Trollhunter let go of Draal, who rolled into a spiked ball. Draal’s momentum carried him straight into Gunmar. As he came at Gunmar at an angle, though, each of them was thrown in a different direction and landed on a different crystal beam.When Draal looked up, the Trollhunter had released the Staff from its metal fastener and was holding it up. Then a black shadow crossed Draal’s field of vision: Gunmar had leaped from where he’d been knocked to straight back to where Jim was standing.A rumble shook the cave.“Trollhunter!” called a voice from above. That was the only warning any of them got before Angor Rot fell into the fray, twisting in the air to land on top of the pillar where the Trollhunter, Gunmar and the Staff were.Draal leaped, hoping to get between the Trollhunter and the assassin in time - but Angor Rot, it turned out, didn’t aim for the Trollhunter: instead he slammed straight into Gunmar, knocking him into a nearby crystal beam.Draal and the Trollhunter - now both standing on top the pillar that had held the Staff - shared a brief, stunned look.Gunmar growled and cast Angor Rot away as if he were a ragdoll. Angor fell down into the abyss; he may or may not have managed to catch a crystal projection on his way down.A second rumble destabilised the pillar they were standing on and sent it careening to the side. The sudden movement cause the Trollhunter to lose his grip on the Staff; he jumped down after it. Draal swore and started climbing down, taking riskier and riskier moves in order to get to the Trollhunter before Gunmar did.The Trollhunter’s grip on the projection he was hanging from slipped.Draal deliberately let go of the projection he was hanging from. He grabbed a different one on his way down with his prosthetic arm and swung the other one down, towards the Trollhunter. The risky move paid off: Draal managed to catch the Trollhunter by the leg, barely. Then, he see-sawed, swinging in the other direction so that he could send the Trollhunter upwards.Upwards, though, was where Gunmar was. Draal climbed back up what had been the top of the pillar and was now its side - the tremors having turned it rather into a horizontal beam - as quickly as he could. He had to make it up to what was the side of the pillar and was now its top before Gunmar could kill the Trollhunter and get away with the Staff.Draal hauled himself up just in time to see Gunmar reaching for the Trollhunter.The fallen pillar tilted like a see-saw, the side Draal was on swinging up and the side that Gunmar and the Trollhunter were on swinging down. “Duck!” Draal yelled and jumped into the air, again rolled into a ball; he hoped that the Trollhunter would indeed dive out of the way and that he guessed right which direction Gunmar would turn to--The next tremor hit just as Draal slammed into Gunmar. It knocked the bigger troll off the fallen pillar. Draal unrolled. “I honour my oath!” he shouted after Gunmar, then reached over the edge of the pillar to offer the Trollhunter a hand up.“Take it, don’t make it weird,” he said, repeating what had become their refrain. The Trollhunter laughed and reached up.Then the Trollhunter’s expression turned to horror.Draal knew exactly what he’d find, as he turned his head to look behind his shoulder: Gunmar. Apparently he hadn’t been thrown as far away as Draal had thought he had, or else he’d climbed up quicker than expected.Gunmar swung down from the hip. He headbutted Draal, one of his horns catching Draal across his torso, then lifted him up to slam him against the crystal, as he had earlier by the waterfall. Draal tried to get up, only to be kicked in the head.The burst of energy that had been carrying Draal since Jim had found him sputtered out.“Some protector,” Gunmar said distastefully, then bent down to pick Jim up and take the Staff away from him. Jim cried out and struggled, but he never had a chance. “This is all there is underneath that metal shell of yours?” Draal heard Gunmar say. “You’re not even a meal.” He dropped Jim down and jumped to a crystal beam, too far away for Draal to catch up with him even if he managed to drag himself to his feet.Just then - because clearly, the universe decided they hadn’t failed enough - Angor Rot, who had apparently managed not to fall all the way down, hauled himself up to where Jim and Draal lay.“No!” That was Claire’s voice, echoing through the cave. “Don’t hurt him!”“Which one of us do you mean?” Jim called back.“All of you!”Another tremor sent Draal on his side, just as he finally managed to get up to his knees. His chest was burning; when Draal looked down, he saw an open gash all across his torso, courtesy of Gunmar’s horns.The next tremor wasn’t a tremor but rather AAARRRGGHH!!! landing on the fallen pillar, carrying Claire and Toby on his shoulders. His weight finished toppling the pillar over and it crashed against the side of the cave, where Blinky was already waiting for them.“Without the magic of the Staff, the cave is collapsing!” he said urgently.No sooner did he say that than a large piece of rock fell down and would have fallen directly on them, if AAARRRGGHH!!! hadn’t caught it in time and tossed it aside. The next fallen rock, Blinky pulled Toby away from just in time. It blocked their exit. AAARRRGGHH!!! attempted to move it, but to no avail. Even when Draal and Angor Rot joined him - casting suspicious looks at each other - the three of them couldn’t move it.AAARRRGGHH!!! spread his arms and gathered the smaller members of their party under his torso to shelter them from the falling debris.They were stuck.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

“Anyone else weirded out by this?” Toby grunted quietly. He, Jim, Claire and Blinky were standing back while the three larger members of their party were trying to move the boulder that was blocking their way out. Draal was visibly injured and possibly shouldn’t have been allowed to take on such an effort, but for one thing nobody felt like telling him that and for another, the boulder was that huge.

“Just another day on the job,” Jim replied, exasperation evident in his voice.

“I meant

him

,” Toby said, still quietly. He gestured towards Angor Rot. “Suddenly he’s on our side?”

“Oh, leave him be, Toby” Claire said. “It only makes sense that he changed sides again, now that he has his soul back.”

“Now that he

what?

” Jim asked, at the same time that Blinky asked, “And how do you know that?”

“Because the first thing Morgana had me do was track him down and tell him that she would give him his soul back, if he served her willingly.”

“But he already had… So

that’s

what that was about,” Jim said. “He got the ring, but he  couldn’t get his soul

out

of the ring.”

“Yeah, it’s still weird,” Toby said. “What if it’s just a trick?”

“I doubt it,” Claire said. “You don’t know Morgana; She doesn’t really do ‘sneaky’. She’s all offense, all the time.”

Toby was just about to respond to that with something sarcastic, when AAARRRGGHH!!! called out, “Too big!”

“It’s okay, wingman, you tried!” Toby called back.

“It’s hardly ‘okay’,” Blinky snapped. He stepped forward to try and help the other trolls, useless as his help would likely be. “We are on the distinctly wrong side of the cavern collapse. Merlin’s Tomb will now apparently become our own.”

Draal growled. “I refuse to die like a rat!”

“I’d rather not die at all,” Jim replied. Affection was dripping from his voice. Clearly, not even being trapped in a collapsing cave was enough to ruin the high of getting Draal back for him. “Ideas, anyone?”

Another rumble shook the cave, forcing them to take cover under AAARRRGGHH!!! again.

“Look, over there!” Claire cried out. “There’s an opening! We could go that way!”

“Thus affording us the opportunity to be trapped somewhere else!” Blinky retorted caustically.

Jim, however, went over to investigate. Toby went with him. Draal, too, was by Jim’s side almost immediately.

“Or it’s a way out,” Toby called back to Blinky as the three of them started down the tunnel. “You gotta think positive!”

“I’m not entirely sure I know how,” Blinky replied, but he entered the tunnel with AAARRRGGHH!!! and Claire.

Angor Rot brought up the rear. It made the hair on the back of Toby’s neck stand up. That the witch-assassin had yet to say a word didn’t help things any. The guy had been trying to kill Jim for over four months; Toby wasn’t going to get over it that quickly.

He fell back, leaving the lead to Jim and Draal and joining the middle group. Once he’d done that, he could see that Blinky and AAARRRGGHH!!!, too, were sending backwards glances at Angor Rot.

Claire gave the three of them a furious look and fell back herself, joining Angor at the rear. She held her head high, and ignored the way both Toby and Angor Rot were looking at her.

Perversely, it made Toby feel a little bit better to see that Angor Rot, too, was baffled by Claire’s stance on the matter.

They didn’t get far before Toby was forced to note: “Uh, this isn’t taking us out.” Instead - unless Toby lost his sense of direction entirely - the tunnel was taking them deeper and deeper into the mountain.

“We need to find a way to go up,” Jim replied.

No really,

Toby thought. Out loud, he said: “Right. Look for some stairs. Or better yet, an elevator.”

“What was that about thinking positive?” Claire called out to him.

“Humor is good,” Toby called back. “Hey, what’s the holdup, guys?” Up ahead, Jim and Draal had stopped and were clearly waiting for the rest of their party to catch up to them. As they approached, Toby saw why: for the first time since they’d entered the tunnel, they’d hit an intersection.

Draal and AAARRRGGHH!!! exchanged a look. Then AAARRRGGHH!!! and - of all people - Angor Rot started in the same direction.

“Seriously?” Toby asked out loud.

“Seriously, what?” Claire snapped back.

Then the tunnel’s mouth widened into a room, and all of them stopped: there ahead of them, lying on a stone table, was Merlin himself.

Angor watched as the Hunter approached the prone figure, the pulsing stone in his hand. The stone made Angor’s skin crawl; it felt like the magic of the amulet, like Merlin’s magic. That made no sense, though. If that stone was part of the amulet, then it was no longer in one piece - but what would it take, to destroy a relic of that caliber? How could that have possibly happened?

It didn’t matter, not really, but it was easier to focus on that than to focus on everything else. Namely, on the mistake - was it a mistake? - on the

decision

that Angor had made earlier, in those precious few seconds between jumping through the jammed blades, and hitting his target.

Maybe he could still take it back. Maybe he could knife the Hunter in the back and escape before any of the others killed him.

Particularly

if the amulet was already destroyed - Angor could make it back to the Lady a victor and maybe, maybe,

maybe

She’d forgive him--

Then three specks of magic rose from the stone and entered Merlin’s eyes, and Angor knew it was too late.

A few minutes later, Angor was watching Merlin run through a basic stretching routine in front of their eyes. That seemed off. Angor knew enough about magic to know that Merlin shouldn’t have needed to do that, 800-year sleep or not. He should have been able to turn his magic inwards and heal his body; it should have been less of an effort than the stretching.

Therefore, something was wrong.

“Okay,” Merlin said, rubbing his hands together. “First thing’s first. Where might my staff be?”

The three human children as well as Draal exchanged nervous looks.

Merlin looked at them, apparently slow to comprehend. “Staff of Avalon?” He tried again. “About yea-high, emerald at the top? It is rather dashing.”

Toby was the first to find his voice. “We might have… lost it a little?”

“Lost it a little?” Merlin repeated, incredulous.

The Trollhunter squared his shoulders. “Gunmar took it.”

Merlin put his hands on his hips. “Oh, is that all? Well, it’s not the Staff that’s lost, then.” He crossed his arms. “Just hope.”

Yes, that was about what Angor figured as well. Merlin’s Staff could be used to free Morgana; and, once that was done, She was sure to kill all who were in her way - a category which now included Angor as well.

What

had gotten into him, earlier, that he’d attacked Gunmar rather than the Trollhunter? What a rash, senseless thing that was of him to do. It didn’t matter, that in that moment letting Gunmar get away was distasteful to him; it mattered rather more what the Lady would do next they’d be face to face - and once She’d be up and about in the world, Angor had no doubt that She’d come for him as soon as she could afford to. Turning on Gunmar was, possibly, the most foolish thing Angor had done since he’d first come to Morgana, seeking magic.

While Angor was thinking that, Merlin had turned around and leaned his elbows down on the stone table he’d been asleep on.

Fearless, the Trollhunter walked up to him. “How did you know we were gonna come looking for you? I mean, your Staff?”

Merlin sighed, turned around and sat on the table instead, facing their little group. “I can glimpse the future. It’s not a perfect gift, though.”

“You expected me to be older,” the Trollhunter said.

“And taller,” Merlin replied with a sigh.

Blinkous approached the two. “Clearly, he foresaw our arrival here, to rouse him from his slumber.”

The Child was next to approach. “Why were you sleeping in the first place?”

And that was the Lady’s child? What a silly question to ask! Had the girl had that little experience with magic?

“It was the cost of battle, my dear,” Merlin replied.

Interesting, too, that the wizard seemed not to sense Morgana’s magic on the Child. Angor couldn’t read that anymore, but Merlin’s senses ought to have been sharper than that.

No, something was definitely wrong.

It was difficult to focus on what the old wizard was saying, with the Battle of Killahead all around them. There was no sound but the sights, the smells - it was almost too much for Draal.

Something caught his eye, and Draal wandered away from the group. There, not a Trollhunter yet, was his father. Draal stopped in place and gazed up at that beloved face. He didn’t even hear Jim come up to him until he said: “I’m sorry.”

Draal glanced at him, startled. “This was not your fault.”

“I’m still sorry for your loss. Call it a human thing.”

“Fleshbags,” Draal grunted, but it was fond.

The rest of the group approached them, fronted by Merlin. “Come now,” the wizard said. “There is more to see. The real battle is over this way.” He led them in the direction of the Bridge itself, then beyond it. “While you were focused on the battle, there were events unfolding that you were unaware of.”

“I suppose fighting for our lives would be a little distracting,” Blinky said.

Angor Rot crossed his arms. To his great discomfort, Draal found that he shared the sentiment. Blinky was brilliant in all matters that could be summed up in books, but he was a remarkably poor warrior. That he wasn’t embarrassed by that fact was, in itself, embarrassing.

As they approached what was - at a distance - an indistinct sphere of light, it resolved into two figures, glowing green and gold, respectively.

“What? That’s Her!” Claire sounded scared, almost. “That’s--”

“--Morgana,” Merlin confirmed. “Yes. Pale Lady, the Mother of Monsters.”

Claire winced.

What was that all about? What had Draal missed?

“But none of the history books even speak of this,” Blinky whispered.

“Well, books don’t talk, for one thing,” Merlin said. “This was the

true

Battle of Killahead.”

“You and Morgana?” the Trollhunter said.

Angor Rot grit his teeth. Draal glanced at him warningly. So, for that matter, did AAARRRGGHH!!!.

“She is as ancient as I am; perhaps moreso. Craving chaos, she sowed the seeds of dissention between humans and trollkind.”

“I know Her well,” Claire said, earning her sharp glances from Merlin - and from Draal. “She’s a real headcase.”

“And how would you know her well, fair Claire?” Merlin asked.

That was what Draal wanted to know, too. Morgana was bad news; Morgana was the

worst

news. He did not like it that one of their number had had dealings with Morgana, and no matter in what capacity.

Claire looked at Merlin for a moment, then took her bag off her shoulders and pulled the Shadow Staff out of it.

Merlin didn’t quite flinch but he was, clearly, taken aback.

Back straight and proud, Claire said: “I won it from Her.”

When

had

that

happened? Idiotic question; during the month Draal spent as a slave.

“My, aren’t you strong,” Merlin said.

“Yeah, that’s what She said, too,” Claire said. “Right before She stole my body from me.”

“Was that before or after…?” Merlin asked.

Claire shook her head. “Before. That’s why I had to do it.”

“I see,” Merlin said, then repeated it, “I see. And how did you come to that unfortunate situation?”

“I opened a really big door. I knew it was foolish, but - lives were at stake.”

“The Battle of Trollmarket,” Draal realized. What a fool he’d been to doubt Claire. He didn’t notice he’d said that out loud until the others turned to look at him. “That’s how you got everyone away from the gyre station that day.” That was not a good memory. “Gunmar was

furious.

”

“Anything that makes Gunmar angry is a good thing,” Jim said. “Right?”

Draal looked away. “It wasn’t at the time.”

It was a moment before the Trollhuner said, more quietly: “He takes his frustrations out on his troops. I forgot.”

Jim didn’t mean it that way, but the pity still stung.

“You’ve met the wrong end of the Decimar Blade, haven’t you,” Merlin said. Unlike Jim,

his

voice was businesslike. “One of Morgana’s more fearsome creations, that blade. She gifted it to Gunmar when she first pitched to him the Eternal Night. You see, she realized, if trolls could not survive in daylight - what if the night were everlasting?”

“Gunmar and his forces could do whatever they wanted,” the Trollhunter whispered, horrified. “We have to stop them!”

“And how do you suggest we do that?” Angor Rot asked, his voice as cutting and as poisonous as one of his blades. “The old man has hardly more magic than I do. If that.”

Merlin straightened him back to ramrod-straight. “Well, excuse me. But such was the price of confining Morgana for as long as possible. She had to be stopped - at any cost. Even if the cost was my magic; I expended most of it to trap her.”

“I’m guessing ‘as possible’ ends right about now,” Claire said.

Merlin sighed. “We’re doomed to wage battle once more, thanks to the work of Gunmar.” With a flash of light, the vision of the Battle disappeared from around them and they were back at the cave. “Well, all fun things must end.”

“Well, if we’re going to do anything about it--” the Trollhunter said.

“We will,” Draal said. “But first, we need to get out of here.”

Another rumble shook the cave, raining debris down on them - and not just debris.

“Uh, how is it raining underground?” Toby asked nervously.

“The cave-in must have redirected the waterfall into the mountain,” Blinky replied.

“That sounds like a

lot

of water,” Claire said.

Toby turned around to face Merlin. “We could really use your awesome wizard magic right about now. To, y’know, get us out of here?”

“Weren’t you listening?” Angor Rot snapped. “He’s not much stronger than a garden-variety witch.”

“Hey!” Merlin said in genuine anger, at the same time that Jim said, “Did you just call yourself a garden-variety witch?”

Angor Rot took a step forward.

Claire got between them. “Not helping, guys.”

Merlin frowned at her, then shook his head. “To escape,” he said, louder than was necessary, “we’ll need the power of the amulet.”

The Trollhunter rubbed the back of his head. “That might be a

little

difficult,” he said. “I destroyed it--”

“You

what?

” Draal exploded. He couldn’t believe what he was hearing; it was beyond sacrilegious. He’d come to

trust

Jim. “

Why

would you ever

do

that?!”

“To get the map so that we could get here,” Jim snapped back. “You’re welcome.”

Draal stared at him, reeling.

It was Merlin’s turn to get between them. He turned to the Trollhunter and held out his hand. “Hand it over.”

As Merlin busied himself with the broken amulet, Claire walked over to the Trollhunter. “That was mean, Jim,” she said quietly.

The Trollhunter looked at her defiantly, and said nothing.

“War,” AAARRRGGHH!!! said, fumbling over towards where the humans were.

“I don’t follow,” Toby said. Unlike the others, he spoke at a normal volume.

Draal took a deep breath, then let it out. The rebuke stang, but he’d earned it. “I do. AAARRRGGHH!!! is right. You did what you had to do. And I wasn’t there.”

“Well, Claire’s right, too,” the Trollhunter said after a moment. “What I said was mean. I’m sorry.”

“You need never apologize to me, Trollhunter.”

“Draal,” the Trollhunter sighed. “I already told you: you’re not just my protector, you’re my friend.”

Draal looked away.

AAARRRGGHH!!! came over and put a hand on Draal’s shoulder. “War,” he said again, more gently.

Draal sighed. There wasn’t much he could say to that, particularly not when it came from a redeemed Gumm-Gumm. AAARRRGGHH!!! was their expert on living with deeds one was ashamed of. If AAARRRGGHH!!! could find his way back from having been Gunmar’s general, what excuse did Draal have?

“Shame will not help you, Draal,” Blinky said. He’d come and joined them while Draal was lost in thought. “It won’t help any of us. And the task that lies before us is great.”

“Well, we’re up for the challenge,” the Trollhunter said firmly. “Right, guys?”

“Right,” Claire said.

“Yup,” said Toby.

“Indeed,” said Blinky.

AAARRRGGHH!!! grunted his assent.

That left just Draal. He looked at the circle of faces turned towards him and, despite himself, smiled. “Definitely.”

The first thing Jim did when he stepped out through the portal and into his home’s living room was to let the armor fade and launch himself into the arms of his mom.

“Missed you too, kiddo,” she said into his hair.

“It was a really long night, Mom,” he replied.

“‘Was’ being the operative word,” Blinky said; he sounded alarmed. “Great Gorgus, it’s almost dawn!”

Reluctantly, Jim let go of his mom. He didn’t step back from her, though, and she kept her arm around his shoulder. “Right, we better find you guys shel-- what’s he doing here?”

There was Strickler, standing halfway between Claire’s parents and Toby’s nana, looking like - well, exactly how Jim would’ve expected him to look, given he was staring at

Angor Rot.

Oh, this was going to go badly. This was going to go oh so very badly.

“Strickler,” Angor Rot hissed. He pulled out his dagger.

Jim’s mom stepped up directly towards him with a wide smile on her face. “It’s Angor, right? I never got to thank you for breaking that spell.”

“Technically,

he

cast it,” Strickler said.

“At

your

command,” Angor spat out.

Jim rubbed the back of his neck, and pointed out: “Strickler kind of

owned his soul

at the time.”

Jim’s mom looked at Strickler, horrified. “You what? Why would you ever do such a thing?”

“To kill Jim,” Claire said matter-of-factly.

There was a collective gasp from the parents.

“A changeling, I presume,” Merlin said dryly.

“Hey!” NotEnrique protested.

When had

he

gotten there, too?

Jim’s mom looked between Strickler and Angor, then said: “Please take him outside

before

you kill him, Angor. There’s some trees behind the backyard, I hope that’s good enough cover?”

“Mom!” Jim protested. “No-one is killing

anyone.

We did

not

just escape Gunmar to start killing each other.”

“Yes, we’re going to need as many hands as we can to kill Morgana,” Merlin said. “I do have to wonder, though,” he turned to Angor, “

how

did you end up in that conundrum?”

“The Pale Lady,” Angor said shortly.

Merlin sighed. “Of course. Has anyone

else

here had dealings with her? I’d rather find out now.”

“Nope,” Jim said. “Unless Strickler has anything to share.”

“Goodness, no,” Strickler responded promptly.

“Who is the Pale Lady?” Claire’s mom asked.

“A really bad person, Mom,” Claire said.

“Wait,” Jim’s mom said suddenly. “Oh my god, you must be Merlin!”

“Indeed I am,” Merlied replied with a flourish. “And you are…?”

“Barbara; I’m Jim’s mom. And those are Ofelia and Javier, they’re Claire’s parents, and this is…”

“Oh, everyone just calls me ‘nana’, dear,” said Toby’s nana.

Blinky cleared his throat. “The approaching dawn, everyone?”

“Yeah, the trolls are going to need shelter,” Jim said, “and I don’t think there’s room enough in this house for all of you.”

“I’ll--” Draal started, looked at Jim’s expression, and finished, “--stay here.”

“AAARRRGGHH!!! and I will help ourselves to the tunnel,” Blinky said. “We need to check up on the other survivors of Trollmarket. We will return once we are assured of everyone’s wellbeing.”

“A tunnel sounds like a good idea,” Angor Rot said.

“Brother--” Dictatious opened.

“

No

,” Blinky replied vehemently.

“Oh, Dictatious can stay with us,” Toby’s nana said. She patted the blind troll’s arm. “It’s just next door, dear. We can make it there before sunrise, no problem.”

Toby was glaring death at Gunmar’s former advisor, but he managed to not sound

too

forced as he said: “We’d still better get going. It’ll be sunrise any minute now.”

“Oh dear,” Dictatious said.

Toby’s nana took his arm. “Bye, everyone!” she said cheerfully. “Come along, Toby-pie. If we hurry, you can sleep for another hour before you have to go to school.”

“Nana!” Toby protested as he followed her. He glanced back at Jim. “I’ll be back once I get him settled in!”

The door closed behind them.

“I’m still staying with you guys, right?” NotEnrique asked Claire tentatively.

“Of course you are,” Claire replied firmly. “Angor, you can come too.”

Angor stared at her with an unreadable expression. “Not today,” he said eventually.

“Claire!” her mother protested. “You can’t just invite people--”

Claire cut her off. “I can and I just did, Mom. You don’t know him.”

“Oh, and you do?” Toby said under his breath, at the same time that Claire’s mom said: “That was

my

point!”

Angor growled. “

Where

is that tunnel?”

“We’ll take you there,” Blinky said hurriedly. “Come along!”

“Wait,” Jim said, then hugged Blinky goodbye. The others - including AAARRRGGHH!!! - joined, making it a group hug. “Stay safe, Blink. You too, AAARRRGGHH!!!.”

“Of course, Master Jim.”

AAARRRGGHH!!! growled an affirmative.

The three trolls headed downstairs.

That was when something else occurred to Jim. “Wow, Mom. It doesn’t look like we slaughtered an entire pack of goblins in here. Good job!”

“And you say I’m useless at chores,” she replied, smiling fondly. “Though to be fair, everybody pitched in.”

“Yeah, that’s why I called Strickler,” NotEnrique pitched in. “To ask how to get squished goblin out of the upholstery.”

“And how did

you

know to come on over?” Claire asked.

“Well, I knew where the folks had gone to, so when neither you nor they came back home… I may have come to take a look. And when I heard what they were talking

about

, I figured it was safe enough to make an appearance.”

“Is he really a changeling?” Claire’s dad asked nervously.

“You mean if he lived in our house

as

Enrique for half a year?” Claire replied. “Yeah, Dad, he did.”

“Jesus,” Claire’s dad muttered.

“No, he most certainly did not have anything to do with any of this,” Merlin replied.

Claire’s dad stared at him.

“Will you be staying for breakfast?” Jim asked quickly.

“I am

not

making you cook for this many people,” Claire said, at the same time that her mother said “No,” and her father said, “Yes?”

The three of them looked at each other.

“I think it preferable that Lady Claire, at least, stay,” Merlin said firmly.

“Well, that decides that, then.” She got on tiptoe to hug her dad and, after a momentary hesitation, her mom as well. “See you guys after school!”

Once the Nuñez parents and NotEnrique were gone, Jim’s mom looked pointedly at Strickler.

“I’ll be leaving too,” he hastily said, despite the longing look he shot in Merlin’s direction. “Goodbye, Barbara; young Atlas.”

“Did he seriously just call you that?” Merlin asked as soon as the door closed behind Strickler.

“He does that,” Jim sighed. There were just four of them left, now. “Mom, Draal; Draal, my mom, Barbara. Draal kind of lived in our basement for a couple of months, Mom; he knows his way-- Draal, what’s wrong?”

Draal sat on the floor suddenly. Jim was alarmed.

“I’m - hungry”, Draal said after a moment. “Gunmar did not care to order me to feed, and--” He closed his eyes.

“Do I want to know what he meant by that?” Jim’s mom cautiously asked.

“You most certainly do not,” Merlin replied.

Yeah, no, this time Jim was going to tell his mom the truth. Just, not at that very moment. “Mom, can you get the laundry?” he asked urgently. “I’ll go get Toby’s recycle bin - there’s no metal in ours.”

“Uh - clean laundry or dirty laundry?” she asked. “And should I get you anything for that?” She gestured towards the gash across Draal’s torso, through which a faint purple glow was showing.

Draal shook his head.

“Dirty. Definitely dirty.” Jim put a hand on Draal’s shoulder. “Will you be okay for a few more moments?”

“I’ve been under Gunmar’s control for a month. A few more minutes are nothing.”

“Well, you’re home now. I’ll be right back.”

Draal smiled at him weakly. “It’s good to be home.”

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

“Uh, guys?” Claire said, coming into the kitchen. She was frowning. “I just went downstairs to give Draal the extra laundry from Toby’s, and he’s asleep. ”“Uh-uh, that’s not good,” Toby said.“Why not?” Barbara asked. “From what I understand,” she gave her son a stern look; he had yet to actually explain what had happened to Draal, leaving her to draw her own conclusions, “he’s been through an ordeal. Isn’t it good that he can manage to sleep?”“Trolls don’t sleep, Mom,” Jim explained. He was at the stove, making omelettes for all. “Not unless something is seriously wrong.”“Does a month under the Decimar Blade’s influence count?” Toby retorted. “Because I’m pretty sure it does.”Barbara made eye contact with her son. “Does that blade do what I think it does?”“Probably,” Jim admitted after a long moment. He dropped her gaze and flipped the omelette in the pan.Barbara let out a long breath. “That sounds brutal,” she said bluntly. “Of course he’s wiped; let him sleep. If he’s this exhausted, he just might be too fatigued to keep food down. Or at least, that what I’d’ve said if he were human.”“It’s a good rule of thumb for trolls, too,” Merlin said. He was examining the kitchen drawer after drawer, cupboard after cupboard. “But those metal containers you brought earlier, those he should be able to keep down. Ores and minerals, that is what trolls need; those, and a small amount of raw meat.”“Raw meat,” Barbara repeated. Blinky had said something about refugees , before he left. “Wait, so all those pets that have gone missing recently - have trolls been foraging in Arcadia?”“Mom!” Jim said.“Should’ve been a detective, Dr. L,” Toby replied cheerfully.“Well, Draal will be getting something from the butcher’s, when he’s up to it,” Barbara said firmly.Toby put his palms together in front of his chest. “The neighbourhood cats thank you.”Jim flipped the omelette unto a plate, and poured the next batch of eggs into the pan. “That’s the last one,” he announced.Meanwhile, Merlin had made it to the fridge, and was - perhaps unsurprisingly - fascinated with the light inside. That kept him busy while Toby and Claire finished setting the table, and Jim finished preparing breakfast for five.As it turned out, the kids preferred to leave the dining room table to the wizard, and take their plates to the couch.“So,” Barbara asked brightly. Clearly no one was going to tell her anything unless she asked. “Gunmar stole your staff. Isn’t that all he needs to bring the, uh…”“The Eternal Night,” Jim supplied, coming out of the kitchen with the last omelette. He joined Toby and Claire on the couch.“Fear not, Mother of Jim,” said Merlin in between bites. “When I designed my Staff, I put in a safeguard.”“See?” Jim said in a tone bright enough to match hers. “We’re in good hands.”Merlin coughed. “Then again, no safeguard is a guarantee. It’s been centuries since I’ve eaten,” he added. “Metal-face here is lucky I didn’t eat him back in the cave.”Toby let out a nervous giggle. “He’s joking, right?”“Not really,” Merlin replied.Barbara couldn’t tell whether or not Merlin was joking. It was concerning. In that moment, he no longer was a figure of legend to her; he was just a man sitting at her dining table, eating the food her son had cooked, and being mean - or at the very least, rude - to one of her son’s friends, a boy only a fraction of his age.Goodness. And they depended on this man? That was a depressing thought.“Time is of the essence,” Merlin declared when he was done eating. “Take me to the nearest blacksmith at once!”Barbara exchanged looks with the kids, who - for once, since last night - seemed as floundering as she felt. “The garage?” she offered.“The garage,” Jim agreed.  The first thing Angor had done once in the tunnels was to revisit all of the spots he’d used the last time that Arcadia had been his base, back when Strickler had had the Inferna Copula. Some of these spots were still usable; others, he discovered, where taken over by the Trollmarket survivors that Blinky had mentioned. Angor had surveyed the wards of the troll settlement at the time and found them sufficient: for Gumm-Gumms to have entered Trollmarket, someone had to have let them in.It was easier to think about that than to think about his present situation. Angor had allowed himself that escape as he’d done his route, but forced it aside once he’d settled at one hideout - the one where his final battle with the Hunter had taken place. It was safer, more remote than the others, and it had that handy pile of rocks.That handy pile of rocks, which Angor found himself decimating, screaming in frustration and distress.Fear, that was the word: Angor Rot was afraid. As well he should be, he thought grimly as he kicked another rock, which disintegrated before it ever hit the tunnel wall. He knew his Lady well enough to know that She would destroy him for what he’d done, utterly and completely. And then She just might revive him, to destroy him again.What had he done? Why had he done it? He picked the debris up from the floor with a wave of magic, and flung it into the wall. Oh, he knew why , at least on one level: he’d done what he’d done because in that moment, the thought of Gunmar crushing the boy was intolerable to him. What he didn’t know was why he’d acted up on that impulse, or where it’d even come from . No, that wasn’t true: he knew where that impulse had come from, and that terrified him at least as much as the Lady’s wrath did.His soul. The source of his anguish was his soul, which he’d craved and yearned for all those centuries. To have the source of his torment be his soul was-- unbearable; that was the reason he was acting like a child in a tantrum, rather than planning how to tackle his new circumstances. He was too overwhelmed to do better than he was doing, and that scared him most of all.Eventually, the outburst passed. The pile of stones had been reduced mostly to dust, as well as some pebbles that Angor gathered into a small mound. Then he walked down the tunnel until he found a grate. From the angle of the sunlight coming in through it, he estimated that it was approximately midday. His temporary madness had cost him half the day.Well, nothing to do about that, anymore. He may as well start using well the time he did have, rather than waste it self-flagellating. He needed a plan, but before he could plan he needed food and rest; he’d not be able to forage for food until dusk, but rest - that he could do. That was the only good thing about the madness that had overtaken him for the morning: he was, actually, tired enough in both mind and body that he could rest.The world he knew was ending, or perhaps it had already ended. One foot in front of the other, one step at a time; it wasn’t like Angor had another choice.  It was only past midday that Blinky and AAARRRGGHH!!! were able to return to the Lake house. Master Jim had left them a message hours before - on the cell phone that he and his friends had gotten for Blinky - that said Merlin had made a list of spell ingredients that he needed for them to acquire. Surely that should have been Blinky’s first priority - except, alas, he also had a commitment to his people. He only hoped that Merlin would not be too angered by the delay.The first thing they both saw when they entered the basement was Draal, fast asleep. Blinky and AAARRRGGHH!!! exchanged looks. It had been obvious the day before that Draal was not well; it was not a surprise to find Draal asleep but nevertheless - Blinky found that he hadn’t really accepted the situation until that moment. The cut across Draal’s torso was bad news, too; it was beginning to get inflamed. That wasn’t a surprise either, given the source of that injury. Blinky was knowledgeable in many fields, but he was rather more of a historian than a healer; it used to be Vendel to whom injuries were brought. They no longer had Vendel, though, or even Vendel’s Heartstone workshop. They didn’t have Blinky’s library, either. Blinky would just have to rely on his memory to make some sort of salve for Draal, and hope that would be enough.AAARRRGGHH!!! looked at the human-narrow stairway that led up to the house, and shook his head. “Very well, my friend,” Blinky said. “I will be but a moment.”“Hello?” he cautiously called out as he opened the door at the top of the stairs.Barbara was there immediately. “Blinky! It’s good to see you.”“Barbara,” he acknowledged. “I admit I’m surprised to…”“...find me home during the day?” she said wryly. “I called in sick. I didn’t want to leave him here unsupervised and I have more sick days than - you have no idea what I’m talking about, do you.”“None whatsoever,” he assured her.“It doesn’t matter then.” She shook her head. “I suppose you’re here for the list that Jim left you?”“I understand the list comes from Merlin?”“The full list, yeah, but there’s some things on it that Jim thought he and his friends would be able to find on their own. He left you a list of everything else.”“I see.”“It’s in the kitchen. Can I get you anything while I’m getting that? Water?”“No, there’s no need, thank you.”“There’s something else I wanted to ask you about,” she said when she returned with the list, which Blinky immediately pocketed; he’d look at it later. “Last night, I couldn’t but notice that Draal’s injured. Will that need treatment? Is there anything I can do?”Barbara was a human healer, Blinky recalled suddenly. Of course she’d notice; of course she’d ask. Still, he shook his head. “No, I don’t think s-- actually, perhaps there is. I strongly doubt you’d be able to source what ingredients I’ll need - human-cut stones will just not do - but I’ll also need tools. Human tools are far from ideal but, nevertheless, they will have to suffice.”Barbara nodded. “Come on in. I’ll get you pen and paper.”“I don’t know what all of these tools are called in the human tongue,” he admitted as he followed her to the dining table.“Can you draw what they look like?”“Certainly.” Then something else occurred to him. “You said that you don’t want to leave Merlin unattended…?”She shook her head. “I’m a doctor, Blinky. It’s what I do. Hopefully he won’t burn down the house while I’m gone.”“Is that a concern?” Blinky asked, alarmed.She sighed. “I don’t even know. It’ll just have to be okay.”“Yes,” he said after a moment. “It will just have to.”  Draal woke up with a start. It took him a moment to recognize where he was, and then when. It took him a few moments to fully get his bearings. He was at the Trollhunter’s house; he was not expected to guard it - he had not fallen asleep while on duty. Rather, he was supposed to be recovering from - Draal struggled with what to call it, even internally. It was remarkably difficult to use the word slave in reference to himself, but it was difficult to find another word that would fit, that wouldn’t - that wouldn’t make it sound as if he’d freely served Gunmar.He would rather die.After a few moments of hesitation, Draal started up the stairs to the house proper. Barbara knew that he was there, now; he no longer had to hide. Carefully he opened the door at the top, but found no sunlight. Perhaps it was still early, then. Once he stepped out the door, though, he was that wasn’t the reason: the windows and the glass part of the front door were all covered with cloth. By the colour of what light did come through, they were probably only an hour or two to sunset.His eyes fell on a crate by what Jim called a dining table that he didn’t remember being there the night before.“Draal!” The Trollhunter’s mother put down a book and got up from the couch. “It’s good to see you up.”“Thank you,” he replied cautiously. He’d lived in this woman’s home for months, yet he knew nothing of her other than Jim thought the world of her.“Feeling better?” she asked.“Somewhat,” he replied. “And somewhat… not.” He wasn’t as bone-deep exhausted as he’d been the night before, and the food has done him wonders, but… His gaze fell down to the cut across his torso. It didn’t look too good. Nothing he could do about that, though.“Yeah, Blinky said something about making you some sort of salve for that,” the Trollhunter’s mother said. “He’ll probably be by later tonight; hopefully he’ll have gotten everything he needs by then - he’s also running some errands for Merlin.” Exasperation was clear in her voice when talking about the wizard. Evidently, the man was annoying also by human standards, and not just by trollish ones. It felt good to know that.“What is that?” he asked, pointing towards the crate.“Oh! That’s for you.” She stepped over there, and he followed her. “I was hoping they’d be edible.”The crate was full of what humans called appliances . Many were of the same kind that could had be found in Trollmarket’s booths and stores.“They are,” he admitted. “Are you sure you have no need for them?”She waved a hand. “They’re from the junkyard - there’s no need for them, no human need, at least.”“Thank you,” he said. “I’m sorry to have caused you trouble--”“Draal,” she cut him off. Her voice was patient but nevertheless, it demanded attention. It was the voice of mothers everywhere; Vendel had a variant of it, too. “I’m a doctor. Do you know what that is?”“A human healer,” he replied after a moment.“Exactly. I’d’ve done my best to care for you even if you weren’t Jim’s friend - and you are. Jim’s not great at talking about his feelings, teenage boys never are, but I could see clear as day what you mean to him, last night. All right?”More quietly, he said again: “Thank you.” It was the closest he could come to expressing what he felt.She must’ve understood what he meant, though, because her face softened into a smile that had something rueful in it. It was an expression so much like her son’s that - Draal wasn’t sure if it constricted his heart, or put it at ease. “You’re welcome.”  He couldn’t get Nomura on the phone. That sat like a stone in Strickler’s stomach. He’d texted her earlier and, when she didn’t reply, called her. And then again. And again. But there was no answer.They’d been friends a long time, Nomura and he, as much as changelings ever had friends. It was her first day back at the museum, and he’d thought she might appreciate a friendly ear - plus, they’d been checking in with each other on a strict schedule since their return to Arcadia to aid the Trollhunter. It wasn’t like Nomura to miss a check-in. It wasn’t like her at all. No, something was wrong.Mind made up, Strickler grabbed his keys from the table. He’d just have to go and check up on her in person - and hope, if he were honest with himself, that nothing wrong would happen to him, as well.  “Draal?” Barbara called carefully down the basement stairs.“Yes?” came after a moment.“Would you mind coming upstairs for a bit? I need to make a dash for some groceries.”Heavy footsteps sounded up the stairs. Barbara stepped back from the door. A moment later, Draal emerged. He looked better, she decided: she didn’t like the dark edges to his still-open slashing injury, but his coloration was more blue and had less greenish-grey to it, and his eyes were definitely more alert.“Human food?” he asked.“Yeah. It finally occurred to me that I’ll probably be hosting three teenagers for dinner, and I assume Merlin will want to eat again at some point. We’re definitely going to need some more human groceries in the house. And possibly some pizza.”He nodded. “What do you need me to do?”“Honestly? Keep an eye on Merlin. At this point, I trust you better than him; and he’s welding in there.”It was a moment before Draal said: “I don’t know what welding is.”“Uh - gluing metal to metal with fire, basically.”“Oh. That, I know.” He looked around. “This place seems less fire-resistant than a troll home would be.”“Exactly,” she said, relieved. “Do you mind keeping an eye? I’ll only be gone an hour.”“Of course,” he replied. “I will guard this home with my life.”He said it - not so much seriously , she thought, as simply, the way one would speak about the weather. He no doubt meant what he said, and the way he said it only made it more disturbing.It also made her think about why he’d lived in their home for months.“Let’s hope it won’t come to that,” she said. “Do you know how to use a phone?”“I can dial; I can’t text.”“Good enough. This is my number,” she handed him the note, “call me from the house phone at the first sign of trouble. All right?”“Yes.”“Excellent. And if the kids come home before I do, tell them I’m bringing pizza.”  “Don’t drop it. If that jar breaks, we’re all fried,” Claire said. It wasn’t the first time, either.Exasperated, Jim held the jar out to her. “Do you want to hold it?”They were walking back home after an extremely long day, following on the heels of a very long night. Frankly, none of them was fit to carry a glass jar containing two million volts, or however much it was that Aja had coaxed out of the power grid. Perhaps they’d do better giving the jar to Aja or Krel to hold - but he should’ve thought of that before they were practically home.“This is us,” Toby declared. “Want us to walk you home? Jim can light the way.”“It is completely unnecessary,” Krel said. “Our domicile is but a few blocks away.”Aja clasped her hands together. “Thank you for the tour. It was…”Somewhat familiar with Aja after the afternoon and evening spent together, Jim, Toby and Claire chorused: “Lively.”“I was going to say, ‘legal’,” Aja said, making air-quotes around the word legal. “And we’d like to thank you,” Claire said. “You really helped us out. You guys are out of this world.”“Precisely,” Krel said as he and his sister began to walk away.“Maybe we’ll see you this summer,” Jim called after that.Aja turned around. “Sure! Maybe at the ‘teen center’.”The three of them turned towards Jim’s house, and walked the rest of the way. The curtains were all drawn, Jim noticed. Maybe that shouldn’t have been surprising; there was at least one troll in the house, and one man in a suit of armor. Better to keep the curtains closed.Jim handed Claire the jar and pulled out his keys. “We’re home, Mom!” he called as he opened the door, then added: “Hi, Blinky! What are you doing?”Blinky was sitting at the dining table, surrounded by a variety of tools and ingredients.“Greetings to you too, Master Jim,” Blinky replied. “AAARRRGGHH!!! and I have but returned from our excursion. As to your question, I am preparing a salve for Draal. His injury appears to be contaminated. Thankfully, it also appears to be a slow-moving poison. I hope this salve will be enough; it’s the only recipe I am absolutely sure that I recall correctly.”“Where is Draal?” Toby asked.“Here,” came Draal’s voice, followed by heavy footsteps as he came down the stairs. “I was patrolling the perimeter.”Draal looked infinitely better than he had the night before, but Jim could see what Blinky had meant about the injury: it hadn’t closed at all, and its edges were a dark green. Still, better was better.“AAARRRGGHH!!! is in the garage,” Blinky said, perhaps anticipating the three children’s next question. “He seems to be Merlin’s favorite, other than Claire.”“Oh, come on, Blink--” Claire began to say, but the rest of them just looked at her and she shut up.“Do either of you know where my mom is?” Jim asked.“She left for groceries, and pizza,” Draal said. “She should return shortly.”“In the meantime, now that we are all here--” Blinky pushed himself up. “Let us go see what Merlin’s work has been this day. He would not show it to us until you returned.”“Yeah,” Jim said.“Definitely,” Claire added.“Awesomesauce,” Toby singsonged.Draal merely grunted.“Hi Merlin,” Jim said as he pushed the garage door open. “Got you the stuff you need-- my Vespa!” Jim’s Vespa, the parts of which Blinky had gotten him for his birthday, was nowhere to be found - and there on the workbench were a familiar engine block and wheel. “Guh! What did you just do? ” he demanded of Merlin, who, for his part, seemed disgustingly satisfied with himself.“Put it to much better use,” the old man replied. He pulled one of two sheets that were obviously covering something. “This one is for Tobias.”Under the sheet was a suit of armor, decidedly Toby-sized and Toby-shaped.“What? We get armor too?!” The joy in Toby’s voice was unmistakable. “I waited my whole life for this! So cool, so cool, so cool! Look how shiny it is! Oh my gosh, is that a shield? It’s totally a shield.”“And this one,” Merlin continued, pulling off the other sheet, “is for Lady Claire.”“Wow,” Claire breathed.The traitors.Still, armor. Armor was definitely good, when going up against trolls. If Merlin had to cannibalize Jim’s Vespa, at least it was for a purpose he could approve of. “That’s… surprisingly nice of you, Merlin,” he said.Blinky, on the other hand, didn’t seem happy at all. “Quick query: if we’ve been collecting items for a spell to thwart Gunmar, why would they require armor? ”Claire and Toby were already busy trying on their armor; Toby’s had a light mounted at the top of his helmet, which Merlin had somehow rendered functional despite not being connected to any power source that Jim could identify.“A spell?” Merlin asked. His voice had gone high and disapproving. “You thought we’d stop Gunmar without going to war? You have sand for brains.”“Wait,” Toby said. “A war? ”“Once freed, Morgana will attempt to bring forth the Eternal Night,” Merlin said. “We must prepare.”“It sounds like you’re saying you’re not going to stop Gunmar from freeing that witch,” Claire said.“Oh, did I not make myself clear?” Merlin said. “I’m not here to stop Gunmar. I’m here to kill Morgana.”Everyone seemed to speak at once.It was too much. Jim stepped back against the wall, and tried his best to ignore the fight. He couldn’t listen to this; he was too tired, too hungry, and on top of that, he’d just lost his Vespa. He really wanted his mom.“Silence!” Draal roared. “This is disgraceful,” he said into the silence that descended. “We will discuss this like warriors .” He turned to Merlin, his arms crossed on his chest.“Gunmar has the Staff of Avalon,” Merlin said. “Soon, he will find a way to free Morgana. This is when we will strike. Together, we will slay her before the Eternal Night starts.”“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Toby said. Clearly, the novelty of having armor made for him had already worn off. “I’m sorry, you want Jim to go up against Gunmar and Morgana?!”“Now is the time to strike,” Merlin countered. “She’s been imprisoned for centuries and she will be at her weakest. This is our best chance.”“Wait,” Claire said. She was angry, too. “If Jim kills Morgana, you get your magic back!”“That would be a pleasant bonus, yes,” Merlin shot back.“Oh, you only want your magic back,” Blinky hissed. “AAARRRGGHH!!!, my friend, put your fist through the old man’s face.”AAARRRGGHH!!!, though, shook his head. “Old man makes sense,” he said. “Stop witch forever. Also,” he added, sounding thoughtful - and wasn’t this more words at once than Jim had ever heard from him, “Trollhunter s . Plural.”“Now what nonsense is that? There is but one amulet, and therefore but one Trollhunter,” Merlin said.“Not anymore,” Draal said. “Jim won’t go up against Gunmar and Morgana alone.”AAARRRGGHH!!! growled his assent.“I’m with Blinky,” Toby said. “It sounds like Merlin just wants his magic back.”“What if he’s right?” Claire asked. “He’s been right about everything else.”“Uh, Claire?” Toby said. He was getting angrier by the second. “Gunmar and Morgana want to destroy the world.” He turned around to face Merlin. “We live in this world!”“This world is protected by the Trollhunter,” Merlin said. Clearly he’d missed the memo. “The choice is his to make.”Everyone turned to look at Jim, who, for his part, was still trying to disappear into the wall and wishing his mother was home. How had he made it through eight months of this without her?“AAARRRGGHH!!! and Draal are right,” he said, then had to lift his hands in a silent request for quiet. A growl from AAARRRGGHH!!! put the room to order. “Not about the strategy. I need to think about that. But about it being Trollhunter s , plural. I don’t fight alone,” he continued, looking Merlin straight in the eye. “It worked out so far.”“And the one time--” Claire began, then stopped.The silence in the room changed. They all knew - all of them but Merlin, who hadn’t been there - what Claire had meant: the one time Jim had gone at things alone, he’d been captured in the Darklands. Yet - and that was the reason for the stifling quiet - the team effort to free him was what had let Gunmar into this world.“Yes?” Merlin asked.“I need to think about it,” Jim repeated. “In the meantime, we all have things we need to do. Even if that thing is sleep.” He, Toby and Claire were going on 40 hours without sleep. It was no state to make decisions in.“Master Jim is right,” Blinky said after a moment. “Whatever you choose,” he continued, addressing Jim, “if we are to fight, we’ll need an army. AAARRRGGHH!!! and I will see what we can do, as soon as I am done with the salve for Draal.” He pushed past the rest of them and left the garage for his improvised workbench at the dining table. AAARRRGGHH!!! followed him. Draal was next to leave.“You okay to ride home?” Jim asked Claire.“No one is safe to ride in this blackout,” she replied. “I think I’ll call my parents for a ride.”“Good call,” Jim agreed.“Lucky me, I live next door,” Toby said with cheerful brittleness. He headed for the door. “See you guys tomorrow!”Claire looked between Merlin and him, then left.“Why me?” Jim asked once the door closed after her. He sounded exactly the way he felt: bone-deep tired, and very much alone.Merlin sighed. “Your heart,” he admitted. “I once had a heart as pure as yours, I believe.”“It must’ve been a long time ago,” Jim said after a long moment.“It was,” Merlin agreed. “Nevertheless, my amulet chose you, and now you must choose how to wage war. Your-- team will follow you on whichever path you may choose, I believe. Choose wisely, Trollhunter.”And with that, he left too.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Jim woke with a start. He’d fallen asleep on the couch; it was daylight already, and someone was banging on the front door. “I’m coming, I’m coming!” he called out. Hopefully the grogginess would leave his voice once he’d been awake for more than a few seconds.The person banging on the door turned out to be Toby. “Are you all right?” he asked before Jim could say anything. “You weren’t answering on the radio.”“Yeah, I was asleep. What time is it?”“Too late for school,” Toby replied cheerfully. “Nana and Claire’s dad called us both in sick today.”“Well, my mom can - wait.” The night before, he’d fallen asleep on the couch waiting on his mom. Would she have woken him when she got back? Probably; Draal had said something about pizza. This made no sense. “Just a minute,” he told Toby, and went upstairs.Then he came back running. “My mom isn’t home,” he told Toby as he hurried to the kitchen, just to make sure. “No groceries. Definitely no pizza.”“That doesn’t sound right.”“No, it doesn’t.”“You think Draal…?”“Let me check.”Jim carefully opened the basement door and took a few steps down, just until he could see in well enough. Then he climbed back out and shut the door as quietly. “He’s asleep again. And it’s kind of hard to tell, but I think Blinky’s salve isn’t working.”“Uh-oh. This is even worse.” Toby paused. “Wait, where’s--”“Merlin? Ugh. Let me check.” He went over to the garage and opened the door. There, asleep on two lawn-chair cushions pushed together, was Merlin. Jim closed the door and returned to Toby. “He’s roughing it out in there.”“Okay. You try the hospital, I’ll try her cell, and - hey, Claire’ll be here in a few! Maybe she can portal-jump to your mom.”“Yeah, let’s do that.”As it turned out, though, his mom wasn’t at the hospital: neither on shift, nor admitted as a patient. There was only one hospital in Arcadia; Jim and Toby had nothing to do but wait on Claire while Jim forced himself to have some breakfast. He was almost too worried to eat, but he didn’t like the idea of going to battle on an empty stomach, either.Claire’s arrival, ten minutes later, was announced by frantic knocking and her crying out: “Jim, Jim, open up!”Jim was only halfway through his toast. He was pretty sure that if he got up, he’d lose any chance of finishing it. “Toby, can you--”“Sure thing!” He went over to the door. No sooner did he open it than he yelped: “Oh my gosh!”“That doesn’t sound like a good ‘oh my gosh’!” Jim called back.It was Claire who replied: “Nomura’s here and she’s injured!”“There’s blood on the rug and it’s purple!” Toby added.Nomura was there and bleeding out…? Jim gave up on breakfast. Sure enough, Nomura was sitting on the floor by the stairs. She was bleeding from a cut on her face, her dress was stained with a darker purple, and one of her shoulders looked all wrong. Claire and Toby were both hovering over her.“Usurna tried to capture me at the museum,” Nomura said, not waiting for Jim to ask what had happened. “They chased me all night. Gunmar needs a changeling to activate the Staff of Avalon.”“So he found a way around my safeguard,” came Merlin’s voice from down the hall.Jim startled; there was Merlin coming over from the garage. The racket must’ve woken him up.“He needs human hands who can speak the troll tongue,” Merlin continued. “If they failed to take her, they’ll look for others.”“I bet Gunmar’s sorry for what he did to the Janus Order now,” Toby said.Nomura looked at him sharply. “What did he do?”Jim, Toby and Claire exchanged looks; some of those changelings must’ve been Nomura’s friends, or as close to that as changelings had.It was Claire who spoke. “He and his Gumm-Gumms ate them all. We found their remains yesterday.”Nomura stared at her for a long moment. Then, she asked: “Where’s Strickler?”Jim pulled his phone out of his pocket, pulled up Strickler’s number and called. A moment later he was forced to report: “Goes straight to voicemail.”“NotEnrique’s fine,” Claire reported; she too, had her phone out, and had apparently called her parents.“Of course he’s fine, he can’t change into a human form anymore,” Toby shot at her.She glared at him.For a few moments, everything was silent. Then Toby asked: “Uh, Nomura? Your shoulder, it looks…” He swallowed. “Is it falling out?”Nomura gave him a scathing look, then pushed her shoulder back in place. “There’s no stopping Gunmar now. I’d best get ready to fight,” she said.“What do you need?” Jim asked.“Just rest.”It only took him a split-second to decide and tell her: “Go upstairs, take my room. There’s towels in the cupboard under the bathroom sink if you want to shower.”She nodded, then pushed herself up and limped up the stairs.“She looks pretty banged up,” Claire said, worried, once they heard the click of a closing door from upstairs.“Fear not; changelings heal marvelously,” Merlin assured her.“Hey, how are you with troll healing?” Jim asked suddenly. “Because Draal’s injury is getting kind of bad.”Merlin shook his head before Jim was even done talking. “Unfortunately, healing has never been my forte. And after the effort I expended last night, given the current state of my magic…” He spread his arms.“I have an idea,” Claire said. She pulled the Shadow Staff out of her bag and cast a portal. “See you guys later!” And with that, she was gone.“Jim,” Toby said. He sounded uncharacteristically hesitant. “You don’t think… Strickler and your mom…”For a moment, it made no sense. Then Jim realized what Toby was getting at: Strickler fancied his mom. That was old news. The two had even sort of dated for a while, before Strickler had to flee town with Angor Rot on his heels. Strickler had explicitly admitted he still had feelings for her when under the influence of the grave dust coffee. If Gunmar had somehow found out about that--“You think he took them both,” Jim said slowly.“It’s what I’d’ve done, if I was an evil warlord trying to take over the world, yeah.” Toby still sounded nervous. “Maybe we can go look for her car, maybe we’ll find something there?”Jim hesitated. He wanted to go looking for his mom - that was the only thing he wanted to do in that moment, but--“You go,” he said heavily. “I can’t leave Draal and Nomura like this.”Toby bit his lip, nodded, and left.Jim and Merlin were left alone. Jim looked at the old wizard, and sighed. “Breakfast?”“Where do you keep your fresh haggis?”  Once again, a tear in the universe opened up, and Morgana’s child stepped through. This time, though, her eyes had human white in them and no telltale amber fire.How had she even found him, if she was not guided by Morgana? It was near-impossible to open a portal without being able to clearly visualize where one was going, or without a sufficient emotional connection to the person to whom one was aiming. He doubted that she had aimed for the tunnel he was presently in, and only found him by accident. But the idea that, in her mind, they had enough of a relationship that she could use him as an emotional anchor… It was preposterous. And yet, there she was.“What do you want?” Angor asked. He did not bother to sound anything other than blunt.“We need your help,” she said.Of course they did; though it took less time than he thought it would. Had the old wizard installed no safeguard on that Staff of his, that the Eternal Night was already afoot?“Is it time to fight yet?” he asked.The Child shook her head. “No, it’s something else.” She hesitated for an almost imperceptible moment, then asked: “How are you with healing?”With healing? Of all the magical tasks they could have asked for his help in, healing was at the very bottom of the list of things he had thought they might ask. Were they that foolish, that desperate, or both?“Human healing?” he asked. The question was something of a play for time. He strongly doubted that was what they needed his help in - it should have been obvious that he had no experience in that field, and the Child was calm and did not appear as if she were so desperate as to ask him even knowing that.“No - troll healing,” she replied. “Draal is injured. Gunmar got him. It didn’t seem serious at first, but - it’s getting worse. Blinky made him some sort of salve, but it doesn’t seem to be helping.”Of course it was getting worse. Gunmar had been born from a rotten Heartstone; consequently, anything he touched would become infected and rot. It was also unsurprising that whatever salve Blinkous Galadrigal had concocted didn’t take. To heal this injury would take knowledge of darker magic, as well as more ordinary healing practices. It was, in fact, entirely possible that even Merlin lacked the relevant knowledge. Once he might have been able to brute-force it, but in his depleted state that was - evidently - no longer true.Draal, that was the one that Gunmar had used for a thrall. Gunmar had used him hard; it spoke to his stamina that it took more than a day since his injury for its severity to manifest. Could he help? He could. But did he want to? He could perhaps still recover his relationship with the Lady if he betrayed her enemies in the middle of battle. But to have assisted in healing one of them - this would be as profound a step as turning on Gunmar had been. And if he assumed his status in the eyes of the Lady was already lost, what then? Did that make a difference to what he wanted?“Can you help?” the Child asked, tentative.The answer, he realized, was in the question itself: it mattered not to the Lady what he wanted. That he was even asking this question, what did he want, spelled that he would not be able to recover his status in the Lady’s eyes; that was already lost to him. And if he accepted that, if he truly did, then the best thing he could do towards his continued survival was to help the Lady’s enemies as best he knew how.Besides - he knew what he wanted: the same emotion that had seized him when Gunmar had told Draal, this is your leash , that emotion rose within him again. It was only fear that was stopping him.He was Angor Rot. Since when did he succumb to fear?“Yes,” he told the Child. “I can.”  Nomura was in the shower and Jim was in the kitchen when Claire’s telltale portal opened up in the living room. He’d found some leftover meatloaf and heated that up in the microwave for the hungry wizard; the actual oven he used for a tray of potatoes baked in cream. He also pulled a tub of chicken broth from the freezer and was in the process of thawing that on the stove. Changeling healing may be miraculous , but Jim had little doubt that Nomura would be starving, as soon as she could afford to pay attention to that. Changelings were part troll and part human, and both species needed to eat to recover their strength.So Jim was in the kitchen, desperately distracting himself from his mother being missing , most likely kidnapped by Gunmar , when a portal opened up in the living room and out stepped Claire - and Angor Rot.“Huh. Clever idea,” Merlin said. “Hello again.”For his part, Jim was working through his complex reactions to Angor Rot’s presence. On the one hand, Merlin was right: the witch-assassin was their best shot at healing Draal. On the other, his instinctive response to the troll was still to duck and hide.Then he realized what Merlin had said.“Wait,” Jim said, “what do you know about Angor Rot?”“I know Morgana chose him for her champion,” Merlin replied. “I foresaw him fighting by Gunmar’s side but then again, I also thought you would be older.” He shrugged. “Whatever you did to win him for our side, I must applaud you.”“I didn’t do anything,” Jim replied.Merlin’s only response was another, “Huh.”“Where is the injured troll?” Angor asked. He sounded distinctly impatient.Yeah, Jim didn’t actually expect his temper to have improved any. “Sleeping downstairs,” he replied.“Fetch him.” Angor crossed his arms. “I will wait.”Jim made eye contact with Claire, then left the stove and went to the basement.“Draal?” he called once he was halfway down the stairs. “Draal?”It took a few more attempts - and a significantly raised voice - to rouse Draal. “Trollhunter?” he asked. He didn’t sound too good - but then again, perhaps he was still groggy. Jim knew very little about troll sleep.“How are you feeling?” Jim asked.“Not good,” came the slow reply. Draal dragged himself first to sitting, then to standing. “How long have I been asleep?”“Overnight,” Jim replied. “Can you come upstairs? There’s someone here who might be able to help you.”Draal moved carefully - too carefully - as he walked across the basement over to the stairs. “Not Merlin?”“No, he says healing isn’t his thing.” Jim hesitated. He had no idea how Draal would react - but then again, he thought ruefully, that was only reason to get that out of the way ASAP. “It’s Angor Rot.”“Angor Rot?” Suddenly Draal sounded entirely awake, and Jim had no doubt that his voice carried over to upstairs. “Are you pulling my leg, Trollhunter?”“Nope. He’s what we got, and,” now that they had enough light Jim could properly see Draal’s injury, “you definitely need the help, buddy.” The green infection had spread; moreover, the edges of the injury seemed to have pulled farther apart.Draal looked down at himself. “I still don’t like it,” he said after a moment.By then, they were already upstairs.Claire had moved to the kitchen, and was stirring the soup. Her shoulders were set in a way that made Jim think she was making a point about something. Angor Rot and Merlin were both standing where they were before; Angor even had his arms still crossed. Something seemed to pass over his face when he saw them, though. Jim couldn’t read what that meant.“Untreated, this infection will kill you within the week,” he said, bluntly. “By tomorrow you will not have the strength to fight.”“I’ll take my chances,” Draal replied stonily.“Uh…” Jim said.In the kitchen, Claire left the soup and came over to watch.“With him, I mean,” Draal elaborated, waving his arm in Angor Rot’s direction. “I don’t need to be told to know that I am… not recovering.”Angor nodded sharply. “I will need room to work. Where others are not stepping through at any moment.”“Which has more space, the garage or the basement?” Merlin asked. “Today I will need the kitchen.”“ After I’m through making food,” Jim said firmly.“I don’t know what is a ‘garage’,” Angor said, “but my understanding is that the basement is underground. Underground would be preferable.”“Back to the basement it is,” Jim said.Draal grunted his assent, and turned around to return to the basement.“Draal…” Jim touched his arm, hesitated. “Will you be all right?”Draal glanced back at Angor, then said: “I better be.”  Nomura came downstairs a few moments later. She was wearing borrowed clothes, Dr. Lake’s t-shirt and sweats. The clothes were too big for her, and made her look fragile. That was evidently not true: she was no longer limping, and the cut across her cheekbone had healed completely.Then again, these were her minor injuries; Claire remembered how her dress had been stained with blood.“I smell food,” she said, then: “What am I hearing?”“Angor Rot healing Draal,” Claire said, at the same time that Jim said: “You can have soup; the gratin isn’t ready yet.”Nomura’s expression froze. “Angor Rot?” she demanded. “Are you insane?”“Uh, didn’t Strickler mention?” Jim said nervously. “He’s kind of on our side now.”“He mentioned it, but I didn’t believe it,” she said, finally coming over. “I still don’t. The soup smells good,” she added as an afterthought.“Sit down, I’ll get you a bowl,” Jim said.“Can I use the kitchen now?” Merlin asked.“Do you need the oven?”“No, just the stove.”“Then yeah, you can use the kitchen.” Jim handed Claire a bowl, a spoon and a trivet, and lifted the pot off the stove. By the time he maneuvered it to the dining table Claire had set up the place and the trivet.Then, her phone rang.“It’s Toby!” she cried out, and hit accept. “Hi Toby!”“I found Dr. L’s car,” he said. “It’s at the parking lot at the nearest supermarket, just like I thought. But there’s no signs of struggle, no anything.”“Okay,” Claire said cautiously. She didn’t want to say That’s not good where Jim could hear; he looked like he wanted to wrench the phone out of her hand as it was. “What are you thinking?”“I’m thinking Gumm-Gumms are basically magic, right? Evil magic. And nowadays, you can do magic. Think you could track a Gumm-Gumm?”The idea startled her. Both Morgana and Merlin had commented on her strength, but all she’d done so far was summon the Shadow Staff to her. Could she do more? Probably. But did she know how to do this?Yes, Claire realized. Yes, she could: all Gumm-Gumms carried a trace of Gunmar’s power with them, and Claire knew what that power tasted like. She could probably track a Gumm-Gumm, if she tried. Perhaps not the Krubera who were associated with them, but--“Yeah, I think so,” she said. “Text me the address, I’ll be there in a few.”“Awesome.”“Toby found your mom’s car,” she told Jim once she disconnected the call. “I’m going to go over there to check for Gumm-Gumm traces.”“Great, I’ll come with you.”Nomura turned her head. Merlin tensed.In a flash of insight, Claire understood what that was about. There were two ways to do that, she knew: she could let Merlin and Nomura do it, or she could do it herself. Which would hurt Jim less? Merlin suddenly moved like a man of war; that did not bode well. Nomura certainly wasn’t one to pull punches. But if Claire did this, wouldn’t it feel like betrayal?No. She cared about Jim too much - she loved Jim - and she would not let this come to him from people who didn’t understand. “Can I talk to you for a minute?” she said. “Upstairs.”“Sure.”“You can’t come with Toby and me,” she said once the door to Jim’s room closed behind them. Was this really the first time she was in Jim’s room? She couldn’t afford to pay attention to the room, though, no matter how much she wanted to; all her focus was on Jim.“What?! Claire, she’s my mom, I can’t--”“No, listen to me.” She took a deep breath. “Draal and Nomura are going to need you here. You’re the one whose life Nomura saved. And we all heard what Draal and Gunmar said to each other in the crystal cave - it’s more than a fair bet that Gunmar did what he had to Draal instead of just kill him because of his relationship with you.” This was the argument she hoped would catch. But in case it didn’t, Claire had another one lined up. “That’s one thing. The other thing is that we’re a team, Jim, but there’s only one Eclipse Blade, and only one of us who can wield it. There’s going to be a really big battle soon. It’s one thing if Toby and I aren’t, but we can’t afford you not being fresh. We just can’t.”At least one argument connected. She could tell. Still, Jim said: “Claire, she’s my mom .”What was it like, she wondered, to have the relationship that Jim did with his mom? To have things be this uncomplicated, this simple and clear at the root? Then again, she thought, just because she didn’t have this kind of relationship with her mom, didn’t mean that she didn’t understand this kind of love. She softened her voice as much as she could. “You once made me a promise. And you kept your word. Now it’s my turn to make you a promise: we’re going to bring your mom back. We will. But we need you here.”Jim shook his head. “This isn’t fair,” he said.She could tell by his voice that he was close to capitulating, though. “Life isn’t fair,” she countered. “It’s just fairer than…”“...death? Did you just quote The Princess Bride on me?”“Did it work?”“Yes,” he admitted after a moment. “I hate this, but - okay.”  By the time Angor Rot emerged from the basement, it was already afternoon.“He will live,” he pronounced, not waiting for Jim to ask; Merlin and Jim were sharing the kitchen, as Jim needed something to do but fret. “The injury had been cleansed. That salve will hasten the healing now.”“Thank you,” Jim said, and then, because the healing work had taken Angor the better part of the day: “Are you all right?”Angor seemed taken aback by the question. Somehow, it was unsurprising that he retorted with: “Do you care, Hunter?” But the tone with which he asked that wasn’t the same tone with which he’d asked that before. That tone had been scathing, vicious; this was soft, wondering almost.This time, too, Jim was prepared with a response. “I do,” he replied. He hesitated, then replied: “It’s what I’m for.”Merlin had handed him most pieces of this puzzle, but it was what Claire had said that put it all together for Jim. The amulet had chosen him; it didn’t choose a troll, and not just because fighting changelings required an immunity to sunlight. It chose Jim because of his heart . Kindness and compassion didn’t come easily to trolls; they didn’t come easily to humans either - the world was filled with proof of that - but moreso for trolls. Much more. Jim, though - this was what he did: his best preparation for the role of Trollhunter hadn’t been his chef knife skills but rather the duties of care that he’d assumed, since middle school or even earlier than that.Kindness came hard for trolls, but they needed it as much as any human: Jim’s proof for that was Draal and Nomura, both presently asleep under Jim’s roof. That made it easy for Jim to look Angor Rot in the eye, and mean it when he asked, Are you all right? “I am well enough,” Angor eventually replied. “I will require some nourishment, and some rest, but the effort has not been too great.”“We have--”Angor shook his head. “Save that for those who cannot forage for themselves.”“Thank you,” Jim said. “For everything.”Angor looked at him for a long moment. Eventually, he said: “You had better win. Because if Morgana triumphs, She will take all of this away. I will leave now,” he said as he turned back towards the basement, where the entrance to the tunnels was. “I will see you at the final battle, Hunter.”Jim stared after him well after he was gone.“That was an interesting response,” Merlin said.Jim startled and turned towards him. “Huh?”“That caring is what you’re for,” Merlin replied. “That is not the answer I would have expected.”“You told me the amulet chose me because of my heart.”“Yes, I suppose I did.” Merlin sighed. “What if I were to tell you, that your heart is not enough? That the Eclipse Blade, in and of itself, is not enough to defeat Gunmar?”Jim walked back into the kitchen as Merlin spoke, eventually coming to stand besides him at the stove.He looked at the potion Merlin was stirring in the pasta pot. “You told Blinky this was not for thwarting Gunmar.”“It isn’t,” Merlin replied.“Then what is it for?”Merlin met his eyes seriously. “To turn you into a troll.”“ What? ”“Actually half-troll. Consider this recipe my way of evening the odds. In my rest, I saw a way to finally end this stalemate. To win this war, I must have a champion with a foot in both worlds.”Jim looked at the thick brown slosh in the pot. “I’m not drinking that.”“Oh, you won’t be consuming it.” Merlin said. He turned the stove off and poured the slosh into the blender. Once he turned the blender on, the slosh turned from a dark brown to glowing green within seconds.“You already went up against Gunmar,” Merlin continued. “How do you think that will go when he means to kill you?”Gunmar had gone through Draal as if he were nothing, and Jim knew what Draal could do. Jim’s odds going up against Gunmar were like his odds going up against Bular, his first day as a Trollhunter - or worse.And that was before he considered Morgana.Merlin stopped the blender and poured the potion into the lightning jar. “You must pour the elixir into water, submerged yourself in said water, and - presto, you will be born anew.”“I thought you said I had a choice!”“Not a choice whether to fight, but how to fight. The amulet chose you to become the first human Trollhunter, but you were never destined to remain so. To protect the world you love, to be the champion for both humans and trolls, you need to be more than human.”Jim looked at the potion, which was now pulsing steadily, like a heartbeat. “How long would I be like this?”Merlin looked down before looking up again. “Alas, there is no going back. Part of you will remain Jim, but the other part will be changed forever.” One hit , Blinky had said: One hit, and you’ll be changed forever. Bile rose in Jim’s throat.“James, I know this is the greatest call anyone has ever asked of you,” Merlin continued. “If you really want to save your mother, your friends, this world you call home--”“You’re asking me to leave it all behind.” He’d fought so hard, over the past year - not just to survive each battle, but to remain in school, to not be held back a year. Being the Trollhunter was everything Jim had been yearning for and hadn’t even fully realized, but the other part of his life - that mattered, too. Merlin was asking him to be nothing but the Trollhunter, and that--“I said the choice was yours,” Merlin said quietly. Her gestured towards the potion. “And there it lies. This is a choice.”And with that, he left the kitchen, leaving Jim alone with the glowing potion, and his torn heart.  In the end, they found Dr. Lake and Strickler by sheer luck: they were just passing above the canal when a flash of light from below drew their attention - a light which turned out to be the two adults emerging from Trollmarket, followed by two Gumm-Gumms who - mercifully - turned to stone in the fading daylight.Morgana was free, Strickler said.Jim wasn’t answering the phone, either his cell or the landline.The two adults took a cab; she and Toby pedalled as fast as they could. Claire was so worried that it only occurred to her that Toby was keeping up with her, for once, after they arrived at the Lake house, almost at the same time that Dr. Lake and Strickler did.The curtains were still drawn. The house was quiet. Claire couldn’t sense any trace of Gumm-Gumm energy around the place - and besides, the sun only just touched on the horizon; it was too early for trolls to be on the streets.Inside, they found Merlin standing in the living room and starting at the TV - or perhaps, staring through it: his forehead was furrowed with thought.“Where’s Jim?” Dr. Lake demanded.Merlin turned to look at her. Claire didn’t like the expression he was wearing. It was dark and stormy, as harsh and unyielding as the Darklands had been.“Finally becoming a troll Trollhunter,” he said.Claire hadn’t expected Strickler to be the first one of them to find words, or for those words to be: “You would never--”There was a thud upstairs.“Jim!” his mom cried out, and ran upstairs.The rest of them followed her.The bathroom door was closed.Jim’s mom pounded on the door. “Jim! Are you in there?”There was no reply.“Jim. Jim!” Barbara continued to pound on the door. “What’s happening? Please, let us in! Are you okay?”Toby joined her. “Jimbo! Come on, Jimbo, we’re a team, don’t do this!” His voice broke on the last few words.“Jim!” Claire’s throat, too, was constricted. “They freed Morgana!”There was still no reply, no sound from inside.Gently, Strickler put his hands on Jim’s mom’s shoulder and moved her from the door. “Young Atlas, you are not alone!” he cried out as he twisted the knob, trying to force the door open. “Don’t do this. Open the door!” He let go of the knob and rammed his shoulder into the door, then again. And again.Eventually, the lock gave.Jim’s mom pushed to the front of the pack. “Jim! Jim?”The bathtub was full. In the water, a black stain was slowly shrinking, disappearing.Troll or human, Jim was nowhere to be found.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

“ What is this racket? ” Nomura demanded as she emerged from Jim’s bedroom.“Merlin,” Toby spat out. He and Claire were the only ones by the bathroom door - Jim’s mom had run downstairs, Strickler close on her heels. Her and Merlin’s voices could be heard from below, shouting at each other.“He did something to Jim and now Jim is gone!” Claire said.“ What? ” Suddenly, Nomura seemed that much more awake. She ran the short distance over to where Toby and Claire were standing and pushed them out of the doorway to look inside.The bathwater had gone completely clear.“What is the meaning of this?” Nomura demanded.“He said he was turning Jim into a troll and Jim was in here but by the time we got the door open--” Claire lifted her hands helplessly.Nomura stared at them for another moment, then went downstairs.Claire and Toby followed. By the time they joined the others in the kitchen, Nomura had shouldered her way between Merlin and Jim’s mom - who had acquired a broom along the way. Strickler was trying and failing to hold her back; his effort seemed half-hearted.“Where is the Trollhunter?” Nomura spat.“What did you do to my son!” Jim’s mom shouted. It seemed there were tears in her eyes.There was the bang of a door being opened too forcefully, and Draal’s voice demanded: “ What in Deya’s name is going on? ”Seconds later he, too, entered the kitchen. Claire stared: the cut across his chest was clean, and had closed so that it was little more than a scratch. Angor Rot had done his job well, better than Claire had even hoped.This time, it was Toby who explained, or tried to. “ Merlin said he turned Jim into a troll but Jim was in the bathroom and now he isn’t anywhere. ”Merlin raised a finger. “He is, in fact, somewhere. It’s just that until the transformation is complete, that ‘somewhere’ is the Void.”The Void. That meant Claire couldn’t portal to him - a hope she didn’t realize she had until it was taken from her.Draal roared and slammed Merlin against the wall. “The Void is for the dead!”“Not only for the dead,” Merlin said. His gaze as he looked at Draal was shrewd. “You would know.”Draal roared again, but let him go.“ Why would you do that to him?” Strickler demanded.“To prepare him for the fight against Gunmar,” Merlin replied as if it were obvious. “Half-troll, full hunter.”“Wait,” Claire said. “ Half troll?”Merlin nodded curtly. “And half human. But which half is which - that is being determined as we speak.”Jim’s mom launched again with the broom. Strickler seemed to have given up on restraining her; he, too, seemed livid.“You’re worse than Gunmar,” Toby spat. “He at least doesn’t pretend to care!”“I do care,” Merlin replied far too calmly. He was dodging Jim’s mom’s broom, his hands clasped behind his back. “I just see the bigger picture.”“You realize that’s a villain line, right?” Toby said. “The ‘bigger picture’ is made up of little people. ”Nomura twisted Jim’s mom’s arm and released the broom from her hand. “This isn’t helping,” she nearly growled.Toby turned on her. “Oh, because you have a better idea?”“Yes,” she snapped. “We need to prepare to fight Gunmar, not fight among ourselves.”“And how do you propose we do that?” Toby snapped back.Suddenly, Claire was no longer angry; just weary, scared and a little bit sad. “We eat.” She took a deep breath. “We regain our strength. It’s what Jim would’ve wanted us to do.” Now that she said it, she finally noticed that she hadn’t eaten since breakfast. Suddenly shaking, she pulled herself a chair and sat down.It was going to be a long night.  It seemed that Jim had spent the entire day cooking; it turned out that there was enough human food in the fridge to feed both the three humans and the two changelings without the need to resort to ‘pizza’, whatever that was. The wizard hadn’t been fed; no one had wanted to even look at him. Eventually, he retired himself to the garage.By the time they’d finished eating, Toby and Claire were both showing their exhaustion. Barbara set up for them something she called ‘sleeping bags’ in Jim’s room. As for Strickler, he’d put on tea; he and Barbara were sitting in the kitchen, talking quietly. As for Nomura and him, they were both too restless to do anything but patrol: her outside in the yard, and Draal - inside the house.He was just passing by the living room again when the front door opened and Nomura showed up in the open doorway, supporting a strange troll. “He’s here!” she said.The strange troll fell to the floor with a thud and a rattle of armor. Draal stared: the armor was the Trollhunter’s armor, and the face was Jim’s face.It was the Trollhunter. Merlin hadn’t lied: he looked like a troll - well, almost - but it was, nevertheless, him. There was the sound of human feet running, and Barbara pushed herself past Draal to kneel by her son. “Jim? Jim!”“He’s unconscious,” Strickler said.That or asleep, but it made little difference.Barbara looked up at Draal. “Can you put him on the couch?”“Of course.”She moved out of the way, and Draal bent down to pick Jim up.His proportions weren’t quite trollish, Draal realized on the short trip to the couch: his shoulders were not heavy enough, his arms not quite long enough, and one of his hands had the human five fingers instead of the trollish four. He didn’t quite weigh enough to be made entirely of stone, either; some parts of him must still be flesh, underneath the trollish hide.Draal did not realize that he was stuck in place, staring, until something small and warm touched his side. He looked down, startled, and found Toby and Claire; apparently they were no longer asleep, if they even had been. Claire was attempting to hug Draal’s waist, which was what he’d felt. Her other hand was grasping Toby’s, who seemed to be nearly in tears.Draal put his arm over both children.Their voices drew Merlin out of the garage. That may have been a mistake on the wizard’s part; it put new fire into Barbara, and once again Strickler had to restrain her from hitting the old man.Draal was keeping an eye on the situation from the living room. That was how he happened to see the kitchen door open with a bang to reveal AAARRRGGHH!!!. Then Blinky pushed AAARRRGGHH!!! out of the way, and stepped inside.“Tell me what you gave my son, or heaven help me--”Strickler gave up and let go of Barbara.“A concoction you won’t find in your medical books,” Merlin replied, neatly dodging Barbara’s - surprisingly trained-looking - strikes. “I promise you.”“Promise? Promise?! You promised to help Jim!”“What has happened?” Blinky demanded.Barbara barely glanced at him. “Ask the wizard.”The Trollhunter stirred.“Uh, guys?” Claire said nervously. “He’s waking up.”Strickler and Barbara shared a look, then Strickler motioned Blinky towards the living room.The front door clicked. When Draal looked, he saw Nomura had come inside; she’d probably heard Claire.They stepped aside to let Blinky see.The Trollhunter, who was lying on his side, turned on his back. He opened his eyes, which - it turned out - were still a very human blue.“Great grumbly gruesome,” Blinky whispered.The Trollhunter sat up, holding his head with his one hand as if it hurt.His mother sat down next to him. “Honey, do you feel… okay?”“He’s fine,” Merlin called out from the dining room; it seemed everyone turned to glare at him.“I’m not asking you,” Blinky snapped.“Hi,” the Trollhunter told his mom. “I’m fine.” Then, though, he caught sight of his ungloved right hand - which had trollish four fingers rather than human five - and promptly jolted and stood on the couch. “What’s wrong with my hand?”“Nothing’s wrong with your hand, it’s just a little…meatier,” Claire said.“In a good way!” Toby added hastily. “It’s like you… levelled up!”AAARRRGGHH!!!, for his part, was doing his best to shrink back and hide behind one of the walls. “No like. No like troll Jim.”That made Draal wonder how he felt about the change. So far, he’d had no time to think about that - he had been more concerned with things that needed being dealt with. Now, though...  “My elixir turned the Trollhunter into something not quite human and not quite troll,” Merlin said.“Like a changeling?” Toby asked.Meanwhile, the Trollhunter came down from the couch.“No,” Nomura said, shaking her head resolutely.“Changelings switch from fully troll to fully human,” Strickler elaborated. He’d come over to inspect Jim up close. “Jim is… neither.”The Trollhunter hopped over to the kitchen; he, Toby and Claire began a discussion about his physical appearance. Draal tuned them out. The way the Trollhunter had just moved from the living room to the kitchen - that was new. His agility was, clearly, greatly improved - now combining human nimbleness with troll strength. This alone would make the Trollhunter that much deadlier in battle.The question was, what else that was trollish could he now do.Minutes later found them in the yard.“Now, we don’t know the limits of Master Jim’s new form,” Blinky cautioned them. “Let’s try to take this slowly.”Draal slapped Jim’s shoulder as he would’ve another troll’s, not bothering to check his strength. The Trollhunter didn’t even budge. That made AAARRRGGHH!!! - who had meanwhile changed his mind about the Trollhunter’s new state and was hopping excitedly across the yard - come over and hit the Trollhunter with his full strength.The blow sent the Trollhunter flying through the fence. A moment later, though, his head popped up from the bushes, broken branches in his hair. “I didn’t feel a thing!” he proclaimed. He ran and leaped, actually knocking AAARRRGGHH!!! on his back.Outstanding: the Trollhunter’s small-for-a-troll frame had strength to match a fully grown, fully trained Krubera.The three of them roughed each other up until Blinky called for a halt, and put the Trollhunter against Claire instead. The two of them quickly switched from running on the ground to running between branches, Claire putting her Staff to full use - and still failing to land a blow on their Trollhunter.Eventually they ran far enough that their voices couldn’t be heard.Claire returned a while later, upset. “He didn’t come back?” she asked.“We thought he was with you!” Toby replied.“He was so fast, I lost track of him. And I can’t find him with the Staff - it’s like it doesn’t recognize him, anymore.”“You can’t find Jim because there is no Jim,” Merlin said. “At least, not the one you knew. Don’t worry, though; I doubt there’s anything out there that can hurt him now.”“It’s almost sunrise!” Claire yelled at him.It was now Draal who had to hold Blinky back from beating the wizard.“Exactly!” Merlin replied, clearly missing the point. “Gumm-Gumms will remain safely ensconced within Trollmarket.”“The sunlight can hurt him, you imbecile!” Blinky shouted.“Brother? What is going on?”Draal turned around, saw Dictatious next to an old human lady, and pounced.“Nana!” Toby cried out.“No, Draal, it’s okay!” That was Claire’s voice. “He’s on our side now.”“Please, get off of me?” said the blind troll.Draal growled, gave him another shake for good measure, and let Dictatious return to his feet.“Don’t you remember seeing him in Jim’s house when we returned from Merlin’s Tomb?” Claire asked.“I only remember parts of that night,” Draal admitted. “I was…”“Injured, exhausted and generally messed up,” Toby said. “It’s all right, we get it.”It didn’t feel all right, though.“Let’s get this party back indoors,” Nomura said, “before the other neighbours notice.”  The basement door had been left open. “The quakes are coming from Trollmarket,” Angor announced as he ducked to pass through it. “Or have you not noticed?”“We noticed,” Strickler said. He was sitting by the big table with some steaming human beverage and a large stack of thin papers. He appeared to be the only one there. “More specifically, Merlin says that the quakes are coming from Morgana.”“You were going to invite me to battle, weren’t you?”“Merlin also thinks that whatever Morgana is doing, she’s only just begun,” Strickler continued. “He estimates we have at least one more day.” He paused, then added: “Which is a good thing, because we seem to have misplaced our Trollhunter.”“How can you misplace a Trollhunter?”Strickler sighed. “Sit down. This will be a long story.”Angor looked around: all that was available was puny human furniture, or the floor. “I’d rather stand.”Strickler shrugged, and began explaining.“So that is what he was saving his magic for,” Angor said when Strickler finished. “That sort of elixir is demanding magic.”“Saving his magic…?”“He would not heal Draal.”Strickler’s expression froze. That was… unpredictable. “How badly did Jim take it? And…” Something dawned on his face. “ You healed Draal.”Angor said nothing.“Tell me,” Strickler said. “Why did you betray Morgana?”Angor looked at him for a long moment. His betrayal of the Lady wasn’t one single moment; it had many steps to it, the first of which was… “Tell me,” he said slowly, “do you remember when you called me a dog?”“I do,” Strickler said, slowly as well.“Gunmar called Draal that,” Angor said.The emotions that spread across Strickler’s face were more satisfying than his terror while Angor had chased him had been. This, this was what Angor had wanted from him.Strickler looked away. Pain was still etched into his features. “I was protecting my people,” he said, quietly, “but that is no excuse.” No, Angor thought, it wasn’t. But then, what had Angor himself done? Gone and sold himself back to Morgana, when he’d finally gotten away from Her. Then again, if he’d never done that, if he hadn’t gotten his soul back - he would be still chasing this changeling, and neither of them would be here, fighting against Her.“I do not forgive you,” Angor said, which prompted Strickler to look at him again, “but I accept that we are now on the same side.” He turned around and started towards the basement. “I will look for the Trollhunter.”“Thank you, Angor,” Strickler called after him.Angor paused. “I am not doing this for you,” he said, “or for the Child, or for any of you. I am doing this for me.”He didn’t expect Strickler to reply: “That is the best reason.”He turned his head to look at Strickler, who met his gaze. Then he turned around, and left.  Jim was in the kitchen, making dinner, when he heard the front door rattle, followed by his mother’s voice: “Maybe he left a note, or-- Walt, I found him; just please, tell the others.”She had perfect timing - the steaks were just ready. “Hi, Mom,” Jim said brightly. “I hope you brought your appetite!”“You know, we have been looking all over for you.”Jim froze, a plate balanced on each hand. When he came home and found it empty he thought that things had calmed down, not that everybody was out there, looking for him. “Oh. Sorry. I… lost track of time.” Yeah, that was better than, I got stuck in the forest and couldn’t leave until the sun went down, because I completely didn’t realize I can’t be in the sunlight anymore. Much better. “I thought I’d come home and make us a nice dinner?”“Honey--” His mom looked at the plates as he sat them down, then back up at his face. “Don’t get me wrong, these smell delicious, but - are you sure you can eat them?”“What?”“Neither of those is raw,” his mom said patiently, “and from what I understand, trolls can only stomach raw meat.”Jim looked down at his plate; he did wonder why the steaks didn’t smell right when done, even though they looked and felt like perfectly good meat. Now he knew; yet another thing that was lost to him. “But I’m only half-troll,” he said, trying to keep his voice hopeful and light. “Right?”His mom sighed and sat down. “That’s going to be your stomach ache, kiddo, not mine.”He sat down as well. “I’m sure it will be fine.”Then, of course, he choked on the first bite. He tried to swallow it anyway, but his mom was looking straight at him and saw the face he made.She pushed her chair away from the table.“Mom, what are you doing? It won’t be any good cold.”“I know, but you need to eat also!” She called back. “Let me see if any are left.”He choked on the second bite, as well. Jim gave up and went after his mother, who’d gone down to the basement for some reason. “If any what are left?”She was already coming back up the stairs, carrying a crate. “Here, take this.”Jim peered into the crate. It was about half-full with small electrical appliances, all of which appeared to be in some state of disrepair. “I don’t get it.”“I got them for Draal,” she explained. “I figured they’d be more nutritious than laundry and drink cans. This crate was about this full,” and she indicated several inches above the height of its sides, “so I figure they taste all right to a troll. Why don’t you give it a try?” She smiled at his encouragingly.Jim stared at the contents of the crate. The worst part was, the old electronics smelled edible, smelled nice in a way that the perfectly nice dinner he spent the last hour cooking just did not. He couldn’t just plop a cassette player in his mouth, though, he just couldn’t , and no matter how ravenous he felt.He just couldn’t do it.He dropped the crate and hopped over to the other stairs, that led do the second floor.His mom came rushing after him. “Jim?”He was already halfway up the stairs, taking them four or five at a time. “I just need some time to think!”He didn’t estimate his strength right when he closed his room’s door; he almost tore the door out of his hinges. He could see the cracks in the paint around it. “Ugh!”Maybe it would be better if he let his armor go; even as a human, he was always somewhat stronger and faster when he was in the armor - and this was the Eclipse armor, not his regular Daylight one. It packed a heavier punch.When a thought didn’t work, he tried to take the amulet out of the armor. He had to do that sometimes, after a particularly demanding battle or - in the beginning - training session, when his body and mind where still keyed up in a way that the amulet read as a genuine emergency. The amulet had glitched a lot in the beginning, struggling to get used to its first human owner; well, now it needed to get used to the world’s first-ever human-troll hybrid. Obviously it would glitch.The amulet wouldn’t come out.He tried tapping on it. That didn’t work either, so he tried prying it out. The pencil he used snapped in his hand, so he tried prying it out with his gloved hand, the one that had five fingers.The amulet still wouldn’t come out.Maybe if he used more momentum--Maybe if he tried a different position--Maybe if he just tried again, with more force, more force than he knew he was capable of--Eventually he was sitting on the floor, breathing heavily, and surrounded by everything that had fallen off the shelves - by the shelves that had fallen off - while he was struggling with the amulet.And the amulet still wouldn’t come off.He stared ahead blankly until it occurred to him what he was staring at: a yearbook that had fallen off one shelf or the other, and opened right on the page that had Toby’s picture, and below it--Below it was Jim’s.He used to hate school, in the way most everyone did: it was boring, it was difficult, and it wasn’t anything he actually wanted to do. In the past year, though, school had been a respite, an island of blessedly low stakes in the madness that had become his life. He remembered the detention Señor Uhl had given him - had given them - for having supposedly stolen his car. It was the last day Jim remembered feeling anything like safe , like relaxed - at least, ever since Draal had shown up, his eyes glowing soulless white and no longer being Draal , a final confirmation that Gunmar was indeed free.The hand that Jim was resting on the page was blue, and had only four fingers.He growled. He’d heard trolls - other trolls - growl before plenty of times, but the sound reverberating out of his chest was nevertheless a surprise, one that cemented the way he felt.He needed to get out.  Jim’s mom knew that Jim had gone to the school; Toby realized that Jim was going to the roof; but Claire was the first one to make it to the roof after Jim, and it was her job to not lose him, to keep him--Anything she had planned was lost to the wind as Jim saw her and promptly jumped behind the vents. The words that burst out of her weren’t rehearsed; they were instinctive.“Please, Jim, don’t run away! Whatever you are - I love you.”A sliver of Jim’s arm showed over the edge of the vent, but most of him remained hidden.“I love you too, Jimbo,” came Toby’s voice from somewhere behind her, panting and wheezing.Claire dared a look: Toby had actually climbed the ladders all the way to the third-story roof.Toby continued. “But let’s talk on the ground; I’m just a tiny bit tired from running after you.”In the pause that Toby provided, some of what Claire intended to say came back to her. “I understand what you’re going through; you’re not Jim anymore.” Reflecting Jim’s words from earlier in the gym hall back to him felt like glass shards in her throat, but it was completely worth it: Jim climbed on top of the vent, where he could see them - Toby had come over to stand by her side - and they could see him. “But you’re still someone we all care about.”“I can’t fight Gunmar and be the person you want me to be,” Jim said.Was this a reference to what she’d said to him the day before, Claire wondered, when she’d asked him to stay behind while they looked for his mom? Was this Jim saying that he couldn’t be the carer, anymore? Yes, that would upset him this much; from everything Claire had learned, both from Toby and by herself, Jim had built himself around this identity.All she said, though, was, “We’re here on this roof for you .”“Especially me, man,” Toby added. “I just climbed three stories for you.”“And maybe you feel like everything has changed,” Claire continued, “but only the outside stuff; inside, you’re still you.”“And we’re better for it, Jimbo,” Toby said.Jim sighed.Were they getting somewhere?Toby continued. “Your old life is over, but that doesn’t mean we can’t be a part of your new one.”The only way to find out was to push, Claire thought.Just then, as if on cue, the door leading from the stairway to the roof opened, and Strickler and Jim’s mom stepped out.  Jim was crouched on top of a vent, and Toby and Claire were standing underneath; that was what Barbara saw when she stepped up to the roof. The three looked as if some fragile rapport has been established. It gave Barbara the confidence to speak her son’s name and step forward.“We’re here for you,” she said.Jim jumped down to the roof, putting them all on the same level. Then, though, he stepped away, putting distance between himself and the four of them. “I can’t live in your world anymore,” he said. “I can’t be in the daylight, I can’t eat dinner.”“But you can let us help you,” Barbara insisted softly. She stepped forward, following after Jim.He just stepped farther away, all the way until there was nothing behind him but a three-story drop.Barbara’s heart was in her throat but Jim stopped, perhaps sensing there was nowhere left to run.Then she saw Blinky, as if floating up to the roof, until AAARRRGGHH!!!’s giant hand placed him down next to Jim.“Master Jim!” Blinky said sternly.Jim turned around and jumped at roughly the same second.“Where are you going in such a hurry?” Blinky continued in the same tone. He stepped forward, which caused Jim to step backwards - which now put him farther from the edge. Blinky’s voice softened. “There seems to be something different about you.” He walked around Jim, grabbing and lifting Jim’s arm to examine him. Blinky’s face split in a wide smile. “Why, with a few more eyes and a few more arms, we could be related!”“Troll brother,” declared AAARRRGGHH!!!, who meanwhile had half-climbed up to the roof. He, too, was grinning.Jim laughed a little, nervously. Then he turned back to Blinky. “What am I, Blinky?”“When I gaze upon you, do you know what I see?”Jim shook his head.“I see a champion, a friend, a son; a magnificent son.”Barbara put her hand over her mouth. Tears came to her eyes, unbidden.Hesitantly, Walt put his hand on her shoulder. I’m not angry, she wanted to tell him, I’m not sad. Not about what Blinky had said; that this had happened to her son, oh yes - but not that someone was there, who could reach Jim where she couldn’t, who could wrap him in a hug and have Jim let go and rest his head upon his shoulder.“Trollhunter.” This gruff voice was Draal’s; he was the last of the trolls to make it to the roof.Jim very nearly jumped back again, but Blinky kept a steadying arm on him. Barbara got the sense that Jim was unsure of what Draal’s response might be - Draal’s firm stride certainly didn’t help communicate a sense that he was not angry.Still, as he stopped within arm’s reach of Jim, something in his expression softened. “If I had to lose my father,” he said, “then at least the amulet has chosen me a brother by whose side I am proud to fight.” And with that he, too, pulled Jim in for a hug.AAARRRGGHH!!! ambled over, putting his arms in a loose circle around both other trolls and Jim.“I’m scared,” Jim admitted after a moment.Blinky very nearly laughed. “Goodness gracious, who isn’t!”Toby took that as a sign that it was safe to approach, and ran forward. Claire was close on his heels.Barbara didn’t dare quite approach, yet, but she let Walt pull her a little bit closer as Toby rambled on something about Jim being like Toby’s favorite chocolate bar.“You’re one part best friend, one part new friend!” Toby wrapped that up.If nothing else, it made Jim laugh a little.Claire reached up to touch Jim’s face; he put his hand over hers. This quickly turned into a threeway hug among the kids.Finally, Barbara felt safe enough to try and approach Jim. Her wariness turned out to have been justified: he was clearly more nervous to meet her than to meet his friends. It hurt; there was no point pretending that it didn’t. Barbara tried to hold on to the knowledge that no matter what it felt like, it wasn’t because she’d done anything wrong; it wasn’t because she failed. Jim’s friends had been part of this new world - of this new life - for longer than she has, far longer. Of course it was easier to accept them than it was to face her.So Barbara ignored Jim’s nervousness and her guilt and stepped right up to her son. “Oh, kiddo,” she said, “I’m always going to be your mom.” And then she, too, reached up to hug him.It took him a second, but when he returned her hug there was no hesitation in it.She held on to him for as long as she could.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Her bike was still at the Lake house, where she’d left it the morning of the day before. Claire could hitch a ride with Dr. Lake then ride back home, but she was going on 40 hours of alertness - again - and she did not fancy riding in the dark or calling her parents for a ride - again. Now that her parents were in the know, it was a lot simpler to just portal home.The words Mom, Dad, I’m home , died on her lips as soon as she saw who was sitting in the breakfast nook with her parents and NotEnrique. “What’s he doing here?” she demanded.“Well, we had to stash him somewhere while we were all out looking for that boyfriend of yours,” NotEnrique pointed out“I have not been stashed ,” Merlin protested.“Claire!” Her mom ran over to hug her. “It’s so good to see you. Will you be sleeping home tonight?”Claire returned the hug. It was weird, to have her mom act all emotional like that. “Yeah, if nothing else catches on fire.”“I take it that you found our Trollhunter?” Merlin asked.“Jim is not your Trollhunter,” Claire shot back without thinking.“He was supposed to be my champion, you know.” And Angor was ‘supposed’ to be Morgana’s , Claire thought, but she wasn’t so tired as to actually say that out loud. Instead, she said: “Keyword being ‘supposed’.”“Claire!” That was her father. “That is not how we raised you to behave.”“Apparently you don’t know him very well yet, Dad,” Claire replied.NotEnrique cut in. “Did you get any sleep last night?”Claire gave him a sour look, but replied: “No.”Her dad’s shoulders dropped. Apparently, he didn’t need for it to be spelled out to him, what that meant about the length - or rather, the shortness - of her temper. “Did you have dinner? I made all your favorites.”“Dinner?” Hysterical laughter bubbled out of Claire. “Try lunch. And possibly breakfast.” She paused. “At least I think I had breakfast.”Both her parents looked horrified.“Right. Go have a shower, Sis, you kind of need it,” NotEnrique said. He hopped off the table. “Try to not fall asleep in it; food’ll be nice and hot when you’re out.”“I do assume you did find the Trollhunter?” Merlin asked again.Huh. Apparently he actually paid attention to what she told him. “Yes, we did. He’s fine, as much as he can be.”Her father frowned and looked as if he was about to say something, but eventually he didn’t.“Excellent. Now go; you should use this chance to recover.”Something about the way Merlin said that made Claire frown. “How long do we have?” she asked.“Judging by the strength and frequency of the quakes? Less than 24 hours.”Claire drew in a long, shaky breath.“What happens in less than 24 hours?” her mom asked tentatively.“War, Mom,” Claire said harshly, perhaps more harshly than was necessary. “We’re going to war.”Her mom paled. “And you’re sure there’s nothing I can do to help?”Claire just gave her a look.“There is something we can do to help,” her father said firmly. He got up and came over to place both his hands on her shoulders. “Shower, eat, sleep. And know that we are here for you.”Her mother’s expression indicated, clear as day, that she did not think that counted as doing something. She didn’t say anything out loud, though.“And I’ll raise the alarm if any Gumm-Gumms show up through the night,” NotEnrique added.Claire smiled, almost in spite of herself. “All right, all right; and I’ll try to not fall asleep in the shower.”  By the time Barbara parked the car, Jim had been yawning for several minutes.“Well, that answers the question of whether you need to sleep, kiddo,” Barbara said as they got out of the car.“I’m pretty sure I don’t need to shower, though,” he replied.“But you still need to eat dinner,” she pointed out. “When was the last time you ate?”“I don’t even remember,” he replied grudgingly. “Hi, Draal.”Draal was waiting for them in the living room.“Hello, Draal,” she said.“Your mother is right,” Draal told Jim. “You should eat. You will need your strength.”Jim lifted his arms in mock surrender. “All right, all right!” He looked at the crate half-filled with small appliances. “Do you mind if I take these upstairs with me? It would be even weirder with the two of you watching me eat.”“Of course,” Barbara said promptly.Draal grunted, which Jim seemed to take as assent. He picked several appliances from the crate, and went upstairs.Barbara sighed and went into the kitchen. She still needed to eat dinner, too, and unlike the steaks, the sweet potato mash and the steamed vegetables would still be good, once she heated them up.That reminded her of something. “Should I thaw you a steak, Draal?”He followed her into the kitchen. “What is a steak?”“Raw meat. Bovine. Uh - cow.”“I’ve never had cow.”“Well then, let’s try.” She pulled the tray from the freezer and, after a moment of hesitation, put all of it in the microwave to thaw. She was pretty sure Draal could fit all of that and then some. “Thank you, by the way.”“What for?” he asked after a moment of hesitation.“I sort of gather that you protected this home, for a while.”“I made an oath to the Trollhunter. Protecting this home - and you - is my sworn duty.”She may as well have anticipated that response. That much she’d learned about him over the last few days. “Being a friend is not a duty.”It was a moment before he said, “Jim was my friend first.”Barbara thought about the way he said that, then asked: “Do I want to know?”“I don’t know.”She wanted to know everything about Jim’s other life. On the other hand, so much had happened over the past four days that she wasn’t sure she could take more in. Then on the other other hand, they were facing a war, and that meant there was a certain chance Draal won’t be there for her to ask after - or perhaps she wouldn’t be.Eventually, she said: “I’ll ask you again if we’re both alive when this war is over.”  Nana and Dictatious were watching some sort of soap when Toby got home; or rather, Nana was watching and describing the action for the blind troll. It was what they were doing whenever Toby had passed through over the last several days. He scanned the house for all the cats - Dictatious hadn’t eaten anyone other than Mr. Meow Meow PI - and then went to the kitchen. There was nothing in the fridge but eggs, milk and days-old bread, so he checked the freezer. There, he found a box of Jim’s spaghetti marinara.Toby upended it into a pot, set that on the stove and fetched a ladle from the cupboard. He was starved and nuking it in the microwave would be faster, but it would taste better this way and besides, Jim had opinions about his cooking being nuked; which was to say, he disapproved of it. Harshly.Toby found that he had to blink away tears. It was ridiculous; Jim was alive. There was no reason to feel as if he was following someone’s will.Once the mass had mostly thawed, Toby switched the pot to the smallest flame and went upstairs. He’d done this enough times to know that the time he took in the shower was exactly enough time for his dinner to get nice and steamy.It wasn’t until halfway through dinner that the tears stopped. Mostly. Toby figured he was only being emotional because he was hungry. And tired. He was definitely both hungry and tired, even after he finished off all the spaghetti, so he picked the tub of PB&J ice cream and a spoon.The back door opened.Toby tensed, and went to have a look. Then he sighed with relief: it was just AAARRRGGHH!!!. “Hi, wingman,” he said. “You spending the night here?”“Yes,” AAARRRGGHH!!! confirmed as he carefully stepped in and made his way to the stairs.“Awesomesauce.” He hadn’t been sure whether or not AAARRRGGHH!!! would come over that night. It used to be routine, but they hadn’t had an routine in… a while. AAARRRGGHH!!! hadn’t regularly spent the night over since he took up spy duties in the occupied Trollmarket, which made it - Toby stopped halfway up the stairs and tried to do the math. It was Wednesday, and would be Thursday in a few hours. They’d exorcised Morgana out of Claire last Friday, and the Friday before that he’d had to deal with both Darci’s psycho police officer dad and a bunch of thieves.That made it about three weeks. Boy, but it felt longer than that.AAARRRGGHH!!! - who’d already made it to Toby’s room - came back and made a soft, inquisitive growl.“Everything’s fine,” Toby promised him. “I was just thinking. It’s been a long month, you know?”AAARRRGGHH!!!’s next growl was an affirmative.“C’mon, let’s play GoGoSushi.”“Toby should sleep,” AAARRRGGHH!!! pronounced.“I know, I know, buddy, but I need to be able to sleep. And right now, I’m still way too keyed up.”They didn’t make it through a game - actually, they barely managed to start to play - before Toby found himself crying. Again.“Shoot. Darn. I need tissues. No, no, it’s okay, wingman, I’ll get them myself.” He picked up a roll of toilet paper from the bathroom then returned to his room. “It’s fine,” he promised AAARRRGGHH!!!, “I’m probably just,” he blew his nose, “tired. I’m pretty sure I haven’t slept right since this time last week.”AAARRRGGHH!!! sniffed him. “Toby sad,” he proclaimed.“I’m not sad, I told you, I’m just tired.”AAARRRGGHH!!!’s small growl wasn’t an affirmative.“All right, maybe I’m a little bit sad. But it’s stupid. Jimbo’s fine, right? He’s right next door and he has his mom and Draal to make sure he’s fine and,” Toby blew his nose again, “we’re still friends, we’re fine, and--” No, he was most definitely not fine, and neither was Jim. “You should’ve seen him in the gym hall.” Toby made a futile attempt to dry his eyes; he was crying so hard they were burning. “He was hiding under the bleachers, tucked all the way in the back, and he - and he--” It was a few seconds before he could say it. “He growled at me.”“Jim troll,” AAARRRGGHH!!! pointed out, which was very reasonable, except--“He growled at me , AAARRRGGHH!!!. Not at, like, Strickler, or something. I’m his best friend, or I was, and--” Toby’s throat was blocked. Swallowing didn’t help. He gestured with his hands.AAARRRGGHH!!! made a small, extra soft growl that meant, I understand. Toby’s throat deigned to unblock. “And you growl at me all the time but he didn’t growl at me like that, he growled at me like-- like--”“Jim scared,” AAARRRGGHH!!! reminded him softly.“Of me? ” Toby cried out.“No,” AAARRRGGHH!!! replied. “Of himself.”That actually gave Toby a pause. “That’s horrible,” he proclaimed after a moment. Then again, it was also a lot like Jim. It was the most reassuring thing AAARRRGGHH!!! could’ve said. It meant that even as a troll - well, a half-troll - Jim still thought like Jim, he just… expressed it differently. Like, by growling.But Toby was used to troll growling and he was used to Jim, and he could’ve probably put the two things together himself if he wasn’t so freaking tired.He wiped his eyes with his hands, and blew his nose again. And then again for good measure. “I really am tired, though,” he said.AAARRRGGHH!!! bent down, offering Toby his shoulder. “Toby sleep. AAARRRGGHH!!! guard.”Toby climbed up on AAARRRGGHH!!!’s shoulder and curled up in the nook of it. “Thanks, buddy. You’re the best, you do know that, right?”This time, AAARRRGGHH!!!’s soft growl meant assent.  It was ten. Jim lay in his bed and looked at his alarm clock. He’d slept until ten in the morning. He couldn’t remember the last time that had happened; he always got up extra early to clean up the evening’s mess and make meals for himself, his mom and Toby. Sleeping in was something that happened to other people.Then again, he’d been kind of sleeping one night out of two or three for the past - week, he realized. Well, shit; and it hadn’t been an idle week, either. Possibly he was entitled to sleeping in, for once in his life.He was also hungry; no, starving; no, famished. He’d never known it was possible to be this hungry.He looked over at the crate in the corner of the room. It still had a few appliances left in it, but those were the ones who seemed the least tasty, and anyway, Jim was pretty sure he was hungry for something else. He just hoped it wasn’t laundry.Eventually, he got up. He made a half-hearted attempt to remove the amulet again but when that didn’t work, he just growled and headed downstairs. It wasn’t worth it to wreck his room again.Voices drifted up the stairs, both human and troll. It turned out that his mom, Toby and Draal were all sitting by the dining table; Strickler was in the kitchen, by the stove.Everyone’s faces lit up at the sight of him. His mom even got up to hug him.“Jimbo, did you know that Mr. Strickler makes the best French toast? It even beats yours!”“The secret is in the brioche,” Strickler said.“You use brioche for French toast?” Jim asked. “What are you, Marie Antoinette?”“That’s ‘who’, not ‘what’,” Strickler replied, but there was humor in his voice.Jim rolled his eyes at him. Then he asked Toby: “Did you seriously skip school?”“Duh,” Toby replied. “I’m ‘sick’, remember? Besides, it’s the last day, who cares!”“Señor Uhl, probably.”Toby just waved his hand.Jim’s stomach growled. Loudly.“Is that a human thing?” Draal asked.“Yup,” Toby replied cheerfully. “Means our Jimbo needs to eat.”“Good thing I got food,” his mom said. She went into the kitchen.“I don’t think appliances are the way to go this time, Mom,” Jim said.“No, I think we definitely hit the ‘raw meat’ part of ‘ores, minerals and raw meat’,” she said. She was rooting through the fridge. “Draal ate all the steaks but you,” she pulled out a large tray and shut the door with her foot, “get lamb shin!”Lamb shin was his favorite. He used to cook it with rosemary, coarsely-ground black pepper and potatoes; it would take hours to cook, and the entire house would smell of food. Toby would smell it from the house next door. But - Jim thought as his mom placed the tray on the dining table, smiling proudly - raw didn’t sound too bad. Actually, raw sounded excellent. Jim shoved aside the slight guilt over his being hungry enough to eat the entire shin, bone and all, when it used to be enough for the three of them for more than one meal. In that respect, his mom’s casual Draal ate all the steaks definitely helped.Besides, this was infinitely better than laundry.  Dr. L found him in the backyard, sitting on the kitchen doorstep, idly tossing pebbles at the fence and feeling sorry for himself.“Hi, Toby,” she said.“Hi, Dr. L,” he replied. “What’s up?”“Well, the house is too quiet, for one thing,” she replied. “It hasn’t been this quiet since last weekend.”Toby laughed a little. Yeah, the Lake house had become their HQ since Sunday, when Barbara had invited Nana and Claire’s parents over and then they went to find the Staff of Avalon and came back with Merlin instead. Right now, though, it was quiet; Jim and Draal had gone into the tunnels to throw each other around a little - they were both getting antsy. Strickler had gone with them, to supervise and to guard. That left just Dr. L and himself in the house.“You’re still his best friend,” she told him.“Am I that transparent?” he asked miserably.“Not at all,” she assured him. “I think only Walt and I noticed.”He put his face between his hands and his elbows on his knees. “Great.”“Toby,” she said gently. “I wouldn’t say it just to make you feel better. You’re still the first person whose reaction he searches for. If he had something new to share, you’d still be the first person he’d tell it to. You are still his best friend.”“Then why doesn’t it feel like it?”“I think it’s been just Jim and you for a very long time. You never had to deal with Jim having other friends.”“I guess,” he said dubiously. It reminded him of the way things had been between Claire and him in the beginning. He’d been jealous then, too. Then again, it was easier to get used to the idea of Jim having a girl friend than to…“Right now, I think none of us know if we’ll see another day,” Dr. L said quietly. “It makes people behave differently. Think of the way you and Claire ditched school this week; I think you haven’t done that all year, am I right?”He nodded.She continued. “If we’re still alive on the other side of this, he’ll need you more than ever. You’ve been friends all your life; he’s going to need that, to stay in touch with himself.”“That’s terrible, Dr. L.”She sighed. “It’s war, Toby. ‘Terrible’ is what it is.”“AAARRRGGHH!!! keeps saying that; ‘war’.” Toby gave up and put his arms around his knees. Dr. L seemed to already know how miserable he felt; there was no point hiding it.“I think that’s why Jim and Draal are holding on to each other the way they do.”Startled, Toby looked up at her. That was what he was miserable about, and he was used to Dr. L figuring out things, but this was really specific.“Draal’s been protecting this home for a while, right?” she said.“He kind of took an oath about it,” he told her. “It seems to be a big deal for him.”She nodded. “I knew humans like that. It doesn’t seem to look very different on a troll. And,” she hesitated, “what Gunmar did to him - am I right in thinking that Gunmar can take away people’s will with his sword?”“That sword is scary , okay?”“When people survive when Draal has,” she said, very gently, “it leaves marks. It doesn’t go away all at once. You have to live with the knowledge that was done to you, and there was nothing you could’ve done about it.”Toby knew that, in theory, about other kinds of violations. It was strange to try and apply that to Draal , though. “It’s weird to think about Draal like that. He’s the one who kicks all our asses.”“Something happened between Jim and him in Merlin’s Tomb, right?”“Jim was the one who found him.”She sighed. “And then Jim spent the last few days fussing over him. Toby, what Blinky said last night - we are all scared. Right now, none of us have a future that stretches beyond tonight. And right now, it isn’t just that Draal means safety to Jim; it’s also that Jim means safety to Draal.”He tried to think about that. He did. “Yeah, I think that one’s too big for me. But it does sort of sound messed up.”“It’s only messed up if we all survive, and they don’t find their way back.”“And that’s why he’s going to need me.”She took her glasses off and looked him in the eye. “You and I are the ones who remember everything Jim is other than the Trollhunter,” she said. “And when this is over, he’s going to need that from us.”He smiled weakly. “Excellent pep talk, Dr. L.”She shrugged.The thing was, he wasn’t being sarcastic: he did feel better.She pushed herself up and offered a hand to him. “Now come on; I’m ordering pizza for lunch.”  Claire ditched school at lunch break. It wasn’t like she could concentrate worth anything knowing that a full-scale war was coming that afternoon and, besides, it was the last day of the year; it wasn’t like anything important was going to happen in any of her classes.She didn’t even need to leave the school premises. She went to the bathroom, closed the stall door without locking it, and portaled just inside the house. “I’m home!” she called out.“In the kitchen!” came NotEnrique’s voice.She went in the kitchen, and saw NotEnrique sitting on the counter - and Merlin pouring some sort of sludge into a pan. “Should I be worried?” she asked.“We should all be worried,” Merlin replied without even looking at her.“I wasn’t asking about the war,” she said. “I was asking about that.” And she pointed at the pan, which he was now putting into the microwave.“Oh, not at all.”There was green lightning dancing inside the microwave.“Are you sure about that?” she asked.“Certainly.” The microwave dinged, and he pulled the pan out. Instead of a sludge, or the world’s ugliest cake, there was a crystal like a miniature Heartstone sitting in the pan, smoking slightly. “Am I correct in thinking that the Trollhunter will want to rescue the occupants of the Darklands nursery?”“All of us do,” she replied. Then something occurred to her. “Wait, those quakes, will they--”“--damage the Darklands? It will crumble to bitses. Hence, this Cradlestone.” He gestured towards the miniature Heartstone, which was no longer smoking. “Using it, you,” and he gestured towards NotEnrique, “will be able to safely transport the babies out, and back to this world.”NotEnrique picked up the Cradlestone and, by way of examining it, bit it.“Will you be okay doing this on your own?” Claire asked her stepbrother.He rolled his eyes. “I know a guy who can lend a tiny hand.”“We should head out to the Trollhunter’s house,” Merlin said. “I believe the time has come for a council of war.”“First, we do the dishes,” she said. “By which I mean, you do the dishes. Not me. Or him,” she pointed at NotEnrique.“And you will you be…?”“Fetching Angor Rot. It’s not like he has a cell phone.”“Am I to walk, then?”It was her turn to roll her eyes. “Fine, I’ll come back to pick you up. But if I come back and the dishes are still in the sink or worse, still on the counter? You’re totally walking.”  No sooner had he stepped out of the stairway and turned towards the ‘living room’, than a portal opened up in the wall and the Child stepped through.Inexplicably, she grinned at him. “I might as well have known. You can read the quakes too, huh?”He did not expect her knowledge to be this advanced. He told her as much.“What? No,” she shook her head. “I was talking about Merlin.”“Where is the wizard?” he asked. Now that they rounded the corner, he could count three humans - no, one of them was a changeling - and two trolls, one of which was Draal and the other one-- the other one was no more a troll than the changeling was human, Angor realized. It was the Hunter, recognizable not for his armor - which was red and black instead of the usual emerald and silver - but for having human eyes and a nose in an otherwise trollish face.“In my parents’ kitchen, hopefully doing the dishes,” the Child said. “By the way, Jim - he made something called a Cradlestone. He says it’ll let NotEnrique bring all the babies back with him through the Fetch.”The Hunter’s face lit up. “I can’t believe he thought about that.”“More like, he thought that you would think about that,” the Child replied.“How many babies are we talking about?” the Hunter’s mother asked cautiously.Everyone turned to the changeling in the room - except the Hunter, who said grimly: “Hundreds. At least.”The changeling confirmed that with a nod.The mother pursed her lips. “That’s a lot of families to seek out.”The changeling shook his head. “Most of those babies were taken centuries ago. It’s been a while since new changelings were made.”“Wait, so you’re… How old are you?”“Mom! I don’t think that’s a polite question.”“Inquiring minds want to know, though,” the one called Toby said.“No, Jim’s right, forget I asked anything.”“Who are we waiting for, other than the wizard?” Angor asked pointedly.“Nomura,” Strickler said.“Blinky,” Draal said, “and AAARRRGGHH!!!. The leader of the Wumpa tribe may or may not arrive with them.”Wumpa females were only so useful in a fight, but the males would be nice to have.“How important is washing the dishes?” he asked.“It’s a matter of principle,” the Child said. “He used it, he can clean it.”“I haven’t had the time to clean the mess he made in the garage,” Barbara said.“Hey, we got armor ,” Toby said. “But yeah: nobody likes Merlin.”Draal raised his hand. “I don’t dis like him.”The wizard would’ve let him die, to transform the Trollhunter. Such were the arithmetics of war, but Angor had always found them distasteful.The Child glanced up at his face, and said: “Yeah, I think you’re the only one, Draal.”That was when it hit Angor what he’d just thought: he’d always found that distasteful. That hadn’t been true in centuries, in almost a millennium, and yet, and yet--“Angor?” That was the Hunter. “Are you all right?”For the longest time, he hadn’t been all right. In fact, he was something akin to that for the first time since he’d unwittingly sold his soul. But how to express that in words that others could understand? “Forgive me my selfishness, but I do not regret that I led Gunmar to the Staff of Avalon; such was the price of my soul.”The Hunter, the Child, Draal and Toby all exchanged looks. The changeling and the mother followed that as if they did not know what that was about.Eventually, the Child said: “No one here is going to judge you, Angor.”He stared at her, and saw nothing but truthfulness. The same truthfulness also met him in the eyes of the others. He hadn’t known how afraid he’d been of their judgment, until that threat was removed.“Tonight,” Draal said, “She will taste vengeance.”“Amen,” said the Child. The word was echoed by the Hunter, Toby, the mother and the changeling, leaving just Angor.He was unfamiliar with the word, but he was familiar with the ritual. Such rituals held power, he knew.He answered, “Amen.”

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Blinky and AAARRRGGHH!!! ended up arriving last, and without the Wumpa leader. That was perhaps a good thing: there were four trolls, three humans, two changelings, Merlin and Jim huddled around the Lakes’ dining table, which had been turned into an impromptu sand table by Blinky. Toby figured that was enough people.Besides, he thought as he watched Merlin become more and more agitated as Blinky explained his plan for defending downtown Arcadia, that also spared them from the Wumpa leader witnessing the embarrassing scene that was, no doubt, about to happen.Right on cue, Merlin swept his arm across the table, sending Blinky’s model to the floor. “This is a waste of time!” he declared. “Our focus is not Arcadia, it is Trollmarket. If we destroy Morgana, we stop the Eternal Night. The Trollhunter and I must venture into Trollmarket.”“While Gunmar and his Gumm-Gumm army turn Arcadia into an all-you-can-eat buffet?” Blinky snapped back.“For having six eyes, you are very short-sighted. Defeating Gunmar is pointless if Morgana is still--”“And defeating Morgana is pointless if everyone in Arcadia is dead!”Another quake shook the room.“At this rate, I fear the Eternal Night will be upon us within a few hours,” Merlin said.“Right in time for the Battle of the Bands,” Claire said, exasperated. “Perfect timing. The square will be packed; everyone in Arcadia will be there.”“Well on the bright side, with everyone clustered, we now know where the Gumm-Gumms will strike first,” Merlin offered. He even attempted to smile.“Oh, we focusing on Arcadia now?” Toby retorted.“Trollmarket will be deserted. Morgana will be unprotected. The Trollhunter and I--”“That’s enough,” Jim said suddenly. His voice brooked no argument; even Merlin stopped mid-sentence. “We need to kill both Gunmar and Morgana. First, we’ll do what we can to clear Arcadia Square. The school will be empty; we can evacuate people there. Toby, Claire, that’s your post.”Strickler and Nomura made eye contact across the table. Surprisingly, it was Nomura who spoke. “We’ll go with the children.”“Our army will secure the evacuation,” Blinky said.Jim nodded once, curtly. “Gunmar is my fight.”Merlin looked like he was about to say something, but Toby deliberately got in first. “We probably want to make sure no one else will try and take on Gunmar. I don’t know about you guys, but I don’t fancy fighting against Jim today.”The silence as everyone took in what Toby just said was deafening. So of course, Merlin cut into it.“Then am I to fight Morgana alone?”“I’ll go,” AAARRRGGHH!!! said. “Keep safe.”Merlin’s shoulders dropped in relief. “Thank you, oh very, very big one.”It wasn’t much of a surprise to hear AAARRRGGHH!!! say that - the past few days had been a sharp reminder that AAARRRGGHH!!! had been a general in Gunmar’s army, not a grunt - but nevertheless, Toby’s heart broke a little. When he left for the Square, it might be the last time he’d see his wingman.“I will go as well,” Angor Rot said.“You can’t go, she’ll kill you!” Claire burst out.“Not outright. She will draw it out. I will serve as a distraction.”Dr. L’s hands balled into fists. She pressed her lips together so hard that they turned white. Toby understood the feeling. Funny thing; if anyone had told him this time the week before that he’d be sad to hear of Angor Rot’s imminent death, he would’ve laughed in their faces.In the back of his head, AAARRRGGHH!!!’s voice gently reminded him, War.   Barbara checked the time as soon as they were done hashing out a rudimentary plan, and sighed. She was out of time.She gently tapped her son’s shoulder. “Jim.”He turned to look at her.“I need to leave for shift now,” she told him.Something in his expression moved and, for a moment, he looked more like himself. His old self, she reminded herself. Her son was no longer just that.They both reached to hug each other at the same time.“Please, sweetie, be safe?” she said into his shoulder.“I will. Don’t worry.”She pushed herself just apart enough that she could look him in the eye when she said: “If ever there was a time to worry, this is it.”They hugged again, more briefly.This time when they pulled apart, Barbara tried to pull herself together. “All right; I’ll be at the hospital. I got a bad feeling it’ll be a busy night.” That was an understatement if ever there was one, but Jim didn’t call her on it. He just looked at her longingly as she stepped into the stream of sunlight allowed in through the open front door, and stepped out.The sun’s warmth on her was a comfort. It hit her, then, that her son would never be able to bask in this comfort again. She had to stop in place and remove her glasses; the tears she’d been fighting all day rose, unbidden. A moment, then she felt safe enough to turn around and look at Jim again, framed in the doorway.This might be the last time she saw her son alive.  His mom left first. Next were Toby and Claire, already in their armor. Strickler and Nomura left with them, all four taking Strickler’s car. After them it was Blinky’s turn to leave; he had their allies to debrief.Jim glanced at Draal as Blinky headed downstairs to the tunnel. “You’re not going with?” he asked.Draal growled a little and shook his head. “Gunmar will not enter the fight immediately,” he said. “First, he will send the best-trained of his troops to tire you out. I will remain by your side for as long as I can. It is--”“Draal--”They looked at each other.“I already lost you not once, but twice,” Jim said quietly.Draal’s face twisted. “This is a promise I cannot make you,” he replied, quietly as well.“I’m not asking for a promise,” Jim said. “Just that you remember - I’ll be waiting for you.”It was a moment before Draal nodded. “If we go out tonight, then let us go out with glory. But I will-- try.”Jim smiled in spite of himself. “Remember what Vendel used to say about that?”Draal smiled, too. “That only fools play for glory. Then let us fight for each other.”“For each other.”  “Uh, Claire?” Mary asked when Claire joined her and Darci backstage, only moments before they were supposed to go up. “Did you text us? Were we supposed to make costumes?”Claire stared at the two and wondered how she could possibly explain. It had been a long time since her two best friends knew the truth about her life. No: it had been a long time since they were her best friends. The truth was, she was closer to Toby, nowadays. They both loved Jim; that was a bond she couldn’t explain to Darci and Mary.She couldn’t explain trolls to them, either, not and have them believe her.“No,” she said eventually. “That’s fine. I just - need you to follow my lead.”“Well, sure,” Darci said. “You’re the frontwoman, right?”Claire could only hope that would be good enough.Aja and Krel left the stage, to enthusiastic clapping and cheering from the audience.“Good job, whatever that was,” came Señor Uhl’s voice. “And now, Mama Skull - whatever that is.”That was their cue.Claire took her spot and stared out at the packed square. So many people. So many fragile, innocent people, who had no idea what sort of a time bomb they were all standing on.Claire took a deep breath.It was time.  She was an hour and a half into her shift when the ground shook. Everyone else got under a table or a bed or a doorframe, the way they were drilled to do in case of an earthquake, but Barbara ran to the window. She searched the sky, looking for----there.It looked a little like what a spacecraft taking off might look like, or a missile: a bright spot of light riding a thickening column of smoke and fire, cutting across the sky. Then the column seemed to have hit its maximum height. The light at the top went out, leaving the top of the column darker than the rest. The darkness spread across the sky. At first it reminded Barbara of a mushroom cloud, but it kept expanding.Ash begun to fall down like ominous rain.Barbara took a last deep breath of mostly-clean air, squared her shoulders, then turned back inside.War was upon them.  He was upstairs in his room when the change happened: the light that came in through the window could no longer be called sunlight, but directionless and flat like the last light after the sun had already set; its colour was a deep red.Jim closed his eyes. Like this, he could hear the neighbours’ dogs barking; he could hear his heart beating, too slowly to be a human pulse; and he could hear a distant noise as if the ocean had come to Arcadia, the noise of whatever it was that Morgana had unleashed.He held his four-fingered hand to the side, and Eclipse materialized in it. The blade sang as Jim moved it to position.He opened his eyes.This was the Eternal Night, then. Not a night of darkness and stars, but a twilight of light the colour of dry blood. Now Jim understood why this armor, this sword, were named as they were. Daylight did not belong under this unnaturally red sky, but Eclipse did.He opened the window.Up from the roof, he could see the dark pillar of smoke and fire, like a tornado and a volcano merged into one. In that direction, at that distance, there was no mistaking where it was coming from: from the canal, from Trollmarket’s main entrance. Had Jim had any doubts as to what he was seeing, this would’ve answered them.This was Morgana’s doing.In the yard below he could see Draal. They’d kept the drapes shut for days, but now it no longer mattered if any of the neighbours saw him - saw either of them. The time for secrecy was over.Draal looked up, located Jim on the roof.Jim nodded at him.Light caught Jim’s eye, drew it to his blade: Eclipse must’ve responded to his emotions because for a moment, it shone from within, as if reflecting a light that was no longer there. Words came to Jim’s lips, as if on their own; he had no idea what he was going to say until he’d said it. “At their darkest hour, I burn brightest.”“I didn’t hear you, Trollhunter!” roared Draal from below.Jim took a deep breath, and let himself roar as well. “At their darkest hour, we burn brightest!”  The four of them reconvened at the back of the square, right across from city hall. That controlled the access to the square proper, from which people were doing the sensible thing: fleeing. Toby, Claire, Strickler and Nomura were assigned to the evacuation; this was their post, until Blinky and their troll army got there.The Gumm-Gumms surrounded them. Toby and Claire moved back to back; Strickler and Nomura took the external posts. That wasn’t good, Toby thought: the two changelings - both in their troll forms - were taller and had longer reach. They should’ve been on the inside - but both of them, Toby realized, thought of Claire and him as children , and no matter how skilled they knew them to be.Then the Gumm-Gumms moved, and all four of them responded at once.  The Gumm-Gumms were so focused on climbing up from the hole in the canal to the bridge above that they hadn’t noticed the party of three to the side. AAARRRGGHH!!! was drawing the half-circle that would let them enter Trollmarket through the front door; Merlin and Angor Rot had their backs to his, keeping watch.It went without a hitch.They ran down the stairs, not bothering to check the noise they made; it couldn’t be heard over the roar of Morgana’s magic, anyway. This close, it was almost deafening. As they drew closer to Trollmarket proper, they could see the origin point: the pillar of smoke and fire had burst through the top of the Heartstone.“Heartstone, dying,” AAARRRGGHH!!! said.“And once it’s gone, sadly so is Trollmarket,” Merlin agreed. “Alas, that is a tragedy for tomorrow, my friend, for today brings its own doom.”“Less talking,” Angor snapped. “We have a witch to kill.”They went on.  “What’s taking Jim and Draal so long?” Claire cried out. “They won’t stop coming!”“Then we won’t stop taking them down!” Toby called back.As if the Gumm-Gumms understood what she’d just said, they stopped storming them. Instead, they formed a thick ring around them, hitting their spears against the ground uniformly, rhythmically.The smile was wiped from Toby’s face. “Oh my gosh,” he said, “what’s happening?”The next second, they saw what was happening: a full-sized truck was hurtling through the air towards them.Claire took the front, prepared to create her biggest portal since the Battle of Trollmarket. She was saved from having to take that risk, though. There was a roar behind her and, when Claire instinctively turned to look at its source, she saw Jim jumping through the air set to intercept the truck, Eclipse burning like fire in his hands. The light of it hurt to look at; it was pure magic.How much magic had Merlin had , to be able to create that?Eclipse cut through the truck like butter.Draal was suddenly there, punching one half of the truck so that it flew sideways and landed on the Gumm-Gumms.Jim landed neatly.The first row of Gumm-Gumms lowered their spears.Jim raised his sword, a snarl on his face.Behind them, a new voice cried out: “For glory!”Their army had arrived.  “She’s supposed to be here,” Merlin whispered as they entered the chamber at the root of the Heartstone. “She needs the power of the Heartstone.”Personally, Angor had doubts about that. The wizard’s plan sounded sensible, but it didn’t gel with what Angor knew of Morgana and Her power. Then again - Angor had been under Her power for so long. He couldn’t trust his judgment on the matter.Back to back, the three of them entered the chamber.It turned out, there were a few Gumm-Gumms left to guard Morgana. More than a few. It didn’t matter, though; AAARRRGGHH!!! and he made short work of them.Then the blast hit Angor straight in the chest and knocked him back against the dying Heartstone.“Traitor!” snared Morgana’s voice. “I will destroy you utterly!”“Leave them alone, Morgana!” cried out Merlin’s voice.The next blast wasn’t aimed at Angor, but the one after that was. Morgana’s golden boots came into his field of vision. She bent down to tip his chin up at Her.No, he hadn’t been wrong about Her at all. “I will destroy you and grind you to dust ,” She promised quietly. “I will rip power from your soul. But first,” She aimed another blast at where - presumably - Merlin was, “you will witness my victory.”  The Gumm-Gumms were so much bigger than him but then again, that had been true about any troll he ever fought. Jim was trained for this, trained for being smaller and lighter and that much harder to catch or lay a blow on. The nimbleness of the human frame had always been one of his best weapons and now, with this new body’s strength--Jim slashed one Gumm-Gumm across the chest, turning his body fully into the pivot, then gathered all that energy to twist in the other direction, running Eclipse fully through another Gumm-Gumm. He ran forward, absentmindedly hacking at the Gumm-Gumms who came at him from the sides and leaped, landing another Gumm-Gumm square in the chest before being airborne again. He leaped off Gumm-Gumm after Gumm-Gumm as if they were 12” mattresses and this was phys ed. Every blow he landed was deadly: such was the advantage of fighting as if he were only so strong, so accurate, when in fact he was so much more.Draal was right, though: Gunmar was going to let the Gumm-Gumms swarm them before he deigned to make an appearance.That was fine. Jim could do this all day.   Draal’s assigned role wasn’t just to kill Gumm-Gumms; it was also to guard the Trollhunter as well as possible until Gunmar made his move. He glanced at what the Trollhunter was doing, then started throwing Gumm-Gumms left and right. He kept a parallel course to the Trollhunter; that let him guard his flank while still leaving him room enough to work - and the Trollhunter needed that room, with the way he was leaping around.Draal ran then leaped in the air rolled into a ball, hurtling forward. That neatly took care of the first lines. Then, though, the real work started. He grabbed one Gumm-Gumm’s spear and used it as leverage to ram the Gumm-Gumm into the ground, then threw the spear at another Gumm-Gumm, impaling him. The next Gumm-Gumm who approached him clearly expected Draal to repeat the same move, but he was sorely mistaken; he got the butt of his own spear slammed into his throat. Then he grabbed the body - now inert stone - and swung it around, killing every Gumm-Gumm in its path.That also allowed him a moment to watch the Trollhunter at his work. It was pure joy, watching Jim now: this was not the boy he’d challenged all those months back, inexperienced and almost too frightened to lay a hit, but rather a young warrior at his utmost and his prime, using his whole body as well as the environment as weapons.He let go of the dead body he was holding, and it cleared a path through the Gumm-Gumm ranks. Through that empty space, Draal could see a cluster of Gumm-Gumms advancing at Blinky - who was, unsurprisingly, busy running from another group. Draal crashed straight into the former group, scattering them. He grabbed two by their spears and slammed them into each other, killing them. A third one he caught from behind, braced him against his hip and tossed him straight at the other group, the one that Blinky was busy evading. That took care of a neat number of Gumm-Gumms.Blinky stared at him, momentarily stunned.Gumm-Gumms began advancing on Draal, closing a circle, but it would be a few more seconds before they came into his effective range.Draal drew a deep breath and roared: “We burn brightest!”Then he launched himself again.  Merlin successfully won the Staff of Avalon from Morgana, but when he aimed it at her the emerald merely sputtered, failing to build up a magical charge.Morgana laughed. “You old fool!” She wrapped magic around both her hands, nailing Merlin in the chest with the blast.He crashed against the dying Heartstone. “My magic,” he said as he slowly pulled himself up; his voice was hoarse. “You’ve devoured it?”“All those centuries you locked me away, what did you think I was doing? Let me show you how strong I am now.” Cords of magic wrapped around Merlin’s body, lifting him in the air.“You won’t win,” he gasped. “The Trollhunter--”She slung him to the other end of the chamber. “I already won!”  The ground underneath their feet shook extra hard. Claire and Toby ran away from the crumbling asphalt, dragging Mary and Darci with them.From the hole in the ground there emerged a nyarlagroth, giant fangs gleaming in the red eclipse light as it roared.Mary screamed.“I thought those things were only in the Darklands!” Toby said. It was nice to hear that his voice just sounded exasperated.“Well, they’re in Arcadia now!” Claire retorted, matching his tone.A chorus of high-pitched voices announced the arrival of the Wumpa army. One of them stopped to wave at Toby.“Toby king!” she called.Another Wumpa stopped next to her. “Your spear, my queen.”Toby’s face split in a wide grin. “Oh, it’s queen now? All right!”“Boom, boom, shake the room,” she sang, the words of Toby’s silly song. Then she indicated up, towards a ginormous troll approaching. “My cousin!”Her cousin was three stories tall; she was shorter than Toby was. That made the last words of the song very apt: “Say what? ”The cousin took on the nyarlagroth.They grabbed Mary and Darci and continued towards the school.  Jim climbed out from a ten-foot tall pile of Gumm-Gumm bodies to discover that the Gumm-Gumms were no longer attacking. Instead they had formed neat lines, hitting their spears rhythmically against whatever surface they were standing on, pavement or roof.Where was Draal? Jim couldn’t see him.“No!” cried Blinky’s voice from somewhere to the side, “No!” He didn’t sound as if anything particularly bad had happened, though; he just sounded like his usual fretful self.The situation snapped into focus. Jim realized what was happening. That Draal wasn’t anywhere to be found, that Claire and Toby weren’t either - that was a good thing: it meant they had gotten out of the way, leaving Jim the stage for the one battle he had to take on alone.Gunmar was coming.  It turned out, there were a few more Gumm-Gumms left in Trollmarket. They restrained Angor and AAARRRGGHH!!! - both weakened from repeated blasts of Morgana’s magic - as She tossed Merlin around like a rag doll.Somehow, though, the old wizard managed to find his footing and light up the emerald at the top of his staff. “You might have stolen my magic, Morgana, but there’s still a few tricks left in these old bones.” With that, he levelled a blast of his own at Her.Morgana slid back, but She caught the blast neatly with one hand, absorbing it as well. “Old bones, old fool,” She snarled as She wrapped pure magic around him.It was now or never, Angor knew. He twisted, using the little strength he’d deliberately pretended to not have to knife one of the Gumm-Gumms holding him, then the other, slamming the third into the pavement.That drew Morgana’s attention to him. “In a hurry to die, are we?” She said as She stalked towards him. “Let us begin, then.”She would tear the magic from him first, he knew. His plan depended on that, on the concentration She would need to sever the bond that still bound them together. He would have to wait until She was committed to the process or else She wouldn’t be properly distracted, but no more than that or he wouldn’t have the power to voluntarily release the souls of Trollhunters past that he had stolen, in a vain effort to fill up the hole that the lack of his own soul had left.He timed it well enough: most of the bright blue soul-lights went into Gumm-Gumms, turning their markings from green to red, but one sped across Trollmarket - perhaps to rally up the other ghosts.“No!” Morgana cried out. “It can’t be!”Angor could die in clean conscience, now.  A deep growl and the screech of metal on asphalt alerted Jim. He turned around and saw Gunmar approaching, dragging Decimar across the asphalt.“I told you,” he growled, “I’ll kill you myself!”Jim just held his sword at the ready.“You let the old wizard work his magic on you, I see.”“Scared it’s gonna be a fair fight?” Jim replied.Gunmar smiled. “It’s not going to be as fair as you think.”“You left Morgana unprotected,” Jim told him. “Merlin is down in Trollmarket right now. Once he stops her--”“Merlin may have had centuries to devise his plan, but you forget - he was sleeping; Morgana was awake.” At fifteen feet of distance, Gunmar stopped and laughed uproariously.That boded ill. Jim closed his eyes, concentrated, let his emotions flow into the sword; he’d done this countless times, albeit with Daylight. He knew how to do this.Gunmar lifted his sword and charged. Jim waited for just the right moment, and lifted his.He timed it right: Eclipse’s flare knocked Decimar out of course so that it hit asphalt instead of Jim. He easily jumped out of the way of the next strike, too, using the pile of dead Gumm-Gumms as a jumping board to launch a strike of his own, then pass in a neat arc above Gunmar.Gunmar’s backhand caught him in the jaw, but Jim remained on his feet, merely bending to take the force of it.Each time Decimar and Eclipse clashed drew sparks from the former and blasts of red light from the latter. Jim’s previous tiredness was gone; he was completely focused on the fight at hand.The force of the next blow sent Jim skidding back on the asphalt. He used the force of that to launch himself against one of the buildings, coming at Gunmar from above then landing on the ground close, far too close for comfort for Gunmar, who thrust Decimar forward, putting all his weight into it. Jim expected that move; he slid out of Decimar’s path by a hair’s breadth, leaped up and grabbed Gunmar by the horn. If all of his angles were precise--They were: Jim landed neatly, but Gunmar flew in an arc and crashed into a building a hundred yards away.“Not as easy as the last time, is it?” Jim snarled at Gunmar as he emerged from the rubble.Gunmar charged on all fours, catching Jim in the abdomen like a bull catching a matador. It was Jim’s turn to fly in the air - though at least, he only skidded on asphalt rather than crash into a building.“This ends tonight!” Gunmar growled, and leaped up with his sword raised.That was a mistake: it gave Gunmar’s strike more force but it also gave Jim more time to see it coming and get out of the way. He jumped, rolled backwards and put some distance between Gunmar and him before running forward at full tilt and knocking Gunmar in the shoulder.That sent Gunmar flying all the way back through the stage set up at one end of the square. Once again, though, Gunmar emerged roaring from the rubble, and this time he was the quicker one, grabbing Jim and turning him around in the air several rounds before tossing him at the museum.It took Jim a good several seconds to recover. When he had, he reached up and pulled himself up to the roof. Gunmar was nowhere to be seen. Carefully, Jim edged upward, constantly turning around, looking for Gunmar--Who emerged from below, from within the museum, through the roof, catching Jim with the flat of his sword as if it were a bat and sending Jim reeling through the air. The punch that followed tossed Jim all the way to the roof’s edge.“You wear a troll’s armor,” Gunmar said as he stalked towards him, “now, you share our skin. But inside, you will bleed red!”Jim turned on his back and grabbed his sword, but he was too late: Gunmar’s foot descended on his chest.“The age of men has ended,” Gunmar declared. He lifted Decimar in an arc; it was now glowing gold. “You will be my first human slave!”He removed his foot and held the sword above Jim.As it had happened in the Darklands, Jim’s armor turned out to be more than corporeal. Decimar’s power slammed into it, but couldn’t get a grip. Unlike the Darklands, though, this time Gunmar knew to expect that - and put that much more will into the attack.Jim’s stamina may have been significantly improved, but he had no illusions: Gunmar would last longer. The armor wasn’t a sustainable defense; it was just buying Jim time to come up with something, anything.The words that had come to him on the roof of his home came to him again, and this time, Jim understood. The magic of the amulet responded to emotions. Jim had trained from the start in regulating his emotions so that he could summon and release the armor at will. That didn’t end there, though: the amulet could pour more power out in response to his emotions. He’d tapped into that once before, in training with Strickler, that time he’d given Jim the grave dust. Blinky had been furious, but that had given Jim the key he needed.He was troll, but he was also human. A foot in each world, Merlin had said. Jim’s emotions were both trollish-feral and human-complex; it had made him thoroughly miserable the night before but in that moment, in that moment , Jim let go and let the full power of that overwhelm him, fill the amulet to the brim so that magic came pouring out, lighting the armor up, lighting him up as it had lit up the Eclipse blade earlier.“At their darkest hour,” Jim snarled as he caught Decimar between his hands, turning its light from gold to red, “I burn brightest!”And with that, he tossed Gunmar back.Gunmar charged, sword lifted, this time to kill--But Jim waited, his body loose, knowing that if he only calculated his angles right, if he only picked just the right split-second--Eclipse sliced through Gunmar’s torso, as easily as it’d sliced the truck.“No,” Gunmar breathed. “It cannot be!”“It is,” Jim said through gritted teeth.Then he summoned his shield to cover his eyes against the blast that was released as Gunmar turned to stone.In a moment of spite - and having learned a thing or two about magic - he kicked Gunmar’s body off the roof so that it shattered on the pavement below. When Jim looked down, he saw Toby, Claire, Draal and Blinky standing in a half-circle around the shattered remains.The idiots; they must have come to his aid while he was lying under Decimar. Never mind, now; that blade was turned to stone and shattered with Gunmar. The sword wasn’t the only thing that ended with Gunmar: Jim could not see a single Gumm-Gumm anywhere, only piles of stone.He jumped down.Claire pounced on him first, claiming his mouth in a kiss; then Draal, who nearly knocked Jim off his feet in his enthusiasm; Toby hesitated for some reason so Jim wrapped him up in a hug and lifted him up, twirling him around.All this time, Blinky just stared at the shattered remains. “At long last,” he breathed as Jim came to stand besides him, “after a millennium, Gunmar’s war is at an end. And you, my dear boy,” Blinky choked on something that sounded suspiciously like tears, “have ended it.”“Uh, not to be a total buzzkill,” Toby said, “but why is the night still all eclipse-y?”Pounding and heavy breath announced the arrival of AAARRRGGHH!!!, who was running on all fours as he did when he was in a hurry.Toby lit up. “Wingman!”Jim, though, demanded: “Where’s Merlin?”“In trouble!” AAARRRGGHH!!! replied, then pointed up: “Morgana!”Indeed, when Jim looked up, there was a lady in a golden armor floating above them, a green cape billowing behind her.“But Merlin’s plan…?” Blinky said.“Not work,” AAARRRGGHH!!! replied.“Don’t despair, weaklings,” Morgana said cheerfully as she descended towards them, “your lives will soon be over.” She spread her hands, and the rubble split, leaving her a clear path to their group. “Merlin’s champion, I have so looked forward to meeting you.” She brought her hands together, power gathering between them. “And then killing you.” This time when she spread her hands, in a sharper motion than before, everyone but Jim was tossed sideways as the rubble had been.Jim summoned Eclipse and charged, but it was to no avail; Morgana bound him with a cord of power and lifted him up to her.“Good evening,” she said, “and good night. ”

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Claire’s heart leaped into her throat as she saw AAARRRGGHH!!! run towards them. He was alone, and the eclipse was still on. Neither of those things was good; together, they spelled catastrophe.She was still working up to asking Are they dead? when Jim asked: “Where’s Merlin?”“In trouble!” AAARRRGGHH!!! replied, then pointed up: “Morgana!”Morgana.Claire looked up, her eyes following the path that AAARRRGGHH!!! indicated until they found the woman in the golden armor, who was immediately recognizable though her armor was not in flames. It was strange, seeing Morgana like this; without the feel of Her power She almost didn’t seem real to Claire.As She descended, though, Her presence became more and more real. There were no visible flames, but Claire could feel the aura of Her power, heavy and oppressive like a physical weight holding her down.How had Merlin miscalculated so grossly? Morgana was anything but weak, let alone at her weakest as Merlin had expected. Or rather, if this was Her at Her weakest, then they were all doomed.“Don’t despair, weaklings,” Morgana said, “your lives will soon be over.” She spread Her hands, tossing aside Gunmar’s shattered body as if it were nothing to her. “Merlin’s champion, I have so looked forward to meeting you.” She brought Her hands together, power gathering between them.Claire tensed.“And then killing you.”She hadn’t actually been prepared for the wave of raw power that Morgana cast. Claire landed hard against the rubble, only her armor saving her from broken bones and - probably - a head injury.When Claire finally managed to clear her head and pick herself up, she saw Jim, bound by a cord of pure golden magic, held up high, so close to Morgana that he could probably feel Her breath on his skin.“Good evening,” Morgana told him, “and good night . ” And with that, She flung him far, so far that Claire couldn’t follow the arc of his fall all the way down. She could tell it was in the general direction of the canal and Trollmarket, where the pillar of smoke and magic was rising, but that was it; she could only hope Morgana hadn’t tossed Jim into that. Morgana turned around and flew in the direction that She’d just tossed Jim.“We need to stop her!” Blinky cried out. “Claire--”She already had her staff raised. She couldn’t take them straight to Jim, but she could bring them close. The bridge over the canal, she decided: from there, they’d probably be able to see Morgana.Claire’s aim turned out to be eerily precise. They stepped out of the portal on the bridge, behind Morgana’s back, as she threw debris at Jim, pushing him closer and closer to the edge of the bridge - and to the roaring tornado of magic and grave dust - until he fell over it.Claire opened a portal. Toby jumped through it. The next portal she opened up right below Jim and Toby flew through that, the gravity hex on his warhammer carrying both him and Jim - whom he’d caught - back up to the bridge.“ What? ” Morgana cried out.“You really should’ve known better,” Claire spat. “ Mother. ”Morgana pivoted in midair, her cape whipping around dramatically. “So should have you, child .” She pushed both of her palms forward, which sent a river of fire towards Claire.Claire was prepared, though: she opened up a portal, wide enough that she couldn’t see anything up ahead. Everything that Morgana threw at her went through that. The next portal Claire opened to Morgana’s side, but She was ready for that and ascended, the torrent of Her own power passing underneath Her.Morgana dove down, aiming straight at Claire. She had her staff at the ready but before Morgana came into range for Claire to use it, AAARRRGGHH!!! leaped up and snatched Morgana out of the air. He slammed Her bodily into the asphalt again and again, before he swung Her around and tossed Her into the tornado.Wrong move. Claire could’ve told him that.Morgana catapulted right back out, glowing with power which she shot every which way.Something small and green hurtled through the air and exploded right next to Morgana, knocking her momentarily off-course - right, Blinky had a thing for dwörkstones - and straight into a car that Draal lifted up as if it were a bat and Morgana were a baseball. Morgana was thrown in an arc, at the other end of which Toby and his warhammer were waiting. Claire opened up a portal right behind Morgana, so that She crashed with all that momentum point-blank into a cement pillar.Morgana fell down to the pavement.“All right!” Toby cheered.Claire shook her head. “This was too easy.”Indeed, the next moment Morgana shot up again.Claire tensed as She spoke an incantation, moving both Her hands as she gathered up a sphere of concentrated magic between them. Memories - Morgana’s memories - stirred up at the back of her head, warning her that this was about to be a bad one.“Watch out!” she cried out.This time, the river of power that Morgana poured took up the entire width of the bridge. Claire opened up a portal big enough to fit a semi through. She could feel the pressure of Morgana’s power around her, but Claire was protected behind the circle of her own power. How much power was Morgana pouring out? The attack seemed to go on forever. Under the roar of pure magic, Claire thought that she could hear a different roar: Jim’s. Could Eclipse split the river of fire, protect him from it as he’d protected all of them from the water in Merlin’s Tomb? Claire filled up her lungs and yelled, roared as best as she could with her human lungs, pouring all of her defiance into it; it made it easier to hold up the portal.Eventually, the river of magic died down.When Claire could see again, she saw that Morgana was standing on the ground, Her shoulders slumped, breathing heavily. To Claire’s left, Jim was standing free as well. Behind them, though, Toby, Draal, Blinky and AAARRRGGHH!!! were all floating, bound by cords of magic.From somewhere to Her other side, a voice distantly cried out: “Morgana!”Angor. Angor was alive. Morgana whipped around. “You!” She spat. “Traitor!” And She dove forward.Angor shot straight, running directly at Her.Claire didn’t think twice; she cast a portal directly in front of Angor, hoping that through his centuries with the staff he’d know exactly what Claire was doing. The next portal she opened up in front of Morgana and Angor sped out of it, driving his poisoned knife upwards directly behind Morgana’s chin.Claire’s breath caught: the blade on that knife was around 12”, and Angor had just run it straight through Morgana’s brain. That alone should’ve killed Her, and no matter that the blade was coated with Creeper’s Sun.Morgana pulled the knife out and tossed it sideways as if it were nothing.The time it took Her to do that, though, was the time it took for Jim to leap and run at Her, slashing Eclipse right through Her abdomen.That should have cleaved Morgana in half but instead She shot a fireball at Angor point-blank, which sent him reeling through the air, then with Her other hand blasted power at Jim that grabbed him by the neck and lifted him off the ground as She tore Eclipse out of his hand.“You think a toy can kill me? I am the Eldritch Queen! I can’t be killed!”In Her hands, Eclipse shattered into a thousand pieces.Claire used that moment of distraction to open a portal directly under Her.Morgana didn’t fall through, though. She swatted Jim away, then turned around to face Claire. “Ungrateful child,” She snarled at her. “I gave you power!”“You didn’t give me anything!” Claire shouted at Her. “My power is my own, you said so yourself! I am strong enough to wield your weapon, strong enough to have made it my own! ”Morgana smiled, a cold and eerie expression. “But you are not strong enough to save your friends!” And with that, She flung darts of magic - deadly magic, this time - at where Toby, Draal, Blinky and AAARRRGGHH!!! were still hovering a few feet above the ground.Claire wasn’t quick enough. Before she’d even closed the portal she had under Morgana - let alone cast another one - Jim had already dived in front of the others, absorbing the magic with his body.Claire screamed.“That’s more like it,” Morgana said with satisfaction.“You made a mis take !” Claire spat out, and ran straight at Morgana, her staff held before her. Magic ran on emotions; Claire knew that. Words gave it form, but emotions were what gave it power. And in that moment, Claire was filled to the brim with hatred for Morgana. No: she was overflowing with it. She was done holding back. She let all that emotion, all that power pour out, become a storm of black and purple around her.She rammed bodily into Morgana, and pulled them both through the portal.In the Shadow Realm, they were far more evenly matched: Morgana was taller but Claire had more muscle on her. They struggled and grappled, battling for possession of the Staff. The Shadow Staff was the key for getting in and out of the Shadow Realm; whoever won it would get away free, leaving the other behind.Morgana may have had centuries if not millennia of experience on Her but, Claire found out quickly, She’d never properly trained in hand-to-hand; She must’ve always relied on Her power. Claire, on the other hand, had learned grappling from Draal, who’d trained his entire life so that he could replace his father as Trollhunter when Kanjigar was eventually killed. There was no beating Draal for technique.Claire grabbed the Staff with her left hand, broke Morgana’s pinky with her right, then curled up in a ball and kicked Morgana in the solar plexus. It only bought Claire seconds, but those seconds were more than enough to cast the tiniest of portals and fasten the Staff to her armor with pure magic.Morgana grabbed one of Claire’s legs, but Claire already had her hands in the portal, pushing it wider. She kicked at Morgana but her aim was blind, and she missed; instead, Morgana now held both her legs.Claire used her core, twisted her body in a wave and managed to push her head through the portal, too.Blinky and Draal were there; they each grabbed her by an arm and started to pull her out.Morgana’s magic wrapped around Claire’s abdomen, pulling her back in.Suddenly, Angor was there, too. Instead of grabbing Claire, though, he reached for the Staff.Claire turned a fraction of attention towards that, so that Angor could separate the Staff from her. She managed that, but she’d lost her focus: Blinky and Draal had already had her halfway out the portal, and now she was back in up to her shoulders.Angor tossed the Staff as if it were a spear. “Destroy it!” he called in the direction of Toby and AAARRRGGHH!!!. Of course, Claire realized: the Shadow Staff was Morgana’s in the same way that the Staff of Avalon was Merlin’s, it had the same potential to hurt Her if anything were to happen to it - and if Toby’s warhammer could destroy the Daylight Amulet, then it could also destroy the Shadow Staff.“Do it!” she called out as well.AAARRRGGHH!!! - who’d caught the Staff out of the air - placed it on the ground and held it steady with both hands.Toby swung the hammer over his shoulder, and began to run. And as he ran, he used the same words that Jim had when he destroyed Gunmar - no: almost the same words, but as Draal had used them. Claire joined in; she wasn’t the only one.“We-- burn-- brightest! ”On the last word Toby leaped in the air; on the last syllable, the warhammer descended on the Staff, smashing it completely.Morgana lost control of her magic. Claire’s entire body twisted with pain; she lost her focus, but the shockwave created by the explosion of Morgana’s power propelled her out of the portal. She landed face-first on the torn asphalt, Blinky and Draal on their backs to her either side.When Claire’s head cleared, she could see that specks of golden power were hovering in the air.Angor helped Claire up. She hugged him; to her surprise, after a moment he hugged her back.Then, though, something terrible occurred to her.“Jim!”Jim hadn’t yet gotten up since the volley he’d earlier absorbed. Claire carefully turned him with his face up; half of it was badly singed. She couldn’t tell if he was breathing. “Jim,” Claire whispered brokenly, “Jim, stay with me. Stay with me, stay with me!”He didn’t wake up.Tears were streaming down her face. The old lines came to her, unbidden. “I shall be much in years before I again behold my Romeo,” she whispered. “Oh, think’st thou we shall ever meet again? I doubt it not, and all these woes shall serve for sweet discourses in our time to come.” She bowed her head over his.She startled when, several long moments later, a weak voice replied: “Hey, that last line, that was mine.”Slowly, Jim opened his eyes.“Jim!” she cried out, and hugged him where he lay.Around them, their group cheered.Then, like dust carried by a gust of wind, the specks of power still hovering in the air were suddenly all propelled by some sort of backdraft, pulled in towards the magical tornado. From the heart of it a spot of brilliant emerald light shone, growing more and more until it spread out as suddenly and sharply as an explosion.Merlin had just got his magic back.The magical tornado became nothing more than light smoke, easily carried by the wind; the red, ashen clouds became ordinary grey ones; and the eclipse was gone, fingers of golden light piercing the cloud cover here and there - though none, luckily, next to their group, which had trolls in it.They’d won.“Help me up?” Jim said when it became evident Merlin was descending towards their group.“You have made me proud, Champion,” Merlin said as he touched down. “I am forever in your service.” Amazingly, he bowed.Draal grabbed the back of Jim’s armor and pulled him the rest of the way up from kneeling to standing; he was still leaning on Claire and Toby, though.“Heartstone, gone,” came AAARRRGGHH!!!’s deep rumble from over to the side; he and Blinky were at the bridge’s edge, peering into the ransacked Trollmarket below.“In Deya’s name,” Blinky sighed.Jim hobbled over to them. “Then we’ll need to find a new Heartstone, out there.” ‘We?’ Claire thought.“I can tell there’s a Heartstone in a place called New Jersey,” Merlin said.“We’ll make preparations and gather what we can from Trollmarket,” Blinky replied.Of course Jim would leave with the trolls; he may be half human still, but fitting in with troll society would be that much easier on him than the alternative, even with the entire population of Arcadia having been exposed to trolls that day.Well. Claire had preparations of her own to make. And if her parents disagreed, then well; she’d won against Morgana, and nothing else would ever stop her.  They had to make it from the bridge to the school on foot. They picked up pieces of rubble to serve as makeshift parasols in case the clouds parted, and started walking. Or hobbling, in Jim’s case; he could only barely stay upright, but he refused to be carried. They took turns supporting him.Apt metaphor, that, Blinky thought.They were halfway to the town center when a police cruiser stopped next to them, and a black man leaned out of the driver’s window.“You kids need a ride?” he asked.“Hi, Detective Scott,” Toby said in a timid voice.So this was Darci’s infamous father, then.Claire took over. “Thanks, Detective Scott.”“That’s a yes or a no?”“That’s a yes,” she replied firmly. “Come on, Jim.”“Claire--”“Jim, if you won’t stop being an idiot I will knock you out myself. ”“Your girlfriend has a point, Jimbo.”“Since when do you call her that when you’re not angry with her?”“Oh my gosh, Jim, shut up.”Blinky looked longingly at the car, but he knew there was no fitting them trolls into it. “We will rendezvous at the school, Master Jim.”“See you there, Blinky.”Detective Scott wasn’t driving off just yet. “Should I send a van to pick you people up?”There was no wind; the clouds weren’t going to seriously part any time soon. Blinky shook his head. “There is no need, Detective Scott, but thank you for your kind offer.”He nodded. “By the way - do you mind telling me what you people are ?” The question could’ve been hostile - it wouldn’t have surprised Blinky, given what he’d heard of the man - but instead, it held nothing but genuine curiosity and a hint of respect.Blinky smiled, and said: “We’re trolls.”  Being an emergency care specialist put Barbara at the front of the multiple-casualty event that was that evening, but it also allowed her to propose - and then spearhead - setting up a field hospital at the school. They hadn’t coordinated this in advance, so Barbara could only hope that her guess was correct, and that Jim and his friends would make their way there once the fighting was over.Her bet proved correct: they weren’t even through laying out the beds and curtains in the gym hall before Jim was there, leaning heavily on Blinky and half his face badly burnt.Barbara hugged her son, and didn’t care if everyone was staring.“We made it, Mom,” he said into her shoulder. “We all made it.”Everyone that she knew the name of had survived? Barbara hadn’t even dared hope for that. “I love you, kiddo,” she said, voice choked with tears, “and I am, so, so proud of you.”  It hadn’t occurred to Claire that her mother would be there, but once she saw her mother’s lean figure across the school plaza, right by the police C&C, it was obvious to Claire: her mother had been itching for something to do since she’d found out the truth, and now that there was a need for someone to stand at the front of this, Councilwoman Nuñez was clearly intent on being it.Claire ran the distance, neatly dodging both the police tape and the cops who tried to keep her from crossing it. “Mom!”Her mother whipped around then, amazingly, ran towards her as well. “Claire!”They met in a hug.“You did magnificently, ” her mom said when they broke apart.“Were you watching?”Her mom shook her head. “There are far fewer casualties than I thought there would be.”There were casualties. Of course there were casualties, despite their best efforts. But-- Far fewer than I thought there would be. It occurred to Claire that this was the greatest compliment her mom could’ve given her; it meant, You did well protecting our city. Claire took a deep breath. Things weren’t really simple - but in that moment they were, and Claire was going to hold fast to it with both hands. “I love you too, Mom.”Her mom hugged her again.  Barbara hadn’t realized how afraid she was of returning to an empty home until - on the next morning - she approached her home and found all the curtains drawn shut, an indication that there were trolls inside.She parked outside the garage - it was entirely possible that no one had yet cleaned up after Merlin - and came in through the front door.Toby was asleep on the couch. The coffee table had been pushed aside so that AAARRRGGHH!!! could comfortably sit next to him. Blinky and her son were by the dining table, poring over maps. There was no burn on Jim’s face: either someone had worked magic on him, or trolls couldn’t get burns and that had been soot alone. Farther behind she could see Walt and NotEnrique in the kitchen.Everyone who was awake turned around or looked up at the sound of the door. Jim’s face split in a grin. “Mom!”“Hello again, kiddo.” They met in a hug. “What’s with the maps?” she asked when they broke apart.His face fell. “Mom, I’m so sorry,” he said. “I promised I’d never leave you.”The words hit her like a gut punch. Still-- “I always knew this day was coming,” she whispered through the lump in her throat. “I just didn’t know when.”Blinky had come over. “The Trollmarket Heartstone was destroyed,” he explained. “Without it, there can be no Trollmarket. Merlin located a new Heartstone for us to set up New Trollmarket next to, but - it’s in New Jersey.”New Jersey. That was all the way across the country. “You’d better call often,” she said. “Every day. Twice. And text.”“Of course, Mom. I love you.”“Not more than I love you, kiddo.” She looked at Blinky. He nodded at her. They didn’t need words.“You did good raising him, Doc.” That was NotEnrique, who ambled over, holding up a faintly glowing orange crystal cluster which he offered to her. “Here’s a thousand new babies to raise.” From every aspect of the crystals she could see the faces of babies, giggling or sucking on their thumbs.The enormity of what she would be facing once the trolls - and Jim - left came crashing down on her. She couldn’t face it alone. And while it seemed - from the little she’d seen on TV - that Ofelia Nuñez was stepping up to the plate, her allyship wasn’t the only kind that Barbara would need.She looked past Jim and Blinky, over to Walt, who’d come over to the dining table while the rest of them were talking. Of course he was still in his troll form; he no longer had a human form, now that his familiar was back in this world. “Will you be leaving also?” she asked.He looked at her intensely. “Not if you don’t want me too.”“Mom!” Jim protested. Then he continued. “I swear, Strickler, if I hear of anything --”Walt shook his head, swiftly and resolutely. “Gunmar’s war is over,” he said. “I find that I am quite looking forward to peace.”  “Claire, I can’t ask you to do this--”“You didn’t ask,” she pointed out. They were standing on top of the bluff they thought of as theirs. They both could use a break from hard work, but that wasn’t the reason Claire had talked Jim into going up there; it was to have this conversation. “I didn’t make this decision in the past three days, you know.”He startled. “You didn’t?”She laughed. “Toby and I barely made it through the year, academically speaking. You came this close to being held back a year. And this was just sophomore year of high school . It only gets harder from here. I had a lot of time to think about what I’d do, if it turned out you couldn’t keep both lives. And like, yeah, one of my options was to go into something that’d let me make lots of money so that I could support both of us. But one of the options was also this.”“But you’d be giving up on so much.”“I’m not giving anything up, Jim; I’m trading. Merlin and Angor are going with you. If I stay in Arcadia, I can’t learn magic.” From the expression on Jim’s face Claire could tell that he hadn’t thought of that - but then, Jim hadn’t had time to think about those things since-- the Darklands, perhaps.She could also tell from his expression when he thought of another question to ask, then realized he already knew her answer: even if they broke up, Claire had things she wanted for her own reasons in this world of trolls and gnomes and magic. Instead, he said: “Toby’s gonna want to come with.”“Toby already thinks he’s coming with,” she countered. Yeah, Jim hadn’t noticed that yet, either. She softened her voice. “Talk to AAARRRGGHH!!! before you talk to Toby.”“You think he’ll…?”“I think it’s worth a shot.”“I don’t fancy breaking that one to Blinky.”“That’d be AAARRRGGHH!!!’s job to do, if that’s what he decides.”He looked away, over at the sleeping town beneath them. “You really think I would’ve had to choose anyway?”“Yes,” she answered bluntly. “I think there would’ve been a point where keeping both worlds would’ve just been too much. I think you would’ve tried to keep both for as long as possible, and…” she blew out a breath, “Jim, you shouldn’t need to fight that hard. That’s not fair.”There was a smile in his voice as he replied: “That’s definitely fairer than death.”She couldn’t help it; she laughed.  Blinky had originally planned to leave on that very first night, but of course that hadn’t happened. Salvaging whatever they could from the ruined Trollmarket took time, and then it took longer than expected because the trolls also helped clear the rubble from downtown Arcadia; they were better suited to that task than the humans and moreover, that meant Arcadia’s authorities didn’t need to call any external forces in. Besides, they needed time to plan at least the beginning of a safe route before they set out.So it was that a week after the great battle, Jim found himself standing at their favorite bluff, Claire and Blinky at his side and Angor and Draal at his back, looking at Toby, who had AAARRRGGHH!!! by his side and Claire’s parents behind the two of them. His mom and Strickler were standing a little apart from both groups; his mom was crying hard enough that she had to remove her glasses, but she was standing tall, her shoulders pushed resolutely straight. Twenty yards away, under the cover of the trees, Trollmarket’s survivors as well as Nomura and NotEnrique were waiting for their leadership to finish saying their goodbyes; Merlin was standing at the very edge of the trees.Jim went on his knees to hug Toby goodbye. “We sure found that adventure, right, Tobes?”“I’m really glad we took the canal that morning,” Toby replied. He wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. “Don’t think you can be rid of me this easily, Jimbo.”“Never,” Jim promised. He leaned forward to touch his forehead against Toby’s. “You’re my best friend, remember?”Toby just hugged him again.“Master Jim,” Blinky said, very quietly. “The sun has set.”Jim forced himself to get up. It was his turn to wipe his eyes; it turned out that he could still cry. “We’re burning night, yes, I know.”“Your people await,” Draal said. Something was twinkling in his eye. “Perhaps-- a speech?”Jim looked at Claire. She smiled at him, taking full credit for her part in this.Jim sighed. He approached the Trollmarket group but kept himself a little to the side, so as to still have his mom and Toby in his peripheral vision.“Destiny is a gift. Never forget that fear is but the precursor to valour, that to strive and and triumph in the face of fear is what it means to be a hero. Don’t think; become .”