Free Victories by Mercedes Lackey

Where?”
    “To perform a task—if I can. But you don’t need me any longer. The next part in this is yours, not mine. I have always known that.”
    “But— Can’t we help you? With … whatever-it-is?” Spirit asked.
    Vivian just shook her head.
    “Isn’t there anything you can tell us?” Addie pleaded. “We’ve found the Hallows, but we don’t know how to use them. We can’t even turn them into what they’re supposed to be.”
    “The Hallows themselves will instruct you,” Vivian said, still sounding a little rattled. She turned around to face them again. “You must have faith. Truly. Ask Merlin, and he will tell you the same. The Hallows will show you the way.”
    “But—” Loch said.
    “No,” Spirit said firmly, somehow sure that Vivian was right, and that this was the way things had to be. She didn’t know where this sense of certainty was coming from, but she knew it was true so solidly that it was as if it had always been true. “This is up to us now. If Vivian could’ve stopped Mordred, she would have. If she knew how—or … anything—she’d tell us.”
    Vivian smiled at Spirit with genuine warmth. “Got it in one, kid. Good luck with heading off the Apocalypse.”
    “Thanks—I think,” Spirit said ruefully.
    “Can’t you even tell us which Reincarnates we are, and how we get our memories back?” Loch asked. “Oh, come on,” he said, looking at the others, “anybody who didn’t figure we had to be Reincarnates to find the Hallows hasn’t been paying attention.”
    “You’re right, my—my dear boy,” Vivian said. Spirit had the feeling she’d changed what she was going to say in the middle. “But I’m not crazy enough to stick my nose into the middle of magic this powerful. You’ll find out when you’re meant to.”
    “This is like every bad teen slasher movie ever filmed,” Loch complained. “You know things we need to know. And you won’t tell us.”
    “Yes,” Vivian said, sounding more like her usual exasperated self. “Because if I tell you before you know, you might never know at all. Things have to come in the right order, or nothing works. It’s like a spell, only a lot more powerful than any spell you’ve ever been involved with before. You know how spells work. Do the steps out of order and you get nothing. Or something really bad. You’ve been hidden carefully—even from yourselves. If something goes wrong this time, you won’t be reborn to try again. And Mordred wins. Forever.”
    Because Merlin will die, Spirit realized. Whether Mordred knew where—and what—Merlin was or not, when Mordred blew up the Internet, Merlin would be gone.
    “Let it go, Loch. She’s been right so far,” Spirit said.
    Loch waved his hand irritably—agreeing or arguing, Spirit couldn’t tell—and stalked out of the kitchen.
    “So … what should we do now?” Addie asked hesitantly.
    The question startled Vivian into a sharp bark of laughter. “Do? Do anything you want. It’s all up to the Hallows now, so do whatever you want to until they decide the time is right.”
    *   *   *
    Spirit wanted to talk to Merlin. They’d done the first thing they had to do, and she was hoping he might be more forthcoming than Vivian had been—or at least tell her what had to happen next. But she felt oddly shy about saying so. When the others agreed the best thing to do was try to figure out how to use the magical weapons they’d been given, Spirit went along with it. She suspected none of them wanted to admit to the others that they were afraid that mastering their Hallow would awaken their Reincarnate memories. Becoming someone else— remembering being someone else—seemed like amnesia-in-reverse. Or dying.
    But if they hadn’t been willing to die, they would all have gone along with Mordred. Of all the people at Oakhurst, at Breakthrough, or in Radial, they, the five of them (because it had been Muirin’s choice, too), were the only ones who had a true