Free A Hero at the End of the World by Erin Claiborne

we do it ourselves? Between you, Archie, and me—”
    “Because,” Louise interjected, “only Abrams can kill him.” She delicately dabbed her lips with her napkin. “Let me explain. The Lord Ravager keeps a complex shield spell around him at all times. Observe. Archie?”
    Archie used his spoon to catapult a biscuit across the table. It hit Ralph the Ravager and bounced off; the spot on his shoulder that the biscuit had touched shone with a faint, silver shimmer. Ralph the Ravager, still watching the sprite, didn’t react at all.
    Ewan’s eyebrows shot up; he was impressed in spite of himself. “Okay?”
    “I’m ashamed to say that it’s far too strong an incantation for me to penetrate.” Louise tapped her nails on the fine edge of her cup. “However, even if Abrams can’t break the shield with a spell, the Lord Ravager considers him to be one of his greatest rivals. He would happily make himself vulnerable in exchange for the chance to defeat Oliver Abrams, the slayer of Duff Slan.”
    Ewan shook his head, overwhelmed. It was too much information to take in at once.
    “Pity that Abrams must never know what’s going on,” she continued. “Let’s hope he’s still the man he was five years ago.”
    Before Ewan had a chance to respond, she waved her wand and a map fluttered to the table. He recognized it immediately as being of North London.
    “We need you to escort Abrams here,” she told him, using her free hand to point at a familiar wooded grove in Hampstead Heath, the massive stretch of common land in the north of the city. “The Lord Ravager will be lying in wait. You must ensure that Oliver Abrams keeps his totem and anything else he may have on him, and, more importantly, that he arrive completely uninjured. The Lord Ravager wants a fair duel, after all. Now, once he’s—”
    “Why can’t Oliver know?” Ewan interjected.
    Louise sighed. “Abrams has made it abundantly clear that he suspects me of conspiring with the Lord Ravager.”
    “He does?” Ewan asked, confused.
    “Do you really want him to know of your involvement in this? He’d arrest us all.”
    He had a foul taste in the back of his throat. “So you want me to help him get even more glory.”
    “Have you not heard a single word I’ve said?” Louise snapped. The cords of her neck stood out sharply. “I didn’t go to Abrams with this; I came to you. This is for
you
, you ungrateful child. I’m giving you the opportunity to end the life of one of Britain’s greatest thinkers. This time it will be your
choice
, not your
destiny
, and when Oliver Abrams kills him, it will be
because you wanted him to
. Abrams will be putty in your hands—you’ll show him just how easily manipulated and weak he is.”
    Speechless, Ewan stared first at her, then at Archie, who was resolutely stirring spoonful after spoonful of sugar into his tea, and finally at the oblivious Ralph the Ravager. “You—you want me to be a hero?”
    “The world may never know what you’ve done, but amongst those of us in the Society for the Advancement of Zaubernegativum, you’ll be a hero. There are hundreds of thousands of us across the world, and we’re only getting stronger.”
    She was giving Ewan something that he had never dared hope for: the opportunity to shed his former identity as the slayer of Duff Slan. He could become a whole new person, and this time with none of that destiny nonsense to get in his way. He would be the puppet master, the slayer—no, the
wrecker
of the Ravager.
    And all he needed to do was trick Oliver into killing someone.
    The Lord Ravager was about a million years old; he would probably die soon even if Ewan didn’t lift a finger. And as for Oliver...
    Ewan remembered how much it had hurt when the prophecy had turned out to be false. It still hurt every day of his life. Oliver had done that to him—he had stolen the only thing that had ever made Ewan special. Walking Oliver into a trap, proving to everyone that he