Breaking Magic

Chapter 20: Felix

I hit the ground, but Adam is right beside me only a second later, helping me to my feet.

"Damn it, Felix," he's saying, and his face is flushed with anger and fear. "I told you, I told you!"

"I'm fine!" I say again for what feels like the hundredth time.

"You just collapsed!"

"Not because of anything you did," I tell him. "Moving that much mass at once was almost too much for me. I'm... I'm exhausted." I hate to admit it, because all I want to do is go look in that hole to see what's lying at the bottom, but I've just had the amount of energy it takes to dig a hole that big drained out of me in the space of ten seconds. My legs are shaking too badly to hold my weight. I feel lightheaded and more than a little dizzy. And, even though I'd never admit it to him, I am still feeling a bit rough around the edges after being hit by his tracking spell.

Adam groans in exasperation, and then slings my arm around his shoulders, so he's half-supporting me. "Come on then," he grunts, and together we awkwardly hobble to the edge of the pit.

My heart is pounding as we peer five feet down into its depths, and I realize I'm actually holding my breath in anticipation.

We scan the freshly exposed earth below and see...

Nothing.

Nothing apart from dark, damp dirt, a few wriggling worms, and an exposed tree root cutting across the grave.

"That can't be right," I say, feeling my heart dropping right into the pit of my stomach. "He has to be here! What do you feel? Does the tracking spell still say he's here? Are you interpreting it right? Are you sure you got the location right?"

Adam rolls his eyes, then ducks out from under my arm. I sink to my knees, while he jumps right into the hole.

"I know how to do a tracking spell, yes, I'm sure he's here. At least, whatever I'm tracking from you is here. For all we know this could be some other great-great-great-great relative, and not Merlin at all. But there's someone down there that's related to you. You just didn't go deep enough."

"Get out of there, I'll—"

"You're not going to do anything," he cuts me off. "You'll probably pass out if you so much as magic away the dirt from under your fingernails. It's not much deeper, just let me do this the mundane way."

I glance behind us at the path that leads into the cemetery, the path that the next tour group will be coming down to catch us in the act if we aren't quick enough. "All right," I acquiesce, "but work fast."

Adam gets down on his hands and knees and starts to dig, moving handfuls of dirt out of the way right in the center of the hole. I lean over the edge and watch with mounting tension.

What if Adam is right, and it isn't Merlin's body he's tracking? My ancestors did live in these parts, what if it's some other ancient relative entirely? What would we do then?

"I've got something," Adam says suddenly, and he redoubles his effort.

"What, what is it?" I demand.

"Bones," he says.

"Well obviously," I snap. "Are they Merlin's bones?"

"How the hell am I supposed to know?"

"Is there a giant magical staff buried with the bones?"

"I don't know yet, do I? I've barely uncovered one bone so far!"