TRACK 2

I've been watching, I've been waiting

In the shadows for my time

I've been searching, I've been living

For tomorrow all my life

Lately, I've been walking, walking in circles

Watching, waiting for something

( In the shadows - The Rasmus)

********

Before reaching Morgana's rooms, the group made a quick stop in the kitchens. They were deserted: of Arthur's past servants, there was not even a shadow. Kind of like there had been no presence around the castle of any other people except Galahad. No soldiers in the flesh, only enchanted armors lurking in the corners.

Archie took advantage of this to steal a lamb rib hanging from the ceiling. He cooked it with a blaze and instantly took to devouring it. It was a little flavorless, as it lacked the spices to which his palate had become accustomed, but that was fine. There had been worse dinners.

Douxie, on the other hand, noted with mild concern that there was very little food compared to the norm. The pantry was not as well stocked as usual, it was almost empty. There were barely twelve servings of food, which certainly was not enough for all of them. Figures an entire staff and the Round Table's knights.

He, then, realized two things.

It was obvious that there was so little food. It was not a matter of time or the like. Camelot, had it not been for them, could have been called a ghost castle. No one was left of the people he had met, except for the Knight most closely associated with Merlin. It was weird to think about it, but it was the truth.

Between shifts, they would have had to go ashore at least once or they would have ended up starving. And yes, Douxie tended at times to skip meals out of haste or lack of hunger, albeit provoking his familiar's anger, but in this case, he knew he had to be at full strength, as the Guardians of Arcadia had to be. No food meant no energy.

The second thing...

"Oh, it's going to be a disaster tomorrow," he said, his voice low and hurt, almost slapping himself while saying it.

A "What?", a "What's going to be a disaster?" and a "What do you mean?" rose practically in chorus.

Archie, reading inside his mind, made a hoarse sound, then returned to the rib with a voracious attitude.

"...The coffee is missing," he said mournfully.

There was a moment of silence. Then Toby burst into hysterical, very loud, laughter.

"Priorities," muttered the dragon. "With your addiction, that's all I expected from you."

*******

Claire found the Shadowmancy volume between her hands so quickly that it almost seemed as if it had magically appeared. It hadn't, of course, she had gone looking for it... but one moment she hadn't had it, not even knowing what it might look like, and the next it was there, the cover visible.

She hadn't opened it yet, but she was clutching it to her chest as if the book was about to disappear. It was almost smooth under her fingertips, but not quite. It was externally crisscrossed with squiggles that decorated it and had a slight thickness on which her fingers ended up lingering, following their paths.

They had left the Mother of Monsters' room as quickly as they could. Just entering it had been terrifying, though it had turned out to be a more or less normal environment. But the mere idea of remaining in the chambers of the one who had taken over her body, trapping her in the Shadow Realm, had caused her to want to avoid staying there for longer than was necessary, making her feel uncomfortable.

Probably sensing her tension, Jim laid a hand on her shoulder, smiling openly. Blush spread across her cheeks and she smiled back, grateful for the support.

They were returning to the room where Merlin had explained the master plan, taking the same route, but in the opposite direction, to also reach the mysterious door that the Wizard and his Familiar had been eyeing.

"Has Zoe answered you yet?" Archibald murmured to Douxie, always leading the group, always looking outward, at the same time that Steve was moaning about the illegal amount of stairs in the castle. A fact in which he wasn't wrong. How many were there? And how the heck so many rooms and hallways were in that castle? Sure, it was huge, so the large amount was proportional to the size... But really? And then it was all so freaking identical! How the raven-haired boy and the dragon could orient themselves so well was a mystery.

He looked at his phone "No." he replied, in much the same tone of voice. "And honestly, I'm already dreading when she's going to do it. I'm probably going to make you read it instead." After a slight smile, he said something Claire could not hear well, being overshadowed by the blond boy who shrieked suddenly.

Claire would have liked to criticize him for the loud noise but paused to see how he was being passed through from side to side by a semi-transparent blackbird with neon green hues. Taking a good look at it, the girl noticed what looked like a half-rolled parchment clutched in its beak.

The bird, devoid of substance, immediately flew between them. Then it stopped, flapped its wings a couple of times on the spot, and disappeared in a cloud of smoke, leaving only the roll of parchment, also initially without substance, but which then took shape, falling back to the ground. Jim rushed to grab it, somewhat interested in seeing its contents.

"The next Jump is estimated in four hours..." he read, struggling because of the complicated writing -or it was better to say scribbled, so much so that it made the handwriting of some doctor envious- and the very small size of the words. "Pr... Prepare guard shifts immediately. Nari and I will stay in my studio for a while. In case of trouble, I will send another sentry." The last part was so badly written that Jim frowned. "I don't know what it says here."

They all leaned over to see at the same time.

"The last word seems to be ' windows ,' if I'm not mistaken," Blinky said, thinning all six eyes.

"Mr. Magic Man is telling us to pay attention to what's beyond the windows. Easy, buttsnacks ." Said Steve. "We're not stupid, he didn't need to add that. He didn't even need to order us to take turns on watch!"

"I don't think that it's that," Claire retorted. Of course, he might have written it, since Merlin Ambrosius at times seemed to see them only as a bunch of dumb teens who either had to be taken by the hand or he directly said nothing to them, doing everything on his own.

"It's not." Confirmed Archie, leaning over his Wizard's shoulder, adjusting his glasses, and waving his tail. "It's more of a..."

" By morning cover the windows," completed Douxie, perhaps unintentionally imitating the Master's voice as he said it. The dragon merely nodded and asserted a soft "Yes."

"Oh. That's... Here the sunlight will come streaming in," she realized, her gaze shifting very quickly from Aaarrrgh to Blinky to Jim. Agitation mixed with terror began to run through her at the horrifying image of one of the three turning to stone. Especially Jim.

"I'll take care of it," Merlin's Apprentice immediately offered, resuming the path at a much faster pace than before, leading them to speed up in turn so as not to risk losing sight of him. It would have been hell finding their way back without a guide who knew which way to go. They really would have been lost within a couple of minutes. "Everything's under control. No problem."

"Of course, he could write a tad better..." commented Toby shortly afterward. "Not even Nana has ever written like that."

"Be thankful it's readable," said Archie with an amused expression. "He could write a tad better, yes, but he could also write a lot worse." He gave Douxie a slight head butt, rubbing up against him with a look of blatant complicity. The boy made a weird face in response, returning the same look.

"When he had written us the ingredients for the potion it was more understandable than that," asserted Jim, more to himself than anything else.

"For ingredients, he has to think about it more. For giving orders... let's say it takes less. To start saying or writing roasting comments, he almost doesn't." Concluded the dragon.

Well. As a piece of information, it said a lot about him. And it wasn't shocking at all. But like, not even in the slightest. It would have been surprising if it wasn't.

Between randomly loud chatting, laughter, and smiles, they were back at the door with the statue at its side in no time. Douxie and Archie immediately approached it but stopped before opening it.

"I hope Master Merlin won't scream at me in ancient Greek if there is something strange behind it that we should not have seen," he commented in a low voice.

"If it was something like that, there would be a strong locking spell on the door to block our entrance."

"...True."

"Do you hear it?"

"No."

"Then you have your answer. You may enter."

Douxie turned the knob, opening the door.

But then, he practically entered only halfway, stopping in the middle of it, paralyzing on the spot and then blocking the view, perhaps from shock.

"Of all the possible scenarios, I didn't expect this one," he said in a surprised, almost breathless tone. And he slipped inside quietly, avoiding elaborating his comment.

When Claire crossed the threshold, following Jim and Toby, she was confronted with something that left her gaping and gasping like a fish out of water.

An "Oh wow" escaped her mouth. She had not expected it either. She had imagined perhaps another bedroom... or perhaps any kind of parlor. Not such a view. Just no.

The room in front of them looked like something between a Japanese spa and a school swimming pool, but with more than two pools in it and a floor that looked like it was made of bamboo. And it probably was, too. Then there were various plants climbing along the walls, subspecies of fireflies dancing in the air, and what looked like small stone nymphs from which little waterfalls of hot water slid out, causing steam.

Everything looked extremely sophisticated, so much so that it almost seemed out of place. As if they had teleported somewhere else with getting through the door. Kind of like there had been one of her portals.

"Public toilets. Better than a bowl and a square wooden tub."

"Oh yeah, that's for sure." Douxie ended up coughing a bit. "Anything's better than that..." he paused with a lost expression as if he was seeing something invisible to their eyes "It's Nari's artwork," he said, with blatant admiration painted in his voice.

Claire then looked at Jim as well, almost by instinct. In turn, his gaze was rather strange. Almost devoured by emptiness and a hint of distress that managed to peep through only for a few seconds. It was fixed on one of the tubs with something obsessive about it. Toby noticed it almost at the same time as her.

Both of them reached out to him, resting their hands on his shoulders, making him wince slightly.

"Everything okay, Jimbo?" Asked Toby, extremely serious.

Jim blinked a few times as if he had just awakened from a long dream or a trance. "Yes, don't worry about it," he replied, hinting at a smile, although it came out rather strained and wrong . Which was certainly not reassuring. Not at all. On the contrary, it worried Claire even more.

"You can talk to us," she found herself saying, staring him straight in the eye. "Whatever it is, we'll listen."

Toby confirmed, nodding quickly. The Trolls, though the girl did not notice them, having all her attention on her boyfriend, did the same, also by voice. Steve was strangely and uncharacteristically silent. The other two, having sensed the change of mood, were observing the situation, but standing a little farther away than the others, as if to respect their privacy, casting small glances at each other in between.

"It's nothing, really. I just remembered something." The answer was very vague. Perhaps a little too much so.

Claire sighed. Insisting was not going to help. Not with him. Jim could be stubborn at times, especially when it came to keeping people away from what he saw as his problems.

But Claire wished she could have helped him in some way. He should have let it all out, not kept it all inside. He didn't have to suffer in silence as if it was necessary, as if talking would cause them all to look at him differently.

"It's okay, Jimbo. If you're not ready, we understand," Toby said again, but in a hushed voice, "But if you ever need to talk about it, we're here." This time it was Claire's turn to nod.

Then the two of them went to hug him in complete silence.

*******

Jim had tried to ignore it.

He had played it cool, but both Toby and Claire had seen through his facade without any problems. And he had been extremely grateful for their desire to help him. Their support was worth more than any treasure. However...

He didn't know how to explain to them that staring at a simple bathtub brought to his mind black water and a slow drowning, while something about him had seemed to be ripped out of him, piece by piece, only to be spat out of it with an internal agony-almost imperceptible in the beginning, but which had made itself felt later in an insistent way, to say the least-and with a different face than the one that had been his for sixteen years, but which at this point was no longer.

That something that had been taken from him continued to be missing, causing what felt like an empty hole in his body. Jim did not know if it was his humanity -not the psychological side of humans. It was in the sense of belonging. In the texture of his skin. In the taste of food- or something else, but whatever it was, he missed it terribly.

So he had limited himself to hide the damage, putting it off until later . A later that he hoped would never come, letting his mind seek distraction in more positive thoughts: in what he had achieved, in his being glad to be loved by his mother, by Toby, Claire, Blinky, Aaarrrgh, and everyone who had ever been close to him.

It was so easy to do that. So much so that it felt wrong at times, but he was okay with it anyway. It was because of the Troll form that he had been able to defeat Gunmar. It was always thanks to it that he was alive. And his mind -except for little dark moments that jumped up in the dumbest way ever- had not changed. He wasn't going to let a few simple, harmless bathtubs get him down. It was a ridiculous thing.

' They're nothing but objects .' he said to himself ' And I'm not in the same situation. This looks like a vacation in comparison .'

' They are nothing but objects. ' he repeated, more confident than before. ' There is nothing to fear, they have no life of their own. They are not even so deep that you risk drowning in them. There is no point in being afraid of them .'

The thought instantly held him back, leading him to look at Blinky, receiving the Troll's gentle, fatherly smile.

' ...But having it is also not a mistake. Fear is the precursor to valor. '

He relaxed almost completely, smiling in turn.

But still, to the last, he ended up looking at the tanks one more time, trying to ignore the mental image of the water darkening to inky black, this before shaking his head and leaving the room behind with the others.

Claire squeezed his left hand. Toby remained to his right, a constant presence.

*******

When they reached the predetermined destination, Douxie started to make a mental diagram of the situation as quickly as possible. The number of rooms in the castle, those they were likely to use and those they would not, the total number of windows he would have to cover with dark curtains -the darkest and most substantial possible to keep the sun from coming in- The fire coming from the torches to still allow a better view and to avoid killing themselves just by moving a few inches...

' One thing at a time .' Archie told him, cracking the heavy blanket of his thoughts, making him realize that he had already started approaching the easternmost wall anyway.

He had put aside the ' don't use your magic because of the risk of running dry in a desperate situation .' That could have become a desperate situation if he had not taken action.

And yes, he could have set out to find a cloth to cover the windows, but besides the simple fact that it would have taken him a long time to find just the right amount, he was in no mood to go back to running around Camelot like Merlin's errand boy . A nickname he was highly sick of after hearing it hundreds of times, accompanied by a derisive tone. Just like a couple of others that had been given to him over the past few centuries, albeit devoid of the heavy malice.

More to the point, some were mispronounced through translation errors. He didn't even like them that much in the correct version. He was Douxie. Nothing more, nothing less.

A nickname given by status, provenance, or miscalculation did not define him. But if he had to choose between those nicknames and the terms he received even before he knew wizards like him existed... he preferred the weird, wrong nicknames hands down.

He ran the runes under his fingers to find the right ones. He could hear his melody trembling in anticipation, ready to slide out into a song with a solid, calm rhythm, with the notes calling to each other through chords. There were no pauses. There were not going to be. Interruptions inside the song could screw up the result of the spell.

To make it even more stable, he allowed himself to be gripped by the tranquility that only music granted him. He ended up humming under his breath, following the sound and at the same time being followed by it. Then, having found the correct runes, he leaned the center of his palm against the wall, sensing its coolness even through his gloves.

He then closed his eyes. His magical aura rose in volume with the release of the spell and seemed to almost flicker around him before exploding into the rock in a musical uproar. It rose and fell, moved along the supporting wall, and went splitting, darting around and tingling the air with its sound. If he had also used Sight and not just Hearing, his esoteric eye would have seen his light blue magic dancing slowly, being carried everywhere, tracing pattern-like grooves that repeated again and again in a kind of not-so-dense web.

The hand that wasn't resting on the wall had something like a spasm, the need to grab the electric guitar and strum began to make itself be felt... a bit like the slight fatigue that grew more and more as he gave up some of his energy. As uncomplicated as this magic was, it was the extent to which he was taking it that was bothering him a bit. Not anything else. It still wasn't enough to drain him, thankfully.

When he opened his eyes, however, the mild tired feeling was replaced by the satisfaction that he had done a pretty good job. The long curtains and blue flames that lit up the area -reminiscent of wisps...though they were powered by the torches and thus did not twirl and float- were witness to some of his effort. If he went back to run around specific sides of the castle, he would attest the rest.

Someone was talking at that moment. Douxie blinked, confused, his mind empty and at the same time clouded by the still-present humming of the soft melody, such that he struggled to focus on anything else. He saw the figures in front of him moving their lips, but it was as if he had earplugs in his ears.

He knew something was wrong when everyone turned in his direction to stare at him, not just Archie, remaining tight-lipped, saying no more. As if they were expecting an answer from him.

Fortunately, it did not take long for his general hearing to recover, realizing that the ringtone of his cell phone had gone off. He hurriedly grabbed it, muttering a " Pardon me ." and began to move away from the group, albeit not by too much, letting himself slip outside the room, totally into the open air. Using the runes, he hastily created an umbrella to avoid getting exaggerated amounts of snow on himself, causing a funny little tune.

' Call from Zoe ' was the text flashing on his phone screen, as Blackout by Solence continued to play in the background. Nervous laughter escaped him, then, moving the phone as far away from his ear as possible, he went to press the open call button

" Hisirdoux Casperan !" shouted Ashildr from the other end of the line, so loud that he could hear it perfectly even without the speakerphone.

' That's it. Here we go again ,' he thought. ' I won't get any particular earful from Merlin today. At least I hope not. But from her? Fuzz me, yes.'

"Hi, Zoe. How's it going in there?"

" You ditched me, motherfucking asshole! " She retorted angrily, blatantly ignoring his question. " What's supposed to mean to me the bloody 'Forgive me, Zoe, I can't come. Urgent commitment in progress.' message? You couldn't be any more fucking vague! What the hell! "

"Yes, I know. Sorry. I didn't do it on purpose. You know how times are these days... Full of surprises..." he brought his hand up to his neck, letting his fingers thread through the strands of hair, barely pulling them. Archie growled, making him stop immediately. "Merlin is back."

He heard her freeze from whatever sentence she probably would have said if Douxie had not inserted the last part into his speech. " Did your boss show up? Sheesh... Of course, he did. We have some time to breathe after the near apocalypse and he comes along like a bird of ill omen. Typical. "

Douxie smiled. "Well. Right now we're inside Camelot. Flying over Alaska."

" Congratulations. You'll catch pneumonia pretty quickly. "

He chuckled, leaning his chest against one of the battlements and looking ahead of him. "Yeah..."

" I'm not joking. If you're going to be a bastard, leaving me totally alone to hunt Niffins, at least get decently dressed. "

"Already done," a pause, in which he frowned, "Don't treat me like a child."

" You are an eternal child, Casperan. "

"An eternal teenager, you mean," he retorted mildly irritated.

" Child ." she insisted. He rolled his eyes, staring at the sky.

"Oh, shut up." Zoe laughed on the other end of the line. "Anyway, what about your girlfriend?"

" ... Too busy on her trip to Greece for my liking. She sent me like three hundred pictures of the beach and another two hundred of food she ordered from the restaurant. "

Douxie burst out laughing. "Buckets', that's her."

" She didn't send you anything? "

"Voice recordings, a few videos, and...yes, a few photos. But not that many, fortunately. My phone memory would have imploded otherwise."

Zoe let silence fall in the conversation, then murmured " Just know that when you go back to Arcadia I'll still beat your ass. You won't get away with it. Idiot. "

"Yes. Okay. Not too hard though, thank you. I'd be careful not to bruise my face for two whole days or more." He joked

" As if your wounds wouldn't disappear at unnatural speed even for a wizard ," she blurted out, vaguely annoyed, before falling silent again for a couple of seconds " ...Be careful, Douxie, alright?... " Her tone of voice had become demonstrably lower and strained, so much so that it caught him off guard " And you, Archie... I know you're listening... Stop him from whatever bullshit he's probably going to come up with."

She closed the call before he or his Familiar could respond to her. Hisirdoux sighed. A wave of icy air current crashed over him, causing him to barely shiver. And to hurry back inside, albeit casting a glance at his surroundings and at the flakes that were coming down even faster than before. He made the umbrella disappear once after reaching a covered spot, banging the toecap of his shoes against the rock to remove the snow from their soles. In no time he was thus back in the room.

Some of the Guardians of Arcadia were standing, others had let themselves fall back into chairs. Steve, almost as if afflicted with ADHD, wandered from side to side continuously while staring at whatever thing caught his eye. Just looking at him made him feel exhausted, to say the least. He had no idea what internal batteries that guy had. Still, he stopped himself when he noticed he was back.

"Who was it? Your girlfriend?" The blond asked. Douxie let slip a weird ed-out -and slightly disgusted- expression just at the thought. To him, she was practically a sister. A romantic relationship with her seemed almost like incest. Not that he was interested in having one, to be honest. Not with the way he was. He merely responded to Steve with a quick shake of his head.

"Friend? Relative? Work boss? Dogsitter? Ok, no, you have a cat. Or do you have both?"

Douxie arched his eyebrow. "Member of my Band and Technomancer Witch."

"Techno-what?"

He simply sighed.