Marcus Makes His Move

Marcus Makes His Move
Marcus's POV

I threw myself forward, grabbing Maya and Elena just as the portal burst behind us.
The world went white. Then it went black. Then it went completely insane.
When I opened my eyes, I was lying on grass that definitely hadn't been in the library a second ago. Maya was beside me, groaning and holding her head. Elena was a few feet away, and Damien was picking himself up off the ground with his sword still in his hand.
But we weren't in the library anymore. We weren't even indoors.
We were in downtown Portland, except downtown Portland looked like someone had mixed it in a mixer with medieval England.
"What did you do?" Elena gasped, looking around us.
I followed her eyes and felt my stomach drop. The bursting portal hadn't just moved us. It had formed some kind of time bubble that stretched for blocks in every direction. Modern houses stood next to medieval castles. Cars were parked next to horse-drawn carts. People in business clothes walked past knights in armor, and nobody seemed to think this was weird.
"I didn't do this," I said, getting to my feet. "The portal explosion must have mixed past and present together."
"Where's Grandmother?" Maya asked, looking around.
That's when I noticed the old witch was nowhere to be seen. But in the distance, I could hear her words echoing through the strange mixed-up city.
"People of Portland!" her voice boomed from everywhere at once. "Behold the power of time magic! Your city now exists in two time periods at once!"
"She's using the chaos to show off," Elena said sadly. "Marcus, we have to stop her."
But I wasn't listening anymore. Because I had just learned something terrible.
The time bubble wasn't stable. I could feel it quivering, like a soap bubble about to pop. And if it fell while all these people were inside it, they would all die.
"Elena," I said quietly, "how many people live in downtown Portland?"
"About sixty thousand, why?"
I pointed at the sparkling edge of the bubble, which I could see in the distance. "Because in about ten minutes, this whole area is going to snap back to normal time. And anyone caught in the middle is going to be torn apart."
Maya went white. "You mean all these people are going to die?"
"Unless we can either stabilize the bubble or get everyone out," I said. "And I don't think we can evacuate sixty thousand people in ten minutes."
"So we stabilize it," Damien said simply. "How?"
I looked at Elena, then at Maya. "We need all four family genes working together. Blackthorne, Ravenwood, and whatever Grandmother's real magical name is."
"Three bloodlines," Elena amended. "But Maya carries both Blackthorne and Ravenwood blood, so she can handle two of them."
"What's the third?" Maya asked.
That's when Grandmother's voice spoke straight into our minds instead of echoing through the city.
"Shadowmere," she said, and I felt her presence like a cold wind. "My true family name is Shadowmere. And children, I'm afraid stabilizing the bubble isn't really a choice."
"What do you mean?" Elena demanded.
"I mean," Grandmother's voice said softly, "that I'm the one making it unstable on purpose. Marcus, dear boy, didn't you ever wonder why I really brought you all together?"
My blood turned to ice. "What are you talking about?"
"I'm not trying to save the family magic, Marcus. I'm trying to destroy it. All of it. Forever."
The world seemed to stop.
"You see, children, I've watched our family's magic cause nothing but pain for three hundred years. Wars fought over magical objects. People killed for having special blood. Entire kingdoms destroyed because someone wants to control time itself. I'm tired of it."
Maya grabbed my arm. "She's going to kill everyone in Portland just to destroy our magic?"
"Oh no, dear," Grandmother's voice said. "I'm going to kill everyone in Portland, everyone in medieval England, and everyone in every time period our family magic has ever touched. When this bubble breaks, it won't just snap back to normal. It will cause a chain reaction that destroys every timeline our magic has ever connected to."
I felt sick. "You're talking about millions of people."
"Billions, actually. Across all of history. But think of all the future pain I'll prevent! No more magical wars. No more people dying because they have special blood. No more family members turning against each other like you and Elena did."
"We didn't turn against each other!" Elena protested. "We chose different paths, but we're still family!"
"Are you? Elena, when was the last time you and Marcus had a real conversation? When was the last time you trusted each other? Magic has poisoned our family just like it poisons everything else."
I looked at Elena, and I could see the pain in her eyes. Because Grandmother was right. Elena and I hadn't really talked in twenty years. We'd been so busy fighting on different sides of magical conflicts that we'd forgotten we used to be best friends.
"But Maya and Damien love each other," I said desperately. "Their magic brought them together, not apart."
"For now," Grandmother said. "But what happens when Maya gets tired of ancient life? What happens when Damien gets jealous of Maya's power? What happens when their children receive magic and decide to use it differently than their parents want? Love doesn't last, Marcus. Magic makes it worse."
"You're wrong," Maya said furiously. "Love does last. My adoptive parents loved me for seventeen years even though I wasn't their actual daughter. Elena loved her students enough to risk her life saving them. You loved your family enough to spend three hundred years trying to protect them, even if you're going about it the wrong way."
For a moment, Grandmother was silent.
Then she laughed. "Oh, Maya. You sweet, naive child. You still don't understand, do you?"
"Understand what?"
"I don't have any family to protect anymore. Elena and Marcus aren't my grandkids."
My heart stopped beating.
"They're my children."
Elena made a choking sound. "That's impossible. We're not even close to the same age—"
"Time magic, remember? I've been forty-five years old for two centuries. Elena, Marcus, I gave birth to you sixty years ago, then used magic to make you age properly while I stayed the same. I wanted to see how you'd turn out if you thought you were making your own choices."
I felt like the ground was disappearing under my feet. "You mean our whole lives have been some kind of experiment?"
"A test," Grandmother corrected. "To see if magical children could grow up to be good people without their mother constantly interfering. And you failed, Marcus. You picked dark magic. You showed that our bloodline is corrupted beyond saving."
"But Elena chose to help people!" Maya protested.
"Elena chose to hide her true power and pretend to be normal," Grandmother said sadly. "She was so afraid of becoming like Marcus that she refused to use her skills to their full potential. Don't you see? Even the good choices our family makes are based on fear of the bad choices."
The bubble shimmered around us, and I could feel it getting weaker.
"So now I'm going to end it," Grandmother continued. "All of it. Every timeline, every option, every future where our family's magic could cause more pain."
"There has to be another way," Damien said.
"There is," Grandmother said, and suddenly she was standing right in front of us, looking exactly like the woman who had raised Elena and me. "Maya, dear child, you can save everyone. All you have to do is give up your magic willingly. Let me drain all the Blackthorne and Ravenwood power from your blood. Without your power to anchor it, the family magic will fade harmlessly instead of bursting."
"And Maya?" Elena asked. "What happens to her?"
Grandmother smiled sadly. "She dies, of course. You can't remove that much magic from someone and expect them to live. But Maya, think of all the people you'll save. Billions of lives across history, in exchange for just one."
Maya looked at me, then at Elena, then at Damien. I could see her considering it. Actually considering sacrificing herself to save everyone else.
"Maya, no," Damien said furiously. "There has to be another way."
"Is there?" Maya asked me straight.
I opened my mouth to say yes, of course there was another way. But looking at the shimmering bubble, feeling the unstable magic, knowing how strong Grandmother really was... I wasn't sure there was.
And that's when something impossible happened.
A new voice spoke from behind us. A voice I recognized but couldn't believe I was hearing.
"There is another way," the voice said. "But Maya's not going to like it."
We all spun around.
Standing there, looking exactly like Maya but wearing medieval clothes, was another Maya.
A Maya from the past.