Chapter Twenty-nine: All Is Love; All Is Lost

 

Outside of the library, the world was shaking violently. Stavros’s lights zipped along, looking for their victims.

I had wondered if he’d just target all of us first. But the input parameters for the spell were too broad, and yet too restrictive—he’d already decided who he was using it for before I’d seen the spell, but hadn’t shown me who.

Besides, he wanted more than one of us alive to be used—he’d want to make our ends personal and painful.

The seal in the center of the floor started swirling as soon as I looked at it. Universal Motes had been very helpful.

Butterflies jammed together in my chest. I didn't know how I was going to survive what needed to happen. Spartine, Stavros, the culling, A... I closed my eyes. Forward. Go forward.

I quickly formed an image of the destination and shot the coordinate packet toward the seal. It was sucked into the center, opening a vortex.

I let a half-smile curve my lips. “Look, Con, it's like...” My words trailed off. “What?”

He was staring moodily at the seal. He looked back at me with that same strange cocktail of emotions, but something was finally winning—resolve.

He stalked back toward me, eyes intent.

“What is it?” I asked, butterflies becoming eagles jamming in my chest. “Second thoughts? Something's wrong? What—”

His warm fingers slid along my cheek, then wrapped into my hair. He leaned down to rest his forehead against mine and closed his eyes. “The ribbon. I lied.”

“What? We aren't engaged?” I asked, smiling shakily, curling my fingers into his shirt. “I have to show up to family dinners as your weird second cousin?”

He opened his eyes and looked into mine. “It doesn't mean family. Not like that. Not to me.”

And his emotional connection opened cleanly, without the muddle he usually hid his true feelings within. And it was love, clear and without artifice, shining there.

I stared at him, breath caught in my chest. “You—”

His emotions were wrapping around me, free and clear and relieved. Like honey and copper—sweet, tangy, and charged—gentle, consuming, warm, passionate, and resolute. “No tricks. No games. No expectations. No lies—not to you, not ever again.”

Stunned, I watched him pull away.

He looked at peace for the first time in weeks. Months. Then he looked down at our connection threads and I wondered what on earth he’d see.

He looked up, and a smile, brilliant and all-consuming split his face. He backed up slowly. “Interesting. See you soon, darling.” He winked, turned, and flipped over the edge of the seal and through the vortex.

I stared, lips parted, cheeks warm.

“Did he just...?” I asked, my fingers carefully touching my cheek, needing to be certain.

“Tell you he loved you?” Olivia said, eyes on the ceiling, foot tapping the floor.

“But he, and all the girls, and...”

Axer smiled. I could feel their bond, solidly tight.

Axer reached forward and in a mirrored gesture put his forehead to mine. “Tell him he can court you as long as I get to chaperone. For the next ten years.”

He pulled back and winked.

“That’s...what?...no!”

But he, too, was gone, laughter trailing in his wake.

Olivia was looking at the shaking, domed ceiling like she wished for a murder stick to drop from it. A large one.

Will's jaw was somewhere near the floor. Neph just looked amused.

Delia sighed, then said, “That sigh was for Mike. He would want a sigh recorded here.”

“In that case,” Olivia said. “I would like to put forth—”

Delia elbowed her hard and Olivia let out a little oof of air.

“Are you going to chaperone, too?” I asked. I felt along my chest, my arms, at the connections there, and wow, okay. Wow.

Neph laughed outright. It was a reassuring sound as the world shook.

“No, while Delia, Nephthys, and William are waiting for those two morons to clear the hallways, I'm going to take the other vortex path you open.” Olivia looked down her nose and pointed at the seal.

I quickly opened the second path.

But before she hopped inside, she grabbed me and pulled me to her. “Don't die,” she said into my hair as we clung to each other.

“You neither.”

“Be careful.”

She wrapped her arms more tightly around me and laid her cheek against mine. “You, too.” She tore herself away and dove inside the vortex. It closed behind her.

“And then there were four,” Will said.

“Tasky, I'll kill you if you just jinxed us,” Delia said. She was on edge, wanting to get to the prison. She had lobbied to go through with the boys. I heard the jar clinking in her coat as she shifted. “Also, Dagfinn said we are clear to move, and we are about to have company, Ren.”

We all jammed together into a fierce group hug full of knocked heads and entangled limbs. “Good luck.”

I tore away and threw out the first set of coordinates again. The three of them jumped inside, I shot a spell at the hunters rounding the corner of the palace, shot another set of coordinates inside the seal, then dove through the fourth vortex.

I slammed into the ground. Outside of the palace, the world was vibrating.

Guard Rock jumped down from my hood.

“It's you and me, buddy,” I murmured. He poked my boot in support and solidarity and began his preparations. We would get five flips.

I whipped out the plethora of devices we’d need as Guard Rock drew his ritual circle.

“You ready, Crown?” Dagfinn asked over the communication network that Constantine and he had constructed. The network was tethered to Constantine and a large vat of my magic, instead of to any part of the layer system.

“Thirty seconds.” I initiated all the spells, pulling up copies of Dagfinn's feeds. “You in Medical now?”

“Terrible case of the strumps. Contagious. Wildly contagious. Can't even arrest me until two days have past. Instant death to anyone who enters.”

I grinned, then looked at the feed of Delia, Neph, and Will. My smile thinned. “I should be there with them.”

“You can't be there, Ren. You know that. Hold tight. Hey! Found Givens! They are moving him through the prison,” Dagfinn said to the comms at large. “Looks like Level 4.”

In the deserted hallway at Spartine, Delia drooped in relief—it was the news we'd all been waiting to hear.

“They dumped him in the less restricted cell block. Look, he's got a pillow.”

I stared at the cell through the surveillance feed Dagfinn had hijacked. Mike looked terrible. My hand started to shake. Guard Rock poked me hard. I swallowed and nodded.

I called up the magic of the layers and the puzzle pieces that Stavros had given me. I shifted them into position.

“What about Patrick?” Delia demanded.

“Negative.”

In the multitude of feeds, different transportation spells activated around the prison, making one cell open into a lobby, another into a mess hall, another into a laboratory.

“Labs are on level one, four, five—” Dagfinn was listing what each person saw along with what the surveillance feeds showed.

The surveillance discs looked just like they did in the Second Layer Depot—blinking on the wall with a thousand eyes shifting in a thousand directions. But now, we were using those sinister-looking surveillance feeds for our own purpose.

In the feed showing Will, Neph, and Delia, two prison guards turned the corner and startled abruptly at seeing the three of them. Neph raised a hand, but before she could do anything, the guards' eyes went strangely blank.

“Something's not right,” Axer said, turning the corner and walking past the guards, paying no attention to their inert forms as he quickly cataloged Delia, Neph, and Will—making sure they were who they appeared to be even though he had seen them five minutes before. Satisfied, he looked at the hall's wards.

I called up a second set of strings that held the world together and attached them to the seal I was building.

Constantine rounded the corner behind Axer, and motioned offhandedly at the guards. Both guards blinked, then blankly looked up at the ceiling. “Yes, this part doesn’t involve enough stab, stab, spin, thrust for you.”

“I’m going to get rusty,” Axer said. He crouched and put his finger on a ward along the floor, then stood and, battle focused, motioned for the others to follow along the path. They passed another eight women and men peering strangely at the ceiling.

“Lies,” Constantine said blandly, good mood threatening to overtake his usually excellent game face.

Axer smiled. He looked at the others and pointed in two directions. “The first of the Awakening canisters are to the left. And the main guard tower is to the right.”

Quick, solid hugs were again exchanged, then Delia turned right, and Neph and Will went left.

“And then there were three,” I murmured, slipping a ward underneath the one Stavros was laying.

“Darling, no,” Constantine said.

“Love admit-and-runners don't get to have a say.”

He smiled slowly. “I'll remember that.”

My ward was yanked and burned. “Shoot.” Stavros had finally figured out what I was doing, and I could feel him start to fight—feel him send out magic to pinpoint my position. “Here we go.”

In the feeds, guards poured into hallways and through portals, and so did people I recognized. Fighting erupted, and it became hard to discern who was whom across the changing surveillance landscapes.

In one, a man I semi-recognized was fighting Axer.

“Alexander Dare. The warrior. The prodigy. The protector of the people. The fighter for justice.” The person spit blood, smiling crazily. “Always keeping to the rules of the field. Stavros will remake you into a real warrior.”

Before the man could lift his hand again, there was one wrapped around the back of his head, gripping it. The man froze, as if his entire body had stopped listening to commands from his brain.

“Here's the thing,” Constantine whispered into his ear. “That most people don't know. Alexi and I are far more alike than anyone understands. You think he's the good guy.” Constantine laughed lowly, almost seductively. “That was your first mistake.”

The man dropped to the ground.

“The guards are tied into revivification wards in case of prison outbreaks,” Dagfinn said across the comms. “They will be shocked awake in eight minutes. I'm trying to see if I can recode the magic to put them out again immediately, restarting the eight-minute clock.”

I was forced to stop watching as the wards around me shrieked in alarm.

I held out my hand to Guard Rock, who nodded. The wards would hold for thirty seconds more. Now that we’d started, we needed every precious second.

Golems poured into the building, surrounding our warded circle and Kaine strode through.

Something about the golems made the hair rise on the back of my neck. “There's something wrong with the guards,” I said to the others. I shook my head slowly, and sent an image of the first guard through the communications loop.

“Yes,” Axer agreed. “Piecing enchantment. Watch for them to reform into something else—dragons, vampires.”

Kaine began thrusting shadows against the ward circle.

“I told you they’d come back in some grisly fashion,” Olivia said grimly. “Status check, I'm at my position.”

“They are...” I stared at them. Bile rose in my throat. The ears. The nose. The hair. The eyes. My mind did exactly what Stavros wanted—piecing together the separate pieces and forming a whole across the lot. “They aren’t dragons.”

“Do you recognize the pieces?” Stavros's mouth appeared on another portion—Christian’s eyes staring sightlessly at me over Stavros’s moving mouth. He sneered at the circle. “I feel your magic. Interesting, that you have recovered so quickly. How so, I wonder? And what do you think you are going to do?”

“Stop you.”

He laughed and reached toward the thinning ward. “How are you going to stop me and keep hold of those threads, my dear?”

“Now,” I shouted at Guard Rock.

He stabbed his pencil down and flipped the circle.

I barely kept my grip.

It took Stavros only two minutes to find us at location number two.

I shuddered as I observed my brother’s dripping features.

“It was time to overhaul the guards.” Stavros smiled. “You gave me an excuse and liabilities aren’t tolerated. You keep giving us pieces of you. We are piecing you together in the workshop now. A little Pinocchio girl. We will have your abilities, whether piecemeal or altogether in one package.”

Kaine shot a shadow under the circle and as it sliced through my shield, I could feel elements of my own magic in it. Flying backward, I hit the ground and my head hard. The threads almost slipped free.

“Ren!” Multiple shouts came through.

I gritted my teeth. “M'fine.”

“Do you need me?” Constantine asked tersely.

“No. I'm fine.” I dragged myself up.

I could hear Constantine swearing over the background of the battle noise and saying he should have gone with me.

“I'm going to take all of your little friends,” Stavros said. “And line them up one-by-one in front of you. I'm going to make you kill each and every one of them. Then I'll let you have your emotions back. Just for an instant.”

Another shadow started to breech the circle.

“Now!”

Guard Rock flipped us again.

I didn’t even try to rise from the ground this time. The magic was overwhelming. I could feel people dying. One, two, a thousand, a million. I had known, I had known this would happen. We had known there was no way to stop Stavros's first hit from happening, we just had to stop it after.

And that meant the cull would be successful, at least initially.

“Shivit, we just lost Delia, and at least a hundred students on campus. He targeted Second Layer mages with Third Layer ties.”

Tears fell down my cheeks.

Even Bloody Tuesday with the unreality, the disconnect of watching people I knew drop around me, hadn't been this brutal. This overwhelming feeling of death.

“Do you like my choice?” Stavros said, appearing again with Kaine and the horrible misfit versions of my brother. “So messy, those with ties between layers. We need things to be orderly when we make our real changes. But you could have saved your friend. I would have spared her. She—”

“Shut up.” And I was yanking the magic back, flipping it. Using the knowledge from Death Magic and The Twelve Black Steps—using the reverse of what the books were usually used for. I had ten minutes from the time the first person fell to revive them without consequences.

Somewhere in Spartine, Delia was heaving a breath.

“You fool!” Stavros yelled.

“Go!” I shouted.

Guard Rock flipped us.

We had one more flip.

“Can you take out Stavros?” Constantine asked me.

“No,” I said grimly. “He's protected. But I can save twenty million. He gave me the key. I've got them. Thirty seconds.” I gritted my teeth and pulled.

I felt his fingers sliding along my arm and, in the feed, saw him guarding Axer's back.

Axer was destroying the western wing of Spartine.

I saw Bialto, the Third Layer champion, and two others who looked too closely related to be anything other than family—along with an array of other Third Layer fighters behind them. They were wearing our cloaks. If they were caught, the Second Layer would blame the Third. Call them terrorists. Strip them of their legal rights to travel to the other layers. And still, Bialto had come here to fight.

Axer. He was fighting because Axer had asked—for a cause they had all agreed upon that week after the championship. A championship that Axer had influenced—a win for the Third Layer instead of a huge win solely for himself.

And now...it wasn’t just a good political move that Bialto was fighting for. The fight had just become extremely personal. Bialto's expression was absolutely and utterly enraged. How many people did he know who’d been targeted?

I pulled harder. Another million gasped a breath, two, three.

In the feeds, there were combat mages I had never seen, and more streaming in from all corners of the four layers.

Magical beings, creatures, shifters, and the largest feline dragon hybrid I had ever seen, were fighting the praetorians and devouring everything in their path.

War healers were weaving in and out of the fighters, casting their own magic to revive, to protect, to repel.

“You will regret this,” Stavros said coldly, his empty shell standing outside the last circle.

Guard Rock stood, ready.

And suddenly, I could see the change in the Spartine fight. New guards swarmed from portals wearing new faces and forms—their forms changing with each person who met their enchanted eyes—forming pieced together versions of someone the fighters on our side had loved and lost.

And I knew the moment that one of them turned into Sashia Mayr Leandred. I saw Constantine freeze, for just a second. Saw Axer grab and throw him from harm. Saw the hand with a null cuff fall and attach to Axer. Saw the transport doorway open.

And my hands were full of the dead, the remaining ten million I needed to save, and the world-breaking magic around it.

There was nothing I could do about Axer. Not if I didn't want to let ten million people die, not if I didn't want to end the world.

There was nothing I could do about it. By design.

Axer was nullified. The portal doorway was open. And it wasn't any grunt that was taking him. It was Mussolgranz reaching through with a pair of hot tongs.

Constantine looked up at one of the small surveillance devices on the wall Dagfinn had tapped into, directly into my eyes, and his fingers slid along the skin of his elbow, regret and determination in his gaze.

My eyes went wide. “No. No.”

Constantine was in a defensible position. He could get out.

But he was already moving, tossing the cat safely from his cloak and diving in after Axer while throwing a spell at Mussolgranz.

“Fall back!” Lox yelled. The combat mages immediately initiated a series of complicated maneuvers to retreat to a designated location in the prison. The cat scampered after them, and Greene scooped it up.

Constantine and Axer's connections stuttered, then went dark.

My legs gave out and my pelvis hit the back of one splayed calf, trapping it limply against the ground. I stared at the empty space in the feed and held on with all my might to the lives in my hands.

“Dammit Leandred,” Olivia said quietly, then all the voices in my head went dark.

Constantine had been the hub.

He'd been the hub for weeks, plastered against my side.

Stavros was laughing. I saw the praetorians. Saw Kaine. But if Kaine was here, he couldn’t be carving into Axer and Constantine yet. My heart squeezed.

“Weakness. Who is your best ally now, Miss Crown? Soon you will have none. You should let go, my dear,” he said soothingly. “What is a million more? I can give you your enemies. You will need to make some...choices.”

And he flashed a recording along the wall.

I let the tears fall, holding firm, pulling another hundred thousand back, even while I watched the recording play.

Mike was setting charges along the waterfront, his attention elsewhere as the shadows lengthened.

Patrick was behind him, downing a potion. I saw the potion do its work, loosening and breaking all the ties that had formed through Excelsine.

“Time's up, Givens.”

There was a certain amount of regret in the darkness underlying Patrick's voice that made Mike look up and step back automatically. “What do you—”

Five O'Leary thugs stood behind him. I recognized all of them from the supply drop. Five Department forms stepped from the shadows.

Mike stiffened. “So, you picked a side after all.”

Patrick smiled darkly. “A side? Nah. A broadside, maybe. No shot across the bow.” His fingers darted through the air and made a little explosion as if they had hit something with a force to sink it.

“That's the thing I love about O'Leary's.” The man smiled cruelly, as he looked over the lack of non-family connections on the third son. “You can always be bought.”

“You say it like we'd find it an insult.” Jameson O’Leary, Patrick’s father, stepped into view from where he’d been shielded behind the others. “Let's see it.”

The man held out his hand. Three rose sapphires and an elixir rested in his palm.

O'Leary looked hungrily at the sapphires.

“From your old family treasures, yes?” The man idly rolled them around in his hand. “Still a bit of power in them. Let's hear your traitor tales.”

Patrick's face tightened. “We test the elixir first, then we play.”

“Feeling sentimental? I'm feeling generous.” The man smiled and handed over the entire vial. An O’Leary scooped it up to test. “Unusual in a thief and villain. And I know the sapphires are what you really seek.”

The tester nodded confirmation of the elixir and Patrick relaxed.

“Now, my information?” the Department thug said.

Jameson O'Leary grinned savagely, eyes on the sapphires, and pulled Mike forward. “Got something better than tales. This one knows a little of everything,” he said roughly. “Especially whatever the Tasky kid knows. Always included, always listening, high memory retention. Has all the Tasky kid's memories. And those are worth gold if you want dirt on Crown.”

The man's eyes narrowed in on Mike. “The Givens child?”

“Got his family, didn't you?” Patrick said roughly, an unmistakable directive in his tone.

The man slowly smiled. “Yes, I think we will have quite a use for him.” He looked over at Patrick and his smile grew edged. “And you and yours, while we are at it.”

“Naw. See that's where you aren't thinking.” Jameson tapped his right temple. Fifteen more men bled from the shadows around him. “You gotta be quicker than that with an O'Leary. Now hand over the sapphires and your travel passes.”

The man eyed the new shapes. The odds were pretty even. He turned back to Patrick. “The passes weren't part of the deal.”

“Maybe not the part you planned.” Patrick smiled and the men behind him tapped weapons against their palms like the prelude to a knife fight.

“You won't last a week with those passes.”

Patrick laughed. “Then you shouldn't be bent out of shape about giving them over.”

The exchange was made, and Patrick shoved Mike forward. “No hard feelings, Givens. Maybe you'll save your family this way.”

“Eat dirt, O'Leary.”

Patrick's hand went to his chest. “Now that hurts.” But his eyes were cold above his smile. “See you on the news. Probably in a body bag.” Patrick tipped an imaginary hat and whistled as he gripped the passes in his hand.

“Everyone will know what it means to cross an O'Leary.” He grinned savagely and disappeared.

The recording winked out.

“Go,” I whispered to Guard Rock.

We flipped again, our last flip.

Eighteen million people revived, two million to go.

Stavros found us within twenty seconds.

“You are just so determined. How about this one, then?”

He flashed up a second recording.

Mike was staring blankly at a white ceiling. Two men were bending over him—Oler Mussolgranz and a dead-eyed minion.

“His resistance to the mind pills is quite extraordinary. There is no evidence to such skill on his reports.”

Mussolgranz hummed. “Excelsine is well known for hiding rare abilities among a diverse and extraordinary population. Even better to receive such a subject. I do so love experimenting.”

Mike groggily moved his head.

Mussolgranz smiled. “First things first, though. Information before experimentation. Tedious, but research requires munits, and munits are delivered by others. Let's make this quick, shall we? You give me your memories of everything, boy, and I will be quick to reorder your brain into something new. You'll barely feel it. You'll just be...free.”

Mussolgranz pulled magic upward and the images going through Mike's mind were visible in the air.

“Go to hell.”

Mussolgranz smiled again. “You don't have the capability to avoid my serum. So, it was really a question of courtesy.”

The drip of the serum hit the memory like oil spilled in water, immediately breaking into separate drops, like a thin spatter of toxic clouds over Mike's mind.

“Really quite amazing what one finds in the minds of the university. One of your own professors developed this serum. Our Prestige's daughter. To force the truth from another. Causes a catatonic state in a non-magical human, of course. But in a concentrated dose, a mage can be kept under thrall of the questioner for quite some time.”

Mike shouted one last time as the magic formed into one cloud.

“Tell us where Ren Crown's family lives.”

“No.” But it was weaker this time, and the toxicity grew. The picture of an address from a memory came to mind, but he blocked it just in time.

“Tell us.”

The memory grew clearer.

“No.”

“Tell us.”

“No.”

“Dear boy, you will tell us.”

The film wiped away all thought to disobey. Mike started screaming and the knowledge flashed in the air.

I closed my eyes at the same time that I felt the wards on my parent's house break.

The ties to them ripped away.

“And now, what do you choose, Ren Crown?”

I yelled and yanked the entire net around the culling, putting the world back into order.

Stavros smiled. “Temporary fixes. Like the state of your parents' lives. You have fifteen minutes.”

I grabbed Guard Rock and our supplies and threw us through the portal pad.

I slammed into the hard floor of the Western Territories' atrium.

The low-tech communications network Constantine had embedded in the compound stuttered to half-life.

“He has them,” I said, breathing heavily.

“We saw it.” Dagfinn's voice was tight and grave, all grim seriousness. “Bailey made your feed live. Crown—”

“It's all over the feeds,” Olivia said. She sounded winded. “And twenty million people are witness to Stavros trying to murder them. And to Ren saving them.”

“Even his supporters, even if they want the whole Third Layer destroyed, can't advocate for mass genocide and survive the forming mob crowds. They are shutting up and slinking away,” Loudon said. “The hunt is on, we could—”

“He has them,” I repeated.

The comms went silent.

“Do you—”

“No,” Olivia said forcefully through our communications, interrupting Loudon. “We stick to the plan.”

“But the plan—”

“I know,” she said grimly.

“Losing Leandred... What does that mean?” Loudon said. I could hear him chewing his fingernails.

“They are still alive, just nullified,” Olivia said. “We know Stavros wants Dare. But Leandred...”

No one knew what would happen if Stavros or Mussolgranz got hold of Constantine. Stavros hardly needed a mage with Mind Magic capabilities, however rare. Though...

“He'll want to gloat.” I hit my palm against the floor. “He won't kill them—either of them. Not if he can use them. He'll want to gloat.”

“But—”

“And he can use Constantine against Axer,” I said, ruthlessly overriding. “He knows they're bonded. It won't be hard to test the strength of the bond. He'll use Constantine if for nothing else than to kill him specifically in some game or test for Axer down the line. Constantine's not a disposable pawn for an opening gambit.” I touched my elbow with its still vibrant threads.

But if that was a miscalculation...if he did kill him... I raked my fingers through my hair. “They are both still alive. We can't do anything about it now. We have to hurry. We have to go forward with the notion that Constantine still has a part to play.”

That he would remain alive.

“Ren, if he's kil—”

“No. No alternatives. This will happen the way I say it will.” I ground my finger into stone. I took a deep breath. “I did not end the world. I will not end the world. I will do what is needed to save it. I will reach the end. I will remove Stavros. And then, and only then, will I deal with everything that fails on the way.”

I repeated the litany in my head. I clenched my eyes shut. I couldn't end the world if one of them died.

“We need our backup plan. Just in case,” Will said. I could feel his agony. He would have seen what happened to Mike through my feed.

“Yes,” I agreed. Constantine wasn't here to kill me for the decision. I tightened my lips. No, I couldn't think of what might be happening.

“No,” Olivia said.

“We need him.”

“I don't trust him.”

“We need him.” I pushed away from the floor and pulled the portal pad.

“I can be there,” Neph murmured. “Do you—”

“No.” I closed my eyes. “I need you there. Find Mussolgranz. Delia, the secondary diversion?”

I didn't directly ask if she was still capable. She wouldn't appreciate it.

“I'm on it,” she said with a level of darkness that we would need to heal afterward. “I know where our combat mages are holed up. Camille shared their battle frequency yesterday.”

I nodded. “I have ten minutes, then I'm going in.”

“As Stavros expects you to,” Olivia said grimly. “Hell, if you weren't going to leave a bunch of nameless ferals, you aren't going to leave those two idiots. And you definitely aren't leaving your parents at his mercy. He knows you will come.”

I looked at the magic pooling in my palm. “Let's not keep him waiting.”

~*~

I gripped the address Greyskull had given me the last time I had seen him. Before... No. I had to trust that everything was going to be fine. I couldn't think of any of the others.

“What does Ren Crown choose,” I whispered.

I took a deep breath and wrapped the portal pad around me. I emerged on the doorstep and looked at the door plate. 257 Maple. Funny Fate, so funny. I slipped the paper into my pocket and wrapped the knocker against the door.

A man opened the door—a man I had only seen before in memory.

Lachlan Lassiter.

And behind him—

“Hello, Butterfly.”