The Evil swarmed through the canopy, calling his name.
++Jackaran Kresimir Shield! We heard you and we have come in answer to your call! We are the only way you will ever get home. Join us and we will take you there now, as one of us!++
Jack was immune to its temptations, no matter how badly he wanted to go home. He knew that any bargain he entered into with The Evil would end up with him a glowing-eyed zombie intent on betraying everyone he loved. Mental tendrils reached for him, but he concentrated on thinking thoughts that had nothing to do with him, lest they betray him. The smell of the dust; the feel of petrified twigs digging into his sides; the dry, ashy taste of some dirt that had somehow got into his mouth …
Slowly, he became aware of a quite unexpected sensation, something he had experienced before in the second Examination but had never felt so clearly in real life. The ground around him wasn’t just dirt. It was a complex environment that spoke to him in a language he could somehow understand. He saw the layers of soil around the tree’s massive roots. He saw the pockets where life had once thrived, from catlike creatures who’d lived in tunnels, down to worms and bacteria. It had once been a vital, thriving place, and even though all the living things had long been taken over by The Evil and amalgamated into its ghastly whole, the ground itself remembered, and it knew of one place in the entire realm where life remained.
Jack thought the ground was talking about him and his friends. They were alive, and the ground could sense him just like he could sense it. But that wasn’t the case. There was another pocket of life not far away … an oasis in the middle of the vast Evil desert….
So excited was he by this discovery that he very nearly exclaimed aloud. It had to be Lottie! Who else could it be? Only with great difficulty did he keep himself still until he felt The Evil swarm pass over him, grumbling and clicking in frustration before heading off.
He didn’t move, even though he could feel Kyle beginning to get restless. Jack couldn’t feel The Evil through the ground, perhaps because it wasn’t life as he knew it. Maybe The Evil was faking going away and was waiting quietly for them to emerge. If they broke cover too soon, they might find themselves surrounded and overwhelmed, and not even Grandma X’s brooches would help them then. So he counted to a hundred, and then he counted to a hundred again. Only when he had finished doing that did he risk bringing his head up to see what was going on.
His dark-sensitive eyes saw nothing above or around him but the dead tree and its branches. With a rustle of ancient leaf litter, Tara sat up next to him, sword at the ready, followed by Kyle. Cornelia unfolded herself from Jack’s arms and fluffed up her feathers.
“Will you take a look around for us?” Jack asked her in a whisper.
She bobbed her head and took off to circumnavigate the tree.
Jack told the others what he had sensed through the ground.
“Which way?” asked Kyle.
Jack recalled the feeling clearly. “That way,” he said, pointing toward the trunk but meaning the desert on the far side. They would have to go around the tree to get where they needed to go.
“And Lottie will be there?” asked Tara.
“I think so,” said Jack. “I can’t imagine where else she could be. This whole place is dead, like someone sucked the life out of it.”
“How can The Evil live here?” asked Kyle. “Don’t its bugs need to eat?”
“Maybe they eat each other,” said Tara with a quick shudder. “I can’t wait to get home.”
Cornelia returned.
“Smooth seas and plain sailing,” she declared.
They unearthed themselves and brushed down their clothes. It didn’t make much difference to their appearance. They remained dirty from head to foot, which was possibly a good thing, Jack thought. Even a small amount of camouflage might help hide them from creatures looking for them across the desert.
“When we get home,” Jack said, “I’m going to sleep for a week.”
“I’m going to eat a hamburger and drink three thick shakes, each a different flavor,” said Kyle.
“I’m going to have a bath and never get out,” said Tara. “And I’m never going to wish I was a troubletwister again.”
Jack grinned at her, although part of him still felt painfully guilty that she and Kyle had been caught up in this. Grandma X had often warned them about the dangers of involving ordinary people in Warden affairs. He could see the consequences all too clearly now.
Tara raised her sword. “Onward!” she cried, so onward they went.
Jaide slipped around the back of the Project Thunderclap tent, keeping to where the streetlights were dimmest and where she was sure no guards were patrolling. She had hidden in some bushes and watched for half an hour before making her move. There was a spot near the school buildings where the tent canvas didn’t quite reach the ground. If she could get in there without being seen, she would be well on her way to being where she needed.
Breathing quickly and shallowly through her open mouth, she broke cover and made a run for it.
“What are you doing back here?”
She stopped and spun around. A young, round-faced Warden in a security uniform was walking toward her from a spot where she was certain there had been no one before.
Convinced the game was up before it had even started, she could do no more than stammer, “I — uh —”
“The entrance is around the front. That way.”
He pointed.
“Right,” she said. “I knew that. I was just checking … this.” She indicated the gap in the tent. “Shoddy workmanship. Doesn’t look very secure to me.”
“I guess,” he said with a shrug. “Nothing’ll get past us without a token, though. Don’t worry. If The Evil tries anything, it’ll get an awful shock. Literally.”
“Great,” she said, and when it was clear that he wasn’t going to wander off until she had left, she added, “Well, thanks. That’s good to know.”
She sauntered off around the tent in the direction he had indicated. After ten steps, she glanced over her shoulder. The Warden had disappeared. She didn’t doubt he was still watching, though. He was right: The tent was very secure.
Still, he hadn’t questioned her unusual garb, and when she brazenly walked up to the front flap, no one questioned her there, either. She was a teenager dressed up like a cat burglar late at night, but she had a token so she must be allowed. They had probably seen far stranger things that day.
Feeling slightly foolish for trying to break in the hard way, but no less nervous about being discovered at any second, she walked briskly through the manifold corridors of the giant tent. Perhaps they had been moved, because although she was sure she had memorized them from her visit the previous night, they seemed unfamiliar to her now. There were fewer people, but there was still a great deal of urgency and hustle in the air. When people passed her, they were walking quickly and focused on their tasks. Jaide kept her head down and kept moving, hoping that sooner rather than later something familiar would leap out at her.
When it did, it came from an unexpected direction.
“As speaker for the Portland wards, I implore you to take your ‘Project Thunderclap’ elsewhere.”
That was Rennie’s voice, carrying clearly through the canvas walls.
“We have been much weakened by The Evil’s recent attacks. The breach you’re planning could ruin us forever.”
“The breach will only be temporary,” said a voice in reply. Jaide recognized Aleksandr’s deep, smooth tones. “And if Project Thunderclap is successful, we will no longer need any wards at all. The Evil will be contained to its own realm, unable to menace ours or any other’s again.”
“That’s all very well,” Rennie said, tapping the table with her wooden hand for emphasis, “but what if Project Thunderclap fails, and the wards fail with it? Portland will be exposed, and so will the rest of the world. With our best Wardens defeated, who will turn The Evil back then? This plan is too risky to c
onduct here. Go away and find another town to menace.”
A third voice joined the argument, and Jaide ducked quickly into the shadows so she could hear more as two Wardens hustled by.
“I think you’re being unreasonable, Rennie. I also know you’re worried about Jack and his friends. Don’t put those concerns ahead of the rest of the world, I beg you. We need your cooperation if Project Thunderclap is to succeed.”
“What price is success, Hector? Would you trade your own son and two innocents for a plan that might not succeed?”
“The plan will succeed, and so I have no choice. It is my duty as a Warden.”
Jaide couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Their own father, Hector Shield, sounded as dispassionate as Grandma X did about trapping her sister with The Evil for the rest of their lives. What was it about Wardens that made them so coldhearted?
Rennie agreed with her.
“What about your duty as a parent? As a human being? This is how The Evil will defeat you all, if you’re not careful: by making you shadows of itself, all emotion eroded away by decisions like this. It’s love that makes this fight worth fighting. Not hatred of the enemy, to which all else is sacrificed. You are making a grave mistake and risking too much. I cannot bear to watch it.”
“Are you revoking your role as Living Ward of Portland?” Aleksandr asked, and even without seeing his face Jaide understood the question for the challenge it was.
“No,” said Rennie. “I would never do that.”
Jaide didn’t stick around to hear any more. It sounded like the argument would continue all night, and it upset her to think of her father being like this. She was sure it wasn’t easy for him to make this decision, but at least he could have tried to argue with Aleksandr. At least he could have sounded sad about it.
She stepped out of her hiding place and moved quickly through the corridors, peering at tent flaps until she found the one she was looking for, decorated with a familiar four-pointed star. It was behind this flap, she was sure, that the professor was hidden. If anyone could teach her how to use the cross-continuum conduit constructor in Grandma X’s basement to rescue Jack, it would be him.
Pulling the beanie low over her forehead, she lifted the flap and went inside.
She had feared guards, but all the room contained was a table and several empty chairs arranged in a semicircle. On the table was a metal mesh cage with no door or lock, just bars. Inside the cage, on a wooden frame that looked a bit like an easel, was the death mask she and Jack had found in Rourke Castle, a plaster cast of the face of the real Professor Olafsson, who had died hundreds of years earlier. Along with his face, the plaster retained an impression of his personality and knowledge. He looked exactly the same except for a long crack down the middle of his face, like a jagged scar, that was visible no matter how carefully he had been glued back together. His eyes were closed. Jaide didn’t think he slept, but that was exactly what it looked like he was doing at that moment.
She stepped softly into the room. Behind her, the sound of Rennie arguing with Aleksandr and her father rose up above the hum of activity in the tent. That was good, Jaide thought. It would cover any sound she made. Her plan was simply to talk to the professor, but seeing him caged made her want to rescue him. Why would Aleksandr lock him up like that? It wasn’t as if the death mask had any means of moving on its own.
Then she realized he was caged for his own protection. The Evil’s minions had already stolen him once before. Perhaps they would try again.
She crossed the room and came as close to him as she could without touching the cage. It might have been rigged to sound an alarm.
“Professor?” she whispered. “Professor, wake up!”
“What? Where am I?” The plaster eyelids opened, revealing plaster eyes that darted left and right. “Oh, well. Still here. Haven’t you tired of asking me questions to which there are no … Wait, you’re not him,” he said on seeing her. “You’re Jaide! Goodness, child, it has been a long time. Not years, though, or else you would be significantly taller, unless your growth has been unnaturally stunted. Has it? What brings you to my dungeon of tedious interrogation?”
“I’m, uh, growing normally,” she said. “I’m sorry about this, but I need to ask you some questions, too.”
“Well, it’s different with you. I like you. Perhaps we could move our conversation to a more comfortable environment. Somewhere with a view of the ocean?”
“I’d like to, but you see I’m not really supposed to be here, so I don’t know how to open the cage. If I try they might catch me.”
“Oh, well, that’s easily fixed,” he said. “You simply change the metallic structure of the bars by means of Lu Shu’s Mental Elemental Transmogrifier, if you have one handy.”
“I don’t. I’m sorry.”
“Ah. How about Aaron Smythe’s Invisible Hand?”
“Again … and I don’t really have time to go back to look for one….”
“Then I must resign myself to continued imprisonment.” The professor rolled his eyes in theatrical despair, then froze, staring up at the canvas ceiling. “Oh my!”
Jaide followed the direction of his gaze and saw a shadowy figure drop through a tear in the canvas ceiling. She got out of the way just in time to avoid being landed on. Her Gifts awoke automatically, given the thought still fresh in her mind that The Evil might attempt to steal the professor. The canvas walls flapped in a sudden wind. A cry for help was on the tip of her tongue when Jaide noticed something very strange about this unexpected thief.
She was dressed all in black, just like Jaide, apart from a pair of silver-tipped cowboy boots.
“What are you doing here?” they asked at exactly the same moment.
“I should say that’s perfectly obvious,” said the professor. “Hopefully one of you has the means of extricating me from this tedious predicament.”
Grandma X pulled off her black hood, releasing a flood of unruly white hair. With a look that said to Jaide as clearly as words, We will discuss this later, Grandma X turned her attention to the cage. Her hands made a complicated gesture, and then she suddenly reached through the metal as though it wasn’t there and removed the death mask from its captivity.
“Very nicely done,” the professor said with a grin. “I’m grateful to you, my good lady. By what means did you effect the transformation?”
“Tantalo’s Telekinetic Pilferer, but let’s not stand around discussing the finer details of my technique. Here.” She gave the professor to Jaide, then waved her left hand at someone waiting above them. Through the hole in the ceiling dropped an exact replica of the sleeping death mask.
Four reflective eyes peered down from the night sky.
“Hi, Jaide,” said Ari. “Nice night for a bit of cat burgling.”
“Shush,” said Kleo. “This isn’t a game.”
“No, but you have to give me that one. Cat burgling, yes?”
Grandma X placed the fake death mask in the cage, so no one would know the real one had been taken, and slipped the professor into a pouch at the front of her black top.
“Right,” she said, turning to Jaide. “I think it best you come home with us. Hector and Rennie are doing their best to distract Aleksandr, but if you’re caught, suspicion will immediately fall on them. Put your arms around my waist.”
Jaide did as she was told.
“Dad’s part of this?” she said, feeling a huge flood of relief. “I knew he wasn’t really going to abandon Jack, Tara, and Kyle.”
“Of course not.” Grandma X pulled the hood back over her face. “Your father is a Shield and therefore stubborn beyond all reason.”
Jaide felt that was directed at her, too, and might have been at least partially a compliment, but before she could say anything, a disconcertingly empty sensation rose up in her stomach, and she rose up with it, up through the hole in the ceiling and then onto the top of the tent, where a section of the canvas had become as solid as rock, allowing them to wal
k across its gentle billow and swell without falling through.
The guards didn’t see them as they slid down the side and onto the ground. One guard heard a strange noise in the bushes that required investigation, while the other thought he saw a suspicious figure cross the pool of light below a streetlight at the end of the block. By the time they returned to their posts, the two black-clad burglars and their four-footed accomplices had vanished into the night.
* * *
Nothing was said until they returned home, where Stefano was slumped over the kitchen table next to a half-drunk mug of hot chocolate. He jerked upright when Grandma X snapped her fingers, and stared first at her, then the sack containing the professor, then Jaide.
“Oh,” he said. “I’ve missed something important, haven’t I?”
“Explain,” Grandma X said, putting Jaide in the seat next to him and taking one of her own opposite them both, her expression unamused. Kleo sat on the table next to her, and she looked just as stern. Ari, on the other hand, sprawled on the sideboard, head turning from side to side as though he was watching a game of tennis as the words flew back and forth.
“You deceived me and placed yourself in unacceptable risk,” Grandma X accused Jaide.
“Yes, well, you deceived me, and if you hadn’t, I wouldn’t have needed to do anything at all,” Jaide retorted. “What happened to ‘no more secrets’? Have you been planning to rescue Jack all along? And Lottie, too?”
“Not Lottie,” said Grandma X, shifting in her seat. It wasn’t often Jaide saw her grandmother looking caught out. “I promised not to rescue her. But that didn’t stop me thinking how someone might attempt a rescue … someone like Hector, for instance….”
The front door opened and closed, and Jaide turned in her seat, hoping to see her father walking up the hallway into the kitchen.
It was indeed him, and his eyebrows almost jumped off his forehead when he saw his daughter and his mother sitting at the table in almost identical black outfits.