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“That’s actually a clever idea,” Fletcher said, stroking his chin. “The Hyroa blood will be much less toxic if it doesn’t hit the bloodstream straight away. Without an open wound, it will still make them very ill, but it will also be unlikely to kill anyone before a cure can be administered. Much less risk to all involved.” His eyes lit with possibility as he finished, “We might even be able to come up with a serum thatincludesthe antidote within the spray, something that self-activates after a certain amount of time.”

Thinking that sounded like a perfect solution, Alex turned to Fitzy, knowing he was the final voice to say whether any of it was possible. “What do you think, Fitzy? Can it be done?”

“Oh, most assuredly, Annabelle!” he cried, seemingly overjoyed at the idea of a new project. “It may require some trial and error to design the most suitable device and come up with a working prototype, but it shouldn’t take much longer than a fortnight.”

A lot could happen in a fortnight, but it was certainly better than nothing.

After hashing out a few more ideas with her teachers, including contingency options for administering the cure in case it couldn’t be included as a time-delay antidote with the initial spray, Alex left them to it. She knew she could trust them to figure out the rest without her and to seek her out if they had any further questions.

As she left the Tower building, she only hoped she would be far away from any place inside the ‘splatter range’ when the time came.

When Alex entered the Library that night, she wasn’t sure what to expect for her first official training session with Mr. Mystery Man.

Thankfully, the librarian was busy helping a student when she arrived in the foyer, so she was able to sneak past without attracting more unwarranted cleaning duties. As soon as she was free and clear down the second staircase, she willed a doorway open and fell through the familiar pitch-black nothingness until she arrived in the cavern.

She was five minutes early, just to be safe.

Mr. Mystery Man showed up right on time.

“You’ve returned.”

“Try not to sound so disappointed,” Alex said. Though, given his monotone, she struggled to pick up any kind of emotion from his voice, disappointment or otherwise.

“Follow me,” he said, ignoring her statement. A door opened in front of him and he immediately stepped through.

Alex followed right on his heels and found herself entering a nondescript room. Four walls, a ceiling and a floor, the only noteworthy thing about it was the colour: from top to bottom, it was near-blindingly white.

“Sit.”

Alex blinked at the man’s abrupt command. “Sorry?”

“Sit,” he repeated. “Or you will fall. And if you fall, you will fail.”

Forehead crinkling, Alex looked around the room again. The floor was solid; there wasn’t even any furniture she would be at risk of tripping over. Unless she was suddenly debilitated with a dizzy spell, she couldn’t imagine falling—or, indeed, where she would fall to.

“Last chance, Alexandra.”

Looking at the unidentifiable, cloaked figure in bafflement, Alex decided to humour him and sat cross-legged on the ground. The instant her backside hit the floor, everything about the room changed.

All of a sudden, she was in the middle of the night’s sky—as in, so-close-she-could-almost-touch-the-stars night’s sky—and sitting on a metre-wide, circular platform hovering in the air.

Adrenaline shot through Alex’s system like a bolt of lightning and she scrambled as far into the centre of her limited space as possible, curling tightly around herself.

“What the hell?” she shrieked, heart pounding. Then she shrieked again when the cloaked man appeared before her, standing on nothing but air, his outline bathed in the moonlight.

“Your task is to reach the doorway without falling,” he said.

Alex’s voice was shrill when she asked, “What doorway?”

As soon as the words left her, an open door materialised. It was close enough that she could see it led straight back into the underground cavern, but it was far enough away that there was no chance she could reach it without sprouting wings.

“Fall, and you fail,” the man repeated.

Alex knew—or at least, presumed—she was still in the Library, and having had a similar extreme height experience after falling from Darrius’s personal office above the clouds, she at least was able to calm herself with the knowledge that if shedidfall, the Library wouldn’t allow her to get hurt.

Or so she hoped.

But…