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We had people in place around the rift to catch my father, just in case, but they didn’t catch a whiff of him. He was quite literally in the wind.

“You really couldn’t keep him contained?” said Harper.

“He was literal smoke,” I told her. “How do you hold onto smoke?”

She shrugged. “How do you do any of the things that you do?”

“I got him out of the rift,” I said. “I stopped the world from falling into an abyss of despair.”

She huffed, and if Tennyson hadn’t been glaring at her, I’m pretty sure she would’ve kept going.

I knew what she was thinking. I’d heard a few comments from people reporting in, too. “Are you sure he escaped? Maybe she let him go.” That kind of thing. But there was nothing I could do about that.

“His physical body is somewhere ,” Althea said. “Wherever his spirit might have gone. We’ll find him. At least the rift is closed. It’s gone for good, and there’s no way to reopen it.”

But it didn’t feel like a total win. We’d just driven him deeper into hiding. His words still echoed in my head. YOU’LL REGRET THIS. From anyone else, it would seem like an empty threat, but I knew he’d follow through on it.

“I have my report too,” said a little voice from the doorway.

Fletcher stood there with some papers clutched in his hands. I was about to wave him off, tell him we’d look at it later, but I noticed that he’d been crying. Fletcher had never been the type of kid to cry. I patted the seat beside me, and he came in and sat down, nestling into my side like he had when he was small.

“Whatcha got there?” I asked. “Your report?”

He clutched the paper so hard that it was half screwed up. He nodded but didn’t let the paper go.

“We messed up,” he said, his voice quivering. He took a big sniff, then squared his shoulders. When he spoke again, his voice was stronger. He turned to look at Tennyson. “We failed our mission. I’m sorry. We was supposed to keep it a secret, but Liam caught us. He caught us, and then…” His voice broke off, and he shook his head.

My heart started to pound, but I didn’t want to show Fletcher how terrified I felt.

“What’s on the paper, buddy?”

I didn’t breathe as I uncurled his fingers from the papers and pulled them from his grasp, some pieces falling to the floor.

“Liam said that it just proves our dad was right, that we were all bad. He said our dad has a plan to make everything right, and he’s going to help him. Then he… he took Hamish and he said…” His voice wavered again, and I hugged him against my side as I stared at the words on the paper.

“Well played,” it said in my father’s handwriting. “But the game isn’t over. I have something you want. You have something I want. Game on, double or nothing. Winner takes all. Talk soon. Love Dad xoxo.”

So, this was it. This was what it came down to. I had to defeat my father for good, and if I didn’t, my brothers would be lost forever.

END BOOK 11.