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CHAPTER NINETEEN

My first thought was that I was definitely not getting out of this without a brain injury. My second was that I was soaking wet. And my third was that I was soaking wet with other people’s bodily fluids.

I jumped to my feet. Other-me was still knocked out but I could see her starting to stir. Nikolai was up and working on the last buckle that held other-Tennyson down. My Tennyson had hidden behind the desk. His head popped up when he heard me yell.

“Where’s Mrs Spencer?” I asked, my voice sounding muffled through the ringing in my ears. I’d been so focused on keeping Other-me’s attention that I had no clue what Mrs Spencer had been doing. I couldn’t see her on the ground anywhere. There was only rubble and bits of dad juice. Maybe she’d escaped before the explosion. That had to be it, because she definitely wasn’t there.

I grabbed my sword out of Other-me’s hand. Tennyson picked up Althea, swinging her over his shoulder.

“Come on!” someone yelled from the giant hole that had been blasted into the wall. It was other-Nikolai. “The guards will be coming in droves. We have to get back to the portal.”

Most of the other prisoners had been blown free of their chains but Katie was still trapped, and I couldn’t leave her there. I was too weak to be of much help, though, so I was grateful when Nikolai came over to help.

“Come on,” he said, once Katie was free. “We have to get out of here.”

I didn’t need telling twice. We had everything we’d come for. I had no desire to stick around with Other-me and whatever was left of not-dad. I helped Katie over the rubble, then we ran. The ringing was starting to fade from my ears, and already I could hear the guards yelling somewhere in the distance.

Even though I was exhausted, I ran as hard as I could. I wanted to catch up to other-Nikolai, who was leading us through the building.

“Is the portal still open?” I asked him, when I was close enough.

“It was when I left,” he said. “I locked all the doors in the compound, except for the way I opened up for us. We should be home free.”

I wished he hadn’t said that. Saying that was like saying you’d be right back in a horror movie. It was just asking for trouble.

Still, we didn’t see anyone as we ran through the compound. Which was fortunate, because I quickly began to flag. The burst of speed to catch up to Nikolai had been the last of my reserves, and it was all I could do to keep going. Tennyson ran beside me, carrying Althea.

By the time we got close to the office, my leg muscles were burning. I had to use the railing to pull myself up the last few flights of stairs, and my sword as a walking stick. It felt as if my legs would go out from under me at any moment.

I was surprised when we all piled into the office to find Mrs Spencer and Sam. That must have been why she’d vanished, to go back for him, though I had no clue why she’d bring him here.

“We have to go,” Mrs Spencer said.

“Yeah, no duh,” said Nikolai. I wasn’t sure which one.

The sound of the guards running up the stairs behind us was too close for comfort. I pushed everyone inside and locked the doors, and a few people helped me pile all the office furniture we could manage in front of it.

“No, we have to leave this world,” Mrs Spencer said. “To go home.”

As she said it, I realized there was no portal. And if there had been, it was in the doorway that we’d just barricaded.

“We can’t go home,” I told her. “We don’t have a portal and I have no powers.”

The guards were at the door now. I could hear them banging around out there. I doubted it would take them long to smash through.

“You have the sword,” said Mrs Spencer. “And the lodestone.”

I had absolutely forgotten the lodestone. I felt in my pocket and realized it was still in there. I must have taken it out when I changed clothes. I must have held it a dozen times, at least, but I’d never even thought about it. It seemed that I never thought about it, unless someone mentioned it to me first. Come to think of it, it was strange that Other-me hadn’t stolen it when she’d taken my sword.

Mrs Spencer noticed my astonishment and nodded. “The stone has many powers. Nobody understands them all.”

“Okay,” I said. “But I still don’t have my powers.”

“Once you learn to use the sword and the stone, they’ll come back in a jiffy,” she said. “But right now, all they need to do is take that portal and redirect it from the school in this world, to the school back home. Easy peasy.”

“Is that possible?” I had to yell for her to hear me over the guards trying to knock down the door. “Wouldn’t it be easier to just go back to school and figure this out later?”

She shook her head. “We need this portal here to be fired up, and we can only do that from this end. This is our only chance. That’s why I left as soon as I realized, to go get my Sam.”

There was a giant crash and part of the door came down. There wasn’t time to argue.

“Fine,” I said. “Tell me what to do.”

She yelled for Nikolai and got him to start opening the portal, while she explained to me what I needed to do. It seemed pretty easy, but that didn’t mean it would be.

The portal kicked in, so we cleared a path through our barricade.

“Once the door opens, you’ll only have a minute,” said Mrs Spencer. “Make sure the stone and the sword enter at the same time, before you.”

I nodded. I was ready to go.

“Anyone who wants to go, go now,” she said. “Anyone who wants to stay in this world, I’ll reopen the portal once they’re gone. It’ll reset back to normal as soon as they’re gone, don’t you worry about a thing. We’re on the home stretch now!”

“Wait, what?” I said. I was almost at the portal, but I turned to stare back at her.

“Someone needs to stay here,” she said. “To make sure everything goes smoothly from this end. You just promise me you’ll look after my Sam. And I’ll promise to look after your friends.” She nodded to other-Tennyson.

I stepped forward and gave other-Tennyson a quick hug.

He squeezed me tightly, as if he didn’t want to let me go. “Thank you,” he said in a voice that was gruff from disuse.

I felt tears prick at my eyes. “Tell Althea goodbye for me?”

He nodded and I turned away. I’d miss him, but at least I’d kept my promise to get him home safe.

I glanced over at other-Nikolai. “You’re definitely the one from this world?” I asked.

“Hurry up and leave,” he said. “We haven’t got all day.”

With one last look at them, I turned back to the portal. Sword and stone first, I stepped into it.

I closed my eyes and pictured my own world. That hadn’t been part of the portal redirection magic or anything, but it seemed right. I pictured all the things I loved. My brothers. Hannah. My comfy bed. Delicious food. My favorite reading nook in the school library.

I took another step, and opened my eyes. It was night. We were at school, on the steps of the lighthouse, but I didn’t know if it was my school, my lighthouse.

I was shoved in the back by Nikolai, and stumbled forward. I moved out of the way to give the others space to come through. Next was Tennyson, carrying Althea, Sam, and then a couple of the prisoners.

“Are we home?” asked Nikolai.

“We’re home,” said Tennyson. “Can’t you tell? The air is different here.”

He was right, the air was different. Nothing tangible, it just felt right . Less hostile.

I’d hoped that coming through the portal would jolt Althea back to consciousness, but she was still out to it, still covered in weird bits of green slime. As happy as I was to be back in the real world, my heart sank as I watched her long dark hair trail down over Tennyson’s back as he carried her.

We weren’t even halfway back to the Golden House, when someone came bursting through the trees and hurtling toward us. I jumped back, with my fists up in a fighting stance, but it was only Hannah and Harper.

“I thought you were dead!” Hannah yelled, launching herself at Nikolai.

“Ew,” said Harper, looking at Althea. “What’s in her hair?”

I rolled my eyes at her.

Then Hannah screamed. She let go of Nikolai and flung herself at one of the escaped prisoners. Through her tears, we managed to figure out that he was her father. Her actual father. After everything, he’d found his way home. That alone made the whole ordeal worth it.

As we walked back through the forest, we filled them in on everything that had happened while we were gone.

“Well, I’m glad we stayed here,” said Harper. “That sounds perfectly awful.”

For once, I couldn’t disagree with her.

“I might be able to help Althea,” said Hannah, still clinging to her father. “Though without knowing the details of those experiments…”

“I have some of her notes,” said Tennyson. “I took what I could after the explosion.”

“I’m sure having some proper doctors look at her will do much more good than an untrained witch,” said Harper. “She’s been tampered with enough, leave her be.”

I bit down on a smile. Normally Harper and Althea were mortal enemies but Harper was obviously worried about her.

“Well, at the very least, I’m going to do a cleaning spell on her,” said Hannah. “She’d hate for anyone to see her in such a mess.”

I let them argue and dropped back to walk beside Sam. I was surprised he’d even come through the portal. I assumed his mother must have pushed him.

“Are you okay?” I asked him. “I know you’ve been through a lot.”

He shrugged. “I don’t think it’s okay for me to be okay.”

That was the most he’d said since I’d found him. Even though his words were bleak, I took the fact that he was saying them as a positive.

“Your mother will be fine,” I told him, trying to sound upbeat. “She’s strong as a bear and wily as a fox.”

“Maybe,” he said. I thought that was an end to our conversation, but he kept talking. “You should have left me there. In that cell. You shouldn’t have come to find me.”

I sighed. I didn’t know how to make him stop punishing himself for something that wasn’t his fault. He needed to see someone, someone much more skilled than I was at helping him deal with everything that had happened to him.

“I’m glad I found you,” I said. “Even if you hate me for it.”

He shook his head. “It’s not you that I hate.”

When we got back to the house, Harper took Althea to her room to get her cleaned up and comfortable, and Hannah got her father settled. I wanted to help but as soon as I sat down, I knew I wasn’t going to move again for a very long time. I couldn’t believe that we were home, that the nightmare of the other world was over. Part of me didn’t want to fall asleep, in case I woke up back in that other world, but I couldn’t keep my eyes open. It had been a long day.

I fell asleep, and when I woke up, I was still home.