Which meant she could ignore all the symptoms and focus on the problem: herself.
“I’m going to give it a try anyway.” Jo went for nonchalance but her voice was a high-pitched, desperate sound.
“J-Jo, Eslar’s right.” Samson’s tiny voice joined the fray. “The Door isn’t right. I don’t know why, but I can see something amiss. I wouldn’t go near it.”
It hadn’t been right from the very beginning. From her first wish, she could force the Door to do things no one else could, not even knowing it was unique until it was already too late. She’d seen the button stick as she’d gone to Florence with Nico. She’d felt it groan and shudder under the weight of her rage as she’d returned following their failure in Japan.
“I wouldn’t—”
“What are you trying, Jo?” Snow interrupted Eslar.
Jo was frozen once more under the weight of his stare. She took a deep breath through her nose, let it out through her mouth, but it did not pick up sound anywhere along the way.
“Go back,” he said, gently. Then, as if she were some kind of wild, panicky creature, he took a slow step for her. “Don’t do this, please. We can talk this through.”
“Trust me,” she pleaded softly. “I broke your wards and she’ll come for it. I’m going far from here and will come back when I have my magic to dismantle this and free us.”
“Go back.”
“It’ll be fine,” she insisted.
“Jo, please.” Snow took another step toward her, speaking kindly when she knew he wanted to be yelling—and had every right to do so. He was almost close enough to touch her and close enough for her to feel his magic. The Door on one side, him on the other, an impossible choice under her feet.
“I—”
“Come now boys.” If words could slither, that was the sound of them doing so.
All eyes landed on the woman leaning against the door frame. Pan stood, arms folded, fingers splayed against the door she was propping open. She had the look of calm, but the air of energy. Writhing, wriggling, pulsing madness washed over Jo from the suit-clad demigod.
“I think its time you stopped interfering with women’s matters.” Pan’s eyes dropped to Jo’s hand’s, seeing the same thing that had commanded Snow’s instant attention. “Especially you, Snow. It’s time to end this stalemate.”
Jo took an involuntary step back, away from Pan, toward the Door.
The room was filling with magic, like an illusionist’s water chamber. But Jo’s hands were shackled and no one had the key. The only thing she may have that could even remotely help her fight back was locked in a box. But setting it free was likely to do more damage than good.
But as she stood in the cross-hairs, Jo wasn’t given a choice.
“You made a deal with me.” Pan’s voice seemed to echo, as though they were in a giant cavern and not the briefing room. “Now, Josephina. Show me your magic!” Pan screeched. The sound seemed to reverberate through the very foundation of the Society. Distant windows rattled and the walls groaned.
Jo’s mind could no longer make logical mental pathways as she was plunged into utter chaos. Without her consent, her hands began to move, pulling out the box.
She was going to open it.
It was now or never; Jo pushed on the Door handle, and three things happened at once.
The first was the feeling of the Door giving way. As Jo gave it a monstrous tug, the handle came free and with it, a part of the Door itself. Light streamed through the cracks as though it had always been trying to hold back the dawn of a new age. Steel groaned like a slumbering giant coming awake, and it split down the middle.
Magic flooded the room, knocking them all back. Jo rolled, head over heels, knocking against spinning executive chairs left and right. Her hands flew, knuckles pounded against the ground, splitting but not releasing the box they held.
The second thing Jo registered was the sound of Snow rushing for her, and a smaller set of feet pounding the floor at her back. Chaos and Creation, battling it out over Destruction. The notion would’ve been almost poetic were it not for the fact that Jo was fairly certain everyone she’d come to care about would be killed in the fallout.
Jo let out a scream as she struggled against her own body. Her legs thrashed, her spine twisted, and her inner voice was drowned in the chaos of her mind. She fought for as long as she could—a second that felt like a millennium. She just had to hold out; Snow would reel her in once more.
But she couldn’t.
Jo flicked open the box, triggering the third and most vivid thing of all—a sharp intake of breath, and then the word “Finally” falling from Pan’s lips.
Chapter 26
