Any other day, that would have been it. But Chelsie was far from her peak tonight, and Julius had just spent almost an hour dodging an insanely fast spirit. Alone, either of these factors still wouldn’t have made a difference. Together, though, they gave him just enough of an edge to duck, dragging Marci to the floor half a heartbeat before Chelsie’s Fang sliced over their heads.
“Chelsie!” he shouted, his voice cracking. “What are you doing?”
But he already knew. The dragon standing over him was still his sister, but her face was the face of a stranger when she swung again. This time, though, Julius was ready. He jumped before she even started, rolling himself and Marci across the floor to come up directly beside the tattered portal that was still wavering in the air.
“Such quick little mice,” Estella said. “But youarelooking a bit peakish, Bethesda’s Shade.” She turned to the towering dragon beside her. “Conrad, help your sister take care of Brohomir’s pet. Amelia, close the portal.”
Conrad nodded and stepped forward while Amelia lowered her hands. Her scorching magic began to fade from the air at the same time, and the portal faded with it, but it was the motion—the strange, automaton-like movement that was nothing like Amelia’s normal dramatic flair—that finally kicked Julius over the edge. Before that moment, he’d felt like a mouse caught on the chaotic battlefield for a clash of giants. Now, the entire world had narrowed down to a single goal: getting away from Estella. There was no more room for worry or second guesses, no room even for consequences, and with no hesitation to hold him back, Julius moved faster than he’d ever moved in his life.
He didn’t look. He didn’t plan. He didn’t even bother trying to sidestep Conrad’s incoming attack. He simply grabbed Marci around the waist and jumped sideways through what was left of the hole Amelia had ripped in the air.
For a terrifying second, he was sure they hadn’t made it. He could actually see the rips in the air above him closing over, closing them in. Then, like a miracle, they were through, crashing together into the black dust on the other side of the hole in the world. Landing on his back, Julius caught one final glimpse of Estella’s face as her smile faded, and then the portal vanished, sealing him and Marci on the other side.
***
For the first time since she’d returned, Estella felt a stab of real anger. That wasnotsupposed to happen.
“Open it,” she snarled, yanking hard on the chain that bound the Planeswalker’s future. “Now.”
Amelia shuddered as the command hit, but even though Estella’s word should have been absolute, nothing happened. “I can’t.”
“What do you mean you can’t?” Estella roared. “I don’t care if you have to burn yourself out,make that portal.”
“I can’t,” Amelia said again, holding up her hands. Heremptyhands.
Estella clenched her fists in rage, sending a sheet of ice racing over the floor and up the walls. Then, just as quickly, she forced herself to let it go.
It didn’t matter, she reminded herself. So what if they’d taken the Kosmolabe? The mortal couldn’t use it, and the little whelp dragon was centuries too young for such magic. Even if they did somehow manage to find their way back, they’d never make it in time. Estella knew that much for a fact. She could see the whole of her life spread out before her like a perfect map, and after this turn, neither Brohomir’s pawn nor his surprisingly competent mortal had any part in it ever again.
That thought sent the last of her anger away, and Estella let the ice melt, holding her head high as she marched back to the door. “Leave them,” she ordered. “They’re as dead there as they would be here. We, on the other hand, have a glorious future to create.”
She crooked her finger as she finished, grinning wide as Bethesda’s three strongest children followed her like lambs out to the idling limo that would take them to the airport where Svena was already waiting.
And back in the house, hidden in the shadows, a ghostly glowing cat slipped out of Marci’s forgotten bag and vanished into thin air.
Chapter 18
Julius had never felt so far from home in his life.
He was sitting in an ocean of black dust under a starless sky as flat and matte black as Chelsie’s feathers. The only light came from the resentful red glow of the full, blood-colored moon frozen at the sky’s zenith. There was no wind. There was no movement. There wasn’t even scent. Other than himself and Marci, he couldn’t smell a thing. It was like he’d been dropped into a sensory deprivation chamber the size of a city, and there was no—
“Julius!”
He jumped, tearing his eyes away from the alien landscape just in time for Marci to tackle him back to dusty ground. “That was amazing!” she cried, hugging him until his ribs creaked. “I didn’t even know you could move that fast! I thought we were dead for sure!”
Julius wasn’t sure they weren’t. “We’re in another dimension.”
“That was kind of the idea,” Marci said, sitting back up with an odd look. “Are you okay? You look kind of freaked out.”
“How are younotfreaked out?” he said, heart pounding. “We’re stranded in an alternate dimension!” A dead dimension. With no one who could make them a portal back out.
Julius sat up in a rush, lifting his dusty, shaking hands to his face. What had he done? Why hadn’t he jumped another way? Why hadn’t he gonealone? Estella probably considered Marci beneath her notice, which meant she might have gotten away. Butno, he’d panicked and dragged her through the one-way portal to a hidden plane and doomed them both.
“Would you stop it?”
He lowered his hands to see Marci glaring at him. “Honestly,” she huffed. “I canhearyou blaming yourself, and you seriously need to cut it out. Iwantedto come here, remember?”
“But we weren’t going to be trapped then,” he reminded her.
