“Better trapped here and alive than back there and dead,” she said with a shrug. “Besides,” her look turned sly. “We’re notnecessarilytrapped.”
Before he could ask what she meant by that, Marci lifted her hands to show him the glistening, golden orb clutched between her palms.
“The Kosmolabe,” he whispered, eyes wide. “But…how?”
Marci laughed. “Did you forget who you’re talking to here? This little beauty was the most valuable thing in the roomandthe only way to get to where we were supposed to go. I grabbed it the moment Amelia went weird.”
Julius could have hugged her. He was pushing down the impulse out of habit when he suddenly remembered hecould.So he did, grabbing her tight against him. Marci hugged him back just as hard, grinning like there was nowhere else she’d rather be. And that was actually what brought him back to reality, because therewereplaces they needed to be right now, and if his impulsive decision to get them both stranded here was going to be anything other than a disaster, they needed to get moving.
“Come on,” he said, standing up. “We’re burning daylight. Moonlight. Whatever.”
“Assuming time even works the same here,” Marci reminded him, grabbing the hand he offered and pulling herself up. “For all we know, Estella hasn’t even left the house yet back in our world.”
“Or she could already be at Heartstriker Mountain.” That possibility reminded Julius of his seemingly brainwashed siblings, and his spirits dropped even lower. “I wonder if they’re aware?”
“I can’t imagine they are,” Marci said, squeezing the Kosmolabe into her jacket’s inside pocket. “If I understood your brother correctly, the whole point of the chains was to take away someone’s ability to make decisions, thus turning them into a mindless cog in your own future, and that certainly looked like what was happening. I mean, can you imagine Amelia taking orders like that normally? She’d choke herself first.”
That was true, though Julius wasn’t sure if it made their situation better or worse. On the one hand, turning them into puppets would vastly reduce his siblings’ abilities since their experience and personalities were a huge part of what made them powerful. On the other, even a reduced Chelsie, Amelia, and Conrad were still a giant threat, and theystilldidn’t know what had happened to Justin. Even so. “There’s nothing we can do for them now except stick to the plan,” Julius said, looking up at the motionless red moon. “We’ll just have to cross our fingers and hope that, if there is a time disparity, it’s in our favor.”
“I bet it is,” Marci said with an optimistic smile. “This place doesn’t exactly strike me as fast moving. There’s no wind or animals.” She slid her boot through the black dust. “I don’t even think this stuff is sand.”
Julius didn’t think so, either. The soft black powder looked like a cross between extremely fine sand and old ash. Other than being annoyingly soft to walk in, though, it didn’t appear harmful. He was about to suggest they get moving when a sudden flash of light on the ground nearly made him jump out of his skin.
“What the—”
Ghost was sitting at their feet, tail flicking smugly back and forth.
“How didyouget here?” he cried.
The question was more reactionary than interrogative. For once, though, the spirit actually answered.I go where she goes.
Marci gasped. “Even through dimensions?”
Ghost flicked his ears, the cat equivalent of a shrug.We’re bound. If you go, I follow. Doesn’t matter where.
“That isamazing!” Marci cried, reaching down to scoop the glowing cat in her arms. “Who’s my clever boy?” she cooed, covering his freezing fur in proud kisses. The spirit responded by butting his head against her face, rubbing his cheek against hers while giving Julius a smugly superior look.
Julius crossed his arms. Spirit or no, that was deliberately insulting. But he refused to be jealous of a cat, so he just turned away, scanning the landscape to determine where they needed to go next. Not that it was really a question. Besides strange black sand and sky, there was only one other thing here, and that was the mountain.
The black, scary,movingmountain.
“What do you think it is?” Marci asked, following his gaze as she placed Ghost on her shoulders.
“Only one way to find out,” he said, reaching back for her hand. To his great relief, she took it without hesitation, and they set off together into the rolling sea of dust.
Julius had never missed his wings so much in his life. Every step sent their feet sinking ankle-deep into the fine, ashy dust. When they yanked themselves out, the disturbance sent clouds of the stuff up into the air where it made a beeline for their mouths, eyes, and noses like metal filings to a magnet. To Julius’s relief, it tasted just like it smelled, which was like nothing at all, but the fine grit in his throat made him horribly thirsty, a grim reminder that they were on a real time limit here since they had no food or water and zero chance of finding either.
Being mortal, Marci was probably faring even worse, but she didn’t say a word of complaint. She just pulled her shirt up over her mouth and nose to form a makeshift bandanna and trudged behind him, keeping her eyes determinedly on the mountain they didn’t seem to be getting any closer to.
The only one who actually seemed to be enjoying the trip was Ghost. He trotted over the landscape like his namesake, vanishing every few minutes only to come back and meow silently at Marci, who translated his findings for Julius. Unfortunately, there was nothing interesting to report. Every time the cat came back from a scouting mission, it was the same: desert and more desert.
The whole thing reminded Julius of those anxiety dreams where you run and run as fast as you can but never get anywhere, but it wasn’t like they could turn back. Forward was the only valid direction in this place, so they kept moving, trudging through the mercifully cool, apparently eternal night. And then, just when Julius was certain they’d be walking until they died, the mountain was suddenly there, rising straight up from the desert in front of them like a wall.
“About freaking time,” Marci said, running toward the cliff.
“Don’t touch it!” Julius cried, hobbling after her.
Marci scoffed. “Wasn’t going to. I’ve seen movies.”
