Easy, girl. Stay focused.

Rita and Devon went over to check out the gurneys, just to make sure no one was hiding behind them. We didn't want to experience another ambush like the one upstairs. Of course, down here there were also a thousand and one dark crevices for people to hide in-we'd used a few of them ourselves, back on our own world-but those were around the periphery of the chamber, not near us. If anyone jumped out at us we'd have time to respond.

Rita took Tommy's free hand in hers; I could feel him tense up at the contact, but he didn't pull away from her. Good boy. Devon took up Rita's other hand. G.o.d alone knew what we were about to face, in that void that lay between the worlds, but at least we would face it together.

Trembling, I held up the codex and looked at it. The golden threads were glowing more brightly now, and when I focused my attention on them they began to move. Pattern after pattern took shape within the crystal sphere and then dispersed, each one leaving an impression in my mind like the afterglow of a sparkler. Mandala-like geometrics gave way to fractal spirals, which gave way in turn to cl.u.s.ters of filaments that rippled like wheat fields in the wind. As each pattern formed, it filled my mind, drawing my soul into the same alignment-and as each one vanished it left me briefly disoriented. They were the same kind of pattern that I had sensed back home, when the Shadowlord activated the Gate, but back then there had only been one design. This time there were hundreds, and while I sensed that I was supposed to recognize which one mattered to us, I didn't have a clue how to do so.

Then, for a moment-just a moment-the threads resolved into a familiar pattern. Maybe it was a design I had used in a painting once. Maybe it was a path I had walked in one of my dreams. I thought back to the thin lines of fire that had followed me in my last dream, recording my path as I walked from world to world- And suddenly I understood what it was that I held in my hand.

A map.

As if in response to my thoughts, the chaotic swirling within the codex settled down. A single pattern was visible now, throbbing with golden light. The same pattern pulsed within my mind. It filled the air around me, and I embraced it in my soul, studying all its twists and turns. This was the path that would lead us home. Were we supposed to follow it like a road map? Or was it some kind of metaphysical programming for the Gate, which would do the work of getting us from point A to point B? I cursed myself for not having asked Sebastian more questions while he was still with us. Activate this when you step through the Gate, and it will see that you reach Terra Colonna safely, he had told me. Now it was time to test his words.

I looked at my companions. Something in my expression seemed to steady them; even Tommy stopped trembling. Devon took a last look behind us to make sure nothing was in the chamber that we needed to worry about, then nodded to me. I squeezed Tommy's hand- -and they came out of nowhere, because that was their Gift: to come out of nowhere. We should have remembered that Gift. We should have realized that Greys could be in the chamber without our seeing them. We should have guessed that all the noise we'd made back in the tunnel would put them on alert, so that they would draw their Gift about them like sorcerous cloaks and wait for us to arrive. But we hadn't. We hadn't thought about them at all. That, too, was part of their power.

Grey hands slid out of nowhere, grasping hold of us. Grey fingers squeezed a pressure point in my arm with painful intensity, forcing me to release my brother. Grey arms grasped Tommy and pulled him away from me, while other hands grabbed Rita and Devon. It all happened too fast; by the time I reached out for Tommy, he was gone. I heard him scream my name. I managed to pull away from the Grey who had grabbed me, and I twisted around, but my little brother was no longer beside me, and I screamed. Not in fear, this time, but in fury.

The golden lines were gone now. The arch was gone. The only thing left in my universe was rage-hot rage-an all-consuming desire to hurt the people who had tormented Tommy and threatened my friends. Molten fury suffused my flesh, energizing my spirit and banishing any pain that might have slowed me down. It was exhilarating and terrifying all at once, and I embraced it without reserve, ready to confront these Greys who had dared to attack us, who had dared to lay hands on my family and friends. Never mind that the worst physical confrontation I'd ever voluntarily indulged in was a game of dodgeball in gym cla.s.s. Never mind that I had no weapon of any kind, and wouldn't know how to use one if I did.

A mother wolf doesn't have to be told how to protect her cubs, does she?

I saw that my brother was struggling to bite the Grey who had grabbed him, and doing so with enough ferocity that the Grey was distracted by it. Good. I rushed forward with my arm extended, fingers locked together into a solid spear point of fingernail and bone, aiming for his right eye. At the last second he saw me coming and jerked his head to one side. As soon as his attention shifted my brother took advantage of it, sinking his teeth into the man's arm, deep enough to draw blood. The Grey cursed and jerked his arm away from Tommy's mouth, giving my brother a chance to break free. I reached down to grab his hand to pull him to safety- But then someone grabbed my hair from behind, yanking me back so hard it nearly snapped my neck. With a curse I tried to twist around to face my a.s.sailant, but there was a gurney in the way. Pain exploded in my hip as I slammed into it, but I was high on adrenaline by that point and no longer gave a d.a.m.n about pain. I grabbed the gurney and rammed it into the Grey who was gripping my hair; he lost his hold on me and went flying across the room, blocking the path of two others who had been coming toward me.

Suddenly the whole room was full of Greys. I couldn't see where Rita and Devon were, but I could hear them fighting. The Grey Tommy had bitten grabbed hold of him again, this time with an arm locked tightly around his neck, and despite my brother's valiant effort to back-kick him in the groin, it looked like Tommy was about to be dragged away from me. Again.

Desperately I looked about for something that I could use as a weapon. Anything! I thought of the clipboard and pen I'd seen before, but those had been knocked out of place when I hit the gurney. The clipboard had skidded across the floor and was well out of reach, and though the pen was still on the gurney, it had rolled to the far end. Not worth the effort. I needed something that could make a definitive difference in this engagement, that would not only hurt one person, but could swing the tide of the entire battle- And then, in a flash, I knew what I needed to do.

I threw myself across the gurney, grasping for the pen. The hard metal edge of the table hit my abdomen with a force that drove all the air from my body, and the gurney rolled out from under me and nearly sent me crashing to the floor, but my fingers successfully closed about the pen, and that was the only thing that mattered.

Staggering to my feet, I looked around for Tommy. There were two Greys holding onto him now, trying to pin down his limbs as he struggled with the ferocity of a maddened wildcat. I ran toward them. A Grey grabbed me by the arm, trying to pull me back, but I jerked loose from him and just kept on going. No one was going to stop me from getting to Tommy. No one. As I ran I took aim at the Grey who had the firmest grip on my brother. I don't think he saw me coming. Or maybe he did, and he just didn't think I could do any meaningful damage to him. After all, I was just some poor girl from Terra Colonna, trying to punch him on the side of his head, while he had a teenage wildcat to contain.

I stabbed him with the pen as hard as I could, putting the weight of my whole upper body behind the blow. It hit the side of his neck with a sickening force and slid into his flesh like a fork into a Christmas ham. A gush of hot scarlet blood told me that I'd hit my intended target-his carotid artery-and I yanked the pen out hard, jerking it toward me as I did so, to open the wound up as much as possible.

Blood spurted from the hole in his neck with such force it didn't seem real. But it was real. It was horrifying, too, and for a moment I couldn't take my eyes away from the gruesome sight. The wounded Grey reached up to his neck in panic, clamping a hand over the opening as he fought to keep his lifeblood from spurting out of his neck. One less hand holding Tommy. My brother sensed the opening and kicked out with all his might. He hit the wounded Grey on the inside of his knee, collapsing his leg, and the man released Tommy as he fell to the floor. Blood was splattering everywhere.

Now the Greys next to Tommy had to make a choice: either attend to their comrade and try to keep him alive, or risk his bleeding out on the floor while they tried to control my brother. For a moment the whole world seemed frozen. Then the Grey holding on to Tommy let go, kneeling down by his comrade's side. Another grabbed a sheet from the nearest gurney and started tearing off a piece of it. A third one pulled a small black crystal out of his pocket and did . . . well, whatever grey people did with small black crystals while their friends were bleeding to death on the floor. Then someone yelled, "Man down!" which was exactly what I'd been hoping for. For one precious instant all the Greys looked to see what the emergency was-and in that moment I grabbed Tommy and started running with him toward the Gate.

"Run!" I screamed, just in case Rita and Devon hadn't figured out what was happening. But they'd taken advantage of the moment as well, and they reached the Gate just as Tommy and I did.

Rita gripped my arm. Devon grabbed hold of Tommy. I grabbed the codex and pulled down on it as hard as I could; links went flying as the chain around my neck snapped.

We'd planned to destroy the arch after we got home, but I knew now that we didn't dare wait that long. The Greys knew how to work the Gate better than we did, and if they followed us into it they might get to the other side before we did. We had to destroy the Gate right here, right now. Close the door behind us forever, so no one could ever follow. Which, according to Sebastian. meant destroying the codex while we were still on this side of the bridge.

I focused my mind on the last pattern the codex had shown me, trying desperately to commit the arcane map to memory. Years of artistic training had honed my ability to remember images, but how well could I memorize under these circ.u.mstances? Well enough for us to find our way home without the codex in hand?

If not, we would just have to take our chances.

As we stepped through the Gate I swung the codex on its chain as hard as I could, cracking it like a whip against the stone foundation of the arch. By the time it struck we were gone from the Shadows' world, and darkness enveloped us.

We were nowhere. We were everywhere. All the things that normally made the universe a stable, comprehensible place had disappeared, leaving . . . nothing. A chaos of nonexistence surrounded us, destructive energies churning and cresting about us, crushing and rending to pieces everything they touched. I struggled not to drown in the terrible tide, sensing that if I did so I would face a fate far worse than death.

Was this chaos our creation? Had our destruction of the Gate set loose energies that were now destabilizing this entire realm, not just closing a single breach? I couldn't afford to dwell on such questions. I was the only one who could get us home now, and I didn't dare lose my focus.

In my mind I struggled to trace the pattern the codex had shown me, clinging to it like a lifeline. Supposedly, it was the path we had to follow to get home, but how was I supposed to apply it? Concepts like distance and direction had no meaning here. There were no doors in sight. So how was I supposed to make this work?

Black energies crested high overhead as I thought back to the thin line of fire in my dream. I remembered how it had marked the pattern of my steps on the ground as I wandered from door to door . . . from world to world. . . .

Suddenly I understood what the pattern really was. How many times had I sketched out designs just like it on napkins and tabletops, reducing patterns of human fate to geometric designs? Only this time it wasn't the destiny of a single person that I was looking at. This pattern represented the destiny of an entire world, each twist and turn revealing a time and place where another world drew close: a portal. These were the doors of my dreams, only now the distance between them was not measured in inches or miles, but in gradations of probability.

No normal mind could grasp such a thing. Or perhaps I should say, no sane mind could grasp it. But I had been wandering the plain of alternate realities in my dreams for years, and its geometric language was etched into my brain. Consciously, I might not be able to tell you what every twist and turn of this map represented, but deep beneath the layer of conscious thought, in that secret place where dreams take shelter, I knew.

Was this the Gift that the Shadows thought I had, that they so feared? Or only a precursor to something more frightening?

Shutting my eyes, I focused on the pattern before me. I imagined myself in the center of my dream plain, with doors beckoning to me at every turn. It was hard to hold the vision steady in my mind when the universe surrounding me was being swallowed by chaos, but I struggled to keep my focus. I pictured the pattern of the codex laid out on the ground before me, a thin line of fire that revealed what direction we must travel in, and how far we must go, in order to find the one door that would lead us safely home.

And suddenly the vision was gone, and the darkness vomited us onto a rocky surface. I lost my footing and barely managed to get my hands out in front of me before I hit the rock floor, hard. My palms landed on gla.s.s-like shards of shattered crystal. Overhead I heard a series of sharp cracks, and I looked up just in time to see a cl.u.s.ter of stalact.i.tes hurtling down toward me. I rolled to one side just in time, shielding my face with my lacerated hands as the cl.u.s.ter smashed into a thousand knife-edged fragments, that flew through the air like shrapnel.

Devon grabbed me by the shirt and started dragging me away from the arch. The whole floor was covered in sharp crystal fragments, that tore at my clothing and my flesh as I was dragged across them, but I wasn't about to complain. As he helped me struggle to my feet, I realized the ground itself was shaking. There was a loud rumbling sound, as if an eighteen-wheeler was driving straight at us.

"s.h.i.t!" Devon cried. "We need to get out of here!"

I looked around for Tommy, grabbed his hand, and then looked for Rita, but she wasn't there.

Wasn't anywhere.

"Where's Rita?" I demanded.

No one answered me.

I looked around wildly, panic surging in my heart. She was nowhere to be seen.

I started to run back toward the arch, but Devon grabbed my arm. The ground beneath my feet was shaking more violently now. It was hard to stand.

"She's trapped in there!" I screamed. "We have to help her!"

"Jesse!" There was agony in his Devon's voice, but he held onto me firmly. "There's nothing we can do! We have to get out of here."

But . . . but . . .

"We have to go!" he repeated, jerking me toward the exit.

Another ma.s.sive formation broke loose from the ceiling and crashed to the ground not far from us; I put up my hand to shield my face as calcite shrapnel flew threw the air. The ground was shaking more violently with each pa.s.sing second, and I could hear the cavern groaning and fracturing all around us. The sound of fault lines splitting open was as loud as the crack of lightning overhead. If we stayed here any longer we would surely be crushed to death.

Over the din Tommy screamed, "Jesse!"

We ran.

We got as far as the metal walkway before the ceiling of the great chamber began to collapse. The tunnel lights went out, but I pulled out Isaac's fetter as I ran and held it high. Its light was much dimmer than before; was it running out of energy? The thought of being trapped down here in the darkness while the cavern collapsed around us was too horrible to think about.

But the tunnel was more stable than the great chamber had been, and though the grate swayed beneath our feet like a rope bridge in a storm, the steel was flexible enough to remain intact. We ran as fast as we could, scrambling desperately over heaps of fallen rock whenever they blocked our path. At one point the rumbling of the earth around us quieted for a few seconds, and I felt a wave of relief. Then it started up again, twice as loudly as before.

Finally there were stairs in front of us-a long, narrow flight of them, carved into the native stone of the cavern. We climbed them as quickly as we could, falling to our hands and knees when the earth started shaking so badly that we couldn't stand upright any more, half-crawling and half-running to safety.

Just as we reached the top step, the shaking finally stopped. The rumbling faded, then was gone.

The earth was unnaturally still.

Breathless and bruised, we staggered through the half-demolished archway at the head of the stairs. The room beyond that looked like it had once been a tourist shop. Now it was just a big empty s.p.a.ce whose ceiling had collapsed. The floor was covered in gla.s.s from shattered windows, and empty shelving units had fallen across the main aisle. We picked our way carefully through the mess, heading toward the main door. My legs were shaking so badly I could hardly walk, and all the injuries I'd been ignoring now hurt with a vengeance. But that was a good sign. My body knew that it was safe now. It was allowed to feel pain.

The door to the outside world was solidly stuck in its frame. We had to climb out through a window. More gla.s.s cuts. I didn't care.

I grabbed Tommy and kissed him, and then I grabbed Devon and kissed him, and then I dropped to my knees and bent down and kissed the ground like you see people do in movies. It never looks real, but it is real, it's so real, because when your lips touch the earth, and the taste of your world is on your lips, that's when you know-really know, to the depths of your soul-that your nightmare is over at last.

We were home.

30.

MANa.s.sAS.

VIRGINIA.

THE HOUSES IN OUR NEIGHBORHOOD weren't all visible from the road. Some were tucked so far back into the forest that you practically had to go up to the front door to see them. A stranger driving down our street would probably not notice if any houses were missing. But to my eyes there was a gaping void at our address, impossible to overlook.

Devon's dad drove us into the driveway-which now was little more than a smooth black strip leading to a field of rain-soaked rubble-and parked.

He was the first person we'd contacted, once we finally got a driver on Route 340 to stop and lend us his cell phone. Which took longer than you'd expect. Maybe the sight of three teenagers standing half-dazed next to the highway, their clothing tattered and their faces speckled with blood, had scared people off. Kitty Genovese Syndrome: I-don't-want-to-get-involved. Or maybe they just thought we were a bunch of smart-a.s.s kids pulling a practical joke on pa.s.sing motorists. We did look like refugees from a Night of the Living Dead cast party, so you couldn't really blame them.

When we'd finally gotten Devon's dad on the phone he didn't ask us a lot of questions, just verified that we were in a safe place and made immediate arrangements to come get us. After that Tommy and I called Mom, but she didn't answer. I tried not to get too alarmed over that. Our house phone had been a land line, and there was probably nothing left of it now but a blob of melted plastic. Maybe in the chaos after the fire Mom hadn't been able to transfer the number to a new phone yet.

I hoped that was the reason she wasn't answering.

Doctor Tilford had wanted to tell the police we were back, but Tommy and I begged him to hold off a bit. I didn't want Mom to hear that kind of news from strangers. Reluctantly Devon's dad agreed, on condition we let him tend to our wounds while his receptionist called around to find out where Mom was. That sounded reasonable, so we went to his office to let him slather us with antiseptic, while she started searching.

It turned out that Mom was still sick-really sick-and a relative I barely knew had come to Mana.s.sas to help care for her. Since being released from the hospital she had spent most of her time wandering around the ruins of our house. Not doing anything in particular, just wandering. She told people that when we came back that's where we would go to find her, so that was where she needed to be. For as long as it took.

And now here we were at last. Standing in the place where someone from another world had once tried to kill me. It seemed a lifetime ago.

At first all I saw was rubble. Not because there was nothing else to see, but because the rubble was so compelling that I couldn't bring myself to look away from it. Here was my life, and Tommy's life, reduced to blackened timbers and rain-soaked ash. All my art. My computer. My diary. The dining room where we'd celebrated birthdays together, the kitchen where we'd gossiped over pizza, even the office where my birth certificate, with its tiny footprints, had been filed. Gone. Not until this moment had the magnitude of the loss really hit me.

Then Tommy screamed "Mom!" and threw his car door open. Squinting against the sunlight, I could just make out the forms of two women standing at the far end of the yard, half-hidden by the shadow of a great oak tree. And yes, one of them was Mom. But how thin she looked, how frail! The other women was a robust Oktoberfest type, and when my mother swayed at the sight of Tommy and me, overcome by emotion, the other woman put a hand around her shoulder, steadying her.

Suddenly the tears I had fought so hard not to shed at Dr. Tilford's office began to fill my eyes. And this time I let them come, because there are times in a person's life when it's okay to cry, and this was one of them.

Tommy sprinted across the field of blackened timbers, his arms waving wildly as he ran toward Mom. Suddenly I realized what was about to happen . . . or not happen. My breath caught in my throat as I got out of the car, my heart pounding more loudly than it had when we'd fled through the Warrens.

Tommy ran into Mom with such force that the impact nearly knocked her off her feet. And then he hugged her. After a moment's surprise she hugged him back, her arms wrapped so tightly about him that all the Shadows in the universe couldn't have broken them apart. And then she was weeping, and he was weeping, and they were hugging each other so hard that my heart ached. So many years of fear and frustration and unexpressed affection were in that hug, it was overwhelming just to watch it.

For a moment I just stood there, letting Tommy be the star of the moment. He'd earned it.

Then Devon prodded me gently in the back. Out of the corner of my eye I could see that he was smiling. "So now can we talk to the police?"

Wiping my eyes with my sleeve, I nodded. Then I began to pick my way across the field of rubble-a bit more carefully than Tommy had-to where my mother and my brother were hugging and weeping, to join in the reunion.

EPILOGUE.

MANa.s.sAS VIRGINIA.

CRYSTAL GATES EVERYWHERE. Razor-blade gla.s.s spines blocking my way in every direction. I have to smash through bunches of them to peer through each archway. Gate after gate after gate. Never finding the world I want. The world I need to see.

Calcite spines spattered red with blood mark the places I have already explored. A trail of crimson drops behind me sketches out fractal patterns on the ground. Connect the dots and it will lead you to other worlds . . . but not the right one. Never the right one.

"Rita!" I yell at the top of my lungs.

As if mere volume will change anything.

The ground beneath my feet isn't stable anymore or even solid. It's a sea of unchained energy, in which I somehow manage the fantasy of walking. Now that I understand what the black plain of my dreams represents, the walls of illusion that once protected me from its true nature are disintegrating. Each moment that I'm here I must struggle to impose my own mental order upon the place, or risk being swept away.

Rita!

I run to gate after gate after gate, smashing my way through crystal barriers, seeking a world where my friend still lives. But are these dream-worlds real? Am I seeing events that really occurred somewhere, or are these only potential realities, twisted echoes of the real thing? The simple universe of my childhood, in which events progressed in clean linear order, has been shattered. How many worlds are really out there? Do my dreams allow me to peer into places that really exist, or am I just imagining them?

All I know is that if I can find a single universe in which Rita managed to survive the explosion, then I will know that her continued existence in my reality is possible. But I cannot find any sign of her.

Scenes from the Shadows' stronghold unfold before my eyes like the pages of some dark novel. I watch as an arrogant Shadowlord is blamed for our destruction of the Gate, and I hear him swear vengeance upon us as he is cast down from power. I watch as Greys a.s.sess the ruins of their Gate, and discuss how to bring all their stranded tourists home. I watch as Isaac attends the trial of the guard who was blamed for our escape, and I mourn the lack of remorse in his eyes.