irtha was following Chance Darling through a dark desert terrain. A forest green sky almost entirely clogged by clouds hung overhead. Lightning flashed bright yellow and rumbling thunder provided a continuous soundtrack.

Random junk levitated in the air—wilting flowers, old running shoes, fluttering documents. There were also pale gray ghostly images floating around. They were stretched out and mangled, but looked human—if the human form was put through a pasta maker and then hung out in the breeze. Many of the ghosts occasionally opened their mouths to let out a wail, but no sound escaped their phantom lips.

“Does it weird you out that she was never who you thought she was?” Girtha asked the prince as they continued their trek.

Chance considered the question for a moment before responding. “A bit,” he replied. “It makes me wonder how different she is going to be once she wakes up.”

“You don’t still care for her do you?” Girtha asked. My large, sturdy friend was keeping an eye on the troubling surroundings, but the other was trained on the prince.

He was still handsome—I had a feeling he would always be—but his face had changed. The smugness in his expression and the cockiness in his eyes that used to characterize him had vanished. I saw the same earnestness in him that I saw in Daniel when he’d tried to convince me to forgive him last night, or when he talked about Kai.

“No,” Chance responded. “You know where my heart belongs now. I just don’t know if it will ever matter.”

Chance hadn’t stopped walking this whole time; his back had been to Girtha. I saw his face elongate in some form of sadness.

“I know she cares for me,” he said. “She may try to underplay it, but I have spent enough time studying the curves of her face and the crinkles of her eyes to see that she does have feelings for me. But . . .”

The prince finally ceased walking. He sighed and turned to Girtha. “I worry that I was too late from the start. What if the reason she has not given me her heart is because she already gave it to someone else?”

The peculiar dream faded. My subconscious rose into the mysterious sky then I opened my eyes. There was an aching sensation pulsing through my bones and a great dizziness in my head. This wasn’t an ordinary case of Magic Exhaustion. The pain felt different, more severe. Like I may have come pretty close to Magic Burn Out.

I stood up slowly. The realm I’d landed in appeared to be an enormous white room. My friends were nowhere in sight. I checked my Hole Tracker to see how long I’d been out, but the hands on the watch had stopped. I tried to bring up the holographic map to check for wormhole activity, but that didn’t work either. In fact, none of the Hole Tracker’s functions were operational.

I pulled my Mark Two out of my backpack and attempted to call the others, but all I got was static. My body continued to tremble from fatigue as I looked around the white space. I realized then that I wasn’t actually in a room. At first glance it might’ve seemed that way, but there were no walls or doors or windows. This wasn’t a room; this was a void. I’d had enough nightmares to recognize one when I saw it.

Hmm. I wonder if this is a dream.

I held up my hand to my face. It felt solid. And the pain in my body was too real to have been a manifestation.

It doesn’t feel like a dream.

But if I’m not in one of my visions, then where am I? This is supposed to be Limbo, but this is a void, not a Wonderland. Am I in the right place?

“This void is Limbo. And you are definitely in the right place.”

I spun around to find a beaver behind me. He was carmine red with a black nose and dark eyes. He held a piece of bark in his paws, which he nibbled on, and was floating in midair.

Wow. I’ve seen some strange things today, but this is the most ridiculous—

“Hey, watch what you think,” the beaver said.

I blinked. “Did you just hear my thoughts?”

“Well, you can hear them. Why can’t I?”

“Um, because they’re mine,” I responded.

The beaver shrugged. “Fair enough.”

He continued to float around me—bobbing like a beach ball on an ocean wave. I stared at him curiously—expecting him to say more—but he remained silent, chewing contentedly on his piece of bark.

I cleared my throat. “So, I’m looking for my friends. They came through a little while ago. Any thoughts on how I might find them and leave this place?”

“I have plenty of thoughts,” the beaver replied with a touch of sass. “But since you did not share yours with me, why should I share mine with you?”

“Ugh, fine,” I groaned. “Help yourself, but first help me. You can poke around my brain all you want, but tell me how I can get out of here.”

“The answer to the question is in the location,” the beaver said, floating upside down.

“What?”

“You’re in Limbo.”

“So you mentioned.”

The beaver righted himself and looked me in the eye. “You don’t get it. The only way to find your way through Limbo is by facing your own Limbo first.”

“It’s been a long day, Bucky, and I don’t have time for riddles. You’re gonna have to be more specific.”

My host finished chewing his bark and snapped the claws on his tiny paws. In a bright flash, a striped limbo stick about the size of a spear appeared. It floated horizontally in front of my face and had sparkly streamers protruding from both ends.

“In life, people are constantly finding themselves lost in some form of Limbo,” the beaver explained thoughtfully. “It might be related to relationships, work, personal growth, or emotions. This realm—this Wonderland—is where all those anxieties dwell. If you want to find your way out, you must first face what is blocking you.”

The beaver motioned at the Limbo stick with his tail and nodded. “But first thing’s first—grasp onto the stick with your hand.”

I reached out my hand but paused before I touched the stick.

“Oh, come now,” the beaver huffed. “No need to fear. The stick just needs to get a reading on you before you can play. It doesn’t hurt. Honest.”

I sighed and grabbed the Limbo stick. The moment I did, a bolt of energy zapped me like a fully charged lightning rod.

“Ow!” I leapt back, rubbing my hand. “You said that it wouldn’t hurt!”

“That was a lie.”

“Yeah, clearly.” I scowled.

A Limbo stick stand suddenly shimmered into existence in front of me, holding up either end of the stick on the highest of its five notches. An image began to materialize right beyond the set-up. It was a hologram of a human figure. One I recognized.

“Blue?” I said as the image solidified. The image did not respond. She just stood there staring at me with her arms crossed.

“What is this?” I asked the beaver.

“According to the Limbo Stick of Destiny, you are currently lost in five different states of Limbo,” the beaver responded. “Each notch on the Limbo stick stand represents one of those states. You play the game by facing them one at a time—admitting what it is about those states of Limbo that bothers you, and then coming to an understanding of what you need to do to work through them. Pass all the levels and your way out of here will be revealed.”

“How does that make any sense,” I retorted. “I mean, what’s the point? Thinking about my problems isn’t going to magically fix them.”

“No,” the beaver admitted. “But a state of Limbo isn’t the kind of problem that can simply go away like magic. In order to overcome it, it must first be explored.”

I glared at him.

He levitated over the Limbo stick and patted it with his tail confidently. “Trust me. Sometimes all a person needs to find their way through Limbo is to start by admitting that they’re in it. The rest will come naturally.”

“What’s with the different levels of difficulty then?” I asked, gesturing to the notches in the Limbo stick stand. “I played Limbo at a barbeque once. The further you went in the competition, the lower the notches got, making each round harder than the last. How does that correlate here?”

The beaver shrugged again. “Some states of Limbo are more difficult than others. The more difficult the state of Limbo, the more challenging the bar.”

I put my hands on my hips as I examined the lower notches on the Limbo stick stand. “I don’t know if I can bend that far.”

“You’d be surprised how much a person can bend when they want to,” the beaver replied. “And anyway, you shouldn’t complain. All your states of Limbo are relationship-based, and those are the easiest to fix. Most people have to deal with personal growth-related Limbos, and those are the roughest. But you seem perfectly fine in that department. You must have a high degree of self-acceptance.”

“I should hope so,” I huffed in amusement. “I spent a whole bunch of chapters and multiple story arcs in my last adventure getting to that point.”

“Good for you,” the beaver commented. “Too bad I can’t say the same for that little black-haired girl who was just in here. The personal growth Limbo she had to face had a pretty low notch.”

“Little black-haired girl . . .” I paused. “Skin white as snow? Slingshot at her hip?”

“That’s the one,” the beaver replied.

“Is she okay?” I asked earnestly. “Did she make it through?”

“Can’t tell you that,” the beaver answered as he began to float around me again. “You make it through and you’ll find out for yourself.”

I scowled again, but decided to accept the beaver’s terms. One thing I’d learned on my adventures was that things went a lot smoother when you didn’t fight the crazy; you just leaned into it.

“Fine,” I said, turning back to the image of Blue. She stared at me. There was hurt, but also anger in her eyes. It made me cringe and I looked away. The beaver bobbed over to me.

“Just look at her,” he urged more delicately. “You know what’s bothering you. Let your feelings flow.”

With a deep breath, I pivoted and faced Blue again. I let the truth shatter the dam that held back my anxieties. I knew I was in a state of Limbo with Blue because of my vision that Jason was going to die. It was killing me to keep this terrible secret from her, especially since she had serious feelings for him, but I had promised Jason that I wouldn’t say a word.

I met the eyes of my bold, fierce-hearted friend. She didn’t look like a hologram anymore; she looked like flesh and blood. I sighed and held her stern, sad gaze. “I don’t want to disappoint you, Blue,” I started slowly, talking to her as if she were really there. “I don’t want to be the girl I was last semester—the girl who kept secrets from her friends and hurt them. But this isn’t like last semester. I’m not guarding the truth to protect myself like I used to. I’m legitimately doing it to protect you because Jason is right. If you knew the truth, it would kill you when he dies. You’d be racked with guilt for the rest of your life because you were unable to stop it from happening. And neither Jason nor I want that for you. So I’m sorry, but I’m not sorry that I am keeping this secret. I’m doing it for your own good. Telling you the truth would be selfish because it would do nothing but appease my own guilt.”

Understanding—and an acceptance of that understanding—secured itself inside me.

I exhaled steadily. “Jason’s decision was the right call. And I am making the right call by supporting it. Because you would do the same for me.”

I unexpectedly found myself flinging my head back and walking beneath the Limbo stick, going straight through Blue’s flickering image. As I passed through her, it felt like I was taking a breath of fresh air.

When I pulled myself upright a moment later, I discovered both her and the stick were no longer behind me. The Limbo stick and stand had teleported ahead of me anew, but the stick was at a lower level this time. An image of Jason appeared immediately beyond it.

Jason.

I studied him—really looked at him for the first time in a long time. In retrospect, since I’d told him about my vision I’d avoided taking him in so completely. Doing so brought too much pain. The sorrow in his eyes—usually full of kindness and sympathy—was a reminder of the burden I’d saddled him with.

The guilt and sadness I’d been suppressing rose in my throat and I no longer shied away from the state of Limbo between us.

“I feel like somehow what’s coming for you is my fault,” I admitted, talking to the image of Jason as though it were real, just like I had with Blue’s. “I mean, I know that it’s not. And you’ve told me more than once that I shouldn’t blame myself for seeing what I did, but that doesn’t mean I don’t feel like I’m responsible. I feel like I’m letting you down, like I’m not fighting for you like I should be.”

I started to pace a bit. “I’ve been mad, Jason. Mad at the future. Mad at you for making me share it with you when I could’ve held onto the burden for both of us. But mainly . . . I think I’ve been mad at myself for believing there was nothing I could do about it.”

I paused and thought on my own words.

Was there something I could do about it?

Yes, my visions always came true. Yes, there had never been a time when I’d been able to disprove that. And, yes, I definitely saw Jason die. But “always” and “never” and “definitely” were not the finite terms I once considered them to be.

I had always thought that my father disliked me, my brother was a good-hearted hero, and Girtha and I would be enemies forever. I had never thought that SJ would be jealous of me, Chance could possess genuine feelings for me, or that there might be a way to cure my Pure Magic Disease. And overall, I definitely didn’t think that after seventeen years of living my life that I would be where I was at this very moment.

Nevertheless, all remained true. Didn’t that mean something?

Up til recently I’d believed certain things were a certain way. I believed that the Author controlled our lives. I believed the Godmothers were embodiments of goodness who looked out for our best interests. I believed I was just a princess and could never be a hero. I believed Alex was a great big brother, a loyal son, and a worthy future king. But I had been wrong. I’d learned and done so many impossible things recently that the idea that anything was set in stone was ridiculous. So maybe that meant that Jason’s fate could be unwritten.

And if that were true, then what was I doing wasting time wallowing? Perhaps believing I could change his future was irrational and illogical and crazy. But then again, most of my most brilliant moments were.

A vow settled in my stomach, and then I spoke it into existence.

“No matter how small a chance, Jason, I know there is a chance that the future I’ve seen can be altered. I can feel it in my heart as surely as I can feel the magic pulsing through my veins. And I’d rather spend our remaining time together being driven by that shred of hope than conceding that fate is out of our control.”

I ducked beneath the Limbo stick with ease. Like before, I felt a weight lift from my shoulders, this one heavier.

The stick and stand proceeded to flash in front of me again. An image of SJ stood behind them now. She glared at me and I glared at her in return. Our Limbo was not my fault, after all. She’d been the one to create this distance between us. She’d been the one to act irrationally. And she’d been the one who’d been so consumed by her own insecurities lately that she was pushing me away, like . . . like . . .

Realization suddenly struck me. It fell hard as a hammer and was utterly humbling and brutally swift. SJ was behaving like I used to. I’d been so frustrated with the situation I hadn’t seen it. Now it was clear as day. In this empty space with no one and nothing to focus on but us, I could sense the familiarity. I was on the opposite end of a battle I’d once instigated. All this time I’d been upset with SJ for letting her unreasonable doubts cloud her judgment and wreak havoc upon our friendship. But I’d done the exact same thing last semester.

The only difference was that when I was going through my personal trauma, SJ hadn’t pushed me away. Despite the fact that my words and actions hurt her, she’d tried to help me through it. She’d let me know that she was there for me. She’d been patient, and stood by me, and put up with my foolishness because she knew I couldn’t force my heart and mind to change; they had to get there on their own.

And while she was going through her own internal turmoil, what had I done? I’d resented her for it. I’d let her stew on her own because that’s what she told me she wanted. And I’d done absolutely nothing to try and help her through her problems. Which meant that while the insecurities SJ was feeling may not have been my fault, the distance between us certainly was. And I had the responsibility to fix it.

I ducked beneath the Limbo stick. I didn’t remember making the motion; it just happened. When I emerged on the other side, I began to feel nostalgic for Sleepy Hollow. At least the demons there could be dealt with through brute force, unlike this emotional muck that stung like the aftermath of spicy curry.

The Limbo stick was much lower now. The image that appeared in front of me was my brother’s. Unlike my friends’ hologram, Alex’s expression wasn’t stern, sad, or hurt; he was smirking. He was looking at me like he always did—with a mixture of pride, mischief, and charm glinting in his eyes.

Seeing him normal like that made me angry. Nothing was normal anymore. And it was all because of him. He’d ruined everything. Our family, our kingdom, our relationship—he’d set it ablaze. He’d betrayed us.

I didn’t know how to make sense of that. I was confused about how to proceed. As horrible and treacherous as Alex had been, a desperate, naïve part of my soul still had faith in him. I wanted to believe that he could be saved, that he could be the brother I once knew and loved, that he could come back. But as I stared at his expression, and compared it to the cold, ruthless one I’d faced in Midveil and in the Ruined City, I finally accepted the truth.

I could never trust my brother again. Whether I liked it or not, the Alex I knew was gone. There was no changing that. There was no bringing him home. My brother had died that day along with the innocent victims of his attack.

It was the hardest truth I’d realized so far, but I accepted it with as much certainty as the others. I swooped beneath the daunting Limbo stick as I swallowed the sadness in my throat.

I surfaced on the other side to face the final level of Limbo waiting for me—Daniel. I was surprised and turned around to look at the beaver.

“I thought you said the levels of this Limbo stick correspond to the difficulty level of my states of Limbo.”

“That’s right,” the beaver said, floating closer.

“So why is Daniel my last level? My brother Alex hurt me more than anyone ever has. Daniel and I have a rocky relationship, but it’s nothing compared to the internal havoc that my brother has caused me.”

“The difficulty level doesn’t always correlate to the level of pain,” the beaver explained. “It correlates with how easy it is for you to find clarity. Whoever this Daniel is to you, the issues you have with him are a lot more uncertain than your feelings about your brother.”

I glanced back at Daniel, and in a moment of humility I knew the beaver was right. While seeing each of the others had triggered very distinct, immediate emotions, Daniel’s face had no such bearing on me. I felt so many conflicting things about him at once that it was like sensory overload. The Limbo stick seemed impossibly low. There was no way I could bend myself to cross beneath it.

“I can’t do this,” I said to the beaver, whose face had taken a turn for the judgmental. “The bar is too low.”

“Only because you’ve set it there,” he responded. “You want to get out of here? Face him.” The beaver wagged his tail at Daniel. “If you don’t, you’ll be stuck in more ways than one.”

I grunted. Daniel had been a constant roadblock for me since we’d met. It was only fitting that he’d eventually become a physical one—smugly standing between me and my way out of this Wonderland.

I bit my lip. I didn’t even know where to start. But then, wasn’t that always the case with us? I never knew where to begin, just like I never knew where to draw the line. Daniel knew, though. And he’d truly hurt me when he’d drawn it earlier in the semester.

I’d always been prone to bottling things up and keeping people at a distance. He’d been the first person to help me get out of my own way. Trusting him had made me feel stronger, safer, and happier. When he pushed me away so abruptly, I didn’t just lose a friend I cared for, I lost a vital part of my support system.

It was terrifying to be vulnerable with another person. It was going out on a limb—sharing a piece of your soul in good faith that the person you entrusted it to would build you up, not break you down. But that’s exactly what Daniel had done; he’d broken me down. I’d come to rely on him and he had shattered my faith that I could lean on someone. When I finally got past his betrayal and let myself trust someone else that way again, I ended up getting crushed by Alex. It made me wonder if trusting people so completely was a bad idea.

I had to remain strong for so many things—my realm, my friends, Natalie Poole, Paige Tomkins, and countless others. I didn’t want to risk the chance that someone might hurt me like that a third time. I didn’t know if I could take it. What if the next time I was betrayed, my heart shattered irreparably?

If I let Daniel in again then I was inviting in the opportunity for more pain. But if I took that chance, if I gave him another chance . . . I was inviting in something else too, wasn’t I?

My heart skipped a beat as I gazed at the boy before me.

Friendship.

That’s what I would be inviting into my life if I trusted him. Real friendship. Not the shallow kind where you talked about homework and the weather, but the real kind where you opened your spirit to someone and shared what really mattered about yourself.

I knew in my heart that I missed what he’d been to me—someone who forced me to share, who got me to trust, and who taught me to let people in. Someone who—in the worst, but also the best possible way—made me feel more connected to life than my powers ever had.

Wasn’t that worth the risk?

In life, the things that mattered most rarely came easily. But if you were brave enough to accept their challenge, and courageous enough to keep fighting for them even when it got difficult, the reward could be wonderful.

That’s what I wanted for Daniel and me.

During our Author quest we’d become friends, but not in the natural way. We’d trusted each other because we had to, not because we wanted to. If we were to move forward now, it had to be a choice made of free will. That was the only way for this to work. We could no longer be forced friends; we had to be real friends.

The road to that would be even harder, and there would be way more obstacles ahead. But at that moment—staring into his strong, defiant eyes—I knew that it would be worth it.

He was worth it.

My chin swiftly passed beneath the bar. I gracefully swept under the Limbo stick as my last bit of internal Limbo was overcome. Then I rammed into Daniel. Not an image of him, but the real thing.

“Daniel!” I exclaimed. I grabbed his arms to make sure he was real.

He looked just as startled to see me. “Knight, where’d you come from?”

I gestured back at the Limbo stick and the floating beaver, but both had vanished. When I turned to face Daniel again, SJ, Blue, and Jason were standing behind him.

Jason stepped forward. “I take it you met the beaver?”

I nodded.

“Us too,” Blue said. “He was weird.”

I was glad to see that she was conscious again after her Poppy-touching episode.

“But we all passed his test, right?” I said. “Otherwise we wouldn’t have found each other again.”

“That’s true,” Jason replied. “But shouldn’t we have also found a way out of here? We’re still trapped.”

I looked around and saw something new in the middle of the room. It was a white ladder.

I glanced at the Hole Tracker on my wrist. It was working again. An orange circle pulsed brightly on its face. A Pop-Up Portal was inbound for our location. When we reached the base of the ladder, a glimmering orange wormhole appeared at the top—spiraling in a clockwise direction as it opened.

This was our way out.

My friends climbed up the ladder and passed through the portal. I took a final observation of the white void we were leaving behind. As I did, the beaver reappeared. He was upside down and chewing on a different piece of bark. He waved at me with one paw and his tail.

I waved back. Then I jumped through the portal, secretly grateful for having been graced with his presence. Thanks to Limbo, I had put some of my worries behind me and now felt renewed. I had a clean outlook on my relationships and problems, and intended to make some major changes in the very near future.