Jonathan Porterhouse’s basement wasn’t much of a dungeon. If the Magister had wanted them to suffer, he should have checked to make sure he wasn’t dropping them into what looked like a movie theater, only with comfier seats. Three rows faced a large screen at one end, with a projection room at the other.
Bethany sat in one of the cushy chairs, her eyes on the floor, deliberately trying not to look at the clearly terrified Mr. Porterhouse, who sat two seats down from her, his eyes wide and locked on her. She wasn’t sure exactly what to say: There wasn’t a much more awkward conversation than trying to explain that an author’s fictional characters had attacked him in his own house because you were half-fictional yourself, and your friend had wanted to meet them, but then they’d escaped using your power.
Except maybe explaining that now one of his characters wanted to free every other fictional character ever invented into the world, which might be fine if it were just Sherlock Holmeses or Gandalfs, but got a little questionable when you started talking about aliens, dragons, vampires, and other people-devouring characters.
“So,” Bethany finally said. “I hear the books have sold well?”
“You have no idea how they end, do you?” Mr. Porterhouse whispered, his eyes flashing to the ceiling.
Bethany slowly shook her head. “I, uh, haven’t actually read any of them.”
For just a moment irritation passed over Mr. Porterhouse’s face. “You haven’t . . . none of them?” He shook his head. “Doesn’t matter. The ending is what’s important. The Magister . . . he’s not a hero. At the end of the final book, Dr. Verity tells Kiel that the Magister planned on using the Source of Magic to destroy Quanterium, just like Dr. Verity wants to destroy Magisteria. They’re both villains.” He ran his hands through his hair nervously, his eyes flickering to the ceiling and back to Bethany. “Do you understand what I’m telling you? That man up there is crazy, and willing to wipe out a planet full of his enemies. We have to get out of here, right now !”
“What?” Bethany whispered as loudly as she dared. “You authors and your stupid twists! Look at what you’ve done!”
“I didn’t know he was real!” Mr. Porterhouse hissed back.
“So he’s just going to kill us?” She sat back in a daze, fear and confusion fighting each other in her head.
“I don’t know!” Mr. Porterhouse whispered. “He’s off book, so he could do anything at this point. All I know is what he was capable of in the story. And that was to destroy an entire world to make sure his people were safe.”
“Yup, he’s going to kill us,” Bethany said with a short nod, then shook off her confusion and fear, at least enough to think. “Okay. We can’t stay here—”
“Oh, really? We can’t ?”
She glared at the author. “Is there any way out of here other than the stairs? Since those lead back up to the crazy magician man?”
Mr. Porterhouse shook his head. “Not even a window. I don’t like the glare when I watch movies on the big screen.”
Perfect. At least there wouldn’t be a glare when the Magister came down to blow them up or whatever. “How about a book? Anything at all down here?”
“Everything’s upstairs in the library. I doubt there’s so much as a piece of paper down here.”
Bethany glanced around, growling quietly to herself in frustration. Mr. Porterhouse wasn’t wrong. Not only were there no books of any kind, there wasn’t much of anything. Just the chairs, the movie screen, and the movie projector in the back, connected to a computer. Great, everything was digital. That didn’t help when your weird book powers didn’t work on a computer screen.
She just about gave up, then noticed a white booklet on the desk next to the projector.
Instruction manual. Hmm.
What would happen if she wrote something on paper, just even a simple sentence like The monkey hated the elephant with a passion, and the elephant knew why ? Would she be able to jump into that paper? Was that enough of a story? Or did she even need a story?
She slowly, quietly, walked over to the manual, flipped it to a blank sheet at the back, then quickly looked around for a pen or something. As she was rummaging through the desk, the Magister materialized out of nothing, with an unhappy-looking Kiel Gnomenfoot at his side. Bethany froze, dropping her hands immediately to her side to hide the paper. Back in the chair, Mr. Porterhouse straightened himself up, his eyes wide with fright.
“I believe you have had enough time to think,” the Magister said. “Have you come to the right decision?”
“Please—” Mr. Porterhouse started to say, only to have his mouth erased off his face once more. The Magister gave him a careful look, then turned back to Bethany, waiting for her answer.
Bethany quietly folded the manual over so the blank page was facing up, then slipped it into her back pocket, trying to look like she was thinking things over. “Yes, I have,” she said, then slowly, very slowly, began to walk back over to where the Magister stood over Mr. Porterhouse.
There was no way this would work. No way. Not only had she never jumped into a blank page before, there was no reason to even think it might work. There wasn’t a story there, after all. No fictional world to enter, just a bunch of blank nothing. Not only would it not work, and not only would it be humiliating when it didn’t, but the whole thing was probably just going to make the Magister even more angry.
Still. Between humiliation and a crazy magician, she’d take humiliation.
She stopped next to Mr. Porterhouse and took a deep breath.
“You will help me free the fictional from their stories, then?” the Magister asked.
“Um,” Bethany said, “no.” Then she grabbed the author’s hand and shoved the blank instruction manual directly at him.
Half of her expected his hand to rip right through the page, that there was no way this could work, and why even attempt something so risky, so dangerous?
But weirdly, the other half of her was actually excited to see what might happen. And that must have been the half that made her grin out of nowhere as everything turned a brilliant bright white all around her and the author.
They were in empty space! The blank page was just that: There wasn’t anything here, but somehow, she could still jump into it. She almost laughed. It’d worked! How cool was that?
Any laugh immediately died in her throat when she noticed Mr. Porterhouse’s death grip on her hand, staring at her with pretty much the same terrified look he’d given the Magister.
“It’s okay,” she said. “You’re okay. I got you out. You’re safe now.” His eyes said he didn’t necessarily believe her, but she didn’t really have time to convince him. “We’re going to be trapped in here if he burns that booklet, so I need to get back out. But don’t worry, I’ll come back for you. I just need to get the Magister and Kiel back into your books before they do anything crazy. So stay here, okay? I’ll be right back.” She paused. “And just so you know, this is all a kid named Owen’s fault. You’ll probably hear about him when he messes up your entire series of books. Don’t worry, I’ll get him back too.”
Before he could stop her, she leaped out of the page and back into the movie theater, ready to grab the blank sheet of paper and run as fast as she could up the stairs. It wasn’t much of a plan, but then again, the blank sheet hadn’t been either, and that had worked. So maybe she had luck on her side for once?
She didn’t. As soon as her feet hit the basement floor, a glow hit her full in the face. Magic raced into her mouth and down her throat, infecting her lungs, which immediately froze up. She gasped, making a rasping noise in her throat. She couldn’t breathe!
As Bethany gasped for air, the Magister lifted his hand, sending her floating up above the marble floor. She clutched her neck, desperately trying to pull in oxygen.
“What are you doing?” Kiel shouted from somewhere below her. “Don’t hurt her!”
“You have forced my hand, Bethany,” the Magister told her. “Why can’t you see how wrong these stories are? Especially considering your heritage? If you won’t help me, then you dishonor your father and your abilities. Far better for me to use that power, if you refuse to.”
The same cold, shivery feeling Bethany had felt when she first met the Magister coursed through her, and she knew that he was pulling her book-jumping power straight out of her, but that seemed less and less important as the sides of her vision started turning dark from lack of air, and she slowly began to black out.