Wait, what?” Owen said. “That can’t be the ending! He gave himself up to get Charm a doctor?”
“They thought she was a criminal,” Bethany said quietly, touching the page. “I guess he thought they wouldn’t save her otherwise.”
“There has to be more,” Owen said, pulling the book out of her hand. “There has to be! What happened to Charm? Is she okay?” He seemed about as worried about Charm as Bethany felt about Kiel, honestly.
“There’s an epilogue,” Bethany said, turning the page while he held it. “Five years later.” She paused. “But I don’t think we should read it. I mean, after everything, it wouldn’t be right to just finish the book that way, you know? That’s no way to say good-bye.”
“Not read it?” Owen said, his voice rising as he stared at her indignantly. “But I have to find out—” And then he noticed her hand in midair, waiting to take his.
He swallowed hard, gave her a thankful, relieved smile, then silently took her hand.
Together, they disappeared into the pages.
Five years later
“As you know, the tyrant Dr. Verity caused an accident six years ago that killed my parents and sisters,” Charm told the crowd before her. “That accident took my eye, arm, and leg. Science saved me, giving me robotic parts to take the place of flesh and bone. But it took magic to truly make me whole.”
She pointed at her now-human eye and held up both nonrobotic arms. “This is what magic and science accomplished together. But it won’t stop there. Together, Quanterian and Magisterian will become one and whole, like science and magic healed me. We shall move forward together as one planet once more, with one people of both science and magic!” Charm said. The assembled Magisterians and Quanterians below her broke into cheers. She grinned, and waved as she started to step offstage.
For just a moment someone in the crowd caught her eye. While most of the assembled people were cheering or clapping, one boy just stood silently, an almost sad smile on his face. She gave him a curious look, and he waved awkwardly, almost in embarrassment.
Did she know him? There was something about him that seemed almost . . . familiar. Something she hadn’t seen in a long time. Years, even.
And for some reason, seeing the boy now, she realized how much she missed that . . . something.
Before Charm could do more than raise her hand to wave back, the boy disappeared into the crowd. She stepped forward, ready to say something, then sighed and let it go, turning back to step offstage.
“I’ll never get used to that,” she told her assistant, a Magisterian boy just a couple of years younger than her. “I hate talking.”
“To crowds?” her assistant asked.
“Or anyone else,” she said.
“But you faced down Dr. Verity!” her assistant said. “Visited alternate dimensions! Fought off zombie magicians and deadly computer viruses!”
“None of those were scary,” she told him. “I had . . . company.”
She began to walk back toward the Presidential Audience Chamber, sighing at her list of upcoming meetings. It wasn’t easy, bringing the entire population of Magisteria back to Quanterium where they belonged, then convincing two planets full of people that hated one another that they needed each other, that one side had grown complacent and unimaginative, while the other was nothing but imagination. Two sides of a whole, and neither complete without the other.
And yet it had happened, despite the hiccups. Still, there were always more meetings.
“Company?” her assistant said. “You mean Kiel Gnomenfoot?”
She stopped, then turned to face him. “I might,” she said.
“What do you think ever happened to him? After you proved him innocent of crimes against Quanterium right before his execution?” her assistant asked.
She raised an eyebrow. “Why do you ask?”
“It’s been five years, and no one’s seen him since the trial,” her assistant said. “If anyone would know where he is, I’d think it’d be you, right?”
She sighed. “The Ice Giants claim to have captured him and are holding him for a million frozen fires as ransom. I’ve also heard that he’s King of the Infinite Nothingness, beyond the universe that exists. Some even say he took the books he found in the vault and used them to open a school to teach people about the true Source of Magic.”
“But those books were just details of scientific lab experiments,” her assistant said. “Right? About how scientists actually developed the first magic spells, which were really just quantum connections used on a larger, practical level? That’s how he was able to use magic to communicate with every Science Soldier at once, because science at its core is magic, and magic is science?”
“So it stands to reason that a school teaching both magic and science might have some use for them,” she said.
“But what do you think?” her assistant asked. “Where do you think he went?”
Charm sighed. “I like to think that somewhere, somewhen, Kiel Gnomenfoot is annoying someone else, with his stupid magic and his stupid arrogance, just like he did me all those years.”
Or maybe saying good-bye in the middle of a crowd, the least Kiel Gnomenfoot thing he could ever do.
She smiled, then shook her head and straightened herself, ready to continue bringing together science and magic into one, whole world.
With that, Bethany and Owen slowly pulled themselves out of the book. Bethany closed the cover and looked at Owen. “Well?”
“She’s okay,” Owen said to himself with a goofy grin, then noticed Bethany smiling at him. “Uh, I mean, I’m glad it ended happily. You know, for, uh, everyone. Charm. And the rest. Like, everyone else. Kiel. You know.” He stopped, realizing something. “So where is Kiel? Isn’t it a little strange that after seven of these books we don’t even get a concrete answer as to what happened to him? I mean, maybe Charm thought that I was him. . . .” He couldn’t stop himself from grinning wider. “But that was me, not him. Shouldn’t the real Kiel have turned up somewhere?”
“I guess,” Bethany said, smiling with him. “Listen. Owen. I’ve been thinking about things.”
Owen nodded, his grin fading. “Me too. You go first.”
“Okay,” she said, then paused, taking a deep breath. “I’ve been thinking. I might try looking for my father in some Sherlock Holmes books next, since I used up my magic spell on finding Jonathan Porterhouse. It’s been a while since I tried anything from the early twentieth century, so maybe he ended up there somehow.” She looked up at him almost shyly. “And I was also thinking, maybe, um, that it might be nice to, I don’t know, have some company. Might be more, you know, fun that way.”
Owen’s eyes widened. “You want me to go with you?”
She shrugged. “Maybe. I don’t know. If you want. I’m just saying.”
He smiled, then shook his head sadly. “I really appreciate the offer, Bethany. You have no idea. But I . . . I think I’m done with all of this.”
She raised an eyebrow. “You are? But why?”
“The idea of an adventure just seemed so exciting from this side of the book,” he told her, looking at the ground. “But people get hurt. It’s dangerous in there. And everything you do can put other people in danger too. I almost . . . Charm almost . . . It was too much. I think I’m ready for some regular, boring, quiet life right now. To just read books the normal way, you know?”
She nodded, then reached out and hugged him. He hugged her back, a little surprised, then got up to leave.
“You saved them,” Bethany told him as he reached the door. “You know that, right? You saved both Kiel and the Magister. Jonathan Porterhouse told me that originally the Magister did get killed by Dr. Verity, and Kiel died in the end, giving up his heart. Charm never even thought about giving him a robot heart, since he never let on that sacrificing himself even bothered him. All that arrogance, you know.”
Owen just looked at her. “It wasn’t right, how I did it. Even if it ended well.”
“I just wanted you to know that,” she said, smiling slightly. “You and I changed the story, together, and saved Kiel’s life. No matter what else, don’t forget that.”
He paused, then nodded, returning her smile. Then, turning to go, Owen said good-bye, leaving Bethany with her books. He was ready for a real, boring, completely safe life again.