NO!” JIA SHOUTED, LOOKING ABSOLUTELY distraught. “Fort, take us there now. We have to stop him!”
“I have no idea how we’ll do that, but she’s right,” Rachel said, giving Fort a worried look. “We have to try.”
He sighed. Rachel was right. What choice did they have, even if they couldn’t beat Damian? They couldn’t just let him get the book, not with the future they’d seen.
“Everyone get ready,” Fort said, and pictured Stonehenge in his mind. Maybe they could distract him somehow, get the book first, and destroy it—
“Wait, Forsythe!” Ellora shouted, grabbing his shoulder and pulling him around to face her. “Don’t open that portal yet. We’re not going to Stonehenge.”
“What?” Fort said, completely confused now. “But Damian’s there, and he’ll get the book!”
“We can’t just sit here; we have to stop him!” Jia shouted. “I thought that was the whole reason you brought us here!”
“It was, but here’s the thing: The book isn’t actually at Stonehenge,” Ellora said, blushing again. “I, um, might have told you all that so he’d get the wrong information from you. Arthur Pendragon’s tomb is actually somewhere else completely.”
They all stared at her in shock. “You … lied?” Rachel said, then slowly smiled. “Wow, Time Girl. Normally I hate that, but right now, I’m pretty impressed.”
“Well, it’s a bit easier when you can see things coming,” Ellora said. “And I knew Damian would find us with his Mind magic. So at least I bought us some time. Not much, but a little.”
“Okay, that’s great, but where is it?” Jia asked, shifting from foot to foot anxiously.
Ellora turned to Fort. “Remember the photo I gave you? Take us there.”
The photo? Right, the one she’d folded up. He pulled it from his pocket and unfolded it, frowning.
This definitely wasn’t Stonehenge. Instead, the photo showed a large hill with tiers on it, like a wedding cake almost, and a tower at the top.
“I have no idea where this is,” he said to her, and she rolled her eyes.
“Just take us there,” Ellora said. “The less we call it by its name, the harder a time Damian will have finding it.”
That was fair. Fort concentrated on the photo and opened a portal to the top of the hill, right next to the tower, and they all stepped through. He quickly closed it behind them, then turned to look around.
Just like in the picture, the grassy hill had strange tiers on it, covered in grass as if the hill had been formed that way. But that couldn’t be possible; it had to have been cut by humans. Other than the light being much darker below the dome, the only other big difference between the hill in the picture and here in the present was how many construction machines were surrounding it, everything from bulldozers to excavators.
Someone was planning on digging into the hill. But from what Fort could see, nothing had actually been done yet. All the construction people below were staring at the hill in confusion, frozen in that state by the dome.
“Hey, I know where we are!” Rachel said, looking around. “This is Glastonbury Tor! I knew this was where King Arthur was buried! It all made sense, what with that abbey nearby finding a gravestone—”
Ellora sighed loudly. “What did I say about not calling it by its name? Damian will be looking for us soon, and he’ll find us faster if he can read the name in your mind!”
Rachel made a face. “Okay, right. Let’s call it … Strawberry Fields. Damian for sure has never listened to the Beatles.”
Fort just stared at her, having no idea what was going on. So the hill was called Glastonbury Tor? “What abbey? And what’s a tor?”
“Don’t use the name!” Ellora shouted.
“A tor is just an old way of saying a hill,” Rachel said, then noticed the workers below. “What’s going on down there? Are they digging for the book?”
Ellora shook her head. “Not exactly. They’re with the government. Fortunately, since they’re frozen in time, we don’t have to worry about that now.” She stared at them for another moment, then shuddered and pointed at the tower. “Let’s get under cover for now and talk about what’s next.”
The others all started walking toward the ruined tower, and Fort moved to follow, having had far too few of his questions answered. But as he did, the scene around him disappeared, and this time, he found himself standing over a large wooden table in the middle of what looked like an enormous but cozy cabin, lit by a fireplace with a bubbling black pot hanging over it. The walls were all made of wooden logs, each one unshaped by human hands, yet where there should have been cracks or holes, there were none.
Even stranger, sitting at the table was Cyrus, holding his hand out as a teacup floated in midair toward him from a steaming kettle near the fire.
This couldn’t be the same cottage Cyrus had shown him before. It looked easily five to six times bigger in just this room than the entire exterior had been.
“Cyrus?” Fort said in surprise. “You brought me back?”
But Cyrus didn’t look up. Instead, he seemed to be concentrating on a large book that looked like an instruction manual of some kind. “I don’t get it,” he said out loud. “There’s not even any electricity going to him. How can he still be here?”
“Cyrus?” Fort said again, reaching out to tap the boy on the shoulder, only for his finger to pass right through him. Of course it did, this was just a future vision. “What’s going on here—”
Before he could finish his sentence, a strange force yanked him bodily away from the table, straight into a nearby door. Fort raised his hands to protect himself, but again, he passed through it without a scratch and found himself in a dimly lit study, filled with bookshelves that held some of the strangest things Fort had ever seen.
Books were everywhere, of course, but so were bottles of bubbling liquids labeled in a language Fort didn’t recognize, some sitting next to the skull of an animal that couldn’t be natural in any way, not with that many bony spikes sticking out of it. A small box sparked every so often with a jolt of electricity, while a mirror on the wall startled Fort as an older version of himself looked back. The mirror Fort had a brown beard and looked tired but waved at the real Fort in an almost friendly way, and Fort couldn’t help but wave back.
A large desk took up most of the room, and seated there was an old man in a tattered brown robe, his long, white beard thrown back over his shoulder, and his hair wispy on top of his head. As Fort turned to him, the man spun around in his seat and smiled at Fort widely.
“It’s about time,” he said. “Nice to see you again, boy.” He frowned. “Wait, you wouldn’t remember that. Forget I said anything. Uh, nice to meet you, I meant!”
“Um, what?” Fort said, completely confused. “Sorry, who are you?”
“You haven’t figured it out?” the old man said with a wink.
“Who are you talking to?” Cyrus shouted from the other room. “You better not have brought anyone here, old man!”
The old man rolled his eyes. “Mind your own business, you ignorant lump!” He turned back to Fort. “That boy has so much to learn. So much potential he’s going to waste. But that doesn’t matter. I brought you here so we could speak privately, without all the judgment.” He nodded at the door, meaning Cyrus.
“But … why?” Fort said. “Who are you? I don’t understand any of this.”
The old man shrugged. “Who I am isn’t important, and you’ll find out soon enough anyway. For now, I brought you here to try to guide you, Forsythe, as well as Rachel and Jia, as I promised. It won’t work, but I did give my word.”
Fort felt a chill go through his insubstantial body. Jia and Rachel? How did the man know about them? Cyrus could have told him, yes, but considering how Cyrus seemed to feel about the man, that didn’t seem too likely.
“But … how—”
“My advice is this,” the old man said, leaning in with a much more serious expression, his voice now low and eerie. “Beware the queen of Avalon. Every Arthur I ever knew fell victim to her, and I don’t wish it to happen again. Rachel must not take the sword. Jia must not bargain with the queen.” With this, the old man rose from his chair and towered over Fort. “And under no circumstances should you accept any deal to save your father!”