THE WIND RUSHING BY HIM woke Fort up enough to know he had to do something to save himself, and William, too, but the explosion of Spirit magic made it incredibly hard to think clearly, and he couldn’t bring the Teleport spell to mind. Excalibur tumbled from his hand, the ground coming up fast… .
And then the air beneath him suddenly turned solid, slowing him down as he fell, until he touched the ground with barely any speed at all.
“Nice catch,” Jia told Rachel as she knelt down beside Fort, sending Healing magic through his body. Instantly his mind cleared, and he tried to jump to his feet, not willing to let William get ahold of himself again, but Jia pushed him back down.
“Hold still—I’m not done,” she commanded. “Rachel has him; don’t worry. Just relax.”
She turned to his hand that had held Excalibur and began healing the burned marks as well, which Fort had almost forgotten about. Somehow, his hand had stopped hurting during the fight with William, and though the pain came racing back now, he wasn’t sure how it could have possibly slipped his mind.
“You know the sword’s fire went out, right at the end there,” Jia told him, smiling slightly. “Looks like it changed its mind about you.”
Fort’s eyebrows shot up. “You’re joking.”
“I mean, I’m still not going to touch it, but I’m glad to see it’s got good taste in people,” she said with a shrug. “Seems like you just barely passed its test, though, so I wouldn’t do anything to make it mad.”
“Give me back my magic!” someone shouted, and Fort turned his head slightly to see William struggling against some rock bindings that Rachel had magicked into place. “What did you do to me, Fitzgerald? I can remember all my spells, but they won’t work! I can’t cast any of them, not even my Time spells!”
“We didn’t do anything, King Artless,” Rachel shouted back, Excalibur back in her hand and pointed at him. “Keep yelling at me, though. Any excuse to knock you out.”
“It must have been the sword!” he said, focusing in on her weapon. “It had to be. It stole my magic from me somehow! That’s not fair. Give it back!”
What? Fort just stared at him in confusion. That couldn’t be possible. How could the sword take away someone’s ability to do magic? It was just supposed to defend against spells … wasn’t it?
Jia helped Fort to his feet as Rachel stared at the sword. “He might be right,” she said, looking at Fort. “The queen wouldn’t tell us what it did.”
“Maybe that’s why it was so painful to Damian,” Fort said, shaking off the remaining fog in his head. “He’s made of magic. If it takes magic away, it could have killed him!”
They all went silent for a moment at that, until Rachel nodded. “So what you’re saying is, next time, hit him harder?”
Jia rolled her eyes. “Come on, Ray. Did you see where he dropped the book of Spirit magic, by the way? We need to find it before anyone else does.”
Rachel cringed. “Wherever it started, William’s explosion could have thrown it a lot farther away. It might be anywhere, covered in rubble, too.”
That was pretty awful news. But they couldn’t worry about it now, not with the TDA forces looking for them. “Either Colonel Charles or the British military will find it, and then we’ll just take it back from them,” Fort said. “But for now, we need to get out of here.”
“I still need to know what my sword can do,” Rachel said. “I don’t want to accidentally nick someone and take away their magic forever. We need to test it.”
“On who?” Jia asked.
Rachel smiled. “Simon’s still sleeping back at Big Ben.”
“Don’t move!” Colonel Charles shouted as he and his TDA squad raced toward them, and Rachel turned, readying her sword. But she, Fort, and Jia were all exhausted now, and the last thing they needed was to face down innocent soldiers.
“Let’s get out of here,” Fort said, glaring at the colonel as he teleported the three of them back to Big Ben, leaving the powerless William to the TDA.
Everyone was fortunately still asleep back in the bell tower when they arrived. Wasting no time, Rachel walked over to where Simon snored, picked up his hand, then poked his finger with the tip of her sword.
“Want to wake him up?” she asked Jia, who frowned.
“Are you sure? Because if it wasn’t actually the sword that took William’s magic, Simon could give us some problems.”
“Come on, Ms. Risk Taker,” Rachel said, smiling at her. “How else will we know?”
Jia shrugged and used her magic to wake Simon up. He quickly pushed to his feet, then stared down at himself oddly. “Why didn’t that work?” he mumbled.
“Why didn’t what work?” Rachel asked innocently, sharing a secret grin with Fort and Jia.
“I tried to speed up my time!” he said, sounding confused. “You wouldn’t have even seen me, and I was going to …” He paused as Rachel tapped her sword against her hand. “Ah, I mean, I was going to help bring all of these people back to where they belong, since I’m always ready to help!”
“Nice try,” she said, then continued around the bell-tower room, helping Jia wake everyone else. Apparently, with William losing his magic, his Spirit spells were canceled, as everyone woke up in full control of themselves.
As Jia and Rachel saw to the others, Fort moved to Ellora’s side. He gently tried waking her using his Healing spell, which seemed to do the trick: She stirred slowly, then yawned widely and looked up at him. As soon as she saw it was Fort, her eyes widened, and she bolted awake. “Where’s William? What happened? Is he—”
“He … destroyed the city,” Fort said quietly. “Everything we saw in your vision, it all came true. Because we made it happen.”
She just stared at him, and tears began to run down her cheeks. “That can’t be true,” she whispered. “We did everything we could!”
“There’s still a war to stop,” he told her. “And there’s only one way to do that. Will you come with me to see my … my father?” He almost choked on the last word but managed to get it out.
“Are you sure about this?” Rachel asked Fort, while Jia looked away uncomfortably. “We could still try to find a different way.”
He shook his head. “We couldn’t stop the London attack. That means the war is coming if we don’t do this. I have to, Rachel. I just … I have to.”
She nodded and moved to Jia’s side as Fort helped Ellora to her feet. “You’re sure you want to do this now?” Ellora asked. “It can wait at least a few days, if you need the time.”
He paused, wondering if that would help, then shook his head. “We can’t risk it. Who knows what Colonel Charles will do if we don’t do it now?”
Not to mention that the longer they put it off, the more likely it was that Fort would find a reason not to do it, that not having his father wasn’t something he could live with.
No, if it was going to happen, if the world war was going to be stopped, it had to be now.
And with that, he opened a portal to the Oppenheimer School.