FORT FOUND JIA WAITING IN the alley between the girls’ dorm and the soldiers’ barracks that night, an hour after the dorm’s lights had been turned out. He’d waited until he heard snores around the boys’ dorm just to be safe, only to have Sebastian pass his bed for a bathroom visit right before he was about to go. Fortunately, the other boy finished quickly and was back to sleeping soundly soon after, letting Fort finally sneak out of the building.
Well, letting them finally sneak out.
“What’s he doing here?” Jia said, pointing at Cyrus with a horrified expression.
“Hey, Jia!” Cyrus said, waving happily. “Don’t worry, I won’t give us away.” He turned to Fort. “By the way, did you notice Sebastian—”
“It’s a party!” said another voice, and they turned to find Rachel slipping out of the girls’ dorm. “Hey, Future Man!”
“He already knew it was happening,” Fort told Jia, who looked about ready to explode. Even if it made her angry, he was secretly happy that Cyrus had been awake and waiting when Fort had gotten up to leave. He hadn’t planned on telling Cyrus about the plan, not wanting to get the boy into trouble, but his friend had insisted on coming anyway. “And he can help us stay undetected.”
“And her job is?” Jia said, nodding at Rachel.
“Hey, I’m just here to save the school and everyone else,” Rachel said, grinning. “You won’t even know I’m here.”
“Fine,” Jia fumed. “Anyone else coming? Maybe some teachers, or a soldier or two?”
They waited for a moment, looking all around, but no one else seemed to be there. “Looks like we’re all set,” Fort said.
“Follow me,” Jia said, shaking her head in disgust. “And stay close. If any of us get caught, we’ll all get thrown out.”
She started to leave the alley, but Cyrus grabbed her shoulder and yanked her backward. She looked at him in shock until two soldiers marched past the alley entrance.
“Okay, follow Cyrus,” she said, waving the boy forward. “Stay close to him.”
Cyrus smiled and shrugged, then strode out of the alley confidently. The others hurried to follow, then slammed to a halt as Cyrus turned back around. “Nope, we’ll get caught fifteen minutes from now if we go that way,” he said, gesturing toward the other end of the alley. “This path, we’ll get there with only three close calls.”
Twenty minutes later, they reached the side of the Training Hall, Fort’s heart beating a mile a minute. What Cyrus called a close call, Fort would have termed oh-no-WE’RE-ALL-CAUGHT-whoa-okay-wow-we-just-got-incredibly-lucky instead. There were either more soldiers out tonight, making getting around the security cameras even tougher, or it turned out to be a lot harder to hide four of them than just Fort and Cyrus alone.
“From here, Fort is going to use my Ethereal Spirit spell on us all,” Jia said, glaring at him. “With that, we’ll be able to walk through walls, and even float through the floor, though it takes some getting used to. You just keep in mind that gravity no longer affects you, and you shouldn’t have any problems.”
“I thought that spell was banned,” Rachel said. Jia blushed, looking guilty, but Rachel just grinned and slapped her on the shoulder. “No, don’t feel bad. I like you better knowing you break the rules every so often.”
“The rules are there for a reason!” Jia hissed. “I learned that when . . . it doesn’t matter. The spell looked useful, so I studied it. Case closed.”
“And now we’re using it to break into the Training Hall, so it’s definitely useful,” Rachel said.
Fort ignored them and concentrated on the spell. He ran through the words in his head, then held his hands out over the three of them and slowly let the cold energy flow from his hands and into the others, saving some for his own body. As the spell finished, Fort felt a bit weaker, depleted, like he’d just run a long race. Did more powerful magic take more energy from you?
At first, the magic made each of them glow a bit, which wasn’t exactly the best for sneaking around. But gradually each of them grew more transparent until he could see right through the others, and the glow disappeared. Glancing down, Fort realized he could also see the ground through his hands, which was a new experience.
“Cool,” he said, his voice sounding less solid, almost ghostly.
“It’s even cooler to master it yourself instead of stealing it,” Jia said, her voice also just an echo of its former self. “Now be careful with this. I’ve practiced this a lot, and even I’m not used to floating up or down through floors. The magic defaults to keeping you on the level you start at, but you can still rise or fall at will, if you work at it.”
Rachel poked her head through the side of the Training Hall, then gave them a thumbs-up. “We’re by the offices,” she said, pulling back out. “No one’s there, so we should be good to enter.”
“Any cameras?” Fort asked Cyrus.
His friend tilted his hand back and forth, as if to say, sort of. “Not right here, but if we move much farther in, we’ll get caught for sure.”
“There are floors below the Viewing Room that only Dr. Opps and Colonel Charles have access to,” Jia said. “If Sierra’s anywhere here, it’d be down there. I’ve explored a little on my own but never went too far down.”
Cyrus closed his eyes, then frowned. “If we find the girl down there, I’m not seeing it. Everything starts getting weirdly fuzzy in a bit.”
Fort gave him a worried look. That didn’t exactly sound promising.
“Guess we’ll have to just jump in and hope for the best,” Rachel said with a grin. “Should I go first, or . . . ?”
Jia groaned at this but led the way inside, and the rest followed after her.
Moving through a solid object was a strange experience, and not one that Fort particularly enjoyed. It wasn’t just like walking through air; instead, he could feel the wall within him as he moved, and it wasn’t a comfortable sensation by any measure. Not that it hurt . . . but this was not the normal way one got past walls. From now on, Fort would take the door.
Jia held up a hand as they all made it inside, then nodded silently at a security camera aimed at the ground just past them. She pointed down at the floor, then closed her eyes and slowly began to sink right through the tiles. As her head disappeared, she waved her hand at them to follow, right before that sank through as well.
Not waiting for Fort or Cyrus, Rachel dove forward into the floor like a dolphin into a wave, a huge grin on her face. Cyrus shrugged, then sank at the same rate as Jia had, waving for Fort to follow him.
Fort closed his eyes and concentrated hard, willing himself to sink into the floor as well. After what felt like plenty of time to descend, he opened his eyes to see where he was.
Unfortunately, he was still standing in the offices on the ground floor.
Gritting his teeth, Fort tried again, squeezing his eyes shut, imagining himself descending through the floor, picturing it as clearly as he could in his mind. But when he opened his eyes again, he hadn’t moved.
Why wasn’t this working? He pushed his foot down through the tiles, and there was no resistance: It was as insubstantial as the outer wall had been. So why couldn’t he sink through like the others had?
Cyrus’s face appeared out of the floor. “You’re too used to floors holding you up. Let go of that as a concept. Right now, you could sink right through the whole planet if you wanted.”
Fort’s eyes widened. “That actually doesn’t help,” he whispered.
“Oh, come on,” Jia said as her face and arms appeared. “We don’t have time for this.”
She grabbed his legs (apparently ethereal people could touch each other?) and pulled down, yanking him out of the concept of floating and right into the floor before he could even object.