“Professor!”
The Professor slumped forward, knocking over a small table as he crashed to the floor.
“Give him some air!” Lora commanded as she rushed to his side. “Get some water, quickly.” She put a cushion under the Professor’s head and cradled him tenderly, even as her own tears flooded down her cheeks.
They gathered around, Eva holding a glass of water, wobbling furiously as her hands shook. Alex put his arm around her, steadying her. Sam knelt down next to Lora.
The shock was too much.
He’s found a son and lost a son, all in a moment.
The Professor’s eyes fluttered open, his face ashen as he came to his senses.
Thank goodness.
“What happened?” the Professor said, struggling to sit up.
“Slowly, slowly does it,” Lora cautioned. Sam brought him a chair and they eased him up into it. “You’ve had a shock—we’ve all had a shock.”
“Yes … that’s right, Sam’s dream. No—Sebastian’s dream …” the Professor said, letting out a sigh. “It cannot be, and yet, it must.” He turned to Lora, their shared tears of relief mixed with bewilderment and horror. They embraced for a long moment, the only sound was Lora’s sobs as she buried her face in the Professor’s shoulder.
“He survived the crash in New York,” Alex said quietly, voicing what they were all thinking.
“He must have,” Lora said, wiping away her tears, forcing herself to regain her composure. “Somehow he survived and somehow he became …”
“Evil.” The Professor stood up, wavering for only a moment, clutching at the mantelpiece to steady himself. “You are right, my young friends,” he said, turning to Sam, Eva and Alex. “We must face the truth if we are to have any hope of winning the race. We must trust Sam’s dreams and be strong if we are to prevail. There are so many unanswered questions, but we have to focus on what we must do.”
“Professor, are you sure? Do you—Lora, need a moment?” Sam said, concern etched on his face.
“No, it’s OK, Sam,” Lora said, coming over to stand next to him. “Thank you, but we must deal with what this means now.”
“But what does it mean?” Eva asked. “Does the watch Solar—Sebastian was holding contain a Gear?”
“That isn’t a watch,” Lora said.
“Lora is right,” the Professor said. “It is an astrolabe—a type of early navigational tool, made in the 1500s. Sebastian,” he visibly winced as he said his son’s name out loud, “carried it with him everywhere after he lost his mother.”
“So the Gear is inside it?” Alex said.
“It must be, which means it was either destroyed in the plane crash in New York,” the Professor said, “or else Sebastian still has it in his possession. Either way, it is lost to us.”
“But none of the Dreamers knew they were a part of the last 13 until Sam dreamed of them,” Lora said, “so there might still be time to find it.” There was a sudden clarity about the way she spoke, as though a revelation had hit her like a bolt of lightning.
“I don’t understand,” the Professor said to her.
Lora ran the footage back and stopped at the moment that Sebastian took the astrolabe from his mother’s grasp. She zoomed in on the image.
“If that’s got the thirteenth Gear inside it …” she said.
“Lora, what do you mean there might still be time?” Eva asked, confusion on everyone’s faces.
“He gave it to me,” she said, tapping on the screen, “a long time ago.”
“He—he gave his mother’s astrolabe to you?” the Professor said.
Lora nodded.
“Do you still have it?” Eva asked hopefully.
Lora shook her head with regret. “It was when we were still students, in our final year. We’d just started going out and we won the Dreamer Doors, which was held in Venice that year. That’s how we won it, actually—we had the astrolabe with us and the final task involved navigation at sea, so it enabled us to take the lead.”
“So—where is it?” Sam asked.
“The night we won the competition,” Lora said, “we went to his family’s crypt in Venice. In the middle of the night, we snuck in and left the astrolabe on his mother’s tomb, as a tribute.”
“But if that’s true,” Sam said, “then Solaris—I mean Sebastian—will know too, right?”
“Then we shall have to beat him to it.” The Professor stared at the screen that showed the final image of Sebastian’s dream. “We must act immediately.” He turned to them. “Sam and I will go to Venice and retrieve the final Gear.”
“What do we do?” Alex asked.
“Lora will take the rest of you to Egypt, to meet up with Dr. Dark and the others. You will find them there, nothing surer.” The Professor nodded, looking around his office, mentally saying goodbye to it all. “And one more thing …”
They all turned to the Professor, apprehensive.
“You should call him Solaris. He’s not my son anymore. Sebastian is dead.”