YOU KNOW WHERE THE BOOK of Spirit magic is?” Fort said to her, both his eyebrows shooting up. “How? Where is it?”
“Hey, no!” William said, throwing up his hands. “I told you already: She can’t say. If Damian’s out there, he could be listening in to our conversation as we speak, reading our minds. Ellora’s the only one who knows, and it has to stay that way until you three get the book before him!”
Ellora coughed, then reached into her hoodie and pulled out a familiar-looking silver necklace. “Dr. Oppenheimer had a medallion that protected him from Mind magic, so I took it, to keep the secret safe.”
Fort turned to look at the terrified, frozen Dr. Opps, cringing. There was so much wrong with all of this, so many secrets that the Time kids weren’t sharing. How could he trust them, when they kept so much to themselves?
“Anyway, it’s time for you to go,” William said, looking at his watch. “We can’t keep the dome up for much longer, and once it falls, we’ll have far more than just Damian to worry about. Ellora, take them to a neutral spot first, and then—”
“We’re not going anywhere !” Rachel shouted. “I’m not bringing that horrible magic into the world, no matter what. You yourself said that it takes you over, changes who you are.”
“I said it does that to people with weak minds, or who are conflicted, like Damian,” William said. “Someone prepared for it might be able to use it for good.”
Rachel’s eyes widened. “Oh, doubly no way then. You think I’m bringing that thing back here for you to play around with, Mr. Bean? No chance on earth.”
“Rachel,” Fort said, and she immediately whirled on him with a wild look in her eye. “Hey, I’m on your side here! I totally agree with everything you said. But we still have to keep Damian from getting it. You saw what happened.”
“Yeah, well, if she’s the only one who knows where it is,” she said, pointing at Ellora, “then we’ll wipe her mind or something, and Damian will never find it!”
“He’ll take the medallion from her before we got anywhere close to finding a way to take the knowledge from her mind,” William said. “We’ve looked at this a thousand different ways, and finding the book before him is the only way. If you want to save London from being destroyed and stop the coming war, then this is how you do it.”
In response, Rachel lifted her glowing hands toward him. “I said, not going to happen, Captain Britain!”
William’s eyes turned black with Time magic, and Fort wondered if he’d have time to throw up a portal between the two to keep things from getting out of hand. But before he could, Jia stepped between William and Rachel, glowing with Healing magic. She put her hands on Rachel’s, and gradually her blue light extinguished Rachel’s red, leaving Rachel looking exhausted and empty.
“I know we have to stop him,” Rachel said, her voice quiet and strained. “I know that. But—”
“The whole world goes to war, Ray,” Jia told her. “We can’t let that happen, no matter what.”
“I know,” Rachel said, her voice quiet, almost strained. “But does it have to be like this?”
She wasn’t wrong. The things Fort had seen done with Spirit magic gave him nightmares. The Old One Q’baos used the spells to keep the entire population of dwarfs under her thrall, making them all worship her. And he’d even briefly had it used on him by Q’baos, when he’d been in the shape of a dragon to fool the Old Ones.
But he’d been prepared for that. Rachel had been taken over without any warning and been made to follow the Old Ones. He couldn’t imagine what that had done to her.
“We’ll follow their lead,” he told her and Jia. “And we’ll get the book.” Rachel started to object, but he moved on quickly. “But when we do, we destroy it, then and there, so no one can use it. Deal?”
Rachel stared at him for a moment. “Last time you made this deal, you were lying.”
“Ask them if I’m lying,” Fort said, nodding at Ellora and William.
The two Time kids looked at each other. “The books of magic kind of fog things up,” Ellora told them. “So it’s hard to see. But even so, we can talk about that later—”
“We destroy it, end of story,” Fort said to Ellora. “Otherwise, you’re on your own. Those are our terms. You brought us here to listen, and we did, and now we’re willing to help, but only in a way that won’t make things worse.”
Unlike everything else he’d ever done.
“But that’s—” William started, but Ellora stopped him.
“Good enough for now,” she said, giving him a look. “I agree. But we do need to get started. So if there’s nothing else, William … ?”
“Just one more thing,” William said, clapping his hands together and standing up. He closed his eyes for a moment and took a deep breath, then opened them again, the excitement now back. “Brave adventurers. You have embraced your destiny and accepted your quest to battle for the future of the world. I commend you.” He saluted them all in turn, then smiled broadly. “Now, to make it complete. You number four, as in four companions. And I shall call you the fellowship of the—”
“Nope!” Rachel shouted. “Time Girl, tell Fort where to teleport us before I open Mount Doom up underneath this guy?”
“Forsythe,” Ellora said quietly. “Can you take us somewhere out of sight, so we can get started?”
He nodded hurriedly, not wanting Rachel to really create a volcano in Wales. “I think I know a place.”
Fort opened a portal, but as he did, the room disappeared around him. Instead of a headmaster’s office with wood paneling, now he was surrounded by actual trees in a deep, dense forest. A small cottage looked like it’d been built when the trees were young, and now had branches growing through the roof in places.
But the cottage and the forest weren’t the biggest surprise. No, that went to the silver-haired boy standing in front of him.
“Hey, Fort,” Cyrus said, looking a bit nervous. “Got a minute?”