The thunder shook Zip’s basket and the bolts of lightning scarred the sky, but still the hot air balloon inched up through the storm clouds toward the volcano’s crater. Casper could hear the ogres urging the storm on in the distance and he knew that the Midnights couldn’t be far away, but they were level with the crater now, and though they couldn’t see much beyond the storm and the silver smoke, he was sure that this was where he would find the familiar face they’d been searching for.
“You have arrived at your destination,” Zip said. Then she paused. “I hope you have a memorable stay at the most undesirable holiday location in Rumblestar. Please use hatch seven for a descent ladder, and may I take this hugely unrelaxing moment to thank you for flying in the SkySoar9000. It’s been a pleasure to have you on board.”
“You’re… you’re going?!” Casper cried.
“The SkySoar9000 is yet to be fitted with a lightning-proof balloon,” Zip replied. “It is, in short, a miracle that we have not burst into flames already, so I will be making a sharp exit at this point to avoid immediate death.”
Utterly yanked the level on hatch seven and a rope ladder tumbled out. She threw one end over the edge of the basket and fastened the other to one of the ropes leading up to the balloon. “We need to get going, Casper! The ogres might start summoning storms from the other volcanoes—or the Midnights might arrive with their shatterblast—then we’ll be done for.”
Casper grabbed the microphone one last time. “Thank you for everything, Zip. You’ve been incredible. And if you change your mind and want one last adrenaline rush before returning to the castle, we’ll probably be fleeing from a pack of ogres or a flock of griffins shortly.”
Utterly slotted Arlo into her cape pocket and made her way down the ladder. Casper followed, his heart thundering against his ribcage. The silver smoke pulsed around them and lightning flashed, but still their capes kept them cool and safe. They jumped off onto the crater and Zip darted away, then Casper and Utterly looked down into the volcano.
At first all they could see was the billowing smoke, but then a gust of wind blew that sideways and the storm ogre’s home was revealed. The volcano was deep, really deep, and it plunged down to a pit of belching silver lava. But it was the rocky ledges lining the cavern that held Casper’s attention. They were packed full of treasures: jewels, mirrors, coins, crowns, goblets, tiaras. This was the storm ogre’s reward for drinking from the Witch’s Fingers and yet because of the price he’d paid for his riches, the ogre couldn’t see any of it. Casper scanned the crater for any sign of a person—that familiar face that always seemed to be just out of his reach—but only the silver sparkled back at him, and the bubbling lava far below.
Utterly was already racing down the steps cut into the side of the volcano, which wound their way through the treasures, and when the ogres roared again and the storm clouds swelled, Casper sped after her.
They ran on and on, past glinting treasures and through clouds of silver, but when the smoke pulled back for a second time, Arlo squawked from Utterly’s pocket. She stopped in her tracks and Casper bumped into her. Then they peered down into the volcano where Arlo was pointing, and to Casper’s surprise he saw that there was a tree standing upright in the middle of the bubbling lava. Only this tree wasn’t silver like everything else in the volcano. It was a perfectly normal tree.
“What sort of tree could grow in this heat?” Utterly muttered.
Somewhere above them the ogres bellowed as a sheet of lightning lit the sky, but Casper and Utterly were running down the steps now because both of them could feel that something about this tree was important. It wasn’t particularly tall or impressive—it didn’t even have leaves, just a cluster of crooked branches—but something about the way it stood there, surrounded by silver but untouched by its magic, sang of power.
They drew level with the boiling lava, and as they did so the silver smoke vanished and the lava stilled, as if the volcano itself had sensed their presence. Where the steps ended Casper could see an alcove littered with bones and upturned goblets. Perhaps this is the storm ogre’s den, he thought. His gaze slid to the roots of the tree, which were thick enough to walk across and which spread out across the lava at all angles in a web of tangled wood. He placed a nervous foot on the nearest root.
“Careful!” Utterly whispered. “The snow trolls’ capes have got us this far, but I’m not sure how we’d fare splashing around in lava.”
But Casper wasn’t listening, because the tree was beckoning him on. He could feel the pull of something familiar, something half-recognized rocking through his bones. Utterly followed him over the roots, with Arlo whimpering from her pocket every time she wobbled, then they were all there together before the tree in the middle of the lava.
A ripple of shock slid down Casper’s spine. “This isn’t just a tree,” he breathed.
Utterly frowned at the trunk. A long, rectangular door had been carved into the wood. It was open and something long and silver was hanging down inside it while above the door there was a clockface. “It’s a grandfather clock,” she said quietly.
And it was then that Casper understood what the wind had meant when it whispered its secret to Slumbergrot. Casper stared at the grandfather clock in disbelief. “I was never meant to find a person. Not you or my parents or anyone from home.” Casper looked at Utterly. “All along we were looking for a clockface.”
Utterly shook her head. “I don’t understand.”
“This is the clock my dad was repairing back home in the Faraway!” He pointed to the pendulum, which wasn’t lolling from side to side as it should have been. It was jammed, and instead of ending in a circular disc, this one was just a blunt tip. “The pendulum in the clock back home was broken, too—Dad was trying to fix it! This is the clock that brought me here.…”
Casper reached out a hand and touched the clock, and a yearning for home filled his chest.
“It can’t be the same one,” Utterly replied. “The Unmapped Kingdoms are separate from the Faraway. You can’t have one object being visible in two totally different worlds!”
“But it is the same!” Casper cried. “Even the hands on the clock are like those on the clock back home: They’re stuck on the hour.” He paused. “What if that phoenix tear I found in the grandfather clock key blurs the links between the Unmapped Kingdoms and the Faraway…? Somehow its magic turned the clock into a portal that can exist in Little Wallops and here!”
“But you arrived in the Neverlate Tree,” Utterly replied. “Not here at the bottom of a volcano.” She paused. “Unless… the Neverlate Tree’s magic interfered with things. It’s been known to give messages to Unmappers in the past when trouble is brewing; perhaps it sensed your coming here and knew that you and I had to meet so we could stop the Midnights together. It had to make sure that you were in the tree at the same time as me because if you’d stepped out here when you arrived in Rumblestar, you wouldn’t have stood a chance—not without a snow troll’s cape!”
“And not without you and Arlo either.” Casper narrowed his eyes at the scratch marks lining the hollow where the pendulum hung. “Only a talon or a claw could make those marks.”
Utterly nodded. “And look! There are feathers scattered about the clock, too. Black feathers.”
From her pocket, Arlo gulped.
“I don’t think this clock is just a portal from the Faraway to Rumblestar,” Casper said. “I think Morg is using it to send her Midnights from Everdark to Rumblestar, too, and the Midnight pretending to be Frostbite thought I could help Morg because she wants to use this portal to join her followers here.… Didn’t you say that Everdark is a forest located somewhere between the Faraway and the Unmapped Kingdoms?”
“Yes. A forest full of enchanted trees…” Utterly looked at the tree before them now, then she reached out a hand to the door and her eyes grew wide at the words carved into the front of it:
TO FINAL ENDINGS
“Smudge and Bartholomew stole Morg’s wings in Everdark,” she said slowly. “What if they locked them inside an enchanted tree they knew wouldn’t open?” Utterly looked up at Casper. “They couldn’t have known where the tree would lead, but this could be the very tree Smudge and Bartholomew locked Morg’s wings inside all those years ago! Without her wings, Morg isn’t strong enough to rise up out of Everdark herself, but she could have found a way to bring her feathers to life, and they’ve been pouring out of this clock into Rumblestar as griffins. That’s why they’re so powerful; they haven’t just been conjured by Morg—they’re a part of her!”
Casper was silent for a moment as the horror of it all sank in. Then he said: “But why did the Midnights hold you as bait in Dapplemere if this is the portal Morg wants me to open for her? Why not bring you here so I’d follow you?”
Utterly looked around them. “There must be a reason the Midnights can’t come here.”
“But if the ogres gave the griffins the shatterblast, then surely the Midnights would be able to come here because they’re working together?”
Utterly nodded. “Something about this doesn’t add up.…”
The storm raged on above the volcano, but as Casper looked at the grandfather clock, all of the commotion seemed to fall away. Here, after everything, was a link to his world. What if he could climb inside this tree right now and find his way back to his mum and his dad? It was all that he had wanted ever since he set foot in Rumblestar: to go home. And as he listened to the ogres shouting and the thunder groaning and he thought about the flock of griffins speeding closer, he felt every nerve in his body strain toward the clock. Because what hope, really, was there of crushing the Midnights and stopping Morg’s plans? How could he, Casper Tock, not brave or particularly clever or even armed with a fully formed plan, destroy every griffin in the kingdom with this battered old clock? Or had he misunderstood the wind’s message—maybe it had been leading him home rather than toward a battle with Morg’s followers?
Casper thought of the turret in Little Wallops and his bedroom with his perfectly made bed and his neatly folded clothes, and of how relieved his parents would be when they saw him again. Wouldn’t it be best to go home now and leave the heroics to a more capable person?
“You’re thinking of going home, aren’t you?” Utterly said.
Casper didn’t reply.
“I missed the castle like I never thought I would when I was trapped in Dapplemere,” Utterly said. “So if you want to go home now, I understand. I do. Somehow me and Arlo will fix all this. We’ll find a way to use the clock and make everything right again.”
The thought of home ached inside Casper. With every bone in his body he wanted to climb inside the clock and hope that somehow it would take him back to Little Wallops. But then there was Utterly beside him, and Arlo. They had come so far. Could he really just leave now?
Casper stared at the clock, then he looked at Utterly. “I do want to go home,” he said, “but not yet. Not while the Midnights are on the prowl and the marvels are still in danger and the lives of everyone back in the Faraway are in danger.”
Utterly breathed a sigh of relief. “Good. Because Arlo’s chest would’ve packed in completely if you’d decided to leave right now.”
“But what I don’t understand,” Casper said, “is how this clock can destroy all the Midnights. It’s not a weapon… it’s… it’s furniture! How is that going to help us?”
But it wasn’t Utterly who answered.
It was twelve furious-looking ogres who had gathered at the lip of the crater above them. And though they were hundreds of meters away, Casper and Utterly could hear the clang of spears banging on the rocks and the holler of a single word.
“CHOMP!”