On one of our first days in Japan, when everything was still hunky-dory, it had rained in a way I'd never seen before. Having grown up in Georgia, where thunderstorms and tornadoes were not uncommon, that was saying a lot. The rain had fallen in sheets, impossible in every way to make out individual drops. Within seconds the gutters and streets had filled, and luckily it stopped after only a few minutes.

The onslaught of falling water I now stood under was twice as bad.

It was nighttime in this new place, and the pelting rain again reminded me of standing under the waterfall at the local amusement park. Wiping my face was futile, and I was forced to squint and try my best to see through the cascading deluge. I looked down.

A glowing light was coming from somewhere. Just as I had been warned, the gateway on this side of the Blackness was fragile, perched atop a thin rod of glass or crystal, looking like it could break with the slightest tap. Farmer told me that if it did indeed shatter, there was no return—the gateway would be ruined. He also told me that Shadow Ka would be there, somewhere, waiting to destroy it. This was going to get tricky.

I took just a moment to make out anything else I could see, and a lump the size of Texas formed in my throat. An instant blaze of panic almost made me faint.

The crystal rod holding me up protruded from the tip of a giant pyramid, made of an eerie, pulsing material that glowed varying shades of purple. The falling rain washed down its four angled sides in flowing sheets, slick and smooth. It looked like a fancy display in a shopping mall. One of the downward sloping edges formed by two sides of the pyramid had steps cut into it, leading down into darkness.

My pyramid was not alone. In all directions, there were countless more, made of the same material and in varying sizes, rising to an assortment of heights. They were all connected to each other in a haphazard manner, creating a wild maze of sloping walls and sharp edges, with the same cut stairs leading here and there amongst them. The rain made it difficult to see, but it appeared as if I were in an entire city of pyramids, jumbled and massed together like a crowded city on an Italian mountainside.

But none of this caused the lump in my throat and the panic in my chest.

On every pyramid, perched at its pointed tip, sat a full-grown Shadow Ka, wings folded, awaiting my arrival.

The whole plan seemed doomed before it even began.

Time was ticking away, and I had no idea what to do. The Ka could not hurt me—that was not my concern. But if I left the gateway, they would instantly swarm in and destroy the crystal shaft, trapping me there forever. And I certainly had no time to seek out and freeze or destroy every Ka I could see—they seemed to stretch into the distance forever and ever.

I looked at my watch. Forty-two minutes.

My first thought was to use the Anything. Maybe it was my only choice. I could call upon it to protect the gateway from harm, no matter what happened. But to use another one of the four chances was so risky. Farmer said at least one would need to be saved for the very end, which would leave me with its power to use only once more before that time.

Thinking of Farmer made it all come together.

In the last seconds of our conversation under the Tower of Air, he had said the Shield would be the key. I knew he'd told me more than once that the First Gift had uses that I had not yet realized. Was there a way to leave the protective power of the Shield behind? Maybe if I cut off my hand and placed it on the gateway, so it could be touching me? Okay, that was stretching it.

I couldn't help but look at the watch again.

Forty minutes.

I decided to take a leap of faith. I would always have the Anything as the ultimate backup.

Wishing I were invisible, I clambered up onto the top of the iron rings and shifted my body around so I was facing them. With every bit of care, I tried to climb down the rings and onto the crystal shaft by hugging and releasing, squeezing with my feet and legs for any possible support. Somehow it worked, and it was only as I slid down the rod like a fireman on his pole that I remembered that I could've just jumped and the Shield would have protected me just fine.

When my feet touched the slick top of the fluorescent purple pyramid, they slipped down the side until my arms—wrapped around the crystal—stopped my fall when they reached the juncture of rod and stone. I stayed still, hugging the glass, waiting for any action from the Ka.

There was no sign of their trademark scream, no sound of flapping wings.

I shifted my feet, slipping and sliding, until I could maneuver them over to the stairs. Although wet, they seemed somewhat secure, and I carefully pushed away from the crystal rod and stood up. The rain continued to pour from the black sky.

The closest Shadow Ka was only forty feet away, sitting atop a pyramid, with its highest point still below where I stood. It made no movement that indicated it even noticed my existence. It was there, making typical movements of a living creature, breathing, shifting every once in a while—but it didn't even so much as glance in my direction.

I waved my arms back and forth. No reaction. I almost yelled out, just to see what would happen, but stopped short. Why push it?

I took several steps down, careful not to slip on the wet stone. I looked back at the Shadow Ka and then at the others. They were ignoring me completely.

Then it clicked.

Maybe, just maybe, the Shield was far more powerful than I could have even dreamed. It repelled bullets, it repelled snow, it repelled exploding helicopters. And in the most bizarre of circumstances, when it was truly needed to protect me, perhaps it repelled something even more fascinating. Sight. Vision. The ability of others to see me.

Yes, it made sense. I had even wished it in my mind.

The Shield was making me invisible.