The foundation stone splits in half, right down the middle. A cleft one foot wide. Feels like my head splits, too, cracked like a coconut. I feel a crackle in my fingertips, as if lightning’s running through my veins, as if my whole body’s on fire. Worse still, I can feel the void opening deep inside me, just like in my nightmare, and Roth leaping on top of me, strangling me with one hand and holding my bleeding palm to the stone with the other. This is it.
He fixes his eyes on mine. I want to shut him out, but I’m in too much pain. He forces his way into my mind, and what he finds delights him. The fear. The power. He can feel what I’m feeling and see what I’m seeing. Every crack spreading through the stone. Every fissure snaking deep down under the Sea, up along the towering walls of the Cradle, and across the cavernous ceiling. The stone bridge falling to pieces. The hundred-keyhole door fracturing. The corridor beyond falling apart. The cracks spreading through the frozen hall and out into the Manor. The second gateway to Bluehaven shaking, trembling, collapsing.
He can feel it all, and he’s hungry for more.
Violet was right: the foundation stone’s amplifying my powers. But the Makers aren’t here to guide me. It’s just me and Roth and the terrible void. I try to resist it, relax the way Hickory suggested, but Hickory’s gone now, and so is Violet, and all I feel is loss and heartbreak. The kind of grief that turned Roth into this walking disease, this monster, this cruel puppeteer. I can feel him trawling through my memories, fixating on the worst. Hickory dying. Violet disappearing into the waves. Elsa plummeting in the truck, and that snippet from my nightmare of Dad sinking in the dark. He forces me to relive them. Like the Grip, it seems to last an age. But he also shows me other things. His dastardly plans. He’s gonna choose an Otherworld to test out the power of the Cradle Sea, all right. It was gonna be Arakaan, but now he has a different target in mind.
Bluehaven.
Dad, Winifred, Yaku—all those townsfolk who came to our aid—they’re about to feel his wrath. First he’ll wipe out the island, then he’ll go after the Otherworlds.
I’m the key to enslaving them all.
I gasp. “You can’t . . .”
Oh, but I can. His voice feels like knives scraping through my skull.
The cracks keep spreading, snaking deeper into the Manor. Balconies collapse. Columns snap in two. Archways crumble. The hundred-keyhole door explodes. I can feel the Sea now, too, surging and splashing around the stone, pulsing like the blood through my veins. I can’t just feel it, though—I can control it. Which means Roth can control it through me.
Take a step back, Hickory said. Focus on something good.
I try, but Roth’s already taken over. He focuses my mind on the Sea, spins it round and round like the Specters, a raging whirlpool with the foundation stone at its core. The faster it moves, the more it pulls away from the stone, the more it glows, shining that fierce, white-fire light, no longer bound by the life force of the Makers.
Roth’s about to unleash the Sea.
He slips out of my mind. Wants me to see the triumph in his eyes before he does it. Wants to see the defeat in mine. He growls at me through his glistening half-mask, burning my face with his breath.
I beat you, I can see him thinking. I won.
The Manor is mine.
But I also see something else—a quick shadow behind him, and—
THWAT!
Roth’s eyes bulge. He glances down at his metal-plated chest, tries to reach behind his back. There’s no triumph anymore, only pain and confusion, a thin trail of blackish blood seeping from his porcelain lips. He releases me, staggers to his feet and spins around, and I see the arrow, wedged between his shoulders.
Violet stands at the edge of the stone, dripping wet, crossbow in hand. Hickory’s kneeling beside her, drenched and wincing, clutching his stomach.
They’re alive. Praise the Makers, they’re alive.
“Told you I was a crack shot,” Violet says. And to me: “Now, Jane!’”
A surge of adrenaline. It’s now or never. I leap to my feet, grab a strap of Roth’s mask with one hand and the arrow protruding from his back with the other and drive it in deeper, angling it to make sure we’ve hit the mark. The arrowhead pierces his heart.
He gasps. A quiet, pathetic sound, followed by an exhausted sigh. He sways a little, steps back. The mask comes off in my hand, and we see his jawless face in all its gore and glory. The crooked top teeth. The rotting flaps of skin. His open throat like a mushy tomato. He staggers toward the peak of the stone and gurgles something, spit drooling, a blood clot dripping down.
That’s when the Specters strike.
One after another, they break free from their spinning circle and shoot toward Roth, seeping into his eyes, his ears, down his mangled, missing mouth, Gripping him at last. With his body dying, his mind is ripe for the taking. His eyes glow as bright as theirs. The veins under his pasty, mottled skin shine like spider webs caught in sunlight. He cries out, screeches, writhes, and twists. Lifted off his feet, he starts floating through the air like the Specters, out over the shining Sea.
I wonder which nightmares the Specters are clinging to, which bad memories they’re forcing him to relive. The darkness of his tomb under Atol Na? The queen shoving those bone shards into his lungs? This very moment, right here and now? No. As the Specters flee Roth’s body in a blinding flash, only one word escapes his mangled mouth. One name.
“Neeeellaaaaa . . .”
Then he drops into the shining, still-churning Sea, and dissolves like salt in water.
Gone at last. Gone forever.
I collapse back to the trembling stone. Violet runs to me, holds me, runs her fingers down my cheek. “Hey, hey, hey,” she says. I still can’t believe she’s here, she’s alive. “I hate to say it, Jane, but we’re not out of this yet. The Sea . . . the Manor . . . you need to fix it.”
I shake my head, exhausted. “We’re too late. It’s already ruined.”
Roth’s gone, but I can still feel the gaping void, the quaking stone and the swirling white-fire Sea. Everything’s falling to pieces, including the gateways. The Manor’s sucking the life out of the Otherworlds in a last-ditch effort to survive, drawing them inside.
“We’re not too late,” Violet says. “Remember what Yaku said on the plane?”
“That I was his hero.”
Violet rolls her eyes. “The other thing he said. What is broken can be rebuilt. We saved your dad. We just killed Roth. There’s nothing we can’t do. Nothing you can’t do.”
“Exactly,” Hickory says. “I didn’t cop an arrow to the gut just so you can give up now, Jane. Put your hand on that stone and think happy thoughts or I swear to the gods—”
“Threatening her probably isn’t the best approach, Hickory.”
“I’m just saying, I lugged the crossbow all that way, dodging waves and Specters, and dragged you from the water with my intestines hanging out. You’re welcome, by the way.”
“It’s called a flesh wound, moron. A few stitches and you’ll be fine.”
“Hey,” I say, “a little focus, please?”
“Sorry,” they say together, and Violet holds my good hand again. “It’s time, Jane.”
“We’re right here,” Hickory adds, “and we’re not going anywhere.”
He’s right. The Makers may not be here, but my friends are, and that’s all I need. I place my still-prickling hand on the stone. Close my eyes.
“Happy thoughts,” I whisper. “Happy thoughts, happy thoughts, happy thoughts . . .”
I think about Dad, back on Bluehaven at last. His smile. His eyes. Sure, he has terrible taste in music, but we can’t all be perfect. I think about Elsa smiling at me in the watchtower of Orin-kin as the twin suns rose before us. Sure, she secretly wanted to kill me, but imagine what could’ve been. I think about Aki putting his life on the line to save us and hope to the gods he’s okay. I think about the townsfolk marching into the Manor to help us, even though they used to be a bunch of jerks, and some possibly still are. I think about Hickory, kneeling beside me on the stone, placing his hand on my shoulder. And Violet. The girl with the crossbow. The girl who’s afraid of scorpions. The girl who’ll stand up for what’s right no matter what, and who’ll always have my back. The pyromaniac with the prettiest eyes I’ve ever seen. I use them as an anchor to drive the bad thoughts away.
The gaping void closes, replaced by that warm, golden glow. The glow that spreads and swirls inside me, lighting me up like the Arakaanian suns. But it isn’t just inside me. The light pours from the wound in my hand, across the stone, into the stone, seeping like honey through every inch of the Cradle, outshining the Specters, calming the Sea, healing every crack, cleft and fissure.
“Your eyes, Jane,” Violet gasps. “They’re shining.”
“It’s okay,” I say, and it doesn’t sound like my voice, it sounds like the voice from my dream. The voice of the Manor itself, the Makers combined. “You might want to hold on.”
And, just like that, I truly let go and embrace the connection, give myself to the Manor, body and spirit. My mind expands beyond imagining, stretching on and on into infinity. I become the Manor. The halls and corridors are the veins in my body, the gateways connective tissue, synapses firing. And this, right here, the Cradle: my furiously beating heart.
I can feel every living thing within its walls, too. Every lost and injured soul. The prisoners in Roth’s lair. Eric Junior and his team running to save them. Other, lost people wandering through the Manor far, far away, just trying to find their way home. I feel the townsfolk of Bluehaven still battling the Leatherheads in that sprawling, pillared hall. I feel the Tin-skins, the river creatures, and more. I feel Aki, so close—injured but alive—still trying to reach us from the frozen hall. And beyond the Manor, out in the Otherworlds, I feel Dad and Yaku, Winifred and Atlas. I feel the strangers I used to dream about, regular people going about their lives. I sense their anger, their joy, their fears and desires. Billions of shining lights, like stars in an endless sky.
I’m connected to them all.
I’m at one with the Manor. More connected to the Makers than ever before. I rebuild every broken wall. Every trap, chamber and hall. I seal every gateway. I know I could give it everything, disappear, pour every ounce of my essence into the stone, just like the Makers. Part of me thinks that’s what they intended all along. It’d be so easy. But the two brightest souls of all are right by my side: Violet and Hickory, tethering me to the waking world. When the final gateway heals and the last crack seals, I ease back, retreat to my body of flesh and blood—this vessel the Makers made—and lift my hand from the stone.
The connection severs. The quake stops. The Sea calms.
It’s over. We’ve won.
The Specters vanish to the depths without so much as a glance goodbye, leaving us alone at the center of all things, catching our breath, wiping tears from our eyes, bathed in the waning light of the Cradle Sea, shimmering like liquid gold. Like my eyes.
“Well, that was intense,” Hickory sighs, falling back to the stone.
Violet and I just stare at each other.
This is what I want to happen: I brush that strand of wet hair behind her ear and tell her she’s more than a sidekick, more than a friend. Then I lean in and kiss her.
This is what actually happens: Violet leans in and kisses me.
It’s just a peck on the lips—soft and warm and practically over before it begins—but I know I’ll never forget this feeling, this thrill, which is saying a lot considering I was mentally and physically connected to an infinite labyrinth between worlds ten seconds ago.
I’ve kissed a girl.
“Sorry,” Violet says. “Figured if there was ever a time to do that—”
“Totally.”
“I’m sorry if I—”
“No! I mean, I’m glad you did. I think my brain’s just . . . melting.”
“In a good way? Like, you’re okay?”
“Yeah, I’m okay. Are you okay?”
Violet smiles. “Never better.”
Hickory clears his throat behind us. “Um, I’m not. Just in case anyone was wondering. I mean, I’m happy for you two—really—but I’m also bleeding. A lot.”
“Crap,” I say. We spin around to help him. “Sorry, Hickory.”
“I need a healer,” he grunts. “And a drink. Seriously, can we get out of here already?”
We help him to his feet and look out over the Cradle Sea, back toward the hundred-keyhole door. I know Aki’s waiting for us on the other side. I can still feel him. I can still feel them all, the billions of souls out there in the Otherworlds. The feeling’s fading, like the golden shimmer of the Sea, but for now it’s comforting, knowing I’m part of something big.
There’s loads to be done. So many people need our help. We have to pick up the keys, and get the rest of Roth’s prisoners back to their homes. We have to help Yaku get back to Arakaan and march any surviving Tin-skins and Leatherheads back there, too. There are all kinds of strange and deadly creatures still trapped inside the Manor. So many more wonders to see.
Whatever Otherworldly environments were inside when I healed the gateways are here for good, I’m afraid. The snow, the lava, the river, the black sand and crystals—they’re part of the Manor now, like me. Hell, the forest’s probably tearing it to pieces again already. Repair work’s never gonna be done, but that’s okay. A new age of the Manor has begun.
First, I want a coconut. And a nap. Most of all, I want some quality time with Dad. I’ll have to tell him about Elsa when he wakes up. It won’t be easy, but what’s new? I have Violet. I have Hickory. As long as they’re with me, I can do anything.
“Okay,” I say. “Let’s go home.” And once we’ve helped Hickory down to the bridge and started the long, slow walk back across the Sea: “It’s a pity we don’t know the name of it.”
“The name of what?”
“Our home.”
“Bluehaven,” Hickory says.
“Bluehaven’s the name of the island,” I say. “I’m talking about the world.”
Hickory pauses, hand clutching the wound in his gut. “What are you on about?”
“The name was lost long ago,” Violet says. “Our ancestors—your people—struck it from their early records. Vowed to never say its name. ‘The Unspeakable Plague has destroyed the world beyond the ocean,’ Riggs wrote. ‘It is no more. We must look to the Manor now. We are the last. We are Bluehaven.’ We lost the names of places and peoples, but some things—”
“Earth,” Hickory says, looking at us like we’ve lost our minds. “We called it Earth.”
“Earth?” I say.
“I may have forgotten a lot of things, but I remember that. You seriously didn’t know that? Everyone’s been calling the whole thing Bluehaven for two thousand years? That’s bananas.”
“Earth,” Violet whispers. She screws up her face. “No, that doesn’t sound right.”
“Whatever it’s called,” I quickly say to stop their arguing, “it’s safe.”
“For now,” Violet says as we set off again. “I’m sure something else will go wrong, sooner or later. The question is, what do we do about Bluehaven? The island’s ruined.”
I shrug. The answer’s easy. “We rebuild.”
End of Book Two