Xsing created a pointer of light, thin but straight and laid it from Home toward Earth. “I believe so. This path was not clear before we left.”
Darien heaved a sigh. We can go home. He suddenly ached for fresh air and green grass and hot food. And our real, private bed.
Grim circled the chamber slowly. “The permanent portals all seem to be gone. The one from Earth to Greenworld and all the hellgates. For now.”
That was a sobering reminder. They’d been made by someone. Who knew if they could be recreated? “We still need to get home and knock a few sorcerers over the head, I guess.” Not what he wanted to do next.
Silas rubbed Darien’s back with a warm hand. “One thing at a time. From the power blast when Lyyll’s gate to Yyygrdii closed, one can hope the sorcerers responsible have bigger problems than just resetting their runes.”
“Yeah. Maybe we brought their houses down on their heads.”
“Perhaps.” Grim’s tone came dry and dark. “Of course, it’s likely that first portal we cut ended up in Silas’s cellar.”
“Shit!” Darien was torn between horror and laughter. He tipped over to worry with the realization that they’d asked Mrs. Vaughn to keep watch. “Jesus, I hope Mrs. Vaughn is okay.”
“And Troy,” Pip said. “We should go home right away.”
Scurrying feet from outside the room made them all turn. Boris trundled into the chamber. “Professor Xsing, you asked for any news from the hall of returns and remembrance.”
Grief rose up to clamp around Darien’s chest. Kii didn’t make it after all.
Boris said, “A familiar just returned from Earth, stating his sorcerer died several weeks ago, but he only just felt the Call.”
Before Darien could work that through, Jasper shouted, “Yes! The route is open.” He laughed self-consciously and flattened his tone. “I mean, there’s our scientific validation of the opening of the space between Earth and Home.”
Darien grinned. “I second the ‘Yes!’” Hell, yes!
Pip danced on his hind legs. “It worked.”
Even Silas grinned ear to ear, before running a hand over his mouth. “Now all we have to do is get home and keep it from happening again.”
Darien elbowed him roughly. “Don’t be a sad sack. We moved worlds. We get to celebrate a little.”
“Before completing the task.” Grim head-bumped Darien’s knee. “Silas is right. There’s no time to waste.”
Xsing said, “You all should go and prepare. I’ll join you shortly.”
Pip leaped up to lick Darien’s chin. “We’re going home. To Earth, I mean. And bacon. And more adventures.”
“Sadly,” Grim said, “we may have ended the rat supply in the house. Ah well, I imagine there will be other vermin to pursue.” He turned, his tail curved in a beckoning wave. “Come along, humans. Step lively. One more voyage yet to take.”
Chapter 9
Silas eyed the gateway runes he’d inscribed on the wall. Beside him, Jasper held the Polaroids, double-checking his work. In the top corner, the destination runes for Earth were still blank. I wish Lyyll had been willing to wait till we were safely through. He couldn’t begrudge the Yyygrdiil her desire to go home, but she had more experience with opening portals where the destination was written in runes, not revealed by the nature of a demon. Demons, like familiars, carried a tie to their homes within them. Humans…
Surreptitiously, he tried to find a link to Earth inside Darien, the way he would source a banishment. Or inside Jasper. Magda? His long-familiar spell of seeking and linking a destination came up empty when used on his fellow humans.
I should’ve asked for help. He almost had, but something— pride, ego, unwillingness to seem incompetent or dependent, as he once had been— had frozen the words in his mouth long enough for Lyyll to draw her gate and leave.
“Problem?” Grim murmured beside his knee.
“The destination runes have to be right, or who knows where we’ll end up.”
Jasper said, “We should’ve looked to see if there were any on the Greenworld side of the first gate. Damn, I should’ve paid more attention.”
“We all should have.” Grim arched his back and stretched. “But between us, hopefully we can conjure a link to Earth. After all, Kii’s link to Home was a call, not a formal rune-set, and it still brought us here.”
“Right.” Silas turned to Magda and Darien, waiting and watching a few paces back. “I’m trying to create the best descriptors of Earth for the destination.” He gestured at the blank space. “Perhaps we each should write out what we would use, and then see what the commonalities are.”
Xsing said, “Jojo, fetch tablets for all our guests.”
His assistant dashed off and returned a few moments later with tablets and styluses. Silas sat down with his own on his lap and closed his eyes, sinking into the core where his magic lived. Earth. Green. Air. Trees. People. Cities. Magic. History. Mrs. Vaughn— and please let her not have suffered from any backlash. The damned mansion, its hallways and cellars and books and rats. Its kitchen, simple and warm. Our bed.
That last was too personal, but he looked down at his tablet and began a tangle of runes, one leading to the next, trying to bring all those other elements into play.
Magda set her tablet down in front of him before he was done. Jasper and Darien were taking longer. Pip had refused a tablet, but Grim had marked his with runes for life, bacon, and tuna.
When everyone was done, Silas lined the tablets up and Jasper eyed them alongside him. Darien moved up close and set his chin on Silas’s shoulder, looking down at the array.
“We almost all put green in there, so perhaps using a green ink, if we can?” He glanced at Xsing.
“Yes, that’s no problem. Jojo, can you please find one?” Xsing gestured toward the doorway.
“Some overlap, some don’t.” He tried to lighten the mood. “Only one vote for tuna.”
Grim set a paw on Silas’s knee, claws prickling. “Good thing one of us remembers the essentials.”
“I put cookies,” Darien said.
“Mrs. Vaughn’s cookies.” Pip’s tail whipped against Jasper’s leg. “They’re magic.”
“Ah, so they are.” Silas was willing to take any help he could get. “We should finish the ones we have, as we get ready to go. Sympathetic magic, perhaps. Like calling to like.”
Jasper said, “We can weave most of this together. All of it, even. Everyone’s goals.”
“I’ll try.” Silas stood up and took the green pen Jojo held out to him. One slate at a time, he inscribed every member’s wishes for home into the destination. He had to write small, and it felt correct to weave the runes together, using a piece of one to create the next, until the result became almost a fractal pattern, with Earth at its center.
When he was done, he stepped back to eye his runes.
“Looks good.” Darien handed him a cookie. “Eat that. And let me add one thing.” As Silas bit into the cookie, Darien rose up on tiptoes, took a small crumb of cookie and pressed it home in the center of the Earth rune, hard enough to stick to the wall.