Lisa reached out and patted him on the shoulder. “Good thing you had such an awesome big sister all those years, huh? Or you’d probably still be bawling your eyes out somewhere, too chicken to save the universe.”
“Yeah, something like that.” Tick rolled his eyes, then remembered with embarrassment that there were people standing around gawking at them. Master George, Mothball, Sally, Rutger, Sato, Paul, and Sofia. Mistress Jane, her robe in terrible shape, her exposed head as bad as ever. And Mordell, who looked like she’d just drowned her own puppies in a bathtub.
George was leaning on his Barrier Wand.
“Can you wink us back to my house?” Tick asked the Realitant boss. “I could do it myself, but I’m a little spent.” He smiled wearily.
His mom spoke up. “We’ve got our own.” She stared sternly at Mordell. “What did you do with it?”
The woman shook her head.
“Lost in the rubble, I take it?” his mom responded. “Do you have any idea how long it took me to build that Wand? How much it means to me?” Her voice rose, and her face reddened.
“I’m terribly sorry,” Mordell replied.
Tick felt he should ask when and where and how his own mom had created a Barrier Wand, but nothing surprised him anymore. She could tell him all about it once they were home. He decided he had the strength after all. “It’s okay, Mom. I can wink us back. I’ve done it before, but now I know how to actually use the stuff that makes me a freak.”
“Hey,” Paul chimed in, “I’m the only one here allowed to call you that.”
“He’s not a freak,” Sofia said. “You’re just jealous.”
Everyone started talking at once, then, as if a cork had been popped off and permission had been given to converse freely. Mothball and Rutger were next to Tick, speaking over each other to say how happy they were that everyone was safe. Tick’s mom was arguing with Mordell about the lost Wand. Lisa was trying to calm their mom down. Master George and Sally were discussing their options, and Paul and Sofia wanted to butt in and have Tick to themselves, but Mothball and Rutger would have none of it. Even Sato seemed to be talking to someone, but Tick couldn’t tell what was being said or who it was.
“Silence!”
Mistress Jane’s voice boomed throughout the room, echoing back and forth unnaturally off the carved black walls as if she’d used Chi’karda to make it happen. It sliced through everyone’s conversation instantly. The Great Hall fell quiet, the only sound that of the churning, rushing noises caused by the spinning mass of whatever had come out of the Fourth Dimension.
Tick stared at her, ashamed that he was too scared to disobey and curious about what she was going to say. He readied himself, pooling the Chi’karda within him in case the woman tried to do anything questionable.
“How can you all stand here like all is well in the world?” Mistress Jane asked, her mask covered by disappointment and disbelief. “Kissing and hugging and crying with joy? Making jokes and making plans for reunions? Am I the only one in this room who is aware of what’s happening just a few hundred feet from here? Do any of you have even the slightest inkling of what’s at stake?”
“We need no lectures from you,” Master George said. “Nor your hypocrisy. You’re the only one in this room who deliberately and maliciously tried to destroy an entire Reality—and almost destroyed all else in the process. The entire universe, according to the Haunce.”
Jane waited with a condescending look of patience on her mask until Master George was finished. “Don’t blame me, George. If you and your so-called Realitants hadn’t interfered, my Blade would’ve done its job, and we’d be on our way to creating the Utopia we so desperately need. But instead, we were put on a course that led to this. To rips in the fabric of Reality. A breach to the Fourth Dimension. Say all you want that Atticus and the Haunce saved us, but I say that all they’ve done is make things worse.”
Hearing that made Tick blister inside with anger. “Oh, really? What could possibly be worse than destroying the entire universe? Care to explain that, Jane?” He stressed her name, spitefully refusing to include her title.
She stared at him. “The universe would not have needed saving if you hadn’t tried to stop me in your arrogance, boy. And now what we have is an entity that no one truly understands—not even the Haunce. The Void will grow and strengthen. It will spread throughout my world and then the rest of the Realities. It will inflict pain and suffering the likes of which you couldn’t comprehend. Better that we had all ceased to exist at the hands of the Blade of Shattered Hope.”
Now it was Tick’s turn to stare back. If she was telling the truth, what did the past matter anyway? What did their terrible history with each other matter? He felt a sinking in his gut that almost made him sit on the black stone floor.