“Some of us?” Tick asked. “Who isn’t going, and what are they doing instead?”
George gave a tired look to Sato, and Tick knew he was about to ask his friend to do something dangerous. “Sato, my good man. I want you and your army to stay here. I need you to research this business about the creatures of Mistress Jane being transformed by the Void somehow. I believe there may be something extremely important to learn there. We also need someone close by to observe this . . . monstrosity and report back regularly on its progress.”
Tick expected to see a flash of disappointment in Sato’s features—he was missing out on a chance to go back to safety, shower and eat, rest up—but instead, he stood a little straighter and gave a stiff nod.
“Okay,” he said simply. “That’s what the Fifth and I will do, then.”
Tick was filled with an unexpected sadness. They’d all just been reunited. He walked over to Sato and held out a hand, fighting to make sure he didn’t let a stray tear leak out somehow.
Sato took his hand and shook it, squeezing it hard. “Glad to have you back, Tick.”
“Yeah. Good to be back. Glad to see you alive. I know you saved a lot of kids that day at the Factory.”
Sato’s hand dropped to his side; Tick felt the blood rush back in his own. “We had to leave a few behind.”
Tick didn’t know what to say to that.
“But . . . it’s good we could save the ones we did,” Sato added. He looked at Master George knowingly, as if they’d had a conversation about it countless times.
“Yeah,” Tick responded lamely. “Well, looks like there’s gonna be a lot more to save. You think we’re up for it?”
Sato smiled, something so rare that Tick almost took a step backward. “My Fifth Army will save so many people that the Realities will get sick of us. Jealous they couldn’t have done it themselves.”
Tick forced out a laugh. “I doubt that. Well, good luck, man. I’m sure we’ll all be back together soon enough, fighting this Void thing somehow. Sound good?”
“Yeah. Sounds good.”
Tick was pretty sure he’d just had the lamest conversation of his life, but he hoped that Sato knew how he felt in his heart. The others came over and said their good-byes, including a very long one between Mothball and her parents that included some very disturbing wailing along with the tears.
When everyone was done, Tick gathered with Master George, Sally, Mothball, Rutger, Paul, and Sofia. The Realitants. They used George’s Wand this time, winking away from the cyclone of the hungry Void from the Fourth Dimension.
Tick knew they’d be back.
Part 3
The Blue River
Chapter 36
A Nap on the Couch
Mistress Jane was beyond exhausted. She felt a deep, aching weariness like nothing she’d ever felt before in her life. Her arms, her legs, her chest, her bones, her nerves, her veins. Her brain and head and skull. She was just so tired. And it seemed as if every last souliken she’d ever owned had drained out of her over the last couple of days. She needed rest. Desperately. Food and sleep.
Which was exactly why she couldn’t handle another single minute with those buffoons who called themselves Realitants. She’d fed them what they wanted to hear about helping them against the Void and Chu, but she had her own ulterior motives. If it weren’t for Atticus Higginbottom, the Realitants would have absolutely no reason to even stay on her radar. But that insolent boy changed so many things. Everything.
She was in a place no one would have ever guessed. In an apartment—an ordinary, drab, dusty old thing that hadn’t been lived in for years—located in the middle of New York City, Reality Prime. It had been the first place she’d ever rented on her own, and where she’d fallen in love so long ago. Where she’d completed her studies and first dared wink herself to other realities with the Barrier Wand she’d made with her own hands. It was here, sitting on this same frumpy couch, where she’d first had the thought that the Thirteenth Reality might change her life and, eventually, all of Reality itself.
The place had been rented and paid for ever since. Cleaned every so often by a maid. Jane couldn’t bear to get rid of it, not after all the memories born within its humble walls. And, with her castle destroyed, her body depleted, and her future in doubt, she didn’t know where else to go except to this place that had once been home.
She lay back on the couch, pulling her tattered robe around her body like a blanket. As horrible as she felt, being here brought her the smallest bit of comfort.