Paul sat on the ground, holding Master George in his arms. Sofia was there, too, weeping just like Paul. The battle still continued around them, but Paul could tell it was almost over. Most of Chu’s inventions had been obliterated by the new armies brought in by Rutger, and everyone had now turned their forces on the monsters from the Void. They were being destroyed almost as soon as they came out of the churning hurricane of mist. But the Void still raged, still grew. How could they ever stop it?
Master George barely had any life left in him. Each breath was a struggle, and his body was well past healing. Their leader was about to die.
The old man sputtered a cough, and his eyes blinked open. They focused on Paul, then Sofia, then filled with tears.
“I’m so sorry,” Paul whispered. His heart crumbled inside of him.
“Master George,” Sofia said through a lurching sob.
“No . . . no . . .” the man said through another coughing fit. “It’s . . . okay. My good friends . . . you’ll carry . . . on.”
“Why?” Paul asked, feeling a sudden bubble of anger. “Why didn’t the Karma work? The Void’s still there! And . . . look at you . . .”
Sofia squeezed his arm but didn’t say anything.
George reached out and grabbed both of their hands, seeming to gather one last surge of strength. “Oh, but Master Paul. I believe it did work. I have no doubt of it. You’ll see soon enough.”
The leader of the Realitants exhaled his very last breath.
Sato had just begun to feel some comfort. The influx of armies had turned the tide, at least in the short term. Chu’s machines were defeated. The creatures of the Void were being destroyed almost as soon as they emerged from the spinning vortex of mist.
Now they just had to pool their resources and figure out a way to attack the—
The Void disappeared. The entire thing disappeared in an instant.
An abrupt absence of sound popped Sato’s ears as if he’d just been sucked into the vacuum of space. His brain tried to process what he suddenly saw before him—empty air and distant mountains and fields and sky. Sunlight.
There was no more wind. No lightning. No thunder. No mist. No creatures of gray.
The Void had vanished.
It was gone.
Paul sat in the flattened, ruined grass with his eyes closed, feeling the warmth of the sun against his cheeks, still stunned. Somehow Tick had done it—he’d defeated the Void—but there’d been no sign of him after its disappearance.
The Void was gone. But so was Tick.
The lifeless body of Master George lay a few dozen feet away; the soldiers of Sato’s army lined up to pay their respects. Mothball, kneeling next to the old man, sobbed uncontrollably as Sally and Rutger both rubbed her back.
Mixed feelings would be the order of things for a while.
Sofia was sitting beside Paul, and he opened his eyes when she nudged him with an elbow.
“Hey,” she said softly. “You okay?”
Paul wondered how to answer that. “I think so. I still feel kind of weird, and sad, and . . . weird. There’s no way I’m going to accept that Tick is gone. It has to be like the Nonex or something. He’ll find his way back.”
Sofia’s eyes fell a little, but then she seemed to catch herself, as if she was trying to stay strong for Paul. “I hope so. I mean . . . he made it all go away—the Void, the rips in Reality. He couldn’t have done that if he was dead, right? Maybe he’s stuck in the Fourth Dimension, battling his way out.”
“Yeah. Maybe.”
Sofia leaned her head on his shoulder, which made everything just a little bit brighter.
Paul suddenly had a rush of thoughts that he couldn’t keep to himself. All his words came spilling out.
“I’m going to be more serious, work harder. Make a bigger difference. Help the Realitants get back to what George was talking about—strong and rigid and organized top to bottom. We’ll start recruiting again, find the best of the best. We can build more headquarters, make sure we have a presence in every Reality. I think we should maybe even go public soon, work with governments and universities—make a real difference in people’s lives. And I think we should start exploring, see if we can discover and name new Realities. The Fourteenth, Fifteenth, Twentieth, Thirtieth. We’ve got a lot of work to do, Sofia.”
He’d been staring at the empty fields where the Void of Mist and Thunder—and before that, the castle of Mistress Jane—had once stood. But he noticed that Sofia had lifted her head and was staring at him. He looked at her, loved seeing the awe in her eyes.
“I mean it,” he said. “I really do.”
“I know,” she whispered back. “And we’re going to do it together, with Mothball and the rest. It’s going to be great.”